FOOTNOTES:

“——he open’d wide the sculptur’d lidsOf various chests, whence mantles twelve he tookOf texture beautiful; twelve single cloaks;As many carpets, with as many robes;To which he added vests an equal store.”

When Telemachus is about to leave Menelaus—

“The beauteous queen revolv’d with careful eyesHer various textures of unnumber’d dyes,And chose the largest; with no vulgar artHer own fair hands embroider’d every part;Beneath the rest it lay divinely bright,Like radiant Hesper o’er the gems of night.”

That much of this work was highly beautiful may be inferred from the description of the robe of Ulysses:—

“In the rich woof a hound, Mosaic drawn,Bore on full stretch, and seiz’d a dappled fawn;Deep in the neck his fangs indent their hold;They pant and struggle in the moving gold.”

And this robe, Penelope says,

“In happier hours her artful hand employ’d.”

To invest a visitor with an embroidered robe wasconsidered the very highest mark of honour and regard.

When Telemachus is at the magnificent court of Menelaus—

“——a bright damsel train attend the guestsWith liquid odours andembroider’d vests.”———“Give to the stranger guest a stranger’s dues:Bring gold, a pledge of love; a talent bring,Avest, arobe.”———“————in order roll’dThe robes, the vests are rang’d, and heaps of gold:And addinga rich dress inwrought with art,A gift expressive of her bounteous heart,Thus spoke (the queen) to Ithacus.”

When Cambyses wished to attain some point from an Ethiopian prince, he forwarded, amongst other presents, a rich vest. The Ethiopian, taking the garment, inquired what it was, and how it was made; but its glittering tracery did not decoy the unsophisticated prince. When Xerxes arrived at Acanthos, he interchanged the rites of hospitality with the people, and presented several with Median vests. Probably our readers will remember the circumstance of Alexander making the mother of Darius a present of some rich vestures, probably of woollen fabrics, and telling her that she might make her grandchildren learn the art of weaving them; at which the royal lady felt insulted and deeply hurt, as it was considered ignominious by the Persian women to work in wool. Hearing of her misapprehension, Alexander himself waited on her, and in the gentlest and most respectful terms told the illustrious captive that, far from meaningany offence, the custom of his own country had misled him; and that the vestments he had offered were not only a present from his royal sisters, but wrought by their own hands.

Outré as appear some of the flaring patterns of the present day, the boldest of them must bequietand unattractive compared with those we read of formerly, when not only human figures, but birds and animals, were wrought not merely on hangings and carpets but on wearing apparel. Ciampini gives various instances.[6]

What changes, says he, do not a long course of years produce! Who now, except in the theatre, or at a carnival or masquerade (spectaculis ac rebus ludiciis), would endure garments inscribed with verses and titles, and painted with various figures? Nevertheless, it is plain that such garments were constantly used in ancient times. To say nothing of Homer, who assigns to Ulysses a tunic variegated with figures of animals; to say nothing of the Massagetæ, whom Herodotus relates painted animals on their garments with the juice of herbs; we also read of these garments (though then considered very antiquated) being used under the Cæsars of Rome.

They say that Alcisthenes the Sybarite had a garment of such magnificence that when he exhibited it in the Temple of Juno at Lacinium, where all Italy was congregated, it attracted universal attention. It was purchased from the Carthaginians, by Dionysius the elder, for 120 talents. It was twenty-two feet in breadth, of a purple ground,with animals wrought all over, except in the middle, where were Jupiter, Juno, Themis, Minerva, Apollo, Venus: on one sleeve it had a figure of Alcisthenes, on the other of his city Sybaris.

That this description is not exaggerated may be inferred from the following passage from a homily on Dives and Lazarus by a Bishop of Amuasan in Pontus, given by Ciampini.

“They have here no bounds to this foolish art, for no sooner was invented the useless art of weaving in figures in a kind of picture, such as animals of all sorts, than (rich persons) procure flowered garments, and also those variegated with an infinite number of images, both for themselves, their wives, and children. . . . . . . Whensoever thus clothed they go abroad, they go, as it were, painted all over, and pointing out to one another with the finger the pictures on their garments.

