1066 and All That: The Bayeux Tapestry

What does the Bayeux Tapestry tell us about the events of 1066? Did King Harold really get an arrow in the eye? And does the Tapestry really depict a bizarre medieval sex scandal? Join Alastair and James as they tell the story of Bayeux Tapestry and explore what it tells us about the power of art to shape the historical imagination. Follow Stories of Art on Instagram: @storiesofart.heni If you want to see the artworks discussed in this episode you can switch on video in your podcast app at any time. Artworks in this episode: The Bayeux Tapestry, 11th century Recommended Reading: The Story of the Bayeux Tapestry: Unravelling the Norman Conquest by David Musgrove and Michael Lewis, 2026 For more great art content visit www.heni.com or visit the Heni Talks YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@HENITalks Hosts: Alastair Sooke and Dr James Fox Additional Research: Laura Sovilla Social Producer: Grace Dewar Producer and Editor: Ben Harding Executive Producer: Emma Cahusac

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Welcome to Stories of Art. I'm Alastair Sooke.

• 0:04Speaker 01

  And I'm James Fox.

• 0:10Speaker 00

  A helmeted warrior in a chainmail shirt stands tall and proud in the middle of a battlefield. In one hand, he holds a kite-shaped patterned shield studded with enemy arrows like darts around a bullseye. With the other, he tugs at another fatal shaft, which seems to have dodged this protective strip of metal attached to his helmet covering his nose and penetrated his eye. Moments later, it seems we encounter this hero again, tumbling to the ground, grimacing, weaponless, as a mounted opponent wielding a massive sword hacks at his leg. And above, there's a Latin inscription: hic Harold Rex interfectus est. Or here,

• 0:55Speaker 00

  King Harold has been killed. And it's alerting us to the significance of this grisly scene because we are looking at a depiction of the demise of the last Anglo-Saxon King of England, Harold II, who died almost 1,000 years ago on the 14th of October 1066, at the Battle of Hastings, which was the main event of what's been described as the most traumatic episode in English history, the Norman conquest. Now, James, this is such a famous historical moment, isn't it? And a lot of its fame, I think, derives from the artefact that I've been describing, which is this monumental

• 1:36Speaker 00

  medieval embroidery, almost as long as a football pitch is wide, known as the Biotapestry. And it's so familiar, definitely for people like us who've been brought up in Britain, maybe less so for listeners elsewhere. And I think partly because of that, it's easy to forget that as well as being this very important primary historical source, it is also a work of art. Can you recall, even when it first registered on your radar?

• 2:07Speaker 01

  I don't think I can. You know what? I don't think any English person can. Because in this country, the Biotapestry is so entrenched in our culture that it's become part of the mental wallpaper, hasn't it? It's become part of, to pardon the pun, the fabric of what it means to be English. And you know, as I was cycling over here this morning, Alistair, to record this episode, I was thinking, what are the equivalents in other countries? And the only things I could come up with were maybe Trajan's Column in Rome, maybe the Parthenon in Athens, maybe the Great Wall of China. But unlike those things, Alistair, the Biotapestry is not some great monument carved into stone. It is a fragile strip of fabric. And it's miraculous, really, that it has survived and in such good condition

• 2:52Speaker 01

  for the best part of 1,000 years.

• 2:54Speaker 00

  It is essentially unique in terms of its survival. It's that remarkable. And it is vast. As we're recording this, and we'll talk about this later, there's been a much-hyped, much-publicised—there will be a much-hyped, much-publicised exhibition at the British Museum where the Biotapestry is coming to England via Kent, where probably it was made. We'll get into all of that later, for the first time in 1,000 years.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  Another Norman invasion.

• 3:20Speaker 00

  Another Norman invasion. I suspect that the revelation of that show is going to be the size of this as an artefact. You know, I was sort of describing it, comparing it to the width of a football pitch, but it's—what is it? It's about 223, 224 feet in length. You know, it's a continuous strip. There's the main narrative, which runs all the way through. But then above and below, you have these borders, mostly ornamental, sometimes lots of strange little moments, lovely, odd passages, which suggest commentary, perhaps, on the main action. And I think in the sources, there are lots of descriptions

• 4:00Speaker 00

  of these wondrous ornate tapestries, embroideries, wall hangings in the medieval era, but none have survived. So to have one that's this big that has survived is totally mind-blowing. And there are also just so many myths, I think, that still surround the Biotapestry.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  It's an object that is surrounded by so many mysteries, so many questions, the question of who commissioned it, who made it, who designed it, where was it made, when was it made, how historically accurate is it? And over the course of our discussion, we're going to try to answer some of those questions. But one thing, I did want to relate back to something you said earlier. I think because of its historical importance, and it does depict a moment that is a serious turning point in English history, there's no question about that. Because of its historical importance and because of its over-familiarity, we rarely actually look at it as an artwork. We rarely think of it as a thing that someone invented, someone designed, people made. And I hope that in the course of this conversation,

• 5:01Speaker 01

  we're going to discuss it as an artwork, an artwork that has very significant strengths, but also, I would, I will say, some very significant weaknesses.

• 5:09Speaker 00

  Ah, interesting. Okay, well, tee that up. We'll do a bit of fisticuffs later, the Battle of Hastings, Mark II. I mean, you compare it to—the Parthenon's a very interesting analogy. I was sort of thinking, that familiarity—I don't know why this image came into my head. You know, when you're travelling by train, and we both live in London, you're travelling somewhere outside of London, and you just look out the window, and it's a beautiful day, and there's just gorgeous verdant rolling English countryside. For some reason, it feels like that. It's as familiar and reassuring, and I think beautiful. And one of the cliches about it is, of course, that it's the equivalent of a comic strip, is this sort of 11th-century comic strip. And there is an element of truth to that. But it also belies aspects of the tapestry. And I think, even though it is

• 5:54Speaker 00

  technically an embroidery, we can describe that in a moment, we probably will refer to it as a tapestry, I think it belies, for example, the brutality of its depiction of battle. I suddenly thought, this is like a sort of 11th-century Guernica, really.

• 6:08Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah.

• 6:09Speaker 00

  And it belies, as you're saying, the subtlety of its storytelling and its artistic invention. And so, yes, I mean, I'm totally on side with approaching this as a work of art, rather than necessarily a historical document, if you like.

• 6:25Speaker 01

  Well, Alistair, so much to get through. Let's get started.

• 6:28Speaker 00

  This is then the story of the Biotapestry.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Alistair, before we get to the object itself, can I do some scene setting?

• 6:43Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 6:43Speaker 01

  You know I love a bit of scene setting.

• 6:44Speaker 00

  Absolutely, yeah, yeah.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  So I would like to bring our listeners, our viewers, back to the 11th century, back to the 1060s, to Anglo-Saxon England. Now, there is a sense nowadays that Anglo-Saxon England was a dark, primitive place. This isn't true at all. Anglo-Saxon England at the time, in the 1060s, was one of the richest and most sophisticated societies in Europe. It was very well governed, very well administrated. And it had a king who had ruled for 20 years or so, called Edward the Confessor. Now, I really like Edward. I think he's, by the standards of the day, he's a really gentle, humane, pious individual. He tries to avoid war. He builds Westminster Abbey, so what's not to like?

• 7:26Speaker 00

  This is why he's known as the Confessor, his piety.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Very, very religious individual. But he makes one catastrophic mistake, and that is that he doesn't have any children. Now, we don't quite know why. He is married. It's possible they were trying and failing to have children. It's also possible he was celibate, that he was, you know, too busy confessing to get his end away. But anyway, regardless of the reason, they do not have children, and so he does not have a natural successor. And so when Edward the Confessor dies on the 5th of January 1066, he is succeeded by a man called Harold Godwinson.

• 8:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Who is the most powerful aristocrat in England. He's the Earl of Wessex. He's very different to Edward. I mean, Edward is a kind of Dumbledore figure with white beard, that kind of person. Whereas Harold is much younger, he's our age, and like us, he's a brute, strong man of action.

• 8:20Speaker 00

  Absolutely right.

