My maternal grandmother's maiden name was Calvert, and my uncle traced the Calvert line back to Cecilius Calvert (1605-1675), the second Lord Baltimore, for whom the city Baltimore was named. Lord Baltimore was descended from William the Conqueror. As a side note, William was the first person in history known to have gone on a diet to lose weight. In his older age, he was so overweight he had trouble riding a horse, so he tried to lose weight. So, see, there's a heredity component to my weight struggles, even if it's dozens of generations back!
The Bayeux tapestry is really an embroidery, and the workmanship is astonishing. It portrays a couple of dozen incidents in the sequence of events that led William to claim the throne of England, which was promised to him by his cousin, King Edward, but which was usurped by Harold. The tapestry is basically a story of judgment for breaking one's sworn oath, Harold's actions after King Edward died. The tapestry is 1.6 x 224.3 meters, or 5 feet by 736 feet! It wasn't possible to take pictures of the tapestry itself because the light was so dim, but in the museum there were some blown up photographs of the tapestry, and I took pictures of them. They have a black background, while the tapestry has a beige linen background, but you can see the intricacy of the embroidery. Just image all the black background is beige linen.
In the museum there was a model of a Norman soldier. Notice the weird shape of his saddle.
The town of Bayeux has a beautiful cathedral and a river running through it with several old water wheels. The names of the streets near the river were evocative of a past where the river played a central role in town life: Washerperson street and Dyers Street (people who die cloth and need a good supply of water). Here are a few scenes from the town of Bayeux.
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