I have elsewhere spoken of the "cloud pattern," which is very ancient, Chinese, Indian, and mediaeval. Its use has always been for celestial subjects in embroidery, either isolating or supporting spiritual figures. This was appropriated by ecclesiastical art, and we find it nowhere else in Europe.

This sketch of the history of ecclesiastical needlework, (necessarily incomplete from want of space), is founded on the works of Semper, Bock, Rock, and the comparison of many specimens in collections and exhibitions in London and elsewhere. Auberville absolutely places before us the materials as well as the patterns of the weaving of the Christian era, as well as fragments of Egyptian textiles, in his beautiful book on Tissues.

For forms and patterns we cannot do better than study Bock's liturgical chapters and their illustrations, as well as Dr. Rock's "Church of our Fathers."

The stitchery of Christian art has been discussed in the chapter on stitches, and I repeat that there is nothing new in the treatment of solid embroideries, (lace stitches having been the only innovation of the last 400 years), though many of the ancient stitches have lost their distinctiveness, and fallen into a pitiful style by gradual descent which reached its lowest point in the early part of this century, as is shown by the robes embroidered for the coronation of Charles X. in the museum of the Louvre.

In the commencement of this our nineteenth century, there was a total cessation of embroidery, which had, for nearly 2000 years held its own as an art, apart from all others; perhaps a secondary one—yet mixed up with every refinement and luxury of civilization.

Its revival in England, especially, is owing to many causes. As ecclesiastical decoration I have already attributed it to the archaeological tendencies of our day, as well as to the aesthetic sentiment which protests, after so long a period of abstention, against the puritanical bareness and coldness of our national forms of worship. The obliteration of embroidery from the list of the arts was more complete in England than elsewhere; as the church of Rome still continued to be adorned with beautiful work on altar-cloths and frontals, and priest's dresses, which, though too much regulated in design by the lay tastes and fashions of the time, have combined to keep up a traditional school of needlework throughout the Continent.

Exhibitions abroad and at home have shown us what a latent power in art embroidery still preserves, and architects have employed the women's needles to give colour and beauty to the decaying churches, which have been restored to their original architectural effects by careful copies of what remained in wood, stone, and glass.

The number of new churches has also given rise to the production, in more than one semi-conventual establishment, of beautiful and effective works, such as the altar-cloth at Durham, and those at Canterbury and Worcester. Such works have revived the impulse of artistic and ecclesiastical taste, and in many small churches we have seen beautifully embroidered altar decorations.[546]

There are, however, many amateurs who are perhaps mistresses of the craft of needlework, and who are yet not educated sufficiently to design a really thoughtful and beautiful work of art, and to these a few remarks may be addressed, which may help the struggling aspirants, and show them how they fail, and where to seek for assistance.

I shall begin by pleading for more careful design, and less parsimony in expenditure upon the usual church adornments. It is once more a received dogma in ecclesiastical art, one in which all religious opinions agree, that the building in the parish which is set apart for the first public duty, that of worship, should show as much beauty as the means and taste of the community can command.

Perhaps the little church has just been restored, or completely rebuilt from the foundations; the consecration is imminent. The white stone, carved or plain, shines fresh and cold, and the whole space looks poor and bare.

The rich woman of the neighbourhood sees and feels that colour is wanting (for the windows must wait till their use as pious memorials fills them with glowing tints). The central point of the whole edifice, the altar, calls for the first key-note in colour to be struck, and a splendid altar-cloth is the fitting instrument.

She consults the architect, who probably is also an artist, and the design is agreed upon, and hurriedly drawn and carried out; for there is not a moment to lose if it is to be ready for the opening day. It may be beautiful, and it sometimes is so, but the mere want of time for due consideration often results in the commonplace ornamentation, which neither satisfies the eye nor the mind. It is often only a mere bit of colour and a mediaeval pattern, and has no apparent motive or meaning to give it value.

One sometimes finds that a conventional form has been selected, of which the emblematic intention it originally expressed has been forgotten or overlooked. Therefore, while to the unlearned it conveys no meaning, it is read as absolute nonsense by the ecclesiastical archaeologist, simply because it is worked in a language of undeciphered hieroglyphics—unknown to the worker—meaningless, reminding us of the Graeco-Egyptian inscriptions, of which the pictured words seem to have been copied at random for their prettiness, or the Arabian lettering on some of the ancient Sicilian textiles, which is nonsense. The sense and the emblematic meaning are forgotten, and the conventional form—an empty shell—is alone retained, conveying no idea, and reduced to the low purpose of being a pretty pattern, vague and unintelligent.

I have so often said that a pattern always originally possessed, and should always retain a meaning, that I fear to become tiresome; but I repeat it here, as in ecclesiastical design it is more important than elsewhere; the meanings are deeper, and convey more essentially solemn traditions and allusions. If the motive of the designer is evident, and is conscientiously worked out, its value receives an enduring quality, and its present interest is enhanced.

Embroidery is not less eloquent than her sister-arts in the teaching of divine lessons, and appealing through the beauty of form and colour to the poetical instincts of the congregation, of which the least educated members almost unconsciously feel the influence; and besides, the people are always alive to the charms of symbolism, when it is placed within their reach. As a proof of this, among our own peasantry and mechanics, I would point to their universal enjoyment of the "Pilgrim's Progress."

In the symbolism of art, the thoughts which are individual to the artist can only be expressed by known forms and colours, even as the poet must employ the words and the metres already accepted by the literature of his language.

Hurry is fatal to art. But another and very serious cause of its deterioration is its costliness.

In the dark and mediaeval ages, time was of no account. Skilled labour, such as was needed for carving, illuminations, and embroideries, was freely given as the duty of a life, for one particular object, the good of a man's soul. The cloistered men and women worked for no wages; neither to benefit themselves nor their descendants; hardly for fame,—that was given to the convent which had the credit of patronizing and producing art,[547] while the very name of the artist was forgotten.

It was from pure love of the art as a craft, and the belief that it was a good work in which they were engaged, and from their abundant leisure, that they were enabled to evolve the lovely creations which delight and astonish us when shown in the sacristies and treasuries of foreign religious houses and churches, where they have been cherished for centuries. Like the silkworm they spent themselves; and by their industrious lives were surrounded in their living graves by the elaborated essence of their own natures, a joy and consolation to themselves, and a legacy to all time. To them, also, art appeared as the consoler.

But to return to the grievances of to-day—cheapness and hurry, economy of pence and hours—these often are the bane of the work which we give to the Church, sometimes as a memorial, sometimes as a thank-offering. The colours are bad, because cheap dyes fade, and none others can be had without much trouble, and we have only time to select among those that are for sale. The work is poor because it must be done quickly, and we cannot afford to delay and pay for the extra hours necessary to make the stitches worthy and capable of lasting. Possibly we cannot give the time ourselves, nor can find any one effectually to organize and overlook the work.

Though the design, the motive, the colours and materials, as well as the stitches, need to be each carefully studied, yet we perhaps accept an ancient drawing intended for a different place and use; and thus we fail to produce any effect, with uncongenial surroundings. Sometimes we feel obliged to take the design forced upon us by a shopwoman as ignorant as ourselves, with the submissive hope "that it will do."

Now to a truly artistic mind it would appear that each little church, however simple and devoid of ornament, requires its own special colours and design, besides the individual motive of the giver; and people forget that the whole effect in any such compositions must be comprehensive, and that one careless mistake spoils all.

The High Church, in its love of ritualistic vestments, has sometimes been prejudicial to the general adoption of properly studied altar decorations; as there is a common suspicion that a clergyman's personal wish for ornament, akin to a woman's addiction to fine clothes, governs all his attempts to adorn the altar; whereas there should be, and there often is, a real artistic feeling for the fitness of things, in the furnishings of the most beautiful building set aside by the community for the glory of God. But it is not necessary for beautiful effects that there should be any coloured vestments. When the clergy are duly robed in the orthodox surplice and scarves, there is, perhaps, something funereal in the white linens and black Geneva silk, but yet the traditional white and black have their own value against a background of altar-cloth and reredos splendidly coloured.

Now that, in spite of prejudice, church decoration is so much the custom of our day, it is worth our while to consider seriously how best to carry it out, and search into the principles which may apply to all ecclesiastical embroideries, whether they are to be dedicated in the Minster, the village Church, or the home Chapel.

We must begin by remembering that in these days, if we cannot do the work ourselves, it must be highly paid for. The skilled artisan who is no artist, receives enough to feed his family, according to the higher wages of the time. The woman's slow stitchery has to support probably as many claims, and yet it is always grudged as being too costly. The sculptor or the painter who succeeds in obtaining employment, is highly paid, but the designer for metal-work or embroideries occupies an unrecognized place in art, and barely earns enough to live by. The illuminator has ceased to exist; he would starve—probably has been starved out long ago.

