There are some very ancient names, distinguishing different textiles,
which require notice: such as “chrysoclavus,” “stauraccin,”
“polystaurium,” “gammadion” or “gammadiæ,” “de quadruplo,” “de
octoplo,” and “de fundato.” Textiles of silk and gold are, over and
over again, enumerated as then commonly known under such names, in
the ‘Liber pontificalis seu de gestis Romanorum pontificum:’ a book
of great value for every student of early Christian art-work, and in
particular of textiles and embroidery.
The _Chrysoclavus_, or golden nail-head, was a remnant which lingered a
long time among the ornaments embroidered on ecclesiastical vestments
and robes for royal wear of that once so coveted “latus clavus,”
or broad nail-head-like purple round patch worn upon the outward
garment of the old Roman dignitaries. In the court of Byzantium this
mark of dignity was elevated, from being purple on white, into gold
upon purple. Hence it came that all rich purple silks, woven or
embroidered with the “clavus” in gold, were known from their pattern
as gold nail-headed, or chrysoclavus; and silken textiles of Tyrian
dye, sprinkled all over with large round spots, were once in great
demand. Pope Leo in 795, among his several other gifts to the churches
at Rome, bestowed a great number of altar frontals made of this
purple and gold fabric, as we are told by Anastasius in the Liber
pontificalis. Sometimes these “clavi” were made so large that upon
their golden ground an event in the life of a saint or the saint’s head
was embroidered, and then the whole piece was called “sigillata,” or
_sealed_.
_Stauracin_ or “stauracinus,” taking its name from σταυρὸς the Greek
for “cross,” was a silken stuff figured with small plain crosses, and
therefore from their number sometimes farther distinguished by the word
signifying that meaning in Greek, _Polystauron_.
The crosses woven on the various fabrics were sometimes of the simplest
shape; oftener they were designed after an elaborate type with a
symbolic meaning about it that afforded an especial name to the stuffs
upon which they were figured.
This name _Gammadion_, or _Gammadiæ_, was a word applied as often to
the pattern upon silks as to the figures wrought upon gold and silver.
In the Greek alphabet the capital letter gamma takes the shape of an
exact right angle thus, Γ. Being so, many writers have seen in it an
emblem of our Lord as our corner-stone. Following this idea artists at
a very early period struck out a way of forming the cross after several
shapes by various combinations with it of this letter Γ. Four of these
gammas put so;
[Illustration]
fall into the shape of the so-called Greek cross; and in this form it
was woven upon the textiles denominated _stauracinæ_; or patterned with
a cross. Being one of the four same-shaped elements of the cross’s
figure, the part was significant of the whole: and as an emblem of the
corner-stone, our Lord, the gamma or Γ, was frequently shown at one
edge of the tunic worn by the apostles in ancient mosaics; wherein
sometimes we find, in place of the single gamma, the figure H; another
combination of the four gammas in the cross. Whatsoever, therefore,
whether of metal or of silk, was found to be marked in this or any
other way of putting the gammas together, or with only a single one,
was called “gammadion,” or “gammadiæ.”
Ancient ingenuity for throwing its favourite gamma into other
combinations, and thus bringing out pretty and graceful patterns to
be wrought on all sorts of work for ecclesiastical use, did not stop
here. In the Liber pontificalis of Anastasius we meet not unfrequently
with accounts of vestments, etc. “de stauracin seu quadrapolis”; or “de
quadrapolo”; or “de octapolo.” The author here evidently means to imply
a distinction between a something amounting to four, and to eight, in
or upon these textiles. It cannot be to say that one fabric was woven
with four, the other with eight threads; had that been so meant, the
fact would probably then have been explained by a word constructed like
“examitus,” p. 24. As the contrast is not in the texture it must be in
the pattern of the stuffs; that is, in the number of the crosses: and
we further see why “stauracin” and “de quadrapolis” are interchangeable
terms.
