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diff --git a/old/60015-0.txt b/old/60015-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 5cad1aa..0000000 --- a/old/60015-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4435 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Textile Fabrics, by Daniel Rock - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Textile Fabrics - -Author: Daniel Rock - -Editor: William Maskell - -Release Date: July 29, 2019 [EBook #60015] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TEXTILE FABRICS *** - - - - -Produced by Susan Skinner, Charlie Howard, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - -Transcriber’s Note: The Table of Contents was added by the Transcriber. - - - - -SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM ART HANDBOOKS. - -EDITED BY WILLIAM MASKELL. - -NO. 1.--TEXTILE FABRICS. - - - - -_These Handbooks are reprints of the prefaces or introductions to the -large catalogues of the chief divisions of works of art in the Museum -at South Kensington; arranged and so far abridged as to bring each into -a portable shape. The Lords of the Committee of Council on Education -having determined on the publication of them, the editor trusts that -they will meet the purpose intended; namely, to be useful, not alone -for the collections at South Kensington but for other collections, by -enabling the public at a trifling cost to understand something of the -history and character of the subjects treated of._ - -_The authorities referred to by the authors will be found named in the -large catalogues; where are also given detailed descriptions of the -very numerous examples in the South Kensington Museum._ - - - - - TEXTILE FABRICS. - - BY - THE VERY REV. DANIEL ROCK, D.D. - - WITH NUMEROUS WOODCUTS. - - [Illustration] - - _Published for the Committee of Council on Education_ - BY - CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. - 1876. - - - - - PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND CO., - LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - Page - CHAPTER I 1 - - CHAPTER II 7 - - CHAPTER III 14 - - CHAPTER IV 24 - - CHAPTER V 35 - - CHAPTER VI 49 - - CHAPTER VII 70 - - CHAPTER VIII 78 - - CHAPTER IX 88 - - CHAPTER X 95 - - CHAPTER XI 104 - - INDEX 113 - - - - -LIST OF WOODCUTS. - - - Page - Indian woman reeling silk 13 - - Ladies in fifteenth century spinning and weaving 34 - - Mortuary cloth 44 - - Silk damask with imitated Arabic letters 46 - - Ladies in fourteenth century carding and spinning 48 - - Byzantine Dalmatic 51 - - Sicilian silk damask 57 - - Florentine silk damask 62 - - Part of the Syon Cope 84 - - Embroidered saddle-cloth 87 - - Ancient banner of the city of Strasburg 91 - - Embroidered hangings of a bed 94 - - Banner of the tapestry workers of Lyons 97 - - Tapestry of the fourteenth century 98 - - The weaver, in 1574 100 - - Tapestry of the fifteenth century 102 - - State gloves of Louis the thirteenth 112 - - - - -TEXTILES. - - - - -CHAPTER I. - - -Under its widest acceptation the word “textile” means every kind of -stuff, no matter its material, wrought in the loom. Whether, therefore, -the threads are spun from the produce of the animal, vegetable, or -mineral kingdom; whether of sheep’s wool, goats’ hair, camels’ wool, -or camels’ hair; whether of flax, hemp, mallow, or the filaments drawn -out of the leaves of plants of the lily and asphodel tribes of flowers, -or the fibrous coating about pods, or cotton; whether of gold, silver, -or of any other metal; the webs from all such materials are textiles. -Unlike these are other appliances for garment-making in many countries; -and of such materials not the least curious, if not odd to our ideas, -is paper, which is so much employed for the purpose by the Japanese. -A careful reference to a map of the world will show us the materials -which from the earliest ages the inhabitants of the world had at hand, -in every clime, for making articles of dress. - -In all the colder regions the well-furred skins of several families -of beasts could, by the ready help of a thorn for a needle and of -the animal’s own sinews for thread, be fashioned after a manner into -various kinds of clothing. - -Sheep, in a primitive period, were bred for raiment perhaps as much -as for food. At first, the locks of wool torn away from the animal’s -back by brambles were gathered: afterwards shearing was thought of -and followed in some countries, while in others the wool was not cut -off but plucked by the hand away from the living creature. Obtained -by either method the fleeces were spun generally by women from the -distaff. This very ancient daily work was followed by women among our -Anglo-saxon ancestors of all ranks of life, from the king’s daughter -downwards. Spinning from a distaff is even now common in many countries -on the continent, particularly so all through Italy. Long ago the name -of spindle-tree was given in England to the Euonymus plant, on account -of the good spindles which its wood affords: and the term “spinster” -as meaning every unmarried woman even of the gentlest blood is derived -from the same occupation. Every now and then from the graves in which -women of the British and succeeding epochs were buried, are picked up -the elaborately ornamented leaden whorls which were fastened at the -lower end of their spindles to give them a due weight and steadiness. - -A curious instance of the use of woollen stuff not woven but plaited, -among the older stock of the Britons, was very lately brought to -light while cutting through an early Celtic grave-hill or barrow in -Yorkshire: the dead body had been wrapped, as was shown by the few -unrotted shreds still cleaving to its bones, in a woollen shroud of -coarse and loose fabric wrought by the plaiting process without a loom. - -As time passed by it brought the loom, fashioned after its simplest -form, to the far west, and its use became general throughout the -British islands. The art of dyeing soon followed; and so beautiful -were the tints which our Britons knew how to give to their wools that -strangers wondered at and were jealous of their splendour. A strict -rule limited the colour of the official dress assigned to each of -the three ranks into which the bardic order was distinguished to -one simple unbroken shade: spotless white, symbolic of sunlight and -holiness, for the druid or priest; sky-blue, emblem of peace, for the -bard or poet; and green, the livery of the wood and field, for the -teacher of the supposed qualities of herbs and leech-craft. Postulants, -again, asking leave to be admitted into either rank were recognized by -the robe barred with stripes of white, blue, and green, which they had -to wear during the term of their initiation. With regard to the bulk -of the people, we learn from Dion Cassius (born A. D. 155) that the -garments worn by them were of a texture wrought in a square pattern of -several colours; and, speaking of Boadicea, the same writer tells us -that she usually had on, under her cloak, a motley tunic chequered all -over with many colours. This garment we are fairly warranted in deeming -to have been a native stuff, woven of worsted after a pattern in tints -and design like one or other of the present Scotch plaids. Pliny, -who seems to have gathered a great deal of his natural history from -scraps of hearsay, most likely included these ancient sorts of British -textiles with those from Gaul, when he tells us that to weave with a -good number of threads, so as to work the cloths called polymita, was -first taught in Alexandria; to divide by checks, in Gaul. - -The native botanical home of cotton is in the east. India almost -everywhere throughout her wide-spread countries arrayed, as she still -arrays, herself in cotton, gathered from a plant of the mallow family -which has its wild growth there; and in the same vegetable produce the -lower orders of people dwelling still further to the east also clothed -themselves. - -Hemp, a plant of the nettle tribe and called by botanists “cannabis -sativa,” was of old well known in the far north of Germany and -throughout the ancient Scandinavia. More than two thousand years ago -we find it thus spoken of by Herodotus: “Hemp grows in the country of -the Scythians, which, except in the thickness and height of the stalk, -very much resembles flax; in the qualities mentioned, however, the hemp -is much superior. It grows in a wild state, and is also cultivated. -The Thracians make clothing of it very like linen cloth; nor could any -person, without being very well acquainted with the substance, say -whether this clothing is made of hemp or flax.” From “cannabis,” its -name in Latin, we have taken our word “canvas,” to mean any texture -woven of hempen thread. - -Although flax is to be found growing wild in many parts of Great -Britain, it is very doubtful whether for many ages our British -forefathers were aware of the use of this plant for clothing purposes: -they would otherwise have left behind them some shred of linen in one -or other of their many graves. Following, as they did, the usage of -being buried in the best of the garments they were accustomed to, or -most loved when alive, their bodies would have been found dressed in -some small article of linen texture, had they ever worn it. - -We must go to the valley of the Nile if we wish to learn the earliest -history of the finest flaxen textiles. Time out of mind the Egyptians -were famous as well for the growth of flax as for the beautiful linen -which they wove out of it, and which became to them a most profitable, -because so widely sought for, article of commerce. Their own word -“byssus” for the plant itself became among the Greeks, and afterwards -among the Latin nations, the term for linens wrought in Egyptian looms. -Long before the oldest book in the world was written, the tillers of -the ground all over Egypt had been heedful in sowing flax, and anxious -about its harvest. It was one of their staple crops, and hence was it -that, in punishment of Pharaoh, the hail plague which at the bidding of -Moses fell from heaven destroyed throughout the land the flax just as -it was getting ripe. Flax grew also upon the banks of the Jordan, and -in Judæa generally; and the women of the country, like Rahab, carefully -dried it when pulled, and stacked it for future hackling upon the roofs -of their houses. Nevertheless, it was from Egypt, as Solomon hints, -that the Jews had to draw their fine linen. At a later period, among -the woes foretold to Egypt, the prophet Isaiah warns her that “they -shall be confounded who wrought in combing and weaving fine linen.” - -How far the reputation of Egyptian workmanship in the craft of the loom -had spread abroad is shown us by the way in which, besides sacred, -heathenish antiquity has spoken of it. Herodotus says, “Amasis king -of Egypt gave to the Minerva of Lindus a linen corslet well worthy of -inspection:” and further on, speaking of another corslet which Amasis -had sent the Lacedæmonians, he observes that it was of linen and had -a vast number of figures of animals inwoven into its fabric, and was -likewise embroidered with gold and tree-wool. This last was especially -to be admired because each of the twists, although of fine texture, -contained within it 360 threads, all of them clearly visible. - -But we have material as well as written proofs at hand to show the -excellence of old Egyptian work in linen. During late years many -mummies have been brought to this country from Egypt, and the narrow -bandages with which they were found to have been so admirably and, -according even to our modern requirements of chirurgical fitness, so -artistically swathed have been unwrapped. These bandages are often so -fine in their texture as fully to verify the praises of old bestowed -upon the beauty of the Egyptian loom-work. We learn from Sir Gardiner -Wilkinson that “the finest piece of mummy-cloth, sent to England by Mr. -Salt, and now in the British museum, of linen, appears to be made of -yarns of nearly 100 hanks in the pound, with 140 threads in an inch in -the warp and about 64 in the woof.” Another piece of linen, which the -same distinguished traveller obtained at Thebes, has 152 threads in the -warp and 71 in the woof. - -Although from all antiquity upwards, till within some few years back, -the unbroken belief had been that such mummy-clothing was undoubtedly -made of linen woven out of pure unmixed flax, some writers led, or -rather misled, by a few stray words in Herodotus (speaking of the -corslet of Amasis, quoted just now) took that historian to mean wool, -and argued that Egyptian textiles wrought a thousand years before -were mixed with cotton. While the question was agitated, specimens of -mummy-cloth were submitted to the judgment of several persons in the -weaving trade deemed most competent to speak upon the matter. Helped -only by the fingers’ feel and the naked eye, some among them agreed -that such textures were really woven of cotton. This opinion was but -shortlived. Other individuals, more philosophical, went to work on -a better path. In the first place they clearly learned, through the -microscope, the exact and never-varying physical structure of both -these vegetable substances. They found cotton to be in its fibre a -transparent tube without joints, flattened so that its inward surfaces -are in contact along its axis and also twisted spirally round its axis; -flax on the contrary is a transparent tube, jointed like a cane and not -flattened or twisted spirally. Examined in the same way, old samples of -byssus or mummy-bandages from Egypt in every instance were ascertained -to be of fine unmixed flaxen linen. - - - - -CHAPTER II. - - -For many reasons the history of silk is not only curious but highly -interesting. In the earliest ages even its existence was unknown, and -when discovered the knowledge of it stole forth from the far east, -and straggled westward very slowly. For all that lengthened period -during which their remarkable civilization lasted, the older Egyptians -probably never saw silk: neither they, nor the Israelites, nor any -other of the most ancient kingdoms of the earth, knew of it in any -shape, either as a simple twist or as a woven stuff. Not the smallest -shred of silk has hitherto been found in the tombs or amid the ruins of -the Pharaonic period. - -No where does Holy Writ, old or new, tell anything of silk but in one -single place, the Apocalypse xviii. 12. It is true that in the English -authorized version we read of “silk” as if spoken of by Ezekiel xvi. -10, 13; and again, in Proverbs xxxi. 22; yet there can be no doubt that -in both these passages, the word silk is wrong through the translators -misunderstanding the original Hebrew. The Hebrew word is not so -rendered in any ancient version: and the best Hebraists have decided -that silk was not known by the old Israelites. When St. John speaks -of it he includes it with the gold, and silver, and precious stones, -and pearls, and fine linen and purple which, with many other costly -freights, merchants were wont to bring to Rome. - -It was long after the days of Ezekiel that silk in its raw form only, -made up into hanks, first found its way to Egypt, western Asia, and -eastern Europe. - -We owe to Aristotle the earliest notice of the silkworm, and although -his account be incorrect it has much value, because he gives us -information about the original importation of raw silk into the western -world. Brought from China through India the silk came by water across -the Arabian ocean, up the Red Sea, and thence over the isthmus of -Suez (or perhaps rather by the overland route, through Persia) to the -small but commercial island of Cos, lying off the coast of Asia minor. -Pamphile, the daughter of Plates, is reported to have first woven silk -in Cos. Here, by female hands, were wrought those light thin gauzes -which became so fashionable; these were stigmatized by some of the -Latin poets, as well as by heathen moralists, as anything but seemly -for women’s wear. Tibullus speaks of them; and Seneca condemns them: “I -behold” he says “silken garments, if garments they can be called, which -are a protection neither for the body nor for shame.” Later still, and -in the Christian era, we have an echo to the remarks of Seneca in the -words of Solinus: “This is silk, in which at first women but now even -men have been led, by their cravings after luxury, to show rather than -to clothe their bodies.” - -Looking over very ancient manuscripts we often find between richly -gilt illuminations, to keep them from harm or being hurt through the -rubbings of the next leaf, a covering of the thinnest gauze, just as -we now put sheets of silver paper for that purpose over engravings. -It is not impossible that some at least of these may be shreds from -the translucent textiles which found favour in the world for so long -a time during the classic period. The curious example of such gauzy -interleafings in the manuscript of Theodulph, now at Puy en Velay, will -occur perhaps to more than one of our readers. - -It may be easily imagined that silken garments were brought, at an -early period, to imperial Rome. Not only, however, were the prices -asked for them so high that few could afford to buy such robes for -their wives and daughters, but, at first, they were looked upon as -quite unbecoming for men’s wear; hence, by a law of the Roman senate -under Tiberius, it was enacted: “Ne vestis serica vicos fœdaret.” While -noticing how womanish Caligula became in his dress Suetonius remarks -his silken attire: “Aliquando sericatus et cycladatus.” An exception -was made by some emperors for very great occasions, and both Titus -and Vespasian wore dresses of silk when they celebrated at Rome their -triumph over Judæa. Heliogabalus was the first emperor who wore whole -silk for clothing. Aurelian, on the other hand, neither had himself in -his wardrobe a garment wholly silk nor gave one to be worn by another. -When his own wife begged him to allow her to have a single mantle -of purple silk he replied, “Far be it from us to allow thread to be -reckoned worth its weight in gold.” For then a pound of gold was the -price of a pound of silk. - -Clothing made wholly or in part out of silk, nevertheless, became -every year more and more sought for. So remunerative was the trade of -weaving the raw material into its various forms, that, by the revised -code of laws for the Roman empire published A. D. 533, a monopoly in it -was given to the court, and looms worked by women were set up in the -imperial palace. Thus Byzantium became and long continued famous for -the beauty of its silken stuffs. Still, the raw silk itself had to be -brought thither from abroad; until two Greek monks, who had lived many -years among the Chinese, learnt the whole process of rearing the worm. -Returning, they brought with them a number of eggs hidden in their -walking-staves; and, carrying them to Constantinople, they presented -these eggs to the emperor who gladly received them. When hatched the -worms were distributed over Greece and Asia minor, and very soon the -western world reared its own silk. In some places, at least in Greece, -the weaving not only of the finer kinds of cloth but of silk fell -into the hands of the Jews. Benjamin of Tudela, writing in 1161, -tells us that the city of Thebes contained about two thousand Jewish -inhabitants. “These are the most eminent manufacturers of silk and -purple cloth in all Greece.” - -South Italy wrought rich silken stuffs by the end of the eleventh -century; for we are told by our countryman Ordericus Vitalis, who died -in the first half of the twelfth century, that Mainerius, the abbot of -St. Evroul at Uzey in Normandy, on coming home brought with him from -Apulia several large pieces of silk, and gave to his church four of the -finest ones, with which four copes were made for the chanters. - -From a feeling alive in the middle ages throughout the length and -breadth of Christendom, that the best of all things ought to be -given for the service of the Church, the garments of its celebrating -priesthood were, if not always, at least very often wholly of silk; -holosericus. Owing to this fact, we are now able to learn from -the few but tattered shreds before us what elegantly designed and -gorgeous stuffs the foreign mediæval loom could weave, and what -beautiful embroidery our own countrywomen knew so well how to work. -These specimens help us also to rightly understand the description -of the splendid vestments enumerated with such exactness in the old -inventories of our cathedrals and parish churches, as well as in the -early wardrobe accompts of our kings, and in the wills and bequests of -dignified ecclesiastics and nobility. - -Coming westward among us, these much coveted stuffs brought with them -the several names by which they were commonly known throughout the -east, whether Greece, Asia minor, or Persia. Hence when we read of -samit, ciclatoun, cendal, baudekin, and other such terms unknown to -trade now-a-days, we should bear in mind that, notwithstanding the wide -variety of spelling which each of these appellations has run through, -we arrive at their true derivations, and discover in what country and -by whose hands they were wrought. - -As commerce grew these fine silken textiles were brought to our -markets, and articles of dress were made of silk for men’s as well as -women’s wear among the wealthy. At what period the raw material came to -be imported here, not so much for embroidery as to be wrought in the -loom, we do not exactly know; but from several sides we learn that our -countrywomen of all degrees, in very early times, busied themselves in -weaving. Among the home occupations of maidens St. Aldhelm, at the end -of the seventh century, includes weaving. In the council at Cloveshoo, -in 747, nuns are exhorted to spend their time in reading or singing -psalms rather than weaving and knitting vainglorious garments of many -colours. By that curious old English book the ‘Ancren Riwle,’ written -towards the end of the twelfth century, ankresses are forbidden to -make purses or blodbendes (which were narrow strips to bind round the -arm after bleeding), to gain friends therewith. Were it not that the -weaving especially of silk was so generally followed in the cloister by -English women, it had been useless to have so strongly discountenanced -the practice. - -But on silk weaving by our women in small hand-looms a very important -witness, especially about several curious specimens in the great -collection at South Kensington, is John Garland, born at the beginning -of the thirteenth century in London, where many of his namesakes were -and are still known. First, a John Garland, in 1170, held a prebend’s -stall in St. Paul’s cathedral. Another was sheriff at a later period. -A third, a wealthy draper of London, gave freely towards the building -of a church in Somersetshire. A fourth, who died in 1461, lies buried -in St. Sythe’s; and, at the present day, no fewer than twenty-two -tradesmen of that name, of whom six are merchants of high standing in -the city, are mentioned in the London post office directory for the -year 1868. We give these instances as some have tried to rob us of John -Garland by saying he was not an Englishman, though he has himself told -us he was “born in England and brought up in France.” - -In a kind of short dictionary drawn up by that writer and printed at -the end of ‘Paris sous Philippe le Bel,’ edited by M. Geraud, our -countryman tells us that, besides the usual homely textiles, costly -cloth-of-gold webs were wrought by women; and very likely, among their -other productions, were those blodbendes “cingula” the weaving of which -had been forbidden to ankresses and nuns. Perhaps, also, some of the -narrow gold-wrought ribbons in the South Kensington collection, nos. -1233, 1256, 1270, 8569, etc., may have been so employed. - -John Garland’s “cingula” may also mean the rich girdles or sashes worn -by women round the waist, of which there is one example in the same -collection, no. 8571. Of this sort is that fine border, amber coloured -silk and diapered, round a vestment found in a grave at Durham; which -is described by Mr. Raine in his book about St. Cuthbert as “a thick -lace, one inch and a quarter broad--evidently owing its origin, not to -the needle, but to the loom.” In an after period the same bands are -shown on statuary, and in the illuminated manuscripts of the thirteenth -century: as instances of the narrow girdle, the effigy of a lady in -Romney church, Hants and of Ann of Bohemia in Westminster abbey may be -referred to; both to be found in Hollis’s monumental effigies of Great -Britain; for the band about the head, the examples in the wood-cuts in -Planchè’s British costumes, p. 116. - -Specimens of such head bands may be seen at South Kensington, nos. -8569, 8583, 8584, and 8585. - -They are, no doubt, the old snôd of the Anglo-saxon period. For ladies -they were wrought of silk and gold; women of lower degree wore them -of simpler stuff. The silken snood, used in our own time by young -unmarried women in Scotland, is a truthful witness to the fashion in -vogue during Anglo-saxon and later ages in this country. - -The breeding of the worm and the manufacture of its silk spread -themselves with steady though slow steps over most of the countries -which border on the shores of the Mediterranean; so that, by the -tenth century, those processes had reached from the far east to the -uttermost western