ANGLO-SAXON TEXTILES
Georgina N Riall
INTRODUCTION
Anglo-Saxons made cloth from: wool, and flax, and probably/possibly hemp, and nettles.
Silk was an imported textile, although silk thread for embroidery was certainly available, and the late 8th early 9th century ‘David silk’ in Maasik, Belgium does suggest that some weaving of imported thread was in fact carried out in England.
Clothing woven from wool was worn by all social groups, and sheep were a principal source of wealth. Woollen cloth readily took to dyes.
Sources for fibres and textiles come from archaeology, written accounts, and place names. Styles suggested by manuscript illustrations and carvings are not that reliable.
Convention separates the Anglo-Saxon era into three periods:
Early Pagan AD 410 - 650
Middle Conversion AD 650 - 850
Late AD 850 - 1066
Archaeology
(i) Fabric
To date finds have produced some four thousand fragments, mostly from
Early Pagan graves, when the dead were buried fully clothed and accompanied
by grave goods, but some Middle Conversion graves have also given us finds
because some people were still being buried in this way.
With the ending of pagan burials much less has been discovered, and although Late Saxon finds in urban sites (Coppergate, York; Winchester; City of London) have furnished larger pieces, sourcing them as native or imported is problematical given that these sites were centres for trade both indigenous and foreign.
Finds, because of their organic nature, need special climatic conditions or a micro- environment for their survival and so cannot give us a comprehensive overall picture of what was worn or used for furnishings in every region.
On the other hand, the evidence so far suggests there was little difference in clothing throughout the Anglian and Saxon realms, although there seems to have been a variation in the Jutish/Frankish areas of Kent and the Isle of Wight.
(ii) Equipment
In Early Pagan times women were often buried with their spinning equipment.
Large beads have been found which may have served as whorls or fly-wheels
for spindles. Wooden spindles have not been found but six iron ones have,
among which one in Kent together with its bone whorl.
In Anglo-Saxon settlements, huts with sunken floors (grubenhauser) separate from the main hall possibly housed crafts and industry. Where loom evidence has been found, it would seem there were huts specifically dedicated to weaving. Other cloth-making tools excavated have been woolcombs, pinbeaters and weaving swords.
Written Sources
Few because so many manuscripts were burned, used as drumskins, roof insulation,
or to line barrels and bind other books, leaving us with hardly any period
documentation on wool and textile production.
Anglo-Saxon wills which deal with the disposition of sheep by the hundreds, which tells us that wool was a major economic resource.
The Middle Conversion period gives us Aldhelm’s riddle (Exeter Book No 35) for a mailcoat in which he describes a loom which is thought to be warp-weighted, though this is debated by some. Relating to the trade in woollen cloth there is Charlemagne’s letter to Offa of Mercia in which he complains about the size of the cloaks that the English merchants were supplying, which, although not as long as before, cost the same. He complains he could not cover himself up in bed with them, and when riding they did not adequately protect him from the wind and the rain, and when he answered the call of nature they did not keep him warm.
For the Late Saxon period we have the Gerefa, a tract on the duties of a reeve (steward) on a large estate which lists a large number of weaving implements he should have in his stores.
J. Clark (Saxon & Norman London) mentions a set of royal ordinances being issued ‘a little later’ after Aelfric (10th c) listing the customs duties on wool and cloth bought in England by Norman, northern French, Flemish and German merchants (he does not, however, specify how much later ‘a little later’ is).
Place Names
Further indirect evidence for sheep and the wool trade are to be found
in the names of places all over the country:
Shapwick, Shepperton, Shepton, Shepreth, Isle of Sheppey, Shipham, Shipton,
Shipley, Shiplake, Shiplate, Shopwyke.
FIBRES
Sheep fleece, flax - also probably hemp and nettles - were the main raw
materials from which cloth was woven (silk was imported). Archaeological
finds of cloth made from animals other than sheep are rare in northern
Europe. Medieval London has yielded goat-hair cloth, and the Anglo-Saxon
embroideries at Maasik (Belgium) show that gold leaf was wound around
horse-tail hair for the gold threads, but the latter cannot be counted
as cloth. The hair of young cattle and goats is tough and would have been
blended with wool.
Technical Terms:
Fibre (Latin fibra) The substances composed of animal or vegetable tissue
forming the raw material in textile manufacture.
Yarn (A-S gearn) any spun fibre prepared for weaving.
Thread (A-S thræd, from thräwan, to throw) a slender cord consisting
of two or more yarns doubled or twisted; a single filament of wool or
linen, etc.
Vegetable: Flax; Hemp; Nettle
Although the process of growing, harvesting and preparing plants for textiles
was, and is, laborious, they were the first materials to be spun and woven
into cloth. Neolithic textile finds in Anatolia, Turkey, are the earliest
attested remains (6000 BC). The earliest European finds (3200-2600 BC)
were in Switzerland. None so early has been found in Britain yet, the
earliest being a Neolithic length of string, possibly from lime bark,
found at a causeway site at Etton, Peterborough.