“For there are lions and panthers, and bears and bulls, and dogs and woods, and rocks and huntsmen; and, in a word, everything that can be thought of, all drawn to the life: for it was necessary, forsooth, that not only the walls of their houses should be painted, but their coats (tunica) also, and likewise the cloak (pallium) which covers it.

“The more pious of these gentry take their subjects from the Gospel history:e.g.Christ himself with his disciples, or one of the miracles, is depicted. In this manner you shall see the marriage of Cana and the waterpots; the paralytic carrying his bed on his shoulders; the blind man cured by clay; the woman with the issue of blood taking hold of the border (of Christ’s garment); the harlot falling atthe feet of Jesus; Lazarus coming from the tomb: and they fancy there is great piety in all this, and that putting on such garments must be pleasing to God.”

The palmated garment was figured with palm-leaves, and was a triumphal or festive garment. It is referred to in an epistle of Gratian to Augustus: “I have sent thee a palmated garment, in which the name of our divine parent Constantine is interwoven.”

In allusion to these lettered garments Ausonius celebrates Sabina (textrice simul ac poetria), whose name thus lives when those of more important personages are forgotten:—

They who both webs and verses weave,The first to thee, O chaste Minerva, leave;The latter to the Muses they devote:To me, Sabina, it appears a sinTo separate two things so near akin,So I have wrote thy verses on my coat.[7]

And again:

Whether the Tyrian robe your praise demand,Or the neat verse upon the edge descried,Know both proceed from the same skilful hand:In both these arts Sabina takes a pride.[8]

It is imagined that the embroidered vestmentsworn in Homer’s time bore a strong resemblance to those now worn by the Moguls; and the custom of making presents, so discernible through his work, still prevails throughout Asia. It is not (says Sir James Forbes) so much the custom in India to present dresses ready made to the visitors as to offer the materials, especially to Europeans. In Turkey, Persia, and Arabia, it is generally the reverse. We find in Chardin that the kings of Persia had great wardrobes, where there were always many hundred habits, sorted, ready for presents, and that more than forty tailors were always employed in this service.

It is not improbable that this ancient custom of presenting a visitor with a new dress as a token of welcome, a symbol of rejoicing at his presence, may have led to many of the general customs which have prevailed, and do still, of having new clothes at any season of joy or festivity. New clothes are thought by the people of the Eastrequisitefor the due solemnization of a time of rejoicing. The Turks, even the poorest of them, would submit to any privation rather than be without new clothes at the Bairam or Great Festival. There is an anecdote recorded of the Caliph Montanser Billah, that going one day to the upper roof of his palace he saw a number of clothes spread out on the flat roofs of the houses of Bagdat. He asked the reason, and was told that the inhabitants of Bagdat were drying their clothes, which they had newly washed, on account of the approach of the Bairam. The caliph was so concerned that any should be so poor as to be obliged to wash their old clothes for want of newones with which to celebrate this festival, that he ordered a great quantity of gold to be instantly made into bullets, proper to be shot out of crossbows, which he and his courtiers threw, by this means, upon every terrace of the city where he saw garments spread to dry.

FOOTNOTES:[5]Book viii. chap. 48.[6]Ciampini, Vetera Monimenta, cap. xiii.[7]“Licia qui texunt, et Carmina; Carmina Musis,Licia contribuunt, casta Minerva, tibi.Ast ego rem sociam non dissociabo, Sabina,Versibus inscripsi, quæ mea texta meis.”[8]“Sive probas Tyrio textam sub tegmine vestem,Seu placet inscripti commoditas tituli.Ipsius hæc Dominæ concennat utrumque venustas:Has geminas artes una Sabina colet.”

[5]Book viii. chap. 48.

[6]Ciampini, Vetera Monimenta, cap. xiii.

[7]“Licia qui texunt, et Carmina; Carmina Musis,Licia contribuunt, casta Minerva, tibi.Ast ego rem sociam non dissociabo, Sabina,Versibus inscripsi, quæ mea texta meis.”

[7]

“Licia qui texunt, et Carmina; Carmina Musis,Licia contribuunt, casta Minerva, tibi.Ast ego rem sociam non dissociabo, Sabina,Versibus inscripsi, quæ mea texta meis.”

