Viscountess Marianne Margaret Compton Cust Alford

By Ch. T. Newton.

Though the embroidered and richly decorated textile fabrics of the ancients have perished, all but a few scraps, we may form some idea of the richness and variety of Greek female attire from the evidence of the inventories of dedicated articles of dress which have been preserved for us in Greek inscriptions.

In the Acropolis at Athens have been found a number of fragments of marble on which are inscribed lists of various female garments dedicated, for the most part, in the Temple of Artemis Brauronia, in the Archonship of Lykurgos, B.C. 338-35. These articles were thus carefully registered because they formed part of the treasures dedicated to the gods of the Acropolis, which it was the duty of the state to guard, and to commit to the custody of officers specially selected for that duty. One of these fragments is in the Elgin Collection at the British Museum, and has been published by Mr. Hicks in the “Collection of Ancient Greek Inscriptions in the British Museum,” Part 1, No 34; and the entire series has since been given to the world in the “Corpus Inscriptionum Atticarum” of the Academy of Berlin, ii., Part 2., Nos. 751-65.

The material of these garments seems to have been either linen or fine woollen; the colours white, purple, or some shade of red, mostly used as a border or in stripes; or a shade of green, the tint of which is described as “frog colour,” saffron, or sea-green.

The borders and patterns noted remind us of those represented on the garments of figures in vase pictures, such as the embattled border, the wave pattern, and certain patterns in rectangular compartments. A group of Dionysos pouring out a libation while a female serves him with wine, and a row of animals, are also noted among the ornaments.

The inscription, “Sacred to Artemis,” woven into the fabric of the garment, occurs twice. Gold, as an ornament fixed on the dress, is mentioned in these entries. It is noted that some of these dresses served to deck the statue of the goddess herself. Most of the garments are the chiton or tunic, flowing to the feet; the chitoniskos, a shorter and more ornamental garment worn over it; and the mantle, himation. Pieces of cloth or rags are also mentioned among the entries; these were probably the remnants of cast-off garments dedicated by their wearers. Some of the dresses are described as embroidered with the needle.

In the worship of the Artemis Brauronia, certain Athenian girls between the ages of five and ten were solemnly dedicated to the goddess every five years. In publishing the inventory in the British Museum already referred to, Mr. Hicks remarks, “It may have been the custom sometimes to dedicate to the goddess the garments worn by children at their presentation, just as we know that the garments in which persons had been initiated at the Greater Eleusinia were worn by them until threadbare, and then dedicated to some god. If so, the number of children’s clothes mentioned in our inventory is easily explained. Or were these the clothes of children cut off by Artemis in infancy, such as bereaved mothers nowadays often treasure for years, having no temple wherein to dedicate them?” Mr. Hicks further remarks that it was usual for the bride before marriage to dedicate her girdle to Artemis; and at Athens the garments of women who died in childbirth were likewise in like manner so dedicated. It is probably on account of such dedications that Artemis was styled ChitonÈ—the goddess of the chiton.

Another list of vestments is preserved in an inscription found at Samos, and published by Carl Curtius in his “Inschriften u. Studien zur Geschichte von Samos,” pp. 17-21. The garments in this list were dedicated to the goddess HerÈ (Juno) in her celebrated temple at Samos. The entries relate chiefly to articles of female attire, but some few are dedicated to the god Hermes. Some of these articles were doubtless worn by the deities themselves on festive occasions, when their statues were decked out. The toilet, kosmos, of goddesses was superintended by a priestess specially chosen for that purpose. She was called kosmeteira, or “Mistress of the Robes.”

In the Samian list of garments, those which are embroidered or ornamented with gold are specially noted. Some of the tunics are described as Lydian. Curtains or hangings are also mentioned in this list. These must have been used to ornament the interior of the temple, or to screen off the statue of the goddess on the days when she was withdrawn from the gaze of the profane. Such hangings were, probably, a main cause of the conflagrations by which Greek temples were from time to time destroyed in spite of the solidity of their walls.

Appendix II., to Page 210.

