Coming westward among us, these much coveted stuffs brought with them the several names by which they were commonly known throughout the east, whether Greece, Asia minor, or Persia. Hence when we read of samit, ciclatoun, cendal, baudekin, and other such terms unknown to trade now-a-days, we should bear in mind that, notwithstanding the wide variety of spelling which each of these appellations has run through, we arrive at their true derivations, and discover in what country and by whose hands they were wrought. As commerce grew these fine silken textiles were brought to our markets, and articles of dress were made of silk for men’s as well as women’s wear among the wealthy. At what period the raw material came to be imported here, not so much for embroidery as to be wrought in the loom, we do not exactly know; but from several sides we learn that our countrywomen of all degrees, in very early times, busied themselves in weaving. Among the home occupations of maidens St. Aldhelm, at the end of the seventh century, includes weaving. In the council at Cloveshoo, in 747, nuns are exhorted to spend their time in reading or singing psalms rather than weaving and knitting vainglorious garments of many colours. By that curious old English book the ‘Ancren Riwle,’ written towards the end of the twelfth century, ankresses are forbidden to make purses or blodbendes (which were narrow strips to bind round the arm after bleeding), to gain friends therewith. Were it not that the weaving especially of silk was so generally followed in the cloister by English women, it had been useless to have so strongly discountenanced the practice. But on silk weaving by our women in small hand-looms a very important witness, especially about several curious specimens in the great collection at South Kensington, is John Garland, born at the beginning of the thirteenth century in London, where many of his namesakes were and are still known. First, a John Garland, in 1170, held a prebend’s stall in St. Paul’s cathedral. Another was sheriff at a later period. A third, a wealthy draper of London, gave freely towards the building of a church in Somersetshire. A fourth, who died in 1461, lies buried in St. Sythe’s; and, at the present day, no fewer than twenty-two tradesmen of that name, of whom six are merchants of high standing in the city, are mentioned in the London post office directory for the year 1868. We give these instances as some have tried to rob us of John Garland by saying he was not an Englishman, though he has himself told us he was “born in England and brought up in France.”