Nearly 1,000 years old, evocative, rich and ambiguous, the Bayeux Tapestry will soon be on show in the British Museum
Why is it so significant?
It “must be the only artistic masterpiece that is also a crucial source for a major historical event”, wrote the medieval historian Patrick Wormald. The Bayeux Tapestry’s survival, largely intact, is miraculous in itself. A strip cartoon-style rendering of the Norman Conquest, from 1064 to the Battle of Hastings, it is rich, evocative and astonishingly vivid. The tapestry is “not merely a record of conquest, but an incomparable mirror of medieval life”, says the French scholar Lucien Musset. Colourful, graphically violent and occasionally ribald, it is rich in background detail, allowing us to look back nearly a millennium and see the world of the Anglo-Saxons and their Norman foes: their arms and armour, their ships, their cooking, their horses and dogs, their hairstyles (the English have flowing locks and long moustaches, while the Normans are cropped and clean-shaven).
How was it made?
It is not actually a tapestry, but an embroidery: a linen cloth 50cm high and 68 metres long, showing 58 scenes embroidered with woollen yarn of 10 colours, and captioned with brief Latin titles. When it first surfaced in history, in 1476, it was hung to decorate the nave of Bayeux Cathedral in Normandy every year at an annual feast. According to local tradition, it was made by William the Conqueror’s wife Matilda and her ladies-in-waiting, but most scholars now think it was, in fact, commissioned in the 1070s by William’s half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux (and later Earl of Kent), who features four times (more than anyone except the main protagonists) and is seen rallying the troops at Hastings.
So is it a work of propaganda?
In outline, it tells the Norman version of the conquest, similar to that in the two main Norman chronicles of the period – framing it as a crusade against a perjurer. Harold Godwinson, Earl of Wessex, crosses over to northern France in 1064, is captured by Count Guy I of Ponthieu and is rescued by William. Harold then swears an oath over holy relics, before returning to England and assuming the English crown upon the death of Edward the Confessor (his sister’s husband, who died without a direct heir). William’s case was that Harold had made, and broken, a sacred oath to support his claim to the English throne (this is how he gained the papacy’s backing for his invasion). The tapestry shows Halley’s comet – a bad omen – appearing above the newly crowned Harold. However, the tapestry is thought to have been made in England, probably in Odo’s earldom of Kent, which was famous for its needlework: some designs match those in manuscripts in Canterbury. This could explain its sympathetic portrayal of the English.
How is it pro-English?
The Norman invaders are shown seizing the locals’ food, and burning a house while an English woman, holding her son’s hand, implores them to stop. Harold is portrayed without rancour, and with dignity, even heroism; he saves two Norman soldiers from a river while in France. The action starts with him, and he appears more times than William: one academic has even called it “the tragedy of Harold”.
So it’s subversive?
Arguably. Looking at the scene of Harold’s oath, it could be interpreted as showing that it was extorted from him – as one early 12th-century English source argued. It could even be said to endorse Harold’s claim to the English throne. After his coronation, Harold is described as “Harold Rex”, whereas the Domesday Book is careful only to call him Earl Harold. The Conqueror, by contrast, is never called “Rex” (only “Dux”) in the tapestry, though this may be because the final section, presumably showing his coronation, was torn off and lost. The tapestry is, at the very least, enigmatic and ambivalent – it can be seen both as “a Norman brag and a Saxon lament”, says art critic Jonathan Jones.
What about the background detail?
Along the top and bottom run decorative borders featuring scenes from fables, and of farming and hunting, along with a few naked human figures (there are at least five human penises). In one unexplained scene, “a certain cleric” is shown touching the face of a woman named as Ælfgyva. A priapic naked man squats below. And when the story reaches the Battle of Hastings, carnage from the battlefield spreads out onto the margin: decapitated bodies, severed limbs, looters stealing armour from the dead.
Has it always been in Bayeux?
Almost always. Antiquarians started taking an interest in the tapestry in the 1700s, and in the early 1800s it went to Paris, where Napoleon displayed it to whip up enthusiasm for an invasion of England. The final caption – et fuga verterunt Angli (“and the English turned in flight”) – was added shortly before 1814, presumably for propaganda reasons. The Gestapo also took it to Paris during the Second World War: Heinrich Himmler then ordered it to be taken to “a place of safety” in 1944, but Paris was liberated before his order was executed. It then returned to Bayeux.
Why was the loan agreed?
For two main reasons: because its home, Bayeux Museum, is closed until October 2027; and because President Macron was determined to make it happen. Macron first proposed the loan in 2018; he joked that it has taken longer to sort out than Brexit. The Bayeux Museum’s curator initially called it “unthinkable”; the risk of damage in transit led 78,500 people to sign a petition blocking the loan. But Macron insisted – knowing, said Peter Ricketts, who coordinated at the UK end, that the exhibition “would be a sensation”. The Norman Conquest is, after all, just a detail in French history but central to Britain’s national story.
