ing the high lights, and
causing dark spots in their stead. This reversal of the intended
effect is an additional practical argument for the flatness of
embroidery.[592]

From the Librate Roll of Henry III. one can form an estimate of the
value of the "opus Anglicanum" in its day.[593] In 1241 the king gave
Peter de Agua Blanca a mitre so worked, costing L82. This would be,
according to the present value, L230.

The finest specimens of this English work are to be found on the
Continent, or have been returned from it.[594] They had either been
gifts to popes or bishops before the Reformation, or they had been
sold at that time of general persecution and pillage. Among the most
remarkable are the pluvial (called) of St. Silvester at Rome, the
Daroca pluvial at Madrid, the great pluvial at Bologna, and the Syon
cope, of which I have already spoken. The general idea and prevailing
design of these three great works are so singular, and yet so alike,
that they must have issued from the same workshop, and that was
certainly English.

In the Daroca cope the cherubim, with their feet on wheels, which are
peculiar to English design, and the angels (in the vacant spaces
between the framed subjects from the life of our Lord) have their
wings carefully done in chain split-stitch representing peacocks'
feathers, of which the silken eyes are stitched in circles, and then
raised with an iron by pressure, so as to catch a light and throw a
shadow. The ground is entirely English gold-laid work. This cope, so
markedly national in design and stitches, probably drifted to the
Continent at the time of the Reformation.[595]

[Illustration: Pl. 77.
Characteristic English Parseme Patterns for Ecclesiastical
Embroideries.]

[Illustration: Pl. 78.
Dunstable Pall. Property of the Vicar of Dunstable _ex officio_.]

A wonderfully preserved specimen of the "opus Anglicanum," of which a
photogravure is here given, was lately presented by Mr. Franks to the
Mediaeval Department of the British Museum (plate 76). In this may be
seen most of the characteristics of this work in the thirteenth
century; such as the angels with peacock feather wings, moulded by hot
irons; the features of all the figures similarly manipulated; the
beautiful gold groundwork, which in this instance is covered with
double-headed eagles; and lastly, the fashion of the beard on the face
of our Lord and of all the men delineated--the upper lip and round t