The decorative designer, having, therefore, no status, has no education; and it is almost impossible to find in England an artist to accept orders for thoughtful ecclesiastical designs. Hundreds of boys and girls are taught "freehand drawing," and having copied some casts and lithographs and drawn some flower-pieces, without any particular aim, find a precarious living by designing frightful wall-papers for the million. These poor creatures, from whose lives all ambition and originality have been effaced, are our decorative artists.

Still a beautiful original design can sometimes be obtained, and if that is beyond our reach, we may courageously copy from ancient models, selecting judiciously what is most suitable for our purpose.

The ecclesiastical artist should be well informed in the modes of working a design. The stitch if selected without experience may mar the effect of the whole composition, as some stitches of themselves convey the meaning of shadow, and others that of light.

In ecclesiastical work which is intended to be effective in the distance, as well as perfect in detail, it is worth while to weigh the claims of the architectural low-relief motive, i.e. a flat raised surface, with an edge sufficiently accentuated to catch a light on one side, and cast a sharp shadow on the other. All flat raised stitches conduce also to this effect, especially if edged with a cord, and it is much more striking than in stuffed work (on the stamp), which has not the incisive effect that is given by the tool to the sharp edge of stone or wood carvings.

If we can afford to give to our church without stint, let us seek for the most beautiful textiles, such as are again woven in imitation of the old fabrics; gratefully acknowledging all that Pugin, Ruskin, and the foreign manufacturers, especially those at Lyons, have done in the revival of woven designs. Let us avoid those materials which are easily spoiled by sunshine, dust, and smoke, and all those that fray easily. Woollens are not long lived. Crewels, beautiful as they are, are not salient in their effect. Silks, satins and velvet, and gold brocades,[548] or groundings worked in with gold thread, are the only materials worthy of bearing fine embroidery, fit to receive them, and capable of keeping them for centuries. Plushes and worsted velvets are unworthy, indeed they are worthless.

The gold we employ must be either pure "passing," or else the Chinese or Japanese gold threads which differ in colour, but have each their own value, and never tarnish, even in the coal smoke of London. Pure silver, too, is beautiful, and if it is really pure, can be kept bright with bread crumbs.

In composing the altar decoration for the cathedral or the village church, we ought to take into consideration what is suitable for the surrounding architecture. In great spaces, the majestic altar-cloth or frontal, shining with gold and silver, and glowing with silken embroideries, recalls the splendid altar "palli" encrusted with gems in St. Mark's, St. Peter's, and other ancient churches; and is in perfect keeping with the high and gorgeous reredos, the rich screen, the fretted roof and clustered ornaments of a great cathedral choir. Such glories are unattainable in the modest village church.

But though we may subdue the brilliancy of our decoration, we should try to make it yet a work of art. The design may have as much intention, the work be as refined and individual, and the gold as pure, as in larger works. The precious metals may be confined to small spaces in the parts we desire to accentuate, such as the cross in the centre, or the edges of the orphreys, or they may be entirely replaced with fine silk work.

The altar-cloth we desire to present, may be simply a gift, so that we may choose any design that will agree with the date of the building. We may prefer any subsequent style, but not one anterior to that of the architecture. It would be a mistake to imitate Anglo-Saxon ornaments in a church of the flamboyant style.

Perhaps the altar-cloth we are discussing may be intended as a sort of votive offering, a memorial of a baptism, a wedding, or a funeral.

For the first, white silk worked in gold and silver, or gold-coloured silk, or parseme with conventional spring flowers would be appropriate. For a marriage, crimson, rose-colour, blue and gold, or a mixture of all these, to produce a festive and gorgeous effect. For a funeral, purple or violet silk or velvet, with palms and the crown of thorns in gold or silver.[549] These would serve at the festivals of the Church: the purple for Good Friday,[550] the crimson for Saints' days, the white for Christmas and Easter Sunday.

The reredos, or the screen curtain behind the altar, should be made available for enhancing its effect, as well as for enlarging the area of textile coloured decoration.

As this is intended for a background, it should be either subdued or else contrasting, in juxtaposition with that which it is intended to supplement. Woollen embroideries or tapestries are the most usually selected for this purpose. The softness of fine crewels is well shown near the more glowing tints of silk, velvet, and gold of the altar frontal. If this is white, or light coloured, the reredos hanging should be of dark or richly worked material; if the frontal is dark, the contrast should be preserved by hangings of tender shades.

The pulpit and reading-desk, with their small cushions and veils, and beautiful worked covers for the books, give opportunities for repetition of colour which is often required for picturesque effect.

I should recommend the young ecclesiastical designer to study the principles which guided the authors of some of the fine Gothic examples remaining to us, such as the great Stoneyhurst cope, and the palls of the different London companies, as well as the very few fine altar-cloths still existing. All these have their brilliant and effective treatment; they are intended to be glorious, and either represent massive jewellers' work or tissues of wrought gold.

Anciently, the ornaments for the different church services, which we timidly reduce to floral decorations (often, however, very beautifully planned and executed), gave the opportunity for displaying costly embroidered hangings.

The paschal of the choir of Durham, for example, was a marvellous construction of wood and gilding, metal-work, and (probably) hangings. It was as wide as the "lateral" of the choir, and as high as the building, so that the central and seventh candlestick (that from which the new fire for the year was kindled) was so near the roof that there was a "fine convenience through the said roof of the church for the help of lighting it." I quote from a rare book printed by G. S. Ross for Mrs. Waghorn, 1733.

This little book is full of interesting matter regarding Durham Cathedral, though the author is most concerned in relating the vandalisms committed by the dean's wife, Mrs. Whittinghame, who evidently had "no culture," and a strong turn for appropriating odds and ends, such as tombstones, embroidered silk, and other curiosities which she deemed valueless except for her own purposes,—such a woman is a real archaeological misfortune!

The corporax used in celebrating the mass by St. Cuthbert in the seventh century (he died and was buried at Holy Isle in 657) was supposed to be endowed with miraculous powers and was carried into battle on many occasions as a banner.

This banner was of crimson velvet on both sides, wrought with flowers in green silk and gold, and fringed with red silk and gold. The corporax cloth was inserted in the centre, and covered with a square of white velvet, having on it a cross of red velvet, "most artificially worked and fringed, with little silver bells in the fringe." This was carried into battle, till Dame Whittinghame "did most injuriously destroy the same in her fire."

One feels as if this woman were spiteful, as well as stupid. But for her punishment, her memory is kept quite the contrary to green by Mrs. Waghorn's careful record of her iniquities; which has at the same time fortunately preserved to us the description of the banner of St. Cuthbert, and gives also an idea of "the good and sumptuous furniture of changeable suits," and of "the divers vestments wrought and set round about with pearls, both stoles and flannels, &c."

Looking at it from a distance, it appears that the "fair white linen" for the communion service always requires the softening of the edges by fringes, by cut work embroidery, or by thick lace edgings. If a white ground for embroidery is required, nothing is more beautiful than linen, especially if it is not over-bleached. White, in art, should be represented by the nearest approach to no colour; but it is more agreeable to the eye by its being tempered with a suggestion of the natural tint, of which all textile substances possess something (excepting cotton) before they have passed through the hands of the fuller or the chemist.

Corporals and veils for the pyx used to be of white linen, embroidered with white silk or linen thread; the silk gives a beautiful, varied, shining brightness.

I think a few words should be said about the fringe.[551] Its motive and raison d'etre is the disposal of the threads of the warp when it is cut out of the frame; these being tied and knotted symmetrically, become an artistic decoration instead of an untidy tangle of threads and thrums. Edging the material and finishing it with its own loose ends is a very ancient custom; and we can see from the sculptures of Nineveh that they were great in that city in the art of fringe-making, and the Israelites, when they made their hangings for the sanctuary, trimmed them with fringes. It stands to reason that an added fringe should be arranged with reference to the origin of the decoration, and the moment we think of it, the eye is annoyed by seeing a deep fringe of one or two colours traversing the whole widths of the frontal and super-frontal, quite irrelevantly, and without any reference to the masses of colours, woven or embroidered, above them; and the consequence of this carelessness is, that it makes it look as if this part of the decoration, came from another source, independent of the composition which it ought to supplement. The fringe should belong to the whole design, and be carefully fitted to the spaces occupied by the colours above it, each of its compartments or divisions being filled in with those tints which are most conspicuous in the general design and would show effectively in the warp. It is not necessary to account for all the colours, as the threads employed to form the woof would naturally disappear at the sides of the web. The sections of the fringe should be skilfully arranged so as to reappear at equal distances, or at least they should be so balanced as to produce that effect. If this is impossible, the fringe should be all of one shade, matching exactly the ground of the textile. It may be relieved by clustered knobs, or hanging beads or cups of different colours and gold. The celebrated pluvial at Aix-la-Chapelle has a fringe of gold bells hanging to a gold cord, which amalgamates with the pattern.[552] The veils of the Sanctuary in the wilderness were fringed with attached ornaments, bells, blossoms, knops, flowers, and fruit, which sounds extremely pretty.

