CHAPTER X.

ECCLESIASTICAL EMBROIDERY.

"And now as I turn these volumes over,

And see what lies between cover and cover,

What treasures of art these pages hold,

All ablaze with crimson and gold....

Yes, I might almost say to the Lord,

Here is a copy of Thy Word

Written out with much toil and pain;

Take it, O Lord, and let it be

As something I have done for Thee!

How sweet the air is! how fair the scene!

I wish I had as lovely a green

To paint my landscapes and my leaves!

How the swallows twitter under the eaves!

There, now, there is one in her nest;

I can just catch a glimpse of her head and breast,

And will sketch her thus, in her quiet nook,

For the margin of my Gospel-book."

LONGFELLOW, "The Golden Legend" ("The

Scriptorium"), p. 176.

"Upon Thy right hand did stand the queen in a vesture of

gold, wrought about with divers colours.... The king's

daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is of

wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the king in

raiment of needlework."--Psalm xlv. 10, 14, 15.

If the Bride is the type of the Church, how truly has she been, for

eighteen centuries, throughout Christendom, adorned with gold, and

arrayed in raiment of needlework.

By ecclesiastical embroideries, we mean, of course, Christian work for

Christian churches. The first pictured decorations of our era, in

early frescoes, mosaics, and illuminated MSS., and the first specimens

that have come down to us of needlework and textiles, testify by their

_naïveté_ to their date.[479]

The prosperity of the Church's hierarchy was founded on the ruins of

the Empire, over which Attila had boasted that where his horse trod no

grass grew; and truly the cultivated art of those splendid days had

lapsed at once to a poverty of design and barrenness of ideas which

would soon have dwindled into mere primitive forms, had not a fresh

Oriental impulse arrived from Syria, Egypt, and Byzantium,--and then

the arts were born anew.[480] The continuity was broken; yet, being

devoted to the service of the Church, the new arts were by it moulded

and fostered. Little lamps twinkled here and there in monastic houses.

Hangings for the churches, coverings for the altars, robes for the

priests, occupied the artist and the embroiderer.

The forms, the colours, the uses, were adapting themselves to become

the symbols of orthodoxies and heresies, and thus became a part of the

history of the Church. The links are many between them and the history

of the State; and here ecclesiastical embroideries come in as

landmarks.

Royal and princely garments, which had served for state occasions,

were constantly dedicated as votive offerings, and converted into

vestments for the officiating priest, and so were recorded and

preserved.[481]

Royal and noble ladies employed their leisure hours in work for the

adornment of the Minster or the home church or chapel. Gifts of the

best were exchanged between convents, or forwarded to the holy father

at Rome, and were often enriched with jewels. The images of the Virgin

and saints received from wealthy penitents many costly garments,[482]

besides money and lands.

This dedicatory needlework has preserved to us the records of

classical, Byzantine, and Arab-Gothic design, which otherwise must

have been lost.

The Church records and illuminated MSS. give us most trustworthy

information of the way in which the altars, the priests, and even the

kings were arrayed; and the catalogues of royal wardrobes are also

very instructive, as we find how often princely gauds became, as gifts

to the Church, commemorative of historical events, such as a victory

or an accession, a marriage or a coronation.

Woltmann and Woermann say that the efforts of the Christians in the

time of Constantine tended to delay the extinction of classical design

in Rome. Of the fourth century they give as examples the mosaics of

"S^ta. Pudenziana," where we can still find antique beauty of

design. We may also mention the church of "St. Agnese fuori le mura,"

which once contained the sarcophagi of Constantine and his mother

Helena, and of which the decorations in the ceilings are entirely

classical, though the motives had been transferred to Christian

symbolism.[483]

The total disappearance of Greek art did not occur till the eighth

century, when the new blood infused from foreign sources began to

assert itself.[484]

Rome had succeeded to Greece as being the centre of Christian art,

which assumed the phase commonly called the Romanesque. This was a

conglomerate of Oriental, Byzantine, and Græco-Roman, varied in

different countries. Then there were the Scandinavian, and Runic, and

Celtic styles drifting from the North; the Lombardic, of Central

Italy; the Ostro-Gothic, of Ravenna; the Byzantine, of Venice, all

acting and reacting upon each other.

All these rough and inchoate attempts at the beautiful, prepared the

world for the acceptance of the Arabic influence, which is said to

have been imported at the end of the eleventh century by the

Crusaders, to whose pious enterprise some attribute the whole of the

splendid Gothic art of the three succeeding centuries. But the marking

characteristic of the Arabic arch is wanting; the ogee shape is seldom

to be found in Christian architecture;[485] and the pointed arch so

naturally results from the intersection of the round arches, that we

cannot but look upon these causes as co-incident.

I have elsewhere remarked how often in art different causes co-operate

to form a style. The father and mother are of different nationalities,

and the result shows the characteristics of its double parentage. The

learned antiquaries, who draw their arguments mainly from the form of

the arch, must settle whence and how Gothic art in stone came into

Europe. It was doubtless the effect or result of more than one cause.

But in as far as it influenced textile art, we have come to the period

when it must be studied in Sicily, the half-way house and

resting-place of the Crusaders on their highroad to the Holy Land.

Sicily, which had succeeded to Constantinople as being the great

manufacturing mart during the Middle Ages, was, in the hands of the

Moors, the origin and source of all European Gothic textile art. Yet

even at Palermo and Messina they were controlled by the traditions of

the schools of Greece, ancient and modern, and by Babylonian, Indian,

and African forms and symbolisms.

Byzantium furnished many of their designs, which were sometimes of

very remote date, though pressed into the service of the new style and

the Church.

These and all the streams of ecclesiastical decoration throughout

Europe flowed towards Rome, and were re-issued with the fiat and seal

of the Central Church, which also afterwards presided over the art of

the Renaissance.[486]

By studying what remains to us of fragments and records we know all

the materials which clothed the primitive and mediæval Church, and we

find that there was but little originality in textile decoration or in

the forms of dress, which either resembled those of the priests in the

Jewish synagogue or those of the heathen temples; and were adapted

from traditional patterns.

The constant repetition of the cross and the signs of the Passion,

with the emblems of saints and martyrs, were interwoven with the

ancient classical forms, mixed up with the old symbolisms partially

altered to suit their new service of Christian art. Of course such

changes were inevitable, while the old motives were being translated

to the new uses.

The corselet of Amasis (the Egyptian corselet, p. 20, _ante_) closely

resembles the Jewish ephod, which probably was borrowed from

Egypt.[487]

In Rock's "Church of Our Fathers," vol. i. p. 409, we find mention of

the consular trabea, profusely worked in gold, as being the origin of

the cope.

[Illustration: Pl. 51.

St. Mark. Anglo-Saxon Book of the Four Gospels in the Cathedral

Library at York.]

It has been suggested and disputed that the stole was an adaptation of

the latus clavus; indeed, if we compare the examples given by

Bock[488] we can hardly doubt that the consular trabea and the latus

clavus either served as the models for the Christian Bishop's dress,

or were derived from the same traditional sources. Such is the

intimate chain of design from century to century, from age to age;

from Egypt to the Holy Land, and thence to Rome.

Bock gives his authorities for saying that the clavus was sometimes an

applied border, sometimes a loose stripe hanging down in front, as may

be seen in two consular diptychs given in plate 70. Much has been

written on this latus clavus, its origin and meaning, and I shall

return to it in reference to the chrysoclavus pattern, p. 337, _post_,

and I refer the reader, who may wish to enter more fully into the

questions raised by conflicting opinions regarding the clavus, to

Marquardt's "Handbuch Röm. Alterthümer," vii. p. 2, pp. 528-533, where

great learning and ingenuity have been expended, without arriving at

any satisfactory conclusions.[489]

This keeping to the old lines and outward appearance as much as

possible was mainly due to a regard for safety during the

persecutions, and also to the Christian spirit of adoption and

conversion, rather than that of antagonism, which influenced all their

early manifestations.

This unchanging character of art was also partly owing to the absolute

sterility of the ashes of Roman Imperialism.

It is true that through the Dark Ages individual genius occasionally

flashed and left a mark here and there; but such phenomena are so

rare, that when they occur we hesitate before we assign them to that

age.

The Anglo-Saxon art of illumination shows these inspired moments; I

would point to their drawings in the books in the Bodleian at Oxford,

and the "Book of the Four Gospels" (of the tenth century) in the

Minster Library at York, which are original and graceful, and have a

reflection from the classical traditions. To an artistic eye they are

beautiful. (Plate 51.)

The conscientious colouring of the Anglo-Saxon MSS. is liturgical. Mr.

Clapton Rolfe[490] says that the Levitical traditions in the earlier

system of decoration in the Christian Church had a far stronger hold

on the popular mind than we are willing now to admit; and that the

five Levitical colours, gold, blue, purple, red, and white, were

retained in the Christian ritual. Whenever we come across figures of

Anglo-Saxon bishops, the liturgical vesture entirely agrees with the

Biblical description.

Embroideries before the twelfth century generally preserve a

semi-Roman, semi-Oriental character, which is nearly related to the

art which is called Lombardic. This differs from what we know of

Scandinavian and Celtic design through illuminated books,[491] carving

on stone crosses throughout the north of Europe, Great Britain, and

Ireland, and the remains we possess of their metal work. I am not

aware of any ecclesiastical embroideries which show a Celtic

origin,[492] unless the intertwined patterns on Italian dresses in

paintings of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries may be supposed

to be derived from that source. (See p. 91, _ante_.)

[Illustration: Fig. 25.]

In accounting for the instances of evident Oriental influence on

Christian art, which came through Byzantium, we must not restrict

ourselves to searching out the Arabian traditions, but we must

remember also how much Babylon and Persia, as well as India, had given

to the Empire of the East, and these influences were in full force at

the time that Christian art was being organized.

We know, for example, that the great veil of the temple at Jerusalem,

given by Herod, was Babylonian.

The materials--linen, silk, and woollen--on which ecclesiastical

embroideries were worked at Rome and Constantinople were accepted all

over the Christian world. The fabrics were plain, striped, and

figured; and came from Persia and India, Greece, Alexandria, and

Egypt. Even Chinese and Thibetian stuffs are often named. Cloths of

gold and silver also came from the East, as in the days of Attalus.

All these furnished the grounds on which needlework was lavishly

spent.

The great veils which divided the pagan and Jewish temples were at

first adopted in the Christian churches, but they gradually

disappeared from common use, in spite of occasional survivals and

revivals during the Dark Ages.

Records exist of the hangings of the ancient basilica of St. Peter at

Rome, spread between the pillars supporting the baldachino over the

high altar and those of the choir; and at the Ostro-Gothic imperial

court of Ravenna, in the fifth century, Maximianus ordered a set of

similar splendid curtains (tetravela) to be worked for the altar.

