Rev Dr John Caperon, writing about the Bayeux tapestry’s visit to Britain, appears to think that “the real origins of the English nation” lie in the “pre-1066 Anglo-Saxon culture” (Letters, 9 June).
This is utterly outrageous. A little respect is due to the Danelaw and the Vikings, to the Celts of the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries, to the continental, Middle Eastern and north African Roman occupiers, and to the iron-age Celts.
Let’s hope he learns a thing or two from the vestiges of that Celtic language in so many English placenames from Dover to Cornwall and Cumbria, in what Cymry still describe as Yr Hen Ogledd (the Old North). Why can’t the English delight in their hybridity?
Rev Dr Richard Cleaves
Pen-y-bont ar Ogwr, Bridgend
• The exact details of Harold’s death as represented by the Bayeux tapestry may be in doubt, but what is beyond question is the fact that he was defeated by Norman wisdom.
George Nicholson
Sheffield
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