Transcript of How a 1,000-Year-Old Tapestry Took London by Storm

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily on Sunday. In London right now, there are sold-out shows, huge crowds, and audible gasps.

I thought, oh my God. We weren't going to miss this, having not seen it in a lifetime yet.

A nationwide mania, really. We're here on our honeymoon.

How hard was it to get tickets for your honeymoon? I sat in queue for 5 and a half hours. And I got them.

Over a tapestry.

It changed British history, you know.

A very old and very long and very beloved tapestry that people cannot wait to see.

I got it because I'm staying at a really lovely hotel. You're not one of the people who's paid like £1,000 a night to get access? Yes, yes, yes, yes. Don't tell anybody. I'll be poor and go without food for the next week. But it was worth it for that? Yeah.

Today, the story of the Bayeux Tapestry, how it became central to British identity, why it remained outside of Britain for nearly 1,000 years, and its improbable but temporary return to the United Kingdom. My colleague, culture reporter Alex Marshall, tells the epic yarn. It's Sunday, September 20th. Alex Marshall, welcome to The Sunday Daily.

Thanks for having me, Michael.

So Alex, correct me if I'm wrong here. Tapestries rarely take the world by storm.

I'm pretty sure No tapestry before has ever taken the world by storm. Although, we should probably say, this is not a case of a tapestry taking the world by storm. This is the case of an embroidery taking the world by storm.

Okay, okay. So we're already splitting hairs here. Can you just help me understand the difference between a tapestry and an embroidery?

I do think this is important to start with, because otherwise we will have the embroidery mafia chasing us both down. And they've got quite sharp pins. A tapestry is woven on a loom, and embroidery is stitched by hand. And what we're here to talk about today is, sadly, an embroidery that happens due to the fault of an 18th-century French monk, to be known to the world as the Bayeux Tapestry.

Well, I'm gonna take that distinction and politely store it away, and proceed perhaps to keep referring to it as a tapestry, but we'll see.

I think given the entire world does that, and given the British Museum is currently eulogizing to the entire world about this biotapestry, I think we should go with the terminology that the world knows about it and take the risk.

Okay. Yes. So, Alex, what is it that makes this embroidery, this tapestry, this piece of fabric so very special? How did it become the Mona Lisa of textiles?

I mean, take your pick of reasons. I mean, let's start just with the sheer scale of this thing. I mean, it is 220 feet long. I mean, very few artifacts in the world are that length that could fit in a stadium. They could wrap around the outside of a basketball court.

Wow.

It's almost 1,000 years old. It is still as vibrant and bright in its colors almost as the day it was made. It hasn't been faded. It's filled with holes. It's got tears in it. It's been stained. And then it's up there for British people with the Crown Jewels, with Stonehenge.

Wow.

The Bayeux Tapestry is something so important, we teach it at schools. We force it down children's necks. And it is back for the first time since it was made. And that, for British people, has almost set the country on fire. Everyone's talking about it. Everyone wants to see it. It is the hottest ticket in town.

I'm straining and struggling for an American point of reference because what you're describing is nearly 1,000 years old. And as you've probably heard, we just celebrated our 250th anniversary, so we just cannot compete.

I don't think you can. But the strangest thing is whenever British people have been trying to sum it up for me, because they, despite my accent, weirdly assume I'm American when I say I work for The New York Times, they always go, Oh, it's like the Declaration of Independence to you. And then whenever I say that to an American, they go, yeah, no, we wouldn't all queue up for 9 hours to get a ticket to see the Declaration of Independence.

Guilty. I would not. So Alex, I want you to talk through the story, the visual story that this tapestry actually depicts, because I think that will help our American brains to grasp why this embroidery, as you say, has become one of the hottest tickets in London right now.

So the SparkNotes version: the start of the tapestry, Edward the Confessor, King of England. He's childless, he's ill, he knows he needs an heir. So he talks to Harold Godwinson, his brother-in-law, and sends him off to France to the Norman king, Duke William. Harold meets William, basically says, you can come and be King of England when Edward dies.

My brother has no heirs. We nominate you.

You. Come over, turn England into your kingdom. You seem a great guy. Harold in the tapestry has quite a devilish mustache.

Hmm.

And he looks a bit like Someone you might have seen in a 1970s porn film in America. I've seen Boogie Nights. He looks like he's walked out of one of those sets.

I'm sorry, did you say Boogie Nights?

Boogie Nights. Isn't that the film?

Yeah, no, yeah, absolutely. They boogie all night.

So he just looks very louche. And that might give a hint about what's to come. Back in England, Edward dies, and Harold decides to pull a fast one, essentially.

Hmm.