In the Castle of Moritzburg, built by Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, is a quaint apartment, on the walls of which are hung rugs of feather-work, of which the borders are adorned with set patterns of fruit and flowers, and the colouring is as soft as a Gobelins tapestry. The feathers are woven tightly into the warp, in the same manner as the tufts are set in a velvety carpet; forming a surface as delicate as silk to the touch. There are four high-backed chairs covered with the same work in smaller patterns. But what is especially remarkable is an immense canopy, like that of a state bed, with urn-shaped ornaments of stiff feathers at the corners; and a pretty bell-shaped fringe of scarlet feathers. The same ornament edged a large rug like those on the wall, thrown over what at first appeared to be a bed; but on examination it was found to be a rough wooden platform, said to be the throne of Montezuma. The story is that Augustus the Strong went to Spain incognito at the age of eighteen, in search of adventures, and distinguished himself at a bull-fight. When the king (Charles II.) heard the name of the young hero, he gave him a hospitable reception, and afterwards sent these Mexican treasures to him as a token of friendship.

Appendix III., to Page 237.

Story of Arachne, abridged by Earl Cowper from Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

January, 1885. Cowper.

Appendix IV., to Page 318.

Extract from “History of Christian Art.” By Lord Lindsay.
Vol. i. pp. 136-139.

“But perhaps the noblest testimony to the revival under the Comneni is afforded by the designs on the Dalmatic or sacerdotal robe, commonly styled ‘Di Papa San Leone,’ preserved in the sacristy of St. Peter’s—said to have been embroidered at Constantinople for the coronation of Charlemagne as Emperor of the West, but fixed by German criticism as a production of the twelfth, or the early part of the thirteenth century. The Emperors wore it ever after, when serving as deacons at the Pope’s altar during their coronation-mass. You will think little of it at first sight, and lay it aside as a piece of darned and faded tapestry, yet I would stake on it, alone, the reputation of Byzantine art. And you must recollect, too, that embroidery is but a poor substitute for the informing hand and the lightning stroke of genius.

It is a large robe of stiff brocade, falling in broad and unbroken folds in front and behind,—broad and deep enough for the Goliath-like stature and the Herculean chest of Charlemagne himself. On the breast, the Saviour is represented in glory, on the back the Transfiguration, and on the two shoulders Christ administering the Eucharist to the Apostles.

The composition on the breast is an amplification of No. V. (as above enumerated) of the Personal traditional compositions.—In the centre of a golden circle of glory, ‘Jesus Christ, the Resurrection and the Life,’ robed in white, with the youthful and beardless face, his eyes directly looking into yours, sits upon the rainbow, his feet resting on the winged wheels[617] of Ezekiel, his left hand holding an open book, inscribed with the invitation, ‘Come, ye blessed of My Father,’—his right raised in benediction. At the four corners of the circular glory, resting on them, half within it, half without, float the emblems of the four Evangelists; the Virgin and the Baptist stand to the right and left of our Saviour, the Baptist without, the Virgin entirely within the glory, the only figure that is so placed; she is sweet in feature and graceful in attitude, in her long white robe.

Above Our Saviour’s head, and from the top of the golden circle, rises the Cross, with the crown of thorns suspended upon it, the spear resting on one side, the reed with the sponge on the other, and the sun and moon looking down upon it from the sky.

The heavenly host and the company of the blessed form a circle of adoration around this central glory; angels occupying the upper part, emperors, patriarchs, monks and nuns the lower; at the extremity, on the left side, appears Mary Magdalen, in her penitence—a thin emaciated figure, imperfectly clothed, and with dishevelled hair.

In the corners, below this grand composition, appear, to the right, St. John the Baptist, holding the cross, and pointing upwards to Our Saviour; to the left, Abraham seated, a child on his lap, and resting his hand on another by his side.

The background and scene of the whole composition is of blue, to represent heaven,—studded with stars, shaped like the Greek cross.

The Transfiguration, which corresponds to this subject on the back of the robe, is the traditional composition, only varied by the unusual shape of the vesica piscis which encloses Our Saviour. The two compositions representing the Institution of the Eucharist, on the shoulders, are better executed and more original. In each of them, Our Saviour, a stiff but majestic figure, stands behind the altar, on which are deposited a chalice and a paten or basket containing crossed wafers. He gives, in the one case, the cup to St. Paul, in the other the bread to St. Peter,—they do not kneel, but bend reverently to receive it; five other disciples await their turn in each instance,—all are standing.

