While telling of a coronation, a royal marriage, the queen’s ‘taking
her chamber,’ her after-churching, a baptism, a progress, or a
funeral, the historian or the painter cannot bring before his own
mind, much less set forth to ours, a fit idea of the circumstances in
the splendour shown on any one of these imperial occasions, unless he
can see old samples of those cloths of gold, figured velvets, curious
embroidery, and silken stuffs, such as are gathered in this collection,
and used to be worn of old for those functions.
Of the many valuable, though indirect uses to which this curious
collection of textiles may, on occasions, be turned, a few there are to
which we call particular attention, for the ready help it is likely to
afford. In the first place, to
THE HISTORIAN,
in some at least of his researches, as he not only writes of bloodshed
and of wars, that make or unmake kings, but follows his countrymen in
private life through their several ways onward to civilization and the
cultivation of the arts of peace.
Besides a tiny shred (No. 675, p. 6) of the very needlework itself,
we have here a coloured plaster-cast of one of the figures in the
so-called Bayeux Tapestry, which, among some, it has of late been a
fashion to look upon as a great historic document, because it was, they
say, worked by no less a personage than William’s own queen, Matilda,
helped by her handmaids.
Its present and modern title is altogether a misnomer. It is
needlework, and no tapestry. Not Normandy, but England, is most likely
to have been the country; not Bayeux, but London, the place wherein it
was wrought. Probabilities forbid us from believing that either Matilda
herself, or her waiting ladies, ever did a stitch on this canvas; nay,
it is likely she never as much as saw it.
Coarse white linen and common worsted would never have been the
materials which any queen would have chosen for such a work by which
her husband’s great achievement was to be celebrated.
But three women are seen upon the work, and Matilda is not one of
them. Surely the dullest courtier would never have forgotten such an
opportunity for a compliment to his royal mistress by putting in her
person.
A piece, nineteen inches broad and two hundred and twenty-six feet
long, crowded with fighting men--some on foot, some on horseback--with
buildings and castles, must have taken much time and busied many hands
for its working. Yet of all this, nought has ever turned up in any
notice of Matilda’s life. She was not, like the Anglo-Saxon Margaret
queen of Scotland, known to fill up her time amidst her maids with
needlework, nor ever stood out a parallel to an older Anglo-Saxon
high-born lady, the noble Ælfleda, of whom we now speak. Her husband
was the famous Northumbrian chieftain, Brithnoth, who had so often
fought and so sorely worsted the invading Danes, by whom he was at last
slain. His loving wife and her women wrought his deeds of daring in
needlework upon a curtain which she gave to the minster church at Ely,
wherein the headless body of her Brithnoth lay buried: “cortinam gestis
viri sui (Brithnothi) intextam atque depictam in memoriam probitatis
ejus, huic ecclesiæ (Eliensi) donavit (Ælfleda).”[370] Surely when
Ælfleda’s handiwork found a chronicler, that of a queen would never
have gone without one. Moreover, had such a piece any-wise or ever
belonged to William’s wife, we must think that, instead of being let
to stray away to Bayeux, towards which place she bore no particular
affection, she would have bequeathed it, like other things, to her
beloved church at Caen. Yet in her will no notice of it comes, and
the only mention of any needlework is of two English specimens, one a
chasuble bought of Aldaret’s wife at Winchester, and a vestment then
being wrought for her in England: “casulam quam apud Wintoniam operatur
uxor Aldereti ... atque aliud vestimentum quod operatur in Anglia,”
both of which she leaves to the Church of the Holy Trinity at Caen.
[370] Historia Eliensis, Lib. Secund. ed. Stewart, p. 183.
But there is the tradition that it is Matilda’s doing. True, but it is
barely a hundred years old, and its first appearance was in the year
1730 or so: tradition so young goes then for nothing. Who then got it
worked, and why did it find its way to Bayeux?
Odo, bishop of Bayeux, and own brother to William came himself, and,
like other rich and powerful Norman Lords, brought vassals who fought
at Hastings. Of all the great chiefs, but one, at most but two, are
pointed out by name on this piece. Odo, however, is figured in no less
than three of its compartments; furthermore, three men quite unknown to
fame, Turold, Vital, and Wadard, receive as many times as the bishop
this same honourable distinction. Rich and influential in Normandy,
Odo, after being made Earl of Kent by his victorious brother, became
richer and more influential in England; hence the three above-mentioned
individuals, the prelate’s feudatories, by their master’s favour, got
possession of wide landed estates in many parts of England, as appears
from Domesday. Coming from Bayeux itself, and owing service to its
bishop, through whom they had become rich lords in England, these three
men may have very naturally wished to make a joint offering to the
cathedral of their native city. Hence they had this piece of needlework
done in London, and on it caused, neither Matilda nor any of the great
chiefs of the Norman expedition, but instead, the bishop of Bayeux and
themselves its citizens to be so conspicuously set forth upon what was
meant to be, for Bayeux itself, a memorial of the part that the bishop
and three men of Bayeux had taken in the Norman conquest of England.
