‘Terror of kings’: Why the 1066 appearance of Halley’s Comet terrified the medieval world

October 20, 2026 · 9:30 pm 1 sources

Image: Phys.org

Coverage

More coverage

• 'Terror of kings': Why the 1066 appearance of Halley's Comet terrified the medieval world
  Phys.org · October 20, 2026 21:30
  A sequence on the Bayeux Tapestry shows King Harold alongside a crowd gazing at the sky, beneath the embroidered caption Isti mirant stella ("those people marvel at the star"). Above Harold sits Halley's Comet, with ghostlike invasion boats in the border below—a Norman framing of Harold as a…