Of the twelfth century (1170) we have the robes and mitres of Thomas à Becket at Sens; and another mitre of the period, white and gold, is in the museum at Munich, with his martyrdom embroidered on one side, and that of St. Stephen on the other. The gold needlework is so perfect that it resembles weaving. It is recorded that a splendid dress was embroidered in London for Elinor of Aquitaine, which cost £80, equal to £1400 of the value of to-day.[582]
Rock (“Church of our Fathers,” t. ii. p. 279) truly says that it is shown by plentiful records and written documents, from the days of St. Osmond to the time of Henry VIII., that the materials employed in English ecclesiastical embroideries were the best that could be found in our own country or in far-off lands, and the art bestowed on them was the best we could learn and give. Various fabrics came from Byzantine or Saracenic looms, which are described as damasked, rayed, marbled, &c. The few surviving specimens fully justify the admiration bestowed on them throughout Christendom.
Matthew Paris, in the reign of Henry III., says that Innocent III. (1246), seeing certain copes and infulæ with desirable orphreys, was informed they were English work. He exclaimed, “Surely England is a garden of delight! In sooth this is a well inexhaustible! And where there is so much abundance, from thence much may be extracted!”[583]
From the Conquest to the Reformation the catalogues of Church vestments which are to be found in the libraries of York, Lincoln, and Peterborough, show the luxury of ecclesiastical decoration. In Lincoln alone there were upwards of 600 vestments wrought with divers kinds of needlework, jewellery, and gold, upon “Indian baudichyn,” samite, tartarin, velvet, and silk. Even in reading the dry descriptions of a common inventory, we are amazed by the lists of “orphreys of goodly needlework,” copes embroidered with armorial bearings, and knights jousting, lions fighting, and amices “barred with amethysts and pearls, &c. &c.” The few I have named will give an idea of the accumulation of riches in the churches, and the gorgeousness of English embroideries.[584]
I have collected from Strutt’s “Illustrations”[585] and other sources a number of patterns for domestic hangings, copied from MSS. of contemporary dates, covering about 400 years, from the time of Harold to Edward IV. The hangings may have been more effective than appears at first sight, if the materials were rich and enlivened with gold. I give two textile designs which in their style are peculiarly English (plates [74], [75]).
Now we enter on the age of romance and chivalry, when all domestic decorations began to assume greater refinement. Carpets from the East covered the rushes strewn on the floors, and splendid tents were brought home by crusading knights; and the decorative arts of northern Europe were once more permeated with Oriental taste and design.
We know that in the so-called “days of chivalry,” i.e. from the Conquest till the beginning of Henry VIII.’s reign, needlework was the occupation of the women left in their castles, while the men were away fighting for the cross, for the king, for their liberties, or for booty.
This period included the Crusades, the Wars of the Roses, wars with France, and rebellions at home; and yet there was a taste for art, luxury, and show spreading everywhere.[586]
The women were expected to provide, with their looms and their needles, the heraldic surcoats, the scarves and banners, and the mantles for state occasions.[587] They also worked the hangings for the hall and chapel, and adorned the altars and the priests’ vestments. Alas! time, taste, and the moth have shared in the destruction of these gauds. The taste for the “baroc” is a new acquisition; no one cared for what was old, merely because it was old. The rich replaced their hangings and their clothes when they became shabby; the poor let them go to pieces, and probably burned the old stuff and the embroideries for the sake of the gold thread, which was of intrinsic value. But both in prose and poetry we read descriptions of beautiful works in the loom, or on the frame, executed by fair ladies for the gallant knights whose lives and prowess these poems have preserved to us. I will give one quotation from that of Emare, in Ritson’s collection: “Her mantle was wroughte by a faire Paynim, the Amarayle’s daughter.” This occupied her seven long years. In each corner is depicted a pair of lovers, “Sir Tristram and Iseult—Sir Amadis and Ydoine, &c., &c. These pictures were adorned with precious stones.” The figures were portrayed—
“With stonès bright and pure,
With carbuncle and sapphire,
Kalsèdonys and onyx clere,
Sette in golde newe;
Diamondes and rubies,
And other stones of mychel pryse.”