Another minor branch of art, in which England during the thirteenth century far surpassed the rest of the world, was the art of embroidering delicate pictures in silk, especially for ecclesiastical vestments. The most famous embroidered vestments now preserved in various places in Italy are the handiwork of English embroiderers between the years 1250 and 1300, though their authorship is not as a rule recognized by their present possessors[104]. The embroidered miniatures on these marvellous pieces of needlework resemble closely in style the illuminations in fine Anglo-Norman manuscripts of the thirteenth century, and in many cases have obviously been copied from manuscript miniatures.
There is, in short, ample evidence to show that the Anglo-Norman art of the thirteenth century, in almost all branches, and more especially on English soil, had reached a higher pitch of perfection, aesthetic and technical, than had been then attained by any other country in the world. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, owing largely to the Black Death and the protracted Wars of the Roses, the arts of England fell into the background, but it should not be forgotten that there was one period, from about 1260 to 1300 or 1320, when England occupied the foremost place in the artistic history of the world.
With regard to the Anglo-Norman manuscripts of the thirteenth and early part of the fourteenth century, the most remarkable class, both for beauty of execution and for the extraordinary number that were produced, consists of copies of the _Vulgate_, richly decorated with a large number of initial letters containing minute miniatures of figure subjects[105].
These Bibles vary in size from large quartos or folios down to the most minute _codex_ with writing of microscopic character. In the latter it appears to have been the special aim of the scribe to get the whole of the _Vulgate_, including the _Apocrypha_, the _Prologue of St Jerome_, and an explanatory _list of Hebrew names_, into the smallest possible space. The thinnest uterine vellum of the finest quality is used[106], the text is frequently much contracted, and the characters are of almost microscopic size[107]. In these smallest Bibles the initials are mostly ornamented with conventional leaves and grotesque dragon monsters; but in the larger manuscripts the initials at the beginning of every book, about 82 in number, are illuminated with a miniature picture of the most exquisite workmanship, a perfect model of beauty and refined skill. The drawing of the faces and hair is specially beautiful, being executed with a fine, crisp line with the most precise and delicate touch, worthy of a Greek artist of the best period. The drawing of the hair and beard of the male figures is most masterly, with waving curls full of grace and spirit, in spite of the extreme minuteness of the scale.