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VII.—Seal Bags in the Treasury of the Cathedral Church of Canterbury

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2011

Gertrude Robinson ,
H. Urquhart  and
Alice Hindson
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Extract

Some sixty years ago it was found that many of the seals of the charters of Canterbury Cathedral were covered with or had attached to them pieces of silk. Silk at this period, owing to the researches of such scholars as Francisque Michel, Fischbach, and Lessing, was beginning to attract the attention of scholars, artists, and archaeologists. The silks attached to the seals of Canterbury were seen to be interesting or at least unusual. They were taken from the seals, to which as a matter of fact they were detrimental rather than protective, with a view of preserving both seals and bags. Later on, cleaned and restored as far as possible to their original colours, they were placed in glass cases, where they can now be seen and studied.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 84 , 1935 , pp. 163 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1935

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References

page 163 note 1 Professor Wace draws attention to the possibility of some of the bags having been made of ‘tailors’ scraps'. Some of the silks of a later date, Sicilian or Italian (for example, nos. 23 and 24 and other pieces which were of the same time as the seal bags which they contained), were quite probably sent in rolls to Canterbury for use in the Cathedral and the bags were made of such scraps as were left over in the cutting out. This can hardly fail to have been the case with regard to no. 23 in which the selvedge can be seen, but there are several pieces of silk of an earlier date, some of which may have been woven three or four hundred years before they were made into seal bags.

page 163 note 2 See Note, p. 204.

page 164 note 1 This can be imagined by those who read the old inventories, as did the great historian of silk Francisque Michel, who recorded the result of his researches in a book of inestimable value. Hope and Legg (J. Wickham Legg and W. H. St. John Hope, Inventories of Christ Church, Canterbury) have published various inventories of Canterbury Cathedral and a study of them is to be recommended to any one who would know the ancient treasures which existed there. To mention a very few from an inventory of 1321:

Vestimentum de rubeo panno de Antioche cum avibus de Inde et capitibus aureis; see note to no. 25 on vestments of Hubert de Walter.

Item vestimentum de panno rubeo de Antioche cum avibus et bestiis viridibus et capitibus et pedibus aureis.

Capa Henrici de Sandwyco nigra brudata cum leonibus et griphonibus.

Casula Lanfranci … cum avibus et bestiis.

Casula rubeo de Antioche operata de avibus et bestiis.

page 164 note 2 None of them is equal in interest to the Canterbury bags. Those in the Record Office and in Westminster Abbey are still attached to their seals and are difficult to examine.

One of those in the Record Office (Case A. 10, attached to a charter of Thomas à Becket given to the canons of Holy Trinity, London) appears to be Chinese. It apparently contains the three rounds which are the Chinese signs of earth, air, and water, and is red silk with gold brocade.

Another (attached to a charter of Henry III to the prior and canons of Holy Trinity) seems to be Sicilian. Another is attached to three private letters of the early 14th century, and has one of the thick warps we are accustomed to associate with the class of silk which is often described as ‘Regensburg’. It apparently bears the design of a griffin.

The most important seal bags in Westminster Abbey are those attached to the seven seals of the Charter of Stephen Langton. They are all of the same material and the design seems to consist of griffins, perhaps addorsed and regardant.

The Victoria and Albert Museum has seven seal bags of which the most important (T. 63. 1191) is described in no. 11.

C. Eveleigh Woodruff in Archaeologia Cantiana, vol. 41, p. 35, gives a description of three seal bags which were attached to their original charters. (1) A bag attached to a charter of a.d. 1242 which has a cotton warp and a weft of coloured silk of yellow, white, crimson, and pale red, with an intermixture of gold thread. (2) A seal bag belonging to Bilsington Priory attached to a seal and charter dated a.d. 1250. A full description of it is given in the article. Dr. Woodruff rightly considers the most interesting feature to be the ‘double-headed eagles displayed which rather resemble parrots than eagles’. They probably are parrots. (3) A bag attached to a charter dated a.d. 1349 of yellow silk diaper with a pattern of fine lobed leaves.

