In this country such a sort of embroidering was called net-work--filatorium--as we learn from the Exeter Inventory, where we read that its cathedral possessed, A.D. 1327, three pieces of it, for use at the altar--one in particular for throwing over the desk: “tria filatoria linea, unde unum pro desco.”[348] From their liturgical use, as we have noticed, p. 212, they were more generally named lectern-veils, and as such are spoken of, in the same Devonshire document: “i lectionale de panno lineo operato de opere acuali, &c.”[349] Of those narrow, light, and moveable lecterns over which these linen embroideries were cast, Exeter had three--two of wood, another which folded up (see p. 212 here,) of iron: “i descus volubilis de ferro, pro Evangelio supra legendo; ii alia lectrina lignea.”[350] Almost every one of these thread embroideries were wrought during the fourteenth century, and several of them for the service of the sanctuary, either as reredos, frontal, or lectern-veil; and while those described at pp. 19, 20, 31, 53, 60, 71, 99, 120, 242-3, 249, 261-7, deserve consideration, a more complete and an especial notice is due to those two very fine ones under Nos. 8358, p. 210, and 8618, p. 235. As early as A.D. 1295, St. Paul’s had a cushion covered with knotted thread: “pulvinar opertum de albo filo nodato.”[351] [348] Ed. Oliver, p. 312. [349] Ib. p. 356. [350] Ib. p. 329. [351] Dugdale, p. 316. QUILTING, too, must not be forgotten here; and a short look at Nos. 727, p. 14, and 786, p. 16, will be sufficient to make us understand how, in hands guided by taste, a work of real, though humble art, may be brought out and shewn upon any article, from a lady’s skirt to a gentleman’s daily skull-cap, by such a use of the needle. _Crochet_, knitting done with linen thread, and in the convents throughout Flanders, as well as the thick kinds of lace wrought there upon the cushion with bobbins, came, under the name of nun’s lace, to be everywhere much employed, from the sixteenth century and upwards, for bordering altar-cloths, albs, and every sort of towel required in the celebration of the liturgy. No. 1358, p. 72, is a good example. SECTION III.--TAPESTRY. Though regarding actual time so very old, still in comparison with weaving and embroidery, the art of tapestry is, it would seem, the youngest of the three. It is neither real weaving, nor true embroidery, but unites in its working those two processes into one. Though wrought in a loom and upon a warp stretched out along its frame, it has no woof thrown across those threads with a shuttle or any like appliance, but its weft is done with many short threads, all variously coloured, and put in by a kind of needle. It is not embroidery, though so very like it, for tapestry is not worked upon what is really a web--having both warp and woof--but upon a series of closely set fine strings.