HistoryExtrahttps://www.historyextra.comHome of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast2026-10-21T12:14:32.000Zhourly12000-01-01T12:00+00:00The Bayeux Tapestry has returned to the UK – and this is how you can see ithttps://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/bayeux-tapestry-british-museum-exhibition-tickets/2026-10-21T10:00:33.000ZThe Bayeux Tapestry is being displayed in the UK as part of a landmark exhibition at the British Museum in London.
The embroidery is normally housed at the Bayeux Tapestry Museum in Normandy, but a historic agreement was reached with the French government for the artefact to be loaned to the UK while its home museum undergoes renovation.
Running for 10 months, the exhibition offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity for audiences to see the Tapestry in the British capital.
When is the Bayeux Tapestry exhibition open?
The Bayeux Tapestry exhibition opened at the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery at the British Museum on 10 September 2026 and will run until 11 July 2027.
For the first time, the Tapestry is being displayed flat and in one continuous length inside a specially constructed showcase, allowing visitors to appreciate its full scale and intricate detail as never before.
How to get tickets to see the Bayeux Tapestry exhibition
Following the 21 October ticket release, the next batch of tickets to see the Bayeux Tapestry can be booked via the British Museum website in early 2027, for viewings between April-July 2027. The precise date of for this ticket release hasn't yet been confirmed.
This will be the final batch of tickets released before the exhibition ends and the embroidery returns to France.
How much do tickets for the Bayeux Tapestry exhibition cost?
Tickets range in price from £25 to £33, through a tiered pricing structure based on the day and time of visit. Children under 16 go free if accompanied by paying adults.
What do visitors see inside the exhibition? What else from the Norman Conquest period is shown alongside the Tapestry?
The exhibition not only presents the Bayeux Tapestry in its entirety, but also sets it within the wider context of 11th-century England and Normandy.
Objects from the British Museum’s own collection and other significant loans from across the UK and Europe are displayed, offering fresh perspectives on the people and events depicted in the embroidery. Key highlights include the Junius 11 manuscript, which influenced the Tapestry’s design.
- Read more | Michael Wood on women’s contributions to the Bayeux Tapestry
The story of the Bayeux Tapestry
Member exclusive | Join Dr David Musgrove for this video series for the HistoryExtra Academy, as he traces the threads of the 11th-century embroidery
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What to know before visiting the British Museum for the exhibition
The Bayeux Tapestry exhibition is already proving to be one of the most popular in the museum’s history.
Alongside the Tapestry itself, visitors can explore a range of digital elements designed to enhance understanding and engagement. Curators are hosting talks and special events throughout the exhibition run, while a programme of activities for schools and families ensures the Tapestry’s story reaches the widest possible audience.
How to read the Bayeux Tapestry: key scenes to look for
As you walk the length of the Tapestry, look out for its most famous episodes: King Edward the Confessor’s deathbed scene; Harold Godwinson’s fateful oath to William; the appearance of Halley’s Comet as an omen; the mustering of Norman ships; and the climactic battle of Hastings, where Harold is slain.
The Tapestry’s borders are filled with animals, fables and mischievous details that invite close inspection. Its ambiguous storytelling and sparse Latin captions leave much open to interpretation, making every visit a chance to discover new perspectives on this epic tale of conquest and change.
For more detail, you access our HistoryExtra Academy series on the subject: a six-part video lecture series, in which the majesty and mystery of the Tapestry is explored in full.
]]>The Vikings mutilated and maimed their defeated enemies. So why did Alfred the Great spare their leader?https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/alfred-the-great-versus-guthrum-viking-leader/2026-09-11T10:20:54.000ZHow should a leader who has achieved victory on the blood-soaked field of battle treat their defeated opponent?
Throughout history, the usual answer has been: without mercy.
Take two examples. In AD 70, Roman forces crushed the First Jewish Revolt and retook Jerusalem, devastating the city, destroying the Second Temple – the holiest site in Jewish life – and imposing an onerous religious tax.
And in 1919, after defeat in the First World War, Germany was forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles – accepting loss of territory, severe military restrictions and huge reparation payments.
In both instances, the defeated were humiliated, politically subdued and economically debilitated – arguably fuelling renewed conflict in decades to come. Hence Winston Churchill’s declaration after the Second World War that the Allies should show “In victory, magnanimity” to halt an ongoing cycle of violence.
He wasn’t the first to see the wisdom in this approach. As early as the ninth century, an Anglo-Saxon king who paved the way for the foundation of England came to the same conclusion.
How Alfred the Great defeated the Viking invaders
King Alfred of Wessex – widely known today as ‘the Great’ – ruled at a time when Norse invaders seemed set to topple the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Britain. Wessex was, as the cliché goes, the last stronghold resisting the Great Heathen Army – a marauding force of Vikings battering the British Isles.
One by one, the kingdoms fell: Northumbria, East Anglia, Mercia. By the time the Viking forces – now led by the enigmatic warlord Guthrum – turned their attention to Wessex, the outcome seemed inevitable.
The first of many pivotal moments came at the end of the Christmas period in 878. Alfred, a staunch Christian, was at Chippenham in early January, no doubt pondering how best to repel the Vikings. Surely he had a moment of respite: not only was it a holy season, but also winter – not the time for warfare.
Guthrum did not agree.
“This Viking army doesn’t play by the rules,” says Dr Eleanor Barraclough, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast. “It attacks at the time of a very holy Christian holiday.” Guthrum’s force launched its attack on Chippenham, probably on the night of 6 January – the feast of Epiphany – taking Alfred by surprise. He fled in panic, taking a small warband, and hid in the marshes of Somerset.
During his short time in the wilderness, Alfred gathered the remaining strands of Wessex resistance, bringing together disparate warbands and marshalling his people. With his renewed military force, he marched east to confront his foe, winning victory at the battle of Edington in what’s now western Wiltshire. Eventually, “ tired, hungry, cold, despairing, defeated, Guthrum surrenders to Alfred,” says Barraclough.
What did Alfred the Great do with his defeated enemy?
Having regained control of Wessex, how should Alfred treat his defeated foe – the enemy who had taken his land and killed his men? “This is a story that we would expect to end in the death of at least one of the leaders,” says Barraclough. “And it doesn't.”
