The Bayeux Tapestry Now

A one-day Symposium in London with leading experts on the Bayeux Tapestry

Tickets
Speakers and Topics
Directions and Accessibility
Downloadable Poster (PDF file, JPG image, PNG image)

Join us in Swedenborg House, just steps away from the British Museum, where the Bayeux Tapestry will be on display. Speakers include:

David Bates, Emeritus, University of East Anglia
Shirley Ann Brown, Emerita, York University, Toronto
George Camiller, Birkbeck, University of London
Clarisse Chavanne, Musée Curie, Paris
Millie Horton-Insch, British Museum
Maggie Kneen, Edinburgh University
Sylvette Lemagnen, Honorary Chief Curator of the Bayeux Tapestry
Alexandra Lester-Makin, Manchester Metropolitan University
Michael Lewis, British Museum
Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Emerita, The University of Manchester

Check this page for updates on the day’s schedule. Tea and coffee will be provided. Participants are encouraged to purchase lunch from one of the many nearby shops, cafés, pubs or restaurants.

The Symposium will be professionally recorded and made available afterward via YouTube to those who purchase a Video Recording ticket. The event will not be livestreamed.

Tickets on sale now

£55 Early Bird Member (ends 4 September)
£65 Early Bird Non-Member (ends 4 September)

£25 Video Recording Access, Member
£30 Video Recording Access, Non-Member

£65 Member after 4 September
£75 Non-Member after 4 September

A full refund will be given if a cancellation is made 30 days or more before the event. Refunds for cancellations made at shorter notice will be given on a discretionary basis dependent on whether the ticket can be resold or not. The final decision will be made by the treasurer.

Speakers and Topics

David Bates is Emeritus Professor in Medieval History at the University of East Anglia and holds an honorary doctorate from the University of Caen Normandie. He has held posts in the Universities of Cardiff, Glasgow, London (where he was Director of the Institute of Historical Research from 2003 to 2008), East Anglia and Caen Normandie. His recent books are The Normans and Empire, William the Conqueror, which was translated into French as Guillaume le Conquérant and La Tapisserie de Bayeux (co-authored with Xavier Barral i Altet). He will speak on: Biography and Patronage with special attention to Odo of Bayeux as a Patron.

Shirley Ann Brown is Senior Scholar and Professor Emerita of Art History / Culture & Expression at York University, Toronto, Canada. She has published many articles on the Bayeux Tapestry and is best known for her book-length bibliographies of it, the most recent being The Bayeux Tapestry. Bayeux, Médiathèque municipale: MS 1. A Sourcebook. She co-edited (with Sylvette Lemagnen and Gale Owen-Crocker) L’Invention de la Tapisserie de Bayeux. Naissance, composition et style d’un chef d’oeuvre medieval. She will speak on: The Lasting Legacy of the Bayeux Tapestry

George Camiller is a retired actor, currently completing a PhD at Birkbeck, University of London, on elements of performance culture in the Bayeux Tapestry. He will speak on: War, Peace and the Consolation of Philosophy. 

Clarisse Chavanne, now based at the Musée Curie, Paris, carried out doctoral research using non-invasive imaging techniques to identify the dyes used in the Bayeux Tapestry threads and reconstruct their original colours, offering new insights into medieval dyeing practices and how the tapestry may have originally looked. She will speak on: Revealing the original colours of the Bayeux Tapestry: a non-invasive scientific approach. 

Millie Horton-Insch is the project curator of The Bayeux Tapestry exhibition at The British Museum. She completed her PhD in the History of Art department at University College London in 2024, with a thesis titled ‘Textiles, Gender and Race in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Britain’. She was given a Leverhulme-funded postdoctoral Fellowship at Trinity College Dublin, during which she developed research from her PhD about textiles made around the Norman Conquest and their afterlives. She will speak on: ‘Locating’ the Bayeux Tapestry in Early Medieval English Wall Paintings. 

Maggie Kneen is a professional artist, book illustrator and archaeological/architectural illustrator and currently a PhD candidate at Edinburgh University, where she is researching the use of templates in medieval art across various media. Her publications include ‘Locating Hastings in 1066: the Evidence from the Tapestry’, in Making Sense of the Bayeux Tapestry: Readings and Reworkings, ed. Anna C. Henderson and Gale R. Owen-Crocker, pp. 93-110 and (with Gale R. Owen-Crocker) ‘The Use of Curved Templates in the Drawing of the Bayeux Tapestry’, Medieval Clothing and Textiles, 16, 2020, pp. 31-66. She will speak on: New research on template use in the Bayeux Tapestry, contemporary wall paintings and Anglo-Saxon embroideries. 

