the old Lateran Palace, Rome. Scriptural subjects[1] seem to be typical of those which were condemned by Anatolian and Syrian fathers of the Christian church as early as in the late 4th century, and Asterius, bishop of Amasus, in denouncing the 1 jxury of the rich in flaunting themselves in such inappropriately decorated silks, has left a most useful description of the subjects decorating them. A scheme long maintained m Syrian and Byzantine patterns was that of repeated roundels, within which other than scriptural subjects were wrought, e.g. hunters on horseback (as in fig. 33), fantastic animals and birds, singly or in pairs, confronting one another or back to back, frequently with a sacred tree device[2] between them. A piece of Sassanian silk, probably of the 6th century, shows a gryphon practically identical with that sculptured on the patterned saddle cloth of a king (Chosroes II.?) in the archway to the garden of the king's palace at Kermchah.
Fig 39—Specimens of various Small Loom Weavings between the 7th and 15th centuries.
A. Part of a narrow band or orphrey woven in gold and silk threads with a Latin inscription
along the edges. German work of the 13th century.
B. Part of a broad band or orphrey woven in gold and silk threads with figures of the Crucifixion
and the Annunciation (?). It bears an inscription, Odilia me fecit. It is probably German
work of the 13th century.
C and D. Specimens of Cologne orphreys woven in silk and gold threads; C bears a Latin inscription,
and the faces of the Virgin and Child are embroidered.
E. Part of a narrow band woven in gold and silk threads with chevron spaces filled with delicate
scroll ornament, among which are occasional animal and bird devices. Possibly English or
French work of the 13th century.
F. Part of a narrow band or clavus from a Coptic tunic of the 9th or 10th century.
Less common perhaps are patterns without roundel or other framing, composed of animals, birds and the like, formally treated and repeated vertically and horizontally, as in fig. 36, which is from a silk and gold thread shuttle-weaving classified as Byzantine of the 11th century manufacture. But this style of composition also occurs in a Sassanian or Syrian silk of the 5th century at Le Mans,[3] and again in the Cope of St Maxim at Chinon, which is powdered with panthers. Conventional eagles (reminiscent perhaps of the Roman Eagle), with scale patterns on their breasts and wings, are woven in the wrappings reputed to have been given by the Empress Placidia for the corpse of St Germain (448) preserved at the church of St Eusebius at Auxerre. Some likeness in style may be detected between these latter and a fragment of one of the wrappings of St Cuthbert (d. 688) at Durham, though in this case the elaborate ornamentation is set within a roundel. Prior to the discovery of woven silks in the Akhmin cemeteries, the periods to which tradition and association had ascribed the Auxerre and Durham specimens were considered too early; but there now seems to be far less reason to question that ascription. Fig. 37 is from part of a silken wrapping of Charlemagne (early 9th century) now at Aix-la-Chapelle. It bears a Greek inscription of the names of Peter, governor of Negropont, and Michael, chamberlain of the Imperial Chambers, and this is taken by some authorities as evidence that the weaving was made at Byzantium. On the other hand, Eginhard, Charlemagne's secretary, has written of gifts, including rich textiles presented in his day by Haroun al Raschid to the emperor,[4] and a fabric like that in question might have been made quite possibly even at Baghdad in the 9th century or earlier. In the 11th century amongst the handicraftsmen in the city of Byzantium were many skilled native and foreign weavers; and their designs generally appear to reflect the style of earlier Persianesque and Syrian taste.
About the 12th century the well-used pattern scheme of roundels became more or less superseded by one of continuous ovals, of ogival framings (see fig. 38), contemporary with which are Saracenic patterns based on hexagonal and star-shape frames. Within these new varieties of pattern framings recur the Byzantine and Persianesque pairs of birds, animals, &c. But distinct from these is the more restricted style which has been mentioned. It had arisen under the influence for the most part of the Fatimy Khalifs, not only in Syria and Alexandria but also in Sicily and southern Spain. Patterns of this Moslem or Saracenic type are usually composed of a succession of parallel bands—narrow and wide—containing Kufic inscriptions, groups of small geometrical devices, and occasionally conventional animals and birds. A 12th-century example of this class of pattern has been given elsewhere (see Brocade, fig. 1)
Almeria, Malaga, Grenada and Seville were notable Moorish weaving places in Spain for such patterned silks and stuffs as these; and even after the Christian conquest of Grenada at the end of the 15th century this city retained its celebrity for sill;s woven " a la Moresque."
In Sicily no similar survival of Saracenic influence seems to have been as strongly maintained, notwithstanding the numerous Saracen weavers at work in the island for years before the Royal factory for silk weaving came to be organized at Palermo under Norman supremacy. According to the usual story, Roger of Sicily, or Roger Guiscard, who in 1 147 made a successful raid on the shores of Attica, and took Athens, Thebes and Corinth, carried off as prisoners a number of Greek (Byzantine) weavers and settled them at Palermo in the factory known as the Hotel des Tiraz A mixture of Byzantine
- ↑ The silken wrappings of St Wilibald (700–786), a founder of the church at Eichstatt, where they are still preserved, are woven with repeated roundels, each enclosing a Daniel between two lions, and are perhaps Byzantine of the 8th century.
- ↑ See Sir George Birdwood's chapter on Knop and Flower pattern in his Industrial Arts of India, in which this device of ancient Assyrian art is discussed as well as its relation and that of the hom, a fanlike symbol, to cognate ornament in Greek, Roman and even Renaissance art.
- ↑ See Abêcêclaire d'archeologie (June 1854).
- ↑ Recherches, &c., by Francisque Michel, i. 40.
