housand years ago; and we must confess that we find nothing really
resembling a Persian pattern in any classical tomb or sculpture of the
Dark Ages.[398]

I have allowed myself to touch upon carpet weaving, as it is germane
to tapestry; though it is a branch that soon loses itself and leaves
artistic work in the distance. Except the first design, it has become
purely mechanical.

After what has been quoted from Ovid's "Metamorphoses," and bearing in
mind the pictured webs described by Homer, and likewise the evidence
of the frescoes in Egypt, and the woman weaving on the Greek fictile
vase found at Chiusi, we may be justified in concluding that, like all
other arts, that of tapestry existed in very early days, died out, and
had to begin afresh, and gradually return to life, during the Middle
Ages.

Bishop Gaudry, about 925, possessing a piece of tapestry with an
inscription in Greek letters surrounded by lions "parseme," was much
put about till he obtained something to match it, to hang on the
opposite side of his choir at Auxerre.[399] And it is known that the
monks of St. Florent, at Saumur, wove tapestries about 985, and
continued to do so for two centuries. St. Angelme of Norway,[400]
Bishop of Auxerre, who died in 840, caused many tapestries to be
executed for his church. At Poitiers this manufactory was so famous in
the eleventh century, that foreign kings, princes, and prelates sought
to obtain them, "even for Italy." The rules of their order of the
monks of the Abbey of Cluny, dated 1009, were followed by those of St.
Wast and of the Abbey of Fleury, and others in France, who all wove
wool and silk for tapestries. Le Pere Labbe, from whom much of this
information is drawn and acknowledged by M. Charton (my authority),
says that in 876, at Ponthievre, in presence of the Emperor Charles
the Bold, the hall of the council-chamber was hung with pictured
tapestries, and the seats were covered with them.[401]

[Illustration: Pl. 48.
Order of the Golden Fleece. Tapestry at Berne, taken from Charles
the Bold at the Battle of Grandson, 1476.]

Sufficient has been said to show that during the dark ages hangings
were woven in France, Germany, and Belgium,[402] and that England was
not behind the rest of the civilized world in this craft. I think,
also, that we have indicated its Oriental origin.[403]

Arras continued to lead as the great tapestry factory till the end of
the fifteenth century, when the