HistoryExtra https://www.historyextra.com/period/norman Wed, 21 Oct 2026 14:54:37 GMT en hourly 1 The Nazis fell in love with the Bayeux Tapestry – and there's a dark reason why https://www.historyextra.com/membership/why-the-nazis-fell-in-love-with-the-bayeux-tapestry/ Wed, 21 Oct 2026 13:30:05 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/why-the-nazis-fell-in-love-with-the-bayeux-tapestry/ Shirley Ann Brown examines Nazi attempts to establish a Germanic presence in the celebrated chronicle of the Norman conquest On 1 August 1944, two SS officers drove a pair of trucks into the heart of Nazi-occupied Paris, and headed straight for the Louvre. These men were on a top-secret mission – one assigned to them by Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the SS and one of the most powerful men in the Third Reich.
Himmler had tasked the two men with descending into the bowels of the world-famous art museum, seizing the Bayeux Tapestry and spiriting it away to a “safe place” far from the grasp of the Allies’ rapidly advancing armies.
After 15 years as the head of one of the most feared paramilitary organisations in history, Himmler was used to getting his own way. Yet in this case he was to be disappointed. A few days earlier, a group of local resistance fighters – tipped off by the codebreakers of Bletchley Park – had learned of the SS men’s mission and rushed to the Louvre to protect the iconic embroidery. Warned at the last minute that any attempt to ‘liberate’ the tapestry would be met with a hail of bullets, the SS officers gave up on their mission.
The Nazi proclivity for buying, extorting and confiscating Europe’s greatest artworks is well documented. But there was more to Himmler’s desire to seize the Bayeux Tapestry than an acquisitive lust for one of France’s foremost cultural treasures. In the celebrated images of Norman knights putting Anglo-Saxon foot soldiers to the sword he saw evidence of medieval Germanic supremacy.
The Nazi fascination with the Bayeux Tapestry can, perhaps, be traced back to 1 July 1935 when Himmler – along with fellow Nazi ideologues Richard Walther Darré and Herman Wirth – created Ahnenerbe, the Society for the Study of Germanic Heritage. Ahnenerbe was founded to promote archaeological investigations of sites that could be associated with early Germanic settlement, and to study, in situ, works related to the history of the Aryan race. It wasn’t long before its leading lights had turned their attention to the celebrated 11th-century embroidery depicting the Norman conquest of England in 1066.
The French had claimed the Bayeux Tapestry as a national historical monument since the early 1700s, but the Nazi regime had an alternative theory. In July 1939, a memo written by Franz Altheim, professor of classical philology at Frankfurt University, arrived on the desk of Wolfram Sievers, Ahnenerbe’s general manager. It proposed that a detailed examination of the Bayeux Tapestry would prove that the Normans who conquered England were, in reality, Vikings – and, by extension, Germanic. The idea that they were French, Altheim argued, was based on a 200-year-old lie. At the bottom of his note he wrote: “I emphasise the importance of this study.”
In July 1939, when Altheim penned his memo, the idea of a team of ardent Nazis poring over one of the most iconic artefacts in French history in an attempt to establish its Germanic origins would have been anathema to the people of France. But the fall of their nation to German forces in June 1940 rendered their opinions all but irrelevant.
And so, in the aftermath of the French surrender, Dr Herbert Jankuhn, professor of Viking archaeology at Rostock University – and a loyal Nazi – was appointed to head a team of experts tasked with studying the artefact in the northern French town of Bayeux. Jankuhn offered a clue as to what he hoped to achieve when declaring: “For general Germanic studies, the Tapestry’s visual representations, through the recording of Germanic legends and traditions, provides a very valuable source for this early period.”
Photographic evidence
Jankuhn’s first task as leader of Special Assignment Bayeux was to study the hanging, and gather information so that further studies could be carried out by research scholars after the embroidery had been moved to safe wartime storage. The ultimate aim was to produce a multi-volume publication of their findings, featuring a photographic replica of the tapestry. By examining representations of everything from boats and weapons to costumes, they would provide irrefutable scientific evidence that the tapestry was a testament to Germanic hegemony in early medieval Europe.
Jankuhn couldn’t complete such a weighty undertaking alone. He was accompanied by Dr Karl Schlabow, textile expert and head of the Germanic Costume Museum in Neumünster, whose job it was to scrutinise the fabric and take careful measurements. Rolf Alber, photographer and war reporter, was to shoot new images of the tapestry, in both black-and-white and colour. Herbert Jeschke, an artist from Berlin, was the only member of the Bayeux team who wasn’t a member of the Nazi party or the SS. His task was to create a series of accurate, full-size drawings and watercolours of details from the Bayeux Tapestry, under Jankuhn’s guidance.
First, though, they had to gain access to the embroidery – and that would prove surprisingly problematic. In September 1939, with war clouds gathering, the French authorities had rolled it up on a bobbin, placed it in a padded, zinc-lined wooden case and deposited it in a concrete bunker in the basement of Bayeux’s Hôtel du Doyen.
Since the fall of France, German officers had peppered Bayeux’s authorities with requests to see the tapestry – a process that meant repeatedly manhandling the fragile, 900-year-old artefact. The French were reluctant to allow this to continue and, in a classic delaying tactic, began insisting that all permissions to view the tapestry be signed by the proper authorities in Paris. As a result, following their arrival in Bayeux on 8 June 1941, Jankuhn and his team would have to wait days before beginning their work.