limits of that sea. Even then, and a long time after, -the natural history of the silkworm became known but to a very few. -Our countryman Alexander Neckham, abbot of Cirencester A. D. 1213, was -probably the first who tried to help others to understand the habits -of the insect: his brief explanation may be found in his once popular -book ‘De natura rerum,’ which has been lately reprinted by order of the -Master of the Rolls. - -[Illustration: Indian woman reeling silk from a wheel.] - - - - -CHAPTER III. - - -Of the several raw materials which from the earliest periods have been -employed in weaving, though not in such frequency as silk, one is gold: -which, when judiciously brought in, adds not a barbaric but artistical -richness. - -The earliest written notice which we have about the employment of this -precious metal in the loom, or of the way in which it was wrought for -such a purpose, is in the Pentateuch. Among the sacred vestments made -for Aaron was an ephod of gold, violet, and purple, and scarlet twice -dyed, and fine twisted linen, with embroidered work; and the workman -cut also thin plates of gold and drew them small into strips, that -they might be twisted with the woof of the aforesaid colours. Instead -of “strip,” the authorised protestant version says “wire;” the Douay -translation reads “thread:” but neither can be right, for both of these -English words mean a something round or twisted in the shape given to -the gold before being wove, whereas the metal must have been worked in -quite flat, as we learn from the text. - -The use of gold for weaving, both with linen or by itself, existed -almost certainly among the Egyptians long before the days of Moses. -The psalmist describing the dress of the king’s daughter (that is, -Pharaoh’s daughter), not only speaks of her being “in raiment of -needlework” but that “her clothing is of wrought gold.” In order to be -woven the precious metal was at first wrought in a flattened, never in -a round or wire shape. To this hour the Chinese and the people of India -work the gold into their stuffs after the ancient form. In the same -fashion, even now, the Italians weave their lama d’oro, or the more -glistening toca: those cloths of gold which to all Asiatic and many -European eyes do not glare with too much garishness, but shine with a -glow that befits the raiment of personages in high station. - -Among the nations of ancient Asia garments made of webs dyed with -the costly purple tint, and interwoven with gold, were on all grand -occasions worn by kings and princes. So celebrated did the Medes and -Persians become in such works of the loom, that cloths of extraordinary -beauty got their several names from those peoples, and Medean, Lydian, -and Persian textiles were everywhere sought for. - -Writing of the wars carried on in Asia and India by Alexander the great -almost four centuries before the birth of Christ, Quintus Curtius often -speaks about the purple and gold garments worn by the Persians and more -eastern Asiatics. Among the many thousands of those who came forth -from Damascus to the Greek general, Parmenio, numbers were so clad: -“They wore robes splendid with gold and purple.” All over India the -same fashion was followed in dress. When an Indian king with his two -sons came to Alexander, the three were so arrayed. Princes and the high -nobility, all over the east, are called by Quintus Curtius “purpurati.” -Not only garments but hangings were made of the same costly fabric. -When Alexander wished to give some ambassadors a splendid reception, -the golden couches upon which they lay to eat their meat were screened -with cloths of gold and purple; and the Indian guests themselves were -not less gorgeously clothed in their own national costume, as they came -wearing linen (perhaps cotton) garments equally resplendent. - -The dress worn by Darius, as he went forth to do battle, is thus -described by the same historian: “the waist part of the royal purple -tunic was wove in white, and upon his mantle of cloth of gold were -figured two golden hawks as if pecking at one another with their beaks.” - -From the east this love for cloth of gold reached the southern end of -Italy, and thence soon got to Rome; where, even under its early kings, -garments made of it were worn. Pliny, speaking of this rich textile, -says: “gold may be spun or woven like wool, without any wool being -mixed with it.” We are told by Verrius that Tarquinius Priscus rode -in triumph in a tunic of gold; and Agrippina the wife of the emperor -Claudius, when he exhibited the spectacle of a naval combat, sat by -him covered with a robe made entirely of gold woven without any other -material. About the year 1840 the marquis Campagna dug up near Rome two -old graves, in one of which had been buried a Roman lady of high birth, -inferred from the circumstance that all about her remains were found -portions of such fine gold flat thread, once forming the burial garment -with which she had been arrayed for her funeral. - -When pope Paschal, A. D. 821, sought for the body of St. Cecily who was -martyred in the year 230, the pontiff found the body in the catacombs, -whole and dressed in a garment wrought all of gold, with some of her -raiment drenched in blood lying at her feet. In making the foundations -for the new St. Peter’s at Rome the workmen came upon and looked into -the marble sarcophagus in which had been buried Probus Anicius, prefect -of the Pretorian, and his wife Proba Faltonia, each of whose bodies was -wrapped in a winding-sheet woven of pure gold strips. The wife of the -emperor Honorius died sometime about the year 400, and when her grave -was opened, in 1544, the golden tissues in which her body had been -shrouded were taken out and melted, amounting in weight to thirty-six -pounds. The late father Marchi also found among the remains of St. -Hyacinthus several fragments of the same kind of golden web. - -Childeric, the second king of the Merovingean dynasty, was buried A. D. -482, at Tournai. In the year 1653 his grave was discovered, and amid -the earth about it so many remains of pure gold strips were turned up -that there is every ground for thinking that the Frankish king was -wrapped in a mantle of golden stuff for his burial. We have reason to -conclude that the strips of pure gold out of which the burial cloak of -Childeric was woven were not round but flat, from the fact that in a -Merovingean burial ground at Envermeu the distinguished archæologist -Cochet a few years ago came upon the grave once filled by a lady whose -head had been wreathed with a fillet of pure golden web, the tissue of -which is thus described: “Ces fils aussi brillants et aussi frais que -s’ils sortaient de la main de l’ouvrier, n’étaient ni étirés ni cordés. -Ils étaient plats et se composaient tout simplement de petites lanières -d’or d’un millimètre de largeur, coupée à même une feuille d’or épaisse -de moins d’un dixième de millimètre. La longeur totale de quelques-uns -atteignait parfois jusqu’à quinze ou dix-huit centimètres.” - -Our own country can furnish an example of this kind of golden textile. -On Chessel down, in the isle of Wight, when Mr. Hillier was making some -researches in an old Anglo-saxon place of burial, the diggers found -pieces of gold strips, thin and quite flat, which are figured in M. -l’abbé Cochet’s learned book just mentioned. Of the same rich texture -must have been the vestment given to St. Peter’s at Rome in the middle -of the ninth century, and described in the Liber Pontificalis as made -of the purest gold, and covered with precious stones: “Carolus rex -sancto Apostolo obtulit ex purissimo auro et gemmis constructam vestem, -etc.” - -Such a weaving of pure gold was, here in England, followed certainly -as late as the beginning of the tenth century; very likely much later. -In the chapter library belonging to Durham cathedral may be seen a -stole and maniple, which bear these inscriptions: “Ælfflaed fieri -precepit. Pio episcopo Fridestano.” Fridestan was consecrated bishop of -Winchester A. D. 905. With these webs under his eye, Mr. Raine writes -thus: “In the first, the ground work of the whole is woven exclusively -with thread of gold. I do not mean by thread of gold, the silver-gilt -wire frequently used in such matters, but real gold thread, if I may -so term it, not round, but flat. This is the character of the whole -web, with the exception of the figures, the undulating cloud-shaped -pedestal upon which they stand, the inscriptions and the foliage; for -all of which, however surprising it may appear, vacant spaces have been -left by the loom, and they themselves afterwards inserted with the -needle.” Further on, in his description of a girdle, the same writer -tells us: “Its breadth is exactly seven-eighths of an inch. It has -evidently proceeded from the loom; and its two component parts are a -flattish thread of pure gold, and a thread of scarlet silk.” Another -very remarkable piece, a fragment (probably) of a stole, was also found -lately at Durham in the grave of bishop Pudsey, who was buried about -the middle of the twelfth century. This was exhibited at the Society of -antiquaries, in the present year, 1875. It is made of rich silk, with a -diaper pattern in gold thread. - -This love for such glittering attire, not only for sacred use but -secular wear, lasted long in England. The golden webs went under -different names; at first they were called “ciclatoun,” “siglaton,” or -“siklatoun,” as the writer’s fancy led him to spell the Persian word -common for them at the time throughout the east. - -By the old English ritual plain cloth of gold was allowed, as now, -to be used for white when that colour happened to be ordered by the -rubric. Thus in the reign of Richard the second, among the vestments at -the chapel of St. George, Windsor castle, there was “one good vestment -of cloth of gold:” and St. Paul’s, London, had at the end of the -thirteenth century two amices embroidered with pure gold. - -This splendid web was often wrought so thick and strong that each -string, whether it happened to be of hemp or of silk had in the warp -six threads, while the weft was of flat gold shreds. Hence such a -texture was called “samit,” a word shortened from its first and old -Byzantine name “exsamit.” The quantity of this costly cloth kept in -the wardrobe of Edward the first was so great, that the nobles of that -king were allowed to buy it out of the royal stores; for instance, four -pieces at thirty shillings each were sold to Robert de Clifford, and -another piece at the same price to Thomas de Cammill. Not only Asia -minor but the island of Cyprus, the city of Lucca, and Moorish Spain, -sent us these rich tissues. With other things left at Haverford castle -by Richard the second were twenty-five cloths of gold of divers suits, -of which four came from Cyprus, the others from Lucca: “xxv. draps d’or -de diverses suytes dount iiii. de _Cipres_ les autres de _Lukes_.” How -Edward the fourth liked cloth of gold for his personal wear may be -gathered from his wardrobe accounts, edited by Nicolas; and the lavish -use of this stuff ordered by Richard the third for his coronation is -recorded in the Antiquarian Repertory. - -A “gowne of cloth-of-gold, furred with pawmpilyon, ayenst Corpus Xpi -day” was bought for Elizabeth of York, afterwards queen of Henry the -seventh, for her to wear as she walked in the procession on that great -festival. The affection shown by Henry the eighth and all our nobility, -men and women, of the time, for cloth of gold in their garments was -unmistakingly set forth in many of the paintings brought together in -the very instructive exhibition of national portraits in 1866, in the -South Kensington museum. The price of this stuff seems to have been -costly; for princess (afterwards queen) Mary, thirteen years before she -came to the throne, “payed to Peycocke, of London, for xix yerds iii. -qřt of clothe of golde at xxxviij.š the yerde, xxxvij_li._ x_s._ vj_d._” -And for “a yerde and d^r qřt of clothe of siluer xl_s._” - -As between common silk and satin there runs a broad difference in -appearance, one being dull, the other smooth and glossy, so there is a -great distinction to be made among cloths of gold; some are, so to say, -dead; others, brilliant and sparkling. When the gold is twisted into -its silken filament it takes the deadened look; when the flattened, -filmy strip of metal is rolled about it so evenly as to bring its -edges close to one another, it seems to be one unbroken wire of gold, -sparkling and lustrous. This kind during the middle ages went by the -term of Cyprus gold; and rich samits woven with it were allied damasks -of Cyprus. - -As time went on cloths of gold had other names. What the thirteenth -century called, first, “ciclatoun,” then “baudekin,” afterward “nak,” -was called, two hundred years later, “tissue”: a bright shimmering -golden textile. The very thin smooth paper which still goes by the name -of tissue-paper was originally made to be put between the folds of this -rich stuff to prevent fraying or tarnish, when laid by. - -The gorgeous and entire set of vestments presented to the altar at St. -Alban’s abbey, by Margaret, duchess of Clarence, A. D. 1429, and made -of the cloth of gold commonly called “tyssewys,” must have been as -remarkable for the abundance and purity of the gold in its texture, as -for the splendour of the precious stones set on it and the exquisite -beauty of its embroideries. The large number of vestments made out of -gold tissue, and of crimson, light blue, purple, green, and black, once -belonging to York cathedral, are all duly registered in the valuable -“Fabric rolls” of that church lately published by the Surtees society. - -Among the many rich and costly vestments in Lincoln cathedral, some -were made of this sparkling golden tissue contra-distinguished in its -inventory from the duller cloth of gold, thus: “Four good copes of blew -tishew with orphreys of red cloth of gold, wrought with branches and -leaves of velvet;” “a chesable with two tunacles of blew tishew having -a precious orphrey of cloth of gold.” - -Silken textures ornamented with designs in copper gilt thread were -manufactured and honestly sold for what they really were: of such -inferior quality we find mention in the inventory of vestments at -Winchester cathedral, drawn up by order of Henry the eighth, where -we read of “twenty-eight copys of white bawdkyne, woven with copper -gold.” Another imitation of woof of gold was possibly fraudulent. This, -originally perhaps Saracenic, was practised by the Spaniards of the -south, and was not easily discovered. The very finest skins were sought -out for the purpose, as thin as that now rare kind of vellum called -“uterine” by collectors of manuscripts. These were heavily gilt and -then cut into very narrow strips, to be used instead of the true golden -thread. - -The gilding of fine silk and canvas in imitation of cloth of gold, -like our gilding of wood and other substances, was also sometimes -resorted to for splendour’s sake on temporary occasions; such, for -instance, as some stately procession or a solemn burial service. Mr. -Raine tells us he found in a grave at Durham, among other textiles, “a -robe of thinnish silk; the ground colour of the whole is amber; and -the ornamental parts were literally covered with _leaf gold_, of which -there remained distinct and very numerous portions.” In the churchyard -of Cheam, Surrey, in 1865, the skeleton of a priest was found who -had been buried some time during the fourteenth century; around the -waist was a flat girdle made of brown silk that had been gilt. In the -‘Romaunt of the rose’ translated by Chaucer, dame Gladnesse is thus -described:-- - - --in an over gilt samite - Clad she was; - -and on a piece of German orphrey-web, in the South Kensington -collection, no. 1373, and probably made at Cologne in the sixteenth -century, the gold is laid by the gilding process. - -Silver also, as well as gold, was hammered out into very thin sheets -which were cut into narrow long shreds to be woven, unmixed with -anything else, into a web for garments. Of this we have a striking -illustration in the Acts of the apostles, where St. Luke, speaking of -Herod Agrippa, says that he presented himself to the people arrayed in -kingly apparel, who, to flatter him, shouted that his was the voice -not of a man but of a god; and forthwith he was smitten by a loathsome -disease which shortly killed him. This royal robe, as Josephus informs -us, was a tunic made of silver and wonderful in its texture. - -Intimately connected with the raw materials, and how they were wrought -in the loom, is the question about the time when wire drawing was found -out. At what period and among what people the art of working up pure -gold, or gilded silver, into a long, round, hair-like thread--into what -may be correctly called “wire”--began, is quite unknown. That with -their mechanical ingenuity the ancient Egyptians bethought themselves -of some method for the purpose is not unlikely. From Sir Gardiner -Wilkinson we learn that at Thebes were found objects which appeared -to be made of gold wire. We may fairly presume that the work upon the -corslets of king Amasis, already spoken of as done by the needle in -gold, required by its minuteness that the metal should be not flat but -in the shape of wire. By delicate management perhaps of the fingers, -the narrow flat strips might have been pinched or doubled up so that -the two edges should meet, and then rubbed between two pieces of hard -material a golden wire of the required fineness would be produced. In -Etruscan and Greek jewellery wire is often to be found; but in all -instances it is so well shaped and so even that it must have been -fashioned by some rolling process. The filigree work of the middle ages -is often very fine and delicate. Probably the embroidery which we read -of in the descriptions of the vestments belonging to our old churches -(for instance “An amice embroidered with pure gold”) was worked with -gold wire. To go back to Anglo-saxon times in this country, such gold -wire would seem to have been then well known and employed, since in -Peterborough minster there were two golden altar-cloths: “ii. gegylde -þeofad sceatas;” and there were at Ely cathedral “two girdles of gold -wire” in the reign of William Rufus. - -The first use of a wire-drawing machine seems to have been about -the year 1360, at Nuremberg; and it was not until two hundred years -after, in 1560, that the method was brought to England. Two examples -of a stuff with pure wire in it may be seen in the South Kensington -collection, nos. 8581 and 8228. - -The process of twining long narrow strips of gold, or gilt silver, -round a line of silk or flax and thus producing gold thread is much -earlier than has been supposed; and when Attalus’s name was bestowed -upon a new method of interweaving gold with wool or linen, thence -called “Attalic,” it was probably because he suggested to the weaver -the introduction of the long-known golden thread as a woof into the -textiles from his loom. It would seem, from a passage in Claudian, that -ladies at an early Christian period used to spin their own gold thread. -Writing at the end of the fourth century, the poet thus compliments -Proba: - - The joyful mother plies her learned hands, - And works all o’er the trabea golden bands, - Draws the thin strips to all their length of gold, - To make the metal meaner threads enfold. - -The superior quality of some gold thread was known to the mediæval -world under the name of the place where it had been made. Thus we find -mention at one time of Cyprus gold thread; “a vestment embroidered with -eagles of gold of Cyprus:” later, of Venice gold thread, “for frenge of -gold of Venys at vj_s._ the ounce;” and again, “one cope of unwatered -camlet laid with strokes of Venis gold.” What may have been their -difference cannot now be pointed out: perhaps the Cyprian thread was -esteemed because its somewhat broad shred of flat gold was wound about -the hempen twist beneath it so nicely as to have the smooth unbroken -look of gold wire; while the manufacture of Venice showed everywhere -the twisting of common thread. - - - - -CHAPTER IV. - - -In earlier times, as at present, silks had various names, -distinguishing either their kind of texture, their colour, the design -woven on them, the country from which they were brought, or the use -for which, on particular occasions, they happened to be especially set -apart. - -All these designations are of foreign growth; some sprang up in the -seventh and following centuries at Byzantium; some are half Greek, -half Latin, jumbled together; others, borrowed from the east, are so -shortened, so badly and variously spelt, that their Arabic or Persian -derivation can be hardly recognized at present. Yet without some slight -knowledge of them we hardly understand a great deal belonging to trade, -and the manners of the times glanced at by old writers; much less can -we see the true meaning of many passages in our mediæval English poetry. - -Among the terms significative of the kind of web, or mode of getting -up some sorts of silk, we have _Holosericum_, the texture of which is -warp and woof wholly pure silk. From a passage in Lampridius we learn -that so early as the reign of Alexander Severus the difference between -“vestes holosericæ” and “subsericæ” was strongly marked, and that -_subsericum_ implied that the texture was not entirely but in part, -probably the woof, of silk. - -_Examitum_, _xamitum_, or, as it is called in old English documents, -_samit_, is made up of two Greek words, ἑξ, “six,” and μίτοι, -“threads;” the number of the strings in the warp of the texture. It is -evident that stuffs woven so thick must have been of the best quality. -Hence, to say of any silken tissue that it was “examitum” or “samit” -meant that it was six-threaded, and therefore costly and splendid. At -the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth centuries -“examitum” was much used for vestments in Evesham abbey, as we gather -from the chronicle of that house, published lately for the Master of -the Rolls. About the same period among the best copes, chasubles, and -vestments in St. Paul’s, London, many were made of samit. So, again -among the nine gorgeous chasubles bequeathed to Durham cathedral by its -bishop in 1195, the chief was of red samit superbly embroidered. And, -to name no more, we find in the valuable inventory, lately published, -of the rich vestments belonging to Exeter cathedral in 1277 that the -best of its numerous chasubles, dalmatics, and copes, were made of -samit. In a later document, A. D. 1327, this precious silk is termed -“samicta.” - -The poets did not forget to array their knights and ladies in this -gay attire. When Sir Lancelot of the lake brought back Gawain to king -Arthur: - - Launcelot and the queen were cledde - In robes of a rich wede, - Of samyte white, with silver shredde: - - * * * * * - - The other knights everichone, - In samyte green of heathen land, - And their kirtles, ride alone. - -In his ‘Romaunt of the rose,’ Chaucer describes the dress of Mirth thus: - - Full yong he was, and merry of thought - And in samette, with birdes wrought, - And with gold beaten full fetously, - His bodie was clad full richely. - -Many of the beautifully figured damasks in the South Kensington -collection are what anciently were known as “samits;” and if they -really be not six-thread, according to the etymology of their name, it -is because at a very early period the stuffs so called ceased to be -woven of such a thickness. - -The strong silks of the present day with the thick thread called -“organzine” for the woof, and a slightly thinner thread known by the -technical name of “tram” for the warp, may be taken to represent the -old “examits.” - -No less remarkable for the lightness of its texture than was the samit -on account of the thick substance of its web, and quite as much sought -after, was another kind of thin glossy silken stuff “wrought in the -orient,” and here called first by the Persian name which came with it, -_ciclatoun_, that is, bright and shining; but afterwards _sicklatoun_, -_siglaton_, _cyclas_. Sometimes a woof of golden thread lent it still -more glitter; and it was used both for ecclesiastical vestments and -for secular articles of stately dress. In the inventory of St. Paul’s -cathedral, 1295, there was a cope made of cloth of gold, called -ciclatoun: “capa de panno aureo qui vocatur ciclatoun.” Among the booty -carried off by the English when they sacked the camp of Saladin, - - King Richard took the pavillouns - Of sendal, and of cyclatoun. - -In his ‘Rime of Sire Thopas,’ Chaucer says - - Of Brugges were his hosen broun - His robe was of ciclatoun. - -Though so light and thin, this cloak of “ciclatoun” was often -embroidered in silk and had golden ornaments sewn on it; we read in the -‘Metrical romances’ of a maiden who sat - - In a robe ryght ryall bowne - Of a red syclatowne - Be hur fader syde; - A coronell on hur hedd set, - Hur clothys with bestes and byrdes wer bete - All abowte for pryde. - -Knights in the field wore over their armour a long sleeveless gown -slit up almost to the waist on both sides; sometimes of “samit,” often -of “cendal,” oftener still of “ciclatourn:” and the name of the gown -itself, shortened from the material, became known as “cyclas.” Matthew -of Westminster records that when Edward the first knighted his son in -Westminster abbey he sent to three