but quite flat, we are warranted in thinking, from the fact that, while digging in a Merovingean burial ground at Envermeu, A.D. 1855, the distinguished archæologist l'Abbe Cochet came upon the grave once filled, as it seemed, by a young lady whose head had been wreathed with a fillet of pure golden web, the tissue of which is thus described: "Ces fils aussi brillants et aussi frais que s'ils sortaient de la main de l'ouvrier, n'étaient ni étirés ni cordés. Ils étaient plats et se composaient tout semplement de petites lanières d'or d'un millimètre de largeur, coupée à même une feuille d'or épaisse de moins d'un dixième de millimètre. La longueur totale de quelques-uns atteignait parfois jusqu'à quinze ou dix-*huit centimètres."[1]
Our own country can furnish an example of this kind of golden textile. At Chessel Down, in the Isle of Wight, when Mr. Hillier was making some researches in an old Anglo-Saxon place of burial, the diggers found pieces of golden strips, thin, and quite flat, which are figured in M. l'abbé Cochet's learned book just quoted.[2] Of such a rich texture must have been the vestment covered with precious stones, given to St. Peter's Church, at Rome, by Charles of France, in the middle of the ninth century: "Carolus rex sancto Apostolo obtulit ex purissimo auro, et gemmis constructam vestem, &c."[3]
In the working of such webs and embroidery for use in the Church, a high-born Anglo-Saxon lady, Ælthelswitha, with her waiting maids, spent her life near Ely, where, "aurifrixoriæ et texturis secretius cum puellulis vacabat, quæ de proprio sumptu, albam casulam suis manibus ipsa talis ingenii peritissima fecit," &c.[4]
Such a weaving of pure gold was, here in England, followed certainly as late as the beginning of the tenth century; very likely much later. In the chapter library belonging to Durham Cathedral may be seen, along with several other very precious liturgical appliances, a stole and maniple, which happily, for more reasons than one, bear these inscriptions: "Ælfflaed Fieri Precepit. Pio Episcopo Fridestano." Queen to Alfred's son and successor, Edward the elder was our Ælfflaed who got this stole and maniple made for a gift to Fridestan, consecrated bishop of Winchester A.D. 905. With these webs under his eye, Mr. Raine, in his "Saint Cuthbert,"[5] writes thus: In the first, the ground work of the whole is woven exclusively with thread of gold. I do not mean by thread of gold, the silver-gilt wire frequently used in such matters,