On second thoughts, we look upon this curious piece as the work of the
early part of the twelfth century, perhaps as an offering to the new
church (the old one having been burned down by our Henry I. A.D. 1106)
of Bayeux, as in measurement it exactly fits for hanging both sides of
the present nave, its original as well as recent purpose.
In future, then, our writers may be led to use with caution this
so-called Bayeux Tapestry, as a document contemporaneous with the
Norman conquest.
Though, in the reign of our Henry II. London was the head city of this
kingdom, and the chief home of royalty, some reader may perhaps be
startled on hearing that while its churches were 120, the inhabitants
amounted only to the number of 40,000, as we learn from Peter, its then
archdeacon: “nam quum sint in illa civitate (Londinensi) quadra-ginta
millia hominum, atque centum et viginti ecclesiæ,” &c.[371]--yet, at
that very time, the capital of Sicily--Palermo--by itself was yielding
to its king a yearly revenue quite equal in amount to the whole income
of England’s sovereign, as we are told by Gerald Barry the learned
Welsh writer then living: “Urbs etenim una Siciliæ, Palernica scilicet,
plus certi redditus regi Siculo singulis annis reddere solet, quam
Anglorum regi nunc reddit Anglia tota.”[372] This great wealth was
gathered to Sicily by her trade in silken textiles, first with the
Byzantines and the coasts of Asia Minor and Alexandria, where those
stuffs were at the time wrought; and secondly, with Europe, and the
products of her own looms somewhat later. Many of the pieces in this
collection were woven at Palermo and other cities in that island.
She herself was not the least consumer of her own industry, and of
the profuse employment of silk for royal awnings, during the twelfth
century in the kingdom of the two Sicilies. We have an example in
the silken tent, made for queen Joan, and given her by her husband
king William, large enough to hold two hundred knights sitting down
to dinner; and which, along with her chair of gold, and golden table
twelve feet long and a foot and a-half wide, her brother, our Richard
I. got back for his sister from Tancred: “Ipse (Richardus rex) enim a
rege Tancredo exigebat--cathedram auream ad opus ejusdem Johannæ de
consuetudine reginarum illius regni et ad opus sui ipsius mensam auream
de longitudine duodecim pedum, et de latitudine unius pedis et semis
et quoddam tentorium de serico magnum adeo quod ducenti milites in eo
possint simul manducare.”[373]
Among the old copes, dalmatics and chasubles which, one after the
other, find their way at last to collections such as this, must the
historian seek for what remains of those gorgeous robes worn at some
interesting ceremony, or on some stirring occasion, by personages
celebrated in our national annals. For example, along with the several
gifts bestowed upon the church of Ely, by king Edgar, we find mentioned
his mantle of costly purple and gold, of which was made a vestment:
“Enimvero chlamydem suam de insigni purpura ad modum loricæ auro
undique contextam illuc (ecclesiæ Eliensi) contulit rex Ædgarus.”[374]
Of a whole set of mass vestments at Windsor made out of the crimson and
gold cloth powdered with birds, once the array worn by a royal princess
when she was married, we have already spoken.
[371] Petri Blesensis Opera, ed. Giles, t. ii. p. 85.
[372] Geraldi Cambrensis De Instructione Principum, ed. J. S. Brewer,
p. 168.
[373] Rog. Hoveden Annal. ed. Savile, p. 384, b.
[374] Hist. Elien. Lib. Secund. ed. Stewart, p. 160.