Anastasius Bibliothecarius (ninth century), in his biographies of the

popes, mentions curtains and embroidered altar-pieces worked in the

sixth and seventh centuries.[493]

Sergius (A.D. 687) ordered four white and four scarlet curtains, and

Pope John (701) hung white ones between the pillars on either side of

the altar at St. Paul's. St. Zacharias[494] gave similar hangings to

the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul. Stephen IV. placed immense

silver curtains at the entrance of the basilica of St. Peter's, and in

768 gave to it sixty-five curtains of figured Syrian stuffs.[495] The

same hangings prevailed at intervals in England, France, and Germany,

till the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the new Gothic style

of high, pointed arches altered the decorative customs.

[Illustration: Pl. 52.

Fragments of Silk to be seen at Coire in Switzerland, also in the

South Kensington Museum.]

From Anastasius's mode of speaking of ecclesiastical garments, it

appears that they were named in the treasury catalogues after the

animals represented on them--"the peacock garment," "the elephant

casula," "the lion cope." Evidently these were Oriental gold brocades,

Indian or Persian, or else reproductions of their designs, and from

Auberville's and Bock's books of engravings we can judge how they

repeated and varied their motives. One woven subject, which evidently

started its textile career as one of the labours of Hercules, was

gradually transferred to Samson, or to Daniel in the lions' den.

(Plate 4, Auberville's "L'Ornement des Tissus.") (Plate 52.)[496]

However, in Russia and throughout the Greek Church the ancient

Byzantine use of hangings still remains in force.

The art of embroidery has always given its best efforts to these

church draperies.

Rome was so laden with splendid embroideries by her eastern conquests,

that probably the Christian decorators would have availed themselves

of some of the accumulated stores; but we have no record of such

adaptations, unless the splendid curtains and the silver hangings of

Pope Stephen IV. were taken out of some imperial treasure-house.

The contrast between early ecclesiastical art and that which

immediately preceded it in the palaces of the Cæsars (at Rome, Tivoli,

and wherever we find their ruined glories) is most remarkable.

The lovely and the lively had been suddenly abandoned for the heavy

earnest solemnity and inartistic drawing of the frescoes of the

underground church of St. Clemente in Rome, and that of the early

Christian mosaics.

It is as if the arts which had lent, nay, given themselves to the

glorification of idols, had suddenly died out, leaving behind them

neither an artist, nor a skilled artisan, scarcely a tradition.

The new Christian ideas had to be painfully recorded on sacred

buildings and their furnishings for more than a thousand years; with

all the patient acquiescence of untaught ignorance, and the struggling

uncertainty of genius pursuing a distant glimmering light, apparently

unconscious of all that had preceded it in Egyptian and classic art.

The great political and religious revolutions in Europe had crushed

and buried the arts under the ruins of the Empire over which Time

himself seemed to have broken his hour-glass, so little was there to

show any memory of their past, or hope for their future. The alternate

progress and destruction of the arts in European civilization strike

the student, in vivid contrast with the immutability of those of the

East, especially in India and China, where the old forms were still

being maintained by the swaddling bands of codified custom[497] that

had restricted their development, but prolonged their existence, and

so they had survived, while Greece conquered and robbed the East and

Egypt, and Rome crushed Greece and was in her turn despoiled by the

Goths and Huns.[498]

Christian art had to begin at the very beginning, and collect its own

traditions, and organize its own forms. These gradually accumulated,

availing themselves of accepted symbols, and adding to them hidden

meanings. The Reformation checked this development in the north of

Europe, but after 300 years we are now witnessing its revival, which

is not merely owing to a religious impulse, but also to the

archæological tendency of our day and to the historical interest we

attach to the ceremonials of the East.

As the Reformation in Germany was less sweeping and iconoclastic than

our own, we find there many more remains of ecclesiastical art

collected in the churches to which they have always belonged, or in

museums into which they have drifted;[499] and the Germans have thus

been enabled to do more than even the French, in training the

different schools of work throughout the Continent.

They have proved the Oriental character of the fabrics employed

through the Dark and Middle Ages, i.e. for about 1400 years, whether

they were Syrian, Indo-Chinese, Indian, Alexandrian, Greek, Sicilian,

or Spanish, or whether they had come from Asia by the north or the

south of Europe. The same traditional forms governed them all. But an

adept is able generally to class and name each specimen by the

texture of the webs, by the way gold or gilt thread is inwoven in

them, whether the metal is pure or alloyed, round or flat; also by the

mode of twisting and dyeing the wool, flax, or silk, and its quality

and colouring matter.

Among the earliest historical church embroiderers the foremost figure

is that of the Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine, claimed in

Wales and in the Welsh ballad of "The Dream of Maxen Wledig" as being

a Welsh princess married to the Emperor Constans. She is said to have

embroidered an image of the Virgin, which Muratori speaks of as

existing in the Church of Vercelli in the seventeenth century. Bock

says it is still there, and he quotes an ancient inventory of the

treasures of Phillip the Good, of Burgundy, which names a "Riche et

ancienne table d'autel de brodeure que on dit que la première

Emperriez Christienne Fist."[500] The Empress Helena died in the

fourth century.[501]

Then after a long interval comes "Berthe aux grands pieds" the mother

of Charlemagne, who in the eighth century was famed for her

needlework, which is celebrated in a poem by Adhelm in the eighth

century, quoted by Mrs. Palliser,[502] "a ouvrir si com je vous dirai

n'avoit meillior ouvriere de Tours jusqu'a Cambrai," and her

grand-daughter Gisela followed in her footsteps. Nearly contemporary,

is Aelfled's Durham embroidery,[503] described in the chapter on

English work.

Christian art before the twelfth century is very often rich, usually

picturesque, from its fulness of intention; sometimes beautiful, when

it recalls some echo from the East, or some tradition of Greek

art;[504] but the embroideries of those centuries are almost always

quaint; this is invariably the archaic phase of all early art. Born in

the catacombs of Rome--roused by impulses from the north, by education

in the south, and everywhere encouraged by the fostering hand of the

Church, and the patronage of papal and of royal and imperial

houses,--it evolved its forms, and emancipated itself at last from its

poor and sordid condition; and the Gothic phase of each nation

attained to its own peculiar growth and characteristics; and among

them the foremost in the world's estimation was the English school of

embroidery, to which the next chapter is devoted.

There has been much controversy as to the date of the dalmatic of

Charlemagne in the Vatican treasury. Like every good early piece of

Gothic work in Italy, it is allotted to the days of Pope Boniface

VIII. (thirteenth century). But when we examine this splendid relic we

cannot doubt that it is of a much earlier time, as there is nothing

Gothic to be found in it. It is full of the lingering traces of Greek

art (not Byzantine). It reminds us most of the mosaics of Santa

Pudenziana, which are always quoted to prove that Greek art still

survived in Rome in the eighth century.[505] The dalmatic has been

much restored, but, I believe, most carefully kept to the old lines.

It is worked on a thick, dark-blue, or purple, satiny silk, which had

entirely fallen into little stripes, but has been skilfully mended,

and the embroidery has never been transferred. On the front is our

Lord in glory, saints below, and angels above, with a border of

children playing, which is truly Greek. The motive of this is the "Ibi

et Ubi." On the back is the Transfiguration, and on the humerals are

the sacraments of bread and wine. The whole, as art, is beautiful; and

it is historically most interesting. Lord Lindsay tells us that in the

dalmatic of Charlemagne, (called that of Leo III.) Cola di Rienzi

robed himself over his armour, and ascended to the Palace of the Popes

after the manner of the Cæsars, with sounding trumpets before him, and

followed by his horsemen--his crown on his head and his truncheon in

his hand--"Terribile e fantastico."[506]

This dalmatic must be ranked first and highest among ecclesiastical

embroideries. (Plates 53, 54, 55.)

Some of the details are curious. The whole of the blue satin ground is

worked with crosses "parsemé." Parts of the design are so adorned with

larger and smaller Greek crosses--and others with the starry cross. On

the shoulder is once embroidered the mystic swastika.[507]

[Illustration: Charlemagne's Dalmatic

The Vatican, Rome]

[Illustration: Charlemagne's Dalmatic

The Vatican, Rome]

[Illustration: Pl. 55.

Details of Charlemagne's Dalmatic. Vatican Treasury.]

[Illustration: Pl. 56.

Cope called "of St. Silvester." Treasury of St. John Lateran, Rome.

English Embroidery, thirteenth century.]

Rock says, "Those who have seen, in the sacristy of St. Peter's at

Rome, that beautiful light-blue dalmatic said to have been worn by

Charlemagne when he sang the gospel at High Mass, at the altar vested

as a deacon, the day he was crowned Emperor in that church by Pope

Leo III., will remember how plentifully it is sprinkled with crosses

between its exquisite embroideries, so as to make the vestment a real

'stauracin.'"[508]

[Illustration: Pl. 57.

Portion of the Cope at St. John Lateran, showing its condition.]

[Illustration: Pluvial, English, XIII. Century

Museum at Bologna]

[Illustration: Pl. 59.

The Daroca Cope. Museum at Madrid. Opus Anglicanum, fourteenth

century.]

[Illustration: Pl. 60.

Portion of the Cope of Boniface VIII., twelfth century. From

Anagni. Now in the Vatican Collection.]

[Illustration: Pl. 61.

Altar Frontal from Anagni, Italy.]

Signor Galletti, Professor of Embroidery to the Pope, says it is

undoubtedly of the eighth century. It has been suggested that the

design is of the date of the Exarchate. It is, however, something of

infinitely finer style; it is noble, simple Greek.

Charlemagne's dalmatic is embroidered mostly in gold--the draperies in

basket-work and laid stitches; the faces in white silk split-stitch,

flat, with finely-drawn outlines in black silk. The hair, the shadowy

part of the draperies, and the clouds are worked in fine gold and

silver thread with dark outlines. The hands, feet, and draperies have

a fine bas-relief effect. (Plate 53, 54, 55).

The "pluvial of St. Silvester," in the church of St. John Lateran at

Rome, is probably, from its Gothic style, of the time of Boniface

VIII. (thirteenth century).[509] It never served St. Silvester, except

as being perhaps dedicated to him. On seeing it, one is convinced that

it is English. It has one peculiarity of English Gothic design in the

canopies being supported by twisted pillars of vine-stems, in this

case intersected by green shoots, and carrying leaves. The angels, the

two cherubim clothed in peacocks' feathers, the fine split-stitch, the

gold grounding, and the drawing are also distinctly English.

I give an outline of the pluvial from photographs,[510] and a finished

woodcut of the centre to show the style and condition of the work. The

design is most beautiful, and we can only regret the loss of the

border, which has been entirely cut off. This shows how elaborate is

the design, yet how artistically arranged as a whole composition.

