[519] There was no guild of embroiderers in England that we know of till that incorporated in the reign of Elizabeth. See chapter on [English embroidery].
[520] Bock, i. 214, says that the splendid stuffs and embroideries were entirely consecrated to the use of the Church, till the luxurious arts invaded European domestic life from the seventh to the twelfth century.
[521] See the cross on the Rheims cope (plate [63]).
[522] There is no doubt it was only used for church work.
[523] At Aachen, in Switzerland, there is a very remarkable pluvial of one kind of opus Anglicanum, which has been already alluded to. The border, of splendid gold embroidery, has the pattern completed in fine flowers of jewellers’ work. (See Bock, “Liturgische Gewänder,” ii. p. 297, taf. xli.-xliv.) Rock, “Textile Fabrics,” Introduction, p. xxxi, cites from Mon. Angl. (ii. 222), the vestments given to St. Alban’s Abbey by Margaret, Duchess of Clarence, A.D. 1429, as being remarkable for pure gold in its texture and the splendour of the jewels and precious stones set into it, as well as for the exquisite beauty of its embroideries. These are some of the characteristics of the opus Anglicanum.
[525] Mrs. Bayman, of the Royal School of Art Needlework.
[526] If it is true that in the days of the Greeks and Romans the art of acupictura or needle-painting copied pictorial art, so likewise in the Egyptian early times, painted linens imitated embroideries. This we learn by specimens from the tombs. Painted hangings and embroideries appear to have been equally used for processional decorations. In the Middle Ages painted hangings imitated embroideries and woven hangings, and were considered as legitimate art.
[527] See Bock, vol. i. p. 10.
[528] Exhibited in the “Esposizione Romana” in 1869, in the cloisters of Santa Maria degli Angeli.