At the end of Du Cange’s glossary is an engraving of a work of Greek
art; plate IX. Here St. John Chrysostom stands between St. Nicholas
and St. Basil. All three are arrayed in their liturgical garments,
which being figured with crosses are of the textile called of old
“stauracin;” but there is a marked difference in the way in which the
crosses are inserted. The crosses are arranged upon the vestment of St.
John thus;
[Illustration]
St. Nicholas and St. Basil have chasubles which are not only worked
all over with crosses made with gammas, but are surrounded with other
gammas joined so as to edge in the crosses, thus;
[Illustration]
As four gammas only are necessary to form all the crosses upon
St. John’s vestment, we there see the textile called “stauracin de
quadruplo,” or the stuff figured with a cross of four (gammas);
while as eight of these letters are required for the pattern on the
others, we have in them an example of the “stauracin de octapolo,” or
“octapulo,” a fabric with a pattern composed of eight gammas.
A far more ancient and universal shape fashioned out of the repetition
of the same letter Γ, is that known as _Gammadion_; or, as commonly
called at one time in England, the _Filfot_. Several pieces in the
South Kensington collection exhibit on them some modification of it:
for example, nos. 1261, 1325, 7052, 829A, 8305, 8635, and 8652. Its
figure is made out of the usual four gammas, so that they should fall
together thus;
[Illustration]
Of silks patterned with the plain Greek cross or “stauracin” there are
also several examples in the same collection; and though not of the
remotest period are interesting. No. 8234, perhaps wrought in Sicily by
the Greeks brought as prisoners from the Morea in the twelfth century,
is not without some value. In the chapter library at Durham may be
seen (as we learn from Mr. Raine) an example of Byzantine stauracin
“colours purple and crimson; the only prominent ornament a cross--often
repeated, even upon the small portion which remains.” Those who
have seen in St. Peter’s sacristy at Rome that beautiful light-blue
dalmatic said to have been worn by Charlemagne when he sang the gospel,
vested as a deacon, on the day he was crowned emperor, will remember
how plentifully it is sprinkled with crosses between its exquisite
embroideries, so as to make the vestment a real “stauracin.” It has
been well given by Sulpiz Boisserée in his ‘Kaiser dalmatika in der St.
Peterskirche;’ but far better by Dr. Bock in his splendid work on the
coronation robes of the German emperors.
Silks called _de fundato_, from the pattern woven on them, are
frequently spoken of by Anastasius. From the text of that writer, and
from passages in other authors of his time, it would seem that the
silks themselves were dyed of the richest purple and figured with gold
in the pattern of netting. As one of the meanings for the word “funda”
is a fisherman’s net, rich textiles so figured in gold were denominated
“de fundato” or netted. We gather also from Fortunatus that the costly
purple-dyed silks called “blatta” were always interwoven with gold.
This net-pattern lingered long and, no doubt, we find it under a new
name “laqueatus”--meshed--upon a cope belonging to the church of St.
Paul’s, London, 1295: where an inventory, printed by Dugdale, includes
a cope of baudekin with fir-cones “in campis laqueatis.” Modifications
of this very old pattern may be seen at South Kensington, nos. 1264,
1266, and 8234. In the diapered pattern on some of the cloth of gold
found lately in the grave of an archbishop, buried at York about the
end of the thirteenth century, the same netting is discernible.
_Stragulatæ_, striped or barred silks, were at one time in much
request. Frequent mention is made of them in the Exeter inventories;
for example, in 1277, there were two palls of baudekin, one
“stragulata.” The illuminations in the manuscript in the Harley
collection at the British museum of the deposition of Richard the
second affords us instances of this textile. The young man to the
right sitting on the ground at the archbishop’s sermon is entirely,
hood and all, arrayed in this striped silk; and at the altar, where
Northumberland is swearing on the eucharist, the priest who is saying
mass wears a chasuble of the same stuff. Old St. Paul’s had an
offertory-veil of the same pattern; “stragulatum” with the stripes red
and green.
At the end of the twelfth century there was brought to England, from
Greece, a sort of precious silk named there _Imperial_.
