These Bagdad or Baldak silks, with a weft of gold, known among us as “baudekins” were often woven very large in size, and applied here in England to especial ritual purposes. As a thanks-offering after a safe return home from a journey they were brought and given to the altar; at the solemn burial of our kings and queens and other great people, the mourners, when offertory time came, went to the hearse and threw a baudekin of costly texture over the coffin. We may learn the ceremonial from the descriptions of many of our mediæval funerals. At the obsequies of Henry the seventh in Westminster abbey:--“Twoe herauds came to the duke of Buck. and to the earles, and conveyed them into the revestrie where they did receive certen palles which everie of them did bringe solemly betwene theire hands and comminge in order one before another as they were in degree unto the said herse, thay kissed theire said palles and delivered them unto the said heraudes which laide them uppon the kyngs corps, in this manner: the palle which was first offered by the duke of Buck. was laid on length on the said corps, and the residewe were laid acrosse, as thick as they might lie.” In the same church at the burial of Anne of Cleves in 1557, a like ceremonial of carrying cloth-of-gold palls to the hearse was followed. So also the religious guilds, or other companies, in the middle ages kept palls to be thrown over the bodies of all brothers or sisters at their burial, however lowly may have been their rank. The word “baudekin” itself became at last enlarged in its meaning. So warm, so mellow, so fast were the tones of crimson which the dyers of Bagdad knew how to give their silks that, without a thread of gold in them, the mere glowing tints of the plain crimson silken webs won for themselves the name of baudekins. Furthermore, when they quite ceased to be partly woven in gold and from their consequent lower price and cheapness came into use for cloths of estate over royal thrones, the canopy hung over the high altar of a church acquired and yet keeps the appellation (at least in Italy) of “baldachino.” How very full in size, how costly in materials and embroidery, must have sometimes been the cloth of estate spread overhead and behind the throne of our kings, may be gathered from the privy purse expenses of Henry the seventh; wherein this item occurs: “To Antony Corsse for a cloth of an estate conteyning 47½ yerds, £11 the yerd, £522 10_s._” Canopies of this kind are still occasionally to be seen in the throne-room of some of the Roman palaces, whose owners have the old feudal right to the cloth of estate. The custom itself is thus noticed by Chaucer: Yet nere and nere forth in I gan me dress Into an hall of noble apparaile, With arras spred, and cloth of gold I gesse, And other silke of easier availe: Under the cloth of their estate sauns faile The king and quene there sat as I beheld.