Such a weaving of pure gold was, here in England, followed certainly as late as the beginning of the tenth century; very likely much later. In the chapter library belonging to Durham cathedral may be seen a stole and maniple, which bear these inscriptions: “Ælfflaed fieri precepit. Pio episcopo Fridestano.” Fridestan was consecrated bishop of Winchester A. D. 905. With these webs under his eye, Mr. Raine writes thus: “In the first, the ground work of the whole is woven exclusively with thread of gold. I do not mean by thread of gold, the silver-gilt wire frequently used in such matters, but real gold thread, if I may so term it, not round, but flat. This is the character of the whole web, with the exception of the figures, the undulating cloud-shaped pedestal upon which they stand, the inscriptions and the foliage; for all of which, however surprising it may appear, vacant spaces have been left by the loom, and they themselves afterwards inserted with the needle.” Further on, in his description of a girdle, the same writer tells us: “Its breadth is exactly seven-eighths of an inch. It has evidently proceeded from the loom; and its two component parts are a flattish thread of pure gold, and a thread of scarlet silk.” Another very remarkable piece, a fragment (probably) of a stole, was also found lately at Durham in the grave of bishop Pudsey, who was buried about the middle of the twelfth century. This was exhibited at the Society of antiquaries, in the present year, 1875. It is made of rich silk, with a diaper pattern in gold thread. This love for such glittering attire, not only for sacred use but secular wear, lasted long in England. The golden webs went under different names; at first they were called “ciclatoun,” “siglaton,” or “siklatoun,” as the writer’s fancy led him to spell the Persian word common for them at the time throughout the east. By the old English ritual plain cloth of gold was allowed, as now, to be used for white when that colour happened to be ordered by the rubric. Thus in the reign of Richard the second, among the vestments at the chapel of St. George, Windsor castle, there was “one good vestment of cloth of gold:” and St. Paul’s, London, had at the end of the thirteenth century two amices embroidered with pure gold.