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/529



purse, nor scrip, nor shoes, so therefore, is He Himself here and elsewhere figured shoeless. Though already in heaven, still, out of reverence towards Him, the head of His mother is kerchiefed, as it would have been were she yet on earth and present at the sacred liturgy. John Beleth, an Englishman, who, in 1162, a short century before this cope was worked, wrote a book upon the Church Ritual, lays it down as an unbending rule that, while men are to hear the Gospel bare-headed, all women, whatever be their age, rank, or condition, must never be uncovered, and if a young maiden be so her mother or any other female ought to cast a cloth of some sort over her head;—"Viri, itaque aperto capite Evangelium audire debent Mulieres vero debent audire Evangelium tecto et velato capite etiamsi sit virgo, propter pomum vetitum. Et si eveniat ut virgo capite sit aperto, ut velamen non habeat, necesse est, ut mater, aut quævis alia mulier capiti ejus pannum vel simile quippiam imponat." Divin. Offic. Explic. c. xxxix. p. 507.

The next two subjects now to be described are—one, that on the right hand, the death of the Blessed Virgin Mary; the other, to the left, her burial. To fully understand the traditionary treatment of both, it would be well to give the words of Caxton's English translation of the "Golden Legend," from the edition "emprynted at London, in Fletestrete at y^e sygne of y^e Sonne, by Wynkyn de Worde, in y^e yere of our Lorde ," a scarce and costly work not within easy reach. "We fynde in a booke sente to saynt Johan the evangelys, or elles the boke whiche is sayd to be apocryphum in what maner the Assumpcyon of the blessyd vyrgyn saynt Marye was made  upon a daye whan all the apostles were spradde through the worlde in prechynge, the gloryous vyrgyne was gretely esprysed and enbraced wyth desyre to be wyth her sone Ihesu Cryste  and an aungell came tofore her with grete lyghte and salewed her honourably as the mother of his Lorde, sayenge, All hayle blessyd Marie Loo here is a bowe of palme of paradyse, lady, whiche thou shalte commaunde to be borne tofore thy bere, for thy soule shall be taken from thy body the thyrde daye nexte folowynge; and thy Sone abydeth thee His honourable moder All the apostles shall assemble this daye to thee and shall make to thee noble exequyes at thy passynge, and in the presence of theym all thou shalte gyve up thy spyryte. For he that broughte the prophete (Habacuc) by an heer from Judee to Babylon (Daniel xiv. 35, according to the Vulgate) may without doubte sodeynly in an houre brynge the apostles to thee And it happened as Saynt Johan the euangelyst preched in Ephesym the heven sodeynly thondred and a whyte cloude toke hym up and brought hym tofore the gate of