The significance of Halley's Comet in the Bayeux Tapestry

TL;DR

The paper analyzes the depiction of Halley's Comet in the Bayeux Tapestry, exploring its historical, mythological, and political significance during the 1066 English succession crisis.

Contribution

It offers a novel interpretation of the tapestry's comet as a political symbol linked to contemporary accounts and cultural beliefs, rather than a precise astronomical record.

Findings

The comet is identified as Halley's Comet P1/Halley.

The tapestry's depiction aligns with historical comet sightings.

The comet's portrayal is likely politically motivated rather than astronomically precise.

Abstract

A comet appears in the Bayeux Tapestry between the scene showing the death of the English king Edward the Confessor and the election of his successor, Harold Godwinson. The Tapestry's inscription only refers to this as a star, though we can see from its depiction, shown with a hairy tail, that it is a comet, now known to us as Halleys Comet P1/Halley. Behind the exciting story of the Bayeux Tapestry, however, goes a rich mythological world of intrigue, deceit, the succession of kings, and earlier sightings of the same comet. In historical accounts of many cultures, comets are generally considered portents of change rather than disaster. Here we consider the significance of the Tapestry's comet in the context of the so-called English succession crisis of 1066 with reference to other contemporary accounts of comets. We conclude that although the tapestry's illustration is suggestive and unmistakably Halleys Comet, it is not a priority for its creators to give a precise account of its arrival in the sky, but rather connect it, likely for political reasons, albeit retrospectively, to the sequential events of Edwards death and Harolds coronation. In that, the tapestry's anonymous artists provide a unique telling of its arrival.