Short History Of... - The Bayeux Tapestry

Episode Date: February 27, 2023

Since it was created 900 years ago, the Bayeux Tapestry has survived war, revolution and the ravages of time. This fragile piece of linen, almost seventy metres long, depicts the events leading up to the Norman invasion of England. But who created it, and why? What do its graphic scenes of battle and cruelty reveal about life, death and warfare in the middle ages? This is a Short History of the Bayeux Tapestry. Written by Kate Harrison. With thanks to Michael Lewis, Head of Portable Antiquities & Treasure at the British Museum. For ad-free listening, exclusive content and early access to new episodes, join Noiser+. Now available for Apple and Android users. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is the 22nd of August 1944. After more than four years of ruthless Nazi occupation, the liberation of Paris is underway. Military Governor Dietrich von Koltes watches the uprising from his headquarters at the Hotel Maurice. Beyond his window, resistance fighters launch Molotov cocktails, sending streaks of fire along the wide boulevards when they hit. of cocktails, sending streaks of fire along the wide boulevards when they hit. German soldiers return fire, but they're outnumbered. Just three weeks after Hitler gave him the job, von Koltitz knows he's losing control of the city. He turns away and sits down at his suite's antique desk. Of all the wartime billets in his 30-year career, this former palace is the grandest. Under the lights

of an ornate chandelier, he studies a map of Paris. But he's not tracking the city's liberation. He's meant to be planning its destruction. In the eventuality that the Germans are forced to withdraw, Hitler has ordered the raising of Paris. Explosive charges will destroy countless landmarks, including Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Louvre Museum. 49-year-old von Koltitz has always followed orders, however repellent. But now he is convinced Hitler has gone mad. Civic leaders have begged him to ignore the instruction. As the windows rattle from a burst of artillery fire outside, he paces up and down the Persian rug. The fate of the French capital is in his hands. Now four SS officers enter the room. They snap to a halt and raise their hands in the Nazi salute,

then announce that they have traveled from Berlin. Von Koltitz swallows. Perhaps word has spread that he is doubting the Fuhrer's sanity. But the officers explain that they are here to take something away on the orders of Heinrich Himmler himself. He wants a souvenir of the city to display in his German castle, something priceless, something unique. The item he has chosen is none other than the Bayeux tapestry. Von Koltitz knows exactly where the 900-year-old embroidery is, in the Louvre. The resistance have already seized back control of the museum. Even in the chaos of street fighting, they made safeguarding the tapestry a priority. Instinctively, the patriotic German understands their pride in an ancient treasure.

Von Koltitz runs a hand through his slicked back, dark hair, trying to work out what to do. He leads the officers to the window. Even though they're on the fourth floor, acrid smoke catches in their throats. He points down at the vast footprint of the Louvre. The tapestry is locked somewhere in the basement for safety. Von Koltitz frowns. He warns them that successfully taking the tapestry by force, even merely locating the

small roll of fabric in the museum's many wings, is not going to be easy. But certainly, if they want to try it, his own soldiers will provide covering fire. They don't notice that he's calling their bluff. To do as he suggests would be a suicide mission. But will the SS men agree? The officers whisper among themselves. Do they really want to risk death for the sake of a piece of fabric? Eventually, they tell von Koltitz they don't believe the tapestry is in the Louvre at all and withdraw to await further orders from Berlin. They never return. The tapestry is safe.

It is another dramatic near-miss for the Bayeux tapestry, which has faced countless threats since its creation in the 11th century. Somehow this fragile piece of linen, almost 70 meters long, has survived war, revolution and the ravages of time. Incredibly, only the small end section has gone missing. Its nine intricate panels depict the history of another vicious European invasion and occupation almost a thousand years ago. The artwork has played a part in shaping our view of medieval history and national identity. But who created it and why? What do its graphic scenes

of battle and cruelty reveal about life, death, and warfare in the Middle Ages, and what became of the missing final piece. I'm John Hopkins, and this is a short history of the Bayeux Tapestry. The Bayeux Tapestry is the world's best-known textile. Its depiction of the infamous Battle of Hastings in 1066 has captured the imaginations of everyone from historians to schoolchildren. The 58 dramatic scenes feature over 600 different characters, 38 buildings, 41 ships, and 200 horses and mules.

