In later and less imaginative times, the peacock, though still a favourite dish at a banquet, seems to have been regarded more from its affording "good eating" than from any more refined attribute. Massinger speaks of "the carcases Of three fat wethers bruised for gravy, to Make sauce for a single peacock." In Shakspeare's time the bird was usually put into a pie, the head, richly gilt, being placed at one end of the dish, and the tail, spread out in its full circumference, at the other. And alas! for the degeneracy of those days. The solemn and knightly adjuration of former times had even then dwindled into the absurd oath which Shakspeare puts into the mouth of Justice Shallow:-- "By _cock_ and _pye_, Sir, you shall not away to night." In some of the French tapestries birds of all shapes, natural and unnatural, of all sizes and in all positions, form very important parts of the subjects themselves; though this remark is hardly in place here, as the tapestries are of later date, and not solely needlework. To return, however: mention is made in an old chronicle of _antiquitas Congregatio Ancilarum, quae opere plumario ornamenta ecclesiam laborabant_. It has been a subject of much discussion whether this Opus Plumarium signified some arrangement of real feathers, or merely fanciful embroidery in imitation of them. Lytlyngton, Abbot of Croyland, in Edward the Fourth's time, gave to his church nine copes of cloth of gold, exquisitely feathered.[17] This was perhaps embroidered imitation. A vestment which Cnute the Great presented to this abbey was made of silk embroidered with eagles of gold. Richard Upton, elected abbot in 1417, gave silk embroidered with falcons for copes; and about the same time John Freston gave a rich robe of Venetian blue embroidered with golden eagles. These were positively imitations merely; yet they evince the prevailing taste for feathered work, and, as we have shown, feathers themselves were much used. It is recorded that Pope Paul the Third sent King Pepin a present of a mantle interwoven with peacocks' feathers.