Chapter 12

[225]Oliver, p. 345.

The Sicilians showed their strong affection for certain plants and flowers. On a great many of the silks in this collection, from Palermitanlooms, we see figured upon a tawny-coloured grounding, beautifully drawn foliage in green; which, on a nearer inspection, bears the likeness of parsley, so curled, crispy and serrated are its leaves. Besides their cherished parsley along with the vine-leaf for foliage, they had their especial favourite among flowers; and it is the centaurea cyanus, our corn blue-bottle, shown among others in No.1283, &c. p. 43, No.1291, p. 47, No.1308, p. 53.

Another peculiarity of theirs is the introduction of the letter U, repeated so as at times to mark the feathering upon the tails of birds; at others, to fall into the shape of an O, as we pointed out at pp.40,225,227,228.

Whether it was that, like our own Richard I., crusaders in after times often made Sicily the halting spot on their way to the Holy Land, or that knights crowded there for other purposes, and thus dazzled the eyes of the islanders with the bravery of their armorial bearings, figured on their cyclases and pennons, their flags and shields, certain is it that these Sicilians were particularly given to introduce a deal of heraldic charges—wyverns, eagles, lions rampant, and griffins—into their designs; and the very numerous occasions in which such elements of blazoning come in, are very noticeable, so that one of the features belonging to the Sicilian loom in its third period, is that, bating tinctures, it is so decidedly heraldic.

Not the last among the peculiarities of the third period in the Sicilian school is the use, for many of its stuffs, of two certain colours—murrey, for the ground, and a bright green for the pattern. When the fawn-coloured ground is gracefully sprinkled with parsley leaves, and nicely trailed with branches of the vine, and shows beasts and birds disporting themselves between the boughs of lively joyous green; the effect is cheerful, as may be witnessed in those specimens No.8594, p. 226, No.8602, p. 229, No.8607, p. 231, Nos.8609,8610, p. 232, all of which so admirably exemplify the style.

All their beauty and happiness of invention, set forth by bold, free, spirited drawing, were bestowed, if not thrown away, too often upon stuffs of a very poor inferior quality, in which the gold, if not actually base, was always scanty, and a good deal of cotton was sure to be found wrought up along with the silk.

Though Palermo was, without doubt, the great workshop for weaving Sicilian silks, that trade used to be carried on not only in other cities of the island, but reached towns like Reggio and other such in Magna Græcia, northward up to Naples. We think that, as far as the two Sicilies are concerned, the growth of the cotton plant always wentalong with the rearing of the silkworm. Of the main-land loom we would specify No.8256, p. 163, No.8634, p. 242, No.8638, p. 243.

Till within a few years the royal manufactory at Sta. Leucia, near Naples, produced silks of remarkable richness; and the piece, likely from that city itself, No.721, p. 13, does credit to its loom, as it wove in the seventeenth century. Northern Italy was not idle; and the looms which she set up in several of her great cities, in Lucca, Florence, Genoa, Venice and Milan, earned apart for themselves a good repute in some particulars, and a wide trade for their gold and silver tissues, their velvets, and their figured silken textiles. Yet, like as each of these free states had its own accent and provincialisms in speech, so too had it a something often thrown into its designs and style of drawing which told of the place and province whence the textiles came.

Luccaat an early period made herself known in Europe for her textiles; but her draughtsmen, like those of Sicily, seem to have thought themselves bound to follow the style hitherto in use, brought by the Saracens, of figuring parrots and peacocks, gazelles, and even cheetahs, as we behold in the specimens here No.8258, p. 163, and No.8616, p. 234. But, at the same time, along with these eastern animals, she mixed up emblems of her own, such as angels clothed in white, like in the example the last mentioned. She soon dropped what was oriental from her patterns, which she began to draw in a larger, bolder manner, as we observe, under No.8637, p. 243, No.8640, p. 244, and showing an inclination for light blue, as a colour.