I do not apprehend your being disappointed with the ‘Dalmatica di San Leone,’ or your dissenting from my conclusion, that a master, a Michael Angelo I might almost say, then flourished at Byzantium.

It was in this Dalmatic—then semÉe all over with pearls and glittering in freshness—that Cola di Rienzi robed himself over his armour in the sacristy of St. Peter’s, and thence ascended to the Palace of the Popes, after the manner of the CÆsars, with sounding trumpets and his horsemen following him—his truncheon in his hand and his crown on his head—‘terribile e fantastico,’ as his biographer describes him—to wait upon the legate.[618]”

Appendix V., to Page 320.

The Hon. and Rev. Ignatius Clifford has permitted me to make extracts from his “Memoranda of some remarkable Specimens of Ancient Church Embroidery.” First on his list is the Cope now in the possession of Colonel Butler Bowden, of Pleasington, near Blackburn, Lancashire. I give his account of the mutilated condition, from which he has made his beautifully drawn restoration. “Formerly,” he says, “portions of this cope, some made up into chasuble, stole, maniple, and some scraps detached, were at Mount St. Mary’s College, Spink Hill, near Chesterfield, Derbyshire.”

The well-known architect, the late Augustus Welby Pugin, having seen them (or at least the chasuble), wrote on the 20th April, 1849, to the Rector of the College, “I found it to be of English work of the time of Edward I., and have no hesitation in pronouncing it to be the most interesting and beautiful specimen of church embroidery I have ever seen.”

Other portions of the cope had been made up into an altar-frontal, and were in the possession of Henry Bowden, Esq., of Southgate House, Derbyshire, some four or five miles from the college.

The ground is crimson velvet. The designs are wrought in gold, silver, silk, and seed pearls. The silks are worked in chain, or rather in split stitch. It contains between seventy and eighty figures.

Only two small fragments remain of the quasi-hood.

In the orphrey are kings, queens, archbishops, and bishops. In the body of the cope are the Annunciation—Adoration of the Magi—Our Lady enthroned at the right of her Divine Son. Lowest row of single figures—St. Simon, St. Jude, St. James, St. Thomas, St. Andrew, St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Barnabas, St. Matthew, St. Philip, St. James, St. Bartholomew. Middle row—St. Edward the Confessor—a Bishop—St. Margaret, St. John the Evangelist, St. John the Baptist, St. Catherine, an Archbishop, St. Edmund king and martyr. Top row—St. Lawrence, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Martha (or St. Helen?), St. Stephen. In the intervals, angels seated on faldstool thrones, and bearing stars; also two popinjays.

Mr. Clifford describes the Steeple Aston Cope. The ground is of a richly ribbed faded silk. The design worked in gold and silks is enclosed in quatrefoils of oak and ivy. The Syon Cope he refers to Rock’s “Textile Fabrics.” See Appendix.

The Dalmatic from Anagni, exhibited at Rome in 1870, he thinks is probably English.

The Pluvial in the Basilica of St. John Lateran at Rome, he speaks of as “having much the appearance of the celebrated Opus Anglicanum.”

He describes the subjects embroidered on it thus: “No border round the curved edge. The orphrey is divided into tabernacles containing an archbishop, two bishops, and three kings and queens. Between the tabernacles are four angels, each accompanied by one of the evangelistic symbols. The body of the cope is cut into a most elaborate system of tabernacles, with a centre compartment of a different form for the group of the Crucifixion. The subjects are chiefly from the life of our Lord and the Blessed Virgin. The small quasi-hood is embroidered with two wyverns or griffin-like creatures. The pelican and the phoenix are introduced over the top central group of the enthronement of our Lady.”

