The Girona Tapestry or – as it is called in Catalan – El tapiz de la Creación recently underwent a massive restoration and cleaning. Now it is once again exhibited in the Museum of the Cathedral of Girona.
The tapestry is a Romanesque embroidered panel from the end of the11th century. Today it measures 3.65 x 4.70 meters; but the latest research has shown that it must have measured app. 4.80 x 5.40 meters. The panel is worked in couched or laid needlework; the same technique which is used in the Bayeux tapestry. The Girona Tapestry, however differs from that of Bayeux in so far as the former is totally covered by embroidery. It is worked in fine wool and linen in a wide variety of colours, predominantly green, yellow, red, burnt earth, blue and white on a reddish wool twill ground, most likely spun and weaved in Catalonia. The historian Palol reached this conclusion, when he studied the linguistic peculiarities of the embroidered quotations from the Bible.
The tapestry records the creation myth from Genesis, organised as a wheel with Jesus as pantocrator in the centre, topped by the Holy Ghost and surrounded by the four winds. At the bottom of the tapestry was originally a frieze, featuring “The invention of the Cross”.
Finally at the border is a menologium, a series of square medallions picturing the seasons and the months represented with their respective “works”; much like the frescoes picturing the agricultural year, which may be seen elsewhere, e.g. in the Royal Pantheon in the Basilica de San Isodoro in Leon in Spain. Another piece of art, which belongs to the same aesthetic universe, is the somewhat earlier Girona Beatus dated to the 10th century.
In connection with the cleaning of the tapestry it was discovered that the wool-work at the back of the embroidery had been protected by hessian. This had contributed to the protection of the original colours. A discussion of these colours and many more details may be found in a recent book, which was published last year. In it Manuel Castiñeiras advocates the idea, that the tissue was never for hanging, but was instead used as a carpet in the cathedral choir and more specifically that it was made in 1097 in order to mark a conciliatory meeting between the Catalan church and the king, Ramon Berenguer II, whose sister-in-law, Mafalda de Apulia, may have overseen the production of the tapestry in the monastery of Sant Daniel de Girona. All this is however slightly speculative.
At least one question begs an answer: Is it possible that the tapestry could have been used as a carpet, considering the fact that this would have meant that the celebrating priest literally would have had to “walk” on God?
In a recent article by the historian, Ingrid Heidrich, this question is not directly confronted. However, in her opinion the tapestry would primarily have been used as a Cortina, that is as a curtain separating the clerics from the lay people during mass. More likely, though, is the proposition that the textile might have been used in diverse ways according to the occasion, the liturgy etc. For instance the sources discussed by Ingrid Heidrich do not specifically mention the uses of such textiles as pallia in connection with burials; which they might have been as is shown in the Bayeux tapestry in the scene, where Eadward is carried to the grave.
Read more about Medieval Catalonia and the Girona Tapestry In medieval Histories 2012 4:2
Link to the homepage of Ingrid Heidrich about the tapestry
Link to a homepage about the tapestry in Catalan
Read more about the Tapestry, where details of the different panels may be seen
Read about the symbolism at the official homepage of the Girona Cathedral
Pere de Palol: El Tapis de la Crecaó de la Catedral de Girona, Barcelona 1986.