xix. Now, however, little does the woman of the nineteenth century

suspect, when she goes forth pranked out in all her bravery of dress, that an Egyptian Cleopatra equally with a Roman empress would have looked with a grudging eye upon her gay silk gown and satin ribbons; or that, as late as three hundred years ago, even her silken hose would have been an offering worthy of an English queen’s (Elizabeth’s) acceptance. Little, too, does that tall young man who, as he stands behind the lady’s chariot going to a Drawing-room, ever and anon lets drop a stealthy but complaisant look upon his own legs shining in soft blushing silk--ah! little does he dream that in that old palace before him there once dwelt a king (James I.) of Great Britain, who would have envied him his bright new stockings; and who, before he came to the throne of England, was fain to wear some borrowed ones, when in Scotland he had to receive an English ambassador. If we take this loan, for the nonce, from the Earl of Mar to his royal master, to have been as shapeless and befrilled as are the yellow pair (Blue Coat School boys’ as yet) once Queen Elizabeth’s, now among the curiosities at Hatfield; then were those stockings--the first woven in England, and presented by Lord Hunsdon--funny things, indeed.

Though so small a thing, there is in this collection a little cushion, No. 9047, p. 273, which bears in it much more than what shows itself at first, and is likely to awaken the curiosity of some who may have hereafter to write about the doings of our Court in the early part of the seventeenth century. This cushion is needle-wrought and figured all over with animals, armorial bearings, flowers, and love-knots, together with the letters I and R royally crowned with a strawberry leaf, and the strawberry fruit close by each of those capitals, as well as plentifully sprinkled all over the work.

In Scotland, several noble families, whether they spell their name FRASER or FRAZER, use as a canting charge--“arme che cantano”--of the Italians; the French “frasier,” or strawberry, leafed, flowered, fructed proper; the buck too, figured here, comes in or about their armorial shields. Hence then we are fairly warranted in thinking that it was a Fraser’s lady hand which wrought this small, but elaborate cushion, most likely as a gift, and with a strong meaning about it, to our King James I., whose unicorn is not forgotten here; and, in all probability, whilst she also wished to indicate that an S was the first letter in her own baptismal name. Siren too is another term for mermaid--that emblem so conspicuously figured by the lady’s side. All this, with the love-knot so plentifully broadcast and interwoven after many ways, and sprinkled everywhere as such a favourite device, perhaps may help some future biographer of James to throw a light over a few hidden passages in the life of that sovereign.

Human hair, or something very like it, was put into the embroidery on parts of this small cushion. On the under side, to the left, stands a lady with her hair lying in rolls about her forehead. After looking well into them, through a glass, these rolls seem to be real human hair--may be the lady’s own--it is yellow. Peering narrowly into those red roses close by, seeded and barbed, the seeded part or middle is found to be worked with two distinct sorts of human hair--one the very same as the golden hair on the lady’s brow, the other of a light sandy shade: could this have been king James’s? His son, Charles I., used, as it would seem, to send from his prison locks of his own hair to some few of the gentry favourable to his cause, so that the ladies of that house, while working his royal portraiture in coloured silks, might be able to do the head of hair on it, in the very hair itself of that sovereign. One or two of such wrought likenesses of king Charles were, not long ago, shown in the exhibition of miniatures which took place in this Museum.

For verifying passages in early as well as mediæval times, little does the historian think of finding in these specimens such a help for the purpose.

Quintus Curtius tells us, that, reaching India, the Greeks under Alexander found there a famous breed of dogs for lion-hunting more especially. On beholding a wild beast they hush their yelpings, and hold their prey by the teeth with so much stubbornness that sooner than let go their bite they would suffer one of their own limbs to be cut off: “Nobiles ad venandum canes in ea regione sunt: latratu abstinere dicuntur, quum viderunt feram, leonibus maxime, infesti,” &c.[380] Such is the animal now known as the cheetah, which, as of old so all through the middle ages, up to the present time, has been trained everywhere in Persia and over India for hunting purposes; and called by our countryman, Sir John Mandeville, a “papyonn,” as we have noticed in this catalogue, p. 178. This far-famed hunting-dog of Quintus Curtius, now known as the cheetah or hunting-lion, may be often met with on silken textiles here from Asiatic looms, especially in Nos. 7083, p. 136; 7086, p. 137; 8233, p. 154; 8288, p. 178.

[380] Lib. ix. cap. i. sect. 6.

SECTION V.--LITURGY.

For a sight of some liturgical appliances which, though once so common and everywhere employed have become rare from having one by one dropped into disuse, ritualists, foreign ones among the rest, will have to come hither. A few more of such articles, though still in common use, are remarkable for the antiquity or the costliness of those stuffs out of which they happen to be made.

For its age, and the beauty of its needlework, the Syon cope is in itself a remarkable treasure, while its emblazoned orphreys, like the vestments on the person of a Percy in Beverley minster, make it, at least according to present custom, singular. Several chasubles here so noteworthy for their gorgeousness, have their fellows equal in splendour, elsewhere; but in this museum are a few articles which till now we might have sought for in vain throughout Christendom in any other private or public collection.

Such liturgical boxes as those two--No. 5958, p. 112, and No. 8327, p. 193--are of the kind known of old as the “capsella cum serico decenter ornata”--a little box beseemingly fitted up with silk--of the mediæval writers; or the “capsula corporalium”--the box in which are kept the corporals or square pieces of fine linen, a fine mediæval specimen of which is here, No. 8329, p. 195, of the rubrics which, to this day, require its employment for a particular service, during holy week. Like its use the name of this appliance is very old, and both are spoken of in those ancient “Ordines Romani,” in the first of which, drawn up now more than a thousand years ago, it is directed: “tunc duo acolythi tenentes capsas cum Sanctis apertas, &c.;”[381] and again, in another “Ordo,” written out some little time before A.D. 1143, a part of the rubric for Good Friday requires the Pope to go barefoot during the procession in which a cardinal carries the Host consecrated the day before, and preserved in the corporals’ chest or box: “discalceatus (papa) pergit cum processione.... Quidam cardinalis honorifice portat corpus Domini præteriti diei conservatum, in capsula corporalium.”[382] About the mass of the presanctified, before the beginning of which this procession took as it yet takes place, we have said a few words at pp. 112, 113. What is meant by the word “corporal,” we have explained, p. 194. Here in England, such small wooden boxes covered with silks and velvets richly embroidered, were once employed for the same liturgical uses. The Exeter inventories specify them thus: “unum repositorium ligneum pro corporalibus co-opertum cum saccis de serico;”[383] “tria corporalia in casa lignea co-operta cum panno serico, operata cum diversis armis.”[384]

[381] Ed. Mabillon, Museum Italicum, t. ii. p. 8.

[382] Ib. p. 137.

[383] Oliver’s Exeter Cathedral, p. 314.

[384] Ib. p. 327.

Good Friday brings to mind a religious practice followed wherever the Greek ritual is observed, and the appliance for which, No. 8278, p. 170, we have there spoken of at such length as to save us here any further notice of this interesting kind of frontal, upon which is shown our dead Lord lying stretched out upon the sindon or winding-sheet. Of the Cyrillian character in which the Greek sentences upon it are written, we shall have a more fitting opportunity for speaking a little further on. At Rome, in the Pope’s chapel, the frontal set before the altar for the function of Maundy Thursday, is of gold cloth figured, amid other subjects suitable to the time, with our Lord lying dead between two angels who are upholding His head, as we learn from the industrious Cancellieri’s description, in his “Settimana Santa nella cappella pontificia.”[385]

In Greece may be still found several churches built with a dome, all around which is figured, in painting or in mosaics, what is there known as and called the “Divine Liturgy,” after this manner. On the eastern side, and before an altar, but facing the west, stands our Lord, robed as a patriarch, about to offer up the mass. The rest of the round in the cupola is filled with a crowd of angels,--some arrayed in chasubles like priests, some as deacons, but each bearing in his hands either one of the several vestments or some liturgical vessel or appliance needed at the celebration of the sacred mysteries,--all walking, as it were, to the spot where stands the divine pontiff. But amid this angel-throng may be seen six of these winged ministers who are carrying between them a sindon exactly figured as is the one of which we are now speaking. How, according to the Greek ritual, this subject ought to be done, is given in the Painter’s Guide, edited by Didron.[386] Though of yore as now a somewhat similar ceremonial was always observed according to the Latin rite, in carrying his vestments to a bishop when he pontificated, never in such a procession here, in the west, was any frontal or sindon borne, as in the east.

