letter M; the second, with a round ornament, having red and gold

stars upon a tawny white ground between each of its eight radii, and underneath the sacred name, in dark blue silk. German, late 15th century. 1 foot 7½ inches by 2½ inches; 7 inches by 3¼ inches.

Like several other examples of the same kind to be found in this collection, and wrought for the same liturgical purposes.

8685.

Piece of Raised Velvet, dark blue; pattern, one of the several varieties of the pomegranate. Italian, 16th century. 1 foot 3½ inches by 1 foot 3 inches.

Rich neither in material nor design, this velvet may have been wrought not for ecclesiastical but personal use.

8686.

Piece of Silk Damask, purple; pattern, the pomegranate. Italian. 2 feet 5 inches by 11¾ inches.

Like the preceding, meant for personal use, but exhibiting a much more elaborate design, and the variety of the corn-flower (centaurea) springing forth all round the pomegranate, which itself grows out of a fleur-de-lis crown.

8687.

Piece of Embroidery, on canvas; ground, figured with St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist. Rhenish, 16th century. 1 foot 4 inches square.

To the left is seen St. John the Baptist, clothed in a long garment of camel-hair and his loins girt with a light-blue girdle, preaching in the wilderness on the banks of the Jordan. In his left hand he holds a clasped book, upon which rests the “Lamb of God,” and just over, a flag, the white field of which is ensigned with a red cross; his upraised right hand, with the first two fingers elevated as in the act of blessing, is pointed to the lamb. To the right we have St. John the Evangelist, holding a cup in one hand, while with the other he makes the poisonous drug in it harmless by a blessing.

The grounding has been filled in mostly with golden thread, but of so poor a quality that the thin metal on it is scarcely discernible. In both figures the whole of the person, the fleshes, as well as clothing, are all done in woven white silk cut out, shaded, and featured in colours by the brush, with some little needlework here and there upon the garments and accessories. The figures of the saints are “applied;” and one cannot but admire the effect which a few stitches of rich green silk produce upon the canvas ground, while a piece of applied silk, slightly shaded by the brush, is an admirable imitation of a rocky cliff. The two tall trees and green garlands between them are telling in their warm tones. Altogether this is a precious specimen of applied work, and merits attention. It seems to have been the middle piece of a banner used for processions, and may have once belonged to some church at Cologne dedicated to the two SS. John.

8688.

Portion of an Orphrey, crimson satin, embroidered with flowers in coloured silk and gold thread. 17th century. 1 foot 3½ inches by 2 inches.

From what liturgical vestment this was taken it would be hard to guess, but there is no likelihood that it ever ornamented a mitre. The yellow flowers, of the composite kind, and heart’s-eases are very nicely done, whether the work of an Italian, French, or German hand. They have much about them that speaks of France.

8689.

Piece of Raised Velvet, brown, with floriated pattern in gold thread. North Italy, early 16th century. 1 foot 1½ inches by 6½ inches.

Most likely from the looms of Lucca, and with a pretty diapering in the gold ground where it is bare of the velvet pile.

8690.

Piece of Green Velvet, spangled with gold, and embroidered with three armorial shields in gold thread and coloured silks. German, 17th century. 10 inches by 9¾ inches.

All the shields are very German, especially in their crests. The shield on the right hand will attract notice by its anomaly; on a field _azure_ it gives a rose _gules_ barbed _green_, or colour upon colour; the crest, too, is a curiosity, at least in English blazon, displaying an Elector’s cap with very tall bullrushes, five in number, and coloured proper, issuing from between the ermine and the crimson velvet.

8691.

Linen Napkin, for liturgic use, embroidered, in coloured silks, with conventional flowers. German, end of the 16th century. 2 feet ½ inch by 1 foot 11 inches.

This is another of those liturgical rarities--Corpus Christi cloths--of which we have spoken at No. 8342, under the name of Sindons, or Pyx-cloths. Such appliances were employed for mantling the pyx or ciborium when shut up in the tabernacle--that little temple-like erection on the table, or rather step, on the wall-side of the altar--when the custom ceased of keeping the pyx hanging up beneath a canopy.

8692.

Hood of a Cope, silk damask, red and yellow, with the subject of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary woven in it. Florentine, late 15th century. 1 foot 5 inches by 1 foot 4½ inches.

Uprising from her grave, and amid rays of glory and an oblong or elliptic aureole, the Virgin Mary is being wafted to heaven by four angels, who are not, as of yore, vested in long close albs like deacons, but in flowing garments so slit up as to show their naked arms, bare legs, and lower thighs. Upon the empty tomb, from out of which are springing up lilies, is written “Assunta est;” and at one corner kneels the apostle St. Thomas who, with head uplifted and both his arms outstretched, is receiving from the mother of our Lord her girdle, which she is holding in her hands and about to let drop down to him. “La Madonna della cintola”--this subject--may often be met with in Italian, more especially Florentine, art of the middle ages, and is closely linked with the history of the fine old church of Prato, as we gather from Vasari, in his “Vite dei Pittori,” t. i. p. 279, Firenze, 1846; and the English translation, t. ii. p. 75.

8693.

Linen Napkin, for liturgic use, embroidered in white, brown, and blue thread, with figures of our Lord and the twelve Apostles. German, 4 feet 8 inches by 1 foot 4½ inches.

Like the valuable specimen of the needle described at No. 8358, the example before us served the purpose of covering the lectern in the chancel at the celebration of the liturgy.

As in the usual representations of the Jesse-tree, the bust of each of the thirteen figures is made to rest within a circular branch upon its tip, where it sprouts out like a wide flower. At the top of this tree we behold our Lord with His right hand uplifted in the act of benediction, His left rested upon a mund, and, about His head a scroll inscribed “Pax F(V)obis.” To the right is St. Peter--so inscribed--holding a key; to the left, St. John, as a beardless youth--inscribed “S. Johnis;” then St. Anderus (Andrew), with a cross saltire-wise; and St. Jacob (James), with his pilgrim’s staff in hand, and on his large slouched hat turned up in front he has two pilgrim-staves in saltire; St. Jacobi (James the Less), with fuller’s bat; St. Simonus (Simon), beardless, with a long knife or sword jagged or toothed like a saw; St. Thomas, with his spear; St. Bartlyme (Bartholomew), with the flaying knife; St. Judas Tadvs (Jude or Thaddeus), with a knotted club; St. Matheus (Matthew), with a hatchet, and beardless; St. Philippe, with a cross bottony, and beardless; St. Mathias, with a halbert. At bottom is marked, in blue ink, 1574; but it may be fairly doubted if this date be the true one for this embroidery, of which the style looks at least fifty years older.

8694.

Fragment of Silk and Cotton Tissue, green, with small flower pattern. Italian, late 16th century. 6½ inches by 4¼ inches.

A pleasing specimen, rich in material, and bright in its tones, very likely from the South of Italy.

8695.

Piece of Silk Damask, crimson and yellow; pattern, scroll and foliage. French, end of 16th century. 1 foot 7¾ inches by 1 foot 9 inches.

This piece, intended for household use, is not without effect in its design. Though the warp is silk, in the woof there is linen thread, though not easily perceived.

8696.

Piece of Fine Linen, with broad border of flowers in coloured silks. Syrian (?), 15th century. 12¼ inches by 1 foot 7 inches.

This very fine linen has all the appearance of having been wrought in some country on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, and reminds us of those thin textures for which India was, and yet is, so celebrated. The embroidery, too, is but a timid imitation of flowers, and is so worked as to be equally good on both sides. To all appearance it is she end of a woman’s scarf.

8697.

Piece of Needlework in coloured worsteds, upon a canvas ground; pattern, zig-zag lozenges, containing tulips and other liliacious flowers. German, middle of 16th century. 1 foot 4¾ inches by 1 foot 1 inch.

Seemingly, this is but a small piece of a foot-cloth for the upper step of an altar.

8698.

Linen Damask Napkin; pattern, scrolls enclosing a pomegranate ornamentation; border, at two sides, rich lace. Flemish, 16th century. 4 feet 3 inches by 2 feet 3½ inches.

This napkin probably served for carrying to the altar the Sunday “holy loaf,” as it was called in England, the use of which is still kept up in France, and known there as the “pain benit.” For an account of this ancient rite, see the “Church of our Fathers,” i. 135.

8699.

Small Bag, silk and linen thread, embroidered in quadrangular pattern. German, 15th century. 3½ inches square.

Very like the one under No. 8313. It may have been used as a reliquary, or, what is more probable, for carrying the rosary-beads of some lady. Concerning the form of prayer itself, see the “Church of our Fathers,” t. iii. p. 320.

8700.

Piece of Embroidery, upon an older piece of white silk, brocaded in gold, three armorial shields in their proper tinctures, all within a golden wreath. German, late 16th century. 4 inches square.

8701.

Piece of Black Raised Velvet, with small flower pattern. Italian, 16th century. 1 foot by 7 inches.

A pleasing example of the Genoese loom.

8702.

Piece of Damask, silk and linen, tawny and yellow; pattern, a modification of the pomegranate within oblong curves, and other floriations. Florentine, 16th century. 2 feet 11½ inches by 1 foot 1½ inches.

Of a large bold design, though not rich in material.

8703.

Piece of Damask, silk and linen, tawny and yellow; pattern, a slight variation of the foregoing, No. 8702. Florentine, 16th century. 3 feet 4 inches by 9½ inches.

So much alike are these two specimens, that at first sight they look parts of the same stuff; a near and close inspection shows, however, that for one or other there was a slight alteration in the gearing of the loom. Both may have originally been crimson and yellow: if so, the first colour has sadly faded. From the shape of this piece, its last use must have been for a chasuble, but of a very recent period, judging from its actual shape.

8704.

Chasuble, cloth of gold, diapered with a deep-piled blue velvet, so as to show the favourite artichoke pattern after two forms, with embroidered orphreys and armorial shields. Flemish, very late 15th century. 4 feet 4½ inches by 3 feet 10½ inches.

This chasuble, rare, because not cut-down, has been lately but properly repaired. The back orphrey, in the form of a cross, is figured with the Crucifixion, the B. V. Mary fainting and upheld by St. John; a shield _gules_, with chalice _or_, and host _argent_, at top; another shield at bottom, _gules_, a column _argent_, twined with cords _or_; the front orphrey is figured with the B. V. Mary crowned, and carrying our infant Lord in her arms; beneath her, the words inscribed in blue, “Salve Regina;” lower down, St. John the Evangelist blessing a golden chalice, out of which is coming a dragon, and having the inscription at his feet, “Sanctus Iohannes.” Lower still, St. Catherine with a book in her right hand, and in the left a sword resting on a wheel.

The front orphrey is done in applied work; the back orphrey consists of a web with a ground of gold, figured with green flower-bearing boughs, and having spaces left for the heads and hands to be filled in with needlework. The shield of arms _or_, with a chief _azure_, charged with three square buckles _argent_, we may presume to be the blazon of the giver of this gorgeous vestment.

8705.

Frontlet to an Altar-Cloth of diapered linen. The frontlet itself is the broad border of purple cloth on which is figured a Latin inscription within wreaths of flowers done in white linen. German, late 15th century. 10 feet 9 inches by 6½ inches; the linen, 9 inches.

This is another liturgical appliance, once so common everywhere, and so often mentioned in English ecclesiastical documents, which has now become a very great rarity. From the shred of the altar-cloth itself to which it is sewed, that linen, with its fine diapering and its two blue stripes, diapered, too, and vertically woven in, must have been of a costly kind, and large enough to overspread the whole table of the altar, so that this blue frontlet fell down in front. The Latin inscription, each word parted by a wreath, from four parts of which shoot sprigs of flowers, reads thus:--“O Gloriosum lumen ec(c)lesiarum funde preces pro salute populorum.” The letters, as well as all the floral ornamentation of this short prayer, are wrought in pieces of linen stitched on with red thread; and below is a worsted parti-coloured fringe, 1¾ inches deep. For the use of the frontlet in England, during the mediæval period, the reader may consult the “Church of our Fathers,” i. 238.

8706.

An Altar-Frontal in very dark brown coarse cloth, on which are applied armorial shields, and the ground is filled in with flower-bearing branches, in worsted and silk. German, beginning of 16th century. 7 feet 8 inches by 4 feet 1 inch.

Though of so late a period, this altar-frontal can teach those studious of such appliances how readily and effectively such works may be wrought. The whole is divided into eight squares; in the middle of each is put a shield alternating with another in its blazon, the first being _or_, three hearts _gules_, two and one, between three bendlets _sable_; the second, _argent_, an eagle _sable_ on an arched bough raguly _azure_ in the dexter base. The ramifications twining all over the ground are done in light brown broad worsted threads stitched on with white thread; and the flowers, all seeded and barbed, some white, some yellow, as if in accordance with the tints of the two shields, are done in silk. At bottom this frontal has been edged with a deep fringe, parti-coloured white and black.

8707.

Chasuble, blue cut velvet; pattern, one of the pomegranate forms, with orphreys. German, late 15th century. 9 feet 5 inches by 4 feet 9 inches.

To the liturgical student fond of vestments in their largest, most majestic shapes, this chasuble will afford great satisfaction, as it is one of the few known that have not been cut down. The front orphrey is a piece of narrow poor web, once of gold, but not much worn; the hind orphrey is a long cross, raguly or knotted, with our Lord nailed to it; above is the Eternal Father wearing an imperial crown of gold lined crimson, and in the act of blessing, between whom and our Saviour is the Holy Ghost in shape of a silver dove with outspread wings. At foot is the group of the Blessed Virgin Mary fainting, and hindered from falling by St. John.

8708.

The Blue Linen Lining of a Dalmatic, with the parti-coloured fringe bordering the front of the vestment, and some other fragments. 4 feet 1½ inches by 5 feet 7 inches. The silk Sicilian, 14th century.

The silk is much like the specimen fully described under No. 8263.

8709.

Altar-Frontal of grey linen, figured in needlework, with flowers, stars, and heraldic animals, on alternating squares of plain linen and net-work. German, 15th century. 9 feet 5½ inches by 4 feet 2½ inches.

This important piece of stitchery was never meant for a covering to the table or upper part of the altar; it served as a frontal to it, and was hung before, and at each corner of the altar so as to cover it and its two sides down to the ground. From all its ornaments having an armorial feeling about them, this elaborate piece of needlework would seem to have been wrought by the hands of some noble lady, who took the blazon of her house for its adornment. At the lower part, in the middle, is a shield of arms _argent_, charged with two bars once _gules_; high above, a star of eight points voided _gules_; below, a fleur-de-lis barred _argent_ and _gules_; at each of the four corners of the square a maneless lion rampant barred _argent_ and _gules_. To the right, on the same level, a square filled in with fleurs-de-lis; then a square with birds and beasts unknown to English heraldry: the birds, natant, have heads of the deer kind, horned, and the beasts a beaked head with a single arched horn coming out of the forehead with the point of the bow in front; both birds and beasts are paled _argent_ and _gules_. On the next square are stars of eight points, and flowers with eight petals, within quatrefoils all _argent_, upon a field (the netting) _gules_. The last square is separated into three pales each charged with a flower-like ornament alternately _argent_ and _gules_. Above this square is another of net _gules_, charged with four flowers _argent_; and, going to the left, we have a square showing two bears combatant barred _argent_ and _gules_; still to the left, birds at rest, and stars alternating _argent_ upon a square of net _gules_. Next to this a large antelope tripping paled _argent_ and _gules_; then a square having lions rampant within lozenges with a four-petaled flower at every point, all _argent_, on a field (of net) _gules_. Following this is a large dog, maned and rampant barred _argent_ and _gules_; to this succeeds a square of net _gules_ charged with lozenges, having over each point a mascle, and within them stars of eight points all _argent_. The last square to the left on this middle row is charged with a heart-shaped ornament voided in the form of a fleur-de-lis, and put in three piles of four with flowers between. The only other square differing from those just noticed are the two charged with an animal of the deer kind, with antlers quite straight. The narrow borders at the sides are not the least curious parts of this interesting specimen; that on the left hand is made up of a dog running after a bearded antelope, which is confronted by a griffin so repeated as to fill up the whole line. The border on the right hand is made up of the beast with the one horn.

8710.

Alb of White Linen appareled at the cuffs, and before and behind at the feet, with crimson and gold stuff figured with animals and floriations of the looms of Palermo. Sicilian, 14th century. 5 feet 7 inches long, 4 feet across the shoulders, without the sleeves.

For those curious in liturgical appliances this fine alb of the mediæval period will be a valuable object of study, though perhaps not for imitation in the way in which it is widened at the waist. Its large opening at the neck--1 foot 4½ inches--is somewhat scalloped, but without any slit down the front, or gatherings, or band. On each shoulder, running down 1 foot 3¾ inches, is a narrow piece of crochet-work inscribed in red letters with the names “JESUS,” “MARIA.” The full sleeves, from 1 foot 6 inches wide, are gradually narrowed to 6¼ inches at the end of the apparels at the cuffs, which are 4 inches deep and edged with green linen tape. At the waist, where it is 3 feet 10 inches, it is made, by means of gatherings upon a gusset embroidered with a cross-crosslet in red thread, to widen itself into 6 feet, or 12 feet all round. Down the middle, before and behind, as far as the apparels, is let in a narrow piece of crochet-work like that upon the shoulders, but uninscribed. The two apparels at the feet--one before, the other behind--vary in their dimensions, one measuring 1 foot 1 inch by 1 foot 1¾ inches, the other, which is made up of fragments, 1 foot by 11¾ inches. Very elaborate and freely designed is the heraldic pattern on the rich stuff which forms the apparels. The ground is of silk, now faded, but once a bright crimson; the figures, all in gold, are an eagle in demi-vol, langued, with a ducal crown, not upon, but over its head; above this is a mass of clouds with pencils of sun-rays darting from beneath them all around; higher up again, a collared hart lodged, with its park set between two large bell-shaped seeded drooping flowers, beneath each of which is a dog collared and courant. For English antiquaries, it may be interesting to know that upon the mantle and kirtle in the monumental effigy of King Richard II, in Westminster Abbey, the hart as well as the cloud with rays form the pattern on those royal garments, and are well shown in the valuable but unfinished “Monumental Effigies of Great Britain,” by the late brothers Hollis. This alb is figured, but not well with regard to the apparels, by Dr. Bock, in his “Geschichte der Liturgischen Gewänder des Mittelalters,” 4 Lieferung, pl. iii, fig. 1.

8711.

Chasuble, Cloth of, now tawny, once crimson, silk; pattern, animals amid floriations. Sicilian, 14th century. 4 feet 5 inches by 3 feet 6 inches.

Made of precisely the same rich and beautiful stuff employed in the apparels of the alb just noticed, No. 8710, the elaborate design of which is here seen in all its perfectness. The chasuble itself has been much cut away from its first large shape.

8712.

Part of a large Piece of Needlework, done upon linen in coloured worsteds, figured with a king and queen seated together on a Gothic throne, and a young princess sitting at the queen’s feet. All about are inscriptions. German (?), 15th century. 5 feet 6½ inches by 3 feet 10 inches.

Wofully cut as this large work has been, enough remains to make it very interesting. The king,--whose broad-toed shoes, as well as the very little dog at his feet, will not escape notice,--holds a royal sceptre in his left hand, and around his head runs a scroll bearing this inscription, “Inclitus Rex Alfridus ex ytalia Pacis amator.” About the head of the queen, which is wimpled, the scroll is written with, “Pia Hildeswit Fundatrix Peniten (?), A^o. M^o. XII^o.” Below the princess, whose hair, as that of a maiden, falls all about her shoulders, and whose diadem is not a royal one, nor jewelled like those worn by the king and queen, runs a scroll bearing these words, “Albergissa Abbatissa.” Just under the king, on a broad band, comes--“o. dāpnacionis (damnationis) in &.” At top, on a broad bright crimson ground, in large yellow letters, we read--“v (ex voto?) hoc opus completum ē (est).” From droppings of wax still upon it, this curious piece of needlework must have been used somewhere about an altar--very likely as a sort of reredos; and from the inscription, it would seem to have been wrought as an ex voto offering.

8713.

Piece of Needlework, in silk, upon linen, figured with St. Bartholomew and St. Paul, each standing beneath a round arch. German, early 12th century. 2 feet 8 inches by 1 foot 6 inches.

The linen upon which this venerable specimen of embroidery is done shows a very fine texture; but the silk in which the whole is wrought is of such an inferior quality that, at first sight, though soft to the touch, it looks like the better sort of untwisted cotton thread. Such parts of the design as were meant to be white are left uncovered upon the linen, and the shading is indicated by brown lines. As such early examples are scarce, this is a great curiosity. Dr. Bock has figured it in his “Geschichte der Liturgischen Gewänder des Mittelalters,” 2 Lieferung, pl. viii.

8942.

Persian Tunic, crimson satin, embroidered in various-coloured silks after shawl-patterns, with a double-mouthed long pocket in front. 4 feet by 3 feet.

8973.

Piece of Embroidered Silk; ground, blue silk; pattern, flowers in coloured flos-silks and gold thread, and broad band figured with wood-nymphs, syrens, boys, and an animal half a fish and half a lion. Italian, 17th century. 6 feet ½ inch by 3 feet 1½ inches.

No doubt this embroidery served as domestic decoration. It may have been employed as the front to a lady’s dressing-table.

8975.

Counterpane; ground, thread net, embroidered with foliage and flowers in various silks. Italian, 16th century. 8 feet by 7 feet 10 inches.

The flos-silks used are of a bright colour, and the whole was worked in narrow slips sewed together in places with yellow silk; in other parts the joinings were covered by a narrow silk lace of a pleasing design.

8976.

Frontal to an Altar; ground, crimson; pattern, sacred subjects and saints, some in gold, some in yellow silk. Venetian, early 16th century. 6 feet 6 inches by 2 feet 3½ inches.

This frontal is made out of pieces of woven orphreys, and by the way in which those pieces are put together we know that they must have been taken from old vestments, some of which had been much used. It is composed of nine stripes or pales of broad orphrey-web; and allowing for the two end pales being brought round the ends of the altar when hung there, it would then present seven stripes or pales to the eye. Looking at it thus, we find the first pale of crimson silk, figured in yellow silk, with the B. V. Mary holding our Lord as an infant on her lap, with the mund or terraqueous globe surmounted by a cross in His right hand, amid a strap-like foliation; the next pale of crimson silk is figured in gold, with a saint-bishop vested in alb, stole crossed over his breast, and cope, and wearing jewelled gloves, with his pastoral staff in his right hand. The third pale, in yellow silk upon a crimson ground, presents us our Lord’s tomb, with soldiers watching it, and our Lord Himself uprising, with His right hand giving a blessing, and in His left a banner, and by His side cherubic heads. The fourth pale at top gives us the B. V. Mary and our infant Saviour in her arms, very much worn away, and beneath, St. Peter with his keys, in gold upon crimson. The other pales are but repetitions of the foregoing. Altogether, this frontal, thread-bare as it is in places, is well worth the attention of those who interest themselves in the history of Venetian design, and the art of weaving.

8977.

Hood to a Cope; ground, two shades of yellow silk; subject, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Venetian, 16th century. 1 foot 4 inches by 1 foot 3½ inches.

Within an oval, upheld by four angels, and radiant with glory, and having a cherubic head beneath her, the B. V. Mary is rising heavenward from her tomb, out of which lilies are springing, and by it St. Thomas on his knees is reaching out his hand to catch the girdle dropped down to him. On an oval upon the face of the tomb is written “Assunta est,” like what is shown in other pieces in this collection.

8978.

Piece of Silk Orphrey Web; ground, crimson; pattern, the Coronation, in heaven, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in yellow. Venetian, 16th century. 1 foot 7½ inches by 10¾ inches.

This design, though treated after the tradition of the Italian schools, has one peculiarity. On the royal diadem which our Lord, who wears, as Great High Priest of the new law, a triple-crowned tiara, is putting on the head of His mother a large star is conspicuously shown; one of the titles of St. Mary is “stella maris,” star of the sea, which would not be forgotten by a seafaring people like the Venetians.

