Viscountess Marianne Margaret Compton Cust Alford

Longfellow, “The Golden Legend” (“The Scriptorium”), p. 176.

“Upon Thy right hand did stand the queen in a vesture of gold, wrought about with divers colours.... The king’s daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework.”—Psalm xlv. 10, 14, 15.

If the Bride is the type of the Church, how truly has she been, for eighteen centuries, throughout Christendom, adorned with gold, and arrayed in raiment of needlework.

By ecclesiastical embroideries, we mean, of course, Christian work for Christian churches. The first pictured decorations of our era, in early frescoes, mosaics, and illuminated MSS., and the first specimens that have come down to us of needlework and textiles, testify by their naÏvetÉ to their date.[479]

The prosperity of the Church’s hierarchy was founded on the ruins of the Empire, over which Attila had boasted that where his horse trod no grass grew; and truly the cultivated art of those splendid days had lapsed at once to a poverty of design and barrenness of ideas which would soon have dwindled into mere primitive forms, had not a fresh Oriental impulse arrived from Syria, Egypt, and Byzantium,—and then the arts were born anew.[480] The continuity was broken; yet, being devoted to the service of the Church, the new arts were by it moulded and fostered. Little lamps twinkled here and there in monastic houses. Hangings for the churches, coverings for the altars, robes for the priests, occupied the artist and the embroiderer. The forms, the colours, the uses, were adapting themselves to become the symbols of orthodoxies and heresies, and thus became a part of the history of the Church. The links are many between them and the history of the State; and here ecclesiastical embroideries come in as landmarks.

Royal and princely garments, which had served for state occasions, were constantly dedicated as votive offerings, and converted into vestments for the officiating priest, and so were recorded and preserved.[481]

Royal and noble ladies employed their leisure hours in work for the adornment of the Minster or the home church or chapel. Gifts of the best were exchanged between convents, or forwarded to the holy father at Rome, and were often enriched with jewels. The images of the Virgin and saints received from wealthy penitents many costly garments,[482] besides money and lands.

This dedicatory needlework has preserved to us the records of classical, Byzantine, and Arab-Gothic design, which otherwise must have been lost.

The Church records and illuminated MSS. give us most trustworthy information of the way in which the altars, the priests, and even the kings were arrayed; and the catalogues of royal wardrobes are also very instructive, as we find how often princely gauds became, as gifts to the Church, commemorative of historical events, such as a victory or an accession, a marriage or a coronation.

Woltmann and Woermann say that the efforts of the Christians in the time of Constantine tended to delay the extinction of classical design in Rome. Of the fourth century they give as examples the mosaics of “S^ta. Pudenziana,” where we can still find antique beauty of design. We may also mention the church of “St. Agnese fuori le mura,” which once contained the sarcophagi of Constantine and his mother Helena, and of which the decorations in the ceilings are entirely classical, though the motives had been transferred to Christian symbolism.[483]

The total disappearance of Greek art did not occur till the eighth century, when the new blood infused from foreign sources began to assert itself.[484]

Rome had succeeded to Greece as being the centre of Christian art, which assumed the phase commonly called the Romanesque. This was a conglomerate of Oriental, Byzantine, and GrÆco-Roman, varied in different countries. Then there were the Scandinavian, and Runic, and Celtic styles drifting from the North; the Lombardic, of Central Italy; the Ostro-Gothic, of Ravenna; the Byzantine, of Venice, all acting and reacting upon each other.

All these rough and inchoate attempts at the beautiful, prepared the world for the acceptance of the Arabic influence, which is said to have been imported at the end of the eleventh century by the Crusaders, to whose pious enterprise some attribute the whole of the splendid Gothic art of the three succeeding centuries. But the marking characteristic of the Arabic arch is wanting; the ogee shape is seldom to be found in Christian architecture;[485] and the pointed arch so naturally results from the intersection of the round arches, that we cannot but look upon these causes as co-incident.

I have elsewhere remarked how often in art different causes co-operate to form a style. The father and mother are of different nationalities, and the result shows the characteristics of its double parentage. The learned antiquaries, who draw their arguments mainly from the form of the arch, must settle whence and how Gothic art in stone came into Europe. It was doubtless the effect or result of more than one cause.

But in as far as it influenced textile art, we have come to the period when it must be studied in Sicily, the half-way house and resting-place of the Crusaders on their highroad to the Holy Land.

Sicily, which had succeeded to Constantinople as being the great manufacturing mart during the Middle Ages, was, in the hands of the Moors, the origin and source of all European Gothic textile art. Yet even at Palermo and Messina they were controlled by the traditions of the schools of Greece, ancient and modern, and by Babylonian, Indian, and African forms and symbolisms.

Byzantium furnished many of their designs, which were sometimes of very remote date, though pressed into the service of the new style and the Church.

These and all the streams of ecclesiastical decoration throughout Europe flowed towards Rome, and were re-issued with the fiat and seal of the Central Church, which also afterwards presided over the art of the Renaissance.[486]

By studying what remains to us of fragments and records we know all the materials which clothed the primitive and mediÆval Church, and we find that there was but little originality in textile decoration or in the forms of dress, which either resembled those of the priests in the Jewish synagogue or those of the heathen temples; and were adapted from traditional patterns.

The constant repetition of the cross and the signs of the Passion, with the emblems of saints and martyrs, were interwoven with the ancient classical forms, mixed up with the old symbolisms partially altered to suit their new service of Christian art. Of course such changes were inevitable, while the old motives were being translated to the new uses.

The corselet of Amasis (the Egyptian corselet, p. 20, ante) closely resembles the Jewish ephod, which probably was borrowed from Egypt.[487]

In Rock’s “Church of Our Fathers,” vol. i. p. 409, we find mention of the consular trabea, profusely worked in gold, as being the origin of the cope.

Pl. 51.

St. Mark sits with a stylus in hand, looking at a document See larger image

St. Mark. Anglo-Saxon Book of the Four Gospels in the Cathedral Library at York.

It has been suggested and disputed that the stole was an adaptation of the latus clavus; indeed, if we compare the examples given by Bock[488] we can hardly doubt that the consular trabea and the latus clavus either served as the models for the Christian Bishop’s dress, or were derived from the same traditional sources. Such is the intimate chain of design from century to century, from age to age; from Egypt to the Holy Land, and thence to Rome.

Bock gives his authorities for saying that the clavus was sometimes an applied border, sometimes a loose stripe hanging down in front, as may be seen in two consular diptychs given in plate 70. Much has been written on this latus clavus, its origin and meaning, and I shall return to it in reference to the chrysoclavus pattern, p. 337, post, and I refer the reader, who may wish to enter more fully into the questions raised by conflicting opinions regarding the clavus, to Marquardt’s “Handbuch RÖm. AlterthÜmer,” vii. p. 2, pp. 528-533, where great learning and ingenuity have been expended, without arriving at any satisfactory conclusions.[489]

This keeping to the old lines and outward appearance as much as possible was mainly due to a regard for safety during the persecutions, and also to the Christian spirit of adoption and conversion, rather than that of antagonism, which influenced all their early manifestations.

This unchanging character of art was also partly owing to the absolute sterility of the ashes of Roman Imperialism.

It is true that through the Dark Ages individual genius occasionally flashed and left a mark here and there; but such phenomena are so rare, that when they occur we hesitate before we assign them to that age.

The Anglo-Saxon art of illumination shows these inspired moments; I would point to their drawings in the books in the Bodleian at Oxford, and the “Book of the Four Gospels” (of the tenth century) in the Minster Library at York, which are original and graceful, and have a reflection from the classical traditions. To an artistic eye they are beautiful. (Plate 51.)

The conscientious colouring of the Anglo-Saxon MSS. is liturgical. Mr. Clapton Rolfe[490] says that the Levitical traditions in the earlier system of decoration in the Christian Church had a far stronger hold on the popular mind than we are willing now to admit; and that the five Levitical colours, gold, blue, purple, red, and white, were retained in the Christian ritual. Whenever we come across figures of Anglo-Saxon bishops, the liturgical vesture entirely agrees with the Biblical description.

Embroideries before the twelfth century generally preserve a semi-Roman, semi-Oriental character, which is nearly related to the art which is called Lombardic. This differs from what we know of Scandinavian and Celtic design through illuminated books,[491] carving on stone crosses throughout the north of Europe, Great Britain, and Ireland, and the remains we possess of their metal work. I am not aware of any ecclesiastical embroideries which show a Celtic origin,[492] unless the intertwined patterns on Italian dresses in paintings of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries may be supposed to be derived from that source. (See p. 91, ante.)