He is soon on the throne himself.

Oh, so he reneges. He pulls a Dick Cheney. He says, I will be your actual leader. Forget the promises I've made to William over there in France.

Assuming he actually did that. It is a tapestry of the victors. It's their story. So the tapestry does not depict him twirling his mustache evilly, but you could imagine him at that moment doing just that. Word obviously gets to William in France.

How could it not?

And William is pissed. He is like, what on earth has that guy done? He doesn't wait a minute. He sends all his men off to build a fleet. He is going to invade. He's gonna take that throne for himself.

Wow.

And we are now in 1066, this pivotal year in English history, the year every child learns in school. People even say, 1066 and all that. You don't even have to know what it means. And so, very soon, William is landing in England with his forces on the south coast. And he is causing havoc. You know, he starts burning down villages. It's the perennial raping and pillaging that we all know from history. When I was actually in the British Museum looking at this recently, there were some children who— their teacher was trying to tell them about this era and say, like, what did I tell you William was doing in Britain? And the children replied that he was ragebaiting. He was ragebaiting Harold. So yeah, William rage-baits his way through southern England, and eventually Harold decides he has to confront him. And there is this huge battle. There is carnage. The battle goes on all day. Most medieval battles apparently only lasted a few hours. This goes on. It is bloody. According to the tapestry, there are beheadings. There's bones going everywhere. And eventually, William succeeds. Harold, isolated, is, history says, shot in the head by an arrow.

That leaves the English throne free for William. He becomes William the Conqueror, and he takes over England, changing the course of the country's history.

Wow. That is quite a drama.

Yes.

So, so far what you're describing and what this tapestry enshrines sounds a whole lot like British defeat, and a pretty humiliating defeat, I might add— political, military, cultural, over time. And so I guess I'm struggling to see—

Why would this celebrate it?

Why would this become a beloved artifact and so central to British identity?

It might be a humiliating defeat, but it is also— it's an event that completely changed English culture. You know, it changed our language, it changed our laws, it changed the aristocracy. And so, for that, it is key to Britain's history. And also, it's so foundational, perhaps because we have this tapestry. If we didn't have this— it— you know, this artwork that documents it in the most accessible, simplistic, and at times, even funny, as well as brutal way, way. If we didn't have this one-off unique artifact, maybe we wouldn't remember it as much. It's just become part of the fabric here.

So to speak.

So to speak, yeah.

So in the aftermath of this pretty major British defeat and humiliation, who commissions the creation of this tapestry to tell the story of Britain going to pieces here.

There's one slight problem with the Bayeux Tapestry, which is there's a lot is unknown. But historians think it was commissioned by a guy called Bishop Odo, who was William the Conqueror's half-brother. The reason they think he commissioned it is because he was probably not a very big figure in all these events of 1066, but he appears throughout the tapestry, even in the climactic battle scenes.

Got it.

He likely commissioned it in Canterbury in England, which had the best embroiderers at the time. And they made it probably for the renovated cathedral in Bayeux. So as soon as they finished making it, it was probably spirited across the English Channel to France. And it's been there ever since.

Why does it never, ever somehow return? to Britain from France. These 2 countries are geographically close and over time developed fairly warm relations. So how come it remains essentially walled off from Britain?

Well, it's not for a lack of trying. I mean, Britain's wanted this item on loan for decades. But in France, they just say this is too fragile to ever send abroad. And that's for good reason, because throughout its history, the tapestry has been manhandled. It's been transported along bumpy roads. I mean, at one point, Napoleon brought it to Paris and displayed it in the Louver, because he saw it as a sort of a good way of showing, maybe I've got links to William the Conqueror. I can take over Britain too. At one point, the Nazis started moving it around. They saw it as both an emblematic example of German culture, but also, they saw it as foreshadowing their own desire to take over England.

Wow, so when the Nazis occupied France—

Yes.

They're moving it around, but they managed, I suppose 'cause of its scale, not to take it out of France.

They tried desperately to take it out of France. Towards the end, they wanted to get it to Berlin, but the Allied invasion fortunately got to Paris just before they managed to get it out. They have infamously left a cigar burn on it.

Wow.

But when we get to sort of post-World War II, this thing has folds in it, tears in it, stains in it, rips. I mean, it is a— incredibly delicate document. So as soon as the British start really seriously saying, can we have it? You know, especially for Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, they say, can we bring it to London? They start saying, no, no, no, we're not moving this under any circumstance.

Right, right. I'm hearing that French voice in my head. No, no, no, monsieur, it is not possible. It is not possible.

I think you're exactly right.