As in other places abroad, so at Lucca, cloths of gold and of silver were often wrought, and the Lucchese cloths of this costly sort were, here in England, during the fourteenth century, in particular request. In all likelihood they were, both of them, not of the deadened but sparkling kind, afterwards especially known as “tissue.” Exeter Cathedral,A.D.1327, had a cope of silver tissue, or cloth of Lucca:—“una capa alba de panno de Luk.”[226]At a later date, belonging to the same church, were two fine chasubles—one purple, the other red—of the same glittering stuff, “casula de purpyll panno,” &c.,[227]where we find it specified that not only was the textile of gold, but of that especial sort called tissue. York cathedral was particularly furnished with a great many copes of tissue shot with every colour required by its ritual, and among them were—“a reade cope of clothe of tishewe with orphry of pearl, a cope with orphrey, a cope of raised clothe of goulde,”[228]making a distinction between tissue and the ordinary cloth of gold.But at the court of our Edward II. its favour would seem to have been the highest. In the Wardrobe Accounts of that king, we see the golden tissue, or Lucca cloth, several times mentioned. Whether the ceremony happened to be sad or gay, this glistening web was used; palls made of Lucca cloth were, at masses for the dead, strewed over the corpse; at marriages the care-cloth was made of the same stuff; thus when Richard de Arundell and Isabella, Hugh le Despenser’s daughter, had been wedded at the door of the royal chapel, the veil held spread out over their heads as they knelt inside the chancel during the nuptial mass, for the blessing, was of Lucca cloth.[229]Richard II.’s fondness for this cloth of gold was lately noticed, p.xxx.

Just about Edward II.’s time was it that velvet became known, and got into use amongst our churchmen for vestments, and our nobles for personal wear, and the likelihood is that Lucca was among the first places in Europe to weave it. The specimens here of this fine textile from Lucchese looms, though in comparison with those from Genoa, they be few and mostly after one manner—the raised or cut—still have now a certain historical value for the English workman: No.1357, p. 72, with its olive green plain silken ground, and trailed all over with flowers and leaves in a somewhat deeper tone, and the earlier example, No.8322, p. 192, with its ovals and feathering stopped with graceful cusps and artichokes, afford us good instances of what Lucca could produce in the way of artistic velvets.

[226]Oliver, p. 315.

[227]P. 344.

[228]York Fabric Rolls, p. 308.

Genoa, though in far off mediæval times not so conspicuous as she afterwards became for her textile industry, still must have from a remote period, encouraged within her walls, and over her narrow territory, the weaving of silken webs. Of these the earliest mention we anywhere find, is to be seen in the inventory of those costly vestments once belonging to our own St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, in the year 1295: besides a cope of Genoa cloth, that church had, from the same place, a hanging patterned with wheels and two-headed birds.[230]Though this first description be scant, we read in it quite enough to gather that these Genoese cloths must have entirely resembled the textiles wrought at Lucca, but, in particular, in Sicily. Perhaps they had been carried by trade from Palermo to the north-west shores of Italy, whence they were brought in the same way to England, so that they may be deemed to have reached us not so much from the looms themselves of Genoa, as those of some other place, but through her then great port.

Of Genoa’s own weaving of beautiful velvets there can be no doubt, a reputation she keeps to the present day as far as plain velvet is concerned.

In this collection we have samples in every kind of Genoese velvets, from those with a smooth unbroken surface to the elaborately patterned ones—art-wrought velvets in fact—showing, together with wonderful skill in the weaving, much beauty of design. Among the plain velvets in which we have nothing but great softness and depth of pile, along with clear bright luminous tones of colour, No.540, p. 3, is a very fair specimen for its delicious richness of pile; and No.8334, p. 199, not merely for this property, but as well for its lightsome mellow deep tint of crimson.

Getting to what may be truly called art-velvets, we come to several specimens here. Some are raised or cut, the design being done in a pile standing well up by itself from out of a flat ground of silk, sometimes of the same, sometimes of another colour, and not unfrequently wrought in gold, as at pp.18,90,107,110,263. Then we have at No.7795, p. 145, an example of that precious kind—velvet upon velvet—in which the ground is velvet, and again of velvet is the pattern itself, but raised one pile higher and well above the other, so as to show its form and shape distinctly. Last of all we here find samples, as in No.8323, p. 192, how the design was done in various coloured velvet. Such was a favourite in England, and called motley; in his will,A.D.1415, Henry Lord Scrope bequeathed two vestments, one, motley velvet rubeo de auro; the other, motley velvet nigro, rubeo et viridi, &c.[231]

[229]Archæologia, t. xxvi. pp. 337, 344.

[230]Hist. of St. Paul’s, ed. Dugdale, pp. 318, 329.

[231]Rymer’s Fœdera, t. 9, p. 274.

