Linen Napkin, or rather Sindon or Pyx-cloth, the borders embroidered with coloured silks and silver-thread. Perhaps Flemish, 16th century. 18½ inches by 16½ inches.
In more senses than one this small linen cloth is of great value, being, in the first place, a liturgical appliance of the mediæval period, now unused in this form, certainly unique in this country, and hardly ever to be met with on the continent, either in private hands or public collections. According to ancient English custom, the pyx containing particles of the Blessed Eucharist for giving, at all hours of day or night, the Holy Communion to the dying, and kept hanging up over the high altar of every church in this land, was overspread with one of such fine linen and embroidered veils, as may be seen in an illumination from the “Life of St. Edmund, King and Martyr,” in the Harley Collection, British Museum, and engraved in the “Church of our Fathers,” t. iv. p. 206.
The readers of English history will, no doubt, feel an interest in this specimen, when they learn that, with such a linen napkin, Mary Queen of Scots had her face muffled just before she laid her head upon the block: “Then the maid, Kennedy, took a handkerchief, edged with gold, in which the Eucharist had formerly been enclosed, and fastened it over her eyes.” “Pict. Hist. of England, ed. Knight,” t. ii. p. 671. Knight is wrong in saying that the Holy Eucharist had ever been immediately enclosed in this cloth, which is only the veil that used to be cast over the pyx or small vessel in which the consecrated hosts were kept, as we observed in the introduction, § 5.
8343.
Piece of Linen Damask; pattern, of the pomegranate type, with a border of an armorial shield repeated, and the initials C. L. An edging of lace is attached to one end. Flemish, middle of the 16th century. 17¼ inches by 13 inches.
The shield is party per pale; in the first, two bars counter-embattled; in the second, a chevron charged with three escallop shells.
Most likely this small piece of Flemish napery served as the finger-cloth or little napkin with which, when saying mass, the priest dried the tips of his fingers after washing them, the while he said that prayer, “Munda me, Domine,” &c. in the Salisbury Missal; “Church of our Fathers,” t. iv. p. 150. By the rubrics of the Roman Missal, the priest was, and yet is, directed to say, at the ritual washing of his hands, that portion of the 25th Psalm, which begins, verse 6, “Lavabo manus meas,” &c. “Hierurgia,” p. 21; hence these small liturgical towels got, and still keep, the name of Lavabo cloths or Lavaboes, especially in all those countries where the Roman Missal is in use.