Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages Part 12

In the Middle Ages it would have been possible, as Lady Alford suggests, to play the game "Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral" with textiles only! Between silk, hemp, cotton, gold, silver, wool, flax, camel's hair, and asbestos, surely the three elements all played their parts.

Since the first record of Eve having "sewn fig leaves together to make ap.r.o.ns," women have used the needle in some form. In England, it is said that the first needles were made by an Indian, in 1545, before which time they were imported. The old play, "Gammer Gurton's Needle," is based upon the extreme rarity of these domestic implements, and the calamity occasioned in a family by their loss. There is a curious old story about a needle, which was supposed to possess magic powers. This needle is reported to have worked at night while its owner was resting, saving her all personal responsibility about her mending. When the old lady finally died, another owner claimed this charmed needle, and began at once to test its powers. But, do what she would, she was unable to force a thread through its obstinate eye. At last, after trying all possible means to thread the needle, she took a magnifying gla.s.s to examine and see what the impediment was, and, lo! the eye of the needle was filled with a great tear,--it was weeping for the loss of its old mistress, and no one was ever able to thread it again!

Embroidery is usually regarded as strictly a woman's craft, but in the Middle Ages the leading needleworkers were often men. The old list of names given by Louis Farcy has almost an equal proportion of workers of both s.e.xes. But the finest work was certainly accomplished by the conscientious dwellers in cloisters, and the nuns devoted their vast leisure in those days to this art. Fuller observes: "Nunneries were also good shee-schools, wherein the girls of the neighbourhood were taught to read and work... that the sharpnesse of their wits and suddennesse of their conceits (which even their enemies must allow unto them!) might by education be improved into a judicious solidity." In some of these schools the curriculum included "Reading and sewing, threepence a week: a penny extra for manners." An old thirteenth century work, called the "Kleine Heldenbuch," contains a verse which may be thus translated:

"Who taught me to embroider in a frame with silk?

And to draw and design the wild and tame Beasts of the forest and field?

Also to picture on plain surface: Round about to place golden borders, A narrow and a broader one, With stags and hinds lifelike."

A study of historic embroidery should be preceded by a general knowledge of the principle st.i.tches employed.

One of the simplest forms was chain st.i.tch, in which one st.i.tch was taken through the loop of the st.i.tch just laid. In the Middle Ages it was often used. Sometimes, when the material was of a loose weave, it was executed by means of a little hook--the probable origin of crochet.

Tapestry st.i.tch, of which one branch is cross-st.i.tch, was formed by laying close single st.i.tches of uniform size upon a canvas specially prepared for this work.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EMBROIDERY ON CANVAS, 16TH CENTURY, SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM]

Fine embroidery in silk was usually executed in long smooth st.i.tches of irregular length, which merged into each other. This is generally known as satin st.i.tch, for the surface of the work is that of a satin texture when the work is completed. This was frequently executed upon linen, and then, when the entire surface had been hidden by the close silk st.i.tches, it was cut out and transferred on a brocade background, this style of rendering being known as applique. Botticelli recommended this work as most durable and satisfactory: it is oftenest a.s.sociated with church embroidery. A simple applique was also done by cutting out pieces of one material and applying them to another, hiding the edge-joinings by couching on a cord. As an improvement upon painted banners to be used in processions, Botticelli introduced this method of cutting out and resetting colours upon a different ground. As Vasari says: "This he did that the colors might not sink through, showing the tint of the cloth on each side." But Dr. Rock points out that it is hardly fair to earlier artificers to give the entire credit for this method of work to Botticelli, since such cut work or applique was practised in Italy a hundred years before Botticelli was born!

Sometimes solid ma.s.ses of silk or gold thread were laid in ordered flatness upon a material, and then sewn to it by long or short st.i.tches at right angles. This is known as couching, and is a very effective way of economizing material by displaying it all on the surface. As a rule, however, the surface wears off somewhat, but it is possible to execute it so that it is as durable as embroidery which has been rendered in separate st.i.tches.

In Sicily it was a common practice to use coral in embroideries as well as pearls. Coral work is usually called Sicilian work, though it was also sometimes executed in Spain.