Hemp, nettle and flax belong to the same plant family, and a number of sources observe that records can be confusing, since without chemical testing, archaeologists were unable to tell apart cloth made from these fibres and when referring to fabrics spun from vegetable fibres, used the term ‘linen’. Further confusion may arise from records made by eastern European archaeologists who often used the term ‘hemp’ when referring to flax-woven fabrics. It may also be, that Anglo-Saxon written sources which refer to linen use the term generically, in the same way we today in Britain ‘hoover’ the carpet, instead of vacuuming it.
We do not know how common the use of hemp and nettle cloth was, but finds archaeologically verified in Scandinavia and Russia do show that it is possible to manufacture cloth from hemp and nettles as fine as any linen, and in the case of nettles, finer.
We know that all three plants grew in Anglo-Saxon lands, and their use for cloth production would have been influenced in part by their local availability and profusion.
‘Linen’ garments were probably used for inner garments because of the smoothness of their texture which made them less irritating to the skin, and for their absorbent qualities. Around 950 a wealthy woman, Wynflaed, bequeathed in her will to Ealhelm’s daughter, Aethelflaed, ‘...her embroidered dress and another of linen...’ and according to Bede, St Aetheldreda of Ely gave up the wearing of linen under her woollen gown as a mark of austerity.
Hempcloth
Hemp was commonly grown. Remains have been found in Coppergate, York,
and there is evidence of its cultivation at West Stow in Suffolk, along
with flax. Crose Mere in Shropshire contained a large amount of hemp pollen
dating to 5-8th centuries, leading to conjecture that it might have been
used as a retting pond (however, while pollen analysis is a useful tool,
it may be that the Crose Mere pollen merely indicates that flax was growing
profusely nearby and its pollen blew into the water).
Hemp was used principally in the manufacture of rope and sailcloth and sacking. In Christian times, the latter may have been worn by penitents.
That cloth from hemp as fine as any linen could be produced is shown by finds in Birka, Sweden. An early 9th century woman’s grave (619) yielded a beaver fur lined with hempcloth, and a mid-10th century woman’s grave (837) yielded the remains of a caftan lined with hempcloth. The texture of these two finds were similar in fineness to high quality linen.
In current times, someone’s Russian grandmother made a pair of towels which looked and felt like linen, were nicely absorbent, and after a few washings became quite soft.
Hemp’s fibres grow up to 12ft long and produce thread stronger than flax.
Nettlecloth
The nettle grows everywhere on any damp ground that has been disturbed.
It has been used as cattle, pig, and poultry fodder. It has been used
to make beer, tea, soup and porridge, and its sap used as rennet to curdle
milk in cheese making, and even to caulk vessels. It can also be used
as a dye.
Yet the root meaning of the word means ‘spin, sew’. The first known textile find (Neolithic) in Europe was in Voldtofte, Denmark. Although possible textile finds in Britain have not been confirmed, remains of both stinging and annual nettles were discovered during excavations in Coppergate, York. Nettlecloth continued to be produced in Scandinavia and in Scotland until the 19th century, and this cloth was known as Scotch cloth in Britain. In WW1 the shortage of cotton forced the Germans to use nettles to make clothing (it took 45kg to make one shirt). In Poland nettle thread was used from ancient times up until the 17th century when it was replaced by silk.
In modern times someone who grew up in Sweden watched a museum demonstration of the making of nettlecloth and recalls its being greyer than ‘raw’ linen, and shinier, but once bleached it had a ‘lustre reminiscent of pearls’.
Nettle fibres are white, silky, and up to 50mm (2”) long, and produce a finer and silkier fabric than flax, in which case it is entirely possible that fine ‘linens’ for the wealthy may have been woven from nettle rather than flax.
Linen
Flax, associated with weaving and cloth production in northern lands,
has significance as a fertility symbol. Linen headcloths were part of
a bride’s costume, and German brides put flax in their shoes to
ensure prosperity, and the flax crop was encouraged in English country
districts with midsummer fires and dances.
Flax was also widely grown for linseed oil (40% of the plant is oil). Flaxengate in York takes its name from this produce, as does the village of Linton, North Yorkshire, where marshy fields were ideal for this tall leggy plant. Winchester was also a flax-growing area.
FIBRE PROCESSING
Plant
Hemp, flax, and nettles would have undergone similar processes to turn
them into yarns suitable for weaving into fabrics for clothing. One aspect
of the process was the smell associated with it, second in foulness only
to tanning, glue-making and woad fermentation (beavering).
When it comes to flax, the seeds were sown in March or April, and the plant ripened after 5-6 months. For textiles the plant was harvested before the seeds were fully ripe, i.e. before the woody core hardened. The stalks were pulled by hand for maximum length and then dried. After drying the seed bolls were removed by combing them through a toothed wooden rippler, then tied up in stooks (beets) and submerged in pits filled with stagnant water for 2-3 weeks to decompose, a process known as water-retting (‘ret’ derives from the same root as ‘rot’). Another method, dew-retting, was to leave the stems exposed to the air, but this process took longer. One method produced a yellowish fibre, the other a greyish one. During retting the stems are broken down by bacterial action which softens the glue between the inner fibres to allow their easier extraction from the tough outer covering.