[8]“Sive probas Tyrio textam sub tegmine vestem,Seu placet inscripti commoditas tituli.Ipsius hæc Dominæ concennat utrumque venustas:Has geminas artes una Sabina colet.”

[8]

“Sive probas Tyrio textam sub tegmine vestem,Seu placet inscripti commoditas tituli.Ipsius hæc Dominæ concennat utrumque venustas:Has geminas artes una Sabina colet.”

“There was an auncient house not far away,Renown’d throughout the world for sacred loreAnd pure unspotted life: so well they sayIt govern’d was, and guided evermoreThrough wisedome of a matrone grave and hore,Whose onely joy was to relieve the needesOf wretched soules, and helpe the helplesse pore:All night she spent in bidding of her bedes,And all the day in doing good and godly dedes.”Faerie Queene.

“Meantime, whilst monks’penswere thus employed, nuns with theirneedleswrote histories also: that ofChrist his passionfor their altar-clothes; and other Scripture- (and more legend-) stories in hangings to adorn their houses.”—Fuller, Ch. Hist., B. 6.

Needlework is an art so indissolubly connected with the convenience and comfort of mankind at large, that it is impossible to suppose any state of society in which it has not existed. Its modes varied, of course, according to the lesser or greater degreesof refinement in other matters with which it was connected; and when we find from Muratori that “nulla s’è detto fin qui dell’Arte del Tessere dopo la declinazione del Romano Imperio; e solo in fuggire s’è parlato di alcune vesti degli antichi,” we may fairly infer that theornamentalneedlework of the time was not extensively encouraged, although never entirely laid aside.

The desolation that overran the world was found alike in its greatest or most insignificant concerns; and the same torrent that swept monarchs from their thrones and peers from their halls did away with the necessity for professors of the decorative arts. There needed not the embroiderer of gold and purple to blazon the triumph of a conqueror who disdained other habiliment than the skin of some slaughtered beast.[9]

The matron who yet retained the principle of Roman virtue, or the fair and refined maiden of the eastern capital, far from seeking personal adornment, rather shunned any decoration which might attract the eyes and inflame the passions of untamed and ruthless conquerors. All usual habits were subverted, and for long years the history of the European world is but a bloody record of war and tumult, of bloodshed and strife. Few are the cases of peace and tranquillity in this desert of tumult and blood-guiltiness; but those few “isles of the blessed” in this ocean of discord, those few sunny spots in the gloomy landscape, are intimately connected with our theme. The use of the needle for the dailynecessities of life could never, as we have remarked, be superseded; but the practice of ornamental needlework, in common with every ennobling science and improving art, was kept alive during this period of desolation by the church, and by the individual labours and collective zeal of the despised and contemned monks.

Sharing that hallowed influence which hovered over and protected the church at this fearful season—for, from the carelessness or superstition of the barbarians, the ministers of religion were spared—nunneries, with some few exceptions, were now like refuges pointed out by Heaven itself. They were originally founded by the sister of St. Anthony, the hermit of the Egyptian desert, and in their primitive institution were meant solely for those who, abjuring the world for religious motives, were desirous to spend their whole time in devotional exercises. But their sphere of utility became afterwards widely extended. They became safe and peaceable asylums for all those to whom life’s pilgrimage had been too thorny. The frail but repentant maiden was here sheltered from the scorn of an uncharitable world; the virtuous but suffering female, whose earthly hopes had, from whatever cause, been crushed, could here weep and pray in peace: while she to whom the more tangible trouble of poverty had descended might here, without the galling yoke of charity and dependence, look to a refuge for those evil days when the breaking of the golden bowl, the loosing of the silver cord, should disable her from the exertions necessary for her maintenance.

Have we any—ay, with all their faults andimperfections on their heads—have we, in these days of enlightenment, any sort of substitute for the blessings they held out to dependent and suffering woman of whatever rank?