Well, then the inevitable question is, What changed? And what happened that suddenly made the fragility of this 200-and-something-foot-long artifact no longer an obstacle to moving it from France to Britain?

It all comes down to one man, Emmanuel Macron. He is the egotist behind this impossible loan.

The impossible loan. Well, we're gonna talk about the impossible loan and how it comes to be right after the break. Alex, tell us the story of this impossible loan overseen by the president of France that somehow brings this tapestry embroidery to London?

So this actually, like everything in the tapestry, is an annoyingly long story. It starts in 2018, when there's an Anglo-French summit for reestablishing our friendship post-Brexit. You know, Britain's left the European Union, relations are really bad. Macron decides, I know how I can repair things. I'll announce I'm going to loan the tapestry. And the reaction in France is one, at least in the conservation world, one of horror. I mean, this is not happening. You are not loaning this item. I mean, I've spoken to a former head of the Bayeux Tapestry Museum who said when she heard about it, she just thought he was taking the piss. She thought it was insane. This is never going to happen. And it looked like she was right.

Because?

Because it just— it quickly disappears off the agenda. There was such strong opposition to this. I mean, even in Britain, the artist David Hockney, before he died, he at one point wrote an opinion piece saying, as an artist, I am reckless, but I would never do something as reckless as this.

So everyone is remembering the carelessness of the Nazis and Napoleon and thinking to themselves, even under the best of circumstances, with professional movers and preservationists involved, this is gonna go horribly sideways.

I think even people who didn't remember Napoleon or the Nazis were thinking this could go sideways. You just don't— You know, you don't take risks with artifacts of such world renown. You know, it'd be like— You know, the Louver does not want to move the Mona Lisa. You know, the Italians don't want to stick Michelangelo's David in a crate and put it on a tour around America. You just don't risk a world masterpiece. And then suddenly— We did our best not to be put in the situation to make this loan of biotopes. Last year. Macron is back again. And we found the best experts of the world. And he's at the British Museum. To explain in perfect detail why it was totally impossible. And he says— We went beyond the experts. This loan is happening. We have gone beyond the experts.

And we managed to find Great solutions.

It's almost saying, we have been reckless. So merci, mesdames les ministres. But for political, diplomatic showmanship reasons, we are making this happen.

Okay, so once can-do Macron decides that France can do this, what are the logistics involved in actually making this loan happen?

I think there are actually 2 key reasons why this happens. One, the museum in Bayeux is closing for renovation. So you an opportunity. This is gonna have to go off display anyway. So if you are putting it into a box, why not put it into a box and then transport that box across the English Channel?

Mm-hmm.

The other thing is, France and Britain so wanted this to happen, that they were willing to pay for the science and the conservation techniques to make this work. I mean, I spoke to a conservator recently who said, You know, what they would normally do for moving a tapestry like this is put it on the floor, put a roller on top of it, and roll it up. And that is the most dangerous thing, you know, for such a delicate artifact. That would be foolhardy. But what they've done for this is like Star Trek. You know, so much money and technology has been put into this one move. It's like nothing these conservators have seen before.

Okay, well, describe some of the— Star Trek-worthy steps that have been taken to make this seamless.

It is really delicate, precise work. Initially in Bayeux, the tapestry was hanging by curtain hooks to a curtain rail. They had to work out how to get it off that safely into a crate. What they ended up coming up with after lots of scientists put lots of studies is They got 100 people to stand along the length of it and move it 2 inches at a time.

Oh my gosh.

And there's these amazing videos of a woman with a headset.

Ready? Ready. Ready.

Ready.

Ready.

Ready.

Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready.

Ready.

Ready. Ready.

Ready.

Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready. Ready.

as they try and move it without risking damaging it. Un, deux, et tac, tac, stop. Once they get it off this curtain rail, they put it onto— and I'm sorry this is sounding so dense— but they put it onto another rail, which then folds up. So you end up with a tapestry in almost like a concertina shape. Very loose. Which is then put into a box. Normally, if you were transporting a work of art across the ocean, you'd just put that into a wooden crate, drive it there.

Right.

What they do is put that crate into another crate— I mean, bear with me— which is surrounded by springs that are basically used in earthquake zones.

Wow.

I mean, one of the people who worked on it described it as like, you know, an old-school baby carriage. You know, you should be able to take this tapestry along a bouncy road, and it will not wake up. It is not gonna start crying and screaming at you. But then, even once they'd come up with this, you know, technology used to stop buildings falling down.

Right.

That isn't the end. They then come up with the route to take it to London. They drive that route several times to work out where the potholes are.

Good lord.

So they can then analyze this even more to make sure it is safe as possible. Once all that is done, every measure is taken to make it safe, they are then still worried that when they drive this, maybe some terrorist, maybe an eco-protester is going to try and steal this.

