Note 292 — Chapter V

“Purpura” is supposed to mean crimson velvet. It came, like “cramoisi,” to be a name for a tissue. Fr. Michell quotes velvet of Vermeil-cramoisi, “violet and blue cramoisi, and pourpre of divers colours,” but he says he never met with “pourpre blanche.” Yule, ed. 1875, i. p. 67. Plano Carpini (p. 755) says the courtiers of Karakorum were clad in “white purpura;” and that on the first day of the great festival in honour of the inauguration of Kuyuk Khan, all the Mogul nobles were clad in pourpre blanche, the second day in ruby purple, and the third in blue purple: on the fourth day they appeared in Baudichin (cloth of gold). (Yule, “Marco Polo,” vol. i. p. 376.) White purple is also named in the inventories of Sta. Maria Maggiore at Rome, and those of Notre Dame in Paris. “Histoire du Tissu Ancien, à l’Exposition de l’Union Générale des Arts Décoratifs.”