Polydore Vergil, in the sixteenth century, gave hangings embroidered with his arms for the stalls at Wells. Those given by Prior Goldstone to Canterbury are now at Aix. The screen hangings used for shelter and ornament at Exeter represent the story of the Duke of Burgundy, and were blazoned with the arms of the Courtenays. At Peterborough, in the transept, tapestry with the deliverance of St. Peter out of prison, of the time of Henry VIII., is the solitary relic of sixteen pieces used on festivals, and suspended till 1643 from the choir triforium. At Manchester, there is tapestry (c. 1661). From Christmas to Purification, from Easter Eve to the octave of Trinity Sunday, from the Assumption to Michaelmas, and on St. Chad's Day, Lichfield was adorned with silken hangings and cloths. At York, Archbishop Lamplugh gave tapestries for hanging the reredos. At Westminster, tapestries were hung round the easternmost bays at the coronation of Charles I., and remained till the last century. Until 1765, the bays between the pillars were hung with tapestry at Carlisle. The tapestry hangings remained at Norwich till 1740.—(Walcott.)

Of domestic tapestry examples remain in most of the old mansions of the kingdom.

CHAPTER XII.

AMONG PERSONAL ORNAMENTS.

ADORNMENT for the body, even when dress was wholly unknown or only partly used, has ever been a characteristic of the human race. At the present hour the Andamanese women, though entirely devoid of clothing, wear a chaplet or string of bones round the head; while other nude races will hang some rude ornament to the ear or nose, or round the neck, arm, or leg. As it is with them now, so it was with the earliest inhabitants of our island, and when dress became known, rude though it was, ornaments of one kind or other became more frequent. Necklaces, pendants, armlets, and one thing or other were worn by our Celtic foremothers at a very early period, and to these, and some of the adornments belonging to a later period, a half-hour may pleasantly be devoted.

Necklaces formed of jet (or cannel coal) and bone, or jet only, or amber, were worn by the ancient Britons, and are now and then found in the barrows

of that period. The beads of which they are composed vary considerably in form and in size. Fig. 268 is a necklace from Middleton Moor; the beads

punctures. The cist containing the skeleton of the female who during life had been adorned with this elaborately beautiful necklace is shown in Fig. 269. Another good example consisted of 80 pieces, 72 of

which were long jet beads, two were cylindrical, also of jet, and the remaining six were perforated plates of bones, ornamented with punctures. A necklace of different character, from Fimber,* consisted of 171 laminæ or small discs of jet, and a triangular pendant, or centre, of the same material.

The long beads were sometimes cut so as to give the effect of several small round ones. A necklace

of similar character in design as Fig. 268, from Assynt, is entirely of jet, and has the perforated plates ornamented with minute spots of gold. Another of like general design from Pen-y-Bonc consisted of forty-eight long beads, two cylindrical ones, and seven perforated plates, all of jet or cannel coal. Many examples of these interesting articles are described in Evans's "Ancient Stone Implements," and in my own "Grave-Mounds and their Contents." On a fine fragment of Roman sculpture preserved in Lincoln Cathedral, and which "is, no doubt, intended for the portrait of a lady who lived in the ancient Roman town, and

* See the "Reliquary," vol. ix. p. 65, for an account of this.

is interesting as an illustration of the costume of a British female of her age," a necklace of this identical form is seen worn. Necklaces formed of shells were also worn.

Necklaces were much worn during RomanoBritish times, and were formed of beads of glass more or less ornamented, of clay, of stones, and other materials. Some examples of these beads are given in Figs. 249 and 250, as also a string of beads said to have been found with undoubted Roman remains.

Among the Anglo-Saxons necklaces were abundantly worn. The greater part of the beads which are found are composed of glass, transparent and opaque; variegated clays of different colours; and of amber. Less frequently, beads of amethystine quartz, of crystal, and of other rare natural substances are found. Sometimes the beads are formed singly, and at other times they are in couplets or triplets. Beads of metal-gold and silver-and of stones set in the same precious metals, have also been exhumed. Sometimes amethysts and other stones, set in gold and pendent from a gold band, have been found; and not unfrequently a cross of filigree work, a circular bulla, or a Roman or Merovingian gold coin, was suspended to the necklace. Beads mounted on rings, or, more properly speaking, threaded on rings, are of not unfrequent occurrence, and appear, in many instances, to have been intended for the ears. Beads from the Kentish barrows are perhaps the most extensive in number,