d radiant
hues. This was a robe of an amber colour,[16] _having peacocks_.

Pope Leo the Fourth had a hanging worked with the needle, having the
portrait of a man seated upon a peacock. Pope Stefano the Fifth had
four magnificent hangings for the great altar, one of which was
wrought in peacocks. We find in romance that there was a high
emblematical value attached to peacocks; not so high, however, as to
prevent our ancestors from eating them; but it is difficult to account
for their being so frequently introduced in designs professedly
religious. In romance and chivalry they were supereminent. "To mention
the peacock (says M. Le Grand) is to write its panegyrick." Many noble
families bore the peacock as their crest; and in the Provencal Courts
of Love the successful poet was crowned with a wreath formed of them.
The coronation present given to the Queen of our Henry the Third, by
her sister, the Queen of France, was a large silver peacock, whose
train was set with sapphires and pearls, and other precious jewels,
wrought with silver. This elegant piece of jewellery was used as a
reservoir for sweet waters, which were forced out of its beak into a
basin of white silver chased.

As the knights associated these birds with all their ideas of fame,
and made their most solemn vows over them, the highest honours were
conferred on them. Their flesh is celebrated as the "nutriment of
lovers," and the "viand of worthies;" and a peacock was always the
most distinguished dish at the solemn banquets of princes or nobles.
On these occasions it was served up on a golden dish, and carried to
table by a lady of rank, attended by a train of high-born dames and
damsels, and accompanied by music. If it was on the occasion of a
tournament, the successful knight always carved it, so regulating his
portions that each individual, be the company ever so numerous, might
taste. For the oath, the knight rising from his seat and extending his
hand over the bird, vowed some daring enterprise of arms or love:--"I
vow to God, to the blessed Virgin, to the dames, and to the _peacock_,
&c. &c."

In later and less imaginative times, the peacock, though still a
favourite dish at a banquet, seems to have been regarded more from its
affording "good eating" than from any more refined attribute.
Massinger speaks of

"the carcases
Of three fat wethers bruised for gravy, to
Make sauce for a single peacock."

In Shaksp