With regard to “red” as the mourning colour, in the sindon, our own old English use joined it with “black” upon vestments especially intended to be worn in services for the dead. For especial use on Good Friday Bishop Grandison gave to his cathedral (Exeter) a black silk chasuble, the red orphrey at the back of which had embroidered on it our Lord hanging upon a green cross: “j casula de nigro serico, pro Die Paraschive, cum j orfrey quasi rubii coloris, cum crucifixo pendente in viridi cruce, ex dono Johannis Grandissono;”[387] and in the same document, among the black copes and chasubles, we find that they had their orphreys made of red: “cape nigre cum casulis--j casula de nigro velvete cum rubeo velvete in le orfrey. ij tuniculi ejusdem panni et secte. iij cape ejusdem panni et secte.”[388]

[385] P. 58.

[386] Manuel d’Iconographie Chretienne, pp. xxxvi. 229.

[387] Oliver, p. 344.

[388] Ib. p. 349.

At Lincoln cathedral there were “a chesable of black cloth of gold of bawdkin with a red orphrey, &c.; a black cope of cloth of silver with an orphrey of red velvet broidered with flowers, &c.; a black cope of camlet broidered with flowers of woodbine with an orphrey of red cloth of gold,” &c.; two copes of black satin with orphreys of red damask, broidered with flowers of gold, having, in the back, souls rising to their doom, &c., besides other vestments of the same kind.[389] Green, sometimes along with red, sometimes taking the latter’s place in the orphreys, may be seen on some of our old vestments.

Those two pyx-cloths at No. 8342, p. 202, and No. 8691, p. 260, will have an interest for the student of mediæval liturgy as we have already pointed out, p. 202. While in Italy the custom, during the middle ages at least, never prevailed, here in England as well as all over France, and several countries on the Continent, it did, of keeping the Eucharist under one form, hung up over the high altar beneath a beautiful canopy within a pyx of gold, silver, ivory, or enamel, and mantled with a fine linen embroidered cloth or veil. At present this “velum pyidis” overspreading the ciborium or pyx in the tabernacle, is of silk.

In olden days the veil for the pyx was, here in England, beautifully embroidered with golden thread and coloured silks, and usually carried three crowns of gold or silver, as is shown in the woodcut, “Church of our Fathers,”[390] and often mentioned in many of our national documents which, without some such notice as this, could not be rightly understood. Among the things once belonging to Richard II. in Haverford castle and sent by the sheriff of Hereford to the exchequer, at the beginning of Henry IV.’s reign, are three crowns of gold, a gold cup, and one of the pyx-veils like these: “iij corones d’or pour le Corps Ihu Cryst. i coupe d’or pour le Corps Ihu Cryst. i towayll ove (avec) i longe parure de mesure la suyte.”[391]

[389] Monasticon Anglicanum, t. viii. p. 1285, ed. Caley.

[390] T. iv. p. 206.

[391] The Ancient Kalendars and Inventories of His Majesty’s Exchequer, t. iii. p. 361. ed. Palgrave.

By different people, and at various periods, a variety of names was given to this fine linen covering. Describing in his will, one made in this country and so valuable for its English needlework, a bishop of Tournay (see before p. xcix) calls it a corporal: 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,” &c.[392] This variety in nomenclature doubtless led writers unacquainted with ritual matters to state that before Mary Queen of Scots bent her head upon the block, she had a “corporal,” properly so called, bound over her eyes. What to our seeming this bandage really was, must have been a large piece of fine linen embroidered by her own hands--Mary wrought much with her needle, as specimens of her doing yet remain at Chatsworth, and at Greystock show--meant for, perhaps too once used as a pyx-cloth, and not an altar corporal.

[392] Munk’s Roll of the Royal College of Physicians, t. i. p. 37.

Whilst these pages were going through the press, one of these old English pyx, or Corpus Christi cloths, was found at the bottom of a chest in Hessett church, Suffolk. As it is a remarkable and unique specimen of the ingenious handicraft done by our mediæval countrywomen, we notice it. 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 all over it were then drawn in by threads tied on the under side, so as to have the shape of stars, so well and nicely given that, till this piece had been narrowly looked into, it was thought to be guipure lace. Of a textile so admirably wrought, it is to be regretted that there is, as yet, no sample in this collection. This curious liturgical appliance is figured in the April number, for the year 1868, of the “Ecclesiologist,” page 86.

For the several very curious sorts of ornamental needlework about it, and the somewhat intricate manner after which it is cut out, the old alb, No. 8710, p. 268, as well as the amice, No. 8307, p. 185, having both of them the apparels yet remaining sewed on to these church garments, must draw the attention of every inquirer after such rare existing samples of the kind.

Some very fine threaden cloths--now become rare--for liturgical purposes, deserve attention. In the old inventories of church furniture in England, they are known under the name of “filatoria,” about which we have spoken just now, p. cix. At No. 4457, p. 99, is a towel which, it is likely, was spread under the tapers for Candlemass-day, and the twigs of the sallow, or willow (our so-called palm), and slips of the box-tree, for Palm-Sunday, while they were being hallowed before distribution. For several lectern veils, we shall have to go to No. 7029, p. 120; No. 8358, p. 210; and No. 8693, p. 261.

Those two linen napkins, formerly kept hanging down from just below the crook on a pastoral staff or crozier are become so excessively rare, that we unhesitatingly believe that none of our countrymen have ever been able to find, either in England or abroad, a single other sample; they are to be seen, No. 8279A, p. 174, and No. 8662, p. 250.

Those who have ever witnessed on a Sunday morning in any of the great churches at Paris, the blessing of the French “pain beni”--our old English “holy loaf”--the “eulogia” of antiquity--will call to mind how a fair white linen cloth, like the one here, No. 8698, p. 263, overspread, and fell in graceful folds down from two sides of the board upon which, borne on the shoulders of four youthful acolytes, a large round cake garnished with flowers and wax-tapers was carried through the chancel, and halting at the altar’s foot got its blessing from the celebrant.

The rich crimson velvet cope, No. 79, p. 2, has a fine hood figured with the coming down, after the usual manner, of the Holy Ghost upon the infant church. No. 8595, p. 226, presents us with a shred merely of what must have been once a large hanging for the chancel walls, or perhaps one of the two curtains at the altar’s sides, having such fragments of some Latin sentences as these:--“et tui amoris in eis ... tus. Re ... le tuoru.” The subject on the cope’s hood tells of Pentecost Sunday; so too does the second article, for those broken sentences are parts of particular words: “Veni Sancte Spiritus, reple tuorum corda fidelium: et tui amoris in eis ignem accende,” to be found both in our own old English Salisbury missal, and breviary, but in every like service-book in use during the mediæval period throughout western Christendom. Be it kept in mind that both these liturgical appliances are red or crimson; and as now, so heretofore, as well in old England, as elsewhere this very colour has been employed for the church’s vestments, thus to remind us of those parted tongues, as it were, of fire that sat upon every one of the Apostles.[393] We mention all this with a view to correct an error in lexicography. In our dictionaries we are told that “Whitsuntide” is a contracted form of White Sunday tide, so called from the white vestments worn on that day by the candidates for baptism. Nothing of the sort; but the word “wits,” our intellect or understanding, is the root of the term, for a curious and valuable old English book of sermons called “The Festival,” tells us:--“This day is called Wytsonday by cause the Holy Ghoost brought wytte and wysdom in to Cristis dyscyples; and so by her preachyng after in to all Cristendom.”[394]

[393] Acts ii. 1-11.

[394] In die Penthecostes, fol. xlvi. verso.

