wed with miraculous powers and was carried into
battle on many occasions as a banner.

This banner was of crimson velvet on both sides, wrought with flowers
in green silk and gold, and fringed with red silk and gold. The
corporax cloth was inserted in the centre, and covered with a square
of white velvet, having on it a cross of red velvet, "most
artificially worked and fringed, with little silver bells in the
fringe." This was carried into battle, till Dame Whittinghame "did
most injuriously destroy the same in her fire."

One feels as if this woman were spiteful, as well as stupid. But for
her punishment, her memory is kept quite the contrary to green by Mrs.
Waghorn's careful record of her iniquities; which has at the same time
fortunately preserved to us the description of the banner of St.
Cuthbert, and gives also an idea of "the good and sumptuous furniture
of changeable suits," and of "the divers vestments wrought and set
round about with pearls, both stoles and flannels, &c."

Looking at it from a distance, it appears that the "fair white linen"
for the communion service always requires the softening of the edges
by fringes, by cut work embroidery, or by thick lace edgings. If a
white ground for embroidery is required, nothing is more beautiful
than linen, especially if it is not over-bleached. White, in art,
should be represented by the nearest approach to no colour; but it is
more agreeable to the eye by its being tempered with a suggestion of
the natural tint, of which all textile substances possess something
(excepting cotton) before they have passed through the hands of the
fuller or the chemist.

Corporals and veils for the pyx used to be of white linen, embroidered
with white silk or linen thread; the silk gives a beautiful, varied,
shining brightness.

I think a few words should be said about the fringe.[551] Its motive
and _raison d'etre_ is the disposal of the threads of the warp when it
is cut out of the frame; these being tied and knotted symmetrically,
become an artistic decoration instead of an untidy tangle of threads
and thrums. Edging the material and finishing it with its own loose
ends is a very ancient custom; and we can see from the sculptures of
Nineveh that they were great in that city in the art of fringe-making,
and the Israelites, when they made their hangings for the sanctuary,
trimmed them with fringes. It stands to reason that an added fringe
should be arranged with reference t