To resume, let me once more urge that in church work neither time nor trouble be spared; nor yet money grudged, if possible. The design should be full of intention, the stitching perfect, and the materials most carefully chosen for tints, for endurance and smoothness. Remember that no inferior substitute will serve to give present effect, nor will it last into the future.

Design, as I have elsewhere said, is all the better for being to a certain degree circumscribed, relegated, and regulated by the laws of traditional usage, as well as those of good taste, and this applies especially to ecclesiastical design.

These laws serve as the frame which encloses the motive thought, and makes it a complete whole, that can admit of no amplifications.

New symbols should not be adopted except for the expression of new facts or altered circumstances, and these can but seldom enter into liturgical art.

There is so much already formulated and admitted, and the area in which we may gather our materials is so large, that we need not seek for more than we find under our hand, ready for use.

Besides the symbolism of dogma, we have all the heraldry of the Saints; and can repeat and vary the emblems of those to whom the church we are working for is dedicated. The keys of St. Peter, the sword of St. Paul, the lilies of the Virgin, the cross of St. Andrew, the eagle of St. John,—I need hardly enumerate all these legitimate sources of decoration. Then there is the lay heraldry which belongs to the history of each church, and which memorializes the reign of the monarch when it was begun, finished, or restored, and the pious work and care of the founder and benefactor, the architect, and sometimes that of the sculptor.

Now as our forefathers accepted all this material for ecclesiastical design, remodelling it to their own uses in different centuries, so we cannot ourselves do better than imitate them, and profit by their experience; never missing an opportunity of studying ancient embroideries; and while we admire in them all that is admirable, and appreciate their historical and archaeological value, we may yet extract greater benefit for ourselves, by criticizing what is imperfect, as well as what is possibly a descent and failure from a higher type.

We must make a judicious selection of what to imitate and what to avoid.

As a general rule, I should warn the young artist against the imitation of "naivete" and so-called "quaintness;" especially in our designs for Church embroidery as it is hardly a noble quality in art, though we look on it with a tender pity, half-way between admiration and contempt, when we find it inevitably in mediaeval work; struggling to overcome the expression of something difficult, and expressing a difficulty only partly overcome. We find ourselves putting our minds into the attitude of the artist who conceived those figures with arms conventionally growing out of the encasing garment; conventionally holding a book, and giving a blessing with a conventional twist, not entirely ungraceful, nor devoid of a certain dignity, rather felt than perceived. Yet we contemplate them with a smile of conscious superiority, appreciating our own refined sense of their merits and infantine progress towards something good, that time—a long time—would, and did evolve. But those efforts at last culminated in a Christian art, such as is seen in the splendid forms and adornments in stone, gold, silver, glass, and embroideries of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Such splendours as the windows of Bourges, the Sainte-Chapelle at Paris, or those of the Cathedral of Toledo, or King's College Chapel at Cambridge. Such sculptures and traceries as those of the Puits de Moise at Dijon, and the Chapter House at Southwell in Nottinghamshire. Such embroideries as the Syon cope, and the Borghese triptych. These are types worthy of all praise, and they are full of instruction to the student of ecclesiastical art.

The Kensington Museum offers us endless help and suggestions in its very interesting collection of liturgical vestments of every date and school; and its textiles, illustrated by the inventory of their learned collector, Dr. Rock, are most instructive.[553]

In the library of that museum are to be found many of the learned works on these subjects by French and German savants. The exhibitions in the English counties are never without a case or a room full of embroideries, collected from the treasure-chests of the neighbouring churches and country houses, and especially from those of the ancient Roman Catholic families. The colleges of Oscott and Stoneyhurst have collected, by purchase or by gift, many fine relics of the craft, which are most liberally granted for exhibition.

For those who can go further afield there is instruction in almost every Continental town. Rome, Florence, Milan, Toledo, Sens, Rheims, Aix-la-Chapelle, Berne, Vienna, Halberstadt, Berlin, and Munich—each and all have stores of beautiful liturgical objects carefully preserved; of many dates, and many styles, and showing endless varieties of design, which can be employed on new works by careful selection and adaptation. Most of these belong to the eleventh and succeeding centuries; any earlier examples are fragmentary, and have generally been taken from the tombs of kings and bishops.

It seems to savour of desecration, this opening of shrines and disturbing the ashes of the illustrious dead, if only for the satisfaction of archaeological curiosity. But except where it has hitherto been protected by the sanctity of the tomb, there is so little that remains to us,—so few textiles have survived the friction of use, or even that of the air, through as many as a thousand years or more, that we may plead the hunger for truth, and the eager desire for proofs of identity and verification of historical legends, which are to be extracted from the shape of a garment, from the pattern on the border, or the lettering on the web of which it is composed; whence we reverently cut a fragment, and preserve it under glass.

"If studious, copie fair what time hath blurr'd, Redeem truth from his jawes."[554]

Before closing this chapter, I would wish to observe that I have entered into the subject of church decoration in no ritualistic spirit; I do not treat it theologically, but as art; and if these decorations are to be carried out at all, I feel that I am rendering a service to those whose duty or pleasure it is to provide them, by pointing out where they may find the principles which have been the spring and life of mediaeval art, and the survivals which are now the best exponents of those principles to guide us in the works of our day.

FOOTNOTES:

[479] Figure-drawing in early Christian art was for nearly a thousand years primitively barbarous, with occasional exceptions. The rapid decline in Europe, through the art of the Catacombs and St. Clemente at Rome, and the frescoes and mosaics of Ravenna, down to the Bayeux tapestries, is very remarkable. In those inartistic compositions during the early Middle Ages, the figures were drawn facing the spectator, the head and feet in profile, differing in nothing from the Egyptian and Assyrian modes of representation. We can hardly account for this return to childish ways, from which Greece and Rome had so long been emancipated, except by supposing that they came from the imitations of Oriental textiles, which still retained very ancient forms; for instance, the motive of the sculptured lions over the gate of Mycenae. We cannot say that Greek art in Rome was quite extinct till the eighth century. About that time there was a remarkable revival in England.

[480] Till very lately we have been entirely dependent on the frescoes in the Catacombs and in the underground Church of St. Clemente at Rome, and on monumental art and illuminations, for our knowledge of the textiles of the earliest days of Christianity. But Herr Graf'schen's discoveries in Egypt will, when published, add greatly to our information on this subject.

[481] The book by Parker on the "Liturgical Use" says that only the five liturgical colours were permitted in the use of the Church of England. Before the Reformation the Norman and English liturgical colours were different. (Rock, "Church of our Fathers," ii. p. 268.) Perhaps nothing was originally worked departing from this rule, but votive offerings are inventoried as being of all colours, having been accepted and used as decoration and for vestments.

[482] I have already spoken of the custom of clothing the images of the gods as a classical tradition. The Greeks draped their statues in precious garments, often the spoils of subjugated nations, offerings from the conquerors, or obsequious tribute from the conquered. Newton (Appendix 1) tells us of inscriptions containing inventories of old clothes offered in the Greek Temples. Ezekiel (xvi.) speaks of silk and linen embroideries given for covering the idols. The images of the saints in Roman Catholic churches are, we know, constantly draped in splendid embroideries, and hung with jewels.

[483] There is here an overlap of several centuries.

[484] Charlemagne's dalmatic, described hereafter, of which the pedigree is well ascertained, justifies Woltmann and Woermann's theory; as this eighth-century embroidery shows, by its design, that Greek art was still a living power.

[485] Of which we have yet examples on the Continent, here and there; for instance, in the Cathedral at Coire in the Grisons, and in the Romanesque church at Clermont in Auvergne (not the cathedral). I do not include in this statement of the rare occurrence of the ogee, the European countries which were subject to Moorish rule, i.e. Spain and Portugal.

[486] This, slightly modified, continued to prevail till the time of Louis XIV., when France took the lead, and gave a style to the world which entirely broke away from all mediaeval tradition.