hundred sons of the nobility, whom -the prince was afterward to dub knights in the same church, a most -splendid gift of attire, fitting for the ceremony; among which were -clycases woven with gold. That these garments were very light and thin -we gather from the quiet wit of John of Salisbury, who jeers a man -affecting to perspire in the depth of winter, though clad in nothing -but his fine cyclas. - -Not so costly was a silken stuff known as _cendal_, _cendallus_, -_sandal_, _sandalin_, _cendatus_, _syndon_, _syndonus_, as the way of -writing the word altered as time went on. When Sir Guy of Warwick was -knighted, - - And with him twenty good gomes - Knightes’ and barons’ sons, - Of cloth of Tars and rich cendale - Was the dobbing in each deal. - -The Roll of Caerlaverock tells us that among the grand array which -joined Edward the first at Carlisle in 1300, there was to be seen many -a rich caparison embroidered upon cendal and samit: - - La ot meint riche guarnement - Brodé sur sendaus e samis: - -and Lacy, earl of Lincoln, leading the first squadron, hoisted his -banner made of yellow cendal blazoned with a lion rampant purpre - - Baner out de un cendal safrin, - O un lioun rampant purprin. - -When Sir Bevis of Southampton wished to keep himself unknown at a -tournament, we thus read of him: - - Sir Bevis disguised all his weed - Of black cendal and of rede, - Flourished with roses of silver bright, etc. - -Of the ten silken albs which Hugh Pudsey left to Durham, two were made -of samit and two of cendal, or as the bishop calls it, _sandal_. Exeter -cathedral had a red cope with a green lining of sandal and a cape of -sandaline: “Una capa de sandalin.” Piers Ploughman speaks thus to the -women of his day: - - And ye lovely ladies - With youre long fyngres, - That ye have silk and sandal - To sowe, whan tyme is. - Chesibles for chapeleyns, - Chirches to honoure, etc. - -A stronger kind of cendal was wrought and called, in the Latin -inventories of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, “cendatus -afforciatus:” there was a cope of this material at St. Paul’s, and -another cope of cloth of gold was lined with it. - -_Syndonus_ or _Sindonis_, as it would seem, was a bettermost sort of -cendal. St. Paul’s had a chasuble as well as a cope of this fabric. - -_Taffeta_, if not a thinner, was a less costly silken stuff than -cendal; which word, to this day, is used in the Spanish language, and -is defined to be a thin transparent textile of silk or linen: “Tela -de seda ó lino muy delgada y trasparente.” Taffeta and cendal were -used for linings in mediæval England. Chaucer says of his “doctour of -phisike,” - - In sanguin and in perse he clad was alle - Lined with taffeta and with sendalle. - -_Sarcenet_ during the fifteenth century took by degrees the place of -cendal, at least here in England. - -By some improvement in their weaving of cendal, the Saracens in the -south of Spain earned for this light web a good name in our markets, -and it became much sought for here. Among other places, York cathedral -had several sets of curtains for its high altar, “de sarcynet.” At -first this stuff was called from its makers “saracenicum.” But, in -Anglicising, the name was shortened into “sarcenet;” a word which we -use now for the thin silk which of old was known among us as “cendal.” - -_Satin_, though far from being so common as other silken textures, was -not unknown to England in the middle ages; and Chaucer speaks of it in -his ‘Man of lawes tale:’ - - In Surrie whilom dwelt a compagnie - Of chapmen rich, and therto sad and trewe, - That wide were senten hir spicerie, - Clothes of gold, and satins rich of hewe. - -When satin first appeared in trade it was called round the shores of -the Mediterranean “aceytuni.” The term slipped through early Italian -lips into “zetani;” coming westward this name, in its turn, dropped -its “i,” and smoothed itself into “satin.” So, also, it is called in -France; while in Italy it now goes by the name of “raso,” and the -Spaniards keep up its first designation. - -In the earlier inventories of church vestments no mention can be found -of satin; but this fine silk is spoken of among the various rich -bequests made to his cathedral at Exeter by bishop Grandison, about -1340; though later, and especially in the royal wardrobe accompts, it -is very commonly specified. Hence we may fairly assume that till the -fourteenth century satin was unknown in England; afterwards it met with -much favour. Flags were made of it. On board the stately ship in which -Beauchamp earl of Warwick, in the reign of Henry the sixth, sailed from -England to France, there were flying “three penons of satten,” besides -“sixteen standards of worsted entailed with a bear and a chain,” and -a great streamer of forty yards in length and eight yards in breadth, -with a great bear and griffin holding a ragged staff poudred full of -ragged staffs. Like other silken textiles, satin seems to have been in -some instances interwoven with flat gold thread: for example, Lincoln -had of the gift of one of its bishops eighteen copes of red tinsel -sattin with orphreys of gold. - -Though not often, yet sometimes we read of a silken stuff called -_cadas_, _carda_, _carduus_, and used for inferior purposes. The -outside silk on the cocoon is of a poor quality compared with the -inner filaments, from which it is kept apart in reeling, and set aside -for other uses. We find mention of such cloths as belonging to the -cathedrals of Exeter and St. Paul’s in the thirteenth century. More -frequently, instead of being spun, it served as wadding in dress: on -the barons at the siege of Caerlaverock might be seen many a rich -gambeson garnished with silk, cadas, and cotton: - - Meint riche gamboison guarni - De soi, de cadas e coton. - -The quantity of card purchased for the royal wardrobe, in the year -1299, is set forth in the Liber quotidianus. - -_Camoca_, _camoka_, _camak_, as the name is differently written, was a -textile of which in England we hear nothing before the latter end of -the fourteenth century. No sooner did it make its appearance than this -camoca rose into great repute; the Church used it for her vestments, -and royalty employed it for dress as well as in adorning palaces, -especially in draping beds of state. In the year 1385, besides some -smaller articles, the royal chapel in Windsor castle had a whole set of -vestments and other ornaments for the altar, of white camoca; and our -princes must have arrayed themselves, on grand occasions, in the same -material; for Herod, in one of the Coventry mysteries--the adoration of -the Magi--is made to boast of himself: “In kyrtyl of cammaka kynge am I -cladde.” But it was in draping its state-beds that our ancient royalty -showed its affection for camoca. Edward the Black Prince bequeaths to -his confessor “a large bed of red camoca with our arms embroidered at -each corner,” and the prince’s mother leaves to another of her sons -“a bed of red camak.” Edward lord Despencer, in 1375, wills to his -wife “my great bed of blue camaka, with griffins, also another bed -of camaka, striped with white and black.” What may have been the real -texture of this stuff, thought so magnificent, we do not positively -know, but it was probably woven of fine camels’ hair and silk, and of -Asiatic workmanship. - -From this mixed web we pass to another more precious, the _Cloth -of Tars_; which we presume to have been the forerunner of the now -celebrated cashmere, and together with silk made of the downy wool of -goats reared in several parts of Asia, but especially in Tibet. - -_Velvet_ is a silken textile, the history of which has still to be -written. Of the country whence it first came, or the people who were -the earliest to hit upon the happy way of weaving it, we know nothing. -A very old piece was in the beautiful crimson cope embroidered by -English hands in the fourteenth century, now kept at the college of -Mount St. Mary, Chesterfield. - -We are probably indebted to central Asia, or perhaps China, for velvet -as well as satin; and among the earliest places in Europe where it was -manufactured, were perhaps first the south of Spain, and then Lucca. - -In the earliest of the inventories which we have of church vestments, -that of Exeter cathedral, 1277, velvet is not spoken of; but in St. -Paul’s, London, A. D. 1295, there is some notice of velvet with its -kindred web “fustian,” for chasubles. Velvet is for the first time -mentioned at Exeter in 1327, but as in two pieces not made up, of which -some yards had been then sold for vestment-making. From the middle of -the fourteenth century velvet is of common occurrence. - -The name itself of velvet, “velluto,” seems to point out Italy as the -market through which we got it from the east, for the word in Italian -indicates something which is hairy or shaggy, like an animal’s skin. - -_Fustian_ was known at the end of the thirteenth century. St. Paul’s -cathedral at that date had “a white chasuble of fustian.” In an -English sermon preached at the beginning of the same century great -blame is found with the priest who had his chasuble made of middling -fustian: “þe meshakele of medeme fustian.” As then wove, fustian had -a short nap on it, and one of the domestic uses to which during the -middle ages it had been put was for bed clothes, as thick undersheets. -Lady Bargavenny bequeaths, in 1434, “A bed of gold of swans, two pair -sheets of raynes (fine linen, made at Rheims), a pair of fustians, six -pair of other sheets, etc.” It is not unlikely that this stuff may have -hinted to the Italians the way of weaving silk in the same manner, and -so of producing velvet. Other nations took up the manufacture, and -the weaving of velvet was wonderfully improved. It became diapered -and, upon a ground of silk or of gold, the pattern came out in a bold -manner, with a raised pile. At last, the most beautiful of all manners -of diapering, namely, making the pattern to show itself in a double -pile, one pile higher than the other and of the same tint, now, as -formerly, known as velvet upon velvet, was brought to its highest -perfection; and velvets in this fine style were wrought in greatest -excellence in Italy, in Spain and in Flanders. Our old inventories -often specify these differences in the making of the web. York -cathedral had “four copes of crimson velvet plaine, with orphreys of -clothe of goulde, for standers;” “a greene cushion of raised velvet;” -and “a cope of purshed velvet (redd):” “purshed” means that the velvet -was raised in a network pattern. - -_Diaper_ was a silken fabric, held everywhere in high estimation -during many hundred years, both abroad and in England. We know this -from documents beginning with the eleventh century: but the origin of -the name is uncertain. Possibly, in order to indicate a one-coloured -yet patterned silk, which diaper is, the Byzantine Greeks of the -early middle ages invented the term διαςπρὸν, diaspron, from διαςπαω, -I separate, to signify “what distinguishes or separates itself from -things about it,” as every pattern does on a one-coloured silk. -With this textile the Latins took the name for it from the Greeks -and called it “diasper,” which in English has been moulded into -“diaper.” In the year 1066 the empress Agnes gave to Monte Cassino a -diaper-chasuble of cloth of gold, “planetam diasperam.” This early -mention of the name seems to be a conclusive argument against those -writers who derive it from Yprès, in Flanders; a town celebrated for -linen manufactures at a somewhat later period: yet even then, according -to Chaucer, rivalled by workwomen in England. He tells us of the “good -wif of Bathe” that - - Of cloth-making she hadde swiche an haunt - She passed hem of Ipres and of Gaunt. - -In the South Kensington collection, no. 1270 shows how these cloths -were wrought; and it would seem that cloth of gold was often diapered -with a pattern, at least in the time of Chaucer, who describes it on -the housing of a king’s horse: - - ----trapped in stele, - Covered with cloth of gold diapred wele. - -Church inventories make frequent mention of such diapered silks for -vestments. Exeter cathedral had a cope of white diaper with half moons, -the gift of bishop Bartholomew, in 1161. Sometimes the pattern of the -diapering is noticed; for instance, at St. Paul’s, “a chasuble of white -diaper, with coupled parrots in places, among branches.” Probably the -most elaborate specimen of diaper-weaving on record is that which -Edmund, earl of Cornwall, gave to the same cathedral; “a cope of a -certain diaper of Antioch colour covered with trees and diapered birds, -of which the heads, breasts and feet, as well as the flowers on the -tress, were woven in gold thread.” - -By degrees the word “diaper” became widened in its meaning. Not only -all sorts of textile, whether of silk, of linen, or of worsted, but the -walls of a room were said to be diapered when the self-same ornament -was repeated and sprinkled well over it. Thus, in ‘the squire of low -degree,’ the king of Hungary promises his daughter a chair or carriage, -that - - Shal be coverd wyth velvette reede - And clothes of fyne golde al about your heede, - With damaske whyte and azure blewe - Well dyaperd with lylles newe. - -The bow for arrows held by Sweet-looking is, in Chaucer’s ‘Romaunt of -the rose,’ described as - - painted well, and thwitten - And over all diapred and written, etc. - -So now, we call our fine table linen “diaper” because it is figured -with flowers and fruits. Sometimes silks diapered were called “fygury:” -as the cope mentioned in the York fabric rolls, “una capa de sateyn -fygury.” - -[Illustration: Ladies spinning and weaving; from a manuscript of the -fifteenth century.] - - - - -CHAPTER V. - - -There are some very ancient names, distinguishing different textiles, -which require notice: such as “chrysoclavus,” “stauraccin,” -“polystaurium,” “gammadion” or “gammadiæ,” “de quadruplo,” “de -octoplo,” and “de fundato.” Textiles of silk and gold are, over and -over again, enumerated as then commonly known under such names, in -the ‘Liber pontificalis seu de gestis Romanorum pontificum:’ a book -of great value for every student of early Christian art-work, and in -particular of textiles and embroidery. - -The _Chrysoclavus_, or golden nail-head, was a remnant which lingered a -long time among the ornaments embroidered on ecclesiastical vestments -and robes for royal wear of that once so coveted “latus clavus,” -or broad nail-head-like purple round patch worn upon the outward -garment of the old Roman dignitaries. In the court of Byzantium this -mark of dignity was elevated, from being purple on white, into gold -upon purple. Hence it came that all rich purple silks, woven or -embroidered with the “clavus” in gold, were known from their pattern -as gold nail-headed, or chrysoclavus; and silken textiles of Tyrian -dye, sprinkled all over with large round spots, were once in great -demand. Pope Leo in 795, among his several other gifts to the churches -at Rome, bestowed a great number of altar frontals made of this -purple and gold fabric, as we are told by Anastasius in the Liber -pontificalis. Sometimes these “clavi” were made so large that upon -their golden ground an event in the life of a saint or the saint’s head -was embroidered, and then the whole piece was called “sigillata,” or -_sealed_. - -_Stauracin_ or “stauracinus,” taking its name from σταυρὸς the Greek -for “cross,” was a silken stuff figured with small plain crosses, and -therefore from their number sometimes farther distinguished by the word -signifying that meaning in Greek, _Polystauron_. - -The crosses woven on the various fabrics were sometimes of the simplest -shape; oftener they were designed after an elaborate type with a -symbolic meaning about it that afforded an especial name to the stuffs -upon which they were figured. - -This name _Gammadion_, or _Gammadiæ_, was a word applied as often to -the pattern upon silks as to the figures wrought upon gold and silver. - -In the Greek alphabet the capital letter gamma takes the shape of an -exact right angle thus, Γ. Being so, many writers have seen in it an -emblem of our Lord as our corner-stone. Following this idea artists at -a very early period struck out a way of forming the cross after several -shapes by various combinations with it of this letter Γ. Four of these -gammas put so; - -[Illustration] - -fall into the shape of the so-called Greek cross; and in this form it -was woven upon the textiles denominated _stauracinæ_; or patterned with -a cross. Being one of the four same-shaped elements of the cross’s -figure, the part was significant of the whole: and as an emblem of the -corner-stone, our Lord, the gamma or Γ, was frequently shown at one -edge of the tunic worn by the apostles in ancient mosaics; wherein -sometimes we find, in place of the single gamma, the figure H; another -combination of the four gammas in the cross. Whatsoever, therefore, -whether of metal or of silk, was found to be marked in this or any -other way of putting the gammas together, or with only a single one, -was called “gammadion,” or “gammadiæ.” - -Ancient ingenuity for throwing its favourite gamma into other -combinations, and thus bringing out pretty and graceful patterns to -be wrought on all sorts of work for ecclesiastical use, did not stop -here. In the Liber pontificalis of Anastasius we meet not unfrequently -with accounts of vestments, etc. “de stauracin seu quadrapolis”; or “de -quadrapolo”; or “de octapolo.” The author here evidently means to imply -a distinction between a something amounting to four, and to eight, in -or upon these textiles. It cannot be to say that one fabric was woven -with four, the other with eight threads; had that been so meant, the -fact would probably then have been explained by a word constructed like -“examitus,” p. 24. As the contrast is not in the texture it must be in -the pattern of the stuffs; that is, in the number of the crosses: and -we further see why “stauracin” and “de quadrapolis” are interchangeable -terms. - -At the end of Du Cange’s glossary is an engraving of a work of Greek -art; plate IX. Here St. John Chrysostom stands between St. Nicholas -and St. Basil. All three are arrayed in their liturgical garments, -which being figured with crosses are of the textile called of old -“stauracin;” but there is a marked difference in the way in which the -crosses are inserted. The crosses are arranged upon the vestment of St. -John thus; - -[Illustration] - -St. Nicholas and St. Basil have chasubles which are not only worked -all over with crosses made with gammas, but are surrounded with other -gammas joined so as to edge in the crosses, thus; - -[Illustration] - -As four gammas only are necessary to form all the crosses upon -St. John’s vestment, we there see the textile called “stauracin de -quadruplo,” or the stuff figured with a cross of four (gammas); -while as eight of these letters are required for the pattern on the -others, we have in them an example of the “stauracin de octapolo,” or -“octapulo,” a fabric with a pattern composed of eight gammas. - -A far more ancient and universal shape fashioned out of the repetition -of the same letter Γ, is that known as _Gammadion_; or, as commonly -called at one time in England, the _Filfot_. Several pieces in the -South Kensington collection exhibit on them some modification of it: -for example, nos. 1261, 1325, 7052, 829A, 8305, 8635, and 8652. Its -figure is made out of the usual four gammas, so that they should fall -together thus; - -[Illustration] - -Of silks patterned with the plain Greek cross or “stauracin” there are -also several examples in the same collection; and though not of the -remotest period are interesting. No. 8234, perhaps wrought in Sicily by -the Greeks brought as prisoners from the Morea in the twelfth century, -is not without some value. In the chapter library at Durham may be -seen (as we learn from Mr. Raine) an example of Byzantine stauracin -“colours purple and crimson; the only prominent ornament a cross--often -repeated, even upon the small portion which remains.” Those who -have seen in St. Peter’s sacristy at Rome that beautiful light-blue -dalmatic said to have been worn by Charlemagne when he sang the gospel, -vested as a deacon, on the day he was crowned emperor, will remember -how plentifully it is sprinkled with crosses between its exquisite -embroideries, so as to make the vestment a real “stauracin.” It has -been well given by Sulpiz Boisserée in his ‘Kaiser dalmatika in der St. -Peterskirche;’ but far better by Dr. Bock in his splendid work on the -coronation robes of the German emperors. - -Silks called _de fundato_, from the pattern woven on them, are -frequently spoken of by Anastasius. From the text of that writer, and -from passages in other authors of his time, it would seem that the -silks themselves were dyed of the richest purple and figured with gold -in the pattern of netting. As one of the meanings for the word “funda” -is a fisherman’s net, rich textiles so figured in gold were denominated -“de fundato” or netted. We gather also from Fortunatus that the costly -purple-dyed silks called “blatta” were always interwoven with gold. -This net-pattern lingered long and, no doubt, we find it under a new -name “laqueatus”--meshed--upon a cope belonging to the church of St. -Paul’s, London, 1295: where an inventory, printed by Dugdale, includes -a cope of baudekin with fir-cones “in campis laqueatis.” Modifications -of this very old pattern may be seen at South Kensington, nos. 1264, -1266, and 8234. In the diapered pattern on some of the cloth of gold -found lately in the grave of an archbishop, buried at York about the -end of the thirteenth century, the same netting is discernible. - -_Stragulatæ_, striped or barred silks, were at one time in much -request. Frequent mention is made of them in the Exeter inventories; -for example, in 1277, there were two palls of baudekin, one -“stragulata.” The illuminations in the manuscript in the Harley -collection at the British museum of the deposition of Richard the -second affords us instances of this textile. The young man to the -right sitting on the ground at the archbishop’s sermon is entirely, -hood and all, arrayed in this striped silk; and at the altar, where -Northumberland is swearing on the eucharist, the priest who is saying -mass wears a chasuble of the same stuff. Old St. Paul’s had an -offertory-veil of the same pattern; “stragulatum” with the stripes red -and green. - -At the end of the twelfth century there was brought to England, from -Greece, a sort of precious silk named there _Imperial_. - -Ralph, dean of St Paul’s cathedral, tells us that William de Magna -Villa, on coming home from his pilgrimage to the holy land about 1178, -made presents to several churches of cloths which at Constantinople -were called “Imperial.” We are told by Roger Wendover, and after him by -Matthew Paris, that the apparition of king John was dressed in royal -robes made of the stuff they call imperial. In the inventory of St. -Paul’s, drawn up in 1295, four tunicles (vestments for subdeacons and -lower ministers at the altar) are mentioned as made of this imperial. -No colour is specified, except in the one instance of the silk being -marbled; and the patterns are noticed as of red and green, with lions -woven in gold. It seems not to have been thought good enough for the -more important vestments, such as chasubles and copes. Probably the -name was not derived from its colour (supposed royal purple) nor its -costliness, but for quite another reason: woven at a workshop kept -up by the Byzantine emperors, like the Gobelins is to-day in Paris, -and bearing about it some small though noticeable mark, it took the -designation of “Imperial.” We know it was partly wrought with gold; -but that its tint was always some shade of the imperial purple is a -gratuitous assumption. In France this textile was in use as late as the -second half of the fifteenth century, but looked upon as old. At York -somewhat later, in the early part of the sixteenth, one of its deans -bestowed on that cathedral “two (blue) copes of clothe imperialle.” - -_Baudekin_ was a costly stuff much employed and often spoken of in our -literature during many years of the mediæval period. - -Ciclatoun, as we have already remarked, was the usual term during -centuries throughout western Europe by which the showy golden textiles -were called. When, however, Bagdad or Baldak held for no short length -of time the lead all over Asia in weaving fine silks, and in especial -golden stuffs shot as now in different colours, tinted cloths of gold -became known, and more particularly among the English, as “baldakin,” -“baudekin,” or “baudkyn,” or silks from Baldak. At last the earlier -term “ciclatoun” dropped out of use. Remembering this the reader will -more readily understand several otherwise puzzling passages in our old -writers, as well as in the inventories of royal furniture and church -vestments. - -Kings and the nobility affected much this rich stuff for the garments -worn on high occasions. When Henry the third knighted William of -Valence, in 1247, he had on a robe of cloth of gold made of baudekin; -“facta de pretiosissimo baldekino.” In the year 1259 the master of -Sherborn hospital in the north bequeathed to that house a cope made of -the like stuff: “de panno ad aurum scilicet baudekin.” Vestments of -this material are frequently mentioned in the old church inventories. - -These Bagdad or Baldak