# The Bayeux Tapestry
> Unknown English embroiderers, made under the patronage of Bishop Odo of Bayeux - c. 1067-1082, on the evidence of the Domesday connections of named minor figures in the design; probably finished in time for the dedication of Bayeux Cathedral on 14 July 1077, though this date is an inference, not a documented fact
> Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/artworks/bayeux-tapestry-workshop/bayeux-tapestry/
> Published by Servola Systems GmbH. Last verified: 2026-09-28
## Tombstone
- **Artist:** Unknown English embroiderers, made under the patronage of Bishop Odo of Bayeux
- **Date:** c. 1067-1082, on the evidence of the Domesday connections of named minor figures in the design; probably finished in time for the dedication of Bayeux Cathedral on 14 July 1077, though this date is an inference, not a documented fact
- **Medium:** Wool crewel yarn embroidered onto a tabby-woven linen ground; stem stitch and chain stitch for outlines and lettering, laid-and-couched work (locally called the Bayeux stitch) to fill the larger coloured areas. It is worked, not woven, and is an embroidery rather than a tapestry in the technical sense of the word
- **Dimensions:** 68.38 x 0.5 m (224.3 x 1.6 ft) as it survives, in nine joined linen panels ranging from about 3 to 14 m in length, the seams disguised with additional stitching. It is generally believed to have run somewhat longer originally; the final scene, thought to have shown William's coronation, is lost
- **Object type:** Textile
- **Period:** Anglo-Norman, eleventh century
- **Current location:** On loan to the British Museum, London, 10 September 2026 to July 2027; its permanent home is the Musee de la Tapisserie de Bayeux, Normandy, France
- **Attribution:** disputed
## Summary
Almost 70 metres of eleventh-century wool on linen, telling the story of the Norman Conquest with Harold's broken oath at its moral centre and the Battle of Hastings as its climax. It is an embroidery, not a woven tapestry, and no one alive has ever seen it as new: the last scene is missing, roughly a tenth of the surviving stitching is nineteenth-century repair, and the earliest firm record of its existence dates from 1476, four centuries after it was made.It has been nearly cut up for a wagon cover in the French Revolution, paraded through Paris by Napoleon as invasion propaganda, hunted by Himmler's SS in the last days of the occupation of Paris, and is now, as of August 2026, on loan to the British Museum for the first time it has left France since it was made - a loan French conservators spent years arguing was too dangerous to attempt.
## Provenance
Every link carries a grade. `documented` means a cited source supports it, `disputed` means the identification is argued but not established, `unknown` means we have no owner for that span and have not bridged it.
- **c. 1067-c. 1082** Made for Bishop Odo of Bayeux `[disputed]` (origin)
Commissioned, on the leading scholarly theory, by Odo of Bayeux and embroidered by English needleworkers probably based at or near Canterbury. No contract survives; the case rests on the Domesday connections of three named minor figures in the design and the tapestry's discovery in Odo's cathedral.
- **c. 1082-1476** Unknown `[unknown]` (gap)
No document naming or locating the tapestry has been found for roughly 375 years, aside from one thin description by a French poet around 1099-1102. It is generally assumed to have remained in or near Bayeux Cathedral throughout, but this is an inference, not a documented fact.
- **1476-1792** Bayeux Cathedral treasury `[documented]` (custody)
First securely documented in the cathedral's 1476 treasury inventory. Displayed annually in the nave for a few days each summer and stored in a wooden chest in the vestry the rest of the year. Survived the 1562 sack of Bayeux by Huguenot forces.
- **1792-1794** Municipal and Revolutionary custody, Bayeux `[disputed]` (near-loss)
By persistent local tradition, narrowly avoided being cut up in 1792 for a military wagon cover, saved by the lawyer Lambert Leonard-Leforestier. This specific rescue story is repeated by every source consulted but is not traced by any of them to a contemporary document; graded here as tradition, not established fact. The transfer of the tapestry into Revolutionary and then state hands by 1794 is documented.
- **1794-1803** French state, via the Arts Commission for the Bayeux district `[documented]` (state seizure)
Formally seized on behalf of the French nation in 1794, ensuring its protection as state property going forward.
- **1803-1804** Musee Napoleon (the Louvre), Paris `[documented]` (political display)
Brought to Paris on Napoleon's order and displayed in the Apollo Gallery, 6 December 1803 to 18 February 1804, as propaganda tying Napoleon's planned invasion of England to William the Conqueror's successful one. Returned to Bayeux by Napoleon's own order of 23 February 1804, on what he called a loan for a thousand years.
- **1804-1939** Town of Bayeux / French state `[documented]` (custody and display)
Displayed from 1812 at the Hotel de Ville in Bayeux, given permanent display in the Matilda Gallery there from 1842, and subjected to a major restoration campaign, 1866-1872, that reworked lost stitching and, in places, altered rather than simply repaired the design.
- **1939-1945** French state, moved for wartime safekeeping `[documented]` (wartime concealment and near-seizure)
Sheltered at the Hotel du Doyen, Bayeux, from 1939, moved to the Chateau de Sourches in 1941, studied there by the SS Ahnenerbe under Sonderauftrag Bayeux, requisitioned by German occupation authorities to the Louvre on 26 June 1944, and nearly seized for Berlin by the SS on Himmler's order on 21 August 1944 before Paris was liberated. Returned to Bayeux in March 1945.
- **1945-2026** Musee de la Tapisserie de Bayeux, Normandy, France `[documented]` (permanent display)
On continuous public display in Bayeux, most recently in the William the Conqueror Centre, ahead of a planned new purpose-built museum announced for 2027.
