square forms, with
rounded and barbed sides and corners. In each of these is a figure
or a scriptural scene. The orphreys, or straight borders which go
down both fronts of the cope, are decorated with heraldic charges.
Much of the embroidery is raised, and wrought in the stitch known
as Opus Anglicanum. The effect was produced by pressing a heated
metal knob into the work at such points as were to be raised. The
real embroidery was executed on a flat surface, and then bossed up
by this means until it looked like bas-relief. The stitches in every
part run in zig-zags, the vestments, and even the nimbi about the
heads, are all executed with the stitches slanting in one direction,
from the centre of the cope outward, without consideration of the
positions of the figures. Each face is worked in circular progression
outward from the centre, as well. The interlaces are of crimson, and
look well on the green ground. The wheeled Cherubim is well developed
in the design of this famous cope, and is a pleasing decorative bit of
archaic ecclesiasticism. In the central design of the Crucifixion,
the figure of the Lord is rendered in silver on a gold ground. The
anatomy is according to the rules laid down by an old sermonizer,
in a book entitled "The Festival," wherein it is stated that the
body of Christ was "drawn on the cross as a skin of parchment on a
harrow, so that all his bones might be told." With such instruction,
there was nothing left for the mediaeval embroiderers but to render
the figure with as much realistic emaciation as possible.

The heraldic ornaments on the Syon Cope are especially interesting
to all students of this graceful art. It is not our purpose here
to make much allusion to this aspect of the work, but it is of
general interest to know that on the orphreys, the devices of most
of the noble families of that day appear.

[Illustration: DETAIL OF THE SYON COPE]

English embroidery fell off greatly in excellence during the Wars
of the Roses. In the later somewhat degenerate raised embroidery,
it was customary to represent the hair of angels by little tufted
curls of auburn silk!

Many of the most important examples of ancient ecclesiastical embroidery
are in South Kensington Museum. A pair of orphreys of the fifteenth
century, of German work (probably made at Cologne), shows a little
choir of angels playing on musical instruments. These figures are
cut out and applied on crimson silk, in what was called