At first, they examined the embroidery in the Hôtel du Doyen’s Bishops’ Gallery – but this entailed unrolling and rolling the tapestry every day. So, on 23 June, it was moved in a truck – accompanied by Rene Falue (the tapestry’s official guardian), three French customs officials and a lone German policeman – to the Monastery of St Martin at Mondaye, five miles south of Bayeux, where a large section could be left unrolled.
Summoned to fight
Working seven days a week, Jankuhn’s team set about studying, drawing and photographing all 70 metres of the embroidery. They hit a stumbling block on 29 June, when Alber returned to military service. A replacement photographer, Ursula Uhland, was summoned but, because women weren’t allowed in the monastery’s cloister, the tapestry had to be transported to its public gallery.
Despite this setback, Jeschke had completed his sketches by the end of July, and the project’s last week was taken up with Uhland’s work and with shooting propaganda films for Wochenschau, a newsreel series released in the cinemas.
On 1 August, the tapestry was returned to its concrete bunker in Bayeux. A few days later it was moved again – to the Château de Sourches, some 100 miles south of Bayeux, where it joined treasures from the Louvre.
The first stage of Special Assignment Bayeux may have come to an end, but the Nazi obsession with the Bayeux Tapestry was showing no signs of abating. Dr Hermann Bunjes, head of the German Art Historical Institute in Paris, now became the project’s guiding spirit, assembling a group of academics to bring the multi-volume book on the artefact to fruition.
They set about comparing Jeschke’s drawings with Germanic and Viking artefacts in museums, and considered the photographs taken by Uhland and Alber. They envisaged a book that would present essays on the past scholarship of the embroidery, its physical details, its historical authority, its significance for the history of culture. The book would also contain a study of the fabric and embroidery, and an analysis of its material and colour.
One study ‘proved’ the early Germanic origin of the wooden houses depicted; another emphasised the similarity of English and Norman boats to Viking ships.
All of this was undertaken with one overriding ambition: to prove that the Normans were still true, untainted Vikings – representatives of the pure Nordic Aryan race.
Herbert Jankuhn had little doubt that Special Assignment Bayeux had achieved just that. “The Bayeux Tapestry is not only a king’s saga of purely Germanic imprint, but also constitutes the documentary justification of William’s claim to England,” he declared in December 1942. “His actions appear to us… as the execution of his given right and the punishment of unforgiveable perjury and unfaithfulness according to the Germanic viewpoint. The tapestry not only exudes genuine Germanic joy in the tradition of heroic deeds, but also the statesmanlike desire to justify the campaign in England as a legal operation and political necessity.” Propaganda magazines agreed wholeheartedly, running articles that eulogised the tapestry’s celebration of “the joy of the Germanic tradition of great acts of war”.
In short, Special Assignment Bayeux was to reclaim the tapestry as a perfect fit with Nazi pan-Germanic ideology, since it bore witness to the early unification of the Germanic cultures of Scandinavia, Normandy and England. It would also serve as a precedent for the Nazis’ desire to recreate Germania, a homeland for all Germanic peoples.
Glorious warfare
This sentiment would certainly have struck a chord with Heinrich Himmler, who was fascinated by the Bayeux Tapestry’s imagery of medieval knights and glorious warfare. Over Christmas 1942, the head of the SS was presented with a bound volume of photos and drawings of the embroidery – a gift that delighted him so much that he sent a thank-you note to Wolfram Sievers in which he noted “the significance that this Bayeux Tapestry has for our glorious and culturally rich German history”.
The Allied invasion of western Europe on 6 June 1944 merely sharpened Himmler’s desire to secure the tapestry for the Third Reich. His fear that it would fall into enemy hands became apparent on 27 June, when the Gestapo moved the embroidery – without notice and despite local French protest – from Sourches to the basement of the Louvre. This would be followed, little more than a month later, by the two SS officers’ attempt to spirit the embroidery away to a “safe place”, only to be thwarted by fast-acting resistance fighters.
What had been Himmler’s intentions when he ordered the tapestry moved from Paris? What would he have considered a “safe place” in June 1944? One possibility is Wewelsburg Castle in central Germany, which had been chosen by Himmler as the location for his training centre, the home of the cult of the SS – a place where officers were taught how to recreate the lost world of the ‘Nordic race’.
Obsessed with the idea that the SS was a revival of the medieval Teutonic knights, Himmler imagined the castle as the home of modern Nazi Knights of the Round Table. The crypt, designed to hold the ashes of SS leaders, was named Valhalla. Himmler installed his own collection of ancient and medieval weapons in the castle, and indicated he wanted tapestries hung on the walls. This would have been an apt location for the Bayeux Tapestry, which he considered a great testament to an earlier Germanic-Nordic-Aryan triumph.
If Wewelsburg Castle was a safe place in June 1944, it certainly didn’t remain so. On 31 March 1945, with US forces closing in, Himmler ordered the castle dynamited, along with its contents.
Fortunately, the Allies had already found the Bayeux Tapestry safe in its temporary home in the basement of the Louvre. On 2 March 1945, after going on display in an exhibition in the art museum, it was returned to Bayeux.