• 8:21Speaker 01

  He has an enormous handlebar moustache. So he becomes king straight afterwards. But there are lots of people in England and beyond England who are not happy about the new king. And one of them lives across the channel in modern-day France, and that is William Duke of Normandy. William is also a very formidable figure. He's younger, I think, than Harold, he's in his 30s. He's a real street fighter. I mean, he's someone who grew up in a war-torn environment, really knows how to survive, incredibly strong. There are these legends that go around that he can jump onto a horse in full armour without any assistance.

• 8:56Speaker 00

  One of the things I find interesting about his depiction in the tapestry is he's often wielding just a club.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:01Speaker 00

  I think it speaks to that. Everyone else has sort of proper weapons, but he just is bashing people to death, seemingly, with the implication with this club.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  This is classic William. Anyway, William is not happy that Harold is king, and he wants to become the King of England. And so, these two protagonists will soon find themselves on a collision course. And their, I suppose, their jewel, their Game of Thrones, to coin a phrase, is really the subject of the tapestry, isn't it?

• 9:29Speaker 00

  It's so interesting, because you've offered a really lovely synopsis there of the situation before. One of the great myths about the Biotapestry is that—I think there's this perception, it only really depicts the Battle of Hastings. I mean, almost—I think it's around two-thirds of its length—is describing some of the events that lead up to the Battle of Hastings, probably starting in 1064, to the battle itself, 1066, and covering much of the ground that you've described. But it does edit out, of course, a lot of the complexity of the history. As we go through, I'm sure we'll talk about some of the other contenders for the throne after Edward the Confessor's death, who are essentially edited out of the tapestry altogether. And I think you're right. I think part of that

• 10:14Speaker 00

  decision-making on the part of the—let's assume that the artist designer who's conceiving the whole plan of the tapestry is to simplify that narrative and make it this binary conflict between these two protagonists, Harold and William, who is, of course, eventually William the Conqueror. And the thing about that is that Harold, in many ways—it's, and this is another myth—the tapestry isn't just straightforward Norman propaganda.

• 10:42Speaker 01

  No, it isn't.

• 10:43Speaker 00

  Harold comes across quite well at points in the tapestry. And perhaps that's a deliberate artistic decision as well, to make him a sort of equal antagonist, if you like, for William. So, look, I mean, this is called Stories of Art, and this is a rare moment where the work of art we're talking about—it is telling a story.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  An incredible story.

• 11:03Speaker 00

  An amazing story. So, I mean, in a sense, we could just start telling that story.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 11:09Speaker 00

  So it begins. With a building, probably a palace, and I can't remember how you just described Edward the Confessor, Dumbledore, right?

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Dumbledore.

• 11:18Speaker 00

  With the beard.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:19Speaker 00

  You can see Edward, there he is, sitting, I guess, on a throne, he's crowned, and he's having some sort of conversation with our main man, Harold. And you can often tell the English in the tapestry because they always have moustaches.

• 11:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:34Speaker 00

  Later, we will come on to this. I don't know why I find it so funny, but the Normans have just an utterly absurd hairstyle. But we should maybe part that. So here they are. Now, one of the things about this is that there's a lot of, um, uh, immediately scholars are sort of debating, what are they talking about, Edward and Harold? And there are all sorts of theories. One is that Edward has promised the Kingdom of England to William, and he's saying to Harold, as his kind of, you know, main man, Earl, can you go over and, and confirm this succession with William?

• 12:06Speaker 01

  It's some important conversation, isn't it? Because when you look closely, they're almost having a thumb war. Their fingers are intertwined, so that suggests some agreement is being made.

• 12:15Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 12:16Speaker 01

  That Edward is asking for something, or telling Harold to do something, and Harold, I presume, is agreeing to it.

• 12:22Speaker 00

  Or is Harold, because another alternative theory is that Harold had some kinsmen who were being held hostage in Normandy, and possibly he's asking Edward's permission to go and get them back. I can't remember what, they have some extraordinary, they're amazing names in the tapestry, things like, um, Wolfnoff, well, actually, no, these are the kinsmen, Wolfnoff and Hackon, I think, were the potential hostages. Anyway, the thing about the tapestry is that in some ways it's very factual. What we know is not the tenor, the, the subject of the conversation, but they're having a conversation.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:51Speaker 00

  And immediately afterwards, you see Harold riding on a horse, he has a hawk on his hand, there's his moustache, he has some stirrups, and there are hounds who are hunting animals, and they start riding off him and his retinue, and there's a, a big tree, it's quite hard to tell that it's a tree, a sort of interlaced design that maybe picks up a bit of manuscript illumination from the time. And often through the tapestry, you have these things like trees or buildings used as punctuation marks. And then they arrive at a religious building with crosses up on the roof, and you can see Harold with this slightly odd, um, physicality as he's approaching in a position of humility, I think is how scholars see it, to go inside this, um, religious building, probably at Bosham, his estate in Bosham.

• 13:36Speaker 00

  And then you see him and his men feasting, and there are all these wonderful details, they're drinking from horns, one man is holding a knife. And so I think one of the things that particularly social historians love about the tapestry, isn't it? Is that they can get all of this detail about the material culture of 11th century England, and it's filled with details about carpentry, shipbuilding.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:57Speaker 00

  Armor, you know, so on. And then you have this beginning of a voyage, which is the main, central sort of motor of the first part of the narrative.

• 14:06Speaker 01

  There's a wonderful scene here, it's my first favourite scene, when you see Harold and his companion, they pull up their tunics, they take off their shoes, and they wade with their skinny white Anglo-Saxon legs.

• 14:18Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  Into the water, so they are heading off to France, aren't they?

• 14:22Speaker 00

  They're going to France. I love that partly because you can see, ahead of their, um, their skinny white legs, you can see the ripple of water, so there's actually a bizarre, this is quite clever in terms of embroidery, a sense of transparency, you're seeing through the water and actually seeing a sense of their legs, Harold's still clutching his falcon, and then, yes, they're on their way somewhere, a voyage, we assume intentionally to France, it may not be the case, but what happens is that probably accidentally, they seem to get blown off course.

• 14:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 14:54Speaker 00

  And they land in completely the wrong place.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  I mean, we, we say comic book, this is quite comical.

• 14:59Speaker 00

  This is.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  So they end up in the wrong place.

• 15:02Speaker 00

  They end up, you can see, um, and it's rather unfortunate because Harold steps off the boat, he's still barefoot, and a man is riding up to him, and his henchmen possibly are arresting him.

• 15:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 15:14Speaker 00

  It's not a very friendly welcome, they're not actually in the Duchy of Normandy, they're nearby, and these are the men of a, a character who was called Guy, the Count of Pontio, which is this relatively small duchy, I guess, next to Normandy, I think north of Normandy. And for the next section, um, Harold is Guy's prisoner.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  And very quickly, I think William catches wind of this, doesn't he? There is a spy hiding behind a column, probably one of William's spies, and finds out that Harold is in, uh, the country. And he reports back to William, and then, so William sends these two emissaries to pick Harold up. This is an incredible, incredible scene, one of the most brilliant parts of the tapestry, where we see these two riders riding at full gallop to Harold, their legs are outstretched, the, the tails are streaming. My favourite thing about it is the way the, the men's hair is actually being swept back in the wind.

• 16:12Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  Very, very dynamic image, again, fantastic observation, very vividly depicted.

• 16:17Speaker 00

  Interestingly, it seems that the sort of left to right progress of the tapestry is reversed.

• 16:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:23Speaker 00

  This is where you can see many of these Normans with this completely bizarre hairstyle, where they seem to shave the back of their head.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 16:30Speaker 00

  But leave a kind of very, it's like an opposite of a mullet, actually, isn't it? I was suddenly thinking, there's a lot, very tufty at the front.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  So we've got mullets versus handlebar moustache.

• 16:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, that's, that's the, the real battle lines are drawn.

• 16:40Speaker 01

  Very seventies.

• 16:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. But there's another detail just around this moment where the messengers are coming to, the emissaries are coming to get Harold from Guy, where, have you, have you seen this character called Turold?

• 16:51Speaker 01

  No.