silks, with a weft of gold, known among us as -“baudekins” were often woven very large in size, and applied here in -England to especial ritual purposes. As a thanks-offering after a -safe return home from a journey they were brought and given to the -altar; at the solemn burial of our kings and queens and other great -people, the mourners, when offertory time came, went to the hearse and -threw a baudekin of costly texture over the coffin. We may learn the -ceremonial from the descriptions of many of our mediæval funerals. At -the obsequies of Henry the seventh in Westminster abbey:--“Twoe herauds -came to the duke of Buck. and to the earles, and conveyed them into the -revestrie where they did receive certen palles which everie of them did -bringe solemly betwene theire hands and comminge in order one before -another as they were in degree unto the said herse, thay kissed theire -said palles and delivered them unto the said heraudes which laide -them uppon the kyngs corps, in this manner: the palle which was first -offered by the duke of Buck. was laid on length on the said corps, and -the residewe were laid acrosse, as thick as they might lie.” In the -same church at the burial of Anne of Cleves in 1557, a like ceremonial -of carrying cloth-of-gold palls to the hearse was followed. So also the -religious guilds, or other companies, in the middle ages kept palls to -be thrown over the bodies of all brothers or sisters at their burial, -however lowly may have been their rank. - -The word “baudekin” itself became at last enlarged in its meaning. So -warm, so mellow, so fast were the tones of crimson which the dyers of -Bagdad knew how to give their silks that, without a thread of gold in -them, the mere glowing tints of the plain crimson silken webs won for -themselves the name of baudekins. Furthermore, when they quite ceased -to be partly woven in gold and from their consequent lower price and -cheapness came into use for cloths of estate over royal thrones, the -canopy hung over the high altar of a church acquired and yet keeps the -appellation (at least in Italy) of “baldachino.” - -How very full in size, how costly in materials and embroidery, must -have sometimes been the cloth of estate spread overhead and behind the -throne of our kings, may be gathered from the privy purse expenses -of Henry the seventh; wherein this item occurs: “To Antony Corsse -for a cloth of an estate conteyning 47½ yerds, £11 the yerd, £522 -10_s._” Canopies of this kind are still occasionally to be seen in the -throne-room of some of the Roman palaces, whose owners have the old -feudal right to the cloth of estate. - -The custom itself is thus noticed by Chaucer: - - Yet nere and nere forth in I gan me dress - Into an hall of noble apparaile, - With arras spred, and cloth of gold I gesse, - And other silke of easier availe: - Under the cloth of their estate sauns faile - The king and quene there sat as I beheld. - -This same rich golden stuff had a third and even better known name, to -be found all through our early literature as _Cloth of Pall_. - -The state cloak (in Latin pallium, in Anglo-saxon paell), worn alike -by men as well as women, was always made of the most gorgeous stuff -that could be found. From a very early period in the mediæval ages -golden webs shot in silk with one or other of the various colours, -occasionally blue but oftener crimson, were sought for through so many -years, and everywhere, that at last each sort of cloth of gold had -given to it the name of “pall,” no matter the immediate purpose to -which it might have to be applied or after what fashion. Vestments for -sacred use and garments for knights and ladies were equally made of it. -The word is common enough in the church inventories. - -As to worldly use, the king’s daughter in the ‘Squire of low degree’ had - - Mantell of ryche degre - Purple palle and armyne fre: - -and in the poem of Sir Isumbras-- - - The rich queen in hall was set; - Knights her served, at hand and feet - In rich robes of pall. - -For ceremonial receptions our kings used to order that every house -should be “curtained” along the streets which the procession would have -to take through London, “incortinaretur.” How this was done we learn -from Chaucer in the ‘Knight’s tale’; - - By ordinance, thurghout the cite large - Hanged with cloth of gold, and not with sarge; - -as well as from the ‘Life of Alexander:’ - - Al theo city was by-hong - Of riche baudekyns and pellis (palls) among. - -Hence, when Elizabeth, queen of Henry the seventh, “proceeded from the -towre throwge the citie of London (for her coronation) to Westminster, -al the strets ther wich she shulde passe by, were clenly dressed and -besene with clothes of tappestreye and arras. And some strets, as -Cheepe, hangged with rich clothes of gold, velvetts, and silks, etc.” -Machyn in his diary tells us that as late as 1555 “Bow chyrche in -London was hangyd with cloth of gold and with ryche hares (arras).” - -Both in England and abroad, it was customary in the middle ages to -provide richly decorated palls with which to cover the biers of dead -people: more especially the members of various guilds. Some of these -are still existing; one, belonging to the London fishmongers’ -company; another, of the fifteenth century, is in the museum at Amiens. - -[Illustration: Mortuary Cloth from the church of Folleville (Somme), -now in the museum at Amiens.] - -A celebrated Mohammedan writer, Ebn-Khaldoun, who died about the middle -of the fifteenth century, while speaking of that spot in an Arab -palace, the “Tiraz,” so designated from the name itself of the rich -silken stuffs therein woven, tells us that one of the privileges of -the Saracenic kings was to have the name of the prince himself, or the -special ensign chosen by his house, woven into the stuffs intended for -his personal wear, whether wrought of silk, brocade, or even coarser -kind of silk. While gearing his loom the workman contrived that the -letters of the title should come out either in threads of gold, or in -silk of another colour from that of the ground. The royal apparel thus -bore about it its own especial marks, and distinguished not only the -sovereign but those personages around him who were allowed by their -official rank in his court to wear it; or those again upon whom he -had bestowed rich garments as especial tokens of the imperial favour, -like the modern pelisse of honour. Before the time of Mahomet the -eastern princes used to have woven upon the stuffs wrought for their -personal use, or as gifts to others, their own especial likeness, or at -times the peculiar ensign of their royalty. But afterwards the custom -was changed and names were substituted, to which words were added -foreboding good or certain formulas of praise. Wherever the Moslem -ruled the practice was introduced; and thus, whether in Asia, in Egypt, -or other parts of Africa, or in Moorish Spain, the silken garments for -royalty and its favourites showed woven in them the prince’s name, or -his chosen text. The robes wrought in Egypt for the far-famed Saladin, -and worn by him as caliph, bore very conspicuously upon them the name -of that conqueror. - -In the old lists of church ornaments frequent mention is found of -vestments inscribed with words in real or pretended Arabic; and when -St. Paul’s inventory more than once speaks of silken stuffs “de opere -Saraceno” it is not improbable that some at least of those textiles -were so called from having Arabic characters woven on them. Such, -too, were the letters on the red pall figured with elephants and a -bird, belonging in the fourteenth century to the cathedral at Exeter. -Somewhat later, our trade with the south of Spain led us to call such -words on woven stuffs Moorish: thus, Joane lady Bergavenny bequeaths -(1434) a “hullyng (hangings for a hall) of black red and green, with -morys letters, etc.” - -[Illustration: Silk damask (Sicilian) with imitated Arabic letters.] - -The weaving of letters in textiles is neither a Moorish nor Saracenic -invention; ages before, the ancient Parthians used to do so, as we -learn from Pliny: “Parthi literas vestibus intexunt.” A curious -illustration of the frequent use of silken stuffs bearing letters, -borrowed from some real or supposed oriental alphabet, is the custom -which many of the illuminators had of figuring on frontals and altar -canopies, evidently intended to represent silk, meaningless words; and -the artists of Italy up to the middle of the sixteenth century did the -same on the hems of the garments worn by great personages, in their -paintings. - -The eagle, single and double-headed, may frequently be found in the -patterns of old silks. In all ages certain birds of prey have been -looked upon by heathens as ominous for good or evil. Upon the standard -which was carried at the head of the Danish invaders of Northumbria -was figured the raven, the bird of Odin. This banner had been worked -by the daughters of Regnar Lodbrok, in one noontide’s while; and it is -recorded by Asser that if victory was to follow, the raven would seem -to stand erect and as if about to soar before the warriors; but if a -defeat was impending, the raven hung his head and drooped his wings. -Another and a more important flag, that which Harold fought under at -Hastings, is described by Malmesbury as having been embroidered in -gold with the figure of a man in the act of fighting, and studded with -precious stones, woven sumptuously. - -In still earlier ages the eagle, known for its daring and its lofty -flight, was held in high repute; as the emblem of power and victory -it is to be seen flying in triumph over the head of some Assyrian -conqueror, as may be witnessed in Layard’s work on Nineveh. Homer -calls it the bird of Jove. Quintus Curtius says that a golden eagle -was carved upon the yoke of the war chariot of king Darius, as if -outstretching his wings. The Romans bore the bird upon their standards; -the Byzantine emperors kept it as their device; and, following the -ancient traditions of the east and heedless of their law that forbids -the making of images, the Saracens, especially when they ruled in -Egypt, had the eagle figured on several things about them, sometimes -single at others double-headed, which latter was the shape adopted by -the emperors of Germany as their blazon; in which form it is borne to -this day by several reigning houses. It is not strange, therefore, that -eagles of both fashions are so often to be observed woven upon ancient -and eastern textiles. - -As early as 1277 Exeter cathedral reckoned among her vestments several -so decorated; for instance, a cope of baudekin figured with small -two-headed eagles: and Richard king of Germany, brother of Henry the -third of England, gave to the same church a cope of black baudekin with -eagles in gold figured on it. These are recorded in the inventories -printed by Dr. Oliver; and many like instances might be noticed in -other lists. - -[Illustration: Ladies carding and spinning; from MSS. of the fourteenth -century, in the British museum.] - - - - -CHAPTER VI. - - -Hitherto no attempt has been made to distribute olden silken textiles -into various schools; but the numerous specimens in the admirable -collection at South Kensington enable us to separate them into several -groups--Chinese, Persian, Byzantine, Indian, Syrian, Saracenic, -Moresco-Spanish, Sicilian, Italian, Flemish, British, and French. We -shall now especially refer to that collection. - -The Chinese examples are not many: but, whether plain or figured, they -are beautiful in their own way. From all that we know of the people, -we are led to believe that their style two thousand years ago is the -same still; so that the web wrought by them this year or three hundred -years ago, like no. 1368, would differ hardly in a line from their far -earlier textiles; of which Dionysius Periegetes wrote that “the Seres -make precious figured garments, resembling in colour the flowers of the -field, and rivalling in fineness the work of spiders.” In these stuffs, -warp and woof are of silk and both of the best kinds. - -Persian textiles, as we see them at South Kensington, must also have -been for many centuries very much the same in design and character. -Sometimes the design is made up of various kinds of beasts and birds, -real or imaginary, with the sporting cheetah spotted among them; and -the “homa” or tree of life conspicuously set above all. In such cases -we may conclude that the web was wrought by Persians, and generally -the textile will be found in all its parts to be of the richest -materials. - -No. 8233, may be referred to as an illustration of the Persian type. - -A school of design sprung up among the Byzantine Greeks, from the time -when in the sixth century they began to weave home-grown silk, which -retained not a little of the beauty, breadth, and flowing outline of -ancient art. Together with this, a strong feeling of Christianity -showed itself as well in many of the subjects which they took out of -holy writ as in the smaller elements of ornamentation. Figures, whether -of the human form or of beasts, are given in a much larger and bolder -size than on any other ancient stuffs. Though there are not many known -specimens from the old looms of Constantinople there is one, no. 7036, -showing Samson wrestling with a lion, which may serve as a type. In the -year 1295 St. Paul’s cathedral would seem to have possessed several -vestments made of Byzantine silk. A very splendid dalmatic of Byzantine -silk, probably of the twelfth century, is preserved in the treasury of -St. Peter’s at Rome. The colour is dark blue, and the embroidery in -gold and colours. - -The specimens at South Kensington from the Byzantine and later Greek -loom are not to be taken as by any means first-rate examples of its -general production. They are poor both in material and, when figured, -in design. There are, however, many pieces: nos. 1241, 1246, 1257, -1266, etc. - -Indian ancient silks and textiles have their own distinctive marks. - -From Marco Polo, who wandered much over the far east some time during -the thirteenth century, we learn that the weaving in India was done by -women who wrought in silk and gold, after a noble manner, beasts and -birds upon their webs:--“Le loro donne lavorano tutte cose a seta e ad -oro e a uccelli e a bestie nobilmente e lavorano di cortine ed altre -cose molto ricamente.” - -[Illustration: Byzantine Dalmatic: preserved at Rome.] - -Several of the South Kensington mediæval specimens from Tartary and -India show well the truthfulness of the great Venetian traveller, -while speaking about the textiles which he saw in those countries. The -dark purple piece of silk figured in gold with birds and beasts of the -thirteenth century, no. 7086, is good; but better still is the shred of -blue damask, no. 7087, with its birds, its animals, and flowers wrought -in gold and different coloured silks. India, also, has ever been famous -for its cloud-like transparent muslins, which since Marco Polo’s days -have kept that oriental name, through being better woven at Mosul than -elsewhere. - -The Syrian school is well represented at South Kensington by several -fine pieces. - -The whole sea-board of that part of Asia minor, as well as far inland, -was inhabited by a mixture of Jews, Christians, and Saracens; and all -were workers in silk. The reputation of the neighbouring Persia had of -old stood high for the beauty and durability of her silken textiles, -which caused them to be sought for by the European traders. Persia’s -outlet to the west for her goods lay through the great commercial ports -on the coast of Syria. Persia was accustomed to set her own peculiar -seal upon her figured webs, by mingling in her designs the mystic -“homa:” and, naturally, this part of the pattern became in the eyes -of Europeans, at first, a sort of assurance that those goods had been -made in Persian looms. By one of the tricks of imitation followed in -that day, as well as now, the Syrian designers threw the “homa” into -their patterns. Borrowed perhaps originally from Hebrew tradition, this -symbol of “the tree of life” had in it nothing objectionable either to -the Christian, the Jew, or the Moslem: all three, therefore, took it -and made it a leading portion of design in the patterns of their silks; -and hence it is that we meet with it so often. Though at the beginning, -it may be, done with a fraudulent intention of palming on the world -Syrian for Persian silks, the Syrians usually put also into their -fabrics a something which declared the real workmanship. Mixed with -the “homa,” the “cheetah,” and other elements of Persian patterns, -the discordant two-handled vase or the badly-imitated Arabic sentence -betrays the textile to be not Persian but Syrian. No. 8359 exemplifies -this. Furthermore, probably in ignorance about Persia’s superstitious -use of the “homa” in her old religious services, the Christian weavers -of Syria put the sign of the cross by the side of the “tree of life:” -as we find upon the piece of silk, no. 7094. Another remarkable -specimen of the Syrian loom is no. 7034, whereon the Nineveh lions come -forth conspicuously. As good examples of well-wrought “diaspron” or -diaper, no. 8233 and no. 7052 may be mentioned. - -Saracenic weaving, as shown by the design upon the web, is exemplified -in several specimens at South Kensington. - -However much against what looks like a heedlessness of the teaching of -the Koran, it is certain that the Saracens, those of the upper classes -in particular, felt no difficulty in wearing robes upon which animals -and the likenesses of created things were woven; with the strictest -of their princes a double-headed eagle, possibly borrowed from the -crusaders, was a royal heraldic device. Stuffs figured with birds and -beasts, with trees and flowers, were not the less on that account of -Saracenic workmanship, and meant for Moslem wear. What, however, may -be chiefly looked for upon Saracenic textures is a pattern consisting -of longitudinal stripes of blue, red, green, and other colour; some of -them charged with animals, small in form; some written, in large Arabic -letters, with a word or sentence. - -Moresco-Spanish or Saracenic textiles wrought in Spain, though -partaking of the striped pattern and bearing words in real or imitated -Arabic, had some distinctions of their own. The designs shown upon -these stuffs are almost always drawn out of strap-work, reticulations, -or some combination of geometrical lines, amid which are occasionally -to be found different forms of conventional flowers. Sometimes, but -very rarely, the crescent moon is figured as in the curious piece, no. -8639. The colours of these silks are usually either a fine crimson or -a deep blue with almost always a fine toned yellow as a ground. But one -remarkable feature in these Moresco-Spanish textiles is the presence of -the ingenious imitation (before spoken of) of gold; for which shreds -of gilded parchment cut up into narrow flat strips are substituted and -woven with the silk. This, when fresh, must have looked very bright, -and have given the web all the appearance of the favourite stuffs -called here in England “tissues.” The fraud, as already explained, if -fraud it were, is not easily discovered without a magnifying glass. A -guide may be found in the blackness of the gold. Nos. 7095, 8590, and -8639, are examples of this gilded vellum. - -The Sicilian school strongly marked wide differences between itself and -all the others which had lived before; and the history of its loom is -as interesting as it is varied. - -The first to teach the natives of Sicily how to rear the silkworm -and spin its silk were, as it would seem, the Mahomedans, who coming -over from Africa brought with them, besides the art of weaving silken -textiles, a knowledge of the fauna of that vast continent--its -giraffes, its antelopes, its gazelles, its lions, its elephants. These -invaders told them also of the parrots of India and the hunting sort -of leopard,--the cheetahs; and when the stuff was wrought for European -wear both beast and bird were imaged upon the web, and at the same time -a word in Arabic was woven in. Like all other Saracens, those in Sicily -loved to mingle gold in their tissues; and, to spare the silk, cotton -thread was not unfrequently worked up in the warp. When, therefore, -we meet with beasts taken from the fauna of Africa, such, especially, -as the giraffe and the several classes of the antelope family, with -perhaps also an Arabic motto, and part of the pattern wrought in gold, -as well as cotton in the warp, we may fairly take the specimen as a -piece of Sicily’s work in its first period of weaving silk. - -The second epoch was when in the twelfth century Roger, king of Sicily, -took Corinth, Thebes, and Athens; from each of which cities he led -away captives all the men and women he could find who knew how to weave -silks, and carried them to Palermo. These Grecian new comers brought -fresh designs which were adopted sometimes wholly, at others but in -part and mixed up with the older Saracenic style. In this second period -of the island’s loom we discover what traces the Byzantine school -impressed upon Sicilian silks, and helped so much to alter the type -of their first designs. On one silk, the pattern is a grotesque mask -amid the graceful twinings of luxuriant foliage, such as might have -been then found upon many a fragment of old Greek sculpture; this may -be seen on no. 8241; on another, a sovereign on horseback wearing the -royal crown and carrying a hawk upon his wrist, as in no. 8589; on a -third, no. 8234, is the Greek cross, with a pattern much like the old -netted or “de fundato” kind which has been described, p. 38. - -But Sicily’s third is quite her own peculiar style. At the end of the -thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth century she struck into an -untried path. Without throwing aside the old elements employed by the -Mahomedans Sicily put with them the emblem of Christianity, the cross, -in various forms, on some occasions with the letter V. four times -repeated. - -From the east to the uttermost western borders of the Mediterranean -the weavers of every country had been in the habit of figuring upon -their silks those beasts and birds they saw around them: the Tartar, -the Indian, and the Persian gave us the parrot and the cheetah; the -Africans, the giraffe and the gazelle; the people of each continent, -the lions, the elephants, the eagles, and the other birds common to -both. From the sculpture of the Greeks and Romans the Sicilians could -have easily copied the fabled griffin and the centaur; but it was -left for their own wild imaginings to figure such an odd compound in -one being as the animal--half elephant, half griffin--which we see -in no. 1288. Their daring flights of fancy in coupling the difficult -with the beautiful are curious; in one piece large eagles are perched -in pairs with a radiating sun between them, and beneath are dogs, -in pairs, running with heads turned back; in another, running harts -have caught one of their hind legs in a cord tied to their collar, -and an eagle swoops down upon them; and the same animal, in another -place on the same piece, has switched its tail into the last link of a -chain fastened to its neck; on a third sample are harts, the letter M -floriated, winged lions, crosses floriated, crosses sprouting out on -two sides with _fleurs-de-lis_, and four-legged monsters, some like -winged lions, some biting their tails. Hardly elsewhere to be found -are certain elements peculiar to the patterns upon silks from mediæval -Sicily; such, for instance, as harts, and demi-dogs with very large -wings, both animals having remarkably long manes streaming far behind -them; or harts lodged under green trees in a park with paling about -it. The hawk, the eagle, double and single headed, or the parrot, may -be found on stuffs all over the east; not so, however, the swan, which -was a favourite with Sicilians and may be seen often drawn with much -gracefulness. - -The Sicilians showed their strong affection for certain plants -and flowers. On a great many of the silks in the South Kensington -collection from Palermitan looms we see figured upon a tawny coloured -grounding beautifully drawn foliage in green; sometimes vine leaves, -sometimes what looks like parsley, so curled, crispy, and serrated are -its leaves. Another peculiarity is the introduction of the letter U, -repeated so as to mark the feathering upon the tails of birds; or to -fall into the shape of an O; as in nos. 8591, 8599. - -Whether it was that the crusaders made Sicily so often the halting spot -on their way to the holy land, or that knights crowded there for other -purposes, and thus dazzled the eyes of the islanders with the bravery -of their armorial bearings, it is certain that the Sicilians were -particularly given to introduce many heraldic charges--wyverns, eagles, -lions rampant, and griffins--into their designs. The occasions in which -such elements of blazoning come in are so numerous that one of the -features belonging to the Sicilian loom in its third period is that, -bating tinctures, it is decidedly heraldic. - -[Illustration: Silk damask--Sicilian: fourteenth century.] - -All this beauty and happiness of invention, set forth by bold, free, -spirited drawing, were bestowed too often upon stuffs of a very poor -inferior quality, in which the gold if not actually base was always -scanty, and a good deal of cotton was