The images are stitched in 10 different vivid colors using traditional plant dyes. Yet the creation of the tapestry is a mystery. Even now we can't be sure who commissioned it, who made it, or exactly what it was for. Even its name is up for debate, though most historians agree that it likely wasn't stitched in Bayeux. And surprisingly, the piece isn't a tapestry at all. Michael Lewis is a member of the Bayeux Tapestry Scientific Community and Head of Portable Antiquities and Treasure at the British Museum. We call it a tapestry, but it's actually an embroidery.

The characters are stitched onto the linen background in woolen threads. So that's technically what an embroidery is. It essentially tells the story of the Norman Conquest, or the events leading to the Norman Conquest in 1066. I think a lot of people think it's about the Battle of Hastings, but actually that's only really the last kind of portion of it, probably even less than a quarter of the tapestry. So most of it deals with the events leading to why William of Normandy decided on this pretty amazing venture really to invade England in 1066. The world in the scenes of the tapestry is a brutal, unsettled one. The world in the scenes of the tapestry is a brutal, unsettled one. For a long time, England and her people have been subject to Viking invasions,

infighting between wealthy families, and murderous conspiracies. Right from its first scenes, the artwork establishes William of Normandy and Earl Harold Godwinson as the key players in the drama to come. Soon they'll be deadly rivals, but the early panels picture them as brothers in arms. The story depicted in the tapestry begins in 1064 when Earl Harold travels from England to Norway on the orders of the king, Edward the Confessor. Shown riding to the coast with his friends, Harold has a hawk perched on his fist while hounds run ahead. The Saxon men wear their hair long with large moustaches, while their horses are stitched in blues and reds, as well as more

natural shades of brown and beige. Before crossing the channel, Harold kneels to pray at a small church and then joins his comrades in a grand hall for a feast. The guests eat from huge bowls, drink from decorated longhorns, and talk animatedly as they wait for favorable winds to help them sail to France. In the tapestry's decorated border, two wolves lick their paws, hinting that the earl's men are overindulging. Soon the party boards two brightly painted longboats, the men hoisting up their tunics to wade into the water. In another scene, after Earl Harold meets the French William in his Norman court, Harold is shown as a hero. As William's men cross a river, a treacherous

current pulls horses and men beneath the surface. Harold strides into the water, larger than life in his green tunic and sporting his trademark moustache. Without hesitation, he drags one man out and carries a second to safety on his back. Immediately after their victory, Duke William and Harold are shown travelling to Bayeux to make an oath that will set the scene for the coming battle. to Bayeux to make an oath that will set the scene for the coming battle.

Now the Bayeux Tapestry is not very clear about what this oath is about. It just says that Harold makes an oath on holy relics. If we read the Norman sources of the time, they're fairly clear that Harold made this oath as a promise to help William become King of England upon the death of Edward the Confessor. There are problems with this oath from an Anglo-Saxon English perspective. One is that Edward the Confessor probably did have an heir already to succeed him. It may have been the case that Harold promised anything

just to get out of Normandy, of course. Whatever oath Harold actually makes, William clearly believes he'll become the next King of England when Edward dies. But before long, Harold's own ambition is revealed. By 1066, King Edward the Confessor is on his deathbed. In the tapestry, the King's face is heavily lined and he needs support to sit up. In his last moments, he's shown telling Earl Harold that he should take the crown.