• 16:51Speaker 00

  So there is, um, a person of very small stature who seems to be holding a horse, and there's one of these inscriptions which is saying his name, which is just above him, his bearded character, and the name is Turold. And this is just a little detail that I love.

• 17:07Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 17:07Speaker 00

  There is this theory that the inscription could relate to someone else. But if the inscription relates to this very small person, it's possible, and I, I, there's obviously no evidence for this whatsoever, that this could be a portrait even of the artist of the tapestry.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 17:23Speaker 00

  This could be Turold, the man responsible for the Biotapestry.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  Right, I've not heard that one before, that's fascinating.

• 17:29Speaker 00

  Can't really back it up.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  No, anyway, it's, it's only now really, about a sixth of the way through the tapestry, that we finally see William himself. Harold is brought to him on horseback, and the two of them meet in one of William's many castles. I find this very, very exciting. And have you seen, Alistair, the, um, that Michael Mann film, Heat?

• 17:51Speaker 00

  Oh, yes.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  When, right at, towards the end of the film, you finally get the scene with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, they share a table together. It's incredibly important moment, and this is that moment, we get the hero and the anti-hero, the, the protagonist and the antagonist coming together, but we have to remember at this point, they are sort of friends, Edward the Confessor isn't dead yet, Harold hasn't taken the throne. And, but very soon after their meeting, we come to perhaps the most mysterious image in the entire tapestry, and one that I know is very intriguing to you, and which to my mind looks, I'm looking at it now, it looks like a woman levitating.

• 18:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:30Speaker 01

  A man, is he tickling her face? And beneath them, there's another man with a prominent penis doing what looks like yoga.

• 18:37Speaker 00

  Yes, yes. What's not to love about that scene, James?

• 18:40Speaker 01

  What is going on here, Alistair?

• 18:41Speaker 00

  Well, I think you have to see it almost as a part of the scene you've just described. So if you're looking at the whole, you have, there, they are in the palace at Ruan, you have Harold and William. William is quite sort of, sitting quite calmly, Harold seems quite animated. A little bit like the cleric you've just described, for he is a cleric in, in the strange scene that's just next door. Just to finish the thing about Ruan, above them, and this is a wonderful moment where you can see how these borders at top and bottom offer a commentary sometimes on the main action. You have two male peacocks, the one on the left above William is also quite calm, similarly coloured to the clothes William's wearing.

• 19:22Speaker 00

  The one on the right above Harold seems much more agitated, so there's some import here. Harold seems to be pointing to his left in the direction of the strange scene that you've described. And this scene contains this woman, as you've said, there aren't that many women in the tapestry, but she has a name, uh, an inscription above her which reveals her name, it's a common English name, Elfgiva, if that's the right pronunciation, and she is the only named woman in the tapestry. And she's within this structure where you have these animal-headed posts, possibly representing some sort of palace, um, building.

• 20:02Speaker 00

  And then, as you say, she seems to be levitating, you can see tiny little black feet at the bottom of her, her robe, and she, with one of her hands, she has this slightly bizarre gesture where she's pointing, and her second finger and her thumb seem to be creating this circle, okay? So already it's quite intriguing, who is she? She's given a lot of prominence. But then, as you say, you have the other elements of the man who's doing the tickling, or is he slapping her, or it's a karate chop? He has one hand on his waist, and his right hand extends through or sort of behind, um, the structure to then make connection with her face in some way.

• 20:43Speaker 00

  And his pose is directly paralleled by, in reverse.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  To the naked yogi guy.

• 20:50Speaker 00

  The naked yogi guy at the bottom. So we know he's a cleric because the inscription refers to him as Clericus Est, he's a certain cleric, he's not named, and he's tonsit, so he has that bald spot on the top of his head. And the tapestry's designer seems to be suggesting everyone who saw the tapestry in the 11th century would know exactly what was going on. And the theory is, my preferred theory.

• 21:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:11Speaker 00

  Is that, you know, without getting into the kind of specifics of who exactly they may be, because there are all sorts of genealogies, connections, lots of different theories, but what seems to be going on is there's a commentary offered on this cleric's action, and it's satirical somehow.

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:25Speaker 00

  And he is perhaps having impure thoughts, and perhaps that sense of broaching the structure is implying some sexual transgression.

• 21:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:36Speaker 00

  And he therefore is being paralleled with your phallic yogi downstairs. Um, and the whole thing is essentially an 11th century, you know. Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:48Speaker 00

  It's a sex scandal, essentially.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Edward the Confessor would never have done this.

• 21:51Speaker 00

  Of course he would have done this. Had he done this, we wouldn't have had the problem with the Norman conquest.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Exactly right. Anyway, back to the story. After meeting, William and Harold, who are now quite good friends, they're allies. They head off on a military campaign to Brittany, which quite frankly is a completely irrelevant detour. So we don't need to dwell on it too long. But there's one thing I do want to dwell on because it's a really great Hollywood moment in the tapestry. William's army are at the Mont Saint Michel, which is right on the border of Normandy and Brittany. And they are crossing this very treacherous river.

• 22:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:25Speaker 01

  When they start to sink into the sand.

• 22:27Speaker 00

  Quicksand.

• 22:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. Now, this is a really nostalgic thing for me. I don't know about you, but growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, I just remember quicksand being everywhere. I remember every film I watched, every comic I read, someone was sinking into.

• 22:40Speaker 00

  I remember being very fearful of it. I feel like my mum was always telling me, be careful, you're about to go into quicksand.

• 22:44Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 22:45Speaker 00

  It's fine.

• 22:46Speaker 01

  I remember thinking very clearly, when I grow up, I'm really going to have to contend with quicksand on a regular basis. It didn't come to pass, thankfully.

• 22:55Speaker 00

  Not yet.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  But poor old William's troops have had to contend with this. We can see a horse is sliding into the sand, two men are sinking, and then Harold comes to the rescue.

• 23:06Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  With his enormous arms, he pulls them out, he puts one of them on his shoulders, the other one he's dragging out of the sand. It's an amazing Hollywood moment. I find it quite intriguing. If this is a Norman document.

• 23:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  If this is Norman propaganda.

• 23:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Why would you show the arch enemy of the Normans? Why would you show Harold as a hero?

• 23:25Speaker 00

  Well, okay, I think we should have a pause to just reflect on that because it's sort of relevant to the bigger interpretation of the tapestry. It is clear that Harold is being given some status. His heroism is being stressed in some way. And as you say, on the face of it, that seems to contradict the idea this is just Norman propaganda. Now, you could argue it means that for William to vanquish someone of that stature actually enhances William's status from the Norman perspective. And perhaps there's some truth to that. But there is a, there is a bigger idea, which a lot of scholars are drawn to, which I find fascinating. And it is that the tapestry is not just straight Norman propaganda, that within it, there is quite artfully and deliberately embedded ambiguity.

• 24:11Speaker 00

  And perhaps, perhaps even the way this, and we'll get into how this potentially would have been displayed, why it was created later in this episode. But perhaps wherever it was displayed in the 11th century, it would have, might have required a narrator.

• 24:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:27Speaker 00

  Who's actually talking through the story. And depending on that narrator's audience, whether it was more Norman elite or more Anglo Saxon elite, they could just tailor the story a little bit and pitch it to the audience.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:39Speaker 00

  And emphasise things that would please one side or the other. And I think that even in that Brittany moment, which is full of action, you also find a sense of Norman military ruthlessness. As William and his troops are vanquishing and laying siege to places in Brittany. You also have a little sense of Norman brutality, which I think is a theme that we find later in the tapestry as well. And seems certainly to modernise, to run counter to that idea that this is just Norman propaganda. For example, here, you can see them setting fire to a town, which is quite a brutal moment.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  Speaking about the narrator, the person who would have been interpreting the tapestry, there is a moment we're going to come to in the tapestry now that I think any narrator or storyteller or jongleur, as they were called in French, would have spent a lot of time on. And that is, in many ways, it's the absolute crux politically, morally, conceptually of the whole tapestry, which is the oath.

• 25:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:42Speaker 01

  That Harold makes. Can you talk us through that, Alistair?