Ralph, dean of St Paul’s cathedral, tells us that William de Magna
Villa, on coming home from his pilgrimage to the holy land about 1178,
made presents to several churches of cloths which at Constantinople
were called “Imperial.” We are told by Roger Wendover, and after him by
Matthew Paris, that the apparition of king John was dressed in royal
robes made of the stuff they call imperial. In the inventory of St.
Paul’s, drawn up in 1295, four tunicles (vestments for subdeacons and
lower ministers at the altar) are mentioned as made of this imperial.
No colour is specified, except in the one instance of the silk being
marbled; and the patterns are noticed as of red and green, with lions
woven in gold. It seems not to have been thought good enough for the
more important vestments, such as chasubles and copes. Probably the
name was not derived from its colour (supposed royal purple) nor its
costliness, but for quite another reason: woven at a workshop kept
up by the Byzantine emperors, like the Gobelins is to-day in Paris,
and bearing about it some small though noticeable mark, it took the
designation of “Imperial.” We know it was partly wrought with gold;
but that its tint was always some shade of the imperial purple is a
gratuitous assumption. In France this textile was in use as late as the
second half of the fifteenth century, but looked upon as old. At York
somewhat later, in the early part of the sixteenth, one of its deans
bestowed on that cathedral “two (blue) copes of clothe imperialle.”
_Baudekin_ was a costly stuff much employed and often spoken of in our
literature during many years of the mediæval period.
Ciclatoun, as we have already remarked, was the usual term during
centuries throughout western Europe by which the showy golden textiles
were called. When, however, Bagdad or Baldak held for no short length
of time the lead all over Asia in weaving fine silks, and in especial
golden stuffs shot as now in different colours, tinted cloths of gold
became known, and more particularly among the English, as “baldakin,”
“baudekin,” or “baudkyn,” or silks from Baldak. At last the earlier
term “ciclatoun” dropped out of use. Remembering this the reader will
more readily understand several otherwise puzzling passages in our old
writers, as well as in the inventories of royal furniture and church
vestments.
Kings and the nobility affected much this rich stuff for the garments
worn on high occasions. When Henry the third knighted William of
Valence, in 1247, he had on a robe of cloth of gold made of baudekin;
“facta de pretiosissimo baldekino.” In the year 1259 the master of
Sherborn hospital in the north bequeathed to that house a cope made of
the like stuff: “de panno ad aurum scilicet baudekin.” Vestments of
this material are frequently mentioned in the old church inventories.
These Bagdad or Baldak silks, with a weft of gold, known among us as
“baudekins” were often woven very large in size, and applied here in
England to especial ritual purposes. As a thanks-offering after a
safe return home from a journey they were brought and given to the
altar; at the solemn burial of our kings and queens and other great
people, the mourners, when offertory time came, went to the hearse and
threw a baudekin of costly texture over the coffin. We may learn the
ceremonial from the descriptions of many of our mediæval funerals. At
the obsequies of Henry the seventh in Westminster abbey:--“Twoe herauds
came to the duke of Buck. and to the earles, and conveyed them into the
revestrie where they did receive certen palles which everie of them did
bringe solemly betwene theire hands and comminge in order one before
another as they were in degree unto the said herse, thay kissed theire
said palles and delivered them unto the said heraudes which laide
them uppon the kyngs corps, in this manner: the palle which was first
offered by the duke of Buck. was laid on length on the said corps, and
the residewe were laid acrosse, as thick as they might lie.” In the
same church at the burial of Anne of Cleves in 1557, a like ceremonial
of carrying cloth-of-gold palls to the hearse was followed. So also the
religious guilds, or other companies, in the middle ages kept palls to
be thrown over the bodies of all brothers or sisters at their burial,
however lowly may have been their rank.
The word “baudekin” itself became at last enlarged in its meaning. So
warm, so mellow, so fast were the tones of crimson which the dyers of
Bagdad knew how to give their silks that, without a thread of gold in
them, the mere glowing tints of the plain crimson silken webs won for
themselves the name of baudekins. Furthermore, when they quite ceased
to be partly woven in gold and from their consequent lower price and
cheapness came into use for cloths of estate over royal thrones, the
canopy hung over the high altar of a church acquired and yet keeps the
appellation (at least in Italy) of “baldachino.”