The garments worn by the Byzantines were very ornate; they were made of woven silk and covered with elaborate devices. In the fourth century the Bishop of Amasia ridiculed the extravagant dress of his contemporaries. "When men appear in the streets thus dressed," he says, "the pa.s.sers by look at them as at painted walls. Their clothes are pictures, which little children point out to one another. The saintlier sort wear likenesses of Christ, the Marriage of Galilee, and Lazarus raised from the dead." Allusion was made in a sermon: "Persons who arrayed themselves like painted walls" "with beasts and flowers all over them" were denounced!

In the early Dark Ages there was some prejudice against these rich embroideries. In the sixth century the Bishop St. Cesaire of Arles forbade his nuns to embroider robes with precious stones or painting and flowers. King Withaf of Mercia willed to the Abbey of Croyland "my purple mantle which I wore at my Coronation, to be made into a cope, to be used by those who minister at the holy altar: and also my golden veil, embroidered with the Siege of Troy, to be hung up in the Church on my anniversary." St. Asterius preached to his people, "Strive to follow in your lives the teachings of the Gospel, rather than have the miracles of Our Redeemer embroidered on your outward dress!" This prejudice, however, was not long lived, and the embroidered vestments and garments continued to hold their popularity all through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.

It has been said on grave authority that "Woman is an animal that delights in the toilette," while Petrarch, in 1366, recognized the power of fashion over its votaries. "Who can see with patience,"

he writes, "the monstrous fantastical inventions which people of our times have invented to deform rather than adorn their persons?

Who can behold without indignation their long pointed shoes, their caps with feathers, their hair twisted and hanging down like tails,... their bellies so cruelly squeezed with cords that they suffer as much pain from vanity as the martyrs suffered for religion!" And yet who shall say whether a "dress-reform" Laura would have charmed any more surely the eye of the poet?

Chaucer, in England, also deplores the fashions of his day, alluding to the "sinful costly array of clothing, namely, in too much superfluity or else indisordinate scantiness!" Changing fashions have always been the despair of writers who have tried to lay down rules for aesthetic effect in dress. "An Englishman," says Harrison, "endeavouring some time to write of our attire... when he saw what a difficult piece of work he had taken in hand, he gave over his travail, and onely drue a picture of a naked man unto whom he gave a pair of shears in the one hand and a piece of cloth in the other, to the end that he should shape his apparel after such fashion as himself liked, sith he could find no garment that could please him any while together: and this he called an Englishman."

Edward the Confessor wore State robes which had been beautifully embroidered with gold by his accomplished wife, Edgitha. In the Royal Rolls of Edward III., in 1335, we find allusion to two vests of green velvet embroidered respectively with sea sirens and coats of arms. The tunics worn over armour offered great opportunities to the needleworker. They were richly embroidered, usually in heraldic style. When Symon, Bishop of Ely, performed the ceremony of Churching for Queen Philippa, the royal dame bestowed upon him the gown which she wore on that occasion; it is described as a murrey-coloured velvet, powdered with golden squirrels, and was of such voluminous pattern that it was cut over into three copes! Bridal gowns were sometimes given to churches, as well.

St. Louis of France was what might be called temperate in dress.

The Sire de Joinville says he "never saw a single embroidered coat or ornamented saddle in the possession of the king, and reproved his son for having such things. I replied that he would have acted better if he had given them in charity, and had his dress made of good sendal, lined and strengthened with his arms, like as the king his father had done!"

At the marriage of the Lord of Touraine in 1389, the Duke of Burgundy presented magnificent habits and clothing to his nephew the Count of Nevers: among these were tunics, ornamented with embroidered trees conventionally displayed on their backs, fronts, and sleeves; others showed heraldic blazonry, while a blue velvet tunic was covered with balas rubies set in pearls, alternating with suns of solid gold with great solitaire pearls as centres. Again, in 1390, when the king visited Dijon, he presented to the same nephew a set of harnesses for jousting. Some of them were composed largely of sheets of beaten gold and silver. In some gold and silver marguerites were introduced also.

Savonarola reproved the Florentine nuns for employing their valuable time in manufacturing "gold laces with which to adorn persons and houses." The Florentine gold lace was very popular in England, in the days of Henry VIII., and later the art was taken up by the "wire-drawers" of England, and a native industry took the place of the imported article. Among prohibited gowns in Florence was one owned by Donna Francesca degli Albizi, "a black mantle of raised cloth: the ground is yellow, and over it are woven birds, parrots, b.u.t.terflies, red and white roses, and many figures in vermilion and green, with pavilions and dragons, and yellow and black letters and trees, and many other figures of various colours, the whole lined with cloth in hues of black and vermilion." As one reads this description, it seems as though the artistic sense as much as conscientious scruples might have revolted and led to its banishment!

