This love for such glittering attire, not only for sacred use but secular wear, lasted long in England. The golden webs went under different names; at first they were called “ciclatoun,” “siglaton,” or “siklatoun,” as the writer’s fancy led him to spell the Persian word common for them at the time throughout the east.
By the old English ritual plain cloth of gold was allowed, as now, to be used for white when that colour happened to be ordered by the rubric. Thus in the reign of Richard the second, among the vestments at the chapel of St. George, Windsor castle, there was “one good vestment of cloth of gold:” and St. Paul’s, London, had at the end of the thirteenth century two amices embroidered with pure gold.
This splendid web was often wrought so thick and strong that each string, whether it happened to be of hemp or of silk had in the warp six threads, while the weft was of flat gold shreds. Hence such a texture was called “samit,” a word shortened from its first and old Byzantine name “exsamit.” The quantity of this costly cloth kept in the wardrobe of Edward the first was so great, that the nobles of that king were allowed to buy it out of the royal stores; for instance, four pieces at thirty shillings each were sold to Robert de Clifford, and another piece at the same price to Thomas de Cammill. Not only Asia minor but the island of Cyprus, the city of Lucca, and Moorish Spain, sent us these rich tissues. With other things left at Haverford castle by Richard the second were twenty-five cloths of gold of divers suits, of which four came from Cyprus, the others from Lucca: “xxv. draps d’or de diverses suytes dount iiii. de Cipres les autres de Lukes.” How Edward the fourth liked cloth of gold for his personal wear may be gathered from his wardrobe accounts, edited by Nicolas; and the lavish use of this stuff ordered by Richard the third for his coronation is recorded in the Antiquarian Repertory.
A “gowne of cloth-of-gold, furred with pawmpilyon, ayenst Corpus Xpi day” was bought for Elizabeth of York, afterwards queen of Henry the seventh, for her to wear as she walked in the procession on that great festival. The affection shown by Henry the eighth and all our nobility, men and women, of the time, for cloth of gold in their garments was unmistakingly set forth in many of the paintings brought together in the very instructive exhibition of national portraits in 1866, in the South Kensington museum. The price of this stuff seems to have been costly; for princess (afterwards queen) Mary, thirteen years before she came to the throne, “payed to Peycocke, of London, for xix yerds iii. qřt of clothe of golde at xxxviij.š the yerde, xxxvijli. xs. vjd.” And for “a yerde and dr qřt of clothe of siluer xls.”
As between common silk and satin there runs a broad difference in appearance, one being dull, the other smooth and glossy, so there is a great distinction to be made among cloths of gold; some are, so to say, dead; others, brilliant and sparkling. When the gold is twisted into its silken filament it takes the deadened look; when the flattened, filmy strip of metal is rolled about it so evenly as to bring its edges close to one another, it seems to be one unbroken wire of gold, sparkling and lustrous. This kind during the middle ages went by the term of Cyprus gold; and rich samits woven with it were allied damasks of Cyprus.
As time went on cloths of gold had other names. What the thirteenth century called, first, “ciclatoun,” then “baudekin,” afterward “nak,” was called, two hundred years later, “tissue”: a bright shimmering golden textile. The very thin smooth paper which still goes by the name of tissue-paper was originally made to be put between the folds of this rich stuff to prevent fraying or tarnish, when laid by.
The gorgeous and entire set of vestments presented to the altar at St. Alban’s abbey, by Margaret, duchess of Clarence, A. D. 1429, and made of the cloth of gold commonly called “tyssewys,” must have been as remarkable for the abundance and purity of the gold in its texture, as for the splendour of the precious stones set on it and the exquisite beauty of its embroideries. The large number of vestments made out of gold tissue, and of crimson, light blue, purple, green, and black, once belonging to York cathedral, are all duly registered in the valuable “Fabric rolls” of that church lately published by the Surtees society.
Among the many rich and costly vestments in Lincoln cathedral, some were made of this sparkling golden tissue contra-distinguished in its inventory from the duller cloth of gold, thus: “Four good copes of blew tishew with orphreys of red cloth of gold, wrought with branches and leaves of velvet;” “a chesable with two tunacles of blew tishew having a precious orphrey of cloth of gold.”
Silken textures ornamented with designs in copper gilt thread were manufactured and honestly sold for what they really were: of such inferior quality we find mention in the inventory of vestments at Winchester cathedral, drawn up by order of Henry the eighth, where we read of “twenty-eight copys of white bawdkyne, woven with copper gold.” Another imitation of woof of gold was possibly fraudulent. This, originally perhaps Saracenic, was practised by the Spaniards of the south, and was not easily discovered. The very finest skins were sought out for the purpose, as thin as that now rare kind of vellum called “uterine” by collectors of manuscripts. These were heavily gilt and then cut into very narrow strips, to be used instead of the true golden thread.
The gilding of fine silk and canvas in imitation of cloth of gold, like our gilding of wood and other substances, was also sometimes resorted to for splendour’s sake on temporary occasions; such, for instance, as some stately procession or a solemn burial service. Mr. Raine tells us he found in a grave at Durham, among other textiles, “a robe of thinnish silk; the ground colour of the whole is amber; and the ornamental parts were literally covered with leaf gold, of which there remained distinct and very numerous portions.” In the churchyard of Cheam, Surrey, in 1865, the skeleton of a priest was found who had been buried some time during the fourteenth century; around the waist was a flat girdle made of brown silk that had been gilt. In the ‘Romaunt of the rose’ translated by Chaucer, dame Gladnesse is thus described:—
—in an over gilt samite
Clad she was;
and on a piece of German orphrey-web, in the South Kensington collection, no. 1373, and probably made at Cologne in the sixteenth century, the gold is laid by the gilding process.
Silver also, as well as gold, was hammered out into very thin sheets which were cut into narrow long shreds to be woven, unmixed with anything else, into a web for garments. Of this we have a striking illustration in the Acts of the apostles, where St. Luke, speaking of Herod Agrippa, says that he presented himself to the people arrayed in kingly apparel, who, to flatter him, shouted that his was the voice not of a man but of a god; and forthwith he was smitten by a loathsome disease which shortly killed him. This royal robe, as Josephus informs us, was a tunic made of silver and wonderful in its texture.
Intimately connected with the raw materials, and how they were wrought in the loom, is the question about the time when wire drawing was found out. At what period and among what people the art of working up pure gold, or gilded silver, into a long, round, hair-like thread—into what may be correctly called “wire”—began, is quite unknown. That with their mechanical ingenuity the ancient Egyptians bethought themselves of some method for the purpose is not unlikely. From Sir Gardiner Wilkinson we learn that at Thebes were found objects which appeared to be made of gold wire. We may fairly presume that the work upon the corslets of king Amasis, already spoken of as done by the needle in gold, required by its minuteness that the metal should be not flat but in the shape of wire. By delicate management perhaps of the fingers, the narrow flat strips might have been pinched or doubled up