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Is the Bayeux Tapestry in "mortal danger"? I think that's the wrong question to ask
Rather than focusing on the risk to the Bayeux Tapestry in its forthcoming loan to the British Museum, David Musgrove argues that we should be talking about how the massive media interest in the exhibition will surely be a huge reward for the venerable embroidery – and guarantee its long-term survival
It’s not often that a medieval embroidery gets broadcast across the huge electronic billboards at Piccadilly Circus. But that’s what happened on the morning of 26 February, as the British Museum made its first big splash to announce details of its forthcoming blockbuster Bayeux Tapestry exhibition (tickets go on sale 1 July). I was there to enjoy the experience, and it was a delight to see an artefact that I’ve spent a long time thinking about getting the full film-star treatment (I’m co-author of The Story of the Bayeux Tapestry). The exhibition is not without controversy. Questions have been raised by French campaigners and one celebrated English artist (David Hockney) on how fit the Bayeux Tapestry is to travel, and whether it’s right to subject this venerable artefact to the rigours of a trip from Normandy to London. These are reasonable concerns, but they miss the point. Yes, there is risk, but what about the reward? What does the Tapestry gain from being transported and displayed in such a high-profile way? I’d argue that, rather than putting the Tapestry at mortal danger of destruction, the loan guarantees its long-term survival and will be a boon for the tourist business in Bayeux to boot. What other medieval artwork or contemporary documentary source could hope to receive the wall-to-wall media exposure that the Tapestry is currently receiving? <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/20260226090016-92f3207-rotated-e1772119755759.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A busy city street with pedestrians and vehicles passes beneath a large digital billboard mounted on the side of a modern building. The billboard displays an advertisement for the British Museum, featuring a scene from the Bayeux Tapestry, with figures in period clothing and the words “REX,” “HAROLD,” and “The British Museum – From Egypt to…”. Surrounding buildings include shops with street‑level storefronts, and a white truck and van are visible in the foreground" title="The Bayeux Tapestry is broadcast across Piccadilly Circus, 26 February 2026. It has received the “full film-star treatment”, says David Musgrove (Image by David Musgrove)" /> When the exhibition opens in London in the autumn, there surely won’t be many people who haven’t heard of the Tapestry, the story it tells and the many mysteries it still contains. The queues will be round the block to see it. And when it returns to its newly revamped museum back in Bayeux in 2027, in time for the millennial commemorations of the birth of William the Conqueror, the press interest will be just as high: people will be keen to see how it will be displayed in its new permanent home. This is priceless PR, and it will keep a steady flood of visitors heading to Normandy for years to come, paying the museum entrance fee and spending their tourist money in the town and region. That is the long-term reward for the risk of the loan. Surviving against the odds The Bayeux Tapestry is likely around 950 years old (we don’t actually know when it was made, but most experts would agree that it was shortly after the event it depicts, the Norman Conquest of 1066). It was designed to be displayed, and probably to be moved around. Whether it was made for secular great halls or to be hung around the naves of churches, it was meant for show. The artefact offers a specific, partial and male-heavy telling of the Conquest story, positioning the Norman invasion as a straight clash between two worthy military men – England’s Harold and Normandy’s William – and excluding other important figures from the narrative (women generally, Norway’s Hardrada, Harold’s brother Tostig and Edgar Ætheling, the closest blood relative to the old king Edward the Confessor). I imagine that the designers would be delighted to see that, almost a thousand years on, the Tapestry is being displayed once more to such fanfare and is still able to get its message across. Read more | The strange story of the Nazi obsession with this legendary artefact still isn't over Given the Tapestry’s age, it’s not surprising that it’s a fragile artefact. It’s been through some tough times, having nearly been chopped up in the frenzied years of the French Revolution, wound and unwound for visitors on a rolling mechanism in the 19th century, soldered into a cylindrical zinc case during the Franco-Prussian War, and manhandled by the Nazis in the 1940s. These various depredations explain why it seems to be lacking its final panel, fraying into oblivion as the defeated Anglo-Saxon troops flee the field after William’s great victory at the battle of Hastings. It’s been patched up over the years, and wears some of this repair work pretty obviously. It’s fair to say that the 19th-century restoration it underwent wasn’t always particularly sensitively done. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/Coll.ections-Musee-Tapisserie-de-Bayeux-Fonds-documentaire-H.-Jeschke-Cliche-Rolf-Alber-FT-746.44-JESPHO09-a34a40a-e1772122650745.jpg" width="613" height="429" alt="A group of high‑ranking German military officers from the World War II era stand around a large table studying the Bayeux Tapestry. They wear dark uniforms with insignia and medals, and several lean in closely as if discussing strategy. The room is formal and dimly lit, with the tapestry dominating the centre of the scene." title="Coll.ections Musée Tapisserie de Bayeux - Fonds documentaire H. Jeschke -Cliché Rolf Alber - FT 746.44 JES_PHO09" /> So yes, the Tapestry demands careful attention and handling, and yes, we need to be mindful of potholes on the roads from Bayeux to Bloomsbury. But as Nicholas Cullinan, director of the British Museum, has pointed out, the business of moving priceless and fragile historical artefacts around the world is precisely what museums do on a regular basis. French and British experts are working together to ensure that the move and redisplay in London is carried out to the highest standards. Lessons from the Ladies of Leek To see what impact the loan exhibition will have, we need only look a little to the west of London and consider the story of its fabulous full-size 19th-century replica, housed today in Reading Museum. It was made by the Ladies of the Leek Embroidery Society 140 years ago, under the strenuous stewardship of Mrs Elizabeth Wardle. Almost immediately after they’d completed their work, Mrs Wardle and the stitching Ladies of Leek allowed their labour of love to go on tour, around the UK, and as far afield as Germany and the US. At a time when international travel was more challenging than today, the replica gave crowds on both sides of the Atlantic a first-hand view of this celebrated medieval artwork. Read more | Michael Wood on women's contributions to the Bayeux Tapestry Five times in the 20th century, requests were made from the UK for a loan of the original Bayeux Tapestry: in 1931, 1953, 1966, 1972 and 1980. All these attempts to secure a loan came to nought. In 1953, staff at the V&A were so confident that the Tapestry was coming that they prepared an introductory guidebook, and, as I reported in a recent article for HistoryExtra, in 1980 officials even considered whether a trip to Bayeux by the Queen Mother might have helped seal a deal. In 1966, negotiations faltered because it wasn’t clear to the British delegates whether they should be talking to the French state or the municipality of Bayeux to make progress. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/GettyImages-2236196240-7778166-e1772120361828.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A person in a white protective suit and blue gloves adjusts a large historic tapestry that hangs from a metal rail system in a controlled conservation workspace. The tapestry shows intricate woven patterns and text, and the individual is carefully supporting its surface with both hands, highlighting the delicate, detailed work of preserving cultural artefacts" title="A worker prepares the Bayeux Tapestry for transfer to the British Museum, September 2025. There were five attempts at securing a loan of this kind in the 20th century, all of which failed (Image by Getty Images)" /> In that year, the 900th anniversary of the battle of Hastings, though the original did not cross the Channel, the Reading replica sated the interest in Britain for a Bayeux Tapestry tour. It was sent on an extensive exhibition circuit around the UK from 1965 to 1967. From Aberdeen to Bournemouth, via Gateshead, Anglesey, Doncaster, Hereford and many other stops between, the replica was on show to anyone who wanted to have a look at this recreation of the medieval marvel. It was this sort of exposure that helped to cement the Tapestry’s place in our national consciousness as the archetypal artwork of the Middle Ages. Read more | The Bayeux Tapestry: a political football for 900 years From Tutmania to Tapmania If the Reading replica’s extensive touring schedule through the 19th and 20th centuries has helped to drive awareness of the Bayeux Tapestry, that is nothing to what the loan of the original 11th-century embroidery will do when it comes to London this year. Interest will be stratospheric. As Helena Dollimore, MP for Hastings and Rye, noted in a parliamentary debate on the Tapestry on 25 February, “The Bayeux Tapestry exhibition at the British Museum will be the exhibition of a generation”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2026/02/K08G5Y-3103f6b-e1772120781998.jpg" width="1500" height="1000" alt="A section of the Bayeux Tapestry showing mounted soldiers in chainmail riding horses and holding spears, arranged in a dynamic battle scene. Decorative animals and motifs run along the top and bottom borders, and a line of Latin text appears above the riders." title="A section of Reading Museum’s replica Bayeux Tapestry. This facsimile toured the UK after requests for the original to be loaned were rejected (Image by Alamy)" /> She’s right, based on the recent polling carried out on behalf of the British Museum that says that 71 per cent of parents want their child to learn more about the story of the Tapestry whilst it is in the UK. Those children will, in time, want to share the memory of this experience with their offspring, and so the Tapestry will indeed get a generational boost from this. According to the British Museum’s chair of trustees, George Osborne, 7.5 million visitors are expected to flock to see the Tapestry. This loan will do for early medieval history what the mighty Tutankhamun exhibition at the British Museum in 1972 did for Egyptology. Tutmania blossomed then, and Tapmania will bloom among us this year. The ongoing visitor flow to Bayeux will mean that it will be amply financially supported for decades to come. That’s the reward to balance the risk, and that’s why the forthcoming loan to the British Museum is something we should celebrate and be immensely excited about.
Just how many Bayeux Tapestries were there?
