FOOTNOTES:

“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 onpatterns. 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, 2197B.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 onEnglish 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. (Plate26.)[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 onEnglish 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 (plate63).[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 plate69, 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 theAppendix 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 thisBuddhist or Jaini crossform is the sign of the Buddhist or Jainis, and that theSakti fire-stick crossfire-stick form was that of the Sakti race in India.[542]See chapter onpatterns, p.103-4,ante.[543]Revelations chap. xxii. v. 2.[544]In mediæval times the cross in a circle was sometimes called the “clavus”Clavus. It was the same as an Egyptian sign, meaning “land” (plate25). 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 plate70, 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.

[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 onpatterns. 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, 2197B.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 onEnglish 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. (Plate26.)

[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 onEnglish 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 (plate63).

[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 plate69, 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 theAppendix 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 thisBuddhist or Jaini crossform is the sign of the Buddhist or Jainis, and that theSakti fire-stick crossfire-stick form was that of the Sakti race in India.

[542]See chapter onpatterns, p.103-4,ante.

[543]Revelations chap. xxii. v. 2.

[544]In mediæval times the cross in a circle was sometimes called the “clavus”Clavus. It was the same as an Egyptian sign, meaning “land” (plate25). 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 plate70, 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.

Through the preceding chapters I have tried to moderate my predominant interest in our national school of needlework, seeking to place it in its just position alongside of the coeval Continental schools. However, the more I have seen of specimens at home and abroad, the more I have become convinced of the great superiority of our needlework in the Middle Ages. As information about our own art must be valuable to us, I give a short account of English embroidery.

In England our art, like our language, is mixed. Our early history is one of repeated conquest, and we can only observe where style has flowed in from outside, or has formed itself by grafting upon the stem full of vitality already planted and growing. It is interesting to seek its root.

There is every reason to believe, from the evidence of the animal remains of the Neolithic Age (including those of sheep), that they came with their masters from the central plateau of Asia.

The overlap of the Asiatic civilizations over the barbarism of Northern Europe shows that Assyria[555]as wellas Egypt was a highly organized empire, and the Mediterranean peoples far advanced in the arts of life, while the Neolithic man survived and lingered in Britain, France, and Scandinavia. Yet, even at that early period, the craft of spinning and the use of the needle were practised by the women of Britain.[556]

Our first glimpses of art may have come to us by Phœnician traders, touching at the Scilly Islands and thence sailing to the coasts of Cornwall and Ireland. From Ireland we have curious relics as witnesses of their presence—amongst others, jewellery connected by, or pendant from, “Trichinopoly” chains, similar to those dug out of Etruscan tombs, and which were probably imported into Ireland as early as the sixth centuryB.C.[557]

In the Bronze Age the chiefs and the rich men wore linen or woollen homespun. Fragments of these have been found in the Scale House barrow at Rylston, in Yorkshire. Dr. Rock says that an ancient Celtic barrow was opened not long ago in Yorkshire, in which the body was wrapped in plaited (not woven) woollen material.[558]Before this time the Cymri in Britain probably wore plaited grass garments; they also sewed together the skins of animals with bone needles.

Dyeing and weaving were well understood in Britain before the advent of the Romans. Hemp and flax, however, though native to the soil, were not employed by the early Britons. Linen perhaps came to us first through the Phœnicians, and afterwards through the Celts, and was naturalized here by the Romans.

Anderson (“Scotland in Early Christian Times”) gives a high place to the forms of pagan art which prevailed in the British Isles, before the Roman civilization; and differing from and influencing that which came from Scandinavia. We must certainly allow that it was art, and that it contained no Greek or other classical element. His illustrations explain and give great weight to his theories.

Cæsar invaded England forty-five yearsB.C.[559]TheRomans gave us Christianity and the rudiments of civilization, but their attempts to Romanize us met with little success. Probably they imported their luxuries, and removed all they valued at the time of their exodus. From them we know what they found and what they left in Britain. Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni, the day of her defeat wore a tartan dress (polymita) and an “embroidered” or “fur” mantle; probably the fur was inside, and the skins embroidered outside. Dion Cassius,[560]who describes Boadicea’s motley tunic, says that the bulk of the people wore what was apparently a chequered tartan. Semper says that the early tribes of Northern Europe, like the North American Indians of the present time, embroidered their fur wraps. The Emperor Honorius, in the fourth century, made it illegal for Roman nobles to wear extravagantly-worked fur robes; perhaps the report of Boadicea’s dress had set the fashion in Rome.

During the first four centuries of our era, all art in Britain must have come from our Roman masters; and owing to their neglect of the people they conquered, we benefited little by their civilization.

All that we know of their decorative art in Britain, is that it was, with few exceptions, chiefly of small bronze statues, somewhat crude and colonial, as appears from the remains of their architecture, sculpture, mosaics, andtombs.[561]Of their textiles we have no relics, and hardly know of any recorded, if we except the works of the Empress Helena. See p.316,ante. We must remember that, as she was a British princess, it is likely that she had learnt her art at home, and therefore that the women of England were already embroiderers as early as the beginning of the fourth century.[562]

