Page:The Greek and Eastern churches.djvu/613

Rh essentially Byzantine, was also developed by the Copts. About this time also they began to produce the highly wrought marble carving known as Opus Alexandrinum. Mr. Lethaby has recently pointed out the remarkable resemblance between the Coptic textiles of the fifth and sixth centuries, in which knotted and plaited work is used freely, and old Saxon ornamentation. Not only may Coptic vestments devised in this style have found their way to Britain, but the flight of the monks, first before the Persians and later before the Arabs, may have resulted in some of them coming themselves as far west Mr. Lethaby remarks: "Such a theory would account for a sudden appearance of this type over a wide field. The fact that the earliest examples of Arabic silks made in Egypt (seventh and eighth centuries) are ornamented with bands of braided patterns which are obviously a continuation of the Coptic designs, goes to show how powerful the tradition was. The time of Theodore, the eastern Archbishop of Canterbury (669–690), would be particularly favourable for the migration of monks and artists from the Orient. Only a few years after the death of Theodore, the Lindisfarne book was written and decorated, and about the same time knot-work first appears in Italian stone carving."

At the later period when Saracenic architecture began to develop as a new order astounding the world with its delicate beauty, the actual work was primarily dependent on Greek and Coptic designing and handicraft. Mosques were planned by Greek architects, and their fine decorative work executed by Coptic craftsmen. The Arabs were warriors and rulers; they were not builders and artists. Their natural home was the desert tent, and when they indulged in the luxury of cities they were dependent on the skill of the conquered peoples whom they forced into their service. At first pillars were torn from Christian churches to be used in the construction of Moslem mosques.