“The Bayeux Tapestry [c. early 11th century] is not, in the strict sense of the term, a tapestry at all, for it is not woven but embroidered. . . .

The embroidery is stitched on a strip of greyish linen averaging about fifty centimetres in width. . . . The seams between the sections are skilfully sewn and exceedingly hard to make out. . . .

The embroidery is done in woolen thread of eight different colours. The original dyes were of the highest quality and have not undergone any significant deterioration. . . . The colours used are: red, two shades of yellow, two of green, and three of blue (one of them almost black). . . .

The Tapestry is now about 64.38m long, but has obviously lost at least a little material at the beginning, and rather more at the end. . . . A reasonable estimate might be that the wear and tear of centuries have eroded some 1.50m. . . .

The Tapestry’s scenes are accompanied almost thoughout by a kind of running commentary in Latin, sewn in large capital letters. . . . In the first two thirds of the Tapestry, these texts are sewn in a dark blue thread which verges on black. In the final section, red and yellow are used, often in alternation and sometimes even within single words. Right at the end, around Harold’s death, green thread is also used.”

—Lucien Musset, The Bayeux Tapestry, 2002, translated from the French by Boydell and Brewer Limited, 2005. This book documents the whole Tapestry, much of it in great detail.