This extraction was carried out after drying by scutching (word of Scandinavian origin?). The rotted stems were pounded with a hinged batten and then the tough outer layers were stripped off by a heavy paddle-like blade (scutching knife) worked up and down against a vertical wooden board. Two Anglo-Scandinavian wooden flax pounders made from willow and alder were found at Coppergate, York, as was an oak scutching knife.
The fibres were then hackled (Old High German ‘hook’), that is: drawn through a big comb made by nails embedded in a wooden board, to remove any remaining non-fibrous material.
Both flax and hemp were also shived (from an old root meaning ‘to split’) to remove less useful short fibres which went to make up tow.
Animal: Sheep’s Wool
The most common animal fibre used was wool. Wild sheep grew an outer layer
of short kemps (knotty hair which won’t felt) and a sparse undercoat
of short-stapled fine wool. Domestication bred denser undercoats and replaced
the kemps with long-stapled wool, and eventually by the Anglo-Saxon period
sheep had been bred to grow a medium wool coat. The flocks were tended
by shepherds, and kept not only for wool but also for milk which was used
for drinking, cooking, cheese and butter-making. The shepherd was entitled
to have the herd’s milk for seven days after the equinox and a bowlful
of whey or buttermilk all summer long.
The sheep then were smaller than today’s breeds. Probably the closest breed today is the Soay sheep, which has flourished on the islands of St Kilda in the Outer Hebrides since the Viking era (there is also a flock at Woburn). Another breed possibly close to what obtained at the period is the moufflon, which can be seen at Flag Fen, a bronze/iron age settlement museum like West Stow near Peterborough, and the Orkney sheep on North Ronaldsay (which lives on seaweed!)
The fleece colours were predominantly grey (a mixture of white and dark fibres), but there were white, near-white, reddish-brown and dark-brown animals as well.
The most common woollen fabrics found have been from the fleece type ‘generalised medium’, i.e. long-stapled, but for heavier garments such as cloaks a short-stapled wool would have been used.
Up until the Late Saxon period, the very fine woollen cloths would posssibly/ probably have been imported.
Processing
The sheep were sheared or plucked in June, each animal probably giving
less than a kilo (2lbs) of wool. This had to be washed or ‘scoured’
to remove dirt and some of the lanolin contained in the fleece. For this
purpose it is probable that stale urine, which contains ammonia, was used.
CLOTH MANUFACTURE
Looms
Up to the late 10th century, cloth was woven on warp-weighted looms. In
towns of the Late Saxon period there may have been a change in loom type
(finds in Winchester) such as the two-beam vertical loom for 2x1 twill
(a fine cloth whose weave is not natural to the warp-weighted loom) and
the treadle-operated horizontal loom.
It is believed that most spinners and weavers on the warp-weighted loom would have been women, and the word ‘wife’ is sometimes explained as ‘weaver’. However “this cannot be reconciled with its root form, and the real origin of the word remains obscure; the Anglo-Saxon for ‘to weave’ is wefan; a male weaver is a webba; a female weaver is a webbestre; and to equate wif with webbestre is to give up all regards for facts.” (W W Skeat, The Etymological Dict. of the English Language), and quite as many men as well as women may have been employed when it came to producing textiles in industrial quantities on large secular and ecclesiastical estates and in towns.
On warp-weighted looms the cloth starts from the top and is worked downwards. Weavers would have worked in pairs, one at each side of the uprights which stood propped at an angle against the wall. This type of loom cannot weave bales of cloth to be cut up. The weavers would have measured the warp threads according to whether the finished article was to be garment or blanket length. During the early centuries weavers would have produced cloth for their families as needed. The West Stow settlement is believed to have had three weaving huts and may have produced sufficient cloth to supply other settlements. Later, on large secular and ecclesiastical estates weaving became more organised and specialised. In some households the skilled weavers were thralls; in the late 10th century two such women were mentioned in Wynflaed’s will.
Tools
Woolcombs
Before spinning, the wool fibres need to be prepared. This could be done
with fingers, but wool combs are more effective and were in use from at
least the 7th century. Combing the unspun fibres to lie parallel gives
a strong, hard thread essential for warp and weft threads on a loom. (Carding,
i.e. teasing, makes the fibre lie all which way and results in a soft,
fluffy thread of the type used for modern-day knitting).
Woolcombs were used in pairs, with each holding two rows of iron teeth
set in an iron bound block of wood and attached to a wooden handle. Another
type of comb used teasels instead of iron teeth. The process separated
the long fibres from the short ones which were left at the base of the
spikes, as well as aligning the long fibres ready for spinning.
One found in Coppergate had two rows of 93mm-long teeth, and a site in
Essex has produced what may have been woolcomb warmers. Heating the combs
would assist in melting the lanolin to make the process easier.
Warp-weights
The strength of the cloth is imparted by the warp (½) threads.
These were kept taut by weights. Clay weights are fairly common finds
in settlements; about 28 would be needed for approximately a yard’s
width. Early Saxon weights were usually ring-shaped, Late Saxon bun-shaped.
Pin beaters
A cigar-shaped tool pointed at both ends to deal with knots and tangles.
