e of
Jeddo has profusion of the finest Tapestry; this indeed is gorgeous,
being wrought with silk, and adorned with pearls, gold, and silver.

It was considered a right regal offering from one prince to another.
Henry III., King of Castile, sent a present to Timour at Samarcand, of
Tapestry which was considered to surpass even the works of Asiatic
artists in beauty: and when the religious and military orders of some
of the princes of France and Burgundy had plunged them into a kind of
crusade against the Turkish Sultan Bajazet, and they became his
prisoners in the battle of Nicopolis, the King of France sent presents
to the Sultan, to induce him to ransom them; amongst which Tapestry
representing the battles of Alexander the Great was the most
conspicuous.

Tapestry was not used in the halls of princes alone, but cut a very
conspicuous figure on all occasions of festivity and rejoicing. It was
customary at these times to hang ornamental needlework of all sorts
from the windows or balconies of the houses of those streets through
which a pageant or festal procession was to pass; and as the houses
were then built with the upper stories far overhanging the lower ones,
these draperies frequently hung in rich folds to the ground, and must
have had, when a street was thus in its whole length appareled and
partly roofed by the floating streamers and banners above--somewhat
the appearance of a suite of magnificent saloons.

"Then the high street gay signs of triumph wore,
Covered with shewy cloths of different dye,
Which deck the walls, while Sylvan leaves in store,
And scented herbs upon the pavement lie.
Adorned in every window, every door,
With carpeting and finest drapery;
But more with ladies fair, and richly drest
In costly jewels and in gorgeous vest."

When the Black Prince entered London with King John of France, as his
prisoner, the outsides of the houses were covered with hangings,
consisting of battles in tapestry-work.

And in tournaments the lists were always decorated "with the splendid
richness of feudal power. Besides the gorgeous array of heraldic
insignia near the Champions' tents, the galleries, which were made to
contain the proud and joyous spectators, were covered with tapestry,
representing chivalry both in its warlike and its amorous guise: on
one side the knight with his bright faulchion smiting away hosts of
foes, and on the other side kneeling at the feet