Delicate knotwork patterns in squares

Fig. 25.

In accounting for the instances of evident Oriental influence on Christian art, which came through Byzantium, we must not restrict ourselves to searching out the Arabian traditions, but we must remember also how much Babylon and Persia, as well as India, had given to the Empire of the East, and these influences were in full force at the time that Christian art was being organized.

We know, for example, that the great veil of the temple at Jerusalem, given by Herod, was Babylonian.

The materials—linen, silk, and woollen—on which ecclesiastical embroideries were worked at Rome and Constantinople were accepted all over the Christian world. The fabrics were plain, striped, and figured; and came from Persia and India, Greece, Alexandria, and Egypt. Even Chinese and Thibetian stuffs are often named. Cloths of gold and silver also came from the East, as in the days of Attalus. All these furnished the grounds on which needlework was lavishly spent. The great veils which divided the pagan and Jewish temples were at first adopted in the Christian churches, but they gradually disappeared from common use, in spite of occasional survivals and revivals during the Dark Ages.

Records exist of the hangings of the ancient basilica of St. Peter at Rome, spread between the pillars supporting the baldachino over the high altar and those of the choir; and at the Ostro-Gothic imperial court of Ravenna, in the fifth century, Maximianus ordered a set of similar splendid curtains (tetravela) to be worked for the altar. Anastasius Bibliothecarius (ninth century), in his biographies of the popes, mentions curtains and embroidered altar-pieces worked in the sixth and seventh centuries.[493]

Sergius (A.D. 687) ordered four white and four scarlet curtains, and Pope John (701) hung white ones between the pillars on either side of the altar at St. Paul’s. St. Zacharias[494] gave similar hangings to the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul. Stephen IV. placed immense silver curtains at the entrance of the basilica of St. Peter’s, and in 768 gave to it sixty-five curtains of figured Syrian stuffs.[495] The same hangings prevailed at intervals in England, France, and Germany, till the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the new Gothic style of high, pointed arches altered the decorative customs.

Pl. 52.

A repeating pattern of men with lions, separated horizontally by a decorative pattern See larger image

Fragments of Silk to be seen at Coire in Switzerland, also in the South Kensington Museum. From Anastasius’s mode of speaking of ecclesiastical garments, it appears that they were named in the treasury catalogues after the animals represented on them—“the peacock garment,” “the elephant casula,” “the lion cope.” Evidently these were Oriental gold brocades, Indian or Persian, or else reproductions of their designs, and from Auberville’s and Bock’s books of engravings we can judge how they repeated and varied their motives. One woven subject, which evidently started its textile career as one of the labours of Hercules, was gradually transferred to Samson, or to Daniel in the lions’ den. (Plate 4, Auberville’s “L’Ornement des Tissus.”) (Plate 52.)[496]

However, in Russia and throughout the Greek Church the ancient Byzantine use of hangings still remains in force.

The art of embroidery has always given its best efforts to these church draperies.

Rome was so laden with splendid embroideries by her eastern conquests, that probably the Christian decorators would have availed themselves of some of the accumulated stores; but we have no record of such adaptations, unless the splendid curtains and the silver hangings of Pope Stephen IV. were taken out of some imperial treasure-house.

The contrast between early ecclesiastical art and that which immediately preceded it in the palaces of the CÆsars (at Rome, Tivoli, and wherever we find their ruined glories) is most remarkable. The lovely and the lively had been suddenly abandoned for the heavy earnest solemnity and inartistic drawing of the frescoes of the underground church of St. Clemente in Rome, and that of the early Christian mosaics.

It is as if the arts which had lent, nay, given themselves to the glorification of idols, had suddenly died out, leaving behind them neither an artist, nor a skilled artisan, scarcely a tradition.

The new Christian ideas had to be painfully recorded on sacred buildings and their furnishings for more than a thousand years; with all the patient acquiescence of untaught ignorance, and the struggling uncertainty of genius pursuing a distant glimmering light, apparently unconscious of all that had preceded it in Egyptian and classic art. The great political and religious revolutions in Europe had crushed and buried the arts under the ruins of the Empire over which Time himself seemed to have broken his hour-glass, so little was there to show any memory of their past, or hope for their future. The alternate progress and destruction of the arts in European civilization strike the student, in vivid contrast with the immutability of those of the East, especially in India and China, where the old forms were still being maintained by the swaddling bands of codified custom[497] that had restricted their development, but prolonged their existence, and so they had survived, while Greece conquered and robbed the East and Egypt, and Rome crushed Greece and was in her turn despoiled by the Goths and Huns.[498] Christian art had to begin at the very beginning, and collect its own traditions, and organize its own forms. These gradually accumulated, availing themselves of accepted symbols, and adding to them hidden meanings. The Reformation checked this development in the north of Europe, but after 300 years we are now witnessing its revival, which is not merely owing to a religious impulse, but also to the archÆological tendency of our day and to the historical interest we attach to the ceremonials of the East.

As the Reformation in Germany was less sweeping and iconoclastic than our own, we find there many more remains of ecclesiastical art collected in the churches to which they have always belonged, or in museums into which they have drifted;[499] and the Germans have thus been enabled to do more than even the French, in training the different schools of work throughout the Continent.

They have proved the Oriental character of the fabrics employed through the Dark and Middle Ages, i.e. for about 1400 years, whether they were Syrian, Indo-Chinese, Indian, Alexandrian, Greek, Sicilian, or Spanish, or whether they had come from Asia by the north or the south of Europe. The same traditional forms governed them all. But an adept is able generally to class and name each specimen by the texture of the webs, by the way gold or gilt thread is inwoven in them, whether the metal is pure or alloyed, round or flat; also by the mode of twisting and dyeing the wool, flax, or silk, and its quality and colouring matter.

Among the earliest historical church embroiderers the foremost figure is that of the Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine, claimed in Wales and in the Welsh ballad of “The Dream of Maxen Wledig” as being a Welsh princess married to the Emperor Constans. She is said to have embroidered an image of the Virgin, which Muratori speaks of as existing in the Church of Vercelli in the seventeenth century. Bock says it is still there, and he quotes an ancient inventory of the treasures of Phillip the Good, of Burgundy, which names a “Riche et ancienne table d’autel de brodeure que on dit que la premiÈre Emperriez Christienne Fist.”[500] The Empress Helena died in the fourth century.[501]

Then after a long interval comes “Berthe aux grands pieds” the mother of Charlemagne, who in the eighth century was famed for her needlework, which is celebrated in a poem by Adhelm in the eighth century, quoted by Mrs. Palliser,[502] “a ouvrir si com je vous dirai n’avoit meillior ouvriere de Tours jusqu’a Cambrai,” and her grand-daughter Gisela followed in her footsteps. Nearly contemporary, is Aelfled’s Durham embroidery,[503] described in the chapter on English work. Christian art before the twelfth century is very often rich, usually picturesque, from its fulness of intention; sometimes beautiful, when it recalls some echo from the East, or some tradition of Greek art;[504] but the embroideries of those centuries are almost always quaint; this is invariably the archaic phase of all early art. Born in the catacombs of Rome—roused by impulses from the north, by education in the south, and everywhere encouraged by the fostering hand of the Church, and the patronage of papal and of royal and imperial houses,—it evolved its forms, and emancipated itself at last from its poor and sordid condition; and the Gothic phase of each nation attained to its own peculiar growth and characteristics; and among them the foremost in the world’s estimation was the English school of embroidery, to which the next chapter is devoted.

There has been much controversy as to the date of the dalmatic of Charlemagne in the Vatican treasury. Like every good early piece of Gothic work in Italy, it is allotted to the days of Pope Boniface VIII. (thirteenth century). But when we examine this splendid relic we cannot doubt that it is of a much earlier time, as there is nothing Gothic to be found in it. It is full of the lingering traces of Greek art (not Byzantine). It reminds us most of the mosaics of Santa Pudenziana, which are always quoted to prove that Greek art still survived in Rome in the eighth century.[505] The dalmatic has been much restored, but, I believe, most carefully kept to the old lines. It is worked on a thick, dark-blue, or purple, satiny silk, which had entirely fallen into little stripes, but has been skilfully mended, and the embroidery has never been transferred. On the front is our Lord in glory, saints below, and angels above, with a border of children playing, which is truly Greek. The motive of this is the “Ibi et Ubi.” On the back is the Transfiguration, and on the humerals are the sacraments of bread and wine. The whole, as art, is beautiful; and it is historically most interesting. Lord Lindsay tells us that in the dalmatic of Charlemagne, (called that of Leo III.) Cola di Rienzi robed himself over his armour, and ascended to the Palace of the Popes after the manner of the CÆsars, with sounding trumpets before him, and followed by his horsemen—his crown on his head and his truncheon in his hand—“Terribile e fantastico.”[506]

This dalmatic must be ranked first and highest among ecclesiastical embroideries. (Plates 53, 54, 55.)

