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It’s a real battle of the bulge.
The iconic Bayeux Tapestry was returned home to the UK for the first time in nearly 1,000 years, calling attention to a long-running debate over how many penises are depicted in this magnum opus.
The 230-foot artifact, which was woven in the UK in the 11th century but had been moved to Bayeux, Normandy shortly after its creation, was whisked 350 miles from France to the British Museum overnight on July 10 during a top secret operation, the BBC reported.
“We’ve just witnessed something rather extraordinary,” declared the institution’s director Nick Cullinan, who was present for its arrival via crate along with the French ambassador to the UK.
The tapestry depicts 58 scenes events leading up to the Battle of Hastings and Norman Conquest of England in 1066 — a pivotal moment that reshaped the country’s ruling class, transformed the national language from English to French and bound the two countries closer together.
However, there’s another NSFW aspect of the masterwork that has aroused scholars’ curiosity — its preponderance of phalluses.
For many years, a debate has raged on the number of penises depicted in the not-safe-for-artwork, evoking an X-rated “I Spy” book of sorts. Professor George Garnett, a medieval history expert at Oxford University who claims to be the first to tally the tapestry’s tallywackers, claimed that he counted 93 in a 2018 article for “History Extra.”
Five belonged to men, per the piece, while a whopping 88 were equine with Norman leader William the Conqueror’s steed boasting the most massive member of all.
“To the best of my knowledge, no-one has yet tallied the number of penises,” Garnett bragged.
However, this number was disputed last year by Dr. Christopher Monk, a self-proclaimed medieval scholar and expert on Anglo-Saxon nudity, who claimed he counted one more on a running man in a tunic — potentially putting the total at 94.
“I am in no doubt that the appendage is a depiction of male genitalia – the missed penis, shall we say?” Monk declared on the “History Extra” podcast. “The detail is surprisingly anatomically fulsome.”
However, Garnett stood by his original assessment, claiming that so-called willy was the scabbard of the figure’s dagger because of the “yellow blob” at the tip, which he deduced to be brass.
“If you look at what are incontrovertibly penises in the tapestry, none of them have a yellow blob on the end,” the professor posited.
However, podcast host and history expert Dr. David Musgrove was nonetheless fascinated about the possibility of another “penis in the Tapestry. “It invites us to think again as to why there are these explicit scenes in what is otherwise a story of politics, power and pitched battle,” he declared.
There are several theories regarding the cornucopia of codpieces with some experts theorizing that the X-rated easter eggs were added for sophomoric reasons, akin to offensive graffiti in a bathroom stall.
“It might be that [the penises] are just there for fun and for levity, that’s what some scholars say,” said Musgrove.
According to the podcaster, they could’ve been also a form of “subversive commentary” questioning the ethics of the depicted figures or even “something to do with Aesop’s fables.”
“It’s a reminder that this embroidery is a multi-layered artifact that rewards careful study, and remains a wondrous enigma almost a millennium after it was stitched,” he said.
The masterwork will be on display at the British museum from September until July 2027 when its loan expires, marking a triumphant homecoming for this iconic slice of English heritage
“It feels like a really remarkable thing not just to witness but to be part of, and we’re so excited to share it with as many people as possible,” said Cullinan.
A staggering 100,000 tickets have already been sold for just the first four months of the exhibition.
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