Somewhat akin to this subject, are those several christening cloaks here, pp. 8, 9, 10, 11. Not long ago the custom was to carry to church for baptism the baby wrapped up in some such a silken covering which was called a bearing-cloth. Of old, that used to be a conspicuous article in all royal christenings; and amongst our gentry was looked upon as worthy enough of being made a testamentary bequest. At the christening of Arthur Prince of Wales, eldest son of Henry VII. “my Lady Cecill, the Queen’s eldest sister, bare the prince wrapped in a Mantell of Cremesyn Clothe of Golde furred with Ermyn,” &c.[395] Such ceremonial garments varied, according to the owner’s position of life, in costliness; hence 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!”[396] A well-to-do tradesman bequeathed, A.D. 1648, to his daughter Rose his “beareing cloath such ... linnen as is belonginge to infants at their tyme of baptisme.”[397]

Very often in our old country houses are found, thrown aside in some antique chest, certain small square pieces of nice embroidery, the former use for which nobody now knows, and about which one is asked. If their owners would look at those several cradle-quilts here--pp. 4, 13, 66, 67, 100, 103, 104, 110--they might find out such ancient household stuff was wrought for their forefathers’ comfort and adornment, when mere babies. The evangelists’ emblems figured on several among these coverlets: such as No. 1344, p. 67, No. 4459, p. 100, No. 4644, p. 103, will call to mind those old nursery-rhymes we referred to at p. 103. Of yore, not only little children, but grown-up, ay, aged men too loved to think about those verses, when they went to sleep, for the inventory of furniture taken, A.D. 1446, in the Priory of Durham, tells us that in the upper chamber there was a bed-quilt embroidered with the four Evangelists--one in each corner: “j culcitrum cum iiij or Evangelistis in corneriis.”[398]

The bag or purse, No. 8313, p. 188, is of a kind which not only were used for those liturgical purposes which we have already enumerated, but served for private devotional practices. In that very interesting will made by Henry, Lord de Scrope, A.D. 1415, among other pious bequests, is the following one, of the little bag having in it a piece of our Lord’s cross, which he always wore about his neck;--“j bursa parva quæ semper pendet circa collum meum cum cruce Domini.”[399]

[395] Leland’s Collectanea, t. iv. pp. 205, 180, 181, 183.

[396] Act iii. scene iii.

[397] Bury Wills, &c. p. 186.

[398] Hist. Dunelm. Scriptores Tres, ed. Surtees Society, p. cclxxxvii.

[399] Rymer’s Fœdera, t. ix. p. 278.

The crimson velvet mitre,--No. 4015, p. 85,--for the boy-bishop, bairn-bishop, or Nicholas-tide bishop, as the little boy was severally called in England, is a liturgical curiosity, as the ceremonies in which it was formerly worn are everywhere laid aside. Among the things given for the use of the chapel in the college--All Souls--of his founding at Oxford by Archbishop Chicheley, are a cope and mitre for this boy, there named the Nicholas-tide bishope:--“i cap. et mitre pro episcopo Nicholao.”[400] To make good his election to such a dignity, at Eton College, a boy had to study hard and show at the examination for it, that he was the ablest there at his books: his success almost ennobled him among his schoolfellows:--“In die Sti Hugonis pontificis” (17 Nov.) “solebat Ætonæ fieri electio Episcopi Nihilensis, sed consuetudo obsolevit. Olim episcopus ille puerorum habebatur nobilis, in cujus electione, et literata et laudatissima exercitatio, ad ingeniorum vires et motos exercendos, Ætonæ celebris erat.”[401] The colour, crimson, in this boy’s mitre, was to distinguish it from that of bishops.

Of the episcopal bairn-cloth--the Gremiale of foreign liturgists--we have two specimens here,--Nos. 1031, 1032, pp. 19, 20. The rich one of crimson cloth of gold, once belonging to Bowet, Archbishop of York, who died A.D. 1423, brought more money than even a chasuble of the same stuff:--“Et de xxvj_s._ viij_d._ receptis pro j. bairnecloth de rubeo panno auri. Et de xx_s._ receptis pro j casula de rubeo beaudkyn, &c. Inventorium,” &c.[402]

Old episcopal shoes are now become great liturgical rarities, but there is one here,--No. 1290, p. 46. At one time they were called “sandals;” and among the episcopal ornaments that went by usage to Durham cathedral at the death of any of its bishops, were “mitra et baculum et sandalia et cætera episcopalia,” of Hugh Pudsey, A.D. 1195.[403] Later was given them the name of “sabatines;” 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,” &c.[404]

[400] Collectanea Curiosa, ed. Gutch, t. ii. p 265.

[401] King’s College, Cambridge, and Eton College Statutes, ed. Wright, p. 632.

[402] Test. Ebor. t. iii. p. 76, ed. Surtees Society.

[403] Wills of the Northern Counties, ed. Surtees Society, t. i. p. 3.

[404] Ib. p. 76.

SECTION VI.--ARTISTS AND MANUFACTURERS

Will, on many occasions, heartily rejoice to have, within easy reach, such an extensive, varied, and curious collection of textiles gathered from many lands, and wrought in different ages.

For the painter and the decorator it must have a peculiar value.

Until this collection of silken and other kinds of woven stuffs had been brought to England, and opened for the world’s inspection and study, an artist had not, either in this country or abroad, any available means of being correctly true in the patterns of those silks and velvets with which he wished to array his personages, or of the hangings for garnishing the walls of the hall in which he laid the scene of his subject. In such a need, right glad was he if he might go to any small collection of scanty odds and ends belonging to a friend, or kept in private hands. So keenly was this want felt, that, but a few years ago, works of beautiful execution, but of costly price, were undertaken upon the dress of olden times, and mediæval furniture; yet those who got up such books could do nothing better than set out in drawings, as their authorities for both the branches of their subject, such few specimens as they could pick up figured in illuminated MSS. and the works of the early masters. Here, however, our own and foreign artists see before them, not copies, but those very self-same stuffs.

If we go to our National Gallery and look at the mediæval pictures there, taking note of the stuffs in which those old men who did them clothed their personages; if, then, we step hither, we shall be struck by the fact of seeing in these very textiles, duplicates, as far as pattern is sought, of those same painted garments. For example, in Orcagna’s Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 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 all quite Sicilian in design, and copied from those rich silks which came, at the middle of the fourteenth century, from the looms of Palermo. While standing before Jacopo di Casentino’s St. John, our eye is drawn, on the instant, to the orphrey on that evangelist’s chasuble, embroidered, after the Tuscan style, with barbed quatrefoils, shutting in the busts of Apostles. Isotta da Rimini, in her portrait by Pietro della Francesca, wears a gown made of velvet and gold, much like some cut velvets here.

In the patterns followed by the Sicilian looms, and those of Italy in general, may almost always be found the same especial elements. Of these, one is the artichoke in flower; and in F. Francia’s painting of the Blessed Virgin Mary with our Lord in her arms, and saints standing about them,--No. 179,--St. Laurence’s rich cloth of gold is diapered all over with the artichoke marked out in thin red lines. So, too, in the picture of V. Cappaccio, No. 750, the cloth-of-gold mantle worn by our Lord’s mother, as well as the dress of the Doge, are both diapered with this favourite Italian vegetable. Often is this artichoke shut in by an oval, made sometimes of ogee arches, with their finials shooting forwards outside: thus is diapered the cloak of the Madonna, in Crivelli’s Inthronement--No. 724. Much more frequently, however, this oval is put together out of architectural cusps--six or eight--turned inside, and their featherings sprouting out into a trefoil, as in our own Early English style. Such ovals round an artichoke are well shown in each of the four pictures by Melozzo da Forli, on the pede-cloth with which the steps in each of them are covered. Of such a patterned stuff here we select from several such, for the reader, Nos. 1352, p. 70; 1352A, p. 70.

Stained and patterned papers for wall-hanging are even yet unknown but in a very few places on the Continent. The employment of them as furniture among ourselves is comparatively very modern, and came to England, it is likely, through our trade with China. Though in Italy the state apartment and the reception rooms of a palace are hung always with rich damasks, and often with fine tapestry, while some old examples of gilt and beautifully-wrought leather trailed all over with coloured flowers and leaves are still to be found, the rooms for domestic use have their whitewashed walls adorned at best with a coloured ornamentation, bestowed upon them by the cheap and ready process of stencilling.

From early times up to the middle of the sixteenth century, our cathedrals and parish churches, our castles, manorial houses, and granges, 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 the gentry, for some solemn ceremonial.

Our high-born ladies used to spend their leisure hours in working these “hallings,” as they were called; and while Bradshaw, a monk of St. Werburgh’s monastery at Chester, sings the praises of the patron-saint of his church, he gives us a charming picture of how a large hall was arrayed here in England with needlework, for a solemn feast some time about the latter end of the fifteenth century.

