man or a woman, for that
matter, might easily slip behind and witness conversations to which
the listener had not been invited. So it was customary on occasions of
intimate and secret converse lightly to thrust a sharpened blade
behind the curtains. If, as in the case in "Hamlet," the sword pierced
a human quarry, so much the worse for the listener who thus gained
death and lost its dignity.

Before leaving this ancient chamber it is well to impress ourselves
with the interesting fact that tapestries were originally meant to be
suspended loosely, liberally, from the upper edge only, and to fall in
folds or gentle undulations, thus gaining in decorative value and
elegance. This practice had an important effect on the design, and
also gave an appearance of movement to human figures and to foliage,
as each swayed in light folds.

When considering tapestries of the Thirteenth Century we are only
contemplating the stones of history, for the actual products of the
looms of that time are not for us; they are all gathered into museums,
public or ecclesiastic. The same might be said of tapestries of the
Fourteenth Century, and almost of the Fifteenth. But those old times
are so full of romance, that their history is worth our toying with.
It adds infinite joy to the possessing of old tapestries, and converts
museum visits into a keen chase for the elusive but fascinating
figures of the past.

Let us then absorb willingly one or two dry facts. High-warp tapestry
we have traced lightly from Egypt through Greece and Rome and, almost
losing the thread in the Middle Ages, have seen it rising a virile
industry, nursed in monasteries. It was when the stirrings of artistic
life were commencing under the Van Eycks in the North and under Giotto
and the Tuscans in the South that the weaving of tapestries reached a
high standard of production and from that time until the Nineteenth
Century has been an important artistic craft. The Thirteenth Century
saw it started, the Fourteenth saw the beginnings of important
factories, and the Fifteenth bloomed into full productions and beauty
of the style we call Gothic.

In these early times of the close of the Thirteenth Century and the
beginning of the Fourteenth, the best known high-warp factories were
centred in northern and midland provinces of France and Flanders,
Paris and Arras being the towns most famed for their productions. As
these were able to supply the rest of Europe, the skilled te