New research by an historian from the University of Bristol offers an intriguing suggestion about one of history’s biggest mysteries – the original purpose of the world-famous Bayeux Tapestry.

In a paper published this week, Professor Benjamin Pohl from the University’s Department of History examines a range of possible locations for which the Tapestry might have been designed – most notably the walls of the refectory of St Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury, where the moral story (or history) told by the Tapestry could have served as mealtime reading for the monks living there.

The Bayeux Tapestry is a unique piece of medieval embroidery measuring about 68 m (224 ft) in length and weighing about 350 kg. It famously depicts the events surrounding and leading up to the Battle of Hastings in 1066 when William II of Normandy invaded England and toppled Harold II from the throne.

Next year the Tapestry will go on display in the British Museum – the first time it has returned to the UK since it was made nearly 1,000 years ago.

Professor Pohl’s conceptual and historical re-examination of the Tapestry published in the journal Historical Research helps answer important questions – and even resolves several conundrums and contradictions – surrounding the artefact’s design and materiality. It also explores the Tapestry’s intended message and target audience, and the remarkable lack of records attesting to its location – or even to its very existence – prior to the fifteenth century.

Most scholars now agree that the Tapestry was most probably designed at St Augustine’s Abbey in the 1080s during the tenure of its first post-Conquest abbot, Scolland, a Norman who had previously been a monk at the famous island monastery of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy. There is also a broad consensus concerning the likely involvement of Odo, bishop of Bayeux and earl of Kent, William the Conqueror's half-brother, though opinions differ on the exact role which Odo played in the artefact's production.

As with the Bayeux Tapestry's origins, there are competing theories as to where it might have been displayed before its first attested presence at Bayeux Cathedral in an inventory from 1476. Professor Pohl said: “The truth is: we simply do not know where the Bayeux Tapestry was hung – or indeed if it was hung anywhere at all – prior to 1476. My article offers a new explanation by arguing that the most suitable place for displaying and engaging with the Bayeux Tapestry would have been in the monastic refectory of St Augustine's during mealtimes.”

This idea was developed during a seminar session with his students in which they studied the Bayeux Tapestry and critically reviewed existing theories about its origins and possible display locations, both at St Augustine’s and elsewhere. Students were invited to think of alternative possibilities which had not been considered before and considered a range of monastic rooms and buildings large enough in principle to host the artefact other than the great Romanesque abbey church, such as the monks' dormitory, the chapter house, and the refectory.

Professor Pohl said: “The more we talked about this, the more I wondered whether a refectory setting could help explain some of the apparent and puzzling contradictions identified in existing scholarship: for example, was the Bayeux Tapestry intended for a religious or a secular audience? Did this audience have to be literate in order to engage fully with the artefact and its narrative? Does it tell an English or a Norman story, or both/neither?

“Many, and perhaps all, of these conflicts and contradictions can be resolved by embracing the refectory setting proposed in my new article. To be clear: we have no concrete evidence of the Bayeux Tapestry's presence at St Augustine's, though this may well be due a combination of circumstances which meant that the abbey's new refectory designed in the 1080s – perhaps specifically to exhibit the Tapestry – was not completed until the 1120s. Consequently, the Tapestry might have been put in storage for more than a generation and forgotten about until it eventually found its way to Bayeux three centuries later.

“There still is no way to prove conclusively the Bayeux Tapestry's whereabouts prior to 1476, and perhaps there never will be, but the evidence presented here makes the monastic refectory of St Augustine's a serious contender. Just as today, in the Middle Ages mealtimes were always an important occasion for social gathering, collective reflection, hospitality and entertainment, and the celebration of communal identities. In this context, the Bayeux Tapestry would have found a perfect setting.”