the value of such a collection of textile fabrics as that at south kensington can scarcely be overrated. without such aid it is not possible for the painter or the historian to bring before his own mind, much less bring before another’s, a true representation of ancient ceremonies and pageants. whether his subject be a coronation or a royal marriage, a queen’s “taking her chamber,” a progress, or a funeral, he cannot correctly set forth the splendour or the details of the occasion, unless he can refer to existing examples of the cloths of gold, the figured velvets, the rich embroidery, or the splendid silks, which used to be worn of old. take for example nos. 1310 and 8624. upon these are figured stags with tall branching horns, couchant, chained, upturning their antlered heads to sunbeams darting down upon them amid a shower of rain; and beneath the stags are eagles. this sicilian textile, woven about the end of the fourteenth century, brings to one’s mind the bronze recumbent figure of a king in westminster abbey. it is that of richard the second; made for him before his downfall, and by two coppersmiths of london, nicholas broker and godfrey prest. this effigy, once finely gilt, is as remarkable for its beautiful workmanship as for the elaborate manner in which the cloak and kirtle worn by the king are diapered all over with a pattern, copied from the silken stuff out of which those garments must have been cut for his personal wear while living. the105 pattern consists of a sprig of the planta genesta, the humble broom plant—the haughty plantagenet’s device—along with a couchant hart chained and gazing straight forwards, and above it a cloud with rays darting up from behind. these were richard’s favourite cognizances: the one from his grandfather edward the third; the other from his mother joan of kent. it is very probable that the king’s dress was of the same kind of silk sicilian textile as the examples just referred to: and that those very examples are portions of pieces wrought, perhaps at palermo, for the court of richard. they are of the same date and they show his devices; the chained hart and the sunbeams issuing from a cloud.
the seemliness, not to say comfort, of private life was improved by the use of textiles. let the historian contrast the custom even in a royal palace, during the middle ages, with that now followed in every tradesman’s home. then straw and rushes were strewed in houses upon the floor in every room; and wendover, in his life of st. thomas, speaks of the king’s courtiers platting knots with the litter, and flinging them with a gibe at a man who had been slighted by the prince. not quite a hundred years later when eleanor of castile came to london for her marriage with our first edward she found her lodgings furnished, under the directions of the spanish courtiers who had arrived before her, with hangings and curtains of silk around the walls, and carpets spread upon the ground. this offended some of the people; more of them, as matthew paris records, laughed at the thought that such costly things were laid down to be walked upon.
take, again, the famous syon cope. not only is it full of interest to writers upon liturgies and rituals but of even more to the herald and genealogist. covered as its orphreys are with armorial bearings, this cope carries with it evidences as important and as valuable as any contemporary roll of arms; and no inquirer into the pedigrees of the ancient families of the percies or106 ferrers, of cliffords or botelers, and of many others, can afford to neglect it.
we have several records of evidence in courts of law taken from heraldic embroideries upon robes and vestments. in the famous controversy between the houses of scrope and grosvenor, in the fourteenth century, inquiries were made and proofs were offered on both sides as to the right of bearing upon their shields the bend or upon a field azure. witnesses produced at westminster corporas cases, copes, and albs embroidered with the arms of scrope. chaucer was one of the witnesses; and said he had seen those arms on banners and vestments and commonly called the arms of scrope. again; the fact that in her wardrobe was found a vestment embroidered with the royal arms was brought forward to prove the charge of treason against the old countess of salisbury, the mother of cardinal pole; and for which crime she was condemned.
collections of ancient textiles are of still greater use to students of ecclesiastical history and church rituals than even to the secular historian. it is probable that the greater number of the specimens which now exist formed originally portions of sacred vestments and furniture for altars. formerly so common, fragments even of such cloths and robes have become of very great rarity, especially in england; where for the last two or three centuries the use of the numerous old church vestments and decorations has entirely ceased.
again, for example: the three cases nos. 5958, 8329, and 8327 are of the kind known as the “capsella cum serico decenter ornata” of the medi?val writers; small cases or boxes decently fitted up with silk; or the “capsula corporalium,” the box in which were kept the corporals or square pieces of fine linen, required for service during holy week. the name as well as the use of this appliance is very old, and both are spoken of in the very ancient ‘ordines romani’ edited by mabillon. one of these, in the rubric for good friday, speaks of the host as107 having been kept in the corporal’s case or box: “in capsula corporialium.” in england, such small wooden boxes covered with silks and velvets richly embroidered were once employed for the same purpose: and several are mentioned in the exeter inventories.
