Pl. 73.See larger image
Pl. 73.
St. Dunstan’s Portrait of himself in adoration. From his Missal in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.
Another and earlier Aelfled was the widow of Brithnod, a famous Northumbrian chieftain. She gave to the cathedral of Ely, where his headless body lay buried, a large cloth, or hanging, on which she had embroidered the heroic deeds of her husband. She was the ancestress of a race of embroiderers, and their pedigree will be found in theAppendix.[573]At this time a lady of the Queen of Scotland was famed for her perfect skill in needlework, and the four daughters of Edward the Elder were likewise celebrated embroiderers.
St. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, is said to have designed needlework for a noble and pious lady, Aedelwyrme, to execute in gold thread,A.D.924.[574]He prepared and painted a drawing, and directed her work.[575]I here give the portrait of our celebrated early designerfrom the MS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, said to be by his own hand, and which represents him kneeling at the feet of the Saviour (plate73).
Shortly before the Norman conquest, in the beginning of the eleventh century, we have notices of sundry other very remarkable pieces of work.
The Danish Queen Emma, daughter of Richard, Duke of Normandy, when she was wife to Ethelred the Unready, and again during her second marriage to Canute, gave the finest embroideries to various abbeys and monasteries. Canute, being then a Christian, joined her in these splendid votive offerings. To Romsey and Croyland they gave altar-cloths which had been embroidered by his first queen, Aelgitha,[576]and vestments covered with golden eagles. She worked one altar-cloth on shot blood-red and green silk,[577]with golden orphreys at the side and across the top. When one considers what the life of poor Queen Emma was, one hopes that “Art the Consoler” came to her in the form of her favourite craft, and that she did find consolation in it.
Croyland Abbey seems to have been most splendidly endowed by the Anglo-Saxon monarchs. There is continual mention in the records of those times of offerings of embroideries and other Church apparels. Queen Editha, the wife of the Confessor, dispensed beautiful works from her own workrooms, and herself embroidered King Edward’s coronation mantle.
When in the eleventh century the Normans became our masters, they found cathedrals, churches, and palaces which almost vied with their own; likewisesculptures, illuminated books, embroidered hangings, and vestments of surpassing beauty.
William of Poitou, Chaplain to William the Conqueror,[578]relates that the Normans were as much struck on the Conqueror’s return into Normandy with the splendid embroidered garments of the Saxon nobles, as with the beauty of the Saxon youth. Queen Matilda, who evidently appreciated Anglo-Saxon work, left in her will, to the Abbey of the Holy Trinity, “My tunic worked by Alderet’s wife, and the mantle which is in my chamber, to make a cope. Of my two golden girdles, I give the one which is adorned with emblems to suspend the lamp before the great altar.”
I come now to the earliest large work remaining to us of the period—the Bayeux tapestry. We must claim it as English, both on account of the reputed worker, and the history it commemorates, though the childish style of which it is a type is indeed inferior in every way to the beautiful specimens which have been rescued from tombs in Durham, Worcester, and elsewhere. They seem hardly to belong to the same period, so weak are the designs and the composition of the groups. Though Mr. Rede Fowke gives the Abbé de la Rue’s doubts as to the accepted period of the Bayeux tapestry, which he assigns to the Empress Matilda, he yet leans to other equally good authorities who consider the work as being coeval with the events it records.[579]
Mr. Collingwood Bruce is of the same opinion, and for this reason—the furniture, buildings, &c., are all of the eleventh century, and our ancestors were no archæologists, and always drew what they saw around them. Mr. Bruce fancies the design to be Italian, “because of the energetic action of the figures;” this seems hardly justified when we look at the simple poverty of the style. Miss A. Strickland suggests that the artist was perhaps Turold the Dwarf, who has cunningly introduced his effigy and name. That the tapestry is not found in any catalogue before 1369, is only a piece of presumptive evidence against the earlier date, and cannot compete with the internal evidence in its favour. On 227 feet of canvas-linen, twenty inches wide, are delineated the events of English history from the time of Edward the Confessor to the landing of the Conqueror at Hastings. The Bayeux tapestry is worked in worsted on linen; the design is perfectly flat and shadowless. The outlines are firmly drawn with cords on thickly set stem-stitches. The surfaces are laid in flat stitch. Though coarsely worked, there is a certain “maestria” in the execution.