The Anglo-Saxon council, known as the Witton, confirms the dying king's decision. They believe Harold has the right combination of battlefield courage and savvy political skills to help England prosper. Within 48 hours, King Harold II is crowned. That historic moment features on the Bayeux Tapestry. You see him seated on a throne. It's a really striking scene because you have a few things going on around him. One is there's a comet in the sky, which we now know to be Halley's Comet. And comets at the time were seen as a portent of change. They're not necessarily seen

as an omen of doom, but they're certainly seen as something that changes. Also, within the borders of the Bay of Tapestry, you see this fleet of ships, and they look a bit ghostly, and people have called them the ghostly fleet. Now, are these a premonition of the Norman ships that were to invade England, or even the Norwegian ones, of course, that were to invade England in the north? Or are they Harold's own ships that are out there kind of defending the south coast? The comet is being shown to Harold by observers as being something he should sort of take interest in, something that kind of opens his eyes to the potential threats that he's going to face. But to be honest, I don't think when Harold took the crown in January 1066, he had any illusions that he wasn't going to be challenged.

In September, nine months after Harold becomes king, he leads his army to Yorkshire, where he faces a Norwegian invasion force headed by the notorious warrior Harold Hardrada. But the real threat will come from closer to home. On the other side of the English Channel, Duke William of Normandy still believes the throne belongs to him. When a messenger arrives to tell him that Harold has been crowned instead, William decides not to give up without a fight. He embarks on a huge program to prepare an invasion fleet. The tapestry shows the effort to build new ships, woodsmen felling trees, the construction of hulls

with raised prows and decorated sterns. Not dissimilar to Viking longships, each one measures up to 40 meters long and six wide. There's space for 15 or 20 rows of oarsmen, as well as a mast for a large square sail. Historians estimate that William's force includes between 700 and 2,000 large ships, plus countless smaller boats requisitioned for the campaign. While his fleet takes shape, William gathers fighting men and servants from across France and beyond. He also seeks the pope's approval for the invasion.

Later scenes in the tapestry show the papal standard or flag being flown by the Normans, driving home the message that Duke William's venture is God's will. As summer turns to autumn, it's time to mobilize. Yeah, the Norman invasion is such a crazy thing in many respects. The idea that William of Normandy thought that he could come to England and just take the country.

I mean, there's an arrogance to that. Even now, knowing that it happened, I can't believe it was successful actually it's not that he's coming to a country that wanted him i don't think there was many people in england that you know had their arms ready to welcome a norman invasion a lot of people in normandy as well you know the nobility thought that he was absolutely crazy with this idea it's reflected in the norman sources that this was a foolhardy endeavor. He was gonna leave Normandy and the territories that it had claimed

to take on another 27, 1066. At Saint-Valéry, on the French coast where the channel meets the river Somme, thousands of men wait to board the ships that make up William's invasion fleet. A young groom tries to settle his horses, but the animals are twitchy, sensing danger. After six weeks of waiting to sail across to England, the weather has finally changed in the Normans' favour. As dusk falls, men push forward, impatient for the fight.

Lined up along the estuary are hundreds of ships. Supplies like salted beef, dried bread, and barrels of wine are loaded on, while carpenters make the finishing touches to the vessels before they leave. As the groom gets closer to the shore, he sees that the archers are boarding first. They're clean-shaven and carrying bows and quivers of arrows, ready to fight the English as soon as the fleet makes landfall. Next, the knights embark, with their servants carrying swords, spears, shields, and heavy chainmail tunics. But alongside the new ships, the shore is littered with wrecked craft and the corpses of men drowned by storms during the preparation of the assault. The groom shivers. He's trying to hide it, but he's almost as scared as his horses. As another ship is hauled into position in the shallow water using guide ropes, he

sees a fierce dragon carved into the sharp prow. The ship has been specially built to transport the warhorses. The animals are bridled and battle-trained, but as they approach the ramp, terror makes some hesitate. One stallion foams at the mouth. The young man wades in barefoot, leading the nervy horse by its reins. He speaks to it calmly, pulling gently to guide the animal onto the ramp leading into the hull. Once they are on board, he tethers the stallion in the center of the ship, where it is steadiest, then returns to the shore to fetch the next one. The grooms work together, arranging the horses in a group of ten, facing each other. The

smell of dung soon fills the cabin, swamping the softer aroma of the hay that will sustain the creatures on their journey. Outside, with everything on board, the helmsman calls out to his men to untie the ropes. From the shore, men push from the rear, grunting with effort as they give the ship a final shove towards the deeper water of the channel. Now the oarsmen start rowing. The wind helps the fleet move faster than expected. The fleet stretches for as far as they can see, ghostly in the moonlight on a glassy sea. Hours later, the groom emerges onto the deck just as the trumpets sound.