Sylvette Lemagnen was Director of the Bayeux Municipal Library and Curator of the Bayeux Tapestry from 1989 until her retirement in 2016, during which time she vigorously promoted international conferences, publications, and innovative exhibition displays while pursuing personal research into the history of the Bayeux Tapestry during World War II. A member of several learned societies, she has been appointed Chevalier in the Ordre des Palmes Académiques for services to national education and Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et Lettres. She is now Honorary Chief Curator of the Bayeux Tapestry. She has published extensively including her bilingual book La Tapisserie de Bayeux : une découverte pas à pas  / a step-by-step discovery, and edited books La Tapisserie de Bayeux: une chronique des temps Vikings?,  (with Shirley Ann Brown and Gale Owen-Crocker) L’Invention de La Tapisserie de Bayeux  and (with Gale Owen-Crocker) Une fresque brodée en l’honneur de Shirley Ann Brown. La Tapisserie de Bayeux vue par ses collègues et amis / A collaborative tapestry in honour of Shirley Ann Brown: the Bayeux Tapestry seen by her colleagues and friends. She will speak on: The recent controversy over the loan of the Bayeux Tapestry. 

Alexandra Lester-Makin is Third Century Fellow at Manchester Metropolitan University. A professional embroiderer and textile archaeologist, she is a member of the Bayeux Tapestry Research Committee and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and of the Royal Historical Society, she is the author of The Lost Art of the Anglo-Saxon World: the Sacred and Secular Power of Embroidery (2019) and co-editor (with Gale Owen-Crocker) of Textiles of the Viking North Atlantic: Analysis, Interpretation, Re-creation (2024). She has written several articles on the embroidery of the Bayeux Tapestry. She will speak on: Embroidery, as an immersive experience and/or a form of entanglement, using one motif from the Bayeux Tapestry as the vehicle. 

Michael Lewis is Curator of the British Museum’s Bayeux Tapestry Exhibition, previously Head of Portable Antiquities & Treasure at the British Museum, London (2015-25). He is also a Visiting Professor (in archaeology) at the Universities of Exeter and Reading and (in social sciences and humanities) at the University of Helsinki and is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He has published extensively on the Bayeux Tapestry and medieval material culture, his books including The Story of the Bayeux Tapestry (with Dave Musgrove), The Real World of the Bayeux Tapestry, The Archaeological Authority of the Bayeux Tapestry and The Bayeux Tapestry: new approaches (edited with Gale Owen-Crocker and Dan Terkla). He has been a member of Bayeux Museum’s Bayeux Tapestry Scientific Committee since 2013.  He will speak on: The aims and organization of the British Museum Exhibition.

Gale R. Owen-Crocker is Professor Emerita of the University of Manchester where she was previously Professor of Anglo-Saxon Culture and Director of the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies. She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and President of the Medieval Dress and Textiles Society. She has published extensively on the Bayeux Tapestry, including books The Bayeux Tapestry: Collected Papers and The Design of the Bayeux Tapestry and edited books King Harold II and the Bayeux Tapestry,(with Michael Lewis and Dan Terkla) The Bayeux Tapestry: new approaches, (with Anna Henderson) Making Sense of the Bayeux Tapestry: Readings and Reworkings, (with Sylvette Lemagnen and Shirley Ann Brown) L’Invention de La Tapisserie de Bayeux and (with Sylvette Lemagnen)Une fresque brodée en l’honneur de Shirley Ann Brown. La Tapisserie de Bayeux vue par ses collègues et amis/ A collaborative tapestry in honour of Shirley Ann Brown. She will speak on: The directions of recent research on the Bayeux Tapestry.

Directions and Accessibility

The event will take place in the hall of Swedenborg House, 20-21 Bloomsbury Way, London, WC1A 2TH. What Three Words: nobody.groom.friend. The closest Tube Station is Holborn (0.2 miles), serving the Piccadilly and Central lines. Multiple 24-hour parking garages are available nearby.

Enter through the door closest to the corner of Bloomsbury Way and Barter Street, which is used on weekdays by Arcana Coffee. The hall is through the coffee shop and up the steps. The building does not have lifts, but step-free access is available to Swedenborg Hall via the bookshop if arranged in advance and an accessible toilet is available on the ground floor. If you have any questions or accessibility needs, please contact us at events@medats.org.uk.