[571] The Benedictines drained the marshes of Lincolnshire and Somersetshire to employ the poor in the eighth century. St. Bennet travelled to France and Italy, and brought back from his seven journeys cunning artificers in glass and stone, besides costly books and copies of the Scriptures, in order (as is expressly said by Bede) that the ignorant might learn from them, as others learned from books. See Mrs. Jameson’s “Legends of the Monastic Orders,” pp. 56, 57.
[572] See Raine’s “St. Cuthbert,” pp. 50-209. Mr. Raine describes it as being “of woven gold, with spaces left vacant for needlework embroidery.” Beautifully drawn majestic figures stand in niches on rainbow-coloured clouds, and the effect is that of an illumination of the ninth century. The style is rather Greek or Byzantine than Anglo-Saxon. For further notices of St. Cuthbert’s relics, see chapter on [Materials], ante; also see Rock’s “Introduction,” p. cxvii.
[574] See “Calendar of the Anglican Church,” by J. H. Parker (1851): “St. Dunstan was not only a patron of the useful and fine arts, but also a great proficient in them himself; and his almost contemporary biographers speak of him as a poet, painter, and musician, and so skilled a worker in metals that he made many of the church vessels in use at Glastonbury.”
[575] See Rock’s “Church of our Fathers,” p. 270.
[576] Strutt’s “English Dresses,” p. 70, quoted from Ingulphus’ “History of Croyland Abbey.”
[577] Shot, or iridescent materials, were then and had been some time manufactured at Tinnis in Egypt, a city now effaced. It was called “bouqualemoun,” and employed for dresses and hangings for the Khalifs. See Schefer’s “Relations du Voyage de Nassiri Khosrau,” p. cxi. The original was written in the middle of the eleventh century.
[578] See Duchêsne’s “Historiæ Normanorum.” Fol. Paris, 1519.
[579] Queen Matilda was not the originator of the idea that a hero’s deeds might be recorded by his wife’s needle. Penelope wove the deeds of Ulysses on her loom, and it is suggested by Aristarchus that her peplos served as an historical document for Homer’s “Iliad.” See Rossignol’s “Les Artistes Homériques,” pp. 72, 73, cited by Louis de Ronchaud in his “La Tapisserie,” p. 32. Gudrun, like the Homeric woman, embroidered the history of Siegfried and his ancestors, and Aelfled that of the achievements of her husband, Duke Brithnod. The Saga of Charlemagne is said to have been embroidered on twenty-six ells of linen, and hung in a church in Iceland.
[580] Domesday ed. Record Commission, under head of Roberte de Oilgi, in co. Buckingham. See also another entry under Wilts, where “Leivede” is spoken of as working auriphrigium for King Edward and his Queen.