Were the Nazis wrong to attempt to divine a Viking presence in the Bayeux Tapestry? No. It has long been accepted that the Scandinavian influence on both English and Norman societies was significant – seen, for example, in ships, ship-building tools and some decorative elements. This influence can be traced back to the Viking occupation of vast swathes of England (the so-called Danelaw), and the ceding of what became Normandy to the Vikings in 911.
All three groups – English, Normans and Scandinavians – may be considered, to some extent, Germanic. But surely Ahnenerbe would have had finally to admit that, even if the Normans were still Vikings in 1066, they were French-speaking ones.
Shirley Ann Brown is professor emerita of art history at York University, Toronto, a member of the Bayeux Tapestry Advisory Committee, and author of The Bayeux Tapestry: A Sourcebook
This article was first published in the July 2018 edition of BBC History Magazine
]]> Bollocks, bastards and broad arses: the filthy medieval names that expose the real story of 1066 https://www.historyextra.com/membership/1066-bayeux-tapestry-names-of-norman-conquest/ Wed, 21 Oct 2026 12:17:16 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/1066-bayeux-tapestry-names-of-norman-conquest/ The names of people involved in the events around the battle of Hastings tell us far more than simply who was who, says James Chetwood – they reveal how cultures overlapped, how colonisation impacted lives, and how people viewed one another The Bayeux Tapestry (at the time of writing wowing visitors to the British Museum) is thronged with characters – warriors, of course, but also monarchs, dukes and bishops, plus countless unnamed figures. This famous embroidery helps us think about the people caught up in the events depicted – and examining their names opens a window onto a world in which English, Scandinavian and Norman cultures met, melded and clashed, how conquest and colonisation influenced lives, and how colourful nicknames can preserve glimpses of the way medieval people saw one another at all levels of society.
Ælfgif... who?
The Bayeux Tapestry features only 15 names – and, typically for this period of history, those of women are largely excluded. Curiously, the only woman actually named in the embroidery can’t be identified – a mysterious figure labelled ÆLFGYVA, or Ælfgifu. She is pictured in an interaction with “a certain cleric”, an encounter that may have been innocent – though the depiction of a naked man in the border below her suggests that it may not have been, and could be a reference to a scandalous liaison of some kind.
The fact that we don’t know who this Ælfgifu was can be explained partly by the fact that hers was such a common name in 11th-century England. There had already been three queens named Ælfgifu by the turn of that century, the consorts of Edmund I (ruled 939–46), Eadwig ‘All-Fair’ (r955–59) and Æthelred the Unready (r978–1013 & 1014–16). When Æthelred married the illustrious Emma of Normandy, the great-aunt of William the Conqueror, she was given a new English name. You’ve guessed it: Ælfgifu.
After Æthelred’s death, Emma (or Ælfgifu) effortlessly switched sides, marrying England’s new Danish king Cnut in 1017. In doing so, she replaced Cnut’s previous wife, another Ælfgifu. To add to the general sense of confusion, the Anglo-Saxon Earl Harold Godwinson had a sister called Ælfgifu. Any of these women could be the ÆLFGYVA named in the Bayeux Tapestry – the chances are that we’ll never know for certain – but the use of her name suggests that the story surrounding her was common knowledge at the time, even if it’s no longer familiar to us today.
The mystery of Edith Swanneck
Another question mark lingers over Harold’s ‘unofficial’ wife, Edith Swanneshals (‘Swanneck’) who, we are told, identified the dead English king’s body on the battlefield at Hastings. However, her identity is still disputed. She is often assumed to be the woman recorded in Domesday Book as Edeva Pulchra (‘The Fair’), partly based on the assumption that this epithet, like ‘swan-neck’, referred to beauty, as well as the fact that the woman in William’s survey was listed as being incredibly rich. But this identification is by no means certain.
Again, the confusion is partly down to the prevalence and ambiguity of monikers. By the 11th century, a number of distinct names had come to sound similar: Eadgyth (Edith), Eadgifu (Edeva), Ealdgyth (Aldith) and Ealdgifu (Aldeva). Even then, some of these might well have caused confusion, particularly amongst Norman scribes recording unfamiliar English names. And later writers have tended to merge all of these into one modern name, ‘Edith’.
This similarity still causes problems today. In the 2025 BBC drama King and Conqueror, three Ediths were renamed to avoid confusing viewers. Edith Swanneck kept her forename but Harold’s sister, Edith of Wessex, was renamed Gunhild, and his official wife, Edith of Mercia, became Margaret. The irony is that not all three of these shared that name in the first place: Edith Swanneck was probably Eadgifu (Edeva), while Edith of Mercia was called Ealdgyth (Aldith). Edith of Wessex was definitely known as Eadgyth (Edith), but even she may have been known by a different name – Gytha – before she married Edward the Confessor.
A tale of two Harolds
Hastings was the last of three major battles that decided the fate of England in 1066. While William was readying his troops to cross the Channel, England was already under attack from the Norwegian king, Harald Hardrada (‘Hard Ruler’). The fact that two rival kings bore essentially the same name tells us a lot.
The Viking raids that began in the eighth century may have been dramatic, but it was the long-term influence of interaction and intermarriage of English natives and Scandinavian settlers that had the greatest impact on the land, its language and its names. Scandinavian names became widely used across England ¬– not only by Viking newcomers but also by English people.
