The Middle Ages is a time of “almost near is near enough”. What does that really mean, you might be wondering now? Well, it means nothing less than that you weren’t very careful back then. If one fabric ran out, another one was taken that had a similar color, as in this case with the gilt leather embroidery from Skokloster church.
Here, the intention was to use a surface with a blue wool fabric. BUT there hasn’t been enough so they’ve been forced to join several to get a piece big enough. As you can see, there are three blue fabrics. Quite different in both shape and appearance.
We get so happy when we see this embroidery. There is something very liberating about the fact that they didn’t feel limited by the lack of a blue fabric in the right size, but they solved it all in a simple and creative way. This in particular creates character and feeling for the entire embroidery and says a lot about the frugal and material-efficient work then. We hope to see more reconstructions made in the same spirit.
It’s dated 14th century.
Today we find the embroidery in the collections of the Swedish History museum.
Link here:
Photo by Historical Textiles. Please cred
/Amica and Maria
Yes, I also find it delightful every time I see an example of “oh, well, that will do nicely enough” in historical textiles. A lot of reenactment/living history people have that (modern?) urge to do everything absolutely perfectly… and examples like this really help to take the stress out there a little bit : )
Thank you very much for this wonderful advent calendar! I’m always amazed at the things you find and present every year, and the calendar is one of my personal highlights in the festive season!