Some of the details are curious. The whole of the blue satin ground is worked with crosses “parsemÉ.” Parts of the design are so adorned with larger and smaller Greek crosses—and others with the starry cross. On the shoulder is once embroidered the mystic swastika.[507]

Featuring repeated crosses and twisting vines, with numerous human figures See larger image

Charlemagne’s Dalmatic
The Vatican, Rome

Crosses and vines, with a circle of figures around a larger, central figure See larger image

Charlemagne’s Dalmatic
The Vatican, Rome

Pl. 55.

1. Courtly figures in a group; 2. Boys walking near stylised trees See larger image

Details of Charlemagne’s Dalmatic. Vatican Treasury.

Pl. 56.

Decorated with images from the life of Christ See larger image

Cope called “of St. Silvester.” Treasury of St. John Lateran, Rome. English Embroidery, thirteenth century.

Rock says, “Those who have seen, in the sacristy of St. Peter’s at Rome, that beautiful light-blue dalmatic said to have been worn by Charlemagne when he sang the gospel at High Mass, at the altar vested as a deacon, the day he was crowned Emperor in that church by Pope Leo III., will remember how plentifully it is sprinkled with crosses between its exquisite embroideries, so as to make the vestment a real ‘stauracin.’”[508]

Pl. 57.

Shows various figures. The condition is very good See larger image

Portion of the Cope at St. John Lateran, showing its condition.

Curving arches, each containing a person or people in medieval garb See larger image

Pluvial, English, XIII. Century
Museum at Bologna

Pl. 59.

Featuring Biblical characters and angels, with underlying combined circle and square pattern See larger image

The Daroca Cope. Museum at Madrid. Opus Anglicanum, fourteenth century.

Pl. 60.

Features extensive metal thread embroidery See larger image

Portion of the Cope of Boniface VIII., twelfth century. From Anagni. Now in the Vatican Collection.

Pl. 61.

Madonna and child with an angel on each side of them See larger image

Altar Frontal from Anagni, Italy.

Signor Galletti, Professor of Embroidery to the Pope, says it is undoubtedly of the eighth century. It has been suggested that the design is of the date of the Exarchate. It is, however, something of infinitely finer style; it is noble, simple Greek.

Charlemagne’s dalmatic is embroidered mostly in gold—the draperies in basket-work and laid stitches; the faces in white silk split-stitch, flat, with finely-drawn outlines in black silk. The hair, the shadowy part of the draperies, and the clouds are worked in fine gold and silver thread with dark outlines. The hands, feet, and draperies have a fine bas-relief effect. (Plate 53, 54, 55).

The “pluvial of St. Silvester,” in the church of St. John Lateran at Rome, is probably, from its Gothic style, of the time of Boniface VIII. (thirteenth century).[509] It never served St. Silvester, except as being perhaps dedicated to him. On seeing it, one is convinced that it is English. It has one peculiarity of English Gothic design in the canopies being supported by twisted pillars of vine-stems, in this case intersected by green shoots, and carrying leaves. The angels, the two cherubim clothed in peacocks’ feathers, the fine split-stitch, the gold grounding, and the drawing are also distinctly English.

I give an outline of the pluvial from photographs,[510] and a finished woodcut of the centre to show the style and condition of the work. The design is most beautiful, and we can only regret the loss of the border, which has been entirely cut off. This shows how elaborate is the design, yet how artistically arranged as a whole composition. (Plate 56, 57.)

It is difficult to settle the precedence between this splendid piece of church decoration and the rival pluvial of Bologna in the Museo Civico, said to have come from the church of San Giacomo. It resembles in style and execution that of St. Silvester, but its architectural arrangement contains six circles of subjects, worked like the other in silk and gold, with gold groundings; and both are embroidered on linen. On careful examination of this splendid work of art, I have come to the conclusion that it is English. (Plate 58.)

The Daroca cope (lately belonging to the ArchÆological Museum at Madrid) is undoubtedly English. We can claim it by its peculiar shrine-work, and the twined columns on the orphreys; by the cherubim, by the peacock-feathered angels, and by the form of the panels enclosing the different subjects, from the “Life of Our Lord.” (Plate 59.)

The cope of Boniface VIII. in the Vatican came from the church of his native place, Anagni (plate 60), where are still very curious old embroideries (see Hon. and Rev. I. Clifford’s list of embroideries in Appendix 5). Some appear extremely ancient, but there is no sign by which they may be dated. Some are probably of the thirteenth century, and are very coarse Italian work, though finely designed (plate 61). There are doubtless many interesting specimens still to be found in the sacristies of Italian churches. But they have generally been transferred to museums.

Pl. 62.

Each featuring two figures, each beneath an arch See larger image

1. From Tomb in Worcester Cathedral, of Bishop Walter de Cantilupe, consecrated 1236.
2. Embroidered Cope at Aix in Switzerland.

Pl. 63.

See larger image

Mitre of Thomas À Becket at Sens, showing the Scandinavian Fylfot Cross (thirteenth century).
Jewelled Cross on Rose-coloured Cope at Rheims (twelfth century).

In the tomb of Walter de Cantilupe (eighteenth century) at Worcester, were found the remains of a dress which is decidedly of an earlier date—evidently of Oriental material, but Anglo-Saxon work—so exactly resembling in style that at Aix given by Bock,[511] that we can hardly doubt that they proceeded from the same workshop, or at least are of coeval design. Both are worked with a dark red outline on a red silk ground. The faces and hands are in white silk—all the rest between the outlines is gold thread, flat stitch. Bock places its date as antecedent to the tenth century, and indeed there is no reason to doubt that this is correct, though the Worcester fragment was taken out of a tomb of two centuries later. As these garments were stored in the church treasuries; and as antiquity (without an historical interest) was then of no value, these old clothes, holy by their use and office, yet by their shabbiness unfit for public show, may have been reverently disposed of in clothing the bodies of departed priests, who probably had worn those very vestments, when officiating at the altar near which they were laid to rest. When the date of the wearer of the garment is ascertained, the dress cannot be of a later period, but it may have belonged to a much earlier one. The architectural part of these two embroideries, i.e. the canopy work, resembles that of the Bayeux tapestry. Both appear to be English. (Plate 62.)

Pl. 64.

Figures surrounded with curving vines, and a vine border

From Tomb of Bishop William of Blois, died 1236. Worcester Cathedral Library.

Pl. 65.

Showing human figures, some surrounded with an oval border See larger image

A portion of the Mantle embroidered by Gisela for her husband, St. Stephen of Hungary. From Bock’s “Kleinodien.”

In the eleventh century, and for some part of the twelfth, needlework design in England, France, and Germany first assumed a phase, which may be called the metal-work style. It is to be found on the robes and mitres of St. Thomas of Canterbury (Thomas À Becket) at Sens[512]—on the famous rose-red cope of satin embroidered with gold and pearls at Rheims (which we should incline to believe is English)[513] (plate 63). The fragment of the cope of William of Blois, found in his tomb, is in this style. (He died in 1236.) The fragments of this curious garment, worked in gold on a purple silk material, evidently Oriental, are also preserved under glass in the Cathedral Library at Worcester (plate 64).

Amongst the finest instances of ecclesiastical needlework, and, indeed, we may say, of ecclesiastical art of the twelfth century, is the coronation robe of St. Stephen of Hungary, decorated by his queen, Gisela,[514] which is preserved in the Imperial Treasury at Ofen (plate 65).

Of this authentic historical work we have the whole story. The original design,[515] drawn on linen, carefully coloured, is to be seen at the Benedictine convent abbey of Martinsburg, near Raab in Hungary. The care with which the work was carried out shows the value then placed on such undertakings considered as art, and it has been justified by its survival of 800 years; time having spared it owing to its perfect materials and manipulation, till it received cruel injuries by being carried off and thrown into the bog of Orsava during the revolution under Kossuth. It was, however, recovered and restored, and was worn by the present emperor at the splendid and picturesque ceremonial of his coronation at Pesth. The design reminds us of the mosaics in the apse of Santa Maria Maggiore and other churches at Rome, and it is extremely beautiful. It consists of an arrangement of medallions and inscriptions, with “metal-work” ornaments in bands alternated with smaller medallions. Yet the figures are not so finely drawn as those of the Durham relics of the beginning of the tenth century. The drawing of the figures of the Gisela mantle resembles those on the garments of Walter de Cantilupe (plate 62), which, from their design and stitches, seem to be of this period. The architectural parts are very like in design to those of the Bayeux tapestry, though they are infinitely better, and they have Lombardic characteristics.