page 165 note 1 Some of these treasures taken from reliquaries can be seen at Sens, at St. Maurice in Valais, at Sion, and in the Louvre, not to speak of the magnificent and early silks taken from the tomb of St. Giuliano at Rimini, most of which are in the Museum of Ravenna; the silks from the tomb of St. Cuthbert at Durham, and those from the Treasure of the Sancta Sanctorum at Rome. The date of one piece, at least, of the Rimini silks can be approximately fixed. It is a delicate iloral design of the same pattern as the dress of one of the Empress Theodora's ladies represented in the mosaic of the apse of St. Vitalis.

page 165 note 2 Dionysius Periegetes, Orbis Descriptio, 1,752 seq., ed. Müller, Geographi Graeci minores, tom, ii, pp. 103–76.

page 165 note 3 Seres are not necessarily Chinese, but any people of the extreme Orient; for example, the Chinese Ser, the Corean Sir, the Mongol Sirkek, and the Manchu Sirghe are all names of silk. The Greek word for silk was μἐταξα For instance, Procopius (Pers. i, 20): Αὔτη δέ ἐστιν ὴ μέταξα ἐξἣς εἰὠθασι τὴν ὲσθῆτα ὲργἁζεσθαι, ἥν ηἀλαι μἑν Ἓλληνες Μηδικήν έκἀλουν, τανῦν δὲ σηρικὴν ὸνομἀζονσιν: and (Vandal. iv, 6) καὶ Μηδικὴν ἐσθῆτα ἣν νῦν Σηρικὴν καλοῦαιν.

page 165 note 4 Georgics, ii, 121.

page 165 note 5 Strabo, Geo. xv, c. 693.

page 165 note 6 Seneca, Phaed. 387, 389.

page 165 note 7 Punic Wars, vi, 1–4. Solin, Claudian, and Ausonius speak of the same phenomena; quoted by Coëdes, Textes d'Auteurs Grecs et Latins relatifs à l'extrême Orient.

page 166 note 1 Pliny, Nat. Hist, vi, 54. Cf. also Lucan, Pharsal. x, 141–143.

Candida Sidonio perlucent pectora filo

Quod Nilotis acus conpressum pectine Serum

Solvit et extenso laxavit stamina velo.

page 166 note 2 A curious instance of ‘unravelling’ was pointed out to us by Prof. Wace. In the 19th century red flannel which was sent from England to America was unravelled by the Navajo Indians in order to get red stripes to put into their blankets. There is a piece of blanket containing such stripes in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

page 166 note 3 It is probable that Aristotle heard of the silks of China from some one belonging to Alexander's expedition. Traditions may have been current in Greece about the origin of weaving, or about weaving silk from wild silk-worms which may have been supposed to weave like spiders from leaf to leaf. It is possible that such an idea may have given rise to the ‘vellera’ which the Chinese comb from the leaves of their trees.

page 166 note 4 Pausanias, Description of Greece, vi, 26. 9.

page 167 note 1 However fantastic Pausanias's account may be, he must have got his information from some one who had had exceptional opportunities for observation, perhaps a member of the mission which went (possibly from Syria) in the time of M. Aurelius. He knows that the worms live in houses, he knows about the rush given to the worms in which to spin, though he thinks it was for food, and he knows that the silk grub is not allowed to end in the moth.

page 167 note 2 See Hirth, China, pp. 71 and 80. Silk was also under the later empire exported in the raw state.

page 168 note 1 Cf. Vori Falke, Kunstgeschichte der Seidenweberei (ed. 1921), Introd., p. 2, who considers it quite obvious that bombycina was the wild silk spoilt by the exit of the silk-moth, which had to be spun like flax instead of being wound from the cocoon, and was so far inferior to the Chinese silk that when the Romans had the opportunity of comparing the two they rejected their own silk for it. In this connexion there is an interesting article by Miss G. Richter (American Journal of Archaeology, 1929, vol. xxxiii, p. 27 seq.) in which she convincingly argues that this ‘bombycina’ was also in use in Greece under the name of ‘amorginon’ in the time of Aristophanes and earlier.