Two finds (Sutton Courtney, Oxon; Castor, Peterborough) were of bone.
Weaving swords
When 5 to 7 weft (------) yarns had been ‘picked’ (passed
to and fro through the warp) they were beaten upwards to close the weave.
Most weaving swords would have been made of wood and therefore perished,
but in Kent women’s graves have yielded iron weaving swords ranging
in length between 9½ ft to just under 2 ft. These have a tang at
both ends; there would have been a wooden handle on the long tang, and
the short tang may have served as a pin-beater. At West Stow a weaving
sword just over 2 ft long with a squared-off tip and a long tang has been
found; the blade itself was pattern-welded, pointing to its owner being
of high status.
Yarn Processing
Spinning was done entirely by hand (the spinning wheel was not invented
until later), and by tradition, was women’s work. In his will, Alfred
the Great described his female relatives as ‘spinl healfe’
(spindle side), from which comes the word ‘spinster’. It must
have been a fairly constant occupation for all women except perhaps those
of the highest status since the hours spent on preparing wool for weaving
were probably about 10 to 1. It is worth noting that it took a skilled
modern spinner some 500 hrs to spin just the warp threads to weave a replica
of a man’s kyrtle found in Scandinavia.
Once the wool had been washed and combed, it would have been rolled into a loose ‘roving’ which could then be wound around the distaff (wull-mod). The ends of the fibre would then have been attached to the spindle, on the end of which was the whorl, a weight which acted as a fly-wheel. The spinner rotated the spindle, pulling the fibres from the distaff through fingers and thumb, and once the spindle touched the ground and ceased to revolve, she wound the yarn onto the spindle and started again.
When the yarn had been spun it could then, depending on its purpose, be plied into thread. Plying (spinning two or more yarns together) not only stabilised the twist of the yarn but also gave a stronger end product resistant to friction.
A skeinwinding ‘niddy noddy’ and a reel (swift) were found in the 9th century Oseburg ship burial, and there is no reason not to suppose that the Anglo-Saxons used them as well, the more so since ‘reol’ and ‘gearnwinde’ are listed in the Gerefa as ‘towtola’ (textile tools).
Cloth Weaving
The wool weaves yielded by most archaeological finds have been in the
various twill pattern types, and less commonly, tabby. ‘Linen’
fabrics, on the other hand are usually tabby weave.
Tabby is the easiest weave to produce on the warp-weighted loom.
Twill, especially the 2 x 2 diagonal weave, was very popular with Anglo-Saxon weavers because of the stability it gave to the fabric. Twills such as the broken diamond or lozenge required very skilful weaving and were certainly luxury fabrics.
Archaeological evidence for early domestic fulling (felting) in Britain is virtually non-existent. Such textiles as have survived do not prove that fulling was a common practice until the later middle ages: felted textiles could just as well be the result of heavy wear or post-depositional change as an original condition. However, in Aelfgifu’s will (c.1000) she frees a thrall who is described as a ‘fuller’, but this may well refer to the person who trod the wool in urine.
DECORATIVE BRAIDS
Tablet Weaving
Braiding was a method of non-loom weaving from very early times. Archaeological
evidence of the tablets on which they were woven is scanty since they
were likely to have been made of thin pieces of wood or hide, but a bone
example was found in Kent, a bronze one at West Stow in Suffolk, and another
at York.
Tablets were usually square with a hole at each corner. There were also circular ones and three hole triangular ones. Some types of braids used only two holes.
Tablet weaving produces a braid which is thick and flexible, and which can be patterned on both sides, the weft being concealed except at the edges. It is possible to produce geometric patterns, either running continuously or in a series of blocks. It has been suggested that early settlers may have used patterns peculiar to families or regions, but there is no evidence to support this. The very skilled could even create motifs of animals.
It was used to make girdles, cuffs, ornamental bands to be stitched on to garments and for integral borders of textiles. The braids would also serve as headbands, and some have been found woven with silks and decorated with gold and silver threads.
Braids were generally woven either in wool or linen, but luxury braids denoting high status and wealth were achieved either by embroidery on the woven braid or by brocading with gold thread during the weaving process. In the Early Pagan period brocading was executed with strips of solid gold beaten flat. In the Middle Conversion and Late periods gold strips were wound around fibres or horse/cow hairs. One find was decorated in soumak (wrapped) brocading, in two shades of red, two shades of blue, and gold foil wrapped around silk, and this example remains astonishingly bright today.
Gold work of this kind was probably used for edging garments at wrist, neck or skirt edge, and for decorating the ribbons adorning kings’ cloaks.
SOURCES
People
Jeannine Batstone for information on the Scandinavian kyrtle replica,
and especial gratitude to Stephen (Seg) Geddings of Hwicce who patiently
corrected my mistakes and gave me valuable insights.
