Pacifying the English: understanding the Norman Conquest of England through the Bayeux Tapestry

Emmanuel Macron’s “promise” (in 2018) to loan the Bayeux Tapestry to the United Kingdom is a testament to the power of “soft diplomacy”, a useful tool in the armoury of political leaders, that sometimes disguises underlying tensions between the parties involved. In this case, the loan (originally scheduled for 2022) was made as part of a bilateral agreement between Britain and France, which included bolstering cross-Channel security. Also known as “cultural diplomacy”, it is pertinent in the context of this paper since this is not the first time that the embroidery has been used in such a way. Moreover, as it will be argued here, the Tapestry was probably made for political purposes in the first place, though not solely to justify the Norman Conquest of England, as some have supposed, but to enable regime change and for that to happen as peacefully as possible.