The word “orphrey” (English for auriphrigium or Phrygian gold embroidery) is first found in Domesday Book, where “Alvide the maiden” receives from Godric the Sheriff, for her life, half a hide of land, “If she might teach his daughters to make orphreys.”[580]
In the end of the eleventh century, Christina, Abbess of Markgate, worked a pair of sandals and three mitres of surpassing beauty, sent through the Abbot of St. Alban’s to Pope Adrian IV., who doubtless valued them the more because they came from his native England.[581]
Pl. 74.See larger image
Pl. 74.
English Patterns, chiefly from Strutt’s “Royal and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of England.”
1. 1066. 2. 1092. 3. 1100. 4. 1171. 5. 1171. 6. 1189. 7. 1189. 8. 1361. 9, 10. 1377. 11. 1399. 12. 1422. 13. 1426. 14. 1440. 15. 1445. 16. 1416. 17. 1445. 18. 1477. 19. 1530. 20. 1272.
Pl. 75.1. Birds and foliage pattern; 2. Animals and floral pattern; 3. Crown and plant border patternSee larger image
Pl. 75.
1. Panel of a Screen in Hornby Church. Painted fifteenth century.2. Dress pattern from painted glass. St. Michael’s Church, York. Fourteenth century.3. A portion of the material of the Towneley Copes. Fifteenth century.
Of the twelfth century (1170) we have the robes and mitres of Thomas à Becket at Sens; and another mitre of the period, white and gold, is in the museum at Munich, with his martyrdom embroidered on one side, and that of St. Stephen on the other. The gold needlework is so perfect that it resembles weaving. It is recorded that a splendid dress was embroidered in London for Elinor of Aquitaine, which cost £80, equal to £1400 of the value of to-day.[582]
Rock (“Church of our Fathers,” t. ii. p. 279) truly says that it is shown by plentiful records and written documents, from the days of St. Osmond to the time of Henry VIII., that the materials employed in English ecclesiastical embroideries were the best that could be found in our own country or in far-off lands, and the art bestowed on them was the best we could learn and give. Various fabrics came from Byzantine or Saracenic looms, which are described as damasked, rayed, marbled, &c. The few surviving specimens fully justify the admiration bestowed on them throughout Christendom.
Matthew Paris, in the reign of Henry III., says that Innocent III. (1246), seeing certain copes and infulæ with desirable orphreys, was informed they were Englishwork. He exclaimed, “Surely England is a garden of delight! In sooth this is a well inexhaustible! And where there is so much abundance, from thence much may be extracted!”[583]
From the Conquest to the Reformation the catalogues of Church vestments which are to be found in the libraries of York, Lincoln, and Peterborough, show the luxury of ecclesiastical decoration. In Lincoln alone there were upwards of 600 vestments wrought with divers kinds of needlework, jewellery, and gold, upon “Indian baudichyn,” samite, tartarin, velvet, and silk. Even in reading the dry descriptions of a common inventory, we are amazed by the lists of “orphreys of goodly needlework,” copes embroidered with armorial bearings, and knights jousting, lions fighting, and amices “barred with amethysts and pearls, &c. &c.” The few I have named will give an idea of the accumulation of riches in the churches, and the gorgeousness of English embroideries.[584]
I have collected from Strutt’s “Illustrations”[585]and other sources a number of patterns for domestic hangings, copied from MSS. of contemporary dates, covering about 400 years, from the time of Harold to Edward IV. The hangings may have been more effective than appears at first sight, if the materials were rich and enlivened with gold. I give two textile designs which in their style are peculiarly English (plates74,75).