Books
Clark, J Saxon and Norman London, Museum of London HMSO (1989)
Fell, C Women in Anglo-Saxon England (1984)
Halsey, M Spindle Spinning, monograph (1978) The Handweaver’s Studio
Leahy, K Anglo-Saxon Crafts (2003)
de Messant, J The Bayeux Tapestry, the Embroiderers’ Story
Owen-Crocker, G Dress in Anglo-Saxon England (1986 and Revised Edition
2004)
Pollington, S Leechcraft - Early English Charms, Plantlore and Healing
(2000)
Swanton, M (trans) Anglo-Saxon Prose, Everyman (1993)
Wayland Barber, E Women’s Work, The First 20,000 Years (1994)
Wild, J P Textiles in Archaeology, Shire Books (2003)
Internet
Various, the most instructive of which:
Vikings, The Basic Kit Guide: Annexe 1 - Textiles; Annexe 2 - Colours
Regia Anglorum Textiles (R Williamson; 1999, updated 2003)
Wool and Stuff (F Guthrumsdottir; 1993, updated 2002)
For vegetable fibres: World Wide Words, “Fibres from the Earth:
Names for some natural materials,” by
Michael Quinion
Stefan’s Florilegium
Hemp and Nettle by Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, translated by Jennifer A Heise
SILK IN THE ANGLO-SAXON ERA
Silk was an imported luxury textile. We know that the Anglo-Saxon élites
loved silks and rich fabrics. The Flemish Goscelin is admiring; he praises
our goldsmiths to the skies and then goes on to extol the embroidery skills
of Anglo-Saxon women over the goldwork encrusted with gems and English
pearls that ‘shine like stars’ with which they adorned the
garments of the princes of the church and realm. But William of Poitier,
writing after the Conquest, strikes a sour note; he describes the Anglo-Saxons
as ‘ostentatious in appearance’ (mind you, he also accuses
them of perfidy in character and barbarism in behaviour, so one gathers
he did not take to them).
Silk was used for church hangings, church vestments, and tomb and altar coverings. It was worn by kings and the wealthy. Already around 686 Bishop Aldhelm criticises churchmen and churchwomen for wearing it. Bede (673-735) tells us that two silks were exchanged for an estate of three hides and, since a hide was a land unit that could support a family, we thereby learn that ‘...each silk would have kept one and a half families for life’ (Dodwell). The élite also used silk to embellish their halls with soft furnishings; they were less interested in the size of their buildings, whether churches or halls, than in the sumptuousness of their interiors, and after the Conquest William of Malmesbury, an Anglo-Norman, remarks on this predilection when he contrasts the Anglo-Saxons’ taste to the Normans’: ‘...the Normans live frugally in large buildings and the Anglo-Saxons extravagantly in small ones’. Suffice to say that by the time of the Conquest so much silk had entered England that William was able to re-export huge quantities to the Continent as war-booty.
So how did it reach England? It would have been brought from Byzantium, Persia and the Levant. From thence it would have travelled to Rome and to staging posts such as Pavia in Northern Italy. Alternatively, it would also have come from the Baltic through the Scandinavians in Russia and the Friesians who dominated trade in the Baltic until the 9th century. It was carried by merchants, or presented as costly gifts from rulers to rulers, or as munificent donations to religious centres by churchmen and women, by kings and the wealthy élite, and by wealthy pilgrims returning from Rome, and sometimes even Jerusalem (Appendix 1).
Silk originally reached Europe from China via the Silk Roads overland across the Eurasian steppes or through India. China managed to keep its origin a secret and its production a monopoly for many centuries (Appendix 2; Figs 1 and 2). In 552 AD, however, Nestorian monks, so it is said, smuggled out some silkworm eggs concealed in a hollowed-out wooden staff and brought them to the Byzantine emperor Justinian. Soon after craftsmen in Persia and the Levant also acquired the knowledge, and their silks became renowned for their quality. Ironically, it was not long before China began importing silk damasks and brocades, often incorporating gold threads, from Byzantium and Persia and the Levant.
Pattern-woven Silks
Unfortunately England’s soil and climate does not preserve textiles
in the way that Denmark’s peat bogs do, where clothed bodies up
to 2000 years old have survived. The cold prevailing in eastern Siberia
has yielded up the refrigerated contents of the Pazyrik burial mounds,
giving us textiles even older than those found in the Danish bogs. However
we are fortunate in that the extremely dry conditions of the Tarim Basin
desert north of Tibet has provided us with a wealth of information when
it comes to the kind of patterned silks worn and traded along the Silk
Roads (Figs. 3 and 4). Also a 6th c. AD wall painting in the Cave of the
Sixteen Sword Bearers in Qizil of the “Knights with Long Swords”
furnishes clues as to representative patterns (Fig. 5).
The patterned silks woven in Byzantium, Persia and the Levant reflected their respective tastes in designs (Figs 6, 7, 8, 9). Examination likewise of Byzantine illustrations and paintings also gives us an idea of the empire’s taste in patterned silks. Some motifs, such as the griffin (Fig 9), can be traced right back to ancient Mesopotamia, and became popular along the Silk Roads (Fig 10), and find their way into the borders of the Bayeux Tapestry (Fig 11). (Note too the Roman design on the tunic worn by the mummy in Fig 4, indicating that designs were a two-way traffic along the Silk Roads.)
From these textile remains and the wall-painting it can be seen that patterns have changed little over the centuries down to the present since almost identical and similar patterns are still being woven today, especially for soft-furnishings such as chair coverings and curtains.
