- nical expression. In speaking of it men would either write or say, "silk
beaten with gold or silver," as the case might be—a meaning, by the way, for the word "beat," quite overlooked by our lexicographers; yet, making her will as late as the year 1538, Barbara Mason bequeathed to a church "a vestment of grene sylke betyn with goold."[1]
The badge on the arm of the livery coat once commonly worn, and yet rowed for by the Thames watermen, as well as the armorials figured, before and behind, upon the fine old picturesque frocks of our buffetiers—the yeomen of the Royal guard, called in London "beefeaters,"—help to keep up the tradition of such a style of ornament in dress.
Spangles, when they happened to be used, were not like such as are now employed, but fashioned after another and artistic shape, and put on in a different manner. Before me lies a shred from the chasuble belonging to the set of vestments wrought, it is said, by Isabella of Spain and her maids of honour, and worn the first time high mass was sung in Granada, after it had been taken by the Spaniards from the Moors. Upon this shred are flowers, well thrown up in relief, done in spangles on a crimson velvet ground. These spangles—some in gold, some in silver—are, though small, in several sizes; all are voided—that is, hollow in the middle—with the circumference not flat, but convex, and are sewed on like tiles one overlapping the other, and thus produce a rich and pleasing effect. Our present spangles, in the flat shape, are quite modern.
Sadly overlooked, or but scantily employed on modern embroideries, is the process of
Diapering,
after so many graceful and ever-varying forms to be found almost always upon mediæval works of the needle.
The garments worn by high personages in the embroidery, and meant to imitate a golden textile, were done in gold passing sometimes by itself, sometimes with coloured silk thread laid down alternately aside it, so as to lend a tinge of green, crimson, pink, or blue, to the imagined tissue of the robe, as if it were made of a golden stuff shot with the adopted tint.
For putting on this gold passing, it was of course required to sew it down. Now, from this very needful and mechanical requirement, those mediæval needlewomen sought and got an admirable as well as ingenious element of ornamentation, and so truthful too. Of this our ladies at this day, seem, from their work, to have a very narrow, short idea.
- ↑ Bury Wills, p. 134.
