predominant or subordinate parts
in the whole effect of the design (Plate III. fig. 7). Angular and
simplified treatments of these elaborate designs are rendered in many
Asia Minor or Turkey carpets (Plate I. fig. 3); but the typical flowing
and more graceful versions are of Persian origin (see Plate III. fig. 7,
and Plate IV. fig. 9), usually of the 16th century. Mingled in such
intricate stem designs or "arabesques" are details many of which have
been derived on the one hand from Sassanian and even from far earlier
Mesopotamian emblematical ornament based on cheetahs seizing gazelles,
on floral forms, blossoms and buds so well conventionalized in Assyrian
decoration, and on the other hand from Tatar and Chinese sources. The
style, strong in suggestion of successive historical periods, seems to
have been matured in Mosil engraved and damascened metal work of the
12th and 13th centuries before its occurrence in Persian carpet designs,
the finest of which were produced about the reign of Shah Abbas. A good
deal earlier than this period are carpets designed chiefly according to
the simpler taste of the Sunnites, and such as these appear to be
mentioned by Marco Polo (1256-1323) when writing that "in Turcomania
they weave the handsomest carpets in the world." He quotes Conia (Konieh
in Anatolia), Savast (Sivas in Asia Minor), some 300 m. north-east of
Konieh, and Cassaria (Kaisaria or Caesaraea in Anatolia) as the chief
weaving centres. It is the carpets from such places rather than from
Persia that appear to have been the first Oriental ones known in
European countries.

Carpets in Europe.

Entries of Oriental carpets are frequent in the inventories of European
cathedral treasures. In England, for instance, carpets are said to have
been first employed by Queen Eleanor of Castile and her suite during the
latter part of the 13th century, who had them from Spain, where their
manufacture was apparently carried on by Saracens or Moors in the
southern part of the country. On the other hand, Pierre Dupont, a master
carpet-maker of the Savonnerie (see below), gives his opinion in 1632
that the introduction of carpet-making into France was due to the
Saracens after their defeat by Charles Martel in A.D. 726. But more
historically precise is the record in the book of crafts (_Livre des
metiers_) by Etienne Boileau, provost of the merchants in Paris
(1258-1268), of "the tapicers or makers of _tapis sarrasinois_,[1] who
say tha