Convents became also schools for the education of young women of rank, who here imbibed in early youth principles of religion which might enable them to endure with patience and fortitude those after-trials of life from which no station or wealth could exempt them; and they acquired here those accomplishments, and were taught here those lighter occupations, amongst which fine needlework and embroidery occupied a conspicuous position, which would qualify them to beguile in a becoming manner the many hours of leisure which their elevated rank would confer on them.

“Nunneries,” says Fuller, “also were good shee-schools, wherein the girles and maids of the neighbourhood were taught to read and work; and sometimes a little Latine was taught them therein. Yea, give me leave to say, if such feminine foundations had still continued, provided novowwere obtruded upon them (virginity is least kept where it is most constrained), haply the weaker sex (besides the avoiding modern inconveniences) might be heightened to an higher perfection than hitherto hath been attained. That sharpnesse of their wits and suddenness of their conceits (which their enemies must allow unto them) might by education be improved into a judicious solidity, and that adorned with arts which now they want, not because they cannot learn, but are not taught them. I say, if such feminine foundations were extant now of dayes,haply some virgins of highest birth would be glad of such places, and I am sure their fathers and elder brothers would not be sorry for the same.”

Miss Lawrance gives a more detailed account of the duties taught in them. “In consequence of convents being considered as establishments exclusively belonging to the Latin church, Protestant writers, as by common consent, have joined in censuring them, forgetful of the many benefits which, without any reference to their peculiar creed, they were calculated to confer. Although providing instruction for the young, the convent was a large establishment for various orders of women. There were the nuns, the lay sisters, always a numerous class, and a large body of domestics; while in those higher convents, where the abbess exercised manorial jurisdiction, there were seneschal, esquires, gentlemen, yeomen, grooms, indeed the whole establishment of a baronial castle, except the men-at-arms and the archer-band. Thus within the convent walls the pupil saw nearly the same domestic arrangement to which she had been accustomed in her father’s castle; while, instead of being constantly surrounded with children, well born and intelligent women might be her occasional companions. And then the most important functions were exercised by women. The abbess presided in her manorial court, the cellaress performed the extensive offices of steward, the præcentrix led the singing and superintended the library, and the infirmaress watched over the sick, affording them alike spiritual and medical aid. Thus, from her first admission, the pupil was taught to respect and toemulate the talents of women. But a yet more important peculiarity did the convent school present. It was a noble, a well-endowed, and an independent institution; and it proffered education as a boon. Here was no eager canvassing for scholars, no promises of unattainable advantages; for the convent school was not a mercantile establishment, nor was education a trade. The female teachers of the middle ages were looked up to alike by parent and child, and the instruction so willingly offered was willingly and gratefully received; the character of the teacher was elevated, and as a necessary consequence so was the character of the pupil.”

But in addition to those inmates who had dedicated their lives to religion, and those who were placed there specifically for education, convents afforded shelter to numbers who sought only temporary retirement from the world under the influence of sorrow, or temporary protection under the apprehension of danger. And this was the case not merely through the very dark era with which our chapter commences, but for centuries afterwards, and when the world was comparatively civilized. Our own “good Queen Maude” assumed the veil in the convent of Romsey, without however taking the vows, as the only means of escaping from a forced marriage; and in the subsequent reign, that of Stephen, so little regard was paid to law or decorum, that a convent was the only place where a maiden, even of gentle birth, if she had riches, could have a chance of shelter and safety from the machinations of those who resorted to any sort ofbrutality or violence to compel her to a marriage which would secure her possessions to her ravisher.

It was then in the convents, and in them alone, that, during the barbarism and confusion consequent upon the overthrow of the ancient empire, and the irruption of the untamed hordes who overran southern Europe from the north and west,—it was in the convents that some remnants of the ancient art of embroidery were still preserved. The nuns considered it an acceptable service to employ their time and talents in the construction of vestments which, being intended for the service of the church, were rich and sumptuous even at the time when richness and elegance of apparel were unknown elsewhere.[10]It was no proof of either the ignorance or the bad taste or the irreligion of the “dark” ages, that the religious edifices were fitted up with a rich and gorgeous solemnity which are unheard of in these days of light and knowledge and economy. And besides the construction of rich and elaborately ornamented vestments for the priests, and hangings for the altars, shrines, &c., besides these being peculiarly the occupation of the professed sisters of religious houses, it was likewise the pride and the delight of ladies of rank to devote both their money to the purchase and their time to the embroidering of sacerdotal garments as offerings to the church.And whether temporarily sheltering within the walls of a convent, or happily presiding in her own lofty halls, it was oftentime the pride and pleasure of the high-born dame to embroider a splendid cope, a rich vest, or a gorgeous hanging, as a votive and grateful offering to that holy altar where perhaps she had prayed in sorrow, and found consolation and peace.

