The Secret of the Bayeux Tapestry

The tapestry now hangs in the Palace of the Bishop of Bayeux, now a museum which is open to everyone. But this is very lucky.

The Council of Arras recommended in 1025 that educational pictures be hung in churches so that the illiterate masses could learn. This may have been why the tapestry, which was made about ten years after the invasion, was at first hung in the Cathedral of Bayeux.

It was almost destroyed, however, in the French Revolution. Rebels, looking for a cover to protect their wagon-load of ammunition being sent to the northern front where Monarchist enemies were attacking, removed it from the Cathedral and threw it over the wagon. A young lawyer saved it and hid it in an attic for thirty years. Later it was given to the Bishop of Bayeux and kept in his palace.

During the Second World War it was protected in an air-raid shelter.

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