24-04-2025
Mystery appendage fascinates Bayeux Tapestry historians
The question is, is the medieval swordsman going into battle unusually well armed? Or is he, in fact, going into battle unusually well endowed — and a swordsman of another kind?
On the answer hangs, in more ways than one, a crucial matter of medieval scholarship. Because a historian believes that he has spotted nothing less than an extra penis in the Bayeux Tapestry.
Is he right though, or is it merely a weapon?
For Dr Christopher Monk, seeing is believing. 'The detail,' he explained on the HistoryExtra podcast, 'is surprisingly anatomically fulsome.'
The swordsman in question appears in the marginalia of the 11th-century tapestry, which depicts the Norman Conquest. Running in pursuit of wild beasts, what could be a scabbard swings beneath his tunic.
