15th century

Advent calendar 2022 – 23 December

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Today it will be a mix of slightly different medieval silk embroideries. Some display incredibly meticulous craftsmanship and astonishing detail. You can understand that they were produced in a studio. Others are perhaps not quite as professionally executed.. But, what they lose in accuracy, they make up for in charm.

Of the preserved embroideries found in Swedish History’s collections, the overwhelming majority are connected to Catholicism. The most common motifs are saints. Often the saint him/her-self has been embroidered separately and then applied to a background. Sometimes only the saint remains and sometimes only the background remains.

They have been embroidered on linen fabric. Very often it is reused towels or other rather worn fabrics that can be found on the backs of the embroidery. The backside of embroideries can tell a lot!

In addition to “painting” with the stitches, the gilded thread can be sewn down with different colors on the silk thread and thus create another possibility to create the pattern effect.

Our sewing teachers at school must have had a heart attack from the backs of the medieval embroideries. What the back would look like has been completely uninteresting and strikingly often it is pure chaos and maybe also a bit of glue to make sure the silk yarns wouldn’t unravel.

Dating on these are 15th century.

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/Amica and Maria

Advent calendar 2022 – 16 December

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Tools. Without them there wouldn’t be textiles. To weave bands one can us a rigid heddle. And we would like to show you this lovely rigid heddle from Västkinde, Gotland, Sweden. It’s made out of moose antlers. It’s dated 1350-1500.

It’s in the collection of Swedish History museum and here is the link to the database.

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/Amica and Maria

Advent calendar 2022 – 15 December

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In museum collections there are always objects which for different reasons are linked to historical persons. It can be difficult to confirm if it is really true. And one can wonder if it really matters..
The objects are often from the time that the historical person lived, but of course there are also objects that are obviously from the wrong time. Modern technology can also reveal information whether the objects and the history the carry match.

This belt belongs in the collections of the National Museum in Copenhagen and is attributed to Eric of Pomerania. We don’t know if it’s true or not.

It is woven with tablets, in silk. And it is indeed a very exclusive object, fit for a king.

The belt dates to the early 15th century.
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/ Amica and Maria

Advent calendar 2022 – 14 December

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Strikingly often, textiles are found where you might not have initially thought they would be.
So in case with these three jousting shields. The core is made of hard wood and in order to create reinforcement, stability and a base to paint on, all three shields have been covered with a woven fabric. The fabric has been glued to the wood with an animal glue, over this a pigskin parchment and then coated with gesso and painted.

The fabric that can be seen where the gesso has cracked and fallen off is a relatively coarse linen/ hemp woven in plain weave.
The shields are called burial shields in the database but show all the identical features of jousting shields. The question of whether they were ever used for jousting may not be proven.

The shields date from the middle of the 15th century to the beginning of the 16th century.

Link to the shields

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/ Amica and Maria

Advent calendar 2022- 12 December

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Today we will talk about a kind of medieval textile that often have been falsified and many fakes are found in museums all over the world. Printed linen fabric. These pieces are believed to be originals. They come from the medieval church Södra Råda. 2001 the wooden church was burned down. And 2003 a reconstruction started to rebuild the church. Happily all medieval textiles was already at museums when that happened.

The printed in is printed in black and appears to have been painted red and yellow in some places. We don’t know what kind of pigment that were used. The fabrics have been sewn together before the motif was printed. It’s believed to be a work produced in the west of Germany.

Agnes Geijer dated the print to mid 15th century.

Today in the collection of Swedish History Museum. Read more here

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/ Amica and Maria

Advent calendar 2022 – 11 December

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Not all bands are woven with tablets.
Some seems to be woven with rigid heddles too. Like this on from 15th century. Woven in silk. As you can see, the blue fades faster than the madder dyed red. The long floats gives the band a nice pattern too. Around 12-14 mm wide.

In the collections of Swedish History museum.

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/Amica and Maria

Advent calendar 2022 – 8 December

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In Italy there is a privat collection of medieval textiles. In this collection one can find a linen coif from 1470-1540. It’s beyond cool and we have written about it before, here you can find that.

We just wanna lift the fact the the tie bands and not made from fabric but from braided linen threads, and then attached to the coif. It’s started with a knot on the braid.

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/ Amica and Maria

Advent calendar 2022 – 5 December

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Recycling. Perhaps the most obvious within the life cycle of a historical textile. Made, worn, mended, remade and used til all was gone…. And here we have a great example. A chasuble.

The embroidery of Jesus was probably made during the 17th century on a gold and silk relief velvet fabric from the 15th century. To consider during the 17th century that a then 200-year-old fabric was perfectly acceptable as a basis for the embroidery, is an attitude that is quite far from today’s ideas. We are both shocked by it, but also know that’s the use of such habits probably is the reason why they are still around… Ney but yay, in a way…

The velvet was probably already quite worn in the 17th century but didn’t stop the creator. We love the fact that Christ’s two legs are a recycled linen table cloth or a towel, a very rare kind from this time. Enlarge the picture for full visibility!

Dated 1350-1699

Now in the collections of The Swedish History museum. 
More pictures here

/ Amica and Maria

Advent calendar 2022 – 4 December

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Another day another dutch embroidery, this time a shield for a cope. From Grödinge church, Sweden. With checkred floor and surprised animals. Silk in satin stitch and couched gold thread. Background in plain weave linen, that can be seen where the embroidery have been damaged. .
We cannot understand how in the world they managed to dye such a wonderful orange and teal.

Dated 1450-1500.

Now in the collections of The Swedish History museum. 
More pictures here

/ Amica and Maria

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Advent calendar 2022 – 3 December

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The third day of December we would like to a possibly Dutch work. It’s a chasuble from Jälluntofta, Sweden, in relief velvet with gold thread and slik embroidery in couched and split stitch. The saints standing on checkered floors. That is quite common in embroideries from the 15th century.
We love the woven band with the fringe. It could be either woven with a rigid heddle or tablets. The warp is a 2-plied silk thread.

Now in the collections of The Swedish History museum. 
More pictures here

/ Amica and Maria
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