• 25:44Speaker 00

  This is probably the most famous scene for that reason, certainly historically. So it comes after this campaign in Brittany. At the end of the campaign in Brittany, you have this moment where William bestows arms on Harold. So already he's trying to put Harold in a subordinate position to him. And then you have this scene you're describing. And in it, William is sitting essentially enthroned with a large sword in one hand. And he's gesturing towards Harold, who's standing possibly outside. You can see underfoot, you have this almost cobble-like representation, which elsewhere in the tapestry represents outside ground. And Harold is touching objects on either side, isn't he?

• 26:27Speaker 00

  And those objects look like miniature houses, they're reliquaries, they contain holy relics. And he is swearing a sacred oath. And everything in a sense hinges on this moment. We know it's important because, again, tiny detail this, but if you look underneath the left hand reliquary, you can see there are normally in the tapestry, these sort of diagonal oblique lines that in the borders, top and bottom. And they, they're sometimes patterned, but they're essentially straight. The one that's touching this holy shrine thing is sprouting leaves. There's some significance here. And I suppose from a Norman point of view, and if you're looking at later, or of the period, Norman propaganda,

• 27:11Speaker 00

  this is such a crucial moment because here Harold is swearing an oath of allegiance, isn't he, to William? And essentially saying, when Edward dies, I will do everything in my utmost power to ensure that you become, as supposedly promised by Edward, the king of the English.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  And this is the whole justification for the Norman conquest.

• 27:30Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  I mean, this is the justification is that Harold made a promise, he broke the promise, and William had to reclaim what was rightfully his.

• 27:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  So it's so important to the understanding of the purpose and the function of the tapestry. So he makes this oath, Harold. Shortly after making the oath, he zooms back to England.

• 27:49Speaker 00

  And lovely detail, you can see the English lookouts who are seeing the boat as it's returning to England. One of them with this strange Mr. Tickles, sort of sausage-like bendy arm as he's looking out. And then in the building next to him, I love these, these really kind of curious faces that you can see peering out the window, like, who's coming back? Ah, it's the great Earl Harold Godwin.

• 28:09Speaker 01

  But he crosses the channel and he meets up with Dumbledore again, Edward the Confessor.

• 28:14Speaker 00

  It looks like he's being told off by Dumbledore here.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  It does.

• 28:17Speaker 00

  Because he approaches, he's quite hunched, he seems to be in again, a sort of position of humility. Dumbledore, sorry, Edward the Confessor, stop sticking, Dumbledore. Edward the Confessor, who interestingly is individuated in the tapestry. Most of the people look fairly generic, you need inscriptions to tell who they are. But Edward has this shaggy Dumbledore-like beard. Here he has a walking stick suggesting age and infirmity, lovely touch. And he seems to be wagging his finger, telling off Harold possibly.

• 28:44Speaker 01

  Yes, well, this is probably 1065. They're in a structure which we think is Westminster Abbey, which is one of Edward the Confessor's great constructions. And of course, that building is consecrated in 1065. We can see there is a weathercock being placed on the roof. I think that's the final thing you did when you were constructing a building of this sort.

• 29:05Speaker 00

  And the hand of God.

• 29:06Speaker 01

  Oh, that's my single favourite thing of the entire tapestry.

• 29:08Speaker 00

  It's the National Lottery moment, isn't it?

• 29:10Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. It's a wonderful moment where we see God's hand actually coming out of the sky and blessing the new building that has been constructed. But what I think is so brilliant about that is it's not really coming out of the sky. It is almost breaking through the actual fabric of the tapestry. It's like tearing a hole.

• 29:30Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  In the textile itself, it's so meta.

• 29:32Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  It's absolutely brilliant. So this happens, but shortly after that, poor old Edward dies. So we're now in January 1066 and Harold becomes king.

• 29:42Speaker 00

  Ah, but it's important here again, because this is part of the embedded ambiguity thing. If you look at the deathbed scene, it's a fascinating moment. You see, you described at the very beginning, Edward and Harold, what do you say, having a sort of like almost thumb war?

• 29:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 29:57Speaker 00

  Now, in this moment, Edward knows he's dying. He has a cleric with him, there's the queen, there's a servant and there's Harold. And Edward's fingers and Harold's hand, they are touching. And so some people read this as, there was an alternative sort of view, which is that on his deathbed, Edward leaves the kingdom to Harold. Says, look after my queen, my wife, who is actually Harold's sister. And so in a sense, perhaps it makes sense from an English point of view, from Harold's point of view, to maybe renege on that oath he took in Normandy, which possibly he was taking under duress. Remember, he was arrested by Guy and he's essentially, he's honoured and a guest, but he's kind of also a high status prisoner.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:39Speaker 00

  And in the scene after the deathbed, you can see the English nobles, the so-called witans, they are offering a crown to Harold. And then you have the moment where he becomes king. And the inscription is clear, it calls him Rex.

• 30:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 30:54Speaker 00

  He is Rex Anglorum, he is King of the English. There's his Archbishop, Stigand, who is performing the rite. And a bit like with your hand of God tearing through the fabric, you know, you have to remember the religious context for this tapestry. It is significant that he is crowned and acknowledged as king in the eyes of God. From, from the English point of view.

• 31:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:16Speaker 00

  You know, he is now, he is in charge.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  He is in charge, but very soon after he's crowned, we see another great celestial phenomenon, a bit like the hand of God, that looks almost like a fireball or a sunflower or a spaceship.

• 31:31Speaker 00

  Chinese kite.

• 31:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that is Halley's Comet, the comet that I think is still seen in the night sky every 76, 77 years. There's a great art historical story behind it. Of course, Joto, who I'm desperate to do an episode on in this series, Joto sees that Halley's Comet in the early 1300s paints it on the wall of the Arena Chapel. And the Anglo Saxons would have seen Halley's Comet, we think in late April 1066, only a few months after Harold becomes king.

• 32:00Speaker 00

  What's the significance of putting it in the tapestry?

• 32:02Speaker 01

  I think it's a bad omen, isn't it?

• 32:04Speaker 00

  It's not good for Harold.

• 32:05Speaker 01

  I think it's bad for Harold. I think people viewed comets and other celestial phenomena as as negative sign.

• 32:11Speaker 00

  Maybe it's a portent of the invasion. I mean, my favourite moment in that scene, and in fact, one of my favourite moments in the tapestry, other than the cleric who seems to be tickling the woman, is if you see beneath the comet, Harold is sitting, he seems to be having a conversation with some underling, and maybe he's been passed on some intelligence. And if you look in the border beneath, have you seen this detail? There are ships. They don't have masts, and they don't have much colour, and they look like ghost ships.

• 32:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:39Speaker 00

  And I think this is a brilliant moment of interiority on the part of Harold.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:45Speaker 00

  That this is like, he's having this horrible premonition.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:49Speaker 00

  It feels like something in Macbeth. You know, we're into almost Shakespearean tragedy levels, where he is foreseeing the invasion that's about to come.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:59Speaker 00

  And it's not looking good.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  It's not looking good. Meanwhile, back in Normandy, William receives the news that Harold has potentially broken his oath and become king. He must have been outraged, and we see him sitting on a throne. His hands are sort of tensed with fury as a messenger is telling him the news. But he's also taking advice, Alastair, from someone who has been very, very carefully depicted. And this is almost certainly William's own half-brother, Odo, not Odo from Star Trek: D Space Nine, but the Bishop of Bayre, and a very important character for the history of the tapestry. And he is saying to William, he's saying, build a fleet, invade England, and take Harold down. And that is what William does.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  Wonderful passage in the tapestry where we see, as you've mentioned before, the sawyers, the carpenters, the shipwrights, beginning to build a fleet over the spring and summer of 1066.

• 33:55Speaker 00

  Chopping down trees, smoothing them.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. And then they start loading up the ships with weapons, with armour.

• 34:02Speaker 00

  I mean, the armour, look at, if you look at the armour, so all of this chainmail that you see later in the battle, these chainmails, sort of shirts with little trousery short bits, chainmail suits, they seem to be so heavy that they have to be carried on some sort of pole by two men to get into the invasion fleet, right?

