But although it be admitted that the Tapestry is of the age of the Conquest, it does not necessarily follow that it was wrought by the Queen and her court. The opinion that Matilda presided over its execution has been strongly controverted, chiefly by those, however, who deny its early antiquity. The Abbé de la Rue, as formerly observed, ascribes it to Matilda the Empress. Mr. Bolton Corney, in an able paper entitled _Researches and Conjectures on the Bayeux Tapestry_, contends that it was not executed until the year 1205, and that it was then done at the expense of the Chapter. Dr. Lingard adopts Mr. Corney’s views, and in a note appended to the first volume of his _History of England_ condenses his arguments. If, however, the Tapestry bear internal evidence of an earlier date, these arguments are of little value.
No contemporary historian indeed tells us that the Tapestry was made by Matilda. It is not mentioned in her will, or the Conqueror’s. The inventory of the treasures of the church at Bayeux, bearing date 1369, and which is the earliest document mentioning the Tapestry, contains no allusion to Matilda. Another inventory, made in 1476, and professing to be a descriptive catalogue of the jewels, ornaments, books, and other valuables of the church, mentions the Tapestry, describes its form and subject, and names the period of its public exhibition; but gives no hint that it was made at the command of Matilda. It is difficult, it may even be impossible, satisfactorily to account for the absence of all allusion to the Queen in these documents, but negative arguments prove little. Besides, the case is by no means singular. The compilers of ancient documents seem to have left much to be taken for granted. Sir Henry Ellis, in his _General Introduction to Domesday_, says, “Of Queen Matilda’s gifts to foreign monasteries, two only are particularly specified in the Survey; the land at Deverel in Wilts, which she gave to St. Mary at Bee; and two hides at Frantone in Dorset, which she gave to the Conqueror’s foundation of St. Stephen at Caen. _No mention occurs of the Conqueror and his Queen having founded the monasteries of St. Stephen and the Holy Trinity in that city_: although their lands in England are specified.”[14] It is scarcely less difficult to account for these omissions in the _Domesday Book_, than it is to account for the absence of all allusion to the framer of the Tapestry by contemporary writers. In the absence of direct evidence, we are thrown upon probabilities. And what is more likely than that the opinion which Montfaucon found prevailing at Bayeux when he discovered the Tapestry is the correct one? As the Abbé de la Rue himself argues, “To have undertaken this Tapestry would have required a considerable degree of interest in the subject of it, and to have possessed the necessary powers for its execution.”[15] Who can be supposed to have had so great an interest in the establishment of the Conqueror’s right to the throne of England as Matilda of Flanders, and who but herself would have been at the trouble of asserting it in such full detail? Would any one but an immediate connexion of the Duke’s have taken such prominent notice of the rescue of Harold from his captivity in Ponthieu, and of his subsequent friendly intercourse with William in Brittany; and would even Matilda herself have done this if the Tapestry had been prepared after the stupendous results of the battle of Hastings had fully developed themselves?