By some improvement in their weaving of cendal, the Saracens, it is likely in the south of Spain, earned for this light web as they made it, or sold it, a good name in our markets, and it became much sought for here. Among other places, York Cathedral had several sets of curtains for its high altar, “de sarcynet.”[128] At first we distinguished this stuff by calling it, from its makers, “saracenicum.” But while Anglicising, we shortened that appellation into the diminutive “sarcenet;” and this word we keep to the present day, for the thin silk which of old was known among us as “cendal.” [128] Fabric Rolls, &c. p. 227. _Satin_, though far from being so common as other silken textures, was not unknown to England, in the middle ages; and of it thus speaks Chaucer, in his “Man of Lawes Tale:” In Surrie whilom dwelt a compagnie Of chapmen rich, and therto sad and trewe, That wide were senten hir spicerie, Clothes of gold, and satins riche of hewe.[129] [129] Poems, ii. 137. But as Syria herself never grew the more precious kinds of spices, so we do not believe that she was the first to hit upon the happy mechanical expedient of getting up a silken texture so as to take, by the united action at the same moment of strong heat and heavy pressure upon its face, that lustrous metallic shine which we have in satin. No. 702, p. 8, is a good example of late Chinese manufacture, a process which this country is only now beginning to understand and successfully employ. When satin first appeared in trade, it was all about the shores of the Mediterranean called “aceytuni.” This term slipped through early Italian lips into “zetani;” coming westward this, in its turn, dropped its “i,” and smoothed itself into “satin,” a word for this silk among us English as well as our neighbours in France, while in Italy it now goes by the name of “raso,” and the Spaniards keep up its first designation in their dictionary.