8358.
Liturgical Cloth of grey linen thread, figured all over with subjects from the New Testament, angels, apostles, flowers, and monsters. Rhenish, end of the 14th century. 10 feet by 3 feet.
This curious and valuable piece, of the kind denominated “opus araneum,” or spider-web, is very likely the oldest as well as one among the very finest specimens yet known of that peculiar sort of needlework. The design is divided into two lengths, one much shorter than the other, and reversed; thus evidently proving that its original use was to cover, not the altar, but the lectern, upon which the Evangeliarium, or Book of the Gospels, is put at high mass for the deacon to sing the gospel from: judging by the subjects wrought upon it, and in white, it appears to have been intended more especially for the daily high mass, chaunted in many places every morning in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Beginning at the lower part of the longer length, we see an angel, vested like a deacon, in an appareled and girded alb, playing the violin, then six apostles—St. Simon with the fuller’s bat in his hand, St. Matthias with sword and book, St. James the Greater with pilgrim’s bourdon or staff, St. Jude, or Thaddeus, with club and book, St. Andrew with book and saltire cross, St. Thomas with spear; then another like vested angel sounding a guitar—all of which figures are standing in a row amid oak boughs and flowery branches. Higher up, and within a large quatrefoil encircled by the words:—☩ “Magnificat: Anima: mea: Dominum;” the Visitation, or the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Elizabeth, both with outstretched hands, one towards the other, the first as a virgin with her hair hanging down upon her shoulders, the second having her head shrouded in a hood like a married woman; they stand amid lily-bearing stems (suggested by the lesson read on that festival from Canticles ii.); in each of the north and south petals of the quatrefoil is a kneeling angel, deacon-vested, holding in each hand a bell, which he is ringing, while in the east and west petals are other like-robed angels, both incensing with a thurible. Outside the quatrefoil are represented within circles at the south-west corner the British St. Ursula—one of the patron saints of Cologne—standing with a book in one hand, and an arrow in the other; at the south-east corner St. Helen (?), with cross and book; at the north-west, St. Lucy with book and pincers; at the north-east, a virgin martyr, with a book and a branch of palm. At each of the angles, in the corners between the petals, is an open crown. Above stands in the middle a double-handled vase, between two wyverns, jessant oak branches. Over this species of heraldic border is another large quatrefoil arranged in precisely the same manner: the angels—two with bells, two with thuribles—are there, so too are the corner crowns, within and encircled by the words ☩ Gloria: in: exc(e)l(s)is: Deo: et: in: terr(a), we have the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, after this manner: seated upon a throne is our Lord in majesty, that is, crowned and holding the mund or ball surmounted by a cross in His left hand; with His right He is giving His blessing to His mother, who is seated also on the same throne, crowned, with her hair about her shoulders, and with hands upraised to Him as in the act of prayer. At the top, to the left, is St. Catherine, with a sword in one hand, a wheel armed with spikes in the other; to the right, St. Dorothy, with a blooming branch in one hand and in the other a basket—made like a cup with foot and stem—full of flowers; below, St. Barbara, with tower and palm-branch, in the left side; on the other, St. Mary Magdalen, with an ointment box and palm. Here the design is reversed, and very properly so, as otherwise it would be, when thrown over the lectern, upside down; and curiously enough, just at this place there is a large hole, caused, as is clear, by this part of the needlework being worn away from the continual rubbing of some boss or ornament at the top of the folding lectern, which most likely was wrought in iron. This shorter length of the design—that portion which hung behind—begins with the double-handled vase and two wyverns, and has but one quatrefoil arranged like the other two in the front part: within the circle inscribed ☩ Ecce: ancilla: Domini: fiat: michi—we see the Annunciation; kneeling before a low reading desk, with an open book upon it, is the Blessed Virgin Mary, with the Holy Ghost under the form of a nimbed dove coming down from heaven, signified by the nebulæ or clouds, upon her; and turning about with arms wide apart, as if in wonderment, she is listening to Gabriel on his knees and speaking his message in those words:—ave: gracia: ple(na), traced upon the scroll, which, with both his hands, he holds before him. In the corners of the petals are, at top, to the left, a female saint, with a cross in one hand, a closed book in the other; to the right, a female saint with palm-branch and book; below, to the left, a female saint—St. Martina, V. M.—with book and a two-pronged and barbed fork; on the right, a female saint with a book, and cup with a lid. As the other end began, so this ends, with a row of eight figures, of which two are angels robed as deacons, one playing the violin, the other the guitar; then come six apostles—St. John the Evangelist exorcising the poisoned cup; St. Bartholomew, with book in one hand and flaying knife in the other; St. Peter, with book and key; St. Paul, with book and sword held upwards; St. Matthew, with sword held downwards, and book; St. Philip, with book and cross.
The figures within the quatrefoils and of the apostles are about seven inches high; those of the female saints—all virgins, as is shown by the hair hanging in long tresses about their shoulders—measure six inches. The spaces between are filled in with branches of five-petaled and barbed roses, and at both ends there originally hung a prettily knotted long fringe. All the female saints are dressed in gowns with very long remarkable sleeves—a fashion in woman’s attire which prevailed at the end of the 14th and beginning of the 15th centuries.
The exact way in which these now very rare specimens of mediæval needlework used to be employed in the celebration of the liturgy, may be seen, by a glance, on looking at any of those engravings in which are figured a few of those old lecterns; made either of light thin wood, or iron, or of bronze, so as they could be easily folded up: they were thus with readiness carried about from one part to another of the choir, or chancel, even by a boy. When set down the veil was cast over them. Some of our own archæological works afford us good examples of such lecterns; as fine, if not finer, are those two which M. Viollet Le Duc has given in his instructive “Dictionnaire du Mobilier Français,” t. i. pp. 162, 163, especially that from the Hotel de Cluny. Speaking of the coverings for such lecterns, he tells that in the treasury of Sens Cathedral there yet may be found one which is, however, according to his admeasurements, much smaller every way than this piece of curious needlework before us. Whether the one now at Sens be of the 10th or 11th century assigned it, far too early date to our thinking, it cannot, to judge from the coloured plate given by M. Viollet Le Duc, be put for a moment in competition with the present one, as an art-work done by the needle. In our own mediæval records notices of such lecterns may be sometimes found; in the choir of Cobham College, Kent, A.D. 1479, there was such an article of church furniture, “Church of our Fathers,” ii. 201, and doubtless it was usually covered with a veil.