These therefore are in all probability similar to the types of pattern-woven silks brought to England, but as mentioned above, we do not have much to go on from archaeological evidence because of our climate. However, in 1827 a Byzantine silk from St Cuthbert’s tomb in Durham Cathedral was examined and ascribed to the 7th c (Fig 8). This dating, sadly, is doubtful, for ‘...when the saint’s body was translated to a new shrine in 1104, three of the fabrics were removed and replaced by others which included two silks’. (Dodwell) Thus the most that can be claimed for the silk is that is was there by 1104. On the other hand, the silk’s reconstruction shows motifs familiar to us in the borders of the Bayeux Tapestry (birds) and the borders of manuscript illustrations (fruit).
Written sources inform us that the wealthiest religious centres in Anglo-Saxon lands were richly provided with sumptuous silks from Byzantium, Persia and the Levant in the shape of vestments, hangings, and altar and tomb coverings. Unfortunately these sources tell us little of the designs and motifs, save to extol upon the lavish use of gold woven into and embellishing these textiles. Some snippets are gleaned, however:
Alcuin in the 8th c. describes the silk hangings at York as depicting exotic forms or figures, though he does not specify what these might be. We do know, however, that hangings of this period in Roman churches were patterned with griffins, unicorns, peacocks, lions and eagles. Hangings in Roman churches also depicted scenes of Christian themes (Fig 7), a textile tradition going back to 410 AD at least, when Asterium of Ameseia complains that even secular garments were thus adorned!
William of Malmsbury tells us that at the end of the 10th c. Archbishop Sigeric of Canterbury gave Glastonbury seven textiles depicting white lions, though whether these were patterned silks or embroidered ‘tapestries’ is unclear.
Bishop Aldhelm in Rome in the late 7th c. acquired a silk chasuble with a design of peacocks.
A mid-11th c. illustration in a Canterbury manuscript shows a decorated shroud typical of the Byzantine style, though the design’s ‘frames’ are square rather than the more usual lozenge shape (Fig 12). On the other hand these squared ‘frames’ do resemble the pattern of the undertunic worn by the ‘knight’ on the left in Fig 5.
The Bayeux Tapestry shows us Edward the Confessor’s body resting on what is probably a patterned silk underlay (Fig 13), and this pattern also resembles the pattern of the overtunic of the ‘knight’ on the far right in Fig 5.
In his Colloquy, Aelfric has his merchant name silk and purpura (sericum et purperam) in the same breath as precious gems and gold.
Purpura
Even though contemporary written sources make it clear that a fabric called
purpura was prized by the Anglo-Saxons even above silk and pattern-woven
silk, it is in a sense a mystery fabric because they do not specify what
it is. It has been suggested that it might have been a fur or pelt, but
our written sources reveal that, in spite of its etymology denoting purple,
purpura was not necessarily that colour. There was a red purpura tunicle
at Ely, a white purpura chasuble and a green purpura cope at Peterborough,
and after the Conquest black and red purpura vestments were acquired by
Rochester, and Eddius relates that St Wilfrid adorned Ripon with various
distinct colours of purpura. Now while it is true that furs can be red
(or russet rather), black and white, they are not, I believe, green! -
so it may be reasonable to assume that purpura was not another name for
fur or pelt.
Purpura would seem to have been very shiny fabric. Aelfric in his Life
of St Martin describes a garment as ‘shining like purpura’.
That purpura does not necessarily mean ‘purple’ is easily
accounted for. J André in his study on colour terms in Latin (Étude
sur les Termes de Couleur dans la Langue Latine, Paris 1949) notes that
even before the Middle Ages the Latin adjective purpureus had glided into
meaning brightness and was used to describe:
the light of day
the full spectrum of the rainbow
the glint of sunlight on a lightly rippled sea
the shining whiteness of snow
Through various writings we learn that the corpses of the Anglo-Saxon élite, both lay and clerical, were shrouded in purpura, and purpura was also used for these corpses’ underlays and overlays. This élite also used it for garments and vestments, and for decorating interiors of palaces, halls, and churches.
We also know that purpura was thicker than normal silk. The London Inventory lists a textile as being ‘like purpura’ in that it is thick and of more than one colour.
For a more detailed description we must forward in time to Reginald of Durham, writing between 1165-1172. He describes St Cuthbert’s dalmatic as related to him by witnesses contemporary to the saint’s reburial at Durham in 1104. The colour, he writes, ‘...was a reddish purple....but this was shot with another colour, yellow, which produced ever-changing patterns of variegated colour’ (Dodwell), and ‘...this infusion of a yellow colour is discerned to be inherent in the cloth, sprinkled dropwise over the whole, and by its strength and brilliance the reddish-purple tint is made to give out a more powerful and brighter light.’ (Reginaldi....libellus, trans. Pace).
As Dodwell points out, nowhere in the text does Reginald call this fabric purpura. It is however ‘...an exact description of shot-silk taffeta as it catches the light’.