FOOTNOTES:[9]“In the most inclement winter the hardy German was satisfied with a scanty garment made of the skin of some animal.”—Gibbon.[10]Muratori (Diss. 25), speaking of the mean habiliments usual in Italy even so late as the 13th century, adds, “Ma non per questo s’hanno a credere così rozzi e nemici del Lusso que’ Secoli. A buon conto anche in Italia qui non era cieco, sovente potea mirare i più delicati lavori di Seta, cheservivano di ornamenti alle Chiese e alle sacre funzioni.”

[9]“In the most inclement winter the hardy German was satisfied with a scanty garment made of the skin of some animal.”—Gibbon.

[10]Muratori (Diss. 25), speaking of the mean habiliments usual in Italy even so late as the 13th century, adds, “Ma non per questo s’hanno a credere così rozzi e nemici del Lusso que’ Secoli. A buon conto anche in Italia qui non era cieco, sovente potea mirare i più delicati lavori di Seta, cheservivano di ornamenti alle Chiese e alle sacre funzioni.”

“Last night I dreamt a dream; behold!I saw a church was fret with gold,With arras richly dight:There saw I altar, pall, and pix,Chalice, and font, and crucifix,And tapers burning bright.”W. S. Rose.

Over those memorials of the past which chance and mischance have left us, time hath drawn a thick curtain, obliterating all soft and gentle touches, which connected harmoniously the bolder features of the landscape, and leaving these but as landmarks to intimate what had been there. We would fain linger on those times, and call up the gentle spirits of the long departed to describe scenes of quiet but useful retirement at which we now only dimly guess. We would witness the hour of recreation in the convent, when the severer duties of the cloister gave place to the cheerful one of companionship; and the “pale votary” quitted the lonely cell and the solitary vigil, to instruct the blooming novice in the art of embroidery, or to ply her own accustomed andaccomplished fingers in its fairy creations. The younger ones would be ecstatic in their commendations, and eager in their exertions to rival the fair sempstress; whilst a gratified though sad smile would brighten her own pale cheek as the lady abbess laid aside the richly illuminated volume by which her own attention had been engrossed, and from which she had from time to time read short and instructive passages aloud, commenting on and enforcing the principles they inculcated; and holding the work towards the casement, so that the bright slanting rays of the setting sun which fell through the richly carved lattice might illumine the varied tints of the stitchery, she would utter some kind and encouraging words of admiration and praise.

Perhaps the work was a broidered scarf for some spiritual father, a testimony of gratitude and esteem from the convent at large; perhaps it was a tunic or a girdle which some high and wealthy lady had bespoken for an offering, and which the meek and pious sisterhood were happy to do for hire, bestowing the proceeds on the necessities of the convent; or, if those were provided, on charity. Perhaps it was a pair of sandals, so magnificently wrought as to be destined as a present by some lofty abbot to the pope himself, like those which Robert, Abbot of St. Alban’s, sent to the Pope Adrian the Fourth; and which alone, out of a multitude of the richest offerings, the pope retained;[11]or if it were in England (for our domestic scene will apply to all the Christian world) it might be a magnificent covering for the high altar, with a scripture history embroidered in the centre, and the border, of regal purple, inwrought with gold and precious stones. We say,if in England, because so celebrated was the English work, the Opus Anglicum,[12]that other nations eagerly desired to possess it. The embroidered vestments of some English clergymen were so much admired at the Papal Court, that the Pope, asking where they had been made, and being told “in England,” despatched bulls to several English abbots, commanding them to procure similar ones for him. Some of the vestments of these days were almost covered with gold and precious stones.

