The Chrysoclavus, or golden nail-head, was a remnant which lingered a long time among the ornaments embroidered on ecclesiastical vestments and robes for royal wear of that once so coveted “latus clavus,” or broad nail-head-like purple round patch worn upon the outward garment of the old Roman dignitaries. In the court of Byzantium this mark of dignity was elevated, from being purple on white, into gold upon purple. Hence it came that all rich purple silks, woven or embroidered with the “clavus” in gold, were known from their pattern as gold nail-headed, or chrysoclavus; and silken textiles of Tyrian dye, sprinkled all over with large round spots, were once in great demand. Pope Leo in 795, among his several other gifts to the churches at Rome, bestowed a great number of altar frontals made of this purple and gold fabric, as we are told by Anastasius36 in the Liber pontificalis. Sometimes these “clavi” were made so large that upon their golden ground an event in the life of a saint or the saint’s head was embroidered, and then the whole piece was called “sigillata,” or sealed.
Stauracin or “stauracinus,” taking its name from σταυρ?? the Greek for “cross,” was a silken stuff figured with small plain crosses, and therefore from their number sometimes farther distinguished by the word signifying that meaning in Greek, Polystauron.
The crosses woven on the various fabrics were sometimes of the simplest shape; oftener they were designed after an elaborate type with a symbolic meaning about it that afforded an especial name to the stuffs upon which they were figured.
This name Gammadion, or Gammadi?, was a word applied as often to the pattern upon silks as to the figures wrought upon gold and silver.
In the Greek alphabet the capital letter gamma takes the shape of an exact right angle thus, Γ. Being so, many writers have seen in it an emblem of our Lord as our corner-stone. Following this idea artists at a very early period struck out a way of forming the cross after several shapes by various combinations with it of this letter Γ. Four of these gammas put so;
fall into the shape of the so-called Greek cross; and in this form it was woven upon the textiles denominated stauracin?; or patterned with a cross. Being one of the four same-shaped elements of the cross’s figure, the part was significant of the whole: and as an emblem of the corner-stone, our Lord, the gamma or Γ, was frequently shown at one edge of the tunic worn by the apostles in ancient mosaics; wherein sometimes we find, in place of the single gamma, the figure H; another combination of the four gammas in the cross. Whatsoever, therefore, whether of metal or of silk, was found to be marked in this or any other way of37 putting the gammas together, or with only a single one, was called “gammadion,” or “gammadi?.”
Ancient ingenuity for throwing its favourite gamma into other combinations, and thus bringing out pretty and graceful patterns to be wrought on all sorts of work for ecclesiastical use, did not stop here. In the Liber pontificalis of Anastasius we meet not unfrequently with accounts of vestments, etc. “de stauracin seu quadrapolis”; or “de quadrapolo”; or “de octapolo.” The author here evidently means to imply a distinction between a something amounting to four, and to eight, in or upon these textiles. It cannot be to say that one fabric was woven with four, the other with eight threads; had that been so meant, the fact would probably then have been explained by a word constructed like “examitus,” p. 24. As the contrast is not in the texture it must be in the pattern of the stuffs; that is, in the number of the crosses: and we further see why “stauracin” and “de quadrapolis” are interchangeable terms.
At the end of Du Cange’s glossary is an engraving of a work of Greek art; plate IX. Here St. John Chrysostom stands between St. Nicholas and St. Basil. All three are arrayed in their liturgical garments, which being figured with crosses are of the textile called of old “stauracin;” but there is a marked difference in the way in which the crosses are inserted. The crosses are arranged upon the vestment of St. John thus;
St. Nicholas and St. Basil have chasubles which are not only worked all over with crosses made with gammas, but are surrounded with other gammas joined so as to edge in the crosses, thus;
As four gammas only are necessary to form all the crosses38 upon St. John’s vestment, we there see the textile called “stauracin de quadruplo,” or the stuff figured with a cross of four (gammas); while as eight of these letters are required for the pattern on the others, we have in them an example of the “stauracin de octapolo,” or “octapulo,” a fabric with a pattern composed of eight gammas.