wrought up with the silk. - -Till within a few years past the royal manufactory at Sta. Leucia, -near Naples, produced silks of remarkable richness; and the piece, no. -721, does credit to its loom, as it wove in the seventeenth century. -Northern Italy was not idle; and the looms which she set up in several -of her great cities, in Lucca, Florence, Genoa, Venice, and Milan, -earned for themselves a good repute and a wide trade for their gold and -silver tissues, their velvets, and their figured silken textiles. Yet, -in the same way as each of these free states had its own accent and -provincialisms in speech, so also had it a something often thrown into -its designs and style of drawing which told of the place and province -whence the textiles came. - -Lucca at an early period made herself known in Europe for her textiles; -but her workmen, like those of Sicily, seem to have thought themselves -bound to follow the style brought by the Saracens of figuring parrots -and peacocks, gazelles, and even cheetahs, as we see in the specimens -no. 8258 and no. 8616. But with these eastern animals she mixed up -emblems of her own, such as angels clothed in white. She soon dropped -what was oriental from her patterns which she began to draw in a -larger, bolder manner, and showing an inclination for light blue as a -colour. - -As in other places abroad so at Lucca cloths of gold and of silver were -often wrought, and the Lucchese cloths of this costly sort were in much -request in England during the fourteenth century. In all likelihood -they were not of the deadened but the sparkling kind, afterwards -especially known as “tissue.” Exeter cathedral, in 1327, had a cope of -silver tissue, or cloth of Lucca:--“de panno de Luk.” At a later date, -belonging to the same church, were two fine chasubles--one purple, -the other red--of the same glittering stuff: “de purpyll panno.” -York cathedral possessed many copes of tissue shot with every colour -required by its ritual, and among them were “a reade cope of clothe of -tishewe with orphry of pearl, a cope with orphrey, a cope of raised -clothe of goulde,” making a distinction between tissue and the ordinary -cloth of gold. In the wardrobe accounts of Edward the second the -golden tissue, or Lucca cloth, is several times mentioned. Whether the -ceremony happened to be sad or gay this glittering web was used; palls -made of Lucca cloth were, at masses for the dead, strewed over the -corpse; at marriages the care-cloth was made of the same stuff: thus -when Richard de Arundell and Isabella, Hugh le Despenser’s daughter, -had been wedded at the door of the royal chapel, the veil held spread -out over their heads as they knelt inside the chancel during the -nuptial mass was of Lucca cloth. - -About the same time velvet became known, and came into use both for -vestments and for personal wear; and Lucca probably was among the first -places in Europe to weave it. The specimens at South Kensington of -this fine textile from Lucchese looms, though few in comparison with -those from Genoa, still have a certain historical value for the English -workman: no. 1357, with its olive green plain silken ground and trailed -all over with flowers and leaves in a somewhat deeper tone, and the -earlier example, no. 8322, with its ovals and feathering stopped with -graceful cusps and artichokes, afford us good instances of what Lucca -could produce in the way of artistic velvets. - -Genoa, though in mediæval times not so conspicuous as she afterwards -became for her textile industry, encouraged over her narrow territory -the weaving of silken webs. Of these the earliest mention we have found -is in the inventory of vestments belonging to St. Paul’s cathedral, -London, in 1295: besides a cope of Genoa cloth that church had, of the -same manufacture, a hanging patterned with wheels and two-headed birds. -Though this first description be scant, we may reasonably gather that -the Genoese cloths must have resembled the textiles wrought at Lucca. -Genoa still keeps up her old reputation for beautiful velvets. - -In the collection at South Kensington there are examples of every -kind of Genoese velvets; some with a smooth unbroken surface, some -elaborately patterned and showing, together with wonderful skill in -the weaving, much beauty of design. Some are raised or cut, the design -being worked in a pile standing well up by itself out of a flat ground -of silk, either of the same or of another colour, and not unfrequently -wrought in gold. No. 7795 is an example of a very costly kind; in -which the ground is velvet, and again of velvet is the pattern itself -but raised one pile higher than the other, so as to show its form and -shape distinctly. No. 8323 shows how the design was worked in various -coloured velvet. This last was a favourite in England and called -motley; in his will, 1415, printed in Rymers Fœdera, Henry lord Scrope -bequeathed two vestments, one, motley velvet rubeo de auro; the other, -motley velvet nigro, rubeo et viridi, etc. - -Venice does not seem to have been at any time, like Sicily and Lucca, -smitten with the taste of imitating in her looms the patterns which she -saw abroad upon textile fabrics, but appears to have borrowed from the -orientals only one kind of weaving cloth of gold: the yellow chasuble -at Exeter cathedral in 1327, figured with beasts, is the only instance -we know where she wove animals upon silks. Venice, however, set up for -herself a new branch of textiles, and wrought for church use square -webs of a crimson ground on which were figured, in gold or on yellow -silk, subjects taken from the Scriptures or the persons of saints and -angels. These square pieces were employed, sewed together, as frontals -to altars, but when longwise more generally as orphreys to chasubles, -copes, and other vestments. - -There is a remarkable similarity between the drawing of the figures -upon old Venetian silks and the woodcuts in books published at Venice -in the early part of the sixteenth century; such as the fine pontifical -by Giunta, or the “Rosario” by Varisco. We find in both the same style -and manner; the same broad fold and fall of drapery; the same plumpness -and outline of the human face and figure. So near is the likeness in -design that we may almost believe that the artists who supplied the -blocks for the printers sketched also the drawings for the looms. - -By the fifteenth century Venice knew how to produce good damasks in -silk and gold: if we had nothing more than the specimen, no. 1311, -where St. Mary of Egypt is so well represented, it would be quite -enough for her to claim for herself such a distinction. Nor can there -be much doubt that Venice wrought in velvet; and if those rich stuffs -were made there, sometimes raised, sometimes pile upon pile, in which -her painters loved to dress the personages, men especially, in their -pictures, then Venetian velvets were certainly beautiful. Of this any -one may satisfy himself by one visit to our National gallery. There, in -the “Adoration of the magi” painted by Paulo Veronese, the second of -the wise men is clad in a robe of crimson velvet, cut or raised after a -design in keeping with the style of the period. - -No insignificant article of Venetian textile workmanship were her laces -wrought in every variety; in gold, in silk, in thread. The portrait -of a Doge usually shows him clothed in his dress of state. His wide -mantle, with large golden buttons, is made of some rich dull silver -cloth; and on his head is the Phrygian-shaped ducal cap bound round -with broad gold lace diapered, as we see in the bust portrait of -Loredano, painted by John Bellini, in the National gallery. Not only -was the gold in the thread particularly good but the lace itself in -great favour at the English court at one time; bought, not by yard -measure but by weight, “a pounde and a half of gold of Venys” was -employed “aboute the making of a lace and botons for the king’s mantell -of the garter.” This was for Henry the seventh. “Frenge of Venys gold” -appears twice in the wardrobe accounts of Edward the fourth. Laces in -worsted or in linen thread wrought by the bobbin at Venice, but more -especially her point laces or such as were done with the needle, always -had, as they still have, a great reputation. - -Venetian linens, for fine towelling and napery in general, were in -favourite use in France during a part of the fifteenth century. In the -‘Ducs de Bourgogne’ by Laborde, more than once we meet with such an -entry as “une pièce de nappes, ouvraige de Venise.” - -[Illustration: Silk damask--Florentine: fifteenth century.] - -Florence, about the middle of the fourteenth century, obtained a place -in the foremost rank amid the weavers of northern Italy. Specimens of -her earliest handicraft are rare; there are two at South Kensington. -One of these, no. 8563, shows the excellence of her work in secular -silks. Other pieces witness to the delicacy of her design at a later -time, the sixteenth century. The orphrey-webs of Florence are equally -conspicuous for drawing and skill in weaving, and in beauty come up to -those made at Venice, far surpassing anything of the kind ever wrought -at Cologne. - -But it was of her velvets that Florence was warrantably proud. Henry -the seventh bequeathed “to God and St. Peter, and to the abbot and -prior and convent of our monastery of Westminster, the whole suit of -vestments made at Florence in Italy.” We may yet see how gorgeous -this textile was in one of these Westminster abbey copes still in -existence, preserved at Stonyhurst college. The golden ground is -trailed all over with leaf-bearing boughs of a bold type, in raised or -cut ruby-toned velvet of a rich soft pile, which is freckled with gold -thread sprouting up like loops. Though not so rich in material nor so -splendid in pattern, there are at South Kensington, nos. 7792 and 7799, -two specimens of Florentine cut crimson velvet on a golden ground, like -the royal vestments in their kind and having the same peculiarity, the -little gold thread loop shooting out of the velvet pile. These pieces -are a full century later than the cope at Stonyhurst. - -That peculiar sort of ornamentation--the little loop of gold thread -standing well up and in single spots--upon some velvets, seems at times -to have been replaced, perhaps with the needle, by small dots of solid -metal, gold or silver gilt, upon the pile: of the gift of one of its -bishops, John Grandisson, Exeter cathedral had a crimson velvet cope, -the purple velvet orphrey of which was so wrought: “purpyll velvette -worked with pynsheds” of pure gold. - -Milan, though now-a-days she stands in such high repute for the -richness and beauty of her silks of all sorts, was not, we believe, -at any period during mediæval times as famous for her velvets, -her brocades, or cloths of gold, as for her armour, so strong and -trustworthy for the field, so exquisitely demascened for courtly -service. Still, in the sixteenth century, she earned a name for -rich cut velvets as may be seen in the specimen, no. 698; for her -silken net-work, no. 8336, which may have led the way to weaving silk -stockings; and for her laces of the open tinsel kind once in great -vogue for both sacred and secular use, as in no. 8331. - -England, from her earliest period, had textile fabrics varying in -design and material; the colours in the woollen garments worn by each -of the three several classes into which the Bardic order was divided, -and of the chequered pattern in Boadicea’s cloak, have been already -mentioned. It would seem from John Garland, whose witness is referred -to above, p. 12, that the lighter and more tasteful webs wrought here -came from women’s hands; and the loom, one of which must have been in -almost every English nunnery and homestead, was of the simplest make. - -In ancient times the Egyptians wove in an upright loom, and beginning -at top so as to weave downwards sat at their work. In Palestine also -the weaver had an upright loom, but, beginning at bottom and working -upwards, was obliged to stand. During the mediæval period the loom in -England was horizontal, as is shown by that figured in the Bedford -book of Hours (preserved in the British museum), fol. 32; at which the -blessed Virgin is seated weaving curtains for the temple. - -There are several examples at South Kensington of the work of English -women, showing the excellence of their handicraft as well as elegance -in design during the thirteenth century. Nos. 1233, 1256, and 1270 -may be referred to. But for specimens of the commoner sorts of silken -textiles and of wider breadth, which began to be woven in this country -under Edward the third, it would be hazardous to direct the reader. -Recent examples, velvets among the rest, may be found in the Brooke -collection. To some students the piece of old English printed chintz, -no. 1622, will not be without an interest. - -For the finer sort of linen napery Eylisham or Ailesham in -Lincolnshire was famous during the fourteenth century. Exeter -cathedral, in 1327, had a hand towel of “Ailesham cloth.” - -Our coarser native textiles in wool or in thread, or in both woven -together, formed a stuff called “burel.” St. Paul’s in 1295 had a -light blue chasuble, and Exeter cathedral in 1277 a long pall of this -texture. Burel and, in short, all the coarser kinds of work were -wrought by men: sometimes in monasteries. The old Benedictine rule -obliged the monks to give a certain number of hours every week-day to -hand-work, either at home or in the field. - -The weaving in this country of woollen cloth, as a staple branch of -trade, is very old. Of the monks at Bath abbey we are told by a late -writer, “that the shuttle and the loom employed their attention (about -the middle of the fourteenth century), and under their active auspices -the weaving of woollen cloth (which made its appearance in England -about the year 1330, and received the sanction of an act of parliament -in 1337) was introduced, established, and brought to such perfection -at Bath as rendered the city one of the most considerable in the west -of England for this manufacture.” Worcester cloth was so good that, by -a chapter of the Benedictine order held in 1422 at Westminster abbey, -it was forbidden to be worn by the monks and declared smart enough for -military men. Norwich also wove stuffs that were in demand for costly -household furniture; and Sir John Cobham, in 1394, bequeathed “a bed of -Norwich stuff embroidered with butterflies.” In one of the chapels at -Durham priory there were four blue cushions of Norwich work. Worsted, a -town in Norfolk, by a new method of its own for the carding of the wool -with combs of iron well heated, and then twisting the thread harder -than usual in the spinning, enabled our weavers to produce a woollen -stuff of a peculiar quality, to which the name itself of worsted was -immediately given. To such a high repute did the new web grow that -church vestments and domestic furniture of the choicest sorts were -made out of it. Exeter cathedral among its chasubles had several “de -nigro worsted” in cloth of gold. Vestments made of worsted, variously -spelt “worsett” and “woryst,” are enumerated in the fabric rolls of -York minster. Elizabeth de Bohun, in 1356, bequeathed to her daughter -the countess of Arundel “a bed of red worsted embroidered;” and Joane -lady Bergavenny leaves to John of Ormond “a bed of cloth of gold with -lebardes, with those cushions and tapettes of my best red worsted.” - -Irish cloth, white and red, in the reign of king John was much used in -England; and in the household expenses of Swinford, bishop of Hereford -in 1290, an item occurs of Irish cloth for lining. - -English weavers knew also how to work artificially designed and -well-figured webs. In the wardrobe accounts of Edward the second is -this item: “to a mercer of London for a green hanging of wool wove -with figures of kings and earls upon it, for the king’s service in -his hall on solemn feasts at London.” Such “salles,” as they were -called in France, and “hullings” or rather “hallings” the name they -went under here, were much valued abroad and in common use at home. -Under the head of “Salles d’Angleterre” among the articles of costly -furniture belonging to Charles the fifth of France, in 1364, one set -of hangings is thus entered: “une salle d’Angleterre vermeille brodée -d’azur, et est la bordeure à vignettes et le dedens de lyons, d’aigles -et de lyepars.” Here in England, Richard earl of Arundel in 1392 willed -to his dear wife “the hangings of the hall which was lately made in -London, of blue tapestry with red roses with the arms of my sons,” -etc.; and lady Bergavenny, after bequeathing her hullying of black, -red, and green to one friend, left to another her best stained “hall.” - -Flemish textiles, at least of the less ambitious kinds such as napery -and woollens, were much esteemed centuries ago; and our countryman -Matthew of Westminster says of Flanders that, made from the material -which we sent her, the wool, she sent us back precious garments. So -important was the supply of wool to the Flemings in the fourteenth -century that the check given to it by the wars between England and -France at that time led to a special treaty between Edward the third -and the burghers of the Flemish communes under the guidance of James -van Artevelde. - -Though industrious everywhere within her limits, some of the towns -of Flanders stood foremost for certain kinds of stuff, and Bruges -became in the latter end of the fifteenth century conspicuous for -its silken textiles. The satins of Bruges were used in England for -church garments. Haconbie church, in 1566, had “one white vestmente of -bridges satten repte in peces and a clothe made thereof to hange before -our pulpitt;” and in 1520 York cathedral had “a vestment of balkyn -(baudekin) with a crosse of green satten in bryges.” Her damasks silks -were equally in demand; and the specimens at South Kensington will -interest the student. Nos. 8318 and 8332 show the ability of the Bruges -loom; while the favourite pattern with the pomegranate in it betrays -the likings of the Spaniards, at that time the rulers of the country, -for this token of their renowned Isabella. No. 8319 is another sample -of Flemish weaving, rich in its gold and full of beauty in design. - -In her velvets Flanders had no need to fear a comparison with anything -of the kind that Italy ever threw off from her looms, whether at -Venice, Florence, or Genoa. Not to name others one example, with its -cloth of gold ground and its pattern in a dark blue deep-piled velvet, -is not surpassed in gorgeousness even by that splendid stuff from -Florence of which the Stonyhurst cope, just spoken of, was made. - -Block-printed linen toward the end of the fourteenth century was -another production of Flanders. Though existing examples to the eyes -of many may look poor or mean, yet to men like the cotton-printers -of Lancashire they will have a strong attraction; and to the scholar -they will be deeply interesting as suggestive of the art of printing. -Such specimens are rare, but it is likely that England can show in the -chapter library at Durham the earliest sample of the kind as yet known; -a fine sheet wrapped about the body of some old bishop found in a -grave opened by Mr. Raine in 1827, within the cathedral. Several pieces -of ancient silks and English embroidery were found at the same time. - -What Bruges was in silks and velvets, Yprès, in the sixteenth century, -became for linen; and for many years Flemish linens were in favourite -use throughout England. Hardly a church of any size, scarcely a -gentleman’s house in this country, but used a quantity of towels and -other napery that was made in Flanders, especially at Yprès. - -French silks, now in such extensive use, were not much cared for until -the end of the sixteenth century in France itself, and seldom heard -of abroad. The reader, then, must not be astonished at finding so -few examples of the French loom in any collection of ancient silken -textiles. - -In France, as in England, women in mediæval days, old and young, rich -and poor, while filling up their leisure hours in-doors used to work -on a small loom, weaving narrow webs, often of gold and diapered with -coloured silks. At South Kensington, nos. 1250, 7062, and 7064 are -examples of such French wrought stuffs belonging to the thirteenth -century. In damasks, the earliest French productions are of the -sixteenth century; and no. 8352 is a favourable example of what this -manufacture then was in France; everything later is of the type so -well known to everybody. In several of her textiles a leaning towards -classicism in design is discernible. - -Like Flanders, France knew how to weave fine linen which here in -England was much employed for ecclesiastical as well as household -purposes. Three new cloths of Rains (Rennes in Brittany) were, in 1327, -in use for the high altar in Exeter cathedral, and many altar cloths of -Paris linen. In the poem of the ‘Squire of low degree’ the lady is told - - Your blankettes shal be of fustyane, - Your shetes shal be of cloths of rayne; - -and, in 1434, lady Bergavenny devises in her will “two pair sheets of -Raynes, a pair of fustians,” etc. - -Cologne, the queen of the Rhine, became famous during the whole of -the fifteenth and part of the sixteenth century for a certain kind of -ecclesiastical textile which, from the very general use to which it has -been applied, we may call “orphrey web.” The productions of Cologne, -however, are every way far below in beauty the similar works of Italy. -Italian orphrey-webs are generally worked in gold or yellow silk upon -a crimson ground of silk. Florentine are often distinguished from the -Venetian by the introduction of white for the faces; those of Cologne -vary from both by introducing blue, while the material is almost always -poor and the weaving coarse. In England this orphrey web was in church -use and called, as we learn from the York “wills and testaments,” -“rebayn de Colayn.” - -The piece of German napery, no. 8317 (of the beginning of the fifteenth -century), will be to those curious about household linen an acceptable -specimen. - -If in some old inventory of church vestments we find an entry -mentioning a chasuble made of cloth of Cologne, we should understand it -to mean not a certain broad textile woven there, but merely a vestment -composed of several pieces of this kind of web sewed together; like the -frontal made of pieces of woven Venice orphreys, no. 8976. - - - - -CHAPTER VII. - - -The countries whence silks came to England are numerous; we find early -notices of Antioch, Tarsus, Alexandria, Damascus, Byzantium, Cyprus, -Trip or Tripoli, and Bagdad, and later of Venice, Genoa, and Lucca. To -fix the localities of others would be but guess work. - -At the beginning of the fourteenth century a silk called “_Acca_” -is occasionally mentioned: and, from the description, it must have -been a cloth of gold shot with coloured silk, figured with animals: -William de Clinton, earl of Huntingdon, gave to St. Alban’s monastery -a whole vestment of cloth of gold shot with sky-blue and called cloth -of Acca. It would look as if this stuff took its name from having been -brought to us through the port of Acre: and Macri, in his valuable -Hierolexicon, says that the name of the ancient Ptolemais in Syria was -so written. - -What in one age and at a particular place happened to be well made and -therefore was eagerly sought for, at a later period and in another -place was better wrought and at a lower price. Time, indeed, changed -the name of the market, but did not alter in any great degree either -the quality of the material or the style of the design wrought upon it. -Throughout the kingdom of the Byzantine Greeks the loom had to change -its gearing very little. The Saracenic loom, whether in Asia, Africa, -or Spain, was always Arabic, though Persia could not forget her old -traditions about the “hom” or tree of life, and cheetahs, and birds -of various sorts. With regard to the whole of Asia, its many peoples -from the earliest ages knew how not only to weave cloth of gold but -to figure it with birds and beasts. In later times, Marco Polo in the -thirteenth century found exactly the same kinds of textile known in the -days of Darius still everywhere, from the shores of the Mediterranean -to the far east. What he says of Bagdad he repeats in fewer words -about many other cities. In finding their way to England these fabrics -received, if not in all at least in most instances, the names of the -seaports in the Mediterranean where they had been shipped. - -For beautifully wrought and figured silk, one of the few terms that -still outlive the mediæval period is Damask. - -China, no doubt, was the first country to ornament its silken webs with -a pattern. India, Persia, and Syria, then Byzantine Greece, followed, -but at long intervals between, in China’s footsteps. Stuffs so figured -brought with them to the west the name “diaspron” or diaper, bestowed -upon them at Constantinople. But about the twelfth century the city of -Damascus, even then long celebrated for its looms, so far outstripped -all other places for beauty of design that her silken textiles were in -demand everywhere; and thus, as often happens, traders fastened the -name of Damascen or Damask upon every silken fabric richly wrought and -curiously designed, no matter whether it came or not from Damascus. At -last, samit, having long been the epithet