Throughout the poems of Homer we find embroidery of this kind either mentioned, or described as made with the needle or loom, and intended for decorative drapery, or as garments for men and women. During the siege of Troy, Helen embroidered, upon a fine tissue, the sanguinary combats of the heroes who were destroying each other for her sake. The cloak of Ulysses represents a dog pulling down a fawn, &c.
The custom of embroidering such scenes as combats and hunting-incidents seems to have lasted during a long time. According to Herodotus, certain races bordering on the Caspian Sea were accustomed to have figures of animals, flowers, and landscapes delineated on their garments. This custom is mentioned among the pagans by Philostratus, and among Christians by Clement of Alexandria. Pliny, the naturalist, who lived in the first century of our era, also alludes to it on several occasions in his works. Three hundred years later, Amasius, Bishop of Amasia, deplores the folly which “set a great value on this art of weaving, a vain and useless art, which by the combination of the warp and woof imitates painting.” “When persons thus dressed appear in the street,” adds the pious bishop, “the passers-by look at them as walking pictures, and the children point at them with their finger. We see lions, panthers, bears, rocks, woods, hunters; the religiously inclined have Christ, his disciples, and his miracles figured on their garments. Here we see the wedding of Cana, and the pitchers of water turned into wine; there we have the paralytic carrying his bed, or the sinner at the feet of Jesus, or Lazarus being raised from the dead.”
We have only to look into the works of the writers of the time of Augustus to learn that the halls in the houses of the wealthy were always hung with tapestry; and that the tables, or rather the beds, upon which the guests were seated, were covered with carpets.
The Attalian carpets, which were thus named because they came from the inheritance bequeathed to the Roman people by Attalus, King of Pergamos, were indescribably magnificent. Cicero, who was a connoisseur in such matters, speaks of them with enthusiasm in his works.
Under Theodosius I., that is to say, at the time of the decline of the great empire which was soon to break up and be separated, and at last to merge into new nationalities, a contemporaneous historian shows us “the youth of Rome engaged in making tapestry-work.”
In the early period of French history, this ingenious and delicate work would seem to have been mainly carried on by women, and especially by those of the highest rank. At any rate it is a fact that rich tapestries were in common use, both in private houses and for ecclesiastical purposes, as early as the sixth century; for Gregory of Tours does not fail to tell us of the embroidered hangings, and also of the tapestry, in most of the ceremonies which he describes. When King Clovis renounced paganism and asked to be baptised, “this intelligence was the greatest joy to the bishop; he orders the sacred fonts to be prepared; the streets overhung with painted cloths; the churches ornamented with hangings.” When the abbey-church of St. Denis had to be consecrated, “its walls are covered with tapestry embroidered in gold and ornamented with pearls.” These tapestries were for a long time preserved in the abbey-treasury. Subsequently, this same treasury received, as a present from Queen Adelaide, the wife of Hugh Capet, “a chasuble, a valance, as also some hangings, worked by her own hand;” and Doublet, the historian of this ancient abbey, states that Queen Bertha (the same whom the old French proverb makes an indefatigable worker with her needle) embroidered on canvas a series of historical subjects, depicting the glorious deeds of the family.
Nevertheless, there is no written authority for asserting that in France the manufacture of tapestries and hangings worked on the loom can be traced beyond the ninth century; but at this period, and a little later, we find some documents which are as precise as they are curious—proving that this industry, the principal object of which, at that period, was the ornamentation of churches, had to a certain extent obtained a footing, and was flourishing in religious establishments. The ancient chronicles of Auxerre relate that St. Anthelm, the bishop of that city, who died in 828, caused to be made, under his own directions, numerous rich carpets for the choir of his church.
One hundred years later we find a regular manufactory established at the monastery of St. Florent, at Saumur. “In the time of the abbot Robert III.,” says the historian of this monastery, “the vestry (fabrique) of the cloister was further enriched by magnificent paintings and pieces of sculpture, accompanied by legends in verse. The above-mentioned abbot, who was passionately devoted to similar works, sought for and purchased a considerable quantity of magnificent ornaments, such as large dorserets[1] in wool, curtains, canopies, hangings, bench-covers, and other ornaments, embroidered with various devices. Among other objects, he caused to be made two pieces of tapestry of large size and of admirable quality, representing elephants; and these two pieces were joined together with a rare kind of silk, by hired workers in tapestry. He also ordered two dorserets in wool to be manufactured. It happened that, during the time one of these was being completed, the above-mentioned abbot went to France. The ecclesiastic left in charge took advantage of his absence to forbid the artisans to work the woof according to the customary method. ‘Well,’ said they, ‘in the absence of our good abbot we will not discontinue our employment; but as you thwart us we shall make quite a different kind of fabric.’ And this now admits of proof. They made several square carpets, representing silver lions upon a field of gules (red), with a white border covered with scarlet animals and birds. This unique piece of workmanship was looked upon as a perfect specimen of this kind of fabric, until the time of the abbot William, when it was considered the most remarkable piece of tapestry belonging to the monastery. In fact, on the occasions of great solemnities the abbot had the elephant tapestry displayed, and one of the priors showed that on which were the lions.”
From the ninth or tenth century there was also a manufactory at Poitiers; and its fabrics, on which figured kings, emperors, and saints, were of European celebrity, as appears to be attested, among other documents, by a remarkable correspondence which took place, in 1025, between an Italian bishop, named Léon, and William IV., Count of Poitou. To understand rightly this correspondence, it must be borne in mind that at the time Poitou was as famous for its mules as for tapestry. In one of his letters, the bishop begs the count to send him a mule and a piece of tapestry, both equally marvellous (mirabiles), and for which he has been asking six years. He promises to pay whatever they may cost. The count, who must have had a facetious disposition, replied, “I cannot, at present, send you what you ask, because for a mule to merit the epithet of marvellous, he would require to have horns, and three tails, or five legs—and this I should not be able to find in our country. I shall therefore content myself with sending you one of the best I can procure. As to the tapestry, I have forgotten the dimensions you desire. Let me have these particulars again, and it will then soon be sent to you.”
But this costly industry was not limited to the French provinces. In the “Chronique des Ducs de Normandie,” written by Dudon, in the eleventh century, it is stated that the English were clever workers in this art; and when designating some magnificent embroidery, or rich tapestry, it was described as of English work (opus Anglicanum). Moreover, the same chronicle relates that the wife of Richard I.,[2] the Duchess Gonnor, assisted by her embroiderers, made hangings of linen and of silk, embellished with images and figures representing the Virgin Mary and the Saints, to decorate the church of Notre Dame, Rouen.