Mr. Clifford gives the history of the Cope of Pius II. (Bartolomeo Piccolomini, “Æneas Silvius”) fifteenth century. It is a masterpiece of Italian embroidery of the early Renaissance. The material was gold brocade, covered with wonderful designs carried out in needlework, representing saints and angels, trees and birds, and arabesques. The whole was adorned with pearls and precious stones valued at £80,000. At his death the pope bequeathed this vestment to the cathedral of his native town. The cope was stolen in March, 1884, from the treasury at Pienza; and shortly afterwards discovered in the shop of a dealer in antiquities at Florence, but completely stripped of its precious stones and of some of its more valuable embroidery. After magisterial investigation, the cope was restored to Pienza.

The cope at Bologna is thus described: “Subjects from the New Testament contained in two rows of tabernacle compartments, twelve in lower, seven in upper row. Spandrils occupied by angels playing on various musical instruments. After each row, a border containing medallions with heads (of angels, prophets, &c.), twenty-three in lower, nine in upper row. No orphrey; no border or outside curve; quasi-hood very small.”

Appendix VI., to Page 326.

From Rock’s “Textiles,” p. 275.

“The Syon Monastery Cope; ground green, with crimson interlacing barbed quatrefoils, enclosing figure of our Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Apostles, with winged cherubim standing on wheels in the intervening spaces, and the orphreys, morse, and hem wrought with armorial bearings; the whole done in gold, silver, and various coloured silks. English needlework, thirteenth century; 9 feet 7 inches by 4 feet 8 inches.

“This handsome cope, so very remarkable on account of its comparatively perfect preservation, is one of the most beautiful among the several liturgical vestments of the olden period anywhere to be now found in Christendom. If by all lovers of mediÆval antiquity it will be looked upon as so valuable a specimen of art of its kind and time, for every Englishman it ought to have a double interest, showing, as it does, such a splendid and instructive example of the opus ‘Anglicum,’ or English work, which won itself so wide a fame, and was so eagerly sought after throughout the whole of Europe during the Middle Ages.”

Dr. Rock gives a list of the subjects. St. Michael overcoming Satan (from Rev. xii. 7, 9). The next quatrefoil above this is filled with the Crucifixion. Here the Blessed Virgin is arrayed in a green tunic, and a golden mantle lined with vair; her head is kerchiefed, and her uplifted hands sorrowfully clasped. St. John—whose dress is all of gold—is on the left, at the foot of the cross, upon which the Saviour, wrought all in silver—a most unusual thing—with a cloth of gold wrapped about His loins, is fastened by three (not four) nails.... In the highest quatrefoil is figured the Redeemer in glory, crowned as a king, and seated on a cushioned throne. Resting upon His knee and steadied by His hand is the Mund, or ball representing the earth.... This is divided into three parts, of which the largest, an upper horizontal hemicycle, is coloured crimson (now faded to a brownish tint), but the lower hemicycle is divided vertically in two, of which one portion is coloured green, and the other white or silvered....

The next two subjects to be described are—one on the right hand, the death of the Blessed Virgin Mary; the other, on the left, her burial....

Below the burial we have our Lord in the garden, signified by two trees; still wearing the crown of thorns; our Lord in His left hand holds the banner of the Resurrection, and with His right bestows His benediction on the kneeling Magdalene, who is wimpled, and wears a mantle of green, shot yellow, over a light purple tunic.

Below, but outside the quatrefoil, is a layman clad in gold, upon his knees, and holding a long, narrow scroll bearing words which cannot now be satisfactorily read.

Lowermost of all we see the Apostle St. Philip, with a book in one hand, in the other the flaying knife.

A little above him St. Peter, with his two keys, one gold, the other silver; and somewhat under him is St. Andrew with his cross. On the other side of St. Michael and the Dragon is St. James the Greater—sometimes called of Compostella, because he lies buried in that Spanish city—with a book in one hand and in the other a staff, and slung from his wrist a wallet, both emblems of pilgrimage to his shrine in Galicia.... In the next quatrefoil above is St. Paul with his sword, and over to the right St. Thomas; still further to the right St. James the Less. Just above is our Saviour, clad in a golden tunic, and carrying a staff, overcoming the unbelief of St. Thomas. Upon his knees that Apostle feels, with his right hand held by the Redeemer, the spear wound in His side.