Naturally.

So you do all this work. And then you get to July 9th. This year. It's 6:15 PM. A bright yellow truck leaves Bayer. The tapestry is in the back. They get the French security service to accompany it in the highest secretive midnight move. That truck drives onto a train. The train goes to Britain. The truck drives off it. And then goes incredibly slowly Through the night to the British Museum.

But then, of course, it has to be unpacked.

Unfortunately, yes. The operation to get it out of that crate was just as rigorous and involved as the one to get it out of Display and Bearer. There, again, about 100 people lined up. They opened the crate on this folding panel so delicately. They checked. every single panel to make sure the tapestry, once unfold, wasn't ripped, wasn't damaged. They then had to lift it very delicately onto a railing that then went up to the ceiling of this exhibition hall in the British Museum, and then lowered the tapestry onto a specially designed table, which cost £2 million.

One table?!

I should actually Google that. To GBP, to USD. God, $2.7 million.

Is it made out of gold?

Looks like it's made out of wood, actually. It's got very thick glass. It's temperature-controlled. You know, it's basically the greatest table you could ever have if you wanted to display a unique tapestry in one long 220-foot line. I mean, it only just squeezes into the British Museum. I think there's something like 20 centimeters clearance.

That is snug.

The British Museum were telling me they'd written to Guinness, hoping to get the Guinness World Record for the longest-ever art table. Sounds a bit niche. I did tell them that was a bit desperate, but, you know, all publicity is good publicity, I suppose.

So once all of this painstaking, cumbersome moving by truck and crate and hundreds of hands is done, what condition is the tapestry in when it arrives? Is this a success?

Apparently so. I mean, everyone I've spoken to, in very relieved tones, says it is perfectly fine. They found 2 threads that have broken, but that is 2 among millions. They also found some fibers in the bottom of the crate, But those might not be from the tapestry. They might be from the jumper of one of the hundreds of people who was involved in moving this.

Mhm.

I mean, when I actually learnt of these breakages, I went to the main objector in France, a guy called Didier Reichner, who runs an art magazine. And I sort of told him about this, in almost expecting him to be up in arms.

You were baiting him.

I'm a journalist. I was obviously impartial. I did not mind what response he gave me. But he— he seemed mildly nonplussed by it all.

It's a triumph.

It is a triumph. So when it opened just over a week ago, I made sure I was one of the first through the door. And to my completely untrained eyes, looked perfectly fine.

Okay, well, let's talk about what it was like for you to actually see this, in the museum on its very fancy table right after the break. We'll be right back. Okay, Alex, set the scene for us. It is Tapestry Day for you there in London. How does it unfold?

I turned up outside the British Museum in central London for 10:00 AM to be one of the first people through those gates. And there's already a queue of people. We all shuffled into this line and walk into this huge, long, dark room, and there it is. I'm looking— literally the first scene, it's got Edward the Confessor, and he's talking to 2 men, and he's trying to work out who his successor should be. And we walked along its length, scene— I'm only on the second scene. And the colors, they are just so vibrant.

By scene.

I'm now on scene 5. Slowly, slowly, slowly. I'm only on scene 8. Until the British Museum staff tried telling us to quicken up. I'm now in front of scene 17, and it's showing some of the Norman soldiers getting caught in quicksand. And it's just amazing how much these embroiderers managed to pack into this thing. A comet has appeared. It's Halley's Comet. You can tell it's a bad omen, because people are looking at this comet and pointing up at it with horror. They've got— I am now surrounded by school kids and hoping they move along. The children in my visit just kept stopping at certain scenes. Oh my god! The more gruesome, There's a lot of nudity. The risqué ones. Looks like he's pleading with her to, to let them be together, and she's sort of going, oh, not again. And there are 58 scenes. The tapestry shows this man holding an arrow in his eye, and Harold Godwinson is dead. That is the end. William the Conqueror has conquered England. But as you're going along, For me, what hit me was almost the connection to the people who must've woven this, who sewed it. Because the images, they look like a cartoon that could have been made, you know, like 3 years ago.

It looks like something out of a Japanese anime studio. All the characters have— like Harold Godwinson, as I said, he has this very louche mustache. His eyebrows, you can see them, they're almost sort of done in quizzical expressions. You know, there are all these sort of quirky elements to it. There are bits that look like surrealist painting. And I, as a British person, there are many things that obviously I dislike about my country. You know, there are things I regret. We are an empire. We just, you know, we colonized half the world. We did lots of brutal, horrific things.

True.

