as cut down to the mediaeval chasuble.

English needlework of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had its own
peculiar style of metal-work pattern, resembling the hinges and
spreading central ornament branching across the wood-work on our
church doors.[521]

When we meet with this kind of design on foreign church vestments, we
feel inclined always to claim the merit of them for the English
school. The foreign metal-work patterns are much lighter and more
geometrical, and have not the firmness and at the same time the fancy
that we find in our own of the twelfth century; and they remind us
rather of the goldsmiths' than of the blacksmiths' craft. The English
embroidery of this style has the character of "applique," i.e. one
material laid upon another and fastened down.

There are differences of opinion as to the accepted characteristics of
the "opus Anglicanum," which in the twelfth century began to be
celebrated.[522] Some say that it was principally remarkable for its
admixture of jewellers' work in the borders, or the imitation of it in
gold thread. Some give the attempt to reproduce the effect of
bas-reliefs in the embroidered groups of figures; others, again, point
out the peculiarities of the "laid stitches" in gold, which so
permeated the linen grounding, as to give the look of a material woven
with gold thread. We may fairly say that _all_ these, which were then
ingenious novelties, combined to give this opus Anglicanum its value,
as well for its beauty as for its ingenuity.[523]

The Syon cope, (now one of the treasures of art in the Kensington
Museum), is a perfect example of this work; and is also, according to
Bock, "one of the most beautiful among the liturgical vestments of the
olden period anywhere to be found in Christendom." Dr. Rock's study of
this piece of thirteenth century work in his "Catalogue of the
Embroideries in the South Kensington Museum" is most interesting, as
exemplifying all the characteristics of the Gothic art of the period,
in its historical, aesthetic, heraldic, liturgical, emblematical, and
textile aspects. I have ventured to transcribe the whole of this
notice in the Appendix.[524] I will only add here that the one error
into which I think he has fallen, is in naming the stitches. The
"diapers" are not opus plumarium, but opus pulvinarium, of the class
of "laid stitches." This was ascertained by examining the back of the
material under the ancient lining by a most competent jud