Textile Fabrics: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Church-vestments, Dresses, Silk Stuffs, Needlework and Tapestries, forming that Section of the MuseumRock, Daniel
History
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
At the end of the fourteenth century, there arose, between the noble
houses of Scrope and Grosvenor, a difference about the legal right
of bearing on their respective shields the bend _or_ on a field
_azure_; and the suit was carried to the Court of Honour which sat at
Westminster, and commissioners were sent about the country for the
purpose of gathering evidence.
Besides a numerous body of the nobility, several distinguished
churchmen were examined; and their depositions are curious. John,
Abbot of St. Agatha, in Richmondshire, said the arms (_Azure_, a
bend _or_, the bearing of the Scrope family who contended against
its assumption by the Grosvenors) were on a corporas case belonging
to the church of his monastery, of which the Scropes were deemed the
second founders.[448] John de Cloworthe, sub-prior of Wartre, exhibited
before the commissioners an amice embroidered on red velvet with
leopards and griffons _or_, between which are sewn in silk, in three
pieces, three escochens with the entire arms of Sir Richard Scrope
therein, viz.--_azure_ a bend _or_.[449] William, Prior of Lanercost,
said they had in their church the same arms embroidered on the morse
of a cope.[450] Sir Simon, parson of Wenslay (whose fine grave brass
may be seen in the “Church of Our Fathers,”[451]) placed before the
commissioners an albe with flaps, upon which were embroidered the arms
of the Scropes entire, &c.[452] The Scropes were the patrons of that
living. Thomas de Cotyngham, prior of the Abbey of St. Mary, York, said
that they had vestments with the Scrope arms upon them.[453] Sir John
de Manfeld, parson of the Church of St. Mary sur Rychille, in York,
said that in the church were diverse vestments on which were sewn, in
silk, the entire arms of Scrope.[454] Sir Bertram Mountboucher said
that these arms of the Scropes were to be seen on vestments, &c., in
the abbey and churches where Sir R. Scrope was born.[455] Not the least
remarkable individual who bore evidence on the subject was the poet
Chaucer, who was produced on behalf of Sir Richard Scrope. When asked
whether the arms _azure_, a bend _or_, belonged, or ought to belong
to the said Sir Richard? said yes, for he saw him so armed in France,
&c., and that all his time he had seen the said arms in banners, glass,
paintings and vestments, and commonly called the Arms of Scrope.[456]
For the better understanding of all these evidences the reader should
look at No. 8307, p. 185, an amice with its old apparel still on it.
The “flaps” of an alb are now called apparels; and an old one, with
these ornaments upon it, both at the cuffs as well as before and
behind, is in this collection, No. 8710, p. 268 of the Catalogue. The
two fine old English apparels here, No. 8128, p. 146, show how shields
with heraldry could be put along with Scriptural subjects in these
embroideries. The monumental effigy of a priest --a Percy by birth--in
Beverley Minster, exhibits how these apparels, on an amice, were
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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