Room of Henry II, Tribute to Cesar chimney.

Castle of Écouen, Musée national de la Renaissance.

 

 

Embroidery and lace

 

In the Middle Ages, spinning and embroidering were the favourite and indispensable occupation for women of all ranks of society. The maidens of noble birth were placed in charge of the great ladies, not only to acquire the lofty and elegant manners suitable to their position, but also to be instructed in the womanly arts that queens themselves considered it an honour to profess.

A sharp spirit of rivalry developed between the ladies of the world and those who entered the cloister over the production of sacerdotal vestments and religious ornaments. Gifts of this sort, vying in costliness, were eagerly offered to the church. As early as the 6th century we find St Caesarius, Bishop of Arles, forbidding the nuns placed under his rule to embroider robes adorned with paintings, flowers, and precious stones. This prohibition, however, though also made by some other prelates, was not very widespread. Some of the nunneries retained their manufactory of church ornaments, and there were male communities in which this manufacture was carried on by women at a distance from the monastery. It seems that an Anglo-Saxon woman near Ely brought a number of young girls together who worked with her for the benefit of the monastery, namely excelling in the production of embroideries and tissues.

Judith of Bavaria, mother of Charles the Bald, was an excellent embroideress. When Hériold, King of Denmark, came with all his family to be baptised at Ingelheim in 826, Empress Judith, who stood sponsor for the queen, presented her with a robe in gold and precious stones which she ornamented herself. In the 7th century, St Ethelreda, virgin queen and first abbess of Ely, presented a stole and maniple to St Cuthbert which she had marvellously embroidered and embellished with gold and precious stones. In the 10th century Queen Adhelaïs, wife of Hugh Capet, presented the church of St Martin at Tours with a chasuble, on which she represented the Deity surrounded by a Seraphim and Cherubim in adoration between the shoulders in gold and the Lamb of God with the Evangelistic symbols, disposed in the four corners on the breast. The queen also offered the Abbey of St Denis a chasuble of wonderful workmanship with personally woven ornamentation, known as the Orbis terrarum.

The four daughters of Edward the Elder are all praised for their skill in spinning and working at the loom as well as at the needle. In the 10th century Elfleda, widow of Brithnoth, Earl of Northumberland, presented the church of Ely a curtain upon which were depicted the valiant deeds of her husband. Later on, Queen Algiva or Emma, wife of Canute, enriched the same church with costly cloths, at least one of which was embroidered in its entirety with orphrays by the queen herself, embellished in certain places with gold and gems arranged as if in pictures with such art and profusion as could not be matched at that time in all England.

After mentioning these wonderful specimens of the opus Anglicum, as it was then called, together with the artists whose patrician hands enhanced its splendour, Francisque Michel would also have wished to refer to the more humble workwomen who laboured for all, often instructing the great ladies, whose names have been preserved in history. In the 11th century he is able to cite only two embroideresses by name. One of these is Alwid, who possessed two hides of land at Ashley in Buckinghamshire, besides half a hide of the domain of King Edward the Confessor himself, granted to her by Earl Godric, for all the time that he remained an earl, on the condition that she teach his daughter to embroider. The other is Leuide, mentioned further on in Domesday Book as having made and still making the embroideries of the king and queen.

All the mediaeval embroideries, however, did not partake of the excessive costliness which, according to this account, was calculated to excite covetous desires which were dangerous to the welfare of the rich abbeys. The 11th century brought about the execution of the valuable specimens still preserved and known under the name Bayeux Tapestry. On a linen cloth 19 inches wide and 210 feet, 11 inches long, a lady, traditionally supposed to be Queen Matilda, represented the various episodes of the Conquest of England by William, Duke of Normandy. But, whether due to the queen or not, this monument is no less interesting, for history, offering a wealth of details in the illustration of weapons and costumes, which would be in vain to seek elsewhere.

The same embroideries found on coloured silks could also be found on linen by the Countess Ghisla, wife of Guifred, Count of Cerdagne. The curious arabesques and false Arabic inscriptions can be seen in the Musée de Cluny. A similar piece in workmanship and style, also in the Cluny and dating from the 11th century, comes from the abbey of Saint-Martin du Canigou. In Quedlembourg, the abbess Agnes and her nuns, in 1200, executed some embroidered carpets to adorn their church.

If we merely had to give an idea of the number and richness of the 14th-century embroideries, we might rest satisfied. But we prefer to send the curious to objects that they can see, such as Isabella of Bavaria’s Book of Hours, in the National Library, the embroidered canvas cover of which represents Christ on the Cross with the Holy Women at his feet and the Last Supper, surmounted by two ornamental compartments. There may also be seen at the Cluny an interesting fragment of orphray, part of a cope made at Cologne enclosing two of the Apostles in frames with mouldings; further, a fabric embroidered with herringbone from an ancient stole made also in Cologne.

It is difficult to resist the pleasure of mentioning among the more important works of this epoch, the chasuble given to the Abbey of Saint-Thierry at Reims in 1395 by the Abbot Stephen de Maligny, an ornament upon which the life of the Blessed Virgin was embroidered.

We now reach an epoch of rivalry in all the arts of design. The 15th century, for which previous progress had prepared the way, seems ubiquitously animated by the spirit of revival that has been attributed more particularly to Italy and characterised by the term Renaissance. But we have already seen, and will have occasion to show again, that this Renaissance is but the fulfilment of an evolution long anticipated. The best proof of this lies in the fact, that between the 14th and 16th centuries, the transition is made without any violent shock, and is actually brought about in regular stages of varying length, depending on the distance the artists are more or less removed from the centres of the movement.