As at the left side, so here, quite outside the sacred history on the cope, we have the figure of an individual probably living at the time the vestment was wrought. The dress of the other shows him to be a layman; by the shaven crown of his head, this person must have been a cleric of some sort; but we cannot tell ... for the canvas is worn quite bare, so that we see nothing now but the lines drawn in black to guide the embroiderer.... This Churchman holds up another scroll bearing words which can no longer be read.

“When this cope was new, it showed, written in tall gold letters more than an inch high, an inscription now cut up and lost ... the word ne, and a V on some of the shreds are all that remains of it.

“In its original state it could give us the whole of the twelve Apostles. Portions can still be seen.... The lower part of the vestment has been sadly cut away, and reshaped with the fragments; perhaps at that time were added the present heraldic orphrey, morse, and border, probably fifty years later than the other portions of this matchless specimen of the far-famed ‘Opus Anglicum.’” “Of angels,” the “nine choirs,” and the three great hierarchies, Cherubim, Seraphim, and Thrones, are figured here. Led a good way by Ezekiel, but not following that prophet step by step, our mediÆval draughtsmen found out for themselves a certain angel form. To this they gave a human shape, that of a comely youth; clothing him with six wings, with human feet; instead of the body being full of eyes, the wings are often composed of the bright-eyed feathers of the peacock. On this cope the eight angels standing upon wheels are so placed that they are everywhere nearest to those quatrefoils wherein our Lord’s Person comes, and may therefore be taken as representing the upper hierarchy of the angelic host. The other angels, not upon wheels, no doubt belong to the second hierarchy; while those that have but one pair of wings (not three) represent the lowest hierarchy. “All, like our Lord, are barefoot. All of them have their hands lifted in prayer.... For every lover of English heraldry this cope, so plentifully blazoned with armorial bearings, will have a special value, equal to that belonging to many an ancient roll of arms.” The orphrey, morse and hem contain the arms of Warwick, Castile and Leon, Ferrars, Geneville Everard, the badge of the Knights Templars, Clifford, Spencer, Lemisi or Lindsey, Le Botiler, Sheldon, Monteney of Essex, Champernoun, England, Tyddeswall, Grandeson, FitzAlan, Hampden, Percy, Chambowe, Ribbesford, Bygod, Roger de Mortimer, Golbare or Grove, De Bassingburn, with many others not recognized, and frequent repetitions.... “Besides their heraldry, squares at each corner are wrought with swans and peacocks of curious interest for every lover of mediÆval symbolism....” These coats of arms, being mostly blazoned on lozenge-shaped shields, suggest that possibly they record those of the noble ladies who worked the border; while those on circles may be the arms of religious houses or donors.

“A word or two upon the needlework; how it was done; and the now unused mechanical appliance to it after it was wrought, so observable on this vestment, lending its figures more effect.”

“We find that for the human face, all over this cope, the first stitches were begun in the centre of the cheek, and worked in circular lines, into which, after the first start, they fell, and were so carried on through the rest of the flesh tints.

“Then with a little iron rod, ending in a small bulb slightly heated, were pressed down those parts of the faces worked in circles, as well as the wide dimple in the throat. By the hollows thus sunk a play of light and shadow is brought out that lends to the parts so treated a look of being done in low relief. Upon the lightly clothed figure of our Lord the same process is followed, and shows a noteworthy example of the mediÆval knowledge of external anatomy.

“We must not, however, hide from ourselves that the unequal surfaces, given by such a use of the hot iron to parts of the work, expose it to the danger of being worn by friction more than other parts, and soon betray the damage by their threadbare, dingy look, as is the case in the example just cited. The method for grounding the quatrefoils is remarkable for being done in a long zigzag diaper pattern (laid stitch).... “The stitching on the armorial bearings is the same as that now followed in many trifling things worked in wool (cross stitch).

“The canvas (or linen) for every part of this cope is of the finest sort, but its crimson canvas lining is thick and coarse....

“A word or two about the history of this fine cope....”

