I am currently
fondling a beautiful piece of linen/silk I brought home from Pennsic two years ago. It’s
woven of blue silk on the weft and yellow linen on the warp, resulting in a green fabric that shimmers.
Does anyone have documentation that
suggests such a weave was used? I’m going to use it to make a bliaut regardless, as the hand of the fabric
will lend itself very well to bliaut
folds but is strong enough to take all the eyelets, but I am curious where
it falls on the authenticity scale.
Thank you!
~ Kelda ferch Ystwyth
Message #782, February 5, 2003
I see your question as
three really.
1. Was there 12th century linen warp/silk weft
fabric?
2. Did 12th century weaves use different color
warps from wefts
on solid color fabrics (i.e. ‘shot’ silk).
3. If there was linen warp/silk weft fabric,
would this too have
the shot silk effect?
I think these are complex questions that will
demand hitting the books for an answer
better than the “I read somewhere” one I’m about to unleash on you. For the sake of letting you
know that I am interested in your
question, the following comes to my mind.
Basically the 12th century silk found in Europe
was manufactured in Spain, Byzantium,
Middle East, and just starting in Palermo with
imported weavers. It appears that most textile scholars have documented silk warp/weft fabric, however, Baghdad was
famous for Mulham, a mixed silk and
cotton cloth. Another author stated that silk
was so precious that western weavers unravelled the silk weave and wove the silk again onto less expensive
warps, thus really almost doubling their
money. It gives a glimpse into how much
more precious the silk thread was versus the manpower to undo and redo.
I will need to search the catalogs and books for
answers on the different color warps vs.
wefts for specific examples, as well as mixed
fabrics. Hopefully this will also help me come across the reference to the unravelling and reweaving practice
for you.
Katrine / Katherine Barich
Message #784, February 8, 2003
When I saw this digest
I hauled out my brand new MOL book “Textiles and Clothing 1150 to 1450,” one of the few that
the secondhand dealers of Amazon.com actually got to me within a reasonable time.
So far, under the section on mixed textiles
there’s nothing more than a commentary on half-silk
velvet, and I haven’t found anything under the silk section. But I did find
this little paragraph, so I’m going to
post it, finish reading my mail, and then get back to the book.
“Shot silk fabrics which combined warp and
weft of different colours were not new in the 14th century, and the fact that most silk yarn was dyed before it was
woven encouraged this type of patterning.
… Medieval patterned fabrics often have a warp and weft of a slightly different tint and it is not always certain
whether it was because they came from a different
dye batch or whether it was deliberate; in view of the high degree of technical
skill prevalent in the silk industry the latter
is more likely. Wool fabrics were also sometimes
woven with a warp and weft of different hue resulting in mottled-coloured
cloths …”
So I’d say if they weren’t new in the 14th
century, they’d probably been around for at least 100 years. Two hundred years, possibly. I’ll keep
looking. Btw, the authors of the book are
Elisabeth Crowfoot, Frances Pritchard, and Kay Staniland for those of you that
don’t know. It is one of the books
published by the Museum of London based on excavations in London in the 1970s and 80s.
Ciao for now,
~ Rachael / Nina Lisa Tomlinson
Message #785, February 9, 2003
Ok, here’s what the
book says about mixed weaves, so far:
“Mixed cloths of wool and vegetable fibre are less well
known from medieval England although various named cloths have been suggested as belonging to this class.
Chief among these are ‘tiretaines’,
which were supposedly made with a linen or cotton warp and a weft spun from
either good quality wool or wool clippings known
as flocks (Poerck 1951 I, 231-2. Some of these fabrics were striped; 16 ells of Tirreten’ Radiati bought for the
household of Bogo de Clre in
1285-86 cost 2s.2d. per ell (Guiseppi 1920, 42). . . .It is fortunate that the
remains of three pieces of mixed wool and
?linen, comprising two different types of cloth, are preserved among the group of textiles from the
late 14th-century deposit at BC72.”
So it appears from this information that until they can prove
that tiretaines were blends, mixed
fiber cloths didn’t appear until the late 14th century. However, most of their
other commentary on tiretaines
also cited 13th & 14th century examples.
Now, going back to the section on wool textiles, under
“The weaves of the cloths” we find this interesting snippet:
“Variety is provided by the use of different spinning,
yarn thicknesses, and colour effects using both dyed and natural grey or brown wool among which are checks
and mottled patterns, and an
impressive range of transverse stripes with special weave effects sometimes
incorporating silk thread.”
From this I would gather that, while silk thread was used
sometimes in wool textiles, it was more
to emphasize a pattern or decoration than an actual blend. However, in later
period (14th century), it appears
that the silk thread areas were actual bands of cloth equal in width to the bands of wool:
“Silk thread is combined with wool in bands in 12
cloths. Five of these are from the deposit
of the second quarter of the 14th century at BC72 and seven from that of the
late 14th century. . . . Thus,
from the earlier deposit, two cloths have narrow bands with silk lines flanking the wool in the centre which is of a
different colour to the main web (Nos 128, 129). A wider band has a centre of silk flanked by rows of wool
which in turn are edged with silk
(No 130), and another has four bands of silk alternating with three of wool
(No 131). . . .”
And a lot more in that vein. While fascinating to some (ok,
me), it unfortunately does nothing
for the rest of you that are demanding, “But what about the 12th century?!
That’s what this list is
for!” Sorry folks, but right now, and just looking at this one book,
which means it’s only one source (though a
pretty good one!) it doesn’t look like at least in England cloths with warp of one material and weft of
another existed in the 12th century. However, as stated in the previous post, this book is based on bits of
cloth found in architectural digs
in London. Who knows what they might’ve found in other countries?
One last word on colored silks, which some of you interested
in Oriental-influenced clothes might
enjoy:
“The establishment of the Mongol empire in Asia not only
led to the reopening of trade routes
with the Far East during the 13th century but also inspired a vogue for oriental
dress, particularly among Italian princes as
shown by the exotic burial robes of Cangrande della Scala, the overlord of Verona (died 1329)
(Magagnato 1983).” This sentence appeared under the section regarding silk damasks, which also
mentions that “The colours of the oriental cloths also display a different palette from those produced in
western centres, and the tints of
pink, turquoise, orange and green were to have almost as an important influence
on the colouring of textiles, particularly those
produced in Italian cities from the second quarter of the 14th century, as the exotic patterns
were to have on cloth design.”
Anyone want to pretend to be their great-great-great
grandchild?
~ Rachael / Nina Lisa Tomlinson
Message #786, February 9, 2003