Costumes for tournaments were also lavish in their splendour. In 1467 Benedetto Salutati ordered made for such a pageant all the trappings for two horses, worked in two hundred pounds of silver by Pollajuolo; thirty pounds of pearls were also used to trim the garments of the sergeants. No wonder Savonarola was enthusiastic in his denunciation of such extravagance.

Henry VIII. had "a pair of hose of purple silk and Venice gold, woven like a caul." For one of his favoured lady friends, also, there is an item, of a certain sum paid, for one pound of gold for embroidering a nightgown.

The unrivalled excellence of English woollen cloths was made manifest at an early period. There was a fabric produced at Norwich of such superiority that a law was pa.s.sed prohibiting monks from wearing it, the reason being that it was considered "smart enough for military men!" This was in 1422. The name of Worsted was given to a certain wool because it was made at Worsted, a town in Norfolk; later the "worsted thread" was sold for needleworkers.

Ladies made their own gold thread in the Middle Ages by winding a fine flat gold wire, scarcely of more body than a foil, around a silk thread.

Patches were embroidered into place upon such clothes or vestments as were torn: those who did this work were as well recognized as the original designers, and were called "healers" of clothes!

Embroidered bed hangings were very much in order in mediaeval times in England. In the eleventh century there lived a woman who had emigrated from the Hebrides, and who had the reputation for witchcraft, chiefly based upon the unusually exquisite needlework on her bed curtains! The name of this reputed sorceress was Thergunna. Bequests in important wills indicate the sumptuous styles which were usual among people of position. The Fair Maid of Kent left to her son her "new bed curtains of red velvet, embroidered with ostrich feathers of silver, and heads of leopards of gold," while in 1380 the Earl of March bequeathed his "large bed of black satin embroidered with white lions and gold roses, and the escutcheons of the arms of Mortimer and Ulster." This outfit must have resembled a Parisian "first cla.s.s" funeral! The widow of Henry II. slept in a sort of mourning couch of black velvet, which must have made her feel as if she too were laid out for her own burial!

A child's bedquilt was found mentioned in an inventory of furniture at the Priory of Durham, in 1446, which was embroidered in the four corners with the Evangelistic symbols. In the "Squier of Lowe Degree," a fifteenth century romance, there is allusion to a bed, of which the head sheet is described "with diamonds set and rubies bright." The king of England, in 1388, refers, in a letter, to "a bed of gold cloth." Wall hangings in bedrooms were also most elaborate, and the effect of a chamber adorned with gold and needlework must have been fairly regal. An embroiderer named Delobel made a set of furnishings for the bedroom of Louis XIV. the work upon which occupied three years. The subject was the Triumph of Venus.

In South Kensington Museum there is a fourteenth century linen cloth of German workmanship, upon which occurs the legend of the unicorn, running for protection to a maiden. An old Bestiary describes how the unicorn, or as it is there called, the "monocerus," "is an animal which has one horn on its head: it is caught by means of a virgin." The unicorn and virgin, with a hunter in pursuit, is quite a favourite bit of symbolism in the middle ages.

Another interesting piece of German embroidery in South Kensington is a table cloth, worked on heavy canvas, in heraldic style: long decorative inscriptions embellish the corners. A liberal translation of these verses is given by Dr. Rock, some of the sentences being quaint and interesting to quote. Evidently the embroideress indulged in autobiography in the following: "And she, to honour the esquire her husband, wished to adorn and increase his house furniture, and there has worked, with her own hand, this and still many other pretty cloths, to her memory." And in another corner, "Now follows here my own birthday. When one wrote 1565 my mother's heart was gladdened by my first cry. In the year 1585 I gave birth my self to a daughter. Her name is Emilia Catharina, and she has been a proper and praiseworthy child." Then, to her children the following address is directed: "Do not forget your prayers in the morning. And be temperate in your pleasures. And make yourselves acquainted with the Word of G.o.d.... I beseech you to be sincere in all matters. That will make you great and glorious. Honour everybody according to his station: it will make you honourably known. You, my truly beloved sons, beware of fiery wines... you, my truly beloved daughters, preserve and guard your honour, and reflect before you do anything: many have been led into evil by acting first and thinking afterwards." In another compartment, a lament goes up in which she deplores the death of her husband. "His age was sixty and eight years," she says.