[487] Rock's "Church of our Fathers," i. p. 409. Compare Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," i. p. 332 (see fig. 1); and Bock's "Liturgische Gewaender," taf. i., i. p. 130, fig. 6. Bock does not give his authority for the pattern on the ephod.

[488] Bock's "Liturgische Gewaender," i. taf. i., iii., vi.

[489] Yates' "Textrinum Antiquorum," pp. 203, 376, Sec. 103. He quotes from Claudian the description of a trabea, said to have been woven by the goddess Roma herself, for the consul Stilicho. I give this as showing how forms and patterns become sacred by their being attributed to the inspiration of the gods. The name of Stilicho marks his tomb in Sant' Ambrogio's Church at Milan, on which is a curious moulding, carved with alternate roses and mystic crosses.

[490] Clapton Rolfe, "Ancient Use of Liturgical Colours."

[491] See the Book of Kells, Library, Dublin; also St. Cuthbert's Durham Book, British Museum, and the Celtic MSS. in the Lambeth Palace Library.

[492] Celtic and Scandinavian designs are characterized by meandering, interlaced, and knotted lines, which are described and discussed in the chapter on patterns. The forms of the Celtic stone crosses are very beautiful. See "L'Atlas de l'Archeologie du Nord, par la Societe Royale des Antiquaires du Nord" (Copenhagen, 1857), where the metal remains are shown by careful engravings; also George Stephen's "Old Northern Runic Monuments."

[493] See Bock's "Liturgische Gewaender," i. p. 126, quoting Anastasius Bibliothecarius, pp. 153, 156, 189.

[494] Ibid. p. 189.

[495] The information here collected proves that these sovereign gifts to the great basilicas were by no means of costly materials, especially as compared with the preceding splendours of Rome, or the still more astounding luxury of Alexandria through the Greek conquests of the Eastern nations. To these rules of economical decoration, however, we find occasionally exceptions. We gather also from later lists that the embroideries of the Papal See were culled, in the thirteenth century, from France, Spain, Germany, and England.

[496] See also Bock's "Liturgische Gewaender," vol. i. pp. 9, 18, 56, 86, plate 2. At a later period the lion motive is supposed to have represented a Christian in the arena, and it certainly in time was symbolical of man struggling with the dominion of sin. However, Bock considers the design to have been originally classical Greek, and it survived to the seventh and eighth centuries, and was reproduced as late as the sixteenth.

[497] The Code of Manu in India, which 2500 years ago regulated all the crafts and ruled their decorations, is still in full force, and Chinese art was crystallized in the reigns of the first emperors of the Hia dynasty, 2197 B.C.

[498] We cannot but respect the memory of Attila, who checked the spoliation of Rome by his troops.

[499] The collections of needlework in Germany are very rich. The treasury of the cathedral at Halberstadt, the Markt-Kirche of Brunswick, the sacristy of the Marien-Kirche of Dantzic, and that of the Kaland Brethren at Strahlsund are especially quoted by Bock. At Quedlinburg are the tapestries of its famous abbess; at the Pilgrim Church of Marie at Zell are fine remains of stuffs and embroideries by the ladies of the imperial house of Hapsburg, of the thirteenth century; at the Abbey of Goess (near Lieben, Steiermark) is to be seen the remarkable needlework of the Abbess Kunigunda, and in the cathedral treasury of Heidelberg the antipendium of the fourteenth century, made for the church at Tirna. The museums of Berlin, Munich, and Vienna are very rich in textiles.

[500] See Bock's "Liturgische Gewaender," p. 133.

[501] Helen Lwyddawc. See "Mabinogion," by Lady C. Guest, pp. 279-284. This beautiful story is told in the language of the romance period, and yet has a certain Celtic colouring in it, which shows its origin. The ballad opens with a description of Helen watching a game of chess, clothed in white and gold, seated on a chair of gold, when Maxentius finds her in her father's palace.

[502] See Mrs. Palliser's "Lace," p. 4.

[503] See chapter on English embroidery, post.

[504] Early decorations of ecclesiastical dress are so thoroughly illustrated by the ancient frescoes and mosaics in Italy, that we can form an idea of the embroidered vestments of each period by studying them, and the early illuminated books that are scattered over Europe. Dr. Bock gives authentic illustrations as well as information about the finest Continental specimens.

[505] For the mosaics of Santa Pudenziana, see Woltmann and Woermann, i. p. 167, "History of Painting." Translated by Sidney Colvin.

[506] Appendix 4. Lord Lindsay's "History of Ecclesiastical Art," i. p. 136. These gorgeous vestments are engraved by Sulpiz Boisseree in his "Kaiser Dalmatika in der St. Peterskirche," and far better by Dr. Rock, in his splendid work on the "Coronation Robes of the German Emperors."

[507] It is singular that we find the starry cross and the swastika filling alternate square spaces on the mantle of Achilles—playing at dice with Ajax—on a celebrated Greek vase in the Etruscan Museum at the Vatican. I have referred to this design elsewhere. (Plate 26.)

[508] Rock's "Introduction," p. liii.

[509] This date is assigned to it by Monsignor Clifford.

[510] Kindly supplied to me by the Father Superior of San Clemente in Rome.

[511] In the cathedral of Aix, Switzerland. Bock's "Liturgische Gewaender," i. taf. ii.

[512] One of these mitres has, it is said, been brought to England.

[513] Bock, "Liturgische Gewaender," ii. taf. xii. This is dyed in Tyrian purple (rosy red), and is simply the cross, representing the tree with twelve leaves, "for the healing of the nations."

[514] Bock, "Liturgische Gewaender," i. taf. iii. pp. 157-160.

[515] Bock, ibid., p. 158, quotes the Jesuit Erasmus Froehlich, (1754).

[516] See Bock's "Liturgische Gewaender," i. taf. iv. pp. 165, 166. "One of three costly garments."

[517] Modifications of the "wheel pattern" ("wheel and plate"). Of these works of the tenth and eleventh centuries the fine Roman lettering in the borders is a marking characteristic.

[518] See Bock's "Liturgische Gewaender," i. p. 214.

[519] There was no guild of embroiderers in England that we know of till that incorporated in the reign of Elizabeth. See chapter on English embroidery.

[520] Bock, i. 214, says that the splendid stuffs and embroideries were entirely consecrated to the use of the Church, till the luxurious arts invaded European domestic life from the seventh to the twelfth century.

[521] See the cross on the Rheims cope (plate 63).

[522] There is no doubt it was only used for church work.

[523] At Aachen, in Switzerland, there is a very remarkable pluvial of one kind of opus Anglicanum, which has been already alluded to. The border, of splendid gold embroidery, has the pattern completed in fine flowers of jewellers' work. (See Bock, "Liturgische Gewaender," ii. p. 297, taf. xli.-xliv.) Rock, "Textile Fabrics," Introduction, p. xxxi, cites from Mon. Angl. (ii. 222), the vestments given to St. Alban's Abbey by Margaret, Duchess of Clarence, A.D. 1429, as being remarkable for pure gold in its texture and the splendour of the jewels and precious stones set into it, as well as for the exquisite beauty of its embroideries. These are some of the characteristics of the opus Anglicanum.

[524] Appendix 6.

[525] Mrs. Bayman, of the Royal School of Art Needlework.

[526] If it is true that in the days of the Greeks and Romans the art of acupictura or needle-painting copied pictorial art, so likewise in the Egyptian early times, painted linens imitated embroideries. This we learn by specimens from the tombs. Painted hangings and embroideries appear to have been equally used for processional decorations. In the Middle Ages painted hangings imitated embroideries and woven hangings, and were considered as legitimate art.

[527] See Bock, vol. i. p. 10.

[528] Exhibited in the "Esposizione Romana" in 1869, in the cloisters of Santa Maria degli Angeli.

[529] See Woltmann and Woermann, who quote evidence as to works in painted glass as early as the ninth and tenth centuries in France and Germany ("History of Painting," vol. i. pp. 316-339). They remark that the character of painted glass is nearly akin to textile decoration, that it is essentially flat and unpictorial. And doubtless there is an analogy between the two, but rather suggesting patchwork or cut work than legitimate embroidery.

[530] "Vasari," ed. Monce, taf. v. p. 101.

[531] See plate 69, which is a fine altar-frontal of the plateresque Spanish.

[532] The dress of the "Virgin del Sagrario" at Toledo, embroidered with pearls, and the chasuble of Valencia, worked with corals, show how profusely these costly materials were employed.

[533] See "The Industrial Arts of Spain," pp. 250-264, by Don Juan F. Riano, and catalogues of Loan Exhibition by him for the South Kensington Museum series, 1881. The works of Spanish Queens and Infantas are to be seen at the Atocha, the church of the Virgin del Pilar at Madrid.