the two pyx-cloths, nos. 8342 and 8691, have an especial interest for the student of medi?val liturgy. there was a custom during the middle ages in england, as well as in france and several other countries on the continent, of keeping the eucharist hung up over the high altar beneath a canopy, within a pyx of gold, silver, ivory, or enamel, mantled with a fine linen cloth or veil. this veil for the pyx was sometimes embroidered with golden thread and coloured silks. such an one is mentioned in the records of the exchequer, edited by palgrave: among the valuables belonging to richard the second in haverford castle and sent by the sheriff of hereford to the exchequer, at the beginning of the reign of henry the fourth, were “i coupe d’or pour le corps ihu cryst. i towayll ove (avec) i longe parure de mesure la suyte.”
several names were given to this fine linen covering. in the inventory of things taken from dr. caius, and in the college of his own founding at cambridge, are “corporas clothes, with the pix and ‘sindon’ and canopie.” this variety in nomenclature doubtless has led some writers to state that before mary queen of scots laid her head upon the block she had a “corporal,” strictly so called, bound over her eyes: as it is given in one of our histories of england, “a handkerchief in which the eucharist had formerly been enclosed.” but this bandage must have been the veil for a pyx. as mary wrought much with her needle, and specimens of her work yet remain at chatsworth and at greystock, this piece may have been embroidered by her own hand and perhaps also had been once used.
one of these old english pyx or corpus christi cloths, was found a few years ago at the bottom of a chest in hessett church,108 suffolk. as it is a remarkable specimen of the ingenious handicraft of our medi?val countrywomen it deserves description. to make this pyx-cloth a piece of thick linen, about two feet square, was chosen, and being marked off into small equal widths on all its four edges, the threads at every other space were, both in the warp and woof, pulled out. the checquers or squares so produced were then drawn in by threads tied on the under side, having the shape of stars, so well and delicately worked that, till it had been narrowly looked into, the piece was thought to be guipure lace. an old alb, no. 8710, and an amice, 8307, having the apparels yet remaining upon both, are well worth attention on account of somewhat similar curious ornamental needlework in an intricate manner. in the middle ages in england it was not unusual to suspend upon pastoral staffs, just below the crook, a piece of fine linen. we see them represented on effigies and in illuminations; but existing examples are of the utmost rarity. two are at south kensington: nos. 8279 a, and 8662.
there are also there several specimens of the christening cloaks, anciently in use. these were not only conspicuous in royal christenings but, varying in costliness according to the parent’s rank, were handed down in inventories and wills. at the christening of arthur prince of wales, eldest son of henry the eighth, “my lady cecill, the queen’s eldest sister, bare the prince wrapped in a mantell of cremesyn clothe of golde furred with ermyn,” etc. shakespeare makes the shepherd, in the winter’s tale, cry out, “here’s a sight for thee; look thee, a bearing cloth for a squire’s child!” a well-to-do tradesman, whose will is printed among the bury wills, bequeathed in 1648 to his daughter rose his “beareing cloath, such ... linnen as is belonginge to infants at their tyme of baptisme.”
small square pieces of embroidered linen are sometimes found in country houses in some old chest, of which the original use is said not to be now known. but in most cases these were made for children’s quilts; and very often have the emblems of the109 evangelists figured at the corners: reminding us of the nursery rhyme, once common both in england and abroad—
“matthew, mark, luke, and john,
bless the bed that i lie on.”
the quilts also for grown people were ornamented in the same way. at durham, in 1446, in the dormitory of the priory was a quilt “cum iiij or evangelistis in corneriis.”
very few examples now exist of the ceremonial shoe anciently worn by bishops. these were of velvet, or damask, or strong linen embroidered. one is preserved at south kensington, no. 1290: another, once worn by waynflete bishop of winchester, is still at magdalen college, oxford. we learn from the york wills that these shoes were a part of the episcopal vestments: bishop pudsey left his mitre, staff, and sandals, “et c?tera episcopalia” to durham cathedral in 1195. later the name of “sabatines” was given them; and archbishop bowet’s inventory mentions two pairs: “pro j pare de sabbatones, brouddird et couch’ cum perell’; pro j pare de sabbatones de albo panno auri.”