How very full in size, how costly in materials and embroidery, must
have sometimes been the cloth of estate spread overhead and behind the
throne of our kings, may be gathered from the privy purse expenses
of Henry the seventh; wherein this item occurs: “To Antony Corsse
for a cloth of an estate conteyning 47½ yerds, £11 the yerd, £522
10_s._” Canopies of this kind are still occasionally to be seen in the
throne-room of some of the Roman palaces, whose owners have the old
feudal right to the cloth of estate.
The custom itself is thus noticed by Chaucer:
Yet nere and nere forth in I gan me dress
Into an hall of noble apparaile,
With arras spred, and cloth of gold I gesse,
And other silke of easier availe:
Under the cloth of their estate sauns faile
The king and quene there sat as I beheld.
This same rich golden stuff had a third and even better known name, to
be found all through our early literature as _Cloth of Pall_.
The state cloak (in Latin pallium, in Anglo-saxon paell), worn alike
by men as well as women, was always made of the most gorgeous stuff
that could be found. From a very early period in the mediæval ages
golden webs shot in silk with one or other of the various colours,
occasionally blue but oftener crimson, were sought for through so many
years, and everywhere, that at last each sort of cloth of gold had
given to it the name of “pall,” no matter the immediate purpose to
which it might have to be applied or after what fashion. Vestments for
sacred use and garments for knights and ladies were equally made of it.
The word is common enough in the church inventories.
As to worldly use, the king’s daughter in the ‘Squire of low degree’ had
Mantell of ryche degre
Purple palle and armyne fre:
and in the poem of Sir Isumbras--
The rich queen in hall was set;
Knights her served, at hand and feet
In rich robes of pall.
For ceremonial receptions our kings used to order that every house
should be “curtained” along the streets which the procession would have
to take through London, “incortinaretur.” How this was done we learn
from Chaucer in the ‘Knight’s tale’;
By ordinance, thurghout the cite large
Hanged with cloth of gold, and not with sarge;
as well as from the ‘Life of Alexander:’
Al theo city was by-hong
Of riche baudekyns and pellis (palls) among.
Hence, when Elizabeth, queen of Henry the seventh, “proceeded from the
towre throwge the citie of London (for her coronation) to Westminster,
al the strets ther wich she shulde passe by, were clenly dressed and
besene with clothes of tappestreye and arras. And some strets, as
Cheepe, hangged with rich clothes of gold, velvetts, and silks, etc.”
Machyn in his diary tells us that as late as 1555 “Bow chyrche in
London was hangyd with cloth of gold and with ryche hares (arras).”
Both in England and abroad, it was customary in the middle ages to
provide richly decorated palls with which to cover the biers of dead
people: more especially the members of various guilds. Some of these
are still existing; one, belonging to the London fishmongers’
company; another, of the fifteenth century, is in the museum at Amiens.
[Illustration: Mortuary Cloth from the church of Folleville (Somme),
now in the museum at Amiens.]
A celebrated Mohammedan writer, Ebn-Khaldoun, who died about the middle
of the fifteenth century, while speaking of that spot in an Arab
palace, the “Tiraz,” so designated from the name itself of the rich
silken stuffs therein woven, tells us that one of the privileges of
the Saracenic kings was to have the name of the prince himself, or the
special ensign chosen by his house, woven into the stuffs intended for
his personal wear, whether wrought of silk, brocade, or even coarser
kind of silk. While gearing his loom the workman contrived that the
letters of the title should come out either in threads of gold, or in
silk of another colour from that of the ground. The royal apparel thus
bore about it its own especial marks, and distinguished not only the
sovereign but those personages around him who were allowed by their
official rank in his court to wear it; or those again upon whom he
had bestowed rich garments as especial tokens of the imperial favour,
like the modern pelisse of honour. Before the time of Mahomet the
eastern princes used to have woven upon the stuffs wrought for their
personal use, or as gifts to others, their own especial likeness, or at
times the peculiar ensign of their royalty. But afterwards the custom
was changed and names were substituted, to which words were added
foreboding good or certain formulas of praise. Wherever the Moslem
ruled the practice was introduced; and thus, whether in Asia, in Egypt,
or other parts of Africa, or in Moorish Spain, the silken garments for
royalty and its favourites showed woven in them the prince’s name, or
his chosen text. The robes wrought in Egypt for the far-famed Saladin,
and worn by him as caliph, bore very conspicuously upon them the name
of that conqueror.