• 34:20Speaker 01

  There's also a lot of wine. Remember, they are French, so there's a lot of wine they're taking with them. And then, on the 27th of September 1066, William's army sets sail for England. We have this extraordinary Christopher Nolan-style set piece scene here, where we see the fleet heading across the channel. I've counted, I may be wrong, but I've counted 18 ships, 60 soldiers, 30 horses.

• 34:48Speaker 00

  I love the horses. The horses are very neatly arranged, like sort of good primary school children, so sitting along the sides of the boat.

• 34:53Speaker 01

  They really are. And they sail through the night, and they make landfall in Pevensey on the south of England the following morning, 28th of September. And there they lie in wait, ready to fight. So, Alastair, the die is cast, the stage is set, the fuse lit, all the cliches up and running. The long-awaited clash between the Normans and the Anglo Saxons, between William and Harold, is almost upon us. So what will happen? Who will win? Join us after the break.

• 35:26Speaker 00

  A reminder that if you want to see the artworks we're discussing, you can switch to video in your podcast app at any time. And if you're enjoying this episode, please consider following Stories of Art wherever you get your podcasts.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  Welcome back to Stories of Art. It's late September 1066, and the Norman invasion has begun. William's troops are waiting on the south coast, fortifying their positions, raiding villages, eating lots of kebabs. But King Harold is otherwise engaged. And that's because, I mean, just a little bit of context here, William is not the only person who is trying to claim the throne.

• 36:14Speaker 00

  No.

• 36:15Speaker 01

  There is another guy, an incredible figure, one of the greatest warriors in history, King Harold Hadrada, the King of Norway.

• 36:22Speaker 00

  I'm imagining Erling Haaland.

• 36:24Speaker 01

  Yes, Erling Haaland at this point.

• 36:26Speaker 00

  I mean, he enters the story, he doesn't sadly appear in the tapestry. If he did, that's exactly what he would look like.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  That is exactly how he would look. And he, together with King Harold's own disloyal brother, Tostig, invaded England from the north in mid-September. They sail through these inland waterways, and they meet with King Harold's army at the Battle of Stamford Bridge on the 25th of September. It's an incredible battle, and astonishingly, King Harold wins. He defeats this great Viking warrior. Harold Hadrada is killed, Tostig is killed. And in many ways, this defeat is the end of the Great Viking Age. But no sooner has this battle concluded, that poor old Harold discovers that the Normans are invading the south of England. It's like a bus, isn't it? You wait ages for a bus, and then two come at the same time.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  So he has to hurry back down through England from Yorkshire to meet William's troops and to intercept them. And then, on the morning of the 14th of October 1066, the Battle of Hastings begins.

• 37:29Speaker 00

  I mean, some people say that this whole swift march to the south of England to meet William is a major tactical error on Harold's part. Interestingly, everything you've just described is absent from the tapestry.

• 37:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:42Speaker 00

  You know, it's a great victory for Harold, and that has been suppressed. Other claims to the throne are left out, presumably so that we can really just concentrate on William's. And there is a sense that, again, maybe the Normans, who are having a seemingly a fine old time feasting.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  On kebabs.

• 38:02Speaker 00

  On kebabs in the south of England. Maybe they are actually not treating the local population enormously well. There's a scene here where you can see an English, probably a mother with her child, seemingly exiting or maybe trapped within a building that the Normans are setting fire to. Again, Norman brutality. And perhaps Harold gets wind of that, and that's partly why he increases that march south. But it does mean that his army, when it comes to the fateful battle on the 14th of October 1066, Harold's army is knackered.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. So let's get to the battle itself, Alastair. It's Saturday, the 14th of October, the poor soldiers are having to work on a Saturday. Just before nine o'clock in the morning, the mists are rising. How does the tapestry depict this extraordinary moment in English history?

• 38:53Speaker 00

  With great and very memorable immediacy and flair.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:59Speaker 00

  This is the most famous section of the tapestry that everyone remembers. And it's characterised by, although you can't necessarily tell the soldiers apart in terms of their armour, we're looking at mostly, it's the Norman elite and the English elite that we see who are fighting. You can always tell the Normans because they're mounted. So the Norman cavalry become a major component. And the tapestry's designer, whoever he or she may have been, is superb at depicting horses.

• 39:30Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 39:30Speaker 00

  And you have, in a general sense, these great surging visual rhythms.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 39:38Speaker 00

  Which are conveyed by these horses. You have a real sense of clusters of knights, and then they start galloping, momentum builds.

• 39:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 39:46Speaker 00

  It takes you into another section of the battle. And as things progress, there are all sorts of tactics, little moments, events. Harold's brothers are killed, that's a kind of key moment. There's a moment where the Normans lose heart, and William has to reveal himself. He raises his helmet so that his troops can see him and take heart and continue fighting. Odo appears, there are exhortations, there are speeches. But you start to see tremendous carnage and bloodshed, and things just go haywire, really, don't they? You see all of these weapons, spears being thrown as javelins. There's one little detail that I particularly love, where you can actually see, just in

• 40:30Speaker 00

  mid-air, there's suddenly just a mace.

• 40:33Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 40:33Speaker 00

  Someone's just thrown this mace in panic. It's kind of hurtling through, through the, through space from one side to the other.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  It's an amazing depiction of the chaos of war, isn't it? I mean, the horses are tumbling, they're dying, the soldiers are flying through the air, severed heads are rolling along the ground. It's phenomenally, phenomenally dynamic.

• 40:51Speaker 00

  And I think part of the dynamism is, I mean, I've mentioned a few times, you have these ornamental borders, we've spoken about some details. Quite often in them you find animals, and quite often the animals seem to be quite aggressive and maybe confrontational at points, and perhaps that enhances the theme. But what you find in the battle is that, you know, there's a grammar to that, isn't there? There's a sort of sense that there's the main action in the main frieze, and then you've got these borders. Maybe they comment, maybe they're just decorative, whatever. Here in the battle, suddenly, these things become entwined. A lot of the slain appear in the border along the bottom, some of those decapitated soldiers. There's even somewhere, there's an occasion where one of this border animals suddenly seems to escape and appears in the main action. And as you say, you have these moments where the horses are upended.

• 41:37Speaker 00

  Some of the people are tumbling. And then you have looters who are trying to strip armour off some of the fallen soldiers, body parts everywhere. This is why I suddenly was looking at it and thinking, you know, Picasso's painting Guernica, which also has front and centre a very distressed horse.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 41:56Speaker 00

  It feels like a great analogy, in a sense, because there's nothing here, you know, you could situate the tapestry in a wider context than some people have, of so-called Old English heroic poetry. But the heroism here seems to be completely chipped away at as a concept by the bloodshed and the way that people, sometimes axes are decapitated. The mayhem seems to be a really principal theme, doesn't it?

• 42:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. The battle ebbs and flows throughout the day. But the Normans begin to get the upper hand. They charge onwards, inflicting more and more damage, impaling their enemies, cracking heads open, until Alistair, at some point in the afternoon of the battle, we come to the most notorious moment in the entire tapestry, one of the most famous moments in English history, and that is the fate of King Harold himself.

• 42:50Speaker 00

  This is the moment that I described at the start of the episode, and you can see him standing there, and it appears that he is clutching that arrow which supposedly killed him by penetrating his eye. And then there is a sense where immediately to the right of him, as we're looking, there's a Norman knight on a horse, and then to the right of the horse, there's another figure who seems to be falling down. And people think that that is Harold portrayed again, as he's being hacked at by this sword. And you have this wonderful mini momentum there, from upright Harold, arrow strikes his eye, down to hunched Norman knight, down to man tumbling to the ground. It seems to be presenting

• 43:32Speaker 00

  that velocity as he's falling down to his death. Underneath, you have looters who are stripping each other of armour. You sort of wonder whether there's some commentary there of kingship that Harold has is being ripped away by the Normans, and there's a transfer of power that's being alluded to. There is an argument about whether this does actually, whether we've got the right Harold, isn't there?

• 43:57Speaker 01

  I think we've got the wrong Harold.

• 43:58Speaker 00

  Do you?