On the departure of the Romans, chaos ensued, till the Britons, who had called in the Saxons to help them, were by them driven into Wales, Brittany, and Ireland, which last they Christianized; and mingled the art of the Germans and Celts with that of the Danes and Norsemen[563]; allwhich may be traced in the Irish remains to be seen in the College Museum at Dublin and elsewhere. From the time that England became Anglo-Saxon, literature, law, and art began to crystallize; and when, under Egbert, one kingdom was formed out of the heptarchy, order and a sense of beauty were in the course of development. Then came the invasion of the Danes (ninth century), who robbed, destroyed, and arrested all artistic improvement, till Alfred got rid of them for a time. Early in the seventh century the women of England had attained great perfection in needlework. This appears from a passage in a poem by Adhelme, Bishop of Sherborne. He speaks of their shuttles, “filled not with purple only, but with various colours, moved here and there among the thick spreading threads.”[564]He had himself a robe “of a most delicate thread of purple, adorned with black circles and peacocks.” This may or may not have been woven in England, but at that time weaving, as well as needlework, was the delight and occupation of the ladies of the court and of the cloistered nuns.[565]The thralls (slaves or serfs)were employed in weaving in the houses of the nobles, probably they embroidered also.

Mrs. Lawrence sees reason to believe that in the seventh century, silk and fine linen were the materials for altar decorations, vestments, and dress; whereas the hangings of the house were of coarse canvas adorned with embroidery in thick worsted.[566]She says the term “broiderie” was reserved for the delicate works on fine grounds, in silk and gold and silver thread, and enrichments in metal work. Precious stones and pearls had already been introduced into the Byzantine and Romanesque designs imported from Greece and Rome.

The English Dominican Friar, Th. Stubbs, writing in the thirteenth century, describes in his notice of St. Oswald a chasuble of Anglo-Saxon work, which exactly resembles that of Aix.[567]This is splendidly engraved in Von Bock’s “Kleinodien” amongst the coronation robes of the Emperors of Germany, and is adorned with the richest golden orphreys, imitating jewellers’ work, enriched with pearls and silver bells.

There is an Icelandic Saga of the thirteenth century which relates the history of Thorgunna, a woman from the Hebrides, who was taken to Iceland on the first settlement of the country by Norway,A.D.1000. She employed witchery in her needlework, and her embroidered hangings were coveted by, and proved fatal to, many persons after her death, till one of her inheritors burned them.[568]

Pl. 71.Showing 'Aelfled fieri precepit' embroidered around a central plant motif

Pl. 71.

One of the ends of the Stole of St. Cuthbert at Durham, which together bear the inscription,“Aelfled fieri precepit pio Episcopo Fridestano.”

English ecclesiastical art did not necessarily keep to Christian subjects; for it is recorded that King Wiglaf,of Mercia, gave to Croyland Abbey his splendid coronation mantle and “velum;” and that the latter was embroidered with scenes from the siege of Troy.[569]

Pl. 72.Separate panels, one showing St. John, the other St. RogerSee larger image

Pl. 72.

Durham Embroideries, tenth century.

It was probably on account of such derelictions from orthodox subjects of design that in the eighth century the Council of Cloveshoe admonished the convents for their frivolous embroideries.[570]

In the eighth century our English work in illuminations and embroideries was finer than that of any Continental school; and therefore, in view of the great advance of these secondary arts, we may claim that we were then no longer outer barbarians, though our only acknowledged superiority over Continental artists was in the workrooms of our women and the cells of our religious houses.

During the terrible incursions of the Danes, and the many troubles that accrued from these barbarous and idolatrous invaders, the convents and monasteries, especially those of the order of St. Benedict, kept the sacred flame of art burning.[571]Both monks and nuns wrote, illuminated, painted, and embroidered. They evidently continued their relations with foreign art, for it is difficult to say at what period the Norman style beganto be introduced into England. It was the outcome of the Romanesque, and of this, different phases must have come to us through the Danes and the Saxons.

I cannot but dwell on the early life and springtide of our Anglican Christian art, which in many points preceded and surpassed that of other northern nations, as we arose from that period commonly called the Dark Ages. Ours was a gradual development, adding to itself from outer sources new strength and grace. The better perfection of details and patterns was succeeded by Anglo-Saxon ingenuity and refinement in drawing the human figure. The art, which was native to England, may be judged by the rare examples that we possess, and of which we may well be proud; though we must remember with shame how much was destroyed at the Reformation. Enough however, remains to prove that our English art of illumination of the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries was very beautiful, and we are not surprised therefore to find in the embroideries of that period grace and artistic feeling.

The stole and maniple of the Durham cathedral library, which bear the inscription “Aelfled fieri precepit pio Episcopo Fridestano,” are of the most perfect style of Anglo-Saxon design; and the stitching of the silk embroidery and of the gold grounding are of the utmost perfection of needlework art (plates71,72).

The history of this embroidery is carefully elucidated by Dr. Raine in his “Saint Cuthbert.” He says that Frithestan was consecrated bishop in 905, by command of Edward the Elder, son of Alfred the Great. Aelfled was Edward the Second’s queen. She ordered and gave an embroidered stole and maniple to Frithestan. After her death, and that of Edward, and of the Bishop of Winchester, Athelstan, then king, made a progress to the north, and visiting the shrine of St. Cuthbert, at Chester-le-Street, he bestowed on it many rich gifts, which are solemnly enumeratedin the MSS. Cott. Brit. Mus. Claud. D. iv. fol. 21-6. Among these are “one stole, with a maniple; one girdle, and two bracelets of gold.” That the stole and maniple are those worked for Frithestan by the command of his mother-in-law, Aelfled, may fairly be said to be proved. These embroideries, worked with her name and the record of her act, were taken from the body of St. Cuthbert in 1827.[572]

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