(snipped)
>the source which tells us that the English
> > were famed across Europe for their tapestry work.
I think that would be Matthew Paris, in his Historia Major... the (ironic)
anecdote goes something like: Pope Innocent IV is admiring the
ornamentation of certain English priests' vestments, aske where it came
from, is told it is English Work. So Innocent says (roughly) "England must
be a real garden of delights! How fabulous! May we gain much from this
place where much abounds!" Then he orders that many pieces of this Opus
Anglicanum (which does designate ecclesiastical embroidery) be sent to him
at once, regardless of cost...
As far as secular embroidery: so little really survives, but there is
documentation (eg inventories) for a parallel growth in this industry. See
for example Viscount Dillon and WH st John Hoe "Inventory of the goods and
chattels belonging to Thomas, Duke of Gloucester..." Archaeological Journal
LIV (1897) 275-308. And other sources and inventories mentioned by Donald
King and Santina Levy, Embroidery in Britain from 1200 to 1750 (London
1993).
And briefly, about production: there is a general shift from individual
producers (of both sexes, actually) -- often centered in monastic houses
but also a serious occupation and organized domestic activity in households
of all classes -- to more commercial activity in urban centers aournd the
middle of the 13c. For a list of names of known embroiderers of this
period, both individuals and workshop masters, see AGI Christie, English
Medieval Embroidery (London 1938), Appendix 1. In the earlier period,
there are some lovely stories like that of St Etheldreda making a stole and
maniple, decorated with gold and precious stones, for St Cuthbert. (The
10c fragments of a maniple from Durham Cathedral, known as ST Cuthbert's
relics, were commissioned by Aelfreda, widfe of Edward the Elder
(901-925).) I think that in her book Medieval Craftsmen: Embroiderers
(University of Toronto PRess, 1991), Kay Staniland includes some manuscript
images of women working on embroideries mounted on frames... but I don't
have the book to hand and don't recall if they are nuns or laywomen. That
is,however, a good reference for the material aspects of embroidery
production.
--karen
Institute of Fine Arts
New York University
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