Just how many Bayeux Tapestries were there?

As a new theory, put forward by Professor John Blair, questions whether the embroidery was unique, David Musgrove asks historians whether there could have been more than one 'Bayeux Tapestry'

- By David Musgrove

The Bayeux Tapestry is an amazing artefact – and it’s exceptional not least because of its very existence today.

Precious few pieces of embroidery from the medieval period survive, let alone ones that are almost 70 metres long. And, of course, the story it tells - of the conquest of England by the Normans - is one of immense historical significance. So we rightly celebrate it, and excitement about its forthcoming loan from Bayeux to the British Museum is high.

But what if this artefact wasn’t really so very exceptional at the time it was made? What if it was just one of several embroideries produced to commemorate the Norman victory over the English at the battle of Hastings in October 1066?

Professor John Blair, an expert in the Anglo-Saxon period at the University of Oxford, believes that might be the case.

“This is a reaction against the idea that the Tapestry had to be something extraordinary or unique, beyond the fact that it is an extraordinary and unique survival,” he says. “There are abundant references to decorative domestic hangings, but of course they had virtually zero chance of survival. The Tapestry is a wonderful piece of design, but the actual stitching isn’t particularly fine, and a big team of embroiderers in a workshop could have done it quite expeditiously.”

Purported patron

Why did the Tapestry survive when so few other embroideries did? Well, most scholars agree that it was probably made some time after the battle that it records, so in the mid-late 11th century, and likely on the orders of - or to curry favour with - Bishop Odo of Bayeux.