TEXT A:
From: "Medieval Craftsmen: Embroiderers," by Kay Staniland,
University of Toronto Press, 1991, pp. 46-48. ISBN: 0-8020-6915-0
Elaborate medieval embroideries were
often further enhanced by the addition of pearls and other
precious and semi-precious stones, gold or silver ornaments,
enameled plaques or, very occasionally at this period, glass
beads or discs, whilst some are almost exclusively composed
of these ornaments and might not properly be considered
as embroideries. These powerful symbols of class and wealth
were at least as widely seen in the church as in royal or
aristocratic courts: many of these rich creations were the
gift of wealthy patrons seeking influence or favors. However,
it would eventually be this very enrichment which ensured
the destruction of these pieces, for once the gold, jewels,
and pearls were removed, the ground would quickly be recycled.
So much of this work has disappeared that it can now be
difficult to envisage the extravagance involved, though
the imagination is aided by fifteenth-century paintings
which, with their naturalistic and precise approach, frequently
portray these jewel-enriched garments. Coupled with the
boldly designed and colored Italian silks and velvets the
effect must indeed have been sumptuous and impressive.
Pearls were very
popular in the Middle Ages, especially tiny seed pearls,
which were much used in place of jewels in crowns, or to
form haloes, birds, masks, or other decorative motifs. English
royal accounts of the fourteenth century reveal that these
pearls cost between £1 and £2 per ounce. Together
with a range of other, larger pearls, some colored, originating
from the East or from Scotland, they were frequently employed
upon festal or jousting garments at the French and English
courts and often massed together to form decorative motifs.
In 1345-9, for example, Edward III's armourer John de Cologne
made five hoods of white cloth for the King and his friends,
each worked with blue dancing men and fastening at the front
with buttons of large pearls. They required 2350 large pearls,
together with velvet, silk and gold thread. These richly
embroidered hoods were fashionable at the time and there
are many entries listing the expensive requirements for
them.
The mitre
from Minden, a rare and almost complete survival
from the Middle Ages, shows the technique used in an ecclesiastical
context, combined with plaques and golden ornaments, whilst
the single mask and few acorns of pearls still in place
on the Butler-Bowden cope show something of the original
richness of the embroideries.
The incorporation of gold ornaments
similarly enlivened the decoration, catching the light and
adding an impressive three-dimensional quality. The ornaments,
as with pearls, could simply be assembled and sewn into
place and did not therefore demand the services of skilled
embroiderers. Rather, they involved goldsmiths to create
them in specially carved moulds, drawing these craftsmen
into the large embroidery workshops. Also catching the light
in embroideries were "doublets" -- tiny discs of glass of
a type still seen in Indian embroideries -- which appear
to have come from Venice.
Countless similar examples are described
in both the English and French royal accounts of the fourteenth
century, none of which, sadly, have survived. For the Christmas
and New Year festivities in 1393-4, two gloriously extravagant
and light-hearted concoctions of this kind were created
for Richard II: a white satin doublet embroidered in gold
with orange trees on which hung one hundred silver-gilt
oranges, and a "hancelyn" (believed to be a loose outer
garment), also of white satin which was embroidered with
leeches, water and rocks, and amongst which were placed
fifteen silver-gilt mussels and fifteen silver-gilt whelks.
How these must all have sparkled in the subdued lighting
of the medieval royal halls. Late medieval taste was particularly
attracted to light-reflecting ornaments on clothing and
horse-harness where movement would produce a multitude of
glinting reflections. Consequently gold and silver motifs
of all shapes and sizes were incorporated into embroidery.
In 1441 the Goldsmiths Company confirmed and renewed their
Ordinance for Making Spangles which fixed prices. These
"spangles" were the equivalent of modern sequins, mall,
round, thin pieces of glittering metal with a hole in the
centre to admit a thread; some were rectangular in shape
and sewn at one end only, whilst ohers survive in situ on
embroideries but a number have turned up in archaeological
contexts, perhaps the small lost hoards of people in flight
from invaders.
TEXT B:
Text from Shire Album # 57 "Beadwork" - Pamela Claburn
Shire Publications Ltd, Cromwell House,Church Street, Princes
Risbourough, Aylesbury, Bucks, HP17 9A, UK
ISBN: 0-85263-529-x
"The American Indians... here the beads are threaded and
laid on the ground material. The attaching thread is quite
separate and is brought up from below and catches down the
thread between the two beads. this is in effect, a form
of couching."
"Exactly the same method of attachment
was used in the German
beadwork of the 12th Century. Here it is combined with
with the sewing on of single beads where the design required
it, but it can be seen that are long strands of the same
colours and only a very few single colors even in such detailed
parts of the design as the faces. Six hundred years later
the method was still being used"
TEXT C:
(in refernece to a rather sad drawing of this
piece in the book)
Bead Embroidery - Joan Edwards (1966, 1992) Lacis Press,
3163 Adeline St, Berkeley CA, 94703
ISBN: 0-91696-44-7
"Long before needlewomen of the nineteenth
century discovered the possibilities of beadwork, comparatively
coarse beads had been used in various parts of Europe for
embroidery for a very long time indeed. A great deal of
work was done, for example, during the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries in Lower Saxony, examples of which (Griz's examples
- 1,
2, 3)
can be seen in Hanover and Darmstadt. The
beads were usually attached to vellum, and it has been suggested
that the existence of this beadwork might-like the German
whitework or "opus teutonicum" of the Middle Ages-be interpreted
as a sign of poverty amongst the German convents at this
time, and that the beads were perhaps a substitute for work
in pearls, precious metals, and the coveted Byzantine enamels.
Nevertheless, the vestments and hangings must have gleamed
with considerable beauty in the dark, candle lit cathedrals
and churches, shining through the dimness like the stained
glass in the windows, and there seems little doubt that
the designs were good and well drawn."
