the various persons required for the work. Each tapestry woven
had a directing artist, as the design was of primary importance. This
man had the power to select the silks and wools for the work, that
they might suit his eye as to colour. But there was also a _chef
d'atelier_ who was an artist weaver, and he directed this matter and
all others when the artist of the cartoons was not present. Under him
were the tapissiers who did the actual weaving, and under these,
again, were the apprentices, who began as boys and served three years
before being allowed to try their hands at a "'prentice job" or essay
at finished work.

WEAVERS

The word weaver means so little in these days that it is necessary to
consider what were the conditions exacted of the weavers of tapestries
in the time of tapestry's highest perfection. A tapissier was an
artist with whom a loom took place of an easel, and whose brush was a
shuttle, and whose colour-medium was thread instead of paints. This
places him on a higher plane than that of mere weaver, and makes the
term tapissier seem fitter. Much liberty was given him in copying
designs and choosing colours. In the Middle Ages, when the Gothic
style prevailed, the master-weaver needed often no other cartoon for
his work than his own sketches enlarged from the miniatures found in
the luxurious missals of the day. These historic books were the
luxuries of kings, were kept with the plate and jewels, so precious
were considered their exquisitely painted scenes in miniature. From
them the master-weaver drew largely for such designs as _The Seven
Deadly Sins_ and other "morality" subjects.

Master-weavers were many in the best years of tapestry weaving;
indeed, a man must have attained the dignity and ability of that
position before being able to produce those marvels of skill which
were woven between 1475 and 1575 in Flanders, France and Italy. Their
aids, the apprentices, pique the fancy, as Puck harnessed to labour
might do. They were probably as mischievous, as shirking, as
exasperating as boys have ever known how to be, but those little
unwilling slaves of art in the Middle Ages make an appeal to the
imagination more vivid than that of the shabby lunch-box boy of
to-day.

DYERS

Accessory to the weavers, and almost as important, were the dyers who
prepared the thread for use. The conscientiousness of their work cries
out for recognition when the threads they dyed are almost unaltered in
co