The flames illuminate the purple sky. It's the signal to invade, coming from the Duke's own ship, the Mora. The first shafts of morning sunlight fall onto its figurehead, a golden child pointing towards England. Now all the ships raise their anchors, the entire fleet heading for the coast. The soldiers expect battle to start any moment, and the Anglo-Saxons have a fierce reputation. But as the Normans close in, the beach appears deserted. The archers jump out of the vessels, splashing through the shallows and running onto

shore ready to fire. But there are no defenses at all. The bay fills with more of William's ships. Hundreds of men crowd onto the shingle. As he waits to disembark his horses, the groom's spirits soar. Maybe the Saxons will welcome the Normans as a civilizing force. Perhaps the battle he's been dreading won't happen after all. Duke William has landed at Pevensey, in the heart of Harold's own territory. The lack of defenses is a happy accident for the Normans. In the weeks they were delayed by bad weather, King Harold stood down local English soldiers who'd been guarding the coast. Now, as the tapestry's next embroidered scenes show, the sleepy villages of Sussex are on the front line. Though the fleet carries its own weapons and wine, an army needs much more to survive in a new country.

There are at least 7,000 men to feed. You see two things really in the rare tapestry. One is the Normans going about the countryside, taking equipment and supplies from the English, but they also needed to terrorise the local population to some extent. And you see this really evocative scene in the tapestry of a house being burnt by Norman men and a woman and what seems to be a child fleeing from that house. William was to gain a reputation of being an extremely ruthless person. He was a tyrant, essentially. No doubt many would have been slaughtered, attacked, raped, all sorts of things would have happened to these people. So it was obviously a pretty scary time. That terror has another purpose,

to lure King Harald away from the north, where he's been fighting the Norwegian forces. He and his elite professional soldiers, known as the Housecarls, have just won an incredible victory over the dauntless Harald Hardrada. English warriors decimated the Scandinavian forces, giving the king confidence that he can defeat William just as easily. Harald's infantrymen travel down from Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire, 200 miles north of London.

On the way, they pick up local forces swelling their numbers. They take up position in the south, around seven miles from the port of Hastings. The Norman and English armies are evenly matched, but the differences in their strategies and equipment will prove decisive in the coming showdown. In the tapestry, the two sides finally glimpse each other from either side of twisted trees. The Saxons are at the top of a hill, which should give them a huge tactical advantage. The battle begins on the 14th of October 1066. The Normans, led by Harold's former ally William, attack at first light. The English

have formed a shield wall almost half a mile long, linking arms to protect their position. They plan to kill the waves of William's troops as they approach. But it's not that easy. Because as the fight commences, it becomes clear that the Normans have three different means of attack. They have infantrymen like the English, spears, clubs, and axes, but they also have archers who shoot upwards to avoid the defensive shields, raining arrows directly downwards onto the Saxons. More crucial still is their cavalry advance. The importance of the Norman horses is shown on the tapestry, with dozens of knights and their mounts stitched in vivid detail. On the English side, only Harold is pictured on horseback. But it is still not clear which side will emerge victorious.

It is October 14, 1066. Four hours after William's army first advanced against the English, the hillside is littered with thousands of bodies. A soldier from King Harold's elite troop of House Carls stands firm as yet another wave of Norman knights gallops towards him. At the start of the battle, the English position, fortified behind their Saxon shield wall, seemed invincible. But the strategy has become a trap. Now, as the soldier stands packed together and arm in arm with the other defenders, there is increasingly little room for maneuver.

The thick woodland behind offers no refuge for the wounded. The Hauskarl grits his teeth and tightens his grip on his shield and long-handled battleaxe. A familiar cry goes up from the advancing enemy, followed by the ominous whistle of loosed missiles. The soldier next to him screams and drops, hit in the throat by a Norman arrow. screams and drops, hit in the throat by a Norman arrow. It's a fatal blow. Within seconds, the body has been trampled under the feet of his own comrades. The Hauskarl shouts to the next soldier in line. They must link arms again to maintain the shield wall. He reaches sideways to close the gap, but slips on the mud that's been churned by hours of battle and puddled with blood. As he struggles to his feet, the wall moves without him, and he's exposed.

