“Angli et Franci” – these Latin words embroidered on the Bayeux tapestry may be the first time those cartoon rivals, the English and the French, were named together. But in one of the shifts from triumph to horror that make this epic work of art still gripping almost a millennium after it was made, the full sentence reads: “Here at the same time the English and French [or Angles and Franks] fell in battle”. Below the black lettering, horses and chainmailed riders are thrown about and upside down in a bloody tangle. In the lower margin lie corpses and a severed head.
Now, in an unprecedented piece of cultural diplomacy between the Angli and Franci, this 70-metre long Romanesque wonder, preserved for centuries in Bayeux, Normandy, is to go on show at the British Museum. In exchange, Sutton Hoo treasures and the Lewis chessmen will go to France. When it opens in September 2026 this will surely be one of the British Museum’s most popular shows ever – for every British schoolchild learns this is not just a work of art, but a document of our history and who we are.