First of all, according to the then wont, when great folks were bidden to a 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 plages of Egypt, and--

Duke Josue was joyned after them in pycture,

* * * * *

Theyr noble actes and tryumphes marcyall Fresshly 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 cessynge to call, _Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus_, blessed be the Trynite, _Dominus Deus Sabaoth_, thre persons in one deyte.[405]

The tapestries here will afford much help to the artist if he have to paint a dining room with festive doings going on, any time during the latter portion of the mediæval period; but such “hallings” are by no means scarce. Not so, however, such pieces of room hangings as he may find here at No. 1370, p. 76; No. 1297, p. 296; No. 1465 p. 298. Their fellows are nowhere else to be met with.

At a certain period, gloves were a much more ornamented and decorative article of dress than now; and, when meant for ladies’ wear, a somewhat lasting perfume was bestowed upon them. Among the new year’s day presents to Tudor Queen Mary, some years before she came to the throne, was “a payr of gloves embrawret with gold.”[406] A year afterwards, “x payr of Spanyneshe gloves from a Duches in Spayne,” came to her;[407] and but a month before, Mrs. Whellers had sent to her highness “a pair of swete gloves.” Shakespeare, true to manners of his days, after making the pretended pedler, Autolycus, thus chant the praises of his--

Laura, as white as driven snow; Cyprus, black as e’er was crow; Gloves, as sweet as damask roses;

puts this into Mopsa, the shepherdess’, mouth, as she speaks to her swain:--“Come, you promised me a tawdry lace, and a pair of sweet gloves.”[408] Here, in this collection, we may find a pair of such gloves, No. 4665, p. 105. What, though the fragrance that once, no doubt, hung about them, be all gone, yet their shape and embroideries will render them a valuable item to the artist for some painting.

[405] Warton’s History of English Poetry, ed. 1840, t. ii. p. 375, &c.

[406] Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary, ed. Madden, p. 144.

[407] Ib. p. 164.

[408] “A Winter’s Tale,” act iv. scene iii.

Manufacturers and master-weavers of every kind of textile, as well as their workmen, may gather some useful hints for their trade, by a look at the various specimens set out here before them.

They will, no doubt, congratulate themselves, as they fairly may, that their better knowledge of chemistry enables them to give to silk, wool, and cotton, tints and tones of tints, and shades, nay, entire colours quite unknown to the olden times, even to their elders of a few years ago: our new-found chemicals are carrying the dyeing art to a high point of beauty and perfection.

Among the several boasts of the present age one is, that of making machinery, as a working power in delicate operations, so true, as if it had been quickened with a life and will and power all its own: mechanism applied to weaving is, at least for the speed of plain work, most marvellous; and the improvements of the morrow over those of yesterday make the wonder grow. But, though having such appliances at hand, let an able well-taught designer for silken stuffs come hither, along with a skilled weaver, from Coventry, Glasgow, or Manchester, and the two will say, that for truthfulness and beauty in the drawing of the patterns, and their good renderings in the weaving, nothing of the present day is better, while much is often not so good. Yet these old stuffs before our eyes were wrought in looms so clumsy, and awkward, and helpless, that a weaver of the present day laughs at them in scorn. The man, however, who should happen to be asked to make the working drawings for several of such textiles, would fain acknowledge that he had been taught much by their study, and must strive hard before he might surpass many of them in the often crowded, yet generally clear combination of parts borrowed from beasts, birds, and flowers, all rendered with beauty and fittingness.

What has been, may be done again. We know better how to dye; we have more handy mechanism. Let, then, all those who belong any-wise to the weaving trade and come hither, go home resolved to stand for the future behind no nation, either of past or present time, in the ability of weaving not only useful, but beautiful and artistic textiles.

Before leaving the South Kensington Museum the master weaver may, if he wishes, convince himself that the so-called tricks of the trade are not evils of this age’s growth, but, it is likely, older than history herself. For mediæval instances of fraud in his own line of business, he will find not a few among the silks from Syria, Palermo, and the South of Spain.

What we said just now about Lettered Silks, p. lix. should be borne here in mind. With the Saracens, wherever they spread themselves, the usage was to weave upon their textiles, very often, either the title of the prince who was to wear them or give them away, or some short form of prayer or benediction. By Christian eyes, such Arabic words were looked upon as the true unerring sign that the stuffs that showed them came from Saracenic looms--the best of those times--or, in other terms, were the trade-mark of the Moslem. The Christian and Jewish weavers in many parts of the East, to make their own webs pass as Saracenic goods, wrought the Paynim trade-mark, as then understood, upon them. The forgery is clumsy: the letters are poor imitations of the Arabic character, and the pretended word runs, as it should, first correctly, or from right to left, then wrong or backward from left to right, just as if this part of the pattern--and it is nothing more--had been intended, like every other element in it, to confront itself by immediate repetition on the self-same line. Our young folks who sometimes amuse themselves by writing a name on paper, and while the ink is wet fold the sheet so that the word is shown again as if written backwards, get such a kind of scroll.

In many Oriental silk textiles the warp is either of hemp, flax, or cotton; but this is so easily discoverable that it could hardly have been done for fraud’ sake. There is however a Saracenic trick, learned from that people, and afterwards practised by the Spaniards of the South, for imitating a woof of gold. It is rather ingenious, and we presume unknown among collectors and writers until now.

For the purpose, the finer sort of parchment was sought out, sometimes as thin as that now rare kind of vellum called, among manuscript collectors, “uterine.” Such skins were well gilt and then cut into very narrow shreds, which were afterwards, instead of gold, woven, as the woof to the silken warp, to show those portions of the pattern which should be wrought in golden thread. But as these strips of gilded parchment were flat, they necessarily gave the stuffs in which they came all the look of being that costly and much used web called by us in the fifteenth century “tyssewys,” as we have before noticed, p. xxxi. Specimens of such a fraudulent textile are to be seen here, Nos. 7067, p. 132; 7095, p. 140; 8590, p. 224; 8601, p. 229; 8639, p. 243, &c.

SECTION VII.--SYMBOLISM.

A metaphor or figurative speech is the utterance to the understanding through the ear of words which have other and further meanings in them than their first one. Symbolism is the bringing to our thoughts, through the eye, some natural object, some human personage, some art-wrought figure, which is meant to set forth a some one, or a something else besides itself.

The use of both arose among men when they first began to dwell on earth and live together. Through symbolism, and the phonetic system, Egypt struck out for herself her three alphabets--the hieroglyphic or picture writing; the hieratic or priestly characters, or shortened form of the hieroglyphics; and the enchorial or people’s alphabet, a further abridgment still. The Hebrew letters are the conventional symbols of things in nature or art; and even yet, each keeps the name of the object which at first it represented; as “aleph” or “ox,” “beth” or “house,” “gimel” or “camel,” &c.

Holy Writ is full of symbolism; and from the moment that we begin to read those words--“I will set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be the sign of a covenant,”[409] till we reach the last chapter in the New Testament, we shall, all throughout, come upon many most beautiful and appropriate examples. The blood sprinkled upon the door-posts of the Israelites; the brazen serpent in the wilderness; that sign--that mystic and saving sign (Tau) of Ezekiel, were, each and every one of them symbols.

[409] Gen. ix. 13.