page 168 note 2 Strabo, xv, c. 693. The passage runs: ἐκ δὲ τῆς αὐτῆς αἰτίας ἐνίοις καί ἐπανθεῖυ ἔριον. ἐκ τούτου δὲ Nεαρχός φησι τὰς εὐητρίους ὐφαίνεσθαι σινδόνας, τοὺς δὲ Mακεδόνας ἀντὶ κναϕάλλων αὐτοῖς χρῆσθαι, καὶ τοῖς σάγμασι σάγης τοιαῦτα δὲ καὶ τὰ Σηρικά, ἔκ τινων ϕλοιῶν ξαινομένης βύσσου

page 169 note 1 See a paper by Dr. Giles in the Transactions of the Cambridge Philological Society, 1929, ‘Silk’.

page 169 note 2 See no. 11. The bronze doors of the Duomo at Amalfi bear the same inscription.

page 170 note 1 See Heyd (translated by Raynard), Histoire du Commerce de Levant au Moyen Age.

page 170 note 2 Theodoret, De Providentia, Oratio iv: τίς ἄν πρὸς ἀξίαν τὴν δοθεῖσαν σονϕαίνονται τῷ ζῴῳ θανμάσειε; πῶς ἑνὶ χρώματι τῶν ύποκειμένων, έρίων ἣ σηρικῶν νημάτων, παντδαπῶν ζῴων ὲννϕαίνονται τύποι - καὶ ὰνθρώπων ένδάλματα, τῶν δὲ προσευχομένων καὶ δένδρων εἰκόνες καὶ ἕτερα ἂλλαμνρί. Migne, Patrologia Graeca, 83. 541.

Asterius of Amasa, De Divite et Lazaro:

ἀλλἀ τινα κενὴν ὺϕαντικὴν ἐξενρόντες καὶ περίεργου, ἥτις τῇ πλοκῇ τοῦ στήμονος πρός τὴν κρόκην, τῆς γραϕικῆς μιμεῖται τὴν δύναμιν, καὶ πάντων ζῴων τοῖς πέπλοις τὰς μορϕὰς ἐνσημαίνεται, τὴν ἀνθινὴν καὶ μνρίοις εὶδώλοις πεποικιλμένην ϕιλοτεχνοῦσιν ὲσθῆτα, ὲαυτοῖς τε καὶ γυναιξὶ, καὶ παιαίν. Migne, Patrologia Graeca, 40. 166.

Sidonius Apollinaris, who died in a.d. 463, in one of his letters seems to feel himself constrained to break out into song in order to describe the woven pictures of the hunting scenes which he had seen.

Rutilum toreuma bysso,

Rutilasque forte blattas,

Recoquente quas aheno

Meliboea fucat unda;

page 171 note 1 This piece (reconstructed) is reproduced by Von Falke, op. cit., ed. 1906, vol. i, abb. 178; by Dalton, Byzantine Art and Archaeology, fig. 370; by Lethaby, article in the Burlington Magazine, vol. xxiv.

page 172 note 1 Strzygowski (Asiens Bildende Kunst) gives (pl. 395) a splendid example of the use of this: scarf both on king and horse. The magnificent silver dish of King Bahram V showing floating scarves of horse and rider is in the British Museum. Von Falke (op. cit. abb. 70) reproduces it.

page 173 note 1 The probable remains of some tarnished silver on the body makes it seem likely that the decoration was silver gilt.

page 173 note 2 Die Gewebe-sammlung des K. Kunstgewerbe-Museums, vol. i, pl. xxiv.

page 173 note 3 They are on wall-paintings brought by Le Coq from Chinese Turkestan and are now in the Museum für Völkerkunde at Berlin. See Le Coq, Buried Treasures of Chinese Turkestan, p. 143 sq., and Innermost Asia by Sir Aurel Stein, who constantly refers to the Persian work found there, of which there are also specimens in the British Museum; Von Falke, op. cit. abb. 67.