As a new theory, put forward by Professor John Blair, questions whether the embroidery was unique, David Musgrove asks historians whether there could have been more than one ‘Bayeux Tapestry’
The Bayeux Tapestry is an amazing artefact – and it’s exceptional not least because of its very existence today. Precious few pieces of embroidery from the medieval period survive, let alone ones that are almost 70 metres long. And, of course, the story it tells – of the conquest of England by the Normans – is one of immense historical significance. So we rightly celebrate it, and excitement about its forthcoming loan from Bayeux to the British Museum is high. But what if this artefact wasn’t really so very exceptional at the time it was made? What if it was just one of several embroideries produced to commemorate the Norman victory over the English at the battle of Hastings in October 1066? Professor John Blair, an expert in the Anglo-Saxon period at the University of Oxford, believes that might be the case. “This is a reaction against the idea that the Tapestry had to be something extraordinary or unique, beyond the fact that it is an extraordinary and unique survival,” he says. “There are abundant references to decorative domestic hangings, but of course they had virtually zero chance of survival. The Tapestry is a wonderful piece of design, but the actual stitching isn’t particularly fine, and a big team of embroiderers in a workshop could have done it quite expeditiously.” Purported patron Why did the Tapestry survive when so few other embroideries did? Well, most scholars agree that it was probably made some time after the battle that it records, so in the mid-late 11th century, and likely on the orders of – or to curry favour with – Bishop Odo of Bayeux. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/Odo-blessing-the-feast4548webready-e50a4fb.jpg" width="1921" height="1281" alt="Bishop Odo, William’s half-brother, says grace before a feast. It’s thought that Odo commissioned the Tapestry to be displayed in his new cathedral in Bayeux (Image by Bayeux Museum)" title="Bishop Odo, William’s half-brother, says grace before a feast. It’s thought that Odo commissioned the Tapestry to be displayed in his new cathedral in Bayeux (Image by Bayeux Museum)" /> Odo, the half-brother of William the Conqueror, was made Earl of Kent after the conquest. The case for him being the Tapestry’s patron rests on the fact that he plays a particularly prominent role in the embroidery. Additionally, three lower-profile characters called Wadard, Vital and Turold are specifically (and surprisingly, given their status and role in the story) named in the Tapestry. These three men are thought to have been Odo’s followers. Read more | “I counted the penises in the Bayeux Tapestry and I have no regrets”: what one Oxford professor found when he studied the rudest bits of the embroidery One line of thought suggests that the Tapestry was made to be displayed in Odo’s new cathedral in Bayeux on its consecration in 1077. We know nothing of what happened to the embroidery in the four centuries that followed – until the late 15th century, when we have a documentary reference to it in an inventory of that cathedral, noting that it was displayed annually on a specific feast day. It’s possible that the Tapestry survived for such a long time because, except for its annual airing, it was kept in a chest in the church. It therefore wasn’t subjected to the wear and tear of daily display that might have caused other contemporary embroideries to fray and fall apart. One theory even has it that the Tapestry might have been walled up in a crypt below Bayeux Cathedral for centuries. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/GettyImages-2154318346webready-cc73479.jpg" width="5600" height="3733" alt="Bayeux Cathedral, consecrated in 1077 by Bishop Odo but largely reconstructed in the 13th century (Image by Getty Images)" title="Bayeux Cathedral, consecrated in 1077 by Bishop Odo but largely reconstructed in the 13th century (Image by Getty Images)" /> So, if Professor Blair is right in his theory that the uniqueness of the Tapestry rests principally in its survival, what does he think about its original manufacture? Where was it made, by whom – and was it one of a kind? “Since it seems most unlikely that none of the other members of the Norman elite had embroidered hangings representing the Conquest,” he explains, “the possibility struck me that there might have been a set of stock designs, which the workshop then customised for each individual patron: we just happen to have the one made for Odo. “On that argument, the scenes highlighting Odo – the meal before the battle, Odo brandishing his club, and so on – and Odo’s named followers Wadard, Vital and Turold would be insertions into the standard sequence,” he continues. “To take that further would need a closer analysis of design, sequence, correlation with the borders and so on than I have done. But the Wadard scene definitely does have possibilities, since the mounted knight captioned ‘Hic est Wadard’ does rather look as though he has been interposed into a sequence of three houses and three followers.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/3AJKTPH-Doctored-CMYKbrightwebready-1eecbc0.jpg" width="1771" height="1181" alt="Our doctored version of the Tapestry (below) shows how it might have looked without Odo’s follower Wadard (on horseback in the upper, existing iteration), illustrating the idea that he might have been inserted into a stock design on Odo’s orders (Image by Alamy)" title="Our doctored version of the Tapestry (below) shows how it might have looked without Odo’s follower Wadard (on horseback in the upper, existing iteration), illustrating the idea that he might have been inserted into a stock design on Odo’s orders (Image by Alamy)" /> To see how that might have worked, we’ve doctored that section of the Tapestry (above) so that you can compare the original sequence with a version in which the mounted Wadard has been removed. Mass production Gale Owen-Crocker – professor emerita of the University of Manchester, one of the most respected and well-published Tapestry scholars, and author of the forthcoming book The Design of the Bayeux Tapestry – likes the idea. “I am sure that there were workshops making these woollen hangings,” she says. “The workmanship is too assured for the Bayeux Tapestry to be a one-off.” She has previously argued, along with her co-author, Maggie Kneen, that the Tapestry designers employed templates for the motifs and images that were most likely drawn onto the linen cloth as guides for the final stitching by the embroiderers. That, too, accords with Professor Blair’s theory. Read more | The Bayeux Tapestry: a political football for 900 years Manchester Metropolitan University’s Dr Alexandra Makin, an authority on early medieval embroidery and author of The Lost Art of the Anglo-Saxon World, is minded to agree in broad terms: “There’s no denying that the Bayeux Tapestry is an important embroidery, but we have evidence that indicates wall hangings that told stories were a popular way of memorialising the heroic deeds of family members,” she says. “An example is the Byrhtnoth wall hanging that was made by that ealdorman’s wife, Ælfflæd, and possibly other women in the household. It depicted the ‘great deeds’ of the ealdorman, and was given to the monastery at Ely at some point after his death at the battle of Maldon in 991. “Meanwhile, in a poem written by Baudri of Bourgueil to William the Conqueror’s daughter, Adela of Blois, Baudri describes three different wall hangings, one of which is very similar to the Bayeux Tapestry,” she adds. “The way the Bayeux Tapestry’s narrative is set out also brings to mind the woven tapestries found in the ninth-century Oseberg ship burial in Norway, which are thought to tell stories relating to warrior ideology in the Viking world,” Dr Makin continues. “The Bayeux Tapestry sits in a long tradition of telling heroic stories through textiles, so early medieval people were well aware of this and understood what it was telling them. This also suggests that other people could have commissioned embroidered or woven wall hangings to tell their own story of what happened in 1066. Whether these were as big as the Bayeux Tapestry is another question.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/hengteMennv005rework-Credit-Stig-Saxegaard-og-Kulturhistorisk-museumwebready-38495e2.jpg" width="5353" height="3569" alt="A colourful tapestry showing groups of people and a tree-like structure in the middle. On the right, there is a large blue horse. The border at the top and the bottom of the tapestry is blue, with a zigzag pattern on it" title="A reconstruction of a woven tapestry found in the ninth-century Oseberg ship burial in Norway, reflecting the tradition of telling heroic stories through textiles (Image by Stig Saxegaard & Museum of the Viking Age, University of Oslo)" /> According to Dr Makin, the way the embroidery was made lent itself ideally to the purpose for which it was designed. “The materials and stitches used to create the Bayeux Tapestry are perfect for the job,” she says. “They are bold, quick to work, cover the ground fabric easily and would be seen from a distance. This is not a fine piece of work like the 10th-century gold-and-silk embroidered stole, maniple and ribbons found in the tomb of St Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral – but using tiny stitches would not have worked for a wall hanging that was meant to be seen by lots of people at a distance. “When the stitching is examined, its precise execution, and the economical use of thread, demonstrates that the Bayeux Tapestry is an accomplished piece of work,” Dr Makin concludes. “But we simply cannot compare it to pieces made from gold and silk threads. They were meant to do a different job.” Evidence for uniqueness Professor Michael Lewis, another leading Tapestry expert based at the British Museum, is less convinced by Professor Blair’s theory. He contends that Bishop Odo’s presumed key role in the making of the Tapestry actually argues for it being a one-off embroidery: “We know from Domesday Book that Bishop Odo, the Tapestry’s likely patron, was a cultured man with the considerable wealth needed for the creation of a monumental artwork like the Bayeux embroidery,” he says. “Surely it was his unique position as Earl of Kent that also enabled access to the illuminated manuscripts that were evidently used in the Tapestry’s designs. Perhaps he could have granted similar access to other potential patrons – but is that likely or realistic? “Another aspect to consider – key, perhaps – is whether the Tapestry was ever actually used for its original purpose, presumably to be displayed from place to place as an advocacy piece for Odo’s role in the Conquest,” he continues. “The likely period of its creation (1072–77) was within a new political environment in which William was moving towards a more oppressive regime than in the early days of the Conquest. Yet the Tapestry’s story seems to reflect a pre-1070s narrative, with William hoping to bring the English around by more persuasive means. So maybe it was never toured [because it didn’t reflect the newly prevailing narrative] and was unlikely to be emulated.” <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/10/ManiplePetertrans1137webready-d304d89.jpg" width="756" height="504" alt="The 10th-century maniple found in the tomb of St Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral exhibits much finer needlework than the Bayeux Tapestry (Image by Stig Saxegaard & Museum of the Viking Age/Bayeux Museum)" title="The 10th-century maniple found in the tomb of St Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral exhibits much finer needlework than the Bayeux Tapestry (Image by Stig Saxegaard og Kulturhistorisk museum/Bayeux Museum)" /> Professor Lewis further wonders whether the scale of the embroidery and, thus, the resources required would have made duplicate versions less likely: “It is true that the Bayeux embroidery uses relatively simple materials – flax for linen, wool for its threads, and plant material as dyes – but its scale, which could have been even larger than its extant 70m, suggests a different level of resources than might have been typical,” he notes. “This has not been explored in any meaningful way, and surely it is an opportunity not to be missed [when the Tapestry is conserved in 2027] for scientifically investigating its materiality?” If Professor Blair’s theory does hold water – and clearly more research is needed to bolster the case – it demands that we consider the Tapestry and its message in a different light. As it stands, the Bayeux Tapestry is a key source for our understanding of the Norman conquest. The narrative it offers, which is at once celebratory for Duke William, conciliatory towards King Harold, and exclusionary of other dimensions to the story – the most obvious omission being Harald Hardrada’s invasion in northern England before Hastings – has had a significant influence on the way we see 1066. If it was only one of a number of similar but different embroideries, then we need to review our interpretative framework, and consider why this particular version showed this particular narrative. Read more | Why the Nazis fell in love with the Bayeux Tapestry “Should this idea turn out to be right, it would emphasise both the sophistication and the complexity of 11th-century life, with major embroideries produced for several aristocratic households on a factory-line basis,” Professor Blair remarks. “When trying to understand material culture in the early Middle Ages, we have to remember what a minute and unrepresentative sample has come down to us.” Hopefully, this article might lead to further research on this interesting theory. In the meantime, if anyone reading happens to be descended from one of the leading Norman families of the 11th century and has an unopened chest lying around, please feel free to have a look – and get in touch if it contains a 70 metres long embroidery. This article was first published in the December 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