Being given to understand that things which happened to the Jews were so many symbols for us, the early Christian Church figured on the walls of the catacombs many passages from ancient Jewish history as applicable to itself, while its writers bestowed much attention on the study of symbolism. S. Melito, bishop of Sardes, A.D. 170, drew out of scripture a great many texts which would bear a symbolical meaning, and gave to his work the name of “The Key.” Almost quite forgotten, and well nigh lost, this valuable book, after long and unwearied labour, was at last found and printed by Dom (now Cardinal) Pitra in his Spicilegium Solesmense, t. ii. Among other works from the pen of St. Epiphanius, born A.D. 310, we have his annotations on a book, then old, and called “The Physiologist,” and a work of his own--a treatise on the twelve stones worn by Aaron,[410] in both of which, the Saint speaks much about symbolism. But the fourth century witnessed the production of the two great works on Scriptural Symbolism; that of St. Basil in his homilies on the six days’ creation;[411] which sermons in Greek were styled by their writer “Hexæmeron;” and the other by St. Ambrose, in Latin, longer and more elaborated, on the same subject and bearing the same title. A love for such a study grew up with the church’s growth everywhere, from the far east to the utmost west, amid Greeks as well as Latins, all of whom beheld, in their several liturgies, many illustrations of the system. It was not confined to clerics, but laymen warmly followed it. The artist, whether he had to set forth his work in painting or mosaic; the architects, whether they were entrusted with the raising of a church, or building a royal palace, nay a dwelling-house, were, each of them, but too glad to avail themselves, under clerical guidance, of such a powerful help for beautiful variety and happy illustration as was afforded them by Christian Symbolism. So systematized at last became this subject that by the eleventh century we find it separated into three branches--beasts, birds, and stones--and works were written upon each. Those upon beasts were, as they still are, known by the title of “Bestiaria,” or books on beasts; “Volucraria,” on birds, and “Lapideria,” on stones. About the same period, as an offset from symbolism, heraldry sprang up; whether the crusaders were the first to bethink themselves of such a method for personal recognition and distinction; or whether they borrowed the idea from the peoples in the east, and while adopting, much improved upon it, matters not; heraldry grew out of symbolism. Very soon it was made to tell about secular as well as sacred things; and poets, nay political partizans were quick in their learning of its language. The weaver too of silken webs was often bade, while gearing his loom, to be directed by its teaching, as several specimens in this collection will testify. That some of the patterns, made up of beasts and birds, upon silken stuffs from Sicilian, or Italian looms and here before us, were sketched by a partizan pencil and advisedly meant to carry about them an historic, if not political signification, we do not for a moment doubt. Several instances of sacred symbolism here, have been specified, and some explanation of it given.

[410] Exod. xxviii.

[411] Gen. i.

The “gammadion,” or the cross made thus 卐 a figure which, as we said before, is to be seen traced upon the earliest heathenish art-works, as well as the latest mediæval ones for Christian use, may be often found wrought on textiles here.

Knowing, as we do, that the first time this symbol shows itself to our eyes, is in the pattern figured on a web of the Pharaonic period, it is to the early history of Egypt we ought to go, if we wish to learn its origin and meaning.

The most astounding event of the world’s annals was the going out of Israel from Egypt. The blood of the lamb slain and sacrificed the evening before, and put upon both the door-posts, as well as sprinkled at the threshold of the house wherein any Hebrew dwelt--a sign of safety from all harm and death to man and beast, within its walls, on that awful night when throughout all Egypt the first-born of everything else was killed--must have caught the sight of every wonder-stricken Egyptian father and mother who, while weeping over their loss, heard that death had not gone in to do the work of slaughter where the blood had signed the gates of every Israelite.

Among the Hebrew traditions, handed down to us by the Rabbins, one is that the mark made by the Israelites upon their door-posts with the blood of the sacrificed lamb, the night before starting out of Egypt, was fashioned like the letter Tau made after its olden form, that is, in the shape of a cross, thus +.

What is still more curious, we are told that the lamb itself was spitted as if it had been meant to bear about its body, an unmistakable likeness to a kind of crucifixion. Treating of the passover, the Talmud says:--The ram or kid was roasted in an oven whole, with two spits made of pomegranate wood thrust through it, the one lengthwise, the other transversely (crossing the longitudinal one near the fore-legs) thus forming a cross.[412] Precisely the same thing is said by St. Justin, martyr, born A.D. 103, in his Dialogue with Tryphon the Jew. This very mode of roasting is expressed in Arabic by the verb “to crucify;” according to Jahn, in his “Biblical Antiquities,” § 142, as quoted by Kitto, under the word Passover.[413]

[412] Pesachim, c. 3.

[413] T. ii. p. 477 of the “Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature.”

From the words of St. Jerome, it would seem that that learned hebraist, well knowing, as he did, the traditions of the rabbins of his day, had understood from them that the mark of the lamb’s blood sprinkled on the doors of the Israelites going out of Egypt, had been so made as to take the shape of a cross.

Deeply smitten as the whole of Egypt must have been at the woe that befel them and theirs, the night before the great exode of the Israelites from among them, those Egyptians could not help seeing how all the Hebrews, their children, and their flocks had gone forth scatheless out of that death-stricken land. At peep of dawn, the blood upon the door-posts of every house where an Israelite had lately dwelt, told the secret; for the destroyer had not been there. From that hour, a Tau was thought by them to be the symbol of health and safety, of happiness, and future life. St. Epiphanius, born A.D. 310, in Palestine, for many years Archbishop of Salamis in Cyprus, and a great traveller in Egypt, tells us, that being mindful of that day on which the Israelites who had besmeared the door-posts of their houses with the blood of the lamb, had been spared the angel’s death-stroke, the Egyptian people were accustomed, at every vernal equinox--their new year--to daub, with red paint, their doors, their trees, and animals, the while they cried out that, “once at this time fire blighted every thing;” against such a plague, they think that the remedy is a spell in the colour of blood: “Egyptios memores illius diei quo a cæde angeli liberati sunt Israelitæ qui agni sanguine postes domorum illinierant, solitos esse, intrante æquinoctio vernanti, accipere rubricam et illinere omnes arbores domosque clamantes ‘quia in tempore hoc ignis vastavit omnia’ contra quam luem remedium putant ignis colorem sanguineum rubricæ.”[414]

[414] Hæreses, xviii.

While they found blood upon the departed and unharmed Israelites’ door-posts, the sorrowing Egyptians must have seen that it had been sprinkled there, not at hazard, but with the studied purpose of making therewith the Egyptian letter Tau, as it used to be fashioned at the time. But what was then its common shape? That the old Tau was a cross, we are told by written authority, and learn from monumental evidence. Learned as he was in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, Moses, no doubt, wrote with the letters of their alphabet. Now, the oldest shape of the Tau in the Hebrew alphabet, and still kept up among the Samaritans in St. Jerome’s days, was in the form of a cross: “Antiquis Hebræorum literis, quibus usque hodie Samaritæ utuntur, extrema Tau crucis habet similitudinem, quæ in Christianorum frontibus pingitur et frequentius manus inscriptione signatur.”[415] For monumental testimony we refer the reader to the proofs we have given, at large, in “Hierurgia,” pp. 352-355, second edition. Strengthening our idea that the lamb’s blood had been put on the door-post in the shape of a cross, and that hence the old Egyptians had borrowed it as a spell against evil hap, and a symbol of a life hereafter, is a passage set forth, first by Rufinus, A.D. 397, and then by Socrates, A.D. 440:--“On demolishing at Alexandria a temple dedicated to Serapis, were observed several stones sculptured with letters called hieroglyphics, which showed the figure of a cross. Certain Gentile inhabitants of the city who had lately been converted to the Christian faith, initiated in the method of interpreting these enigmatic characters, declared that the figure of the cross was considered as the symbol of future life.”[416] We know that, while the old Tau kept the shape of a cross, it took at least three modifications of that form on those monuments which, up to this time, have been brought to light: others may turn up with that letter traced exactly like the so-called “gammadion” found upon an Egyptian stuff of such an early date. Most probably this was the very shape, but with shorter arms, of the letter found traced upon the door-posts.

[415] Hier. in cap. ix. Ezech.

[416] Hist. Eccles. lib. v. c. 17.

The recurrence of the gammadion upon Christian monuments is curious. We find it shown upon the tunic of a gravedigger in the catacombs; it comes in among the ornamentation wrought upon the gold and parcel-gilt altar-frontal dome by our Anglo-Saxon countryman Walwin for the Ambrosian basilican church at Milan; it is seen upon the narrow border round some embroidery of the twelfth century, lately found within a shrine in Belgium, and figured by that untiring archæologist the Canon Voisin of Tournay; and upon a piece of English needlework of the latter half of the same twelfth century--the mitre of our St. Thomas, figured by Shaw, and still kept at Sens cathedral. As a favourite element in the pattern worked upon our ecclesiastical embroideries, this “gammadion” is as conspicuously shown upon the apparel round the shoulders, and on the one in front of his alb, in the effigy of Bishop Edington, at Winchester cathedral, as upon the vestments of a priest in a grave-brass at Shottesbrook church, Berks, given by Waller in his fine work.

