The Romantic History of the Bayeux Tapestry

The Romantic History of the Bayeux Tapestry

Author: The London Review of Books September 6, 2026 Duration: 59:54
The story of why, and how, an arrow ended up in Harold's eye in the Bayeux Tapestry is tied to the politics of the early 19th century, to Napoleon's ambitions and Britain's national pride, and the work of two antiquaries, Anne and Charles Stothard, who travelled to northern France several times to make drawings of the great embroidery. In this episode from our series on Romantic History, originally released in 2022, Rosemary Hill talks to Roey Sweet about the emergence of the Bayeux Tapestry as an artefact of political importance in the early 1800s and the new breed of multi-disciplinary investigators, who, in the years after the French Revolution, studied everything from woollen threads to tombstones in their efforts to imagine the past. Listen to other episodes in this series: From Waterloo to the British Museum, with Neil MacGregor: Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/rhep4 Spotify: https://lrb.me/rhep4s LRB website: https://lrb.me/rhep4lrb Salisbury Cathedral, with Tom Stammers: Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/rhep1 Spotify: ⁠https://lrb.me/rhep1s LRB website: ⁠https://lrb.me/rhep1lrb Balmoral, with Colin Kidd: Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/rhep2 Spotify: https://lrb.me/rhep2s⁠ LRB website: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://lrb.me/rhep2lrb Or find them in all in this Spotify playlist: https://lrb.me/rhspotify From the LRB Subscribe to the LRB: ⁠⁠https://lrb.me/subslrbpod Close Readings podcast: ⁠https://lrb.me/crlrbpod⁠ LRB Audiobooks: ⁠https://lrb.me/audiobookslrbpod⁠ Bags, binders and more at the LRB Store: ⁠https://lrb.me/storelrbpod⁠ Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Each week, The LRB Podcast extends the long-form, inquisitive spirit of the London Review of Books into a conversational format. Hosts Thomas Jones and Malin Hay guide discussions that delve into the essays and ideas animating Europe’s leading magazine of culture and ideas, creating a space where complex thoughts on society, art, history, and literature are explored with depth and clarity. The rhythm of the podcast includes a dedicated fortnightly episode, ‘On Politics,’ hosted by James Butler, which sharpens the focus on the political forces and theories shaping our current moment. Listening feels like joining a nuanced, ongoing conversation where arguments are carefully constructed and perspectives are challenged. It’s a natural companion for anyone who believes that understanding the world requires patience, critical thinking, and engaging dialogue. The podcast doesn’t offer quick takes but rather thoughtful excavations of the week’s most compelling cultural and intellectual questions, mirroring the publication’s commitment to serious and elegant prose. This is where written criticism finds its voice, allowing listeners to immerse themselves in the debates that define our time.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

The LRB Podcast
Podcast Episodes
Poetry and the Turning World: Weather [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:14:35
In Wordsworth’s 1807 description of ‘golden daffodils’, the breeze animates both the scene and the inner life of the speaker. Like many poets, Wordsworth turned to the weather to mediate between internal and external exp…
World Cup Cupidity [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 51:10
‘The beautiful game has never looked more beautiful on the pitch, or more ugly off it,’ Simon Skinner writes in the latest LRB. Each World Cup seems more tainted by corruption than the last, but is that a nostalgic illus…
Poetry and the Turning World: Divorce [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:18:05
Poets have always written about love, but the divorce poem is a much more recent subgenre. In this episode, Sarah and Sandeep ask if the formal processes of legal separation can be successful material for poetry, startin…
On Politics: What went wrong with HS2 (and almost everything else) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:04:02
HS2 was conceived at a cost of £37.5 billion and originally supposed to link London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds. It will now connect only two stations outside London and Birmingham at a projected cost of more than…
Poetry and the Turning World: Technology [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:30:30
When Robert Browning was asked to become the first poet to be recorded, on an Edison wax cylinder in 1889, he forgot his own poem. In the second episode of their series, Sarah Howe and Sandeep Parmar consider what happen…
Poetry and the Turning World: Work [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:04:58
Is writing a poem work? In the first episode of their series exploring the ways in which poetry responds to our personal and collective challenges, Sarah Howe and Sandeep Parmar start by considering the concepts of both…
On Politics: Myths of Populism [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:12:25
The transformations of European politics over the past twenty years, including Britain’s vote to leave the EU and the rise of post-Soviet strongmen, are often explained as part of a ‘wave’ of populism. But as Jan-Werner…
Jane Austen's ‘Emma’ and the art of misreading [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:08:00
What kind of satirist was Jane Austen? Her earliest writings follow firmly in the footsteps of ‘Tristram Shandy’ in their deployment of heightened sentiment as a tool for satirising romantic novelistic conventions. But h…
Gaza after the Ceasefire [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:09:46
Since the announcement of a ceasefire in Gaza six months ago, 904 Palestinians have been killed and more than 2700 wounded by the Israeli army. Last week, Trump’s Board of Peace released a report complaining of a ‘fundin…
A Rough Guide to Money Laundering [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 46:22
More than 90 per cent of transactions in the UK are now cashless, yet there is more cash in circulation than ever before. In the UK, there’s about £1300 circulating for every individual; in the US it’s more than $7000, a…