(Plate 56, 57.)

It is difficult to settle the precedence between this splendid piece

of church decoration and the rival pluvial of Bologna in the Museo

Civico, said to have come from the church of San Giacomo. It resembles

in style and execution that of St. Silvester, but its architectural

arrangement contains six circles of subjects, worked like the other in

silk and gold, with gold groundings; and both are embroidered on

linen. On careful examination of this splendid work of art, I have

come to the conclusion that it is English. (Plate 58.)

The Daroca cope (lately belonging to the Archæological Museum at

Madrid) is undoubtedly English. We can claim it by its peculiar

shrine-work, and the twined columns on the orphreys; by the cherubim,

by the peacock-feathered angels, and by the form of the panels

enclosing the different subjects, from the "Life of Our Lord." (Plate

59.)

The cope of Boniface VIII. in the Vatican came from the church of his

native place, Anagni (plate 60), where are still very curious old

embroideries (see Hon. and Rev. I. Clifford's list of embroideries in

Appendix 5). Some appear extremely ancient, but there is no sign by

which they may be dated. Some are probably of the thirteenth century,

and are very coarse Italian work, though finely designed (plate 61).

There are doubtless many interesting specimens still to be found in

the sacristies of Italian churches. But they have generally been

transferred to museums.

[Illustration: Pl. 62.

1. From Tomb in Worcester Cathedral, of Bishop Walter de Cantilupe,

consecrated 1236.

2. Embroidered Cope at Aix in Switzerland.]

[Illustration: Pl. 63.

Mitre of Thomas à Becket at Sens, showing the Scandinavian Fylfot

Cross (thirteenth century).

Jewelled Cross on Rose-coloured Cope at Rheims (twelfth century).]

In the tomb of Walter de Cantilupe (eighteenth century) at Worcester,

were found the remains of a dress which is decidedly of an earlier

date--evidently of Oriental material, but Anglo-Saxon work--so exactly

resembling in style that at Aix given by Bock,[511] that we

can hardly doubt that they proceeded from the same workshop, or at

least are of coeval design. Both are worked with a dark red outline on

a red silk ground. The faces and hands are in white silk--all the rest

between the outlines is gold thread, flat stitch. Bock places its date

as antecedent to the tenth century, and indeed there is no reason to

doubt that this is correct, though the Worcester fragment was taken

out of a tomb of two centuries later. As these garments were stored in

the church treasuries; and as antiquity (without an historical

interest) was then of no value, these old clothes, holy by their use

and office, yet by their shabbiness unfit for public show, may have

been reverently disposed of in clothing the bodies of departed

priests, who probably had worn those very vestments, when officiating

at the altar near which they were laid to rest. When the date of the

wearer of the garment is ascertained, the dress cannot be of a later

period, but it may have belonged to a much earlier one. The

architectural part of these two embroideries, i.e. the canopy work,

resembles that of the Bayeux tapestry. Both appear to be English.

(Plate 62.)

[Illustration: Pl. 64.

From Tomb of Bishop William of Blois, died 1236. Worcester

Cathedral Library.]

[Illustration: Pl. 65.

A portion of the Mantle embroidered by Gisela for her husband, St.

Stephen of Hungary. From Bock's "Kleinodien."]

In the eleventh century, and for some part of the twelfth, needlework

design in England, France, and Germany first assumed a phase, which

may be called the metal-work style. It is to be found on the robes and

mitres of St. Thomas of Canterbury (Thomas à Becket) at Sens[512]--on

the famous rose-red cope of satin embroidered with gold and pearls at

Rheims (which we should incline to believe is English)[513] (plate

63). The fragment of the cope of William of Blois, found in his tomb,

is in this style. (He died in 1236.) The fragments of this curious

garment, worked in gold on a purple silk material, evidently Oriental,

are also preserved under glass in the Cathedral Library at Worcester

(plate 64).

Amongst the finest instances of ecclesiastical needlework, and,

indeed, we may say, of ecclesiastical art of the twelfth century, is

the coronation robe of St. Stephen of Hungary, decorated by his queen,

Gisela,[514] which is preserved in the Imperial Treasury at Ofen

(plate 65).

Of this authentic historical work we have the whole story. The

original design,[515] drawn on linen, carefully coloured, is to be

seen at the Benedictine convent abbey of Martinsburg, near Raab in

Hungary. The care with which the work was carried out shows the value

then placed on such undertakings considered as art, and it has been

justified by its survival of 800 years; time having spared it owing to

its perfect materials and manipulation, till it received cruel

injuries by being carried off and thrown into the bog of Orsava during

the revolution under Kossuth. It was, however, recovered and restored,

and was worn by the present emperor at the splendid and picturesque

ceremonial of his coronation at Pesth. The design reminds us of the

mosaics in the apse of Santa Maria Maggiore and other churches at

Rome, and it is extremely beautiful. It consists of an arrangement of

medallions and inscriptions, with "metal-work" ornaments in bands

alternated with smaller medallions. Yet the figures are not so finely

drawn as those of the Durham relics of the beginning of the tenth

century. The drawing of the figures of the Gisela mantle resembles

those on the garments of Walter de Cantilupe (plate 62), which, from

their design and stitches, seem to be of this period. The

architectural parts are very like in design to those of the Bayeux

tapestry, though they are infinitely better, and they have Lombardic

characteristics.

[Illustration: Pl. 66.

Portion of the Coronation Mantle of Henry II. of Germany,

embroidered by the Empress Kunigunda. From Bock's

"Kleinodien."]

It appears that Queen Gisela had personally embroidered this

many-figured, richly-embroidered representation of the "Ibi et

Ubi"--The Saviour in His glory as Victor over death and hell, seated

on the bow of heaven, surrounded by choirs of angels and saints, and

prophets of the Old Testament; below on thrones, are the twelve

Apostles. The figures are worked in Oriental gold thread on Byzantine

crimson silk.

In contrast to the Ubi, the heavenly hereafter, the queen, in the

lowest broad hem (border) has represented the Present, the then "Ibi,"

by the leaders of the Hungarian magnates and the half-figures of the

royal givers in large gold-embroidered medallions.

The next finest specimen of eleventh century needlework was the gift

of Henry II., Emperor of Germany, and his wife Kunigunda, to the

cathedral of Bamberg, where it still exists[516] (plate 66).

This, again, consists of medallions great and small, of which the

borders, gracefully intertwined, form a large composition[517]

covering the whole surface of the imperial pallium it once adorned.

But in the fifteenth century it was transferred from its original

purple silk ground to one of dark-blue damask, and altered to the form

of a chasuble, as we see it now. The general design resembles that of

the mantle of Gisela.

Bock calls the style of these works Romanesque; and he thinks that

they show a Saracenic influence. They appear, however, as I said

before, to be rather Lombardic than anything else. The reader is

referred to Dr. Bock's preface for further lists of Continental works

and workers.

Abbé Martin considers that in the thirteenth century the opening out

of Gothic art was extended to the laity, and was really the sign of a

great social revolution. Gothic art had till then only served the

Church, and had been by circumstances closed to the people, who were

yet unfitted, by their want of education, for artistic life.[518]

Art was till then almost exclusively produced by the monastic orders,

into which all talent had drifted. But about this time it fell into

the hands of architects and other originators of design, who presently

banded themselves together into brotherhoods and guilds.[519]

Embroidery till the thirteenth century had been entirely in the hands

of cloistered women, and the ladies who practised it learned their

craft with the rest of their education in convents, and their work was

simply ecclesiastical and dedicatory. At that period social burgher

life in the towns had first begun to develope its love of luxury,[520]

and to follow the fashions of other countries, and the changes of

forms in dress and furnishing which came from foreign parts, though

frequently checked by sumptuary laws. This social movement preceded

everywhere political and religious revolutions. Embroidery then became

customary in lay dress, and lost its religious character, or rather

its religious monopoly.

[Illustration: Pl. 67.

The Syon Cope, South Kensington Museum (thirteenth century).]

We find that about this time throughout the Church the forms of

ecclesiastical garments were considerably modified, and made more

comfortable for the officiating priest; and the old traditional trabea

was cut down to the mediæval chasuble.

English needlework of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had its own

peculiar style of metal-work pattern, resembling the hinges and

spreading central ornament branching across the wood-work on our

church doors.[521]

When we meet with this kind of design on foreign church vestments, we

feel inclined always to claim the merit of them for the English

school. The foreign metal-work patterns are much lighter and more

geometrical, and have not the firmness and at the same time the fancy

that we find in our own of the twelfth century; and they remind us

rather of the goldsmiths' than of the blacksmiths' craft. The English

embroidery of this style has the character of "appliqué," i.e. one

material laid upon another and fastened down.

There are differences of opinion as to the accepted characteristics of

the "opus Anglicanum," which in the twelfth century began to be

celebrated.[522] Some say that it was principally remarkable for its

admixture of jewellers' work in the borders, or the imitation of it in

gold thread. Some give the attempt to reproduce the effect of

bas-reliefs in the embroidered groups of figures; others, again, point

out the peculiarities of the "laid stitches" in gold, which so

permeated the linen grounding, as to give the look of a material woven

with gold thread. We may fairly say that _all_ these, which were then

ingenious novelties, combined to give this opus Anglicanum its value,

as well for its beauty as for its ingenuity.[523]

The Syon cope, (now one of the treasures of art in the Kensington

Museum), is a perfect example of this work; and is also, according to

Bock, "one of the most beautiful among the liturgical vestments of the

olden period anywhere to be found in Christendom." Dr. Rock's study of

this piece of thirteenth century work in his "Catalogue of the

Embroideries in the South Kensington Museum" is most interesting, as

exemplifying all the characteristics of the Gothic art of the period,

in its historical, æsthetic, heraldic, liturgical, emblematical, and

textile aspects. I have ventured to transcribe the whole of this

notice in the Appendix.[524] I will only add here that the one error

into which I think he has fallen, is in naming the stitches. The

"diapers" are not opus plumarium, but opus pulvinarium, of the class

of "laid stitches." This was ascertained by examining the back of the

material under the ancient lining by a most competent judge[525] in my

presence, and so a long-disputed point is set at rest (plate 67).

Ciampini says that in the twelfth century, the arts went hand in hand,

each lending something to the design of the others. This, however,

has always been the case.[526] (Whether they greatly profited by such

exchanges is another question.) I cannot but agree with Semper's

often-reiterated theory, that textile art was a leading influence and

constant suggestion to _all_ art from the beginning. And the way that

ecclesiastical decoration was so led in the twelfth century is very

apparent. In the new art of stained mosaic glass in church windows we

see the reflex of the flat illuminations and embroideries of that

period; and while these were being influenced by metal-work, painting

was being transferred again to textile art, pictures being woven as

well as embroidered,[527] while textiles were seeking to emulate

reliefs in a forced and unnatural manner, more ingenious than

artistic.

