Embroidery is usually regarded as strictly a woman’s craft, but in the Middle Ages the leading needleworkers were often men.  The old list of names given by Louis Farcy has almost an equal proportion of workers of both sexes.  But the finest work was certainly accomplished by the conscientious dwellers in cloisters, and the nuns devoted their vast leisure in those days to this art.  Fuller observes:  “Nunneries were also good shee-schools, wherein the girls of the neighbourhood were taught to read and work... that the sharpnesse of their wits and suddennesse of their conceits (which even their enemies must allow unto them!) might by education be improved into a judicious solidity.”  In some of these schools the curriculum included “Reading and sewing, threepence a week:  a penny extra for manners.”  An old thirteenth century work, called the “Kleine Heldenbuch,” contains a verse which may be thus translated: 

  “Who taught me to embroider in a frame with silk? 
   And to draw and design the wild and tame
   Beasts of the forest and field? 
   Also to picture on plain surface: 
   Round about to place golden borders,
   A narrow and a broader one,
   With stags and hinds lifelike.”

A study of historic embroidery should be preceded by a general knowledge of the principle stitches employed.

One of the simplest forms was chain stitch, in which one stitch was taken through the loop of the stitch just laid.  In the Middle Ages it was often used.  Sometimes, when the material was of a loose weave, it was executed by means of a little hook—­the probable origin of crochet.

Tapestry stitch, of which one branch is cross-stitch, was formed by laying close single stitches of uniform size upon a canvas specially prepared for this work.

[Illustration:  EMBROIDERY ON CANVAS, 16TH CENTURY, SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM]

Fine embroidery in silk was usually executed in long smooth stitches of irregular length, which merged into each other.  This is generally known as satin stitch, for the surface of the work is that of a satin texture when the work is completed.  This was frequently executed upon linen, and then, when the entire surface had been hidden by the close silk stitches, it was cut out and transferred on a brocade background, this style of rendering being known as applique.  Botticelli recommended this work as most durable and satisfactory:  it is oftenest associated with church embroidery.  A simple applique was also done by cutting out pieces of one material and applying them to another, hiding the edge-joinings by couching on a cord.  As an improvement upon painted banners to be used in processions, Botticelli introduced this method of cutting out and resetting colours upon a different ground.  As Vasari says:  “This he did that the colors might not sink through, showing the tint of the cloth on each side.”  But Dr. Rock points out that it is hardly fair to earlier artificers to give the entire credit for this method of work to Botticelli, since such cut work or applique was practised in Italy a hundred years before Botticelli was born!