[534] There are most interesting examples of Scriptural subjects in Bock's "Liturgische Gewaender," i. taf. x. pp. 207, 208; taf. xi. pp. 239-278. These are of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; and we have some good fifteenth century bead-work in the South Kensington Museum.

[535] The splendid embroideries from Westminster Abbey, sold to Spanish merchants at the Reformation, now at Valencia, and the cope in the Museum at Madrid, are instances of these exportations. The Syon cope also was returned to England, after its long wanderings, about sixty years ago. I give its history by Dr. Rock in the Appendix 6.

[536] For examples of this ornate and graceful, but frivolous style, we may remember the mosaic altar frontals throughout the basilica of St. Peter's at Rome.

[537] See Dr. Rock's "Catalogue of Textile Fabrics," South Kensington Museum, Introduction, p. cxxxvi.

[538] Bock's "Liturgische Gewaender," i. taf. vi., vii., pp. 385-392. The emblematic meanings of stones is constantly alluded to in the Old Testament. Their symbolism has, therefore, a high authority and most ancient descent. In the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford is an illuminated copy of Philip de Than's Bestiarium, composed for Adelais, second wife of Henry I.

[539] "Cyclopaedia of Bible Literature," vol. vii. p. 477.

[540] See Clapton Rolfe, "The Ancient Use of Liturgical Colours." (Parker, 1879.)

[541] See "Indian Arts," by Sir G. Birdwood, i. p. 97. He says this form is the sign of the Buddhist or Jainis, and that the fire-stick form was that of the Sakti race in India.

[542] See chapter on patterns, p. 103-4, ante.

[543] Revelations chap. xxii. v. 2.

[544] In mediaeval times the cross in a circle was sometimes called the "clavus" . It was the same as an Egyptian sign, meaning "land" (plate 25). Donelly fancifully claims the sign as being that of the garden of Eden, and of the four rivers flowing from it (see "Atlantis").

[545] See plate 70, No. 1. In the upper part of the Halberstadt diptych, No. 1, the "gens togata" are sitting on Olympus, clothed in such purple garments embroidered with the chrysoclavus.

[546] I would instance the little church of St. Mary, built and adorned by the late W. E. Street, at Feldy, in Surrey.

[547] The art of illumination had in general kept a little in front of that of the painter, and illumination and embroidery went hand in hand.

[548] The fine brocades of velvet and gold, of which we find examples in the centres of palls, and a notable one in the celebrated Stoneyhurst cope, are still reproduced to order at Lyons, Genoa, Florence, and in Spain. The Florentine is distinguished by the little loops of gold thread which pervade it.

[549] In the English ritual gold was permitted wherever white was enjoined. This shows a true appreciation of the effect of the metal, separating and isolating all colours, and being of none.

[550] The purple is not one of the five mystic colours named; it is included in blue, and therefore the most ritualistic critic need not object to it.

[551] Under the Carlovingians, priestly garments were often enriched with splendid fringes, trimmed with bells. A Bishop of Elne, who died in 915, left to his church a stole embroidered with gold and garnished with bells. So rich were the fringes at that epoch, that King Robert, praying one day in the church, became aware that while he was lost in meditation a thief had ripped off part of the fringes of his mantle. He interrupted his proceedings by saying, "My friend, suppose you content yourself with what you have taken, and leave the rest for some other member of your guild." See "Histoire du Tissu Ancien," Union Central des Arts Decoratifs. For a fringe with bells, see the beautiful example in Bock's "Liturgische Gewaender" (plates xli. xlii. xliii. vol. ii. p. 297), already quoted.

[552] Resembling the fringe of St. Cuthbert's corporax, with its silver bells.

[553] This valuable collection of textiles is so ancient and therefore so frail, that it seems a pity to send portions of it continually travelling about the country for loan exhibitions. Change of climate—cold, heat, and damp—carelessness in packing and unpacking—above all, the reckless exposure to floods of sunshine even when they are protected from dust by glass,—all these endanger the preservation of what can never be replaced, and has only survived till now because of the quiet and darkness in which it has lain for centuries.

[554] George Herbert, "The Churchyard Porch," v. 15.



CHAPTER XI.

ENGLISH EMBROIDERY.

Through the preceding chapters I have tried to moderate my predominant interest in our national school of needlework, seeking to place it in its just position alongside of the coeval Continental schools. However, the more I have seen of specimens at home and abroad, the more I have become convinced of the great superiority of our needlework in the Middle Ages. As information about our own art must be valuable to us, I give a short account of English embroidery.

In England our art, like our language, is mixed. Our early history is one of repeated conquest, and we can only observe where style has flowed in from outside, or has formed itself by grafting upon the stem full of vitality already planted and growing. It is interesting to seek its root.

There is every reason to believe, from the evidence of the animal remains of the Neolithic Age (including those of sheep), that they came with their masters from the central plateau of Asia.

The overlap of the Asiatic civilizations over the barbarism of Northern Europe shows that Assyria[555] as well as Egypt was a highly organized empire, and the Mediterranean peoples far advanced in the arts of life, while the Neolithic man survived and lingered in Britain, France, and Scandinavia. Yet, even at that early period, the craft of spinning and the use of the needle were practised by the women of Britain.[556]

Our first glimpses of art may have come to us by Phoenician traders, touching at the Scilly Islands and thence sailing to the coasts of Cornwall and Ireland. From Ireland we have curious relics as witnesses of their presence—amongst others, jewellery connected by, or pendant from, "Trichinopoly" chains, similar to those dug out of Etruscan tombs, and which were probably imported into Ireland as early as the sixth century B.C.[557]

In the Bronze Age the chiefs and the rich men wore linen or woollen homespun. Fragments of these have been found in the Scale House barrow at Rylston, in Yorkshire. Dr. Rock says that an ancient Celtic barrow was opened not long ago in Yorkshire, in which the body was wrapped in plaited (not woven) woollen material.[558] Before this time the Cymri in Britain probably wore plaited grass garments; they also sewed together the skins of animals with bone needles.

Dyeing and weaving were well understood in Britain before the advent of the Romans. Hemp and flax, however, though native to the soil, were not employed by the early Britons. Linen perhaps came to us first through the Phoenicians, and afterwards through the Celts, and was naturalized here by the Romans.

Anderson ("Scotland in Early Christian Times") gives a high place to the forms of pagan art which prevailed in the British Isles, before the Roman civilization; and differing from and influencing that which came from Scandinavia. We must certainly allow that it was art, and that it contained no Greek or other classical element. His illustrations explain and give great weight to his theories.

Caesar invaded England forty-five years B.C.[559] The Romans gave us Christianity and the rudiments of civilization, but their attempts to Romanize us met with little success. Probably they imported their luxuries, and removed all they valued at the time of their exodus. From them we know what they found and what they left in Britain. Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni, the day of her defeat wore a tartan dress (polymita) and an "embroidered" or "fur" mantle; probably the fur was inside, and the skins embroidered outside. Dion Cassius,[560] who describes Boadicea's motley tunic, says that the bulk of the people wore what was apparently a chequered tartan. Semper says that the early tribes of Northern Europe, like the North American Indians of the present time, embroidered their fur wraps. The Emperor Honorius, in the fourth century, made it illegal for Roman nobles to wear extravagantly-worked fur robes; perhaps the report of Boadicea's dress had set the fashion in Rome.

During the first four centuries of our era, all art in Britain must have come from our Roman masters; and owing to their neglect of the people they conquered, we benefited little by their civilization.

All that we know of their decorative art in Britain, is that it was, with few exceptions, chiefly of small bronze statues, somewhat crude and colonial, as appears from the remains of their architecture, sculpture, mosaics, and tombs.[561] Of their textiles we have no relics, and hardly know of any recorded, if we except the works of the Empress Helena. See p. 316, ante. We must remember that, as she was a British princess, it is likely that she had learnt her art at home, and therefore that the women of England were already embroiderers as early as the beginning of the fourth century.[562]

On the departure of the Romans, chaos ensued, till the Britons, who had called in the Saxons to help them, were by them driven into Wales, Brittany, and Ireland, which last they Christianized; and mingled the art of the Germans and Celts with that of the Danes and Norsemen[563]; all which may be traced in the Irish remains to be seen in the College Museum at Dublin and elsewhere. From the time that England became Anglo-Saxon, literature, law, and art began to crystallize; and when, under Egbert, one kingdom was formed out of the heptarchy, order and a sense of beauty were in the course of development. Then came the invasion of the Danes (ninth century), who robbed, destroyed, and arrested all artistic improvement, till Alfred got rid of them for a time. Early in the seventh century the women of England had attained great perfection in needlework. This appears from a passage in a poem by Adhelme, Bishop of Sherborne. He speaks of their shuttles, "filled not with purple only, but with various colours, moved here and there among the thick spreading threads."[564] He had himself a robe "of a most delicate thread of purple, adorned with black circles and peacocks." This may or may not have been woven in England, but at that time weaving, as well as needlework, was the delight and occupation of the ladies of the court and of the cloistered nuns.[565] The thralls (slaves or serfs) were employed in weaving in the houses of the nobles, probably they embroidered also.

