DERBYSHIRE TAPESTRY. 89 



Tapestry was not usually a domestic production, but the work 

 of guilds and companies working in communities under a distin- 

 guished master, whose initials usually appear in the lower margins 

 of the pictured hanging. Arras and Paris were both famous in 

 the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries for their superb productions; 

 indeed, the work of the former place was so much appreciated 

 that its name sheltered the work of many an alien loom, and the 

 word " Arras " became a generic term for all storied hangings of 

 the later middle ages. After the siege of Arras in 1477, its fame 

 declined, and many of its best masters removed to Brussels, 

 in Brabant, which from that time became the headquarters of 

 the craft. Its textiles are easily distinguished by its trade 

 mark^ — a red or brown shield, plain, between two Roman capital 

 Bs, the latter of which is often reversed in the earlier ex- 

 amples. 



As England in the early middle ages was celebrated throughout 

 Europe for its magnificent embroideries, so, without doubt, it 

 must have held sovie positio?i in the production of tapestry, 

 although at j)resent but few ascertained examples of early English 

 work are known. As early as the tenth year of Edward III. 

 (1337), two of the weavers of Brabant were encouraged to settle 

 in England, and their protection guaranteed (Cal. Rot. Pat. 2, 

 10 Ed. III., p. 126); (Rym. Foed. IV., 723). These were 

 " Willielmus de Brabant et Hanekinus de Brabant, textores de 

 partibus Brabantiae." They had settled in England, and were 

 exercising their craft in York. These men could not have been 

 common weavers — England had plenty of them of her own ; 

 (they have only recently expired in our villages with the old 

 spinning wheel) ; nor were they merely foreigners, but they were 

 men introducing some new thing, and so required special protection. 

 They had settled in York, too, the city of pageants and 

 " Mystery " Plays, — pre-eminently so. Tapestry was in great 

 request there, and they chose their home wliere their business 

 was likely to flourish. Besides, they were both from " the parts 

 of Brabant." If the record had stated expressly that they were 

 " weavers of storied hangings," the statement would have implied 