Venicedoes not seem to have been at any time, like Sicily and Lucca, smitten with the taste of imitating in her looms at home the patterns which she saw abroad upon textile fabrics, but appears to have borrowed from the Orientals only one kind of weaving cloth of gold: the yellow chasuble at Exeter Cathedral,A.D.1327, figured with beasts, cum bestiis crocei coloris,[232]is the solitary instance we know, upon which she wove, like the east, animals upon silks. She, however, set up for herself a new branch of textiles, and wrought for church use certain square webs of a crimson ground on which she figured, in gold, or on yellow silk, subjects taken from the New Testament, or the persons of saints and angels. These square pieces were as they yet are, employed, when sewed together in squares as frontals to altars, but when longwise much more generally as orphreys to chasubles, copes and other vestments. Of such stuffs must have been those large orphreys upon a dalmatic and tunicle, at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London,A.D.1295.[233]

Though not of so early a date as the thirteenth century, there are inthis collection specimens of this Venetian web belonging to the sixteenth, which are very fine, No.5900, p. 112, represents the resurrection of our Lord; so does No.8976, p. 271, while No.8978, p. 272, presents us with the coronation of the Virgin, and No.8976, the Virgin and the Child, as also No.1335, p. 71. Far below in worth are the same kind of webs wrought at Cologne, as will be noticed just now.

Any one that has ever looked upon the woodcuts done at Venice in the sixteenth century, such as illustrate, for instance, the Roman Pontifical, published by Giunta, the “Rosario della G. V. Maria,” by Varisco, and other such religious books from the Venetian press, will, at a glance, find on the webs before us from that state, the self-same style and manner in drawing, the same broad, nay, majestic fold and fall of drapery, and in the human form the same plumpness, and not unfrequently with the facial line almost straight; and there, but more especially about the hands and feet, a somewhat naturalistic shape; so near is the likeness in design that one is led to think that the men who cut the blocks for the printers also worked for the weavers of Venice, and sketched out the drawings for their looms.

By the fifteenth century Venice knew how to produce good damasks in silk and gold, and of an historiated kind: if we had nothing more than the specimen, No.1311, p. 54, where St. Mary of Egypt is so well represented, it would be quite enough for her to claim for herself such a distinction. That like her neighbours, Venice wrought in velvet, there can be little or no doubt, and if she it was who made those deep piled stuffs, sometimes raised, sometimes pile upon pile, in which her painters loved to dress the personages, men especially, in their pictures, then, of a truth, Venetian velvets were beautiful. Of this, any one may satisfy himself by one visit to our National Gallery. There, in the “Adoration of the Magi,” painted by Paulo Veronese,A.D.1573, the second of the wise men is clad in a robe all made of crimson velvet, cut or raised after a design quite in keeping with the style of the period.

No insignificant article of Venetian textile workmanship was her laces wrought in every variety—in gold, in silk, in thread. The portrait of a Doge usually shows us that dignitary clothed in his dress of state. His wide mantle, having such large golden buttons, is made of some rich dull silver cloth; and upon his head is that curiously Phrygian-shaped ducal cap bound round with broad gold lace diapered after some nice pattern, as we see in the bust portrait of Doge Loredano, painted by John Bellini, and now in our National Gallery. Not only was the gold in the thread particularly good, but the lace itself in great favour at our court during one time, where it used to be bought, not by yard measure, but byweight; a pounde and a half of gold of Venys was employed “aboutes the making of a lace and botons for the king’s mantell of the garter.”[234]“Frenge of Venys gold,” appears twice, pp. 136, 163, in the wardrobe accounts of Edward IV.

Laces in worsted or in linen thread wrought by the bobbin at Venice; but more especially her point laces, or such as were done with the needle, always had, as indeed they still have, a great reputation: sewed to table-covers, two specimens are found in this collection, described at p.141.

Venetian linens, for fine towelling and napery in general, at one time were in favourite use in France during a part of the fifteenth century. In the “Ducs de Bourgogne,” by Le Comte de Laborde,[235]more than once we meet with such an entry, as “une pièce de nappes, ouvraige de Venise,” &c.

[232]Oliver, p. 313.

[233]Ed. Dugdale, p. 321.

[234]Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York, p. 8.

[235]T. ii. Preuves, p. 107.

Florence, always so industrious and art-loving, got for its loom, about the middle of the fourteenth century, a place in the foremost rank amid the weavers of northern Italy. Specimens of her earliest handicraft are yet few—only two—here; but one sample of the able way in which she knew how to diaper, well shows her ability: No.8563, p. 215, woven in the fifteenth century, will prove this with reference to her secular silks. The pieces described at pp.202,264, witness the boldness of her design during the sixteenth century. In her webs, expressly woven for church-use, is it that she displays her great taste in design, and wonderful power—at least for that time, the fourteenth century—in gearing the loom: the violet silk damask, No.1265, p. 36, and another like piece, No.7072, p. 133, figured with angels swinging thuribles, or bearing crowns of thorns in the hands, or holding a cross, will warrant our remarks. The style of doing the face and hands in white of those otherwise yellow angels, is a peculiarity of the Tuscan loom.

