Haberdasher  

"The Tapisserie de Bayeux has been removed from the Hotel de Ville, near the cathedral, where it used to be kept, — to be unwound by the yard from a roller like a piece of haberdashery, and subjected to the fingers as well as eyes of the curious, — to a new room in the Public Library , where it is more carefully preserved, and quite as conveniently exhibited, under a glass case. Many persons will look upon it merely as a long strip of coarse linen cloth, 20 inches wide and 214 ft. long, rudely worked with figures worthy of a girl’s sampler. It is, however, a curious historical record, of peculiar interest to an Englishman, and although it presents such anomalies as horses coloured alternately blue and red, there is much spirit in the drawing. It is ascribed, with much probability, to the needle of Mathilda, Queen of the Conqueror, and represents the Conquest of England, and the events which led to it. It was preserved in the cathedral until the Revolution, being hung round the nave on certain days. The earliest record of it is in an inventory of the effects of the church, taken 1476."--Hand-book for Travellers in France