Event date: Thursday 5 November 2026
Link expires: Sunday 6 December 2026

Please ensure you allow enough time to watch the recording before the link expires.

For the first time in almost one thousand years, the 70-meter-long Bayeux “Tapestry” (in truth an embroidery!), has returned from France to England, where it was made. These two ARTscapades lectures by Dr Sally Dormer complement the British Museum’s Bayeux Tapestry exhibition, open until 11 July 2027.

Lecture One
In addition to thinking about materials and techniques, the first lecture will outline the succession struggle as chronicled on the “Tapestry”, and explore what it reveals about diverse aspects of mid-11th-century life, including feasting, warfare, hairstyles, coronations, and attitudes to women.

Lecture Two
The second session will grapple with some of the tantalising, as-yet unresolved, questions associated with this astonishing survival. Who commissioned it? Who made it, where, and when? Was it unique? Where did it hang? Who saw it? How do the, occasionally lewd, border scenes relate to the main narrative? And is the man apparently removing an arrow from his eye really Harold Godwinson?