Now three Norman knights are bearing down on him. He thrusts the base of his teardrop-shaped shield into the mud and uses both hands to swing his heavy axe, aiming it at the horse running towards him. his both hands to swing his heavy axe, aiming it at the horse running towards him. The animal screeches and crumples, sending the knight tumbling to the ground. Now it's man against man. Yet in this frenzied crowd, there's no room to fight properly. The men struggle for dominance, but then the Norman knight loses his footing. The Englishman brings his axe around again, aiming for the enemy's vulnerable flank. He makes contact, the axe slicing through the armour into flesh. The knight staggers, the shield lowering.

The defending soldier lands three more blows, the final one sizing through his enemy's neck. The Hauskarl steps over the body and up onto the fallen horse, the extra height giving him a chance to survey more of the battlefield. But now he frowns. The relentless rain of arrows seems to be thinning out. Now the Norman knights are turning their horses. The cavalry is retreating. He sees the confused expression of his fellow defenders behind their helmets.

Could it be over? Is William the invader dead? Around him, the soldiers jeer the fleeing Normans. After so much bloodshed, euphoria spreads. Behind him, the Saxon shield wall falls apart as his fellow fighters break ranks to pursue the enemy. But to the Housecarl, it doesn't feel like William's army has been vanquished. So why are they retreating? As he catches his breath, the sense of dread grows. Then a shout goes up from the Norman line. William's knights are turning, and as quickly as they retreated, the Norman cavalry is advancing

again, the scale and speed terrifying. With the defensive wall broken, the Saxons are incredibly vulnerable. Arrows whiz past the housecarl's ears as he tries to race backwards to rebuild the wall. One of his commanders disappears under the hooves of a horse, another is run through by a spear. The Saxons have been tricked. Their defense is in disarray and it's every man for himself. himself. It is a turning point, but the battle will rage on for several more hours, making it far longer an ordeal than most battles of the time. At one point rumors spread that Duke William has been killed.

The Bayeux tapestry shows him raising his helmet to show his face and prove to his men that he is alive before he leads another charge. It's not only about the Anglo-Saxons fighting the Normans, but it's about these two protagonists, really. If either of them had died at any point in the battle, then effectively the whole point of the battle had changed sufficiently, hasn't it really? I mean, why would the Normans keep fighting if William was dead and vice versa for the Anglo-Saxons? The detailed design reflects the descent from order into carnage. The scenes of the Battle of Hastings in the Bayeux Tapestry are quite regimented to start with,

but they get increasingly chaotic. And you get to a point when it's almost impossible to know what's going on. You've got horses tumbling, you've got even horses with axes being shoved into their heads. You've got men, of course, being chopped up. The lower borders of the tapestry become littered with the dead and parts of their bodies and swords and equipment and all sorts. The dwindling Saxon forces look to Harold for leadership. But when his courageous brothers are both slain, morale drops further.

Then, late in the afternoon, King Harold himself is killed. Famously, his death comes after an arrow strikes his eye, and that's what the tapestry shows. But is that really what happened? So we don't really have any contemporary reports that Harold died this way. So again, that kind of opens the question, how did he die? Most people seem to think he just got smashed to pieces by the Norman Knights. And in fact, there's some quite in-depth accounts by naming the different knights and what wounds they caused to Harold. What's interesting is the fact that the tapestry seems to show that Harold is being shot with an arrow in the eye, where if you look at

earlier versions of the Bayeux Tapestry, that's not so evident. And the reason for that is that the Bayeux Tapestry has been heavily restored in the 19th century. My view is that what's happened here is there's a tradition that he did get killed with an arrow in the eye, and the Beartapestry has been restored to show that happening. Whatever the exact cause of Harold's death, his army cannot fight on effectively without a leader. The Normans have won. The Normans have won. As dusk falls, the surviving Saxon fighters flee a battleground strewn with the bodies of men and horses. The conquerors will name this place Sangillac, meaning Blood Lake.