8979.

Tissue of Crimson Silk and Gold Thread; pattern, the Blessed Virgin Mary in glory, amid cherubic heads, and having two angels, one on each side, standing on clouds. Venetian, 16th century. 1 foot 4 inches by 1 foot.

The subject, a favourite one of the time, is the Assumption of the B. V. Mary, and the tissue was woven entirely for the adornment of liturgical furniture.

9047.

Cushion, elaborately wrought by the needle on fine canvas, and figured with animals, armorial bearings, flowers, and love-knots, as well as with the letters I and R royally crowned. Scotch, 17th century. 11 inches by 8 inches.

We have on the first large pane a rose tree, bearing one red rose seeded _or_, barbed _vert_, and at its foot, but separating them, two unicorns _argent_, outlined and horned in silver thread; above them, and separated by the red rose, two lions passant, face to face, langued and outlined in gold thread; above the flower a royal crown _or_, and two small knots _or_, and at each side a white rose slipped; over each unicorn a gold knot, and a strawberry proper. Beneath this larger shield are three small ones: the first, fretty _or_, and _vert_ (but so managed that the field takes the shape of strawberry leaves), charged with four true-love-knots _or_, and in chief _vert_, a strawberry branch or wire _or_, bearing one fruit proper, and one flower _argent_; the second shield gives us, on a field _azure_, and within an orle of circles linked together on four sides by golden bands, and charged with strawberry fruit, and leaf, and flower proper, and alternating, a plume of Prince of Wales’s feathers _argent_, with the quill of the middle feather marked red or _gules_, at each of the four corners there is a true-love-knot in gold; the third small shield is a series of circles outlined in gold, and filled in with quatrefoils outlined green; below, on a large green pane, a white rose slipped, with grapes and acorns; by its side, the capital letters, in gold, I and R, with a strawberry and leaf close by each letter, and above all, and between two love-knots, a regal crown. By the sides of this device are several small panes, exhibiting fanciful patterns of flowers, &c.: but in most of them the true-love-knot as well as the strawberry plant, in one combination or another, are the principal elements; and in one of the squares or panes the ornamentation evidently affects the shape of the capital letter S; upon the other side, with an orle of knots of different kinds, is figured a mermaid on the sea, with a comb in one hand, and on one side of this pane is shown a high-born dame, whose fan, seemingly of feathers, is very conspicuous. Underneath the mermaid are shown, upon a field _vert_, a man with a staff, amid four rabbits, each with a strawberry-leaf in its mouth, and at each far corner a stag. As on the other side, so here the larger squares are surrounded by smaller ones displaying in their design true-love-knots, strawberries, acorns, roses, white and red, and in one pane the combination, in a sort of net-work, of the true-love-knot with the letter S, is very striking. In Scotland several noble families, whether they spell their name Fraser or Frazer, use, as a canting charge in their blazon, the frasier or strawberry, leafed, flowered, and fructed proper; the buck, too, comes in upon or about their armorial shields. And this may have been worked by a member of that family.

9047A.

Silk Damask; ground, white; pattern, wreaths of flowers and fruits, in net-work, each mesh filled in with two peacocks beneath a large bunch of red centaurea, or corn-flowers. Sicilian, late 15th century. 2 feet 3½ inches by 1 foot 8 inches.

The garlands of the meshes, made out of boughs of oak bearing red and blue acorns, have, at foot, two eagles red and blue; at top, two green parrots beneath a bunch of pomegranates, the fruit of which is red and cracked, showing its blue seed ready to fall out. The corn-flower is spread forth like a fan. This stuff shows the mark of Spanish rule over the two Sicilies.

9182.

The Syon Monastery Cope; ground, green, with crimson interlacing barbed quatrefoils enclosing figures of our Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Apostles, with winged cherubim standing on wheels in the intervening spaces, and the orphrey, morse, and hem wrought with armorial bearings, the whole done in gold, silver, and various-coloured silks. English needlework, 13th century. 9 feet 7 inches by 4 feet 8 inches.

This handsome cope, so very remarkable on account of its comparative perfect preservation, is one of the most beautiful among the several liturgic vestments of the olden period anywhere to be now found in christendom. If by all lovers of mediæval antiquity it will be looked upon as so valuable a specimen in art of its kind and time, for every Englishman it ought to have a double interest, showing, as it does, such a splendid and instructive example of the “Opus Anglicum,” or English work, which won for itself so wide a fame, and was so eagerly sought after throughout the whole of Europe during the middle ages.

Beginning with the middle of this cope, we have, at the lowermost part, St. Michael overcoming Satan; suggested by those verses of St. John, “And there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels; ... and that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan,” &c.--Rev. xii. 7, 9, to which may be added the words of the English Golden Legend: “The fourth victorye is that that tharchaungell Mychaell shal have of Antecryst whan he shall flee hym. Than Michaell the grete prynce shall aryse, as it is sayd Danielis xii, He shall aryse for them that ben chosen as an helper and a protectour and shall strongely stande ayenst Antecryst ... and at the last he (Antichrist) shall mount upon the mount of Olyvete, and whan he shall be ... entred in to that place where our Lorde ascended Mychaell shall come and shall flee hym, of whiche victorye is understonden after saynt Gregorye that whyche is sayd in thapocalipsis, the batayll is made in heven,” (fol. cclxx. b.). As he tramples upon the writhing demon, the archangel, barefoot, and clad in golden garments, and wearing wings of gold and silver feathers, thrusts down his throat and out through his neck a lance, the shaft of which is tipped with a golden cross crosslet, while from his left arm he lets down an _azure_ shield blazoned with a silver cross. The next quatrefoil above this one is filled in with the Crucifixion. Here the Blessed Virgin Mary is arrayed in a green tunic, and a golden mantle lined with vair or costly white fur, and her head is kerchiefed, and her uplifted hands are sorrowfully clasped; St. John--whose dress is all of gold--with a mournful look, is on the left, at the foot of the cross upon which the Saviour, wrought all in silver--a most unusual thing,--with a cloth of gold wrapped about His loins, is fastened by three, not four, nails. The way in which the ribs are shown and the chest thrown up in the person of our Lord is quite after old English feelings on the subject. In the book of sermons called the “Festival” it is said, with strong emphasis, how “Cristes body was drawen on the crosse as a skyn of parchement on a harow, so that all hys bonys myght be tolde,” fol. xxxiii. In the highest quatrefoil of all is figured the Redeemer uprisen, crowned as a king and seated on a cushioned throne. Resting upon His knee, and steadied by His left hand, is the mund or ball representing the earth--the world. Curiously enough, this mund is distinguished into three parts, of which the larger one--an upper horizontal hemicycle--is coloured crimson (now faded to a brownish tint), but the lower hemicycle is divided vertically in two, of which one portion is coloured green, the other white or silvered. The likelihood is, that such markings were meant to show the then only known three parts of our globe; for if the elements were hereon intended, there would have been four quarters--fire, water, earth, and heaven; instead, too, of the upper half being crimsoned, it would have been tinted, like the heavens, blue. Furthermore, the symbolism of those days would put, as we here see, this mund under the sovereign hand of the Saviour, as setting forth the Psalmist’s words, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof, the world and all that dwell therein;” while its round shape--itself the emblem of endlessness--must naturally bring to mind that everlasting Being--the Alpha and the Omega spoken of in the Apocalypse--the beginning and the end, Who is and Who was, and Who is to come--the Almighty. Stretching forth His right arm, with His thumb and first two fingers upraised--emblem of one God in three persons--He is giving His blessing to His mother. Clothed in a green tunic, over which falls a golden mantle lined with vair or white fur, she is seated on the throne beside Him, with hands upraised in prayer. It ought not to be overlooked, that while the Blessed Virgin Mary wears ornamented shoes, our Lord, like His messengers, the angels and apostles, is barefoot. To show that as He had said to those whom He sent before His face, that they were to carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes, so therefore, is He Himself here and elsewhere figured shoeless. Though already in heaven, still, out of reverence towards Him, the head of His mother is kerchiefed, as it would have been were she yet on earth and present at the sacred liturgy. John Beleth, an Englishman, who, in A.D. 1162, a short century before this cope was worked, wrote a book upon the Church Ritual, lays it down as an unbending rule that, while men are to hear the Gospel bare-headed, all women, whatever be their age, rank, or condition, must never be uncovered, and if a young maiden be so her mother or any other female ought to cast a cloth of some sort over her head;--“Viri, itaque ... aperto capite Evangelium audire debent.... Mulieres vero debent audire Evangelium tecto et velato capite etiamsi sit virgo, propter pomum vetitum. Et si eveniat ut virgo capite sit aperto, ut velamen non habeat, necesse est, ut mater, aut quævis alia mulier capiti ejus pannum vel simile quippiam imponat.” Divin. Offic. Explic. c. xxxix. p. 507.

The next two subjects now to be described are--one, that on the right hand, the death of the Blessed Virgin Mary; the other, to the left, her burial. To fully understand the traditionary treatment of both, it would be well to give the words of Caxton’s English translation of the “Golden Legend,” from the edition “emprynted at London, in Fletestrete at y^e sygne of y^e Sonne, by Wynkyn de Worde, in y^e yere of our Lorde M.CCCCXVII,” a scarce and costly work not within easy reach. “We fynde in a booke sente to saynt Johan the evangelys, or elles the boke whiche is sayd to be apocryphum ... in what maner the Assumpcyon of the blessyd vyrgyn saynt Marye was made ... upon a daye whan all the apostles were spradde through the worlde in prechynge, the gloryous vyrgyne was gretely esprysed and enbraced wyth desyre to be wyth her sone Ihesu Cryste ... and an aungell came tofore her with grete lyghte and salewed her honourably as the mother of his Lorde, sayenge, All hayle blessyd Marie.... Loo here is a bowe of palme of paradyse, lady, ... whiche thou shalte commaunde to be borne tofore thy bere, for thy soule shall be taken from thy body the thyrde daye nexte folowynge; and thy Sone abydeth thee His honourable moder.... All the apostles shall assemble this daye to thee and shall make to thee noble exequyes at thy passynge, and in the presence of theym all thou shalte gyve up thy spyryte. For he that broughte the prophete (Habacuc) by an heer from Judee to Babylon (Daniel xiv. 35, according to the Vulgate) may without doubte sodeynly in an houre brynge the apostles to thee.... And it happened as Saynt Johan the euangelyst preched in Ephesym the heven sodeynly thondred and a whyte cloude toke hym up and brought hym tofore the gate of the blessyd vyrgyne Marye at Jerusalem (who) sayd to hym, ... Loo I am called of thy mayster and my God, ... I have herde saye that the Jewes have made a counseyll and sayd, let us abyde brethren unto the tyme that she that bare Jhesu Crist be deed, and thenne incontynente we shall take her body and shall caste it in to the fyre and brenne it. Thou therefore take this palme and bere it tofore the bere whan ye shall bere my body to the sepulcre. Than sayd Johan, O wolde God that all my brethren the apostles were here that we myght make thyn exequyes covenable as it hoveth and is dygne and worthy. And as he sayd that, all the apostles were ravysshed with cloudes from the places where they preched and were brought tofore the dore of the blessyd vyrgyn Mary.... And aboute the thyrde houre of the nyght Jhesu Crist came with swete melodye and songe with the ordre of aungelles.... Fyrst Jhesu Crist began to saye, Come my chosen and I shall set thee in my sete ... come fro Lybane my spouse. Come from Lybane. Come thou shalte be crowned. And she sayd I come, for in the begynnynge of the booke it is wryten of me that I sholde doo thy wyll, for my spyryte hath joyed in thee the God of helth; and thus in the mornynge the soule yssued out of the body and fledde up in the armes of her sone.... And than the apostles toke the body honourably and layde it on the bere.--And than Peter and Paule lyfte up the bere, and Peter began to synge and saye Israhell is yssued out of Egypt, and the other apostles folowed hym in the same songe, and our Lorde covered the bere and the apostles with a clowde, so that they were not seen but the voyce of them was onely herde, and the aungelles were with the apostles syngynge, and than all the people was moved with that swete melodye, and yssued out of the cyte and enquyred what it was.--And than there were some that sayd that Marye suche a woman was deed, and the dyscyples of her sone Jhesu Crist bare her, and made suche melodye. And thenne ranne they to armes and they warned eche other sayenge, Come and let us slee all the dysciples and let us brenne the body of her that bare this traytoure. And whan the prynce of prestes sawe that he was all abashed and, full of angre and wrath sayd, Loo, here the tabernacle of hym that hath troubled us, and our lygnage, beholde what glorye he now receyveth, and in the saynge so he layde his hondes on the bere wyllynge to turne it and overthrowe it to the grounde. Than sodeynly bothe his hondes wexed drye and cleved to the bere so that he henge by the hondes on the bere and was sore tormented and wepte and brayed. And the aungelles ... blynded all the other people that they sawe no thynge. And the prynce of prestes sayd, saynt Peter despyse not me in this trybulacyon, and I praye thee to praye for me to our Lorde.--And saynt Peter sayd to hym--Kysse the bere and saye I byleve in God Jhesu Crist. And whan he had so sayd he was anone all hole perfyghtly.--And thenne the apostles bare Mary unto the monument (in the Vale of Josaphat outside Jerusalem) and satte by it lyke as oure Lord had commaunded. And at the thyrde daye ... the soule came agayne to the body of Marye and yssued gloryously out of the tombe, and thus was receyved in the hevenly chaumbre, and a grete company of aungelles with her; and saynt Thomas was not there; and whan he came he wolde not byleve this; and anone the gyrdell with whiche her body was gyrde came to hym fro the ayre, whiche he receyved, and therby he understode that she was assumpte into heven; and all this it here to fore is sayd and called apocryphum,” &c. ff. ccxvi, &c.

With this key we may easily unlock what, otherwise, would lie hidden, not only about the coronation, but, in an especial manner, the death and burial, as here figured, of the Blessed Virgin Mary; the former of these two is thus represented on the right hand side. In her own small house by the foot of Mount Sion, at Jerusalem, is Christ’s mother on her dying bed. Four only of the apostles--there would not have been room enough for showing more in the quatrefoil--are standing by the couch upon which she lies, dressed in a silver tunic almost wholly overspread with a coverlet of gold; she is bolstered up by a deep purple golden fretted pillow. St. Peter is holding up her head, while by her side stands St. Paul, clad, like St. Peter, in a green tunic and a golden mantle; then St. Matthew, in a blue tunic and a mantle of gold, holding in the left hand his Gospel, which begins with the generation of our Lord as man, and the pedigree of Mary His mother; while, in front of them, stands John, arrayed in a shaded light-purple tunic, youthful in look, and whose auburn hair is in so strong a contrast to the hoary locks of his brethren. On the left-hand side we have her burial. Stretched full-length upon a bier, over which is thrown a pall of green shot with yellow, lies the Virgin Mary, her hair hanging loose from her head. St. Peter, known by his keys, St. Paul, by his uplifted sword, are carrying on their shoulders one end of the bier, in front; behind, in the same office, are St. Andrew bringing his cross with him, and some other apostle as his fellow. After them walks St. Thomas, who, with both his uplifted hands, is catching the girdle as it drops to him from above, where, in the skies, her soul, in the shape of a little child, is seen standing upright with clasped hands, within a large flowing sheet held by two angels who have come from heaven to fetch it thither. Right before the funeral procession is a small Jew, who holds in one hand a scabbard, and with the other is unsheathing his weapon. By the side of the bier stand two other Jews also small in size--one, the high priest. One of them has both his arms, the priest but one, all twisted and shrunken, stretched forward on the bier, as if they wanted to upset it; while the latter holds in one of his wasted hands the green bough of the palm-tree, put into it by St. John.

With regard to St. Thomas and the girdle, this cope, if not the earliest, is among the earlier works upon which that part of the legend is figured, though after a somewhat different manner to the one followed in Italy, where, as is evident from several specimens, in this collection, it found such favour.

Below the burial, we have our Lord in the garden, signified by the two trees (John xx. 17). Still wearing a green crown of thorns, and arrayed in a golden mantle, our Lord in His left hand holds the banner of the resurrection, and with His right bestows His benediction on the kneeling Magdalene, who is wimpled, and wears a mantle of green shot yellow, over a light purple tunic. Below, but outside the quatrefoil, is a layman clad in gold upon his knees, and holding a long narrow scroll, bearing words which cannot now be satisfactorily read. Lowermost of all we see the apostle St. Philip with a book in the left hand, but upon the right, muffled in a large towel wrought in silver, three loaves of bread, done partially in gold, piled up one on the other, in reference to our Lord’s words (John vi. 5), before the miracle of feeding the five thousand. At the left is St. Bartholomew holding a book in one hand, in the other the flaying knife. A little above him, St. Peter with his two keys, one gold, the other silver; and somewhat under him, to the right, is St. Andrew with his cross. On the other side of St. Michael and the dragon is St. James the Greater--sometimes called of Compostella, because he lies buried in that Spanish city--with a book in one hand, and in the other a staff, and slung from his wrist a wallet, both emblems of pilgrimage to his shrine in Galicia. In the next quatrefoil above stands St. Paul with his usual sword, emblem alike of his martyrdom, and of the Spirit, which is the word of God (Ephes. vi. 17), and a book; lower, to the right, St. Thomas with his lance of martyrdom and a book; and still further to the right, St. James the Less with a book and the club from which he received his death-stroke (Eusebius, book ii. c. 23). Just above is our Saviour clad in a golden tunic, and carrying a staff overcoming the unbelief of St. Thomas. Upon his knees that apostle feels, with his right hand held by the Redeemer, the spear-wound in His side (John xx. 27).

As at the left hand, so here, quite outside the sacred history on the cope, we have the figure of an individual probably living at the time the vestment was wrought. The dress of the other shows him to be a layman; by the shaven crown upon his head, this person must have been a cleric of some sort: but whether monk, friar, or secular we cannot tell, as his gown has become quite bare, so that we see nothing now but the lower canvas with the lines drawn in black for the shading of the folds. Like his fellow over against him, this churchman holds up a scroll bearing words which can no longer be read.

When new this cope could show, written in tall gold letters more than an inch high, an inscription now cut up and lost, as the unbroken word “Ne” on one of its shreds, and a solitary “V” on another, are all that remains of it, the first on the lower right side; the second, in the like place, to the left. Though so short, the Latin word leads us to think that it was the beginning of the anthem to the seven penitential psalms, “_Ne_ reminiscaris, Domine, delicta nostra, _v_el parentum nostrorum; neque _v_indictam sumas de peccatis nostris,” a suitable prayer for a liturgical garment, upon which the mercies of the Great Atonement are so well set forth in the Crucifixion, the overthrow of Antichrist, and the crowning of the saints in heaven.

In its original state it could give us, not, as now, only eight apostles, but their whole number. Even as yet the patches on the right-hand side afford us three of the missing heads, while another patch to the left shows us the hand with a book, belonging to the fourth. The lower part of this vestment has been sadly cut away, and reshaped with shreds from itself; and perhaps at such a time were added its present heraldic orphrey, morse, and border, perhaps some fifty years after the embroidering of the other portions of this invaluable and matchless specimen of the far-famed “Opus Anglicum,” or English needlework.

The early writers throughout Christendom, Greek as well as Latin, distinguished “nine choirs” of angels, or three great hierarchies, in the upper of which were the “cherubim, or seraphim, and thrones;” in the middle one, the “dominations, virtues, and powers;” in the lower hierarchy, the “principalities, angels, and archangels.” Now, while looking at the rather large number of angels figured here, we shall find that this division into three parts, each part again containing other three, has been accurately observed. Led a good way by Ezekiel (i.), but not following that prophet step by step, our mediæval draughtsmen found out for themselves a certain angel form. To this they gave a human shape having but one head, and that of a comely youth, clothing him with six wings, as Isaias told (vi. 2) of the seraphim, and in place of the calf’s cloven hoofs, they made it with the feet of man; instead of its body being full of eyes, this feature is not unoften to be perceived upon the wings, but oftenest those wings themselves are composed of the bright-eyed feathers borrowed from the peacock’s tail.

Those eight angels standing upon wheels, and so placed that they are everywhere by those quatrefoils wherein our Lord’s person comes, may be taken to represent the upper hierarchy of the angelic host; those other angels--and two of them only are entire--not upon wheels, and far away from our Lord, one of the perfect ones under St. Peter, the other under St. Paul, no doubt belong to the second hierarchy; while those two having but one, not three, pair of wings, the first under the death, the other under the burial of the Virgin, both of them holding up golden crowns, one in each hand, represent, we may presume, the lowest of the three hierarchies. All of them, like our Lord and His apostles, are barefoot. All of them have their hands uplifted in prayer.

For every lover of English heraldic studies this cope, so plentifully blazoned with armorial bearings, will have an especial value, equal to that belonging to many an ancient roll of arms. To begin with its orphrey: that broad band may, in regard to its shields, be distinguished into three parts, one that falls immediately about the neck of the cleric wearing this vestment, and the other two portions right and left. In this first or middle piece the shields, four in number, are of a round shape, but, unlike the square ones, through both the other two side portions, are not set upon squares alternately green and crimson (faded to brown) as are the quatrefoils on the body of the cope. Taking this centre-piece first, to the left we have--

6. Checky _azure_ and _or_, a chevron _ermine_. WARWICK.

7. Quarterly 1 and 4 _gules_, a three-towered castle _or_; 2 and 3 _argent_, a lion rampant _azure_. CASTILE AND LEON.

8. Vair _or_ and _gules_, within a bordure _azure_, charged with sixteen horse-shoes _argent_. FERRERS.

9. _Azure_, three barnacles _or_, on a chief _ermine_ a demi-lion rampant _gules_. GENEVILLE.

These four shields are round, as was said before, and upon a green ground, having nothing besides upon it. All the rest composing this orphrey are squares of the diamond form, and put upon a grounding alternately crimson and green; on the crimson are two peacocks and two swans in gold; on the green, four stars of eight rays in gold voided crimson. Now, beginning at the furthermost left side, we see these blazons:--

1. _Ermine_, a cross _gules_ charged with five lioncels statant gardant _or_. EVERARD.

2. Same as 8. FERRERS.

3. _Gules_, the Holy Lamb _argent_ with flag _or_, between two stars and a crescent _or_. BADGE OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS.

4. Same as 2. FERRERS.

5. Same as 1. EVERARD.

10. Checky _azure_ and _or_, a bend _gules_ charged with three lioncels passant _argent_. CLIFFORD.

11. Quarterly _argent_ and _gules_; 2 and 3 fretty _or_, over all a bend _sable_. SPENCER.

12. The same as 3, but the Lamb is _or_, the flag _argent_. BADGE OF THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS.

13. Same as 11. SPENCER.

14. Same as 10. CLIFFORD.

Just below the two middle shields are four nicely-formed loops, through which might be buttoned on to the cope the moveable hood--or different hoods, according to the festival, and figured with the subject of the feast--now lost. On the other edge of the orphrey, to the left, are seen other three loops, like the former, made of thick gold cord, by which was made fast the morse that is also blazoned with ten coats, as follows:--

1. _Gules_, a large six-pointed star _argent_ voided with another star _azure_ voided _argent_ voided _gules_, between four cross-crosslets _or_.

2. _Gules_, an eagle displayed _or_. LIMESI or LINDSEY.

3. CASTILE AND LEON.

4. _Gules_, a fess _argent_ between three covered cups _or_. LE BOTILER.

5. CASTILE AND LEON.

6. FERRERS.

7. _Azure_, a cross _argent_ between four eagles (?) displayed _argent_ (?).

8. SPENCER.

9. Same as 2. LINDSEY.

10. GENEVILLE.

The ground is checky _azure_ and _or_ upon which these small shields in the morse are placed.

