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hrjSession 73: Dress and Textiles I: Threads and Fibers
Evidence for Roundels in Viking Age Embroidery from Bjerringhøj, Mammen Parish, Denmark (Raven Alexandra Fagelson, Independent Scholar)
The paper looks at the Mammen embroideries with a focus on a compositional analysis of the geometry of the motifs to try to reconstruct their possible original layout. All the acanthus motifs occur in a curved arc, as does one line of small “face” motifs. In two cases (one acanthus, one small-face) then two fragmentary arcs occur on the same textile. Examples of other embroideries with arrangements of roundels occur in a similar time-frame (early medieval) in a number of different contexts (cloaks, altar cloths) with dizes ranging from small (Maasik embroidery) to very large (cloak of ?Henry II? with essentially one large roundel taking up the majority of the back. Acanthus and other foliate borders of roundels are demonstrated from a variety of sources. By mathematical calculation, the acanthus arcs could be part of a 22 cm diameter circle and the small faces to a ca. 35 cm diameter circle. Roundel motifs on textiles normally have “contents” and the leopard, bird, and quadruped motifs occur in conjunction with acanthus/face arc fragments. Roundels often occur in lines or arrays and often are conjoined where they approach, and some of the acanthus motifs appear to approach each other in this fashion, although the geometry is somewhat off.
Fur, Feathers, Skin, Fiber, Wood: Representational Techniques in the Bayeux Tapestry (Gale R. Owen-Crocker)
The embroidery depicts a wide variety of natural and man-made textures. Only two stitch types are used: stem stitch and laid-and-couched, and only 10 colors. The types of stitches chosen may be determined by the scope and speed of the work. The background fabric is left blank – there’s a similar embroidery in silk but with a blank linen background (in Italy?) Texture of fur or feathers are rare, there’sa quadrupen with “tags” on a plain background, and a peacock with the tail depicted in individual feathers, and one other bird, but otherwise broad areas of animals are plain L&C with outlines. Bodies, as of birds, are divided into parts by stem-stitch lines (e.g., beaks, wings, wing-pinions and tail feathers) similarly to the outlined sections of clothing. Lines of couching in both animals and clothing often follow the general contour of the segment, rather than being absolute. Although the general rule is that stem stitch is always outlines and couching for fills, there are some small areas of fill done in stem stitch, e.g., a bird’s pinions. Often this happens in long narrow spaces, e.g., bird legs. Some use of stem for texture, e.g., a horse’s mane, but this is inconsistant. Human skin is left as the ground cloth (a technique also used in manuscripts where only outlines of features are indicated with skin left as the plain parchment). In crowd scenes, the outlines of faces/hands and blocks of hair often seem artificially varied, simply for visual interest (also done for clothing, but less artificial there). Individualization of horses both by position and color of both horse and equipment. A few failures of this distinction, possibly due to poor planning by multiple workers, changed in mid-project to maintain a contrast between adjacent figures.
Flax and Linen in Medieval Novgorod (Heidi M. Sherman, Univ. of Wisconsin–Green Bay)
Archaeology important for history of trade in Russia due to scarcity of written sources. Soviet Union sponsored massive numbers of excavations providing a wealth of research material. Scholars agree that Novgorod had important flax trade but not much previous work done on the topic. Work on wooden artifacts includes lots of flax processing tools. (Digression into political dynamics of the day.) Types of relevant finds: scutches, breakers, combs, hackles, spindles & whorls, distaffs, parts of looms (although these last three are not flax-specific), also flax seeds and seed-pods. Some arguments over whether the toothed wooden “hackles” might instead be fish-scalers – much larger number of these hackles in comparison to scotches which might suggest another interpretation. (me: These aren’t the iron-toothed hackles that look similar to wool combs but look more like a short weaving-sword with a series of shallow notches along one edge of variable size.) Households typically had scutches and spinning equipment but not typically the “hackles”. In contrast, a different style of hackle is a narrow long-toothed comb that looks more like a “paintbrush” shape (i.e., a housepainting paintbrush).
Distaff, Whorl, and Wheel: Medieval Views of Spinning (Janilee Plummer, Ball State Univ.)
Analysis of 10-15th c. images of spinners primarily from Western Europe.
Categories:
Religious: Eve, Virgin Mary, other femail saints, annunciation of the shepherds, other
Daily chores: spinning while tending sheep, while doing other everyday activities
Defense: e.g., using a distaff as a weapon
Ephemera: marginal illustrations unrelated to story, grotesques, animals
Men: unmanly men (hesitant to go to war, being laughed at or abuse), but also professional spinners e.g., of rope or hunting equipment
Eve depicted spinning as a symbol of physical labor as punshment for the Fall. But then Mary is depicted spinning as a symbol of being a “virtuous woman”. Hmm. The distaff-weapon isn’t only in inter-gender violence – image of Sarah beating Hagar with a distaff, a woman beating off a fox from her geese (me: but this follows an image of a fox-bishop preaching to the geese, so there may be other symbolic layers here). Tacuinum Sanitatis shows women spinning with a distaff while walking for other purposes. All sorts of marginal animals depicted spinning (ape, pig) in parallel with other types of activities. Male spinners: depicted as objects of derision or as a symbol of the unwarlike or unmanned man (e.g., Hercules forced to spin). The exception is for non-textile spinning, e.g., men in the Hunt Book of Phoebus Gaston depicted spinning rope for hunting nets. (Also unusual in that the spinning process involves two people – one turning the wheel (with a crank?) the other drafting the thread.