Why you should avoid hair-pulling, and cannibalism, at royal banquets
And other tips from history to avoid banquets going bad, in advance of King Charles III's state dinner with President Trump this week
There won’t be any cannibalism happening at the state banquet this week in Windsor Castle, in honour of the 47th US president, Donald J Trump. I haven’t seen the menu, but I think that’s a reasonable guess. I also suspect that Prince Harry won’t be in attendance, despite his recent trip to the UK and reconciliatory tête-à-tête with his father, King Charles III. However, if you believe this piece in The Times, while the king and his youngest son might be mending their relationship, Prince William cannot forgive his brother Harry for his apparent betrayal of trust in recent years. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/09/GettyImages-1147873570-25735a9.jpg" width="1024" height="683" alt="Donald Trump, dressed in a black suit, stands alongside Queen Elizabeth II, Melania Trump, Prince Charles, and Camilla. The women are all dressed in white dresses, and Elizabeth, Charles and Camilla are all wearing blue sashes" title="President Trump and the late Queen Elizabeth II at the last state banquet, during the president’s first term of office (Image by Getty Images)" /> That’s where the cannibalism comes in. Back in the 11th century, two brothers – one of them destined for the throne of England – had a pretty big falling out. It led to an event at a feast that most people would find very hard to forgive. I’m talking about Harold and Tostig Godwinson. Harold, of course, went on to become Harold II of England, after the death of Edward the Confessor in 1066. He had to defend his crown against Tostig, who had joined the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada in an attack on the country from the north. Harold beat Hardrada and Tostig at the battle of Stamford Bridge, and both of the would-be invaders were killed. The root of the brotherly tiff went back a few years before that. In 1063, according to the 12th-century historian Henry of Huntingdon (who is unique in offering us this account, so we ought to be sceptical about its veracity), at the royal hall in Windsor, Tostig grabbed Harold’s hair while he was pouring wine for King Edward. Tostig, apparently, was so embittered that the king thought more highly of Harold that he was unable to “check his hand from his brother’s flowing locks”. Nobody would drink to this Hair-yanking in front of the king is one thing. But it gets worse; a lot worse. Henry of Huntingdon goes on to explain that Tostig flounced out of Windsor in umbrage and went to Hereford, where Harold’s servants were in the process of knocking up another royal banquet. It’s quite a long way from Windsor to Hereford, but in the course of what must have been a few days’ travel, Tostig’s anger had not abated. When he got to Hereford, he dismembered all his brother’s servants, and put their severed heads, legs and arms into all the drink containers. Then he sent a message back to the king saying that there was lots of salted meat waiting for him at Harold’s place. Unsurprisingly, King Edward wasn’t delighted about this act of anticipated anthropophagy, and exiled Tostig. According to Professor Heather Blurton, who has written a book about cannibalism in medieval literature, the whole thing is a symbolic fiction that draws on Greek mythology: “Tostig’s transformation of a royal banquet into a cannibal banquet is densely symbolic. The suggestion of a Thyestian feast rewrites history, casting an unnamed Edward the Confessor as the putative father of two feuding sons whose struggle for power is ultimately futile. In myth, Atreus kills Thyestes’s sons and serves them to him, leaving only their hands and feet, with which he taunts Thyestes. The invocation here of the myth of the House of Atreus, with its cursed history of murder and cannibalism, condemns Harold and Tostig as unworthy heirs to the kingdom. Simultaneously, its narrative intrusion into the prelude to the Norman Conquest of 1066 centres cannibalism as a privileged metaphoric mode for representing invasion and conquest in high medieval England.” Read more | Medieval manners and etiquette: dos and don’ts of the Middle Ages Yikes. So, basically it probably didn’t happen. Nevertheless that is pretty much the worst example of a royal banquet that I could find, with the added contemporary spice of a fraternal spat. As I say, it’s unlikely to offer any sort of model for what is going to happen at the state banquet in Windsor this week. Princes Harry and William won’t be present together, and I very much doubt there will be any hair-pulling, and definitely no cannibalism. The location of this week’s banquet is St George’s Hall in Windsor Castle. It was badly damaged in the fire of 1992 but it’s been restored and still bears the coats of arms of all the past Knights of the Garter. That is the chivalric order created by King Edward III back in 1348. Edward is closely associated with Windsor and spent loads of money doing it up in the 14th century. He was a huge fan of the legends of King Arthur and he was basically trying to reinvent Windsor as a new Camelot. King Arthur was notable as the host for another very bad banquet. It’s recorded in the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Helen Carr goes into the story in forensic detail in this membership-only article, but I’ll briefly remind you of the basics. It’s Christmas, King Arthur is enjoying a hearty festive feast with his knights arranged around the Round Table. Then an uninvited guest barges in – he’s tall, lean and strangely green. Yes, it’s the Green Knight. He bizarrely wants to play a game: a beheading game. Sir Gawain accepts the challenge and promptly decapitates the oddly coloured interloper. That would have been enough to spoil most banquets, but in a surprising plot twist, the body of the knight proceeds to retrieve his head and explain that Gawain will now himself have to submit to being beheaded in a year and a day. So that’s quite a downer for the whole feast, but Gawain’s agreement to seek out the Green Knight and accept his fate is the sort of act of chivalry that Edward III revelled in. Feasting, of course, has been a mainstay of lordly soft power for centuries, millennia probably. It was the duty of a leader to provide for his or her followers, and a great way to do that was by creating opportunities for copious and conspicuous consumption. Certainly in prehistory – and we can’t really talk about royalty here because we cannot know the make-up of their political structures – feasting was a big thing. Just last week, the results of a new survey about eating in the Bronze Age–Iron Age transition came out. It showed that back at the end of the Bronze Age, Britons were having massive food festivals, the like of which weren’t seen again until we get to the Middle Ages. People were travelling considerable distances to get to these huge banquets, and bringing their dinner with them, too. The midden, or rubbish pit, from one such feasting site stretches over FIVE football pitches. Boasting, drinking, amputation – that's some banquet For a really great banquet scene, we need look no further than Beowulf, the 10th or 11th-century story of the sixth-century adventures of the eponymous hero in Scandinavia. In the timber hall of King Hrothgar, Beowulf and his warriors engage in hard drinking, heavy boasting and lengthy tale-telling. The festivities are marred by the angry arrival of the monstrous Grendel, who sneaks in late at night and attacks the place, smashing it up with demonic glee, until Beowulf gets hold of him and literally rips his arm off. Maybe there will be some boasting and some modest drinking when President Trump is entertained by King Charles III in Windsor, but I don’t suppose they will be pinning the severed arm of a nocturnal devil-beast to the wall of St George’s Hall the day after this banquet. One thing we can be sure of is that the food served will be reassuringly expensive, because ostentatious displays of wealth have always been key to a good aristocratic banquet, as Charlotte Palmer explained in a piece about medieval banquets on HistoryExtra (read it here if you’re a member). Take, for example, the feast thrown in 1491 by Ercole I d’Este, Duke of Ferrara in northern Italy, for his son’s wedding. No expense was spared in the production of some elaborate sugar sculptures for the guests, but before they could tuck in, the servants threw these delightful treats into their laps. Bit weird. They then brought out a second round of these saccharine creations for everyone to actually eat. The point being, of course, that the duke could afford to literally throw money away. Read more | 10 foods named after famous people from history Singing deer and two-headed horses Maybe the display of wealth won’t be quite so crudely displayed, but I’m sure they will have the good silver out in Windsor this week. And of course, really nowadays, it’s all about the pageantry, because that’s the one thing you simply can’t buy. If you want to know how to really go to town on this front, consider the obscenely over-the-top banquet of 1454, hosted by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy: the Feast of the Pheasant. Will King Charles have organised for his guest to be served, as the duke was, by a two-headed horse ridden by two men sitting back to back, each holding a trumpet, and then by a monster, consisting of a man riding on an elephant? There was also apparently a white stag that sang a tenor accompaniment to a chorister. It’s hard to find deer that can do good harmonies these days, probably not even in the herds that grace Windsor Great Park, but that is the sort of display that I think President Trump would lap up. Assuming magical animals are not available to provide this level of spectacle, the food is going to have to be absolutely top drawer to give the feast the wow factor it needs. I’ve never hosted a banquet, and I don’t suppose I ever will, but Lulu Grimes, managing editor at GoodFood.com, has been to more than her fair share of posh dinners. I asked her what makes the difference: “Banquets are all about illusion. Recipes must be easily replicable hundreds of times, look impressive and taste good. The table must look astonishing, the cutlery intimidating, and the glassware signal an incoming challenge to sobriety. Above all, the meal needs to keep you entertained for a VERY LONG TIME because banquets do drag on (oh my god, the speeches), and you can’t decide who you sit next to. “I know what I’m talking about, I’ve sat and eaten through my fair share of banquets over the past few years; I am the reluctant plus-one for a liveryman of the City of London. There are few institutions more enamoured with banquets than the City, and my goodness, they do pomp and circumstance well. I once sat next to the Serjeant at Arms, who arrived with a special goblet rather than use the array of wine glasses at each setting. One would hope the threat of a bit of casual poisoning is long gone, but why change a bit of ceremonial flashiness now? “Matching menus to occasions is vital. In 2023, His Excellency the President of the Republic of Korea was treated to barbecued quail, an upscale cottage pie, and chocolate mousse – welcome to Britain. Wrestling with a small bird while chatting politely is in a frequent banqueter’s skill set. This year President Macron enjoyed a lemon curd, gin and pastis cocktail (see what they did there), Norfolk chicken and English sparkling wine made by a French champagne house. No ruffling of feathers on either side, all very diplomatic. What with all that cutlery flying around, gastronomic slights are best avoided, an incident-free banquet is a good one.” Read more | Queen Elizabeth's relationships with US presidents Wise words from Lulu there. I assume President Trump will enjoy something as exciting and innovative as that served up for his counterparts from Korea and France. But I also predict that the quantity of food on offer in Windsor Castle this week will be modest by comparison to some of the banquets that we know of from history. In 1575, there was a 19-day banquet served up by Robert Dudley for Queen Elizabeth I at Kenilworth castle. Forty barrels of beer and 16 barrels of wine were consumed, per day, between firework displays. Dudley’s aim was to persuade the queen to marry him. It didn’t work. The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and despite not being a man, it ought to have done the trick because Elizabeth famously professed that “I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king.” As Tracy Borman told me in my Life Lessons from History series, Elizabeth’s superpower was procrastination to avoid the attentions of suitors like Dudley, so even a boozy pyrotechnic extravaganza like this wasn’t going to sway the queen. In this banquet, it’s the other way round: the host is the king, and he’s trying to impress the president, and persuade him to give us all those trade deals we want. They only have 48 hours to work the royal magic on Donald Trump, but he does seem remarkably wowed by British pomp and ceremony. So maybe it’ll do the trick – just so long as he keeps the demonic monsters out, avoids decapitation and amputation, goes easy on the hair-pulling, and keeps clear of cannibalism. This article is part of HistoryExtra's new Life Lessons from History Substack newsletter. Subscribe to the newsletter for more articles and podcasts exploring the ways in which history can help us live better, happier, healthier or more productive lives.