Faced with his deadly enemy, Alfred instead turned to his Christian faith. He had Guthrum baptised, and sponsored the Viking warlord as his godson. Guthrum took the baptismal name Æthelstan – the same as Alfred’s later grandson – and subsequently ruled East Anglia. Alfred forgave him, “and they feast together for days afterwards,” adds Barraclough. “This is not only a political allyship but the start of what essentially is a personal relationship.”
For their remaining years, Alfred and Guthrum ruled as neighbours, largely in peace. Guthrum embraced Christianity, minted coins in his new name in an Anglo-Saxon style, and ruled in the manner of previous Anglo-Saxon kings.
With the defeat and conversion of Guthrum, the Great Heathen Army’s campaign was essentially brought to an end. Alfred’s war against the pagan men from across the North Sea did not resume in earnest, at least during his lifetime.
Alfred’s actions didn’t demonstrate pure mercy – strategic thinking also played a part. “One of the most useful things you can do with the defeated Viking is to make them an ally,” explains Barraclough. “If you can do that, not only are you cutting off that source of violence, you've also got someone who also is invested in not suffering more Viking attacks. The best way to do that from a Christian perspective – and, as we know, Alfred is a very religious man – is to convert your enemy.”
A pause in the Viking violence
True, the Viking threat later returned to haunt Anglo-Saxon England. Alfred’s own descendants – his daughter Æthelflæd and grandson Æthelstan among them – were forced to face the Vikings at battles such as Brunanburh (in 937), as were later kings such as Edmund Ironside and Æthelred the Unready.
Indeed, in the early 11th century, the mighty Sweyn Forkbeard and Cnut the Great – Danes in the Viking tradition – dominated the Anglo-Saxons completely, becoming kings of England and, under Cnut, bringing the country into the short-lived North Sea empire.
Sweyn Forkbeard’s invasion of England may, at least in part, have been motivated by revenge after Æthelred the Unready had, contrary to the example set by Alfred, ordered the killing of Danes whom he believed had betrayed him – an outburst of violence remembered as the St Brice’s Day Massacre.
In bringing Guthrum onside, rather than killing him and attempting to subjugate his people, Alfred won relative peace for years. And he did it with magnanimity. In his unremittingly violent era, that is an achievement worth reflecting on.
Dr Eleanor Barraclough was speaking to James Osborne on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
]]>Did 300 years of history never happen at all?https://www.historyextra.com/membership/historys-greatest-conspiracies-episode-4/2026-09-01T10:48:40.000ZThe period after the fall of the western Roman empire is often known as the ‘Dark Ages’, due to an apparent shortage of historical evidence. Why might this be? Well, according to proponents of the Phantom Time Hypothesis, the explanation is simple: these centuries never happened at all.
In this episode of History’s Greatest Conspiracy Theories, Dr Philipp Nothaft from the University of Oxford joins Rob Attar to discuss the idea that these centuries were invented by powerful people for their own purposes – and that, ever since, we've all been inadvertently colluding in their fictional calendar.
]]>What were Viking women doing while their men were on violent raids?https://www.historyextra.com/period/viking/norse-women-life-while-men-away-on-raids/2026-04-24T10:20:42.000ZWith histories of the Viking Age dominated by muscular-sounding kings, warriors and adventurers – Ragnar Lothbrok, Erik the Red, Olaf Tryggvason, Harald Hardrada – it can seem as if that era was defined solely by the lives and actions of men: raiders crossing fierce seas in longships, and kings claiming power through battle.
That is, of course, only half of the story.
Underpinning that colourfully masculine image was a society sustained, organised and, in many ways, driven by Viking women. Their roles ranged from managing households and shaping political alliances, to producing the materials that made Viking expansion possible.
As historian Emily Lethbridge puts it, women were “the engine room of the Viking Age”. Those born into Norse nobility enjoyed access to influence within powerful family networks. For others – particularly those captured and enslaved during raiding – it meant a life with little autonomy, but serving and supporting the success of that society.
Noble Norse women: marriage and power
In upper-class Viking society, women played a crucial role.
“If a girl was lucky enough to grow up to become an adult in an upper-class aristocratic chieftain’s family, then really her primary function would have been socio-political,” says Lethbridge, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast.
Viking society was decidedly patriarchal, with formal political and military authority held by men. But power didn’t operate through men alone. Elite families depended on networks of alliance, and women were central to maintaining these.
“Women were the social glue,” Lethbridge explains, because marriage functioned as a crucial political tool. “Daughters of chieftains were used to make alliances, and to secure a family’s social position and financial position.”
Marriage bound families together, creating mutual obligations, reducing the risk of conflict, and bringing access to land, resources or military support.
From an early age, elite girls would have been brought up with this role in mind.
“A girl would be raised with a view to her being placed somewhere, making a successful marriage and thus cementing the family’s political power,” Lethbridge says.
Through these alliances, women bound together the Norse world’s political landscapes – something that was true of high-status women across many cultures through history.
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Running the household
Alongside those roles, women were responsible for the practical management of daily life. “[Girls and young women] would have been learning really practical skills through their childhood as well,” Lethbridge explains.
“The two major spheres would have been food preparation and textile production – wool production and weaving.”
These were core economic activities. Producing food involved managing livestock, preserving supplies for winter, and coordinating labour within the household. Textile production required processing raw wool, spinning thread, weaving cloth and repairing garments.
Running a household therefore meant managing a small-scale economic unit. And some of this work had consequences far beyond the home.
Textile production, in particular, played a critical role in enabling Viking expansion.
“Some scholars have emphasised the role of women in sail-making,” Lethbridge says. “Without sails, the Viking expansion would never have happened.”
Ships depended on their sails, made from dense woollen cloth, not the kind of lightweight materials used for modern sails. Producing one called for vast quantities of wool and many hours of labour.
“And who’s making the sails? It’s the women – from spinning the wool and weaving it into material to then sewing it together.”
“That was hugely time-consuming,” she adds, “but absolutely shows how women were the powerhouse – the engine room – of the Viking Age.”
In other words, the long-distance raids and trading voyages that defined the Viking Age were possible only because of the sustained, skilled labour carried out largely by women.
