Old England: A Pictorial Museum (page 23/52)

254.—Saxon Emblems of the Month of July

In the main scene here we see three men with sickles harvesting wheat as tall as they are, and another man standing on a rock with a long stick or cane and blowing a bugle, presumably a foreman. Four other men work at tying the wheat into sheaves, or bundles, and putting them into a cart. In the far background we [...] [more...] [$]

Ornate Early Victorian Border

Strictly speaking this border is from 1840 or earlier so pre-Victorian, and shows the transition from natural to stylized ornament. [more...] [$]

283.—Royal Costume, and the Harness and Equipment of Horses. (Cotton M.S.)

The Three Kings, the figures of legend that are derived from the story of the wise men, astronomers or astrologers who visited the infant Jesus. The Gospels do not say how many of them there were, but names three of them, and tradition says that there were exactly three. Some traditions make two of them white and one black, although since Jesus was a Palestinian Jew this part seems a bit improbable. At any rate here we have three kings with crowns riding horses with bits and stirrups, anachronistically.

“The picture history of the manners and customs of a remote period is perhaps more interesting and instructive, is certainly more to be relied on, than any written description. It is difficult for a writer not to present the forms and hues of passing things as they are seen through the glass of his own imagination. But the draftsman, especially in a rude stage of art, is in a great degree a faithful copyist of what he sees before him. The paintings and sculptures of Egypt furnish the best commentary upon many portions of the Scripture record. The coloured walls of the ruined houses of Pompeii exhibit the domestic life of the Roman people with much greater distinctness than the incidental notices of their poets and historians. This is especially the case as regards the illuminations which embellish many Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. Some of these were not intended by the draftsmen of those days to convey any notion of how the various ranks around them were performing the ordinary occupations of life: they were chiefly for the purpose of representing, historically as it were, events and personages with which the people were familiarised by their spiritual instructors. But, knowing nothing of those refinements of art which demand accuracy of costume, and caring nothing for what we call anachronisms, the limners of the Anglo-Saxon chronicles and paraphrases painted the Magi in the habits of their own kings, riding on horses with the equipment of the time [more...] [$]

284.—The Harp, Accompanied by Other Instruments (cotton MS.).

[The Anglo-Saxons] put their own harp into the hands of the Royal Psalmist (Fig. 284) [more...] [$]

285.—Saxon Cloaks, Plain and Embroidered Tunics, and Shoes. (Cotton MS.)

The Norman historians record their excellence with the needle, and their skill in embroidery. Minute descriptions of dress are not amongst the most amusing of reading, although they are highly valuable to the systematic chronicler of manners. It may be sufficient for us to point attention, first to the cloaks, the plain and embroidered tunics, and [...] [more...] [$]

286.—Costume of a Saxon Woman.

[...] the ladies wore a long and ample garment with loose sleeves (the gunna, whence our gown), over a closer-fitting one, which had tight sleeves reaching to the wrist; over these a mantle was worn by the superior classes, and a sort of hood or veil upon the head (Figs. 286, 287). Those who desire further information upon the subject of the Anglo-Saxon [...] [more...] [$]

287.—Anglo-Saxon Females

The practice of bandaging or cross-gartering the hose is indicated in many Anglo-Saxon drawings (Figs. 284, 288). Secondly, the ladies wore a long and ample garment with loose sleeves (the gunna, whence our gown), over a closer-fitting one, which had tight sleeves reaching to the wrist; over these a mantle was worn by the superior classes, and a sort [...] [more...] [$]

289.—Coffin and Grave Clothes.

An Anglo-saxon drawing of the raising of Lazarus from the dead (an early account of a zombie in the Bible?), showing the Saxon funeral clothes and coffin. One of the two figures on the left is Jesus. [more...] [$]