For the first time in nearly 1,000 years, the Bayeux tapestry is returning to Britain. The 70-metre embroidery will be displayed at the British Museum from September. The tapestry depicts the Norman Conquest of 1066 and the battle of Hastings. In comic-strip form, it tells the story of Harold II and William the Conquerer.

For centuries, the tapestry has been read as the ultimate example of “great-man” history. But, like most embroidery in the medieval period, the tapestry was almost certainly made by women.

In writing about the tapestry, this fact is often acknowledged only briefly, before attention returns to elite men – particularly Odo of Bayeux, who is widely thought to have commissioned it.

This oversight is a familiar historical pattern in which men are remembered as patrons and decision-makers, while the labour that produced the object itself fades from view. The absence of named makers matters. It shapes how we understand the tapestry as a story of conquest and power, rather than a display of collective........

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