Pl. 66.

Figures within circular knotwork motifs, with a central grouping of oval and surrounding circles See larger image

Portion of the Coronation Mantle of Henry II. of Germany, embroidered by the Empress Kunigunda. From Bock’s “Kleinodien.”

It appears that Queen Gisela had personally embroidered this many-figured, richly-embroidered representation of the “Ibi et Ubi”—The Saviour in His glory as Victor over death and hell, seated on the bow of heaven, surrounded by choirs of angels and saints, and prophets of the Old Testament; below on thrones, are the twelve Apostles. The figures are worked in Oriental gold thread on Byzantine crimson silk.

In contrast to the Ubi, the heavenly hereafter, the queen, in the lowest broad hem (border) has represented the Present, the then “Ibi,” by the leaders of the Hungarian magnates and the half-figures of the royal givers in large gold-embroidered medallions.

The next finest specimen of eleventh century needlework was the gift of Henry II., Emperor of Germany, and his wife Kunigunda, to the cathedral of Bamberg, where it still exists[516] (plate 66).

This, again, consists of medallions great and small, of which the borders, gracefully intertwined, form a large composition[517] covering the whole surface of the imperial pallium it once adorned. But in the fifteenth century it was transferred from its original purple silk ground to one of dark-blue damask, and altered to the form of a chasuble, as we see it now. The general design resembles that of the mantle of Gisela.

Bock calls the style of these works Romanesque; and he thinks that they show a Saracenic influence. They appear, however, as I said before, to be rather Lombardic than anything else. The reader is referred to Dr. Bock’s preface for further lists of Continental works and workers.

AbbÉ Martin considers that in the thirteenth century the opening out of Gothic art was extended to the laity, and was really the sign of a great social revolution. Gothic art had till then only served the Church, and had been by circumstances closed to the people, who were yet unfitted, by their want of education, for artistic life.[518]

Art was till then almost exclusively produced by the monastic orders, into which all talent had drifted. But about this time it fell into the hands of architects and other originators of design, who presently banded themselves together into brotherhoods and guilds.[519]

Embroidery till the thirteenth century had been entirely in the hands of cloistered women, and the ladies who practised it learned their craft with the rest of their education in convents, and their work was simply ecclesiastical and dedicatory. At that period social burgher life in the towns had first begun to develope its love of luxury,[520] and to follow the fashions of other countries, and the changes of forms in dress and furnishing which came from foreign parts, though frequently checked by sumptuary laws. This social movement preceded everywhere political and religious revolutions. Embroidery then became customary in lay dress, and lost its religious character, or rather its religious monopoly.

Pl. 67.

Human and angelic figures in combined circle and square motifs, with heraldic motifs forming the border See larger image

The Syon Cope, South Kensington Museum (thirteenth century).

We find that about this time throughout the Church the forms of ecclesiastical garments were considerably modified, and made more comfortable for the officiating priest; and the old traditional trabea was cut down to the mediÆval chasuble.

English needlework of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had its own peculiar style of metal-work pattern, resembling the hinges and spreading central ornament branching across the wood-work on our church doors.[521]

When we meet with this kind of design on foreign church vestments, we feel inclined always to claim the merit of them for the English school. The foreign metal-work patterns are much lighter and more geometrical, and have not the firmness and at the same time the fancy that we find in our own of the twelfth century; and they remind us rather of the goldsmiths’ than of the blacksmiths’ craft. The English embroidery of this style has the character of “appliquÉ,” i.e. one material laid upon another and fastened down.

There are differences of opinion as to the accepted characteristics of the “opus Anglicanum,” which in the twelfth century began to be celebrated.[522] Some say that it was principally remarkable for its admixture of jewellers’ work in the borders, or the imitation of it in gold thread. Some give the attempt to reproduce the effect of bas-reliefs in the embroidered groups of figures; others, again, point out the peculiarities of the “laid stitches” in gold, which so permeated the linen grounding, as to give the look of a material woven with gold thread. We may fairly say that all these, which were then ingenious novelties, combined to give this opus Anglicanum its value, as well for its beauty as for its ingenuity.[523]

The Syon cope, (now one of the treasures of art in the Kensington Museum), is a perfect example of this work; and is also, according to Bock, “one of the most beautiful among the liturgical vestments of the olden period anywhere to be found in Christendom.” Dr. Rock’s study of this piece of thirteenth century work in his “Catalogue of the Embroideries in the South Kensington Museum” is most interesting, as exemplifying all the characteristics of the Gothic art of the period, in its historical, Æsthetic, heraldic, liturgical, emblematical, and textile aspects. I have ventured to transcribe the whole of this notice in the Appendix.[524] I will only add here that the one error into which I think he has fallen, is in naming the stitches. The “diapers” are not opus plumarium, but opus pulvinarium, of the class of “laid stitches.” This was ascertained by examining the back of the material under the ancient lining by a most competent judge[525] in my presence, and so a long-disputed point is set at rest (plate 67).

Ciampini says that in the twelfth century, the arts went hand in hand, each lending something to the design of the others. This, however, has always been the case.[526] (Whether they greatly profited by such exchanges is another question.) I cannot but agree with Semper’s often-reiterated theory, that textile art was a leading influence and constant suggestion to all art from the beginning. And the way that ecclesiastical decoration was so led in the twelfth century is very apparent. In the new art of stained mosaic glass in church windows we see the reflex of the flat illuminations and embroideries of that period; and while these were being influenced by metal-work, painting was being transferred again to textile art, pictures being woven as well as embroidered,[527] while textiles were seeking to emulate reliefs in a forced and unnatural manner, more ingenious than artistic.

While England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was exciting the admiration of all European artists by the imitation of bas-reliefs in needlework, by the arrangement of the light and shadows in the “lay” of the stitches, and by a little help from the pressure of hot irons, to accentuate its apparent indentations, a similar inroad into the sister art of sculpture, or, perhaps, we should say a similar adaptation from the sister art, was going on in Switzerland and Germany, especially in Bavaria.

There was a clever and artistic mode of stuffing and raising of the important parts of the embroidered design, such as the figures, the coats-of-arms, or the emblems of the Passion, &c., in sacred subjects in imitation of high-relief. There are some beautiful specimens that have been evidently designed in the School of Cranach. I will only mention the orphrey, of which the subject is the “Tree of Jesse,” exhibited at Zurich, 1883, the chasuble at Coire in the Grisons, and the little triptych in the museum of the Wasser-Kirche in Zurich. This last is exquisitely pretty. The finest, however, is the altar-piece belonging to Prince Borghese at Rome, which is certainly German in its design.[528]

Beautiful as these few examples are, they yet show the mistake of mixing different forms of art. The designs are reduced to a compromise between painting, sculpture, and needlework, which excites interest and perhaps amusement rather than admiration.

Glass painting, of which we have no notice till the tenth century, shares many of the rules which hitherto had applied only to embroideries. It was intended to give colour and interest to those parts of a building which otherwise were cold and lifeless. Flatness in the composition, and the avoidance of pictorial effects (especially any perspectives) show that it was intended for conventional decoration, rather than as a rival to mural painting. There is no doubt that it generally superseded textile hangings, because it supplied the want of colour for the large traceried windows just coming into architectural design, toning down the crudeness of the masses of light, and tinting the walls and pavements on which it was cast.

When coloured glass came into general use, embroidered hangings mostly disappeared. Whatever may have been the cause, there is no doubt of the coincidence.

An embroidered Panel, designed by Pollaiolo, and worked by Paulo da Verona.
In the Church of St. Giovanni at Florence (fifteenth century).

The applied embroideries of the north of Germany were evidently inspired by the newly-discovered art of glass-painting, and resemble its designs, both in the compositions of figures and heraldic subjects. Of this we may remember examples in the Scandinavian Exhibition at South Kensington in 1881.[529]

All the most beautiful and picturesque needlework that we possess of the true ecclesiastical Gothic type, and which belongs to the perfect flowering of the art, is of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, just before the spirit of the Renaissance crept northward over Europe, preceding the Reformation and its iconoclastic effacements. This remark especially applies to England.[530] The art of representing Scriptural subjects in flat stitches, as medallions accompanied by beautiful foliage, and heraldic designs, is illustrated to us by the palls belonging to several London companies—and by those belonging to churches, especially that of the church at Dunstable, in which court ladies, knights, and saints form a most artistic border—the costumes being of the date of Henry VII. (see p. 378, post).