Enslaved women: a different reality
At the opposite end of the social spectrum were enslaved women.
Slavery was a central pillar of Viking socio-economics. Raiding expeditions often targeted people as well as goods. Captives were transported across networks that stretched from the British Isles to Scandinavia and into the wider European and Islamic worlds.
Women were particularly vulnerable in that context. They could be forced into domestic labour, agricultural work or sexual exploitation. Their experiences are harder to reconstruct because enslaved people are often invisible within most sources, but some literary works do provide small glimpses of what this life would have been like.
One of the most striking examples appears in Laxdæla Saga, an Icelandic narrative written down in the medieval period but set during the Viking Age.
Early on in its narrative, Laxdæla notes the story of Melkorka, “a fascinating female character,” Lethbridge says. In the saga, she is captured during a raid in Ireland and sold in Scandinavia.
Melkorka is then taken as a concubine to Iceland by a powerful chieftain, and bears him a son.
Later in the story, Melkorka reveals her noble origins – an Irish princess captured during a Viking raid. Because of her position at the side of a chieftain, she is eventually given her own farm with her son. “At that point, she gains a bit more independence,” Lethbridge says.
The story shows both the violence of enslavement and the ways in which it could strip the agency and power from even those of formerly high status. It also reflects the broader role of slavery within the Viking world.
“The Viking Age was largely driven by the slave trade and huge slave markets,” Lethbridge explains. This aspect of Viking activity is often underemphasised in popular imagination, but it was fundamental to the generation and distribution of wealth.
For enslaved women, this meant lives shaped by displacement and a total lack of autonomy.
Clearly, then, the experiences of women in the Viking Age were not uniform.
At one end were elite women who played important roles in alliance-building and household management. At the other were enslaved women whose lives were defined by exploitation.
The common thread spanning these two ends of the social spectrum is the centrality of women within the Norse context. Whether through political marriage, economic management, textile production or forced labour, women were essential to the functioning of Viking society.
James Osborne was speaking to Emily Lethbridge on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
]]>Meet the mysterious leaders of the Vikings’ most fearsome armyhttps://www.historyextra.com/period/viking/who-were-the-leaders-of-the-vikings-great-heathen-army/2026-04-10T09:53:10.000ZWhen the Great Heathen Army arrived in England in the mid-9th century, it marked a turning point in the history of Viking activity in the British Isles.
Earlier Viking raids – such as the attack on the monastery at Lindisfarne in 793 – had been fast, opportunistic strikes.
Viking aggression had continued like this for decades: plundering coastal regions for wealth, treasure, and people to enslave. Indeed, the Anglo-Saxons had grown accustomed to this style of attack from their Norse cousins from across the sea.
That changed in the year 865, with the arrival of the Great Heathen Army.
From then onwards, this force campaigned across Anglo-Saxon England, capturing kingdoms, overthrowing rulers and establishing long-term settlements. At the time, England didn’t even exist: Britain was a patchwork of rival states – including Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia and Wessex – often competing with one another as much as resisting external threats. This political fragmentation made coordinated defence difficult.
The Great Heathen Army was able to make much headway: plundering, pillaging and – crucially – taking formerly Anglo-Saxon land, rather than heading back to Scandinavia.
But while the label ‘Great Heathen Army’ captures two essential facts about this force of Viking invaders – its size, and its paganism – it might otherwise be misleading.
Rather than a unified force under a single commander, the Great Heathen Army was a shifting alliance of warbands drawn together for a shared purpose but operating with considerable independence.
It was a force with many leaders – not one.
How big was the Great Heathen Army?
Contemporary sources, such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, offer only limited detail as to the size of the Great Heathen Army.
Modern historians have attempted to reconstruct its scale using a combination of textual and archaeological evidence.
“Some historians have thought it’s around a hundred ships,” explains Dr Eleanor Barraclough, an expert on the history of the Viking Age, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast. A hundred ships, she says, could translate to “two or three thousand armed warriors.”
By later medieval standards, that might not seem overwhelming. But in the context of 9th-century warfare, it represented a substantial and highly mobile force – especially one capable of moving quickly along rivers and coastlines by use of its ships.
These boats – the infamous Viking longships – were shallow-drafted vessels that could travel both across open sea and far inland via river systems, allowing Viking forces to strike deep into territory with little warning.
Where did these Vikings come from?
While many members of the Great Heathen Army did originate from regions such as Denmark and Norway, Barraclough explains that “they’re not only coming across from Scandinavia, although lots of them certainly are.” By the mid-9th century, she says, Viking raiding, trading and settlement had created networks that extended well beyond Scandinavia itself.
Viking groups had established bases in Ireland, particularly at Dublin, and were active along the coasts of Francia (modern France), the Low Countries and even as far as the Iberian Peninsula. These networks allowed people, goods and information to circulate widely.
“We have to remember that this doesn’t come out of nowhere,” Barraclough explains. There had already been “a history of these protracted raids on the continent” and along the coasts of the British Isles.
“So it’s quite possible that some of the people who are coming over are also coming, for example, from the Low Countries, from what we would call northern France, like Francia,” she notes.
The Great Heathen Army, then, was not just Scandinavian. It was a product of a wider Viking world, drawing in fighters from multiple regions connected by mobility and shared experience.
Leadership at sea
In such a diverse group of warbands, how would leadership have functioned? To answer that question, Barraclough points toward the smallest unit of fighters: the ship.
“There’ll be a leader on each of those ships,” she says. “We see that from ship burials,” Barraclough notes, citing the Salme ship burials in Estonia from around the year 750. These burials, associated with a group that had travelled from Sweden, reveal distinctions in status among those buried.
“You can tell who the leader is because of how he’s buried, the weapons he’s buried with,” she explains. In one case, the presence of a gaming piece from the board game Hnefatafl placed in the mouth of the deceased may have symbolised command or authority.
Scaling up from individual ships to an army composed of many warbands introduces more complexity.
Nevertheless, “when you’re dealing with multiple warbands, you have to have some overall leadership,” Barraclough says.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and later traditions provide names for some of these leaders. Among the most prominent are Ivar the Boneless, Halfdan Ragnarsson, and Björn Ironside .
“Tradition says that these leaders are the sons of Ragnar Lothbrok,” Barraclough explains – a semi-legendary Viking figure whose historical existence remains debated.
