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/549



3. The same youthful maiden is bending over a wooden table, upon which lies a human heart that she is handling; and the inscriptions about her tell us the meaning of this action of hers, thus,—"Sol ich myn sund hi leschen so musz ich ich mȳ hertz im blude wesche;" "To cleanse away my sin here, I must wash my heart in the blood."

4. We here see an altar; upon its table are a small rood or crucifix with S. Mary and S. John, two candlesticks, having prickets for the wax-lights, the outspread corporal cloth, upon which stands the chalice, and under which, in front and not at the right side, lies the paten somewhat hidden. At the foot of this altar kneels the maiden, clad in blue, and wearing on her head a plain, closely-fitting linen cap, like that yet occasionally worn at church in Belgium, by females of the middle classes,—and the priest who is saying mass there is giving her Communion. The priest's alb is ornamented with crimson apparels on its cuffs and lower front hem, inscribed with the word "haus," house, is well rendered. The inscriptions above are, as elsewhere, mutilated, so that much of their meaning is lost; but they run thus,—"Wer he versorget mich mit Gottes trew das bitten ich;" "If not procure me the love of God that I pray for."—"Emphang in trewen den waren Crist dmit dyn;" "Receive with fidelity the very Christ in order"

5. A nunnery, just outside of which stands its lady-abbess, clothed in a white habit, black hood, and white linen wimple about her throat. In her right hand she bears a gold crozier, from which hangs that peculiar napkin, two of which are in this collection, Nos. 8279, and 8662. Behind stands an aged nun, and, as if in the passage and seen through the cloister windows, are two lay sisters, known as such by the black scapular. In front of the abbess stands the young maiden dressed in pink, with her waiting woman all in white, in attendance on her. Upon the scrolls are these sentences,—"Dez hymels ey port Godez vor (m)eyn husz disz ist;" "A gate of heaven—God's and mine house this is."—"Kom trew Christ wol. p.. eidt nym dy Kron dy dir Got hat bereit."—"Come, true Christian well take the crown which God has prepared for thee."

Though but a poor specimen of the loom, this piece gives us scraps of an obsolete dialect of the mediæval German, not Flemish, language.