Or it might be a magnificent pall, in the days in which this garment had lost its primitive character, that taxed the skill and the patience of the fair needlewoman. It was about the yearA.D.601 that Pope Gregory sent two archbishop’s palls into England; the one for London, which see was afterwards removed to Canterbury, and the other to York. Fuller gives the following account of this garment primitively:—

“The pall is a pontificall vestment, considerable for the matter, making, and mysteries thereof. Forthe matter, it is made of lamb’s-wooll and superstition. I say,of lamb’s-wooll, as it comes from the sheep’s back, without any other artificiall colour, spun (say some) by a peculiar order of nunnes,first cast into the tombe of St. Peter, taken from his body (say others); surely most sacred if from both; and (superstitiously) adorned with little black crosses. For the form thereof, thebreadth exceeded not three fingers(one of our bachelor’s lamb-skin hoods in Cambridge would make three of them),having two labells hanging down before and behind, which the archbishops onely, when going to the altar, put about their necks, above their other pontificall ornaments. Three mysteries were couched therein. First, humility, which beautifies the clergy above all their costly copes; secondly, innocency, to imitate lamb-like simplicitie; and thirdly, industry, to follow him who fetched his wandering sheep home on his shoulders. But to speak plainly, the mystery of mysteries in this pall was, that the archbishops receiving it showed therein their dependence on Rome; and a mote in this manner ceremoniously taken was a sufficient acknowledgment of their subjection. And, as it owned Rome’s power, so in after ages it increased their profit. For, though now such palls were freely given to archbishops, whose places in Britain for the present were rather cumbersome than commodious, having little more than their paines for their labour; yet in after ages the archbishop of Canterburie’s pall was sold for five thousand florenes:[13]so that the Pope might well have theGolden Fleece, if he could sell all his lamb’s-wooll at that rate.”[14]

The accounts of the rich embroidered ecclesiastical vestments—robes, sandals, girdles, tunics, vests, palls, cloaks, altar-cloths, and veils or hangings of various descriptions, common in churches in the dark ages—would almost surpass belief, if the minuteness with which they are enumerated in some few ancient authors did not attest the fact. Still these in the most diffuse writers are a mere catalogue of church properties, and, as such, would, in the dry detail, be but little interesting to our readers. There is enough said of them, however, to attest their variety, their beauty, their magnificence; and to impress one with a very favourable idea of the female ingenuity and perseverance of those days. The cost of many of these garments was enormous, for pearls and precious jewels were literally interwrought, and the time and labour bestowed on them was almost incredible. It was no uncommon circumstance for three years to be spent even by these assiduous and indefatigable votaries of the needle on one garment. But it is only casually, in the pages of the antiquarian, that there is any record of them:—

“With their namesNo bard embalms and sanctifies his song:And history, so warm on meaner themes,Is cold on this.”

“Noi” (says Muratori) “che ammiriamo, e conragione, la beltà e varietà di tante drapperie dei nostri tempi, abbiam nondimeno da confessare un obbligo non lieve agli antichi, che ci hanno prima spianata la via, e senza i lumi loro non potremmo oggidì vantare un sì gran progresso nell’Arti.”

And that this was the case a few instances may suffice to show; and it may not be quite out of place here to refer to one out of a thousand articles of value and beauty which were lost in the great conflagration (“which so cruelly laid waste the habitations of the servants of God”) of the doomed and often suffering, but always magnificent, Croyland Abbey. It was “that beautiful and costly sphere, most curiously constructed of different metals, according to the different planets. Saturn was of copper, Jupiter of gold, Mars of iron, the Sun of brass, Mercury of amber, Venus of tin, and the Moon of silver: the colours of all the signs of the Zodiac had their several figures and colours variously finished, and adorned with such a mixture of precious stones and metals as amused the eye, while it informed the mind of every beholder. Such another sphere was not known or heard of in England; and it was a present from the King of France.”

No insignificant proof this of the mechanical skill of the eleventh century.

