1290.
A bishop’s Liturgical Shoe, of silk and gold damask; ground, crimson silk; design, eagles, in couples, at rest, in gold, amid foliations in green silk; a small piece on the left side of the heel is of another rich stuff in gold and light green. Italian stuff, 14th century. 11½ inches.
Such old episcopal liturgic shoes are now great rarities; and a specimen once belonging to one of our English worthies, Waneflete, is given in the “Church of our Fathers,” t. ii. p. 250; it is of rich silk velvet, wrought with flowers, and still kept at Magdalen College, Oxford, built and endowed by that good bishop of Winchester. In the present example we have, in its thin leather sole for the right foot, a proof that making shoes right and left was well known then.
1291.
Silk and Gold Damask; ground (now very faded), crimson silk; design, animals, all in gold, and flowers in gold, pricked out, some in green, others in purple silk. Sicilian, 14th century. 14½ inches by 8½ inches.
The animals are large antelopes couchant, and smaller ones in the like posture, within flowers, along with large oddly-shaped wyverns with the head bent down; the flowers are roses, and a modification of the centaurea, or corn-flower. Though the gold be tarnished, the pattern is still rich.
1292.
