From historymaxxing to nation-building: unpicking the Bayeux Tapestry mania
In association with:
In an age when ‘blockbuster’ is overused, how should we describe the Bayeux Tapestry exhibition? Perhaps ‘generational’ fits a show provoking the biggest ticket scramble and column-inch frenzy since the British Museum’s Treasures of Tutankhamun in 1972. After years of controversy – repeated British requests to borrow the tapestry refused, including for the 1953 coronation, French hostility over the loan and even calls for the work never to be returned – the opening night saw royalty and prime ministers join the great and good. Some hailed a ‘triumph’ of post-Brexit cultural diplomacy; others called it ‘a remainer plot hatched at the ultra-liberal British Museum’. But beyond soft-power box-ticking, what explains such extraordinary public interest?
One obvious answer is fascination with a masterpiece. At 700 metres long, the superbly preserved embroidery of coloured woollen thread on linen is remarkable for its scale and extraordinary detail. Then there are its origins. Sewn by Anglo-Saxons in Canterbury and sent to France as propaganda for William the Conqueror’s victory at Hastings, its popularity comes amid renewed interest in Britain’s historical roots and anxieties about cultural continuity. Can Norman culture – from chivalry to ‘noblesse oblige’ – tell us something about who we are today? Does the debate – over whether the Conquest shattered Anglo-Saxon democracy, as Winston Churchill argued, or integrated England with Europe and established a more stable feudal order – do anything to illuminate Britain’s relationship with Europe now?
Some dismiss the current fascination with medieval times, particularly among the young, as ‘historymaxxing’ – reducing complex history to TikTok shorts while embracing ‘medievalcore’, fantasy archetypes and fashion. Others argue these trends offer a valuable route into history and questions about the nation, past and present. Yet is there also a risk of flattening the past? Take the tapestry depiction of just six women that prompts allegations of Norman ‘hypermasculinity’ and emergence of a ‘medieval manosphere’ that continues to today. Is complex history being selectively revised to fit fashionable contemporary concerns?
Others are suspicious of popular interest in the Norman Conquest itself, even seemingly harmless symbolism such as knights in tunics and chainmail. What some see as heritage and tradition, others view as far-right symbolism, from football terraces to Unite the Kingdom marches. With Kent, where the tapestry originated, now a landing point for migrants crossing from France, critics quip: ‘Stop the boats or we’ll keep the tapestry.’ British Museum director Nicholas Cullinan says the tapestry is part of our national identity, but ‘in a non-nationalistic way’. Yet after years in which policymakers and galleries have used art to advance social and cultural agendas, can they really blame opponents for doing the same?
Why has the return of the Bayeux Tapestry prompted such extraordinary public interest? What does the tapestry tell us about British history and national identity? Has the trend for politicising art and heritage now backfired?
