for a long time but in the sixth century two Greek monks, while in
China, studied the method of rearing silk worms and obtaining the
silk, and on their departure are said to have concealed the eggs of
silk worms in their staves. They are accredited with introducing the
manufacture of silk into Greece and hence into Western Europe. After
that Greece, Persia and Asia Minor made this material, and Byzantium
was famed for its silks, the actual making of which got into the hands
of the Jews and was for a long time controlled by them.

Metals (gold, silver and copper) were flattened out and cut into
narrow strips for winding around cotton twists. These were the gold
and silver threads used in weaving. The Moors and Spaniards instead of
metals used strips of gilded parchment for weaving with the silk.

We know that England was weaving silk in the thirteenth century, and
velvets seem to have been used at a very early date. The introduction
of silk and velvet into different countries had an immediate and
much-needed influence in civilising the manners of society. It is hard
to realise that in the thirteenth century when Edward I married
Eleanor of Castile, the highest nobles of England when resting at
their ease, stretched at full length on the straw-covered floors of
baronial halls, and jeered at the Spanish courtiers who hung the walls
and stretched the floors of Edward's castle with silks in preparation
for his Spanish bride.

The progress of art and culture was always from the East and moved
slowly. Do not go so far back as the thirteenth century. James I of
England owned no stockings when he was James VI of Scotland, and had
to borrow a pair in which to receive the English ambassador.