- **2026-2027** On loan to the British Museum, London `[documented]` (international loan)
First announced by President Macron in January 2018 and delayed repeatedly by fragility concerns, a change of UK government, the Covid-19 pandemic and further diplomatic negotiation. Reconfirmed in July 2025; the tapestry crossed the Channel 9-10 July 2026 and is due on public display from 10 September 2026 to 11 July 2027, covered by a UK Treasury indemnity reported at roughly 800 million pounds. The exhibition opened on schedule; tickets for the opening period sold out and early reviews were strongly positive, with no reported incident, condition problem or change to the loan terms as of late September 2026.
## Open questions
- How did the tapestry survive the roughly 375 years between an isolated description around 1100 and the first firm documentary trace of it, the 1476 Bayeux Cathedral inventory? No record from that gap has been found.
- Is the story that a local lawyer saved the tapestry from being cut up for a military wagon cover in 1792 documented in any contemporary record, or is it entirely later local tradition? Every source consulted repeats the story; none cites a primary 1792 document.
- What did the missing final scene actually show, and how was it lost, torn away, rotted, unfinished, or something else? No evidence found for this record settles the question.
- Who actually designed the tapestry's political and narrative programme? At least four scholars (Wormald, Hart, Clarke, Grainge) have argued different, mutually exclusive positions, none proven.
- What proportion of the surviving embroidery is original eleventh-century wool as against nineteenth-century restoration wool? Dye chemistry can now distinguish the two, but no published overall percentage was found in the sources used for this record.
- What did the original commission cost, and who was actually paid? No contract, receipt or payment record survives; the tapestry's original cost is entirely unknown, which is normal for the 1070s but leaves no anchor for any modern value comparison.
- Will the tapestry complete its full run at the British Museum, to July 2027, and return to Bayeux undamaged, given that French conservators warned as recently as 2022 that any transport beyond about an hour was strongly inadvisable? This record was last verified while the loan was still in progress and cannot answer that question yet.
## Sources
- [1] Musee de la Tapisserie de Bayeux, 'From Odo's Cathedral to the Louvre.'
- [2] Musee de la Tapisserie de Bayeux, 'The Bayeux Tapestry during the Second World War.'
- [3] Musee de la Tapisserie de Bayeux, 'The Bayeux Tapestry is an embroidery.'
- [4] The Conversation, 'Why the Nazis stole a fragment of the Bayeux tapestry' (2025).
- [5] Smithsonian Magazine, 'Newly Rediscovered, a Missing Fragment of the Bayeux Tapestry Is Returning to France.'
- [6] Will Bowen, 'The Nazi tapestry heist: the Bayeux Tapestry is coming to London,' The Oldie.
- [7] Museums Association, 'A thousand years in the making: the Bayeux Tapestry loan' (July 2026).
- [8] Museums Association, 'Conservators debate Bayeux Tapestry risk as French voice fears over loan' (September 2025).
- [9] 'Too fragile or a fuss about nothing? The battle over the Bayeux Tapestry,' via Yahoo News.
- [10] The Globe and Mail, 'Bayeux Tapestry too fragile to be shipped to Britain, art conservators warn.'
- [11] The Art Newspaper, 'Bayeux Tapestry arrives at the British Museum in London after secret English Channel crossing' (July 2026).
- [12] Christine Grainge, 'The Identity of the Designer of the Bayeux Tapestry,' Kent History and Archaeology (Kent Archaeological Society), journal 144.
- [13] Wikipedia, 'Bayeux Tapestry.' Tertiary source; flagged for replacement with the Bayeux Museum's own published scholarly catalogue and a critical edition such as Lucien Musset's.
- [14] The Conversation, 'The Bayeux tapestry and the hidden history of the women who embroidered it.'
- [15] 'The Mystery of Charles Stothard, FSA, and the Bayeux Tapestry Fragment,' The Antiquaries Journal, Cambridge University Press.
- [16] napoleon.org, 'Napoleon's loan of Bayeux Tapestry is now official.'
- [17] Andrew Bridgeford, '1066: The Hidden History in the Bayeux Tapestry' (book excerpt).
- [18] 'Bayeux Tapestry: First use of early synthetic dyes for the restoration of a masterpiece,' ScienceDirect (2022).
- [19] DRAC Normandie / Musee de la Tapisserie de Bayeux, press kit on the 2020-21 condition study (PDF).
- [20] The D-Day Story, Portsmouth, 'Object 70 - The Overlord Embroidery.'
- [21] Smithsonian Magazine, 'When the Bayeaux Tapestry Makes Its Historic Return to England, the British Government Will Insure It for More Than $1 Billion.'
- [22] France 24, 'Bayeux Tapestry arrives safely in UK after loan from France.'
- [23] Reading Museum, 'The History of Britain's Bayeux Tapestry.'
- [24] Medieval Histories, on Carola Hicks, 'The Bayeux Tapestry: The Life Story of a Masterpiece' (2007).
- [25] Elka Textiles, 'Colours of the Bayeux Tapestry: Natural Dyes, Wool and Medieval Embroidery.' Commercial secondary source on dye chemistry; flagged for replacement with the peer-reviewed spectroscopic study it summarises.
- [26] British Museum, exhibition page, 'The Bayeux Tapestry', read live 2026-09-28. Confirms the exact run as 10 September 2026 - 11 July 2027, Room 30 (The Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery); tickets from 10 September to 31 December 2026 sold out, next release 21 October 2026 for 1 January - 31 March 2027. No incident, extension, early closure or condition report found.
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