Sudden Death

On the Vestments of the Utopians

All the people appear in the temple in white garments. The priests’ vestments are parti-colored, more wonderful for their craft and form than for their materials. They are neither embroidered with gold thread nor set with precious stones, but are composed of the plumes of several birds, laid together with so much art and so neatly that they are greater in value than the richest cloth. In the ordering and placing of these plumes some dark mysteries are represented.

THOMAS MORE, Utopia, 1516