On the narrow band, at the hem, the same alternation of green and crimson squares, as a ground for the small diamond-shaped shields, is observed, as in the orphrey; and the blazons are, beginning at the left-hand side:--

1. Barry of ten _azure_ and _or_ imbattled, a fess _gules_ sprinkled with four-petaled flowers seeded _azure_.

2. _Or_, charged with martlets _gules_, and a pair of bars gemelles _azure_.

3. FERRERS.

4. CASTILE AND LEON.

5. _Azure_, a cross _or_. SHELDON.

6. _Azure_, a lion rampant _or_, within a bordure _gules_ charged with eight water-bougets _argent_.

7. WARWICK.

8. SPENCER.

9. _Azure_, a bend between six birds _or_. MONTENEY of Essex.

10. _Gules_, sprinkled with cross-crosslets _or_, and a saltire verry potent _argent_ and _azure_. CHAMPERNOUN.

11. GENEVILLE.

12. ENGLAND.

13. Checky _argent_ and _azure_, on a bend _gules_, three garbs (?) or escallop-shells (?) _or_.

14. _Or_, on a fess _gules_ between six fleurs-de-lis three and three _gules_, three fleurs-de-lis _or_.

15. _Gules_, a lion rampant _argent_, within a bordure _azure_, charged with eight water-bougets _or_.

16. Checky _or_ and _gules_, on a bend _azure_, five horse-shoes _argent_.

17. Same as 1.

18. Same as 2.

19. Same as 3. FERRERS.

20. Same as 10. CHAMPERNOUN.

21. Same as 10 in the orphrey. CLIFFORD.

22. Same as 8. SPENCER.

23. _Azure_, between six escallop-shells (?) three and three, a bend _or_. TYDDESWALL.

24. Same as 6.

25. Paly of ten _argent_ and _azure_, on a bend _gules_, three escallop-shells (?) _or_. A coat of GRANDISON.

26. _Gules_, a lion rampant _or_. FITZ ALAN.

27. Barry _argent_ and _azure_, a chief checky _or_ and _gules_.

28. GENEVILLE.

29. Party per fess _azure_ and _or_, a cross fusil counterchanged.

30. _Argent_, four birds _gules_, between a saltire _gules_, charged with nine bezants. HAMPDEN (?).

31. _Azure_, five fusils in fesse _or_. PERCY.

32. Same as 1, on the orphrey. EVERARD.

33. Same as 6, on the orphrey. WARWICK.

34. _Gules_, three lucies hauriant in fess between six cross-crosslets _or_. LUCY.

35. Paly of ten _or_ and _azure_, on a fess _gules_, three mullets of six points _argent_, voided with a cross _azure_. CHAMBOWE (?).

36. Party per fess _gules_, fretted _or_, and _ermine_. RIBBESFORD (?).

37. Same as 9.

38. _Or_, on a cross _gules_, five escallop-shells _argent_. BYGOD.

39. Barry, a chief paly and the corners gyronny, _or_ and _azure_, an inescutcheon _ermine_. ROGER DE MORTIMER.

40. Same as 6.

41. Party per fess, _argent_ three eight-petaled flowers formed as it were out of a knot made cross-wise, with two flowers at the end of each limb, and _azure_ with a string of lozenges like a fess _argent_, and three fleurs-de-lis (?) two and one _or_.

42. _Gules_, a fess checky _argent_ and _azure_, between twelve cross crosslets _or_. Possibly one of the many coats taken by LE BOTILER.

43. _Azure_, three lucies hauriant in fess between six cross-crosslets _or_. LUCY.

44. _Ermine_, on a chevron _gules_, three escallop-shells _or_. GOLBORE or GROVE.

45. Gyronny of twelve _or_ and _azure_. DE BASSINGBURN.

Besides their heraldry, squares upon which are shown swans and peacocks wrought at each corner, afford, in those birds, objects of much curious interest for every lover of mediæval symbolism under its various phases.

In the symbolism of those times, the star and the crescent, the peacock and the swan, had, each of them, its own several figurative meanings. By the first of these emblems was to be understood, according to the words, in Numbers xxiv. 17, of Balaam’s prophecy,--“a star shall arise out of Jacob,”--our Saviour, who says of His divine self, Apocalypse xxii. 16, “I am the bright and morning star.” By inference, the star not only symbolized our Lord Himself, but His Gospel--Christianity--in contradistinction to Mahometanism, against which the crusades had been but lately carried on. The star of Bethlehem, too, was thus also brought before the mind with all its associated ideas of the Holy Land.

The crescent moon, on the shields with the Holy Lamb, represents the Church, for the reason that small at first, but getting her light from the true Sun of justice, our Lord, she every day grows larger, and at the end of time, when all shall believe in her, will at last be in her full brightness. This symbolism is set forth, at some length, by Petrus Capuanus as quoted by Dom (now Cardinal) Pitra in his valuable “Spicilegium Solesmense,” t. ii. 66. But for an English mediæval authority on the point, we may cite our own Alexander Neckam, born A.D. 1157 at St. Albans, and who had as a foster-brother King Richard of the Lion-Heart. In his curious work, “De Naturis Rerum,” not long since printed for the first time, and published by the authority of Her Majesty’s treasury, under the direction of the Master of the Rolls, Neckam thus writes:--“Per solem item Christus, verus sol justiciæ plerumque intelligitur; per lunam autem ecclesia, vel quæcunque fidelis anima. Sicut autem luna beneficium lucis a sole mendicat, ita et fidelis anima a Christo qui est lux vera.” P. 53.

Not always was the peacock taken to be the unmitigated emblem of pride and foolish vanity. Osmont the cleric, in his “Volucraire, or Book of Birds,” after noticing its scream instead of song, its serpent-like shape of head that it carries so haughtily, but lowers quite abashed as it catches a glimpse at its ugly feet, and its garish plumage with the many bright-eyed freckles on its fan-like tail which it loves to unfold for admiration, draws these comparisons. As the peacock affrights us by its cry, so does the preacher, when he thunders against sin startle us into a hatred of it; if the step of the bird be so full of majesty, with what steadiness ought a true Christian fearlessly tread his narrow path. A man may perhaps find a happiness, nay, show a pride in the conviction of having done a good deed, perhaps may sometimes therefore carry his head a trifle high, and, strutting like the peacock, parade his pious works to catch the world’s applause; as soon as he looks into Holy Writ and there learns the weakness, lowliness, of his own origin, he too droops his head in all humility. Those eye-speckled feathers in its plumage warn him that never too often can he have his eyes wide open, and gaze inwardly upon his own heart and know its secret workings. Thus spoke an Anglo-Norman writer.

About the swan an Englishman, our Alexander Neckam, says:--“Quid quod cygnus in ætate tenella fusco colore vestitus esse videtur, qui postmodum in intentissimum candorem mutatur? Sic nonnulli caligine peccatorum prius obfuscati, postea candoris innocentiæ veste spirituali decorantur.”--_De Naturis Rerum_, p. 101. Here our countryman hands us the key to the symbolic appearance of the swan upon this liturgical garment; for, as while a cygnet, its feathers are always of a dusky hue, but when the bird has grown up its plumage changes into the most intensely white, just so, some people who are at first darkened with the blackness of sin, in after days become adorned with the garb of white innocence.

Besides their ecclesiastical meanings these same symbols had belonging to them a secular significance. Found upon a piece of stuff quite apart from that of the cope itself, and worked for the adornment of that fine vestment after a lapse of many years, made up too of an ornamentation the whole of which is heraldic and thus bringing to mind worldly knights and their blazons and its age’s chivalry, it is easy to find out for it an adaptation to the chivalric notions and customs of those times. The Bethlehem star overtopping the Islam badge of the crescent moon showed forth the wishes of every one who had been or meant to be a crusader, or rather more, not merely of our men at arms but of every true believer throughout Christendom whose untiring prayers were that the Holy Land might be wrested from the iron hand of the Mahometan. At great national festivities and solemn gatherings of the aristocracy, not the young knight alone then newly girt, but the grey-haired warrior would often, in that noble presence, bind himself by vow to do some deed of daring, and swore it to heaven, and the swan, the pheasant, or the peacock as the bird of his choice, was brought with a flourish of trumpets, and amid a crowd of stately knights waiting on a bevy of fair young ladies, and set before him. This sounds odd at this time of day; not so did it in mediæval times, when those birds were looked upon with favour on account of the majestic gracefulness of their shape, or the sparkling beauty of their plumage. It must not be forgotten that this orphrey was blazoned by English hands in England, and while all the stirring doings of our first Edward were yet fresh in our people’s remembrance. That king had been and fought in the Holy Land against the Saracens. At his bidding, towards the end of life, a scene remarkable even in that period of royal festive magnificence, took place, when he himself, in the year 1306, girded his son, afterwards Edward II, with the military belt in the palace of Westminster, and then sent him to bestow the same knightly honour, in the church of that abbey, upon the three hundred young sons of the nobility, who had been gathered from all parts of the kingdom to be his companions in the splendours of the day. But that grand function was brought to an end by a most curious yet interesting act; to the joyous sounds of minstrelsy came forwards a procession, bearing along a pair of swans confined in a net, the meshes of which were made of cords fashioned like reeds and wrought of gold. These birds were set in solemn pomp before the king; and there and then Edward swore by the God in heaven and the swans that he would go forth and wage war against the Scots: Matthew Westminster, p. 454. No wonder, then, that along with the star and crescent we find the knightly swan and peacock mingled in the heraldry of the highest families in England, wrought upon a work from English hands, during the fourteenth century. A long hundred years after this elaborate orphrey was worked we find that Dan John Lydgate, monk of Bury St. Edmund’s, in his poem called “All stant in chaunge like a mydsomer Rose,” upon the fickleness of all earthly things, while singing of this life’s fading vanities, counts among them--

“Vowis of pecok, with all ther proude chere.” MINOR POEMS, _ed. Halliwell for Percy Society_, p. 25.

To the wild but poetic legend of the swan and his descendants, we have already alluded in our Introduction.

A word or two now upon the needlework, how it was done, and a certain at present unused mechanical appliance to it after it was wrought, so observable upon this vestment, lending its figures more effect, and giving it, as a teaching example of embroidery, much more value than any foreign piece in this numerous collection.

Looking well into this fine specimen of the English needle, we find that, for the human face, all over it, the first stitches were begun in the centre of the cheek, and worked in circular, not straight lines, into which, however, after the middle had been made, they fell, and were so carried on through the rest of the fleshes. After the whole figure had thus been wrought; then with a little thin iron rod ending in a small bulb or smooth knob slightly heated, were pressed down those spots upon the faces worked in circular lines, as well as that deep wide dimple in the throat especially of an aged person. By the hollows thus lastingly sunk, a play of light and shadow is brought out that, at a short distance, lends to the portion so treated a look of being done in low relief. Upon the slightly-clothed person of our Lord this same process is followed in a way that tells remarkably well; and the chest with the upper part of the pelvis in the figure of our Saviour overcoming Thomas’s unbelief, shows a noteworthy example of the mediæval knowledge of external anatomy.

We must not, however, hide from ourselves the fact that the edges, though so broad and blunt, given by such a use of the hot iron to parts of an embroidery, expose it somewhat to the danger of being worn out more in those than other portions which soon betray the damage by their thread-bare dingy look, as is the case in the example just cited.

The method for filling in the quatrefoils, as well as working much of the drapery on the figures, is remarkable for being done in a long zigzag diaper-pattern, and after the manner called in ancient inventories, “opus plumarium,” from the way the stitches overlie each other like the feathers on a bird.

The stitchery on the armorial bearings is the same as that now followed in so many trifling things worked in wool.

The canvas for every part of this cope is of the very finest sort; but oddly enough, its crimson canvas lining is thick and coarse. What constituted, then, the characteristics of the “opus Anglicum,” or English work, in mediæval embroidery were, first, the beginning of the stitchery in certain parts of the human figure--the face especially--in circular lines winding close together round and round; and, in the second place, the sinking of those same portions into permanent hollows by the use of a hot iron.

A word or two now about the history of this fine cope.

In olden days not a town, hardly a single parish, throughout England, but had in it one or more pious associations called “gilds,” some of which could show the noblest amongst the layfolks, men and women, and the most distinguished of the clergy in the kingdom, set down upon the roll of its brotherhood, which often grew up into great wealth. Each of these gilds had, usually in its parish church, a chapel, or at least an altar of its own, where, for its peculiar service, it kept one if not several priests and clerics, provided, too, with every needful liturgical appliance, articles of which were frequently the spontaneous offering of individual brothers, who sometimes clubbed together for the purpose of thus making their joint gift more splendid. Now it is most remarkable that upon this cope, and quite apart from the sacred story on it, we have two figures, that to the left, pranked out in the gay attire of some rich layman; on the right, the other, who must be an ecclesiastic from the tonsure on his head; each bears an inscribed scroll in his hand, and both are in the posture of suppliants making offerings. This cleric and this layman may have been akin to one another, brothers, too, of the same gild for which they at their joint cost got this cope worked and gave to it. But where was this gild itself?

Among the foremost of our provincial cities once was reckoned Coventry. Its Corpus Christi plays or mysteries, illustrated by this embroidery, enjoyed such a wide-spread fame that for the whole eight days of their performance, every year, they drew crowds of the highest and the gentlest of the land far and near, as the “Paston Letters” testify, to see them; its gild was of such repute that our nobility--lords and ladies--our kings and queens, did not think it anywise beneath their high estate to be enrolled among its brotherhood. Besides many other authorities, we have one in that splendid piece of English tapestry--figured with Henry VI, Cardinal Beaufort, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and other courtiers, on the left or men’s side, and on the women’s, Queen Margaret, the Duchess of Buckingham, and other ladies, most of them on their knees, and all hearing mass--still hanging on the wall of the dining hall of St. Mary’s gild, of which that king, with his queen and all his court became members; and at whose altar, as brethren, they heard their service, on some Sunday, or high festival, which they spent at Coventry. Taking this old city as a centre, with a radius of no great length, we may draw a circle on the map which will enclose Tamworth, tower and town, Chartly Castle, Warwick, Charlcote, Althorp, &c. where the once great houses of Ferrers, Beauchamp, Lucy, and Spencer held, and some of them yet hold, large estates; and from being the owners of broad lands in its neighbourhood, their lords would, in accordance with the religious feeling of those times, become brothers of the famous gild of Coventry; and on account of their high rank, find their arms emblazoned upon the vestments belonging to their fraternity. That such a pious queen as the gentle Eleanor, our First Edward’s first wife, who died A.D. 1290, should have, in her lifetime, become a sister, and by her bounties made herself to be gratefully remembered after death, is very likely, so that we may with ease account for her shield--Castile and Leon--as well as for the shields of the other great families we see upon the orphrey, being wrought there as a testimonial that, while, like many others, they were members, they also had been munificent benefactors to the association. A remembrance of brotherhood for those others equally noble, but less generous in their benefactions, may be read in those smaller shields upon the narrow hem going along the lower border of this vestment. The whole of it must have taken a long, long time in the doing; and the probability is that it was worked by the nuns of some convent which stood in or near Coventry.

Upon the banks of the Thames, at Isleworth, near London, in the year 1414, Henry V. built, and munificently endowed, a monastery to be called “Syon,” for nuns of St. Bridget’s order. Among the earliest friends of this new house was a Master Thomas Graunt, an official in one of the ecclesiastical courts of the kingdom. In the Syon nuns’ martyrologium--a valuable MS. lately bought by the British Museum--this churchman is gratefully recorded as the giver to their convent of several precious ornaments, of which this very cope seemingly is one. It was the custom for a gild, or religious body, to bestow some rich church vestment upon an ecclesiastical advocate who had befriended it by his pleadings before the tribunals, and thus to convey their thanks to him along with his fee. After such a fashion this cope could have easily found its way, through Dr. Graunt, from Warwickshire to Middlesex. At the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign it went along with the nuns as they wandered in an unbroken body through Flanders, France, and Portugal, where they halted. About sixty years ago it came back again from Lisbon to England, and has found a lasting home in the South Kensington Museum.

197.

Web for Orphreys; ground, crimson silk; design, the Assumption, in yellow silk and gold thread. Florentine, 15th century. 2 feet 2½ inches by 1 foot 2¾ inches.

The same sort of stuff frequently occurs in this collection, and the present specimen, which consists of two breadths sewed together, is the same as the one fully described in No. 4059. In its present shape it may have served as a back hanging to a little praying-desk in a bed-room.

198.

A Crimson Velvet Stole, with crosses and fringes of green silk. Spanish, 16th century. 6 feet 8 inches by 2½ inches, and 5½ inches.

The pieces of crimson velvet out of which this stole was made, not so many years ago, are of a deep warm tone of colour, and soft rich pile; both so peculiar to the looms of Spain. The velvet must have been in use for church purposes before this stole was made out of it.

1207.

A Crimson Velvet Stole, with crosses of poor gold lace, and fringes of crimson silk. Spanish, 16th century. 7 feet 7 inches by 3 inches, and 8 inches.

Like the foregoing stole in quality of velvet.

254-55.

Two Crimson Velvet Maniples, with crosses and fringes of green. Spanish, 16th century. 1 foot 6½ inches by 3 inches, and 5 inches.

These were to match the like kind of stole.

524.

A Crimson Velvet Maniple, with crosses of gold and fringes of crimson silk. Spanish, 16th century. 1 foot 5½ inches by 3¼ inches, and 6½ inches.

733.

A Piece of Raised Velvet; ground, yellow silk; design, in velvet pile, pomegranates, and conventional floriations, enclosing an oval with a quatrefoil in the middle. Spanish, late 16th century. 1 foot 6 inches by 7 inches, and by 1 foot 2 inches.

This raised velvet must have been for household decoration, and may have been wrought at Almeria.

902.

Cut-Work for furniture purposes; ground, yellow silk; design, vases of flowers formed in green velvet; the flowers in places embroidered in white and light blue floss-silk. French, 17th century. 9 feet 9 inches by 1 foot 9 inches.

This specimen well shows the way in which such strips for pilasters were wrought. At first the green velvet seems the ground, which, however, is of amber yellow silk, but the velvet is so cut out and sewed on as to give the vases and their flowers the right form, and sometimes is made to come in as foliage. The flowers, mostly fleurs-de-lis and tulips, are well finished in white silk, shaded either by light blue in the first, or pink in the second instance, where, however, there are only five instead of six petals; and the whole is edged in its design with yellow silk cord.

910.

An Altar Frontal, silk and thread; ground, yellow; design, vases and conventional artichokes, amid floriations, all in crimson silk, and trimmed at the lower side with cut-work, in a flower pattern, of various-coloured silks, edged with yellow cord. Italian, early 17th century. 6 feet by 2 feet 8½ inches.

The silk in this stuff is small in comparison with the thread, which, however, is so well covered as to be kept quite out of sight in the pattern. The fringe, six inches in depth, is left quite open.

911.

A Bed-Quilt; ground, green silk; design, in the middle the goddess Flora, around her large flowers and branches, amid which are birds (doves?), and hares climbing up the boughs, all in floss-silk of very showy colours, with a deep border of flowers, worked upon dark net. Italian, 18th century. 8 feet 3 inches by 6 feet.

Such coverlets were, as they still are, used for throwing over beds in the day-time. The flowers, both on the silk and the netting, are so embroidered as to show the same, like East Indian needlework, on both sides. The love for lively colour, not to say garishness, was such as to lead the hand that wrought this piece to render the branches of some of the parts parti-coloured in white and crimson. Other specimens of embroidered net may be seen at Nos. 623, 624, 4462.

PART THE SECOND.

_Tapestry._

1296.

Pieces of Tapestry Hanging, figured with poetic pastoral scenes. Flemish, perhaps wrought at Audenaerde, in the first half of the 16th century. 29 feet 4 inches by 11 feet.

Soon after the early part of the 16th century, there sprang up throughout Europe a liking for pastoral literature as seen in Virgil’s eclogues: poets sung their dreams of the bliss to be found in rustic life, in which sports and pastimes, amid well-dressed revelry and music, with nought of toil or drudgery belonging to it, formed the yearly round; and in summer tide, nobles and their ladies loved to rove the woods and fields, and play at gentle shepherdism. How such frolics were carried out we learn from the tapestry before us, which, in many of its features, is near akin to those low reliefs of the same subject that adorn the walls in the court-yard of the curious and elaborately ornamented Hotel de Bourgtheroud, at Rouen.

At the left-hand side, lying on a flowery bank, is a gentleman shepherd, whose broad-toed shoes and thick cloth leggings, fastened round the knees and about the ancles, are rather conspicuous. On the brim of his large round white hat is a sort of square ticket, coloured. From his waist hangs a white satchel, bearing outside various appliances, such as countrymen want. Over him stands, with a tall spud in her hands, a youthful lady dressed in a scarlet robe, and wearing her satchel by her side, a thin gauze cap, not a hat, is on her head, and with her hand upraised she seems to be giving emphasis to what she says to her friend upon the ground.

In the middle of this piece is a group, consisting of four characters, all of whom are playing at some game of forfeits. A young lady clad in blue satin, with the usual rustic pouch slung at her side, is sitting on the flowery grass, with her hands on the shoulders of a youth at her feet, and hiding his face in her lap. Standing over him and about to strike his open palm is another youth in a blue tunic turned up with red, and holding a spud. Behind the blindfolded youth stands a young lady, whose flaxen locks fall from under a broad-brimmed crimson hat, upon her shoulders over her splendid robe, the crimson ground of which is nearly hidden by the broad diapering of gold most admirably shown upon it.

In the other corner, to the right, is a lady, kerchiefed and girded with her rustic wallet, with both hands grasping a man, who seems as if he asked forgiveness. Overhead is a swineherd leading a pig, and going towards a farm-labourer who is making faggots; further on is another clown, hard at work, with his coat thrown down by him on the ground, lopping trees; and last of all, a gentleman and lady, both clad in the costume of the first half of the sixteenth century. These groups on the high part of the canvas are evidently outside the subject of the games below, and are merely passers by. All about the field are seen grazing sheep; and to the right, a golden pheasant on the foreground is so conspicuous as to lead to the thought that it was placed there to tell, either the name of the noble house for which this beautifully-wrought and nicely-designed tapestry was made, or of the artist who worked it.

In a second, but much smaller pane of tapestry, the same subject is continued. Upon the flowery banks of a narrow streamlet sit a lady and a little boy, bathing their feet in its waters. A gentleman--a swain for the nonce--on his bended knee, holds up triumphantly one of the lady’s stockings over the boy’s head. Just above and striding towards her comes another gentleman-shepherd, with both his hands outstretched as if in wonderment, over whom we find a real churl in the person of a shepherd playing a set of double pipes--the old French “flahuter à deux dois”--to the no small delight of a little dog by his side. Serving as a background to this group, we have a comfortable homestead amid trees. Somewhat to the right and lower down, over a brick arch leans a lady, to whom a gaily-dressed man is offering money or a trinket, which he has just drawn forth from his open _gipcière_ hanging at his girdle. Below sits a lady arrayed in a white robe, the skirts of which she has drawn and folded back upon her lap to show her scarlet petticoat. She is listening to a huntsman pranked out with a belt strung with little bells; falling from his girdle hangs in front a buglehorn, and his left hand holds the leash of his dog with a fine collar on. Over this spruce youth is an unmistakable real field labourer with a Flemish _hotte?_, or wooden cradle, filled with chumps and sticks, upon his back; and before him walk two dogs, one of which carries a pack or cloth over his shoulders. Still higher up is a wind-mill, toward which a man bearing a sack is walking.

In both these pieces, which are fellows, and wrought for the hangings of the same chamber, the drawing of the figures, with the accessories of dress, silks, and even field-flowers, is admirable, and the grouping well managed: altogether, they are valuable links in the chain for the study and illustration of the ancient art of tapestry.

1297.

Piece of Tapestry Hanging; ground, green sprinkled with flowers, and sentence-bearing scrolls; design, steps in a religious life, figured in five compartments. West German, late 15th century. 12 feet by 2 feet 10 inches.