This only increased after Cnut conquered England in 1016. His right-hand man here was Earl Godwine, father of the man who became King Harold II (who was quite literally ‘Godwin’s son’), whose family is a great example of Anglo-Scandinavian integration. Godwine and his Danish wife, Gytha, gave their children a mix of Scandinavian names – including Harold, Sweyn, Gunhild and Tostig – and English, including Wulfnoth, Ælfgar and Eadgifu.
In practice, many of these names may not have been considered ‘Scandinavian’ by the people who used them – they were deemed just as English as any other. But one thing we do know is that 1066 marked an abrupt shift in the political and cultural world that England inhabited, as its influences shifted from the North Sea to the English Channel.
Tostig no more
This is epitomised by the fate of the name of another of Godwine’s sons, Tostig. Harold’s brother infamously betrayed Harold by supporting Harald Hardrada in 1066, so played a key role in the end of Anglo-Scandinavian England. His name seems to have been one of those Scandinavian names that had become popular in the 11th century – perhaps partly because of his own fame.
After the conquest, once-popular Anglo-Scandinavian names were quickly discarded in favour of those brought to England by its new Norman overlords. We have a first-hand account of this process in action through the story of a boy named Tostig in the early 12th century. We are told that his childhood friends teased him so remorselessly that he took it upon himself to change his unfashionable name, insisting on being called William instead.
Most people didn’t change their own names, but the speed of the shift more widely was dramatic, with parents swapping English names for Norman ones. William became rapidly popular, thanks to the influence of the hundreds of Williams who came to England after the Conquest. There were almost as many Richards and Roberts, as well as a large number of Walters and Ralphs (and a surprising scattering of Wazos and Bosos).
William the Bastard
The most famous of the new Williams was, of course, the one we know as ‘the Conqueror’, duke of Normandy and king of England. But William wasn’t known by this byname during his lifetime, as far as we can tell. Rather, he was dubbed by contemporaries as William ‘the Bastard’ (through the Latin terms bastardus and nothus).
This wasn’t a judgement on his character but reflected his illegitimacy. Although many noblemen had unofficial partners before taking an official bride, the fact that William was illegitimate clearly mattered, judging by the wide use of this nickname and the fact that his mother, Herleva, was never named as such until after his death.
By the time of the Conquest, the practice of using additional bynames to add detail to the lives and identities of individuals was becoming more common on both sides of the Channel. As William’s nickname shows, these were usually not chosen by the bearers themselves but instead offer us a glimpse into the judgment of other people.
Black beards, barrel cats and broad arses
Bynames were often merely bland descriptors referring to visual characteristics – Burewold Crul (‘Curly’) and Brunstan Blachebiert (‘Blackbeard’), for example. Or they might refer to the occupation of the bearer, such as those of Bernard Faber (‘the Smith’) and William Bruwere (‘the Brewer’). But there were a lot of names that were much more evocative, some of which were mildly insulting – perhaps partly humorous descriptions of someone’s physical appearance, social status or personality traits.
- Read more | The Anglo-Saxons’ last stand
The meanings of some of these names were obvious, but for others we have to read between the lines. Alestan Braders (‘Broad Arse’), Willelm Pinguis (‘the Fat’) and the man just known as Porcel (‘Little Pig’), are likely to have been overweight. Alric Penipurs (‘Pennypurse’) was almost certainly tight with his money. Lewin Gulee (‘Big Mouthful’) probably had a foul mouth. And we can assume that Lefstan Bittecat (‘Barrel Cat’) liked a drink. But how Edwin Wridel came to be known as ‘the Wriggler’ remains a mystery.
A load of Ballocs
The creation and use of derogatory nicknames might have been done in good humour, or could have served a community-building function. However, some of the names from 11th-century England sound downright offensive to modern ears.
In Winchester around 1050, we know of at least three men whose names referred to testicles. There was an Alfred Taddeballoc (‘Toad-bollock’), a Lefwin Balloe (‘Bollock’), and one man known simply by the name Balloc (‘Bollock’). Even if the sexually explicit nature of these names was not as taboo in medieval England as it is today, the use of these names must have still been unpleasant for the people who had to live with them.
This must certainly have been true in the case of Godwinus Clawcunte (‘Scratch-c*nt’), whose name conjures up an image of a man with some sort of unfortunate groin-related ailment.
An artificial divide
The names of English people in the 11th century can tell us a huge amount about their world and how it was changing. Some of this was, undoubtedly, a result of the Norman conquest, but other aspects of its transformation likely reflected longer-term shifts within English society. In fact, names might be linked to the apparent divide evident between the world that came before 1066 and the one that came after.
Names that were popular in England a century after the Conquest could equally be plucked from any census over the past 900 years: William and Richard, Alice and Matilda. They are recognisably English, recognisably modern. In contrast, the Æthelwulfs and Ælfgifus of pre-Conquest England seem alien and unfamiliar. They create an air of fantastical detachment – more like characters from Game of Thrones than the direct ancestors of modern Englishmen and women. And they can create a false sense that the people of England in 1066 were far more different from those that followed them than they really were.
For more detail on the Bayeux Tapestry, 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 Bayeux Tapestry has returned to the UK – and this is how you can see it https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/bayeux-tapestry-british-museum-exhibition-tickets/ Wed, 21 Oct 2026 10:00:33 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/period/medieval/bayeux-tapestry-british-museum-exhibition-tickets/ One of the medieval world’s greatest surviving treasures is now on display in London. Dr David Musgrove reveals everything you need to know about the British Museum’s landmark Bayeux Tapestry exhibition, including details of tickets, how the embroidery is being displayed, and the key scenes you should look out for The 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.
