Textile Fabrics: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Church-vestments, Dresses, Silk Stuffs, Needlework and Tapestries, forming that Section of the MuseumRock, Daniel
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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
In the earlier inventories of church vestments, no mention can be found
of satin; and it is only among the various rich bequests (ed. Oliver)
made to his cathedral at Exeter by Bishop Grandison, between A.D.
1327-69 that this fine silk is spoken of; though later, and especially
in the royal wardrobe accompts (ed. Nicolas), it is perpetually
specified. Hence we may fairly assume that till the beginning of the
fourteenth century satin was unknown in England; afterwards it met
much favour. Flags were made of it. On board the stately ship in which
Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, in the reign of Henry VI., sailed from
England to France, there were flying “three penons of satten,” besides
“sixteen standards of worsted entailed with a bear and a chain,” and
a great streamer of forty yards in length and eight yards in breadth,
with a great bear and griffin holding a ragged staff poudred full of
ragged staffs.[130] Like other silken textiles, satin seems to have
been, in some few instances, interwoven with flat gold thread, so as to
make it a tissue: for example, Lincoln had of the gift of one of its
bishops, eighteen copes of red tinsel sattin with orphreys of gold.[131]
Though not often, yet sometimes do we read of a silken stuff called,
_cadas_, _carda_, _carduus_, and used for inferior purposes. The
outside silk on the cocoon is of a poor quality compared with the
inner filaments, from which it is kept quite apart in reeling, and set
aside for other uses; this is _cadas_ which the Promptorium Parvulorum
defines, however, as “Bombicinium,” or silk. St. Paul’s, A.D. 1295,
had “pannus rubeus diasperatus de Laret lineatus de carda Inda;”[132]
and Exeter possessed another cloth for the purpose: “Cum carduis
viridibus.”[133] More frequently, instead of being spun it served as
wadding in dress; on the barons at the siege of Caerlaverock, might be
seen many a rich gambeson garnished with silk, cadas, and cotton:--
Meint riche gamboison guarni
De soi, de cadas e coton.[134]
One of the Lenten veils at St. Paul’s, in the chapel of St. Faith, was
of blue and yellow carde: “velum quadragesimale de carde croceo et
indico.”[135] The quantity of card purchased for the royal wardrobe,
in the twenty-eighth year of Edward I.’s reign, A.D. 1299, is set forth
in the Liber Quotidianus, &c.[136]
Chasubles made in the thirteenth century, and belonging to Hereford
Cathedral, were lined with carda: “Unam casulam de rubeo sindone linita
de carda crocea--tertiam casulam de serico de India linita de carda
viridi,” &c.[137]
[130] Baronage of England, Dugdale, i. 246.
[131] Mon. Anglic. viii. 1282.
[132] P. 335.
[133] Ed. Oliver, p. 317.
[134] Roll. p. 30.
[135] St. Paul’s ed. Dugdale, p. 336.
[136] P. 354.
[137] Roll of the Household Expenses of Swinford, Bishop of Hereford,
t. ii. p. xxxvi. ed. Web. for the Camden Society.
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