Guthrum, who would later become king in parts of England after converting to Christianity, was another key leader in the later stages of the conflict.
“So, there are identified leaders,” Barraclough says. “But each ship would also have had its own leader. It’s complicated.”
This layered structure meant that leadership was simultaneously centralised and decentralised. One way to think about it is that the Great Heathen Army was led by many generals, with many lieutenants, but no overall commander-in-chief.
A flexible Viking war machine
This system of overlapping leadership had practical advantages.
“From the Viking point of view, it works well,” Barraclough explains, “because it means they can be more reactive and get ahead of the Anglo-Saxons easily.”
Unlike the more rigid political structures of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms – which were highly stratified and organised around defined territories and royal authority – the Viking coalition could divide and recombine as needed.
Anglo-Saxon militias, known as fyrds, were typically raised on a temporary basis from local populations and couldn’t remain mobilised indefinitely. This made it harder to respond to a fast-moving, professional raiding force, which had “different groups splitting in different directions at various points over the decade or so to come,” Barraclough says.
This ability to fragment into smaller units and then regroup gave the army a strategic flexibility that its opponents struggled to match. It’s partly this fluid leadership that made the Great Heathen Army such a distinct threat to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.
By the late 9th century, large parts of eastern and northern England had come under Viking control, an area later known as the Danelaw, where Scandinavian laws and customs held sway. If their goal was to take land, rather than just plunder it, this was a success for the Vikings.
Eleanor Barraclough was speaking to James Osborne on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
]]>One of medieval history’s biggest mysteries has just been solved – and it rewrites 1066https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/harold-godwinson-battle-of-hastings-1066-news/2026-03-21T00:01:25.000ZAlongside the Roman invasion of Britain in 43 AD, 1066 stands as one of the most pivotal years in British history. It marked the end of Anglo-Saxon rule and the ascendancy of the Normans under William the Conqueror.
At the centre of this story is King Harold Godwinson, the last Anglo-Saxon king. In the space of just a few weeks, he fought two major battles at opposite ends of England. In September, he defeated the Viking king Harald Hardrada at the battle of Stamford Bridge in Yorkshire. He is then said to have rushed south, covering some 200 miles to confront William, Duke of Normandy, who had landed on the Sussex coast to attempt to take the throne.
According to the traditional account, Harold and his army arrived exhausted – but just in time to fight at the battle of Hastings on 14 October, where he was killed.
This dramatic forced march has been used to explain both the pace of events, and Harold’s eventual defeat: his troops, worn out from the journey, were at a disadvantage against William’s forces.
But what if that version of the story is wrong?
New research now suggests that one of the most famous – and decisive – military marches in English history may never have happened at all.
A journey by land – or sea?
In new research, Professor Tom Licence of the University of East Anglia argues that Harold didn’t lead a desperate overland march from Yorkshire to Sussex. Instead, much of the journey south may have been made by sea.
The idea that the march itself may be implausible is not entirely new.
“There’s an argument going back to the that this great heroic march is almost impossible,” he says, speaking to HistoryExtra. He explains that even when compared with the most demanding marching rates recorded in modern warfare (for example, in the American Civil War) the speed required to cover the distance simply doesn’t hold up.
“To cover that distance in that period of time on foot is just unfeasible,” he says.
Crucial to Licence’s argument, he says, is the finding that the long-assumed march is “nowhere mentioned” in the contemporary sources – and is rather a post-hoc interpretation.
Previously, historians have offered explanations for this, saying that much of Harold’s army might have travelled on horseback, leaving slower troops behind. Partly, it’s interpretations such as this that have reinforced an image of Harold as a rash and desperate leader who rushed to confront William.
1066: The battle for England
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But what has been largely overlooked, Licence argues, is a far more practical option: the use of ships.
Licence explains that his research centres on a reassessment of a key phrase in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, one of the key historical sources that tells this story. A long-standing Victorian interpretation claims that Harold’s ships “came home,” which has been taken to mean that he disbanded his fleet before the battle of Hastings.
Licence argues this reading is mistaken.
“One of the key breakthroughs in my research is that when it says that he “sent the fleet home” it’s actually referring to London,” he explains. “On previous occasions it refers to the fleet going homeward to London … so if we read it that way, which I think we must, then we see that Harold still had use of his fleet. If you’ve got good weather and you’ve got ships in which you can move your troops, you move them by sea,” he says.
“That’s the pattern we see throughout the Chronicle.”
Not all historians are convinced that the traditional account should be set aside.
Stephen Morillo, emeritus professor of history at Wabash College, describes Licence’s argument as “an interesting theory, and certainly possible,” but has reservations.
Speaking to HistoryExtra about the research, he says that, in his view, the traditional account “is not just a Victorian invention.” He points instead to the 12th-century text The Chronicle of John of Worcester, written decades after 1066 that records that after Stamford Bridge, Harold, “at once, and in great haste, marched his army towards London,” before continuing south to face William.
He also notes that “none of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle versions says how Harold got south,” despite the source elsewhere not being “shy about noting sea transport when it happened.”
Harold’s coordinated campaign
Nevertheless, rather than a frantic dash across England, Licence’s research creates an image of a potentially far more organised and flexible campaign than was previously assumed.
Under appropriate conditions at sea, a journey from the Humber to London would have taken no more than four days – far quicker than the twelve or thirteen days required for even the most extreme forced march.
Adding to this, Licence says the scale of Harold’s available fleet may also have been greater than previously assumed, because the king might have added to his number of ships with those taken from the freshly defeated Harald Hardrada.
“The Chronicle says that the Vikings came with 300 ships and left in 24,” Licence points out. “No one has really asked what happened to the other 276.”
Licence isn’t suggesting that all of these ships would now have been at the disposal of the Anglo-Saxon fleet. But a large number might have been. And, if captured and repurposed, these vessels could have significantly expanded Harold’s naval capacity.
“This is a maritime world. Ships are power,” he says. “You cannot overcome an opponent, particularly a seaborne opponent, unless you have a fleet yourself.”
England in the 11th century was not a landlocked kingdom scrambling to respond, but a naval power whose fleet was “the talk of northern Europe.” Campaigns in Wales and Scotland in the years before 1066 consistently involved coordinated use of ships and land forces.