page 173 note 4 The famous peacock stuff from the coronation robes of Robert of Naples (Von Falke, ed. 1921, taf. 5), though it has head ornaments and collar, and resembles this in many ways, has no scarf. It is of the latter half of the 12th century.

page 173 note 5 See an interesting series of articles by Kendrick and Guest in the Burlington Magazine, 1932, which mentions three specimens thus dated. One is in three parts, one in the Royal Museum Brussels, another in the Whitworth Gallery in Manchester, and a third in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The inscription is contained by the last two pieces.

Cufic inscriptions on textiles present a good deal of difficulty. Those on the present piece have been variously interpreted by experts. That on the column is probably ‘To Moslems … and peace’. That on the circle at the top of the column, which is very imperfect, is most likely to be ‘The most great Sultan’. This inscription is probably reversed in the repeat and reads as if seen in a mirror. This is Mr. Fulton's reading:

No. i (right).

No. i (left).

The most great Sultan.

Mr. Fulton adds: probably Egyptian, Fāṭimid period.

Similar decoration found in Armenian work.

page 174 note 1 Ward, Seal Cylinders of Western Asia, pl. 665.

page 174 note 2 Ezek. xli, 18.

page 174 note 3 Ezek. viii, 17.

page 175 note 1 The piece belongs to Lady Wingfield, who acquired it in Spain. It is of considerable size, measuring 114×84 in. It has a design of parrots on curved branches, and it is executed in red, bluish green, and deep yellow. It appears to have two, if not three, warps. Parts of it are very much worn and have been skilfully painted over in the original colours, giving it, from a distance, a curious velvety appearance. It is a superb piece, full of colour and movement.

page 176 note 1 Cf. bird (fig. 3) with ram's head from the Church of Achthamar: Strzygowski, Asiens Bildende Kunst, fig. 352.

Also Ward (A. H.) gives an example (fig. 4) of an archaic cylinder in lapis lazuli which represents a seated deity with a horned bird's head (Seal Cylinders of Western Asia, fig. 95).

page 177 note 1 Exodus xxxvi, 8 seq.

page 177 note 2 See Andrews, Ancient Chinese Figured Silks, p. 16, fig. 15.

page 177 note 3 See Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, vol. i, pp. clxvi seq.

page 177 note 4 Mr. Saltmarsh (Keeper of the Muniments, King's College, Cambridge) brought to our knowledge that in the Muniment Room of King's College, Cambridge, there is a seal of Baldwin de Redvers, earl of Devon, which has a griffin attacking an elephant. The elephant has a long body and slender legs, and the griffin is seizing it by its trunk. Its head is turned upwards to the griffin. The elephant is of the type which is produced by artists to whom the elephant was not familiar, i.e. long and slender. The elephant of Star-Zogara is of this type. Baldwin was made earl of Devon in 1141 by the Empress Maude as a reward for his services during the civil war. The seal is attached to a charter conferring lands on the Priory of St. James, Exeter. Dugdale (Monasticon, v, 105) gives a representation of the seal but he has mistaken the elephant for a dog.

Baldwin may have adopted his seal from one of the bestiaries of the time. One, in the University Library at Cambridge, has an elephant and a griffin on opposite pages. The elephant is of the same curious long and rounded shape as the elephant of the seal. (II (J.J.) 11. 4. 26.) This was pointed out by Dr. E. J. Thomas of Cambridge University Library.

