The crusades now began to influence the arts; in 1098, Antioch was taken and the spoil distributed through Europe; in 1204, Constantinople was taken by Baldwin, Count of Flanders, and the Venetian Doge, Dandolo, and the vast spoil of textiles distributed. It was doubtless under the influence of the crusades that the Sicilian weavers of the 13th and 14th centuries produced the many beautiful fabrics enriched with winged lions, foliated crosses and crowns, rayed stars, harts and birds linked together, and with the introduction of armorial bearings. Early in the 14th century, this splendid tradition was introduced into Italy, and at Lucca many beautiful fabrics were produced, having the same characteristics and technique as the Sicilian fabrics. The cloak upon the recumbent bronze figure of Richard II. in Westminster Abbey has a pattern of foliage with couchant harts and rayed stars, and was most probably copied from the original silk made for Richard at Lucca or Palermo. The beautiful materials and designs of Indian textile fabrics are indicative of the love of nature and the splendour of colour of a remote antiquity. Though influenced at various times by Greek, Persian and Arabian traditions, India still preserved an indigenous ornamental art of remarkable freshness and vitality, the designers choosing their own flora and fauna with rare selective power and adaptive qualities. With an instinctive feeling for ornamental art, aided by the splendid colourings of the native dyes, they produced textile fabrics of silks, brocades, and gold and silver lace remarkable for richness and perfection of material, beauty of design and harmony of colour. The Indian pine is a familiar form of enrichment differentiated from the cypress of Persia (fig. 1, plate 22), by the spiral at the apex. This typical pine is treated with a wonderful diversity of detail (figs. 4, 5 and 6, plate 23). The splendid carpets of India were doubtless influenced by the Persian tradition and they follow the same methods and ornamental arrangements, adapting, conventionalizing and emphasising plants, flowers and seeds, and rendering them with a fine feeling for form and colour. Block printing was largely used for silks and cottons, and many splendid examples are now treasured in our museums; an illustration of a printed cotton Palampore from South Kensington is given here, showing the beautiful floral treatment, diversity of detail, and contrast of line and mass. The gold and silver Brocades or “Kincobs” of Ahmedabad and Benares, with patterns of animals, flowers and foliage richly spangled; the delicate muslins of Dacca, the gold and silver primed muslins of Jaipur, and the woollen [Illustration: Plate 38. PERSIAN CARPET. 16^{TH} CENTURY. S.K.M] shawls of Kashmir, with the well-known pine pattern, are splendid examples of richness of material, delicacy and skilfulness of technic, and beauty and appropriateness of ornamentation.