Dr. Rock now enters into the history of the guilds, which included noble laymen and women, and members of the clergy; and tells us that the rolls of these associations sometimes grew to be exceedingly wealthy. He says that each of these guilds had usually in its parish church a chapel or altar of its own, splendidly provided for, to which offerings were spontaneously given by individuals, or by members clubbing together that their joint gift might be the more worthy.

Perhaps the cleric and the layman worked on the cope may have been the donors. Dr. Rock suggests that possibly Coventry may have been the place of its origin, “where the famous Corpus Christi plays” (which this cope so well illustrates) “drew crowds every year to see them, as is testified by the Paston letters. Taking this old city as a centre, with a radius of no great length, we may draw a circle on the map enclosing Tamworth, tower and town, Chartley castle, Warwick, Charlcote, and Althorp. The lords of these broad lands would, in accordance with the religious feelings of those times, become brothers of the famous Guild of Coventry, and on account of their high rank find their arms embroidered on the vestments belonging to their fraternity. That such a pious queen as the gentle Eleanor, wife of Edward the First, who died 1290, should have in her lifetime become a sister is very likely, so that we may easily account for the shield—Castile and Leon.”

The other noble shields may possibly record munificent benefactions. “The whole must have taken very long in the working, and the probability is that it was embroidered by the nuns of some convent which stood in or near Coventry....

“Upon the banks of the Thames at Isleworth, near London, Henry V. built and munificently endowed a monastery, to be called ‘Syon,’ for the nuns of St. Bridget’s order. Among the earliest friends of this new house was a Master Thomas Graunt, an official in one of the Ecclesiastical Courts of the kingdom. In the Syon Nun’s Martyrologium—a valuable MS. lately bought by the British Museum—this Churchman is gratefully recorded as the giver to their convent of several precious ornaments, of which this very cope seemingly is one. It was the custom for a guild or religious body to bestow some rich church vestment upon an ecclesiastical advocate who had befriended it by his pleadings before the tribunal, and thus to convey their thanks to him with his fee. After such a fashion this cope might easily have found its way, through Dr. Graunt, from Warwickshire to Middlesex.

“At the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign it went with the nuns, as they wandered in an unbroken body through Flanders, France, and Portugal, where they halted. About sixty years ago it came back again from Lisbon to England, and has found a home in the South Kensington Museum.”

For want of space I have been obliged to omit a great deal of Dr. Rock’s interesting account of the Syon Cope. The reader is referred for further details, especially regarding the heraldry and the subjects in the quatrefoils, to Rock’s “Textile Fabrics,” pp. 275-291, in the South Kensington Museum (No. 9182).

Appendix VII., to Page 350.

The Assyrians were great in fringes. Of this we can judge from their sculptures, in which the rich deep and broad fringe forms the ornament and accentuates the shaping of the garments of kings and priests and nobles. Loftus, in his “Babylon and Susiana,” tells of the only actually existing remnant of their textile art of which I can find any record. Some terra-cotta coffins were opened at Warka (the ancient Erech), and in one of them was a cushion, on which the head, gone to dust, had reposed. It was covered with linen—fringed. Nothing else had survived the ages except a huge wig of false hair. Such fragmentary echoes from a life, a civilization, and an art dead for thousands of years, are curiously pathetic, and touch and startle the thinking mind.

Appendix VIII., to Page 369.

The following poem from the Anglo-Saxon poem of Beowulf shows that the hospitable hall of the Saxon earl was hung with tapestry embroidered with gold.

The poem of Beowulf is supposed to have been written in the early part of the twelfth century.

The lines which follow are from a poem, recomposed from earlier sagas, in the beginning of the twelfth century. It serves to show that arras was used in bedrooms thus early in Germany.

From the “Niebelungen Lied,” Übersetzt von Karl Simrock, p. 294.

I owe these notices to the kindness of the Rev. A. O. Winnington Ingram.

Appendix IX., to Page 362.

Abridged from Trans. by Sir G. Dasent.

(From the Ezrbyggja Saga.)

