eare's time the bird was usually put into a pie, the head,
richly gilt, being placed at one end of the dish, and the tail, spread
out in its full circumference, at the other. And alas! for the
degeneracy of those days. The solemn and knightly adjuration of former
times had even then dwindled into the absurd oath which Shakspeare
puts into the mouth of Justice Shallow:--

"By _cock_ and _pye_, Sir, you shall not away to night."

In some of the French tapestries birds of all shapes, natural and
unnatural, of all sizes and in all positions, form very important
parts of the subjects themselves; though this remark is hardly in
place here, as the tapestries are of later date, and not solely
needlework. To return, however: mention is made in an old chronicle of
_antiquitas Congregatio Ancilarum, quae opere plumario ornamenta
ecclesiam laborabant_. It has been a subject of much discussion
whether this Opus Plumarium signified some arrangement of real
feathers, or merely fanciful embroidery in imitation of them.
Lytlyngton, Abbot of Croyland, in Edward the Fourth's time, gave to
his church nine copes of cloth of gold, exquisitely feathered.[17]
This was perhaps embroidered imitation. A vestment which Cnute the
Great presented to this abbey was made of silk embroidered with eagles
of gold. Richard Upton, elected abbot in 1417, gave silk embroidered
with falcons for copes; and about the same time John Freston gave a
rich robe of Venetian blue embroidered with golden eagles. These were
positively imitations merely; yet they evince the prevailing taste for
feathered work, and, as we have shown, feathers themselves were much
used. It is recorded that Pope Paul the Third sent King Pepin a
present of a mantle interwoven with peacocks' feathers.

And from whatever circumstance the reverence for peacocks' feathers
originated,[18] it is not, even yet, quite exploded. There are some
lingering remnants of a superstitious regard for them which may have
had their origin in these very times and circumstances. For how
surely, where they are rigidly traced, are our country customs, our
vulgar ceremonies, our apparently absurd and senseless usages, found
to emanate from some principle or superstition of general and
prevailing adoption. In some counties we cannot enter a farm-house
where the mantel-piece in the parlour is not decorated with a diadem
of peacock feathers, which are carefully dusted and preserved. And in
houses of more assumin