1. A young well-born maiden, with a narrow wreath about her unveiled head, and dressed in pink, is saying her prayers kneeling on the flowery green ground, with these words traced on the scrolls twined gracefully above her,--“Das wir Maria kindt in trew mage werden so ... t ich myn gnade ... n af erden;” “Let us become like to Mary’s child, (so) we shall deserve mercy on earth.”

2. Seated on a chair, with a book upon his lap, is an ecclesiastic, in a white habit and black scapular. To this priest the same young lady is making confession of her sins; and the scrolls about this group say,--“Vicht di sunde mit ernst sonder spot so findestic Godez trew gnadt;” “Fight against sin with earnestness and without feigning; you will find the true mercy of God.”--“Her myn sunde vil ich ach dagen uff das mir Gots trew moge behagen;” “Lord, I will mourn over my sin, in order that the truth of God may comfort me.”

3. The same youthful maiden is bending over a wooden table, upon which lies a human heart that she is handling; and the inscriptions about her tell us the meaning of this action of hers, thus,--“Sol ich myn sund hi leschen so musz ich ich mȳ hertz im blude wesche;” “To cleanse away my sin here, I must wash my heart in the blood.”

4. We here see an altar; upon its table are a small rood or crucifix with S. Mary and S. John, two candlesticks, having prickets for the wax-lights, the outspread corporal cloth, upon which stands the chalice, and under which, in front and not at the right side, lies the paten somewhat hidden. At the foot of this altar kneels the maiden, clad in blue, and wearing on her head a plain, closely-fitting linen cap, like that yet occasionally worn at church in Belgium, by females of the middle classes,--and the priest who is saying mass there is giving her Communion. The priest’s alb is ornamented with crimson apparels on its cuffs and lower front hem, inscribed with the word “haus,” house, is well rendered. The inscriptions above are, as elsewhere, mutilated, so that much of their meaning is lost; but they run thus,--“Wer he ... versorget mich mit Gottes trew das bitten ich;” “If ... not procure me the love of God that I pray for.”--“Emphang in trewen den waren Crist dmit dyn;” “Receive with fidelity the very Christ in order....”

5. A nunnery, just outside of which stands its lady-abbess, clothed in a white habit, black hood, and white linen wimple about her throat. In her right hand she bears a gold crozier, from which hangs that peculiar napkin, two of which are in this collection, Nos. 8279A, and 8662. Behind stands an aged nun, and, as if in the passage and seen through the cloister windows, are two lay sisters, known as such by the black scapular. In front of the abbess stands the young maiden dressed in pink, with her waiting woman all in white, in attendance on her. Upon the scrolls are these sentences,--“Dez hymels ey port Godez vor (m)eyn husz disz ist;” “A gate of heaven--God’s and mine house this is.”--“Kom trew Christ wol. p.. eidt nym dy Kron dy dir Got hat bereit.”--“Come, true Christian well ... take the crown which God has prepared for thee.”

Though but a poor specimen of the loom, this piece gives us scraps of an obsolete dialect of the mediæval German, not Flemish, language.

1465.

Piece of Tapestry Hanging; ground, grass and flowers; design, a German romance, divided into six compartments, each having its own inscribed scrolls, meant to describe the subject. South German, middle of the 15th century. 12 feet by 2 feet 6 inches.

In the first compartment we see a group of horsemen, of whom the first is a royal youth wearing a richly-jewelled crown and arrayed in all the fashion of those days. Following him are two grooms, over one of whose heads, but high up in the heavens, flies an eagle; and perhaps the bird may be there to indicate the name of the large walled city close by. Pacing on the flowery turf, the cavalcade is nearing a castle, at the threshold of which stand an aged king and his youthful daughter. On a scroll are the words,--“Bisg god wilkum dusig stunt(?) grosser frayd wart uns nie kunt;” “Be right welcome for a thousand hours; a greater joy we never knew.” Of course the coming guest utters his acknowledgments; but the words on the scroll cannot be made out with the exception of this broken sentence,--“Heute ich unt ...;” “To day I and ...”

In the second compartment, in a room of the castle we behold the same royal youth, wearing, as before, his crown upon his long yellow locks, along with his three varlets. On a scroll are the words,--“Fromer dieur bestelle mir die ros ein wagge ist nun lieber;” “Pious servant, order me the horses, a carriage is preferred.”

In the third compartment is shown, and very likely in his own home, the same young wooer talking, as it would seem by the scrolls, to his three waiting-men; and after one of them had said,--“Wage u[=n] rosz sint bereit als ...;” “Carriage and horses are ready as....” he says,--“Wo schien gluck zu diser vart nie kein reise;” “If luck has shone on this journey, I never liked travelling better.” Of the three servants, one holds three horses, while the upper groom is presenting, with both hands, to his royal young master a large something, apparently ornamented with flowers; the churl wears, hanging down from his girdle in front, an anelace or dagger, the gentleman a gay _gipcière_, but the shoes of both are very long and pointed.

In the fourth compartment the same crowned youth again is seen riding towards the castle-gate, though this time no lady fair stands at its threshold for the greeting; but instead, there stands with the old king a noble youth who, to all appearances, seems to have been beforehand, in the business of wooing and winning the young princess’s heart, with the last comer. There are these words upon the scroll,--“Ich hab vor einem ... gericht einer tuben und mich yr verpflicht;” “I have before a ... tribunal of a dove, and have myself engaged to her;” meaning that already had he himself betrothed the king’s daughter, by swearing to her his love and truth before a dove--a thing quite mediæval, like the vows of the swan, the peacock, and the pheasant, as we have noticed in the Introduction, and again while treating of the Syon Cope, at p. 28. On his side, the old king thus addresses him,--“Mich dunckt du komst uber land ... zu der hochzeit;” “Methinks thou comest over-land ... to see the wedding.” In this, as in other inscriptions, the whole of the words cannot be made out.

The fifth compartment shows us the second and successful wooer, dressed out in the same attire as before, but now riding a well-appointed steed, and booted in the manner of those times. He is waited on by a mounted page. On a scroll are the words,--“Umb sehnlichst ich nun köme ... ist die ewige ...;” “That I most passionately now can ... is the eternal,” &c.

In the last compartment the rejected wooer is seen riding away as he came--without a bride--followed by two grooms.

Though rough in its execution, this piece of tapestry is valuable not only for its specimens of costume, like our own at the period, but especially for its inscriptions, which betray the provincialisms belonging to the south of Germany; and some of their expressions are said to be even yet in daily use about the neighbourhood of Nuremberg, to which locality we are warranted, for several reasons, in ascribing the production of this early example of the German loom.

1480.

Tapestry Hanging; within a narrow border of a dark green ground, ornamented with flowers mostly pink, and fruit-bearing branches of the vine, is figured a subject just outside the gates of a large walled city, and upon the flowery turf. Flemish, beginning of the 16th century, 13 feet by 11 feet 6 inches.

To all appearance the subject is taken from the Gospel of St. John, chap. 9, where the miracle is related of our Lord giving sight to the man born blind, who has just come back from washing in the pool of Siloam, and is answering his neighbours who had hitherto known him as the blind beggar. In front stands an important personage in a tunic of cloth of gold shot light blue, over which he wears a shorter one of fine crimson diapered in gold, having a broad jewelled hem; of a rich gold stuff is his lofty turban. In his left hand he holds a long wand, ending in an arrow-shaped head. At the feet of this high functionary kneels the poor man blessed with sight, while he is taking from him a something like a square glass bottle, and holds his coarse hat in his hand. Near but above him stands a lady wearing a most curious head-dress, which is blue, with two red wings bristling at its sides. The rest of her array is exactly like, in shape and stuffs, to the magnificent apparel of the first portly male figure, so as to lead us to believe that she must be his wife, himself being one of the Jewish chief priests. Talking with her is another Jew splendidly dressed, and bearing a wand in one hand; and behind her we see a man wearing earrings, and a woman belonging to the lower class--probably the cured man’s father and mother. Not far away from the priest, and at his back, are soldiers with lances, and one with a halbert, before whom stands a well-dressed, mantled and hooded Pharisee, with a rolled-up volume in his hand, and looking with a somewhat haughty scowl upon the man kneeling on the ground. Above the walls are seen the domes of several large buildings, of which one looks as if it were the temple of Jerusalem; and all about the battlements are people gazing down upon the scene beneath them.

So Flemish is the Gothic style of architecture on the gates, around which are mock inscriptions, and on the walls of the city, that we find at once that the tapestry must have been designed and wrought in Flanders. Though the shapes of the dresses be for the most part quite imaginary, still the diapering on the gorgeous cloths of gold is after the style then in vogue and well rendered.

1481.

Tapestry Wall-hanging; subject, Neptune stilling the wind-storm raised at Juno’s request by Æolus against the Trojan fleet on the Sicilian coast. Flemish, 17th century.

Evidently the designer of this tapestry meant to illustrate Virgil at the beginning of his first book of the Æneid. To the left hand is seen Boreas with a lance, which he is aiming against Neptune, in one hand, while in the other he holds by a cord a rough wooden yoke, to which are tied two boys floating in the water, and each with a pair of bellows, which he is blowing. Drawn by two steeds comes Neptune with uplifted trident, to still the winds raised by the two boys; and over his head are Eurus and the western wind in the shape of females flying in the air, one snapping the tall mast of one of Æneas’s ships, and the other pouring out broad streams of water from four vases, one in each hand. The bellows are very like those elaborately-carved ones in the Museum, out of Soulages collection.

1483.

Tapestry Wall-hanging; subject, Æneas and Achates before Dido, at Carthage. Flemish, 17th century.

The passage, in Virgil’s first book of the Æneid, descriptive of Æneas, with the faithful Achates at his side, relating his adventures to Dido, the Carthaginian queen, is here illustrated. The youthful princess, enthroned beneath a cloth of estate, is listening to the Trojan prince before her, and around are her ladies in gay costume, her own being of light blue silk damasked with a large golden flower. As a background we see the port filled with Æneas’s ships, to which countrymen are driving sheep and oxen for their crews. The women are quite of the Flemish type of fat beauty, and the odd head-dress for a man on Achates is remarkable.

1582.

Tapestry Hanging; subject, the departure of Æneas from Carthage. Flemish, 17th century.

In the foreground is Æneas taking leave of Dido, who is fainting into the arms of her waiting ladies. Behind, is a youth working as a mason and building a wall: further back, are seen horses richly caparisoned, upon one of which rides Dido, while Mercury comes flying down bidding Æneas to haste him away.

1683.

Tapestry Wall-hanging; subject, Venus appearing to Æneas in a wood.

The second book of the Æneid has furnished the designer with the materials for this piece. Just as Æneas had uplifted his hand to slay Helen, Venus appears, stays his arms, and reasons with him. So says Virgil; but here we merely see Mercury coming down from the clouds, and Venus revealing herself to her son. The admirers of the beautiful in form and face will not find much to please them in the lady’s person. This piece closes the history of Æneas as given in these tapestries, which came from the palace, or, as it used to be called, the King’s House at Newmarket. All through, Dido is made to appear in the same kind of costume; but the dresses in general are purely imagined by the artist, without the slightest authority from the monuments of either Greek or Roman antiquity: and the architectural parts are quite in the debased classic style of the 17th century, as followed in Flanders. All these tapestries are framed in a red border, wrought at the sides with scrolls and shields, and below, with winged boys holding labels once showing inscriptions (now faded) all shot with gold, but tarnished black. Many of the female figures are slip-shod, like St. Mary Magdalen in Rubens’s “Taking down from the Cross,” at Antwerp.

6733.

Tapestry Hanging; subject, the story of Arria and Paetus, copied from a painting by Francois André Vincent, and dated 1785. The border was added afterwards. French, done at the Gobelins. 12 feet by 10 feet 6 inches. Presented by His Imperial Highness Prince Napoleon.

The subject is a startling one; being condemned to die, by the Emperor Claudius, and put an end to his life with his own hand, Paetus hesitated. Seeing this, his wife Arria snatched up the weapon and plunged it to the hilt in her own bosom, and then handing the dagger to her husband, said, “It does not pain me, Paetus.”

At top, on a blue ground, is a large N in yellow, indicative of the first Napoleon, who, in the year 1807 presented this fine specimen of the far-famed Gobelin tapestry to his brother Jerome, at the time King of Westphalia, as a marriage gift. By the late Prince Jerome it was sent, through his son, the present Prince Napoleon, for presentation to this Museum.

2442.

Tapestry Wall-hanging; design, groups of richly-dressed ladies and gentlemen around a queen. Flemish, early 16th century.

Apparently the crowded scene before us is meant to illustrate some symbolic subject. In the midst of them all stands a queen, whose hands are clasped. Before her kneels a man who respectfully bares his head the while he outstretches to the princess a written paper. Behind stands a magnificent chair. Further back is a nicely-shown interior of a room having its cupboard loaded with vases standing on the shelves; there sit three ladies in earnest talk. All about are groups of richly-clothed men and women, each of whose dresses is worthy of notice.

2443.

Tapestry; subject, a landscape, the foreground strewed with human and animals’ bones, and a living figure sitting among rocks. French, early 17th century.

This is one of a short series of tapestries setting forth, but sometimes laughing at, the ideas of the ancient cynics. Before us here we have a wild dell clothed in trees on one side, on the other piled with rocks capped, in some places, by ruins. Seated on a stone, with a book held in his hand, is Diogenes in meditation, with human bones, animal skulls, and monster things about him. The work is well done, and shows how perfect was the loom that wrought it. On a blue tablet at top runs this inscription,--“Diogenes derisor omnium in fine defigitur.”

2807.

Tapestry; subject, the visit of Alexander the Great to Diogenes in his tub. French, early 17th century.

The scene is well laid out, peopled with many figures, and its story neatly told. Above, in the usual place, is this inscription,--“Sensit Alexander testã quum vidit in illã magnum habitatorem, quanto felicior hic, qui nil cuperet (_quàm_) qui totum sibi posceret orbem.”

3818.

Tapestry; subject, a beautifully-wooded scene with a stream running down the middle of it, and across which two men, one on each side, are talking. French, early 17th century.

On one side stands Dionysius; on the other, and holding a bunch of vegetables, which he is about to wash in the brook, is Diogenes, who was not remarkable for his personal cleanliness. Dionysius, it would seem, has been twitting him upon that subject, and gets for answer that his very presence taints with dirt Diogenes himself, and the waters in which he is about to wash his pot-herbs: “Sordet mihi Dionysius lavanti olera,” as the Latin inscription reads above.

4331.

Tapestry Wall-hanging; design, a wooded scene in the background; in the foreground, Diogenes and a man. French, early 17th century.

Before a large tub, lying on its side, is stretched out Diogenes, pointing his finger to his curious dwelling, with his head looking towards a wayfarer, to whom he seems to say those words traced on the blue label at the top,--“Qui domum ambit hanc (anne?) me sepeliat.” This appears to have been drawn from his lips by the man going by, who is pointing towards the gaping mouth of the tub.

4650.

Tapestry; subject, a gate-way built of rough stone, over which a female is tracing an inscription, of which are written in large capital letters these words:--

“Nihil hic ingrediatur mali.”

Besides this, we find these sentences also:--

“Diogenes Cynicus subscribit;” and, “Spado sceleratus scripsit.”

In these five pieces of tapestry, which were evidently employed for hanging the walls in some especial hall, we cannot but admire the ease and freedom of their whole design, and be struck especially by the beauty of their wild, yet charming landscapes, which are so well brought out by the weaver-artist who wrought them.

7926.

Tapestry; subject, the holy family, after Raphael. Presented by His Imperial Majesty the Emperor Napoleon III.

No words are necessary to call the observer’s attention to this admirable specimen of the French loom. Of the many fine pieces sent forth by the manufactory of the Gobelins, this may easily take a place among the very finest; and, at first sight, many people might be led to think that it was the work of the pencil, and not of machinery. About it there is a warmth and depth of mellow colouring which has partly fled from the original, through time and, may be, want of care. Those who have seen the pictures at the Louvre must well remember the grand and precious original of which this is such a successful copy.

189.

Tapestry Wall-hanging; design, our Lord giving the power of the keys to St. Peter, after Raphael’s cartoon. English (probably from Soho), 17th century. 17 feet 1 inch by 12 feet.

The point of time chosen by the great Roman painter is that indicated by St. Matthew, xvi. 18, 19; for St. Peter holds the keys promised him by his divine Master, at whose feet he alone, of all the apostles, is kneeling. Behind our Lord is a large flock of sheep, as explanatory of the pastoral power bestowed, after His uprising from the grave, by our Saviour upon St. Peter more especially, to feed the sheep as well as lambs in His flock, as we read in St. John, xxi. 16, 17: both subjects are naturally connected.

By the many engravings, but, more particularly, the fine photographs of the original cartoon, once at Hampton Court, now in this Museum, this subject is well known. In this especial piece, the colouring, being so badly graduated and garish, is by no means as good as in the earlier one, still to be seen in the Gallery of the Tapestries at the Vatican. Here, the tone of our Lord’s drapery is not distinguishable from the stony hue of the wool upon the sheep behind Him.

8225.

Panel of Tapestry; ground, light blue; design, bunches of flowers upon a white panel. 2 feet 11½ inches by 2 feet 3½ inches. Aubusson, present century. Presented by Messrs. Requillart, Roussel, and Chocqueel.

After Paris with the Gobelins, and the city of Beauvais, there is no town in France which produces such fine tapestries as Aubusson, the carpets of which are much admired.

7927 to 7930.

Four Pieces of Tapestry; ground, light blue; design, flowers. French, present century. Presented by His Imperial Majesty the Emperor Napoleon III.

Beauvais, which produced these beautiful specimens, has long been famous for the works of the loom; and the present lovely figures of such well-drawn, nicely-coloured flowers are worthy of that city’s reputation.

594.

Tapestry Wall-hanging; subject, Esther about to venture into the presence of Ahasuerus. From the Soulages Collection. Flemish, first half of the 16th century. Height 13 feet, breadth 11 feet 6 inches.

The history, as here shown us, of a most eventful achievement, is at top distributed into four groups, each made up of figures rather small in stature; and at bottom, into other five clusters, in which all the personages assume a proportion little short of life-size.

Beginning with those higher compartments on the piece, we find in the two at the left-hand side the commencement of this Scriptural record. The mighty Ahasuerus is presented to us in the second of those two groups there, as seated amid trees, and robed as would have been a sovereign prince during the first half of the sixteenth century. All about his head and neck the Persian king wears, wrapped in loose folds, a linen cloth, over which he has a large scarlet hat with an ornament for a crown, made up of small silver shield-shaped plates, marked with wedge-like stripes of a light blue colour, or heraldically, _argent_, five piles _azure_ meeting at the base; over his shoulders falls an unspotted ermine cape jagged all about its edge so as to look as if meant for a nebulée border. Upon the left breast of this sort of mantle is sewed a little crimson shield-shaped badge marked in white seemingly with the letter A, not having, however, the stroke through it, but above, the sign of contraction dashed. He wears a blue tabard, is girt with a sword, and holds in his left hand a tall wand, that golden sceptre which, if not outstretched in token of clemency towards the man or woman who had the hardihood to come unbidden to his presence, signified that such a bold intruder, were she the queen herself, must be put to death. Having nobles and guards about him, this monarch of one hundred and twenty-seven provinces is handing to Haman, one of those three princes before him, a written document from which hang two royal seals: this is that terrible decree, which, out of spite towards Mordecai, and hatred for the Jewish race, Haman had won from his partial master Ahasuerus, for the slaughter, on a certain day, of every Hebrew within the Persian empire.

Yet further to the left is another group, wherein we observe some of the richly-attired functionaries of the empire. A bareheaded old man, a royal messenger, who holds up his left hand as if to indicate he had come from the court of Ahasuerus, delivers to one of the nobles there this original decree to be copied out and sent in all directions through the kingdom.

Looking still at top, but to the far right, we have in the background, amid the trees, a large house, from out of the midst of which stands up a tall red beam, the gibbet, fifty cubits high, got ready by Haman at his wife’s and friends’ suggestion for hanging on it Mordecai. In this foreground we behold Haman clad in a blue mantle and a rich golden chain about his neck: to the man standing respectfully before him, cap in hand, Haman gives the written order duly authenticated by the two imperial seals upon it, for the execution of Mordecai. Immediately to the left of this scene we are presented with the inside view of a fine chamber hung with tapestry, and ornamented with tall vases, two of which are on a shelf close by a lattice-window. In the middle of this room is a group of three women: one of them, Esther, richly clad, is seated and wringing her hands in great grief, as if she had learned the fell death awaiting her uncle, and the slaughter already decreed of all her nation: two of her gentlewomen are with her, wailing, like their queen-mistress, the coming catastrophe.

Right in the centre of the piece, and occupying its most conspicuous position, we behold the tall stately figure of a beautiful young queen, splendidly arrayed, and wearing over the rich caul upon her head a royal diadem. She seems to have just arisen from the magnificent throne or rather faldstool close behind her. With both her hands clasped in supplication, she is followed in her upward course by her train of attendants--two ladies and a nobleman--all gaily dressed, threading their way through as they ascend from the hall below crowded with courtiers, men and women gossiping together in little knots, and set off in fashionable dress. While bending her steps, Esther looks towards the spot where Ahasuerus is sitting. At this moment an oldish man steps forward, clad after a beseeming fashion: in one hand he holds his red cap, while with the other hand he is stretching out, for Esther’s acceptance, his inscribed roll. This person must be Mordecai, thus shown as instructing and encouraging his niece-queen Esther in the hazardous work of saving her people’s lives, at the same time that he furnishes her with a copy of the decree for their utter annihilation.

This inner court of the King’s house where Esther is now standing over against the hall in which Ahasuerus sits upon his throne is crowded with courtiers, all remarkable for the elegance and costliness of their dress. In a circle of three great personages to the right, one of those high-born dames has brought with her her guitar, made in the form of the calabash, to help on by her music the expected mirth and revelry of the day.

In those several instances in which the royal decree is figured with the imperial seals hanging from it, the impression stamped upon the wax seems, no doubt, to be taken as the cipher of Ahasuerus, a large A, but without the stroke through it.

One remarkable feature among the ornaments of dress assumed by almost all the great personages in this piece of tapestry is the large-linked, heavy golden chain about the neck, worn as much by ladies as by gentlemen. The caps of the men are mostly square.

The elaborately-adorned, closely-fitting, round-shaped caul worn by the women in this court of Ahasuerus is in strict accordance with the female fashion abroad at the beginning of the sixteenth century; while here, in England, the gable-headed coif found more favour than the round with our countrywomen. Then, however, as now, ladies loved long trains to their gowns; and the men’s shoes had that peculiar broad toe so conspicuously marked in Hans Holbein’s cartoon for a picture of our Henry VIII. belonging to the Duke of Devonshire, and exhibited among the National Portraits on loan to the South Kensington Museum, A.D. 1866.

8979.

Tapestry Hanging; subject, the three Fates with a young lady lying dead at their feet. Flemish, early 16th century.