A far more ancient and universal shape fashioned out of the repetition of the same letter Γ, is that known as Gammadion; or, as commonly called at one time in England, the Filfot. Several pieces in the South Kensington collection exhibit on them some modification of it: for example, nos. 1261, 1325, 7052, 829A, 8305, 8635, and 8652. Its figure is made out of the usual four gammas, so that they should fall together thus;
Of silks patterned with the plain Greek cross or “stauracin” there are also several examples in the same collection; and though not of the remotest period are interesting. No. 8234, perhaps wrought in Sicily by the Greeks brought as prisoners from the Morea in the twelfth century, is not without some value. In the chapter library at Durham may be seen (as we learn from Mr. Raine) an example of Byzantine stauracin “colours purple and crimson; the only prominent ornament a cross—often repeated, even upon the small portion which remains.” Those who have seen in St. Peter’s sacristy at Rome that beautiful light-blue dalmatic said to have been worn by Charlemagne when he sang the gospel, vested as a deacon, on the day he was crowned emperor, will remember how plentifully it is sprinkled with crosses between its exquisite embroideries, so as to make the vestment a real “stauracin.” It has been well given by Sulpiz Boisserée in his ‘Kaiser dalmatika in der St. Peterskirche;’ but far better by Dr. Bock in his splendid work on the coronation robes of the German emperors.
Silks called de fundato, from the pattern woven on them, are frequently spoken of by Anastasius. From the text of that writer, and from passages in other authors of his time, it would seem39 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 word “funda” is a fisherman’s net, rich textiles so figured in gold were denominated “de fundato” or netted. We gather also from Fortunatus that the costly purple-dyed silks called “blatta” were always interwoven with gold. This net-pattern lingered long and, no doubt, we find it under a new name “laqueatus”—meshed—upon a cope belonging to the church of St. Paul’s, London, 1295: where an inventory, printed by Dugdale, includes a cope of baudekin with fir-cones “in campis laqueatis.” Modifications of this very old pattern may be seen at South Kensington, nos. 1264, 1266, and 8234. In the diapered pattern on some of the cloth of gold found lately in the grave of an archbishop, buried at York about the end of the thirteenth century, the same netting is discernible.
Stragulat?, striped or barred silks, were at one time in much request. Frequent mention is made of them in the Exeter inventories; for example, in 1277, there were two palls of baudekin, one “stragulata.” The illuminations in the manuscript in the Harley collection at the British museum of the deposition of Richard the second affords us instances of this textile. The young man to the right sitting on the ground at the archbishop’s sermon is entirely, hood and all, arrayed in this striped silk; and at the altar, where Northumberland is swearing on the eucharist, the priest who is saying mass wears a chasuble of the same stuff. Old St. Paul’s had an offertory-veil of the same pattern; “stragulatum” with the stripes red and green.
At the end of the twelfth century there was brought to England, from Greece, a sort of precious silk named there Imperial.
Ralph, dean of St Paul’s cathedral, tells us that William de Magna Villa, on coming home from his pilgrimage to the holy land about 1178, made presents to several churches of cloths which at Constantinople were called “Imperial.” We are told by Roger Wendover, and after him by Matthew Paris, that the40 apparition of king John was dressed in royal robes made of the stuff they call imperial. In the inventory of St. Paul’s, drawn up in 1295, four tunicles (vestments for subdeacons and lower ministers at the altar) are mentioned as made of this imperial. No colour is specified, except in the one instance of the silk being marbled; and the patterns are noticed as of red and green, with lions woven in gold. It seems not to have been thought good enough for the more important vestments, such as chasubles and copes. Probably the name was not derived from its colour (supposed royal purple) nor its costliness, but for quite another reason: woven at a workshop kept up by the Byzantine emperors, like the Gobelins is to-day in Paris, and bearing about it some small though noticeable mark, it took the designation of “Imperial.” We know it was partly wrought with gold; but that its tint was always some shade of the imperial purple is a gratuitous assumption. In France this textile was in use as late as the second half of the fifteenth century, but looked upon as old. At York somewhat later, in the early part of the sixteenth, one of its deans bestowed on that cathedral “two (blue) copes of clothe imperialle.”
Baudekin was a costly stuff much employed and often spoken of in our literature during many years of the medi?val period.
Ciclatoun, as we have already remarked, was the usual term during centuries throughout western Europe by which the showy golden textiles were called. When, however, Bagdad or Baldak held for no short length of time the lead all over Asia in weaving fine silks, and in especial golden stuffs shot as now in different colours, tinted cloths of gold became known, and more particularly among the English, as “baldakin,” “baudekin,” or “baudkyn,” or silks from Baldak. At last the earlier term “ciclatoun” dropped out of use. Remembering this the reader will more readily understand several otherwise puzzling passages in our old writers, as well as in the inventories of royal furniture and church vestments.
41 Kings and the nobility affected much this rich stuff for the garments worn on high occasions. When Henry the third knighted William of Valence, in 1247, he had on a robe of cloth of gold made of baudekin; “facta de pretiosissimo baldekino.” In the year 1259 the master of Sherborn hospital in the north bequeathed to that house a cope made of the like stuff: “de panno ad aurum scilicet baudekin.” Vestments of this material are frequently mentioned in the old church inventories.
