MAHAUT, COUNTESS OF ARTOIS
added. One of this company of Boulogne artists later on became Court-painter to the Dukes of Burgundy, and took with him not only his trained apprentices from the towns and villages of Artois, and from those bordering on Flanders, but also, doubtless, certain traditions. It is such early migrations of artists, when schools were forming, that have helped to create the difficult problems which confront the student of all early schools of art.
Of embroidery there was such profusion that it is indeed no exaggeration to say that the needle vied with the sword. There were not only wall and bed hangings, embroidered with flowers to brighten winter days, cloaks, gowns, and tunics patterned with gold thread and coloured silks, and beaver hats wrought with gold lace and pearls and sometimes precious stones, but also girdles, satchels, purses, and pennons resplendent with heraldic device, and caparison and harness for the horses. From the East were brought velvets, silks, and stuffs interwoven with gold and silver thread, and used not only for personal adornment, but also for vestments, Church-hangings, and the coverings of litters. As regards tapestry as we understand it—i.e. woven in a high warp loom—there is apparently no definite mention of its being made at Arras before 1313, so that the numerous allusions to tapestry must refer to stuffs woven in the low warp loom. These stuffs would seem to have been of two kinds, the one woven
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