"The dropsy has killed him. I, his afflicted Anna Blickin von Liechtenperg who was left behind, have related it with my hand in this cloth, that might be known to my children this greater sorrow which G.o.d has sent me." The cloth is a nave and unusual record of German home life.

Ecclesiastical embroidery began in the fourth century. In earliest days the work was enhanced with quant.i.ties of gold thread. The shroud in which St. Cuthbert's body was wrapped is a ma.s.s of gold: a Latin inscription on the vestments in which the body was clad may be thus translated: "Queen to Alfred's son and successor, Edward the Elder, was one Aelflaed, who caused this stole and maniple to be made for a gift to Fridestan consecrated Bishop of Winchester, A. D. 905." The maniple is of "woven gold, with s.p.a.ces left vacant for needlework embroidery." Such garments for burial were not uncommon; but they have as a rule perished from their long residence underground.

St. Cuthbert's vestments are splendid examples of tenth century work in England. After the death of King Edward II., and his wife Aelflaed, Bishop Frithestan also having pa.s.sed away, Athelstan, as King, made a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Cuthbert and bestowed these valuable embroideries there. They were removed from the body of the saint in 1827. The style of the work inclines to Byzantine.

The Saxon embroideries must have been very decorative: a robe is described by Aldhelme in 709, as "of a most delicate thread of purple, adorned with black circles and peac.o.c.ks." At the church at Croyland some vestments were decorated with birds of gold cut out and applique and at Exeter they had "nothing about them but true needlework."

In the "Liber Eliensis," in the Muniment room at Ely, is an account of a gift to the church by Queen Emma, the wife of King Knut, who "on a certain day came to Ely in a boat, accompanied by his wife the Queen Emma, and the chief n.o.bles of his kingdom." This royal present was "a purple cloth worked with gold and set with jewels for St. Awdry's shrine," and the Monk Thomas a.s.sures us that "none other could be found in the kingdom of the English of such richness and beauty of workmanship."

The various st.i.tches in English work had their several names, the opus plumarium, or straight overlapping st.i.tches, resembling the feathers of a bird; the opus pluvarium, or cross st.i.tch, and many others. A great deal of work was accomplished by means of applique in satin and silk, and sometimes the ground was painted, as has already been described in Italian work. In the year 1246 Matthew Paris writes: "About this time the Lord Pope, Innocent IV., having observed that the ecclesiastical ornaments of some Englishmen, such as choristers' copes and mitres, were embroidered in gold thread, after a very desirable fashion, asked where these works were made, and received in answer, 'England.' Then," said the Pope, "England is surely a garden of delight for us; it is truly a never failing Spring, and there where many things abound much may be extorted." This far sighted Pope, with his semi-commercial views, availed himself of his discovery.

In the days of Anastatius, ecclesiastical garments were spoken of by name according to the motive of their designs: for instance, the "peac.o.c.k garment," the "elephant chasuble," and the "lion cope."

Fuller tells of the use of a pall as an ecclesiastical vestment, remarking tersely: "It is made up of lamb's wool and superst.i.tion."

Mediaeval embroiderers in England got into certain habits of work, so that there are some designs which are almost as hall-marks to English work; the Cherubim over the wheel is especially characteristic, as is also the vase of lilies, and various heraldic devices which are less frequently found in the embroidered work of European peoples.

The Syon Cope is perhaps the most conspicuous example of the mediaeval embroiderer's art. It was made by nuns about the end of the thirteenth century, in a convent near Coventry. It is solid st.i.tchery on a canvas ground, "wrought about with divers colours" on green. The design is laid out in a series of interlacing square forms, with rounded and barbed sides and corners. In each of these is a figure or a scriptural scene. The orphreys, or straight borders which go down both fronts of the cope, are decorated with heraldic charges.

Much of the embroidery is raised, and wrought in the st.i.tch known as Opus Anglicanum. The effect was produced by pressing a heated metal k.n.o.b into the work at such points as were to be raised. The real embroidery was executed on a flat surface, and then bossed up by this means until it looked like bas-relief. The st.i.tches in every part run in zig-zags, the vestments, and even the nimbi about the heads, are all executed with the st.i.tches slanting in one direction, from the centre of the cope outward, without consideration of the positions of the figures. Each face is worked in circular progression outward from the centre, as well. The interlaces are of crimson, and look well on the green ground. The wheeled Cherubim is well developed in the design of this famous cope, and is a pleasing decorative bit of archaic ecclesiasticism. In the central design of the Crucifixion, the figure of the Lord is rendered in silver on a gold ground. The anatomy is according to the rules laid down by an old sermonizer, in a book ent.i.tled "The Festival," wherein it is stated that the body of Christ was "drawn on the cross as a skin of parchment on a harrow, so that all his bones might be told." With such instruction, there was nothing left for the mediaeval embroiderers but to render the figure with as much realistic emaciation as possible.