betokening all that was rich -and good in silk, was forgotten, and diaper, from being the very word -significant of pattern, became a secondary term descriptive of merely a -part in the elaborate design on damask. - -Baudekin, that sort of costly cloth of gold spoken of so much during so -many years in English literature, took (as was said before) its famous -name from Bagdad. Many specimens of baudekin in the South Kensington -collection furnish proofs of the ancient weavers’ dexterity in their -management of the loom, and especially of the artists’ taste in setting -out their intricate and beautiful designs. An identification between -very many samples there brought together of ancient textiles in silk -and the descriptions of similar stuffs given us in those valuable -records, our old church inventories, might be carried on if necessary -to a very lengthened extent. - -Dorneck was the name given to an inferior kind of damask wrought of -silk, wool, linen thread and gold, in Flanders. This was manufactured -towards the end of the fifteenth century mostly at Tournay; which city -in Flemish was often called Dorneck--a word variously spelt as Darnec, -Darnak, Darnick, and sometimes even Darness. - -The guild of the blessed Virgin at Boston had a care cloth of “silke -dornex” and church furniture. The “care cloth” was a sort of canopy -held over the bride and bridegroom as they knelt for the nuptial -blessing, according to the Salisbury rite, at the marriage mass. At -Exeter dorneck was used in chasubles for orphreys. A specimen of -dorneck may be seen, no. 7058. It is several times mentioned in the -York fabric rolls. - -Buckram, so called from Bokkara where it was originally made, in the -middle ages was much esteemed for being costly and very fine; and -consequently fit for use in church vestments and for secular personal -wear. “Panus Tartaricus” or Tartary cloth is often spoken of. John -Grandison, bishop of Exeter in 1327, gave to his cathedral flags of -white and red buckram; and among the five very rich veils for covering -the moveable lectern in that church three were lined with blue -“bokeram.” As late as the beginning of the sixteenth century this stuff -was held good enough for lining to a black velvet gown for a queen, -Elizabeth of York. The coarse thick fabric which now goes by the name -is very different from the older production known as “bokeram.” - -Burdalisaunder, Bordalisaunder, Bourde de Elisandre, with other -varieties in spelling, is a term often to be met with in old wills and -church inventories. In the year 1327 Exeter had a chasuble of Bourde de -Elisandre of divers colours: and from the Yorkshire wills we find that -sometimes it was wide enough for half a piece to form the adornment of -a high altar. - -“Bord” in Arabic means a striped cloth; and we know, both from -travellers and the importation of the textile itself, that many tribes -in north and eastern Africa weave stuffs for personal wear of a pattern -consisting of white and black longitudinal stripes. St. Augustin, -living in north Africa near the modern Algiers, speaks of a stuff -for clothing called “burda” in the end of the fourth and beginning -of the fifth century. It is not impossible that the curtains for the -tabernacle as well as the girdles for Aaron and his sons, of fine -linen and violet and purple and scarlet twice dyed, were wrought with -this very pattern, so that in the “burd Alisaunder” we behold the -oldest known design for any textile. This stuff in the middle ages -was a silken web in different coloured stripes, and specimens also -may be found at South Kensington. Though made in many places round -the Mediterranean this silk took its name, at least in England, from -Alexandria. - -Fustian, of which we still have two forms in velveteen and corduroy, -was originally wove at Fustat on the Nile, with a warp of linen thread -and a woof of thick cotton, so twilled and cut that it showed on one -side a thick but low pile; and the web thus managed took its name of -Fustian from that Egyptian city. At what period it was invented we do -not rightly know, but we are well aware it must have been brought very -early to this country; for our countryman St. Stephen Harding, when a -Cistercian abbot and an old man about the year 1114, forbade chasubles -in his church to be made of anything but fustian or plain linen. The -austerity of his rule reached even the ornaments of the church. From -such a prohibition we are not to draw as a conclusion that fustian was -at the time a mean material; quite the contrary, although not splendid -it was a seemly textile. Years afterwards, in the fourteenth century, -Chaucer tells us of his knight:-- - - Of fustian he wered a gepon. - -In the fifteenth century Naples had a repute for weaving fustians; and -our English churchwardens, not being learned in geography or spelling, -made some odd mistakes in their accounts about this as about some other -continental stuffs: “Fuschan in appules” for fustian from Naples is -droll; yet droller still is “mustyrd devells,” for a cloth made in -France at a town called Mustrevilliers. - -Muslin, as it is now throughout the world so from the earliest -antiquity, has been everywhere in Asia in favourite use both as an -article of dress and as furniture. Its cloud-like thinness and its -lightness were not the only charms belonging to this stuff: it was -esteemed equally as much for the taste with which stripes of gold had -been woven in its warp. As we learn from the travels of Marco Polo, the -further all wayfarers in Asia wandered among eastern nations the higher -they found the point of excellence which had been reached in weaving -silk and gold into splendid fabrics. The silkworm lived and thrived -there and the cotton plant also was in its home, its birth-place, in -those regions. - -Like many cities of central Asia, Mosul had earned for itself a -reputation of old for the beauty of its gold-wrought silken textiles. -Cotton grew all around in plenty; the inhabitants, especially the -women, were gifted with such quick feeling of finger that they could -spin thread from this cotton of more than hair-like fineness. Cotton -with them took the place of silk in the loom; and gold was not -forgotten in the weaving. Their work, not only because it was so much -cheaper but from its own peculiar beauty and comeliness, won for itself -a high place in common estimation: and the name of the town where it -was wrought in such perfection was given to it as its distinctive name. -Hence, whether wove with or without gold, we call this cotton web -muslin, from the Asiatic city of Mosul. - -Cloth of Areste is another term for woven stuffs, to be found in our -old English deeds and inventories. The first time we meet it is in an -order given, 1244, by Henry the third for finding two cloths of Areste -with which two copes were to be made for royal chapels. Again it comes -a few years later at St. Paul’s, which cathedral A. D. 1295 had, besides -a dalmatic and tunicle of this silk “white silk of Areste diapered,” as -many as thirty and more hangings of the same texture. - -From the description of these pieces we gather that this so-called -cloth of Areste must have been both beautiful and rich, being for -the most part cloth of gold figured elaborately; some with lions and -double-headed eagles, others, for example, with the death and burial of -our Lord. - -We are not disposed to agree with the suggestion that this cloth was -a kind of arras. Arras had not won for itself a reputation for its -tapestry before the fourteenth century. Tapestry itself is too thick -and heavy for use in vestments; yet this cloth of Areste was light -enough for tunicles, and when worn out was sometimes condemned at St. -Paul’s to be put aside for lining other ritual garments. Among the -three meanings for the mediæval “Aresta” one is any kind of covering. -It seems, therefore, probable that these cloths of Areste took their -name not from the place where they had been woven, but from the use to -which they were generally put; namely, for hangings about churches. -Moreover, tapestry or Arras work, being thick and heavy, could never -have been employed for such light use as that of apparels nor would -it have been diapered like silk, yet we find “Areste” to have been so -fashioned and so used. - -Silks also were distinguished through their colours and shades of -colours: and the men who drew up the mediæval inventories seem to have -been gifted with a keen eye for varieties of shades and tints. For -instance, a chasuble at St. Paul’s is set down, late in the thirteenth -century, as made of samit dyed in a purple somewhat bordering on a -blood-red tone. Tarsus colour is often mentioned: and it was, probably, -some shade of purple. The people of Tarsus no doubt got from their -murex, a shell-fish of the class mollusca and purpurifera family to -be found on their coast, their dyeing matter; and when we remember -what changes are wrought in the animal itself by the food it eats, and -what strong effects are made by slight variations in climate, even -atmosphere, upon materials for colouring in the moment of application, -we may easily understand how the difference arose between the two tints -of purple. - -“Cloth of Tarsus” itself was of a rare and costly kind, of fine goats’ -hair and silk. The tint was some shade of royal purple. Chaucer tells -us that - - The great Emetrius, the king of Inde, - Upon a stede bay, trapped in stele, - Covered with cloth of gold diapred wele, - Came riding like the god of armes Mars. - His cote armure was of a cloth of Tars, - Couched with perles, etc. - -Other cities besides Tarsus gave their names to various shades of -purple; according as they were dyed at Antioch, Alexandria, or Naples. -Each place had a particular shade which distinguished it from the -others. It is not now possible to ascertain what were the exact -distinctions of tint. Sky-blue was a colour everywhere in church use -for certain festivals throughout England. In the early inventories the -name for that tint is “Indicus,” “Indus,” reminding us of our present -_indigo_. In later lists it is called “Blodius,” not sanguinary but -blue. Murrey, or a reddish brown, is also often specified. - -Silks woven of two colours, so that one of them showed itself unmixed -and quite distinct on one side, and the second appeared equally clear -on the other--a thing sometimes now looked upon as a wonder in modern -weaving--might occasionally be met with here at the mediæval period: -Exeter cathedral had, in 1327, a silk cloth “of red colour inside and -yellow outside.” At York, in 1543, there was “a vestment of changeable -silke,” “besides one of changeable taffety for Good Friday.” - -Marble silk had a weft of several colours so woven as to make the -whole web look like marble, stained with a variety of tints. There were -many such vestments in old St. Paul’s. During full three centuries -this marble silk found great favour among us; for Henry Machyn, in his -curious diary, tells us how “the old qwyne of Schottes rod thrught -London,” and how “then cam the lord tresorer with a C. gret horsse and -ther cotes of marbull,” etc., to meet her the 6th of November, 1551. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII. - - -We must now speak of embroidery. The art of working with the needle -flowers, fruits, human and animal forms, or any fanciful design, upon -webs woven of silk, linen, cotton, wool, hemp, besides other kinds of -stuff, is of the highest antiquity. - -Those patterns, after so many fashions, which we see figured upon the -garments worn by men and women on Egyptian and Assyrian monuments, but -especially on the burned-clay vases made and painted by the Greeks in -their earliest as well as in later times, or which we read about in the -writings of that people, were not wrought in the loom, but worked by -the needle. - -The old Egyptian loom--and that of the Jews must have been like -it--was, as we know from paintings, of the simplest shape, and seems to -have been able to do little more diversified in design than straight -lines in different colours; and at best nothing higher in execution -than checker-work: beyond this, all was put in by hand with the -needle. In Paris, at the Louvre, are several pieces of early Egyptian -webs coloured, drawings of which have been published by Sir Gardner -Wilkinson in his work ‘The Egyptians in the time of the Pharaohs.’ -There are two pieces wrought up and down with needlework; the second -piece of blue is figured all over in white embroidery with a pattern -of netting, the meshes of which shut in irregular cubic shapes, and -in the lines of the reticulation the mystic “fylfot” is seen. Sir -J. G. Wilkinson says of them: “They are mostly cotton, and, though -their date is uncertain, they suffice to show that the manufacture -was Egyptian; and the many dresses painted on the monuments of the -eighteenth dynasty show that the most varied patterns were used by the -Egyptians more than 3000 years ago, as they were at a later period by -the Babylonians, who became noted for their needlework.” - -It is clear from the book of Exodus that the Israelites from very early -times, having learnt the art in Egypt, embroidered their garments; -although the word “embroidery” which occurs so frequently in every -English version probably sometimes means merely weaving in stripes, and -not work with the needle. The embroidering also of the sails of vessels -was not uncommon in the east; boats used in sacred festivals on the -Nile were so decorated; and the prophet Ezekiel says to the people of -Tyre, “Fine linen with broidered work from Egypt, was that which thou -spreadest forth to be thy sail.” The reader will here also remember -Shakspeare’s description of the barge of Cleopatra; - - The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne - Burned on the water: - Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that - The winds were love-sick with them; she did lie - In her pavilion, cloth of gold, of tissue, etc. - -Pliny says that the Phrygians invented embroidery, and that garments -so ornamented were called Phrygionic. Of such a fashion were “the -art-wrought vests of splendid purple tint” brought forth by Dido, and -the cloak given by Andromache to Ascanius. Hence, an embroiderer was -called in Latin “Phrygio,” and needlework “Phrygium” or “Phrygian” -work. When the design, as often happened, was wrought in solid -gold wire or golden thread, the embroidery so worked was named -“auriphrygium.” From this term comes the old English word “orphrey.” - -While Phrygia in general, Babylon in particular (as Pliny also tells -us) became celebrated for the beauty of its embroideries. All who have -seen the sculptures in the British museum brought from Nineveh, and -described and figured by Layard, must have remarked how lavishly the -Assyrians adorned their robes with the needlework for which one of -their greatest cities was so famous. Up to the first century of our era -the reputation which Babylon had won for her textiles and needlework -still lived. We know from Josephus, who had often been to worship at -Jerusalem, that the veils of the Temple were Babylonian; and of the -outer one that writer says: “there was a veil of equal largeness with -the door. It was a Babylonian curtain, embroidered with blue and fine -linen, and scarlet and purple, and of a texture that was wonderful.” - -What the Jews did for the Temple we may be sure was done by Christians -for the Church. The faithful, however, went even further, and wore -garments figured all over with sacred subjects in embroidery. We learn -this from a stirring sermon preached by St. Asterius, bishop of Amasia -in Pontus, in the fourth century. Taking for his text “a certain rich -man who was clothed in purple and fine linen” he upbraids the world for -its follies in dress, and complains that some people went about arrayed -like painted walls, with beasts and flowers all over them; while -others, pretending a more serious tone of thought, dressed in clothes -depicting the doings and wonders of our Lord. “Strive,” St. Asterius -exhorts them, “to follow in your lives the teachings of the Gospel, -rather than have the miracles of our Redeemer embroidered upon your -outward dress.” To have had so many subjects shown upon one garment -it is clear that each must have been done very small, and wrought in -outline; a style which is being brought back, with great effect, into -modern ecclesiastical use. - -The discriminating accuracy with which our old writers noted the -several kinds of textile gifts bestowed upon a church is as instructive -as praiseworthy. Ingulph did not think it enough to say that abbot -Egelric had given many hangings to the church at Croyland, the great -number of which were silken, but he explains also that some were -ornamented with birds wrought in gold and sewed on; in fact, of -cut-work; others with those birds woven into the stuff; others quite -plain. We find the same care taken in old inventories. - -By the latter end of the thirteenth century embroidery obtained for -its several styles and various sorts of ornamentation a distinguishing -and technical nomenclature. One of the earliest documents in which -we meet with this set of terms is the inventory drawn up, in 1295, -of the vestments belonging to St. Paul’s cathedral, printed by -Dugdale: herein, the “opus plumarium,” the “opus pectineum,” the -“opus pulvinarium,” “consutum de serico,” “de serico consuto,” may be -severally found. - -“Opus plumarium” was the then usual term for what is now commonly -called embroidery; and was given to needlework of this kind because -the stitches were laid down longwise and not across: that is, so put -together that they seemed to overlap one another like the feathers in -the plumage of a bird. This style was aptly called “feather-stitch” -work, in contradistinction to that done in cross and tent stitch, or -the “cushion-style.” - -The “opus pulvinarium,” or “cushion-style,” was like the modern -so-called Berlin work. As now, so then it was done in the same -stitching with pretty much the same materials and generally, if not -always, put to the same purpose; for cushions, to sit or to kneel -upon in church or to uphold the mass-book at the altar; hence its -name of “cushion-style.” In working it silken thread is known to -have been often used. Among other specimens, and in silk, there is a -beautiful cushion of a date corresponding to the London inventory at -South Kensington, no. 1324. Being well adapted for working heraldry -this stitch has been used from an early period for the purpose; and -emblazoned orphreys, like the narrow hem on the Syon cope, were wrought -in it. - -The “opus pectineum” was a kind of woven work imitative of embroidery, -and employed to supply it. John Garland, in his dictionary, explains -that it was made by means of a comb, or some comb-like instrument: -and from this the work itself received the distinctive appellation -of “pectineum,” or comb-wrought. Before John Garland left England -for France, to teach a school there, he must have often seen his -countrywomen at such an occupation; and the amice given by Katherine -Lovell to St. Paul’s, “de opere pectineo,” may perhaps have been the -work of her own hands. - -Women in the middle ages were so ready at the needle that they could -make their embroidery look as if it had been done in the loom, really -woven. A shred of crimson cendal figured in gold and silver thread -with a knight on horseback, armed as of the latter time of Edward -the first, was shown to us some time ago. At first sight the mounted -warrior seemed to have been not hand-worked but woven; so flat, so even -was every thread. Looking at it however through a glass and turning it -about, we found it to have been embroidered by the finger in such a way -that the stitches laid down upon the surface were carried through into -the canvas lining at the back of the thin silk. In this same manner -all the design, both before and behind, upon the fine English-wrought -chasuble at South Kensington, no. 673, was probably worked. - -At the latter end of the thirteenth century our countrywomen invented -a new way of embroidery. Without giving up altogether the old “opus -plumarium” or feather-stitch, they mixed it with a new style, both of -needlework and mechanism. So beautiful was the novel method deemed -abroad that it won for itself the complimentary appellation of “opus -Anglicum,” or English work. In what its peculiarity consisted has long -been a question and a puzzle among foreign archæological writers; and -a living one of eminence, M. Voisin, noticing a cope of English work -given to the church of Tournai, says: “Il serait curieux de savoir -quelle broderie ou quel tissu on designait sous le nom de _opus -Anglicum_.” - -But if we examine that very fine piece of English needlework, the Syon -cope, at South Kensington, no. 9182, we find that the first stitches -for the human face were begun in the centre of the cheek, and worked -in circular lines; falling (after the further side had been made) -into straight lines, which were so carried on through the rest of the -fleshes; in some instances, also, through the draperies. But this -was done in a sort of chain-stitch, and a newly practised mechanical -appliance was brought into use. After the whole figure had thus been -wrought with this kind of chain-stitch in circles and straight lines, -then with a little thin iron rod ending in a small bulb or smooth knob -slightly heated, those middle spots in the faces that had been worked -in circular lines were pressed down; and the deep wide dimples in the -throat, especially of aged persons. By the hollows thus lastingly -sunk a play of light and shadow is brought out, which at a short -distance lends to the portion so treated the appearance of low relief. -Chain-stitch, then, worked in circular lines and relief given to parts -by hollows sunk into the faces and other portions of the persons, -constitute the elements of the “opus Anglicum,” or embroidery after the -English manner. How the chain-stitch was worked into circles for the -faces, and straight lines for the rest of the figures, is well shown by -a woodcut, after a portion of the Steeple Aston embroideries, given in -the archæological journal, vol iv. p. 285. - -Although not merely the faces and the extremities but the dresses also -of the persons figured were generally wrought in chain-stitch, and -afterwards treated as we have just described, another practice was to -work the draperies in feather-stitch, which was also employed for the -grounding, and diapered after a simple, zigzag design; as we find in -the Syon cope. - -[Illustration: Part of the orphrey of the Syon cope.] - -How highly English embroideries were at one period appreciated by -foreigners may be gathered from the especial notice taken of them -abroad; as we may find in continental documents. Matilda, queen of -William the conqueror, carried away from the abbey of Abingdon its -richest vestments, and would not be put off with inferior ones. In his -will A. D. 1360 cardinal Talairand, bishop of Albano, speaks of the -English embroideries on a costly set of white vestments. A bishop of -Tournai, in 1343, bequeathed to that cathedral an old English cope, -as well as a beautiful corporal “of English work.” Among the copes -reserved for prelates’ use in the chapel of Charles duke of Bourgogne, -brother-in-law to John duke of Bedford, there was one of English work -very elaborately fraught with many figures, as appears from this -description of it: “une chappe de brodeure d’or, façon d’Engleterre, -à plusieurs histoires de N.D. et anges et autres ymages, estans en -laceures escriptes, garnie d’un orfroir d’icelle façon fait à apostres, -desquelles les manteulx sont tous couvertes de perles, et leur -diadesmes pourphiler de perles, estans en manière de tabernacles, faits -de deux arbres, dont les tiges sont touts couvertes de perles, et à la -dite chappe y a une bille des dites armes, garnie de perles comme la -dessus dicte.” - -While so coveted abroad, our English embroidery was highly prized -and well paid for at home. We find in the Issue Rolls that Henry the -third had a chasuble embroidered by Mabilia of Bury St. Edmund’s; and -that Edward the second paid a hundred marks to Rose the wife of John -de Bureford, a citizen and mercer of London, for a choir-cope of her -embroidering, and which was to be sent to the Pope as an offering from -the queen. - -English embroidery afterwards lost its first high reputation. Through -those years wasted with the wars of the Roses the work of the English -needle was very poor, very coarse, and, so to say, ragged; as, for -instance, the chasuble at South Kensington, no. 4045. Nothing of the -celebrated chain-stitch with dimpled faces in the figures can be found -about it: every part is worked in the feather-stitch, slovenly put -down. During the early part of the seventeenth century our embroiderers -again struck out a new style, which consisted in throwing up the -figures a good height above the grounding. Of this raised work there -is a fine specimen in the fourth of the copes preserved in the chapter -library at Durham. It is said to have been wrought for and given by -Charles the first to that cathedral. This red silk vestment is well -sprinkled with bodiless cherubic heads crowned with rays and borne up -by wings; while upon the hood is David, holding in one hand the head -of Goliah; the whole done in highly raised embroidery. Bibles of the -large folio