The method for filling in the quatrefoils, as well as working much of the drapery on the figures, is remarkable for being done in a long zigzag diaper-pattern, and after the manner called in ancient inventories, “opus plumarium,” from the way the stitches overlie each other like the feathers on a bird.
The stitchery on the armorial bearings is the same as that now followed in so many trifling things worked in wool.
The canvas for every part of this cope is of the very finest sort; but oddly enough, its crimson canvas lining is thick and coarse. What constituted, then, the characteristics of the “opus Anglicum,” or English work, in mediæval embroidery were, first, the beginning of the stitchery in certain parts of the human figure—the face especially—in circular lines winding close together round and round; and, in the second place, the sinking of those same portions into permanent hollows by the use of a hot iron.
A word or two now about the history of this fine cope.
In olden days not a town, hardly a single parish, throughout England, but had in it one or more pious associations called “gilds,” some of which could show the noblest amongst the layfolks, men and women, and the most distinguished of the clergy in the kingdom, set down upon the roll of its brotherhood, which often grew up into great wealth. Each of these gilds had, usually in its parish church, a chapel, or at least an altar of its own, where, for its peculiar service, it kept one if not several priests and clerics, provided, too, with every needful liturgical appliance, articles of which were frequently the spontaneous offering of individual brothers, who sometimes clubbed together for the purpose of thus making their joint gift more splendid. Now it is most remarkable that upon this cope, and quite apart from the sacred story on it, we have two figures, that to the left, pranked out in the gay attire of some rich layman; on the right, the other, who must be an ecclesiastic from the tonsure on his head; each bears an inscribed scroll in his hand, and both are in the posture of suppliants making offerings. This cleric and this layman may have been akin to one another, brothers, too, of the same gild for which they at their joint cost got this cope worked and gave to it. But where was this gild itself?
Among the foremost of our provincial cities once was reckoned Coventry. Its Corpus Christi plays or mysteries, illustrated by this embroidery, enjoyed such a wide-spread fame that for the whole eight days of their performance, every year, they drew crowds of the highest and the gentlest of the land far and near, as the “Paston Letters” testify, to see them; its gild was of such repute that our nobility—lords and ladies—our kings and queens, did not think it anywise beneath their high estate to be enrolled among its brotherhood. Besides many other authorities, we have one in that splendid piece of English tapestry—figured with Henry VI, Cardinal Beaufort, Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, and other courtiers, on the left or men’s side, and on the women’s, Queen Margaret, the Duchess of Buckingham, and other ladies, most of them on their knees, and all hearing mass—still hanging on the wall of the dining hall of St. Mary’s gild, of which that king, with his queen and all his court became members; and at whose altar, as brethren, they heard their service, on some Sunday, or high festival, which they spent at Coventry. Taking this old city as a centre, with a radius of no great length, we may draw a circle on the map which will enclose Tamworth, tower and town, Chartly Castle, Warwick, Charlcote, Althorp, &c. where the once great houses of Ferrers, Beauchamp, Lucy, and Spencer held, and some of them yet hold, large estates; and from being the owners of broad lands in its neighbourhood, their lords would, in accordance with the religious feeling of those times, become brothers of the famous gild of Coventry; and on account of their high rank, find their arms emblazoned upon the vestments belonging to their fraternity. That such a pious queen as the gentle Eleanor, our First Edward’s first wife, who died A.D. 1290, should have, in her lifetime, become a sister, and by her bounties made herself to be gratefully remembered after death, is very likely, so that we may with ease account for her shield—Castile and Leon—as well as for the shields of the other great families we see upon the orphrey, being wrought there as a testimonial that, while, like many others, they were members, they also had been munificent benefactors to the association. A remembrance of brotherhood for those others equally noble, but less generous in their benefactions, may be read in those smaller shields upon the narrow hem going along the lower border of this vestment. The whole of it must have taken a long, long time in the doing; and the probability is that it was worked by the nuns of some convent which stood in or near Coventry.
Upon the banks of the Thames, at Isleworth, near London, in the year 1414, Henry V. built, and munificently endowed, a monastery to be called “Syon,” for nuns of St. Bridget’s order. Among the earliest friends of this new house was a Master Thomas Graunt, an official in one of the ecclesiastical courts of the kingdom. In the Syon nuns’ martyrologium—a valuable MS. lately bought by the British Museum—this churchman is gratefully recorded as the giver to their convent of several precious ornaments, of which this very cope seemingly is one. It was the custom for a gild, or religious body, to bestow some rich church vestment upon an ecclesiastical advocate who had befriended it by his pleadings before the tribunals, and thus to convey their thanks to him along with his fee. After such a fashion this cope could have easily found its way, through Dr. Graunt, from Warwickshire to Middlesex. At the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign it went along with the nuns as they wandered in an unbroken body through Flanders, France, and Portugal, where they halted. About sixty years ago it came back again from Lisbon to England, and has found a lasting home in the South Kensington Museum.
197.
Web for Orphreys; ground, crimson silk; design, the Assumption, in yellow silk and gold thread. Florentine, 15th century. 2 feet 2½ inches by 1 foot 2¾ inches.