While England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was exciting the

admiration of all European artists by the imitation of bas-reliefs in

needlework, by the arrangement of the light and shadows in the "lay"

of the stitches, and by a little help from the pressure of hot irons,

to accentuate its apparent indentations, a similar inroad into the

sister art of sculpture, or, perhaps, we should say a similar

adaptation from the sister art, was going on in Switzerland and

Germany, especially in Bavaria.

There was a clever and artistic mode of stuffing and raising of the

important parts of the embroidered design, such as the figures, the

coats-of-arms, or the emblems of the Passion, &c., in sacred subjects

in imitation of high-relief. There are some beautiful specimens that

have been evidently designed in the School of Cranach. I will only

mention the orphrey, of which the subject is the "Tree of Jesse,"

exhibited at Zurich, 1883, the chasuble at Coire in the Grisons, and

the little triptych in the museum of the Wasser-Kirche in Zurich. This

last is exquisitely pretty. The finest, however, is the altar-piece

belonging to Prince Borghese at Rome, which is certainly German in its

design.[528]

Beautiful as these few examples are, they yet show the mistake of

mixing different forms of art. The designs are reduced to a compromise

between painting, sculpture, and needlework, which excites interest

and perhaps amusement rather than admiration.

Glass painting, of which we have no notice till the tenth century,

shares many of the rules which hitherto had applied only to

embroideries. It was intended to give colour and interest to those

parts of a building which otherwise were cold and lifeless. _Flatness_

in the composition, and the avoidance of pictorial effects (especially

any perspectives) show that it was intended for conventional

decoration, rather than as a rival to mural painting. There is no

doubt that it generally superseded textile hangings, because it

supplied the want of colour for the large traceried windows just

coming into architectural design, toning down the crudeness of the

masses of light, and tinting the walls and pavements on which it was

cast.

When coloured glass came into general use, embroidered hangings mostly

disappeared. Whatever may have been the cause, there is no doubt of

the coincidence.

[Illustration: Pl. 68.

An embroidered Panel, designed by Pollaiolo, and worked by Paulo

da Verona. In the Church of St. Giovanni at Florence (fifteenth

century).]

The applied embroideries of the north of Germany were evidently

inspired by the newly-discovered art of glass-painting, and

resemble its designs, both in the compositions of figures and heraldic

subjects. Of this we may remember examples in the Scandinavian

Exhibition at South Kensington in 1881.[529]

All the most beautiful and picturesque needlework that we possess of

the true ecclesiastical Gothic type, and which belongs to the perfect

flowering of the art, is of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,

just before the spirit of the Renaissance crept northward over Europe,

preceding the Reformation and its iconoclastic effacements. This

remark especially applies to England.[530] The art of representing

Scriptural subjects in flat stitches, as medallions accompanied by

beautiful foliage, and heraldic designs, is illustrated to us by the

palls belonging to several London companies--and by those belonging to

churches, especially that of the church at Dunstable, in which court

ladies, knights, and saints form a most artistic border--the costumes

being of the date of Henry VII. (see p. 378, _post_).

The perfection of the embroideries of Flanders of that period has

never been exceeded, and it continues still to produce the most

splendidly executed compositions in gold and silken needlework, of

every variety of stitches. The Flemish work and its peculiar mode of

laying golden grounds with flat-laid thread stitched down in patterns

was carried into Italy, where great artists did not disdain to design

for textiles. I give, as an instance, Vasari's account of the

embroidered set of vestments designed by Antonio Pollaiolo for the

church of San Giovanni at Florence. These were carried out by Paolo da

Verona, and took twenty-six years for their completion; and they were

only one set of vestments, "embroidered by the most subtle master of

the art, Paolo da Verona, a man most eminent in his calling, and of

incomparable ingenuity (_ingenio_). The figures are no less admirably

executed with the needle than drawn by Pollaiolo with the pencil,--and

thus we are largely indebted to one master for his design, and to the

other for his patience" (plate 68).

Towards the end of the fifteenth century the Gothic styles were

replaced by the Renaissance, but the technical part of the art of

embroidery for the churches lost none of its value. All the talent of

the artist and the ingenuity of the craft continued to be lavished on

altar decoration and priestly garments, in Flanders, Spain, France,

and Italy. But the solemnity of these works was certainly impaired by

their being emancipated from the traditional ecclesiastical forms and

their accompanying symbolism, to which the old designers had so

faithfully adhered. Ecclesiastical decorative art became, so to speak,

unorthodox.

As a proof of this secular, I might almost say irreverent spirit, I

quote Bock's accusation against Queen Mary of Hungary, who in her

embroideries, preserved at Aix-la-Chapelle, is said to have

represented herself as the Queen of Heaven, surrounded by her adorers

on their knees.

There is no doubt, however, that needlework aspired in the fourteenth

and fifteenth centuries to the highest place in art, and was

enthusiastically cultivated by women of rank and position, of artistic

taste, who still gave themselves to the productions of beautiful

decorations, though they no longer confined themselves to

ecclesiastical motives.

[Illustration: Spanish Altar Frontal, Gold Embroidery

XVII. Cen^y]

Gabrielle of Bourbon and Isabella, sister of Louis XI., spent their

lives in preparing and overlooking fine works in their own apartments,

and assembled around them noble damsels for this purpose. Anne of

Brittany, who lived in an artistic atmosphere, had her own workshop of

embroidery. Pictorial design now asserted its dominion over

needlework, which accepted it, just as it had been influenced in the

eleventh and twelfth centuries by metal-work motives, and, before

then, by the art of mosaic.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Spanish plâteresque

embroideries (adopted and modified in Flanders and in France),

consisting of heavy gold and silver arabesques of mutilated vegetable

forms, superseded the graceful Renaissance of the classical

taste.[531] These Spanish embroideries forced their way by their

gorgeousness, in spite of their want of real beauty. They varied their

effects with pearls, corals, and precious stones[532] (plate 69).

Spain, though she was much despoiled during the Peninsular War by her

French invaders, yet still possesses some of the finest ecclesiastical

work in the sacristies of Seville, Granada, Burgos, Toledo, Segovia,

and Barcelona. Don Juan F. Riano[533] says that Toledo is a perfect

museum of the work of the sixteenth century.

Sicilian and Neapolitan ecclesiastical needlework showed the Spanish

taste of their masters, but not its perfection. The use of pearls,

coral, and beads[534] prevailed, and we may in general affix its date

and its origin to each specimen by the silver largely used in the two

kingdoms of Sicily and rarely elsewhere; also by the extreme

brilliancy or rather the gaudiness of its colouring.

English ecclesiastical work came suddenly to an end at the

Reformation. What was not destroyed is to be found in the possession

of the old Roman Catholic families who have religiously collected the

residue, preserved by concealment or by being overlooked; and in the

wardrobes of Continental sacristies.[535]

But the church decorations of France, Germany, Flanders, Spain, and

Italy have meantime, for the last 300 years, gone through all the

variations of lay styles, emanating from anything but ecclesiastical

motives. First, the Renaissance's semi-pagan (so-called) arabesques;

then the Spanish plâteresque, which was a revolt against their own

bastard Moorish-Gothic; next, the "Louis Quatorze," followed by the

"Louis Quinze" and the "Louis Seize," light, frivolous, and elegant,

essentially social, and not serious.[536] Then a return to the

classical of the Empire; and finally, since the beginning of this

century, to a conglomerate, lawless imitation of forms and styles,

utterly meaningless and uninteresting, as well as wanting in

ecclesiastical dignity and decorum. We are glad to believe that we are

ourselves striving to reconstruct some sort of style that shall be

able to express poetical and religious ideas, especially in our church

decorations. At any rate, it must be of some use to understand the

hidden springs which once raised ecclesiastical embroideries, and

especially those of England, so high as objects of beauty, worthy to

adorn the house of God, and to be for centuries valued as monuments of

pious industry and thoughtful art.

One of these hidden springs and ancient underlying motives was the

symbolism which gave a religious intention to the smallest design for

the humblest use, provided that its purpose was the service of the

Church.

Sacred symbolism is a subject to which I have alluded more than once;

and it has played such an important part in the construction and

growth of ecclesiastical art, that I cannot but give a short notice to

the subject under this aspect.

Symbolism in art is what metaphor is in speech. It is the

representation to the eye of an object which suggests something else

besides itself.

Dr. Rock tells us that the symbolism of Scripture texts was given to

the world in a book by St. Melito, Bishop of Sardis, A.D. 170. Its

title is "The Key."[537] In the fourth century were produced two great

works on Scriptural symbols, that of St. Basil in his homilies on the

six days of the creation, and that by St. Ambrose; both entitled

Hexameron.

We meet this subject at every turn in the succeeding centuries,

till in the twelfth we find it formulated and divided into

branches--Bestiaria, Volucraria, and Lapidaria--and each type had

frequently more than one meaning. Thus a lion represented power,

sovereignty, dominion; also the "House of Judah;" a hare the emblem

of man's soul; a peacock that of wisdom (many-eyed). The ruby

represents love. The pearl, innocence. The twelve stones in a

breastplate, the twelve tribes of Israel.[538] Trees and flowers had

also their symbolical meanings, though we are not aware of their

being recorded in any mediæval book. We know that the vine is the

tree of life; the stem of Jesse, the sacramental emblem; that the

lily stands for purity, the woodbine for chastity, and the rose for

religious ecstasy. The crowned lily was always the special emblem of

the Virgin.

These symbols had many of them a distant source, and had been, as I

have already indicated, emblematic of other inner meanings in the

expression of pagan faiths. The tree of life was Babylonian; the horn,

Persian; the fire-sticks of the prehistoric cross, Egyptian or Indian;

and the composite animals representing many qualities, Ninevite

(probably Accadian).[539]

All these were utilized, so that their already accepted uses should be

helps and adjuncts, instead of impediments to the appreciation of

divine truths; in the same way that "all that was lovely and of good

repute" in the belief and morals of the ancient peoples, reasserted

and purified, was claimed by the new teachers as types and antitypes.

The symbolism of colours has been always considered very important in

liturgical decoration,[540] and their meanings are discussed in the

chapter on colour.

The mystical colours, as has been already stated, are five--red, blue,

purple, white, and gold. These the Christian Church inherited from the

Levitical law, and continued faithful to them till the modern Roman

use introduced green and black. The Church of England before the

Reformation never allowed any but the original five mystic colours.

The symbolism of ecclesiastical embroideries, as well as that of all

Christian art, being intended to illustrate the truths of Christianity

by the teaching of the eye, the great symbol of our faith, the

_Cross_, naturally drew to itself all its prehistoric forms as being

the prophetic types of the "true cross."

