One of the most ancient crafts. It was practised by the early Egyptians, it is mentioned in the Pentateuch - for instance, Exodus xxvi. 36 -and it reached a high state of perfection in Oriental countries. In mediaeval times it was largely encouraged by the Christian Churches, East and West. The Saracenic art was of a very high order, and probably Italian needlework owes much of its beauty to that source. The most famous of all needlework was the Opus Anglicanum which carried the renown of English stitchery all over Christendom, and has left an unapproachable relic in the Syon Cope at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Its outstanding characteristics were chain-stitch worked in circular lines with the faces in relief and the draperies in a kind of featherstitch. The long social disturbance of the Wars of the Roses caused a decline from which English needlework never recovered, and that of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries follows the Italian methods very closely. Queen Mary II. and Queen Anne both encouraged the fashion for elaborate needlework, and it persisted until nearly the end of the eighteenth century, as far as furniture coverings were concerned, when tapestry took its place.