Mrs. Lawrence sees reason to believe that in the seventh century, silk and fine linen were the materials for altar decorations, vestments, and dress; whereas the hangings of the house were of coarse canvas adorned with embroidery in thick worsted.[566] She says the term "broiderie" was reserved for the delicate works on fine grounds, in silk and gold and silver thread, and enrichments in metal work. Precious stones and pearls had already been introduced into the Byzantine and Romanesque designs imported from Greece and Rome.

The English Dominican Friar, Th. Stubbs, writing in the thirteenth century, describes in his notice of St. Oswald a chasuble of Anglo-Saxon work, which exactly resembles that of Aix.[567] This is splendidly engraved in Von Bock's "Kleinodien" amongst the coronation robes of the Emperors of Germany, and is adorned with the richest golden orphreys, imitating jewellers' work, enriched with pearls and silver bells.

There is an Icelandic Saga of the thirteenth century which relates the history of Thorgunna, a woman from the Hebrides, who was taken to Iceland on the first settlement of the country by Norway, A.D. 1000. She employed witchery in her needlework, and her embroidered hangings were coveted by, and proved fatal to, many persons after her death, till one of her inheritors burned them.[568]



English ecclesiastical art did not necessarily keep to Christian subjects; for it is recorded that King Wiglaf, of Mercia, gave to Croyland Abbey his splendid coronation mantle and "velum;" and that the latter was embroidered with scenes from the siege of Troy.[569]



It was probably on account of such derelictions from orthodox subjects of design that in the eighth century the Council of Cloveshoe admonished the convents for their frivolous embroideries.[570]

In the eighth century our English work in illuminations and embroideries was finer than that of any Continental school; and therefore, in view of the great advance of these secondary arts, we may claim that we were then no longer outer barbarians, though our only acknowledged superiority over Continental artists was in the workrooms of our women and the cells of our religious houses.

During the terrible incursions of the Danes, and the many troubles that accrued from these barbarous and idolatrous invaders, the convents and monasteries, especially those of the order of St. Benedict, kept the sacred flame of art burning.[571] Both monks and nuns wrote, illuminated, painted, and embroidered. They evidently continued their relations with foreign art, for it is difficult to say at what period the Norman style began to be introduced into England. It was the outcome of the Romanesque, and of this, different phases must have come to us through the Danes and the Saxons.

I cannot but dwell on the early life and springtide of our Anglican Christian art, which in many points preceded and surpassed that of other northern nations, as we arose from that period commonly called the Dark Ages. Ours was a gradual development, adding to itself from outer sources new strength and grace. The better perfection of details and patterns was succeeded by Anglo-Saxon ingenuity and refinement in drawing the human figure. The art, which was native to England, may be judged by the rare examples that we possess, and of which we may well be proud; though we must remember with shame how much was destroyed at the Reformation. Enough however, remains to prove that our English art of illumination of the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries was very beautiful, and we are not surprised therefore to find in the embroideries of that period grace and artistic feeling.

The stole and maniple of the Durham cathedral library, which bear the inscription "Aelfled fieri precepit pio Episcopo Fridestano," are of the most perfect style of Anglo-Saxon design; and the stitching of the silk embroidery and of the gold grounding are of the utmost perfection of needlework art (plates 71, 72).

The history of this embroidery is carefully elucidated by Dr. Raine in his "Saint Cuthbert." He says that Frithestan was consecrated bishop in 905, by command of Edward the Elder, son of Alfred the Great. Aelfled was Edward the Second's queen. She ordered and gave an embroidered stole and maniple to Frithestan. After her death, and that of Edward, and of the Bishop of Winchester, Athelstan, then king, made a progress to the north, and visiting the shrine of St. Cuthbert, at Chester-le-Street, he bestowed on it many rich gifts, which are solemnly enumerated in the MSS. Cott. Brit. Mus. Claud. D. iv. fol. 21-6. Among these are "one stole, with a maniple; one girdle, and two bracelets of gold." That the stole and maniple are those worked for Frithestan by the command of his mother-in-law, Aelfled, may fairly be said to be proved. These embroideries, worked with her name and the record of her act, were taken from the body of St. Cuthbert in 1827.[572]



Another and earlier Aelfled was the widow of Brithnod, a famous Northumbrian chieftain. She gave to the cathedral of Ely, where his headless body lay buried, a large cloth, or hanging, on which she had embroidered the heroic deeds of her husband. She was the ancestress of a race of embroiderers, and their pedigree will be found in the Appendix.[573] At this time a lady of the Queen of Scotland was famed for her perfect skill in needlework, and the four daughters of Edward the Elder were likewise celebrated embroiderers.

St. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, is said to have designed needlework for a noble and pious lady, Aedelwyrme, to execute in gold thread, A.D. 924.[574] He prepared and painted a drawing, and directed her work.[575] I here give the portrait of our celebrated early designer from the MS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, said to be by his own hand, and which represents him kneeling at the feet of the Saviour (plate 73).

Shortly before the Norman conquest, in the beginning of the eleventh century, we have notices of sundry other very remarkable pieces of work.

The Danish Queen Emma, daughter of Richard, Duke of Normandy, when she was wife to Ethelred the Unready, and again during her second marriage to Canute, gave the finest embroideries to various abbeys and monasteries. Canute, being then a Christian, joined her in these splendid votive offerings. To Romsey and Croyland they gave altar-cloths which had been embroidered by his first queen, Aelgitha,[576] and vestments covered with golden eagles. She worked one altar-cloth on shot blood-red and green silk,[577] with golden orphreys at the side and across the top. When one considers what the life of poor Queen Emma was, one hopes that "Art the Consoler" came to her in the form of her favourite craft, and that she did find consolation in it.

Croyland Abbey seems to have been most splendidly endowed by the Anglo-Saxon monarchs. There is continual mention in the records of those times of offerings of embroideries and other Church apparels. Queen Editha, the wife of the Confessor, dispensed beautiful works from her own workrooms, and herself embroidered King Edward's coronation mantle.

When in the eleventh century the Normans became our masters, they found cathedrals, churches, and palaces which almost vied with their own; likewise sculptures, illuminated books, embroidered hangings, and vestments of surpassing beauty.

William of Poitou, Chaplain to William the Conqueror,[578] relates that the Normans were as much struck on the Conqueror's return into Normandy with the splendid embroidered garments of the Saxon nobles, as with the beauty of the Saxon youth. Queen Matilda, who evidently appreciated Anglo-Saxon work, left in her will, to the Abbey of the Holy Trinity, "My tunic worked by Alderet's wife, and the mantle which is in my chamber, to make a cope. Of my two golden girdles, I give the one which is adorned with emblems to suspend the lamp before the great altar."

I come now to the earliest large work remaining to us of the period—the Bayeux tapestry. We must claim it as English, both on account of the reputed worker, and the history it commemorates, though the childish style of which it is a type is indeed inferior in every way to the beautiful specimens which have been rescued from tombs in Durham, Worcester, and elsewhere. They seem hardly to belong to the same period, so weak are the designs and the composition of the groups. Though Mr. Rede Fowke gives the Abbe de la Rue's doubts as to the accepted period of the Bayeux tapestry, which he assigns to the Empress Matilda, he yet leans to other equally good authorities who consider the work as being coeval with the events it records.[579]

Mr. Collingwood Bruce is of the same opinion, and for this reason—the furniture, buildings, &c., are all of the eleventh century, and our ancestors were no archaeologists, and always drew what they saw around them. Mr. Bruce fancies the design to be Italian, "because of the energetic action of the figures;" this seems hardly justified when we look at the simple poverty of the style. Miss A. Strickland suggests that the artist was perhaps Turold the Dwarf, who has cunningly introduced his effigy and name. That the tapestry is not found in any catalogue before 1369, is only a piece of presumptive evidence against the earlier date, and cannot compete with the internal evidence in its favour. On 227 feet of canvas-linen, twenty inches wide, are delineated the events of English history from the time of Edward the Confessor to the landing of the Conqueror at Hastings. The Bayeux tapestry is worked in worsted on linen; the design is perfectly flat and shadowless. The outlines are firmly drawn with cords on thickly set stem-stitches. The surfaces are laid in flat stitch. Though coarsely worked, there is a certain "maestria" in the execution.

