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. There is record that in the late eleventh century a Norman Abbot brought home from Apulia a quantity of heavy and fine silk, from which four copes were made. French silks were not remarkable until the sixteenth century, while those of the Netherlands led all others as early as the thirteenth. Shot silks were popular in England in the sixteenth century. York Cathedral possessed, in 1543, a "vestment of changeable taffety for Good Friday." St. Dunstan is reported to have once "tinted" a sacerdotal vestment to oblige a lady, thus departing from his regular occupation as goldsmith to perform the office of a dyer of stuff. Many rich mediaeval textiles were ornamented by designs, which usually show interlaces and animal forms, and sometimes conventional floral ornament. Patterns originated in the East, and, through Byzantine influence, in Italy, and Saracenic in Spain, they were adopted and modified by Europeans. In 1295 St. Paul's in London owned a hanging "patterned with wheels and two-headed birds." Sicilian silks, and many others of the contemporary textiles, display variations of the "tree of life" pattern. This consists of a little conventional shrub, sometimes hardly more than a "budding rod," with two birds or animals advancing vis-a-vis on either side. Sometimes these are two peacocks; often lions or leopards and frequently griffins and various smaller animals. Whenever one sees a little tree or a single stalk, no matter how conventionally treated, with a couple of matched animals strutting up to each other on either side, this pattern owes its origin to the old tradition of the decorative motive usual in Persia and in Byzantium, the Tree of Life, or Horn. The origin of patterns does not come within our scope, and has been excellently treated in the various books of Lewis Day, and other writers on this subject. Textiles of Italian manufacture may be seen represented in the paintings of the old masters: Orcagna, Francia, Crivelli, and others, who delighted in the rendering of rich stuffs; later, they abound in the creations of Veronese and Titian. A "favourite Italian vegetable," as Dr. Rock quaintly expresses it, is the artichoke, which, often, set in oval forms, is either outlined or worked solidly in the fabric. Almeria was a rich city in the thirteenth century, noted for its textiles. A historian of that period writes: "Christians of all nations came to its port to buy and to sell. From thence... the
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