The perfection of the embroideries of Flanders of that period has never been exceeded, and it continues still to produce the most splendidly executed compositions in gold and silken needlework, of every variety of stitches. The Flemish work and its peculiar mode of laying golden grounds with flat-laid thread stitched down in patterns was carried into Italy, where great artists did not disdain to design for textiles. I give, as an instance, Vasari’s account of the embroidered set of vestments designed by Antonio Pollaiolo for the church of San Giovanni at Florence. These were carried out by Paolo da Verona, and took twenty-six years for their completion; and they were only one set of vestments, “embroidered by the most subtle master of the art, Paolo da Verona, a man most eminent in his calling, and of incomparable ingenuity (ingenio). The figures are no less admirably executed with the needle than drawn by Pollaiolo with the pencil,—and thus we are largely indebted to one master for his design, and to the other for his patience” (plate 68).

Towards the end of the fifteenth century the Gothic styles were replaced by the Renaissance, but the technical part of the art of embroidery for the churches lost none of its value. All the talent of the artist and the ingenuity of the craft continued to be lavished on altar decoration and priestly garments, in Flanders, Spain, France, and Italy. But the solemnity of these works was certainly impaired by their being emancipated from the traditional ecclesiastical forms and their accompanying symbolism, to which the old designers had so faithfully adhered. Ecclesiastical decorative art became, so to speak, unorthodox.

As a proof of this secular, I might almost say irreverent spirit, I quote Bock’s accusation against Queen Mary of Hungary, who in her embroideries, preserved at Aix-la-Chapelle, is said to have represented herself as the Queen of Heaven, surrounded by her adorers on their knees.

There is no doubt, however, that needlework aspired in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to the highest place in art, and was enthusiastically cultivated by women of rank and position, of artistic taste, who still gave themselves to the productions of beautiful decorations, though they no longer confined themselves to ecclesiastical motives.

Spanish Altar Frontal, Gold Embroidery XVII. Cen^y Gabrielle of Bourbon and Isabella, sister of Louis XI., spent their lives in preparing and overlooking fine works in their own apartments, and assembled around them noble damsels for this purpose. Anne of Brittany, who lived in an artistic atmosphere, had her own workshop of embroidery. Pictorial design now asserted its dominion over needlework, which accepted it, just as it had been influenced in the eleventh and twelfth centuries by metal-work motives, and, before then, by the art of mosaic.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Spanish plÂteresque embroideries (adopted and modified in Flanders and in France), consisting of heavy gold and silver arabesques of mutilated vegetable forms, superseded the graceful Renaissance of the classical taste.[531] These Spanish embroideries forced their way by their gorgeousness, in spite of their want of real beauty. They varied their effects with pearls, corals, and precious stones[532] (plate 69).

Spain, though she was much despoiled during the Peninsular War by her French invaders, yet still possesses some of the finest ecclesiastical work in the sacristies of Seville, Granada, Burgos, Toledo, Segovia, and Barcelona. Don Juan F. Riano[533] says that Toledo is a perfect museum of the work of the sixteenth century.

Sicilian and Neapolitan ecclesiastical needlework showed the Spanish taste of their masters, but not its perfection. The use of pearls, coral, and beads[534] prevailed, and we may in general affix its date and its origin to each specimen by the silver largely used in the two kingdoms of Sicily and rarely elsewhere; also by the extreme brilliancy or rather the gaudiness of its colouring.

English ecclesiastical work came suddenly to an end at the Reformation. What was not destroyed is to be found in the possession of the old Roman Catholic families who have religiously collected the residue, preserved by concealment or by being overlooked; and in the wardrobes of Continental sacristies.[535]

But the church decorations of France, Germany, Flanders, Spain, and Italy have meantime, for the last 300 years, gone through all the variations of lay styles, emanating from anything but ecclesiastical motives. First, the Renaissance’s semi-pagan (so-called) arabesques; then the Spanish plÂteresque, which was a revolt against their own bastard Moorish-Gothic; next, the “Louis Quatorze,” followed by the “Louis Quinze” and the “Louis Seize,” light, frivolous, and elegant, essentially social, and not serious.[536] Then a return to the classical of the Empire; and finally, since the beginning of this century, to a conglomerate, lawless imitation of forms and styles, utterly meaningless and uninteresting, as well as wanting in ecclesiastical dignity and decorum. We are glad to believe that we are ourselves striving to reconstruct some sort of style that shall be able to express poetical and religious ideas, especially in our church decorations. At any rate, it must be of some use to understand the hidden springs which once raised ecclesiastical embroideries, and especially those of England, so high as objects of beauty, worthy to adorn the house of God, and to be for centuries valued as monuments of pious industry and thoughtful art.

One of these hidden springs and ancient underlying motives was the symbolism which gave a religious intention to the smallest design for the humblest use, provided that its purpose was the service of the Church.

Sacred symbolism is a subject to which I have alluded more than once; and it has played such an important part in the construction and growth of ecclesiastical art, that I cannot but give a short notice to the subject under this aspect.

Symbolism in art is what metaphor is in speech. It is the representation to the eye of an object which suggests something else besides itself.

Dr. Rock tells us that the symbolism of Scripture texts was given to the world in a book by St. Melito, Bishop of Sardis, A.D. 170. Its title is “The Key.”[537] In the fourth century were produced two great works on Scriptural symbols, that of St. Basil in his homilies on the six days of the creation, and that by St. Ambrose; both entitled Hexameron. We meet this subject at every turn in the succeeding centuries, till in the twelfth we find it formulated and divided into branches—Bestiaria, Volucraria, and Lapidaria—and each type had frequently more than one meaning. Thus a lion represented power, sovereignty, dominion; also the “House of Judah;” a hare the emblem of man’s soul; a peacock that of wisdom (many-eyed). The ruby represents love. The pearl, innocence. The twelve stones in a breastplate, the twelve tribes of Israel.[538] Trees and flowers had also their symbolical meanings, though we are not aware of their being recorded in any mediÆval book. We know that the vine is the tree of life; the stem of Jesse, the sacramental emblem; that the lily stands for purity, the woodbine for chastity, and the rose for religious ecstasy. The crowned lily was always the special emblem of the Virgin.

These symbols had many of them a distant source, and had been, as I have already indicated, emblematic of other inner meanings in the expression of pagan faiths. The tree of life was Babylonian; the horn, Persian; the fire-sticks of the prehistoric cross, Egyptian or Indian; and the composite animals representing many qualities, Ninevite (probably Accadian).[539]

All these were utilized, so that their already accepted uses should be helps and adjuncts, instead of impediments to the appreciation of divine truths; in the same way that “all that was lovely and of good repute” in the belief and morals of the ancient peoples, reasserted and purified, was claimed by the new teachers as types and antitypes. The symbolism of colours has been always considered very important in liturgical decoration,[540] and their meanings are discussed in the chapter on colour.

The mystical colours, as has been already stated, are five—red, blue, purple, white, and gold. These the Christian Church inherited from the Levitical law, and continued faithful to them till the modern Roman use introduced green and black. The Church of England before the Reformation never allowed any but the original five mystic colours.

The symbolism of ecclesiastical embroideries, as well as that of all Christian art, being intended to illustrate the truths of Christianity by the teaching of the eye, the great symbol of our faith, the Cross, naturally drew to itself all its prehistoric forms as being the prophetic types of the “true cross.”

The earliest form of the prehistoric cross, Prehistoric cross, is supposed to refer to the worship of the sun, and is said to be formed of two fire-sticks (for producing fire by friction) laid across each other. This is almost universal in prehistoric, archaic, classical, and Christian art to the thirteenth century. The next most ancient form is a broken cross, thus, Broken cross, said to be the double of the Tau, or Egyptian sign of life, and claimed by the Rabbins as having been the sign in blood, which stopped the hand of the angel of death, over the doors of the Israelites at the first Passover. This afterwards was called the “Gammadion,” from its likeness to a doubled Greek gamma, and it was also said to symbolize the “corner-stone.”[541] The third commonest form, apparently a modification of that of the fire-sticks, Fylfote cross, is to be found throughout Celtic and Scandinavian art, and was called in England “the fylfote” (from its likeness to the arms of the Isle of Man), and likewise “the Gammadion,” though it shows another source than the Greek letter.