]]> How cruel was William the Conqueror to the Anglo-Saxons? This document reveals the "miserable" truth https://www.historyextra.com/membership/how-cruel-was-william-the-conqueror-to-the-anglo-saxons-this-document-reveals-the-miserable-truth/ Wed, 30 Sep 2026 15:00:43 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/how-cruel-was-william-the-conqueror-to-the-anglo-saxons-this-document-reveals-the-miserable-truth/ Michael Wood on unlikely characters in the Bayeux Tapestry's story I first saw the Tapestry in the old Bibliothèque municipale in Bayeux, almost a lifetime ago now. Its magical power is all the more poignant because it was made by English needlewomen as a record of the brutal conquest of their own land – a defeat so harrowing that it took a century for the English to accept. Some would say they never did.
The Bayeux Tapestry, it’s now agreed, was made in England, probably at Canterbury. Its English sympathies are among its many extraordinary aspects. It tells the tale of the noble hero who fatefully broke his oath – an oath that by tradition was sworn at Bayeux.
There are 626 people depicted on the Tapestry, with just three women – one of them nameless and clutching her child’s hand as her house is burned down and she flees in terror. Of the men who are named, most are kings, dukes and bishops, the key characters in the story. But there are three exceptions that have always intrigued historians. Turold, Wadard and Vitalis are three of the Norman rank and file. Why are they on the Tapestry? That question leads us directly to the matter of who commissioned it, and why.
We can identify the three men in the pages of Domesday Book, William the Conqueror’s survey of England made 20 years after the battle of Hastings. By then, Turold was dead, but his son Ralph is named as holding his father’s land in Kent. Wadard and Vitalis were still living, and had done very well out of the Conquest. What unites the three is that they were all men of Odo – the Conqueror’s half-brother, bishop of Bayeux – who played a famous role at Hastings.
First, Wadard. On the Tapestry we see him on horseback in chain mail directing men gathering supplies after the Norman landing. It’s a small event not mentioned by the historians, but he was evidently a knight in the entourage of Odo. Turning through the folios of Domesday, in 1086 Wadard had land in nine places in Kent. Among them was Nurstead, with its church of St Mildred; at Buckwell he owned a mill and “an alder wood”; and in Dover six houses gifted by Odo, his “protector, deliverer and donor”.
Then there’s Vitalis of Canterbury. He appears on the Tapestry at a crucial moment before the battle, when Duke William interrogates him about the approach of the English army, depicted with almost cinematic skill. In 1086, Vitalis, too, had several holdings: the main one on the coast at Whitstable, with 69 smallholders and five slaves, five salt houses, a church and a small pasture for pigs. I imagine Vitalis enjoying the sea breezes, gazing out to Normandy, a short hop if he wanted to visit home.
Finally, Turold, who appears on the Tapestry earlier in the story. After Harold was wrecked on the French coast in 1065, Turold is one of two messengers of the Norman duke sent to bring the Englishman to William’s court. After 1066, Turold was also rewarded by Odo with estates in Kent and houses in Rochester and Canterbury.
So the three men appear on the Tapestry because their lord wanted to commemorate his own followers who had played their part in the great enterprise that propelled the Normans onto the European stage. That in turn supports what scholars have long suspected – that the sponsor of the Tapestry was none other than Odo of Bayeux himself.
It was, of course, a bitter and violent time. The Conqueror himself was a cruel and grasping man: too relentless to care, even though the world might hate him. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, “grædinæsse he lufode mid ealle” (“he loved greediness above all”).
As for how the ordinary English felt about these events, we have little evidence, but Wulfwin and Leofwin (brothers, as I take it, who farmed at Siffleton in 1066 before Vitalis took their land) were, I guess, no different from Ælfric at Marsh Gibbon in Buckinghamshire – who, Domesday says, “held it freely in 1066 but now farms at a rent from William, a Norman, graviter et miserabiliter [miserably and with a heavy heart]”.
That’s the other side of the coin to Wadard and Vitalis relaxing on their loungers in the garden of England. And when they made their journeys back to Normandy, joining the crowds at the Bayeux summer relic festival as the Tapestry was displayed round the cathedral nave, they could point proudly and say: “That’s me! I fought at Hastings – on that day when we won England”.
This article was first published in the October 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine
]]> The Bayeux Tapestry: secrets of the stitchers https://www.historyextra.com/membership/the-bayeux-tapestry-secrets-of-the-stitchers/ Tue, 29 Sep 2026 11:27:07 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/the-bayeux-tapestry-secrets-of-the-stitchers/ Mia Hansson explains what her modern remake experience of making a replica of the embroidery can teach us about the women who made the original artefact in the 11th century Mia Hansson has spent 10 years making an exact replica of the Bayeux Tapestry. In conversation with Dave Musgrove, she explains what her modern remake experience can teach us about the women who made the original artefact in the 11th century, and the secrets she has spotted in her decade of close attention to the embroidery
]]> Why the Nazis loved the Bayeux Tapestry https://www.historyextra.com/membership/why-the-nazis-loved-bayeux-tapestry-episode-6-video/ Tue, 22 Sep 2026 08:02:01 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/why-the-nazis-loved-bayeux-tapestry-episode-6-video/ In the final episode of his guide to the Bayeux Tapestry, Dr David Musgrove considers the long and surprising afterlife – which included brushes with Napoleon and Nazis What happened to the Tapestry after the Norman conquest? In the final episode of this HistoryExtra Academy, Dr David Musgrove considers the long and surprising afterlife of this most famous of medieval embroideries.
