5. A nunnery, just outside of which stands its lady-abbess, clothed in a white habit, black hood, and white linen wimple about her throat. In her right hand she bears a gold crozier, from which hangs that peculiar napkin, two of which are in this collection, Nos. [8279A], and [8662]. Behind stands an aged nun, and, as if in the passage and seen through the cloister windows, are two lay sisters, known as such by the black scapular. In front of the abbess stands the young maiden dressed in pink, with her waiting woman all in white, in attendance on her. Upon the scrolls are these sentences,—“Dez hymels ey port Godez vor (m)eyn husz disz ist;” “A gate of heaven—God’s and mine house this is.”—“Kom trew Christ wol. p.. eidt nym dy Kron dy dir Got hat bereit.”—“Come, true Christian well ... take the crown which God has prepared for thee.”
Though but a poor specimen of the loom, this piece gives us scraps of an obsolete dialect of the mediæval German, not Flemish, language.
1465.
Piece of Tapestry Hanging; ground, grass and flowers; design, a German romance, divided into six compartments, each having its own inscribed scrolls, meant to describe the subject. South German, middle of the 15th century. 12 feet by 2 feet 6 inches.
In the first compartment we see a group of horsemen, of whom the first is a royal youth wearing a richly-jewelled crown and arrayed in all the fashion of those days. Following him are two grooms, over one of whose heads, but high up in the heavens, flies an eagle; and perhaps the bird may be there to indicate the name of the large walled city close by. Pacing on the flowery turf, the cavalcade is nearing a castle, at the threshold of which stand an aged king and his youthful daughter. On a scroll are the words,—“Bisg god wilkum dusig stunt(?) grosser frayd wart uns nie kunt;” “Be right welcome for a thousand hours; a greater joy we never knew.” Of course the coming guest utters his acknowledgments; but the words on the scroll cannot be made out with the exception of this broken sentence,—“Heute ich unt ...;” “To day I and ...”
In the second compartment, in a room of the castle we behold the same royal youth, wearing, as before, his crown upon his long yellow locks, along with his three varlets. On a scroll are the words,—“Fromer dieur bestelle mir die ros ein wagge ist nun lieber;” “Pious servant, order me the horses, a carriage is preferred.”
In the third compartment is shown, and very likely in his own home, the same young wooer talking, as it would seem by the scrolls, to his three waiting-men; and after one of them had said,—“Wage u[=n] rosz sint bereit als ...;” “Carriage and horses are ready as....” he says,—“Wo schien gluck zu diser vart nie kein reise;” “If luck has shone on this journey, I never liked travelling better.” Of the three servants, one holds three horses, while the upper groom is presenting, with both hands, to his royal young master a large something, apparently ornamented with flowers; the churl wears, hanging down from his girdle in front, an anelace or dagger, the gentleman a gay gipcière, but the shoes of both are very long and pointed.
In the fourth compartment the same crowned youth again is seen riding towards the castle-gate, though this time no lady fair stands at its threshold for the greeting; but instead, there stands with the old king a noble youth who, to all appearances, seems to have been beforehand, in the business of wooing and winning the young princess’s heart, with the last comer. There are these words upon the scroll,—“Ich hab vor einem ... gericht einer tuben und mich yr verpflicht;” “I have before a ... tribunal of a dove, and have myself engaged to her;” meaning that already had he himself betrothed the king’s daughter, by swearing to her his love and truth before a dove—a thing quite mediæval, like the vows of the swan, the peacock, and the pheasant, as we have noticed in the Introduction, and again while treating of the Syon Cope, at p. 28. On his side, the old king thus addresses him,—“Mich dunckt du komst uber land ... zu der hochzeit;” “Methinks thou comest over-land ... to see the wedding.” In this, as in other inscriptions, the whole of the words cannot be made out.
The fifth compartment shows us the second and successful wooer, dressed out in the same attire as before, but now riding a well-appointed steed, and booted in the manner of those times. He is waited on by a mounted page. On a scroll are the words,—“Umb sehnlichst ich nun köme ... ist die ewige ...;” “That I most passionately now can ... is the eternal,” &c.