Given that we know purpura came in variegated colours, and was a robust fabric, it is not unreasonable then to deduce, as Dodwell does, that it was the name the Anglo-Saxons applied to shot-silk taffeta. This conclusion of Dodwell’s is given further weight by information in the Life of St Edward (mid-11th c) that the Confessor had a ship with sails of purpura embroidered with scenes of the great sea-battles of Anglo-Saxon kings, and that King Edgar owned a cloak of ‘distinguished’ purpura, and that in the 7th c King Oswald’s banner was of purpura encrusted with gold.
And even if purpura was not shot-silk taffeta, it is safe to eliminate fur or pelt from the theories since neither kings’ nor saints’ corpses were shrouded in this manner, and sails of fur or pelt - let alone embroidered fur or pelt, are highly unlikely, as indeed would be banners.
SOURCES
Dodwell, C R Anglo-Saxon Art - A New Perspective, Cornell University Press,
1982
Hopkirk, P Foreign Devils on the Silk Road, J Murray, 1980
Thorpe, N; James, P J Ancient Inventions, Ballantine Books, 1994
Wood, F The Silk Road - Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia, British
Library, 2002
APPENDIX 1
Silk imported by Traders
Silk would have entered England through her various seaports around the
south coast. Interestingly, these outnumbered those along the Low Countries
and Northern France facing them the other side of the Channel. Of these
English ports, three of the most important were Hamwic (Southampton),
Lundenwic (London) and Gippeswic (Ipswich).
Anglo-Saxon traders who crossed the Channel did not go unremarked. Charlemagne, in his 796 letter to Offa of Mercia, complains that some tried to cheat the tolls by pretending to be pilgrims. Pavia, capital of Lombardy in northern Italy, comments on the brawls started by Anglo-Saxon traders when customs officers wanted to search their baggage. At that time Pavia was a major trading centre for those buying silks since it drew merchants from Venice and Sicily carrying silks from Byzantium and the Levant. The Anglo-Saxon trade must have been important to Pavia, however, for it decided to exempt individual traders from tolls and transaction taxes so long as the English royal treasury paid a collective levy every three years. Under the terms of this early trade agreement, Pavia was to receive 50 lbs of pure silver, two greyhounds with gilded and embossed collars, two shields, two swords, and two lances; as for the Pavian officer in charge of the market, he was to receive two fur coats and two pounds of silver. This arrangement was similar to concessions made to Italo-Byzantine towns like Venice and shows just how valuable Anglo-Saxon trade was as no other non-Italian town or state was accorded this privilege.
So, even if Anglo-Saxon traders did not always enjoy the best of reputations - In 1057, Peter Damiani, addressing traders in general, accuses: ‘You flee from your homeland, do not know your children, and forsake your wife; you have forgotten everything which is essential. You are covetous, wanting to acquire more, and gain only to lose, and in losing, bemoan your lot.’ - on the other hand they were valued by Anglo-Saxon secular and ecclesiastical leaders, not just because of the luxury goods they brought home (Cnut, on pilgrimage to Rome in 1027, successfully negotiated a trading agreement with the emperor and the king of Burgundy whereby: ‘...my subjects, both merchants and pilgrims.....should come and go, to and from Rome,....free from all hindrances caused by barriers and tolls’), but also for the useful rumours and gossip they could pass on about current political situations in the countries through which they travelled.
Trading abroad was not for the timorous. Crossing the Channel was always a risky venture. As Aelfric’s Mercator points out: ‘I board my ship with my cargo and sail to lands overseas........sometimes I suffer shipwreck with the loss of all my goods, scarcely escaping alive’. But if our Mercator made it safely to the other side of the Channel, and transported his wares up the Rhine, turned right at Koblenz onto the Aare and travelled up past Bern through Lake Thun to Lake Brienz, and then transferred his goods onto pack animals to cross the Alps into northern Italy, did his business in Pavia and made the return journey home without mishap, then surely he deserved his rich rewards. And these rewards could be socially worthwhile for an enterprising ceorl since a clause in the early 11th c compilation Geþyncðo (concerning wergelds and dignities) states: ‘...if a trader prospered, that he crossed thrice the open sea at his own expense, he was then afterwards entitled to the rights of a thegn’.
Gifts and Pilgrims
For examples of gifts of silk entering England, a short list will suffice:
7th c. Edwin of Northumbria received either a Byzantine garment or cover
and a tunic from pope Boniface V.
8th c. Offa of Mercia was sent two silks by Charlemagne, who also sent
silks to the sees of Mercia and Northumbria.
The Anglo-Saxon bishop of Mainz, Lull, gave a fine silk to the archbishop
of York.
9th c. Asser, the Welsh chronicler, was gifted a costly silk by Alfred
to persuade him to remain in England.
10th c. Kenneth of Scotland received decorated silks from Edgar.
11th c. Cnut was sent precious textiles and garments by Emperor Konrad
II in Rome.
Then there were the silks brought home from Rome by returning pilgrims.
St Aldhelm, Cnut, Archbishop Sigeric among others carried back costly
textiles to present to churches in England. Of the ‘south-fare’
Bede in the 8th c. comments: ‘Many of the English, nobles and commoners,
layfolk and clergy, men and women, eagerly followed this custom’.
