The story
In late April 1066 a bright comet with a long tail appeared in the sky over England, Normandy and beyond. Harold Godwinson had been crowned king that January, and William of Normandy was preparing to claim the throne. Anglo-Saxon and Norman writers noted the comet and the Bayeux Tapestry shows it: men point up at a star trailing flame-like streamers while a figure brings the news to Harold, with the Latin caption ISTI MIRANT STELLA, which means these men marvel at the star. Chinese records also describe it.
Medieval Europeans commonly read comets as signs of a change of ruler or disaster. Months later Harold died at Hastings on October 14, 1066, and the comet came to be read as an omen for the conquest. A monk named Eilmer of Malmesbury, remembered for a legendary glide from the abbey tower, was said to have predicted ruin for England when he saw it. Modern astronomers compute that Halley's Comet was near its closest to Earth at that time, and that the tapestry's picture is a rare early depiction of the comet.
Why it mattered
- Created one of the most famous early images of a comet, in the Bayeux Tapestry.
- Reinforced medieval and later habits of reading comets as omens of political change.
- Gave astronomers another datapoint in the long record of Halley's returns.
Sources
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