Michael Wood on women's contributions to the Bayeux Tapestry
"We should remember the unknown women who made the Tapestry", writes Michael Wood
Like all readers, I am sure, I was thrilled to hear the news that the Bayeux Tapestry is coming to England next year. 1066 is the most important date in British history, and the Tapestry is the greatest single source, taking the tale from the last days of Edward the Confessor through the drama of Harold and William, the Norman invasion, and the defeat and death of Harold at Hastings. The Tapestry has been in Bayeux since the Middle Ages and has never left, save briefly during the Franco-German War and under Napoleon and the Nazis, who both sought to weaponise it prior to their own invasion attempts. But it was made in England in the aftermath of the Conquest, probably at Canterbury by English needlewomen. Scholars think that it was commissioned by the Conqueror’s brother Odo, bishop of Bayeux, who features prominently on the Tapestry along with his followers. One of those, Vitalis, is singled out and named, shown mounted and in full armour, reporting to William the whereabouts of the English army. Perhaps he was the leader of a scouting detachment who had gone ahead of the Norman army. Read more | The Bayeux Tapestry is finally coming home to Britain – and you can see it next year The artistic inspiration was the English school of manuscript painting in Canterbury, but there may have been Roman models, too. Trajan’s Column, in particular, depicts the emperor’s Dacian campaigns in a similar manner – like a strip cartoon. Odo himself had been to Rome; so, too, had Scolland, abbot of St Augustine’s Abbey, who may have designed the Tapestry – perhaps using a sketch book from his travels? It’s a huge artwork, some 68.3 metres long, but damaged at the end: perhaps as much as 3 metres is missing. It is generally agreed that the Tapestry originally finished with William’s crowning at Westminster at Christmas 1066 – a mirror image to the opening panel of the enthroned Edward the Confessor. Based on that assumption, a brilliant full-scale reconstruction has been completed by embroiderers on Alderney (alderneybayeuxtapestry.com). It’s thought that the Tapestry was commissioned for the consecration of Bayeux Cathedral in 1077. Art historian Christopher Norton suggests that its original length would perfectly fit the nave of Odo’s new church, along three walls of a rectangular space 31 metres long and 9 metres wide, taking account of doorways and architectural supports. Possibly the first record of the embroidery tells us that, in the 15th century, it was hung in the nave at Bayeux on the feast of the cathedral’s relics, 1 July, and for the following week. By the 18th century, that period stretched from the Feast of John the Baptist on 24 June till the end of July. This gives us a key clue to its original purpose: perhaps it was made specifically to be shown in the cathedral on the relic feast. On the Tapestry, Harold has a bigger role than William, and his story unfolds as a tragedy. Harold’s fate is sealed when he breaks his oath to support William’s claim to the English throne. Before then, he was a great and successful warrior. So he’s portrayed not as a Judas but as a Macbeth – a brave man led by his ambition into disloyalty. It is possible that his fateful oath was actually sworn on the cathedral’s relics at Bayeux. If the Tapestry was dedicated by Odo to his cathedral, then the part of the relics in the story is central. Read more | “I counted the penises in the Bayeux Tapestry and I have no regrets”: what one Oxford professor found when he studied the rudest bits of the embroidery We know nothing of the women who made it. Yet we do know that the work of Old English needlewomen was later prized abroad as opus Anglicanum, ‘English work’. We know that Earl Byrhtnoth, the hero of the battle of Maldon in 991, was depicted on a tapestry hung in Ely Abbey (now Ely Cathedral) that perhaps also commemorated the faithful retainers named in the famous Old English poem. And even middling people had embroideries in their houses depicting heroic or biblical scenes, which provided richly coloured decoration and acted as draught-proofing. In her will from the 940s, a woman called Wynflaed gives her friend her “long hall tapestry”, which must have been a fine heirloom. So much bigger in scale, the Bayeux Tapestry was commissioned by a rich and powerful person at the top of society. As for its actual makers, it is only later in the Middle Ages that we start to learn the names of some of the women who created such wonderful works of art that were prized across Europe. So when we stand in front of the Tapestry next year, and take in the immense drama of the Conquest, we should also remember the unknown women who made it: the likes (let’s imagine) of Eadgyth of Sittingbourne and Ælfflæd of Whitstable. Now, they would have a story to tell. This column was first published in the September 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
Medieval warhorses: 5 moments horsepower changed the course of history
From William the Conqueror’s battle-winning cavalry to Richard III’s fatal final charge, Oliver H Creighton and Robert Liddiard explore five moments when horsepower changed the course of medieval history
1. 1066 and all that Horses were involved in King Harold’s defeat at Hastings – but also in the demise of his Norman conqueror It’s one of the most famous of all medieval images. Harold II stands upon the battlefield at Hastings, desperately grasping at an arrow lodged in his eye. This incident – depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry – is credited with ending the English king’s life and extinguishing centuries of Anglo-Saxon rule. Yet look to the right of Harold and you’ll find an image that arguably goes even further in explaining his defeat: it depicts a sword-wielding warrior mounted upon a horse. The Norman conquest of England in 1066 was an era-defining event – and its centrepiece was the battle of Hastings. That clash is graphically represented on the Bayeux Tapestry, most memorably in the image of mounted Norman knights charging the line of Anglo-Saxon warriors on foot. It’s a powerful rendition of horses making history – and for William, Duke of Normandy, those animals proved critical in securing his victory. William began the day of the pivotal action, 14 October, by ordering reconnaissance missions, receiving intelligence from returning mounted scouts on the whereabouts of Harold’s forces. When the two armies later closed in to do battle, the Bayeux Tapestry shows us, the duke mounted his warhorse and exhorted his knights to “prepare themselves manfully and wisely” as they cantered towards the forthcoming engagement. During the nine-hour struggle, William was in the thick of the fighting – and two, or possibly three, of his horses were killed beneath him. The crucial part of the battle came when a rumour spread among the Normans that their commander had been killed. The duke hurriedly rode among his now-fleeing troops, his helmet raised to prove that he was alive, so preventing a rout. At this key moment it was the mobility provided by his mount that allowed William to be in the right place at the right time, averting disaster (for him). Despite the oft-repeated tale of the ‘arrow in the eye’, Harold’s death probably came after a group of mounted Norman knights broke through his bodyguard and cut him down. On this most dramatic of days, it was the horse that was William’s enabler – for intelligence-gathering, command and control, helping save his army from defeat by allowing him to visibly lead from the front. Yet though the horse helped cement the success of the Conqueror’s military career, it also played a part in its end. In 1087, the now-overweight William was characteristically urging on his troops as they set fire to the town of Mantes in France when his horse jumped a ditch – and “his stomach projected over the forward part of the saddle”, resulting in the rupture of the king’s internal organs. He died of his injuries some weeks later, his otherwise anonymous horse an unwitting participant in the death of one of England’s greatest warrior kings. 2. The Bruce's canny cavalry gambit Faced with a mighty English mounted army, the Scottish king used both horsemanship and cunning strategy to rout the invaders Robert the Bruce’s famous victory at the battle of Bannockburn, fought over two bloody days on 23–24 June 1314, was a landmark in the history of the British Isles, paving the way for Scottish independence from English rule. That outcome hinged on the inability of the English to effectively use their heavy cavalry in the face of tactics masterminded by the Scottish king. Edward II had invaded Scotland with a vast army, aiming to raise the siege of the strategically vital castle of Stirling. The core of his army comprised men at arms – professional soldiers, knights and nobles – on warhorses that were the embodiment of English military power. Heavily armoured and emblazoned with arms, these were elite steeds, expensively bred and trained in a royal stud network. The English army of around 13,000 substantially outnumbered Robert’s force of perhaps 6,000. A prelude to the battle known to every Scottish schoolchild proved an ill omen for the English. In a scene echoing the age-old clash of military champions in single combat, on the first day of action the English knight Sir Henry de Bohun spotted Robert the Bruce in front of his troops, and aimed to strike a decisive early blow by charging at the Scottish leader on his warhorse, lance in hand. Mounted on a smaller and more nimble mount, Robert skilfully manoeuvred to dodge his opponent and, standing up in his stirrups, in the words of the epic medieval poem The Brus, “Struck him such a great blow, That neither hat or helmet could stop”, cleaving Sir Henry’s “head to the brains” and smashing his battleaxe in the process. In preparation for the main action the following day, the Scots devised tactics to negate English cavalry strength. They chose for the battlefield a site where heavy horsemen could not operate easily – the area was marshy and intersected by a network of streams – and pockmarked the landscape with a minefield-like network of covered pits or ‘pots’ designed to trap horses. Fighting in compact formations known as schiltrons, the Bruce’s pike-armed foot soldiers were able to resist the disordered attacks of the English cavalry, which eventually disintegrated and broke. As King Edward was led away from the field towards the security of Stirling, Scottish soldiers were able to get close enough to grab at the caparison (cloth covering) of his horse, which was wounded beneath him, forcing the king to remount in his humiliating flight. 3. Under his dead body English rule in France was brought to a violent end when a renowned commander became trapped beneath the corpse of his own horse In the summer of 1453, with the tide of the Hundred Years’ War having turned in France’s favour, the veteran English commander Sir John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, found himself at the head of an army attempting to relieve the beleaguered garrison at Castillon in Aquitaine. His target was the besieging French army’s fortified encampment outside the town and, encouraged by dust clouds from what he believed were retreating soldiers, he ordered his own troops to attack. Talbot was the only Englishman to remain mounted – on a white riding horse – and went into battle without armour, honouring a vow he had made to the French king while a prisoner some years earlier. It soon transpired, though, that the French were not retreating – in fact, the dust had simply been raised by horses leaving the camp – and that Talbot’s men were facing the whole French army, dug in behind their fortifications and ready to fire more than 200 guns. Talbot, against the advice of some of his subordinates, pressed on with the assault, possibly because he believed that “his name alone would cause the enemy to flee”. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2025/08/2AYGJ83-eae7084.jpg" width="1772" height="1181" alt="A brightly coloured image depicting a war scene. Many men, all dressed in armour and carrying spears and guns are attacking each other in a large group. One man is trapped under a white horse that has fallen down" title="A 15th-century illustration depicts the death of English commander John Talbot (bottom left), trapped under a stricken horse at the 1453 battle of Castillon (Image by Alamy)" /> What followed was a disaster for his forces: they were cut down by swathes of cannon fire, with every shot from the French artillery taking out up to six English soldiers. After two hours of fighting, the English army was attacked in the flank by a group of Bretons – and, as Talbot sought to deal with the threat, the whole French army sallied out from their camp to complete the rout. While attempting to steady his retreating forces, Talbot’s horse was struck by a cannonball. As the earl lay powerless beneath his steed, a French soldier dispatched him with an axe blow. Talbot’s smashed body was identified by his herald the following day, the telltale feature being a missing tooth in his lower jaw. An examination of his skeleton in the 19th century found evidence of a 7 x 1.6cm hole in his skull, confirming the violent manner of his death. Though described by his adversaries at the time as France’s “dread and terror”, the old earl was held in such respect by the French commanders that they founded a chapel on the spot where he had been killed – a fitting tribute to a veteran campaigner of the chivalric age. His horse received no such monument, though it had played a vital part in the first battle in which artillery proved to be the decisive weapon – and which was also the clash that ultimately led to the end of English rule in France. 4. Did a lost horse doom a dynasty? As the battle of Bosworth raged, Richard III launched a cavalry charge at Henry Tudor but ended up losing the throne – and his life “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” Richard III’s final words before his death at the battle of Bosworth, as imagined by Shakespeare, have a special place in English memory. Tudor propaganda has, famously, coloured popular views of that king’s character and reign, but we have a good understanding of the demise of England’s last Yorkist king – and it was an event in which horses played a central role, if not quite as portrayed by Shakespeare. On 22 August 1485, Richard’s army clashed with the forces of Henry Tudor in the Leicestershire countryside in what’s often considered to have been the final battle in the Wars of the Roses. Following an infantry engagement between the vanguards of the opposing forces, Richard – spotting that his rival was protected by only a small lifeguard – mounted a heavy cavalry charge at Henry. This was not necessarily the desperate act of a doomed monarch, as has been argued; it could have been a carefully calculated attempted decapitation of the rebel leader that would end the battle there and then. In the words of the prime Tudor source for the battle, Polydore Vergil, the king “strick his horse with the spurres” and charged, accompanied by a small body of capable and loyal knights. The gambit almost succeeded: Henry’s standard bearer was killed in the melee, but the charge was stopped and driven towards a marshy area. Richard’s actions were all the more remarkable given that previous battles in the Wars of the Roses had seen little in the way of cavalry action; most of the clashes had been brutal slugfests in which leaders as well as soldiers fought mainly on foot. The king’s attack ultimately proved to be a brief last hurrah for the fabled heavy cavalry charge by medieval knights. The grim reality of exactly how Richard met his end has become clearer since his remains, discovered beneath a Leicester car park in 2012, were subjected to scientific analysis. The concentration of multiple wounds on his head shows that he wasn’t wearing a helmet, and must have been dismounted when he suffered these blows. This accords with the account of Molinet, the only contemporary source detailing Richard’s final moments, who said that the king was killed by a Welsh halberdier after his horse became stuck in marshy ground. In a final indignity, Richard’s dead, naked body was hung over a horse to be taken back to Leicester for burial. A wound through the buttocks, revealed by analysis of the skeleton, suggests this was when a “humiliation injury” was inflicted on the royal corpse. What might have happened had Richard’s cavalry charge broken through and killed Henry Tudor? This is one of the great ‘what ifs’ of English history. In the event, that failure of horse-powered warfare proved the turning point of the battle that heralded the end of the Middle Ages – and tipped England into a new Tudor future. 5. How the mighty have fallen When Henry VIII took a tumble during a joust, he suffered an injury that may have transformed the Tudor dynasty Bosworth may have witnessed the last hurrah for the mounted knight charging across the battlefield, but the knightly tournament lost none of its importance. It remained the pre-eminent vehicle for displays of aristocratic masculinity well into the 16th century. Henry VIII took particular enjoyment in jousting, and constructed a series of purpose-built tiltyards at his lavish homes. It was at his palace and equestrian centre at Greenwich on 24 January 1536 that the 44-year-old Henry suffered a famous accident while jousting with his courtier and friend Sir Henry Norris. During a tilt, Henry’s lance hit Norris’s saddle – and the force of the impact toppled the king from his own saddle, with his horse landing on top of him. Some accounts detailing the severity of Henry’s injuries state that he was knocked unconscious for two hours. Others glossed over the episode, but there seems little doubt that the incident was serious. At the very least, the fall seems to have opened up an older leg injury that plagued the king for the rest of his life, and which also curtailed his ability to take part in hunting. Certainly, Henry never jousted again, and historians have speculated that this accident sparked a turning point in his reign and character. Over the years that followed, the once-athletic king became an increasingly unhealthy, unpredictable and despotic tyrant. While the horse in question may not have been wholly responsible for a sea change in the personality of the king, it may unwittingly have had a hand in the royal succession. Not long after Henry’s fall, Anne Boleyn miscarried his unborn son – a misfortune that, the queen and others believed, had been brought on by worry following the king’s accident. The exact cause of that tragic episode remains unknowable, of course – but if the pregnancy had gone to full term, and if Anne had given birth to a male heir, then the history of the Tudor dynasty could have been very different. Oliver H Creighton is professor of archaeology at the University of Exeter. Robert Liddiard is professor of history at the University of East Anglia. They are co-editors of Medieval Warhorse: Equestrian Landscapes, Material Culture and Zooarchaeology in Britain, AD 800–1550 (Liverpool University Press, 2025) This article was first published in the August 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine
The Bayeux Tapestry is finally coming home to Britain – and you can see it next year
With the loan of the Bayeux Tapestry to the UK confirmed, David Musgrove explains the historical significance of the embroidery’s potential arrival on British soil…
The Bayeux Tapestry – the near 70-metre long, 11th-century embroidery that tells the story of the Norman Conquest – looks set to be finally coming to Britain, loaned from France in exchange for a loan of the Lewis Chessmen and the treasures of Sutton Hoo. The embroidery is expected to be displayed in the British Museum between September 2026 and July 2027, and holds the promise of being one of the biggest historical exhibitions ever staged on these shores, rivalling the blockbuster Tutankhamun show at the British Museum in 1972. Many scholars are in agreement that the Tapestry was originally made in the 11th century, not too long after the Norman Conquest in 1066, in England, and likely by English seamstresses in Canterbury. It has, however, been in Bayeux since at least the 15th century. Today, the artefact is the property of the French state. The news that British and French authorities had agreed that the Tapestry would come to the UK was initially made public in January 2018, and, speaking on 5 May 2025, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer told HistoryExtra and BBC History Magazine that civil servants were still working on the loan. "The Bayeux Tapestry is a unique treasure,” said the Prime Minister, “and a symbol of the deep ties between Britain and France." "The conservation and protection of it is obviously crucial, and I know that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport continues to work closely with their counterparts in France on the planned loan." The loan coincides with the temporary closure of the Bayeux Tapestry's permanent home in Normandy, the Bayeux Tapestry Museum, while it undergoes refurbishment. That work includes an exciting plan to add an extension to the current 17th-century seminary building in which the Tapestry has been housed since 1983, and is scheduled to be completed by autumn 2027 – in time for the millennial commemorations of the birth of William the Conqueror. Following the announcement of the loan, the director of the British Museum, Nicholas Cullinan, added: “The Bayeux Tapestry is one of the most important and unique cultural artefacts in the world, which illustrates the deep ties between Britain and France and has fascinated people across geographies and generations. It is hard to overstate the significance of this extraordinary opportunity of displaying it at the British Museum." Three requests were made for the Bayeux Tapestry to be loaned to Britain in the 20th century: first in 1931, for an exhibition on French art at Burlington House in London, then in 1953 for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation and finally in 1966 on the 900th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings, when both the Victoria and Albert Museum and Westminster Abbey hoped to display the Tapestry. None of the requests were granted. Unravelling The Bayeux Tapestry Member exclusive | Expert historians unpick some of the biggest questions surrounding the Bayeux Tapestry, from its creation and purpose, to the incomplete story it recounts and its modern-day legacy Listen to all episodes now
The Bayeux Tapestry tells the story of the Norman Conquest, and also contains 93 embroidered penises – Professor George Garnett explains why
Historians have counted lots of things in the Bayeux Tapestry – animals, ships, hands and plants. But nobody had counted the number of penises it contained until Oxford historian Professor George Garnett decided to take on the challenge. David Musgrove invites George to discuss his findings, and explain why this is, in fact, serious research that helps us better understand this vital account of the Norman Conquest of 1066.
