Note 128 — Chapter III

See Bock’s “L. Gewänder,” p. 129; Gori, “Thes. Dipt.” ii. pp. 20, 275; Marquardt, “Handbuch Röm. Alt.” vii. pp. 527-31 (Eng. Trans.). Authorities differ in describing the Chrysoclavus. Sir G. Birdwood calls it a button pattern (“Indian Arts,” vol. ii. p. 241). The “Chrysoclavus” was the name given to the palmated or triumphal pattern with which the consular robes are invariably embroidered in the Roman Consular ivories at Zurich, Halberstadt, and in the South Kensington Museum. The tenacious life of this pattern is curiously shown in the way it appears in the fifteenth century on Italian playing-cards. (See “Cartes à Jouer,” an anonymous French book in the print-room of the British Museum.) The kings and knaves wear the Byzantine humeral, and the Chrysoclavus pattern is carved on their chairs. Till lately English playing-cards showed the same dress-pattern. I shall discuss the Latin Clavus and the Chrysoclavus amongst ecclesiastical embroideries, pp. 308, 336 (post).