In that summer in which Christianity was established by law in Iceland (A.D. 1000), there came a ship from off the sea out to Snowfellsness, in Iceland. It was a Dublin ship, and on board it were Irishmen and men from Sodor and the Hebrides, but few Norsemen.... On board the ship was a woman from the Hebrides, whose name was Thorgunna. Her shipmates said that they were sure she had such treasures with her as would be hard to get in Iceland.

Thurida, the housewife at Frida, was envious and covetous of these precious goods, and received Thorgunna into her home in hopes, by some means, to possess herself of them, especially the embroidered hangings of a bed; but Thorgunna refused to part with them. “I will not lie in the straw for thee, though thou art a fine lady, and thinkest great things of thyself.” Thorgunna made her own terms with Thurida and Master Harold, and set up her bed at the inner end of their hall. Her richly worked bed-clothes, her English sheets and silken quilt, and her bed-hangings and canopy were such “that men thought nothing at all like them had ever been seen.” An air of truth is given to the whole story by the details. Thorgunna is described as “tall and strong and very stout. She was swarthy brown, with eyes set close together; her hair was brown and very thick. She was well-behaved in daily life, and went to church every morning before she went to her work.” Then comes an account of a storm, and a rain of blood; and how Thorgunna sickened and died, and at her own desire was carried to be buried to Skilholt, which she prophesied would one day be considered holy, and that priests might there sing dirges over her.

There is a curious and picturesque account of the two days’ journey to Skilholt, and the adventures that befell the funeral cortÉge; including the incident of the corpse cooking the supper of the convoy at an inhospitable farmhouse where they had sought refuge and received no entertainment.

On Harold’s return home after the funeral, he proceeded to carry out the wishes of Thorgunna, who had warned him that the ownership of her embroidered hangings would cause trouble, and therefore she had desired they should be burned. Thurida, however, could not bear to lose them, and persuaded Harold to spare them. “After this followed many signs and portents, and deaths of men and women, and apparitions of ghosts, until Kjartan (Thurida’s son) brought out all Thorgunna’s bed-hangings and furniture, and burned them in the fire.”

Appendix X., to Page 365.

Aelfled or Athelfleda was the founder of a race of embroiderers. Their pedigree is as follows:—

Leofwed made her will in the time of King Cnut; dividing her revenue between her daughter Aelswith and the Abbey of Ely. Aelswith accepted the residence of Coveney, a small property belonging to the convent, and there she embroidered with her maidens. See Liber Eliensis, ed. D. J. Stewart, “Anglia Christiana,” vol. i., 1848.

Appendix XI., to Page 377.

In the Statutes at Large there is the following in vol. i. p. 526 (in old French):—

2 Henry VI.

A penalty on deceitful workers of gold and silver embroidery.

Item. pur ceo que diverses defautes sont trovez en loveraigne de diverses persons occupiantz le mestier de brouderie. Ordonnez est & assentiez, que tout loveraigne & stuff de brouderie d’or ou d’argent de Cipre ou d’or de Luke melle avec laton de Spayne & mys a vent en deceit des lieges du Roi sont forfait au Roi ou as Seigneurs et autres accenz franchises d’autielx forfaitures ein quy franchise autiel overaigne soit trouvÉe et durera c’est ordinance longue parlement prochainement avenir.

33 Henry VI.

That if any Lombard or any other person, Stranger or Denizen, bring or cause to be brought by way of merchandize any wrought silk thrown, Ribbands, Laces, Corses of Silk, or any other thing wrought, touching or concerning the mystery of Silk women, the corses which come from Genoa only excepted, into any part or place of the Realm from beyond the Sea, that the same ... be forfeit.

3 Edward IV.

Whereby the importation of any wrought silk thrown, Ribbands, Laces, Corses of Silk, or other things wrought, concerning the craft of Silk women is prohibited or restrained.

22 Edward IV.

That no Marchant, Stranger, nor other person shall bring into the Realm to be sold, any Corses, Girdles, Ribbands, Laces, Coll. Silk or Colein Silk, thrown or wrought, upon pain of forfeiture of the same.

Also Richard III. “An Act touching the bringing in of Silk Laces, Ribbands, &c.”

Also 19 Henry VII. “An Act for Silk Women.”

These acts appear to have been partially repealed, 3 and 5 George III.