The earliest form of the prehistoric cross, [Illustration], is supposed

to refer to the worship of the sun, and is said to be formed of two

fire-sticks (for producing fire by friction) laid across each other.

This is almost universal in prehistoric, archaic, classical, and

Christian art to the thirteenth century. The next most ancient form is

a broken cross, thus, [Illustration], said to be the double of the Tau,

or Egyptian sign of life, and claimed by the Rabbins as having been the

sign in blood, which stopped the hand of the angel of death, over the

doors of the Israelites at the first Passover. This afterwards was

called the "Gammadion," from its likeness to a doubled Greek gamma,

and it was also said to symbolize the "corner-stone."[541] The third

commonest form, apparently a modification of that of the fire-sticks,

[Illustration], is to be found throughout Celtic and Scandinavian art,

and was called in England "the fylfote" (from its likeness to the arms

of the Isle of Man), and likewise "the Gammadion," though it shows

another source than the Greek letter.

From these three forms already in use, added to that of the

Crucifixion, endless varieties were composed to suit the

ecclesiastical taste and requirements of different national styles of

symbolical decoration. I refer my readers to plate 26 in the chapter

on patterns for a few of these from different sources. They are

extremely suggestive. I have there entered more fully into the

subject, regarding it as a fertile pattern motive in textile art.[542]

The cross "bearing twelve fruits for the saving of the nations"[543]

is so like some of the representations of the Persian or Indian Tree

of Life, that the transmission and adoption of the symbolic form is

evident. The cross (plate 63) is a good mediæval example, and is taken

from the celebrated rose-coloured cope at Rheims, embroidered with

gold and pearls on a rose-coloured satin ground.

[Illustration: Pl. 70.

IVORY CONSULAR DIPTYCH.

1. In the Wasser-Kirche Museum, Zurich. Sixth century. 2. Of an

earlier period, and finer workmanship, at Halberstadt. No

date given.]

The Roës is an ecclesiastical pattern of wide use and of very long

descent, often named in ancient Church inventories. It is sometimes

called the "Wheel and Plate." Its origin is probably Oriental, but it

certainly was adopted by the Romans as the motive of their triumphal

garments, the _togæ pictæ_, worn in the processional return of a

conqueror, whether he were a general or a sovereign. The first motive

was a surface covered with circles, closely touching each other, and

containing figures which had a reference to their purpose. In

Christian times the heads of saints were sometimes inserted,

especially in that form of the Roës called the chrysoclavus, from the

intersticial ornament between the circles.

I have written (p. 308-9) about the Trabea, which on the Roman

consular ivory diptychs of several centuries is so invariably

embroidered with this same clavus pattern (plate 70) that we must

conclude that it had a meaning and a tradition.

The very ancient superstition that driving in a nail is a fortunate

rite, may have been connected with the pattern called the clavus; and

the chrysoclavus, from being merely a nail pattern, became consecrated

in Christian art as representing the heads of the nails of the

Crucifixion, and hence its early Christian name.[544] It was

originally filled in with a radiated ornament like the sun; (probably

the first motive of this pattern, which seems to be the same as the

Egyptian sun-cross,) and its peculiar decoration remained in

possession of the descriptive name "palmated," though it is difficult

to discover in it any likeness to the palm branch or tree, unless it

is supposed to resemble it as seen from above.

The toga triumphalis was also called the toga picta, because its

precious purple fabric was covered with gorgeous embroideries. After

it had been worn at the triumph or festival, by the victorious

general, the distinguished noble, or the Emperor, it was laid by and

dedicated in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. Thus these palmated

triumphal patterns, and their traditional decorations, having by their

dedication to the gods assumed a religious character, were woven for

Christian ecclesiastical use during the dark ages, and were repeated

in Sicily and Spain down to the beginning of the fifteenth

century.[545]

I have elsewhere spoken of the "cloud pattern," which is very ancient,

Chinese, Indian, and mediæval. Its use has always been for celestial

subjects in embroidery, either isolating or supporting spiritual

figures. This was appropriated by ecclesiastical art, and we find it

nowhere else in Europe.

This sketch of the history of ecclesiastical needlework, (necessarily

incomplete from want of space), is founded on the works of Semper,

Bock, Rock, and the comparison of many specimens in collections and

exhibitions in London and elsewhere. Auberville absolutely places

before us the materials as well as the patterns of the weaving of the

Christian era, as well as fragments of Egyptian textiles, in his

beautiful book on Tissues.

For forms and patterns we cannot do better than study Bock's

liturgical chapters and their illustrations, as well as Dr. Rock's

"Church of our Fathers."

The stitchery of Christian art has been discussed in the chapter on

stitches, and I repeat that there is nothing new in the treatment of

solid embroideries, (lace stitches having been the only innovation of

the last 400 years), though many of the ancient stitches have lost

their distinctiveness, and fallen into a pitiful style by gradual

descent which reached its lowest point in the early part of this

century, as is shown by the robes embroidered for the coronation of

Charles X. in the museum of the Louvre.

In the commencement of this our nineteenth century, there was a total

cessation of embroidery, which had, for nearly 2000 years held its own

as an art, apart from all others; perhaps a secondary one--yet mixed

up with every refinement and luxury of civilization.

Its revival in England, especially, is owing to many causes. As

ecclesiastical decoration I have already attributed it to the

archæological tendencies of our day, as well as to the æsthetic

sentiment which protests, after so long a period of abstention,

against the puritanical bareness and coldness of our national forms of

worship. The obliteration of embroidery from the list of the arts was

more complete in England than elsewhere; as the church of Rome still

continued to be adorned with beautiful work on altar-cloths and

frontals, and priest's dresses, which, though too much regulated in

design by the lay tastes and fashions of the time, have combined to

keep up a traditional school of needlework throughout the Continent.

Exhibitions abroad and at home have shown us what a latent power in

art embroidery still preserves, and architects have employed the

women's needles to give colour and beauty to the decaying churches,

which have been restored to their original architectural effects by

careful copies of what remained in wood, stone, and glass.

The number of new churches has also given rise to the production, in

more than one semi-conventual establishment, of beautiful and

effective works, such as the altar-cloth at Durham, and those at

Canterbury and Worcester. Such works have revived the impulse of

artistic and ecclesiastical taste, and in many small churches we have

seen beautifully embroidered altar decorations.[546]

There are, however, many amateurs who are perhaps mistresses of the

craft of needlework, and who are yet not educated sufficiently to

design a really thoughtful and beautiful work of art, and to these a

few remarks may be addressed, which may help the struggling aspirants,

and show them how they fail, and where to seek for assistance.

I shall begin by pleading for more careful design, and less parsimony

in expenditure upon the usual church adornments. It is once more a

received dogma in ecclesiastical art, one in which all religious

opinions agree, that the building in the parish which is set apart for

the first public duty, that of worship, should show as much beauty as

the means and taste of the community can command.

Perhaps the little church has just been restored, or completely

rebuilt from the foundations; the consecration is imminent. The white

stone, carved or plain, shines fresh and cold, and the whole space

looks poor and bare.

The rich woman of the neighbourhood sees and feels that colour is

wanting (for the windows must wait till their use as pious memorials

fills them with glowing tints). The central point of the whole

edifice, the altar, calls for the first key-note in colour to be

struck, and a splendid altar-cloth is the fitting instrument.

She consults the architect, who probably is also an artist, and the

design is agreed upon, and hurriedly drawn and carried out; for there

is not a moment to lose if it is to be ready for the opening day. It

may be beautiful, and it sometimes is so, but the mere want of time

for due consideration often results in the commonplace ornamentation,

which neither satisfies the eye nor the mind. It is often only a mere

bit of colour and a mediæval pattern, and has no apparent motive or

meaning to give it value.

One sometimes finds that a conventional form has been selected, of

which the emblematic intention it originally expressed has been

forgotten or overlooked. Therefore, while to the unlearned it conveys

no meaning, it is read as absolute nonsense by the ecclesiastical

archæologist, simply because it is worked in a language of

undeciphered hieroglyphics--unknown to the worker--meaningless,

reminding us of the Græco-Egyptian inscriptions, of which the pictured

words seem to have been copied at random for their prettiness, or the

Arabian lettering on some of the ancient Sicilian textiles, which is

nonsense. The sense and the emblematic meaning are forgotten, and the

conventional form--an empty shell--is alone retained, conveying no

idea, and reduced to the low purpose of being a pretty pattern, vague

and unintelligent.

I have so often said that a pattern always originally possessed, and

should always retain a meaning, that I fear to become tiresome; but I

repeat it here, as in ecclesiastical design it is more important than

elsewhere; the meanings are deeper, and convey more essentially solemn

traditions and allusions. If the motive of the designer is evident,

and is conscientiously worked out, its value receives an enduring

quality, and its present interest is enhanced.

Embroidery is not less eloquent than her sister-arts in the teaching

of divine lessons, and appealing through the beauty of form and

colour to the poetical instincts of the congregation, of which the

least educated members almost unconsciously feel the influence; and

besides, the people are always alive to the charms of symbolism, when

it is placed within their reach. As a proof of this, among our own

peasantry and mechanics, I would point to their universal enjoyment of

the "Pilgrim's Progress."

In the symbolism of art, the thoughts which are individual to the

artist can only be expressed by known forms and colours, even as the

poet must employ the words and the metres already accepted by the

literature of his language.

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

deterioration is its costliness.

In the dark and mediæval ages, time was of no account. Skilled labour,

such as was needed for carving, illuminations, and embroideries, was

freely given as the duty of a life, for one particular object, the

good of a man's soul. The cloistered men and women worked for no

wages; neither to benefit themselves nor their descendants; hardly for

fame,--that was given to the convent which had the credit of

patronizing and producing art,[547] while the very name of the artist

was forgotten.

It was from pure love of the art as a craft, and the belief that it

was a good work in which they were engaged, and from their abundant

leisure, that they were enabled to evolve the lovely creations which

delight and astonish us when shown in the sacristies and treasuries of

foreign religious houses and churches, where they have been cherished

for centuries. Like the silkworm they spent themselves; and by their

industrious lives were surrounded in their living graves by the

elaborated essence of their own natures, a joy and consolation to

themselves, and a legacy to all time. To them, also, art appeared as

the consoler.

But to return to the grievances of to-day--cheapness and hurry,

economy of pence and hours--these often are the bane of the work which

we give to the Church, sometimes as a memorial, sometimes as a

thank-offering. The colours are bad, because cheap dyes fade, and none

others can be had without much trouble, and we have only time to

select among those that are for sale. The work is poor because it must

be done quickly, and we cannot afford to delay and pay for the extra

hours necessary to make the stitches worthy and capable of lasting.