And the advantages of sea transport went beyond speed and logistics. When moving an army by sea, “you give them a chance to rest, and you contain them all,” Licence explains. “If they’re on the ships they can’t desert, which they can if they’re part of a large army on the march.”
Still, Licence doesn’t entirely rule out some movement by land or horseback; something that Morillo asserts would have been possible. Covering roughly 200 miles in twelve to thirteen days would require “a pace of sixteen to seventeen miles a day,” he says. “[That’s] well within the realm of possibility for a small force of around 5,000 men, most of whom would have been riding horses on campaign, as Anglo-Saxon thegns and certainly the housecarls always did, before dismounting to fight battles on foot.”
But, central to Licence’s research is the idea that if ships were available (and, he says, they were) then the main body of troops including Harold himself would have travelled by sea. “He wouldn’t have wasted twelve days marching when he could have got down to London in three days.”
Within this context, Licence says, Harold’s actions in the days leading up to Hastings begin to look much more strategic. “He is no longer this valiant but desperate character dashing south,” he argues. “He is a much more sophisticated operator, using forces by land and sea in tandem, like his opponents.”
This also paints Hastings as less predetermined, Licence says. “I think the battle could have gone either way. It could easily have been William who was killed that day.”
On this, Morillo agrees. He says the battle of Hastings was “a very near run thing, far from predetermined even on the day.” He concludes that what Licence’s research demonstrates for certain is that “there is always more to learn about the Hastings campaign and the battle itself.”
Rethinking the sources for 1066
Beyond changing the record on how Harold reached Hastings, the research also raises questions about how historians should interpret key sources, and challenge assumptions.
The Bayeux Tapestry, a vast embroidery depicting the events surrounding the Norman Conquest, has long been used alongside the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle to reconstruct 1066. But its selective narrative highlights the need to reassess familiar accounts.
Dr David Musgrove, content director at HistoryExtra and co-author of The Story of the Bayeux Tapestry, notes that the tapestry itself omits Harold’s northern campaign entirely.
“This discovery is particularly timely with the forthcoming arrival of the Bayeux Tapestry. It’s notable that the Tapestry completely ignores the fact that Harold fought a battle in the north before arriving to face Duke William in the south. The Tapestry’s narrative of the events of 1066 presents a very specific, and very partial account, of the conquest story. It focusses exclusively on southern England and northern France, and makes no reference at all to what happened in the north of England before the battle of Hastings.”
He concludes, “research like this from Professor Licence is vital in helping to fill in gaps.”
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Musgrove’s co-author, Professor Michael Lewis, curator of the Bayeux Tapestry exhibition at the British Museum, also relates the new research to the tapestry.
He says, “with the Bayeux Tapestry coming to the British Museum later this year, Professor Tom Licence's research shows there is much still to be learned about the events of 1066. Hopefully this new research inspires people to also come and see the Tapestry whilst it is in London.”
What the new research ultimately demonstrates is that the story of 1066 is far from settled.
And, with the Bayeux Tapestry set to go on display in Britain, this reassessment arrives at a moment when the events of 1066 are returning to the forefront of public attention, inviting a fresh look at one of history’s most iconic narratives.
]]>How England’s first king used an unexpected weapon to defeat the Vikingshttps://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/aethelstan-versus-the-vikings-devil-money/2026-01-31T10:30:28.000ZBy the early 10th century, the concept of a unified England was still an unfinished project.
Despite Alfred the Great’s victories against the Vikings – and the consolidating achievements of his children Edward the Elder and Æthelflæd – the power of the Norse raiders hadn’t simply disappeared.
The Vikings had adapted to this new political landscape and embedded themselves within it, remaining the greatest threat to any ruler hoping to govern a unified English kingdom.
Æthelstan was forced to grip this problem when he became king of the Anglo-Saxons in AD 924. As Professor David Woodman explains, speaking on an episode of the HistoryExtra podcast, it wasn’t until AD 927 that he was able to make moves against the Vikings that proved decisive, using an unexpected weapon to his advantage.
England before Æthelstan
The huge Viking invasions of the late ninth century had left much of eastern and northern England under Norse control. Later writers would call this region the Danelaw, but at the time it was simply a patchwork of settlements, armies and allegiances tied into a wider Viking world across the sea.
Æthelstan’s grandfather, Alfred the Great, had stopped the Vikings from conquering the Anglo-Saxons completely. But he wasn’t able to restore the land to how it had been before the arrival of the Great Heathen Army in AD 865.
Instead, in the decades that followed, Anglo-Saxon rulers learned to exist uneasily alongside Viking power, albeit with frequent bouts of violence and through tribute.
Edward the Elder and Æthelflæd expanded English control, but by the time of Æthelstan’s reign, Anglo-Saxon authority still depended on vigilance against the Vikings. When he took the throne, his lands were surrounded by rivals: Norse settlers in the north, the kings of the Scots, and a constellation of Welsh rulers to the west. Any one of them might ally with future Viking attackers if the balance of advantage shifted, and no place demonstrated that danger more clearly than York.
How Æthelstan responded to Viking pressure
For decades, Scandinavian rulers had controlled York while forging alliances with neighbouring Anglo-Saxon and Scottish kings.
That is why events moved so quickly when the Viking ruler of York, Sihtric died in AD 927.
“Æthelstan marches quickly north and takes over in York,” says Woodman. “Contemporary narrative accounts don’t give much detail about how he did that, but we have detail from William of Malmesbury, who’s writing in the 12th century.
“He talks about the fact that Æthelstan had to raze the Viking fortress at York to the ground. He had to burn it in order to take control there.”
York had been the political and symbolic heart of Scandinavian power in Britain, linked into networks that stretched west toward the Irish Sea and east toward the wider Viking world.
Seizing it bolstered Æthelstan’s position. But it also created new risks.
Once York was taken, the question was no longer whether Æthelstan ruled a united England. For all intents and purposes, he did. But would his neighbours accept this new reality?
“Quickly afterwards, he moves on to Eamont Bridge,” says Woodman. “And we have this remarkable occasion on which Æthelstan receives the submission of various kings.”
