The Romantic History of the Bayeux Tapestry

The story of why, and how, an arrow ended up in Harold's eye in the Bayeux Tapestry is tied to the politics of the early 19th century, to Napoleon's ambitions and Britain's national pride, and the work of two antiquaries, Anne and Charles Stothard, who travelled to northern France several times to make drawings of the great embroidery.

In this episode from our series on Romantic History, originally released in 2022, Rosemary Hill talks to Roey Sweet about the emergence of the Bayeux Tapestry as an artefact of political importance in the early 1800s and the new breed of multi-disciplinary investigators, who, in the years after the French Revolution, studied everything from woollen threads to tombstones in their efforts to imagine the past.

Listen to other episodes in this series:

From Waterloo to the British Museum, with Neil MacGregor:

Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/rhep4

Spotify: https://lrb.me/rhep4s

LRB website: https://lrb.me/rhep4lrb

Salisbury Cathedral, with Tom Stammers:

Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/rhep1

Spotify: ⁠https://lrb.me/rhep1s

LRB website: ⁠https://lrb.me/rhep1lrb

Balmoral, with Colin Kidd: