the dead warriors on the battle-field; this they do by turning the tunic inside out and pulling it off at the head, and the resulting attitudes of the victims are quaint and realistic in the extreme!  The border has been appropriately described as “a layer of dead men.”  In the tenth and eleventh centuries one of the regular petitions in the Litany was “From the fury of the Normans Good Lord Deliver us.”

The Bayeux Tapestry was designated, in 1746, as “the noblest monument in the world relating to our old English History.”  It has passed through most trying vicissitudes, having been used in war time as a canvas covering to a transport wagon, among other experiences.  For centuries this precious treasure was neglected and not understood.  In his “Tour” M. Ducarel states:  “The priests... to whom we addressed ourselves for a sight of this remarkable piece of antiquity, knew nothing of it; the circumstance only of its being annually hung up in their church led them to understand what we wanted, no person then knowing that the object of our inquiries any ways related to the Conqueror.”  This was in the nineteenth century.

Anglo-Saxon women spent much of their time in embroidering.  Edith, Queen of Edward the Confessor, was quite noted for her needlework, which was sometimes used to decorate the state robes of the king.

Formerly there existed at Ely Cathedral a work very like the Bayeux Tapestry, recording the deeds of the heroic Brihtnoth, the East Saxon, who was slain in 991, fighting the Danish forces.  His wife rendered his history in needlework, and presented it to Ely.  Unhappily there are no remains of this interesting monument now existing.  The nearest thing to the Bayeux Tapestry in general texture and style is perhaps a twelfth century work in the Cathedral at Gerona, a little over four yards square, which is worked in crewels on linen, and is ornamented with scenes of an Oriental and primitive character, taken mainly from the story of Genesis.  These tapestries come under the head of needlework.  The tapestries made on looms proceed upon a different principle, and are woven instead of embroidered.

Two kinds of looms were used under varying conditions in different places; high warp looms, or Haute Lisse, and low warp looms, known as Basse Lisse.

The general method of making tapestries on a high warp loom has been much the same for many centuries.  The warp is stretched vertically in two sets, every other thread being first forward and then back in the setting.  M. Lacordaire, late Director of the Gobelins, writes as follows:  “The workman takes a spindle filled with worsted or silk... he stops off the weft thread and fastens it to the warp, to the left of the space to be occupied by the colour he has in hand; then, by passing his left hand between the back and the front threads, he separates those that are to be covered with colours; with his right hand, having passed it through the same threads, he