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An extraordinary cultural loan is about to take place: soon, while its home in France is being improved, the Bayeux Tapestry will be displayed in the British Museum for two years. This will give members of the British public, along with visitors to London from overseas, the chance to get up close to one of the founding documents of England’s story. One of the foremost medievalists in the country, John is in a prime position to lead the discussion with Clive on this unparallelled work of art.
The survival of the so-called tapestry – really a piece of embroidery – is itself remarkable. Only one section of this ancient textile has disappeared; the rest of the 224ft composition remains almost incredibly intact. Where was it made? Who stitched it? Who composed the design? These questions cannot be answered with certainty. There is a likely candidate, though, for the patron who commissioned it. This was William the Conqueror’s half-brother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, who was also Earl of Kent; he may have ordered it for the consecration of his cathedral in Bayeux.
If the origins of the Bayeux Tapestry are obscure, the story-telling is not. John and Clive delight in the vivid and economical narrative, as well as the information it coincidentally displays about palaces, boats, horses, feasting and Norman armour. Although celebrated in its time, the tapestry was largely forgotten until ‘rediscovered’ by an 18th-century monk. Later, Hitler regarded the Bayeux Tapestry as an object he was anxious to display in Berlin but luckily the liberation of Paris occurred before he was able to take it out of the country.