Of cloth-making she hadde swiche an haunt
She passed hem of Ipres and of Gaunt.
In the South Kensington collection, no. 1270 shows how these cloths were wrought; and it would seem that cloth of gold was often diapered with a pattern, at least in the time of Chaucer, who describes it on the housing of a king’s horse:
——trapped in stele,
Covered with cloth of gold diapred wele.
Church inventories make frequent mention of such diapered silks for vestments. Exeter cathedral had a cope of white diaper with half moons, the gift of bishop Bartholomew, in 1161. Sometimes the pattern of the diapering is noticed; for instance, at St. Paul’s, “a chasuble of white diaper, with coupled parrots in places, among branches.” Probably the most elaborate specimen of diaper-weaving on record is that which Edmund, earl of Cornwall, gave to the same cathedral; “a cope of a certain diaper of Antioch colour covered with trees and diapered birds, of which the heads, breasts and feet, as well as the flowers on the tress, were woven in gold thread.”
By degrees the word “diaper” became widened in its meaning. Not only all sorts of textile, whether of silk, of linen, or of worsted, but the walls of a room were said to be diapered when the self-same ornament was repeated and sprinkled well over it. Thus, in ‘the squire of low degree,’ the king of Hungary promises his daughter a chair or carriage, that
Shal be coverd wyth velvette reede
And clothes of fyne golde al about your heede,
With damaske whyte and azure blewe
Well dyaperd with lylles newe.
The bow for arrows held by Sweet-looking is, in Chaucer’s ‘Romaunt of the rose,’ described as
painted well, and thwitten
And over all diapred and written, etc.
So now, we call our fine table linen “diaper” because it is figured with flowers and fruits. Sometimes silks diapered were called “fygury:” as the cope mentioned in the York fabric rolls, “una capa de sateyn fygury.”