With a grove of blooming trees behind them, and upon a lawn, everywhere sprinkled with many kinds of flowers, stand the Fates. Each of the weird sisters may be individually known by her proper name written in white letters near her head. Beginning from the right side of the piece, we have the spinster Clotho, who is figured as a youthful maiden; amid the boughs of a tree just above her is seen a long-billed bird of the snipe-kind; she is gaily dressed in a yellow kirtle, elaborately diapered after a flowery pattern done in green, over which she wears a gown of deep crimson velvet, while from her girdled waist falls a large golden chain ending in a gold pomander. In her left hand she holds a distaff, keeping at the same time between her fingers the thread which she has but just done spinning. Next to Clotho stands Lachesis, almost as young in look; she is not quite so sprightly but yet as elegantly clad as her sister with the distaff; billing and cooing above this feigned manager of individual destiny we behold a pair of turtle-doves; this second of the Fates is clad in robes of a light pink tone nicely and artistically diapered, and with her left hand she takes from Clotho the thread just spun and with her right passes it on to Atropos. This the last, and the most dreaded of the fatal three, looks older than the other two, and is arrayed more matronly. Clothed in deep blue, Atropos wears a large full white kerchief, which, as its name implies, not only covers her head, but falls well down from her shoulders half-way to her broad girdle, upon which is slung a string of beads for prayer--a rosary. Atropos, whose imaginary office was to cut with knife, or scissors, or a pair of shears, the thread of life, uses no such an instrument here; for with her hands she has broken the life-cord, and the spindle, around which it had been wound, lies thrown upon the flowery turf close by the head of the victim of the Fates. At the feet of these three sisters lies, stretched out in all her fullest length, a youthful lady dead. She wears a kerchief on her head, and over her richly-diapered pink gown she has a light crimson mantle thickly powdered with small golden crescents. Her bed seems made of early summer flowers; and alongside of her, and as if just fallen from her outstretched right hand, lies the tall stalk, snapped short off near the lower end, of a blooming white lily. At one side, but lower down, is the half-figure of a monkey; some way to the right, but on the same level, sits in quiet security a large brown hare; while between these two animals, from out a hole in the ground, as if they snuffed their future prey in the dead body, are creeping a weasel and a stoat, just after a large toad that has crawled out before them.

This piece of tapestry, valuable alike for its artistic excellence and its good preservation, has a more than common interest about it. In all likelihood it gives us the history, nay, perhaps affords us the very portraiture of some high-born, beautiful young lady, well known and admired in her day. A little something at least may be gathered from its symbolism. By the heathen mythological distribution of functions among the poetic Parcæ, or Fates, to the second of these three sisters, to Lachesis, was it given to decide the especial destiny of each mortal the hour that she or he was born. Now in the instance before us a pair of turtle-doves, love’s emblem, is conspicuously shown above the head of Lachesis. As this young lady’s life-thread slipped through her fingers Lachesis has touched it, quickened it so that the child for whom it is being spun shall have a heart all maidenly, but soft to the impressions of the gentle passion--love. She has been wooed and made a bride, for she has on the married woman’s kerchief. That lily-stem with its opening buds and full-blown flowers at top is the emblem of a spotless whiteness, an unstained innocence; the stalk is broken, but the flowers on it are unwithered. What fitter tokens of a bride’s unlooked-for death, the very morning of her marriage? But that monkey-emblem of mischief, evil, moral ugliness, and in particular of lubricity--perhaps may mean us to understand the worthlessness of wanton, profligate men. As the harmless unsuspecting hare is easily snared and taken in a toil, so she might have been caught, but may have been spared, by early death, a life of misery. Those loathsome things coming from out the ground warn men that all of us must one day or another become the prey of the grave, and that youth, and innocence, and beauty will be its food.

THE BROOKE COLLECTION.

542. ’64.

Christening Ribbon, white silk with silver gimp edge. English, 18th century. Length 6 feet 9 inches, width 2¼ inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

858, 858B. ’64.

Court suit, coat and knee-breeches, of cherry-coloured Genoa velvet, white satin lining, waistcoat white satin embroidered in coloured silks and silver. English, dated 1772. Length of coat 3 feet 2½ inches, length of breeches 2 feet, length of waistcoat 2 feet 5 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

859, 859B. ’64.

Dress suit, coat, waistcoat, and knee-breeches, of pink silk brocade with a diapered flower pattern. English, date about 1770. Length of coat 3 feet 2½ inches, length of waistcoat 2 feet 6 inches, length of breeches 2 feet 4 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

860. ’64.

Apron, white silk, with raised floral embroidery. English, date about 1720. Length 2 feet 0½ inch, width 2 feet 9½ inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

861. ’64.

Apron, yellow silk, with raised floral embroidery, in colours, bordered with silk lace. English, date about 1720. Length 2 feet 1 inch, width 2 feet 10 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

862. ’64.

Apron, white silk, with coloured floral embroidery and silver cord. English, date about 1720. Length 1 foot 7½ inches, width 3 feet. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

863. ’64.

Apron, white silk, with purple floral embroidery and gold cord. English, date about 1720. Length 1 foot 9 inches, width 3 feet 2 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

864. ’64.

Portion of Embroidery, flowers in coloured silks (chiefly orange) on linen ground covered with stitched scroll pattern. English, 18th century. Length 1 foot 10½ inches, width 1 foot 6 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

865. ’64.

Portion of Embroidery, flowers in coloured silks (chiefly orange) on linen ground covered with stitched scroll pattern. English, 18th century. Length 1 foot 1½ inches, width 1 foot 6 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

866. ’64.

Portion of Embroidery, flowers in coloured silks (chiefly orange) on linen ground covered with stitched scroll pattern. English, 18th century. Length 2 feet 2¼ inches, width 2 feet. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

867. ’64.

Piece of Brocade, crimson satin with cut velvet floral pattern; bordered with silver gimp and spangles. French, date about 1770. Length 3 feet 5½ inches, width 3 feet 2 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

868. ’64.

Piece of Brocade, crimson satin with cut velvet floral pattern; bordered with silver gimp and spangles. French, date about 1770. Length 6 feet, width 3 feet 2 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

869. ’64.

Mantilla, yellow silk and black lace. English, date about 1770. Length, as worn, 5 feet, width of skirt 3 feet. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

870. ’64.

Boddice, yellow silk. English, date about 1770. Height 12½ inches, width 2 feet 4½ inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

871. ’64.

Table-cover, pink silk edged with silver gimp. English, 18th century. Length 3 feet 5 inches, width 3 feet. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

872. ’64.

Piece of Silk, pink ribbed, lined with pink sarsnet. English, 18th century. Length 3 feet 4 inches, width 4 feet. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

873. ’64.

Silk Fringe, green and yellow. English, date about 1740. Length 8 feet 1 inch, depth 3½ inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

874. ’64.

Counterpane, white linen embroidered with running pattern; in centre a scroll ornament with cipher and scroll border, all in yellow silk. English, 17th century. Length 7 feet 8 inches, width 6 feet 11 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

875. ’64.

Cushion-cover, white linen embroidered with running pattern and scroll ornament, yellow silk; cipher in centre. English, 17th century. Length 2 feet 1 inch, width 1 foot 5½ inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

876. ’64.

Cushion-cover, white linen embroidered with running pattern and scroll ornament, yellow silk; cipher in centre. English, 17th century. Length 1 foot 8½ inches, width 1 foot 3½ inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

877. ’64.

Cushion-cover, white linen embroidered with running pattern and scroll ornament, yellow silk; cipher in centre. English, 17th century. Length 1 foot 5½ inches, width 1 foot 2 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

878. ’64.

Piece of Brocade, white silk and gold in narrow stripes. French (?), 18th century. Length 10 feet 4 inches, width 2 feet 2 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

879. ’64.

Table-cover, crimson Genoa velvet with broad border of silver gimp, Indian (Delhi) work. Length 5 feet 2 inches, width 5 feet 2 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

880. ’64.

Saddle-cloth, dark blue Genoa velvet, ornamented with broad bands of flowered gold lace; trappings for the horse of H. Osbaldeston, Esq., High Sheriff of Yorkshire, A.D. 1772-3. Length 4 feet 5 inches, width 1 foot 8½ inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

881, 881A. ’64.

Pair of Holsters for Pistols, dark blue Genoa velvet, ornamented with broad bands of flowered gold lace; trappings for the horse of H. Osbaldeston, Esq., High Sheriff of Yorkshire, A.D. 1772-3. Length 1 foot 9 inches, width 1 foot 6½ inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

882. ’64.

Saddle-cloth, scarlet cloth with border of gold lace, used by the attendants of the High Sheriff of Yorkshire, A.D. 1772-3. Length 3 feet 8 inches, width 1 foot 6 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

883. ’64.

Saddle-cloth, scarlet cloth with border of gold lace, used by the attendants of the High Sheriff of Yorkshire, A.D. 1772-3. Length 3 feet 10½ inches, width 1 foot 6¾ inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

884. ’64.

Saddle-cloth, scarlet cloth, with border of gold lace, used by the attendants of the High Sheriff of Yorkshire, A.D. 1772-3. Length 3 feet 10 inches, width 1 foot 6¾ inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

885. ’64.

Pair of Pistol Holsters, scarlet cloth bordered with gold lace, used by the attendants of the High Sheriff of Yorkshire, A.D. 1772-3. Length 12 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

886, 886A. ’64.

Pair of Pistol Holsters, scarlet cloth bordered with gold lace, used by the attendants of the High Sheriff of Yorkshire, A.D. 1772-3. Length 12 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

887, 887A. ’64.

Pair of Pistol Holsters, scarlet cloth bordered with gold lace, used by the attendants of the High Sheriff of Yorkshire, A.D. 1772-3. Length 12 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

888. ’64.

Dress Silk Brocade, white ground with pattern of flowers in various colours. French(?), early 18th century. Length 4 feet 7 inches, width 8 feet 4 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

889. ’64.

Lady’s Shoe, pink prunella, with high heel. English, date about 1765. Length 9⅛ inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

890 ’64.

Grenadier’s Cap, scarlet and white cloth and crimson velvet, with silver and gold embroidery, and gold spangles. English, date about 1770. Height 14 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

891. ’64.

Lady’s Workbag, made from the bark of a tree, bordered with green and white. English(?), 18th century. Length 2 feet, width 1 foot 1 inch. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

892. ’64.

Piece of Silk Embroidery in frame, white satin ground, on which are worked in high relief King Ahasuerus, Queen Esther, various animals, fruits, and other objects, in coloured silk and gold cord. English, early 18th century. Height 1 foot 1 inch, width 1 foot 7 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

893. ’64.

Waistcoat, white ribbed silk embroidered with flowers in various colours, silver cord, and spangles. English, date about 1770. Length 2 feet 3 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

894. ’64.

Waistcoat, crimson satin, with floral brocade border in various colours. English, date about 1770. Length 2 feet 7 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

895. ’64.

Waistcoat, blue and white striped silk brocade with flower spot pattern. English, date about 1770. Length 2 feet 2½ inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

896. ’64.

Skirt of a Lady’s Dress, white silk printed with flowers in various colours. French(?), 18th century. Height 3 feet 6 inches, width 9 feet 8 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

897. ’64.

Piece of Silk, white silk printed with flowers in various colours. French(?), 18th century. Height 3 feet, width 2 feet. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

898. ’64.

Kerchief, yellow silk gauze with floral pattern, border of pink and yellow silk lace. French(?), 18th century. Length 4 feet 3 inches, width 3 feet. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

899. ’64.

Trimming of a Dress, chocolate silk gauze, embroidered with flowers in various colours. English, 18th century. Length 5 feet, width 12 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

900. ’64.

Christening Suit, viz. cap, bib, mittens, and dress (in two pieces), old point lace. Flemish(?), 18th century; worn in 1773. Length of dress 1 foot 11 inches, width 1 foot 3½ inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

919. ’64.

Reticule, silk embroidery of various colours, with yellow satin neck. English, 18th century. Length 9 inches, width 6 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

932. ’64.

Sword-Belt, black silk web; part of a Volunteer uniform. English, early present century. Length 3 feet 5 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

933. ’64.

Sword-belt, pale blue silk web, with steel clasps; part of a Volunteer uniform. English, early 18th century. Length 3 feet 8 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

934. ’64.

Sword-belt, black leather, gilt metal mounts; part of a Volunteer uniform. English, 18th century. Length 2 feet 11 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

935. ’64.

Badge for a Cap Front, crown, cipher, and motto in steel on scarlet cloth; part of a Volunteer uniform. English, 18th century. Height 4-⅞ inches, width 5 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

966. ’64.

Bag, or Purse, links of silver filagree. Modern Genoese. Length 5¼ inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

978. ’64.

Screen, white silk gauze painted with flowers and birds with a vase in centre. Modern Chinese. Length 12 feet 8 inches, height 2 feet 6½ inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

979. ’64.

Screen, white silk gauze, painted with flower-sprigs, insects, and a basket hanging from a tree. Modern Chinese. Length 12 feet 10 inches, width 2 feet 5 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

980. ’64.

Screen, white silk gauze, painted with flowers and birds. Modern Chinese. Height 3 feet 6½ inches, width 4 feet 8¼ inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

981. ’64.

Piece of Embroidery, white satin ground with pattern of leaves and flowers highly relieved in coloured silks and gold cord. English, 18th century. Length 1 foot 10 inches, width 1 foot 1½ inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

982, 982D. ’64.

Five Funeral Banners, silk, emblazoned with armorial shields. English, 18th century. Length 1 foot 9-⅓ inches, width 1 foot 4-⅝ inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

983. ’64.

Funeral Banner, calico, emblazoned with armorial shields. English, 18th century. Length 1 foot 2 inches, width 1 foot 4 inches. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

983A. ’64.

Funeral Banner, calico. English, 18th century. Length 1 foot 2 inches, width 1 foot 1 inch. Presented by the Rev. R. Brooke.

LENT BY HER MAJESTY AND THE BOARD OF WORKS.

Tapestry; ground crimson, diapered with foliage; design, within a broad arch, a white panel, figured with Diana, and about her flowers, birds, and animals, dead and alive. At the right corner, on the lower hem, is inscribed, “Neilson, ex. 1786.” French, from the Gobelin factory.

Diana holds by a long blue ribbon a greyhound; below, are other two hounds and two little naked boys, of whom one is about to dart an arrow; the other, to shoot one from a bow at Diana herself, who, with her shadow cast upon a cloud, is holding her favourite dog by its blue string: at her feet lie her own bow and arrows. This piece is graciously lent by Her Majesty, and is a favourable specimen of the Gobelins royal manufactory, over which the Neilsons, father and son, presided, from A.D. 1749 till 1788. Most likely this piece was wrought by the elder Neilson, who, as well as his son, worked with the “basse lisse,” or low horizontal frame, as distinguished from the “haute lisse,” or high vertical one.

Tapestry Wall-hanging; design, a landscape with the figure of a man. French, 17th century.

The landscape is somewhat wild, but nicely rendered. In the foreground, sitting on a stone, we have a youth with both his hands upon a classic-shaped vase, standing between his feet. In the background are seen a few goats; and further on still, a building with pillars, very likely a well. This fancy piece is surrounded by a border figured with ornamentation, and though it be small and made to fit some panel in a room, is a good specimen of its time, and seems to have come from the same hands that designed and wrought the Diogenes pieces.

Tapestry; design, within a crimson border ornamented, in white, with scroll-work after a classic character, a large mythologic, perhaps Bacchanal subject. French, 17th century.

Upheld by pilasters and columns wreathed with branches of the vine, we see a wide entablature coloured crimson and blue, figured with tripods, vases, and other fanciful arabesque ornamentation, and amid these, heathen gods and goddesses, centaurs, birds, and groups of satyrs. Below, and between the pilasters and columns, a male figure is playing the double pipe, women are carrying fruits in dishes, another is dancing, and some high personages feasting at a table, with some men looking on. Lowermost of all is another scene, in which we have little naked boys, satyrs carrying grapes, and an ass laden with them, and other satyrs pouring into vases the red wine which they are getting from a fountain brim full of it. A border of a crimson ground figured in places with full-faced heads, and all over with small figures, the draperies of which are shaded in gold now quite black, and arabesques after a classic form, goes round the whole piece, which is fellow to another showing the labours of Hercules, in this collection. In the tapestry before us, all the subjects are so Bacchanalian that we must suppose that the designer meant to set forth the ways of the god of wine. Like the drawing in the Hercules piece, the drawing here is good; but the piece itself is in a somewhat bad condition.

Tapestry Wall-hanging; subject, the labours of Hercules. Flemish, late 17th century. 21 feet 6 inches by 16 feet.

This large piece is divided into three broad horizontal bands; on the first of these, upon a dark blue ground, amid arabesques and monsters after classic models, are observable the infant Hercules strangling the two serpents; in the middle, a female holding two ropes, and about her little boys carrying tall reeds, which at top expand into a cup full of fire, as she stands upright upon a pedestal over a doorway, in the tympanum of which, within a round hollow, is the bust of a man having a wine-jug on one side, and a dish filled with fire on the other; still further to the right, there is, within an oval, a child reading at a three-legged desk, and seated on the bending bough of a tree, at the foot of which is a book, and a comic mask. On the second band, the ground of which is light blue, within the doorway, coloured green, stands Hercules cross-legged, bearing in his right hand his club, and with the left upholding the lion-skin mantle. To the right, Hercules is seen wrestling; next, Hercules fighting the Nemean lion with his club; and then the hero shooting with his bow and arrows the Stymphalian birds, half human in their shape: to the left, Hercules is beheld strangling with his own hands the Nemean lion; then he is seen with this dead beast upon his shoulders as he carries it to Eurystheus; and lastly, he is shown loaded with a blue globe, marked with the signs of the zodiac, upon his back. On the third band, which is crimson, we find Hercules, leading by a chain the many-headed Cerberus from the lower world, having along with him Athena, who is seen with clasped hands, and Theseus, who is clad in armour with a reversed dart in his hand; in front lies a dead man. The middle of this band is filled in with architectural scroll-work, upon which are seated two half-bust winged figures, one male, the other female, and hanging between them a shield figured with the rape of Europa. After this central piece we come to the scene on the journey into exile of Hercules and his wife Deianira: the centaur Nessus is carrying the lady in his arms over the river Evenus, and while doing so insults her, whereupon Hercules lets fly an arrow, on hearing his wife’s screams, and shoots Nessus to the heart. The whole is enclosed within a border of a crimson ground, figured with arabesques and heads of a classic character. The third band has a hermes or terminal post at each end; and, curiously enough, in the top band, and resting on the foliations, are four nests of the pelican, billing its breast and feeding its young ones with its blood; besides this we see in places two lions rampant, and regularly langued _gules_, being caressed by a sort of harpy: all of which would lead us to think that in the bird and the animals we have the armorial charge upon the shield, and its supporters, of the noble, but now unknown, owner for whom this piece of tapestry was originally wrought. Its fellow-piece, figured not so much with the triumphs as the festive joys of Bacchus, is in this collection.

Tapestry Wall-hanging; ground, white; subject, the young Bacchus on a cloud, with a cup of wine in one hand, and the thyrsus-staff in the other; and all about, his symbols. French, or Gobelin, 18th century.

Within a rather broad panelled arch, wine-red in its tone, is figured the young Bacchus with a couple of thyrsus-staves, crossed saltire-wise above him: below, is a fountain with an animal’s face, from the mouth of which runs red wine, and by it two little satyrs playing with tigers, into whose open maws they are squeezing the juice of the purple grape. Within a tablet in the higher part are figured two letters M. M. seemingly the ciphers of the individual for whom this piece was woven.

Tapestry Wall-hanging; ground, white; subject, Venus surrounded by her emblems. French, or Gobelin, 18th century.

This is a fellow-piece to the foregoing one, and arranged in the same manner. Riding on a cloud, Venus holds a small dart, and leans upon a swan, with a Cupid by her feet. Like the other piece, it has the cipher M. M.

Tapestry Wall-hanging; ground, mostly white; subject, shepherds and shepherdesses sacrificing to Pan. French, or Gobelin, 18th century.

This large fine piece has a very cheerful tone, and the background is so managed as to be very lightsome in its skies, and hills, and water. In many parts of the costumes, and the vegetation, the colouring is warm without being dauby or garish.

Tapestry Wall-hanging; subject, Melchizedek bringing bread and wine to Abram after his victory. Flemish, late 17th century.

On a tablet at the top of the piece is this inscription:--“Sodomâ expugnatâ Lot capitur. Abram illum recepit. Rex Melchizedek victori Abram offert panem et vinum.” As the reader will easily bring to mind, the subject as well as the inscription are borrowed from the fourteenth chapter of Genesis. Supposing that Sodom, after the overthrow by Abram’s night attack of the four kings, had been retaken, and his nephew Lot and his substance freed from the hands of the four conquered princes, the artist has chosen that point of time in the story, when Melchizedek, the King of Salem and the Priest of the Most High, went out to meet Abram as he was coming from the slaughter; and bringing forth bread and wine, blessed him.

The two principal personages occupy the centre of the foreground. Crowned as a king and wearing a costly sword, Melchizedek comes forth with outstretched right hand to welcome Abram, from whom he is separated by a highly ornamented tall vase full of wine. Behind this King of Salem one of his own serving men, who carries on his shoulders a basket full of food, is coming down the wide staircase from which his royal master has just issued, while outside a doorway, under an upper portico in the same palace, stand two men gazing on the scene below them. On the other side of the vase, Abram, holding a long staff in his right hand, is stepping forwards toward Melchizedek, whom he salutes with his lowered left hand, and behind him a second servant of Melchizedek has just set upon the ground a large hamper full of flat loaves of bread. A little higher in the piece, and somewhat to the left of this domestic, a group of soldiers are quenching their thirst gathered about an open tun of wine, which they drink out of a wide bowl; hastening towards the same spot, as if from an archway, flows a stream of other military men. Amid the far-off landscape may be seen banners flying, and beneath them all the turmoils of a battle raging at its height. To the right, the standard-bearers and some of the vanquished are seen in headlong flight.

The deep golden-grounded border is parted at bottom by classic monstrous hermæ, male and female, each wearing a pair of wings by its ears. The spaces between these grotesques are filled in with female figures, mostly symbolizing vices. “Violentia” is figured by a youthful woman, who, with a sheathed sword by her side, is driving before her a captive young man, whom she holds by the cords which tie his hands behind him, and whom she hurries onwards by the blows from a thick staff that she wields in her uplifted right hand. “Depredatio,” with her fingers ending at their tips in long sharp ravenous nails, is riding astride a lion. “Gratitudo” is a gentle young maiden, who is seated with a bird in her lap, a stork, which she seems to be fondling. “Pugna,” or brawling, is shown by two middle-aged women of the lower class. With their dishevelled hair hanging all about their shoulders, they are in the height of a fight, and the woman with a bunch of keys hanging from her girdle has overcome the other, and is tugging at one of her long locks. “Tyrannis” is an old haggish female with dog-like feet, and she brandishes a sword; almost every one of the other women on the border has, curiously enough, one foot resembling that of an animal. In several parts of the composition besides the border, in the warp and for shading, golden thread has been woven in, but so scantily employed, and the gold itself of such a debased bad quality, that the metal from being tarnished to quite a dull black tone is hardly discernible.

The costume, like the scenery and buildings, has nothing of an oriental character about it, but is fashioned after an imagined classic model.

Tapestry Wall-hanging; subject, the Progress of Avarice. Flemish, middle of the 17th century.

Up above within the border of this large piece is a tablet bearing this inscription:--

“Semper eget sitiens mediis ceu Tantalus undis Inter anhelatas semper avarus opes.”

Beginning at the top left hand of the subject represented, we see a murky sort of vapour streaked by a flash of red lightning. Amid this brownish darkness, peopled with horrid little phantoms and small fantastic sprites, we discover a diminutive figure of Death wielding a long-handled curiously-headed scythe.

Just below is a man pointing with his right hand up to Death, and with his left hand to a little harpy before him; behind him stands a figure with two heads, one a woman’s, the other a man’s, set together Januswise. Lower down, and of a much larger size, are three male figures, one a youth well clad, were it not for his ragged pantaloons, the next an old man wearing sandals and bearing in his right hand what looks like a reliquary glazed and coloured red, while in his left he holds two unfolded scrolls, the upper one of which is illuminated with a building like a castle, by the side of which stands a man, over whose head is the tau or T, with a bell hanging under it--the symbols of St. Anthony of Egypt.