The meeting at Eamont Bridge
At Eamont Bridge, in what is now Cumbria, in the north west of England, Æthelstan summoned rulers who, until recently, had been his potential enemies.
“King Constantine of the Scots, two Welsh kings, and the king of Strathclyde and Cumbria submit to Æthelstan at Eamont Bridge,” Woodman explains. “And they all seem to recognise his authority at this juncture.
“Eamont Bridge is a really interesting place for Æthelstan to have selected,” he adds. “It’s at the very limits of his territory, so he’s right at the boundary of his extended kingdom at this moment.”
There were also practical advantages to his choice of location.
“Logistically speaking, it’s very interesting, in the sense that we have Roman roads converging in the area, from Scotland, Wales and York.”
It was undoubtedly an easy place – relatively – for these disparate kings to converge. But it held another allure: it was a place of ancient monuments.
“There’s a Roman fort there, there’s Mayburgh henge and there’s King Arthur’s Round Table henge,” says Woodfood. “There’s a sort of landscape of authority, a landscape of kingly power here that Æthelstan is using and harnessing to his own benefit.”
‘Devil money’ and the fear of Viking alliances
The agreements made there were recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and one phrase in particular stands out to Woodman.
“It says that they all agreed with Æthelstan that they would stop idolatry,” says Woodman.
“The Old English word used is diobolgeldæ, which is a compound made up of ‘devil’ and ‘money’. It literally means ‘devil money’.”
That phrase points to how Viking power was conceptualised in Æthelstan’s England. Paganism, violence and silver were closely linked in Anglo-Saxon thinking. Viking leaders were known for using silver acquired through raiding, tribute and trade, to secure loyalty and bind together shifting coalitions of allies.
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From an English Christian perspective, this made Viking wealth deeply suspect. Silver used to purchase military support or political allegiance was portrayed as morally corrupting: wealth tainted by paganism and bloodshed, deployed to undermine Christian kingship from within.
By weaponising these payments and describing them as ‘devil money’, Æthelstan and his supporters were attempting to delegitimise a key Viking strategy and cut off its effectiveness.
“It raises an interesting possibility that, actually, part of the agreement at Eamont Bridge was that none of these kings would side with the Vikings against Æthelstan, who were thought of as a kind of plague sent by the devil,” says Woodman.
Why AD 927 mattered
For Æthelstan, taking York had created new opportunities and new risks. If his various regional rivals accepted Viking money and support, his newly expanded kingdom could be destabilised in an instant.
“And I think that would have been a big fear of his,” Woodman concludes.
But instead, by forcing neighbouring kings to renounce those connections, Æthelstan was isolating Viking power not only militarily, but diplomatically and economically, while strengthening his own hand.
From AD 927 onwards, Æthelstan would transform from a powerful ruler into a recognised overlord of England. In the years ahead, Viking coalitions would still rise against him – not least in the decisive battle of Brunanburh in AD 937, where they were roundly defeated. But they would do so without the same web of British allies.
Æthelstan had successfully turned one of the Vikings’ most potent weapons – silver – against them, transforming it into ‘devil money’ that no Christian ruler could accept.
David Woodman was speaking to Dr David Musgrove on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.
]]>Could the Queen Mother have secured the loan of the Bayeux Tapestry to the British Museum 45 years ago?https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/queen-mother-bayeux-tapestry-loan-news/2026-01-15T21:00:46.000ZA visit by the Queen Mother (Elizabeth II’s mother) to the opening of the Memorial Museum of the Battle of Normandy in 1981 might have smoothed the way to a loan of the Bayeux Tapestry to the British Museum almost 50 years ago, according to recently released files seen by HistoryExtra.
The Bayeux Tapestry is being loaned to the British Museum in 2026, but attempts at a previous loan in 1980-1 have newly come to light.
In early 1981, the mayor of Bayeux, Monsieur Le Carpentier, sent an invitation to the Queen Mother to attend the opening of the Memorial Museum of the Battle of Normandy, and asked her if she would agree to be a patron of the new institution.
Reginald Hibbert, the British Ambassador in Paris, in February 1981 wrote a note to the Foreign Office, advising on how to react to the invitation.
“I do not intend to suggest that the negotiations between the British Museum and the Musées de France should affect decisions on the invitation now being extended to Queen Elizabeth, but it is perhaps something which should be borne in mind. The British Museum might take the view that if the Queen Mother extends her patronage to the new Bayeux Museum the Bayeux Authorities ought to be ready to encourage the Musées de France to be more forthcoming over the Bayeux Tapestry. I would advise against such linkage as wholly inappropriate, but I think the point needs to be borne in mind by those who will tender advice to Queen Elizabeth.”
Further, Hibbert made reference to “a minor dispute which has looked like causing difficulty between the British Museum and the authorities at Bayeux”. He explained that “The British Museum has been wanting to borrow the Bayeux Tapestry for display in London. The Musées de France recently reached a decision that the Tapestry could not be lent because it is too fragile”.
- Read more | The Bayeux Tapestry is beautiful, but what was its purpose? New research might have the answer
The newly released file also contains a draft note by a Foreign Office official, J.C.A. Dove, composed in March 1981, and intended for the Queen Mother’s private secretary: “I should also explain that a favourable decision by Her Majesty could be instrumental in encouraging the French authorities to authorise the loan of the Bayeux Tapestry to The British Museum although I hasten to add that our recommendation is in no way connected in this aspect. Nevertheless I felt you should know that there have been some difficulties over negotiating a loan of the Tapestry”.
The failed move for a Bayeux Tapestry loan
The timing of this note is curious, as the difficulties cited were that in the previous November, Monsieur Pattyn, the Director of Heritage at the French Ministry of Culture, had turned down a request from the British Museum for a loan of the Tapestry. It’s not surprising that there should have been such discussions at the time, as Neil Stratford, the British Museum keeper charged with exploring the possibility, recalled to HistoryExtra in an interview in December 2025.
“The British Museum director, David Wilson, discovered that the Bayeux Tapestry was going to be conserved and its museum was going to be shut for about two years. David Wilson commissioned me to go off to France and talk to the relevant ministries in France and in Normandy about it being put on show in London during the period when it was off show in in Bayeux”.