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Dr David Musgrove is content director of HistoryExtra, and expert and co-author (with Michael Lewis) of The Story of the Bayeux Tapestry.
]]> The mysteries of the Bayeux Tapestry https://www.historyextra.com/membership/the-mysteries-of-the-bayeux-tapestry-academy-episode-5-video/ Tue, 22 Sep 2026 08:01:33 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/the-mysteries-of-the-bayeux-tapestry-academy-episode-5-video/ Why does the Bayeux Tapestry include an image of a man squatting naked? In the fifth episode of his guide, Dr David Musgrove explores the borders of the famous embroidery Why does the Bayeux Tapestry include an image of a man squatting naked? And what about the birds and horses in the embroidery – what can they tell us about 11th-century beliefs?
David Musgrove looks to the margins of the Tapestry, and unravels some of the mysteries held in the borders of the work.
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Dr David Musgrove is content director of HistoryExtra, and expert and co-author (with Michael Lewis) of The Story of the Bayeux Tapestry.
]]> In 1066, King Harold was meant to save England. How did it all go wrong? https://www.historyextra.com/membership/in-1066-king-harold-was-meant-to-save-england-how-did-it-all-go-wrong/ Fri, 18 Sep 2026 15:00:19 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/in-1066-king-harold-was-meant-to-save-england-how-did-it-all-go-wrong/ In 1066 the last Anglo-Saxon king was ousted. But how, asks Tom Licence, had Harold, an earl without royal blood, taken the English crown in the first place? Was it truly because he was the strongman demanded by a land fearing invasion? The English king dies without a direct heir. So a powerful and popular Anglo-Saxon earl, possibly given the nod by the old monarch before he perished, immediately takes the throne – despite earlier promising to back the claim of a foreign duke. We all know what happens next: the duke invades and conquers England, seizes the crown for himself, and ushers in an enduring new dynasty.
That’s the potted version of the Norman conquest as understood by many – not least because it largely follows the narrative depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry. But it leaves us with many questions about the motives of those involved. What does the evidence really show us? Can we trust the accepted timeline? And how did Harold Godwinson become such a dominant figure in the unfolding crisis?
Here are the facts, as far as we can be sure. King Edward the Confessor died in his palace at Westminster on the night of 4–5 January 1066. The following day he was buried in Westminster Abbey – and no sooner was his coffin lowered into the ground than Harold was proclaimed king before the assembled mourners.
Harold II, as he would be known, was the brother of Edward’s queen, Edith, as well as being the Earl of Wessex. He was the richest and most powerful man in the land, and no candidate for the throne in English history was quicker to get the crown on his head.
An heir had been waiting in the wings before Edward died – but it wasn’t Harold. Edgar Ætheling was the late king’s great-nephew, and next in the bloodline. Later that year, after Harold’s death in battle, Edgar would be proclaimed king by some supporters, “as was his natural right”, according to a contemporary chronicler, though he soon submitted to William. But back in early January, Harold beat him to it, with the support of the Witan – the council of Anglo-Saxon nobles and clergy.
Since it was highly irregular to choose a candidate not of royal blood, Harold’s supporters must have had good reasons for backing his bid for the throne. True, Edgar was still only a boy – probably 14 at the time of his great-uncle’s death – but both Germany and France had boy-kings at that time. So the question of why England’s leading men backed Harold over Edgar is an important one for historians.
Ruthless ambition
The traditional answer is that, fearing invasion by one or more foreign claimants, the members of the Witan chose a strong leader they believed could fight off would-be conquerors from overseas. William’s modern biographer, David Bates, has written that “the sidelining of Edgar Ætheling could have reflected the certain knowledge in England that William of Normandy and, in all probability, King Harald Hardrada of Norway were going to invade”.
Ian Walker, author of a 1997 biography of Harold, likewise supposed that “the youthful, weak and inexperienced Ætheling Edgar… could not be expected to defend the kingdom effectively [against] the ruthless ambition and dangerous claims… of William of Normandy”. Historians Michael Livingston and Kelly DeVries agreed that England needed a proven war leader, and saw Harold as “the one most ready to defend it”.
This is a cogent argument. Harold, more than any other general, had proven himself in war, gaining experience of operations on land and sea. He had probably been involved in naval expeditions against pirates in the 1040s, and had himself led a pirate raid in Somerset in 1052 while forcing his way back from exile. He had campaigned in Wales through the 1050s, and in 1063 he had led a raid on Rhuddlan in north Wales before joining forces with his brother Tostig, Earl of Northumbria, the following year to conquer Wales and overthrow Gruffudd, its mighty king.
Clearly, there was no more experienced military commander in England in 1066, and such a record would have appealed to his supporters. It was even said by his allies that the old king, Edward, had come around to nominating Harold as heir to the throne upon his deathbed. Of course, they would have said that – whether it were true or not.
Appealing though it is, the traditional argument rests on an idea that is very hard to prove: that England was anticipating invasion. There is a risk of circularity, too, in arguing that the choice of the strongman Harold proves or suggests this.