Beside the last personage stands the figure of a monk-like form, clasping in both hands a pair of beads or rosary. Next we have, half leaning from out her seat placed upon a car, and bending over an open chest, into which she is dropping golden pieces of money from her claw-like fingers, a female form with hideous wings and vulture feet, such as harpies have. The chariot drawn by a wyvern-like animal, with its fiery long tongue thrust out, has knocked down an elderly man, who, from the tonsure on his grey head, would seem to be a priest, and its wheel is going to crush a youth upon the ground, while the wyvern’s outstretched claws are about to gripe a ghastly cut-off head. Hanging on the mouldings of this car are empty money-bags, crumpled-up deeds, and a wide-open account book. Alongside of this fiendish hag trips a flaunting courtier; before her rides Midas with ass’s ears to his bloated face, unkempt locks falling down its sides, a royal diadem upon his head, and a withered branch in his hand; and, as if bound to her chariot, walks a king, having with him his queen. Before, but on one side, paces another crowned prince on horseback, while full in front rides a third king carrying in his arms a naked woman.

Last of all and heading, as it were, this progress of Avarice, sits a female figure sidewise on a horse, which she has just reined up. In her right hand she bears a red standard emblazoned with a monkey on all fours, sharp clawed, and something which may be meant for gold pieces.

Flying down from the skies comes an angel, who, with his outstretched right hand, seems to stay the march of the frightful woman in the chariot with her kingly rout, and forbid its onward progress.

In the far-off landscape we discover a group of soldiers, near whom lies stretched out on the ground a dead body, upon which an angel gazes. Far to the right we find an open building, intended, may be, for a church; near it are two military men in armour; inside, a third seems holding out his hand as if he were leaving his offerings on the altar there. Outside, and not far from this same building, may be seen other four men, two of them pilgrims, of whom one kneeling before another looks as if he were making his confession.

The broad border to this large piece is designed with elaborate care. At each of the two lower corners it is figured with the one same subject, which consists in a group of three naked winged boys or angels; of these one holds a short-stemmed cup or chalice, from out of which rises a host or large round altar bread, showing marked on it our Lord hanging upon the cross, between the B. V. Mary and St. John Evangelist; a second angel kneeling has in his hands an uplifted crown of thorns, while lying behind him are two books; and the third angel shows us a tablet written with the Greek letters Α Ω. All the rest of this frame-work is filled in with flowers, fruits, birds, and snakes. Of the flowers the most frequent are the fritillary, the rose, the lily, the amaryllis, poppies, white campanulas, large daisies, fleurs-de-lis, and corn-flowers. Among the fruits we see the pomegranate, of which some are split, pears, Indian corn, apples, plums, and figs. The birds are mostly parrots, woodpeckers, storks, cocks, doves, and some other birds of the smaller kinds. In places may be discovered a knot of snakes coiled about a garland made of yellow leaves.

The allegory of the piece is read with ease. The progress of Avarice is headed by Wickedness, who carries aloft her blood-stained flag, emblazoned with the monkey, the emblem of moral ugliness and mischief. Hard upon the heels of Wickedness comes a lecherous potentate, the type of immorality. The crowned heads, whether mounted or on foot, that come next have for their brother-companion Midas, the emblem of the sensual miser’s greed of gold, to remind us how kings, nay queens too, sometimes thirst for their subjects’ wealth to gratify their evil wishes; and the gay young man behind them, coming by the chariot’s side, personates those courtiers who are reckless of what they do to help their royal masters in their love for lucre. Next we are told what harpy-avarice will not waver to execute while led on by wicked sovereigns. Look at those about and beneath her chariot: from them we learn that she beggars the nobility, and leaves them to walk through the world in rags; she destroys churches, and, when lacking other means for her fell purpose, will shed innocent blood and behead her opponents. But here below, Avarice and those who lead her on, though they be kings and queens, will have their day: Time will bring them to a stand. The rifled altar will be ornamented again, the rites of worship restored, and hospitals reopened. While an angel from heaven stops the progress of Avarice, high up in the eastern sky a thunder-storm is gathering; and on earth a man, whilst pointing with one hand to grim Death, armed with his scythe, amid a cloud of loathsome winged things flitting around him, with the other that same person warns a harpy that her sister harpy Avarice will soon be overtaken; and just as the heathen Januslike figure close by--emblem of the past, and of a certain future--he also tells her of that just retribution which, by the hands of Death and in another world, will be dealt out to herself and all this miscreant company.

It would seem that this piece was wrought to stigmatize the memory of some of those many wanton acts of spoliation perpetrated in France and Belgium during the latter years of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th centuries. Perhaps the clue to the history and import of this fine specimen of the Flemish loom may be found all about the person of that old man, who carries in one hand a reliquary so conspicuously painted red, and in the other two parchment scrolls, upon one of which we find a sort of sketch of some particular spot, with an important edifice on it. By its size and look it seems to be some great hospital, and from the presence there of a man having above his head the letter tau or T and a bell hanging to it, we are given to understand that this building belonged to some brotherhood of St. Anthony, in the service of the sick; and that its suffering inmates were principally those afflicted with erysipelas, a disease then, and even yet, called abroad St. Anthony’s fire, once so pestilential that it often swept away thousands everywhere. Near Vienne, in the South of France, stood a richly-endowed hospital, founded A.D. 1095, chiefly for those suffering under this direful malady. This house belonged to and was administered by Canons Regular of St. Anthony. The town where it stood was Didier-la-Mothe, better known as Bourg S. Antoine. During the troubled times in France this great wealthy hospital, here fitly represented like a town of itself, by those lofty walls and that tall wide gateway, had been plundered: hence, one of its brothers is shown upbraiding Avarice for her evil doings, of which those sad tokens of moneyless purses, well-searched rent-books, and ransacked title-deeds are still dangling on her car. If not all, most, at least, of the persons here figured are meant, as is probable, to be characterized as the likenesses of the very individual victims and the victimizers portrayed upon this tapestry.

Tapestry Wall-hanging; subject, Abraham’s upper servant meeting Rebecca at the spring of water. Flemish, late 17th century.

At top, in the middle of the broad border, a tablet gives us the following inscription:--Cumque pervenisset (servus?) ad fontem et sibi (aquam?) petiisset et Batuelis filia Rebecca ex hydria potum dedisset et camelis haustis et filio Abrahe eam fore conjugem oraculo cognovit.

In the twenty-fourth chapter of Genesis we read how Abraham in his old age sent his eldest servant unto his own country and kindred, thence to bring back a wife for his son Isaac; and how that man, at his master’s behest, immediately took ten camels, carrying something of all his lord’s goods with him, and went on to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor; and how, when he had reached that place, and had made a halt without the town near a well of water, in the evening, at the time that women were wont to come out to draw water, he besought Heaven that the maid to whom he should say, “Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink, and she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also--let the same be she that Thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac.” This faithful steward had not yet ended these words within himself, and behold Rebecca came out, the daughter of Bathuel the son of Milcha, wife to Nahor, the brother of Abraham, and spoke and did as this servant had wished: and then he gave her golden earrings and bracelets.

As was fitting, the whole scene is laid in the open air, amid a charming landscape scattered all over with buildings. To the left, in the foreground, we behold a maid with a pitcher getting water out of a large square tank, ready, as it seems, for a second serving-woman to carry off, and who is coming back with another pitcher empty to be again refilled. In the middle ground a young woman, who carries a large pot of water on her head, is clambering over a wooden fence, and going towards an arch or bridge leading to a house.

Right in the centre of the piece stands Rebecca, with one foot resting on a slab of veined marble, on which is placed a richly ornamented vase; and from out another like vessel, which she holds up in both her hands, she is giving drink to the steward Eliezer, who is respectfully bending forwards while carrying to his lips this same pitcher to slake his thirst. A kind of short sword, or anelace, dangles from his girdle, and a long stout staff lies by his feet upon the ground. Two tall trees with vines twining about them overshadow the spot. In the distance stand several camels burdened; but behind him, some of his men, having unloaded one or two of those beasts, are opening certain gaily ornamented trunks, and looking out, no doubt, the bracelets and earrings to be afterwards given to Rebecca. In the background are fine large buildings, fortifications, a castle, and a palace-like erection conspicuous for its tall tower and cupola, besides the walls of a little town.

The piece is framed with a very elaborately designed broad border, containing accessories which show a strong leaning towards the ornamentation that grew out of the classicism that burst forth at the end of the fifteenth century all over Europe.

On the lower band, standing one at each side of a short pedestal, or rather low dado, are, back to back, two bearded grotesques, each of which is made up of a human head and face having three goats’ horns growing out of the forehead, and of a wyvern’s body, holding aloft in one of its claws a tall tapering torch. Further on comes a series of spaces peopled with emblematic personages, and separated from one another by two little naked winged boys standing on a highly elaborate zocle, and with the left hand swinging by a cord, at each end of which hang from a ring, and done up in bunches, fruits and flowers. In the first space is “Prudentia,” bearing in her right hand a long-handled convex mirror, in her left, a human skull; in the second space, upon a sort of throne, sits “Sollicitudo,” upholding in her right hand an oblong square time-piece, while on her left, with her elbow propped up by one arm of her chair, she leans her head as if buried in deep thought; in the third space sits “Animi-(Probitas)” with both her arms outstretched, as if reprovingly; in the fourth space we have “Ceres,” the heathen goddess of corn: crowned with a wreath of the centaurea flowers, she carries ears of wheat in her right hand, in her left, a round flat loaf of bread; in the fifth space, “Liberalitas,” who, from the emblems in her hands, must have been meant to personify not generosity but freedom, for in her right hand she shows us a hawk’s jesses, with the bells and their bewits, and on her left wrist, or, as it should be phrased, the “fist,” the hawk itself without jesses, bells, lunes, or tyrrits on--in fact quite free.

At the left side of the upright portion of the border, stands first, within an architectural niche, “Circumspectio,” or Wariness, who, while she gathers up with her right hand her flowing garments from hindering her footsteps, with her left, holds an anchor upright, and carries on her wrist a hawk with two heads, one looking behind, the other before, fit token of keen-sightedness, which, from a knowledge of the past, strives to learn wisdom for the future. Higher up “Adjuratio” is standing, with her right hand outstretched afar, as if in warning of the awfulness of the act, and her left hand held upon her bosom in earnest of the truth of what she utters, whilst all about her head, as if enlightened from heaven, shines a nimb of glory. Last of all on this side, we have “Bonus zelus,” or Right-Earnestness, in the figure of a stout, hale husbandman, who is about clasping within his right arm two straight uprooted saplings, evidently apple-trees, by the fruit hanging from the wisp which binds them at their middle height.

Going to the right-hand strip, we find, at the lower end, occupying her niche, “Pudicitias,” (sic), figured as a young maiden, who holds upon her breast with her left arm a little lamb, which, with her uplifted right hand, and the first two fingers put out according to the Latin rite, she seems to be blessing. In his own niche, and just overhead, we see “Requisicio,” or Hot-wishfulness, who is shown to us under the guise of a young knight, girt with an anelace, which hangs in front of him: in the hollow of his left outstretched hand he carries a heart--very likely as his own--all on fire. The last of this very curious series is “Diligentia,” as a matronly woman, who, with one hand keeping the ample folds of her gown from falling about her feet, carries the branch of a vine in the other hand.

From the quantities of dulled and blackish spaces all over the border-ground, and amid the draperies upon the figures in this tapestry, it is evident that much gold thread was woven into it, so that when fresh from the loom it must have had a splendour and a richness of which at present we can image to ourselves but a very faint idea. Though the glitter of its golden material is gone for ever, its artistic beauty cannot ever fade. Much gracefulness in the attitudes, several happy foreshortenings, and a great deal of good drawing all about this design, show that the man who made the cartoon must have deeply studied the great masters of Italy, and, in an especial manner, those belonging to the Roman school: unfortunately, like all of them, he too had forgot to learn what was the real Oriental costume, and followed a classic style in dress, which, as he has given it, is often very incorrect.

Tapestry Wall-hanging; subject, Tobit, the father, sending his son to the city of Rages for the recovery of the moneys lent to Gabael. Flemish, late 17th century.

Sitting in the open air, we see first the elder Tobit. Well stricken in years, and blind, he is leaning his right hand upon a staff; in his left hand he holds a folded document--the note-of-hand signed by Gabael. Thinking that he must die in a short time, he has called to his side his well-beloved child the young Tobias, and after having given him the most wholesome counsel for his religious and moral behaviour through life, speaks of his own burial, and how he wishes that when his wife Sarah’s days are done, the boy should lay his mother’s body by his father’s in the grave. As an ending to this discourse, the elder Tobias said, “‘I signify this to thee, that I committed ten talents to Gabael--at Rages in Media. Seek thee a man which may go with thee, whiles I yet live--and go and receive the money.”

Then Tobias going forth, found a beautiful young man, standing girded, and as it were ready to walk; and not knowing that he was an angel of God, he saluted him and said: “Canst thou go with me to Rages, and knowest thou those places well?” To whom the angel said: “I will go with thee, and I know the way well.” Then Tobias going in told all these things to his father; and all things being ready, Tobias bade his father and his mother farewell, and he and the angel set out both together; and when they were departed, his mother began to weep; and Tobias went forward, and the dog followed him.--Book of Tobit, chapters iv. v.

Seated, and leaning his right hand upon his staff, the old man is outstretching with his left to his starting son the note-of-hand to Gabael, behind him stands his wife Sarah weeping; before him is his son, who, leaning his long travelling staff against his shoulder, with his left hand is about to take the important document from his father, at the same time that he turns himself half round and points with his right hand to the angel behind him, as if to comfort his father in the knowledge that he is to have such a good companion for his guide. The angel, who carries a traveller’s staff in his left hand, holds out his right towards the young man, as telling his father and mother how carefully he would lead him to Rages, and bring him safely home again. Last of all, and standing beneath a tree we find a saddled ass with a large gaily ornamented pilgrim’s wooden bottle for water hanging by its side, and the ass’s head is turned round as if looking on the faithful dog that is lying on the ground ready to follow his young master on the way. Magnificent buildings arise as a background to the spot where we see old Tobit seated, and standing behind him his weeping wife Sarah. On the threshold of their own fine house behind them there stands in a niche the statue of Moses, who is figured with the two horns upon his forehead, as representing the light that shone about his face, and darted all around it in rays like horns, as he came from Sinai a second time with tables of the law: his left hand leans upon those two tables that stand beside him; and on his right arm lies a long scroll.

The borders all about the piece are made up of wreathed boughs of foliage, from out of which peep forth fruits and flowers. The left-hand strip shows a peacock perched upon the stem of a vine, and little boys are shooting blunt-headed arrows at it: on the strip to the right, other little boys are disporting themselves amid the branches, playing music, one beating a drum, a second blowing the flute, others clambering up amid the roses, fruits and flowers; one little fellow, conspicuous for his dress, is waving a flag in great delight: on the lower border children are at their gambols with equally graceful energy. At every one of the four corners is a large circle, wrought in imitation of bronze, all in gold, but now so faded that the smallest lustre from the metal is lacking. They were figured by the means of outlines done in brown silk, each with a subject drawn from the Book of Tobit. In the circle, at the upper left-hand corner, we observe the young Tobias going out from his father to seek, as he had bidden him, for some trusty guide to Gabael’s house; in the lower round of the same side the wished-for companion, Raphael in his angel shape, has been brought in, and is speaking with the blind old man. Looking at the circle on the upper right-hand of the border we see the same Tobit giving comfort to his sorrowing wife Sarah, just as both have been left by their son gone on his journey.

Gold-covered thread has been much employed all about this fine specimen of tapestry; but, like too many other instances of misapplied economy in material, this exhibits nothing but blotches of dirty brownish black in those laces which should have shone with gold.

Tapestry Wall-hanging; ground, rather white; subject, a feast. French, or Gobelin, 18th century. Lent by the Board of Works.

Within a large stone hall, roughly built and festooned, is spread a long well-provided table, at which the guests, male and female, are sitting: in the foreground are the servants, some of whom are shown in very daring but successful foreshortenings, reminding us somewhat, on the whole, of one of Paolo Veronese’s banquets, though here we behold a rustic building in a garden, not an architectural hall in a Venetian palace.

Tapestry Wall-hanging; ground, mostly white; subject, Cupid among the rustics. French, or Gobelin, 18th century. Lent by the Board of Works.

Amid the ruins of an Ionic temple in the foreground we have a shepherd and his dog fast asleep, while a winged youthful genius is hovering just above, and scattering very plentifully poppy-flowers all about the spot. Behind, a young little Cupid, seated on a cloud, is surrounded by a crowd of rustics, men and women, thronging, as it were, to hear him. As in the other fellow-piece to this, the colouring is cheerful and very pleasing, in parts so soft and well graduated in their tones, and so remarkable for their foreshortenings. From their large size they must have been intended for some great hall, and seemingly were all wrought for the same spacious room.

Tapestry Hangings for Pilasters; ground, brown; design, arabesques done in red, blue, and yellow. French, early 18th century. Lent by the Board of Works.

These two pieces seem to have been especially wrought to cover some pilasters in a hall, and not to border any larger production of the loom.

INDEX I.

ABRAM and MELCHISEDECH figured, 88, 328.

ABRAHAM’s servant meeting Rebecca at the well, 333.

_Adderbury_ Church, Oxon, monster sculptures outside of, 157.

AHASUERUS and ESTHER, figured, 307.

Alhambra, 55.

Alb, apparels for, 65, 146, 199.

---- fine mediæval one, 268.

Algerine embroidery, 18.

_Almeria_, its fine silks, 63.

Altar, cere-cloth for, 160.

Altar-cloths, 60, 62, 73, 79, 265.

Altar-curtains, 51, 201.

Altar-frontals, 14, 31, 87, 101, 265, 266, 267.

Altar-frontlets, 62, 265.

Amices, 185, 195.

Amice, apparel for, 34, 186, &c.

ANASTASIUS BIBLIOTHECARIUS, quoted, 155, 161.

Angels, nine choirs of, 22, 281.

Animals, see Zoology.

Anjou, Royal House of, 32.

ANN of Bohemia, Richard II.’s queen, 53.

Annunciation of the B. V. Mary, figured, 2, 186, 247.

ANTHONY, S., figured, 253, 254.

---- Canons Regular of, 332.

---- fire of, or erysipelas, 332; hospital for the cure of it at _Bourg S. Antoine_ in the south of France, 332.

Apparels for Albs, 65, 146, 149, 181, 199, 268.

---- for amices, 34, 185, 187, 195, 234.

Apparels for dalmatics and tunicles, 206.

Apocalypse quoted, 288.

Applied or cut-work, 2, 17, 20, 21, 77, 81, 146, 199, 215, 265.

Arabic inscriptions, real, 179, 232, 238, 243.

---- pretended, 25, 29, 45, 53, 76, 122, 125, 137, 138, 146, 177, 181, 213, 220, 234.

Araneum opus, 162.

Architectural design on stuffs, 10, 32, 33, 108, 131, 150, 233, 252.

Armorial bearings of-- BRANDENBURG, 63. BASSINGBURN, DE, 285. _Bohemia_, 63. BOTILER, Le, 283, 285. BYGOD, 285. CHAMBOWE(?), 285. CHAMPERNOUN, 284. _Castile and Leon_, 282. _Cleves_, 22, 246. CLIFFORD, 283. _England_, 246, 284. EVERARD, 283. _France_, 84. FERRERS, 282. FRETIE, 214. FITTON, 148. FITZ ALAN, 284. GRANDISON, one of the coats, 284. GENEVILLE, 282. GOLBORE or GROVE, 285. HAMPDEN(?), 284. Knights Templar’s badge, 283. LIMESI or LINDSEY, 283. LUCY, 285. MARCK, DE LA, 22. MONTENEY of _Essex_, 284. MORTIMER, ROGER DE, 285. PANDOLFINI, 143. PERCY, 284. RIBBESFORD (?), 285. SHELDON, 284. SPENCER, 283. THORNELL of _Suffolk_, 148. TYDESWALL, 284. WARWICK, 282.

Assumption of the B. V. Mary figured, 89, 272, 273, 276, 278.

Atonement, symbol of, 30.

_Aubusson_ tapestry and carpets, 306.

_Audenaerde_ famous for its tapestry, 294.

Avarice personified, and progress of, figured, 329.

ἀχειροποίητος, what, 249.

Bags, liturgical, 188, 263; Persian travelling, 83.

Balaam’s prophecy quoted from Numbers, xxiv. 17, 285.

Balm cloth, 19, 20.

_Bamberg_ cathedral, stuffs there, 153.

Banners for church processions, 259.

_Bath_, old English vestments found hidden in a house at, 88.

_Bayeux_, so-called tapestry, piece of, 6.

Beads, embroidery in, 169.

---- making of, at Venice, 169.

---- or rosary, for prayers, 263.

Beasts, see Zoology.

Beauvais tapestry, 307.

Bed-quilts, 20, 86, 104, 293; hangings, 107.

BELETH, JOHN, quoted, 277.

BERNARD, ST., chasuble of, 159.

Birds, see Zoology.

Bishops’ liturgical stockings, 56.

Bissus or Byssus, what, 25, 152, 175, 239.

BLACK PRINCE, 129.

Blessing, the liturgical, how given in the Latin rite, 187; figured as given with the left or wrong hand, 71.

BLICKIN VON LICHTENBERG, ANNA, 94.

Block printing on linen, 118, 120, 183, 184, 234.

---- on diaper, 61.

---- on silk, 31.

BOCK, Rev. Dr., quoted, 25, 26, 29, 34, 45, 49, 52, 55, 58, 60, 89, 122, 123, 151, 152, 155, 158, 162, 165, 169, 175, 184, 187, 207, 223, 242, 247, 252, 264, 270.

_Bohemia_, arms of, 63; ANN of, 63.

Bordering, or Lace, 160.

Borsa, the Italian, gibeciere or pouch, 3.

Boots or legging, like stockings, worn by bishops while pontificating, 56.

Botany-- Flowers: Artichoke, bloom of, 64, 137. Bignonia, or trumpet flower, 75. Centaurea, or corn-flower, 47, 49, 53, 62, 89, 99, 258. Fleur-de-lis, 5, 27, 29, 32, 35, 59, 91, 110, 116, 130, 138, 162, 167, 196, 226. Frittilary, 66. Foxglove, or digitalis, 66. Honeysuckle, 73. Heartsease, or pansey, 259. Ivy, 132. Lily, 69, 89, 110, 115, 257, 310. Penstemon, 66. Pinks, 115. Pomegranate, 11, 12, 13, 14, 20, 66. Rose, 20, 34, 47, 59, 61, 107, 188, 193, 195. Trefoil, 137. Tulips, 42, 62. Fruits, &c.: Acorns, 115, 202, 245. Apples (?), 137. Arbutus unedo, or strawberry tree, 110. Artichoke, 36, 47, 60, 62, 64, 65, 66, 69, 70, 72, 73, 80, 114, 115, 116, 118, 129, 130, 134, 145, 152, 192, 256. Grapes, 49, 69, 74, 75, 163, 241, 245. Mulberry, 65. Oranges (?), 137. Pomegranate, 7, 48, 50, 66, 73, 91, 114, 115, 128, 134, 191, 192, 193, 197, 199, 228, 256, 258. Strawberry, 110. Wheat-ears, 90, 113, 137, 177. Trees: The Homa, hom, or sacred tree of the Persians, 84, 140, 154, 213, 215, 216, 238. Oak-leaves, 202, 245. Vine, 163, 245.

Box for corporals, 112, 193, 194.

---- for reservation of the consecrated Host, from Maundy Thursday till Good Friday, 112.

_Brandenburg_, arms of, 63.

Brocades, 8, 9, 10, 12, 15, 19, 20, 29, 114, 116, 117, 122, 126, &c.

BROOKE, the Collection, 312.

Bouchier Knot, 168.

Bourgtheroud, Hotel de, at Rouen, 294.

Boy-bishop, 85.

Bugles, 169.

Burse, or corporal-case, 144, 145, 194.

Byssus, see Bissus.

Byzantine stuffs, 155, 159, 160, 161, 219, 222.

C, the letter, interlaced, 5, 38.

_Cairo_, 57.

Canvas, what kind of stuff meant by the word in old inventories, 185.

Cap, scull, 16; of estate or state, 86.

CAPUANUS, PETRUS, quoted, 286.

