Page:Textile fabrics; a descriptive catalogue of the collection of church-vestments, dresses, silk stuffs, needle-work and tapestries, forming that section of the Museum (IA textilefabricsde00soutrich).pdf/125

 many hands for its working. Yet of all this, nought has ever turned up in any notice of Matilda's life. She was not, like the Anglo-Saxon Margaret queen of Scotland, known to fill up her time amidst her maids with needlework, nor ever stood out a parallel to an older Anglo-Saxon high-born lady, the noble Ælfleda, of whom we now speak. Her husband was the famous Northumbrian chieftain, Brithnoth, who had so often fought and so sorely worsted the invading Danes, by whom he was at last slain. His loving wife and her women wrought his deeds of daring in needlework upon a curtain which she gave to the minster church at Ely, wherein the headless body of her Brithnoth lay buried: "cortinam gestis viri sui (Brithnothi) intextam atque depictam in memoriam probitatis ejus, huic ecclesiæ (Eliensi) donavit (Ælfleda)." Surely when Ælfleda's handiwork found a chronicler, that of a queen would never have gone without one. Moreover, had such a piece any-*wise or ever belonged to William's wife, we must think that, instead of being let to stray away to Bayeux, towards which place she bore no particular affection, she would have bequeathed it, like other things, to her beloved church at Caen. Yet in her will no notice of it comes, and the only mention of any needlework is of two English specimens, one a chasuble bought of Aldaret's wife at Winchester, and a vestment then being wrought for her in England: "casulam quam apud Wintoniam operatur uxor Aldereti atque aliud vestimentum quod operatur in Anglia," both of which she leaves to the Church of the Holy Trinity at Caen.

But there is the tradition that it is Matilda's doing. True, but it is barely a hundred years old, and its first appearance was in the year 1730 or so: tradition so young goes then for nothing. Who then got it worked, and why did it find its way to Bayeaux?

Odo, bishop of Bayeux, and own brother to William came himself, and, like other rich and powerful Norman Lords, brought vassals who fought at Hastings. Of all the great chiefs, but one, at most but two, are pointed out by name on this piece. Odo, however, is figured in no less than three of its compartments; furthermore, three men quite unknown to fame, Turold, Vital, and Wadard, receive as many times as the bishop this same honourable distinction. Rich and influential in Normandy, Odo, after being made Earl of Kent by his victorious brother, became richer and more influential in England; hence the three above-mentioned individuals, the prelate's feudatories, by their master's favour, got possession of wide landed estates in many parts of England,