Now we enter on the age of romance and chivalry, when all domestic decorations began to assume greaterrefinement. Carpets from the East covered the rushes strewn on the floors, and splendid tents were brought home by crusading knights; and the decorative arts of northern Europe were once more permeated with Oriental taste and design.
We know that in the so-called “days of chivalry,” i.e. from the Conquest till the beginning of Henry VIII.’s reign, needlework was the occupation of the women left in their castles, while the men were away fighting for the cross, for the king, for their liberties, or for booty.
This period included the Crusades, the Wars of the Roses, wars with France, and rebellions at home; and yet there was a taste for art, luxury, and show spreading everywhere.[586]
The women were expected to provide, with their looms and their needles, the heraldic surcoats, the scarves and banners, and the mantles for state occasions.[587]They also worked the hangings for the hall and chapel, and adorned the altars and the priests’ vestments. Alas! time, taste, and the moth have shared in the destruction of these gauds. The taste for the “baroc” is a new acquisition; no one cared for what was old, merely because it was old. The rich replaced their hangings and their clothes when they became shabby; the poor let them go to pieces, and probably burned the old stuff and the embroideries for the sake of the gold thread, which was of intrinsic value. But both in prose and poetry we read descriptions of beautiful works in the loom, or on the frame, executed by fair ladies for the gallant knights whose lives and prowess these poems have preserved tous. I will give one quotation from that of Emare, in Ritson’s collection: “Her mantle was wroughte by a faire Paynim, the Amarayle’s daughter.” This occupied her seven long years. In each corner is depicted a pair of lovers, “Sir Tristram and Iseult—Sir Amadis and Ydoine, &c., &c. These pictures were adorned with precious stones.” The figures were portrayed—
“With stonès bright and pure,With carbuncle and sapphire,Kalsèdonys and onyx clere,Sette in golde newe;Diamondes and rubies,And other stones of mychel pryse.”
“With stonès bright and pure,With carbuncle and sapphire,Kalsèdonys and onyx clere,Sette in golde newe;Diamondes and rubies,And other stones of mychel pryse.”
The lady who owns this mantle is herself great in “workes of broderie.”
From the Conquest to the Wars of the Roses, England may claim to have gradually acquired a higher place in art. Our architecture, sculpture, manuscripts, and paintings were not surpassed on the Continent: witness Queen Eleanor’s crosses, and her tomb in Westminster Abbey; and the portrait of Richard II., surrounded by saints and angels, at Wilton House,[588]a picture which, preceding Fra Beato Angelico’s works by at least a quarter of a century, yet suggests his style, refined drawing, and tender colouring. All who saw the frescoes found in the Chapelat Eton College when it was restored, will remember their extreme beauty, and regret that they were effaced, instead of being preserved and restored. They were a lesson in what English art was in the end of the thirteenth, during the fourteenth, and into the beginning of the fifteenth centuries.
During the Wars of the Roses, when a duke of the blood-royal is said to have begged his bread in the streets of the rich Flemish towns, ladies of rank, more fortunate, were able to earn theirs by the work of their needle.[589]
The monuments of the eleventh and twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, are our best authorities for the embroideries then worn. The surcoat of the Black Prince in Canterbury Cathedral is a noteworthy example. The sculptured effigy on the tomb over which it is suspended is absolutely clothed in the same surcoat, with the same accidents of embroidery, as if it had been modelled from it.
In Worcester, when the archæologists opened King John’s tomb in 1797, they found him in the same dress and attitude as that portrayed on the recumbent statue.[590]Dress was then extravagantly expensive, and embroidered dresses were worn with borders richly set with precious stones and pearls.
The Librate Roll of Henry III. gives us a list of embroiderers’ names: Alain de Basinge, Adam de Bakeryne, John de Colonia, &c.; and in the wardrobe accompts of Richard II., William Sanstoune and Robert de Ashmedeare called the “Broudatores Domini Regis.” These may have been the artists to whom the orders were delivered, for in the Librate Roll of Henry III. we find Adam de Baskeryne receiving 6s.8d.for a “cloth of silk, and fringe, purchased by our commands to embroider a certain chasuble which Mabilia of St. Edmunds made for us.” There were certainly then purveyors and masters of the craft. Stephen Vigner, in the fourteenth century, is so warmly commended by the Duke of Berri and Auvergne to Edward III., that Richard II. appointed him his chief embroiderer, and Henry IV. pensioned him for his skilful services.