There is an excellent reproduction of a griffin and elephant, in which the elephant is thin and elongated, from St. Waedburg's convent, Eichstadt, in Lessing, op. cit., vol. i, taf. 71.

page 178 note 1 Von Falke, op. cit., ed. 1921, pl. 165. Examples are also to be found in Lessing, vol. i, taf. 37 b, 72. A marble plaque in St. Mark's, Venice, of 10th-11th century, represents a griffin attacking an elephant. A fine fragment in the Victoria and Albert Museum (764–1893) represents the same subject. In the History of St. Paul's Cathedral in London, 1818, p. 328, there is the following description of a vestment: ‘Item baudekynus rubeus cum magnis rotellis et griffonibus et elephantis infra rotellas.’

page 178 note 2 See Ward, Seal Cylinders of Western Asia, p. 197 seq.

page 178 note 3 Cf. Barclay Head, Historia Nummorum, p. 339 and p. 345. Cf. also Homer, Il. vi, 179:

and xvi, 328:

See also Hesiod, Theogony, lines 319 seq., where the chimera–the breed of Typhon and Echidnos—has three heads—lion, goat, and serpent:

page 179 note 1 Andrews, Burlington Magazine, vol. xxxvii, p. 75.

page 179 note 2 There are, however, marks which seem to indicate that there are half-circles beneath the short arms of the cross. It is tempting to try and connect it with the head-dress of Persian kings and nobles. See Sarre, Die Kunst des alten Persien, where many seal-stones are given as well as the emblems beside the fire-altars, pp. 142 and 143. To none of them, however, does it bear a sufficiently convincing resemblance for identification. The marks which seem to connect it with them may simply be marks in the fabric.

page 180 note 1 Op. cit., ed. 1921, abb. 10.

page 180 note 2 Errara, Cat. d'Étoffes, anciennes et modernes, p. 17.

page 180 note 3 Lessing, op. cit., 79 and 101.

page 180 note 4 Cox, Les Soieries d'Art, p. 55. Muratoff (La Peinture Byzantine, pl. xxiv) gives a mural decoration containing eight-pointed stars which was found in the church of St. George at Salonica. It is of the 5th century and is derived from an earlier tapestry.

page 181 note 1 Seals and seal-impressions in the museum of Philadelphia.

page 181 note 2 Hill, Catalogue of Greek Coins of Arabia, Mesopotamia and Persia; introduction, p. xciii.

page 181 note 3 In a relief at Hatra an eagle stands on either side of Helios holding a crescent in his beak. W. Andrae, Hatra, vol. i, Helios relief.

page 181 note 4 Dart, History and Antiquities of the Cathedral Church of Canterbury, Appendix VI, p. vi. For ‘pannus Tarsicus’ or ‘pannus de Tharsae’ see F. Michel, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 167 seq.

page 181 note 5 The name ‘tabby’ used for a plain weave doubtless comes from the quarter of Bagdad known as Attab, where, says an Arab writer quoted by Yule, ‘were made the stuffs called Attabiya which are silks and cottons of divers colours’. They seem to have been woven generally in stripes.

page 182 note 1 Von Falke, op. cit., ed. 1921, pl. 134.

page 182 note 2 Strzygowski and Von Berchem, Amida, fig. 311; also Burlington Magazine, vol. liii, p. 87.

page 182 note 3 Miklosich and Müller, Acta et Diplomata Graeca, Medii Aevi, vol. v, p. 326: ἒτερον βλαττίον κατα-πέτασμα διβλάττιον ὀξύν ὁ ταὼν κογχεντὸς μετὰ περιϕερίων ἐσοϕορίων πιστσκέων … Ἐνδντὴ μία βλαττίον κραμβίζον τῆς ἁγίας τραπέζης ἒχονσα πόλους ιά γρυϕολέοντα δικέϕαλον. A better rendering is perhaps ‘an inside border of pistachio nuts’; i.e. the eyes of the spread tail gave the impression of an inner border. Ἐσοϕόριον is a rare word meaning ‘inner garment’. I have taken περιϕερίων ὲσοϕορίων as accusative; ‘ο’ and ‘ώ’ being interchangeable in Greek of this kind.

page 182 note 4 See Introduction, for the connexion between Amalfi and Byzantium.

page 183 note 1 A lamia seems to be a malign nature spirit, half human, half animal. Here they have bodies of birds with heads of women. On a mosaic found at Pesaro there are two lamie confronting with the legend lami ‥ e. They are birds with the heads of women.

page 183 note 2 See Dalton, East Christian Art, pp. 361, 379. Cf. also the accompanying example (fig. 8) from the cross-shaft of the Easby Cross. It is dated late 7th or early 8th century. The stone which contains it is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The example is taken from a paper communicated to the Society of Antiquaries by Miss Margaret Longhurst, F.S.A., which appears in vol. Ixxxi of Archaeologia.

page 184 note 1 Recherches sur l'histoire et le commerce des tissus de soie, 1852, vol. i, p. 53.

page 185 note 1 See remarks on bands and stripes in no. 6.

page 186 note 1 This is Mr. Fulton's reading.

page 186 note 2 In the Cluny Museum (2nd floor, case 2) there is a design of a diagonal containing a cross surrounded by four flattened circles containing rabbits. It has a cufic inscription.

In the case containing the robes of the Abbé Bernard de la Carre, who died in 1216, there is a magnificent vestment in which the cufic inscription is interspersed with ornaments of grapes and tendrils. On the upper part there is apparently only arabesque ornament, but on the lower piece the cufic inscription is quite plain. The piece is remarkable for its richness, having the background woven throughout of fine gold twisted on silk.

page 186 note 3 Amida, p. 370.

page 186 note 4 Dalton, East Christian Art, pp. 199, 370 seq.

page 186 note 5 The rock reliefs of Ṭāk-i-Būstān in the Khurdistan mountains represent Chosroes II (590–628), one of the last Sassanian Kings. Herzfeld (Am Tor von Asien, p. 124) has made an exhaustive study of the textile patterns reproduced on the dresses of the figures of these rock-reliefs. See also Sarre and Herzfeld, Iranische Felsreliefs, Berlin, 1910.

page 186 note 6 Errara, op. cit., IHH.

page 187 note 1 V. Falke, op. cit., ed. 1913, vol. i, pp. 49, 50, abb. 69.

page 187 note 2 Contributo allo studio dell' arte tessile, ed. Bestetti e Tuminelli, Milano.

page 187 note 3 The Victoria and Albert Museum has some interesting examples of woven feather work. T. 251, 1921, consists of cloth of linen with fragments of feather interwoven. It has thick brown warps in bundles and the weft is of strips of terra-cotta, blue and buff woven in different patterns. It is Egyptian of the 18th dynasty. T. 153, 1912, consists of ancient Peruvian Macaw feathers on a cotton foundation. The feathers are fastened down by strong weft threads—not sewn on. The work was certainly done before a.d. 1533. There are examples of feather work in Vienna and in the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. The mitre and bands from the Pitti, containing scenes from the Life of our Lord wrought in variously coloured feathers, are reproduced in the Enciclopedia Italiana under ‘Mosaico’ (sub-heading ‘Mosaico in Piume’). The feathers are not woven in but attached to strong paper.

page 187 note 4 Soieries d'Art, PL xxiv, 1.

page 188 note 1 In January 1932 we found a piece of the same silk, but evidently part of another bag, at the British Museum, attached to the seal of a charter of Henry I, granting to the monks of Canterbury the rights they possessed in the time of King Edward his kinsman and King William his father. It is published in Facsimiles of royal and other Charters in the British Museum, ed Warner and Ellis, 1903, vol. i, pl v. The charter to which this seal bag belonged was probably a duplicate. The bag is reproduced on pl. li.

page 188 note 2 Cf. the neck ornament of the double-headed eagle of Sens reproduced in the Revue de l'Art Chrètien, vol. lxi, p. 379, by the Abbé Chartaire.

page 189 note 1 Von Falke, op. cit, ed. 1921, the Siegburg eagle, abb. 155; the Lyons eagle, 141; the Quedlinburg eagle, 142.

