A Beaver Mantle it can scarce be nam’d.
The price, however, proves its claim: it cost
Six pounds. Hence, though all lustre it has lost,
Yet, bought so dear, as beaver let it still be fam’d.
Sidonius Apollinaris calls those who used this costly apparel castorinati. Lib. v. Epist. 7. p. 313. Paris, 1599, 4to.
Gerbert, or Gilbert, surnamed the Philosopher, and afterwards Pope Silvester II., commenting on the qualities of a good Bishop according to 1 Timothy iii. 1., says in reference to the word “ornatum:”
“Quod si juxta sensum literæ tantûm respiciamus, non aliud, sacerdotes, quam amictum quæremus clariorem; verbi gratiâ, castorinas quæremus et sericas vestes: et ille se inter episcopas credet esse altiorem, qui vestem induerit clariorem. Sed S. Apostolus taliter se intelligi non vult, quia non carne, &c.”—De Informatione Episcoporum, seu De Dignitate Sacerdotali, in ed. Benedict. Opp. S. Ambrosii, tom. ii. p. 358.
“An upper garment of this cloth was worn by the Emperor Nicephorus II. at his coronation in the year 936.”—Beckmann, l. c. § 31.
“This method of manufacturing beavers’-hair,” observes Beckmann, “seems not to have been known in the time of Pliny; for, though he speaks much of the castor, and mentions pellis fibrina three times, he says nothing in regard to manufacturing the hair, or to beaver-fur.”
It seems probable, that the Greeks and Romans did not use cloth of beavers’-wool until the 4th century. In an earlier age the furs and drugs supplied by beavers were obtained from the countries to the North of the Euxine Sea. But in the period now under consideration the intercourse of the Romans with the West of Europe would open a much more extended sphere for procuring the Vestes Fibrinæ, since we have traces of the existence of beavers in almost all parts of Europe. Their appearance in Wales, Scotland, Germany, and the North of Europe generally, is attested by Giraldus Cambrensis[393].