Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 4.djvu/324

 300 ENGLISH MEDIEVAI, EMBROIDERY, cloth of gold with precious orfrays, besides another of the same kind sumptuously embroidered, which they destined for the use of the high altar. Another illustration of this species of decoration may be taken from sepulchral brasses. These frequently give a portrait of the cope usually worn by the deceased ecclesiastic, thus furnishing a most minute and faithful copy of the several designs which were wrought upon the habit. It would be hopeless to search in these days for the actual proof of such a supposition as regards ecclesiastical costume, but that it was the case will not reasonably admit of a doubt in the minds of those who have perused the evidence ad- duced in respect to the jupon and monument of the Black Prince. It may not liowever, be entirely without affording corroboration to these opinions to state that the writer has remarked a strong resemblance betwixt the architectural forms on the orfrais of a cope, repre- sented in a brass to a priest in the church of Castle Ash- by, and a similar pattern wrought upon a vestment still existing in the posses- sion of ]Ir. Bowdon of Southgate House, Derbyshire. In the sepulchral memorial, saints are represented standing under Gothic arches which have twisted shafts. In the cor- responding piece of embroidery, now used for a frontal, but formerly for a cope, the same peculiarity of shaft is observable. There can in short be no reason whatever for disbelieving the fact, that all the dresses, whether secular or ecclesiastical, as we see them delineated in brass, or marble, or stone, or wood, were expressly meant to be the best portraits of the deceased that could be obtained from the artist. A work of the same nature, and exquisite as the frontal just alluded to, it would be perhaps impossible to find. It is a work in which architectural design, accuracy of drawing, careful ex- Vestment, Southgate House.