With the Bayeux Tapestry that tells of their long rivalry, France and Britain are making nice
Entertainment
“For the British, the date — the only date — that all of them know is 1066,” Verney said
BAYEUX, France (AP) — For centuries, the storytelling masterpiece has been a source of wonder and fascination. In vivid and gruesome detail, the 70-meter (230-foot) embroidered cloth recounts how a fierce duke from France conquered England in 1066, reshaping British and European history.
The Bayeux Tapestry, with its scenes of sword-wielding knights in ferocious combat and King Harold of England’s famous death, pierced by an arrow to an eye, has since the 11th century served as a sobering parable of military might, vengeance, betrayal and the complexity of Anglo-French relations, long seeped with blood and rivalry but also affection and cooperation.
Now, the medieval forerunner of today’s comic strips, commissioned as propaganda for the Normandy duke William known as “the Conqueror” after he took the English throne from Harold, is being readied for a new narrative mission.
A homecoming for the tapestry
Next year, the fragile artistic and historic treasure will be gingerly transported from its museum in Bayeux, Normandy, to star in a blockbuster exhibition in London’s British Museum, from September 2026 to July 2027.
Its first U.K. outing in almost 1,000 years will testify to the warming latest chapter in ties across the English Channel that chilled with the U.K.'s acrimonous departure from the European Union in 2020. The loan was announced in July when French President Emmanuel Macron became the first EU head of state to pay a state visit to the U.K. since Brexit.
Bayeux Museum curator Antoine Verney says the cross-Channel trip will be a home-coming of sorts for the tapestry, because historians widely believe that it was embroidered in England, using woolen threads on linen canvas, and because William’s victory at the Battle of Hastings was such a major juncture in English history, seared into the U.K.'s collective consciousness.
“For the British, the date — the only date — that all of them know is 1066,” Verney said in an interview with The Associated Press.
