The Bayeux Tapestry Explained: Watch an Animated Retelling of the Norman Conquest

Every time the World Cup comes around, or at least since Eng­land first and last won it 60 years ago, there’s talk of whether it’ll be brought “back home.” The idea being, of course, that foot­ball (or soc­cer, as it’s called in a cou­ple of the coun­tries host­ing this year’s match­es) was made in Eng­land. How­ev­er the show­down with Nor­way goes this Sun­day, and indeed how the rest of the World Cup plays out dur­ing the week there­after, some­thing much old­er — and of much less debat­able ori­gins — will be returned to Blighty: the Bayeux Tapes­try, which has been kept in the epony­mous Nor­mandy town since at least the four­teen-sev­en­ties, and most like­ly cen­turies ear­li­er than that.

This siz­able and intri­cate piece of embroi­dered fab­ric depicts the events lead­ing up to the Bat­tle of Hast­ings in 1066, the deci­sive event of the Nor­man Con­quest of Eng­land. Leg­i­ble today as a kind of “medieval com­ic strip,” as the nar­ra­tor of this new ani­mat­ed video from the British Muse­um puts it, the Bayeux Tapes­try also reveals “medieval life in amaz­ing detail,” while at the same time “hint­ing at secrets in its bor­ders.”

For all the schol­ar­ly and pop­u­lar atten­tion paid to it, the work has yet to yield the answers to any­where near all of its mys­ter­ies, nor to lose its fas­ci­na­tion through famil­iar­i­ty. It bears, after all, quite a lot of imagery to get famil­iar with in the first place.

It’s one thing to behold the Bayeux Tapes­try through images, how­ev­er high-res­o­lu­tion, and quite anoth­er to behold the real thing. The Eng­lish have been able to get fair­ly close to the lat­ter expe­ri­ence since the Vic­to­ri­an era with the aid of the full-size repli­ca, made in 1885, now dis­played at the Read­ing Muse­um in Berk­shire and pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture. But this Sep­tem­ber, the orig­i­nal Bayeux Tapes­try will begin its res­i­dence at the British Muse­um, coin­cid­ing with the ren­o­va­tion of the Bayeux Muse­um. (France, for its part, gets a loan of trea­sures from the ship buried at Sut­ton Hoo and the Lewis chess­men.) If you get the oppor­tu­ni­ty to have a look before it’s returned the fol­low­ing year, don’t turn it down; as the World Cup shows us, you can nev­er be sure when the next home­com­ing will hap­pen.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Bayeux Tapes­try Gets Dig­i­tized: View the Medieval Tapes­try in High Res­o­lu­tion, Down to the Indi­vid­ual Thread

Behold a Cre­ative Ani­ma­tion of the Bayeux Tapes­try

The Sto­ry Told on the Famous Bayeux Tapes­try Explained from Start to Fin­ish

The Entire His­to­ry of the British Isles Ani­mat­ed: 42,000 BCE to Today

Con­struct Your Own Bayeux Tapes­try with This Free Online App

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. He’s the author of the newslet­ter Books on Cities as well as the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Sum­ma­riz­ing Korea) and Kore­an Newtro. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.