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The fourth part of "A History of Britain", set in the thirteenth Century, looks at the often bloody relationships as a confident and powerful England sought to dominate its neighbours.

National identity was demonstrated through artistic expression as well as politics and conquest. In the thirteenth and fourteenth century, English embroidery called Opus Anglicanum (the Latin for English work) in contemporary documents was one art form for which the English became particularly famous. In 1864 the Victoria and Albert Museum bought a splendid example of this type of embroidery, the Syon cope, named after Syon Abbey in Middlesex where it was kept by nuns in the sixteenth century. It was made for a priest of high rank, possibly a bishop, between about 1300 and 1320. The cope, a semi-circular cape, is the outer garment worn by priests for special ceremonies and still used today, worn for example by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Clerics from the wealthiest churches and cathedrals had robes as fine as any worn by nobles and princes. These most luxurious ecclesiastical vestments worn by influential and often very worldly priests were highly decorated with Biblical scenes and saints in embroidery and sometimes jewels. It is difficult to comprehend in an age when embroidery is generally considered to be simply a hobby, that fantastic sums of money were spent then on embroidered clothing and furnishings by rich prelates of church and state. These were second only in expense to goldsmiths work and jewellery and held in the same high regard.

The Syon Cope has scenes from the Life of Christ and the Virgin Mary, with figures of the apostles embroidered in costly silk, silver-gilt and silver thread that entirely covers the linen background material. The figures are framed in overlapping units based on the quatrefoil (meaning having four lobes), one of the forms popular in English architecture in the reigns of Edward I and his son Edward II. The use of architectural shapes, which also appear in stained glass and other artefacts, was part of a lively exchange of influences and design between the arts in England at this time. English embroidery was described as 'acu pictura', the Latin for painting with the needle. We can tell from the style of many of the embroideries, including the Syon Cope, that artists, possibly manuscript illuminators, were involved in their design. The charming figures of angels on the cope which decorate the areas between the main scenes have folded wings in a style similar to those found in contemporary illuminated manuscripts. The angels which stand on wheels may be based on similar motifs of angels which decorate the first letter of a Psalm in an illuminated manuscript (The Ormesby Psalter) produced by artists in East Anglia. The identification of some of the heraldic shields in the borders (orphreys) as belonging to families in the area around Thetford in Norfolk suggests that it may have been made for a religious order there, but this is by no means certain.

When new and the colours fresh and bright, the cope would have sparkled and glittered, particularly by candlelight in an impressive church or cathedral. Churchgoers and onlookers would have looked on in awe as the priests swept by in procession. This was precisely the intention as such rich embroideries made a conspicuous display of how rich and powerful the church was. Although neither artists nor embroiderers left their signatures on these vestments, they do sometimes include evidence of the owner or priest for whom they were intended. In the case of the owner or donor, this served a two-fold purpose, showing off their earthly power but also, hopefully, helping to smooth their path to heaven. The Syon Cope includes an inscription with letters which suggest that the cope was made for a priest named Peter, but there is nothing more to help identify him.

This high quality English embroidery was made of expensive imported materials and was very labour intensive. Nuns and noblewomen did a great deal of embroidery as one would expect, but large embroideries like the Syon Cope were made by highly trained professionals, both men and women. They were employed in workshops which were funded by merchants and noble patrons. It was the merchants who took the profits, not the embroiderers who received only modest payments for their work. Most workshops were in London where the necessary capital was available and which was the principal port through which the imported materials arrived. A few records show us the considerable expense of the materials in comparison with the labour involved. In 1271 Henry III paid £220 (the equivalent of about £100,000 today) for a bejewelled altar frontal while the labour for the four women who made it over a period of three years cost only £36.

Written records tell us the names of some of the individuals or families who did the embroidery. In 1307 Alexander Settere a member of a great family of embroiderers received £10 in part payment for a choir cope which cost £40 in total. Johanna Heyroun - the Heyrouns were also a professional embroidery dynasty in the City of London - supplied black vestments in 1327-8 for use in Edward III's chapel to celebrate 'the office of the dead'. These were almost certainly made for the funeral service of his murdered father Edward II.

Princes and potentates of church and state all over Europe wanted English embroidery. We can get some idea of how highly prized it was by the fact that the Vatican Inventory of 1295 lists no less than 113 examples. A small number of these survive today as do other examples in churches, cathedrals and museums. Exquisite church embroideries like the Syon Cope survived the ravages of Henry VIII's Reformation and later persecutions in England by being kept hidden or taken abroad by devout and brave Catholics. The Syon Cope was taken out of the country by Bridgettine nuns of Syon Abbey during the reign of Elizabeth I. They returned to England in about 1810 bringing the cope with them.

Edward I sent two copes to Rome, one to Pope Nicholas IV in 1291 and a second to Pope Boniface VIII in 1295 and it seems probable that one of these is a magnificent cope which survives in the Vatican today. It is of similar date and style to the Syon Cope. Diplomatic gifts of ecclesiastical embroidery by an English king emphasise its significance as a representation of high and specifically English achievement. The Syon cope would have made an equally impressive diplomatic gift.

Linda Woolley, Assistant Curator, V&A.