Possibly we cannot give the time ourselves, nor can find any one

effectually to organize and overlook the work.

Though the design, the motive, the colours and materials, as well as

the stitches, need to be each carefully studied, yet we perhaps accept

an ancient drawing intended for a different place and use; and thus we

fail to produce any effect, with uncongenial surroundings. Sometimes

we feel obliged to take the design forced upon us by a shopwoman as

ignorant as ourselves, with the submissive hope "that it will do."

Now to a truly artistic mind it would appear that each little church,

however simple and devoid of ornament, requires its own special

colours and design, besides the individual motive of the giver; and

people forget that the whole effect in any such compositions must be

comprehensive, and that one careless mistake spoils all.

The High Church, in its love of ritualistic vestments, has sometimes

been prejudicial to the general adoption of properly studied altar

decorations; as there is a common suspicion that a clergyman's

personal wish for ornament, akin to a woman's addiction to fine

clothes, governs all his attempts to adorn the altar; whereas there

should be, and there often is, a real artistic feeling for the fitness

of things, in the furnishings of the most beautiful building set aside

by the community for the glory of God. But it is not necessary for

beautiful effects that there should be any coloured vestments. When

the clergy are duly robed in the orthodox surplice and scarves, there

is, perhaps, something funereal in the white linens and black Geneva

silk, but yet the traditional white and black have their own value

against a background of altar-cloth and reredos splendidly coloured.

Now that, in spite of prejudice, church decoration is so much the

custom of our day, it is worth our while to consider seriously how

best to carry it out, and search into the principles which may apply

to all ecclesiastical embroideries, whether they are to be dedicated

in the Minster, the village Church, or the home Chapel.

We must begin by remembering that in these days, if we cannot do the

work ourselves, it must be highly paid for. The skilled artisan who is

no artist, receives enough to feed his family, according to the higher

wages of the time. The woman's slow stitchery has to support probably

as many claims, and yet it is always grudged as being too costly. The

sculptor or the painter who succeeds in obtaining employment, is

highly paid, but the designer for metal-work or embroideries occupies

an unrecognized place in art, and barely earns enough to live by. The

illuminator has ceased to exist; he would starve--probably has been

starved out long ago.

The decorative designer, having, therefore, no status, has no

education; and it is almost impossible to find in England an artist to

accept orders for thoughtful ecclesiastical designs. Hundreds of boys

and girls are taught "freehand drawing," and having copied some casts

and lithographs and drawn some flower-pieces, without any particular

aim, find a precarious living by designing frightful wall-papers for

the million. These poor creatures, from whose lives all ambition and

originality have been effaced, are our decorative artists.

Still a beautiful original design can sometimes be obtained, and if

that is beyond our reach, we may courageously copy from ancient

models, selecting judiciously what is most suitable for our purpose.

The ecclesiastical artist should be well informed in the modes of

working a design. The stitch if selected without experience may mar

the effect of the whole composition, as some stitches of themselves

convey the meaning of shadow, and others that of light.

In ecclesiastical work which is intended to be effective in the

distance, as well as perfect in detail, it is worth while to weigh the

claims of the architectural low-relief motive, i.e. a flat raised

surface, with an edge sufficiently accentuated to catch a light on one

side, and cast a sharp shadow on the other. All flat _raised_ stitches

conduce also to this effect, especially if edged with a cord, and it

is much more striking than in stuffed work (on the stamp), which has

not the incisive effect that is given by the tool to the sharp edge of

stone or wood carvings.

If we can afford to give to our church without stint, let us seek for

the most beautiful textiles, such as are again woven in imitation of

the old fabrics; gratefully acknowledging all that Pugin, Ruskin, and

the foreign manufacturers, especially those at Lyons, have done in the

revival of woven designs. Let us avoid those materials which are

easily spoiled by sunshine, dust, and smoke, and all those that fray

easily. Woollens are not long lived. Crewels, beautiful as they are,

are not salient in their effect. Silks, satins and velvet, and gold

brocades,[548] or groundings worked in with gold thread, are the only

materials worthy of bearing fine embroidery, fit to receive them, and

capable of keeping them for centuries. Plushes and worsted velvets are

unworthy, indeed they are worthless.

The gold we employ must be either pure "passing," or else the Chinese

or Japanese gold threads which differ in colour, but have each their

own value, and never tarnish, even in the coal smoke of London. Pure

silver, too, is beautiful, and if it is really pure, can be kept

bright with bread crumbs.

In composing the altar decoration for the cathedral or the village

church, we ought to take into consideration what is suitable for the

surrounding architecture. In great spaces, the majestic altar-cloth or

frontal, shining with gold and silver, and glowing with silken

embroideries, recalls the splendid altar "palli" encrusted with gems

in St. Mark's, St. Peter's, and other ancient churches; and is in

perfect keeping with the high and gorgeous reredos, the rich screen,

the fretted roof and clustered ornaments of a great cathedral choir.

Such glories are unattainable in the modest village church.

But though we may subdue the brilliancy of our decoration, we should

try to make it yet a work of art. The design may have as much

intention, the work be as refined and individual, and the gold as

pure, as in larger works. The precious metals may be confined to small

spaces in the parts we desire to accentuate, such as the cross in the

centre, or the edges of the orphreys, or they may be entirely replaced

with fine silk work.

The altar-cloth we desire to present, may be simply a gift, so that we

may choose any design that will agree with the date of the building.

We may prefer any subsequent style, but not one anterior to that of

the architecture. It would be a mistake to imitate Anglo-Saxon

ornaments in a church of the flamboyant style.

Perhaps the altar-cloth we are discussing may be intended as a sort of

votive offering, a memorial of a baptism, a wedding, or a funeral.

For the first, white silk worked in gold and silver, or gold-coloured

silk, or parsemé with conventional spring flowers would be

appropriate. For a marriage, crimson, rose-colour, blue and gold, or a

mixture of all these, to produce a festive and gorgeous effect. For a

funeral, purple or violet silk or velvet, with palms and the crown of

thorns in gold or silver.[549] These would serve at the festivals of

the Church: the purple for Good Friday,[550] the crimson for Saints'

days, the white for Christmas and Easter Sunday.

The reredos, or the screen curtain behind the altar, should be made

available for enhancing its effect, as well as for enlarging the area

of textile coloured decoration.

As this is intended for a background, it should be either subdued or

else contrasting, in juxtaposition with that which it is intended to

supplement. Woollen embroideries or tapestries are the most usually

selected for this purpose. The softness of fine crewels is well shown

near the more glowing tints of silk, velvet, and gold of the altar

frontal. If this is white, or light coloured, the reredos hanging

should be of dark or richly worked material; if the frontal is dark,

the contrast should be preserved by hangings of tender shades.

The pulpit and reading-desk, with their small cushions and veils, and

beautiful worked covers for the books, give opportunities for

repetition of colour which is often required for picturesque effect.

I should recommend the young ecclesiastical designer to study the

principles which guided the authors of some of the fine Gothic

examples remaining to us, such as the great Stoneyhurst cope, and the

palls of the different London companies, as well as the very few fine

altar-cloths still existing. All these have their brilliant and

effective treatment; they are intended to be glorious, and either

represent massive jewellers' work or tissues of wrought gold.

Anciently, the ornaments for the different church services, which we

timidly reduce to floral decorations (often, however, very beautifully

planned and executed), gave the opportunity for displaying costly

embroidered hangings.

The paschal of the choir of Durham, for example, was a marvellous

construction of wood and gilding, metal-work, and (probably) hangings.

It was as wide as the "lateral" of the choir, and as high as the

building, so that the central and seventh candlestick (that from which

the new fire for the year was kindled) was so near the roof that there

was a "fine convenience through the said roof of the church for the

help of lighting it." I quote from a rare book printed by G. S. Ross

for Mrs. Waghorn, 1733.

This little book is full of interesting matter regarding Durham

Cathedral, though the author is most concerned in relating the

vandalisms committed by the dean's wife, Mrs. Whittinghame, who

evidently had "no culture," and a strong turn for appropriating odds

and ends, such as tombstones, embroidered silk, and other curiosities

which she deemed valueless except for her own purposes,--such a woman

is a real archæological misfortune!

The corporax used in celebrating the mass by St. Cuthbert in the

seventh century (he died and was buried at Holy Isle in 657) was

supposed to be endowed with miraculous powers and was carried into

battle on many occasions as a banner.

This banner was of crimson velvet on both sides, wrought with flowers

in green silk and gold, and fringed with red silk and gold. The

corporax cloth was inserted in the centre, and covered with a square

of white velvet, having on it a cross of red velvet, "most

artificially worked and fringed, with little silver bells in the

fringe." This was carried into battle, till Dame Whittinghame "did

most injuriously destroy the same in her fire."

One feels as if this woman were spiteful, as well as stupid. But for

her punishment, her memory is kept quite the contrary to green by Mrs.

Waghorn's careful record of her iniquities; which has at the same time

fortunately preserved to us the description of the banner of St.

Cuthbert, and gives also an idea of "the good and sumptuous furniture

of changeable suits," and of "the divers vestments wrought and set

round about with pearls, both stoles and flannels, &c."

Looking at it from a distance, it appears that the "fair white linen"

for the communion service always requires the softening of the edges

by fringes, by cut work embroidery, or by thick lace edgings. If a

white ground for embroidery is required, nothing is more beautiful

than linen, especially if it is not over-bleached. White, in art,

should be represented by the nearest approach to no colour; but it is

more agreeable to the eye by its being tempered with a suggestion of

the natural tint, of which all textile substances possess something

(excepting cotton) before they have passed through the hands of the

fuller or the chemist.

Corporals and veils for the pyx used to be of white linen, embroidered

with white silk or linen thread; the silk gives a beautiful, varied,

shining brightness.

I think a few words should be said about the fringe.[551] Its motive

and _raison d'être_ is the disposal of the threads of the warp when it

is cut out of the frame; these being tied and knotted symmetrically,

become an artistic decoration instead of an untidy tangle of threads

and thrums. Edging the material and finishing it with its own loose

ends is a very ancient custom; and we can see from the sculptures of

Nineveh that they were great in that city in the art of fringe-making,

and the Israelites, when they made their hangings for the sanctuary,

trimmed them with fringes. It stands to reason that an added fringe

should be arranged with reference to the origin of the decoration, and

the moment we think of it, the eye is annoyed by seeing a deep fringe

of one or two colours traversing the whole widths of the frontal and

super-frontal, quite irrelevantly, and without any reference to the

masses of colours, woven or embroidered, above them; and the

consequence of this carelessness is, that it makes it look as if this

part of the decoration, came from another source, independent of the

composition which it ought to supplement. The fringe should belong to

the whole design, and be carefully fitted to the spaces occupied by

the colours above it, each of its compartments or divisions being

filled in with those tints which are most conspicuous in the general

design and would show effectively in the warp. It is not necessary to

account for all the colours, as the threads employed to form the woof

would naturally disappear at the sides of the web. The sections of the

fringe should be skilfully arranged so as to reappear at equal

distances, or at least they should be so balanced as to produce that

effect. If this is impossible, the fringe should be all of one shade,

matching exactly the ground of the textile. It may be relieved by

clustered knobs, or hanging beads or cups of different colours and

gold. The celebrated pluvial at Aix-la-Chapelle has a fringe of gold

bells hanging to a gold cord, which amalgamates with the pattern.[552]

The veils of the Sanctuary in the wilderness were fringed with

attached ornaments, bells, blossoms, knops, flowers, and fruit, which

sounds extremely pretty.