John Garland, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, is a good authority for the use by our women of small hand-looms. In these they wove, in flax or silk (often mixed with gold), the “cingulæ” or “blode-bendes” so often mentioned, supposed to be gifts between friends for binding the arm, when blood-letting was so much in fashion that the operation was allowed to assume a certain air of coquetry. But the idea suggests itself that this was oftener the gift of the fair weaver to her favoured lover, to fold round his arm as a scarf in battle or tourney, to be ready in case it was needed for binding up a wound, and had possibly served as a snood to bind her own fair hair. There is an account of a specimen of this kind of weaving by M. Léopold Delisle.[591]He describes the attachment of a seal to a grant from Richard Cœur de Lion to Richard Hommet and Gille his wife, preserved in the archives of the Abbey of Aunai, in the department of Calvados. He considers it to be either French or English, and says it was a “lac d’amour,” or “tie of love,” cut up to serve its presentpurpose. It is woven with an inscription in white on a ground of green, backed with pale blue, and the material is silk. The woven legend is thus translated from the old French—“Let him perish who would part us.”
Grouped figures under archesSee larger image
Opus Anglicanum, XIII. CenturyBritish Museum
The term “opus Anglicanum” is first recorded in the thirteenth century, and is supposed simply to mean “English work.” But there is also good authority for its having been applied, on the Continent especially, to a particular style of stitchery, of which the Syon cope in the Kensington Museum is the best preserved great example known. Its peculiarity consists in its fine split-stitch being moulded so as to give the effect of a bas-relief; and this appears to have been generally reserved for the medallions representing sacred subjects, and especially employed in modelling the faces and the nude parts of the figures delineated. The effect of this work has often been destroyed, as time has frayed and discoloured the parts that are raised, exhibiting the canvas ground, reversing the high lights, and causing dark spots in their stead. This reversal of the intended effect is an additional practical argument for the flatness of embroidery.[592]
From the Librate Roll of Henry III. one can form an estimate of the value of the “opus Anglicanum” in its day.[593]In 1241 the king gave Peter de Agua Blanca a mitre so worked, costing £82. This would be, according to the present value, £230.
The finest specimens of this English work are to be found on the Continent, or have been returned from it.[594]They had either been gifts to popes or bishops before the Reformation, or they had been sold at that time of general persecution and pillage. Among the most remarkable are the pluvial (called) of St. Silvester at Rome, the Daroca pluvial at Madrid, the great pluvial at Bologna, and the Syon cope, of which I have already spoken. The general idea and prevailing design of these three great works are so singular, and yet so alike, that they must have issued from the same workshop, and that was certainly English.
In the Daroca cope the cherubim, with their feet on wheels, which are peculiar to English design, and the angels (in the vacant spaces between the framed subjects from the life of our Lord) have their wings carefully done in chain split-stitch representing peacocks’ feathers, of which the silken eyes are stitched in circles, and then raised with an iron by pressure, so as to catch a light and throw a shadow. The ground is entirely English gold-laid work. This cope, so markedly national in design and stitches, probably drifted to the Continent at the time of the Reformation.[595]
Pl. 77.Angel, floral and foliage designsSee larger image
Pl. 77.
Characteristic English Parsemé Patterns for Ecclesiastical Embroideries.
Pl. 78.Plant designs in the centre panel, figures in the border panels, and deep fringe around the edgesSee larger image
Pl. 78.
Dunstable Pall. Property of the Vicar of Dunstableex officio.
