Penis count debate rages over Bayeux Tapestry

Debate is raging amongst historians over the number of penises included on the Bayeux Tapestry.

The original embroidery is still kept in Bayeux, France, and depicts the Norman conquest of England, but a replica created in the late 19th Century is held at Reading Museum.

Most of the penises were not transferred onto the replica by the Leek Embroidery Society, which made it, after it was given censored etchings, engravings and photos of it to work from.

Oxford academic Prof George Garnett counted 93 penises in 2018 – with 88 belonging to horses and another five to men.

But Dr Christopher Monk said he had counted one more on another man.

Prof Garnett said he believed he was still correct and that the potential penis was the scabbard of a man's dagger because "right at its end is a yellow blob", which he took to be brass.

"If you look at what are incontrovertibly penises in the tapestry, none of them have a yellow blob on the end," he told the History Extra podcast.

Either way, Prof Garnett said the Bayeux Tapestry, at 70m (230ft) long and about half a metre high (1.7ft) is "by far the most splendid and largest surviving" textile art from the period.

The men's penises are included in the border of the embroidery, but there is no agreement about why they are there.

"It might be that [the penises] are just there for fun and for levity, that's what some scholars say," Dr David Musgrove, from the podcast, said.

"Some say the figures are making some sort of commentary on the action in the main scene, some sort of subversive commentary, perhaps even casting doubt on the probity of some of the characters in the main scene.

"Some people say they're something to do with Aesop's fables.

"There are lots of interesting theories – we don't know really, to be honest. But it's very interesting that they're there."

You can follow BBC Oxfordshire on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.