Arras is but one among several other terms by which, during the middle ages, tapestry was called.
From the Saracens, it is likely Western Europe learned the art: at all events its earliest name in Christendom was Saracenic work—“opus Saracenicum”—and as our teachers, we too wrought in a low or horizontal loom. The artizans of France and Flanders were the first to bring forwards the upright or vertical frame, afterwards known abroad as “de haute lisse,” in contradistinction to the low or horizontal frame called “de basse lisse.” Those who went on with the latter unimproved loom, though thorough good Christians, came to be known, in the trade, as Saracens, for keeping to the method of their paynim teachers; and their produce, Saracenic. In year 1339 John de Croisettes, a Saracen-tapestry worker, living at Arras, sells to the Duke of Touraine a piece of gold Saracenic tapestry figured with the story of Charlemaine: “Jean de Croisettes, tapissier Sarrazinois demeurant à Arras, vend au Duc de Touraine un tapis Sarrazinois à or de l’histoire de Charlemaine.”[357] Soon however the high frame put out of use the low one; and among the many pieces of tapestry belonging to Philippe Duke of Bourgogne and Brabant, very many are especially entered as of the high frame, and one of them is thus described:—“ung grant tapiz de haulte lice, sauz or, de l’istoire du duc Guillaume de Normandie comment il conquist Engleterre.”[358]
[356] Anglia Sacra, t. i. p. 148.
[357] Voisin, p. 4.
[358] Les Ducs de Bourgogne, par le Comte de Laboure, t. ii. p. 270.
With the upright, as with the flat frame, the workman went the same road to his labours; but, in either of these ways, had to grope in the dark a great deal on his path. In both, he was obliged to put in the threads on the back or wrong side of the piece following his sketch as best he could behind the fixings or warp. As the face was downward in the flat frame he had no means of looking at it to correct a fault. In the upright frame he might go in front, and with his own doings in open view on one hand, and the original design full before him on the other, he could mend as he went on, step by step, the smallest mistake, were it but a single thread. Put side by side, when done, the pieces from the upright frame were, in beauty and perfection, far beyond those that had come from the flat one. In what that superiority consisted we do not know with certitude, for not one single flat sample, truly such, is recognizable from evidence within our reach.
To us it seems that the Saracenic work was in texture light and thin, so that it might be, as it often was, employed for making vestments themselves, or sewed instead of needlework embroidered on those liturgical appliances. In the inventory of St. Paul’s, London, A.D. 1295, mention is made of it thus: “Duo amicti veteres quorum unus de opere Saraceno.”[359] “Stola de opere Saraceno.”[360] “Vestimentum de opere Saraceno.”[361] “Tunica et Dalmatica de indico sendato afforciato cum bordura operis Saraceni.”[362] “Quatuor offertoria de rubeo serico quorum duo habent extremitates de opere Saraceno.”[363]
[359] Dugdale, p. 319.
[360] Ib. p. 319.
[361] Ib. p. 320.