A wonderfully preserved specimen of the “opus Anglicanum,” of which a photogravure is here given, was lately presented by Mr. Franks to the Mediæval Department of the British Museum (plate76). In this may be seen most of the characteristics of this work in the thirteenth century; such as the angels with peacock feather wings, moulded by hot irons; the features of all the figures similarly manipulated; the beautiful gold groundwork, which in this instance is covered with double-headed eagles; and lastly, the fashion of the beard on the face of our Lord and of all the men delineated—the upper lip and round the mouth being invariably shaven; whereas,in Continental work, the beard is allowed to grow into the moustache, closely surrounding the mouth. There are other peculiarities belonging to English design—such as the angels rising between the shrine-work on the pillars out of a flame or cloud pattern, and the pillars very often formed of twined stems bearing vine-leaves or else oak-leaves and acorns. The compartments which frame the groups, when they are not placed in niches, are usually variations of the intersected circle and square. Plate77shows the cherubim which from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries are found on English ecclesiastical embroideries—also the vase of lilies (emblematic of the Virgin), and the Gothic flowers which are so commonlyparseméover our mediæval altar frontals and vestments.
Pattern formed from intersected square and circleFig. 26.
It appears that in the reign of Edward III. the people ingeniously evaded the penalties against the excess of luxury in dress, by wearing something that looked as gay, but was less expensive than the forbidden materials; and which did not come under the letter of the law. They invented a spurious kind of embroidery which was, perhaps, partly painted (such examples are recorded). In the 2nd Henry VI. (1422) it was enacted that all such work should be forfeited to the king. The accusation was that “divers persons belonging to the craft of Brouderie make divers works of Brouderie of insufficient stuffe and unduly wroughte with gold and silver of Cyprus, and gold of Lucca, and Spanish laton (or tin); and that they sell these at the fairs of Stereberg, Oxford, and Salisbury, to the great deceit of our Sovereign Lord and all his people.” In those days any dishonest work or material was illegal and punishable.[596]
This was, in fact, a protectionist measure in favour ofthe chartered embroiderers, and gave them a slight taste of the advantages of protection. For a time it was doubtless useful in keeping up the standard of national work. Then followed further measures for the benefit of the established monopolies. First, a statute in 1453 (Henry VI.), forbidding the importation of foreign embroideries for five years. This is re-enacted under Edward IV., Richard III., and Henry VII.; and was partially repealed in the 3rd and 5th George III. While we are on this subject, we may remark that in 1707, the importation of embroidery was forbidden to the East India Company, and we closed our ports to all manufactured Indian goods. The only artistic tradenowprotected is that of the silversmith; no plate from foreign workshops being permitted to enter England—not even do we allow Indian plate to come in, except under certain conditions. This may be the reason that our own plate is so very bad in design and execution, for want of competition and example.
Protection is always more or less fatal to art. The Wars of the Roses had injured our own best schools, and we needed refined imported ideas to raise our standard once again. Perhaps, since embroidery had become a regular industry, our markets were overstocked by home productions which were outrivalled by the works from the Continent, and it was distress that caused the plea for protection.
Pl. 79.Plant patterns on the centre panel, figures and heraldic shields on the side panels, and a fringe around the edgesSee larger image
Pl. 79.
Pall of the Vintners’ Company (sixteenth century).
It is fair to say that some of the English works of that time, of which we have specimens, are as good as possible. In the Dunstable pall, for instance, the figures of which are perfectly drawn and beautifully executed, the style is excellent and pure English (plate78). The pall itself is of Florentine crimson velvet and gold brocade, with the little loops of gold drawn through the velvet, showing the loom from whence it came. The white satin border carries the embroidery. It is a more perfectspecimen of the later fourteenth century work than the famous pall of the Fishmongers’ Company, which shows the impress of the Flemish taste, which was at its perfection in the fifteenth. The style reminds us of that of the fine tapestries from the St. Mary’s Hall, Coventry, of which the subject is King Henry VI. and Cardinal Beaufort praying. The Vintners’ Company’s pall is also very fine (plate79).
