fall into the shape of the so-called Greek cross; and in this form it was woven upon the textiles denominated stauracinæ; or patterned with a cross. Being one of the four same-shaped elements of the cross’s figure, the part was significant of the whole: and as an emblem of the corner-stone, our Lord, the gamma or Γ, was frequently shown at one edge of the tunic worn by the apostles in ancient mosaics; wherein sometimes we find, in place of the single gamma, the figure H; another combination of the four gammas in the cross. Whatsoever, therefore, whether of metal or of silk, was found to be marked in this or any other way of putting the gammas together, or with only a single one, was called “gammadion,” or “gammadiæ.”
Ancient ingenuity for throwing its favourite gamma into other combinations, and thus bringing out pretty and graceful patterns to be wrought on all sorts of work for ecclesiastical use, did not stop here. In the Liber pontificalis of Anastasius we meet not unfrequently with accounts of vestments, etc. “de stauracin seu quadrapolis”; or “de quadrapolo”; or “de octapolo.” The author here evidently means to imply a distinction between a something amounting to four, and to eight, in or upon these textiles. It cannot be to say that one fabric was woven with four, the other with eight threads; had that been so meant, the fact would probably then have been explained by a word constructed like “examitus,” p. 24. As the contrast is not in the texture it must be in the pattern of the stuffs; that is, in the number of the crosses: and we further see why “stauracin” and “de quadrapolis” are interchangeable terms.
At the end of Du Cange’s glossary is an engraving of a work of Greek art; plate IX. Here St. John Chrysostom stands between St. Nicholas and St. Basil. All three are arrayed in their liturgical garments, which being figured with crosses are of the textile called of old “stauracin;” but there is a marked difference in the way in which the crosses are inserted. The crosses are arranged upon the vestment of St. John thus;
St. Nicholas and St. Basil have chasubles which are not only worked all over with crosses made with gammas, but are surrounded with other gammas joined so as to edge in the crosses, thus;
As four gammas only are necessary to form all the crosses upon St. John’s vestment, we there see the textile called “stauracin de quadruplo,” or the stuff figured with a cross of four (gammas); while as eight of these letters are required for the pattern on the others, we have in them an example of the “stauracin de octapolo,” or “octapulo,” a fabric with a pattern composed of eight gammas.
A far more ancient and universal shape fashioned out of the repetition of the same letter Γ, is that known as Gammadion; or, as commonly called at one time in England, the Filfot. Several pieces in the South Kensington collection exhibit on them some modification of it: for example, nos. 1261, 1325, 7052, 829A, 8305, 8635, and 8652. Its figure is made out of the usual four gammas, so that they should fall together thus;
Of silks patterned with the plain Greek cross or “stauracin” there are also several examples in the same collection; and though not of the remotest period are interesting. No. 8234, perhaps wrought in Sicily by the Greeks brought as prisoners from the Morea in the twelfth century, is not without some value. In the chapter library at Durham may be seen (as we learn from Mr. Raine) an example of Byzantine stauracin “colours purple and crimson; the only prominent ornament a cross—often repeated, even upon the small portion which remains.” Those who have seen in St. Peter’s sacristy at Rome that beautiful light-blue dalmatic said to have been worn by Charlemagne when he sang the gospel, vested as a deacon, on the day he was crowned emperor, will remember how plentifully it is sprinkled with crosses between its exquisite embroideries, so as to make the vestment a real “stauracin.” It has been well given by Sulpiz Boisserée in his ‘Kaiser dalmatika in der St. Peterskirche;’ but far better by Dr. Bock in his splendid work on the coronation robes of the German emperors.