chnique
was lost otherwheres, so that later, when Italy, Germany and England
wished to catch up again their ancient work, they were obliged to ask
instruction of the Franco-Flemish high-warp workers.[5]

It is not possible in the light of history for either Paris or Arras
to claim the invention of so nearly a prehistoric art as that of
high-warp tapestry, and there is much discussion as to which of these
cities should be given the honour of superiority and priority in the
work of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries.

Factories existed at both places and each had its rules of manufacture
which regulated the workman and stimulated its excellence. The
factories at Paris, however, were more given to producing copies of
carpets brought from the East by returning crusaders, and these were
intended for floors. The craftsmen were sometimes alluded to as
_tapissiers Sarrazinois_, named, as is easily seen, after the Saracens
who played so large a part in the adventurous voyages of the day. But
in Paris in 1302, by instigation of the Provost Pierre le Jumeau,
there were associated with these tapissiers or workmen, ten others,
for the purpose of making high-warp tapestry, and these were bound
with all sorts of oaths not to depart from the strict manner of
proceeding in this valued handicraft.

Indeed, the Articles of Faith, nor the Vows of the Rosicrucians,
could not be more inviolable than the promises demanded of the early
tapestry workers. In some cases--notably a factory of Brussels,
Brabant, in the Sixteenth Century--there were frightful penalties
attendant upon the breaking of these vows, like the loss of an ear or
even of a hand.

The records of the undertaking of the Provost Pierre le Jumeau in
introducing the high-warp (_haute lisse_) workers into the factory
where Sarrazinois and other fabrics were produced, means only that the
improvement had begun, but not that Paris had never before practised
an art so ancient.

The name of Nicolas Bataille is one of the earliest which we can
surround with those props of records that please the searcher for
exact detail.[6] He was both manufacturer and merchant and was a man
of Paris in the reign of Charles VI, a king who patronised him so well
that the workshops of Paris benefited largely. The king's brother
becoming envious, tried to equal him in personal magnificence and gave
orders almost as large as those of the king. Philip the Hardy, uncle
of the king, also employed this