The heraldic ornaments on the Syon Cope are especially interesting to all students of this graceful art. It is not our purpose here to make much allusion to this aspect of the work, but it is of general interest to know that on the orphreys, the devices of most of the n.o.ble families of that day appear.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DETAIL OF THE SYON COPE]

English embroidery fell off greatly in excellence during the Wars of the Roses. In the later somewhat degenerate raised embroidery, it was customary to represent the hair of angels by little tufted curls of auburn silk!

Many of the most important examples of ancient ecclesiastical embroidery are in South Kensington Museum. A pair of orphreys of the fifteenth century, of German work (probably made at Cologne), shows a little choir of angels playing on musical instruments. These figures are cut out and applied on crimson silk, in what was called "cut work."

This differed entirely from what modern embroiderers mean by cut work, as has been explained.

The Dalmatic of Charlemagne is given by Louis Farcy to the twelfth century. He calls it the Dalmatic of Leo III. But Lady Alford claims for this work a greater antiquity. Certainly, as one studies its details, one is convinced that it is not quite a Gothic work, nor yet is it Byzantine; for the figures have all the grace of Greek work prior to the age of Byzantine stiffness. It is embroidered chiefly in gold, on a delicate bluish satin ground, and has not been transferred, although it has been carefully restored. The central ornament on the front is a circular composition, and the arrangement of the figures both here and on the back suggests that Sir Edward Burne Jones must have made a study of this magnificent dalmatic, from which it would seem that much of his inspiration might have been drawn. The composition is singularly restful and rhythmical. The little black outlines to the white silk faces, and to the glowing figures, give this work a peculiarly decorative quality, not often seen in other embroideries of the period. It is unique and one of the most valuable examples of its art in the world.

It is now in the Treasury of the Vatican. When Charlemagne sang the Gospel at High Ma.s.s on the day of his Coronation, this was his vestment. It must have been a strangely gorgeous sight when Cola di Rienzi, according to Lord Lindsay, took this dalmatic, and placed it over his armour, and, with his crown and truncheon, ascended to the palace of the Popes!

A very curious Italian piece of the fourteenth century is an altar frontal, on which the subjects introduced are strange. It displays scenes from the life of St. Ubaldo, with some incidents also in that of St. Julian Hospitaler. St. Ubaldo is seen forgiving a mason who, having run a wall across his private grounds, had knocked the saint down for remonstrating. Another scene shows the death bed of the saint, and the conversion of a possessed man at the foot of the bed: a lady is throwing her arms above her head in astonishment while the evil spirit flies from its victim into the air. Later, the saint is seen going to the grave in a cart drawn by oxen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DALMATIC OF CHARLEMAGNE]

The peac.o.c.k was symbolical both of knightly vigilance and of Christian watchfulness. An old Anglo-Norman, Osmont, writes: "The eye-speckled feathers should warn a man that never too often can he have his eyes wide open, and gaze inwardly upon his own heart." These dear people were so introspective and self-conscious, always looking for trouble--in their own motives, even--that no doubt many good impulses perished unnoticed, while the originator was chasing mental phantoms of heresy and impurity.

Painting and jewelry were sometimes introduced in connection with embroideries. In the celebrated Cope of St. John Lateran, the faces and hands of the personages are rendered in painting; but this method was more generally adopted in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when sincerity counted for less than effect, and when genuine religious fervour for giving one's time and best labour to the Lord's service no longer dominated the workers. Gold thread was used extensively in English work, and spangles were added at quite an early period, as well as actual jewels set in floral designs.

The finest work was accomplished in the Gothic period, before the Renaissance came with its aimless scrolls to detract from the dignity of churchly ornament.

In the sixteenth century the winged angels have often a degenerate similitude to tightly laced coryphees, who balance themselves upon their wheels as if they were performing a vaudeville turn. They are not as dignified as their archaic predecessors.