Silks called de fundato, from the pattern woven on them, are frequently spoken of by Anastasius. From the text of that writer, and from passages in other authors of his time, it would seem that the silks themselves were dyed of the richest purple and figured with gold in the pattern of netting. As one of the meanings for the word “funda” is a fisherman’s net, rich textiles so figured in gold were denominated “de fundato” or netted. We gather also from Fortunatus that the costly purple-dyed silks called “blatta” were always interwoven with gold. This net-pattern lingered long and, no doubt, we find it under a new name “laqueatus”—meshed—upon a cope belonging to the church of St. Paul’s, London, 1295: where an inventory, printed by Dugdale, includes a cope of baudekin with fir-cones “in campis laqueatis.” Modifications of this very old pattern may be seen at South Kensington, nos. 1264, 1266, and 8234. In the diapered pattern on some of the cloth of gold found lately in the grave of an archbishop, buried at York about the end of the thirteenth century, the same netting is discernible.
Stragulatæ, striped or barred silks, were at one time in much request. Frequent mention is made of them in the Exeter inventories; for example, in 1277, there were two palls of baudekin, one “stragulata.” The illuminations in the manuscript in the Harley collection at the British museum of the deposition of Richard the second affords us instances of this textile. The young man to the right sitting on the ground at the archbishop’s sermon is entirely, hood and all, arrayed in this striped silk; and at the altar, where Northumberland is swearing on the eucharist, the priest who is saying mass wears a chasuble of the same stuff. Old St. Paul’s had an offertory-veil of the same pattern; “stragulatum” with the stripes red and green.
At the end of the twelfth century there was brought to England, from Greece, a sort of precious silk named there Imperial.
Ralph, dean of St Paul’s cathedral, tells us that William de Magna Villa, on coming home from his pilgrimage to the holy land about 1178, made presents to several churches of cloths which at Constantinople were called “Imperial.” We are told by Roger Wendover, and after him by Matthew Paris, that the apparition of king John was dressed in royal robes made of the stuff they call imperial. In the inventory of St. Paul’s, drawn up in 1295, four tunicles (vestments for subdeacons and lower ministers at the altar) are mentioned as made of this imperial. No colour is specified, except in the one instance of the silk being marbled; and the patterns are noticed as of red and green, with lions woven in gold. It seems not to have been thought good enough for the more important vestments, such as chasubles and copes. Probably the name was not derived from its colour (supposed royal purple) nor its costliness, but for quite another reason: woven at a workshop kept up by the Byzantine emperors, like the Gobelins is to-day in Paris, and bearing about it some small though noticeable mark, it took the designation of “Imperial.” We know it was partly wrought with gold; but that its tint was always some shade of the imperial purple is a gratuitous assumption. In France this textile was in use as late as the second half of the fifteenth century, but looked upon as old. At York somewhat later, in the early part of the sixteenth, one of its deans bestowed on that cathedral “two (blue) copes of clothe imperialle.”
Baudekin was a costly stuff much employed and often spoken of in our literature during many years of the mediæval period.
Ciclatoun, as we have already remarked, was the usual term during centuries throughout western Europe by which the showy golden textiles were called. When, however, Bagdad or Baldak held for no short length of time the lead all over Asia in weaving fine silks, and in especial golden stuffs shot as now in different colours, tinted cloths of gold became known, and more particularly among the English, as “baldakin,” “baudekin,” or “baudkyn,” or silks from Baldak. At last the earlier term “ciclatoun” dropped out of use. Remembering this the reader will more readily understand several otherwise puzzling passages in our old writers, as well as in the inventories of royal furniture and church vestments.
Kings and the nobility affected much this rich stuff for the garments worn on high occasions. When Henry the third knighted William of Valence, in 1247, he had on a robe of cloth of gold made of baudekin; “facta de pretiosissimo baldekino.” In the year 1259 the master of Sherborn hospital in the north bequeathed to that house a cope made of the like stuff: “de panno ad aurum scilicet baudekin.” Vestments of this material are frequently mentioned in the old church inventories.
These Bagdad or Baldak silks, with a weft of gold, known among us as “baudekins” were often woven very large in size, and applied here in England to especial ritual purposes. As a thanks-offering after a safe return home from a journey they were brought and given to the altar; at the solemn burial of our kings and queens and other great people, the mourners, when offertory time came, went to the hearse and threw a baudekin of costly texture over the coffin. We may learn the ceremonial from the descriptions of many of our mediæval funerals. At the obsequies of Henry the seventh in Westminster abbey:—“Twoe herauds came to the duke of Buck. and to the earles, and conveyed them into the revestrie where they did receive certen palles which everie of them did bringe solemly betwene theire hands and comminge in order one before another as they were in degree unto the said herse, thay kissed theire said palles and delivered them unto the said heraudes which laide them uppon the kyngs corps, in this manner: the palle which was first offered by the duke of Buck. was laid on length on the said corps, and the residewe were laid acrosse, as thick as they might lie.” In the same church at the burial of Anne of Cleves in 1557, a like ceremonial of carrying cloth-of-gold palls to the hearse was followed. So also the religious guilds, or other companies, in the middle ages kept palls to be thrown over the bodies of all brothers or sisters at their burial, however lowly may have been their rank.
The word “baudekin” itself became at last enlarged in its meaning. So warm, so mellow, so fast were the tones of crimson which the dyers of Bagdad knew how to give their silks that, without a thread of gold in them, the mere glowing tints of the plain crimson silken webs won for themselves the name of baudekins. Furthermore, when they quite ceased to be partly woven in gold and from their consequent lower price and cheapness came into use for cloths of estate over royal thrones, the canopy hung over the high altar of a church acquired and yet keeps the appellation (at least in Italy) of “baldachino.”
How very full in size, how costly in materials and embroidery, must have sometimes been the cloth of estate spread overhead and behind the throne of our kings, may be gathered from the privy purse expenses of Henry the seventh; wherein this item occurs: “To Antony Corsse for a cloth of an estate conteyning 47½ yerds, £11 the yerd, £522 10s.” Canopies of this kind are still occasionally to be seen in the throne-room of some of the Roman palaces, whose owners have the old feudal right to the cloth of estate.