But one thing I do really like is our sense of creativity. our humor and our absurdity. And all of that is in this tapestry. There are in-jokes. There's nudity. There are 93 penises in this thing.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry, 93 penises, you say?

93 or 94. There's an academic debate about one of them. 88 of them belong to horses, but the rest are human. You know, there's— there are things you wouldn't expect.

For example, 93 penises. I'm really getting— just how epic this tapestry is. And I want to ask you, now that you have seen it and you've spent all this time with it, if there's one scene, one moment in particular that struck you most deeply.

The one I know I'm going to remember— I doubt anyone else would ever say this, but it is men suddenly chopping down trees to make the boats to invade England. And it didn't hit me emotionally. Your face looks very emotional. critical, Michael. Like, you're saying, God, why? Pick something more exciting. But the figures just had such movement to them.

Mm.

These were ordinary people, swinging axes, trying to build boats. And suddenly I thought, oh right, this is art. And once I'd got past that, I started seeing all these quirky, weird little bits. And that's when I started thinking, Oh, right, these are people just like me who made these. These are people who were being creative, who wanted to be fun, who wanted to enjoy life, even at a moment of terror. Like, the women who made this had just lost their country. They might have even been doing this as forced labor. They were certainly, you know, probably not doing it that willingly. You know, this was a tapestry of the victor.

Right.

And yet they still managed to get their own personality in, to have some fun with it.

That's lovely.

And I thought, this is great.

As you talked with all these people who were there viewing this alongside you, how did all those people that you interviewed, how did they react to seeing the tapestry? What did it mean to them?

The depth of feeling of this, like, just talking to them, just saying, why are you here to see it? Yeah, it makes me well up. Why does it make you well up? They were like, this is part of our country. It goes to the whole core of our history. It's so vivid, and as you walk along, you could read the story. This is 2 men fighting for the future of England happening in front of you, basically.

Wonderful.

Outstanding. Beyond expectations.

Absolutely, seriously outstanding.

And there was one bizarre moment where a man walked out and told me he was going together to the And just seeing it in, you know, not the flesh, in the stitch for the first time was absolutely amazing. Like, you know, I want to get it tattooed on me one day. And not just any tattoo, but of the most famous scene. Uh, Harold, obviously. Harold being shot in the eye. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I reckon him getting shot in the eye will be the one.

Yeah. Alex, how do you make sense of all these folks that you're talking to describing So much meaning being derived from this tapestry. I mean, I'm thinking about this gentleman who tells you he might get a scene from it tattooed onto his body. I mean, that's a depth of feeling you don't expect from embroidery. I mean, how do you make sense of this thing doing so much to so many people? Yeah.

The thing about 1066, the events depicted in this tapestry, is they're both so long ago, such deep history, and in a way, so little understood that you can read whatever you want into this artifact. You know, you can see it as a moment that the country is founded. You can see it as a great celebration of how Britain is filled with people from all over the world. You can then, if you are anti-migrant, you can see it as a moment Britain is lost, and a testament to that written under duress.

Mm.

You can see it as a great celebration of the monarchy. You can see it as an anti-war statement. You can see it as a pro-war statement. You can read whatever you want into this. You can just see it as an amazing artwork. And I think the fact this tapestry allows everyone to find themselves in it is what gives it its power. And plus, it is 220 feet long and just so stunningly unique that you're just gonna want to celebrate it as soon as you're in a room with it.

In other words, everyone is projecting onto this tapestry whatever they want to or need to project onto it. And that's what all these people in this line have been doing and will continue to do for as long as it's on loan in Britain. I wonder, Alex, how your experience at the museum and with the tapestry came to an end.

Well, Michael, my experience ended, well, like many museum visits do, in the gift shop. There is Bayeux Tapestry beer, Bayeux Tapestry mead. I walked around Basically a department store's worth of merch. Bayeux Tapestry bugle. If you ever want to call out orders in military camps or lead a hunting party. I wish I could say I resisted. Socks. A chess set for almost— just over $1,000. I bought a wooden Bayeux Tapestry postcard and sent it to my sister and a Bayeux Tapestry Christmas tree decoration for myself. My Christmas tree this year is going to have a far too expensive Harold Godwinson being shot in the eye by an arrow as its key decoration.

I cannot wait to see photos of that Christmas tree. Thank you for everything here today, this tour of the tapestry. We appreciate your time.

Thank you. Check your email on Christmas Day. There'll be a photo there for you.

This episode was produced by Laina Richards with Tina Antolini. It was edited by Wendy Doerr and engineered by Sophia Landman. It contains music from Dan Powell and Marian Lozano and has production assistance from Dahlia Haddad. That's it for The Sunday Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.