50 Fun Facts About Bayeux Tapestry

Which event does the Bayeux Tapestry depict?

It runs from Harold's trip to Normandy to the Battle of Hastings.

Approximately how long is the Bayeux Tapestry?

It is only about half a metre tall.

Why is the Bayeux Tapestry technically not a tapestry?

In a true tapestry the design is woven into the cloth; here wool is stitched onto a plain ground.

How many scenes make up the tapestry?

All carry Latin captions called tituli.

Whom did 20th-century scholars come to see as the tapestry's most likely patron?

He was William's half-brother and later regent in the king's absence.

Where do scholars widely accept the tapestry was made?

The Latin has Anglo-Saxon hints and Anglo-Saxon needlework was famous across Europe.

By what French name is the tapestry sometimes known, after the queen legend credited with making it?

Twentieth-century scholarship replaced Queen Matilda with Odo as the likely patron.

Which English abbot, who had run a Norman scriptorium, has been proposed as the tapestry's designer?

Christine Grainge has instead argued for Archbishop Lanfranc.

What is the earliest known written reference to the tapestry?

It survived the Huguenot sack of Bayeux in 1562.

For which feast was the tapestry hung annually in its home church, according to the 1476 inventory?

By 1728 it was hung mainly to air it; the rest of the year it lived in a chest.

Which Benedictine scholar published the first drawings and full description of the tapestry in 1729-30?

The drawings were by Antoine Benoît, in Les Monuments de la Monarchie française.

During the French Revolution the tapestry was confiscated to be used for what?

A local lawyer rescued it from a wagon and hid it in his house.

Why did Napoleon have the tapestry displayed in Paris in the early 1800s?

When the invasion was abandoned it lost its propaganda value and went back to Bayeux.

Which draughtsman made a hand-coloured facsimile of the tapestry for the Society of Antiquaries in 1816?

His images record the tapestry before its 19th-century restoration.

Which Nazi leader coveted the tapestry as 'important for our glorious and cultured Germanic history'?

His 1944 message ordering it moved was intercepted by Bletchley Park.

Where did the Gestapo take the tapestry on 27 June 1944?

By the time the SS tried to seize it in August, the Louvre was back in French hands.

Fragments cut from the tapestry's underside by a Nazi research team in 1941 were rediscovered when?

They were returned to Bayeux in 2026.

To which UNESCO register was the tapestry admitted in 2007?

The register lists globally important documentary heritage.

Which French president announced in 2018 that the tapestry would be loaned to Britain?

In exchange, treasures such as the Sutton Hoo finds or the Lewis chessmen would visit Rouen and Caen.

Under the 2025 loan deal, which London institution was to host the tapestry in 2026–27?

Tickets for the first four months sold out within 24 hours.

How much potential damage did the UK government agree to be liable for during the loan?

An art historian's petition against moving it gathered over 40,000 signatures.

The tapestry is embroidered in wool on what kind of cloth?

Two stitches are used: stem stitch for outlines and lettering, and couching or laid work for filling.

How many separate cloth panels were sewn together to make the tapestry?

The first join, at the end of scene 13, is clumsy; the later ones are almost invisible.

Which farm implement makes its earliest known appearance in scene 10 of the tapestry?

It was a newly invented tool at the time.

Which celestial visitor appears in the upper border, in the first known picture of it?

Below it, ghostly ships in the lower border hint at the coming invasion.

The final caption, 'Et fuga verterunt Angli' (and the English retreated), is considered what?

It dates from a period of anti-English sentiment; the true ending is missing.

What do scholars think the missing final panel showed?

Norton estimates the lost panel was some three metres long.

At the dedication of which building in 1077 was the tapestry probably meant to be displayed?

Norton showed it would fit neatly along the south, west and north arcades of the nave.

Who sends Harold to Normandy in the tapestry's opening scene?

Harold lands in the wrong place and is taken prisoner by Guy, Count of Ponthieu.

Outside which monastery does Harold rescue two Norman soldiers from quicksand?

The scene comes during William's campaign against Conan of Brittany.

On what does Harold swear his oath to William in scene 23?

The caption says an oath was taken but never says what was promised.

Which controversial archbishop is shown at Harold's coronation?

The papacy had excommunicated him and considered his appointment unlawful.

Which two of Harold's brothers are named among the fallen at Hastings?

Both armies are shown fighting bravely.

What does William do during the battle to prove to his knights he is still alive?

The bishop of Bayeux, meanwhile, rallies the troops brandishing a baton or mace.

What did the 1729 and 1730 engravings show in place of the famous arrow in Harold's eye?

Needle holes suggest something was shortened and fletchings added later.

In medieval iconography, death by a weapon through the eye was the fate of what kind of person?

So the scene may stress that Harold broke his oath to William.

Which mysterious woman appears with a cleric in a caption nobody has explained?

The name is the Latinised spelling of Ælfgifu, and two naked men appear in the border below.

Which Victorian novelist dismissed the tapestry as 'the work of amateurs; very feeble amateurs'?

John Ruskin, by contrast, called it the most interesting thing in its way conceivable.

In which English town is the full-size Victorian replica of the tapestry displayed?

Elizabeth Wardle and 37 Leek embroiderers finished it in 1886.

Which Channel Island's residents finished a continuation of the Bayeux Tapestry in 2013?

416 islanders took part, adding the building of the Tower of London too.

Which musician's estate sold the Bayeux Museum a Victorian replica of the tapestry in 2024?

The Rolling Stones drummer's copy sold for £16,000.

The Overlord Embroidery, inspired by the tapestry, commemorates what?

It dates from 1974 and hangs in Portsmouth.

A 2022 hyperspectral study found the tapestry's original dyes came from which three plants?

The camera measured 215 different colours.

Besides being a bishop, what English title did William's half-brother hold after the Conquest?

He was imprisoned by William in 1082 and freed only on the king's deathbed in 1087.

Which monastic text from Ely mentions an earlier narrative wall-hanging commemorating Byrhtnoth?

It is remarkable not for being unique but for being the sole medieval survivor of its kind.

About how tall is the Bayeux Tapestry?

Its length of nearly 70 metres dwarfs its height, so it reads like a long comic strip with decorative borders top and bottom.

In what language are the tapestry's captions, or tituli, written?

The spelling sometimes shows English influence, one clue that the work was made in England; the letters are mostly in a near-black dark blue wool.

How does Bishop Odo appear in the battle scenes of the tapestry?

He is shown in scene 54; as William's half-brother and probable patron of the work, he gets a heroic role in the fighting.

The 2026-27 British Museum loan was agreed in exchange for French exhibitions of items from which site?

The Lewis chessmen and Battersea Shield were also on the list for museums in Rouen and Caen; it is the tapestry's first visit to Britain in 900 years.

The Victorian replica in Reading was stitched in 1885-86 by some 37 women in which Staffordshire town?

Elizabeth Wardle, wife of William Morris's textile collaborator Thomas Wardle, organised her School of Art Embroidery to work from a South Kensington Museum facsimile.