The orphrey-webs of Florence are equally conspicuous for drawing and skill in weaving as her vestment textiles, and in beauty come up to those done at Venice, and far surpass anything of the kind ever wrought at Cologne; specimens of this sort of Florentine work may be seen at Nos.4059, p. 89;7080, p. 136;7674, p. 142;7791, p. 143;197, p. 291. Along with these may be classed the hood of a cope, described at No.8692, p. 260, as well as the apparels to the dalmatic and tunicle, p.143, where the cherubic heads have white faces.

But it was of her velvets that Florence might be so warrantably proud. Our Henry VII. in his will, “Testamenta Vetusta,”[236]bequeathed “toGod and St. Peter, and to the abbot and prior and convent of our monastery of Westminster, the whole suit of vestments to be made at Florence in Italy.” Gorgeous and artistically designed was this textile, as we may yet see in one of these Westminster Abbey copes still in existence, and belonging to Stonyhurst college. The golden ground is trailed all over with leaf-bearing boughs of a bold type, in raised or cut ruby-toned velvet of a rich soft pile, which is freckled with gold thread sprouting up like loops. Though nothing so rich in material, nor so beauteous in pattern, there are here, pp.144,145, two specimens of Florentine cut, crimson velvet on a golden ground, quite like in sort to the royal vestments, and having too that strong peculiarity upon them—the little gold thread loop shooting out of the velvet pile. Though a full century later than the splendid cope at Stonyhurst, and the two pieces Nos.7792,7799, these illustrate the peculiar style of Tuscan velvets.

Among the truly prince-like gifts of vestments to Lincoln Cathedral, by John of Gaunt and his duchess, are many made of the richest crimson velvet of both sorts, that is, plain, and cut or raised to a pattern upon a ground of gold, as for instance:—two red copes, of the which one is red velvet set with white harts lying in colours, full of these letters S. S., with pendents silver and gilt, the harts having crowns upon their necks with chains silver and gilt; and the other cope is of crimson velvet of precious cloth of gold, with images in the orphrey, &c.[237]

That peculiar sort of ornamentation—the little loop of gold thread standing well up, and in single spots—upon some velvets, seems at times to have been replaced, perhaps with the needle, by small dots of solid metal, gold or silver gilt, upon the pile; of the gift of one of its bishops, John Grandisson, Exeter cathedral had a crimson velvet cope, the purple velvet orphrey to which was so wrought:—De purpyll velvete operata cum pynsheds de puro auro.[238]

[236]Ed. Nicolas, t. i. p. 33.

[237]Mon. Anglic. viii. 1281.

[238]Oliver, p. 345.

Milan, though now-a-days she stands in such high repute for the richness and beauty of her silks of all sorts, was not, we believe, at any period during mediæval times, as famous for her velvets, her brocades, or cloths of gold, as for her well wrought admirably fashioned armour, so strong and trustworthy for the field—so furbished and exquisitely damascened for courtly service. Still, in the sixteenth century she earned a name for her rich cut velvets, as we may see in the specimen, No.698, p. 7; her silken net-work, No.8336, p. 200, which may have led the way to weaving silk stockings; and her laces of the open tinsel kind once in such vogue for liturgical, as well as secular attire, as we have in No.8331, p. 197.

Britain, from her earliest period, had textile fabrics varying in designand material; of the colours in the woollen garments worn by each of the three several classes into which our Bardic order was apportioned. Of the checkered pattern in Boadicea’s cloak we have spoken just now,p. xii.

Of the beauty and wide repute of English needlework, we shall have to speak when, a little further on, we reach the subject of embroidery.

From John Garland’s words, which we gave atp. xxii, it would seem that all the lighter and more tasteful webs wrought here came from women’s hands; and the loom, one of which must have been in almost every English nunnery and homestead, was of the simplest make.

In olden times, the Egyptians wove in an upright loom, and beginning at top so as to weave downwards, sat at their work. In Palestine the weaver had an upright loom too, but beginning at bottom and working upwards, was obliged to stand. During the mediæval period the loom, here at least, was horizontal, as is shown by the one figured in that gorgeously illuminated Bedford Book of Hours, fol. 32, at which the Blessed Virgin Mary is seated weaving curtains for the temple.