In the days and weeks after the battle, Norman forces brutally suppress all English attempts at resistance and continue towards London. William the Conqueror is crowned at Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day, almost a year after Harold himself was made king. Yet the tapestry shows none of this. William's death is followed immediately by one final scene, the 58th, showing mounted Normans chasing away the last Saxon soldiers. The abrupt ending and the poor condition of the last section of the tapestry has convinced historians that another panel has been lost. Perhaps it deteriorated faster than the rest because it was handled more and stretched out whenever the piece was displayed. was handled more and stretched out whenever the piece was displayed. And the mystery of the final piece is just one of many that still surround the creation and purpose of the tapestry.

Most experts believe it was commissioned in the years immediately following the Norman invasion, even though there is no record of its existence until four centuries later. The most romantic story of the creation of the embroidery is one of the most compelling. The tradition used to be that it was made by Matilda, so the wife of William the Conqueror, and in fact there's this beautiful painting in Bayeux that shows Matilda and her ladies carefully weaving the tapestry, obviously then to be presented to William as some sort of love gift or whatever. That idea has been shelved by most people.

So if not produced by his devoted wife, was the tapestry made by the victorious Normans or the defeated Anglo-Saxons? The evidence suggests it was commissioned by the winners, but sewn by the losers. So scholars nowadays take the view that the tapestry was probably made in England, probably made in Canterbury in fact, and there's several reasons for that. The first one is that it seems to be influenced by Anglo-Saxon manuscripts which were housed in monastic libraries in Canterbury.

One of the people who features a lot in the Bayeux tapestry is the half-brother of William the Conqueror, Odo Bishop of Bayeux. Like many of William's allies in the invasion, Odo is rewarded by the new king. English noblemen are replaced by Normans, and Bishop Odo becomes the Earl of Kent, a development that strongly links him to the Kentish town of Canterbury, where the tapestry may have been created. Another thread connecting him to the commission is the suspiciously central role Odo takes in many of the tapestry's most dramatic scenes. Often, he even outshines King William.

Often, he even outshines King William. In the Bayeux Tapestry, Odo seems to be doing lots of things that are beyond that of other accounts of the Norman conquest. So he's there suggesting to William that he might build an invasion fleet. He's there when they land in Hastings at the head of this kind of supper that they have in the place, it seems, of Christ himself. Odo probably was very much involved in the Bay of Tapestry, not necessarily in a directing role, but certainly saying, yeah, I want some sort of embroidery that glorifies my role in Norman conquest,

that can travel to different residences of mine in Kent and shows these Anglo-Saxons how I'm really such a great person and I'm on your side and all that sort of stuff. If Odo commissioned it, who actually designed and embroidered the tapestry? how I'm really such a great person and on your side and all that sort of stuff. If Odo commissioned it, who actually designed and embroidered the tapestry? In medieval Europe, needlecraft was women's work, practiced by nuns and noblewomen alike. The overall design would have been drawn onto the fabric, probably in charcoal. Two main embroidery stitches are used. Stem stitch creates the lettering and outlines of fighting men,

horses, hounds, trees, ships and buildings like Westminster Abbey. Couching or Bayeux stitch adds colour to the shields of soldiers, the powerful bodies of the war horses, even the flames of burning buildings. Historians believe groups of women stitch different parts of the same scene at once, some working upside down. The colors used on key characters changes between scenes, suggesting they're sewn at different times. Each shade is created from natural dyes, indigo blue and green from a plant called woad, red and orange from madder, part of the coffee family, and yellow from weld, a common weed.