To resume, let me once more urge that in church work neither time nor

trouble be spared; nor yet money grudged, if possible. The design

should be full of intention, the stitching perfect, and the materials

most carefully chosen for tints, for endurance and smoothness.

Remember that no inferior substitute will serve to give present

effect, nor will it last into the future.

Design, as I have elsewhere said, is all the better for being to a

certain degree circumscribed, relegated, and regulated by the laws of

traditional usage, as well as those of good taste, and this applies

especially to ecclesiastical design.

These laws serve as the frame which encloses the motive thought, and

makes it a complete whole, that can admit of no amplifications.

New symbols should not be adopted except for the expression of new

facts or altered circumstances, and these can but seldom enter into

liturgical art.

There is so much already formulated and admitted, and the area in

which we may gather our materials is so large, that we need not seek

for more than we find under our hand, ready for use.

Besides the symbolism of dogma, we have all the heraldry of the

Saints; and can repeat and vary the emblems of those to whom the

church we are working for is dedicated. The keys of St. Peter, the

sword of St. Paul, the lilies of the Virgin, the cross of St. Andrew,

the eagle of St. John,--I need hardly enumerate all these legitimate

sources of decoration. Then there is the lay heraldry which belongs to

the history of each church, and which memorializes the reign of the

monarch when it was begun, finished, or restored, and the pious work

and care of the founder and benefactor, the architect, and sometimes

that of the sculptor.

Now as our forefathers accepted all this material for ecclesiastical

design, remodelling it to their own uses in different centuries, so we

cannot ourselves do better than imitate them, and profit by their

experience; never missing an opportunity of studying ancient

embroideries; and while we admire in them all that is admirable, and

appreciate their historical and archæological value, we may yet

extract greater benefit for ourselves, by criticizing what is

imperfect, as well as what is possibly a descent and failure from a

higher type.

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

avoid.

As a general rule, I should warn the young artist against the

imitation of "naïveté" and so-called "quaintness;" especially in our

designs for Church embroidery as it is hardly a noble quality in art,

though we look on it with a tender pity, half-way between admiration

and contempt, when we find it inevitably in mediæval work; struggling

to overcome the expression of something difficult, and expressing a

difficulty only partly overcome. We find ourselves putting our minds

into the attitude of the artist who conceived those figures with arms

conventionally growing out of the encasing garment; conventionally

holding a book, and giving a blessing with a conventional twist, not

entirely ungraceful, nor devoid of a certain dignity, rather felt than

perceived. Yet we contemplate them with a smile of conscious

superiority, appreciating our own refined sense of their merits and

infantine progress towards something good, that time--a long

time--would, and did evolve. But those efforts at last culminated in a

Christian art, such as is seen in the splendid forms and adornments in

stone, gold, silver, glass, and embroideries of the thirteenth and

fourteenth centuries. Such splendours as the windows of Bourges, the

Sainte-Chapelle at Paris, or those of the Cathedral of Toledo, or

King's College Chapel at Cambridge. Such sculptures and traceries as

those of the Puits de Moise at Dijon, and the Chapter House at

Southwell in Nottinghamshire. Such embroideries as the Syon cope, and

the Borghese triptych. These are types worthy of all praise, and they

are full of instruction to the student of ecclesiastical art.

The Kensington Museum offers us endless help and suggestions in its

very interesting collection of liturgical vestments of every date and

school; and its textiles, illustrated by the inventory of their

learned collector, Dr. Rock, are most instructive.[553]

In the library of that museum are to be found many of the learned

works on these subjects by French and German _savants_. The

exhibitions in the English counties are never without a case or a room

full of embroideries, collected from the treasure-chests of the

neighbouring churches and country houses, and especially from those of

the ancient Roman Catholic families. The colleges of Oscott and

Stoneyhurst have collected, by purchase or by gift, many fine relics

of the craft, which are most liberally granted for exhibition.

For those who can go further afield there is instruction in almost

every Continental town. Rome, Florence, Milan, Toledo, Sens, Rheims,

Aix-la-Chapelle, Berne, Vienna, Halberstadt, Berlin, and Munich--each

and all have stores of beautiful liturgical objects carefully

preserved; of many dates, and many styles, and showing endless

varieties of design, which can be employed on new works by careful

selection and adaptation. Most of these belong to the eleventh and

succeeding centuries; any earlier examples are fragmentary, and have

generally been taken from the tombs of kings and bishops.

It seems to savour of desecration, this opening of shrines and

disturbing the ashes of the illustrious dead, if only for the

satisfaction of archæological curiosity. But except where it has

hitherto been protected by the sanctity of the tomb, there is so

little that remains to us,--so few textiles have survived the friction

of use, or even that of the air, through as many as a thousand years

or more, that we may plead the hunger for truth, and the eager desire

for proofs of identity and verification of historical legends, which

are to be extracted from the shape of a garment, from the pattern on

the border, or the lettering on the web of which it is composed;

whence we reverently cut a fragment, and preserve it under glass.

"If studious, copie fair what time hath blurr'd,

Redeem truth from his jawes."[554]

Before closing this chapter, I would wish to observe that I have

entered into the subject of church decoration in no ritualistic

spirit; I do not treat it theologically, but as art; and if these

decorations are to be carried out at all, I feel that I am rendering a

service to those whose duty or pleasure it is to provide them, by

pointing out where they may find the principles which have been the

spring and life of mediæval art, and the survivals which are now the

best exponents of those principles to guide us in the works of our

day.

FOOTNOTES:

[479] Figure-drawing in early Christian art was for

nearly a thousand years primitively barbarous, with

occasional exceptions. The rapid decline in Europe,

through the art of the Catacombs and St. Clemente at

Rome, and the frescoes and mosaics of Ravenna, down to

the Bayeux tapestries, is very remarkable. In those

inartistic compositions during the early Middle Ages,

the figures were drawn facing the spectator, the head

and feet in profile, differing in nothing from the

Egyptian and Assyrian modes of representation. We can

hardly account for this return to childish ways, from

which Greece and Rome had so long been emancipated,

except by supposing that they came from the imitations

of Oriental textiles, which still retained very ancient

forms; for instance, the motive of the sculptured lions

over the gate of Mycenæ. We cannot say that Greek art in

Rome was quite extinct till the eighth century. About

that time there was a remarkable revival in England.

[480] Till very lately we have been entirely dependent

on the frescoes in the Catacombs and in the underground

Church of St. Clemente at Rome, and on monumental art

and illuminations, for our knowledge of the textiles of

the earliest days of Christianity. But Herr Graf'schen's

discoveries in Egypt will, when published, add greatly

to our information on this subject.

[481] The book by Parker on the "Liturgical Use" says

that only the five liturgical colours were permitted in

the use of the Church of England. Before the Reformation

the Norman and English liturgical colours were

different. (Rock, "Church of our Fathers," ii. p. 268.)

Perhaps nothing was originally worked departing from

this rule, but votive offerings are inventoried as being

of all colours, having been accepted and used as

decoration and for vestments.

[482] I have already spoken of the custom of clothing

the images of the gods as a classical tradition. The

Greeks draped their statues in precious garments, often

the spoils of subjugated nations, offerings from the

conquerors, or obsequious tribute from the conquered.

Newton (Appendix 1) tells us of inscriptions containing

inventories of old clothes offered in the Greek Temples.

Ezekiel (xvi.) speaks of silk and linen embroideries

given for covering the idols. The images of the saints

in Roman Catholic churches are, we know, constantly

draped in splendid embroideries, and hung with jewels.

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

[484] Charlemagne's dalmatic, described hereafter, of

which the pedigree is well ascertained, justifies

Woltmann and Woermann's theory; as this eighth-century

embroidery shows, by its design, that Greek art was

still a living power.

[485] Of which we have yet examples on the Continent,

here and there; for instance, in the Cathedral at Coire

in the Grisons, and in the Romanesque church at Clermont

in Auvergne (not the cathedral). I do not include in

this statement of the rare occurrence of the ogee, the

European countries which were subject to Moorish rule,

i.e. Spain and Portugal.

[486] This, slightly modified, continued to prevail till

the time of Louis XIV., when France took the lead, and

gave a style to the world which entirely broke away from

all mediæval tradition.

[487] Rock's "Church of our Fathers," i. p. 409. Compare

Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," i. p. 332 (see fig. 1);

and Bock's "Liturgische Gewänder," taf. i., i. p. 130,

fig. 6. Bock does not give his authority for the pattern

on the ephod.

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

vi.

[489] Yates' "Textrinum Antiquorum," pp. 203, 376, §

103. He quotes from Claudian the description of a

trabea, said to have been woven by the goddess Roma

herself, for the consul Stilicho. I give this as showing

how forms and patterns become sacred by their being

attributed to the inspiration of the gods. The name of

Stilicho marks his tomb in Sant' Ambrogio's Church at

Milan, on which is a curious moulding, carved with

alternate roses and mystic crosses.

[490] Clapton Rolfe, "Ancient Use of Liturgical

Colours."

[491] See the Book of Kells, Library, Dublin; also St.

Cuthbert's Durham Book, British Museum, and the Celtic

MSS. in the Lambeth Palace Library.

[492] Celtic and Scandinavian designs are characterized

by meandering, interlaced, and knotted lines, which are

described and discussed in the chapter on patterns. The

forms of the Celtic stone crosses are very beautiful.

See "L'Atlas de l'Archéologie du Nord, par la Société

Royale des Antiquaires du Nord" (Copenhagen, 1857),

where the metal remains are shown by careful engravings;

also George Stephen's "Old Northern Runic Monuments."

[493] See Bock's "Liturgische Gewänder," i. p. 126,

quoting Anastasius Bibliothecarius, pp. 153, 156, 189.

[494] Ibid. p. 189.

