who in the year 400 A.D. was buried in
a golden dress, which in 1544 was removed from her grave, and being
melted, weighed 36 lbs.[204]

The Anglo-Saxon tomb opened at Chessell Down, in the Isle of Wight,
contained fragments of a garment or wrapping woven with flat gold
"plate." These remains are now in the British Museum.

Childeric was buried at Tournai, 485 A.D., and his dress of strips of
pure gold was discovered and melted in 1653. But gold _thread_ also
was then very generally used in weaving gold tissues.

Claudian describes a Christian lady, Proba, in the fourth century,
preparing the consular robes for her two sons on their being raised to
the consulate:[205]--

"The joyful mother plies her knowing hands,
And works on all the trabea golden bands;
Draws the thin strips to all the length of gold,
_To make the metal meaner threads enfold_."

Pure gold was woven in the dark ages in England. St. Cuthbert's
maniple at Durham is of pure gold thread. John Garland says the ladies
wove golden cingulae in the thirteenth century; and Henry I., according
to Hoveden, was clothed in a robe of state of woven gold and gems of
almost "divine splendour."[206]

A wrapping of beautiful gold brocade covered the coffin of Henry III.
when his tomb was opened in 1871.[207]

The cope of St. Andrew at Aix, in Switzerland, is embroidered in a
very simple pattern, with large circles containing St. Andrew's
crosses.[208] This is worked in silver wire gilt, and is Byzantine of
the twelfth century.

In the writings of the Middle Ages we find constant reference to
different golden fabrics. Among them are "samit" or "examitur" (a
six-thread silk stuff, preciously inwoven with gold threads);[209] and
"ciclatoun,"[210] which was remarkable for the lightness of its
texture, and was woven with shining gold threads--but though light, it
was stiff enough to carry heavy embroidery. We hear also of
"baudekin," "nak," and cloth of pall. "Camoca" is "kincob."

There appears to be a link between embroidery in gold and the
jewellers' work which in the Dark and Middle Ages was so often applied
to ecclesiastical and royal dress and hangings. This link was beaten
gold work, "aurobacutos," "beaten work," or "batony."[211] Beauchamp,
Earl of Warwick in the time of Henry VI., went over to France, having
a "coat for my lord's body, beat with fine gold (probably heraldic
designs). For his ship, a streamer forty yards long and eight broa