Bayeux tapestry loan: is the world's most famous embroidery actually British? 

Norman attack on England, as depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry
Norman attack on England, as depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry Credit:  Hulton Archive

It’s been 950 years in the making, but the Bayeux tapestry could finally be coming to British shores. President Macron is expected to announce that the historic artwork, which depicts the defeat of King Harold by William the Conqueror during the Norman Conquest, will be loaned to the UK.

While preparations for the movement of such a precious and delicate embroidery could mean it won’t reach Britain for five years, the news has nevertheless been greeted with excitement: the tapestry hasn’t left France since the 11th century. Even the Queen’s Coronation and the Battle of Hastings’ 900-year anniversary in 1966 couldn’t encourage the French to let it out of their sight.

But such news has also caused an age-old debate to rear its head: just who made the Bayeux tapestry, and where? And while it is indelibly associated with France, was it actually created on British soil?

The matter has been the cause of fervent discussion due to the mysterious nature of the tapestry’s origins. While historians believe that it was created within a few years of the Battle of Hastings, when Harold was thought to have been killed after taking an arrow to the eye (as depicted in the needlework), the first recorded mention of the tapestry is from centuries later, in the 1476 inventory of Bayeux Cathedral, where it was hung for a week during the annual Feast of St John the Baptist. The first British acknowledgement of its existence wasn’t until 1743, when William Stukeley included it in his encyclopedia, Palaographia Britannica.

Ever since, historians have tried to work out how the Bayeux tapestry came to be. Were nuns involved, or were professional embroiderers paid to make it? Was it the product of a Norman monastery, or bragging rights from a bishop based in Britain? Here’s the case for its origin on both sides of the Channel:

The Bayeux tapestry was made in Britain

Visitors admire the Bayeux Tapestry in Normandy
Visitors admire the Bayeux Tapestry in Normandy

The argument that currently holds most sway is that the tapestry was commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux. Odo was French, but he was also the half-brother of William the Conqueror, and upon the Norman victory he became instantly powerful in Britain. In 1067, he became Earl of Kent, and stepped in for William when the King returned to Normandy. He was also given so many estates in Britain that he was second only to the king in terms of land-ownership.

Odo was, however, based in Britain. And it’s thought he instructed British people to sew the tapestry - specifically, a group of women in Canterbury. They’ve been attributed because there was a famous school of tapestry in the town, who used a similar style of work to that found on the Bayeux Tapestry.

But he kept power in France, and his cathedral, in Bayeux, was consecrated in 1077, hence its eventual location. Historians think that the tapestry was made both to celebrate William’s victory and to hang in Odo’s new cathedral - and the tapestry certainly paints Odo in a positive light. He’s seen chivvying up the soldiers to victory from behind, while a caption reads, in Latin: “Here Odo the Bishop holding a club strengthens the boys”.

Originally, received wisdom had been that the tapestry was made by the French. But in 1965, Frank Stenton made the claim that it was produced in Britain in his book, The Bayeux Tapestry: a comprehensive survey. The theory was further explained by Charles H Gibbs-Smith in his 1973 Introduction to the Bayeux Tapestry: “It was, of course, made to a Norman brief, but was designed in Britain and embroidered in Britain by British craftswomen. The conclusion that it has such a British provenance is based on comparisons with contemporary illuminated manuscripts and other pictorial sources.”

The Queen's Coronation, in 1953: the Bayeux Tapestry was unsuccessfully requested for loan
The Queen's Coronation, in 1953: the Bayeux Tapestry was unsuccessfully requested for loan

The tapestry itself holds more clues that those who stitched it weren’t French: the Latin names are spelled in the way an British person would write them, rather than the contemporary French had it been created in France.

Until recently, many theorised that work on the Bayeux was distributed throughout Britain, and undertaken by nuns, with the nine separate sections then stitched together. But studies done by PhD researcher Alexandra Makin in 2012 showed that one group of specialist embroiderers worked on it at the same time, in the same place - which points to the school in Kent. Makin said at the time: “Some people argue that the style of some figures are so different they must have been embroidered by different people.

"But my view is it's not the embroidery which is different - but the way the characters were drawn."

