When Sir Bevis of Southampton wished to keep himself unknown at a tournament, we thus read of him: Sir Bevis disguised all his weed Of black cendal and of rede, Flourished with roses of silver bright, etc. Of the ten silken albs which Hugh Pudsey left to Durham, two were made of samit and two of cendal, or as the bishop calls it, _sandal_. Exeter cathedral had a red cope with a green lining of sandal and a cape of sandaline: “Una capa de sandalin.” Piers Ploughman speaks thus to the women of his day: And ye lovely ladies With youre long fyngres, That ye have silk and sandal To sowe, whan tyme is. Chesibles for chapeleyns, Chirches to honoure, etc. A stronger kind of cendal was wrought and called, in the Latin inventories of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, “cendatus afforciatus:” there was a cope of this material at St. Paul’s, and another cope of cloth of gold was lined with it. _Syndonus_ or _Sindonis_, as it would seem, was a bettermost sort of cendal. St. Paul’s had a chasuble as well as a cope of this fabric. _Taffeta_, if not a thinner, was a less costly silken stuff than cendal; which word, to this day, is used in the Spanish language, and is defined to be a thin transparent textile of silk or linen: “Tela de seda ó lino muy delgada y trasparente.” Taffeta and cendal were used for linings in mediæval England. Chaucer says of his “doctour of phisike,” In sanguin and in perse he clad was alle Lined with taffeta and with sendalle. _Sarcenet_ during the fifteenth century took by degrees the place of cendal, at least here in England. By some improvement in their weaving of cendal, the Saracens in the south of Spain earned for this light web a good name in our markets, and it became much sought for here. Among other places, York cathedral had several sets of curtains for its high altar, “de sarcynet.” At first this stuff was called from its makers “saracenicum.” But, in Anglicising, the name was shortened into “sarcenet;” a word which we use now for the thin silk which of old was known among us as “cendal.” _Satin_, though far from being so common as other silken textures, was not unknown to England in the middle ages; and Chaucer speaks of it in his ‘Man of lawes tale:’ In Surrie whilom dwelt a compagnie Of chapmen rich, and therto sad and trewe, That wide were senten hir spicerie, Clothes of gold, and satins rich of hewe. When satin first appeared in trade it was called round the shores of the Mediterranean “aceytuni.” The term slipped through early Italian lips into “zetani;” coming westward this name, in its turn, dropped its “i,” and smoothed itself into “satin.” So, also, it is called in France; while in Italy it now goes by the name of “raso,” and the Spaniards keep up its first designation.