No cristen man so ofte of his degre.
In Gernade at the siege eke hadde he be
Of Algesir, and ridden in Belmarie.
At mortal batailles hadde he ben fiftene,
And foughten for our faith at Tramissene
In listes thries, and ay slain his fo.[430]
[430] Chaucer, The Prologue, vv. 51, &c.
At Warwick itself, and again at Temple Balsall, not far off, the Knights Templars held a preceptory, and, as it is likely, aggregated to the Coventry gild, had their badge—the Holy Lamb—figured on its vestment. Proud of all its brotherhood, proud of those high lords who had gone on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, figured by the Star of Bethlehem, and had done battle with the Moslem, according to the vow signified by the swan and peacock, the Coventry gild caused to be embroidered on the orphrey of their fine old cope, the several armorial bearings of those among their brotherhood who had swelled the fame of England abroad; and by putting those symbols—the swan and the peacock, the star and crescent—close by their blazons, meant to remind the world of those festive doings which led each of them to work such deeds of hardihood.
In the fourteenth century a fashion grew up here in England of figuring symbolism—heraldic and religious—upon the articles of dress, as we gather from specimens here, as well as from other sources. The ostrich feather, first assumed by our Black Prince, was a favourite device with his son Richard II. for his flags and personal garments. This is well shown in the illumination given, p. 31, of the “Deposition of Richard II.,” published by the Antiquarian Society. That king’s mother had bequeathed to him a new bed of red velvet, embroidered with ostrich feathers of silver, and heads of leopards of gold, with boughs and leaves issuing out of their mouths.[431] Through family feeling, not merely the white swan, but this cognizance of the Yorkists—the ostrich feather—was sometimes figured on orphreys for church copes and chasubles, since in the Exeter, A.D. 1506, we find mentioned a cope, “le orfrey de rubeo damasco operato de opere acuali cum rosis aureis ac ostryge fethers insertis in rosis,” &c.;[432] and again, “le orfrey de blodio serico operata de opere acuali cum cignis albis et ostryge fethers—i casula de blodio serico operata opere acuali cum ostryge fethers sericis, le orfrey de rubeo serico operato cum ostryge fethers aureis.”[433] Lincoln Cathedral, too, had a cope of red damask, with ostriges feathers of silver.[434] This somewhat odd element of design for a textile is to be found on one here, [No. 7058], p. 129.
[431] Testamenta Vetusta, i. 14.