- Read more | The making of the Bayeux Tapestry: who made it, how long did it take, and how has it survived?
One story told by William’s supporters after the Conquest was that Harold had visited Normandy, probably in 1065, and sworn to back the duke if the Norman were to make a bid for the English throne. If this story is accepted, as it has been by many historians, then a grab for the English crown by William would have been on the cards. But reports of what transpired between Harold and William in Normandy are varied and confused, and all were written after 1066 by writers who knew the sequel – William’s successful invasion.
There is no firm evidence that William was already aiming for England’s throne in 1065. And even if he was, it need not follow that England was on red alert over the ambitions of a pushy duke – especially one who had never before assembled a fleet or mounted a naval campaign.
One passage in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle has been read as an indication that Harold was expecting such a Norman invasion long before it transpired. In 1961, eminent medievalist Dorothy Whitelock took that text to mean that “he had been told as a fact that William… meant to come here and conquer this land”. And Michael Swanton’s later translation says that “[Harold] was told for certain that William… wanted to come”.
Both scholars would have been influenced by the traditional view that England was expecting William’s invasion, and took the passage to mean that fresh intelligence had been received confirming what had already been feared. Yet a literal translation does not necessarily support this interpretation.
That section in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle follows a reference to Halley’s Comet, which is included as a sign of prophetic foreboding because it was believed to portend imminent regime change. So it could be read as a soothsayer interpreting the comet’s appearance to mean that William would conquer. That reading of a prophecy, albeit written in hindsight, does not imply that Harold, and England, already expected an invasion from Normandy – rather, it was a new concern.
The comeback king
How Harold rose, fell, rose... and fell for good 1020s: Harold is born, second son of Earl Godwine of Wessex and Gytha, part of the extended family of the Danish king and conqueror of England, Cnut. c1045: Harold is appointed Earl of East Anglia, only to face a revolt the following year led by Osgod Clapa, the senior official who’d previously dominated that region.
1049: In the first mention of Harold in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, he opposes the reinstatement of his exiled older brother, Swein.1051: Godwine, Harold and Swein rebel against King Edward and are driven into exile. Harold flees to the court of King Diarmait in Leinster, eastern Ireland. 1052: Harold and his family force a comeback by attacking England. He raids Somerset, seizing captives and booty.
1053: Godwine dies and Harold is made Earl of Wessex, Swein having died by now.
1055: Harold’s earldom is extended into the Welsh marches, and he begins campaigning in Wales.
1064: Together with his brother Tostig, Harold conquers Wales, taking his army around the south coast by sea and overthrowing the Welsh king, Gruffudd. In this year or the following one, he takes Ealdgyth, Gruffudd’s widowed queen, to be his wife.
1065: Harold tours northern France, visiting Ponthieu, Normandy and Brittany. He is also recorded in Flanders in 1056 and, in an unknown year, as taking a trip to Rome.
1066: Edward dies on 5 January and Harold ascends the throne. He defeats King Harald Hardrada of Norway and his own brother Tostig on 25 September, then dies at Hastings on 14 October fighting William of Normandy.
Sibling rivalry
In fact, there is evidence to suggest that an invasion by William was not anticipated at the beginning of 1066. The worst disaster foreseen on the horizon by Folcard – believed to have been Edward’s contemporary biographer, writing part of his account in the early months of Harold’s reign – was a civil war between Harold and Tostig, whose relationship had lately turned hostile.
William’s invasion was not on Folcard’s radar, and the tragedy that unfolded took him by surprise. The biographer was an insider at court, and therefore should have been worrying about William if other courtiers were fearing invasion. Yet the Norman duke appears nowhere in Folcard’s account – except in a prophetic allegory towards the end, in a section that was written after the Normans had landed.
If Harold were expecting William, we might expect evidence of this in the form of preparations for defending against a Norman invasion – surely his immediate duty if the English leaders had backed his bid for the throne with that purpose in mind. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says nothing of Harold’s actions in the first few months of his reign but, when it picks up the story, it reports his return to London from York at Easter.
Clearly, rather than prepping the south coast to repel a Norman invasion and overseeing the assembly of a fleet, Harold had been travelling as far north as many English kings cared to go. This does not look like the itinerary of a monarch anxiously expecting an incursion by William. Nor does it necessarily indicate that Harold was readying the north against an invasion led by Harald Hardrada: the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that when the Norwegian king invaded in September, it came as a surprise.
So there is no evidence that invasion – by either William or Harald Hardrada – was anticipated in January 1066, and indeed there are strong indications that it was not. In that case, the theory that England needed a strongman to defend it is not an adequate answer to the key historical question of how Harold got the support he needed to sideline the blood heir and occupy the throne.
I’d argue that Harold’s rise to power is better understood in the context of the northern rebellion that erupted on 3 October 1065, when an army of Northumbrian rebels broke into Tostig’s house in York and began killing his allies. Their grievances included a punitive tribute that Tostig had levied on the whole of Northumbria (probably to pay for the Welsh campaign of 1064), his harsh rule as earl, and a series of murders by which Tostig and Queen Edith, his sister who was working on his behalf, eliminated leading members of the old Northumbrian nobility.
The revolt gathered pace, with the support of northern earls and brothers Edwin and Morcar. At a fractious assembly, Tostig accused Harold – who had married those northern earls’ sister within the previous year – of encouraging the rebels. It is certainly true that when King Edward called up an army to quash the revolt, his commanders – chief of whom would have been Harold – refused to fight.
