9182.
The Syon Monastery Cope; ground, green, with crimson interlacing barbed quatrefoils enclosing figures of our Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Apostles, with winged cherubim standing on wheels in the intervening spaces, and the orphrey, morse, and hem wrought with armorial bearings, the whole done in gold, silver, and various-coloured silks. English needlework, 13th century. 9 feet 7 inches by 4 feet 8 inches.
This handsome cope, so very remarkable on account of its comparative
perfect preservation, is one of the most beautiful among the
several liturgic vestments of the olden period anywhere to be now found
in christendom. If by all lovers of mediæval antiquity it will be looked
upon as so valuable a specimen in art of its kind and time, for every
Englishman it ought to have a double interest, showing, as it does, such
a splendid and instructive example of the "Opus Anglicum," or English
work, which won for itself so wide a fame, and was so eagerly sought
after throughout the whole of Europe during the middle ages.
Beginning with the middle of this cope, we have, at the lowermost part, St. Michael overcoming Satan; suggested by those verses of St. John, "And there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels; . . . and that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan," &c.—Rev. xii. 7, 9, to which may be added the words of the English Golden Legend: "The fourth victorye is that that tharchaungell Mychaell shal have of Antecryst whan he shall flee hym. Than Michaell the grete prynce shall aryse, as it is sayd Danielis xii, He shall aryse for them that ben chosen as an helper and a protectour and shall strongely stande ayenst Antecryst . . . and at the last he (Antichrist) shall mount upon the mount of Olyvete, and whan he shall be . . . entred in to that place where our Lorde ascended Mychaell shall come and shall flee hym, of whiche victorye is understonden after saynt Gregorye that whyche is sayd in thapocalipsis, the batayll is made in heven," (fol. cclxx. b.). As he tramples upon the writhing demon, the archangel, barefoot, and clad in golden garments, and wearing wings of gold and silver feathers, thrusts down his throat and out through his neck a lance, the shaft of which is tipped with a golden cross crosslet, while from his left arm