The word "orphrey" (English for auriphrigium or Phrygian gold embroidery) is first found in Domesday Book, where "Alvide the maiden" receives from Godric the Sheriff, for her life, half a hide of land, "If she might teach his daughters to make orphreys."[580]

In the end of the eleventh century, Christina, Abbess of Markgate, worked a pair of sandals and three mitres of surpassing beauty, sent through the Abbot of St. Alban's to Pope Adrian IV., who doubtless valued them the more because they came from his native England.[581]





Of the twelfth century (1170) we have the robes and mitres of Thomas a Becket at Sens; and another mitre of the period, white and gold, is in the museum at Munich, with his martyrdom embroidered on one side, and that of St. Stephen on the other. The gold needlework is so perfect that it resembles weaving. It is recorded that a splendid dress was embroidered in London for Elinor of Aquitaine, which cost L80, equal to L1400 of the value of to-day.[582]

Rock ("Church of our Fathers," t. ii. p. 279) truly says that it is shown by plentiful records and written documents, from the days of St. Osmond to the time of Henry VIII., that the materials employed in English ecclesiastical embroideries were the best that could be found in our own country or in far-off lands, and the art bestowed on them was the best we could learn and give. Various fabrics came from Byzantine or Saracenic looms, which are described as damasked, rayed, marbled, &c. The few surviving specimens fully justify the admiration bestowed on them throughout Christendom.

Matthew Paris, in the reign of Henry III., says that Innocent III. (1246), seeing certain copes and infulae with desirable orphreys, was informed they were English work. He exclaimed, "Surely England is a garden of delight! In sooth this is a well inexhaustible! And where there is so much abundance, from thence much may be extracted!"[583]

From the Conquest to the Reformation the catalogues of Church vestments which are to be found in the libraries of York, Lincoln, and Peterborough, show the luxury of ecclesiastical decoration. In Lincoln alone there were upwards of 600 vestments wrought with divers kinds of needlework, jewellery, and gold, upon "Indian baudichyn," samite, tartarin, velvet, and silk. Even in reading the dry descriptions of a common inventory, we are amazed by the lists of "orphreys of goodly needlework," copes embroidered with armorial bearings, and knights jousting, lions fighting, and amices "barred with amethysts and pearls, &c. &c." The few I have named will give an idea of the accumulation of riches in the churches, and the gorgeousness of English embroideries.[584]

I have collected from Strutt's "Illustrations"[585] and other sources a number of patterns for domestic hangings, copied from MSS. of contemporary dates, covering about 400 years, from the time of Harold to Edward IV. The hangings may have been more effective than appears at first sight, if the materials were rich and enlivened with gold. I give two textile designs which in their style are peculiarly English (plates 74, 75).

Now we enter on the age of romance and chivalry, when all domestic decorations began to assume greater refinement. Carpets from the East covered the rushes strewn on the floors, and splendid tents were brought home by crusading knights; and the decorative arts of northern Europe were once more permeated with Oriental taste and design.

We know that in the so-called "days of chivalry," i.e. from the Conquest till the beginning of Henry VIII.'s reign, needlework was the occupation of the women left in their castles, while the men were away fighting for the cross, for the king, for their liberties, or for booty.

This period included the Crusades, the Wars of the Roses, wars with France, and rebellions at home; and yet there was a taste for art, luxury, and show spreading everywhere.[586]

The women were expected to provide, with their looms and their needles, the heraldic surcoats, the scarves and banners, and the mantles for state occasions.[587] They also worked the hangings for the hall and chapel, and adorned the altars and the priests' vestments. Alas! time, taste, and the moth have shared in the destruction of these gauds. The taste for the "baroc" is a new acquisition; no one cared for what was old, merely because it was old. The rich replaced their hangings and their clothes when they became shabby; the poor let them go to pieces, and probably burned the old stuff and the embroideries for the sake of the gold thread, which was of intrinsic value. But both in prose and poetry we read descriptions of beautiful works in the loom, or on the frame, executed by fair ladies for the gallant knights whose lives and prowess these poems have preserved to us. I will give one quotation from that of Emare, in Ritson's collection: "Her mantle was wroughte by a faire Paynim, the Amarayle's daughter." This occupied her seven long years. In each corner is depicted a pair of lovers, "Sir Tristram and Iseult—Sir Amadis and Ydoine, &c., &c. These pictures were adorned with precious stones." The figures were portrayed—

"With stones bright and pure, With carbuncle and sapphire, Kalsedonys and onyx clere, Sette in golde newe; Diamondes and rubies, And other stones of mychel pryse."

The lady who owns this mantle is herself great in "workes of broderie."

From the Conquest to the Wars of the Roses, England may claim to have gradually acquired a higher place in art. Our architecture, sculpture, manuscripts, and paintings were not surpassed on the Continent: witness Queen Eleanor's crosses, and her tomb in Westminster Abbey; and the portrait of Richard II., surrounded by saints and angels, at Wilton House,[588] a picture which, preceding Fra Beato Angelico's works by at least a quarter of a century, yet suggests his style, refined drawing, and tender colouring. All who saw the frescoes found in the Chapel at Eton College when it was restored, will remember their extreme beauty, and regret that they were effaced, instead of being preserved and restored. They were a lesson in what English art was in the end of the thirteenth, during the fourteenth, and into the beginning of the fifteenth centuries.

During the Wars of the Roses, when a duke of the blood-royal is said to have begged his bread in the streets of the rich Flemish towns, ladies of rank, more fortunate, were able to earn theirs by the work of their needle.[589]

The monuments of the eleventh and twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, are our best authorities for the embroideries then worn. The surcoat of the Black Prince in Canterbury Cathedral is a noteworthy example. The sculptured effigy on the tomb over which it is suspended is absolutely clothed in the same surcoat, with the same accidents of embroidery, as if it had been modelled from it.

In Worcester, when the archaeologists opened King John's tomb in 1797, they found him in the same dress and attitude as that portrayed on the recumbent statue.[590] Dress was then extravagantly expensive, and embroidered dresses were worn with borders richly set with precious stones and pearls.

The Librate Roll of Henry III. gives us a list of embroiderers' names: Alain de Basinge, Adam de Bakeryne, John de Colonia, &c.; and in the wardrobe accompts of Richard II., William Sanstoune and Robert de Ashmede are called the "Broudatores Domini Regis." These may have been the artists to whom the orders were delivered, for in the Librate Roll of Henry III. we find Adam de Baskeryne receiving 6s. 8d. for a "cloth of silk, and fringe, purchased by our commands to embroider a certain chasuble which Mabilia of St. Edmunds made for us." There were certainly then purveyors and masters of the craft. Stephen Vigner, in the fourteenth century, is so warmly commended by the Duke of Berri and Auvergne to Edward III., that Richard II. appointed him his chief embroiderer, and Henry IV. pensioned him for his skilful services.

John Garland, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, is a good authority for the use by our women of small hand-looms. In these they wove, in flax or silk (often mixed with gold), the "cingulae" or "blode-bendes" so often mentioned, supposed to be gifts between friends for binding the arm, when blood-letting was so much in fashion that the operation was allowed to assume a certain air of coquetry. But the idea suggests itself that this was oftener the gift of the fair weaver to her favoured lover, to fold round his arm as a scarf in battle or tourney, to be ready in case it was needed for binding up a wound, and had possibly served as a snood to bind her own fair hair. There is an account of a specimen of this kind of weaving by M. Leopold Delisle.[591] He describes the attachment of a seal to a grant from Richard Coeur de Lion to Richard Hommet and Gille his wife, preserved in the archives of the Abbey of Aunai, in the department of Calvados. He considers it to be either French or English, and says it was a "lac d'amour," or "tie of love," cut up to serve its present purpose. It is woven with an inscription in white on a ground of green, backed with pale blue, and the material is silk. The woven legend is thus translated from the old French—"Let him perish who would part us."



The term "opus Anglicanum" is first recorded in the thirteenth century, and is supposed simply to mean "English work." But there is also good authority for its having been applied, on the Continent especially, to a particular style of stitchery, of which the Syon cope in the Kensington Museum is the best preserved great example known. Its peculiarity consists in its fine split-stitch being moulded so as to give the effect of a bas-relief; and this appears to have been generally reserved for the medallions representing sacred subjects, and especially employed in modelling the faces and the nude parts of the figures delineated. The effect of this work has often been destroyed, as time has frayed and discoloured the parts that are raised, exhibiting the canvas ground, reversing the high lights, and causing dark spots in their stead. This reversal of the intended effect is an additional practical argument for the flatness of embroidery.[592]

From the Librate Roll of Henry III. one can form an estimate of the value of the "opus Anglicanum" in its day.[593] In 1241 the king gave Peter de Agua Blanca a mitre so worked, costing L82. This would be, according to the present value, L230.