Carpet, 66, 83, 209, 248; see Pedalia, or Pede-cloth.

CAXTON, his translation of the “Legenda Aurea,” quoted, 275, 277.

Cendal, 163.

Cere-cloth, for laying immediately over the altar-stone, 160.

Chairs, seat-covers for, 110.

Charles I.’s scull-cap, 16.

Chasubles, 1, 5, 13, 21, 76, 81, 82, 88, 142, 208, 213, 264, 266, 269.

Chaucer quoted, 64.

Cheetahs, see Zoology.

Chinese silks, &c. 1, 8, 11, 12, 16, 75.

Choirs, nine, of angels, 22, 281.

“Church of our Fathers,” quoted, 19, 34, 36, 46, 85, 103, 170, 174, 181, 186, 194, 196, 202, 203, 205, 206, 210, 239, 248, 265.

Clare, Margaret de, Countess of Cornwall, 6.

CLEVES, princely house of, 246.

CLEVES, its armorial bearings, 22.

Cloth, Corpus Christi, what, 202, 260.

---- for crozier, 174, 250.

---- for lectern, 210, &c.

---- for pyx, 202, 260.

---- of estate, 107.

---- of gold or lama d’oro, 204, 208.

Cluny, Hotel de, at Paris, 212.

Cobham college and church, Kent, iron lectern once at, 213.

Cobweb stuff, so-called, 162.

Collars of Orders-- St. Michael, 84; The Holy Ghost, 84.

_Cologne_, 61, 187; painting in cathedral, 187; woven stuffs for church use, see orphreys of web.

---- embroidery, 61, 66, 67, 246.

Colours, murrey, once such a favourite in England, 9.

---- pink or gules, and green, somewhat peculiar to Parlermitan looms, 165, 170, 178, &c.

---- those used in the Latin as well as the Greek rite, 172; black in services for the dead, 197.

Copes, 2, 15, 80, 207, 275.

---- hoods of, 67, 144, 198; in England, how shaped, 41.

Coral beads, 169.

_Cornelimünster_, abbey of, 26; sudary of our Lord there, 26.

Coronation of the B. V. Mary figured, 236, 272, 280.

Corporals or square pieces of altar linen, 144, 145, 194, 195.

---- cases for keeping, 112, 144, 145, 194; see Burse.

Corpus Christi cloths, 202, 260.

Costume, mediæval, 78.

Counterpane, 271.

_Coventry_, its famous gild, 289, &c.

Coverlets, 20, &c.

Cracowes or pointed shoes, so called, 53.

Cradle-coverlets, 4, 13, 66, 67, 100, 103, 104, 110.

Crape, 126.

Creeping to the cross, ceremony of, on Good Friday, 174.

Crescent moon and star, symbolical of our Lord and His church, 285.

Crochet work, 18, 72.

Cross, St. Andrew’s, 161, 229; the so-called Y cross, 82.

---- cramponnée, 161; flory, 161; foliated, 218; pommée, 140.

---- filfod, 161.

---- gammadion, 161.

---- Greek, figured on stuffs, 160.

---- creeping to, ceremony of, 174.

Crown, supposed, of King Edward the Confessor, 153.

---- of St. Edgitha, 153.

Crozier, napkin for, 174, 250.

Crucifixion figured, 6, 30, 82, 83, 142, 276.

---- with four nails, 30.

---- old English manner of figuring, 276.

Crystal balls, 206.

CURETÓN, Dr., quoted, 179.

Curtains, 7, 12, 13, 15.

---- for the altar, 51, 201.

Cushions, 4, 59, 111, 142, 174, 273.

---- used in the liturgy, 59, 174.

Cut-purse, what meant by the expression, 3.

Cut-work, 22, 76, 141, 189, 199, 259, 292; see Applied work.

Cyrillian alphabet, the, 172.

Daisies, the symbolism of, 149, see Botany--Flowers.

Dalmaticks, 76, 143, 206, 214, 266.

Dalmatics, apparels on, 206.

Damask, Chinese, 75.

Damasks, figured with pictorial subjects, 165, 184, &c., see “Stuffs historiated.”

Damask in linen, 73, 201, 203, 238.

---- in linen and woollen, 202.

---- in silk, 10, 11, 13, 15, 25, 41, 42, 43, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 55, 56, 57, 62, 67, 72, 73, 74, 81, 113, 114, 115, 116, 121, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 133, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 152, 154, 155, 156, 159, 160, 162, 163, 168, 190, 191, 196, 197, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 213, 215, 216, 221, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 233, 234, 237, 238, 239, 240, 241, 244, 245, 251, 256, 274.

Damask in silk and cotton, 60, 166, 167, 230, 231, 262.

---- in silk and gold, 46, 47, 52, 53, 54, 56, 57, 60, 63, 64, 65, 66, 113, 129, 130, 132, 134, 137, 138, 139, 146, 151, 159, 162, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 170, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 183, 184, 191, 193, 201, 213, 224, 225, 227, 228, 233, 234, 235, 237, 238, 241, 243, 247, 273.

---- in silk and hemp, 164.

---- in silk and linen, 74, 130, 136, 154, 166, 204, 243, 262, 264.

---- in silk and silver, 161, 177, 183.

---- in silk, wool, linen, thread, and gold, 129.

DANIEL, the book of, quoted, 227.

Design, architectural, upon stuffs, 10, 32, 33, 108, 131, 150, 233, 252.

_Didier-la-Mothe_ or _Bourg S. Antoine_ hospital at for those struck with S. Anthony’s fire or erysipelas, 332.

DIOGENES, subjects, in tapestry, from the life of, 303, &c.

Door-curtains, 7, 12, 13, 15.

Dorneck, a coarser kind of damask so called, 129.

Dory, John, the fish so called, 151.

Dove, emblem of the Holy Ghost, 58.

Dragon, the five-clawed Chinese, 1.

Dress, Lady’s, 14, 18; and the Brooke Collection, 313, &c.

DUC, M. VIOLLET LE, quoted, 212.

DUGDALE’s St. Paul’s, quoted, 151.

_Durham_, Anglo-Saxon embroidered vestments kept in the cathedral library at, 205.

Eagle, double-headed, 26, 28, 37, 86.

---- German, of Charles V. of Spain, 7.

Edward I., how he knighted his son, 287; and swore by the swans that he would wage war against Scotland, _Ib._

Egyptian gauze, 57; linen, 25; silk, 56; taffeta, 57.

Elephant, 45.

---- and Castle, 170.

Embroidery, Chinese, 7, 12, 16.

---- English, 5, 6, 16, 88, 147, 275, 283.

---- Flemish, 119, 144, 198, 248.

---- Florentine, 58, 91, 111, 120, 142, 214.

---- French, 85, 110, 219, 226.

---- German, 51, 53, 58, 59, 60, 66, 103, 108, 119, 120, 139, 140, 150, 153, 156, 158, 165, 166, 186, 187, 189, 190, 196, 206, 207, 216, 218, 249, 250, 252, 253, 254, 257, 258, 269.

---- Indian, 86, 262.

---- Italian, 71, 145, 199, 271.

---- Persian, 270.

---- Sicilian, 149.

---- Spanish, 65, 82, 204.

---- Syrian, 262.

---- Venetian, 168.

---- in quilting, 14, 16, &c.

---- in waving lines, 59.

---- done in beads, 44, 169, 190.

---- as cut-work and applied, 146, 189, 199, 248.

---- in gold wire, 220.

---- in gold and silver wire, 150.

---- done in solid silver gilt wire, 150, 220.

---- in pearls and precious stones, 199.

---- with goldsmith’s work amid it, 168, 169, 186, 199, 223, 233.

---- in silk, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 16, 34, 103, 117, 120, 133, 144, 153, 155, 156, 166, 168, 181, 217, 252, 271, 273, 275.

---- on linen in silk, 29, 58, 60, 65, 119, 186, 187, 189, 258, 262.

---- on linen in thread, 31, 51, 120.

---- done in thread, 19, 20, 53, 58.

---- done in worsted, 140, 256, 262, 269.

---- figured with birds, 16, 158.

---- historic, 7, 91, 147, 150, 269, 273.

---- flowers, 4, 5, 11, 12, 13, 16, 121, 199, 213.

---- figured with saints, 2, 6, 56, 58, 88, 111, 116, 144, 145, 146, 147, 149, 151, 165, 186, 187, 189, 190, 198, 207, 217, 244, 248, 250, 254, 258.

English chintz, 84.

---- conventional flowers in embroidery, 88.

---- purse, 106.

---- quilting, 16, &c.

---- tapestry, 306.

---- textiles in a ribbon-like shape, 24, 33, 38, 161, 217, 218, 219, 221.

---- embroidery, 5, 6, 16, 88, 147, 275, 283; and “The Brooke Collection,” 312, &c., passim.

---- silks, “The Brooke Collection,” passim, 312.

---- velvet, “The Brooke Collection,” passim, 312.

---- small hand-loom woven strips for stoles, &c., 24, 33, 38, 217, 218, 219, 221.

Erysipelas, or St. Anthony’s fire, hospital for, in France, 332.

ESTHER and AHASUERUS, figured in tapestry, 307.

Eucharist, how borne to the sick and dying, 188.

---- reservation of, 194, 203.

EUSEBIUS, quoted, 280.

Evangelists’ symbols, 149.

EZECHIEL, quoted, 281.

Fan, the liturgic, 60.

Fates, the three, figured, 309.

Fenrir, the Scandinavian fabled water-wolf, 151.

_Festival_, the old English so-called book, quoted, 147, 276.

Filfod, or Full-foot, 161, 174, 242, 249.

Fish, figured, 151.

FITTON, arms of the family of, 148.

Flemish embroidery, 3, 117, 248, 255.

---- linen, damask, or napery, 34, 61, 73, 75, 124, 203, 205, 255, 263.

---- linen, block-printed, 118, 120, 234.

---- napery, 34, 75, 124, 255.

---- silk damask, 190, 191, 197, 252.

---- tapestry, 294, 299, 300, 301, 302, 303, 307, 328, 329, 330, 335.

Flemish velvet, 254, 255, 264.

Florentine embroidery, 58, 91, 111, 120, 142, 214.

---- silk, damasked, 202, 215; figured with angels, 36, 133.

---- silk and linen, 264.

---- velvets, plain, 12, 142.

---- velvets, with gold, 85, 144, 145.

---- velvets, raised, 18, 82, 144, 145.

---- web for orphreys, 89, 136, 142, 260, 291.

Flowers, see Botany.

----, the English conventional, in embroidery, 88.

Foot-cloths, 140, 263.

Frames for enamels, 34, 85.

FRASER, or FRAZER, Scotch family of, 274.

French cloth of gold, 204, 208.

---- cut-work, 81, 292.

---- embroidery, 5, 7, 14, 19, 21, 29, 107, 205, 226.

---- gloves, 105.

---- heraldry, 14, 29, 130.

---- lace (gold), 131.

---- lectern-veil, 141.

---- purses, 89, 106.

---- quilting, 13, 104.

---- satin, 8, 14, 21, 104.

---- silk, brocaded, 9, 15, 105.

---- silk, damasked, 13, 204, 205, 206.

---- tapestry, 302, 303, 304.

---- velvet, 14, 106.

---- webs, 29, 130.

FRETIE, LODEWICH, 214.

Fringe of gold, 145; of silk, 252, 266.

Frontals to altars, 14, 31, 87, 101, 265, 266, 267, 293.

Frontlets, 62, 251, 257, 265.

G, the letter as an initial (for Gabriela?), 236.

Gabriel the archangel, how figured, 186, 217.

Gammadion, 34, 60, 127, 174, 175, 185, 242, 249.

GARLAND, JOHN, noticed, 38, 162, 217.

Gauze, 57.

GEISPITZHEIM, HENRY VON, 94; his armorials, 93.

Genoa brocade, 114, 134.

Genoa damask, 115, 116, 201.

---- silk, 12.

---- velvet, 3, 18, 62, 90, 107, 110, 145, 192, 199, 200, 263.

---- velvet raised, 18, 62, 107, 134.

Geography of textiles, &c.; see Index II.

German embroidery, 18, 21, 34, 35, 42, 51, 58, 61, 92, 99, 100, 101, 103, 104, 116, 133, 144, 153, 158, 165, 185, 187, 207, 246, 249, 252, 253, 261, 263.

---- embroidery on linen in silk, 29, 55, 59, 60, 62, 109, 133, 139, 174, 186, 187, 196, 242, 250, 261, 266, 267, 270.

---- embroidery on linen in thread, 31, 35, 60, 79, 235, 267.

---- embroidery in thread, 18, 31, 42, 92, 99.

---- embroidery in worsted, 66, 79, 108, 246, 266, 269.

---- napery, 190.

---- netting, 175, 245, 267.

---- silk and linen, 192, 270.

---- tapestry, 296, 298.

---- velvet, 260.

---- webs, 61, 62, 63, 64, 69, 80, 82, 116, 117, 118, 119, 174, 175, 252, 253.

Gianitore, a fish, and what, 151.

Gibeciere, 3.

Gilds, English, 289.

---- their Corpus Christi plays, 289.

---- at Coventry, 289.

---- their members, 289.

---- their vestments, 289.

Gilt parchment, 140, 224, 229, 244.

---- vellum; see gilt parchment.

Gimp, 102.

GIOTTO, 186.

---- and his school of painting, 186.

Girdles, 57, 126, 205, 218, 219.

Girdle at Prato, of the B. V. Mary, 261, 272, 280, 282.

GLOVER, ROBERT, Somerset herald, quoted, 148.

Gloves, ladies’, 105.

Gobelins tapestry, 302, 305.

Golden Legend, Caxton’s English translation quoted, 275, 277.

Goldsmith’s work found upon embroidery and textiles; see Silversmith’s work.

Good Friday’s celebration, 113.

Good Friday rite among the Greeks, 113, 173.

---- rite among the Latins, 113, 174.

Grail, or Grayle, the liturgic book, what, 34.

Granada textiles, 26, 27, 60, 65, 73, 128, 161, 166.

GRAUNT, Master Thomas, 289.

Greek, alb, chitonion, 171.

---- dalmatic or stoicharion, 171.

---- ritual noticed, 113, 124, 126, 171, 191, 205.

---- stoicharion or dalmatic, 171.

---- textiles, 27, 28, 33, 36, 123, 124, 126, 127.

---- mixed with cotton, 27, 126, 219.

----, thread, 33, 123.

Green, colour of, 57, 281.

Gregory’s (St.), “Pity,” what, 34.

HABACUC, 277.

HAMAN, fall of, figured, 308.

HAMPDEN, arms of (?) 287.

Hand, in benediction, 54.

Hangings of velvet, 17, 18, 107.

---- for walls, wrought of cut-work, and figured with the romance of Sir Guy, of Warwick, and the Northumbrian “worm” or dragon, 77.

Hare, its symbolic meaning, 237.

Harts, lodged, 43.

HENRY II, emperor of Germany, 153; tunic of, 153, 154.

Heraldry, 14, 19, 22, 28, 32, 37, 38, 39, 40, 63, 73, 76, 84, 93, 103, 104, 108, 128, 130, 143, 148, 175, 177, 181, 183, 196, 203, 204, 205, 207, 209, 214, 246, 253, 260, 263, 264, 266, 267, 269, 273, 282, 283, &c.

“Hierurgia,” the work so entitled, quoted, 171, 185, 196, 203, 205.

HOLLIS, the brothers’, “Monumental Effigies of Great Britain,” quoted, 269.

Holosericus, what, 155.

Holy loaf, what, 263.

Hom, or Homa, the Persian sacred tree, 84, 140, 154, 213, 216, 238.

Hood, the, upon English copes, how shaped, 41.

Hoods of copes, 2, 3, 41, 144, 198, 260, 272.

Ωρολογιον, or Horologion, one of the Greek ritual books quoted, 172.

Hotel de Bourgtheroud at Rouen, 294.

HOHENSTAUFEN, House of, 29, 38.

Housing, 204.

HUNSDON, Lord, gave silk stockings to Queen Elizabeth, 200.

Illuminated MSS., gauze between leaves of, 57.

Incarnation, mystery of, how symbolized, 236.

Indian embroidery, 14.

Initials-- Two C’s interlaced, 5, 38. G, 236. L and K, 73. R, 52. V, four V’s put crosswise, 28.

Inscriptions, 206, 214, 223, 226, 250, 257, 265, 269, 270, 273.

Inscriptions in Arabic, see Arabic.

---- in German, 93, 256, 296.

---- in Greek (Cyrillian letters), 172.

---- in Latin, 31, 62, 66, 80, 82, 89, 111, 119, 148, 166, 176, 187, 201, 206, 210, 211, 223, 226, 257, 264, 265, 269, 305, 329.

----, mediæval, German, 296, 298.

ISAIAS quoted, 281.

Italian altar-frontals, 87, 101, 293.

---- bed-quilt, 293.

---- cut-work applied, 17, 20, 293.

---- silk damask, 11, 13, 15, 25, 33, 46, 56, 58, 60, 73, 74, 81, 115, 129, 130, 136, 162, 163, 165, 196, 206, 227, 230, 233, 239, 240, 242, 256, 258.

---- damask, in silk brocaded with gold, 13, 46, 56, 58, 60, 117, 162, 165, 170, 176, 213, 233, 235.

---- silk, damasked in gold, 177, 181, 183, 241.

---- in silver, 183.

Italian silk, damasked in silk and cotton, 37, 60, 181, 230, 262.

---- in silk and hemp, 164.

---- in silk and linen, 37, 124, 130, 176, 204, 243.

---- embroidery, 4, 12, 34, 58, 87, 91, 101, 120, 121, 244, 293.

---- fringe, 293.

---- lace, (silk), 271.

---- net-work, 3, 4, 101, 162.

---- quilting, 14.

---- satin, 14.

---- velvet in silk, 9, 17, 62, 70, 72, 88.

---- velvet in silk, raised, 62, 80, 87, 89, 185, 194, 258.

---- velvet in worsted, 12.

---- web, 221.

JAMES I, 273.

JAMESON, Mrs. quoted, 198.

Jerusalem, the two stars, symbols of, 55.

John Dory, fish so called, 151.

Jubinal’s work on tapestry noticed, 86.

KENNEDY, Margaret, one of the ladies in waiting on Mary Queen of Scots at her beheading, 203.

Keys, St. Peter’s, one gold, the other silver, 6.

KNIGHT’s History of England quoted, 203.

Knot, the Bouchier, 168.

---- the Wake and Ormonde, 250.

Knots, 160, 229, 244.

---- petty, 120, 146.

----, love, 123, 157.

Kraken, the Scandinavian fabled sea-monster, 236.

Lace, old English, 6.

---- gold, 6, 131, 160, 197, 249.

---- nuns’, so called, 73.

---- open-worked, 13.

---- silk, 241, 271.

---- silk, and velvet, 85.

----, worsted, 249.

----, woollen and linen, for carriage-trimmings, 191.

Lama d’oro, or cloth of gold, 204.

Lamb, Holy, 58.

Languages, see “Inscriptions.”

Languages-- German mediæval, 296, 298.

Latin rite, 187.

Lappet of a mitre, 51.

Lap-cloths, bishop’s, 19, 20.

Lavabo cloths, 203.

Leather gilt, and used as edging, 65, 78.

Lectern cloths or veils, 20, 141, 145, 210, 261.

Legend, the English Golden, quoted, 275, 277.

----, the Golden, translated by Caxton, quoted, 278, 284, 285.

Λειτουργία των προηγιασμενων, 113.

Lent, and Passion-tide, liturgic colours for, 36, 133.

Lenten vestments, 133.

“Letters,” the “Paston,” noticed, 289.

Linen, or byssus, 25, 152, 175, 239.

---- diaper, 61.

----, embroidered, 29, 65, 71, 181, 185, 190, 235, 242, 246, 249, 250, 251, 255, 256.

---- and gold tissue, 169.

----, printed, 118, 120, 183, 184, 234.

---- and woollen, 246.

Lion, the symbol of Christ, 156.

Liturgical appliances, of rare occurrence in public collections, 99, 112, 120, 142, 171, 174, 184, 186, 188, 196, 202, 205, 210, 242, 243, 250, 263.

Loaf, see Holy Loaf.

---- holy, what, 263.

LOKE, the Scandinavian god, 151.

Lombardy, once famous for its opus araneum, or cobweb weaving, 162.

London wrought stuffs, 161.

Lord, our, how figured on the cross, 276.

Louvre, museum of, silks in, 44.

Love knots, 157.

_Lucca_ damasked silks, 15, 50, 65, 145, 163, 235, 244.

---- damasked silk, brocaded in gold, 243.

---- velvets, 62, 72, 192, 259.

LYDGATE quoted, 288.

_Lyons_, damasked silk, 19, 20, 91, 105.

----, brocaded in gold and silver, 91.

----, in silver, 19.

M, the letter figured on stuffs, 156, 166, 182, 222, 230, 241.

Madonna del Cardellino, 215.

---- della Cintola, subject of, how treated in the Italian schools, 267.

Magdalen College, Oxford, and its builder Waneflete’s fine liturgical shoes, 46.

“Man of Sorrows,” our Lord as the, 34.

MANDEVILLE, Sir John’s, travels, quoted, 178.

Maniples, 35, 38, 45, 46, 53, 88, 116, 121, 138, 156, 252, 292.

MARCK, DE LA, armorial bearings of the House of, 22.

Marguerite, La, what the flower signifies, 149.

MARTIN’s (Pere), learned and valuable work--“Mélanges d’Archéologie,” quoted, 44, 130.

Mary, the B. V., her assumption, how figured on the Syon cope, 276.

---- on Florentine textiles, 291. See “Assumption.”

----, B. V., the death and burial of, how figured on the Syon cope, 277.

----, St., of Egypt, her legend figured, 54.

---- Queen of Scots, and the cloth over her face when she was beheaded, 203.

Mass of the Presanctified, 113.

Matilda, the Norman William’s queen, and the Bayeux so-called tapestry, 7.

Maundy Thursday, mass on, 112, 194.

Melchizedek and Abram, figured, 88, 328.

Memling and his school of painting, 198.

MERCŒUR, House of, 30.

Michael the archangel, how figured, overcoming Satan, 30, 275.

Midgard, the Scandinavian fabled serpent, 151.

Milan, famed for its looms, 162.

Milanese embroidery, 3.

---- lace, 197.

---- net-work, 200.

---- steel-work, 3.

---- velvet raised, 7.

Missal-cushion, 142.

Missal, the Roman, quoted, 142.

---- the Salisbury, quoted, 284.

Mitre, lappets of, 51, 85.

Monstrance for liturgical use, what, 184.

Moon, crescent, 220, 243.

---- crescent, symbolism of, 288.

---- figured in pictures of the Crucifixion, 30.

Moorish tissue, 123.

Moresque, Spanish, 51, 55, 121, 124, 125, 152, 160, 180, 240, 244.

Moslem use, stuffs for, 57, 61.

Mund or ball, so called, 276.

---- how anciently divided, 276.

Munich, the Maximilian museum at, 153, 154.

_Murano_ and its manufacture of beads, 169.

Murrey-colour liked in the mediæval period by the English, 9.

Musical instruments, mediæval, 23, 157.

Mythology, Scandinavian, 150.

Napery-- Flemish, 34, 61, 73, 75, 124, 203, 205, 255, 263. German, 62.

Napkins for crozier, 174, 250.

---- embroidered, 99, 100, 101, 261.

Napkin of linen, 35.

---- for pyx, 202, 260.

Neapolitan embroidery, 13.

---- silk, 13.

NECKAM, ALEXANDER, quoted, 286.

Needlework, 79, 99, 100, 101, 262.

---- old English, the admired “opus Anglicum,” 147, 275, 281, 288.

---- old English, how to be known, 288.

Net-work, 3, 4, 61, 101, 107, 175, 200, 245.

_Newburg_, near Vienna, robes at, 38.

Newmarket, king’s house at, 302; tapestries from, 302.

