name is Emilia Catharina, and she has been a
proper and praiseworthy child." Then, to her children the following
address is directed: "Do not forget your prayers in the morning. And
be temperate in your pleasures. And make yourselves acquainted with
the Word of God.... I beseech you to be sincere in all matters. That
will make you great and glorious. Honour everybody according to his
station: it will make you honourably known. You, my truly beloved sons,
beware of fiery wines... you, my truly beloved daughters, preserve
and guard your honour, and reflect before you do anything: many have
been led into evil by acting first and thinking afterwards." In
another compartment, a lament goes up in which she deplores the
death of her husband. "His age was sixty and eight years," she says.
"The dropsy has killed him. I, his afflicted Anna Blickin von
Liechtenperg who was left behind, have related it with my hand in
this cloth, that might be known to my children this greater sorrow
which God has sent me." The cloth is a naive and unusual record of
German home life.

Ecclesiastical embroidery began in the fourth century. In earliest
days the work was enhanced with quantities of gold thread. The shroud
in which St. Cuthbert's body was wrapped is a mass of gold: a Latin
inscription on the vestments in which the body was clad may be thus
translated: "Queen to Alfred's son and successor, Edward the Elder,
was one Aelflaed, who caused this stole and maniple to be made for a
gift to Fridestan consecrated Bishop of Winchester, A. D. 905." The
maniple is of "woven gold, with spaces left vacant for needlework
embroidery." Such garments for burial were not uncommon; but they
have as a rule perished from their long residence underground.
St. Cuthbert's vestments are splendid examples of tenth century
work in England. After the death of King Edward II., and his wife
Aelflaed, Bishop Frithestan also having passed away, Athelstan, as
King, made a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Cuthbert and bestowed
these valuable embroideries there. They were removed from the body
of the saint in 1827. The style of the work inclines to Byzantine.
The Saxon embroideries must have been very decorative: a robe is
described by Aldhelme in 709, as "of a most delicate thread of
purple, adorned with black circles and peacocks." At the church at
Croyland some vestments were decorated with birds of gold cut out
and applique and at Exeter they had "nothing about them b