The introduction
of silk and velvet into different countries had an immediate and
much-needed influence in civilising the manners of society. It is hard
to realise that in the thirteenth century when Edward I married
Eleanor of Castile, the highest nobles of England when resting at
their ease, stretched at full length on the straw-covered floors of
baronial halls, and jeered at the Spanish courtiers who hung the walls
and stretched the floors of Edward's castle with silks in preparation
for his Spanish bride.

The progress of art and culture was always from the East and moved
slowly. Do not go so far back as the thirteenth century. James I of
England owned no stockings when he was James VI of Scotland, and had
to borrow a pair in which to receive the English ambassador.

In the eleventh century Italy manufactured her own silks, and into
them were woven precious stones, corals, seed pearls and coloured
glass beads which were made in Greece and Venice, as well as gold and
silver spangles (twelfth and thirteenth centuries).

Here is an item on interior decorations from Proverbs vii, 16; "I have
woven my bed with cords, I have covered it with painted tapestry
brought from Egypt." There were painted tapestries made in Western
Europe at a very early date, and collectors eagerly seek them (see
Plate XIV). In the fourteenth century these painted tapestries were
referred to as "Stained Cloth."

Embroidery as an art, as we have already seen, antedates silk
weaving. The youngest of the three arts is tapestry. The oldest
embroidery stitches are: "the feather stitch," so called because they
all took one direction, the stitches over-lapping, like the feathers
of a bird; and "cross-stitch" or "cushion" style, because used on
church cushions, made for kneeling when at prayer or to hold the Mass
book.

Hand-woven tapestries are called "comb-wrought" because the instrument
used in weaving was comb-like.

"Cut-work" is embroidery that is cut out and appliqued, or sewed on
another material.

Carpets which were used in Western Europe in the Middle Ages are
seldom seen. The Kensington Museum owns two specimens, both of them
Spanish, one of the fourteenth and one of the fifteenth century.

In speaking of Gothic art we called attention to the fostering of art
by the Church during the Dark Ages. This continued, and we find that
in Henry VIII's time those who visited monasteries and afterward wrote
accounts of them call attention to t