Ladies made their own gold thread in the Middle Ages by winding a fine flat gold wire, scarcely of more body than a foil, around a silk thread.
Patches were embroidered into place upon such clothes or vestments as were torn: those who did this work were as well recognized as the original designers, and were called "healers" of clothes!
Embroidered bed hangings were very much in order in mediæval times in England. In the eleventh century there lived a woman who had emigrated from the Hebrides, and who had the reputation for witchcraft, chiefly based upon the unusually exquisite needlework on her bed curtains! The name of this reputed sorceress was Thergunna. Bequests in important wills indicate the sumptuous styles which were usual among people of position. The Fair Maid of Kent left to her son her "new bed curtains of red velvet, embroidered with ostrich feathers of silver, and heads of leopards of gold," while in 1380 the Earl of March bequeathed his "large bed of black satin embroidered with white lions and gold roses, and the escutcheons of the arms of Mortimer and Ulster." This outfit must have resembled a Parisian "first class" funeral! The widow of Henry II. slept in a sort of mourning couch of black velvet, which must have made her feel as if she too were laid out for her own burial!
A child's bedquilt was found mentioned in an inventory of furniture at the Priory of Durham, in 1446, which was embroidered in the four corners with the Evangelistic symbols. In the "Squier of Lowe Degree," a fifteenth century romance, there is allusion to a bed, of which the head sheet is described "with diamonds set and rubies bright." The king of England, in 1388, refers, in a letter, to "a bed of gold cloth." Wall hangings in bedrooms were also most elaborate, and the effect of a chamber adorned with gold and needlework must have been fairly regal. An embroiderer named Delobel made a set of furnishings for the bedroom of Louis XIV. the work upon which occupied three years. The subject was the Triumph of Venus.
In South Kensington Museum there is a fourteenth century linen cloth of German workmanship, upon which occurs the legend of the unicorn, running for protection to a maiden. An old Bestiary describes how the unicorn, or as it is there called, the "monocerus," "is an animal which has one horn on its head: it is caught by means of a virgin." The unicorn and virgin, with a hunter in pursuit, is quite a favourite bit of symbolism in the middle ages.
Another interesting piece of German embroidery in South Kensington is a table cloth, worked on heavy canvas, in heraldic style: long decorative inscriptions embellish the corners. A liberal translation of these verses is given by Dr. Rock, some of the sentences being quaint and interesting to quote. Evidently the embroideress indulged in autobiography in the following: "And she, to honour the esquire her husband, wished to adorn and increase his house furniture, and there has worked, with her own hand, this and still many other pretty cloths, to her memory." And in another corner, "Now follows here my own birthday. When one wrote 1565 my mother's heart was gladdened by my first cry. In the year 1585 I gave birth my self to a daughter. Her name is Emilia Catharina, and she has been a proper and praiseworthy child." Then, to her children the following address is directed: "Do not forget your prayers in the morning. And be temperate in your pleasures. And make yourselves acquainted with the Word of God.... I beseech you to be sincere in all matters. That will make you great and glorious. Honour everybody according to his station: it will make you honourably known. You, my truly beloved sons, beware of fiery wines... you, my truly beloved daughters, preserve and guard your honour, and reflect before you do anything: many have been led into evil by acting first and thinking afterwards." In another compartment, a lament goes up in which she deplores the death of her husband. "His age was sixty and eight years," she says. "The dropsy has killed him. I, his afflicted Anna Blickin von Liechtenperg who was left behind, have related it with my hand in this cloth, that might be known to my children this greater sorrow which God has sent me." The cloth is a naïve and unusual record of German home life.
Ecclesiastical embroidery began in the fourth century. In earliest days the work was enhanced with quantities of gold thread. The shroud in which St. Cuthbert's body was wrapped is a mass of gold: a Latin inscription on the vestments in which the body was clad may be thus translated: "Queen to Alfred's son and successor, Edward the Elder, was one Aelflaed, who caused this stole and maniple to be made for a gift to Fridestan consecrated Bishop of Winchester, A. D. 905." The maniple is of "woven gold, with spaces left vacant for needlework embroidery." Such garments for burial were not uncommon; but they have as a rule perished from their long residence underground. St. Cuthbert's vestments are splendid examples of tenth century work in England. After the death of King Edward II., and his wife Aelflaed, Bishop Frithestan also having passed away, Athelstan, as King, made a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Cuthbert and bestowed these valuable embroideries there. They were removed from the body of the saint in 1827. The style of the work inclines to Byzantine. The Saxon embroideries must have been very decorative: a robe is described by Aldhelme in 709, as "of a most delicate thread of purple, adorned with black circles and peacocks." At the church at Croyland some vestments were decorated with birds of gold cut out and appliqué and at Exeter they had "nothing about them but true needlework."
In the "Liber Eliensis," in the Muniment room at Ely, is an account of a gift to the church by Queen Emma, the wife of King Knut, who "on a certain day came to Ely in a boat, accompanied by his wife the Queen Emma, and the chief nobles of his kingdom." This royal present was "a purple cloth worked with gold and set with jewels for St. Awdry's shrine," and the Monk Thomas assures us that "none other could be found in the kingdom of the English of such richness and beauty of workmanship."
The various stitches in English work had their several names, the opus plumarium, or straight overlapping stitches, resembling the feathers of a bird; the opus pluvarium, or cross stitch, and many others. A great deal of work was accomplished by means of appliqué in satin and silk, and sometimes the ground was painted, as has already been described in Italian work. In the year 1246 Matthew Paris writes: "About this time the Lord Pope, Innocent IV., having observed that the ecclesiastical ornaments of some Englishmen, such as choristers' copes and mitres, were embroidered in gold thread, after a very desirable fashion, asked where these works were made, and received in answer, 'England.' Then," said the Pope, "England is surely a garden of delight for us; it is truly a never failing Spring, and there where many things abound much may be extorted." This far sighted Pope, with his semi-commercial views, availed himself of his discovery.
In the days of Anastatius, ecclesiastical garments were spoken of by name according to the motive of their designs: for instance, the "peacock garment," the "elephant chasuble," and the "lion cope." Fuller tells of the use of a pall as an ecclesiastical vestment, remarking tersely: "It is made up of lamb's wool and superstition."