Silks, from the pattern woven on them called _de fundato_, are frequently spoken of by Anastasius. From the texts themselves of that writer, and passages in other authors of his time, it would seem that the silks themselves were dyed of the richest purple, and figured with gold in the pattern of netting. As one of the meanings for the substantive “funda” is a fisherman’s net, rich textiles so figured in gold, were denominated from such a pattern “de fundato” or netted. To St. Peter’s Church at Rome the pontiff, Leo III. gave “cortinam majorem Alexandrinam holosericam habentem in medio adjunctum fundatum, et in circuitu ornatum de fundato;”[176] and for the Church of St. Paul’s, Leo provided “vela holoserica majora sigillata habentia periclysin et crucem tam de blattin seu de fundato.”[177] From Fortunatus we gather that those costly purple-dyed silks called “blatta,” were always interwoven with gold:-- Serica purpureis sternuntur vellera velis, Inlita blatta toris, aurumque intermicat ostro.[178] This net-pattern lingered long, and, no doubt, we find it, under a new name, “laqueatus”--meshed--as identified upon a cope made of baudekin, at St. Paul’s, London, A.D. 1295: “Capa de baudekino cum pineis (fir-apples) in campis laqueatis.”[179] Modifications of this very old pattern may be seen in this catalogue (pp. 35, 36, 154). [175] Raine’s St. Cuthbert, p. 196. [176] Lib. Pontif. ii. 282. [177] Ibid. 240. [178] De Vita S. Martini lib. ii. [179] Dugdale’s St. Paul’s, p. 318. The Latin term “de fundato,” for this net-pattern, so unusual, has for many been quite a puzzle. Here, too, art-works are our best help to properly understand the meaning of the word. The person of Constantine the Great, given by Gori,[180] as well as that of a much later personage, shown us by Du Cange, at the end of his “Glossarium,”[181] shows the front of the imperial tunic, which was purple, to have been figured in gold with a netting-pattern, marked with pearls. Gori, moreover, presents us with a bishop whose chasuble is of the same design.[182] Further still, Paciaudi, in his “De Cultu S. Johannis Baptistæ,”[183] furnishes a better illustration, if possible, by an engraving of a diptych first published by him. Here St. Jacobus, or James, is arrayed in chasuble and pall of netting-patterned silk; and of the same-figured stuff is much of the trimming or ornamentation on the robes of the B. V. Mary, but on those more especially worn by the archangels, St. Michael and Gabriel. In the diapered pattern on some of the cloth of gold found lately in the grave of some archbishop of York, buried there about the end of the thirteenth century, is the same netting discernible. [180] T. iii. p. xx. [181] T. viii. plate 5. [182] Ib. p. 84. [183] P. 389.