Savonarola reproved the Florentine nuns for employing their valuable time in manufacturing “gold laces with which to adorn persons and houses.”  The Florentine gold lace was very popular in England, in the days of Henry VIII., and later the art was taken up by the “wire-drawers” of England, and a native industry took the place of the imported article.  Among prohibited gowns in Florence was one owned by Donna Francesca degli Albizi, “a black mantle of raised cloth:  the ground is yellow, and over it are woven birds, parrots, butterflies, red and white roses, and many figures in vermilion and green, with pavilions and dragons, and yellow and black letters and trees, and many other figures of various colours, the whole lined with cloth in hues of black and vermilion.”  As one reads this description, it seems as though the artistic sense as much as conscientious scruples might have revolted and led to its banishment!

Costumes for tournaments were also lavish in their splendour.  In 1467 Benedetto Salutati ordered made for such a pageant all the trappings for two horses, worked in two hundred pounds of silver by Pollajuolo; thirty pounds of pearls were also used to trim the garments of the sergeants.  No wonder Savonarola was enthusiastic in his denunciation of such extravagance.

Henry VIII. had “a pair of hose of purple silk and Venice gold, woven like a caul.”  For one of his favoured lady friends, also, there is an item, of a certain sum paid, for one pound of gold for embroidering a nightgown.

The unrivalled excellence of English woollen cloths was made manifest at an early period.  There was a fabric produced at Norwich of such superiority that a law was passed prohibiting monks from wearing it, the reason being that it was considered “smart enough for military men!” This was in 1422.  The name of Worsted was given to a certain wool because it was made at Worsted, a town in Norfolk; later the “worsted thread” was sold for needleworkers.

Ladies made their own gold thread in the Middle Ages by winding a fine flat gold wire, scarcely of more body than a foil, around a silk thread.

Patches were embroidered into place upon such clothes or vestments as were torn:  those who did this work were as well recognized as the original designers, and were called “healers” of clothes!

Embroidered bed hangings were very much in order in mediaeval times in England.  In the eleventh century there lived a woman who had emigrated from the Hebrides, and who had the reputation for witchcraft, chiefly based upon the unusually exquisite needlework on her bed curtains!  The name of this reputed sorceress was Thergunna.  Bequests in important wills indicate the sumptuous styles which were usual among people of position.  The Fair Maid of Kent left to her son her “new bed curtains of red velvet, embroidered with ostrich feathers of silver, and heads of leopards of gold,” while in 1380 the Earl of March bequeathed his “large bed of black satin embroidered with white lions and gold roses, and the escutcheons of the arms of Mortimer and Ulster.”  This outfit must have resembled a Parisian “first class” funeral!  The widow of Henry II. slept in a sort of mourning couch of black velvet, which must have made her feel as if she too were laid out for her own burial!