For much of the 20th century, the Tapestry had been housed in the town’s Hotel du Doyen, but in 1980 work had started on a purpose-built exhibition space within the fabric of the late 17th-century Grand Seminary building. The Tapestry was placed in its new home in the old seminary in 1983. The redisplay of the Tapestry provided a window of opportunity for a potential loan (similarly, today, the Tapestry is off display in Bayeux while its museum is being redeveloped).
Neil Stratford received positive responses from Paris and Bayeux during his trip, and returned to the UK reasonably confident that a loan could be agreed. In the end, though, the decision on the loan was ‘non’ from France. According to a memo that Stratford wrote to the British Museum Director Wilson in December 1980, he gathered that Pattyn had been advised by his heritage experts that the tapestry required restoration, which would take five months. That would have necessitated the Tapestry being off display in Bayeux, and a consequent loss of tourism revenue. Pattyn had been further appraised that an extra period of time without the Tapestry on show in the town (were it on loan to the British Museum) would be unacceptable to Bayeux, particularly as restoration had to happen before any potential loan. Stratford understood that there were concerns in the French Ministry that if the tapestry were lent to the British Museum before this restoration was carried out, the Bayeux authorities might then reject the restoration work.
There was clearly some mixed messaging over the dynamic between local and national forces in France, as Stratford makes reference to his own conversations with these authorities in Bayeux. His assumption was that it was with the town of Bayeux that the loan “initiative would founder” as it was his understanding that “the Tapestry was given to the citizens of Bayeux by Bonaparte and they have absolute legal control over its destiny”. Stratford acknowledged his surprise when he learnt that the Mayor of Bayeux and the town council had not actually refused the loan, though neither had they agreed to it.
The long history of Bayeux Tapestry loan negotiations
The various negotiations for loans of the Tapestry to the UK that occurred during the 20th century (in 1931, 1953, 1966, 1972, and as demonstrated by the recent release of files, 1980) involved a blend of local and national politics in Normandy and France. In these conversations, there was some confusion over whether it was the French state or the Municipality of Bayeux who had the authority to sanction a deal.
Clarity was provided by a 2017 custodianship agreement which stated that the French state was the owner of the work, and the city of Bayeux its long-term custodian. This renewable agreement remains in force until 2066, which will be the year of the thousandth anniversary of the battle of Hastings.
If confusion over the ownership of the Tapestry had dogged loan discussions in the past, the importance of not damaging the embroidery was never in doubt. In 1980, the British Museum was at pains to stress that they had put the work in to demonstrate that the Tapestry could be moved without risk, and that the safe transport and display of the embroidery was a paramount concern to them.
Neil Stratford’s recollection today of the conversations he had back in 1980 with Mlle Bertrand, who had been the Tapestry curator in Bayeux for many years, suggests that there were no qualms about its fitness to travel on the Normandy side of the Channel either: “Mlle Bertrand knew every inch of the tapestry. She said to me that the only reason that the odd thread pulls out is because it was restored in the 19th century and it's those restorations which occasionally pull out, but the original medieval sewing is as tough as old boots and that there's no risk whatsoever about moving it. That’s what she said to me.”
In advance of the forthcoming loan in 2026, concerns have been raised about the Tapestry’s fragility, but British Museum curators are working closely with French colleagues to ensure that the embroidery will be transported to the UK in a safe fashion. Indeed, the agreement between the UK government’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport, British Museum and French Ministry of Culture states that the loan “shall be undertaken in the spirit of a balanced partnership and mutual scholarly interest”. The agreement contains extensive provision for measures designed to ensure that the embroidery is not put at risk during its passage to the UK nor its presentation in the museum.
Discussions for the current loan project have been a long time in fruition. Following a Bayeux Tapestry conference at the British Museum in 2008, BBC History Magazine ran an article canvassing experts on whether the Tapestry might ever be loaned to the UK, after the British Museum’s in-house Tapestry expert Michael Lewis had raised the idea (partly in jest) during the conference. Ten years later in 2018, the New Yorker magazine reported that in 2013, Lewis, as part of Bayeux Museums’s Tapestry scientific committee, said the idea occurred to him straight-away that the Tapestry could be loaned while the new museum was being built.
1066: The battle for England
Member exclusive | The year 1066 is the most famous in English history, but there's a lot more to the story than one bloody battle at Hastings. In this four-part series, medievalist Marc Morris talks David Musgrove through the full story of the Norman Conquest.
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How the Bayeux Tapestry loan was finally agreed
It was only in 2018 that the concept became a reality, when French President Macron announced the intention to bring the loan to life during an Anglo-French summit in the UK with then Prime Minister Theresa May. The timescale touted then was that the loan might happen in 2022 when the museum in Bayeux was being remodelled.
- Read more | Who were the Normans?
The timeline might have slipped, and several British Prime Ministers come and gone, but President Macron has remained in power. It was he that made the announcement this year of the definitive exhibition timetable (September 2026 for 10 months) and destination (British Museum), in another Anglo-French summit with Sir Keir Starmer.
Lord Parkinson, the Heritage Minister from 2021 to 2024 under the Conservative administration, told HistoryExtra that it was President Macron’s personal determination that saw the process through. “I think this really has come from Emmanuel Macron himself. In the Royal Gallery address to parliament [in 2025], he saw Theresa May was sitting in the second row, and he acknowledged that this is an idea that began when Theresa May was Prime Minister and it’s taken too long. So I think he’s aware that he made this very kind suggestion [of loaning the Tapestry]. He wanted to deliver on his promise, and this summit has allowed him to do that”.
Macron also noted, in his July 2025 address at the British Museum, that it was the personal support of King Charles III that helped move things forward, along with the work of the two governments’ special envoys, M. Belaval for France, and Lord Ricketts for the UK. Royal backing does not appear to have been sought by UK government officials in the previous request in 1980, with the hesitancy over linking the Queen Mother’s potential patronage of the new museum of the Battle of Normandy to the British Museum’s negotiations.
The Queen Mother did not attend the opening of the Memorial Museum of the Battle of Normandy in 1981.