There’s another theory that the tapestry was made in Britain - but not necessarily commissioned by Odo. In 2004, historian Andrew Bridgeford argued in his book, 1066: The Hidden History of the Bayeux Tapestry, that Odo was the recipient, rather than the creator, of the contentious embroidery. Bridgeford suggests that it a French nobleman, Eustace, Count of Boulogne, had it made in Britain to give to Odo as a consolation prize after Eustace led a failed revolt in 1067. Eustace, like Odo, comes off well in the tapestry: he’s shown leading the charge of the Norman cavalry in one scene.

The Bayeux tapestry was made in France

Those who studied the tapestry at the turn of the 20th century maintained that it was created  in France. One of the most prominent was Rede Fowke, who in 1913 argued that it was of Norman origin. Fowke’s evidence? The type of yarn used was characteristic of Normandy, the type of wine barrel depicted is typical of the area and the language: some of the text was written in Norman dialect, such as Bagias for Bayeux and Wilgelmum for William.

One explanation for this is that while the women in Canterbury sewed the tapestry, a Norman soldier who had been at the Battle of Hastings must have been instructing them: there’s no way someone who hadn’t fought there would have known the level of detail depicted.

But the argument fell out of fashion, along with others - such as the theory of Matilda, William’s wife or Edith, Harold’s sister, having it made.

Detail of the Latin written on the tapestry
Detail of the Latin written on the tapestry Credit:  DEA PICTURE LIBRARY

The case for the tapestry being made on French soil has been made again in recent decades, however. In 1994, historian Wolfgang Grape maintained that it was a product of Normandy. In 2005, another expert, George Beech, backed him up, writing an entire book on the query: Was the Bayeux Tapestry Made in France? The Case for St Florent of Saumur. Beech believes that William the Conquerer commissioned the work, and had it made in the monastery of St Florent of Saumur later than originally thought – between 1070 and 1083.

Why? Well, Beech claims that the monastery had an established textiles workshop. There’s also the fact that Rivallon of Dol appears on the tapestry - he was the father of St Florent’s abbot. But the key evidence is a poem that mentions the tapestry, written by Baudri, Abbot of Bourgueil in 1100. Baudri and William would have been much better acquainted with St Florent than with a bunch of embroiderers in Canterbury.

Beech also raises another possibility: that the Bayeux Tapestry was the same as another tapestry that was listed in a 1430 inventory and also depicted the Norman Conquest. Owned by Philip The Good of Burgundy, less is known about the earlier-listed tapestry, but its presence could explain where the Bayeux Tapestry was before it was hung in the Bayeux Cathedral. As Beech writes: “The assumption that the Bayeux Tapestry had been in that cathedral since the 11th century has no factual basis and a number of specialists believe that it had originally decorated the castle of a nobleman and came to Bayeux only sometime before 1476… Could they be one and the same tapestry? Could Bayeux cathedral somehow have acquired by 1476 the one in Burgundy in 1430?”

So what now?

The historians will continue to debate the tapestry’s origin, even if this is academic when it comes to who has rights over it. After all, the common belief that it was made in Britain has been maintained for more than 50 years, and yet the French have only just agreed to lend the tapestry to les Anglais.

Their reticence is perhaps understandable: history has not been kind to the Bayeux Tapestry, and nor has transportation. In 1794 the French Fine Arts Commission were forced to confiscate it after it was used to cover military wagons during the French Revolution - a local lawyer whipped it off a wagon and kept it in his house until things had calmed down.

Scholars have been concerned about its delicacy for centuries: in 1803,  Napoleon’s council were urged to return the tapestry to the cathedral after the general had it displayed in Paris to gee up support for his invasion of Britain.

By the end of the 19th century, a little more protocol was in place: the tapestry was removed in 1870 under threat of the Franco-Prussian war. It even got its own concrete shelter in Bayeux ahead of the Nazi invasion, in 1939. But it wasn’t enough: in 1944, Bletchley Park intercepted plans from Heinrich Himmler to move it from the Louvre, where the Gestapo had placed it, to Berlin. The French Resistance had just 48 hours to rescue the tapestry before the troops arrived.

In fact, it wasn’t until 1983 that the tapestry was given a secure and environmentally controlled room in Bayeux - giving it a truly safe home for the first time in a history that had spanned nearly 10 centuries.

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