“I counted the penises in the Bayeux Tapestry and I have no regrets”: what one Oxford professor found when he studied the rudest bits of the embroidery
More than six years since Professor George Garnett totted up the depictions of male genitalia in the famous Bayeux Tapestry – causing a media storm in the process – and he has no regrets. Speaking to Professor Garnett and fellow Tapestry scholar Dr Christopher Monk, David Musgrove reveals how the surprisingly explicit subject matter still has plenty to tell us about our medieval forebears
It’s not too often that medieval historians grab national headlines, but when you get an Oxford academic counting penises in a world-famous embroidery, you’re sure to arouse media attention. On HistoryExtra in 2018, Professor George Garnett of St Hugh's College at the University of Oxford published his findings on the number of male genitalia stitched in the Bayeux Tapestry – and its importance. He counted 93 penises and, perhaps unsurprisingly, the research went viral. “I think my academic colleagues were mostly very entertained,” Garnett revealed in a 2025 follow-up interview on the HistoryExtra podcast. “One of them said to me, ‘You’re not a historian of masculinity; you’re a historian of masculinities, 93 of them.’” On the podcast | The 93 penises of the Bayeux Tapestry Most likely created in the late 11th century, the Bayeux Tapestry depicts the events leading up to and including the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. Beyond the grand battle narrative, the artwork is packed with curious details, some of which are surprisingly explicit. Garnett, following a rich academic tradition of counting items in the Tapestry, tallied up the number of penises it includes. “There are 88 attached to horses, and four – or possibly five – attached to human figures,” he explains. View Green Video on the source website What do the penises in the Bayeux Tapestry mean? Why so many? In the case of the horses, for the most part, the depiction of genitalia is simply anatomical detail, but there are some exceptions, notes Garnett. The designer of the Tapestry was evidently and – specifically – concerned with three horses’ penises in particular, he says. "The rest are just to demonstrate that the horses in question are stallions. But the ones that matter? They’re associated with important men.” Most notably, Harold Godwinson – who, as King Harold II, would die at Hastings – and his vanquisher, Duke William of Normandy, are shown on steeds with noticeably larger endowments. “William’s horse is by far the biggest,” Garnett notes. “And that’s not a coincidence.” Away from the equines, inclusions of human genitalia in medieval art aren’t entirely unique to the Bayeux Tapestry. As Garnett explains, there are quite a few sculptural depictions of genitalia in sheela-na-gig carvings on medieval churches. “I’m thinking in particular of Kilpeck Church in Herefordshire. But the genitalia depicted in those cases are female, whereas in the Bayeux Tapestry, there’s no evidence of any female genitalia at all – bar one instance of profuse pubic hair.” Where can you find the Bayeux Tapestry penises? So where are these human penises in the Tapestry? The Bayeux Tapestry tells the story of the Norman Conquest in its main central panel, but there are borders above and below. These contain decorative elements, beasts both real and mythical, and various mini action scenes that don’t at first glance seem to relate to the main narrative. It’s in these borders that the human penises lie. What does it all mean? Professor Garnett agrees with the argument made by his fellow Tapestry scholar Professor Stephen D White, who has established that some of the stories being told in the border of the Tapestry are visual references to Aesop’s Fables, the Classical Greek tales that used animals to deliver moral and life messages. Though we still don’t know who the designer of the tapestry was, they are quite clearly alluding to these fables, explains Garnett, and using the classical stories to comment on the main narrative. “We know the designer was learned – he was using [ancient Thracian] Phaedrus’s first-century Latin translation of Aesop’s fables, rather than some vague folk tradition.” Instead of being random crude additions, the depictions of nudity in the Bayeux Tapestry are making a point, says Garnett. “Sexual activity is involved, or shame, and that makes me think that the designer is covertly alluding to betrayal.” One of the most striking images supports this interpretation. In the so-called ‘Ælfgyva scene’, a woman seems to be mysteriously levitating while a cleric either caresses or accosts her. Beneath them, in the lower border, is a naked man with prominent genitals, crouching and apparently aping the stance of the priest. “What’s fascinating,” Garnett says, “is that everybody who saw the tapestry at the time must have known exactly what that was being referred to. But we don’t.” How far the intended audience at the time would have understood what the Tapestry was supposed to convey in the border scenes is impossible to say, and perhaps may not even have been a concern for the designer anyway. “The audience would have had to be very educated to pick up all the allusions,” Garnett says. “But it may be that the designer simply took pleasure in his own virtuosity – it didn’t matter to him whether every viewer caught all the references.” Despite the jokes and the media attention, Garnett insists that his work isn’t about sensationalism – it’s about understanding medieval minds. “The whole point of studying history is to understand how people thought in the past,” he says. “And medieval people were not crude, unsophisticated, dim-witted individuals.” His analysis of the Bayeux Tapestry reveals a world where humour, politics, and classical learning were intertwined. “The designer was an intelligent, highly educated individual, using literary allusions to subvert the standard story of the Norman Conquest.” Counting the penises in the Tapestry, then, is neither smutty nor silly. “What I’ve shown,” he concludes, “is that this is a serious, learned attempt to comment on the conquest – albeit in code.” So, does he regret the attention that his study of medieval penises has brought him? Not at all. “It didn’t take me very long,” he admits. “I’ve written books that took me 20 years. That article took me one afternoon. But if there’s even a mention of penises, suddenly it attracts vast numbers of people who would never dream of opening an academic journal.” Garnering this reach beyond academia did, as you might expect, invite some objections in social media commentary, which Garnett’s family delighted in passing onto the professor. “My sons were ecstatic at the latest abuse heaped upon me online. Someone wrote, ‘If only he’d looked in a mirror, he would have seen a 94th!’” A missed penis? There is one possible new twist in this story though – the chance that there could be a 94th penis in the Tapestry. In Professor Garnett’s count, the human genitals are all attached to naked figures, but there is one depiction early in the border of a clothed, running man with something hanging low beneath his tunic. Garnett is clear in his view that this is a scabbard of a sword or dagger, but there is an alternative take. Dr Christopher Monk is a Bayeux Tapestry scholar and an expert on Anglo-Saxon nudity, and he spoke to HistoryExtra. “I am in no doubt that the appendage is a depiction of male genitalia – the missed penis, shall we say? The detail is surprisingly anatomically fulsome”, says Monk. In 2016, Monk wrote a book chapter on nakedness in the Tapestry, which featured in the edited collection ‘Making Sense of the Bayeux Tapestry’, “and as far as I could see, no one had noticed it before. Having spent several years looking closely at depictions of nakedness in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts for my doctoral research, I think I had gotten my eye in, so to speak.” Monk also noted that significantly, “some of the stitches appear to be original: the pale thread of the circular testicles and possibly the tip, or glans, are so; the black stitches of the shaft are, though, later restoration.” As part of his investigation, Monk spoke to medieval embroidery expert Dr Alexandra Makin, on the nature of the stitching at this point in the border. “I knew there was some restoration in places. Alex had studied the back of the Tapestry and taken photographs, so was in a position to use her expertise in answering my queries.” Read more | How was the Bayeux Tapestry made? Dr Alexandra Lester-Makin explains “I wrote about Alex’s observations in a footnote for the aforementioned chapter. I also noted there that [19th-century antiquarian draughtsman] Charles Stothard restored the appendage in his published drawings in the early 1800s. As he only restored parts for which ‘traces of the design’ – needle holes and vestigial threads – were present when he studied the tapestry, he must have been confident in his restoration.” It seems, says Monk, that the observations by both Alex and Stothard corroborate each other, though neither is saying the appendage is a depiction of male genitals. “That’s my own interpretation of the stitches which, as I’ve implied, depict all the necessary parts – a penis, with its distinct glans, and two testicles.” If you follow this line of thought, then the penis count rises higher, and allows for even more examination of the Tapestry’s apparent fascination with the phallus. We’ll leave it to you to decide if you agree with Professor Garnett or Dr Monk, but either way, it’s clear that the rude parts of the Tapestry are there for a reason, and trying to unravel that reason helps us better understand the embroidery and what it can tell us today. Professor Garnett was talking to Dr David Musgrove on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation Unravelling The Bayeux Tapestry Member exclusive | Expert historians unpick some of the biggest questions surrounding the Bayeux Tapestry, from its creation and purpose, to the incomplete story it recounts and its modern-day legacy Listen to all episodes now
The second Norman conquest: how William Rufus captured a forgotten kingdom
William of Normandy sailed across the Channel and conquered England in 1066 – or at least that’s how the story goes. Here, Sophie Thérèse Ambler and James Morris reveal how one northern stronghold remained untouched for another 26 years...
The Bayeux Tapestry depicts one of the best-known episodes in English history: the Norman Conquest of 1066. The cavalry of William, Duke of Normandy, ride into battle at Hastings against the army of King Harold Godwinson, bodies littering the ground. “Here King Harold has been killed,” proclaims the Tapestry’s text, and next: “The English have turned to flight.” Thus, Duke William became William the Conqueror, seized the kingdom, and imposed long-lasting Norman rule. We all know the Conquest of 1066 saw the Normans seize England – but this is not entirely true. In fact, William only seized the polity ruled by Harold: the Anglo-Saxon kingdom, whose royal heartlands lay in Wessex and London. But beyond the limits of Harold’s rule lay the Kingdom of Cumbria. This realm was not conquered by William in 1066, and it mostly maintained its independence for another generation. Only in 1092 did William’s son, William II – better known as William Rufus – annex the southern part of the kingdom to the English state, extending Norman rule in the north-west to Hadrian’s Wall. Fractured by conquest The answer to this question, perhaps, lies in its lack of longevity. Only emerging in the ninth century AD, the kingdom’s lands had originally been part of the mighty Kingdom of Northumbria, which in its heyday stretched from the Mersey to the Humber estuary in the south, and from Ayrshire to the Firth of Forth in the north. Famously, the Northumbrian kingdom cradled Christianity at Lindisfarne, the community founded by Saint Aidan and Saint Oswald and celebrated by its own great historian, Bede. Read more | Anglo-Saxon conversion: the coming of the cross (at the point of a sword) In the 860s, Northumbria was fractured by Viking conquest, with the Norse invaders establishing a kingdom south of the Tees, the English rulers at Bamburgh Castle taking the northeast from the Tyne to the Firth of Forth, and the Kingdom of Strathclyde – based around Glasgow – seizing the chance to expand southwards into the Lake District. In the process, the Kingdom of Cumbria was forged west of the Pennines, breaching Hadrian’s Wall and reaching from southern Scotland into what is now the modern county of Cumbria. By the time Rufus annexed the kingdom, it had only been in existence for around 200 years. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/04/HIP2615667-68f233a.