We are told that Pope Eutychianus, who lived in the reign of the Emperor Aurelian, buried in different places 342 martyrs with his own hands; and he ordained that a faithful martyr should on no account be interred without a dalmatic robe or a purple colobio. This is perhaps one of the earliest notices of ecclesiastical pomp or pride in vestments.But some forty years afterwards Pope Silvester was invested by the hands of his attendants with a Phrygian robe of snowy white, on which was traced in sparkling threads by busy female hands the resurrection of our Lord; and so magnificent was this garment considered that it was ordained to be worn by his successors on state occasions: and to pass at once to the seventh century, there are records of various church hangings which had become injured by old age being carefully repaired at considerable expense; which expense and trouble would not, we may fairly infer, have been incurred if the articles in question, even at this more advanced period, had not been considered of value and of beauty.

Leo the Third, in the eighth century, was a magnificent benefactor to the church. With the vessels of rich plate and jewels of various descriptions which were in all ages offering to the church we have nothing to do: amongst various other vestments, Leo gave to the high altar of the blessed Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, a covering spangled with gold (chrysoclabam) and adorned with precious stones; having the histories both of our Saviour giving to the blessed Apostle Peter the power of binding and loosing, and also representing the suffering of Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, and Paul. It was of great size, and exhibited on St. Peter and St. Paul’s days.[15]

Pope Paschal, early in the ninth century, had some magnificent garments wrought, which he presented to different churches. One of these was an altar-cloth of Tyrian purple, having in the middle a picture of golden emblems, with the countenance of our Lord, and of the blessed martyrs Cosman and Damian, with three other brothers. The cross was wrought in gold, and had round it a border of olive-leaves most beautifully worked. Another had golden emblems, with our Saviour, surrounded with archangels and apostles, of wonderful beauty and richness, being ornamented with pearls.

In these ages robes and hangings with crimsonor purple borders, calledblatta, from the name of the insect from which the dye was obtained, were much in use. An insect, supposed to be the one so often referred to by this name in the writings of the ancients, is found now on the coasts of Guayaquil and Guatima. The dye is very beautiful, and is easily transferred. The royal purple so much esteemed of old was of very different shades, for the terms purple, red, crimson, scarlet, are often used indiscriminately; and a pretty correct conception may be acquired of the value of this imperial tint formerly from the circumstance that, when Alexander took possession of the city of Susa and of its enormous treasures, among other things there were found five thousand quintals of Hermione purple, the finest in the world, which had been treasured up there during the space of 190 years; notwithstanding which, its beauty and lustre were no way diminished. Some idea may be formed of the prodigious value of this store from the fact that this purple was sold at the rate of 100 crowns a pound, and the quintal is a hundredweight of Paris.

Pope Paschal had a robe worked with gold and gems, having the history of the Virgins with lighted torches beautifully related: he had another of Byzantine scarlet with a worked border of olive-leaves. This was a very usual decoration of ecclesiastical robes, and a very suitable one; for, from the time when in the beak of Noah’s dove it was first an emblem of comfort, it has ever, in all ages, in all nations, at all times, been symbolical of plenty and peace. This pope had also a robe of woven gold, worn over a cassock of scarlet silk; a dress certainly worth the naming, though not so much as othersindebted to our useful little implement which Cowper calls the “threaded steel.” But he had another rich and peculiar garment, which was entirely indebted to the needlewoman for its varied and radiant hues. This was a robe of an amber colour,[16]having peacocks.

Pope Leo the Fourth had a hanging worked with the needle, having the portrait of a man seated upon a peacock. Pope Stefano the Fifth had four magnificent hangings for the great altar, one of which was wrought in peacocks. We find in romance that there was a high emblematical value attached to peacocks; not so high, however, as to prevent our ancestors from eating them; but it is difficult to account for their being so frequently introduced in designs professedly religious. In romance and chivalry they were supereminent. “To mention the peacock (says M. Le Grand) is to write its panegyrick.” Many noble families bore the peacock as their crest; and in the Provençal Courts of Love the successful poet was crowned with a wreath formed of them. The coronation present given to the Queen of our Henry the Third, by her sister, the Queen of France, was a large silver peacock, whose train was set with sapphires and pearls, and other precious jewels, wrought with silver. This elegant piece of jewellery was used as a reservoir for sweet waters, which were forced out of its beak into a basin of white silver chased.

