It is not to be supposed that at a time when the "whole island" was said to "blaze" with devotion, and when, moreover, her own fair daughters surpassed the whole world in needlework, that the English churches were deficient in its beautiful adornments. Far otherwise, indeed. We forbear to enumerate many, because our chapter has already exceeded its prescribed limits; but we may particularize a golden veil or hanging (vellum), embroidered with the destruction of Troy, which Witlaf, King of Mercia, gave to the abbey of Croyland; and the coronation mantle of Harold Harefoot, son of Cnute, which he gave to the same abbey, made of silk, and embroidered with "Hesperian apples." Richard, who was abbot of St. Alban's from 1088 to 1119, made a present to his monastery of a suit of hangings which contained the whole history of the primitive martyr of England, Alban. Croyland Abbey possessed many hangings for the altars, embroidered with golden birds; and a garment, which seems to have been a peculiar, and considered a valuable one, being a black gown wrought with gold letters, to officiate in at funerals. The enigmatical letters which were worked on ecclesiastical vestments in those days, were various and peculiar, and have given abundant scope for antiquarian research. We have heard it surmised that they took their rise in times of persecution, being indications (then, doubtless, slight and unostentatious ones) by which the Christians might know each other. But they came into more general use, not merely as symbolical characters, but individual names were wrought, and that not on personal garments alone, for Pope Leo the Fourth placed a cloth on the altar woven with gold, and spangled all over with pearls. It had on each side (right and left) a circle bounded with gold, within which the name of his Holiness was written in precious stones. In many old paintings a letter or letters have been noticed on the garment of the principal figure, and they have been taken for private marks of the painter, but it is more probable, says Ciampini,[21] that they are either copied from old garments, or are intended to denote the dignity of the character to which they are attached.