Queen Philippa gave to Symon, bishop of Ely, the gown she wore at her
churching after the birth of her eldest son the Black Prince. The
garment was of murrey-coloured velvet, powdered with golden squirrels,
and so ample that it furnished forth three copes for choir use:
“Contulit sibi (Symoni de Monte Acuto) Domina regina quandam robam
preciosam cum omnibus garniamentis de velvet murreo squirrillis aureis
pulverizato; qua induta erat in die Purificationis suæ post partum
Principis excellentissimi Domini Edwardi filii sui primogeniti. De
quibus garniamentis tres capæ efficiuntur,” &c.[375] To St. Alban’s
Abbey was sent by Elizabeth Lady Beauchamp the splendid mantle made
of cloth of gold lined with crimson velvet which Henry V. had on as
he rode in state on horseback through London, the day before his
coronation. Also another gown of green and gold velvet out of both
of which vestments were made: “Elizabeth Beauchamp mulier nobilis
... contulit monasterio S. Albani quandam togam pretiosissimam auro
textam duplicatam cum panno de velvetto rubeo resperso cum rosis
aureis quæ quondam erat indumentum regis Henrici quinti dum regaliter
equitaret per Londonias pridie ante coronationem suam. Item dedit et
aliam gounam de viridi velvetto auro texto unde fieri posset integrum
vestimentum quæ similiter fuit ejusdem regis.”[376] Naturally wishful
to know something about such costly stuffs, the historian will have
to come hither, where he may find specimens in the gorgeous velvet
and gold chasubles in this collection. Whilst here perchance his eye
may wander toward such pieces as those Nos. 1310, p. 53, and 8624,
p. 239, whereon he sees figured, stags with tall branching horns,
couchant, chained, upturning their antlered heads to sunbeams darting
down upon them amid a shower of rain; and beneath the stags are
eagles; p. 239. This Sicilian textile, woven about the end of the
fourteenth century, brings to his mind that bronze cumbent figure of
a king in Westminster Abbey. It is of Richard II. made for him before
his downfal, and by two coppersmiths of London, Nicholas Broker and
Godfrey Prest. This effigy, once finely gilt, is as remarkable for its
beautiful workmanship, as for the elaborate manner in which the cloak
and kirtle worn by the king are diapered all over with the pattern
(now hid under coats of dirt) on that silken stuff out of which those
garments must have been cut for his personal wear while living; and it
consists of a sprig of the Planta genesta, the humble broom plant--the
haughty Plantagenets’ device--along with a couchant hart chained and
gazing straight forwards, and above it a cloud with rays darting up
from behind. With Edward III. Richard’s grandfather, “sunbeams issuing
from a cloud” was a favourite cognizance. The white hart he got from
the white hind, the cognizance of his mother Joan, the fair maid of
Kent, and rendered remarkable by the unflinching steadfastness of
the faithful Jenico in wearing it as his royal master’s badge after
Richard’s downfal. Sometimes, did that king take as a device a white
falcon, for, at a tournament held by him at Windsor, forty of his
knights came clothed in green with a white falcon on the stuff. During
a foppish reign, Richard was the greatest fop. When he sat to those
two London citizens for his monument, which they so ably wrought, and
which still is at Westminster, our own belief is that he wore a dress
of silk which had been expressly woven for him at Palermo. We think,
too, that the couple of specimens here, Nos. 1310, p. 53, and 8624, p.
239, were originally wrought in Sicily, after designs from England, and
for the court of Richard: they quite answer the period, and show those
favourite devices, the chained hart, sunbeams issuing from a cloud, the
falcon or eagle--a group in itself quite peculiar to that monarch. For
the slight variations in these stuffs from those upon the Westminster
monument, we will account, a little further on, while treating the
subject of symbolism, Section VII.
[375] Anglia Sacra, ed. Wharton, t. i. p. 650.
[376] Mon. Anglic. ed. Caley, t. ii. p. 223.
The seemliness, not to say comfort, of private life, was improved by
the use, after several ways, of textiles. Let the historian contrast
the manners, even in a royal palace during the twelfth century, with
those that are now followed in every tradesman’s home. Then, rich
barons and titled courtiers would sprawl amid the straw and rushes,
strewed in the houses even of the king, upon the floor in every room,
which, as Wendover says: “junco solent domorum areæ operiri;”[377]
and, platting knots with the litter, fling them with a gibe at the man
who had been slighted by the prince.[378] Not quite a hundred years
later, when Eleanor of Castile came to London for her marriage with our
first Edward, she found her lodgings furnished, under the directions
of the Spanish courtiers who had arrived before her, with hangings and
curtains of silk around the walls, and carpets spread upon the ground.
This sorrowed some of our people; more of them giggled at the thought
that some of these costly things were laid down to be walked upon,
as we learn from Matthew Paris: “Cum venisset illa nurus nobilissima
(Alienora) ad hospitium sibi assignatum invenit illud ... holosericis
palliis et tapetiis, ad similitudinem templi appensis; etiam pavimentum
aulæis redimitum, Hispanis, secundum patriæ suæ forte consuetudinem
hoc procurantibus.”[379] Now, our houses have a carpet for every room
as well as on its stair-case, and not a few of our shops are carpeted
throughout.
[377] T. iii. p. 109.
[378] Vita S. Thomæ, auct. Eduardo Grim. ed. Giles, p. 47.
[379] Hist. Ang. in A.D. 1255, p. 612, col. b.
