8251.
Portion of a Maniple, linen web with an interlaced diamond-shaped diapering, in silk. 12th century. Byzantine. 1 foot 9 inches by 2¾ inches.
This curious remnant of textiles, wrought on purpose for liturgical use, shows in places another combination of lines, or rather of a digamma, so as to form a sort of cross: and stuffs so diapered were called by Greek, and after them by Latin, Christian writers, “gammadia.” It was a pattern taken up by the Sicilian and South Italian looms, whence it spread so far north as England, where it may be found marked amid the ornaments designed upon church vestments figured in many graven brasses. From us it got the new name of “filfod” through the idea of “full foot,” which by some English mediæval writers was looked upon as an heraldic charge, and is now called “cramponnée.” During the 13th century, in this country, ribbon-like textiles, for the express purpose of making stoles and maniples to be worn at the altar, were extensively wrought, and constituted one of the articles of trade in London, for a distinguished citizen of hers, John de Garlandia, or Garland, tells us:—“De textis vero fiunt cingula, et crinalia divitum mulierum et stole(ae) sacerdotum.” These “priests’ stoles,” in all likelihood, were figured with the gammadion or filfod pattern; and, perhaps, many of them which are to be found in foreign sacristies to this day came from London.
The piece before us is figured in Dr. Bock’s “Geschichte der Liturgischen Gewänder des Mittelalters,” 4 Lieferung, pt. iii. fig. 3.