A long loop of gold and silver braid serves as a handle, or means of attachment to a belt, and is fixed at each side near a strong double loop of silver thread, used when pulling the bag open. The lining is of pink silk. This particular bag is perfect in colour as well as condition, but usually the silver has turned black, or nearly so. Besides these very ornamental bags, others of quite simple workmanship are occasionally found, worked in outline with coloured silks. As well as the embroidered bags, certain rectangular cloths variously ornamented, some richly, some plainly, were made and used for the protection of embroidered books, when being read. These, like the bags, only seem to have been used during the seventeenth century. A particularly fine example belongs to a New Testament bound in embroidered satin in 1640. It is of fine linen, measuring 16½ by 9¼ inches, and is beautifully embroidered in a floral design, with thick stalks of gold braid arranged in curves and bearing conventional flowers and leaves, all worked in needle-point lace with coloured silks in a wonderfully skilful manner.
In the centre is a double red rose with separate petals, and among the other flowers are corn-flowers, honeysuckles, carnations, strawberries, and several leaves, all worked in the same way, and appliqués at their edges. Some, however, of the larger leaves and petals are ornamentally fastened down to the linen by small coloured stitches arranged in lines or patterns over their surfaces, as well as by the edge stitches. There are several spangles scattered about in the spaces on the linen, and the edge is bound with green silk and gold. On the book itself to which this cover belongs there is a good deal of the same needle-point work, probably executed by the same hand; but the cover is a finer piece altogether than the book,—in fact it is the finest example of such work I have ever seen.
2—Embroidered Cover for New Testament. London, 1640.
Abroad there have been made at various times embroidered bindings for books, but in no country except England has there been any regular production of them. I have come across a few cases in England of foreign work, the most important of which I will shortly describe. In the British Museum is an interesting specimen bound in red satin, and embroidered with the arms of Felice Peretti, Cardinal de Montalt, who was afterwards Pope Sixtus v.; the coat-of-arms has a little coloured silk upon it, but the border and the cardinal's hat with tassels are all outlined in gold cord. The work is of an elementary character. The book itself is a beautiful illuminated vellum copy of Fichet's Rhetoric, printed in Paris in 1471, and presented to the then Pope, Sixtus iv. In the same collection are a few more instances of Italian embroidered bindings, always heraldic in their main designs, the workmanship not being of any particular excellence or character. Perhaps altogether the most interesting Italian work of this kind was done on books bound for Cardinal York, several of which still remain, embroidered with his coat-of-arms, one of them being now in the Royal Library at Windsor. Although the actual workmanship on these books is foreign, we may perhaps claim them as having been suggested or made by the order of the English Prince himself, inheriting the liking for embroidered books from his Stuart ancestors.
French embroidered books are very rare, and I do not know of any examples in England. Two interesting specimens, at least, are in the Bibliothèque Nationale, and are described and figured in Bouchot's work on the artistic bindings in that library. The earlier is on a book of prayers of the fifteenth century, bound in canvas, and worked with 'tapisserie de soie au petit point,' or as I should call it, tent-, or tapestry-, stitch. It represents the Crucifixion and a saint, but M. Bouchot remarks of it, 'La composition est grossière et les figures des plus rudimentaires.'
The other instance occurs on a sixteenth-century manuscript, 'Les Gestes de Blanche de Castille.' It is bound in black velvet, much worn, and ornamented with appliqué embroideries in coloured silks, in shading stitch, probably done on fine linen. The design on the upper cover shows the author of the book, Etienne le Blanc, in the left-hand corner, kneeling at the feet of Louise de Savoie, Regent of France, to whom the book is dedicated. Near her is a fountain into which an antlered stag is jumping, pursued by three hounds.
The Dutch, in the numerous excellent styles of bindings they have so freely imitated from other nations, have not failed to include the English embroidered books. In the South Kensington Museum is a charming specimen of their work on satin, finely worked in coloured silks with small masses of pearls in a rather too elaborate design of flowers and animals. In the British Museum, besides other instances of Dutch needlework, there is a very handsome volume of the Acta Synodalis Nationalis Dordrechti habitæ, printed at Leyden in 1620, and bound in crimson velvet. It has the royal coat-of-arms of England within the Garter, with crest, supporters, and motto, all worked in various kinds of gold thread; in the corners are sprays of roses and thistles alternately, and above and below the coat are the crowned initials J. R., all worked in gold thread.