Textile Fabrics: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Church-vestments, Dresses, Silk Stuffs, Needlework and Tapestries, forming that Section of the MuseumRock, Daniel
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Textile Fabrics: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Church-vestments, Dresses, Silk Stuffs, Needlework and Tapestries, forming that Section of the Museum
Rock, Daniel
Art objects -- England -- London -- Catalogs; Textile fabrics
Here, in England, the old custom was to sew a great deal of goldsmith’s
work, for enrichment, upon articles meant for personal wear, as well
as on ritual garments. When our first Edward’s grave, in Westminster
Abbey, was opened, A.D. 1774, on the body of the king, besides other
silken robes, was seen, a stole-like band of rich white tissue put
about the neck, and crossed upon his breast: it was studded with
gilt quatrefoils in filigree work and embroidered with pearls. From
the knees downwards the body was wrapped in a pall of cloth of gold.
Concerning attire for liturgical use, the fact may be verified in those
instances we have elsewhere given.[340] When Henry III., in the latter
end of his reign, bestowed a frontal on the high altar in Westminster
Abbey, besides carbuncles in golden settings, as we have just read, p.
xxxvi, we may have observed that along with several larger pieces of
enamel, there were as many as 866 smaller ones--the “esmaux de plique”
of the French--all fastened on this liturgical embroidery.
A good instance of the appliance of figured solid gold or silver, upon
church vestments, is the following one of a cope beaten all over with
lions in silver, given by a well-wisher to Glastonbury Abbey:--“dederat
unam capam rubeam cum leonibus laminis argenteis capæ infixis, &c.”[341]
In the Norman-French, for so long a period in use at our Court, silken
stuffs thus ornamented were said to be “batuz,” or as we now say beaten
with hammered-up gold. Among the liturgical furniture provided by
Richard II. for the chapel in the castle of Haverford, were “ii rydell
batuz”--two altar-curtains beaten (no doubt with ornaments in gilt
silver.)[342]
[340] Church of Our Fathers, i. 360, 362, 469, &c.
[341] Johannes Glastoniensis, p. 203.
[342] Kalendars of the Treasury, &c. ed. Palgrave, t. iii. p. 359.
For the secular employment of this same sort of decoration, we have
several curious examples. Our ladies’ dresses for grand occasions were
so adorned, as we may see in the verses following:--
In a robe ryght ryall bowne,
Of a redd syclatowne,
Be hur fadur syde;
A coronell on hur hedd sett,
Hur clothys wyth bestes and byrdes wer bete,
All abowte for pryde.[343]
A.D. 1215 our King John sent an order to Reginald de Cornhull and
William Cook to have made for him, besides five tunics, five banners
with his arms upon them, well beaten in gold: “quinque banerias de
armis nostris bene auro bacuatas” (_sic_).[344] The _c_ for _t_ must be
a misprint in the last word.
An amice at St. Paul’s had on it the figures of two bishops and a king
hammered up out of gilt silver: “amictus ornatus cum duobus magnis
episcopis et uno rege stantibus argenteis deauratis.”[345]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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