By the latter end of the thirteenth century embroidery obtained for its several styles and various sorts of ornamentation a distinguishing and technical nomenclature. One of the earliest documents in which we meet with this set of terms is the inventory drawn up, in 1295, of the vestments belonging to St. Paul’s cathedral, printed by Dugdale: herein, the “opus plumarium,” the “opus pectineum,” the “opus pulvinarium,” “consutum de serico,” “de serico consuto,” may be severally found.
“Opus plumarium” was the then usual term for what is now commonly called embroidery; and was given to needlework of this kind because the stitches were laid down longwise and not across: that is, so put together that they seemed to overlap one another like the feathers in the plumage of a bird. This style was aptly called “feather-stitch” work, in contradistinction to that done in cross and tent stitch, or the “cushion-style.”
The “opus pulvinarium,” or “cushion-style,” was like the modern so-called Berlin work. As now, so then it was done in the same stitching with pretty much the same materials and generally, if not always, put to the same purpose; for cushions, to sit or to kneel upon in church or to uphold the mass-book at the altar; hence its name of “cushion-style.” In working it silken thread is known to have been often used. Among other specimens, and in silk, there is a beautiful cushion of a date corresponding to the London inventory at South Kensington, no. 1324. Being well adapted for working heraldry this stitch has been used from an early period for the purpose; and emblazoned orphreys, like the narrow hem on the Syon cope, were wrought in it.
The “opus pectineum” was a kind of woven work imitative of embroidery, and employed to supply it. John Garland, in his dictionary, explains that it was made by means of a comb, or some comb-like instrument: and from this the work itself received the distinctive appellation of “pectineum,” or comb-wrought. Before John Garland left England for France, to teach a school there, he must have often seen his countrywomen at such an occupation; and the amice given by Katherine Lovell to St. Paul’s, “de opere pectineo,” may perhaps have been the work of her own hands.
Women in the middle ages were so ready at the needle that they could make their embroidery look as if it had been done in the loom, really woven. A shred of crimson cendal figured in gold and silver thread with a knight on horseback, armed as of the latter time of Edward the first, was shown to us some time ago. At first sight the mounted warrior seemed to have been not hand-worked but woven; so flat, so even was every thread. Looking at it however through a glass and turning it about, we found it to have been embroidered by the finger in such a way that the stitches laid down upon the surface were carried through into the canvas lining at the back of the thin silk. In this same manner all the design, both before and behind, upon the fine English-wrought chasuble at South Kensington, no. 673, was probably worked.
At the latter end of the thirteenth century our countrywomen invented a new way of embroidery. Without giving up altogether the old “opus plumarium” or feather-stitch, they mixed it with a new style, both of needlework and mechanism. So beautiful was the novel method deemed abroad that it won for itself the complimentary appellation of “opus Anglicum,” or English work. In what its peculiarity consisted has long been a question and a puzzle among foreign archæological writers; and a living one of eminence, M. Voisin, noticing a cope of English work given to the church of Tournai, says: “Il serait curieux de savoir quelle broderie ou quel tissu on designait sous le nom de opus Anglicum.”
But if we examine that very fine piece of English needlework, the Syon cope, at South Kensington, no. 9182, we find that the first stitches for the human face were begun in the centre of the cheek, and worked in circular lines; falling (after the further side had been made) into straight lines, which were so carried on through the rest of the fleshes; in some instances, also, through the draperies. But this was done in a sort of chain-stitch, and a newly practised mechanical appliance was brought into use. After the whole figure had thus been wrought with this kind of chain-stitch in circles and straight lines, then with a little thin iron rod ending in a small bulb or smooth knob slightly heated, those middle spots in the faces that had been worked in circular lines were pressed down; and the deep wide dimples in the throat, especially of aged persons. By the hollows thus lastingly sunk a play of light and shadow is brought out, which at a short distance lends to the portion so treated the appearance of low relief. Chain-stitch, then, worked in circular lines and relief given to parts by hollows sunk into the faces and other portions of the persons, constitute the elements of the “opus Anglicum,” or embroidery after the English manner. How the chain-stitch was worked into circles for the faces, and straight lines for the rest of the figures, is well shown by a woodcut, after a portion of the Steeple Aston embroideries, given in the archæological journal, vol iv. p. 285.
Although not merely the faces and the extremities but the dresses also of the persons figured were generally wrought in chain-stitch, and afterwards treated as we have just described, another practice was to work the draperies in feather-stitch, which was also employed for the grounding, and diapered after a simple, zigzag design; as we find in the Syon cope.
Part of the orphrey of the Syon cope.