Featuring rose and crowned portcullis motifsSee larger image
Henry VII.’s Cope from Stoneyhurst
Of the time of Henry VII. we have the celebrated cope of Stoneyhurst, woven in Florence, of a gold tissue, the design raised in crimson velvet. It is without seam, and the composition which covers the whole surface is the crown of England lying on the portcullis; and the Tudor rose fills up the space with a magnificent scroll. The design is evidently English, as well as the embroidery, which is, however, much restored[597](plate80).
This is one of the “whole suite of vestments and copes of cloth of gold tissue wrought with our badges of red roses and portcullises, the which we of late caused to be made at Florence in Italy ... which our king, Henry VII., in his will bequeathed to God and St. Peter, and to the Abbot and Prior of our Monastery at Westminster,”[598]which were designed for him by Torrigiano.
From the portraits of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we can judge of the prevailing taste in dress embroideries of that period, which consisted mostly of delicate patterns of gold or silver on the borders of dresses, and the linen collars and sleeves. Of this style I give a small sampler, from Lord Middleton’s collection. We have a good many specimens of the work of these centuries, both ecclesiastical and secular.They had still a Gothic stamp, which totally disappeared in the beginning of the sixteenth century in the new style of the Renaissance.
Fig. 27.Sampler, from Lord Middleton’s collection.Time, Henry VIII.
The next great change throughout northern Europe affecting all the conditions of life, most especially in England, was caused by the Reformation, which swept away both the art and the artist of the Gothic era. The monasteries which had fostered painting, illumination, and embroidery, and the arts which had been so passionately devoted to the Church, were doomed. George Gifford, writing to Cromwell of the suppression of a religious house at Woolstrope, in Lincolnshire, after praising that establishment says, “There is not one religious person there, but whatcananddothuse either embrotheryng, wryting bookes with a fayre hand, making garments, karvynge, &c.”[599]
In the general clearance the churches and shrines were swept, though never again garnished, and the survivals have to be painfully sought for, and are so few that a short catalogue will tell them all.
The greater part of the fine embroideries which escaped the “iconoclastic rage” of the Reformation, and the final sweep of the Puritans, are to be seen now in the houses and chapels of the old Roman Catholic families, whohave either preserved or collected them; also in the museums of our cathedrals, and spread about the Continent. For instance, at Sens are the vestments of Thomas à Becket, and at Valencia, in Spain, there are yet in the chapter-house a chasuble and two dalmatics, brought from London by two merchants of Valencia, whose names are preserved—Andrew and Pedro de Medina. They purchased them at the sale of the Roman Catholic ornaments of Westminster Abbey in the time of Henry VIII. They are embroidered in gold, and represent scenes from the life of our Lord. The background of one is a representation of the Tower of London.
In 1520 was held the famous tournament of the Field of the Cloth of Gold.[600]Here came all England’s chivalry surrounding their splendid young king; followed by squires and men-at-arms, and carrying with them tents, banners, and hangings covered with devices and mottoes. Their own dresses, of rich materials and adorned with embroidery (as well as the housings of their horses), vied in ingenuity and splendour with those of the still more luxurious court and following of Francis I., the French king. The tradesmen and workmen and workwomen in England were driven crazy in their efforts to carry out the ideas and commands of their employers. It is recorded that several committed suicide in their despair. It was worse than the miseries caused by a Court Drawing-Room now. Ingenuity in devices was the order of the day. Francis and his “Partners of Challenge” illustrated one sentimental motto throughout the three days’ tourney. The first day they were apparelled in purple satin, “broched” with gold, and covered with black-ravens’feathers, buckled into a circle. The first syllable of “corbyn” (a raven) iscor, a “hart” (heart). A feather in French ispennac. “And so it stode.” The feather in a circle was endless, and “betokened sothe fastnesse.” Then was the device “Hart fastened in pain endlesse.”
