Many of the beautifully figured damasks in the South Kensington collection are what anciently were known as “samits;” and if they really be not six-thread, according to the etymology of their name, it is because at a very early period the stuffs so called ceased to be woven of such a thickness.
The strong silks of the present day with the thick thread called “organzine” for the woof, and a slightly thinner thread known by the technical name of “tram” for the warp, may be taken to represent the old “examits.”
No less remarkable for the lightness of its texture than was the samit on account of the thick substance of its web, and quite as much sought after, was another kind of thin glossy silken stuff “wrought in the orient,” and here called first by the Persian name which came with it, ciclatoun, that is, bright and shining; but afterwards sicklatoun, siglaton, cyclas. Sometimes a woof of golden thread lent it still more glitter; and it was used both for ecclesiastical vestments and for secular articles of stately dress. In the inventory of St. Paul’s cathedral, 1295, there was a cope made of cloth of gold, called ciclatoun: “capa de panno aureo qui vocatur ciclatoun.” Among the booty carried off by the English when they sacked the camp of Saladin,
King Richard took the pavillouns
Of sendal, and of cyclatoun.
In his ‘Rime of Sire Thopas,’ Chaucer says
Of Brugges were his hosen broun
His robe was of ciclatoun.
Though so light and thin, this cloak of “ciclatoun” was often embroidered in silk and had golden ornaments sewn on it; we read in the ‘Metrical romances’ of a maiden who sat
In a robe ryght ryall bowne
Of a red syclatowne
Be hur fader syde;
A coronell on hur hedd set,
Hur clothys with bestes and byrdes wer bete
All abowte for pryde.
Knights in the field wore over their armour a long sleeveless gown slit up almost to the waist on both sides; sometimes of “samit,” often of “cendal,” oftener still of “ciclatourn:” and the name of the gown itself, shortened from the material, became known as “cyclas.” Matthew of Westminster records that when Edward the first knighted his son in Westminster abbey he sent to three hundred sons of the nobility, whom the prince was afterward to dub knights in the same church, a most splendid gift of attire, fitting for the ceremony; among which were clycases woven with gold. That these garments were very light and thin we gather from the quiet wit of John of Salisbury, who jeers a man affecting to perspire in the depth of winter, though clad in nothing but his fine cyclas.
Not so costly was a silken stuff known as cendal, cendallus, sandal, sandalin, cendatus, syndon, syndonus, as the way of writing the word altered as time went on. When Sir Guy of Warwick was knighted,