The finest specimens of this English work are to be found on the Continent, or have been returned from it.[594] They had either been gifts to popes or bishops before the Reformation, or they had been sold at that time of general persecution and pillage. Among the most remarkable are the pluvial (called) of St. Silvester at Rome, the Daroca pluvial at Madrid, the great pluvial at Bologna, and the Syon cope, of which I have already spoken. The general idea and prevailing design of these three great works are so singular, and yet so alike, that they must have issued from the same workshop, and that was certainly English.

In the Daroca cope the cherubim, with their feet on wheels, which are peculiar to English design, and the angels (in the vacant spaces between the framed subjects from the life of our Lord) have their wings carefully done in chain split-stitch representing peacocks' feathers, of which the silken eyes are stitched in circles, and then raised with an iron by pressure, so as to catch a light and throw a shadow. The ground is entirely English gold-laid work. This cope, so markedly national in design and stitches, probably drifted to the Continent at the time of the Reformation.[595]





A wonderfully preserved specimen of the "opus Anglicanum," of which a photogravure is here given, was lately presented by Mr. Franks to the Mediaeval Department of the British Museum (plate 76). In this may be seen most of the characteristics of this work in the thirteenth century; such as the angels with peacock feather wings, moulded by hot irons; the features of all the figures similarly manipulated; the beautiful gold groundwork, which in this instance is covered with double-headed eagles; and lastly, the fashion of the beard on the face of our Lord and of all the men delineated—the upper lip and round the mouth being invariably shaven; whereas, in Continental work, the beard is allowed to grow into the moustache, closely surrounding the mouth. There are other peculiarities belonging to English design—such as the angels rising between the shrine-work on the pillars out of a flame or cloud pattern, and the pillars very often formed of twined stems bearing vine-leaves or else oak-leaves and acorns. The compartments which frame the groups, when they are not placed in niches, are usually variations of the intersected circle and square. Plate 77 shows the cherubim which from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries are found on English ecclesiastical embroideries—also the vase of lilies (emblematic of the Virgin), and the Gothic flowers which are so commonly parseme over our mediaeval altar frontals and vestments.



It appears that in the reign of Edward III. the people ingeniously evaded the penalties against the excess of luxury in dress, by wearing something that looked as gay, but was less expensive than the forbidden materials; and which did not come under the letter of the law. They invented a spurious kind of embroidery which was, perhaps, partly painted (such examples are recorded). In the 2nd Henry VI. (1422) it was enacted that all such work should be forfeited to the king. The accusation was that "divers persons belonging to the craft of Brouderie make divers works of Brouderie of insufficient stuffe and unduly wroughte with gold and silver of Cyprus, and gold of Lucca, and Spanish laton (or tin); and that they sell these at the fairs of Stereberg, Oxford, and Salisbury, to the great deceit of our Sovereign Lord and all his people." In those days any dishonest work or material was illegal and punishable.[596]

This was, in fact, a protectionist measure in favour of the chartered embroiderers, and gave them a slight taste of the advantages of protection. For a time it was doubtless useful in keeping up the standard of national work. Then followed further measures for the benefit of the established monopolies. First, a statute in 1453 (Henry VI.), forbidding the importation of foreign embroideries for five years. This is re-enacted under Edward IV., Richard III., and Henry VII.; and was partially repealed in the 3rd and 5th George III. While we are on this subject, we may remark that in 1707, the importation of embroidery was forbidden to the East India Company, and we closed our ports to all manufactured Indian goods. The only artistic trade now protected is that of the silversmith; no plate from foreign workshops being permitted to enter England—not even do we allow Indian plate to come in, except under certain conditions. This may be the reason that our own plate is so very bad in design and execution, for want of competition and example.

Protection is always more or less fatal to art. The Wars of the Roses had injured our own best schools, and we needed refined imported ideas to raise our standard once again. Perhaps, since embroidery had become a regular industry, our markets were overstocked by home productions which were outrivalled by the works from the Continent, and it was distress that caused the plea for protection.



It is fair to say that some of the English works of that time, of which we have specimens, are as good as possible. In the Dunstable pall, for instance, the figures of which are perfectly drawn and beautifully executed, the style is excellent and pure English (plate 78). The pall itself is of Florentine crimson velvet and gold brocade, with the little loops of gold drawn through the velvet, showing the loom from whence it came. The white satin border carries the embroidery. It is a more perfect specimen of the later fourteenth century work than the famous pall of the Fishmongers' Company, which shows the impress of the Flemish taste, which was at its perfection in the fifteenth. The style reminds us of that of the fine tapestries from the St. Mary's Hall, Coventry, of which the subject is King Henry VI. and Cardinal Beaufort praying. The Vintners' Company's pall is also very fine (plate 79).



Of the time of Henry VII. we have the celebrated cope of Stoneyhurst, woven in Florence, of a gold tissue, the design raised in crimson velvet. It is without seam, and the composition which covers the whole surface is the crown of England lying on the portcullis; and the Tudor rose fills up the space with a magnificent scroll. The design is evidently English, as well as the embroidery, which is, however, much restored[597] (plate 80).

This is one of the "whole suite of vestments and copes of cloth of gold tissue wrought with our badges of red roses and portcullises, the which we of late caused to be made at Florence in Italy ... which our king, Henry VII., in his will bequeathed to God and St. Peter, and to the Abbot and Prior of our Monastery at Westminster,"[598] which were designed for him by Torrigiano.

From the portraits of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we can judge of the prevailing taste in dress embroideries of that period, which consisted mostly of delicate patterns of gold or silver on the borders of dresses, and the linen collars and sleeves. Of this style I give a small sampler, from Lord Middleton's collection. We have a good many specimens of the work of these centuries, both ecclesiastical and secular. They had still a Gothic stamp, which totally disappeared in the beginning of the sixteenth century in the new style of the Renaissance.



The next great change throughout northern Europe affecting all the conditions of life, most especially in England, was caused by the Reformation, which swept away both the art and the artist of the Gothic era. The monasteries which had fostered painting, illumination, and embroidery, and the arts which had been so passionately devoted to the Church, were doomed. George Gifford, writing to Cromwell of the suppression of a religious house at Woolstrope, in Lincolnshire, after praising that establishment says, "There is not one religious person there, but what can and doth use either embrotheryng, wryting bookes with a fayre hand, making garments, karvynge, &c."[599]

In the general clearance the churches and shrines were swept, though never again garnished, and the survivals have to be painfully sought for, and are so few that a short catalogue will tell them all.

The greater part of the fine embroideries which escaped the "iconoclastic rage" of the Reformation, and the final sweep of the Puritans, are to be seen now in the houses and chapels of the old Roman Catholic families, who have either preserved or collected them; also in the museums of our cathedrals, and spread about the Continent. For instance, at Sens are the vestments of Thomas a Becket, and at Valencia, in Spain, there are yet in the chapter-house a chasuble and two dalmatics, brought from London by two merchants of Valencia, whose names are preserved—Andrew and Pedro de Medina. They purchased them at the sale of the Roman Catholic ornaments of Westminster Abbey in the time of Henry VIII. They are embroidered in gold, and represent scenes from the life of our Lord. The background of one is a representation of the Tower of London.

In 1520 was held the famous tournament of the Field of the Cloth of Gold.[600] Here came all England's chivalry surrounding their splendid young king; followed by squires and men-at-arms, and carrying with them tents, banners, and hangings covered with devices and mottoes. Their own dresses, of rich materials and adorned with embroidery (as well as the housings of their horses), vied in ingenuity and splendour with those of the still more luxurious court and following of Francis I., the French king. The tradesmen and workmen and workwomen in England were driven crazy in their efforts to carry out the ideas and commands of their employers. It is recorded that several committed suicide in their despair. It was worse than the miseries caused by a Court Drawing-Room now. Ingenuity in devices was the order of the day. Francis and his "Partners of Challenge" illustrated one sentimental motto throughout the three days' tourney. The first day they were apparelled in purple satin, "broched" with gold, and covered with black-ravens' feathers, buckled into a circle. The first syllable of "corbyn" (a raven) is cor, a "hart" (heart). A feather in French is pennac. "And so it stode." The feather in a circle was endless, and "betokened sothe fastnesse." Then was the device "Hart fastened in pain endlesse."