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and a woman is weeping at his feet. Edward appears to stretch out his right hand so as to touch a third man’s right hand. Fingers are fully extended but only the tips of the fingers are in contact. They do not clasp hands. The meaning is ambiguous. However, at that time, a dying king’s wish was sacrosanct.
    The death of King Edward is the pivotal scene in the Tapestry. In the eleventh century, artists, historians, and writers used older traditions to tell events. The poetically beautiful Song of the Battle of Hastings of 1068, written for Queen Matilda’s coronation, harks back to Carolingian praise poetry. William of Poitiers was deeply influenced by classical literature and depicts Duke William as a latter-day Julius Caesar.
    The visual context for the Bayeux Tapestry existed somewhere between liturgical drama of the eleventh century performed in minsters and vernacular plays of the twelfth century performed at court.
    Eleventh century religious plays contained a strong sense of procession. At various points in the drama, static scenes occurred in open places in the church, by altars and sepulchres. Often a two-tiered structure was used to bring the story alive.
    Plays were like informative picture books. They were layered with symbolism. For instance, the actors were able to show visually the medieval notions of hierarchy. The actors used hand gestures and facial expressions to relay emotion and the story’s progress. There would have been a narrator.
    The two-tiered structure also provided symbolic opportunity. In the earthly space below, an angel or a devil might wander out amongst the audience. Often the notion of paradise was portrayed above this earthly space. In the Tapestry, in a procession, the events of 1065-6 also move through staged pieces.
    The influence of drama is clear, and it is not impossible that it actually initially accompanied performance of some of its scenes. King Edward’s death is a pertinent example. The two-storey structure of Edward’s death scene shows figures on the upper level cropped at the waist. King Edward is about to ascend into heavenly paradise. Below is associated with more earthly activity.
    In performance art of the period, Heaven appears on the viewer’s left and Hell to the viewer’s right which can also indicate Christ’s sinister side. Take now the long view of Edward’s death scene. To the left Edward is enthroned in his palace where Harold is addressing him. Edward looks displeased. The long view is completed with Harold enthroned over ghost ships. This is to the right of the central scenes concerning Edward’s death and Harold’s coronation.
    The funeral procession is also interestingly to the left of the death itself. This too can be interpreted symbolically. Seen this way, Edward is placed in the privileged position but it is the folly of Harold’s claim and his illegal coronation that the viewer sees to the right. The central scenes correspond to the acting space of a two-tiered stage depicting symbolically and in fact King Edward’s death and Harold’s coronation.
    Facial expressions and hand gestures guide the viewer through the drama of the Tapestry as do props for a play with doors, steps, and gateways of buildings, palaces, castles, and a cathedral providing portals, entrances, and exits from one vignette into the next. This is not unique to this event but follows on throughout the Tapestry. The Latin inscriptions correspond to the Norman French words and could even be prompts spoken by a scene’s narrator.
    The most interesting narratives concerning the events of Christmas 1065 are to be discovered in the exquisite language of the poem in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , the thrillingly beautiful Song of Hastings , the pompous account of William of Poitiers and, most of all, in the dramatic depiction of King Edward’s death on the Bayeux Tapestry. All these accounts contribute to helping the fiction writer recreate the atmosphere of King Edward’s death