collections of textile fabrics are of the highest value to the artist. there is none, anywhere, so rich or complete as that at south kensington; and before it was purchased for public use, painters were glad to refer to any scanty collection in private hands, or to old pictures or illuminated manuscripts, or engravings.
but, now, artists may see pieces of the actual stuffs represented in the pictures, say, of the national gallery. for example: in orcagna’s coronation of the blessed virgin the blue silk diapered in gold, with flowers and birds, hung as a back ground; our lord’s white tunic diapered in gold with foliage; the mantle of his mother made of the same stuff; st. stephen’s dalmatic of green samit, diapered with golden foliage, are sicilian in design and copied from the rich silks which came, in the middle of the fourteenth century, from the looms of palermo. while standing110 before jacopo di casentino’s st. john our eye is drawn to the orphrey on that evangelist’s chasuble embroidered, after the tuscan style, with barbed quatrefoils, shutting in the busts of apostles. isotta da ramini, in her portrait by pietro della francesca, wears a gown made of velvet and gold like the cut velvets at south kensington.
so, again, instead of copying patterns taken from the rich cloth of gold worn by st. laurence in francia’s picture, or from the mantle of the doge in that by cappaccio, or from the foot-cloths on the steps in the pictures by melozzo da forli, he may find for his authorities in the same collection existing specimens of contemporary and similar fabrics.
not merely artists of a higher class but decorators also may be equally benefited by the patterns and examples preserved of old wall-hangings and tapestry. from early times up to the middle of the sixteenth century our cathedrals and parish churches, our castles and manorial houses, in short the dwellings of the wealthy everywhere, used to be ornamented with wall-painting done not in “fresco” but in “secco;” that is, distemper. upon high festivals the walls of the churches were overspread with tapestry and needlework; so, too, those in the halls of palaces, for some solemn ceremonial.
warton, in his history of english poetry, gives a passage from bradshaw’s life of st. werburgh written late in the sixteenth century, from which a few lines are well worth quotation. he is describing how a large hall was arrayed for a great feast:
all herbes and flowers, fragraunt, fayre and swete
were strawed in halles, and layd under theyr fete.
clothes of gold and arras were hanged in the hall
depaynted with pyctures and hystoryes manyfolde,
well wroughte and craftely.
the story of adam, noe, and his shyppe; the twelve sones of jacob; the ten plagues of egypt, and—
111
duke josue was joyned after them in pycture,
* * * * *
theyr noble actes and tryumphes marcyall
freshly were browdred in these clothes royall
* * * * *
but over the hye desse in pryncypall place
where the sayd thre kynges sat crowned all
the best hallynge hanged as reason was,
whereon were wrought the ix orders angelicall,
dyvyded in thre ierarchyses, not cessing to call,
sanctus, sanctus, sanctus, blessed be the trynite,
dominus deus sabaoth, thre persons in one deyte.
specimens of tapestry of the later medi?val period may not uncommonly be found: but not so pieces of room hangings, “hallings,” such as those at south kensington, nos. 1370, 1297, and 1465. similar examples are, we believe, unknown.
we will add a few words only on one other, and that not a trivial, part of ancient dress; namely, gloves. formerly these were much more ornamented than now; and, when meant for ladies’ wear, sometimes perfume was bestowed upon them. among the new year’s day presents to queen mary, before she came to the throne, was “a payr of gloves embrawret with gold.” a year afterwards “x payr of spanyneshe gloves from a duches in spayne” came to her; and but a month before, mrs. whellers had sent to her highness “a pair of swete gloves.” shakespeare, true to the manners of his day, after making autolycus chant the praises of his
lawn as white as driven snow;
cyprus, black as e’er was crow;
gloves, as sweet as damask roses;
puts this into the mouth of the shepherdess: “come, you promised me a tawdry lace, and a pair of sweet gloves.” we may find a pair of such gloves in the south kensington collection, no. 4665.
it may be proper to add, in conclusion, that the greater part112 of the very valuable and extensive collection of medi?val textile fabrics at south kensington was collected by dr. bock, a canon of aix la chapelle; and purchased from him about the year 1864.
