Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 5.djvu/460

 EMBROIDERY

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EMBROIDERY

embolism may date back to the first centuries, since, imder various forms, it is found in all the Occidental and in a great many Oriental, particularly Syrian, Liturgies. The Greek Liturgies of St. BasU and St. John Chrysostora, however, do not contain it. In the Mozarabic Rite this prayer is very beautiful and is re- cited not only in the Mass, but also after the Our Father at Lauds and Vespers. The Roman Church connects with it a petition for peace in which she in- serts the names of the Mother of God, Sts. Peter and Paul, and St. Andrew. The name of St. Andrew is found in the Gelasian Sacramentary, so that its inser- tion in the Embolismus would seem to have been anterior to the time of St. Gregory. During the Mid- dle Ages the provincial churches and religious orders added the names of other saints, their founders, pa- trons, etc., according to the discretion of the celebrant (see MicROLOGUs)

IL In the calendar this term signifies the difference of days between the lunar year of only 35-t days and the solar j'ear of 365.2922 days. In the Alexandrian lunar cycle of 19 years, therefore, seven months were added, one each in the second, fifth, eighth, eleventh, thirteenth, sixteenth, and nineteenth (the emliolistic) years. Each embolistic year had 13 lunar months, or 384 days. The lunar calendar was called Dionysian, because Dionysius Exiguus, in the sixth century, recommended the introduction of the Alexandrian Easter cycle of 19 years and computed it for 95 years in advance.

Lerch, Einleitiijig in di^ Chronologie (Freiburg, 1899), II, 26 sqq.; Grotefend, Zeitrechnung (Leipzig, 1S9S); Liturgia Mora- rabica (Paris, 1862); Ebner. QwfWen und Forschnngcn zum Mis- sale Romanum (Freiburg, 1896), 425 sqq.; M.\skell, The An- cient Liturgy of the Church of England (0.xford, 1882).

F. G. HOLWECK.

Embroidery, Ecclesiastical. — That in Christian worship embroidery was used from early times to ornament vestments, is confirmed by numerous notices, especially the statements of the " Liber Pon- tificalis". For the period before the tenth century no account, even partially satisfactory, has come down to us, either of the methods of producing the embroidery or of the manner and extent of its use. What is incidentally said is not sufficient to make the matter clear, and no embroidery of this period for ecclesiastical purposes has been preserved. The oldest extant examples are the remains of a maniple and of a stole dating from the beginning of the tenth cen- tury, in the museum of Durham cathedral, and frag- ments of an altar-cover of the same century in the National Museum at Ravenna. Vestments magnifi- cently embroidered appeared at the beginning of the eleventh century, such as the chasuble completely covered with pictures embroidered in pure gold, which is preserved in the Bamberg cathedral; the coronation mantle of Hungary, originally also a chasuble; and other specimens of the highest impor- tance not only on account of their costly material and the skill shown in their execution, but even more on account of the deep significance of the pictures. Up to the thirteenth century embroidery in gold thread was the ornamentation mainly used for eccle- siastical purposes. To a certain degree gold em- broidery was intended to take the place of figured materials woven with gold thread. Consequently, this embroidery so closely resembles fabrics woven with gold that on superficial examination it could easily be taken for such. At the same time, however, em- broidery wit h silk t breads was also pract ised, as is shown by the splendid copes preserved at St. Paul in Carinthia.

Ecclesiastical embroidery reached its fullest devel- opment in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and the first half of the fifteenth centuries. In this period what^ ever bore the name of vestment, wherever means allowed, was more or less richly embroidered. The working materials were gold, silver, and silk threads,

small disks and spangles cut with a stamp from silver, plain or gilded, spangles and small tlisks of enamel, real pearls, precious stones, paste diamonds, and coral. The embroidery of figures was the branch of the art most pursued, purely ornamental embroidery being regarded as of subordinate importance. The copes and chasubles covered with pictorial embroid- ery of a deeply religious character, the aurifrisia (bands) magnificently ornamented with embroidered figures, that were laid on the liturgical clothing and other vestments, the covers and wall-hangings em- broitlered in striking pictorial designs, the stoles covereti with wonderful needlework, all these exam- ples of the art of the needle of that era, still found in large numbers in the church treasuries and museums, show that ecclesiastical embroidery then reached a height never since regained. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries Sicily was famous for its ecclesias- tical embroidery; in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the workshops of England were more noted than all others. In this latter period mention of English embroidery, called optis anglicanum, is found in almost all inventories of the more important churches of the Continent, even in Italy. The vest- ment most frequently sent from England into other parts of Western Europe was a cope completely cov- ered with a rich embroidery of figures on a back- ground of vine arabesques or elaborate architecture, the background being worked in gold thread; exam- ples of these copes are still preserved at St. John Lateran at Rome, at Pienza, Vich, and Daroca in Spain, Salzburg, Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges in France, and elsewhere. A large amount of superb ecclesiastical needlework, splendid specimens of which still exist, was also produced in Germany, France, and Italy; in the last-named country the work of Florence, Siena, Lucca, and Venice was especially noted. In the fifteenth century the finest ecclesiastical embroid- ery was done in Flanders, where the work most largely produced was of that kind in which couched gold thread was worked over with coloured silks. The best e.xamples of this are the mass-vestments of the Order of the Golden Fleece preserved in the Hofburg at Vienna. With the close of the Middle Ages ecclesiastical embroiderj' began to decline. In- stead of the flat stitch, use was now made of the more striking raised embroidery, which frequently degenerated into a purely formal high relief totally unsuited in character to ecclesiastical embroidery. There was a continually growing tendency to aim at brilliant effects and a stately magnificence. At the same time pictorial needlework was less and less in use, owing to the influence of secular embroidery. Needlework for church vestments was limited more and more to purely ornamental designs, taken chiefly from the plant world, and to certain symbolic designs. The art sank to its lowest depths both in design and technic at the commencement of the nineteenth cen- tury, during the so-called Biedennaier (honest citizen) period.

Ecclesiastical embroidery flourished in the various provinces of the Byzantine Empire. While the costly needlework produced there was naturally used mainly in the services of the Greek Church, still many pieces were brought into Western Europe. This Byzantine needlework did not fail to influence West- ern ecclesiastical embroidery. One of the finest examples of art needlework of the Byzantine Empire of the Middle Ages is the imperial dalmatic in the treasury of St. Peter's at Rome, erroneously attrib- uted to the eleventh centviry; it is, in reality, a Greek saccos (vestment of a ( Jreek bishop or patriarch) worked, probably, in the latter half of the fourteenth century.

At no period has ecclesiastical differed in its technic from secular embroidery. The same varie- ties of stitches and other art resources have been em- ployed in both cases. No special ordinances have