These Bagdad or Baldak silks, with a weft of gold, known among us as “baudekins” were often woven very large in size, and applied here in England to especial ritual purposes. As a thanks-offering after a safe return home from a journey they were brought and given to the altar; at the solemn burial of our kings and queens and other great people, the mourners, when offertory time came, went to the hearse and threw a baudekin of costly texture over the coffin. We may learn the ceremonial from the descriptions of many of our medi?val funerals. At the obsequies of Henry the seventh in Westminster abbey:—“Twoe herauds came to the duke of Buck. and to the earles, and conveyed them into the revestrie where they did receive certen palles which everie of them did bringe solemly betwene theire hands and comminge in order one before another as they were in degree unto the said herse, thay kissed theire said palles and delivered them unto the said heraudes which laide them uppon the kyngs corps, in this manner: the palle which was first offered by the duke of Buck. was laid on length on the said corps, and the residewe were laid acrosse, as thick as they might lie.” In the same church at the burial of Anne of Cleves in 1557, a like ceremonial of carrying cloth-of-gold palls to the hearse was followed. So also the religious guilds, or other companies, in the middle ages kept palls to be thrown over the bodies of all brothers or sisters at their burial, however lowly may have been their rank.
The word “baudekin” itself became at last enlarged in its meaning. So warm, so mellow, so fast were the tones of crimson42 which the dyers of Bagdad knew how to give their silks that, without a thread of gold in them, the mere glowing tints of the plain crimson silken webs won for themselves the name of baudekins. Furthermore, when they quite ceased to be partly woven in gold and from their consequent lower price and cheapness came into use for cloths of estate over royal thrones, the canopy hung over the high altar of a church acquired and yet keeps the appellation (at least in Italy) of “baldachino.”
How very full in size, how costly in materials and embroidery, must have sometimes been the cloth of estate spread overhead and behind the throne of our kings, may be gathered from the privy purse expenses of Henry the seventh; wherein this item occurs: “To Antony Corsse for a cloth of an estate conteyning 47? yerds, ￡11 the yerd, ￡522 10s.” Canopies of this kind are still occasionally to be seen in the throne-room of some of the Roman palaces, whose owners have the old feudal right to the cloth of estate.
The custom itself is thus noticed by Chaucer:
Yet nere and nere forth in I gan me dress
Into an hall of noble apparaile,
With arras spred, and cloth of gold I gesse,
And other silke of easier availe:
Under the cloth of their estate sauns faile
The king and quene there sat as I beheld.
This same rich golden stuff had a third and even better known name, to be found all through our early literature as Cloth of Pall.
The state cloak (in Latin pallium, in Anglo-saxon paell), worn alike by men as well as women, was always made of the most gorgeous stuff that could be found. From a very early period in the medi?val ages golden webs shot in silk with one or other of the various colours, occasionally blue but oftener crimson, were sought for through so many years, and everywhere, that at last each sort of cloth of gold had given to it the name of43 “pall,” no matter the immediate purpose to which it might have to be applied or after what fashion. Vestments for sacred use and garments for knights and ladies were equally made of it. The word is common enough in the church inventories.
As to worldly use, the king’s daughter in the ‘Squire of low degree’ had
Mantell of ryche degre
Purple palle and armyne fre:
and in the poem of Sir Isumbras—
The rich queen in hall was set;
Knights her served, at hand and feet
In rich robes of pall.
For ceremonial receptions our kings used to order that every house should be “curtained” along the streets which the procession would have to take through London, “incortinaretur.” How this was done we learn from Chaucer in the ‘Knight’s tale’;
By ordinance, thurghout the cite large
Hanged with cloth of gold, and not with sarge;
as well as from the ‘Life of Alexander:’
Al theo city was by-hong
Of riche baudekyns and pellis (palls) among.
Hence, when Elizabeth, queen of Henry the seventh, “proceeded from the towre throwge the citie of London (for her coronation) to Westminster, al the strets ther wich she shulde passe by, were clenly dressed and besene with clothes of tappestreye and arras. And some strets, as Cheepe, hangged with rich clothes of gold, velvetts, and silks, etc.” Machyn in his diary tells us that as late as 1555 “Bow chyrche in London was hangyd with cloth of gold and with ryche hares (arras).”
Both in England and abroad, it was customary in the middle ages to provide richly decorated palls with which to cover the biers of dead people: more especially the members of various guilds. Some of these are still existing; one, belonging to the45 London fishmongers’ company; another, of the fifteenth century, is in the museum at Amiens.
Mortuary Cloth from the church of Folleville (Somme), now in the museum at Amiens.
