The superior quality of some gold thread was known to the mediæval world under the name of the place where it had been made. Thus we find mention at one time of Cyprus gold thread; “a vestment embroidered with eagles of gold of Cyprus:” later, of Venice gold thread, “for frenge of gold of Venys at vj_s._ the ounce;” and again, “one cope of unwatered camlet laid with strokes of Venis gold.” What may have been their difference cannot now be pointed out: perhaps the Cyprian thread was esteemed because its somewhat broad shred of flat gold was wound about the hempen twist beneath it so nicely as to have the smooth unbroken look of gold wire; while the manufacture of Venice showed everywhere the twisting of common thread. CHAPTER IV. In earlier times, as at present, silks had various names, distinguishing either their kind of texture, their colour, the design woven on them, the country from which they were brought, or the use for which, on particular occasions, they happened to be especially set apart. All these designations are of foreign growth; some sprang up in the seventh and following centuries at Byzantium; some are half Greek, half Latin, jumbled together; others, borrowed from the east, are so shortened, so badly and variously spelt, that their Arabic or Persian derivation can be hardly recognized at present. Yet without some slight knowledge of them we hardly understand a great deal belonging to trade, and the manners of the times glanced at by old writers; much less can we see the true meaning of many passages in our mediæval English poetry. Among the terms significative of the kind of web, or mode of getting up some sorts of silk, we have _Holosericum_, the texture of which is warp and woof wholly pure silk. From a passage in Lampridius we learn that so early as the reign of Alexander Severus the difference between “vestes holosericæ” and “subsericæ” was strongly marked, and that _subsericum_ implied that the texture was not entirely but in part, probably the woof, of silk.