By Christmas, the rebels had succeeded in their goal of driving out Tostig, who fled into exile in Flanders. Domesday Book shows that the northern earls and Harold had, meanwhile, divided up Tostig’s forfeited estates, using his downfall to enrich themselves.
Revisionist history
Chronicles written in the 1070s claim that the rebellion was settled before Edward’s death, with the laws of Cnut being reinstated by Edward, and the northern earls being confirmed in their earldoms. This retrospective rewriting covers up the uncomfortable reality revealed by earlier accounts written in the 1060s, which show that the north was still in revolt against Edward at the time of the late king’s demise.
The fact that the later chronicles begin to register Harold’s actions as king only after his return from York at Easter reflects their concealment of a journey, made by him at the start of his reign, to put an end to the rebellion. That expedition is reported in the biography of Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester, the original version of which (now lost) was composed in Old English by Wulfstan’s former chaplain, Coleman, and translated into Latin by William of Malmesbury. According to Malmesbury, Harold went north after his coronation to win over the rebels.
Over the course of the rebellion, a seismic shift had occurred. The north had thrown off the rule of Edward and his faction, which included Tostig, Edith and the heir Edgar Ætheling, who represented that camp’s survival into the future. Either Edgar was a creature of that faction, or he could be regarded as such by its opponents. Harold, on the other hand, had been pulling away in order to forge alliances of his own. His relationship with Tostig had soured, and he had little time for Edith. At the same time, he was allying with Edwin and Morcar, who bore their own grudge against Tostig, according to Folcard.
Harold’s new alliance bridged the divide that had opened up between the royal court in the south and the powers who held sway in the northern earldoms. In contrast, Edward’s faction had alienated the north by its recourse to brutal tactics and terror. The revolt of 1065 swept that ruling faction aside, replacing it with the new one – with Harold as its head.
South soothes north
Understanding the significance of the northern revolt is key to understanding Harold’s rise to power. By Christmas 1065, Harold was already running the country. Edward’s court allies had been removed or had jumped the fence to side with Harold. When the old king died, therefore, the choice of successor was between a teenage blood-claimant who might reinstate Edward’s allies, or Harold – who, in supplanting the old ruling faction, had inaugurated a new political settlement that was acceptable to leading figures in both north and south.
Harold, in any case, was too cunning and powerful to let England ponder the decision that had to be made. He had himself crowned immediately after Edward’s funeral, forestalling any objection. Given its rapid execution, he and his supporters must have planned that move while Edward lay dying.
There is no reason to think that Harold’s hasty coronation was intended to pre-empt William, who was overseas and had not yet heard of Edward’s death. Rather, the move was made to sideline Edgar Ætheling, the rightful heir by blood.
Harold came to the throne as the one figure who could hold England together and prevent the north from throwing off southern rule. There is no evidence that William – or anyone else – was planning to invade at that stage. But the fact that Harold was a usurper gave encouragement to opportunists, effectively putting a sign on the throne saying: ‘Anyone not of the blood may now apply.’ And that’s exactly what William of Normandy and Harald Hardrada did, gathering armies and invading in a game of might for which justifications could be made afterwards.
The old argument should, therefore, be turned on its head. Harold did not come to the throne because England feared invasion. Rather, England was invaded largely because Harold came to the throne. The irony is that the man who had been accepted as king because he alone could hold England together made it a target for predators hunting new lands to conquer.
Tom Licence is professor of medieval history and literature at the University of East Anglia. His new book is Harold: Warrior King (Yale University Press, 2026)
This article was first published in the October 2026 issue of HistoryExtra Magazine
]]> Who made the Bayeux Tapestry? https://www.historyextra.com/membership/who-made-the-bayeux-tapestry-academy-video-episode-4/ Tue, 15 Sep 2026 09:54:45 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/who-made-the-bayeux-tapestry-academy-video-episode-4/ Why would you commission an embroidery that's nearly the length of seven London buses? That's the question at the heart of episode four in Dr David Musgrove's video Academy series on the Bayeux Tapestry… Millions of people have viewed the Bayeux Tapestry since its creation in the 11th century. But what was the medieval embroidery actually for? Who had it made, and who was supposed to look at it?
In episode four, Dr David Musgrove considers these key questions.
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Dr David Musgrove is content director of HistoryExtra, and expert and co-author (with Michael Lewis) of The Story of the Bayeux Tapestry.
]]> The Bayeux Tapestry’s ‘big moment’ https://www.historyextra.com/membership/the-bayeux-tapestrys-big-moment-academy-video-episode-3/ Tue, 15 Sep 2026 09:51:56 GMT https://www.historyextra.com/membership/the-bayeux-tapestrys-big-moment-academy-video-episode-3/ In episode three of his guide to the Bayeux Tapestry, Dr David Musgrove dissects a crucial moment of the 11th-century embroidery, when Harold makes a decision that changes everything… Join us as we resume the story of the action in the Bayeux Tapestry, when a momentous matter between 11th-century rivals Harold and William comes to a head.
In episode three, Dr David Musgrove turns to one of the embroidery’s most crucial scenes.
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Dr David Musgrove is content director of HistoryExtra, and expert and co-author (with Michael Lewis) of The Story of the Bayeux Tapestry.
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