The “Vernicle,” embroidered in silk, and now sewed on a large piece of linen. Flemish, middle of 15th century. 9½ inches by 7½ inches; the linen, 2 feet 10½ inches by 2 feet 9 inches.
To the readers of old English literature, especially of Chaucer, the term of “Vernicle” will not be unknown, as expressing the representation of our Saviour’s face, which He is said to have left upon a napkin handed Him to wipe His brows, by one of those pious women who crowded after Him on His road to Calvary. It is noticed, too, in the “Church of our Fathers,” t. iii. p. 438. This piece of needlework seems to have been cut off from another, and sewed, at a very much later period, to the large piece of linen to which it is now attached; for the purpose of being put up either in a private chapel, or over some very small altar in a church, as a sort of reredos; or, perhaps, it may have originally been one of the apparels on an alb: never, however, on an amice, being much too large for such a purpose. One singularity in the subject is the appearance of crimson tassels, one at each corner of the napkin figured with our Lord’s likeness, which is kept with great care still, at Rome, among the principal relics in St. Peter’s, where it is shown in a solemn manner on Easter Monday. It is one of those representations of a sacred subject called by the Greeks ἀχειροποίητος, that is, “not made by hands,” or, not the work of man, as was noticed in the Introduction to the present Catalogue.
8652.
Linen Towel, with thread embroidery; pattern, lozenges, some enclosing flowers, others, lozenges. German, 15th century. 3 feet 11 inches by 1 foot 6½ inches.
Most likely this small piece of linen was meant to be a covering for a table, or may be the chest of drawers in the vestry, and upon which the vestments for the day were laid out for the celebrating priest to put on. In the pattern there is evidently a strong liking for the gammadion—a kind of figuration constructed out of modifications of the Greek letter gamma. In England the gammadion became known as the “filfot,” and seems to have been looked upon as a symbol for the name Francis or Frances, and is of frequent occurrence in our national monuments—especially in needlework—belonging to the 14th and 15th centuries. From the presence of that large eight-petaled flower in this cloth we are somewhat warranted in thinking that the same hand that wrought the fine and curious frontal, [No. 8709], worked this, and that her baptismal name was Frances.
8653-8661A.
Ten Fragments of Narrow Laces for edgings to liturgical garments, woven, some in gold, some in silk, and some in worsted. 8658 is a specimen of parti-coloured fringe; 8659 shows a two-legged monster as part of its design;
and in 8661 and 8661 A we find a knot much like the one to which Montagu gives the names of Wake and Ormond, in his “Guide to the Study of Heraldry,” p. 52.