A celebrated Mohammedan writer, Ebn-Khaldoun, who died about the middle of the fifteenth century, while speaking of that spot in an Arab palace, the “Tiraz,” so designated from the name itself of the rich silken stuffs therein woven, tells us that one of the privileges of the Saracenic kings was to have the name of the prince himself, or the special ensign chosen by his house, woven into the stuffs intended for his personal wear, whether wrought of silk, brocade, or even coarser kind of silk. While gearing his loom the workman contrived that the letters of the title should come out either in threads of gold, or in silk of another colour from that of the ground. The royal apparel thus bore about it its own especial marks, and distinguished not only the sovereign but those personages around him who were allowed by their official rank in his court to wear it; or those again upon whom he had bestowed rich garments as especial tokens of the imperial favour, like the modern pelisse of honour. Before the time of Mahomet the eastern princes used to have woven upon the stuffs wrought for their personal use, or as gifts to others, their own especial likeness, or at times the peculiar ensign of their royalty. But afterwards the custom was changed and names were substituted, to which words were added foreboding good or certain formulas of praise. Wherever the Moslem ruled the practice was introduced; and thus, whether in Asia, in Egypt, or other parts of Africa, or in Moorish Spain, the silken garments for royalty and its favourites showed woven in them the prince’s name, or his chosen text. The robes wrought in Egypt for the far-famed Saladin, and worn by him as caliph, bore very conspicuously upon them the name of that conqueror.
In the old lists of church ornaments frequent mention is found of vestments inscribed with words in real or pretended Arabic; and when St. Paul’s inventory more than once speaks46 of silken stuffs “de opere Saraceno” it is not improbable that some at least of those textiles were so called from having Arabic characters woven on them. Such, too, were the letters on the red pall figured with elephants and a bird, belonging in the fourteenth century to the cathedral at Exeter. Somewhat later, our trade with the south of Spain led us to call such words on woven stuffs Moorish: thus, Joane lady Bergavenny bequeaths (1434) a “hullyng (hangings for a hall) of black red and green, with morys letters, etc.”
Silk damask (Sicilian) with imitated Arabic letters.
47 The weaving of letters in textiles is neither a Moorish nor Saracenic invention; ages before, the ancient Parthians used to do so, as we learn from Pliny: “Parthi literas vestibus intexunt.” A curious illustration of the frequent use of silken stuffs bearing letters, borrowed from some real or supposed oriental alphabet, is the custom which many of the illuminators had of figuring on frontals and altar canopies, evidently intended to represent silk, meaningless words; and the artists of Italy up to the middle of the sixteenth century did the same on the hems of the garments worn by great personages, in their paintings.
The eagle, single and double-headed, may frequently be found in the patterns of old silks. In all ages certain birds of prey have been looked upon by heathens as ominous for good or evil. Upon the standard which was carried at the head of the Danish invaders of Northumbria was figured the raven, the bird of Odin. This banner had been worked by the daughters of Regnar Lodbrok, in one noontide’s while; and it is recorded by Asser that if victory was to follow, the raven would seem to stand erect and as if about to soar before the warriors; but if a defeat was impending, the raven hung his head and drooped his wings. Another and a more important flag, that which Harold fought under at Hastings, is described by Malmesbury as having been embroidered in gold with the figure of a man in the act of fighting, and studded with precious stones, woven sumptuously.
In still earlier ages the eagle, known for its daring and its lofty flight, was held in high repute; as the emblem of power and victory it is to be seen flying in triumph over the head of some Assyrian conqueror, as may be witnessed in Layard’s work on Nineveh. Homer calls it the bird of Jove. Quintus Curtius says that a golden eagle was carved upon the yoke of the war chariot of king Darius, as if outstretching his wings. The Romans bore the bird upon their standards; the Byzantine emperors kept it as their device; and, following the ancient48 traditions of the east and heedless of their law that forbids the making of images, the Saracens, especially when they ruled in Egypt, had the eagle figured on several things about them, sometimes single at others double-headed, which latter was the shape adopted by the emperors of Germany as their blazon; in which form it is borne to this day by several reigning houses. It is not strange, therefore, that eagles of both fashions are so often to be observed woven upon ancient and eastern textiles.
As early as 1277 Exeter cathedral reckoned among her vestments several so decorated; for instance, a cope of baudekin figured with small two-headed eagles: and Richard king of Germany, brother of Henry the third of England, gave to the same church a cope of black baudekin with eagles in gold figured on it. These are recorded in the inventories printed by Dr. Oliver; and many like instances might be noticed in other lists.
Ladies carding and spinning; from MSS. of the fourteenth century, in the British museum.