purple, from the fact that while noticing the robes worn on a grand public occasion by a king, Chaucer thus sketches the prince:—
The gret Emetrius, the king of Inde,
Upon a stede bay, trapped in stele,
Covered with cloth of gold diapred wele,
Came riding like the god of armes Mars.
His cote armure was of a cloth of Tars,
Couched with perles, &c.[1]
Sky-blue was a liturgical colour everywhere in use for certain festivals throughout England, as we have shown in another place.[2] In the early inventories the name for that tint is "Indicus," "Indus," reminding us of our present indigo. In later lists it is called "Blodius," not sanguinary, but blue.
Murrey, or a reddish brown, is often specified; and a good specimen of the tint is given us, No. 709, p. 9. Old St. Paul's, London, had several pieces of baudekin of this colour: "baudekynus murretus cum griffonibus datus pro anima. Alphonsi filii regis E."[3]
Going far down, and much below the middle ages, Purple, in all its tones, and tints, and shades, was spoken of and looked upon as allowable to be worn in garments only to worshipful, ennobled, or royal personages. Whether it glowed with the brightness it seemed to have stolen from the rose, or wore its darkest tone it could borrow from the violet, whether it put on any one of those hundred shades to be found between those two extremes, it mattered not; it was gazed at with an admiring, a respectful eye. Eagerly sought out, and bought at high price, were those textiles that showed this colour, and had been dyed at Tyre, Antioch, Tarsus, Alexandria, Byzantium, or Naples. All these places were at one time or another, in days of old, famous for their looms, no less than their ability in the dyeing, especially of purple, among the nations living on the shores of the Mediterranean; and each of them had in its own tone a shade which distinguished it from that of all the others. What the tint of purple was which established this difference we cannot at this distance of time, and with our means of knowing, justly say. Of this, however, we are perfectly aware, that silks of purple usually bore their specific name from those above-named cities, as we perceive while reading the old inventories of our churches and cathedrals. Moreover, our native writers let us know that, if not always