Evidence for Roundels in Viking Age Embroidery from Bjerringhøj, Mammen Parish, Denmark (Raven Alexandra Fagelson, Independent Scholar)
The paper looks at the Mammen embroideries with a focus on a compositional analysis of the geometry of the motifs to try to reconstruct their possible original layout. All the acanthus motifs occur in a curved arc, as does one line of small “face” motifs. In two cases (one acanthus, one small-face) then two fragmentary arcs occur on the same textile. Examples of other embroideries with arrangements of roundels occur in a similar time-frame (early medieval) in a number of different contexts (cloaks, altar cloths) with dizes ranging from small (Maasik embroidery) to very large (cloak of ?Henry II? with essentially one large roundel taking up the majority of the back. Acanthus and other foliate borders of roundels are demonstrated from a variety of sources. By mathematical calculation, the acanthus arcs could be part of a 22 cm diameter circle and the small faces to a ca. 35 cm diameter circle. Roundel motifs on textiles normally have “contents” and the leopard, bird, and quadruped motifs occur in conjunction with acanthus/face arc fragments. Roundels often occur in lines or arrays and often are conjoined where they approach, and some of the acanthus motifs appear to approach each other in this fashion, although the geometry is somewhat off.
Fur, Feathers, Skin, Fiber, Wood: Representational Techniques in the Bayeux Tapestry (Gale R. Owen-Crocker)
The embroidery depicts a wide variety of natural and man-made textures. Only two stitch types are used: stem stitch and laid-and-couched, and only 10 colors. The types of stitches chosen may be determined by the scope and speed of the work. The background fabric is left blank – there’s a similar embroidery in silk but with a blank linen background (in Italy?) Texture of fur or feathers are rare, there’sa quadrupen with “tags” on a plain background, and a peacock with the tail depicted in individual feathers, and one other bird, but otherwise broad areas of animals are plain L&C with outlines. Bodies, as of birds, are divided into parts by stem-stitch lines (e.g., beaks, wings, wing-pinions and tail feathers) similarly to the outlined sections of clothing. Lines of couching in both animals and clothing often follow the general contour of the segment, rather than being absolute. Although the general rule is that stem stitch is always outlines and couching for fills, there are some small areas of fill done in stem stitch, e.g., a bird’s pinions. Often this happens in long narrow spaces, e.g., bird legs. Some use of stem for texture, e.g., a horse’s mane, but this is inconsistant. Human skin is left as the ground cloth (a technique also used in manuscripts where only outlines of features are indicated with skin left as the plain parchment). In crowd scenes, the outlines of faces/hands and blocks of hair often seem artificially varied, simply for visual interest (also done for clothing, but less artificial there). Individualization of horses both by position and color of both horse and equipment. A few failures of this distinction, possibly due to poor planning by multiple workers, changed in mid-project to maintain a contrast between adjacent figures.
Flax and Linen in Medieval Novgorod (Heidi M. Sherman, Univ. of Wisconsin–Green Bay)
Archaeology important for history of trade in Russia due to scarcity of written sources. Soviet Union sponsored massive numbers of excavations providing a wealth of research material. Scholars agree that Novgorod had important flax trade but not much previous work done on the topic. Work on wooden artifacts includes lots of flax processing tools. (Digression into political dynamics of the day.) Types of relevant finds: scutches, breakers, combs, hackles, spindles & whorls, distaffs, parts of looms (although these last three are not flax-specific), also flax seeds and seed-pods. Some arguments over whether the toothed wooden “hackles” might instead be fish-scalers – much larger number of these hackles in comparison to scotches which might suggest another interpretation. (me: These aren’t the iron-toothed hackles that look similar to wool combs but look more like a short weaving-sword with a series of shallow notches along one edge of variable size.) Households typically had scutches and spinning equipment but not typically the “hackles”. In contrast, a different style of hackle is a narrow long-toothed comb that looks more like a “paintbrush” shape (i.e., a housepainting paintbrush).
Distaff, Whorl, and Wheel: Medieval Views of Spinning (Janilee Plummer, Ball State Univ.)
Analysis of 10-15th c. images of spinners primarily from Western Europe.
Categories:
Religious: Eve, Virgin Mary, other femail saints, annunciation of the shepherds, other
Daily chores: spinning while tending sheep, while doing other everyday activities
Defense: e.g., using a distaff as a weapon
Ephemera: marginal illustrations unrelated to story, grotesques, animals
Men: unmanly men (hesitant to go to war, being laughed at or abuse), but also professional spinners e.g., of rope or hunting equipment
Eve depicted spinning as a symbol of physical labor as punshment for the Fall. But then Mary is depicted spinning as a symbol of being a “virtuous woman”. Hmm. The distaff-weapon isn’t only in inter-gender violence – image of Sarah beating Hagar with a distaff, a woman beating off a fox from her geese (me: but this follows an image of a fox-bishop preaching to the geese, so there may be other symbolic layers here). Tacuinum Sanitatis shows women spinning with a distaff while walking for other purposes. All sorts of marginal animals depicted spinning (ape, pig) in parallel with other types of activities. Male spinners: depicted as objects of derision or as a symbol of the unwarlike or unmanned man (e.g., Hercules forced to spin). The exception is for non-textile spinning, e.g., men in the Hunt Book of Phoebus Gaston depicted spinning rope for hunting nets. (Also unusual in that the spinning process involves two people – one turning the wheel (with a crank?) the other drafting the thread.
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