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="William II – also known as William Rufus – annexed the southern part of the Kingdom of Cumbria in 1092. Only the portion north of Hadrian’s Wall would remain out of Norman hands (Photo by The British Library)" title="William II – also known as William Rufus – annexed the southern part of the Kingdom of Cumbria in 1092. Only the portion north of Hadrian’s Wall would remain out of Norman hands (Photo by The British Library)" /> Another reason for its obscurity lies in the relative lack of documentary evidence, compared to other kingdoms. When it comes to studying the Anglo-Saxon state conquered by William I, historians have a phenomenal source: Domesday Book. Compiled in 1086, the survey encompasses every settlement under the king’s rule, reporting landholders and households, cultivation, industry and buildings. With this monumental record, historians can reconstruct the society of Anglo-Saxon England and the process of Norman regime-building: from the slaughter or ejection of the existing aristocracy and their replacement by William’s friends, to the ravaging of Yorkshire now known as the ‘Harrying of the North’. Read more | Was William the Conqueror a war criminal? The brutal story of the Harrying of the North Yet, the Kingdom of Cumbria was not part of this story, so does not appear in Domesday Book. Nor can Cumbria boast the other written evidence abounding for Anglo-Saxon England – namely the charters recording grants of land and privileges. In fact, the written evidence generated in Cumbria is limited to a solitary document: a writ issued in the mid- or late-11th century by a man named Gospatric, who was possibly the Earl of Northumbria. In the text, Gospatric addresses his officers “and all men, free and dreng [a tenant by agricultural service], that dwell on all the lands that were Cumbrian”, granting his peace to a man named Thorfynn mac Thore. Moreover, the writ only survives in a flawed, 13th-century copy and is written mostly in Old English, making it a rather enigmatic source. The kingdom’s archaeological record is also relatively sparse. Cumbria today is famous for its Neolithic Langdale axes, Bronze Age stone circles, brooding Roman fortifications, and late medieval remains of border conflict. But whereas these have all been widely studied, little energy has been dedicated to sites from the early Middle Ages. A blending of cultures Fortunately, the focus is now changing, and recent investigations reveal that Roman settlements – once thought to have been abandoned – were occupied during the Kingdom of Cumbria’s existence. At the forts of Maryport and Papcastle, for instance, archaeologists have found evidence of large timber buildings, dating to the early Middle Ages and developed over multiple generations. Similarly, at Stainton, just north of Carlisle, recent work has uncovered a small settlement consisting of five structures that dates to the period between the eighth and tenth centuries. This is one of few sites seemingly established for the first time in the early Middle Ages, suggesting that the Kingdom of Cumbria was built atop Roman foundations. Combining history and archaeology with the evidence of language, place names and artefacts also offers a glimpse inside the Cumbrian kingdom. It looked, and sounded, very different to its Anglo-Saxon counterpart. Many of Cumbria’s people were Brittonic speakers, meaning their language was the ancestor of modern Welsh and Cornish. Among them lived settlers from Viking colonies in Ireland and Scotland and the Viking kingdom of York. Viking influence is embedded in the Norse place names scattered across Cumbria – from Scafell to Skiddaw. This blending of cultures is reflected in sculptures, too. Scandinavian-style ‘hogback’ tombstones preserved at Lowther, on the eastern border of the kingdom, and the Gosforth Cross on Cumbria’s western coast, are among the most notable examples: the latter displaying carved scenes of the Norse myth Ragnarok alongside images of Christ’s crucifixion. The varied peoples were embraced by their kingdom’s title: the word ‘Cumbria’ is derived from the Brittonic term ‘Cymry’, meaning ‘inhabitants of the same region’. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/04/D4YK7C-6c27b2c.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="The Gosforth Cross – which stands outside St Mary’s Church in Gosforth, Cumbria – features a combination of Christian and Norse imagery, highlighting the diversity of the people who once lived in the region (Photo by Ashley Cooper/Alamy)" title="The Gosforth Cross – which stands outside St Mary’s Church in Gosforth, Cumbria – features a combination of Christian and Norse imagery, highlighting the diversity of the people who once lived in the region (Photo by Ashley Cooper/Alamy)" /> So – why was this distant, north-western kingdom suddenly so desirable to William Rufus, when his father had ignored it? The answer partly lies in the nature of the rivalries that were emerging in the late-11th century. Rufus had a contender for his throne in Edgar Ætheling, heir to the House of Wessex, who was sheltering at the court of Máel Coluim III, King of Scots. Máel Coluim held sway in Cumbria, having swept through the kingdom in 1069–70 and installed a client ruler, Dolfin. Then, in 1091, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the Scottish king “came from Scotland into England and ravaged a great part of it”. Rufus was able to force Máel Coluim into submission, but he needed a permanent solution. Thus, “[he] went north to Carlisle… drove out Dolfin” and established Norman rule. But although Rufus was responding to circumstance, his Cumbrian conquest fitted a wider pattern of Norman territorial expansion: Sicily in 1061, England in 1066, and later – in 1098–99 – Antioch, Jerusalem and their hinterlands during the First Crusade. In fact, the Normans thrived on conquest. “When they intend to overrun a country, they are unbridled,” wrote the Byzantine historian Anna Comnena. “Whenever battle and war occur, there is a baying in their hearts.” Talking of Rufus, English historian William of Malmesbury remarked that he was “without peer in our own times, had he not been overshadowed by his father’s greatness”. The Kingdom of Cumbria enabled Rufus not only to extend the reaches of his realm, but also to cement his reputation for years to come. Rufus’s campaign brought the mighty Norman war machine to bear on Cumbria. The Bayeux Tapestry reveals what this probably looked like: the amassing of arms and armour, and horses to carry Norman knights. The cavalry was critical to the Norman way of war, which avoided risky pitched battles and aimed instead to force surrender by devastating the target region. One of Rufus’s later campaigns was described by the chronicler Orderic Vitalis: the king “advanced rapidly… burning, plundering and taking prisoners, in this way destroying that fair region’s wealth”. The Bayeux Tapestry depicts such operations. Under the heading “here a house is burned”, a woman stands helpless, clutching her son’s hand, as Norman troops torch her homestead. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/7/2024/04/GettyImages-55995273-ece549c.jpg" width="620" height="413" alt="Scenes from the Bayeux Tapestry offer clues as to how the Norman campaign on Cumbria, and they structures they may have built, would have looked like (Photo by Art Images via Getty Images)" title="Scenes from the Bayeux Tapestry offer clues as to how the Norman campaign on Cumbria, and they structures they may have built, would have looked like (Photo by Art Images via Getty Images)" /> Systematic destruction was also accompanied by the Norman trademark: castle building. The lone documentary record of Rufus’s Cumbrian campaign, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, states that Rufus took Carlisle “and restored the city and built a castle. He drove out Dolfin, who had ruled the land there, then garrisoned the castle”. This was probably a simple wooden castle, with an earthen bank and ditch, erected rapidly by an unskilled workforce (Carlisle’s present-day stone castle was likely begun by Rufus’s successor, Henry I). The Tapestry portrays Odo, bishop of Bayeux, commanding the construction of one such structure at Hastings, with labourers using picks and spades to build a mound with a wooden keep. Odo’s was a motte and bailey castle but, across the countryside, the Normans built simpler structures without an inner mound and keep, known as ringworks. Statements of power In Cumbria, new research is again uncovering what we think is one such site. At Lowther stand the remains of a partial ringwork castle: a monumental mound sited on the edge of a dramatic promontory, overlooking the river Lowther below. A panopticon, engineered to see and to be seen for miles, it would have been a glaring statement of Norman power. The mound – built using alternating layers of earth and local stone – was likely surmounted by a timber palisade, with its entranceway guarded by a gatehouse. Inside, a surface of small river pebbles formed an internal courtyard. Lowther can also illuminate another key element of Cumbria’s annexation to the Norman realm. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that, “after coming back south he [Rufus] sent many farmers there with their women and livestock to live there and cultivate the land”. Listen | Joanna Story answers listener questions about the Anglo-Saxon kings and kingdoms Indeed, in front of the entrance to Lowther’s ringwork castle are the remains of a village, seemingly established at the same time. They are linked by a trackway – a single layer of cobbles only two metres wide – and preliminary investigations suggest the villagers lived in a handful of wooden longhouses, built on levelled rectangular platforms. So far, excavations have yielded little pottery or metal artefacts, fitting with Rufus’s transplantation to Cumbria of low-status farmers with few possessions. While the castle presided over the surrounding landscape, its gatehouse overlooked the village, providing Lowther’s lord visual dominion over his tenants. The village was bounded to the north by a church, completing the classic configuration for a medieval manor. With these small plantation settlements, Norman royal rule took root slowly in Cumbria. What happened to Cumbria after Rufus’s campaign? The next written evidence comes in 1130, courtesy of England’s first surviving Exchequer record. This reveals the Norman formation of Cumberland and Westmorland out of the old Cumbrian kingdom. But these were not shires proper, and were overseen by an administrator rather than fully fledged sheriffs. The evidence mounts for the 12th and 13th centuries, revealing how society across the far north retained longstanding ties with Scotland. While the King of Scots, David I (died 1153), absorbed the northern part of the old Cumbrian kingdom into Scotland, the borderland lords intermarried with the Scottish aristocracy. Even as the Anglo-Scottish border crystallised in the 13th century, monasteries on both sides led the veneration of saints of the ancient Kingdom of Northumbria: Aidan, Oswald and Bede. This was the cultural nexus historians have dubbed ‘Middle Britain’ – a cross-border community, straddling both England and Scotland. Yet this too would be ripped asunder by conflict, in the Anglo-Scottish wars. The shade of the Cumbrian kingdom was summoned in 1974, when the Norman shires of Cumberland and Westmorland were abolished, and County Cumbria created. The modern county reaches beyond the old kingdom’s borders, southward into Lancashire North of the Sands, and incorporating the West Riding of Yorkshire. The lands north of Hadrian’s Wall are resolutely severed, and Cumbria’s heart has migrated, now nestled in the wild beauty of the Lake District: a reminder that political geographies are forever shifting, kingdoms and states ebbing and flowing with the historical tide. Sophie Thérèse Ambler is a reader in medieval history at Lancaster University; James Morris is a senior lecturer in archaeology at the University of Central Lancashire This article first appeared in the May 2024 issue of BBC History Magazine
Norman women: the power behind the thrones
History tends to focus on kings, warriors and bishops – but a number of 11th-century women were hugely influential in war, state and church. Medieval historian Leonie Hicks introduces a quartet of powerful Norman women
