What to know about Bayeux Tapestry, a masterpiece of the 11th century historical record
LONDON (AP) – The Beyeks Tapestry is a 70-meter (229-foot)-long medieval artwork that depicts the conquest of Norman in England, which will be exhibited in England for the first time in 900 years next year.
It will be exhibited at the British Museum in London from September 2026 to July 2027 as part of a bilateral celebration of the 1000th anniversary of William the Conqueror’s birth, leading the invading French nobles. The loan was announced during a state visit to the UK this week by French President Macron.
Millions of British people and people from all over the world are expected to see this British history in a dedicated museum in Beyeks, Normandy – usually located in France, while a dedicated museum in Normandy is loaned to the British Museum. The Bayeux Tapestry Museum will be closed later this year until the construction of new facilities in 2027.
This is a brief history of Bayeux tapestry, which reveals a long and even bloody connection between Britain and France.
Art, publicity and history
The tapestry is sewn with wool thread on linen, telling the story of Norman's invasion of England.
The story begins in 1064, when King Edward the Confersor of England sent his brother-in-law Harold Godwinson to provide his cousin, The Normandy, Duke of Normandy, the succession to the British throne. However, when Edward died, Harold himself crowned the king, and William set sail for England to regain the throne. The tapestry ended with the epic Battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066, with William's Normans attacking in Anglo-Saxon troops.
Historians believe that the events that led to the invasion are somewhat confusing. But the artwork in the theme tells the story of the winner.
There are banquets, Viking-style fleets, and battles between armored knights wielding swords and spears. The battlefield was scattered with dead and wounded bodies, a scene depicting Harold pulling an arrow out of his eyes.
The story is told in 58 scenes, including 626 characters and 202 horses.
While the tapestry is a work of art, it is also considered an accurate description of 11th-century life, providing clues about architecture, armor and ships.
Saved in a box for 700 years
Historians believe that the tapestry was commissioned by Odo, bishop of William's half-brother Bayo, shortly after the events he portrayed. According to the Bayeux Tapestry Museum, despite evidence that the artisans were Anglo-Saxon, the exact production was unknown.
During its first 700 years of existence, the tapestry was a little-known church artifact, hung once a year in Beyeks Cathedral and stored in wooden boxes at other times. According to local legend, it was almost cut off in 1792 during the French Revolution, but was rescued by local lawyers.
The first public display of the tapestry was held in 1812 at Bayeux Town Hall.
Learned by the Nazis
At the beginning of World War II, tapestries were placed in the underground shelter in Beyeks for custody. But by 1941 it attracted the attention of the Nazi pseudoscience legacy of the ancestral estate that removed it for research. By the end of the war, the tapestry was in the Louvre in Paris.
After the Allied Invasion in Normandy in June 1944, the New Yorker magazine played a similarity between these events and the Norman-style invasion of England for nine centuries. The magazine's cover of July 15, 1944 shows that King George VI of England, President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill were with Dwight Eisenhower, the supreme Allied commander, and Bernard Montgomery, the British wilderness.
The British authorities emphasized this connection when they established a memorial in Beyeks to commemorate British and Commonwealth soldiers who died in Normandy.
“We were once conquered by William and have now released the Conqueror’s motherland,” the inscription on the memorial reads.
“It emits androgens!”
For those who can't wait for next year, the Reading Museum, 40 miles (65 km) west of London, has a full-size replica of the Bayeux tapestries.
According to the museum's website, “Faithful Replica” was created in 1885 by 35 skilled female embroiderers, although one thing you don't see on the tapestry at the Reading Museum is the genitals. Victorian artisans making replicas work on glass photography panels that obscures the spicy details contained in the original.
“Although it's a faithful copy, it's not exactly the same,” said Brendan Carr, a community engagement curator at the Reading Museum. So if any visitors to the museum might be shocked by the body parts, they'll be protected if they come to read it. ”
Such beauty has not stopped Oxford historians from counting 93 penis, 88 times belonging to horses and 5 men. But earlier this year, Dr. Chris Monk, an advisor to medieval history, believed that the appendages previously considered scabbards were actually another example of male genitals, raising the number to 94.
The monk wrote in his blog post that male genitals are a “focus” of expressing masculinity.
“It's hard to find a more testosterone scene,” he wrote. “Well, to be honest, there are a lot of scenes of political aggression and gestures in the Beyeks tapestries: It radiates male hormones!”
