a native industry took the
place of the imported article. Among prohibited gowns in Florence
was one owned by Donna Francesca degli Albizi, "a black mantle of
raised cloth: the ground is yellow, and over it are woven birds,
parrots, butterflies, red and white roses, and many figures in
vermilion and green, with pavilions and dragons, and yellow and
black letters and trees, and many other figures of various colours,
the whole lined with cloth in hues of black and vermilion." As
one reads this description, it seems as though the artistic sense
as much as conscientious scruples might have revolted and led to
its banishment!

Costumes for tournaments were also lavish in their splendour. In
1467 Benedetto Salutati ordered made for such a pageant all the
trappings for two horses, worked in two hundred pounds of silver
by Pollajuolo; thirty pounds of pearls were also used to trim the
garments of the sergeants. No wonder Savonarola was enthusiastic
in his denunciation of such extravagance.

Henry VIII. had "a pair of hose of purple silk and Venice gold,
woven like a caul." For one of his favoured lady friends, also,
there is an item, of a certain sum paid, for one pound of gold
for embroidering a nightgown.

The unrivalled excellence of English woollen cloths was made manifest
at an early period. There was a fabric produced at Norwich of such
superiority that a law was passed prohibiting monks from wearing it,
the reason being that it was considered "smart enough for military
men!" This was in 1422. The name of Worsted was given to a certain
wool because it was made at Worsted, a town in Norfolk; later the
"worsted thread" was sold for needleworkers.

Ladies made their own gold thread in the Middle Ages by winding
a fine flat gold wire, scarcely of more body than a foil, around
a silk thread.

Patches were embroidered into place upon such clothes or vestments
as were torn: those who did this work were as well recognized as
the original designers, and were called "healers" of clothes!

Embroidered bed hangings were very much in order in mediaeval times
in England. In the eleventh century there lived a woman who had
emigrated from the Hebrides, and who had the reputation for witchcraft,
chiefly based upon the unusually exquisite needlework on her bed
curtains! The name of this reputed sorceress was Thergunna. Bequests
in important wills indicate the sumptuous styles which were usual
among people of position. The Fair Ma