page 189 note 2 The eagle which is found on the Babylonian cylinders (called by Heuzey the eagle of Lagash) also holds an animal, sometimes two, in his claws. The eagle with two heads is found in the ruins of the Palace of Eyuck in Cappadocia, built perhaps about 1500 b.c. HOW the idea of the doubleheaded eagle arose is uncertain; Dr. A. B. Cook suggests that it was an effort to achieve symmetry. Possibly it may have indicated a beneficent power, able to protect on both sides.

page 189 note 3 A representation of this (and other pieces at Sion and St. Maurice) was published by Stückleberg in the Indicateur d'Antiquités Suisses, published at Zurich, 1924. The eagles have ruffled neck feathers and interesting shield-shaped breast ornaments, and at their feet stand small parrots with long tails. The border consists of a highly ornamented cufic inscription in compartments with small animals in between each.

page 189 note 4 Lessing, op. cit., vol. i, taf. 36, 58, 41, 44, 46, 76; Von Falke, op. cit., ed. 1921, abb. 180, 181, 183, 184, 185; Cox, Soieries d'Art, pl. xlii. Von Falke gives a representation of the Siegburg eagle (abb. 122) of the 13th century from Bagdad which does not hold an animal in its claws.

Strzygowski (Asiens Bildende Kunst, 1930) also gives an example from the Museum of Konia of a double-headed eagle which is not holding an animal (p. 303, abb. 297).

page 190 note 1 Cat. V, and A. 1002.

page 190 note 2 Cf. the young birds rising out of the nest—Andrew's Ancient Chinese Figured Silks, fig. 15.

page 191 note 1 For a painted silk bearing a pattern of wing feathers, closely resembling these, cf. Le Coq, Chotsko, pl. 50 b. See also note on the Vatican silks, p. 204.

page 191 note 2 See accompanying representation (fig. 12) of the Ruhk carrying off three elephants, from Marco Polo, vol. ii, 409 (Yule's edition and notes).

page 192 note 1 See no. 23. See also Von Falke, op. cit., ed. 1921, abb. 68, Persian of the 6th or 7th centuries; abb. 137 and 138, Andalusian 11th century; abb. 148, West Islam 12th century; abb. 163, a representation of the Potentien stuff supposed to have been done under Byzantine direction; taf. 5, Palmero 12th century.

page 193 note 1 Dr. Ackermann drew our attention to the resemblance to these wattles of those given in Fischbach (taf. 14, Die wichtigsten Webeornamente).

There are also wattles on the peacocks in the famous Hexenstoff from Vich, now in Berlin (Lessing, op. cit., vol. i, taf. 48, and Von Falke, abb. 161). More interesting still, there are wattles on the Ruhk-bird described by Marco Polo. See note on Ruhk-bird, no. 17.

page 194 note 1 The Vidyādharas were a race of super-mortals, independent of man, having kingdom, wives and children like human beings, and possessing magical powers. They were ‘spell-binders’ and could assume what shape they would. They were at the height of their popularity at the beginning of our era.

page 195 note 1 The Siddhas were, says Tawney, a sort of kindly ghost people who always behaved in a most friendly manner to mankind. They were remarkable for their great purity.

page 195 note 2 The origin of the myth of the struggle between the Garuda and the serpent is told in the Mahabharata, i. 16ff.

page 195 note 3 i.e. the Nāga king.

page 196 note 1 The Harvest mother, wife of Siva.

page 196 note 2 The home of the snakes beneath the sea.

page 196 note 3 For Nāga worship see Fergusson, Tree and Serpent Worship. For the Garuda, and the strife between it and the serpent, see Langdon, Semitic Mythology, and Grünwedels, Buddhist Art in India (ed. Burgess).

On the Sanchi sculpture a Garuda is seen with a Nāga prince on his back. Here the Garuda is the exact facsimile of the dragon on the Tak-i-Bostan rock relief (see fig. 14, in text).

