Textile Fabrics: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Church-vestments, Dresses, Silk Stuffs, Needlework and Tapestries, forming that Section of the MuseumRock, Daniel
History
Textile Fabrics: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Church-vestments, Dresses, Silk Stuffs, Needlework and Tapestries, forming that Section of the Museum
Rock, Daniel
Art objects -- England -- London -- Catalogs; Textile fabrics
A “gowne of cloth-of-gold, furred with pawmpilyon, ayenst Corpus Xpi
day,” was brought from London to Richmond, to Elizabeth of York,
afterwards Henry VII.’s queen, for her to wear as she walked in the
procession on that great festival.[75] The affection shown by Henry
VIII., and all our nobility, men and women, of the time, for cloth
of gold in their garments, was unmistakingly set forth in so many of
their likenesses brought together in that very instructive Exhibition
of National Portraits in the year, A.D. 1866, in the South Kensington
Museum. This stuff seems to have been costly then, for Princess,
afterwards Queen Mary, thirteen years before she came to the throne:
“payed to Peycocke, of London, for xix yerds iii. qr̃t of clothe of
golde at xxxviij.[~s] the yerde, xxxvij_li._ x_s._ vj_d._”[76] And for
“a yerde and d^r qr̃t of clothe of siluer xl_s._”[77]
[75] Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York, p. 33, ed. Nicolas.
[76] Privy Purse Expenses of Princess Mary, ed. Madden, p. 87.
[77] Ib. p. 86.
Cloth of gold called
TISSUE.
As between common silk and satin, there runs a broad difference, at
least in look, one being dull, the other smooth and glossy, so there
is a great distinction to be made among cloths of gold; some are,
so to say, dead; others, brilliant and sparkling. When the gold is
twisted into its silken filament, it takes the deadened look; when the
flattened, filmy strip of metal is rolled about it so evenly as to
bring its edges close to one another, it seems to be one unbroken wire
of gold, sparkling and lustrous, like what is now known as “passing,”
and, during the middle ages, went by the term of Cyprus gold; and rich
samits woven with it, were called damasks of Cyprus.
The very self-same things get for themselves other denominations as
time goes on: such happened to cloths of gold. What the thirteenth
century called, first, “ciclatoun,” then “baudekin,” afterward “nak,”
people, two hundred years later, chose to name “tissue,” or the bright
shimmering golden textile affected so much by our kings and queens in
their dress, for the more solemn occasions of stately grandeur, as was
just now mentioned. Up to this time, the very thin smooth paper made
at first on purpose to be, when this rich stuff lay by, put between
its folds to hinder it from fraying or tarnish, yet goes, though its
original use is forgotten, by the name of tissue-paper.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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