From these three forms already in use, added to that of the Crucifixion, endless varieties were composed to suit the ecclesiastical taste and requirements of different national styles of symbolical decoration. I refer my readers to plate 26 in the chapter on patterns for a few of these from different sources. They are extremely suggestive. I have there entered more fully into the subject, regarding it as a fertile pattern motive in textile art.[542]

The cross “bearing twelve fruits for the saving of the nations”[543] is so like some of the representations of the Persian or Indian Tree of Life, that the transmission and adoption of the symbolic form is evident. The cross (plate 63) is a good mediÆval example, and is taken from the celebrated rose-coloured cope at Rheims, embroidered with gold and pearls on a rose-coloured satin ground.

Ivory Consular Diptych.

1. In the Wasser-Kirche Museum, Zurich. Sixth century.
2. Of an earlier period, and finer workmanship, at Halberstadt. No date given.

The RoËs is an ecclesiastical pattern of wide use and of very long descent, often named in ancient Church inventories. It is sometimes called the “Wheel and Plate.” Its origin is probably Oriental, but it certainly was adopted by the Romans as the motive of their triumphal garments, the togÆ pictÆ, worn in the processional return of a conqueror, whether he were a general or a sovereign. The first motive was a surface covered with circles, closely touching each other, and containing figures which had a reference to their purpose. In Christian times the heads of saints were sometimes inserted, especially in that form of the RoËs called the chrysoclavus, from the intersticial ornament between the circles.

I have written (p. 308-9) about the Trabea, which on the Roman consular ivory diptychs of several centuries is so invariably embroidered with this same clavus pattern (plate 70) that we must conclude that it had a meaning and a tradition.

The very ancient superstition that driving in a nail is a fortunate rite, may have been connected with the pattern called the clavus; and the chrysoclavus, from being merely a nail pattern, became consecrated in Christian art as representing the heads of the nails of the Crucifixion, and hence its early Christian name.[544] It was originally filled in with a radiated ornament like the sun; (probably the first motive of this pattern, which seems to be the same as the Egyptian sun-cross,) and its peculiar decoration remained in possession of the descriptive name “palmated,” though it is difficult to discover in it any likeness to the palm branch or tree, unless it is supposed to resemble it as seen from above.

The toga triumphalis was also called the toga picta, because its precious purple fabric was covered with gorgeous embroideries. After it had been worn at the triumph or festival, by the victorious general, the distinguished noble, or the Emperor, it was laid by and dedicated in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. Thus these palmated triumphal patterns, and their traditional decorations, having by their dedication to the gods assumed a religious character, were woven for Christian ecclesiastical use during the dark ages, and were repeated in Sicily and Spain down to the beginning of the fifteenth century.[545]

I have elsewhere spoken of the “cloud pattern,” which is very ancient, Chinese, Indian, and mediÆval. Its use has always been for celestial subjects in embroidery, either isolating or supporting spiritual figures. This was appropriated by ecclesiastical art, and we find it nowhere else in Europe.

This sketch of the history of ecclesiastical needlework, (necessarily incomplete from want of space), is founded on the works of Semper, Bock, Rock, and the comparison of many specimens in collections and exhibitions in London and elsewhere. Auberville absolutely places before us the materials as well as the patterns of the weaving of the Christian era, as well as fragments of Egyptian textiles, in his beautiful book on Tissues.

For forms and patterns we cannot do better than study Bock’s liturgical chapters and their illustrations, as well as Dr. Rock’s “Church of our Fathers.”

The stitchery of Christian art has been discussed in the chapter on stitches, and I repeat that there is nothing new in the treatment of solid embroideries, (lace stitches having been the only innovation of the last 400 years), though many of the ancient stitches have lost their distinctiveness, and fallen into a pitiful style by gradual descent which reached its lowest point in the early part of this century, as is shown by the robes embroidered for the coronation of Charles X. in the museum of the Louvre.

In the commencement of this our nineteenth century, there was a total cessation of embroidery, which had, for nearly 2000 years held its own as an art, apart from all others; perhaps a secondary one—yet mixed up with every refinement and luxury of civilization.

Its revival in England, especially, is owing to many causes. As ecclesiastical decoration I have already attributed it to the archÆological tendencies of our day, as well as to the Æsthetic sentiment which protests, after so long a period of abstention, against the puritanical bareness and coldness of our national forms of worship. The obliteration of embroidery from the list of the arts was more complete in England than elsewhere; as the church of Rome still continued to be adorned with beautiful work on altar-cloths and frontals, and priest’s dresses, which, though too much regulated in design by the lay tastes and fashions of the time, have combined to keep up a traditional school of needlework throughout the Continent.

Exhibitions abroad and at home have shown us what a latent power in art embroidery still preserves, and architects have employed the women’s needles to give colour and beauty to the decaying churches, which have been restored to their original architectural effects by careful copies of what remained in wood, stone, and glass. The number of new churches has also given rise to the production, in more than one semi-conventual establishment, of beautiful and effective works, such as the altar-cloth at Durham, and those at Canterbury and Worcester. Such works have revived the impulse of artistic and ecclesiastical taste, and in many small churches we have seen beautifully embroidered altar decorations.[546]

There are, however, many amateurs who are perhaps mistresses of the craft of needlework, and who are yet not educated sufficiently to design a really thoughtful and beautiful work of art, and to these a few remarks may be addressed, which may help the struggling aspirants, and show them how they fail, and where to seek for assistance.

I shall begin by pleading for more careful design, and less parsimony in expenditure upon the usual church adornments. It is once more a received dogma in ecclesiastical art, one in which all religious opinions agree, that the building in the parish which is set apart for the first public duty, that of worship, should show as much beauty as the means and taste of the community can command.

Perhaps the little church has just been restored, or completely rebuilt from the foundations; the consecration is imminent. The white stone, carved or plain, shines fresh and cold, and the whole space looks poor and bare.

The rich woman of the neighbourhood sees and feels that colour is wanting (for the windows must wait till their use as pious memorials fills them with glowing tints). The central point of the whole edifice, the altar, calls for the first key-note in colour to be struck, and a splendid altar-cloth is the fitting instrument.

She consults the architect, who probably is also an artist, and the design is agreed upon, and hurriedly drawn and carried out; for there is not a moment to lose if it is to be ready for the opening day. It may be beautiful, and it sometimes is so, but the mere want of time for due consideration often results in the commonplace ornamentation, which neither satisfies the eye nor the mind. It is often only a mere bit of colour and a mediÆval pattern, and has no apparent motive or meaning to give it value.

One sometimes finds that a conventional form has been selected, of which the emblematic intention it originally expressed has been forgotten or overlooked. Therefore, while to the unlearned it conveys no meaning, it is read as absolute nonsense by the ecclesiastical archÆologist, simply because it is worked in a language of undeciphered hieroglyphics—unknown to the worker—meaningless, reminding us of the GrÆco-Egyptian inscriptions, of which the pictured words seem to have been copied at random for their prettiness, or the Arabian lettering on some of the ancient Sicilian textiles, which is nonsense. The sense and the emblematic meaning are forgotten, and the conventional form—an empty shell—is alone retained, conveying no idea, and reduced to the low purpose of being a pretty pattern, vague and unintelligent.

I have so often said that a pattern always originally possessed, and should always retain a meaning, that I fear to become tiresome; but I repeat it here, as in ecclesiastical design it is more important than elsewhere; the meanings are deeper, and convey more essentially solemn traditions and allusions. If the motive of the designer is evident, and is conscientiously worked out, its value receives an enduring quality, and its present interest is enhanced.

Embroidery is not less eloquent than her sister-arts in the teaching of divine lessons, and appealing through the beauty of form and colour to the poetical instincts of the congregation, of which the least educated members almost unconsciously feel the influence; and besides, the people are always alive to the charms of symbolism, when it is placed within their reach. As a proof of this, among our own peasantry and mechanics, I would point to their universal enjoyment of the “Pilgrim’s Progress.”

In the symbolism of art, the thoughts which are individual to the artist can only be expressed by known forms and colours, even as the poet must employ the words and the metres already accepted by the literature of his language.

Hurry is fatal to art. But another and very serious cause of its deterioration is its costliness.

In the dark and mediÆval ages, time was of no account. Skilled labour, such as was needed for carving, illuminations, and embroideries, was freely given as the duty of a life, for one particular object, the good of a man’s soul. The cloistered men and women worked for no wages; neither to benefit themselves nor their descendants; hardly for fame,—that was given to the convent which had the credit of patronizing and producing art,[547] while the very name of the artist was forgotten.

