Who had the biggest penis at the Battle of Hastings 1066?
Its not really a question youd expect to see on any exam paper, and its definitely not something we were taught at school.
But one historian reckons hes found the answer after counting an incredible 93 penises woven into the centuries-old Bayeux Tapestry.
And George Garnett, Professor of History at Oxford University, says it was the horse of William the Conqueror who had the largest penis.
Well, now you know.
Professor Garnett, who also claims he was the first person in the world to count the number of penises in the tapestry, also says only four of them are attached to men, compared with 88 depicted on horses.
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But the woven phallic images arent the result of some tittering, schoolboy obsession and puerile in-jokes, he told the BBCs History Extra.
Instead, the huge penis of Williams horse is a reflection of the Dukes own virility, because he had to be the outstanding individual in every respect.
The professor also says the depictions of human penises also allude to fables and scandals known to readers of the tapestry.
He told the website: There is much more to be said about the handful of human penises displayed in the tapestry than the 88 equine ones, even though none of the former appears in the main narrative, and all of the latter do.
In most cases the human ones serve to alert well-read viewers to the themes of betrayal and deceit which are central to the tapestrys account of the Norman invasion of England.
Professor Garnett, author of The Norman Conquest: A Very Short Introduction, belives the tapestry would have appealed to the layman more than it would have done to the clergy at the time.
Human and equine penises of predominantly prodigious dimensions, sexual harassment, and comic dwarves, together with the enormous interest displayed in military matters, all look likely to appeal to laymen more than to clerics, he added.
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