The Abbe's principal arguments are derived from
the silence of contemporary authors, and especially of Wace, who was
himself a canon of Bayeux;--from its being unnoticed in any charters or
deeds of gift connected with the cathedral;--from the improbability that
so large a roll of such perishable materials would have escaped
destruction when the cathedral was burned in 1106;--from the unfinished
state of the story;--from its containing some Saxon names unknown to the
Normans;--and from representations taken from the fables of AEsop being
worked on the borders, whereas the northern parts of Europe were not
made acquainted with these fables, till the translation of a portion of
them by Henry Ist, who thence obtained his surname of
_Beauclerk_.--These and other considerations, have led the learned Abbe
to coincide in opinion with Lord Littleton and Mr. Hume, that the
tapestry is the production of the Empress Maud, and that it was in
reality wrought by natives of our own island, whose inhabitants were at
that time so famous for labors of this description, that the common mode
of expressing a piece of embroidery, was by calling it _an English
work_.
The Abbe shortly afterwards found an opponent in another member of the
society, Mr.
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