The next day the “Hardy Kings” met armed at all points. The French king and his followers were arrayed in purple satin, broched with gold and purple velvet, embroidered with little rolls of white satin, on which was written “Quando;” all the rest was powdered with the letter L—“Quando Elle” (when she). The third day the motto was laboriously brought to a conclusion. Francis appeared dressed in purple velvet embroidered with little white open books; “Liber” being a book, the motto on it was, “A me.” These books were connected with worked blue chains; thus we have the whole motto: “Hart, fastened in pain endlesse, when she delivereth me not of bondes.” Could painful ingenuity go further? On the English side we have similar devices. Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, the bridegroom of the Dowager Queen of France, Henry’s sister, was clothed on one side in cloth of frise (grey woollen), on which appeared embroidered in gold the motto,—
“Cloth of frise, be not too boldThat thou be match’d with cloth of gold.”
“Cloth of frise, be not too boldThat thou be match’d with cloth of gold.”
This parti-coloured garment was on the other side of gold, with the motto,—
“Cloth of gold, do not despiseThat thou be match’d with cloth of frise.”
“Cloth of gold, do not despiseThat thou be match’d with cloth of frise.”
Besides mottoes, cyphers and monograms were the fashion, embroidered with heraldic devices. These particulars we find in Hall’s account of the tournament, with adetailed description of the golden tent in which the monarchs met, and which gave its name ever after to the plain near Guisnes, where the jousts were held. What we read of its construction recalls the Alexandrian erections, of which I have spoken already, as well as their hangings and embroideries.
Pl. 81.Designs including insects, flowers, fruit, vegetables and plantsSee larger image
Pl. 81.
English Specimens of Spanish Work. Time of Henry VIII. Lord Middleton’s Collection.
Pl. 82.Criss-cross patterns form diamonds, in the centre of each is a bird or plant motif
Pl. 82.
English Specimen. Spanish Work. Henry VIII. Louisa, Lady Waterford’s Collection.
Incrustations of pearls and precious stones gave a dazzling brilliancy to the tent, divided into many rooms, and adapted to the climate of the north. It covered a space of 328 feet. Hall describes the tent, the jousts, and the splendid apparel belonging to this last chapter of the magnificence of chivalry. Brewer remarks that magnificence was, in those days, often supposed to be synonymous with magnanimity (at any rate, it was erected into a royal virtue). “The Mediæval Age,” he says, “had gathered up its departing energies for this last display of its favourite pastime, henceforth to be consigned without regret to the mouldering lodges of the past.”[601]
We cannot say how much of French taste was imported from this meeting of French and English luxury. The spirit of the Renaissance, fresh from Italy, was reigning in France, but we had also in Italy our own emissaries. John of Padua was probably only one of many Englishmen who travelled to learn and improve themselves in their special crafts.
Catherine of Aragon introduced the Spanish taste in embroidery, which was then white or black silk and gold “lace stitches” on fine linen (plate81). This went by the name of “Spanish work,” and continued to be the fashion down to and through the reign of Mary Tudor, who remained faithful to the traditions of her mother’s and her grandmother’s work[602](plate82). Catherine of Aragon hadlearned her craft from her mother, Queen Isabella, who always made her husband’s shirts. To make and adorn a shirt was then an artistic feat, not unworthy of a queen. Isabella instituted trials of needlework amongst her ladies. In the days of her disgrace and solitude, Catherine turned to her embroidery for solace and occupation. She came forth to meet the Cardinals Wolsey and Campeggio with a skein of red silk round her neck.[603]Taylor, the water poet, says,—
“Virtuously,Although a queen, her days did passIn working with her needle curiously.”
“Virtuously,Although a queen, her days did passIn working with her needle curiously.”
At Silbergh Castle, in Westmoreland, was a counterpane and toilet embroidered by Queen Catherine.
Anne of Cleves brought with her the taste for Flemish and German Renaissance designs; and all the cushion stitches were in vogue. The Renaissance borders for dress were mostly worked in gold on coloured silk on the linen collars and cuffs. Holbein’s and other contemporary portraits illustrate this peculiarity of the costumes of the time. The women’s head-dresses also carried much fine, beautifully designed, and delicate work.
