Arts and crafts in the Middle Ages : $b a description of mediaeval workmanship in several of the departments of applied art, together with some account of special artisans in the early RenaissanceAddison, Julia de Wolf
History
Arts and crafts in the Middle Ages : $b a description of mediaeval workmanship in several of the departments of applied art, together with some account of special artisans in the early Renaissance
Addison, Julia de Wolf
Arts and crafts movement; Decoration and ornament, Medieval; Decorative arts -- History; Illumination of books and manuscripts
A child's bedquilt was found mentioned in an inventory of furniture
at the Priory of Durham, in 1446, which was embroidered in the
four corners with the Evangelistic symbols. In the "Squier of Lowe
Degree," a fifteenth century romance, there is allusion to a bed,
of which the head sheet is described "with diamonds set and rubies
bright." The king of England, in 1388, refers, in a letter, to "a bed
of gold cloth." Wall hangings in bedrooms were also most elaborate,
and the effect of a chamber adorned with gold and needlework must
have been fairly regal. An embroiderer named Delobel made a set
of furnishings for the bedroom of Louis XIV. the work upon which
occupied three years. The subject was the Triumph of Venus.
In South Kensington Museum there is a fourteenth century linen cloth
of German workmanship, upon which occurs the legend of the unicorn,
running for protection to a maiden. An old Bestiary describes how
the unicorn, or as it is there called, the "monocerus," "is an
animal which has one horn on its head: it is caught by means of
a virgin." The unicorn and virgin, with a hunter in pursuit, is
quite a favourite bit of symbolism in the middle ages.
Another interesting piece of German embroidery in South Kensington
is a table cloth, worked on heavy canvas, in heraldic style: long
decorative inscriptions embellish the corners. A liberal translation
of these verses is given by Dr. Rock, some of the sentences being
quaint and interesting to quote. Evidently the embroideress indulged
in autobiography in the following: "And she, to honour the esquire
her husband, wished to adorn and increase his house furniture, and
there has worked, with her own hand, this and still many other
pretty cloths, to her memory." And in another corner, "Now follows
here my own birthday. When one wrote 1565 my mother's heart was
gladdened by my first cry. In the year 1585 I gave birth my self
to a daughter. Her name is Emilia Catharina, and she has been a
proper and praiseworthy child." Then, to her children the following
address is directed: "Do not forget your prayers in the morning. And
be temperate in your pleasures. And make yourselves acquainted with
the Word of God.... I beseech you to be sincere in all matters. That
will make you great and glorious. Honour everybody according to his
station: it will make you honourably known. You, my truly beloved sons,
beware of fiery wines... you, my truly beloved daughters, preserve
and guard your honour, and reflect before you do anything: many have
been led into evil by acting first and thinking afterwards." In
another compartment, a lament goes up in which she deplores the
death of her husband. "His age was sixty and eight years," she says.
"The dropsy has killed him. I, his afflicted Anna Blickin von
Liechtenperg who was left behind, have related it with my hand in
this cloth, that might be known to my children this greater sorrow
which God has sent me." The cloth is a naive and unusual record of
German home life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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