The Emperor Aurelian’s wife once tried to coax out of her imperial
husband a silk cloak--only one silk cloak. “No,” was the answer; “I
could never think,” said that lord of the earth, “of buying such a
thing; it sells for its weight in gold;” as we showed before, p.
xix. Now, however, little does the woman of the nineteenth century
suspect, when she goes forth pranked out in all her bravery of dress,
that an Egyptian Cleopatra equally with a Roman empress would have
looked with a grudging eye upon her gay silk gown and satin ribbons;
or that, as late as three hundred years ago, even her silken hose
would have been an offering worthy of an English queen’s (Elizabeth’s)
acceptance. Little, too, does that tall young man who, as he stands
behind the lady’s chariot going to a Drawing-room, ever and anon lets
drop a stealthy but complaisant look upon his own legs shining in soft
blushing silk--ah! little does he dream that in that old palace before
him there once dwelt a king (James I.) of Great Britain, who would
have envied him his bright new stockings; and who, before he came to
the throne of England, was fain to wear some borrowed ones, when in
Scotland he had to receive an English ambassador. If we take this loan,
for the nonce, from the Earl of Mar to his royal master, to have been
as shapeless and befrilled as are the yellow pair (Blue Coat School
boys’ as yet) once Queen Elizabeth’s, now among the curiosities at
Hatfield; then were those stockings--the first woven in England, and
presented by Lord Hunsdon--funny things, indeed.
Though so small a thing, there is in this collection a little cushion,
No. 9047, p. 273, which bears in it much more than what shows itself
at first, and is likely to awaken the curiosity of some who may have
hereafter to write about the doings of our Court in the early part of
the seventeenth century. This cushion is needle-wrought and figured
all over with animals, armorial bearings, flowers, and love-knots,
together with the letters I and R royally crowned with a strawberry
leaf, and the strawberry fruit close by each of those capitals, as well
as plentifully sprinkled all over the work.
In Scotland, several noble families, whether they spell their name
FRASER or FRAZER, use as a canting charge--“arme che cantano”--of
the Italians; the French “frasier,” or strawberry, leafed, flowered,
fructed proper; the buck too, figured here, comes in or about their
armorial shields. Hence then we are fairly warranted in thinking that
it was a Fraser’s lady hand which wrought this small, but elaborate
cushion, most likely as a gift, and with a strong meaning about it,
to our King James I., whose unicorn is not forgotten here; and, in
all probability, whilst she also wished to indicate that an S was the
first letter in her own baptismal name. Siren too is another term for
mermaid--that emblem so conspicuously figured by the lady’s side. All
this, with the love-knot so plentifully broadcast and interwoven after
many ways, and sprinkled everywhere as such a favourite device, perhaps
may help some future biographer of James to throw a light over a few
hidden passages in the life of that sovereign.
Human hair, or something very like it, was put into the embroidery on
parts of this small cushion. On the under side, to the left, stands a
lady with her hair lying in rolls about her forehead. After looking
well into them, through a glass, these rolls seem to be real human
hair--may be the lady’s own--it is yellow. Peering narrowly into those
red roses close by, seeded and barbed, the seeded part or middle is
found to be worked with two distinct sorts of human hair--one the very
same as the golden hair on the lady’s brow, the other of a light sandy
shade: could this have been king James’s? His son, Charles I., used,
as it would seem, to send from his prison locks of his own hair to some
few of the gentry favourable to his cause, so that the ladies of that
house, while working his royal portraiture in coloured silks, might
be able to do the head of hair on it, in the very hair itself of that
sovereign. One or two of such wrought likenesses of king Charles were,
not long ago, shown in the exhibition of miniatures which took place in
this Museum.
For verifying passages in early as well as mediæval times, little does
the historian think of finding in these specimens such a help for the
purpose.
Quintus Curtius tells us, that, reaching India, the Greeks under
Alexander found there a famous breed of dogs for lion-hunting more
especially. On beholding a wild beast they hush their yelpings, and
hold their prey by the teeth with so much stubbornness that sooner than
let go their bite they would suffer one of their own limbs to be cut
off: “Nobiles ad venandum canes in ea regione sunt: latratu abstinere
dicuntur, quum viderunt feram, leonibus maxime, infesti,” &c.[380]
Such is the animal now known as the cheetah, which, as of old so all
through the middle ages, up to the present time, has been trained
everywhere in Persia and over India for hunting purposes; and called by
our countryman, Sir John Mandeville, a “papyonn,” as we have noticed in
this catalogue, p. 178. This far-famed hunting-dog of Quintus Curtius,
now known as the cheetah or hunting-lion, may be often met with on
silken textiles here from Asiatic looms, especially in Nos. 7083, p.
136; 7086, p. 137; 8233, p. 154; 8288, p. 178.
[380] Lib. ix. cap. i. sect. 6.