In the reign of Henry VIII. fine hangings were worked and woven in England; the royal inventories give us an idea to what extent. Cardinal Wolsey’s walls were covered with splendid embroideries, besides the suites of tapestries still adorning the hall at Hampton Court. One room was hung with embroidered cloth of gold.
Mary Tudor, as I have said, was Spanish in all her tastes, and we have lists of her “smocks” all worked in Spanish stitches, black and gold, or black silk only.[604]This taste, following the political tendencies of the time, entirely disappeared under Elizabeth. It survives, however, in peasant dress in the Low Countries.
Queen Elizabeth spent much of her time in needlework. She herself had received the education of a man, as well as her cousin, Lady Jane Grey; and doubtless many women were taught at that time Greek and Latin, and to study philosophy, mathematics, and the science of music, as a training for serious life. Elizabeth studied and embroidered too; at any rate, she stood godmother to many pieces of embroidery, which are to be seen still in the houses she visited or occupied.
While at Ashridge, and afterwards as a prisoner at Hatfield, she so employed herself; and among the specimens of work of the sixteenth century exhibited at South Kensington in 1873, were her shoes and cap, worked in purl, a semainière in the same stitch, also cushion-covers in divers cushion stitches, and a portmonnaie in exquisitely fine satin-stitch; all of which articles, and many more, were left by her at Ashridge when she was hurried away in the dead of night to Hatfield.[605]
The character of the Renaissance of the sixteenth century, just released from the trammels of Gothic traditions, was somewhat lawless in England, being unchastened by the classical element which entirely controlled the movement in Italy.
The queen’s dress soon departed from the severe simplicity which she at first affected, and every part of her costume was covered with flowers, fruit, and symbolical designs; while serpents, crowns, chains, roses, eyes and ears crowded the surfaces of the fine materials of her dresses. These symbolical designs were rich without grace, and ingenious rather than artistic, although their workmanship was perfect. In Louisa, Lady Waterford’s collection we find a jacket for a slight girl’s figure, of white linen, covered with flowers, fruit, and berries, all carried out in satin and lace stitches. There are butterflies with their wings disengaged from the ground; pods bursting open and showing the round seeds or peas; caterpillars stuffed and raised; all these astonish us by their quaint perfection, and shock us bytheir naturalistic crudeness of design, and the utter want of beauty or taste in the whole effect. The impression left on the mind is, how dear it must have cost the pocket of the purchaser and the eyes of the workers. There are, however, exceptions to these defective poor designs; and in the same collection is a cushion-cover worked in gold and silver plate, purl and silk, on a red satin ground, which is as good as possible in every respect, and is purely English in style. The stitches and materials are most refined and varied. Purl, which was a newly made material imported from Italy and Germany, was then in much vogue, and we have seen a few fine specimens of it, that have been imitated from the Italian cinque-cento raised and stuffed needlework, which are very curious and almost very beautiful,—only one feels that the same effect could have been produced by simpler means. This work is characteristic of the reigns of Henry VIII., Elizabeth, and James I. We have needlework of another most unhappy queen of this date. Poor Mary, Queen of Scots, tried to soften Elizabeth’s heart towards her prisoner by little gifts of her own embroideries.[606]
We have no account of the cause of the incorporation of the Embroiderers’ Company by Queen Elizabeth,[607]inthe third year of her reign, Oct. 25th, 1561, confirmed by James II., April 12th, 1686, which is still a London guild. It received the lions of England as a special favour. The arms are thus blazoned: “Palée of six argent and azure on a fess gules, between three lions of England pass. gardant or. Three broches in saltire between as many trundles (i.e. quills of gold thread), or. Crest: on a wreath a heart; the holy dove displayed argent, radiated or. Supporters: two lions or (guttée de sang). Motto: ‘Omnia Desuper.’ Hall, 20, Gutter Lane.” There were branches, incorporated and bearing the arms, at Bristol and Chester, in 1780. (SeeAppendix.)