reaches to the left side, for the spindle which he brings back to the right; his left hand, then, seizing hold of the warp, brings the back threads to the front, while the right hand thrusts the spindle back to the point whence it started.”  When a new colour is to be introduced, the artist takes a new shuttle.  He fastens his thread on the wrong side of the tapestry (the side on which he works) and repeats the process just described on the strings stretched up and down before him, like harp strings; the work is commenced at the lower part, and worked upwards, so that, when this strictly “hand weaving” is accomplished, it may be crowded down into place by means of a kind of ivory comb, so adjusted that the teeth fit between the warp threads.  In tapestry weaving, the warp could be of any inferior but strong thread, for, by the nature of the work, only the woof was visible, the warp being quite hidden and incorporated into the texture under the close lying stitches which met and dove-tailed over it.

The worker on a low loom does not see the right side of the work at all, unless he lifts the loom, which is a difficult undertaking.  On a high loom, it is only necessary for the worker to go around to the front in order to see exactly what he is doing.  The design is put below the work, however, in a low loom, and the work is thus practically traced as the tapestry proceeds.

On account of the limitations of the human arm in reaching, the low warp tapestry requires more seams than does that made on the “haute lisse” loom, the pieces being individually smaller.  One whole division of the workmen in tapestry establishments used to be known as the “fine drawers,” whose whole duty was to join the different pieces together, and also to repair worn tapestries, inserting new stitches for restorations.  Tapestry repairing was a necessary craft; at Rheims some tapestries were restored by Jacquemire de Bergeres; these hangings had been “much damaged by dogs, rats, mice, and other beasts.”  It is not stated where they had been hung!

High warp looms have been known in Europe certainly since the ninth century.  There is an order extant, from the Bishop of Auxerre, who died in 840, for some “carpets for his church.”  In 890 the monks of Saumur were manufacturing tapestries.  Beautiful textiles had been used to ornament the Church of St. Denis as early as 630, but there is no proof that these were actually tapestries.  There is a legend that in 732 a tapestry establishment existed in the district between Tours and Poitiers.  At Beauvais, too, the weavers of arras were settled at the time of the Norman ravages.