A child’s bedquilt was found mentioned in an inventory of furniture at the Priory of Durham, in 1446, which was embroidered in the four corners with the Evangelistic symbols.  In the “Squier of Lowe Degree,” a fifteenth century romance, there is allusion to a bed, of which the head sheet is described “with diamonds set and rubies bright.”  The king of England, in 1388, refers, in a letter, to “a bed of gold cloth.”  Wall hangings in bedrooms were also most elaborate, and the effect of a chamber adorned with gold and needlework must have been fairly regal.  An embroiderer named Delobel made a set of furnishings for the bedroom of Louis XIV. the work upon which occupied three years.  The subject was the Triumph of Venus.

In South Kensington Museum there is a fourteenth century linen cloth of German workmanship, upon which occurs the legend of the unicorn, running for protection to a maiden.  An old Bestiary describes how the unicorn, or as it is there called, the “monocerus,” “is an animal which has one horn on its head:  it is caught by means of a virgin.”  The unicorn and virgin, with a hunter in pursuit, is quite a favourite bit of symbolism in the middle ages.

Another interesting piece of German embroidery in South Kensington is a table cloth, worked on heavy canvas, in heraldic style:  long decorative inscriptions embellish the corners.  A liberal translation of these verses is given by Dr. Rock, some of the sentences being quaint and interesting to quote.  Evidently the embroideress indulged in autobiography in the following:  “And she, to honour the esquire her husband, wished to adorn and increase his house furniture, and there has worked, with her own hand, this and still many other pretty cloths, to her memory.”  And in another corner, “Now follows here my own birthday.  When one wrote 1565 my mother’s heart was gladdened by my first cry.  In the year 1585 I gave birth my self to a daughter.  Her name is Emilia Catharina, and she has been a proper and praiseworthy child.”  Then, to her children the following address is directed:  “Do not forget your prayers in the morning.  And be temperate in your pleasures.  And make yourselves acquainted with the Word of God....  I beseech you to be sincere in all matters.  That will make you great and glorious.  Honour everybody according to his station:  it will make you honourably known.  You, my truly beloved sons, beware of fiery wines... you, my truly beloved daughters, preserve and guard your honour, and reflect before you do anything:  many have been led into evil by acting first and thinking afterwards.”  In another compartment, a lament goes up in which she deplores the death of her husband.  “His age was sixty and eight years,” she says.  “The dropsy has killed him.  I, his afflicted Anna Blickin von Liechtenperg who was left behind, have related it with my hand in this cloth, that might be known to my children this greater sorrow which God has sent me.”  The cloth is a naive and unusual record of German home life.