Anglo-Saxon women went to Rome in some numbers, and obviously mis-budgeted
the funds they would need, for 22 years after Bede we find Boniface begging
Canterbury to forbid their journeys: ‘A great part of them perish
and few keep their virtue. There are many towns in Lombardy and Gaul where
there is not a courtesan or harlot but is of English stock.’ Be
that as it may, among the flow of Anglo-Saxon pilgrims flocking to Rome
unsung by the chroniclers, there would have been those wealthy enough
to buy and bring home valuable silks of all kinds.
Neither should one forget the pilgrims who bravely ventured as far as
the Holy Land. Those who took the overland route would have made their
way there through Byzantium where the greatest variety of silks were on
offer. Shortly before the Conquest for example, Aethelwine, a monk from
Canterbury, is recorded as returning from Jerusalem through Constantinople
and buying there ‘a very valuable and beautiful covering’
for the tomb of St Dunstan (St Dunstan’s Miracles, Eadmer).
SOURCES
Dodwell, C R Anglo-Saxon Art - A New Perspective; Cornell University Press,
1982
Ohler, N The Medieval Traveller, The Boydell Press, 1986
Reynolds, R Later Anglo-Saxon England, Tempus, 1999
APPENDIX 2
Silk originated in China and its production can be dated back to at least 3600 BC. A Neolithic site in Zhejiang province (still an area of major silk production today) yielded weaving implements and dyed silk gauzes. Another site in the same province, dated to 2700 BC, yielded more complex woven patterns, including damasks. The tomb of the Lady of Dai who died soon after 168 AD ‘...included painted silk hangings, forty six rolls of silk and silk dresses, skirts, socks, mittens, shoes, a pillow, scent sachets, mirror cases and wrappings. There were plain taffetas and gauzes, dyed brown, grey, vermilion, dark red, purple, yellow, blue, green, and black. There were printed silks and figured silks with woven designs, both self-colour and polychrome.’ (F Wood, The Silk Road)
Silk probably arrived in the Mediterranean sometime around the 2nd century BC. The Romans called the peoples of remote East Asia the Seres (silk people). They first encountered this material ‘as light as a cloud’ and ‘translucent as ice’ in 53 BC at Carrhae when Crassus’s seven legions were pursuing the Parthians across the Euphrates. The fleeing Parthians, shooting backwards a deadly hail of arrows while still galloping (the origin of the expression: a ‘Parthian shot’) broke the Roman formation, then yelling bloodcurdling war cries they suddenly wheeled about, at the same time unfurling great banners of silk which flashed blindingly in the blazing sunlight, causing the legions who had never seen anything like this before to turn tail and flee, leaving some twenty thousand dead behind them.
Switching from war to trade, the Parthian were soon acting as middlemen in the export of silks from China to Rome where it became so popular that it was soon considered a symbol of decadence. Tiberius in 14 AD banned men from wearing it, and Pliny castigated its transparency as ‘rendering women naked’ and blamed women for draining the empire’s economy. By the year 380 AD it was reported to have spread to all classes of Roman society, even to the lowest!
From an edict of Diocletian (301 AD) we learn that raw silk, as well as textiles, was imported into the empire. The Romans, however, had no idea how silk was produced. A 1st c. BC historian, Strabo, informs us that silk comes from India and is the product of certain dried barks, and Pliny wrote: ‘The Seres are famous for the wool of their forests. They remove the down from leaves with the help of water....’ and Virgil tells us the threads are combed from leaves - a widely-held belief which persisted for centuries.
Today we know that silk comes from the silk ‘worm’ - which
is not in fact a worm at all but the caterpillar of the Bombyx mori moth:
“The caterpillars feed on mulberry leaves for about five weeks (it
takes about two hundredweight of leaves to produce a pound of silk) and
grow from 1mm to 70 or 80 mm before spinning their cocoons. The material
for the cocoons is produced in two glands that run along the caterpillar’s
body and it consists of a protein substance called fibroin (which forms
the fibre) and a gummy mixture called sericin or ‘silk gum’.
The caterpillar extrudes a little of the silk solution from a pair of
holes on the top of its head, fixes it to a support and then draws its
head back to stretch the fibroin out. Moving its head from side to side,
the caterpillar lays its double filament in a figure-of-eight pattern,
forming a cocoon around itself as the sericin hardens. Left to itself,
the caterpillar would turn into a chrysalis inside its nut-shaped cocoon
and, after a week or so, a fat, hairy moth. The moth’s exit from
the cocoon would break the filaments so that they could not be reeled
into a silk thread; thus the majority of the chrysalises are stifled by
hot air or steam. Their cocoons are then placed in hot water which softens
the sericin, making it possible to find the end of the filament and reel
it. Five to seven filaments are reeled together to form a fine thread
which can be woven into cloth.”
(F. Wood, The Silk Road - quoting from The Silk Book, London, The Silk
and Rayon Users’ Association, 1951)
SOURCES
Hopkirk, P Foreign Devils on The Silk Road; J Murray, 1980
Thorpe, N; James, P J Ancient Inventions; Ballantine Books, 1994
Wood, F The Silk Road - Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia, British
Library, 2002