With the embroidery complete, the nine linen panels are joined together, creating an action-packed, rapidly unfolding drama. But even though women do the work, only six feature in the tapestry, compared to 597 men. Three of the women feature in the main story. King Edward's widow, the villager fleeing her burning home, and a mysterious woman, Alfgiva, who is shown being touched or slapped by a priest. They're the only three women in the entire main strip of their tapestry but in the borders we have a few more women but they're all naked and they're mostly with naked men as well and again knowing exactly what they're up to and why they're there is is really tricky to sort of work out but given women were so involved with the production of the tapestry it's quite surprising

that there's not many in it actually. It's a reminder of how patriarchal Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman society was in those days. Okay, there were obviously important and great women that we know of through the sources, but mostly it was men. It was a man's world, I suppose, and the tapestry mimics that in some ways. The tapestry mimics that in some ways. The tapestry also features 93 penises, 88 belonging to the horses and 5 to men. No one can be sure why quite so many genitals, including some that are notably outsized, have been stitched into the design. Some historians believe it is to reinforce the virility of the fighters and power struggle between William and Harold.

Others have even suggested the women embroiderers might be subtly undermining the excessively macho battle story. There is no record of how many needle workers are involved or how long the work takes them. But if Bishop Odo commissioned the tapestry, it could have been taken across the Channel to mark the consecration of Bayeux Cathedral in July 1077. The tapestry is first recorded in the cathedral's inventory 400 years after that. It's described as a very narrow strip of linen, embroidered with figures and inscriptions representing the conquest of England. The record notes that the tapestry is hung around the nave once a year during the Feast of Relics every July.

That annual airing helps ensure the tapestry's survival. Being hung in warm weather dries out any damp and allows staff to check for any decay or moth attack In between, it is stored in a simple cedar chest, which also repels insects But the tapestry's main threat has always come not from nature, but human action Bayeux Cathedral is ransacked multiple times over the centuries, but somehow the tapestry survives, perhaps because it's stitched in dyed wool rather than gold or silver. Few people outside the city even know it exists. But in 1724, French academics come across a sketch

showing a mysterious artwork depicting the events of the Norman invasion. It takes another five years to discover that the drawing is actually a copy of an embroidery kept at Bayeux. As word spreads, French and English historians travel to Normandy to view it. Each time the fragile fabric is unrolled to show them, more damage is done. The end panel, if it existed, has already gone missing. But the tapestry's new fame doesn't protect it from danger. In 1789, the cathedral comes under attack again as the French Revolution rages. Statues and artworks are destroyed, but the embroidery survives. Until three years later.

It is autumn 1792, three years after the storming of the Bastille marked the start of the French Revolution. In the town of Bayeux, men from the 6th Battalion of Calvados Volunteers are preparing to head out to war against Prussia. Right now, the weather is their most pressing enemy. The quartermaster despairs as heavy rain falls on the wagons, which are loaded with supplies, muskets and ammunition. Lightning criss-crosses the grey sky and thunder rocks the cart. If the downpour continues, their weapons won't fire and their provisions will rot. He dispatches soldiers to find material to cover the wagons,

raiding the stonework houses and shops nearby. The quartermaster himself enters the cathedral and spots a plain wooden chest. Inside, he finds a length of old embroidered linen. It's flimsy, but better than nothing. Unceremoniously bundling it up and taking it with him, he heads back to the wagons, but now a church official blocks the door. He says the piece is precious, but the quartermaster laughs, pushing him out of the way.

War means sacrifices must be made. Soldiers race to tie the improvised coverings in place before the convoy moves off, but at the top of the Rue Saint-Jean, a middle-aged civilian steps in front of the horses, stopping the convoy. He gives his name as Le Forestier, a lawyer and town councillor, and demands the return of the linen seized in the cathedral. The men scoff as he points out the fine stitchwork, explaining the crucial battle it shows. But the quartermaster snatches it back. The only battle he cares about is the one he's about to fight. When the lawyer refuses to budge, the soldiers threaten to strip him of his britches

and fine wool long coat as extra protection, or simply to ride over him. Panicking, Le Forestier pulls out his wallet. If they'll give him just ten minutes, he'll buy some nice, hardy tarpaulin that will actually be more use than this ancient old thing. With the quartermaster's grudging agreement, Le Forestier gathers the children who've been watching the argument and promises a reward if they will help. The rain falls harder. Time ticks on and the quartermaster pushes the lawyer to one side, ready to leave. But now a small boy runs towards them,

