illustrated with what fragments they
could port in their travellers' packs. Here lay inspiration for a
continent.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Eugene Muentz, "History of Tapestry."

[2] Jubinal, "Recherches," Vol. I.

[3] F. Michel, "Recherches."

[4] Jubinal, "Recherches."

CHAPTER III

MODERN AWAKENING

In the Fourteenth Century, tapestry, the high-warp product, began to
play an important part in the refinements of the day. We have seen the
tendency of the past time to embellish and soften churches and
monastic institutions with hangings. Records mostly in clerical Latin,
speak of these as curtains for doorways, dossers for covering seats,
and the backs of benches, and baldachins, as well as carpets for use
on the floor. Subjects were ecclesiastic, as the favourite Apocalypse;
or classic, like that of the Quedlimburg hanging which fantastically
represents the marriage of Mercury and Philology.

But in the Thirteenth Century the political situation had improved and
men no longer slept in armour and women no longer were prepared to
thrust all household valuables into a coffer on notice that the enemy
was approaching over the plains or up the rocks. Therefore, homes
began to be a little less rude in their comforts. Stone walls were
very much the rule inside as well as out, but it became convenient
then to cover their grim asperities with the woven draperies, the
remains of which so interest us to-day, and which we in our accession
of luxuriousness would add to the already gently finished apartments.
To put ourselves back into one of those castle homes we are to
imagine a room of stone walls, fitted with big iron hooks, on which
hung pictured tapestry which reached all around, even covering the
doors in its completeness. To admit of passing in and out the door a
slit was made, or two tapestries joined at this spot. Set Gothic
furniture scantily about such a room, a coffer or two, some
high-backed chairs, a generous table, and there is a room which the
art of to-day with its multiple ingenuity cannot surpass for beauty
and repose.

But such a room gave opportunity for other matters in the Thirteenth
Century. Customs were less polite and morals more primitive. Important
people desiring important information were given to the spying and
eavesdropping which now has passed out of polite fashion. And those
ancient rooms favoured the intriguer, for the hangings were suspended
a foot or two away from the wall, and a