The fashion of adorning linen has prevailed from the earliest times. Either the edges were worked with close embroidery--the threads drawn and fashioned with a needle in various forms--or the ends of the cloth unravelled and plaited with geometric precision. To judge from the description of the linen grave-clothes of St. Cuthbert,[48] as given by an eye-witness to his disinterment in the twelfth century, they were ornamented in a manner similar to that we have described. "There had been," says the chronicler, "put over him a sheet ... this sheet had a fringe of linen thread of a finger's length; upon its sides and ends were woven a border of projecting workmanship fabricated of the thread itself, bearing the figures of birds and beasts so arranged that between every two pairs there were interwoven among them the representation of a branching tree which divides the figures. This tree, so tastefully depicted, appears to be putting forth its leaves," etc. There can be no doubt that this sheet, for many centuries preserved in the cathedral church of Durham, was a specimen of cut-work, which, though later it came into general use, was, at an early period of our history, alone used for ecclesiastical purposes, and an art which was, till the dissolution of monasteries, looked upon as a church secret. [Illustration: PLATE II. ITALIAN BOBBIN RÉSEAU. SIX-POINTED STAR-MESHED BOBBIN RÉSEAU.--Variety of Valenciennes. BRUSSELS BOBBIN RÉSEAU. FOND CHANT OF CHANTILLY AND POINT DE PARIS. Valenciennes. Lille. Toilé. DETAILS OF BOBBIN RÉSEAU AND TOILÉ. Alençon réseau. DETAILS OF NEEDLE RÉSEAU AND BUTTONHOLE STITCHES. Portions of lace very much enlarged to show details of stitches.] _To face page 14._ {15}Though cut-work is mentioned in Hardyng's _Chronicle_,[49] when describing the luxury in King Richard II.'s reign, he says:-- "Cut werke was greate both in court and townes, Both in menes hoddis and also in their gownes," yet this oft-quoted passage, no more than that of Chaucer, in which he again accuses the priests of wearing gowns of scarlet and green colours ornamented with cut-work, can scarcely be received as evidence of this mode of decoration being in general use. The royal wardrobe accounts of that day contain no entries on the subject. It applies rather to the fashion of cutting out[50] pieces of velvet or other materials, and sewing them down to the garment with a braid like ladies' work of the present time. Such garments were in general use, as the inventories of mediæval times fully attest. The linen shirt or smock was the special object of adornment, and on the decoration of the collar and sleeves much time and ingenuity were expended. In the ancient ballad of "Lord Thomas,"[51] the fair Annette cries:-- "My maids, gae to my dressing-room, And dress me in my smock; The one half is o' the Holland fine, The other o' needlework." Chaucer, too, does not disdain to describe the embroidery of a lady's smock--