panting and red-faced, holding a pile of strong canvas sacks. The lawyer gently folds up the embroidered fabric, and the soldiers jump in to cover their vital cargo with the heavier sacking. They move off at a pace, before anyone else gets in their way. Relieved, the lawyer hides the tapestry at his home for safekeeping. But only two years later, the tapestry narrowly avoids being cut up to decorate a float during a pageant celebrating the revolution. This time, the French Fine Arts Committee steps in to save it. One person who does recognize the value of the tapestry is Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1803, he has it moved from Bayeux to display in Paris as propaganda to

support his plans to invade England. But when he abandons the invasion, the tapestry is returned. It stays in Bayeux until Nazi art historians declare that it's actually an Aryan artwork. When the Allies land in Normandy in 1944, the Nazis move the tapestry to Paris, where it awaits onward passage to Germany. But British codebreakers intercept Himmler's plans and the resistance race to take the Louvre just hours before the SS can seize it. After the war ends, the tapestry goes on display in the Louvre as part of victory celebrations attended by Winston Churchill, and then it returns to Bayeux. A museum is constructed to display the fabric. Its centerpiece is a glass case, allowing visitors to see the entire cloth in one room.

War, revolution, and nature have all threatened the tapestry, but now time presents the biggest risk to this priceless work. It's surprising in many ways that it's survived as long as it has, but it's fairly clear that without extensive treatment, it's not gonna survive long-term. I'm not saying it's fairly clear that without extensive treatment it's not going to

survive long term i'm not saying it's in any imminent danger but to make it survive as long as possible it needs some sort of intervention and that intervention obviously provides opportunities as well you know you could just say oh we're just going to restore it and then that's it but actually there's lots of things we don't know about the bear tapestry and this period of taking off display and doing the conservation work does provide a massive opportunity to learn more about it. Can we source the linen you know where that was from by scientific techniques? Likewise with the wool can we be certain where these sheep lived by different sampling strategies on them? Even things like in terms of understanding the different hands that created the tapestry. Can we study different stitches and understand that an embroiderer

worked on this part and on that part? The tapestry could also be on the move. The museum in Bayeux is due to be refurbished, and President Emmanuel Macron has offered to lend its star exhibit to England. The tapestry has never been displayed in the country where it's believed to have been created. There is a full-size Victorian copy on display in Reading Museum near London, though this one lacks the penises featured in the original. Worries about the tapestry's fragility have made logistics difficult. If the loan does go ahead, it could be a welcome gesture of cooperation, at a time when relations between Britain and continental Europe are not always cordial. But the connection between England and Normandy has never been broken.

The two are linked not just by William's invasion, but also by a more recent war. The tapestry still symbolizes that closeness and affection. Most of France is less enthusiastic about its relationship with England. But when you go to Normandy, you realize you're in the most anglophile part of France. They're just so positive about the English and the Americans and Canadians for obvious reasons, because Normandy was the first place that was liberated by the Allies in 1944. In the British cemetery in Bayeux, they have this epitaph which basically says, we who were conquered by William have now come and liberated

the Congress homeland. And I think that's just such an amazing thing, the fact that it's a kind of reverse invasion that means that they are free, essentially. Next week on Short History Of, we'll bring you a short history of the Trans-Siberian Railway. This was an amazing achievement. You know, building a railway which is 9,000 kilometres, they didn't have to build all of it. And then some of it was already built. So they had to build about 6,000 or 7,000 kilometres of extra line, which they did within about a decade, between about 1891 and 1901. And that is

an absolutely unbelievable achievement, given that they faced every possible difficulty. There wasn't enough workers out there, they had to bring them in. They could only really work for about five, six months a year. There were swamps.beria was not only very cold but very remote there were vast forests in some places or otherwise vast steps empty areas there was almost every obstacle that a railway could face so this was an amazing achievement but certainly in that initial few years it was a very poor railway achievement but certainly in that initial few years it was a very poor railway that's next time on short history of