French President Emmanuel Macron met with the United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer in London on July 8 for the first visit of its kind since Brexit. The leaders discussed a laundry list of affairs, including migration through the English Channel, the war in Ukraine, and … a textile that hasn’t been in England for almost 1,000 years.The Bayeux Tapestry, which belongs to the French state and is held by Normandy’s Bayeux Museum, will begin a nearly a year-long stint at the British Museum in September of 2026. Named for the city of Bayeux, the nearly 230-foot-by-20-inch embroidered linen textile was made in the UK during the 11th century and pictorially recounts the 1066 Norman conquest of the country, according to the British Museum. Macron and Starmer formalized the loan this week after years of discussions between leaders from both nations, facilitating the symbolic loan of the work. Macron first agreed to the exchange in 2018.For the first time in nearly 1,000 years, the object will return to the United Kingdom.The embroidery depicts the victory of William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy, over England in the Battle of Hastings. William assembled a fleet of ships filled with thousands of men and horses to cross the English Channel and successfully claimed the throne from the last Anglo-Saxon king, Harold Godwinson. Placed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in 2007, the intricate work narrates the battle in 58 scenes featuring more than 600 wool-threaded people and 200 horses. Though it focuses on the historical battle, the embroidery also reveals fixtures of broader 11th-century life, including architecture and armor, and includes almost 400 Latin words accompanying the images.The Bayeux Museum believes the work was commissioned by William the Conqueror’s half-brother, Bishop Odo, to adorn the French city’s new cathedral in 1077.Macron initially announced in 2018 that the work would likely go on display somewhere in Britain by 2022. At the time, some likened Macron’s offer to a “charm offensive” to soften relations with a post-Brexit United Kingdom.“The loan of this work, which is unique in the world, embodies a heritage shared on both sides of the English Channel,” Bayeux Mayor Patrick Gomont said of the exchange in a statement shared with Hyperallergic.The Bayeux Tapestry loan coincides with the renovation of the museum that previously displayed the work. According to a statement shared with Hyperallergic by the Bayeux Museum, studies and conservation reports have been conducted since the loan was first announced in 2018 to ensure the work’s integrity during its display. France’s temporary gift coincides with a two-year renovation of the Bayeux Museum, which will reopen in the summer of 2027, when the embroidery will be returned. The agreement also stipulates that certain UK “treasures,” including objects from the 6th- and 7th-century Sutton Hoo burial mound and 12th-century walrus ivory chess pieces, will be loaned by the British Museum to other museums in Normandy. A British Museum spokesperson told Hyperallergic that the specific artifacts and display sites have not yet been named.“There is no other single item in British history that is so familiar, so studied in schools, so copied in art as the Bayeux Tapestry,” George Osborne, chair of the British Museum Trustees, said in a press release. “Yet in almost a thousand years it has never returned to these shores.”