A sculpture, said to be in the British Museum, but which I have been unable to find there, represents a Garuda carrying three Naga youths.

page 196 note 4 Cf. the Miran angel (fig. 17). See On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks, fig. 54; Sir Aurel Stein.

page 197 note 1 Bushell's Chinese Art, vol. ii, ch. 12 on Textiles.

page 197 note 2 See Charlesworth, Trade Routes of the Empire; Soothill, China and the West.

page 197 note 3 Sir Aurel Stein, On Ancient Central-Asian Tracks, pp. 118–27.

page 198 note 1 For the Buddhism of China and Chinese Turkestan, which was Mahayana Buddhism, or the Buddhism of the Great Vehicle, see Hastings, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics: Buddhism.

Sir Aurel Stein points out that the pictorial art of Mahayana Buddhism was developed on the Indian north-west frontier and carried thence through Iran and Central Asia (Central-Asian Tracks, p. 219).

page 198 note 2 See also Note at the end of the Paper, p. 204.

page 199 note 1 Op. cit., ed. 1921, abb. 272.

page 200 note 1 Cf. conventional tree in no. 18.

page 200 note 2 Op. cit., ed. 1921, abb. 187, &c.

page 200 note 3 Op. cit., vol. ii, pl. 99.

page 201 note 1 Von Falke, op. cit., ed. 1921, abb. 422. Cf. also Victoria and Albert Museum Cat., no. 700, 1892 (Bock Collection).

page 201 note 2 One vestment (the tunicle) consists of a design of eagles confronting in ovals which are filled in with foliage. The ovals touch at four sides. There is a cruciform interspatial ornament with radiating palmette points from each limb of the cross. The birds within the ovals have breast and wing ornament which is like that of the seal bag but is too small to have been the same.

The chasuble, which has evidently been patched together, as some of it is the wrong way of the stuff, has a pattern of two birds in a circle. They are smaller than those of the tunicle and confront on each side of a narrow tree.

The dalmatic has a complicated design. It consists of large birds confronting and regardant in ovals on each side of a narrow stylized tree. There is an inset ornament on breasts and wings. The ovals are enclosed in a circle around which is a hunting scene four times repeated, containing dog and hare in foliation. The hare has its head turned backwards towards its pursuer. The interspaces are filled by a well-marked rectangular ornament with four lobes on each side. Four fleurs-de-lis within it radiate to the four corners alternately with the foliated ornament. The ornament on wing and breast of the bird, which is 11 in. high, is like that of the seal bag, and the size more or less corresponds. The heads and claws of the birds as well as the ornaments that join the circles on all three vestments were probably brocaded in silver gilt, of which some traces remain.

page 201 note 3 The silk is tarnished on heads, claws, and ornaments where the silver gilt has worn off. It was a common thing for the claws of birds and animals to be in gold brocade. See F. Michel, op. cit., p. 32. For elaborate wing and breast ornament on large birds see Von Falke, ed. 1921, abb. 141, the Lyons eagle; abb. 155, the double-headed Siegburg eagle; abb. 180, Kgm. Berlin; abb. 181, the Brixen eagle.

page 202 note 1 Cahier and Martin (vol. iii, pl. 15) give an example of a very fine gauze-like silk of purple and yellow of a trellis-work pattern, with small squares containing dots in each compartment, which belonged to the church of St. Leu in Paris. It was wrapped around the relics of St. Helena which were brought back from the East by the Crusaders.

page 203 note 1 Ancient Chinese Figured Silks, p. 14, figs. 11 and 12.

page 203 note 2 Cf. Von Falke. op. cit., ed. 1921, p. 4.

page 203 note 3 Errara, op. cit., 1jj.

page 203 note 4 Op. cit., ed. viii, 1905, no. 732. See also Sarre and Martin (Meisterwerke Muhammedanischer Kunst, München, 1910) for the ornament on the head of the lion.

page 208 note 1 The New Draw-Loom, by Luther Hooper.

page 208 note 2 Original drawings for illustration to Silk Culture and Manufacture. Press mark: I. I. 10. D. 1648 to 1658–1904.