As samples of one of the several kinds of work wrought by our nuns and mynchens, as well as English ladies, we refer to Nos.1233, p. 24,1256, p. 33,1270, p. 38, demonstrating the ability of their handicraft as well as elegance in design during the thirteenth century. For specimens of the commoner sorts of silken textiles and of wider breadth, which began to be woven in this country under Edward III., it would be as hard as hazardous to direct the reader. Very recent examples of all sorts—velvets among the rest—may be found in the Brooke collection. To some students the piece of Old English printed chintz, No.1622, p. 84, will not be without an interest.

For the finer sort of linen napery, Eylisham or Ailesham in Lincolnshire was famous during the fourteenth century. Exeter cathedral,A.D.1327, had “unum manutergium de Eylisham”—a hand towel of Ailesham cloth.[239]

Our coarser native textiles in wool, in thread or in both, woven together, forming a stuff called “burel,” made of which St. Paul’s London,A.D.1295, had a light blue chasuble;[240]and Exeter cathedral,A.D.1277, a long pall;[241]all sorts, in fine, of heavier work, were wrought in our monasteries for men. By their rule the Benedictine monks, and all their offsets, were bound to give a certain number of hours every week-day to hand work, either at home or in the field.[242]

Weeping over the wars and strife in England during the year 1265 and the woes of the people, our Matthew of Westminster sums up, among our losses, the fall in our trade of woollen stuffs, with which we used to supply the world. O Anglia olim gloriosa ... licet maris angustata littoribus ... tibi tamen per orbem benedixerunt omnium latera nationum de tuis ovium velleribus calefacta.[243]

The weaving in this country of woollen cloth, as a staple branch of trade, is older than some are willing to believe. Of the monks at Bath abbey we are told by a late writer, “the shuttle and the loom employed their attention, (about the middle of the fourteenth century,) and under their active auspices the weaving of woollen cloth (which made its appearance in England about the year 1330, and received the sanction of an Act of Parliament in 1337) was introduced, established, and brought to such perfection at Bath as rendered this city one of the most considerable in the west of England for this manufacture.”[244]Worcester cloth, which was of a fine quality, was so good, that by a chapter of the Benedictine Order, heldA.D.1422, at Westminster Abbey, it was forbidden to be worn by the monks, and declared smart enough for military men.[245]Norwich, too, wove stuffs that were in demand for costly household furniture, for,A.D.1394, Sir John Cobham bequeathed to his friends “a bed of Norwich stuff embroidered with butterflies.”[246]In one of the chapels at Durham Priory there were four blue cushions of Norwich work.[247]Worsted, a town in Norfolk, by a new method of its own for the carding of the wool with combs of iron well heated, and then twisting the thread harder than usual in the spinning, enabled our weavers to produce a woollen stuff of a fine peculiar quality, to which the name itself of worsted was immediately given. Unto such a high repute did the new web grow that liturgical raiment and domestic furniture of the choicest sorts were made out of it; Exeter cathedral, among its chasubles, had several “de nigro worsted” in cloth of gold. Elizabeth de Bohun,A.D.1356, bequeathed to her daughter the Countess of Arundel “a bed of red worsted embroidered;”[248]and Joane Lady Bergavenny leaves to John of Ormond “a bed of cloth of gold with lebardes, with those cushions and tapettes of my best red worsted,”[249]&c. Of the sixteen standards of worsted entailed with the bear and a chain whichfloated aloft in the ship of Beauchamp Earl of Warwick, we have spoken before (p. xliii.) In the “Fabric Rolls of York Minster” vestments made of worsted—there variously spelt “worsett,”[250]and “woryst”[251]—are enumerated.

[239]Oliver, p. 314.

[240]Dugdale’s St. Paul’s, p. 323.

[241]Oliver, p. 298.

[242]Reg. S. Ben. c. xlviii. De Opere Manuum quotidiano, p. 129; c. lvii. De Artificibus Monasterii, p. 131; ed. Brockie, t. i. “Lena” is the mediæval Latin for a bed coverlet.

[243]Flores Histor. p. 396. Frankfort,A.D.1601.

[244]Monasticon Anglicanum, t. ii. p. 259.

[245]Benedict. in Anglia, ed. Reyner, App. p. 165.

[246]Testamenta Vetusta, ed. Nicolas, t. i. p. 136.

[247]Hist. Dunelm. Scriptores Tres. Append. p. cclxxxvi.

