Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/336



subject of embroidery, as practised during the middle ages, possesses sufficient claims to entitle it to notice in our Journal. It constituted one of the most prominent decorations in ecclesiastical and civil costume during that lengthened period, and served to occupy the leisure of the English gentlewoman when there were but few other modes in which her talents could be employed. Apart from the exercises of devotion, or the pleasures of hawking, it was probably the only recreation she could enjoy. Shut up in her lofty chamber, within the massive precincts of a castle, or immured in the restricted limits of a convent, the needle alone supplied an unceasing source of amusement; with this she might enliven her tedious hours, and depicting the heroic deeds of her absent lord, as it were, visibly hasten his return; or on the other hand, softened by the subdued influences of pious contemplation, she might use this pliant instrument to bring vividly before her mind the mysteries of that faith to which in her solitude she fondly clung.