]]>Æthelstan: the king who made Englandhttps://www.historyextra.com/membership/aethelstan-made-england-podcast-david-woodman/2025-12-26T08:00:14.000ZÆthelstan was crowned in Kingston upon Thames 1100 years ago, in AD 925. He went on to extend his authority far beyond his initial powerbase of Wessex and Mercia to become the first king of England. David Musgrove talks to Professor David Woodman, author of The First King of England: Æthelstan and the Birth of a Kingdom, to hear why we should remember Æthelstan's reign.
]]>The Bayeux Tapestry is beautiful, but what was its purpose? New research might have the answerhttps://www.historyextra.com/period/norman/new-research-bayeux-tapestry-purpose-monk-moral-message/2025-12-15T16:12:18.000ZThe Bayeux Tapestry is one of the most astonishing artefacts to survive from medieval Europe. It tells the story of the end of Anglo-Saxon rule at the hands of Duke William of Normandy, whose victory in 1066 ushered in the Norman Conquest – one of the most significant turning points in British history.
But beyond recounting the rise of Norman supremacy, what was the Bayeux Tapestry really for? Was it only an extraordinary work of propaganda, designed as a display of righteous power? Or was it intended to have a more specific and purposeful role?
The answer to that latter question is: yes, according to historian Professor Benjamin Pohl of the University of Bristol. He argues that the Bayeux Tapestry was created to be a moral aid viewed by medieval monks while they silently ate their meals in a communal refectory.
What was the Bayeux Tapestry for?
Professor Pohl explains his argument in his article ‘Chewing over the Norman Conquest: the Bayeux Tapestry as monastic mealtime reading’, in which he makes the case that the embroidery was designed specifically to be hung in the monastic dining hall of St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, where it would have accompanied spoken readings and prompted moral reflection.
Following the rule of St Benedict, which governed monastic life across much of medieval Europe, medieval monks were expected to maintain complete silence while eating, aside from the voice of the reader delivering the day’s text. These readings delivered moral instruction to the diners, in a setting where any visual imagery would have reinforced spoken words and offered a focus for contemplation.
A tapestry made for monks
The Bayeux Tapestry famously depicts the events leading up to the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 through a series of cartoon-style embroidered scenes, accompanied by short Latin captions. Most scholars agree that the embroidery was probably made in, or near, Canterbury in the 11th century. That conclusion rests on similarities in its style and content with illuminated manuscripts that are known to have been held in Canterbury’s monastic libraries at the time.
But Pohl contends that the Tapestry was not only made in Canterbury, but for Canterbury. He argues that it could have been designed to be hung around the walls of the monastic refectory of St Augustine’s Abbey on particular feast days, where it would have illustrated the moral themes of the day’s reading for the monks. He theorises that the embroidery would have been exhibited at head-height around their dining room, and that therefore it would have been “perfectly discernible from the seated position assumed by the monks and their guests during mealtimes in the refectory”.
This followed “the long, pan-European tradition of using illustrated narratives in the form of wall paintings and – of particular interest here – textile hangings in monastic refectories”.
Triumph and propaganda, or a moral warning?
At first glance, the Bayeux Tapestry does not appear to be an ideal vehicle for moral instruction.
On a basic level, it is a historical narrative that shows the events leading up to the Norman Conquest. In that, it appears to follow a broadly pro-Norman view of events, where the English King Harold makes, and then breaks, an oath to support Duke William of Normandy’s claim to the crown of England. This seeming act of perjury provides the context for William to muster his invasion fleet and then defeat Harold on the field of Hastings. Read in this way, the embroidery can appear to be a triumphalist account of conquest, leading some scholars to suggest that it was created for display in the great hall of a Norman castle, where warriors might reflect on their success.
1066: The battle for England
Member exclusive | The year 1066 is the most famous in English history, but there's a lot more to the story than one bloody battle at Hastings. In this four-part series, medievalist Marc Morris talks David Musgrove through the full story of the Norman Conquest.
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However, other historians have suggested that the embroidery is more complex than this. Rather than being a celebration of conquest, it might alternatively offer a commentary on the worldly sins – namely the overambition and moral failure – of the people involved in the story. The borders of the embroidery contain scenes that draw on Aesop’s Fables, a body of stories widely used in medieval education to convey ethical lessons. Such imagery lends weight to the idea that the embroidery carried an underlying moralising message, one that would have been particularly suited to a monastic setting, where the rejection of worldly concerns was central to religious life.
Professor Pohl contends that the ideal place for such moral messages to be delivered would have been in silent contemplation over dinner. Though the fabric of the refectory of St Augustine’s does not survive, documentary and archaeological evidence suggests that it was a substantial building, large enough to accommodate the full length of the Tapestry around its walls.
With the tapestry as an illustrative background, the mealtime reader would have talked about a moral theme while the monks ate and looked at the image in question. They would have been aided in this by the very basic Latin captions in the Tapestry, which would have been suitable for an audience of monks who did not all have deep Latin knowledge. Pohl points out that the way that the embroidery is split up into individual narrative scenes would also have allowed for a series of discrete, but interconnected, moral lessons to be taught to the munching monks.
“Each episode is a tale of both good and evil, victory and defeat, damnation and redemption”, he says.
Was the Bayeux Tapestry forgotten?
He agrees with the view that Abbot Scolland, who led St Augustine’s Abbey in the years following the Conquest, was a driving force in the creation of the Tapestry (perhaps working with, or for, Bishop Odo of Bayeux, the half-brother of William the Conqueror). He notes that Scolland also instigated the post-conquest building programme that included the construction of a new refectory building for the monks.
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Pohl suggests that Scolland commissioned the embroidery specifically for display in the new refectory that he designed. However, Scolland died in 1087, long before it was eventually constructed. Pohl further argues that the Tapestry may never have actually been shown as planned because by the time the dining hall was finally built, Scolland had been dead for half a century and the Tapestry may never have been displayed as intended.
If the Bayeux Tapestry was made, and then stored and never displayed, this could help to explain its remarkably good state of preservation.
It also raises the question of how the Tapestry eventually came to be in Bayeux. By the end of the 15th century, it appears in the inventory of Bayeux Cathedral. Pohl suggests that it may have remained in storage in Canterbury, and stayed broadly forgotten, until the 1420s, when it could have been offered as collateral to settle a monastic debt. From there, it may have passed into the hands of the Duke of Burgundy before ultimately making its way to Bayeux, where it survives today.
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