It was from pure love of the art as a craft, and the belief that it was a good work in which they were engaged, and from their abundant leisure, that they were enabled to evolve the lovely creations which delight and astonish us when shown in the sacristies and treasuries of foreign religious houses and churches, where they have been cherished for centuries. Like the silkworm they spent themselves; and by their industrious lives were surrounded in their living graves by the elaborated essence of their own natures, a joy and consolation to themselves, and a legacy to all time. To them, also, art appeared as the consoler.

But to return to the grievances of to-day—cheapness and hurry, economy of pence and hours—these often are the bane of the work which we give to the Church, sometimes as a memorial, sometimes as a thank-offering. The colours are bad, because cheap dyes fade, and none others can be had without much trouble, and we have only time to select among those that are for sale. The work is poor because it must be done quickly, and we cannot afford to delay and pay for the extra hours necessary to make the stitches worthy and capable of lasting. Possibly we cannot give the time ourselves, nor can find any one effectually to organize and overlook the work.

Though the design, the motive, the colours and materials, as well as the stitches, need to be each carefully studied, yet we perhaps accept an ancient drawing intended for a different place and use; and thus we fail to produce any effect, with uncongenial surroundings. Sometimes we feel obliged to take the design forced upon us by a shopwoman as ignorant as ourselves, with the submissive hope “that it will do.”

Now to a truly artistic mind it would appear that each little church, however simple and devoid of ornament, requires its own special colours and design, besides the individual motive of the giver; and people forget that the whole effect in any such compositions must be comprehensive, and that one careless mistake spoils all.

The High Church, in its love of ritualistic vestments, has sometimes been prejudicial to the general adoption of properly studied altar decorations; as there is a common suspicion that a clergyman’s personal wish for ornament, akin to a woman’s addiction to fine clothes, governs all his attempts to adorn the altar; whereas there should be, and there often is, a real artistic feeling for the fitness of things, in the furnishings of the most beautiful building set aside by the community for the glory of God. But it is not necessary for beautiful effects that there should be any coloured vestments. When the clergy are duly robed in the orthodox surplice and scarves, there is, perhaps, something funereal in the white linens and black Geneva silk, but yet the traditional white and black have their own value against a background of altar-cloth and reredos splendidly coloured.

Now that, in spite of prejudice, church decoration is so much the custom of our day, it is worth our while to consider seriously how best to carry it out, and search into the principles which may apply to all ecclesiastical embroideries, whether they are to be dedicated in the Minster, the village Church, or the home Chapel.

We must begin by remembering that in these days, if we cannot do the work ourselves, it must be highly paid for. The skilled artisan who is no artist, receives enough to feed his family, according to the higher wages of the time. The woman’s slow stitchery has to support probably as many claims, and yet it is always grudged as being too costly. The sculptor or the painter who succeeds in obtaining employment, is highly paid, but the designer for metal-work or embroideries occupies an unrecognized place in art, and barely earns enough to live by. The illuminator has ceased to exist; he would starve—probably has been starved out long ago.

The decorative designer, having, therefore, no status, has no education; and it is almost impossible to find in England an artist to accept orders for thoughtful ecclesiastical designs. Hundreds of boys and girls are taught “freehand drawing,” and having copied some casts and lithographs and drawn some flower-pieces, without any particular aim, find a precarious living by designing frightful wall-papers for the million. These poor creatures, from whose lives all ambition and originality have been effaced, are our decorative artists.

Still a beautiful original design can sometimes be obtained, and if that is beyond our reach, we may courageously copy from ancient models, selecting judiciously what is most suitable for our purpose.

The ecclesiastical artist should be well informed in the modes of working a design. The stitch if selected without experience may mar the effect of the whole composition, as some stitches of themselves convey the meaning of shadow, and others that of light.

In ecclesiastical work which is intended to be effective in the distance, as well as perfect in detail, it is worth while to weigh the claims of the architectural low-relief motive, i.e. a flat raised surface, with an edge sufficiently accentuated to catch a light on one side, and cast a sharp shadow on the other. All flat raised stitches conduce also to this effect, especially if edged with a cord, and it is much more striking than in stuffed work (on the stamp), which has not the incisive effect that is given by the tool to the sharp edge of stone or wood carvings.

If we can afford to give to our church without stint, let us seek for the most beautiful textiles, such as are again woven in imitation of the old fabrics; gratefully acknowledging all that Pugin, Ruskin, and the foreign manufacturers, especially those at Lyons, have done in the revival of woven designs. Let us avoid those materials which are easily spoiled by sunshine, dust, and smoke, and all those that fray easily. Woollens are not long lived. Crewels, beautiful as they are, are not salient in their effect. Silks, satins and velvet, and gold brocades,[548] or groundings worked in with gold thread, are the only materials worthy of bearing fine embroidery, fit to receive them, and capable of keeping them for centuries. Plushes and worsted velvets are unworthy, indeed they are worthless.

The gold we employ must be either pure “passing,” or else the Chinese or Japanese gold threads which differ in colour, but have each their own value, and never tarnish, even in the coal smoke of London. Pure silver, too, is beautiful, and if it is really pure, can be kept bright with bread crumbs.

In composing the altar decoration for the cathedral or the village church, we ought to take into consideration what is suitable for the surrounding architecture. In great spaces, the majestic altar-cloth or frontal, shining with gold and silver, and glowing with silken embroideries, recalls the splendid altar “palli” encrusted with gems in St. Mark’s, St. Peter’s, and other ancient churches; and is in perfect keeping with the high and gorgeous reredos, the rich screen, the fretted roof and clustered ornaments of a great cathedral choir. Such glories are unattainable in the modest village church.

But though we may subdue the brilliancy of our decoration, we should try to make it yet a work of art. The design may have as much intention, the work be as refined and individual, and the gold as pure, as in larger works. The precious metals may be confined to small spaces in the parts we desire to accentuate, such as the cross in the centre, or the edges of the orphreys, or they may be entirely replaced with fine silk work.

The altar-cloth we desire to present, may be simply a gift, so that we may choose any design that will agree with the date of the building. We may prefer any subsequent style, but not one anterior to that of the architecture. It would be a mistake to imitate Anglo-Saxon ornaments in a church of the flamboyant style.

Perhaps the altar-cloth we are discussing may be intended as a sort of votive offering, a memorial of a baptism, a wedding, or a funeral.

For the first, white silk worked in gold and silver, or gold-coloured silk, or parsemÉ with conventional spring flowers would be appropriate. For a marriage, crimson, rose-colour, blue and gold, or a mixture of all these, to produce a festive and gorgeous effect. For a funeral, purple or violet silk or velvet, with palms and the crown of thorns in gold or silver.[549] These would serve at the festivals of the Church: the purple for Good Friday,[550] the crimson for Saints’ days, the white for Christmas and Easter Sunday.

The reredos, or the screen curtain behind the altar, should be made available for enhancing its effect, as well as for enlarging the area of textile coloured decoration.

As this is intended for a background, it should be either subdued or else contrasting, in juxtaposition with that which it is intended to supplement. Woollen embroideries or tapestries are the most usually selected for this purpose. The softness of fine crewels is well shown near the more glowing tints of silk, velvet, and gold of the altar frontal. If this is white, or light coloured, the reredos hanging should be of dark or richly worked material; if the frontal is dark, the contrast should be preserved by hangings of tender shades.

The pulpit and reading-desk, with their small cushions and veils, and beautiful worked covers for the books, give opportunities for repetition of colour which is often required for picturesque effect.

I should recommend the young ecclesiastical designer to study the principles which guided the authors of some of the fine Gothic examples remaining to us, such as the great Stoneyhurst cope, and the palls of the different London companies, as well as the very few fine altar-cloths still existing. All these have their brilliant and effective treatment; they are intended to be glorious, and either represent massive jewellers’ work or tissues of wrought gold.

Anciently, the ornaments for the different church services, which we timidly reduce to floral decorations (often, however, very beautifully planned and executed), gave the opportunity for displaying costly embroidered hangings.

The paschal of the choir of Durham, for example, was a marvellous construction of wood and gilding, metal-work, and (probably) hangings. It was as wide as the “lateral” of the choir, and as high as the building, so that the central and seventh candlestick (that from which the new fire for the year was kindled) was so near the roof that there was a “fine convenience through the said roof of the church for the help of lighting it.” I quote from a rare book printed by G. S. Ross for Mrs. Waghorn, 1733.

This little book is full of interesting matter regarding Durham Cathedral, though the author is most concerned in relating the vandalisms committed by the dean’s wife, Mrs. Whittinghame, who evidently had “no culture,” and a strong turn for appropriating odds and ends, such as tombstones, embroidered silk, and other curiosities which she deemed valueless except for her own purposes,—such a woman is a real archÆological misfortune!