• 43:59Speaker 01

  I think the guy with the supposed arrow in his eye, I don't think that is Harold. I mean, I just think, this is the culmination of the tapestry. This is what it's all been building to, is Harold's death. If you are the designer of that tapestry,

• 44:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  You are going to show that death in the most explicit possible way. You're going to show him on the ground, you're going to show him, you know, dismembered, covered in blood, whatever it is. The Harold with the arrow in the eye,

• 44:24Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  He's just standing there, he doesn't look wounded, so vague, it doesn't make any visual sense. And actually, when you look closely at that detail, what you find is the arrow isn't even going into his eye.

• 44:35Speaker 00

  Right.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  It's going just over his helmet. And actually, it's a far more complicated story than that, because we have a copy made of this tapestry from the 18th century.

• 44:46Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  And in that 18th century copy, there's no arrow there. This figure is holding some kind of spear or some kind of lance, which suggests the arrow was added in the 19th century as part of a restoration programme, in order for it to accord with the story that everyone knows about Harold.

• 45:04Speaker 00

  I think, just for clarity's sake, you're right, that there is a lot of talk about the fact that the arrow, as we see stitched, is a 19th century restoration. But the argument that's often made is that one of those much later, but in the past from us, drawings very accurately of the tapestry records this moment and records stitch marks. So people are confident that, once upon a time, there was meant to be an arrow there, not sure about quite whether or not it's going past the helmet or into the eye. What is very interesting is that, I agree with you instinctively, I mean, it's interesting you say that, the

• 45:46Speaker 00

  idea that this is the kind of culminating moment, and it feels like a bit of an anticlimax.

• 45:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:52Speaker 00

  And I think that is right. The thing that is difficult to square with that is that the inscription above is telling us this is the moment of Harold's death. So we know it is Harold's death. Is it just the case that Harold is the lower figure? And although there have been attempts to try and find stitch marks and an arrow in that eye, I think the consensus is probably that that lower figure that's being hacked at with a sword, there's no real evidence that in the original tapestry, there was an arrow coming out of his eye at all. So, and there are some sources, you know, it's all a bit confused. Some sources suggest that Harold was killed by this arrow. It's possible they were using the tapestry as their own source. Other sources don't mention the arrow at all. So there is a lot of confusion about Harold's death.

• 46:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. In fact, Alistair, the very earliest sources about the Battle of Hastings, they do not mention any arrow in the eye. One of them says, this is how he was killed, that blows cleaved his breast, smote off his head, pierced the inwards of his belly, and hewed off his thigh and bore away the severed limb.

• 46:52Speaker 00

  Jesus.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  So there's no mention in the earliest sources about the arrow. I recognise, as you mentioned at the very start of this episode, that lots of scholars think that he is both of those characters. And I can understand the logic of that. But there are also problems with that theory as well, not least because Harold is wearing different clothes in those two scenes. And I've never fought in a medieval battle before, but I don't think if I got an arrow in my eye, I would then change my leggings.

• 47:19Speaker 00

  No, no, no, no, that's a very astute point.

• 47:21Speaker 01

  But I also recognise that there is a lot of inconsistency in the way that figures are depicted across the tapestry.

• 47:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  But these figures are so important, they are so close together, they were probably stitched by the same embroiderer within days of each other. You would think you would get that detail correct. So I'm inclined to think that maybe it is just the guy under the horse that is Harold.

• 47:43Speaker 00

  I mean, do you not think, when you look at just that guy, let's leave Arrowman out of it altogether, that sort of bigger point that you were making, and which I think I instinctively agree with, that there's something slightly anticlimactic about the death of our hero?

• 47:55Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 47:56Speaker 00

  You know, he's one of the two protagonists of the tapestry. Leaving aside all the arrow stuff, it just feels somehow slightly underwhelming.

• 48:04Speaker 01

  Visually.

• 48:05Speaker 00

  Visually, I think so.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  It's not quite right, is it? But what we do know is that, once Harold is dead, the Battle of Hastings comes to a very quick end. The Normans are victorious, the remaining English troops flee.

• 48:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, but the fleeing is itself a wonderful detail. This is the last thing we see from the tapestry as it survives. You can see these Normans on horseback, they're suddenly, they've sniffed victory, they realise they've run, and they're just chasing down to slaughter these other English, the English who are fleeing. And there they appear at the very end of the tapestry. One of them you can see is turning back, isn't he, and looking incredibly nervous, as he's saying, oh my god, look who's coming, and they're on horses, we're just on foot. And interestingly, there is a man there who seems to be able to run, but he definitely is trying to pluck an arrow from his eye.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  Yes, he is.

• 48:58Speaker 00

  There's no question about that, unless that is a 19th century restoration. This probably isn't the very ending of the tapestry, is it?

• 49:05Speaker 01

  No.

• 49:05Speaker 00

  I mean, you have to imagine, and I think lots of people have postulated this, that we've lost the end. This last passage is, as I say, it is, as it happens, much restored. And probably what you're going to build up to is a coronation scene, where you see William the Conqueror crowned as King of the English.

• 49:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:23Speaker 00

  And what would be quite lovely about that is you have that moment of King Edward at the start, paralleled with King William at the end.

• 49:31Speaker 01

  It's a great visual bookend, isn't it?

• 49:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  And indeed, we do know that he did become king. He was crowned in Westminster Abbey, in Edward the Confessor's building, on Christmas Day, 1066. So that is the beginning and the end in some ways, but also the beginning of the Norman conquest. We mentioned at the very start of this episode, Alistair, some of the big questions, the mysteries that have circulated around the Biotapestry. I think the first question we could ask ourselves is, who commissioned this tapestry?

• 50:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  Who was the patron?

• 50:03Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 50:04Speaker 01

  And I think most scholars agree that the patron of the Biotapestry is our old friend, Odo.

• 50:10Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 50:11Speaker 01

  William's half-brother.

• 50:13Speaker 00

  Who becomes Earl of Kent, and essentially the Regent, doesn't he, in England?

• 50:16Speaker 01

  He does, and he's a very unpopular figure in England. He's extremely cruel to the local population, very greedy. People call him a ravening wolf. He's a very complicated figure. But people think that he is responsible for commissioning the tapestry, because shortly after the Norman conquest, he builds his own cathedral in Baye, and we think that he commissions the tapestry to be part of the consecration of that cathedral. It's consecrated on the 14th of July, 1077, which would suggest that this tapestry is commissioned and is being made within 10 years of the events described within.

• 50:56Speaker 00

  So the audience who would have originally seen it could even have had first-hand knowledge of the events that it depicts.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. And one of the reasons we think Odo is responsible for this is that he has given a prominent place in the tapestry that he does not deserve.

• 51:10Speaker 00

  At several points, he appears, doesn't he?

• 51:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's only shown a few times, but at crucial points, he's the puppet master.

• 51:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  So the first point is when he is actually encouraging William to invade England. Very crucial moment. He's also shown being, offering tactical advice to William. He's also shown, as I think you very briefly mentioned, right on the battlefield, cheering the Norman soldiers on. And so that would suggest, it's a very flattering depiction of Odo, so it would suggest that this is something that he himself had commissioned.

• 51:42Speaker 00

  Another detail on that is that you have these other people who are quite prominent, with these quite astonishing names that I feel maybe are due a comeback, like Waddard and Churold and Vital, and various people who are, scholars believe, essentially Odo's retainers, you know, his henchmen. And so what you're seeing is Odo and his immediate circle and followers being given great prominence within the tapestry.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:09Speaker 00

  Can I tell you something that I came across that I just love as a theory, but of course, there is no evidence for it, but it's a wonderful idea? Someone has suggested that it is possible with this tapestry, that maybe there were once multiple tapestries.

• 52:24Speaker 01

  Yes, I've heard this.

• 52:25Speaker 00

  And so the idea is that this tapestry, broadly speaking, it's designed a certain way, and it tells that similar story. But depending on who was going to buy a version of it, you could make it bespoke. So dear old Odo, in this case, is kind of like, all right, Odo wants on, okay, well, we'll put him in these various points. And you can imagine that other prominent people involved in the Norman conquest, if this did take place, might have had their versions with completely different strangely named retainers and followers given prominence in the tapestry.

• 52:55Speaker 01

  Alistair Suek in the middle of the Battle of Hastings cheering the Normans on.