[495] The information here collected proves that these

sovereign gifts to the great basilicas were by no means

of costly materials, especially as compared with the

preceding splendours of Rome, or the still more

astounding luxury of Alexandria through the Greek

conquests of the Eastern nations. To these rules of

economical decoration, however, we find occasionally

exceptions. We gather also from later lists that the

embroideries of the Papal See were culled, in the

thirteenth century, from France, Spain, Germany, and

England.

[496] See also Bock's "Liturgische Gewänder," vol. i.

pp. 9, 18, 56, 86, plate 2. At a later period the lion

motive is supposed to have represented a Christian in

the arena, and it certainly in time was symbolical of

man struggling with the dominion of sin. However, Bock

considers the design to have been originally classical

Greek, and it survived to the seventh and eighth

centuries, and was reproduced as late as the sixteenth.

[497] The Code of Manu in India, which 2500 years ago

regulated all the crafts and ruled their decorations, is

still in full force, and Chinese art was crystallized in

the reigns of the first emperors of the Hia dynasty,

2197 B.C.

[498] We cannot but respect the memory of Attila, who

checked the spoliation of Rome by his troops.

[499] The collections of needlework in Germany are very

rich. The treasury of the cathedral at Halberstadt, the

Markt-Kirche of Brunswick, the sacristy of the

Marien-Kirche of Dantzic, and that of the Kaland

Brethren at Strahlsund are especially quoted by Bock. At

Quedlinburg are the tapestries of its famous abbess; at

the Pilgrim Church of Marie at Zell are fine remains of

stuffs and embroideries by the ladies of the imperial

house of Hapsburg, of the thirteenth century; at the

Abbey of Göss (near Lieben, Steiermark) is to be seen

the remarkable needlework of the Abbess Kunigunda, and

in the cathedral treasury of Heidelberg the antipendium

of the fourteenth century, made for the church at Tirna.

The museums of Berlin, Munich, and Vienna are very rich

in textiles.

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

[501] Helen Lwyddawc. See "Mabinogion," by Lady C.

Guest, pp. 279-284. This beautiful story is told in the

language of the romance period, and yet has a certain

Celtic colouring in it, which shows its origin. The

ballad opens with a description of Helen watching a game

of chess, clothed in white and gold, seated on a chair

of gold, when Maxentius finds her in her father's

palace.

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

[503] See chapter on English embroidery, _post_.

[504] Early decorations of ecclesiastical dress are so

thoroughly illustrated by the ancient frescoes and

mosaics in Italy, that we can form an idea of the

embroidered vestments of each period by studying them,

and the early illuminated books that are scattered over

Europe. Dr. Bock gives authentic illustrations as well

as information about the finest Continental specimens.

[505] For the mosaics of Santa Pudenziana, see Woltmann

and Woermann, i. p. 167, "History of Painting."

Translated by Sidney Colvin.

[506] Appendix 4. Lord Lindsay's "History of

Ecclesiastical Art," i. p. 136. These gorgeous vestments

are engraved by Sulpiz Boisserée in his "Kaiser

Dalmatika in der St. Peterskirche," and far better by

Dr. Rock, in his splendid work on the "Coronation Robes

of the German Emperors."

[507] It is singular that we find the starry cross and

the swastika filling alternate square spaces on the

mantle of Achilles--playing at dice with Ajax--on a

celebrated Greek vase in the Etruscan Museum at the

Vatican. I have referred to this design elsewhere.

(Plate 26.)

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

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

[510] Kindly supplied to me by the Father Superior of

San Clemente in Rome.

[511] In the cathedral of Aix, Switzerland. Bock's

"Liturgische Gewänder," i. taf. ii.

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

to England.

[513] Bock, "Liturgische Gewänder," ii. taf. xii. This

is dyed in Tyrian purple (rosy red), and is simply the

cross, representing the tree with twelve leaves, "for

the healing of the nations."

[514] Bock, "Liturgische Gewänder," i. taf. iii. pp.

157-160.

[515] Bock, _ibid._, p. 158, quotes the Jesuit Erasmus

Fröhlich, (1754).

[516] See Bock's "Liturgische Gewänder," i. taf. iv. pp.

165, 166. "One of three costly garments."

[517] Modifications of the "wheel pattern" ("wheel and

plate"). Of these works of the tenth and eleventh

centuries the fine Roman lettering in the borders is a

marking characteristic.

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

[519] There was no guild of embroiderers in England that

we know of till that incorporated in the reign of

Elizabeth. See chapter on English embroidery.

[520] Bock, i. 214, says that the splendid stuffs and

embroideries were entirely consecrated to the use of the

Church, till the luxurious arts invaded European

domestic life from the seventh to the twelfth century.

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

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

work.

[523] At Aachen, in Switzerland, there is a very

remarkable pluvial of one kind of opus Anglicanum, which

has been already alluded to. The border, of splendid

gold embroidery, has the pattern completed in fine

flowers of jewellers' work. (See Bock, "Liturgische

Gewänder," ii. p. 297, taf. xli.-xliv.) Rock, "Textile

Fabrics," Introduction, p. xxxi, cites from Mon. Angl.

(ii. 222), the vestments given to St. Alban's Abbey by

Margaret, Duchess of Clarence, A.D. 1429, as being

remarkable for pure gold in its texture and the

splendour of the jewels and precious stones set into it,

as well as for the exquisite beauty of its embroideries.

These are some of the characteristics of the opus

Anglicanum.

[524] Appendix 6.

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

Needlework.

[526] If it is true that in the days of the Greeks and

Romans the art of acupictura or needle-painting copied

pictorial art, so likewise in the Egyptian early times,

painted linens imitated embroideries. This we learn by

specimens from the tombs. Painted hangings and

embroideries appear to have been equally used for

processional decorations. In the Middle Ages painted

hangings imitated embroideries and woven hangings, and

were considered as legitimate art.

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

[528] Exhibited in the "Esposizione Romana" in 1869, in

the cloisters of Santa Maria degli Angeli.

[529] See Woltmann and Woermann, who quote evidence as

to works in painted glass as early as the ninth and

tenth centuries in France and Germany ("History of

Painting," vol. i. pp. 316-339). They remark that the

character of painted glass is nearly akin to textile

decoration, that it is essentially flat and unpictorial.

And doubtless there is an analogy between the two, but

rather suggesting patchwork or cut work than legitimate

embroidery.

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

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

plâteresque Spanish.

[532] The dress of the "Virgin del Sagrario" at Toledo,

embroidered with pearls, and the chasuble of Valencia,

worked with corals, show how profusely these costly

materials were employed.

[533] See "The Industrial Arts of Spain," pp. 250-264,

by Don Juan F. Riano, and catalogues of Loan Exhibition

by him for the South Kensington Museum series, 1881. The

works of Spanish Queens and Infantas are to be seen at

the Atocha, the church of the Virgin del Pilar at

Madrid.

[534] There are most interesting examples of Scriptural

subjects in Bock's "Liturgische Gewänder," i. taf. x.

pp. 207, 208; taf. xi. pp. 239-278. These are of the

thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; and we have some

good fifteenth century bead-work in the South Kensington

Museum.

[535] The splendid embroideries from Westminster Abbey,

sold to Spanish merchants at the Reformation, now at

Valencia, and the cope in the Museum at Madrid, are

instances of these exportations. The Syon cope also was

returned to England, after its long wanderings, about

sixty years ago. I give its history by Dr. Rock in the

Appendix 6.

[536] For examples of this ornate and graceful, but

frivolous style, we may remember the mosaic altar

frontals throughout the basilica of St. Peter's at Rome.

[537] See Dr. Rock's "Catalogue of Textile Fabrics,"

South Kensington Museum, Introduction, p. cxxxvi.

[538] Bock's "Liturgische Gewänder," i. taf. vi., vii.,

pp. 385-392. The emblematic meanings of stones is

constantly alluded to in the Old Testament. Their

symbolism has, therefore, a high authority and most

ancient descent. In the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford is an

illuminated copy of Philip de Than's Bestiarium,

composed for Adelais, second wife of Henry I.

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

477.

[540] See Clapton Rolfe, "The Ancient Use of Liturgical

Colours." (Parker, 1879.)

[541] See "Indian Arts," by Sir G. Birdwood, i. p. 97.

He says this [Illustration] form is the sign of the

Buddhist or Jainis, and that the [Illustration]

fire-stick form was that of the Sakti race in India.

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

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

[544] In mediæval times the cross in a circle was

sometimes called the "clavus" [Illustration]. It was

the same as an Egyptian sign, meaning "land" (plate 25).

Donelly fancifully claims the sign as being that of the

garden of Eden, and of the four rivers flowing from it

(see "Atlantis").

[545] See plate 70, No. 1. In the upper part of the

Halberstadt diptych, No. 1, the "gens togata" are

sitting on Olympus, clothed in such purple garments

embroidered with the chrysoclavus.

[546] I would instance the little church of St. Mary,

built and adorned by the late W. E. Street, at Feldy, in

Surrey.

[547] The art of illumination had in general kept a

little in front of that of the painter, and illumination

and embroidery went hand in hand.

[548] The fine brocades of velvet and gold, of which we

find examples in the centres of palls, and a notable one

in the celebrated Stoneyhurst cope, are still reproduced

to order at Lyons, Genoa, Florence, and in Spain. The

Florentine is distinguished by the little loops of gold

thread which pervade it.

[549] In the English ritual gold was permitted wherever

white was enjoined. This shows a true appreciation of

the effect of the metal, separating and isolating all

colours, and being of none.

[550] The purple is not one of the five mystic colours

named; it is included in blue, and therefore the most

ritualistic critic need not object to it.

[551] Under the Carlovingians, priestly garments were

often enriched with splendid fringes, trimmed with

bells. A Bishop of Elne, who died in 915, left to his

church a stole embroidered with gold and garnished with

bells. So rich were the fringes at that epoch, that King

Robert, praying one day in the church, became aware that

while he was lost in meditation a thief had ripped off

part of the fringes of his mantle. He interrupted his

proceedings by saying, "My friend, suppose you content

yourself with what you have taken, and leave the rest

for some other member of your guild." See "Histoire du

Tissu Ancien," Union Central des Arts Décoratifs. For a

fringe with bells, see the beautiful example in Bock's

"Liturgische Gewänder" (plates xli. xlii. xliii. vol.

ii. p. 297), already quoted.

[552] Resembling the fringe of St. Cuthbert's corporax,

with its silver bells.

[553] This valuable collection of textiles is so ancient

and therefore so frail, that it seems a pity to send

portions of it continually travelling about the country

for loan exhibitions. Change of climate--cold, heat, and

damp--carelessness in packing and unpacking--above all,

the reckless exposure to floods of sunshine even when

they are protected from dust by glass,--all these

endanger the preservation of what can never be replaced,

and has only survived till now because of the quiet and

darkness in which it has lain for centuries.

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