This article might best begin by paraphrasing a popular bon mot: ‘behind every successful Norman man was a brilliant woman’. Here I will focus on four of them: Gunnor (c950–1031), Emma of Normandy (c985–1052), Matilda of Flanders (c1031–1083) and Sichelgaita (1040–1090). We are fortunate that enough evidence survives from the 11th and 12th centuries to provide insights into the lives, activities and roles expected of the women who married Normans, or who were themselves Norman and married into other ruling houses. Chronicles such as the History of the Normans by Dudo of Saint-Quentin, and works by Orderic Vitalis, Amatus of Montecassino and Anna Comnena, furnish us with glimpses into how these women were regarded by their contemporaries. In addition, charters, epitaphs and the remarkable Encomium Emmae Reginae – a lavishly illustrated document recounting events involving Cnut and his queen, Emma of Normandy – reveal how the women themselves might have wished to be remembered. Our knowledge of the lives of these women reflects the survival of the evidence, and also the Normans’ experiences across Europe. History records these women primarily because they married powerful men, forming politically significant unions. Gunnor’s marriage to Duke Richard I of Normandy sometime after 968 helped consolidate ducal power at a time when his influence did not extend much beyond the area centred on Rouen in the east of the region. She was a member of another Danish kin group and helped strengthen connections between the competing groups of Scandinavian settlers. Emma, daughter of Gunnor and Richard, sailed across the channel to marry Æthelred II (the ‘Unready’), king of the English, in 1002. This was an alliance designed to secure peace at a time of renewed Viking attacks on the English coast; a previous treaty reveals that raiders had been finding shelter in Norman harbours. Following Æthelred’s death in 1016, Emma married his successor by conquest, Cnut – and if she had any choice in the matter, it was almost certainly Hobson’s choice. Read more: The love lives of medieval queens Matilda brought to her marriage to Duke William II (later William the Conqueror) allies on Normandy’s eastern border, while Sichelgaita of Salerno, a Lombard princess, acted as a peace-weaver through her 1058 union with Robert Guiscard who had emerged as the leading Norman power in southern Italy in the second half of the 11th century. Gunnor, Emma and Sichelgaita all married men who had had previous wives and, in some cases, children. The fact that their sons were able to inherit is testament to their political acumen. For Gunnor and Matilda, the situation was fairly straightforward, and their numerous children played significant roles in the court and church, and through marriage, helping to bolster their families’ power and influence. Queenly qualities Surviving evidence provides details of the qualities valued in noble women. Dudo of Saint-Quentin described Gunnor as being “fortified by an abundance of all good qualities”. Prior to her marriage she had been Richard’s concubine for several years; after the death of his first wife, his followers pressed him to formalise his union with Gunnor. Evidence presented in her favour said she was “born from magnificent stock, beautiful to look at and attractive, cautious and prudent in counsel, devoted in her feelings, disciplined in emotion, restrained in her advice, mild in her dealings with people, hard working and wise in all matters”. She also had a very good memory, exploited by Dudo when writing during her widowhood. This paints a picture of a duchess who boasted much the same qualities as any male adviser in the ducal court. In a charter for the abbey of Sainte-Trinité (La Trinité) in Caen, dating from after the conquest of England, Matilda is described as “the most noble of queens, the daughter of Baldwin, most energetic and famous count of Flanders, and the most famous niece of Henry, king of the French”. There is a sense that Matilda’s lineage was highly significant, both in terms of how she saw herself and also the lustre this added to her marriage. Her epitaph emphasises her double royalty, through descent and by marriage. William’s reign as duke had begun uncertainly (he was only seven or eight when his father died on pilgrimage) and his illegitimate birth did not make for smooth succession. His marriage to Matilda (c1051/2) added legitimacy to his court. The qualities valued in Gunnor and Matilda also found echoes in a brief description of Sichelgaita by Amatus of Montecassino: “she was of noble parentage, beautiful in body, and very wise”. She was a daughter of the Salernitan royal house, so in marrying Robert formed an alliance between her brother and her husband in a region where competing factions fought for power. However, it was when Robert ousted her brother that his marriage to Sichelgaita really proved its worth. He had no claim to Salerno other than right of conquest, but his wife, with her birth connections, provided necessary legitimacy and continuity to help smooth the transfer of power. It was almost certainly for this same reason that Cnut married Emma. Following his assumption of the English throne in 1016 he sent for the dowager queen and married her. Though Norman rather than English, Emma provided continuity with the previous regime following a bloody conquest. Read more: What the Normans did for us During their marriages, and subsequently as widows (with the exception of Matilda who predeceased her husband), these women exercised power in various ways. One of the most significant was through patronage, particularly of the church. This was not just a means of expressing piety and ensuring prayers for the souls of one’s family and self but, crucially, as a way of imposing authority and making peace. Gunnor held lands in the west of Normandy, particularly the Cotentin peninsula, an area that largely fell outside ducal control. One of the significant powers in the area was the abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel, traditionally under the protection of the dukes of Brittany. Gunnor made many gifts to the abbey, recorded in its 12th-century cartulary (collection of deeds or charters) along with a line drawing of the duchess handing over her charter to the monks. Though this is not a contemporary depiction, it demonstrates the importance of the gifts and marks a shift in the abbey’s patronage, bringing it more firmly under Norman control. Matilda of Flanders also exercised patronage as a way of bolstering authority. The great 12th-century chronicler Orderic Vitalis, writing at the monastery of Saint-Évroult in Normandy, records that, after the refoundation of the abbey, Matilda gave the monks “a costly chasuble and cape for the divine office and a hundred Rouen pounds for work on the refectory”. This monastery lay in a contested area towards the southern border of the duchy, so grants from the ducal house acted as a marker of protection from potentially predatory local lords. La Trinité, founded by Matilda, received gifts of land and money, and acted as an impetus to economic development in Caen – at the time, a new town and William’s capital in the west of Normandy. In this La Trinité mirrored her husband William’s monastery of Saint-Étienne, also in Caen. Emma’s gifts to churches during her marriage to Cnut were particularly significant in restoring peace and establishing confidence in her husband’s position as a Christian ruler (Cnut’s family had been Christian for only three generations). The English church was impoverished following the turbulence and taxations of Æthelred’s reign and the Viking raids and conquests. Emma gifted vestments and altar cloths to the church at Ely, which housed the shrine of a significant Anglo-Saxon saint, Æthelthryth. Winchester, the royal capital of Wessex, also enjoyed her patronage, as did Canterbury, the mother church of the realm, founded by Saint Augustine. Such gifts of land, books, vestments and other liturgical paraphernalia went some way not only to restoring the glory of the church but also establishing the royal couple in traditions of Christian rulership. Royal relics This activity was supported by one of Emma’s more remarkable traits: she was a relic collector. She notably acquired the bodies of Saint Bartholemew and Saint Ouen, keeping parts for herself and donating the rest to Canterbury. This might seem rather grisly to modern sensibilities, but such relics were highly venerated and sought after. They could be the focus for private devotion or establish a centre of pilgrimage, increasing the revenue and prestige of a particular church while gilding the memory of the patron. Emma’s standing as a benefactor of the church is demonstrated in an illustration in the Liber Vitae of New Minster Winchester, the ‘Book of Life’ that commemorated its patrons. She and Cnut are shown presenting a cross to the altar, while above them Christ is enthroned in majesty, flanked by the Virgin Mary on his right and Saint Peter on his left. Mary and Emma share the distinction of being placed at Christ’s right hand. Sichelgaita’s patronage of the important abbey of Montecassino alongside that of her husband also helped to restore the community’s wealth and establish good relations between the church and the Normans; Robert and his family had previously despoiled the monastery’s lands. Amatus records that, such was Sichelgaita’s devotion to the abbey and to Abbot Desiderius in particular, “she seemed more like a daughter to him”. Evidence also survives demonstrating how these women acted in government and helped to administer justice. The survival of charters and writs – encompassing many of the decisions relating to law, gifts or transfers of land, or other matters – is patchy for this period. We do know, however, that these women all acted as witnesses or grantors at various stages during their careers. Sometimes these documents also cast light on the lives of other women not otherwise recorded. A charter from the abbey of Jumièges concerning a substituted child not only reveals Matilda and William acting together, but also how a widow by the name of Oringa was able to make money by renting another woman’s child to pass off as her own to continue receiving maintenance payments from the father. Literary and chronicle evidence also sheds light on the women’s roles. A remarkable poem by Warner of Rouen from the early 11th century shows Gunnor in her widowhood as active at court and making decisions – specifically, to free the wife of the wandering enslaved poet Morihut. There is undoubtedly an element of flattery in Warner’s description of Gunnor as “the leading person of the kingdom”, but there is no doubting the fact that she played a significant role in the government of Normandy well into her old age. One event in particular shows how a duchess could play an important part in her husband’s ambitions and the wider politics of her time: the conquest of England in 1066. Read more: William the Conqueror: hero or villain? A document from Fécamp, Normandy known as the ‘Ship List’ – a record of people who contributed to the fleet – shows that Matilda provided Mora, the duke’s flagship for the invasion fleet, and that “on its prow Matilda had fitted [a statue of] a child who with his right hand pointed to England and with his left hand held an ivory horn against his mouth”. The Bayeux Tapestry shows this ship also carrying the papal banner granted by Alexander II, though the child is shown as being on the stern. Other figures in the list included leading nobles who did not take part in the battle for various reasons, not least because they held lands in sensitive regions of Normandy, such as the borders, that needed protecting. One of those men, Roger of Montgomery, had acted as regent with Matilda during the duke’s campaigns. She thus played a significant role in the planning and success of the conquest. Sichelgaita also seems to have played a significant role in Robert’s military activities. She accompanied him during the campaigns led by his brother Roger in Sicily against the Byzantine empire. This suggests that Robert valued his wife’s counsel and company. A remarkable illustration of the effect that she had on the army’s morale is provided by Anna Comnena, the 12th-century Byzantine princess who wrote a biography of her father, Alexius I. Anna noted that Sichelgaita travelled on campaign and “when she donned her armour [she] was indeed a formidable sight”. It does not matter whether or not she actually wore armour – though evidence from other chronicles suggests that women might well protect themselves in this way – but rather that she was demonstrating her position next to her husband in a very visible way: she identified wholly with his cause. On another occasion she supposedly shamed the fleeing Normans into standing and fighting the Byzantine army by charging them with a spear. There is more than an element of poking fun at the Normans’ perceived cowardice in Anna’s account, but Sichelgaita herself emerges as formidable and indispensable. Read more: Ælfthryth: England’s first queen In memoriam Finally, these women all left behind indications of how they wanted to be remembered. Gunnor’s prodigious memory helped shape the very first history of the Normans, and her patronage of literary figures suggests some approval for the way she was portrayed. Emma commissioned the Encomium to push her version of the events of the turbulent early to mid-11th century; it painted her as good company, generous to the poor, a supporter of widows and loved by her people. Through the pen of Amatus, monk of Montecassino under Abbot Desiderius, so beloved of Sichelgaita, we get a sense of a woman who managed the conflicting expectations of her natal and marital families. Matilda’s sense of identity is best expressed through her epitaph and gifts to La Trinité. The latter included personal items such as cases, but also “a chasuble [a priest’s garment] made at Winchester by the wife of Ealdred”, a cloak, two crosses on gold chains, a chain to hang up an altar lamp, candlesticks and, significantly, her royal regalia. Additionally one of Matilda’s daughters, Cecilia, was given as an oblate to La Trinité, and later became its abbess. She was thus well-placed to ensure the continuation of her mother’s royal memory. Leonie Hicks is senior lecturer in medieval history at Canterbury Christ Church University This article was first published in BBC History Magazine's The Story of the Normans' bookazine