size, covered in rich silk or satin and embroidered with -the royal arms done in bold raised-work, are still to be found in our -libraries. More than one of these volumes is said to have been a gift -from the king to a forefather of the present owner. - -This style of raised embroidery remained in use for many years. Not -only large Bibles but smaller volumes, especially prayer-books, had -bindings enriched with it. Generally such examples are attributed, -and in most cases wrongly, to the so-called nuns of Little Gidding. -The same kind of work is sometimes found on the broad frames of old -looking-glasses: setting forth perhaps, as in the specimen no. 892, the -story of Ahasuerus and Esther, or a passage in some courtship carried -on after the manners of Arcadia. - -Few people at the present day have a just idea of the labour, the -money, and the length of time often bestowed of old upon embroideries, -which had been sketched as well as wrought by the hands of men, each -in his own craft the ablest and most cunning of his time. In behalf -of England plenty of evidence has been produced already: as a proof -of the same labour elsewhere a remarkable passage may be quoted, -given, in his life of Antonio Pollaiuolo, by Vasari: “For San Giovanni -in Florence there were made certain very rich vestments after the -design of this master, all of gold-wove velvet with pile upon pile -(di broccato riccio sopra riccio), each woven of one entire piece and -without seam, embroidered with the most subtile mastery of that art by -Paolo da Verona, a man most eminent of his calling, and of incomparable -ingenuity. This work took twenty-six years for its completion, being -wholly in close stitch (questi ricami fatti con punto serrato); but -the excellent method of which is now all but lost, the custom being -in these days to make the stitches much wider (il punteggiare piu -largo), whereby the work is rendered less durable and much less -pleasing to the eye.” These vestments may yet be seen framed and glazed -in presses around the sacristy of San Giovanni. Antonio died in 1498. -The magnificent cope before referred to, now at Stonyhurst, is of one -seamless piece of gorgeous gold tissue figured with bold wide-spreading -foliage in crimson velvet, pile upon pile, and dotted with small gold -spots; probably it came from the same loom that threw off these famous -San Giovanni vestments. - -[Illustration: Embroidered Saddle-cloth of the sixteenth century.] - - - - -CHAPTER IX. - - -The old English “opus consutum” or cut-work, called in French -“appliqué,” is a term of rather wide meaning, as it takes in several -sorts of decorative accompaniments to needlework. - -When anything--flower, fruit, or figure--is wrought by itself upon -a separate piece of silk or canvas and afterwards sewed on to the -vestment for church use, or article for domestic purpose, it comes to -be known as cut-work. This kind of work was employed for dresses and -vestments; but we find it most commonly on bed-curtains, hangings for -rooms and halls, and other items in household furniture. - -Of cut-work in embroidery those pieces of splendid Rhenish needlework -with the blazonment of Cleves, sewed upon a ground of crimson silk, -nos. 1194–5, at South Kensington, and the chasuble of crimson -double-pile velvet, no. 78, are good examples. In the last, the niches -in which the saints stand are loom-wrought, but those personages -themselves are exquisitely worked on separate pieces of fine canvas and -afterwards let into the unwoven spaces left open for them. A Florentine -piece of cut-work, no. 5788, is alike remarkable for its great beauty -and the skill shown in bringing together both weaving and embroidery. -Much of the architectural accessories is loom-wrought, while the -extremities of the evangelists are all done by the needle; but the -head, neck, and long beard are worked by themselves upon very fine -linen, and afterwards put together in such a way that the full white -beard overlaps the tunic. - -Other methods gave a quicker help in this cut-work. For the sake of -expedition all the figures were sometimes at once shaped out of woven -silk, satin, velvet, linen, or woollen cloth as wanted, and sewed upon -the grounding of the article: the features of the face and the contours -of the body were then wrought by the needle in very narrow lines done -in brown silk thread. At times, even this much of embroidery was set -aside for the painting brush, and instances are to be found in which -the spaces left uncovered by the loom for the heads and extremities -of the human figures are filled in with the brush. Sometimes, again, -the cut-work done in these ways is framed, as it were, with an edging, -either in plain or gilt leather, hempen, or silken cord, like the -leadings of a stained glass window. Perhaps in no collection open -anywhere to public view can a piece of cut-work be found so full of -teaching about the process of this easy way of execution as no. 1370 -at South Kensington: and we earnestly recommend the attention of our -readers to that example. - -For the invention of cut-work, or “di commesso” as Vasari calls -it, that writer tells us we are indebted to one of his Florentine -countrymen: “It was by Sandro Botticelli that the method of preparing -banners and standards in what is called cut-work was invented; and this -he did that the colours might not sink through, showing the tint of the -cloth on each side. The baldachino of Orsanmichele is by this master, -and is so treated, etc.” But Vasari is not correct: the piece just -spoken of, no. 1370, was made half a century before Botticelli was born. - -There are other accessories in mediæval embroidery which ought not to -be overlooked. - -In some few instances, gold and silver gilt star-like flowers are to -be found sewed upon the silks or amid the embroidery from Venice and -other provinces in Italy, and from southern Germany. Some fragments of -silk damask, no. 8612, are curious examples of Italian taste. These -at one time have been thickly strewed with trefoils cut out of gilt -metal but very thin, and not sewed but glued on to the silk: many of -the leaves have fallen off, and those remaining turned black. Precious -stones also, coral, and seed pearls were sewed upon textiles; and, not -uncommonly, small coloured beads and bugles of glass. Belonging to St. -Paul’s, in 1295, among many other amices there was one having glass -stones upon it, both large and small. - -Another form of glass fastened by heat to gold and copper, enamel, -was extensively employed as an adornment upon textiles. The gorgeous -“chesable of red cloth of gold with orphreys before and behind set with -pearls, blue, white, and red, with plates of gold enamelled, wanting -fifteen plates, etc.,” described in Dugdale’s Monasticon, and given -by John of Gaunt’s duchess to Lincoln cathedral, shows how this rich -ornamentation was applied to garments, especially for church use, in -very large quantities. - -In England the old custom was to sew a great deal of goldsmith’s work, -for enrichment, upon articles meant for personal wear. When our first -Edward’s grave in Westminster abbey was opened in 1774 there was seen -upon the body, besides other silken robes, a stole-like band of rich -white tissue about the neck and crossed upon the breast: it was studded -with gilt quatrefoils in filigree work and embroidered with pearls. -From the knees downwards the body was wrapped in a pall of cloth of -gold. Henry the third gave a frontal to the high altar in Westminster -abbey upon which, besides carbuncles in golden settings and several -large pieces of enamel, were as many as 866 smaller ones: perhaps the -“esmaux de plique” of the French. - -In the Norman-French silken stuffs thus ornamented were said to be -“batuz,” that is, beaten with hammered-up gold. The Treasury calendars, -edited by Palgrave, tell us that Richard the second gave to the chapel -in the castle of Haverford “ii rydell batuz;” two altar-curtains beaten -(probably with ornaments in gilt silver; like an amice so described -which belonged to St. Paul’s). For the secular employment of this same -sort of decoration we have several curious examples. Ladies’ dresses -were so adorned, as we may see in these verses: - - A coronell on hur hedd sett, - Hur clothys wyth bestes and byrdes wer bete, - All abowte for pryde. - -[Illustration: Ancient banner of the city of Strasburg: see next page.] - -King John in 1215 sent an order (extant in the Close rolls) to Reginald -de Cornhull and William Cook to have made for him, besides five -tunics, five banners with his arms upon them, well beaten in gold: -“bene auro batuatas.” A very remarkable example attributed to the -fourteenth century “the banner of Strasbourg” was preserved there until -very lately, when it was unhappily destroyed in the bombardment of that -city in 1870. - -Dugdale (in his Baronage) gives the original bill for fitting out one -of the ships in which Beauchamp earl of Warwick, during the reign of -Henry the sixth, went over to France. Among other items are these: -“Four hundred pencils (long narrow strips of silk, used as flags) beat -with the raggedstaff in silver; the other pavys (one of two shields -probably of wood, and fastened outside the ship at its bows) painted -with black, and a raggedstaff beat with silver occupying all the -field; one coat for my lord’s body, beat with fine gold; two coats for -heralds, beat with demi gold; a great streamer for a ship of forty -yeards in length and eight yeards in breadth, with a great bear and -griffin holding a raggedstaff poudred full of raggedstaffs; three -penons (small flags) of satten; sixteen standards of worsted entailed -with the bear and a chain.” The quatrefoils on the robe of Edward the -first, the silver lions on the Glastonbury cope, the beasts and birds -on the lady’s gown, the bear and griffin and raggedstaff belonging -to the Beauchamp’s blazoning, and all similar enrichments put upon -silken stuffs, were cut out of very thin plates of gold or silver, -so as to hang upon them lightly, and were hammered up to show in low -relief the fashion of the flower and the lineaments of the beast or -bird meant to be represented. Such a style of ornamentation in gold or -silver, stitched on silken stuffs, was far more common once than is now -thought. It had also a technical description: in speaking of it people -would either write or say, “silk beaten with gold or silver;” as, for -example, Barbara Mason used the term when in 1538 she bequeathed to a -church “a vestment of grene sylke betyn with goold.” - -Spangles, when they happened to be used, were not like those now -employed but fashioned after another and artistic shape, and put on in -a different manner. A fragment still exists from the chasuble belonging -to the set of vestments wrought, it is said, by Isabella of Spain -and her maids of honour; and used the first time high mass was sung -in Granada, after it had been taken by the Spaniards from the Moors. -Upon this are flowers, well thrown up in relief, done in spangles on a -crimson velvet ground. The spangles--some in gold, some in silver--are, -though small, of several sizes; all are voided; that is, hollow in the -middle; with the circumference not flat but convex, and are sewed on -like tiles, one overlapping the other, producing a rich and pleasing -effect. Our present spangles, in the flat shape, are quite modern. - -Another kind of embroidery for garments was in gold, worked sometimes -by itself, sometimes with coloured silk thread laid down alternately -beside it; so as to lend a tinge of green, crimson, pink, or blue to -the imagined tissue of the robe, as if it were made of a golden stuff -shot with another tint. - -This gold “passing” was sewn on. The workwomen taking thin silk, while -fastening the passing, dotted it all over in small stitches set exactly -in a way that showed the same pattern. With no other appliance they -were thus enabled to lend to their draperies the appearance of having -been not wrought by the needle but actually cut out of a piece of -textile; for which they have been sometimes mistaken. - -Anciently, also, in England another mode of embroidering articles, -either for church use or for household furniture, was by darning or -working the subject upon linen netting. This was called net-work, -filatorium, as we learn from the Exeter inventory, where we read that -its cathedral possessed in 1327 three pieces of it for use at the -altar: one in particular for throwing over the desk. These thread -embroideries were chiefly wrought during the fourteenth century; but as -early as 1295 St. Paul’s had a cushion of the kind. - -[Illustration: Embroidered hangings of a bed; from a MS. of the -fifteenth century, in the British museum.] - -Crochet, knitting done with linen thread, and the thick kinds of lace -wrought (chiefly in Flanders) upon the cushion with bobbins, were much -employed under the name of nun’s lace from the sixteenth century and -upwards, for bordering altar-cloths, albs, and every sort of towel -required for church purposes. - - - - -CHAPTER X. - - -Tapestry is neither real weaving nor true embroidery, but in a manner -unites in its working those two processes into one. Though wrought in -a loom and upon a warp stretched out along its frame, it has no woof -thrown across those threads with a shuttle or any like appliance but -its weft is done with many short threads, all variously coloured and -put in by a needle. It is not embroidery, though so very like it, for -tapestry is not worked upon what is really a web, having both warp and -woof, but upon a series of closely set fine strings. - -From the way in which tapestry is spoken of in Holy Writ we may be sure -that the art is very old; and if it did not take its first rise in -Egypt, we are led by the same authority to conclude that it soon became -successfully cultivated by the people of that land. The woman in the -book of Proverbs says: “I have woven my bed with cords. I have covered -it with painted tapestry, brought from Egypt.” We find, therefore, not -only that it was employed as an article of household furniture among -the Israelites, but that the Egyptians were the makers. - -From Egypt through western Asia the art of tapestry-making found its -way to Europe, and after many ages at last to England. Among the other -manual labours followed in religious houses this handicraft was one; -and monks became some of the best workmen. The altars and the walls of -their churches were hung with tapestry. Matthew Paris tells us that -among other ornaments which, in the reign of Henry the first, abbot -Geoffrey had made for his church of St. Alban’s were three reredoses; -the first a large one wrought with the finding of the body of St. -Alban; the other two figured with the parables of the man who fell -among thieves, and of the prodigal son. While in London in the year -1316 Simon abbot of Ramsey bought looms, staves, shuttles, and a slay: -“pro weblomes emptis xx^s. Et pro staves ad easdem vj^d. Item pro iiij -shittles pro eodem opere ij^s vj^d. Item in j. slay pro textoribus -viij^d.” Collier, in his history, quotes a letter from Giffard, one of -the commissioners for the suppression of the smaller houses, written -to Cromwell; in which he says, speaking of the monastery of Wolstrope -in Lincolnshire: “Not one religious person there but that he can and -doth use either imbrothering, writing books with very fair hand, making -their own garments, carving, painting, or graving, etc.” - -We may collect from Chaucer that working tapestry was not an uncommon -trade; among his pilgrims he mentions in the prologue, - - An haberdasher and a carpenter, - A webbe, a dyer, and a tapisser. - -Pieces of English-made tapestry still remain. That fine though greatly -damaged specimen at St. Mary’s hall, Coventry, representing the -marriage of Henry the sixth, is one; a second is the curious reredos -for an altar, belonging to the vintner’s company; this last is figured -with St. Martin on horseback cutting his cloak in two that he might -give one half to a poor man, and with St. Dunstan singing mass. A -third piece, of large size and in good preservation, is in private -possession, and hangs upon the wall in a house in Cornwall. It is one -of four pieces, of which two have been lost, representing the marriage -of Henry the seventh and Elizabeth of York; and was probably made about -the year 1490. - -The art of weaving tapestry was successfully followed in many parts of -France and throughout ancient Flanders; where secular trade-guilds -were formed for its especial manufacture in many of the towns. Several -of these places won for themselves an especial fame; but so far, at -last, did Arras outrun them all that arras-work came to be the common -word, both here and on the continent, to mean all sorts of tapestry, -whether wrought in England or abroad. Thus the fine hangings for the -choir of Canterbury cathedral, now at Aix-en-Provence, though probably -made at home by his own monks and given to that church by prior -Goldston in 1595, are spoken of as arras-work: “de arysse subtiliter -intextos.” - -[Illustration: Banner of the tapestry workers of Lyons.] - -Arras is but one among other terms by which, during the middle ages, -tapestry was called. Its earliest name was Saracenic work; “opus -Saracenicum;” and, at first, tapestry was wrought as in the east, in -a low or horizontal loom. The artisans of France and Flanders were -the first to introduce the upright or vertical frame, afterwards -known abroad as “de haute lisse,” in contradistinction to the low or -horizontal frame called “de basse lisse.” Workmen who kept to the -unimproved loom were known, in the trade, as Saracens, for retaining -the method of their paynim teachers; and their work, Saracenic. In -the year 1339 John de Croisettes, a Saracen-tapestry worker living -at Arras, sells to the duke of Touraine a piece of gold Saracenic -tapestry figured with the story of Charlemagne: “Jean de Croisettes, -tapissier Sarrazinois demeurant à Arras, vend au duc de Touraine un -tapis sarrazinois à or de l’histoire de Charlemaine.” The high frame, -however, soon superseded the low one; and among the pieces of tapestry -belonging to Philippe duke of Bourgogne and Brabant many are especially -entered as of the high frame; one of which is thus described: “ung -grant tapiz de haulte lice, sauz or, de l’istoire du duc Guillaume de -Normandie comment il conquist Engleterre.” A very fine example is still -to be seen in the collection at the Louvre, representing the history of -St. Martin. - -[Illustration: The legend of St. Martin.--From a piece of tapestry of -the fourteenth century in the Louvre.] - -With the upright, as with the flat frame, the workman had to grope in -the dark a great deal upon his path. In both, he was obliged to put -in the threads on the back or wrong side of the piece, following his -sketch as best he could behind the strings or warp. As the face was -downward in the flat frame it was much less easy to observe and correct -a fault. In the upright frame he might go in front, and with his own -work in open view on one hand and the original design full before him -on the other, he could mend as he went on, step by step, the smallest -mistake, were it but a single thread. Put side by side, when finished, -the pieces from the upright frame were in beauty and perfection far -beyond those from the flat one. We can scarcely particularize the -details in which that superiority consisted, for not one single flat -sample is to be identified as certain from evidence within our reach. -It is possible that at South Kensington the specimens nos. 1296 and -1465 are “Saracenic;” that is, wrought in the low flat loom, or “de -basse lisse;” but all the rest are of the “de haute lisse,” worked in -the upright frame. The “weaver” is among the trades engraved in the -curious volume printed at Frankfort in 1574, _de mechanicis artibus_, -with plates by Amman. - -When the illuminators of manuscripts began to put in golden shadings -all over their painting the tapestry-workers did the same. Such a -manner cannot be relied on as a criterion whereby to judge of the exact -place where any specimen of tapestry had been wrought, or to tell its -precise age. To work figures on a golden ground and to shade garments, -buildings, and landscapes with gold, are two different things. -Upon several pieces at South Kensington gold thread has been very -plentifully used, but the metal is of so debased a quality that it has -become almost black. - -The use of tapestry for church decoration and household furniture, both -in England and abroad, was for a long period very great. Many large -pieces, mostly of a scriptural character, were provided by cardinal -Wolsey for his palace at Hampton court. In the next generation, a very -famous set was made in Flanders, which for many years decorated the -walls of the House of Lords: it represented the defeat of the Spanish -Armada. This magnificent memorial was destroyed in the fire of 1834. -One fragment only is known to exist. This piece was cut out to make -way for a gallery at the time of the trial of queen Caroline, and was -secreted by a German servant of the Lord Chamberlain. The relic was -bought some years after for £20 and presented to the corporation of -Plymouth, who still possess it. - -[Illustration: The Weaver; from the engraving by J. Amman.] - -The most beautiful series now in the world is in the Vatican at Rome, -and may be judged of by looking at a few of the original cartoons (at -present in the S. K. museum). Duke Cosimo tried to set up tapestry work -at Florence but did not succeed. Later, Rome produced some good things; -among others, the fine copy of Da Vinci’s Last Supper still hung up on -Maunday Thursday. England made several attempts to re-introduce the -manufacture: first at Mortlake, then afterwards in London, at Soho. -Works from these two establishments may be met with. At Northumberland -house there was a room hung with large pieces of tapestry wrought at -Soho, and for that mansion, in the year 1758. The designs were by -Francesco Zuccherelli and consisted of landscapes composed of hills -crowned here and there with the standing ruins of temples or strewed -with broken columns, among which groups of country folks are wandering -and amusing themselves. Mortlake and Soho were failures. Not so the -Gobelins at Paris, as every one well knows. - -In many English houses, especially in the country, good samples of -late Flemish tapestry may be found. Close to London, Holland house -is adorned with some curious specimens, particularly in the raised -style. An earlier example (engraved on the next page) of the fifteenth -century, representing the marriage of Louis XII. and Anne of Brittany -is in a foreign collection. - -Imitated tapestry existed here long ago under the name of “stayned -cloth,” and the workers of it were embodied into a London guild. At the -beginning of the sixteenth century Exeter cathedral had several pieces -of old painted or “stayned” cloth: “i front stayned cum crucifixo, -Maria et Johanne, Petro et Paulo; viij panni linei stayned, etc.” The -great use at that time of such articles in household furniture may be -witnessed in the will, 1503, of Katherine lady Hastings who bequeaths, -besides several other such pieces, “an old hangin of counterfeit arres -of Knollys, which now hangeth in the hall and all such hangyings of -old bawdekyn, or lynen paynted as now hang in the chappell.” We may -also remember that Falstaff speaks of it as an illustration easily -understood; he says that his troops are “as ragged as Lazarus in the -painted cloth.” - -Carpets are akin to tapestry, and though the use of them may perhaps -be not so ancient yet is very old. Here, again, we must look to the -people of Asia for the finest as well as the earliest examples of -this textile. Mediæval specimens are rare anywhere, and we are glad to -recommend attention to two pieces of that period fortunately in the -collection at South Kensington, no. 8649, of the fourteenth century, -and no. 8357, of the sixteenth, both of Spanish make. - -[Illustration: Marriage of Louis XII. and Anne of Brittany.] - -The chambers of our royal palaces and the chancels of our parish -churches used to be strewed with rushes. When however they could afford -it the authorities of our cathedrals, even in very early times, spread -the sanctuary with carpets; and at last old tapestry came to be so -employed, as now in Italy. Among such coverings for the floor before -the altar Exeter had a large piece of Arras cloth figured with the life -of the duke of Burgundy, the gift of one of its bishops, Edmund Lacy, -in 1420; besides two large carpets, one bestowed by bishop Nevill in -1456, the other, of a chequered pattern, by lady Elizabeth Courtney: -“carpet et panni coram altari sternendi; i pannus de Arys de historia -ducis Burgundie; i larga carpeta, etc.” In an earlier inventory we -find that among the “bancaria” or bench-coverings in the choir of the -same cathedral, one was a large piece of English-made tapestry with a -fretted pattern. It is very probable that as the work of the Record -Commission goes on, and our ancient historians are printed, evidence -may be found that the looms at work in all our great monasteries among -other webs wrought carpets. From existing testimony we believe that -such must have been the practice at Croyland, where abbot Egelric (the -second of the name) gave to that church, before the year 992, “two -large foot-cloths [so carpets were then called] woven with lions to be -laid out before the high altar on great festivals, and two shorter ones -trailed all over with flowers, for the feast days of the apostles.” The -quantity of carpeting in our palaces may be seen by the way in which -Leland tells us that “my lady the queen’s rooms” were strewed with them -“when she took her chamber.” - - - - -CHAPTER XI. - - -The value of such a collection of textile fabrics as that at South -Kensington can scarcely be overrated. Without such aid it is not -possible for the painter or the historian to bring before his own mind, -much less bring before another’s, a true representation of ancient -ceremonies and pageants. Whether his subject be a coronation or a royal -marriage, a queen’s “taking her chamber,” a progress, or a funeral, -he cannot correctly set forth the splendour or the details of the -occasion, unless he can refer to existing examples of the cloths of -gold, the figured velvets, the rich embroidery, or the splendid silks, -which used to be worn of old. Take for example nos. 1310 and 8624. Upon -these are figured stags with tall branching horns, couchant, chained, -upturning their antlered heads to sunbeams darting down upon them amid -a shower of rain; and beneath the stags are eagles. This Sicilian -textile, woven about the end of the fourteenth century, brings to -one’s mind the bronze recumbent figure of a king in Westminster abbey. -It is that of Richard the second; made for him before his downfall, -and by two coppersmiths of London, Nicholas Broker and Godfrey Prest. -This effigy, once finely gilt, is as remarkable for its beautiful -workmanship as for the elaborate manner in which the cloak and kirtle -worn by the king are diapered all over with a pattern, copied from -the silken stuff out of which those garments must have been cut for -his personal wear while living. The pattern consists of a sprig of -the planta genesta, the humble broom plant--the haughty Plantagenet’s -device--along with a couchant hart chained and gazing straight -forwards, and above it a cloud with rays darting up from behind. These -were Richard’s favourite cognizances: the one from his grandfather -Edward the third; the other from his mother Joan of Kent. It is very -probable that the king’s dress was of the same kind of silk Sicilian -textile as the examples just referred to: and that those very examples -are portions of pieces wrought, perhaps at Palermo, for the court of -Richard. They are of the same date and they show his devices; the -chained hart and the sunbeams issuing from a cloud. - -The seemliness, not to say comfort, of private life was improved by -the use of textiles. Let the historian contrast the custom even in a -royal palace, during the middle ages, with that now followed in every -tradesman’s home. Then straw and rushes were strewed in houses upon the -floor in every room; and Wendover, in his life of St. Thomas, speaks of -the king’s courtiers platting knots with the litter, and flinging them -with a gibe at a man who had been slighted by the prince. Not quite -a hundred years later when Eleanor of Castile came to London for her -marriage with our first Edward she found her lodgings furnished, under -the directions of the Spanish courtiers who had arrived before her, -with hangings and curtains of silk around the walls, and carpets spread -upon the ground. This offended some of the people; more of them, as -Matthew Paris records, laughed at the thought that such costly things -were laid down to be walked upon. - -Take, again, the famous Syon cope. Not only is it full of interest to -writers upon liturgies and rituals but of even more to the herald and -genealogist. Covered as its orphreys are with armorial bearings, this -cope carries with it evidences as important and as valuable as any -contemporary roll of arms; and no inquirer into the pedigrees of the -ancient families of the Percies or Ferrers, of Cliffords or Botelers, -and of many others, can afford to neglect it. - -We have several records of evidence in courts of law taken from -heraldic embroideries upon robes and vestments. In the famous -controversy between the houses of Scrope and Grosvenor, in the -fourteenth century, inquiries were made and proofs were offered on both -sides as to the right of bearing upon their shields the bend _or_ upon -a field _azure_. Witnesses produced at Westminster corporas cases, -copes, and albs embroidered with the arms of Scrope. Chaucer was one of -the witnesses; and said he had seen those arms on banners and vestments -and commonly called the arms of Scrope. Again; the fact that in her -wardrobe was found a vestment embroidered with the royal arms was -brought forward to prove the charge of treason against the old countess -of Salisbury, the mother of cardinal Pole; and for which crime she was -condemned. - -Collections of ancient textiles are of still greater use to students -of ecclesiastical history and church rituals than even to the secular -historian. It is probable that the greater number of the specimens -which now exist formed originally portions of sacred vestments and -furniture for altars. Formerly so common, fragments even of such cloths -and robes have become of very great rarity, especially in England; -where for the last two or three centuries the use of the numerous old -church vestments and decorations has entirely ceased. - -Again, for example: the three cases nos. 5958, 8329, and 8327 are of -the kind known as the “capsella cum serico decenter ornata” of the -mediæval writers; small cases or boxes decently fitted up with silk; -or the “capsula corporalium,” the box in which were kept the corporals -or square pieces of fine linen, required for service during holy week. -The name as well as the use of this appliance is very old, and both are -spoken of in the very ancient ‘Ordines Romani’ edited by Mabillon. One -of these, in the rubric for Good Friday, speaks of the Host as having -been kept in the corporal’s case or box: “in capsula corporialium.” In -England, such small wooden boxes covered with silks and velvets richly -embroidered were once employed for the same purpose: and several are -mentioned in the Exeter inventories. - -The two pyx-cloths, nos. 8342 and 8691, have an especial interest for -the student of mediæval liturgy. There was a custom during the middle -ages in England, as well as in France and several other countries on -the continent, of keeping the Eucharist hung up over the high altar -beneath a canopy, within a pyx of gold, silver, ivory, or enamel, -mantled with a fine linen cloth or veil. This veil for the pyx was -sometimes embroidered with golden thread and coloured silks. Such an -one is mentioned in the records of the Exchequer, edited by Palgrave: -among the valuables belonging to Richard the second in Haverford castle -and sent by the sheriff of Hereford to the exchequer, at the beginning -of the reign of Henry the fourth, were “i coupe d’or pour le Corps Ihu -Cryst. i towayll ove (avec) i longe parure de mesure la suyte.” - -Several names were given to this fine linen covering. In the inventory -of things taken from Dr. Caius, and in the college of his own founding -at Cambridge, are “corporas clothes, with the pix and ‘sindon’ and -canopie.” This variety in nomenclature doubtless has led some writers -to state that before Mary queen of Scots laid her head upon the block -she had a “corporal,” strictly so called, bound over her eyes: as it is -given in one of our histories of England, “a handkerchief in which the -Eucharist had formerly been enclosed.” But this bandage must have been -the veil for a pyx. As Mary wrought much with her needle, and specimens -of her work yet remain at Chatsworth and at Greystock, this piece may -have been embroidered by her own hand and perhaps also had been once -used. - -One of these old English pyx or Corpus Christi cloths, was found a few -years ago at the bottom of a chest in Hessett church, Suffolk. As it -is a remarkable specimen of the ingenious handicraft of our mediæval -countrywomen it deserves description. To make this pyx-cloth a piece of -thick linen, about two feet square, was chosen, and being marked off -into small equal widths on all its four edges, the threads at every -other space were, both in the warp and woof, pulled out. The checquers -or squares so produced were then drawn in by threads tied on the under -side, having the shape of stars, so well and delicately worked that, -till it had been narrowly looked into, the piece was thought to be -guipure lace. An old alb, no. 8710, and an amice, 8307, having the -apparels yet remaining upon both, are well worth attention on account -of somewhat similar curious ornamental needlework in an intricate -manner. In the middle ages in England it was not unusual to suspend -upon pastoral staffs, just below the crook, a piece of fine linen. We -see them represented on effigies and in illuminations; but existing -examples are of the utmost rarity. Two are at South Kensington: nos. -8279 A, and 8662. - -There are also there several specimens of the christening cloaks, -anciently in use. These were not only conspicuous in royal christenings -but, varying in costliness according to the parent’s rank, were handed -down in inventories and wills. At the christening of Arthur prince of -Wales, eldest son of Henry the eighth, “my lady Cecill, the queen’s -eldest sister, bare the prince wrapped in a mantell of cremesyn clothe -of golde furred with ermyn,” etc. Shakespeare makes the shepherd, in -the Winter’s tale, cry out, “Here’s a sight for thee; look thee, a -bearing cloth for a squire’s child!” A well-to-do tradesman, whose will -is printed among the Bury wills, bequeathed in 1648 to his daughter -Rose his “beareing cloath, such ... linnen as is belonginge to infants -at their tyme of baptisme.” - -Small square pieces of embroidered linen are sometimes found in country -houses in some old chest, of which the original use is said not to be -now known. But in most cases these were made for children’s quilts; and -very often have the emblems of the evangelists figured at the corners: -reminding us of the nursery rhyme, once common both in England and -abroad-- - - “Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, - Bless the bed that I lie on.” - -The quilts also for grown people were ornamented in the same way. At -Durham, in 1446, in the dormitory of the priory was a quilt “cum iiij -or evangelistis in corneriis.” - -Very few examples now exist of the ceremonial shoe anciently worn by -bishops. These were of velvet, or damask, or strong linen embroidered. -One is preserved at South Kensington, no. 1290: another, once worn by -Waynflete bishop of Winchester, is still at Magdalen college, Oxford. -We learn from the York wills that these shoes were a part of the -episcopal vestments: bishop Pudsey left his mitre, staff, and sandals, -“et cætera episcopalia” to Durham cathedral in 1195. Later the name of -“sabatines” was given them; and archbishop Bowet’s inventory mentions -two pairs: “pro j pare de sabbatones, brouddird et couch’ cum perell’; -pro j pare de sabbatones de albo panno auri.” - -Collections of textile fabrics are of the highest value to the -artist. There is none, anywhere, so rich or complete as that at South -Kensington; and before it was purchased for public use, painters were -glad to refer to any scanty collection in private hands, or to old -pictures or illuminated manuscripts, or engravings. - -But, now, artists may see pieces of the actual stuffs represented in -the pictures, say, of the national Gallery. For example: in Orcagna’s -coronation of the blessed Virgin the blue silk diapered in gold, with -flowers and birds, hung as a back ground; our Lord’s white tunic -diapered in gold with foliage; the mantle of His mother made of the -same stuff; St. Stephen’s dalmatic of green samit, diapered with -golden foliage, are Sicilian in design and copied from the rich silks -which came, in the middle of the fourteenth century, from the looms -of Palermo. While standing before Jacopo di Casentino’s St. John our -eye is drawn to the orphrey on that evangelist’s chasuble embroidered, -after the Tuscan style, with barbed quatrefoils, shutting in the -busts of apostles. Isotta da Ramini, in her portrait by Pietro della -Francesca, wears a gown made of velvet and gold like the cut velvets at -South Kensington. - -So, again, instead of copying patterns taken from the rich cloth of -gold worn by St. Laurence in Francia’s picture, or from the mantle of -the doge in that by Cappaccio, or from the foot-cloths on the steps -in the pictures by Melozzo da Forli, he may find for his authorities -in the same collection existing specimens of contemporary and similar -fabrics. - -Not merely artists of a higher class but decorators also may be equally -benefited by the patterns and examples preserved of old wall-hangings -and tapestry. From early times up to the middle of the sixteenth -century our cathedrals and parish churches, our castles and manorial -houses, in short the dwellings of the wealthy everywhere, used to be -ornamented with wall-painting done not in “fresco” but in “secco;” -that is, distemper. Upon high festivals the walls of the churches were -overspread with tapestry and needlework; so, too, those in the halls of -palaces, for some solemn ceremonial. - -Warton, in his history of English poetry, gives a passage from -Bradshaw’s life of St. Werburgh written late in the sixteenth century, -from which a few lines are well worth quotation. He is describing how a -large hall was arrayed for a great feast: - - All herbes and flowers, fragraunt, fayre and swete - Were strawed in halles, and layd under theyr fete. - Clothes of gold and arras were hanged in the hall - Depaynted with pyctures and hystoryes manyfolde, - Well wroughte and craftely. - -The story of Adam, Noe, and his shyppe; the twelve sones of Jacob; the -ten plagues of Egypt, and-- - - Duke Josue was joyned after them in pycture, - - * * * * * - - Theyr noble actes and tryumphes marcyall - Freshly were browdred in these clothes royall - - * * * * * - - But over the hye desse in pryncypall place - Where the sayd thre kynges sat crowned all - The best hallynge hanged as reason was, - Whereon were wrought the ix orders angelicall, - Dyvyded in thre ierarchyses, not cessing to call, - _Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus_, blessed be the Trynite, - _Dominus Deus Sabaoth_, thre persons in one deyte. - -Specimens of tapestry of the later mediæval period may not uncommonly -be found: but not so pieces of room hangings, “hallings,” such as those -at South Kensington, nos. 1370, 1297, and 1465. Similar examples are, -we believe, unknown. - -We will add a few words only on one other, and that not a trivial, -part of ancient dress; namely, gloves. Formerly these were much more -ornamented than now; and, when meant for ladies’ wear, sometimes -perfume was bestowed upon them. Among the new year’s day presents -to queen Mary, before she came to the throne, was “a payr of gloves -embrawret with gold.” A year afterwards “x payr of Spanyneshe gloves -from a duches in Spayne” came to her; and but a month before, -Mrs. Whellers had sent to her highness “a pair of swete gloves.” -Shakespeare, true to the manners of his day, after making Autolycus -chant the praises of his - - Lawn as white as driven snow; - Cyprus, black as e’er was crow; - Gloves, as sweet as damask roses; - -puts this into the mouth of the shepherdess: “Come, you promised me a -tawdry lace, and a pair of sweet gloves.” We may find a pair of such -gloves in the South Kensington collection, no. 4665. - -It may be proper to add, in conclusion, that the greater part of the -very valuable and extensive collection of mediæval textile fabrics at -South Kensington was collected by Dr. Bock, a canon of Aix la Chapelle; -and purchased from him about the year 1864. - -[Illustration: State gloves formerly belonging to Louis XIII.] - - - - -INDEX. - - - PAGE - Acca, silks, 70 - - Amasis, his linen corslet, 5 - - Anne of Cleves, her pall of cloth of gold, 41 - - Areste, cloth of, 74 - - „ not Arras, 75 - - Aristotle first mentions silk, 8 - - Arras, a name for tapestry, 97 - - Aurelian, refuses his wife a silk robe, 9 - - - Babylon, embroideries, 79 - - Baldachino, from baudekin, 42 - - Banner of Strasburg, 92 - - „ at Lyons, 97 - - Bath, famous for weaving, 65 - - Baudekin, a costly stuff, 40 - - „ origin of name, 40 - - “Batuz,” its meaning, 90 - - Block-printed linens, 67 - - Blodbendes, 11 - - Blodius, blue colour, 76 - - Boadicea, her cloak, 3 - - Bordalisaunder, explained, 72 - - British bards, distinction of dress, 3 - - Bruges, her looms famous, 67 - - Buckram, why so called, 72 - - Byzantine textiles, 50 - - „ not good examples at South Kensington, 50 - - - Cadas, or carduus, a silken stuff, 30 - - Camoca, or camak, how used, 30 - - Canvas, origin of name, 4 - - Care-cloth, explained, 72 - - Carpets, 101 - - Cecily, Saint, her robe, 16 - - Cendal explained, 27 - - Chasubles of stauracin, 37 - - „ not to be made of fustian, 73 - - Childeric, his burial garment, 16 - - Chinese textiles, 49 - - „ patterned silks, 71 - - Chrysoclavus explained, 35 - - Ciclatoun, 18 - - Cingula, explained, 12 - - Cloaks for christenings, 108 - - Cloth of gold, two kinds, 19 - - „ “stayned”, 101 - - Cloths of estate, 42 - - Copper used to imitate gold thread, 21 - - Cotton, native home, 3 - - “Colayn” ribbon, 69 - - Cologne orphrey webs, 69 - - Colours of silks, mediæval, 75 - - Corporal, said to be used by Mary of Scotland, 107 - - Crochet, or “nun’s lace”, 94 - - Cyclas, a splendid garment, 27 - - - Dalmatic of Charlemagne at Rome, 38 - - „ Byzantine, 50 - - Darius, his dress described, 15 - - Damasks, French, 68 - - „ why so named, 71 - - “De fundato,” a pattern on silk, 38 - - Diaper, a silk, 32 - - „ possible origin of name, 32 - - „ the meaning extended, 33 - - Dorneck, explained, 72 - - Durham cathedral, vestments, 25, 28 - - - Eastern princes, insignia on their robes, 45 - - Eagle and other birds, woven on standards, 47 - - Edward the first, his gift of “cyclases”, 27 - - Episcopal shoes, 109 - - Egyptian work of the loom, 5 - - „ silver and gold wire, 22 - - „ loom, 79 - - Embroidery, 79 - - „ covering ancient dresses, 80 - - „ raised on book covers, 86 - - „ involved great labour, 86 - - English textiles, 64 - - Exeter cathedral, vestments, 25, 28, 29, 31, 33, 46, - 48, 58, 63, 65, 73 - - Eylesham, famous for linen, 64 - - - “Filatorium,” its meaning, 93 - - Filfot, explained, 38 - - Flax, grows wild in Britain, 4 - - „ earliest history, 4 - - Flemish textiles, 66 - - Florence, her silks and velvets, 63 - - „ specimens at South Kensington, 63 - - „ cut-work, 88 - - French silks, 68 - - Frontal, at Westminster, 90 - - Fustian, known in 13th century, 31 - - „ originally from Egypt, 73 - - „ woven at Naples, 74 - - Fygury, silks so called, 34 - - - Gammadion, explained, 36 - - Garland, an Englishman, 11 - - Gems, etc., sewn on textiles, 89 - - Genoa, her silks, 59 - - „ specimens at South Kensington, 60 - - Gilding, used for textiles, 21 - - Gloves, embroidered, 111 - - Gold, used in weaving, 15 - - „ cloths made of gold alone, 16, 17 - - „ see “copper” - - Greek monks, first bring silkworms, 9 - - - Haconbie church vestments, 67 - - Hebrew word used improperly for silk, 7 - - „ embroidery, 79 - - Heliogabalus, first wore whole-silk, 9 - - Hemp, native home, 3 - - Heraldic charges on Sicilian silk, 56 - - Herod, his dress of woven silver, 22 - - Holosericum, explained, 24 - - Honorius, his wife’s robe, 16 - - Hullings, _i.e._ hangings, 46, 66 - - - Imperial, a rich silk, 39 - - „ meaning of the name, 40 - - Indian, ancient splendour of dress, 15 - - „ textiles, 50 - - Italy, northern, mediæval silks, 58 - - Irish cloth, in King John’s time, 66 - - - King Henry the third orders cloth of Areste, 74 - - „ Edward the second orders English embroidery, 85 - - „ Richard the second, gifts to Haverford castle, 90 - - - Lama d’oro of Italy, 15 - - Letters woven on textiles, an ancient practice, 47 - - Liber pontificalis, a valuable book, 35 - - Lincoln cathedral, vestments, 23 - - Looms, upright and horizontal, 64 - - Lucca, her silks, 58 - - „ cloths of gold, 58 - - „ specimens at South Kensington, 59 - - - “Marble” silk, 76 - - Milan, her textiles, 63 - - Moresco-Spanish textiles, 53 - - Mortuary palls, 43 - - Mummy cloths, 5 - - „ unmixed linen, 6 - - Muslin, long used in the east, 74 - - Muslin, origin of name, 74 - - - Neckham, first describes the silkworm, 13 - - “Network” on linen, 93 - - Nuns, anciently, exhorted not to weave coloured robes, 11 - - „ English, employed in weaving, 64 - - - “Opus” plumarium, 81 - - „ pectineum, 81 - - „ Anglicum, 82 - - „ consutum, 88 - - „ „ good example at South Kensington, 89 - - Organzine, explained, 26 - - - Palls, of rich stuffs, 41 - - „ cloth of, 42 - - Paul’s (St.) cathedral, vestments, 25, 39, 45, 50, 60, 65, 75 - - Paper, employed by Japanese for clothing, 1 - - “Passing” for embroidery, 93 - - Persian textiles, 49 - - “Phrygian” work, 79 - - Plaited woollen stuff among the Britons, 2 - - Polystauron, why so called, 36 - - Pyx cloths, at South Kensington, 107 - - „ curious example, 108 - - - Queen Matilda takes the Abingdon vestments, 83 - - Quilts for children, 108 - - - Rayns (Rennes) cloths, 68 - - Rhenish cut-work, 88 - - - Samit, 10, 19 - - „ explained, 24 - - Sandal, explained, 27 - - „ of bishops, 109 - - Saracenic textiles, 46, 58, 99 - - Sarcenet, explained, 28 - - Satin, not unknown in middle ages, 29 - - „ early names, 29 - - Sicilian textiles, 54 - - „ three styles, 54 - - Silk, 8 - - „ unknown in ancient Egypt, 8 - - „ in South Italy, 11th century, 10 - - Silk, its use at first condemned for garments at Rome, 8 - - Silver, woven into webs, 21 - - Skins, employed for clothing, 1 - - Snood, of the Anglo-saxons, 12 - - Spangles, how anciently used, 92 - - Spindle tree, 2 - - Spinning, ancient daily work of women, 2 - - Stauracin, origin of name, 36 - - Stragulatæ, explained, 39 - - Street hangings, 43 - - Subsericum, explained, 25 - - Syndon, explained, 28 - - Syon Cope, peculiar work, 83 - - „ its historical value, 105 - - Syrian textiles, 52 - - - Taffeta, explained, 28 - - Tapestry, 95 - - „ Egyptian and Jewish, 95 - - „ English at Coventry and in Cornwall, 96 - - „ two kinds of frame, 97 - - „ of the Spanish armada, 100 - - „ imitated, 101 - - Tars, cloth of, probably cashmere, 31 - - „ „ 76 - - Textile, meaning of the term, 1 - - „ the value of collections, 104, &c. - - Tiraz, of an Arab palace, 45 - - Tissue, 20 - - Translucent silk, used in MSS., 8 - - Thread, gold, varieties of quality, 23 - - Tram, explained, 26 - - - U, the letter, used in Italian silks, 56 - - - Velvet, its history obscure, 31 - - „ vestments, first mentioned in England, 31 - - „ origin of the name, 31 - - „ varieties of weaving, 32 - - „ a peculiar ornament, 63 - - „ of Flanders, 67 - - Venetian textiles, 60 - - „ characteristics, 62 - - „ linens, 62 - - - Warwick, earl, his banners of satin, 29 - - „ and dresses, 92 - - Westminster copes, preserved at Stonyhurst, 63 - - Wire, gold and silver, for weaving, 22 - - „ machine for drawing first used, 23 - - Worcester, famous for cloths, 65 - - Worms, (silkworms) first brought to Europe, 9 - - Worsted, in Norfolk, a new method of carding wool there, 65 - - - York cathedral vestments, 67, 72 - - „ Princess Elizabeth of, her velvet gown, 72 - - Yprès, not origin of name of diaper, 33 - - „ linens, 68 - - - - -SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM ART HANDBOOKS. - -EDITED BY WILLIAM MASKELL. - - - 1. TEXTILE FABRICS. By the Very Rev. DANIEL ROCK, D.D. With - numerous Woodcuts. - - 2. IVORIES, ANCIENT AND MEDIÆVAL. By WILLIAM MASKELL. With - numerous Woodcuts. - - 3. ANCIENT AND MODERN FURNITURE AND WOODWORK. By JOHN HUNGERFORD - POLLEN. With numerous Woodcuts. - - 4. MAIOLICA. By C. DRURY E. FORTNUM, F.S.A. With numerous - Woodcuts. - - 5. MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. By CARL ENGEL. With numerous Woodcuts. - - - PRINTED BY TAYLOR AND CO., - LITTLE QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS. - - - - -Transcriber’s Notes - - -Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a -predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they -were not changed. - -Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation -marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left -unbalanced. - -The index was not fully checked for proper alphabetization or correct -page references. - -In the List of Woodcuts, the reference to the illustration on page 94 -was added by the Transcriber. - -Page 19: “ř” represents an “r” with a tilde “~”; “š” represents an “s” -with a tilde “~”. - -Pages 19 and 96: Letters preceded by “^” are superscripts. - -Pages 36, 37, 38: the illustrations on these pages are multi-part -symbols. In the original book, they were printed in-line with the -surrounding text, but in this eBook, they are shown on lines of their -own. - -Page 110: “Isotta da Ramini, in her portrait by Pietro della Francesca” -was printed that way, as was “Cappaccio”. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Textile Fabrics, by Daniel Rock - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TEXTILE FABRICS *** - -***** This file should be named 60015-0.txt or 60015-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/0/0/1/60015/ - -Produced by Susan Skinner, Charlie Howard, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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