Fig. 28.—A portion of the Bayeux Tapestry, representing two mounted men of Duke William’s army armed from head to foot, and in the act of fighting.
It was moreover the custom that the tapestries made for noblemen should bear their respective armorial devices, the object being, no doubt, that it might be known to whom they belonged when used on the occasion of the entry of royal and other distinguished personages in solemn processions; and also at jousts and tournaments.
In the fourteenth century the manufactories of Flanders, which were of considerable reputation even about the twelfth century, made great advance, and the success of the Arras tapestries became so general that the most handsome hangings were called Arras tapestry, although the greater part of them did not come from that city. It may here be noticed that the term Arrazi is, in Italy, still synonymous with valuable tapestry ([Fig. 29]).
These fabrics were generally worked in wool, and sometimes in flax and linen: but at the same period Florence and Venice, which had imported this industry from the East, wove tapestries wherein gold and silk were blended.
Fig. 29.—Marriage of Louis XII. and Anne of Brittany. Tapestry in wool and silk, with a mixture of gold and silver thread. Made in Flanders the end of the Fifteenth Century. (Lent by M. Achille Jubinal.)
An inventory, dated 21st January, 1379, contained in a manuscript now in the “Bibliothèque Impériale,”—in which are enumerated “all the jewels in gold and silver, all the rooms with embroidery and tapestries belonging to Charles V.,”—gives us an idea not only of the multiplicity of hangings and tapestries that appertained to the personal property of royalty, especially at the Hôtel Saint-Pol, but it also shows us the variety