Always keeping up its heathenish signification of a “future life,” Christianity widened the meaning of this symbol, and made it teach the doctrine of the Atonement through the death of our Lord upon a cross. Furthermore, it set forth that He is our corner-stone. About the thirteenth century, it was taken to be an apt memorial of His five wounds; and remembering the stigmata or five impressions in the hands, feet, and side of St. Francis of Assisi, this gammadion became the favourite device of such as bore that famous saint’s name, and was called in England, after its partial likeness to the ensigne of the Isle of Man--three feet--a fylfot.[417]

[417] M. S. Harley, 874, p. 190.

To the symbolic meaning affixed unto some animals, we have pointed in the catalogue, wherein, at p. 156, the reader will find that Christ, as God, is typified under the figure of a lion, under that again of the unicorn, as God-man. Man’s soul, at pp. 237, 311, is figured as the hare; mischief and lubricity are, at p. 311, shadowed forth in the likeness of the monkey.

Birds often come in here as symbols; and of course we behold the lordly eagle very frequently. Bearing in mind how struggled the two great factions of the Guelphs whose armorial arms were “un’ Aquila con un Drago sotto i piedi”--an eagle with a dragon under its feet--and the Ghibellini, we do not wonder at finding the noble bird, sometimes single, sometimes double-headed, so frequently figured on silks woven in Sicily, or on the Italian peninsula, triumphing over his enemy, the dragon or Ghibelline stretched down before him. About the emblematic eagle of classic times we have already spoken.

If the Roman Quintus Curtius, like the Greeks before him, was in amazement at certain birds in India, so quick in mimicking the human voice: “aves ad imitandum humanæ vocis sonum dociles,”[418] we naturally expect to find the parrot figured, as we do here, upon stuffs from Asia, or imitations of such webs.

Famous, in eastern story, are those knowing birds--and they were parrots--that, on coming home at evening, used to whisper unto Æthiopia’s queen (whom Englishmen not till the sixteenth century began to call Sheba, but all the world besides called and yet calls Saba) each word and doing, that day, of the far-off Solomon, or brought round their necks letters from him. Out of this Talmudic fable grew the method with artists during the fifteenth century of figuring one of the wise men as very swarthy--an Æthiopian--under the name of Balthasar, taking as their warrant, a work called “Collectaneæ,” erroneously assigned to our own Beda; and because our Salisbury books for the liturgy, sang, as all the old liturgies yet sing, on the feast of the Epiphany:--“All shall come from Saba”--the name of the country as well as of that queen who once governed it--“bringing gold and frankincense,” &c. those mediæval artists deemed it proper to show somewhere about the wise men, parrots, as sure to have been brought among the other gifts, especially from the land of Saba. Upon a cope, belonging now to Mount St. Mary’s, Chesterfield, made of very rich crimson velvet, there is beautifully embroidered by English hands, the arrival at Bethlehem of the three wise men. In the orphrey, on that part just above the hood, are figured in their proper colours two parrots, as those may remember who saw it in the Exhibition here of 1862; on textiles before us this bird is often shown. The appearance of the parrot on the vestments at old St. Paul’s is very frequent.[419]

[418] Lib. viii. cap. 9.

[419] Dugdale, p. 317.

But of the feathered tribe which we meet with figured on these textiles, there are three that merit an especial mention through the important part they were made to take, whilom in England at many a high festival and regal celebration--we mean the so-called “_Vow of the Swan, the Peacock and the Pheasant_.” From the graceful ease--the almost royal dignity with which it walks the waters, the swan with its plumage spotless and white as driven snow, has everywhere been looked upon with admiring eyes; and its flesh while yet a cygnet used to be esteemed a dainty for a royal board, on some extraordinary occasions. To make it the symbol of majestic beauty in a woman, it had sometimes given it a female’s head. Among the gifts bestowed on his son, Richard II. by the Black Prince, in his will were bed-hangings embroidered with white swans having women’s heads. To raise this bird still higher, in ecclesiastical symbolism, it is put forth to indicate a stainless, more than royal purity; and as such, is often linked with and figured under the Blessed Virgin Mary, as is shown upon an enamelled morse given in the “Church of our Fathers.”[420]

Besides all this, the swan owns a curious legend of its own, set forth by some raving troubadour in the wildest dream that minstrel ever dreamed. “The life and myraculous hystory of the most noble and illustryous Helyas, knight of the swanne, and the birth of y^e excellent knight Godfrey of Boulyon,” &c., was once a book in great favour throughout Europe; and was “newly translated and printed by Robert Copland, out of Frensshe in to Englisshe at thinstigacion of y^e Puyssaunt and Illustryous Prynce Lorde Edwarde Duke of Buckyngham--of whom lynyally is dyscended my sayde lorde.”[421]

[420] T. ii. p. 41.

[421] Typographical Antiquities of Great Britain, ed. Dibdin, t. iii. pp. 152-3.

While our noble countryman boasted of an offspring from this fabled swan, so did the greatest houses abroad. In private hands in England is a precious ivory casket wrought on its five panels, before us in photography, with this history of the swan. Helyas’s shield and flag are ensigned with St. George’s cross; the armour tells of England and its military appliances, about the end of the fourteenth century; and the whole seems the work of English hands. At the great exhibition of loans in this museum, A.D. 1862, one of the many fine textiles then shown was a fine but cut-down chasuble of blue Sicilian silk, upon which was, curiously enough for what we have said about the birds before which the “Vow” was made, figured, amid other fowls the pheasant. The handsome orphreys upon this vestment were wrought in this country, and good specimens they are of English needlework during the fourteenth century. These orphreys, before and behind, are embroidered on a bright red silk ground, with golden flower and leaf-bearing branches, so trailed as, in their twinings, to form Stafford knots in places, and to embower shields of arms each supported by gold swans all once ducally gorged. From these and other bearings on it, this chasuble would seem to have been worked for the Staffords, Dukes of Buckingham. At Corby Castle there is an altar frontal of crimson velvet made for and figured with the great Buckingham and his Duchess both on their knees at the foot of a crucifix. Amid a sprinkling of the Stafford knot, for the Duke (Henry VIII. beheaded him) was Earl of Stafford, the swan is shown, and the Lord Stafford of Cossey, in whose veins the blood of the old Buckingham still runs, gives a silver swan as one of his armorial supporters. At Lincoln cathedral there were:--A cope of red cloth of gold with swans of gold;[422] and a cope of purple velvet having a good orphrey set with swans.[423]

In mediæval symbolism, as read by Englishmen, the swan was deemed not only a royal bird, but, more than that, one of the tokens of royal prowess. Hence we may easily understand why our great warrior king, Edward I., as he sat feasting in Westminster Hall, amid all the chivalry, old and young of the kingdom, on such a memorable day, should have had brought before him the two swans in their golden cages:--“tunc allati sunt in pompatica gloria duo cygni vel olores, ante regem, phalerati retibus aureis, vel fistulis deauratis, desiderabile spectaculum, intuentibus. Quibus visis, rex votum vovit Deo cœli et cygnis, se proficisci in Scotiam,” &c.[424] And then solemnly made the “Vow of the Swan,” as we described, p. 287 of the Catalogue.

[422] Mon. Anglic. t. viii. p. 1282.

[423] Ibid.

[424] Flores Historiarum, per Matt. Westmonast. Collectæ, p. 454.

In the pride of place, on such occasions, abreast with the swan stood the peacock, “with his angel fethers bright;” and was at all times and everywhere looked upon as the emblem of beauty. Not a formal banquet was ever given, at one period, without this bird being among the dishes; in fact, the principal one. To prepare it for the table, it had been killed and skinned with studious care. When roasted, it was sewed up in its skin after such an artistic way that its crested head and azure neck were kept, as in nature, quite upright; and its fan-like tail outspread; and then, put in a sitting position on a large broad silver dish parcel gilt, used to be brought into the hall with much solemnity.