As the knights associated these birds with all their ideas of fame, and made their most solemnvows over them, the highest honours were conferred on them. Their flesh is celebrated as the “nutriment of lovers,” and the “viand of worthies;” and a peacock was always the most distinguished dish at the solemn banquets of princes or nobles. On these occasions it was served up on a golden dish, and carried to table by a lady of rank, attended by a train of high-born dames and damsels, and accompanied by music. If it was on the occasion of a tournament, the successful knight always carved it, so regulating his portions that each individual, be the company ever so numerous, might taste. For the oath, the knight rising from his seat and extending his hand over the bird, vowed some daring enterprise of arms or love:—“I vow to God, to the blessed Virgin, to the dames, and to thepeacock, &c. &c.”

In later and less imaginative times, the peacock, though still a favourite dish at a banquet, seems to have been regarded more from its affording “good eating” than from any more refined attribute. Massinger speaks of

“the carcasesOf three fat wethers bruised for gravy, toMake sauce for a single peacock.”

In Shakspeare’s time the bird was usually put into a pie, the head, richly gilt, being placed at one end of the dish, and the tail, spread out in its full circumference, at the other. And alas! for the degeneracy of those days. The solemn and knightly adjuration of former times had even then dwindled into the absurd oath which Shakspeare puts into the mouth of Justice Shallow:—

“Bycockandpye, Sir, you shall not away to night.”

In some of the French tapestries birds of all shapes, natural and unnatural, of all sizes and in all positions, form very important parts of the subjects themselves; though this remark is hardly in place here, as the tapestries are of later date, and not solely needlework. To return, however: mention is made in an old chronicle ofantiquitas Congregatio Ancilarum, quæ opere plumario ornamenta ecclesiam laborabant. It has been a subject of much discussion whether this Opus Plumarium signified some arrangement of real feathers, or merely fanciful embroidery in imitation of them. Lytlyngton, Abbot of Croyland, in Edward the Fourth’s time, gave to his church nine copes of cloth of gold, exquisitely feathered.[17]This was perhaps embroidered imitation. A vestment which Cnute the Great presented to this abbey was made of silk embroidered with eagles of gold. Richard Upton, elected abbot in 1417, gave silk embroidered with falcons for copes; and about the same time John Freston gave a rich robe of Venetian blue embroidered with golden eagles. These were positively imitations merely; yet they evince the prevailing taste for feathered work, and, as we have shown, feathers themselves were much used. It is recorded that Pope Paul the Third sent King Pepin a present of a mantle interwoven with peacocks’ feathers.

And from whatever circumstance the reverence for peacocks’ feathers originated,[18]it is not, even yet,quite exploded. There are some lingering remnants of a superstitious regard for them which may have had their origin in these very times and circumstances. For how surely, where they are rigidly traced, are our country customs, our vulgar ceremonies, our apparently absurd and senseless usages, found to emanate from some principle or superstition of general and prevailing adoption. In some counties we cannot enter a farm-house where the mantel-piece in the parlour is not decorated with a diadem of peacock feathers, which are carefully dusted and preserved. And in houses of more assuming pretensions the same custom frequently prevails; and we knew a lady who carefully preserved some peacock feathers in a drawer long after her association with people in a higher station than that to which she originally belonged had made her ashamed to display them in her parlour.Thiscould not be formereornament: there is some idea ofluckattached to them, which seems not improbably to have arisen from circumstances connected originally with the “Vow of the Peacock.” At any rate, the religious care with which peacocks’ feathers are preserved by many who care not for them as ornaments, is not a whit more ridiculous than to see people gravely turn over the money in their pockets when they first hear the cuckoo, or joyfully fasten a dropped horse-shoe on their threshold, or shudderingly turn aside if two straws lie across in their path, or thankfully seize an old shoe accidentally met with, heedless of the probable state of the beggared foot that may unconsciously have left it there, or any other of the million unaccountable customswhich diversify and enliven country life, and which still prevail and flourish, notwithstanding the extensive travels and sweeping devastations of the modern “schoolmaster.”

Do not our readers recollect Cowper’s thanksgiving “on finding the heel of a shoe?”—

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