[Illustration: FIG. 222.--Drawing for Stained Glass, Victoria and Albert Museum. A. Renten. Sixteenth Century.] The drawing by Holbein, Fig. 221, is very characteristic of his work, and of the style of continental heraldry in the sixteenth century when the early simplicity was giving way to great elaboration of design. The helmets in the glass work of this period are useful indications of how structural facts, reinforcing pieces for example, and surface ornament may be made available as decorative detail, and Fig. 222, by A. Renten, is one of many good examples that are found among drawings of this kind. The mantlings by this artist are particularly well drawn, as is evident in the illustration. CHAPTER X Embroidered Heraldry The romantic associations that embroidered heraldry call to mind, of fair fingers working the devices on battle flags and on knightly surcoats, render it a subject of the utmost fascination, and although its adequate treatment would demand more space than can be devoted to it here, it will still be possible to refer in some measure to an art that, like the heraldry it embodied, touched in one way or another all the life of the Middle Ages and has transmitted no little of its beauty and charm to the work of our own time. Long before heraldry was formulated noble ladies practised the art and found in it a delightful occupation. Embroidered heraldry is even alluded to in that dim time where myth and history meet, as when the Raven banner of the Vikings, the dread Landeyda, desolation of the land, was woven and embroidered in one noontide by the daughters of Reyner Lodbrock, son of Sigurd.