Nineveh sculptures, 25, 122.

Numbers, Book of, quoted, 288.

Nuns’ lace, 73.

_Nuremberg_, old tapestry wrought at, 298.

Nursery rhymes, old English, 103.

O, the, or zero form of ornamentation, 225, 227, 228.

OAKDEN, RALF, Esq., gift of old English embroidered apparels, 147.

Odilia, a French lady-embroideress, 30.

Opus Anglicum, 275, 281, 288.

---- Araneum, 162, 210.

---- Plumarium, 288, 289.

Oriental damasked silk, 25, 128, 132, 136, 140, 154, 155, 160, 251.

---- brocaded in gold, 25, 133, 137, 138, 151, 156.

---- modern damasked silk, 21.

---- brocaded in gold and silver, 21.

---- very fine linen, or byssus, 239.

Orphreys, embroidered, 1, 6, 21, 29, 55, 68, 76, 82, 117, 120, 143, 145, 168, 189, 244, 245, 247, 252, 253, 254, 259, 265.

---- of web, or woven stuff for the purpose, 28, 33, 61, 62, 68, 80, 83, 89, 112, 116, 118, 119, 136, 143, 161, 174, 175, 191, 201, 207, 208, 252, 253, 265, 291.

Orphrey web, Venetian, 71, 112, 271, 272.

_Orvieto_, altar-frontal from, 101.

OSMONT’s “Volucraire,” or Book on Birds, 286.

Ostrich-feathers figured, 19, 129.

_Palermo_, stuffs woven at, 38, 44, 45, 53, 130, 131, 139, 150, 163, 165, 170, 228, 232.

---- its “Tiraz,” or silk-house, 232.

Pallæ or palls, what, 194, 196.

---- or liturgical palls, 196.

Palls for casting over tombs in churches, 56.

Palm-branch carried by St. John Evangelist at the burial of the B. V. Mary, 278.

---- held by the Jew as figured on the Syon cope, 280.

PANDOLFINI, armorials of the family of, 143.

Paper, gilt and stamped out like flowers pasted on silken stuffs, 43.

Papyonns, or cheetahs, 154, 178.

Parchment, gilt, 140, 224, 229, 244.

---- gilt and woven into silken stuffs, 132, 140, 224, 229, 244; the trade trick learned from the Moors by the southern Spaniards, 244.

Parrots; see Zoology--Birds.

“Paston Letters” noticed, 289.

Pastoral amusements, 295, &c.

---- literature, 294.

Paul’s, S. cathedral, London, vestments once belonging to, 151.

Peacock, oaths sworn by the, 287.

---- symbolism of the, 286, &c.

Pedalia or Pede-cloths, 209, 210, 263.

Persian carpeting, 83.

---- damask, silk brocaded in gold, 133.

---- damask, silk and worsted, 84.

---- embroidery, 270.

---- satin, 270.

---- tunic, 270.

Peter’s, St., fish, 151.

Pin, an old one (?), 254.

PITRA, Dom, now Cardinal, quoted, 286.

Pity, the so-called, of St. Gregory, what, 34, 194.

Plumarium Opus, what, 288, 289.

Pomegranate; see Botany--Fruits.

---- ensign of Queen Catherine of Arragon, 134.

---- ensign of Spain, especially of Granada, 7.

---- symbolic meaning of, 13.

Polystauria or stuffs figured all over with the sign of the cross, 161.

Porphyreticum, what, 155.

Pouch, 3.

_Prato_, church of, 261.

Presanctified, mass of, 113.

Printing by block, on silk, 31, &c.; see Block printing.

Psalms, Book of, quoted, 281.

Purses, 3, 89, 106.

---- liturgical, 188, 263.

Pyx cloth, 202, 260.

Quilting, 14, 16.

---- English, 16.

Quilts, 4, 5, 13, 14, 16, 86, 104, 293.

R, the letter, wrought upon a silken stuff, 52.

Rain-drops, shower of, 52, 54, 239, &c.

RAINE, Mr., his St. Cuthbert, noticed, 205.

RAPHAEL’s Madonna del Cardellino, 215.

REBECCA meeting ABRAHAM’s servant at the well, figured in tapestry, 333.

Relics, bag for, 42.

Reredos of embroidered linen, 53, 235.

Resurrection, how figured on woven stuffs, 113, 272.

---- of our Lord, how embroidered upon the Syon cope, 276.

Rhenish cut or applied work, 21, 258.

---- embroidery, 2, 52, 247, 258.

Ribbon, green silk and gold thread, 121.

RICHARD II.’s monumental effigy in Westminster Abbey, 269.

Rite, Greek, noticed, 113, 124, 126, 171, 191, 205.

---- Latin, 113, 124, 172, 187, 188, 191, 194, 205.

Rock crystal, balls of, used on vestments, 206.

Romance, the, of Sir Guy of Warwick, figured, 77.

Rosary-beads, 263.

Rose of England, 134.

---- red and white, 188.

ROVERE DELLA, family of, 115.

Ruthenic work, 171.

Saddle-bags, 84.

Saddle-cloth, 204.

---- Saints, figured

S. Andrew, Apostle, 158, 279.

S. Ann, mother of the B. V. Mary, 147, &c.

S. Anthony of Egypt, 253, 254.

S. Bartholomew, Apostle, 270.

S. Bernard, 198.

S. Bernard’s life, 198.

St. Blase, 38.

S. Catherine of Alexandria, 253.

S. Christina, and her life, 142.

S. Dorothy, 211.

Santa Francesca Romana, and her life, 92.

S. James, Apostle, called of Compostella, 280.

S. James the Less, Apostle, 280.

S. Jerome, 142.

S. John, Evangelist, 142, 145, 276, &c.

S. Kilian or Kuln, 187.

S. Louis, King of France, 144.

S. Lucy, 142, 211.

S. Mark, Evangelist, 111.

S. Mary, B. V., 148, 210, 211, 236, 251, 260, 272, 273, 276, 279.

St. Mary of Egypt, 54.

S. Mary Magdalen, 30, 209, 211, 280.

S. Michael, Archangel, 30, 275.

S. Odilia, 187.

S. Onuphrius, hermit, 2.

S. Paul, Apostle, 146, 278, 279.

S. Peter, Apostle, 145, 149, 278, 279.

S. Philip, Apostle, 149, 280.

S. Simon, Apostle, 149, 210.

S. Stephen, stoning of, 6, 38.

S. Thomas, Apostle, 279, 280; see “Girdle at Prato.”

S. Ubaldo, 102.

S. Ursula, 211, 247.

Saints’ tombs, 56.

Salisbury rite, noticed, 34, 36.

SAMPSON slaying the lion, figured, 123.

Saracenic damask, 127, 178, 244.

Sashes, 21.

Satin, 8, 9, 13, 14, 16, 20, 110, 113.

----French, 110.

---- Italian, 113.

Scandinavian mythology, 150.

Scarf, 18.

---- liturgical, 105.

SCHÖN MARTIN, 207.

School, Umbrian, of painting, 184, 186.

---- of Umbria for painting, 247; and its beauty, 247.

Sclaves, 172.

Scotch embroidery, 273.

SCOTT, SIR WALTER, quoted, 3.

Scull-cap, 16.

SHAW’s “Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages,” quoted, 86.

Shoe, liturgical, 46.

Shower of rain-drops, figured, 54, 239.

Sicilian stuffs, 28, 29, 32, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 76, 115, 127, 130, 132, 137, 139, 146, 150, 154, 156, 158, 159, 163, 164, 165, 167, 168, 169, 178, 179, 180, 215, 222, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 234, 238, 239, 242, 245, 266, 268, 269, 274.

Sicilian cendal, 163.

---- damasks, figured with beasts and flowers, 47, 50, 51, 52, 53, 127, 130, 137, 139, 146, 150, 164, 166, 178, 179, 269.

---- damasks in silk, 32, 53, 76, 115, 132, 137, 156, 159, 163, 168, 169, 180, 215, 226, 227, 239, 245, 274.

---- damasks in silk, brocaded in gold, 28, 29, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 43, 45, 46, 47, 50, 51, 52, 53, 126, 130, 139, 146, 150, 159, 164, 165, 167, 168, 224, 227, 228, 231, 232, 234, 238, 242, 266, 268, 269.

---- damasks, silk and cotton, 41, 44, 230.

---- damasks, silk and cotton, brocaded in gold, 39, 45, 48.

---- damasks, in silk and thread, 154, 223.

---- damasks, silk and thread, brocaded in gold, 48, 49, 238.

---- damasks in linen thread, brocaded in gold, 169.

---- damask or tapestry, silk, cotton, and wool, 158.

---- embroidery, 149, 158, 159.

---- lace, silk, and gold, 160, 161.

---- taffeta, 75, 121.

---- tissue or web, 222.

Silk-house, or Tiraz, at Palermo, 232.

Silk gauze, 57.

Silks, block-printed, 31.

Silk mixed with cotton, 5, 24, 26, 27, 33, 37, 39, 41, 42, 43, 44, 47, 60, 126, 152, 181, 219, 226.

---- mixed with linen, 27, 33, 37, 122, 123, 124, 176, 192, 220, 223.

---- worsted, 84, 114; see Damask.

---- net-work, 200.

Silversmith’s work amid embroidery, 168, 169, 186, 199, 223, 233.

Sindon, the Greek liturgical embroidery, so-called, 170.

---- or pyx-cloth of the old English ritual, 202, 260.

Sorrows, Man of, our Lord figured as, 34.

---- the B. V. Mary, of, 69.

SOTHENER, MASTER STEPHEN, and his fine picture in Cologne cathedral, 187.

Spangles, 186, 190, 223.

Spanish carpeting, 209, 248.

---- crochet work, 20.

---- damasked silk, 36, 48, 67, 72, 73, 74, 115, 121, 126, 128, 129, 168, 182, 216, 224, 225, 240, 248.

Spanish damasks, brocaded in gold, 50, 62, 66, 116, 132, 193, 229.

----, in silver, 177.

---- embroidery, 65, 81, 204.

Spanish-Moresco stuffs, 51, 121, 124, 125, 152, 160, 180, 241, 244.

---- net-work, 20.

---- stuffs, cotton and linen, 224.

----, linen, and gilt parchment, 140, 224.

----, silk and cotton, 26, 47, 166.

----, linen, 122, 166.

---- of wool and hemp, 209.

---- of wool and thread, 114.

---- taffetas, 47.

---- velvets, 81, 135, 189, 207, 291, 292.

SPENSER quoted, 64.

Spicilegium Solesmense quoted, 286.

Spider, figured, 182.

Star and Crescent, their symbolism, 285.

Star, symbolism of, 55, 272, 285.

Stauracin, 124, 127, 160, 161.

“Stella Maris,” or “Star of the Sea,” one of the old symbolical attributes of the B. V. Mary, 272.

State cap, 86.

Stauracina, what, 124, 161.

Stenciled satin, 113.

Stitchery of a fine kind, 4, 7, 19.

Stockings, silk, one of the first pair made in England, given to Queen Elizabeth, and now belonging to the Marquis of Salisbury, 200.

Stoles, 24, 44, 58, 138, 185, 222, 235.

----, 58, 121, 191.

Stones, precious, used, 81, 82, 199.

STOTHARD, MRS., 7.

Strap-shaped ornamentation on textiles, as well as in bookbindings, 201.

Stuffs, loom-wrought, with history-pieces, 271, 272.

Stuffs, &c., Of the Adoration of the Magi or three Kings, 186. Of Angels, 142, 143. ---- holding crescents, 234. ---- a monstrance, 184. Of Angels swinging thuribles, and carrying crowns of thorns and crosses in their hands, 36. Of the Annunciation, 247. Of the Assumption of the B. V. Mary, 272, 273.

Stuffs figured with-- Beasts, 5, 25, 32, 41, 42, 43, &c. Birds, 26, 28, 29, 32, 37, 41, 42. Men and beasts, 122. With a Chinese subject, 75. Of the coronation in heaven of the B. V. Mary, 272. Of Emblems of the Passion, 133. Figured with flowers and fruits, 11, 13, 15, 41, 42. Of a king on horseback, with hawk on hand, &c., 223. Of a man or woman with hawk on wrist, 233. Of the B. V. Mary, with our Lord as a child in her arms, or on her lap, 63, 71, 271, 272. Of St. Mary of Egypt, 54. Of St. Peter, apostle, 136. Of the resurrection. Of Sampson overcoming the lion, 122. Of women gathering dates, 165.

Subdeacon’s liturgical veil worn over the shoulders, 144.

Sudary of our Lord, 26.

Sun-beams and rain-drops figured, 54, 239.

Sun and moon figured in art-works of the Crucifixion, 30.

Surplices, 239.

---- of transparent linen, 239.

Symbolism, 149, 236, 237, 272, 276, 285, 311, 329, 330, 331, 332.

Syon Nunnery, beautiful cope once belonging to, 275.

Syrian crape drapered with a pattern, 126.

---- stuffs, 125, 127, 139, 213, 215, 216, 221.

---- damask in silk and cotton, 24, 152.

---- damask, silk and gold, 122, 178, 180, 238.

---- damask, silk and linen thread, 42, 136, 220.

Table-covers, 16, 19, 92, 108, 141.

Taffeta, 47.

---- Egyptian, 56, 57.

---- Sicilian, 75, 121.

Tangier stuff, 123.

Tapestry, 6, 158, 294, &c.

Tapestry-- English, 306. Flemish, 294, 299, 300, 301, 302, 303, 307, 328, 329, 333. French, 302, 303, 304, 305, 306, 307, 309. German, 296, 298.

Tassels on dalmatics, 206.

TAYLOR’s “Glory of Regality,” quoted, 153.

Tetuan stuff, 123.

THAUN, PHILLIPPE DE, quoted, 236.

The Three Wise Men, clothed and crowned as kings going to Bethlehem, 148.

THORNELL of Suffolk, arms of, 148.

Thread embroidery, 19, 20, 53, 58.

Throne-room in Roman princely houses, 87, 107.

Tiles, glazed for paving, 183.

Tiraz or silk-house at Palermo, 232.

TOBIT, the elder, sending his son to Rages, figured, 335.

Toca, what, 204.

Tombs in churches, palls for throwing over, 56.

Trimming for carriages, 191.

---- vestments, 193.

Tunicle, 143.

Turkish net, 61.

Tyrian purple, so called, 155, 159, 160, 219.

The U form of ornamentation, 227, 228.

Unicorn, hunting of the, 53, 236.

Umbrian school of painting, 184, 186, 247.

V, the letter, put cross-wise, 28.

Vallombrosa, book from the monastery at, 87.

Varnicle or Vernicle, 198, 248.

Vasari, quoted, 261.

Veil for lectern, 20, 141, 145, 212, 261.

Veil or scarf worn over his shoulders by the subdeacon, 144, 145.

Velvet, brocaded in gold, 62, 65, 85, 107, 134, 135, 144, 185, 189, 193, 198, 259.

Velvet, cut and applied, 17, 20.

---- embroidered, 198, 200, 204.

---- figured, 17, 62, 135, 192, 193, 207.

---- freckled with golden loops, 257.

----, pile upon pile, 1, 257.

----, plain, 2, 3, 9, 14, 143, 199, 204, 206.

----, raised, 4, 18, 62, 65, 69, 70, 72, 80, 82, 87, 89, 90, 107, 110, 134, 135, 144, 145, 185, 193, 200, 254, 256, 257, 258, 263.

----, English, see Brooke Collection, 312, &c. ---- Flemish, 254, 255, 264. ---- Florentine, 1, 18, 82, 85, 142, 144, 145, 198, 256, 257. ---- French, 14, 89, 106. ---- Genoa, 3, 18, 62, 90, 107, 110, 134, 145, 192, 199, 200, 263. ---- Italian, 65, 89, 90, 199. ---- Lucca, 62, 72, 192, 198, 259. ---- Spanish, 81, 135, 189.

Venetian beads, 169.

---- damask, 54, &c.

---- embroidery, 44, 168.

---- embroidery in beads, 169.

---- lace, 141.

---- table-covers, 141.

---- webs, 71, 112, 271, 272.

Vestments often blazoned with armorial bearing of those who gave them, 22, 148, 214, 282.

----, English, 41, 146, 275.

VINCENT, FRANCOIS ANDRE, 302.

VIOLLET, LE DUC, quoted, 212.

VIRGILIUS, subjects from, figured in tapestry, 300, 301, 302.

WALLER’s brasses, noticed, 181.

WANEFLETE’S, BP., liturgical shoes, 46.

Warwick, Sir Guy of, and the Northumbrian dragon, figured, 79.

Webs, 28, 33, 61, 62, 63, 64, 71, 80, 112, 116, 117, 118, 119, 136, 143, 161, 174, 175, 191, 201, 217, 221, 222, 223, 257, 261, 271, 272, 291.

Wire of pure metal gold, or silver, 220.

Wise men or Magi, adoration of, figured, 3.

Wire, pure metal, 220.

Witsuntide, stuff for, in the ritual, 226.

Witsunday, how signified, 2.

Worsley, The, sepulchral brass, 181.

Worsted and thread, 114.

---- work, 61, 79.

WYDEROYD, Pastor S. Jacobi Colon, 189.

Y, the cross so called, 81, 82.

_York_, cloth of gold, found in a grave at the cathedral of, 251.

_Yprès_, 34, 61, 73, 75.

Zoology-- Beasts: Antelopes, 46, 47, 52, 234. Boars, wild, 180. Cheetahs, or papyonns, 74, 136, 137, 154, 178, 215, 234. Deer, 108, 226, 242. Dogs, 33, 42, 45, 50, 52, 124, 138, 155, 165, 168, 180, 223, 233, 241, 336. Elephant, 45; and castle, 170. Gazelles, 179, 234. Giraffes, 225, 228. Hares, 240, 310. Harts, 41, 42, 43, 51, 118. Hounds, 49, 76, 167. Leopards, 154, 163, 164, 214. Lions, 27, 30, 33, 42, 49, 57, 111, 122, 131, 137, 138, 146, 165, 177, 183, 218. Monkey, 108, 310. Oxen, 214. Panther, 250. Papyonns; see cheetah. Squirrels, 58. Stags, 53, 99, 166, 180. Talbot, or English blood-hound, 223. Toad, 310. Weasel, or stoat, 310. Wolf, 158. Beasts, emblematic, 140, 156, 163, 311. Beasts, heraldic, 5, 40, 41, 46, 47, 52, 53, 58, 59, 60, 156, 161, 217, 218, 228, 246, 267. Elephant and Castle, 170. Griffins, 5, 29, 32, 40, 47, 49, 130, 131, 154, 155. Leopard, noued, 164. Libbards, 240. Lion, noued, 165. Lioncels, 5. Wyverns, 40, 47, 131, 133, 158, 159, 163, 168, 228. Beasts, monsters, 3, 25, 30, 40, 41, 42, 99, 106, 150, 155, 157, 158, 160, 177, 181, 217, 218, 222, 226, 251. Kraken, 236. Mermaid, 251. Midgard Serpent, 151. Satyr, 3. Sphinxes, 181. The Wolf Fenrir, 151. Beasts, symbolical: Hare, of man’s soul, 237, 311. Lion, of Christ, 156. Monkey, of mischief and lubricity, 311. Monoceros or unicorn, of Christ as God-man, 237. Birds: Cocks, 39. Cockatoos, 133, 228. Cranes, 164. Doves, 124, 218, 310; symbol of love, 311. Ducks, wild, 229. Eagles, 7, 25, 26, 40, 43, 50, 51, 76, 81, 129, 137, 138, 158, 163, 164, 178, 180, 183, 229, 232, 233. Hawks, 155, 166, 223, 226, 233. Hoopoes, 45, 137, 146. Owls, 3. Parrots, 119, 131, 139, 140, 154, 159, 166, 168, 241, 242, 244. Peacocks, 154, 250. Pelican, 214. Pheasants, 60. Swans, 49, 166, 179, 232. Wild ducks, 229. Birds, heraldic, or monster things with wings: Dragon, 1. Eagle, double-headed, 7, 37, 86. Griffins, 5, 29, 32, 40, 47, 49, 131. Harpies, 329, 330. Wyverns, 40, 47, 131, 158, 159, 163, 168, 228, 330. Fish, 151. ----, Sr. Peter’s, the Italian Gianitore, or our John Dory, 151. Insects: Butterflies, 16, 44, 66. Spider, 182. Shells, 7. Snakes, 177.

INDEX II.

GEOGRAPHY OF TEXTILES.

EUROPE.

ENGLAND: Chintz. Embroidery. Quilting. Satins. Silks. Tapestry. Velvets. Webs, ribbon-like.

FLANDERS: Embroidery. Lace. Linen, block-printed. Linen, damasked. Napery. Silk, damasked. Tapestry. Velvets.

FRANCE: Cloth of gold. Embroidery. Lace in gold. Quilting. Silks, brocaded. Silks, damasked. Tapestry. Velvets. Webs.

GERMANY: _Cologne_, and other Rhenish towns: Embroidery in silk, in thread, in worsted. Napery. Silk and linen. Tapestry. Velvet. Webs in silk, in silk and linen.

GREECE: Silks. Silks mixed with cotton. Silks mixed with linen thread. Byzantine stuffs historied.

ITALY: _Florence_: Embroidery. Silks, damasked. Silks, historied. Silks mixed with linen. Velvets, pile upon pile. Velvets, plain. Velvets wrought with gold. Velvets raised. Webs, historied. _Genoa_: Silks, brocaded in gold. Silks, damasked. Velvets, plain. _Italian_ Textiles, &c.: Applied or cut-work. Embroidery. Fringe. Lace. Quilting. Satins. Satins, brocaded in gold and silver. Silks, brocaded in gold. Silks, damasked. Silks mixed with cotton. ---- with hemp. ---- with flax. Velvets raised. Velvets of silk. Velvets of worsted. Webs. _Lombardy_: Cob-web weaving. Lace. _Lucca_: Silks, brocaded in gold. Silks, damasked. Velvets. _Milan_: Embroidery. Lace. Velvets. Velvets, raised. _Naples_: Embroidery. Silks. _Reggio_: Silks, damasked. _Sicily_: Cendal. Damasks in linen, brocaded in gold. Embroidery. Lace in silk and gold. Silks, brocaded in gold. Silks, damasked. Silks mixed with cotton. Silks mixed with cotton and wool. Silks mixed with flaxen thread. Silk taffeta. Silk webs. _Venice_: Embroidery. Embroidery in beads. Laces in gold. Silks, damasked.

SPAIN: Carpeting. Crochet-work. Embroidery. Silks, brocaded in gold and silver. Silks, damasked. Silks mixed with gilt parchment. Silks mixed with cotton and linen thread. Silks mixed with linen thread. Silks mixed with linen thread, and gilt parchments. Stuffs of wool and hemp. Stuffs of wool and thread. Taffetas. Velvets.

ASIA.

CHINA: Embroidery. Satins. Silks. Silks, damasked.

INDIA: Embroidery. Linen.

PERSIA: Carpeting. Embroidery. Satins. Silks. Silks, brocaded in gold. Silks, damasked. Silks mixed with wool.

SYRIA: Crape. Silks, brocaded in gold. Silks, damasked. Silks mixed with cotton. Silks mixed with linen.

AFRICA.

ALGIERS: Embroidery. Fine linen.

EGYPT: Byssus or very fine linen. Gauze. Silks. Silks mixed with cotton. Taffetas.

MOROCCO: _Tangier_: Silks. _Tetuan_: Silks.

* * * * *

CHISWICK PRESS:--PRINTED BY WHITTINGHAM AND WILKINS, TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE.

Transcriber's Notes

A number of typographical errors were corrected silently.

Cover image was created by the transcriber and is donated to the public domain.

Two small illustrations were recreated by the transcriber and are donated to the public domain.

First index entry for emblematic beasts corrected to page 140 from page 198.

There are two items numbered 1376. The first is probably correct as it references a matching image.