• 52:58Speaker 00

  With the club.

• 52:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 53:00Speaker 00

  But, you know, the truth is that no other tapestries have survived. So, you know, for now, that is just a rather beguiling idea.

• 53:09Speaker 01

  It's a great idea. But we think probably what happened is, when the cathedral in Baye was consecrated, as I say, in 1077, that the tapestry might have gone up around the nave, there would have been events, there would have been storytellers as a celebration of the event. And then probably the tapestry was put in a box in the treasury, and maybe brought out intermittently, once a year, once a decade, we don't know, maybe never again, where it could be enjoyed. So if Odo is the patron, what about the designer? Because there must have been an individual who came up with a scheme, who drew the figures onto the linen backcloth that were then stitched. Do you have any sense about that?

• 53:51Speaker 00

  No trace of any drawing like that, no cartoon, no sense of it being transferred to the tapestry survives on the linen backing of the tapestry, interestingly.

• 54:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:02Speaker 00

  The consensus view at the moment, and I have to confess, I am drawing heavily upon conversations with the British Museum biotapestry expert, Michael Lewis, who's curating the exhibition. He's also written a very good book, which has been recently updated, with someone called David Musgrove, which is the story of the biotapestry, a Thames and Hudson book. The consensus view is that, yeah, probably Odo is the front runner. And he's clearly, it's a member of the Norman elite has commissioned it. And probably it's Odo, because as you say, later on, the first actual mention of the tapestry comes much later, centuries later, in an inventory in the 15th century at Biocathedral. In terms of who designs it and who makes it, then we're into slightly more complex territory.

• 54:47Speaker 00

  I think the consensus view is that it was produced within, as you say, a few years of the conquest of 1066 in England, likely in Kent, possibly with some sort of link with the manuscript houses of Canterbury. And there are lots of stylistic, artistic parallels, where you can find elements, details in the tapestry, and find some sort of relationship or precedent for them in an Anglo-Saxon manuscript. So the idea is probably that, yeah, one, possibly more, but probably one artist designer, because I think one of the great hallmarks of the tapestry is how remarkably unified it does feel. It feels like there's a real vision, there's a proper sort of structure there.

• 55:30Speaker 00

  So you can imagine that perhaps people with access to those manuscript houses in Canterbury, working for this one artist designer, are producing designs. And then you have a group of embroiderers, probably women, possibly not nuns, as people used to think, but maybe secular English women, who are just really good at embroidery, who are working in teams and working on different sections. Because that long strip of the tapestry that we've described, I think people used to say it was eight, I keep on now coming across, there were nine different sections that have been joined together. So you can imagine that each team gets to work on a particular bit of the tapestry, and eventually they're joined.

• 56:12Speaker 00

  There is a sense of evolution stylistically, things do develop and change. But, you know, it is a fused Anglo-Norman project. And the thing that I find fascinating about this is for us, and partly because you have this binary in the tapestry of Harold, Anglo-Saxon versus Duke of Normandy, the bastard Duke of Normandy, William, the future of the conqueror. You think of it in a binary terms, England and Frenchmen. But maybe that's the wrong way of thinking about this. Because if you look historically, there was much more crossover and fluidity

• 56:53Speaker 00

  between the cultures of Anglo-Saxon England and the Duchy of Normandy. And there would continue to be in subsequent decades and centuries. So these cultures are quite fused. You know, there is one theory that the strange lady that we were talking about earlier, whatever, however we pronounce her name, that she was perhaps the queen of an Anglo-Saxon king, Ethelred the Unred, Ethelred Unred, and that she was a Norman princess, you know, who'd already, long before these events depicted, had come over and been a very prominent person in terms of English politics. So maybe that also accounts for, I use this phrase, embedded ambiguity.

• 57:36Speaker 00

  But that sense of, this isn't just a quote unquote Norman story by Normans for a Norman, told for a Norman audience at all.

• 57:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. Go back to the making of it. I just love that idea that women are fabricating this. You know, women have been so long sidelined from art history. But here, probably the most famous single artwork in all of English history, probably fabricated by women.

• 58:02Speaker 01

  Can we talk a little bit, Alistair, about the object as an artwork?

• 58:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  I'd like to say something a little bit controversial.

• 58:08Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 58:09Speaker 01

  You must be used to this by now. But, you know, obviously, I just want to say straight away, I love the biotapestry. It's an incredible document, there are incredibly great things in it. But as a work of art, I think it's a real mixed bag. I really do. I think first of all, the narrative and the pacing is a real mess. It's very front-heavy. It takes so long to get going, there are so many unnecessary detours. And then it suddenly wraps up very quickly and ends in a bit of a damp squib. It feels like, when I look at the biotapestry, it's almost like, it's like watching my son writing a birthday card. And he starts with very big letters. And then as he moves across the paper, he realizes he's running out of space and the letters become very smaller, smaller and smaller and smaller. I just have a feeling there that the pacing of the narrative is not quite right.

• 58:54Speaker 01

  I blame the designer for that. Also, it's not very consistent, it's very confusing. And again, we talk about the inconsistency over being able to identify Harold. Again, that's the designer's fault. Finally, I think in terms of the imagery itself, the stitching itself, it's a really varied, mixed bag. Some of it sensational, some of it is an utter shambles. There are bits when, you know, captions might not have even been finished, where figures aren't finished, there's a figure that doesn't even have its legs, the legs haven't been done. There's a real sense, when you look at this tapestry very closely, that, you know, oh, it's a Friday afternoon and they just want to get home. Or the deadline's rapidly approaching and they need to hurry things up.

• 59:37Speaker 01

  So I think as a work of art, it's quite inconsistent. And just to make it very clear, I don't think that makes it less interesting. I think it makes it more interesting. And of course, as you say, it's a piece that is made by a team of embroiderers. Some are better than others, sometimes they're under pressure and they're hurrying it. Most of them are probably amateurs. But I don't think it's a peerless work of art at all.

• 1:00:04Speaker 00

  So I would say, in response to that, I'm intrigued by your analogy with the child and the birthday card. Because I suspect that listeners, and I know what you mean. And if we move away from good and proper art historical language for a moment, you know, there is this idea that it is the comic strip. And there is something quote unquote, almost childlike about it. I love that quality. I mean, I love child art, as you know, in general. And I love that moment at the beginning of, say, modernism, where artists are drawing inspiration from different ways of depicting the world.

• 1:00:48Speaker 00

  So I would suggest that whilst what you've just said is, of course, cogent and persuasive, it may also be coming from a position of, you know, your own contemporary prejudices.

• 1:01:02Speaker 01

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 1:01:02Speaker 00

  You know, as in it's not, it isn't a work of the high Renaissance, clearly. But you can't be, you can't be judged against that.

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  I'm not judging it, I'm not judging it by the standards of the Renaissance. I'm not judging it because the perspective and the scale isn't quite right, or the anatomy of the figures isn't right. I'm judging it by its own standards, by the standards of consistency and clarity of storytelling.

• 1:01:23Speaker 00

  The clarity of storytelling, I would say, that, I think there's a prejudice there. Because I think that because we're so used to thinking about the biotapestry as only the battle, the fact that two thirds of it is about the run-up, but those two thirds are also amazing. There's great storytelling. I mean, I was speaking about that moment with the ghost fleet that appears, you know, in Harold's mind's eye, that's an unbelievably strong, dramatic, artistic invention. And I think the invention side of this is what's so thrilling to me. Because if you think you are the designer who's tasked with making this thing, where do you look for precedence for how to make a work of art like this? Sure, if you were telling a biblical story, well, there's precedence left, right and centre. But telling a story from the recent historical past, that's only just occurred,

• 1:02:08Speaker 00

  it's totally new, it's totally unprecedented. And what I think the tapestry does, which still speaks to people today, which is a great testament to its strength, is it has this appeal. It has this liveliness, this immediacy, which does, okay, there's all this ambiguity, but it's conveying a story with such directness and force and charisma. And it does it in a way that sometimes is very, very funny. I mean, there are all these moments of, you know, humour. Okay, maybe it's slightly like a Shakespearean comedy, where it's not necessarily laugh out loud, or it's unintentional, it's only laugh out loud when it's the Norman haircuts to modern eyes, whatever.

