Our first glimpses of art may have come to us by Phœnician traders, touching at the Scilly Islands and thence sailing to the coasts of Cornwall and Ireland. From Ireland we have curious relics as witnesses of their presence—amongst others, jewellery connected by, or pendant from, “Trichinopoly” chains, similar to those dug out of Etruscan tombs, and which were probably imported into Ireland as early as the sixth century B.C.[557]
In the Bronze Age the chiefs and the rich men wore linen or woollen homespun. Fragments of these have been found in the Scale House barrow at Rylston, in Yorkshire. Dr. Rock says that an ancient Celtic barrow was opened not long ago in Yorkshire, in which the body was wrapped in plaited (not woven) woollen material.[558] Before this time the Cymri in Britain probably wore plaited grass garments; they also sewed together the skins of animals with bone needles.
Dyeing and weaving were well understood in Britain before the advent of the Romans. Hemp and flax, however, though native to the soil, were not employed by the early Britons. Linen perhaps came to us first through the Phœnicians, and afterwards through the Celts, and was naturalized here by the Romans.
Anderson (“Scotland in Early Christian Times”) gives a high place to the forms of pagan art which prevailed in the British Isles, before the Roman civilization; and differing from and influencing that which came from Scandinavia. We must certainly allow that it was art, and that it contained no Greek or other classical element. His illustrations explain and give great weight to his theories.
Cæsar invaded England forty-five years B.C.[559] The Romans gave us Christianity and the rudiments of civilization, but their attempts to Romanize us met with little success. Probably they imported their luxuries, and removed all they valued at the time of their exodus. From them we know what they found and what they left in Britain. Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni, the day of her defeat wore a tartan dress (polymita) and an “embroidered” or “fur” mantle; probably the fur was inside, and the skins embroidered outside. Dion Cassius,[560] who describes Boadicea’s motley tunic, says that the bulk of the people wore what was apparently a chequered tartan. Semper says that the early tribes of Northern Europe, like the North American Indians of the present time, embroidered their fur wraps. The Emperor Honorius, in the fourth century, made it illegal for Roman nobles to wear extravagantly-worked fur robes; perhaps the report of Boadicea’s dress had set the fashion in Rome.
During the first four centuries of our era, all art in Britain must have come from our Roman masters; and owing to their neglect of the people they conquered, we benefited little by their civilization.
All that we know of their decorative art in Britain, is that it was, with few exceptions, chiefly of small bronze statues, somewhat crude and colonial, as appears from the remains of their architecture, sculpture, mosaics, and tombs.[561] Of their textiles we have no relics, and hardly know of any recorded, if we except the works of the Empress Helena. See p. [316], ante. We must remember that, as she was a British princess, it is likely that she had learnt her art at home, and therefore that the women of England were already embroiderers as early as the beginning of the fourth century.[562]
On the departure of the Romans, chaos ensued, till the Britons, who had called in the Saxons to help them, were by them driven into Wales, Brittany, and Ireland, which last they Christianized; and mingled the art of the Germans and Celts with that of the Danes and Norsemen[563]; all which may be traced in the Irish remains to be seen in the College Museum at Dublin and elsewhere. From the time that England became Anglo-Saxon, literature, law, and art began to crystallize; and when, under Egbert, one kingdom was formed out of the heptarchy, order and a sense of beauty were in the course of development. Then came the invasion of the Danes (ninth century), who robbed, destroyed, and arrested all artistic improvement, till Alfred got rid of them for a time. Early in the seventh century the women of England had attained great perfection in needlework. This appears from a passage in a poem by Adhelme, Bishop of Sherborne. He speaks of their shuttles, “filled not with purple only, but with various colours, moved here and there among the thick spreading threads.”[564] He had himself a robe “of a most delicate thread of purple, adorned with black circles and peacocks.” This may or may not have been woven in England, but at that time weaving, as well as needlework, was the delight and occupation of the ladies of the court and of the cloistered nuns.[565] The thralls (slaves or serfs) were employed in weaving in the houses of the nobles, probably they embroidered also.
Mrs. Lawrence sees reason to believe that in the seventh century, silk and fine linen were the materials for altar decorations, vestments, and dress; whereas the hangings of the house were of coarse canvas adorned with embroidery in thick worsted.[566] She says the term “broiderie” was reserved for the delicate works on fine grounds, in silk and gold and silver thread, and enrichments in metal work. Precious stones and pearls had already been introduced into the Byzantine and Romanesque designs imported from Greece and Rome.
The English Dominican Friar, Th. Stubbs, writing in the thirteenth century, describes in his notice of St. Oswald a chasuble of Anglo-Saxon work, which exactly resembles that of Aix.[567] This is splendidly engraved in Von Bock’s “Kleinodien” amongst the coronation robes of the Emperors of Germany, and is adorned with the richest golden orphreys, imitating jewellers’ work, enriched with pearls and silver bells.