On the last day of a tournament, its gay festivities ended in a more than usual sumptuous banqueting. The large baronial hall was hung all over with hangings, sometimes figured with a romance, sometimes with scenes such as we read of in “The Flower and the Leaf;” and because trees abounded on them, were known as tapestry of “verd.” At top of and all along the travers ran the minstrel-gallery, and thither--

Come first all in their clokes white, A company, that ware for their delite, Chapelets fresh of okes seriall, Newly sprong, and trumpets they were all. On every trumpe hanging a broad banere Of fine tartarium were full richely bete, Every trumpet his lordes arms bare, About their neckes with great pearles sete Collers brode, for cost they would not lete, &c.[425]

From among those high-born damosels who had crowded thither, one was chosen as the queen of beauty. When all the guests had gathered in that dining-hall, and been marshalled in their places by the herald, and the almoner had said grace, and set the “grete almes disshe of silver and overgilt, made in manner of a shippe full of men of armes feyghtyng upon the shippe syde weyng in all lxvii lb ix un[=c] of troye,”[426] at the high board under the dais, a bold fanfar was flourished upon silver trumpets, from which drooped silken flags embroidered with the blazon of that castle’s lord, or--

Of gold ful riche, in which ther was ybete

some quaint device. Then a burst of music from the minstrel-gallery arose as came in the queen of beauty. Her kirtle was of ciclatoun, cloth of pall, or sparkling tissue:--

To don honour (to that day) Yclothed was she fresshe for to devise. Hire yelwe here was broided in a tresse, Behind hire back a yerde long I gesse; And in the gardin at the sonne uprist, She walketh up and doun wher as her list. She gathereth floures, partie white and red, To make a sotel gerlond for hire hed.[427]

One at each side of her, walked two of the youngest bachelors in chivalry. These youths did not wear their harness, but came arrayed in gay attire, having on white hoods, perhaps embroidered with dancing men in blue habits, like the one given by Edward III. to the Lord Grey of Rotherfield, to be worn at a tournament; or looking,[428] each of them, like the “yonge Squier,” of whom Chaucer said:--

Embrouded was he, as it were a mede, Alle ful of fresshe floures, white and red.[429]

[425] Chaucer, The Flower and the Leaf, v. 207, &c.

[426] Antient Kalendars of the Exchequers, ed. Palgrave, ii. p. 184.

[427] Chaucer, The Knightes Tale, v. 1050.

[428] Dugdale’s Baronage, i. 723.

[429] The Prologue, v. 79.

Treading out sweetness from the bay leaves strewed among the rushes on the floor, and with step as stately as the peacock’s own, the queen of beauty for the nonce, bearing in both her hands the splendid charger with the bird--the symbol of herself--slowly paced the hall. Halting on a sudden, she set it down before the knight who, by general accord, had borne him best throughout that tournament; such was the ladies’ token of their praises. To carve well at table was one of the accomplishments of ancient chivalry; and our own King Arthur was so able in that gentle craft, that on one occasion he is said to have cut up a peacock so cleverly that every one among the one hundred and fifty guests had a morsel of the fowl. To show himself as good a knight at a feast as at a passage of arms, the lady bade him carve the bird. What the lances of his antagonists could not do, this meed of praise from the ladies did--it overcame him. With deference, he humbly pleaded that many a doughty knight there present was more worthy of the honour: all his words were wasted. The queen of beauty would brook no gainsaying to her behest. He therefore bowed obedience, and she went away. Ere applying himself to his devoir, outstretching his right hand on high above the dish before him, amid the deepest silence, and in a ringing voice, so as to be well heard by all that noble presence, the knight vowed his vow of the peacock. Almost always this vow was half religious, half military; and he who took it bound himself to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and, on his road thither or homeward, to join, as he might, any crusade against the Paynim.

Hardly had the words of such a plight been uttered, when other knights started up at every table, and bound themselves by his or some like vow.

The dinner done, the feast was not quite over. Plucking from its tail the best and brightest of the peacock’s feathers, the beauty-queen wove them into a diadem; the minstrel who had long distinguished himself, was summoned by a pursuivant and brought before her; and she crowned him as he knelt lowly down. Ever afterwards, at festival or tournament, this music king wore this crown about his hat as blithely as did the knight his lady’s glove or favour on his helmet, at a joust. Such was--

Vowis of Pecok, with all ther proude chere.

Sometimes a pheasant, on account of its next beautiful plumage, used to be employed, instead of the larger, grander peacock.

With these facts set before him, any visitor to this collection will take a much more lively interest in so precious a piece of English embroidery as is the Syon cope, for while looking at it in admiration of the art-work shown in such a splendid church vestment, he finds, where he never thought of coming on, a curious record of our ancient national manners.

Besides all that has been said in reference to this cope, at pp. 289-90 of the Catalogue, we would remind our reader that at easy distances from Coventry might be found such lordly castles as those of Warwick, Kenilworth, Chartley, Minster Lovel, Tamworth. The holding of a tournament within their spacious walls, or in the fields beside them, was, we may be certain, of frequent occurrence at some one or other of them. The tilting was followed by the banquet and the “vow;” and the vow by its fulfilment from those barons bold, who bore in their own day the stirring names of Beauchamp, Warwick, Ferrers, Geneville, or Mortimer. Of one or other of them might be said:--

At Alisandre he was whan it was wonne. Ful often time he hadde the bord begonne No cristen man so ofte of his degre. In Gernade at the siege eke hadde he be Of Algesir, and ridden in Belmarie. At mortal batailles hadde he ben fiftene, And foughten for our faith at Tramissene In listes thries, and ay slain his fo.[430]

[430] Chaucer, The Prologue, vv. 51, &c.

At Warwick itself, and again at Temple Balsall, not far off, the Knights Templars held a preceptory, and, as it is likely, aggregated to the Coventry gild, had their badge--the Holy Lamb--figured on its vestment. Proud of all its brotherhood, proud of those high lords who had gone on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, figured by the Star of Bethlehem, and had done battle with the Moslem, according to the vow signified by the swan and peacock, the Coventry gild caused to be embroidered on the orphrey of their fine old cope, the several armorial bearings of those among their brotherhood who had swelled the fame of England abroad; and by putting those symbols--the swan and the peacock, the star and crescent--close by their blazons, meant to remind the world of those festive doings which led each of them to work such deeds of hardihood.

In the fourteenth century a fashion grew up here in England of figuring symbolism--heraldic and religious--upon the articles of dress, as we gather from specimens here, as well as from other sources. The ostrich feather, first assumed by our Black Prince, was a favourite device with his son Richard II. for his flags and personal garments. This is well shown in the illumination given, p. 31, of the “Deposition of Richard II.,” published by the Antiquarian Society. That king’s mother had bequeathed to him a new bed of red velvet, embroidered with ostrich feathers of silver, and heads of leopards of gold, with boughs and leaves issuing out of their mouths.[431] Through family feeling, not merely the white swan, but this cognizance of the Yorkists--the ostrich feather--was sometimes figured on orphreys for church copes and chasubles, since in the Exeter, A.D. 1506, we find mentioned a cope, “le orfrey de rubeo damasco operato de opere acuali cum rosis aureis ac ostryge fethers insertis in rosis,” &c.;[432] and again, “le orfrey de blodio serico operata de opere acuali cum cignis albis et ostryge fethers--i casula de blodio serico operata opere acuali cum ostryge fethers sericis, le orfrey de rubeo serico operato cum ostryge fethers aureis.”[433] Lincoln Cathedral, too, had a cope of red damask, with ostriges feathers of silver.[434] This somewhat odd element of design for a textile is to be found on one here, No. 7058, p. 129.

[431] Testamenta Vetusta, i. 14.

[432] Ed. Oliver, p. 347.

[433] Ibid. p. 365.

[434] Mon. Anglic. t. viii. p. 1282, ed. Caley.

To eyes like our own, accustomed to see nowhere but in English heraldry, and English devices, harts figured as lodged beneath green trees in a park as in Nos. 1283-4, p. 43, or stags couchant, with a chain about the neck, as at pp. 53, 239, and in both samples gazing upward to the sun behind a cloud, it would appear that they were but varieties of the pattern sketched for the silken stuffs worn by Richard II., and admirably shown on that valuable, yet hitherto overlooked specimen of English mediæval workmanship in copper and engraving still to be found in Westminster Abbey, as we before observed,[435] and the symbolism of which we now explain. The pattern of the silken textile worn by the king consists of but three elements--the broom-pod, the sun’s rays darting upwards from behind a cloud, and a stag lying down on the grass, looking right forward, with about its neck a royal crown, down from which falls a long chain. The broom tells, of course, that Richard was a Plantagenet. His grandfather’s favourite cognizance was that of sunbeams issuing from clouds; his mother’s--Joan, the fair maid of Kent--the white hart. The latter two were evidently meant to bring to mind the words of the Psalmist, who says:--“The heavens show forth the glory of God. He hath set His tabernacle in the sun. The Lord is my light, and His throne as the sun.” The white hind brings to our thoughts how the hart panting for the water-fountains, is likened to the soul that pants after God. This symbolism is unfolded into a wider breadth upon the design for the stuffs here, No. 1310, p. 53; No. 8624, p. 239. Here, instead of the sunbeams shooting upwards, as if to light the whole heavens, they dart downward, as if for the individual stag with upturned gaze, amid a gentle shower of rain; as if to say that if man look heavenward by prayer, light will be sent down to him, and helping grace, like rain, like the shower upon the grass to slake his ghostly thirst.