[248]Testamenta Vetusta, i. 61.

[249]Ibid. p. 227.

[250]Pp. 301, 305.

[251]P. 302.

Irishcloth, white and red, in the reign of John,A.D.1213, was much used in England; and in the household expenses of Swinford, bishop of Hereford,A.D.1290, an item occurs of Irish cloth for lining.[252]

But our weavers knew how to throw off from their looms, artistically designed and well-figured webs; in the “Wardrobe Accounts” of our Edward II. we read this item: “to a mercer of London for a green hanging of wool wove with figures of kings and earls upon it, for the king’s service in his hall on solemn feasts at London.”[253]Such “salles,” as they were called in France, and “hullings,” or rather “hallings,” the name they went under here, were much valued abroad, and in common use at home: under the head of “Salles d’Angleterre,” among the articles of costly furniture belonging to Charles V. of France,A.D.1364, who began his reign some forty years after our Edward II.’s death, one set of such hangings is thus put down: “une salle d’Angleterre vermeille brodée d’azur, et est la bordeure à vignettes et le dedens de lyons, d’aigles et de lyepars,” quoted from the MS. No.8356, in the Imperial Library, Paris, by Michel;[254]while here in England, Richard Earl of Arundel,A.D.1392, willed to his dear wife “the hangings of the hall which was lately made in London, of blue tapestry with red roses with the arms of my sons,”[255]&c.; and Lady Bergavenny, after bequeathing her hullying of black, red, and green, to one friend, to another left her best stained hall.[256]

[252]Ed. Web. for the Camden Society, p. 193, t. i.

[253]Archæologia, t. xxvi. p. 344.

[254]Tom. i. p. 49.

[255]Test. Vetust. t. i. p. 130.

[256]Ibid. pp. 228, 229.

Flemishtextiles, at least of the less ambitious kinds, such as napery and woollens, were much esteemed centuries ago, and our countryman, Matthew of Westminster, says of Flanders, that from the material—perhaps wool—which we sent her, she sent us back those precious garments she wove.[257]

Though industrious everywhere within her limits, some of her towns stood foremost for certain kinds of stuff, and Bruges became in the latter end of the fifteenth century conspicuous for its silken textiles. Here in England, the satins of Bruges were in great use for church garments; in Haconbie church,A.D.1566, was “one white vestmente of Bridgessatten repte in peces and a clothe made thereof to hange before our pulpitt;”[258]and,A.D.1520, York cathedral had “a vestment of balkyn (baudekin) with a crosse of green satten in bryges.”[259]

Her damask silks were equally in demand; and the specimens here will interest the reader. Nos.8318, p. 190,8332, p. 197, show the ability of the Bruges loom, while the then favourite pattern with the pomegranate in it, betrays the likings of the Spaniards, at that time the rulers of the country, for this token of their beloved Isabella’s reconquered Granada. No.8319, p. 191, is another sample of Flemish weaving, rich in its gold, and full of beauty in design.

In her velvets, Flanders had no need to fear a comparison with anything of the kind that Italy ever threw off from her looms, whether at Venice, Florence, or Genoa, as the samples we have here under Nos.8673, p. 254,8674, p. 255,8704, p. 264, will prove. Nay, this last specimen, with its cloth of gold ground, and its pattern in a dark blue deep-piled velvet, is not surpassed in gorgeousness even by that splendid stuff from Florence yet to be seen in one of the copes for Westminster Abbey given it by Henry VII.

Block-printed linen was, toward the end of the fourteenth century, another production of Flanders, of which pieces may be seen at Nos.7022, p. 118,7027, p. 120,8303, p. 184,8615, p. 234. Though to the eyes of many, these may look so poor, so mean; to men like the cotton-printers of Lancashire and other places they will have a strong attraction; to the scholar they will be deeply interesting as suggestive of the art of printing. Such specimens are rare, but it is likely that England can show, in the chapter library at Durham, the earliest sample of the kind as yet known, in a fine sheet wrapped about the body of some old bishop discovered, along with several pieces of ancient silks, and still more ancient English embroidery, in a grave opened by Mr. Raine,A.D.1827, within that grand northern cathedral.

What Bruges was in silks and velvets Yprès, in the sixteenth century, became for linen, and for many years Flemish linens had been in favourite use throughout England. Hardly a church of any size, scarcely a gentleman’s house in this country, but used a quantity of towels and other napery that was made in Flanders, especially at Yprès.[260]Of this textile instances may be seen at pp.34,73,75,124,203,205,255,263.

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