In the old lists of church ornaments frequent mention is found of
vestments inscribed with words in real or pretended Arabic; and when
St. Paul’s inventory more than once speaks of silken stuffs “de opere
Saraceno” it is not improbable that some at least of those textiles
were so called from having Arabic characters woven on them. Such,
too, were the letters on the red pall figured with elephants and a
bird, belonging in the fourteenth century to the cathedral at Exeter.
Somewhat later, our trade with the south of Spain led us to call such
words on woven stuffs Moorish: thus, Joane lady Bergavenny bequeaths
(1434) a “hullyng (hangings for a hall) of black red and green, with
morys letters, etc.”
[Illustration: Silk damask (Sicilian) with imitated Arabic letters.]
The weaving of letters in textiles is neither a Moorish nor Saracenic
invention; ages before, the ancient Parthians used to do so, as we
learn from Pliny: “Parthi literas vestibus intexunt.” A curious
illustration of the frequent use of silken stuffs bearing letters,
borrowed from some real or supposed oriental alphabet, is the custom
which many of the illuminators had of figuring on frontals and altar
canopies, evidently intended to represent silk, meaningless words; and
the artists of Italy up to the middle of the sixteenth century did the
same on the hems of the garments worn by great personages, in their
paintings.
The eagle, single and double-headed, may frequently be found in the
patterns of old silks. In all ages certain birds of prey have been
looked upon by heathens as ominous for good or evil. Upon the standard
which was carried at the head of the Danish invaders of Northumbria
was figured the raven, the bird of Odin. This banner had been worked
by the daughters of Regnar Lodbrok, in one noontide’s while; and it is
recorded by Asser that if victory was to follow, the raven would seem
to stand erect and as if about to soar before the warriors; but if a
defeat was impending, the raven hung his head and drooped his wings.
Another and a more important flag, that which Harold fought under at
Hastings, is described by Malmesbury as having been embroidered in
gold with the figure of a man in the act of fighting, and studded with
precious stones, woven sumptuously.
In still earlier ages the eagle, known for its daring and its lofty
flight, was held in high repute; as the emblem of power and victory
it is to be seen flying in triumph over the head of some Assyrian
conqueror, as may be witnessed in Layard’s work on Nineveh. Homer
calls it the bird of Jove. Quintus Curtius says that a golden eagle
was carved upon the yoke of the war chariot of king Darius, as if
outstretching his wings. The Romans bore the bird upon their standards;
the Byzantine emperors kept it as their device; and, following the
ancient traditions of the east and heedless of their law that forbids
the making of images, the Saracens, especially when they ruled in
Egypt, had the eagle figured on several things about them, sometimes
single at others double-headed, which latter was the shape adopted by
the emperors of Germany as their blazon; in which form it is borne to
this day by several reigning houses. It is not strange, therefore, that
eagles of both fashions are so often to be observed woven upon ancient
and eastern textiles.
As early as 1277 Exeter cathedral reckoned among her vestments several
so decorated; for instance, a cope of baudekin figured with small
two-headed eagles: and Richard king of Germany, brother of Henry the
third of England, gave to the same church a cope of black baudekin with
eagles in gold figured on it. These are recorded in the inventories
printed by Dr. Oliver; and many like instances might be noticed in
other lists.
[Illustration: Ladies carding and spinning; from MSS. of the fourteenth
century, in the British museum.]