[435] P. cxx.

About the time of Richard II. the white hart seems to have been a favourite element in ornamental needlework here in England, for Lincoln cathedral had “a red velvet cope set with white harts lying, colours (with collars?) full of these letters S S ... the harts having crowns upon their necks with chains, silver and gilt,” &c.[436] So thoroughly national at the time was this emblem that we believe every piece of silken textile to be found here or elsewhere had its design sketched in this country and sent to Palermo to be woven there in stuffs for the use of the English court. When his order had been done, the weaver having his loom geared at our king’s expense, threw off a certain quantity of the same pattern for home use or his trade with Germany; and hence we see such a beautiful variation figured on the apparels upon the old alb, No. 8710, p. 268 of the catalogue. The eagle shown all in gold, with a crown not on but above its head, may refer to one of Richard’s ancestors, the King of the Romans, who never reigned as such. The hart, collared and lodged in its park, is Richard’s own emblem. That dog, collared and courant, has a story of its own in Richard’s eventful life. Dogs when petted and great favourites, were always arrayed in ornamented collars; hence we must not be surprised to find put down among the things of value kept in the Treasury of the Exchequer:--“ii grehondes colers of silk enbrouded with lettres of gold and garnyssed with silver and overgilt.”[437] Telling of Richard’s capture in Flint castle by the Earl of Derby, soon afterwards Henry IV., Froissart says:--“King Richard had a greyhound called Math, beautiful beyond measure who would not notice nor follow any one but the king. Whenever the king rode abroad the greyhound was loosed by the person who had him in charge, and ran instantly to caress him, by placing his two fore feet on his shoulders. It fell out that as the king and the Duke of Lancaster were conversing in the court of the castle, their horses being ready for them to mount, the greyhound was untied, but instead of running as usual to the king, he left him, and leaped to the Duke of Lancaster’s shoulders, paying him every court, and caressing him as he was formerly used to caress the king. The duke asked the king, ‘What does this mean?’ ‘Cousin,’ replied the king, ‘it means a great deal for you, and very little for me. This greyhound fondles and pays his court to you this day as King of England.’”[438] That such a pet as Math once so given to fawn upon his royal master should, with other emblematic animals, have been figured in the pattern on a textile meant for its master’s wear, or that of his court, seems very likely: and thus the piece before us possesses a more than ordinary interest.

[436] Mon. Anglic. t. viii. p. 1281, ed. Caley.

[437] Antient Kalendars and Inventories, ed. Palgrave, t. ii. p. 252.

[438] Froissart’s Chronicles, by Johnes, t. ii. chap. cxiii. p. 692.

Respecting ecclesiastical symbolism, we have to observe that with regard to the subjects figured upon these liturgical embroideries, we may see at a glance, that the one untiring wish, both of the designer and of those who had to wear those vestments, was to set before the people’s eyes and to bring as often as possible to their mind the divinity of Christ, strongly and unmistakably, along with the grand doctrine of the Atonement. Whether it be cope, or chasuble, or reredos, or altar-frontal such a teaching is put forth upon it. Beginning with the divinity of our Saviour’s manhood, sometimes we have shown us how, with such lowly reverence, Gabriel spoke his message to the Blessed Virgin Mary with the mystic three-flowered lily standing up between them; or the Nativity with the shepherds or the wise men kneeling in adoration to acknowledge the divinity of our Lord even as a child just born; then some event in His life, His passion, His scourging at the pillar, the bearing of His cross, His being crowned with thorns, always His crucifixion, often above that, His upraised person like a king enthroned and crowning her of whom He had taken flesh; while everywhere about the vestment are represented apostles, martyrs, and saints all nimbed with glory, and among them, winged seraphim standing upon wheels, signifying that heaven is now thrown open to fallen but redeemed man, who, by the atonement wrought for him by our Divine Redeemer, is made to become the fellow-companion of angels and cherubim. To this same end, the black vestments worn at the services for the dead were, according to the old English rite, marked; the chasubles on the back with a green cross upon a red ground, the copes with a red orphrey at their sides, to remind those present that while they mourned their departed friend, they must believe that his soul could never enter heaven unless made clean and regenerated by the atoning blood shed for it on the cross.

At his dubbing, “unto a knight is given a sword, which is made in the semblance of the cross, for to signify how our Lord God vanquished in the cross the death of human lineage, to the which he was judged for the sin of our first father Adam.” This we are told in the “Order of Chivalry,” translated by Caxton.[439] While stretched wounded and dying on the battle-field, some friendly hand would stick a sword into the ground before the expiring knight, that as in its handle he beheld this symbol of the cross, he might forgive him who had struck him down, as he hoped forgiveness for himself, through the atonement paid for him on the cross at Calvary.

[439] Typographical Antiquities, ed. Dibdin, t. i. p. 234.

The ages of chivalry were times of poetry, and we therefore feel no surprise on finding that each young knight was taught to learn that belonging to every article of his armour, to every colour of his silken array, there was a symbolism which he ought to know. All these emblematic significations are set forth in the “Order of Chivalry,” which we just now quoted. The work is very rare, but the chapter on this subject is given by Ames in his “Typographical Antiquities of Great Britain;”[440] as well as in “Lancelot du Lac” modernized and printed in the “Bibliothèque Bleu,” pp. 11, 12. In that black silk chasuble with a red orphrey upon which our Lord is figured hanging upon a green cross--“cum crucifixo pendente in viridi cruce,”[441] it was for a particular reason that the colour of this wood for the cross is specified: as green is the tint of dress put on by the new-born budding year, which thus foretells of flowers and fruits in after months, so was this same colour the symbol of regeneration for mankind, and the promise of paradise hereafter. For such a symbolic reason is it that, upon the wall painting lately brought again to light in West Somerton Church, Norfolk, our uprisen Lord is shown stepping out of the grave, mantled in green, with the banner of the resurrection in His left hand, and giving a blessing with His upraised right. At all times, and in every land, the “Language of Flowers” has been cultivated, and those who now make it their study will find much to their purpose in Chaucer, especially in his “Flower and the Leaf.” There speaking of “Diane, goddesse of chastite,” the poet says:--

And for because that she a maiden is, In her hond the braunch she beareth this, That agnus castus men call properly;

* * * * *

And tho that weare chapelets on their hede Of fresh woodbind, be such as never were Of love untrue in word, thought ne dede, But aye stedfast, &c.[442]

[440] Ibid.

[441] Oliver, p. 134.

[442] Works, ed. Nicolas, t. vi. p. 259.

Were it not for this symbolism for the woodbine, we had been quite unable to understand why in our old testamentary bequests, the flower should have been so especially mentioned as we find in the will of Joan Lady Bergavenny who, A.D. 1434, leaves to one of her friends, a “bed of silk, black and red, embroidered with woodbined flowers of silver,” &c.[443] Besides its symbolism of those colours--black and red--for which we have but this moment given the reasons, p. cxlix., the funeral cope which we noticed before, p. cxxvi., showed a symbolism of flowers in the woodbine wrought upon it. Sure may we be that the donor’s wish--perhaps the fingers of a weeping widow had worked it for Lincoln Cathedral--was to tell for her in after days the unfaltering love she ever bore towards her husband, and to say so every time this vestment happened to be worn at the services sounded for him. May be that quaint old likeness of Anne Vavasour, exhibited here A.D. 1868 among the “National Portraits,” and numbered 680, p. 138 of the Catalogue, had its background trailed all over with branches of the woodbine in leaf, at the particular behest of a fond spouse Sir H. Lee, and so managed that the plant’s only cyme of flower should hang just below her bosom. By Shakespeare floral symbolism was well understood; and he often shows his knowledge of it in “A Winter’s Tale,” act iv. scene iii. He gives us several meanings of flower-speech, and when he makes (Henry VIII.