The corporax used in celebrating the mass by St. Cuthbert in the seventh century (he died and was buried at Holy Isle in 657) was supposed to be endowed with miraculous powers and was carried into battle on many occasions as a banner.

This banner was of crimson velvet on both sides, wrought with flowers in green silk and gold, and fringed with red silk and gold. The corporax cloth was inserted in the centre, and covered with a square of white velvet, having on it a cross of red velvet, “most artificially worked and fringed, with little silver bells in the fringe.” This was carried into battle, till Dame Whittinghame “did most injuriously destroy the same in her fire.”

One feels as if this woman were spiteful, as well as stupid. But for her punishment, her memory is kept quite the contrary to green by Mrs. Waghorn’s careful record of her iniquities; which has at the same time fortunately preserved to us the description of the banner of St. Cuthbert, and gives also an idea of “the good and sumptuous furniture of changeable suits,” and of “the divers vestments wrought and set round about with pearls, both stoles and flannels, &c.”

Looking at it from a distance, it appears that the “fair white linen” for the communion service always requires the softening of the edges by fringes, by cut work embroidery, or by thick lace edgings. If a white ground for embroidery is required, nothing is more beautiful than linen, especially if it is not over-bleached. White, in art, should be represented by the nearest approach to no colour; but it is more agreeable to the eye by its being tempered with a suggestion of the natural tint, of which all textile substances possess something (excepting cotton) before they have passed through the hands of the fuller or the chemist.

Corporals and veils for the pyx used to be of white linen, embroidered with white silk or linen thread; the silk gives a beautiful, varied, shining brightness.

I think a few words should be said about the fringe.[551] Its motive and raison d’Être is the disposal of the threads of the warp when it is cut out of the frame; these being tied and knotted symmetrically, become an artistic decoration instead of an untidy tangle of threads and thrums. Edging the material and finishing it with its own loose ends is a very ancient custom; and we can see from the sculptures of Nineveh that they were great in that city in the art of fringe-making, and the Israelites, when they made their hangings for the sanctuary, trimmed them with fringes. It stands to reason that an added fringe should be arranged with reference to the origin of the decoration, and the moment we think of it, the eye is annoyed by seeing a deep fringe of one or two colours traversing the whole widths of the frontal and super-frontal, quite irrelevantly, and without any reference to the masses of colours, woven or embroidered, above them; and the consequence of this carelessness is, that it makes it look as if this part of the decoration, came from another source, independent of the composition which it ought to supplement. The fringe should belong to the whole design, and be carefully fitted to the spaces occupied by the colours above it, each of its compartments or divisions being filled in with those tints which are most conspicuous in the general design and would show effectively in the warp. It is not necessary to account for all the colours, as the threads employed to form the woof would naturally disappear at the sides of the web. The sections of the fringe should be skilfully arranged so as to reappear at equal distances, or at least they should be so balanced as to produce that effect. If this is impossible, the fringe should be all of one shade, matching exactly the ground of the textile. It may be relieved by clustered knobs, or hanging beads or cups of different colours and gold. The celebrated pluvial at Aix-la-Chapelle has a fringe of gold bells hanging to a gold cord, which amalgamates with the pattern.[552] The veils of the Sanctuary in the wilderness were fringed with attached ornaments, bells, blossoms, knops, flowers, and fruit, which sounds extremely pretty.

To resume, let me once more urge that in church work neither time nor trouble be spared; nor yet money grudged, if possible. The design should be full of intention, the stitching perfect, and the materials most carefully chosen for tints, for endurance and smoothness. Remember that no inferior substitute will serve to give present effect, nor will it last into the future.

Design, as I have elsewhere said, is all the better for being to a certain degree circumscribed, relegated, and regulated by the laws of traditional usage, as well as those of good taste, and this applies especially to ecclesiastical design.

These laws serve as the frame which encloses the motive thought, and makes it a complete whole, that can admit of no amplifications.

New symbols should not be adopted except for the expression of new facts or altered circumstances, and these can but seldom enter into liturgical art.

There is so much already formulated and admitted, and the area in which we may gather our materials is so large, that we need not seek for more than we find under our hand, ready for use.

Besides the symbolism of dogma, we have all the heraldry of the Saints; and can repeat and vary the emblems of those to whom the church we are working for is dedicated. The keys of St. Peter, the sword of St. Paul, the lilies of the Virgin, the cross of St. Andrew, the eagle of St. John,—I need hardly enumerate all these legitimate sources of decoration. Then there is the lay heraldry which belongs to the history of each church, and which memorializes the reign of the monarch when it was begun, finished, or restored, and the pious work and care of the founder and benefactor, the architect, and sometimes that of the sculptor.

Now as our forefathers accepted all this material for ecclesiastical design, remodelling it to their own uses in different centuries, so we cannot ourselves do better than imitate them, and profit by their experience; never missing an opportunity of studying ancient embroideries; and while we admire in them all that is admirable, and appreciate their historical and archÆological value, we may yet extract greater benefit for ourselves, by criticizing what is imperfect, as well as what is possibly a descent and failure from a higher type.

We must make a judicious selection of what to imitate and what to avoid.

As a general rule, I should warn the young artist against the imitation of “naÏvetÉ” and so-called “quaintness;” especially in our designs for Church embroidery as it is hardly a noble quality in art, though we look on it with a tender pity, half-way between admiration and contempt, when we find it inevitably in mediÆval work; struggling to overcome the expression of something difficult, and expressing a difficulty only partly overcome. We find ourselves putting our minds into the attitude of the artist who conceived those figures with arms conventionally growing out of the encasing garment; conventionally holding a book, and giving a blessing with a conventional twist, not entirely ungraceful, nor devoid of a certain dignity, rather felt than perceived. Yet we contemplate them with a smile of conscious superiority, appreciating our own refined sense of their merits and infantine progress towards something good, that time—a long time—would, and did evolve. But those efforts at last culminated in a Christian art, such as is seen in the splendid forms and adornments in stone, gold, silver, glass, and embroideries of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Such splendours as the windows of Bourges, the Sainte-Chapelle at Paris, or those of the Cathedral of Toledo, or King’s College Chapel at Cambridge. Such sculptures and traceries as those of the Puits de Moise at Dijon, and the Chapter House at Southwell in Nottinghamshire. Such embroideries as the Syon cope, and the Borghese triptych. These are types worthy of all praise, and they are full of instruction to the student of ecclesiastical art.

The Kensington Museum offers us endless help and suggestions in its very interesting collection of liturgical vestments of every date and school; and its textiles, illustrated by the inventory of their learned collector, Dr. Rock, are most instructive.[553] In the library of that museum are to be found many of the learned works on these subjects by French and German savants. The exhibitions in the English counties are never without a case or a room full of embroideries, collected from the treasure-chests of the neighbouring churches and country houses, and especially from those of the ancient Roman Catholic families. The colleges of Oscott and Stoneyhurst have collected, by purchase or by gift, many fine relics of the craft, which are most liberally granted for exhibition.

For those who can go further afield there is instruction in almost every Continental town. Rome, Florence, Milan, Toledo, Sens, Rheims, Aix-la-Chapelle, Berne, Vienna, Halberstadt, Berlin, and Munich—each and all have stores of beautiful liturgical objects carefully preserved; of many dates, and many styles, and showing endless varieties of design, which can be employed on new works by careful selection and adaptation. Most of these belong to the eleventh and succeeding centuries; any earlier examples are fragmentary, and have generally been taken from the tombs of kings and bishops.

It seems to savour of desecration, this opening of shrines and disturbing the ashes of the illustrious dead, if only for the satisfaction of archÆological curiosity. But except where it has hitherto been protected by the sanctity of the tomb, there is so little that remains to us,—so few textiles have survived the friction of use, or even that of the air, through as many as a thousand years or more, that we may plead the hunger for truth, and the eager desire for proofs of identity and verification of historical legends, which are to be extracted from the shape of a garment, from the pattern on the border, or the lettering on the web of which it is composed; whence we reverently cut a fragment, and preserve it under glass.

Before closing this chapter, I would wish to observe that I have entered into the subject of church decoration in no ritualistic spirit; I do not treat it theologically, but as art; and if these decorations are to be carried out at all, I feel that I am rendering a service to those whose duty or pleasure it is to provide them, by pointing out where they may find the principles which have been the spring and life of mediÆval art, and the survivals which are now the best exponents of those principles to guide us in the works of our day.