• 1:02:50Speaker 00

  But it's made to be entertaining and engaging. And I think that's totally to its credit.

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  And it is totally entertaining and very compelling and dynamic. And as I say, I'm a big fan of the piece. I'm just saying it's a mixed, it's inconsistent in terms of its artistic merit. Shall we just wrap up this conversation in the present day?

• 1:03:11Speaker 00

  Can we, before we talk about the British Museum, I think it is worth thinking about its afterlife and just rattling through. Because one of the other, if you like, myths about the biotapestry is that it's so familiar, which of course it is, but for centuries it was essentially unknown. So it disappears from view, it appears in this inventory in 1476 in Biocathedral, where, as you say, it's, interestingly, it is taken out, probably stored in some sort of chest and hung up on the Feast of the Relics and it's displayed. So it's being used. And then again, it sort of doesn't really puncture through until the 18th century, when French antiquarians start to become interested in it, it's published. English antiquarians come along, suddenly there are tourists who go and see the tapestry.

• 1:03:55Speaker 00

  There's a terrible moment where it seems to be sort of rigged up on some strange device and rolled around. And I think there's an Englishman who sees it, who says it's a bit like one of those devices you use to put a bucket down into a well. And you think, this is not looking after this tapestry very well at all. Subsequently, Napoleon gets interested in it, he brings it to Paris when he's thinking about himself invading England. The Nazis loved the biotapestry. So it become, it is this political porn.

• 1:04:20Speaker 01

  Certainly.

• 1:04:20Speaker 00

  And I think you're right that into the 20th century and into the present day, it's... Symbolism as a sort of political porn continues, right? Because there have been lots of moments in the 20th century when Britain has said, not in a jingoistic way, look, it was made here on these shores, can we show it here? But there have been several requests, five, I think, in the 20th century to actually bring it over.

• 1:04:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, they tried in the 1930s, failed.

• 1:04:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:04:46Speaker 01

  They tried in 1953, coincide with the Queen Elizabeth's coronation, failed. They tried in 1966.

• 1:04:53Speaker 00

  Makes sense.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  Makes sense, 900th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings, failed. They tried again in the 70s, tried again in the 80s. So this exhibition that we are talking about this year is an incredible achievement, really. It's a real coup and credit has to be given to President Emmanuel Macron, for whom this has been a really important objective for years and years and years. And of course, to many people operating behind the scenes on both sides of the channel. Now, I recognise it is a very controversial exhibition because there are many people in France, but also outside of France, David Hockney, for instance, who really object to the moving of the tapestry because they think it is going to damage the object.

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  I am sympathetic to those ideas, Alastair, but the piece was going to be moved anyway.

• 1:05:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:05:40Speaker 01

  I mean, the museum is being restored, the object was going to come down. You may as well do something with it.

• 1:05:46Speaker 00

  I mean, my instinct is I'm pretty relaxed about it because I actually, it may not be fashionable to say this, but I trust in the experts on both sides of the channel. So, yes, it's possible that Macron pushed this through. He's been accused of it being a sort of personal vanity political project. You know, there is a sense, again, it is about Anglo-French relations, sure. I mean, after the Brexit vote, I think The Sun published a Bi-EU tapestry. And it does feel that now Macron and various British prime ministers have been seeing it as an opportunity to suggest a coming together of our two nations. Macron got loads of stick in France.

• 1:06:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:06:26Speaker 00

  I met, in fact, one of, there's a commentator critic guy called Didier Raichner. And he organised an online petition when it was announced that it would definitely finally, because it's been years in the offing this, but finally it's announced that it was going to come to London. And he created this online petition, tens of thousands of people said, please don't do it. It's hugely controversial. As you say, David Hockney said it's a vanity project on the part of the British Museum. Just don't take a risk with something so precious. But if you go back to the 1980s, interesting detail that actually comes up in that Michael Lewis, David Musgrove book. A British museum keeper who was trying to negotiate the loan at that time, talks to the French curator who was hugely well versed in the Biotapestry and had been, I think, for years.

• 1:07:10Speaker 00

  And supposedly she says to him at that moment, look, the medieval embroidery here is as tough as old boots. There is no problem in moving it. Now, no one's being cavalier, as I understand it. And I've been talking, I've been writing about this for The Telegraph. I've been talking to people at the museum endlessly, seemingly, although I love doing so, for months about this. They have taken every care going.

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:07:32Speaker 00

  You know, as you say, the Biomuseum was going to shut anyway. They were taking it down, which they did last autumn. It was going to go into storage. So then the controversy comes about, can it survive the journey over to the UK? The British Museum has done a couple of dummy runs of that journey with a facsimile of the tapestry, just to really check that the vibrations are not going to affect the embroidery. It's now arrived, at the moment of recording this, I'm hoping that I'm going to get in to see it as it's put into and sealed in this half a million pound, very long cabinet table, which is what it will be displayed in. Because bear in mind, it will be displayed in this single length at the British Museum, hopefully on Monday, which I'm really excited about.

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:08:12Speaker 00

  But, you know, people are taking tremendous care. I mean, you know, conscious that perhaps there's going to be a story about suddenly some terrible rip, a hand of God, a hand of curator, if you like, coming through and tearing the fabric of the embroidery. But I don't think that's going to happen.

• 1:08:28Speaker 01

  And one thing is for certain, Alastair, it is going to be, I don't know what you think is not going to be, I think it's going to be a generation-defining exhibition. It's going to be up there with, you know, the Toot and Carmen exhibition at the British Museum of the 1970s.

• 1:08:40Speaker 00

  You're right. I mean, the interest is off the charts. When they tried to sell all the tickets online, there were huge queues. I think there's someone was, you know, I saw someone online saying, this is like Glastonbury for history enthusiasts. You know, it was impossible to get a ticket. But they're going to do another batch.

• 1:08:53Speaker 01

  Quite rightly though, because this is such an incredibly important object. It's one of those magical moments where we have a great historical event and a great historical object coming together, completely inseparable from each other.

• 1:09:06Speaker 00

  Hmm. And it defines the way we think about this moment in British history, doesn't it? I mean, interestingly, in France, I wonder whether it has quite the same resonance. I mean, there's an idea that maybe the French Revolution is the great moment that everyone's obsessed with, or, you know, French monarchy. And perhaps this was something that's about the Duchy of Normandy a very long time ago. It's not of such interest. But for us in Britain, in England, this is just such a key moment. The Norman conquest completely transforms, doesn't it, English history?

• 1:09:35Speaker 01

  Completely transforms. I mean, 1066 is quite rightly the most famous date in English history. It's the equivalent of 1789 in France or 1776 in America. And it does really change everything. I mean, it's probably the single biggest turning point in English history since the Roman invasion of a thousand years earlier and maybe the Industrial Revolution of 700 years later. It changes Britain's entire ruling class. It changes the landscape and built environment of England. First castles are built, it changes our language. It repositions us geopolitically from being a North Sea country to a country that's connected across the channel to the continent.

• 1:10:16Speaker 01

  So, I mean, the implications of this historical event, as well as this object, are still absolutely with us.

• 1:10:22Speaker 00

  My question for you is, would we care as much as we do about that historical moment if the tapestry did not exist?

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:10:29Speaker 00

  No. I mean, genuinely, I think, and this is one of the one of, obviously, we're both very passionate about our subject, art history. But the power of art is exemplified by the Biotapestry. You know, no one's going to want to bother reading essentially quite boring medieval Latin manuscripts, quite dry. You know, there's other sources, there are tremendous stories in them and all sorts of things that we could have touched upon today. But the reality is that in the public imagination, it's defined by the visual imagery we find in the tapestry. And that is, I know you have, you think it has its shortcomings, but I think that is testament to a genius at work.

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And it proves, I think, that artworks, images, objects, whatever you want to call them, can really shape the collective historical imagination. Well, Alastair, what a pleasure, what a great discussion. Very much looking forward to seeing the show itself. Goodbye.

• 1:11:23Speaker 00

  Goodbye.

• 1:11:29Speaker 00

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