Currency - Production and Embellishment - Gifts and Purchases - Materials and Motifs - Links - Bibliography
Zoroslava Drobna’s Les Tresors de la Broderie Tchecoslovaquie is a beautiful study of textile decoration in Bohemia. Even if you can’t read French (or Spanish, the other language this book is printed in), this is absolutely worth picking up at the library. At least half is black and white colour plates including extreme closeups of extant silk, gold, and bead embroideries, most of which are preserved in churches in the Czech Republic.
My own French reading skills have miraculously been sufficient to translate the pages of the text relevant to study of the pre-Hussite (pre-1415) embroidery (pp 1-27). Below is a summary of this text. In some cases I have left the french terminology, as I was unable to find a sensible equivalent to the word. The French word “perle” denotes both “pearl” and “bead”, and looking at the artwork I think many times the meaning is supposed to be “bead”, specifically glass seed beads.
Glass pearls were first imported from Egypt in ancient times. By the ninth century, the early Czechs had glassmaking capabilities. By the 14th century, there were many glass workshops in the Bohemian and Austrian forests. Glass beads, precious metals, and silk were all important materials for embroidery. Very few examples have survived from the beginning of the 15th century onwards. The cultural upheaval and Hussite wars which consumed Bohemia for the rest of the century dampened all artistic endeavors.
Fabric as Currency
Although wools so fine they could be mistaken for silk or linen have been found in 9th and 10th century Bohemian Slavic graves, the travel accounts of Al-Bekri (d. 1094), Ibrahim Ibn-Jacob, and Helmold (12th Century) attest to another use for textiles.
11th century documents note that fine scarves were used as currency. One could pay for things in gold, silver, silk or linens.. According to Al-Bekri, 10 scarves were equal to 1 denar [silver coin]. These scarves, kept in many people’s money chests, determined the price or value of all things, and were exchanged for many objects including flour, horses, gold, silver, and oats. It is interesting to note that the czech word “Pla’tno” means fabric/silk, and “platiti” means “to pay”.
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Production and Decoration of Fabric
The spinning, weaving, and decoration of fabrics was the work of women, serfs, and servants, in some cases by men. In monasteries and on estates, there were women’s quarters called “gynacae,” where young women spun and wove. In Latin documents, these women were titled “puellae operatrices”.
Upon founding a new church or monastery, the prince would ensure there was adequate economic support by including in his land grant serfs, artisans, and workers. Around the middle of the 11th century, the Chapter of St. Stephen's Church of Litomerice (Leitmeritz) requested that Prince Spytihnev II provide a women’s quarters containing 30 young women, to be used for spinning and weaving.
In both convents and manors, there were rooms dedicated to weaving and embroidery. For example, the Benedictine sisters of Brevnov laboured at rich tapestries and embroideries.
Ladies, noblewomen, and queens of Bohemia embroidered and embellished fabrics to while away the hours and impress their neighbours. Ancient inventories and other documents speak of the rich clothing of the princesses and queens of bohemia which they embroidered themselves. Eliska, the last of the Premyslid dynasty and 18-year old bride of John of Luxembourg, embroidered her own, much admired wedding dress with gold thread. She was familiar with both civil and liturgical vestments, and knew how to embroider with gold, silver, perles and precious stones.
Whether used for secular or religious purposes, fabrics were embellished. In the 15th century, the Embroiderer’s Guild was established as village and town artisans made embroidery an official profession. Embroideres identified completely with painters, and used the colours and styles that were popular in other art forms of the time. Painters even provided models and model-books to use.
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Foreign Fabrics, Gifts and Purchases
After the acceptance of Christianity in the middle of the 9th century, expanded trade routes became open to the Bohemian people. Royalty, nobles, and ecclesiastical dignitaries all wore rich fabrics. Splendid silk and brocade mantles wrapped the dead sovereigns in the St. Guy Cathedral in Prague. This is just a small indication of the opulence of their wardrobes. Imported fabrics were so popular that Prince Borivoj II determined special taxes to be paid them. In the St.Guy tombs, the oldest fabrics are Byzantine brocades of the 10th century.
Foreign trade through Bohemia brought rare, imported and ornamented fabrics along ancient trade routes. The wealthy merchants and caravans came along the Danube from east to west, and along the Danube to the Adriatic Sea, and along the Morava and Oder south and north, to the Baltic sea. Precious Eastern silks, Byzantine and Italian Brocades came to Bohemia along these trade routes. See a map of East Central European trade routes here.
With the blossoming of towns and the growth of the bourgeoisie who patronized artisans and business, with the growth of guilds and the accompanying richness of cities, foreign textiles became very plentiful in Bohemia, as well as in most of Central Europe. Bohemia had many economic relations with the other countries of Europe. Imported fabrics came from Flanders and the Rhinelands, brocades and cut velvets from Italy and Spain, fine silk from Bavaria. These fabrics were high fashion, and were worn by clergy and nobility, dound in the trousseaux of the churces as well. Imported fabrics from Flanders, italy, the rhinelands, fine bavarian silk. In essence, there was a luxurious, almost excessive fashion.
Commercial exchange was not the only way foreign fabrics came to Bohemia. Dignitaries both secular and religious frequently gifted one another with diverse presents, often textiles. At the beginning of the 12th century, the princess Rejcka, wife of Vladislav I, gave 20 silk mantles to the German convent of Zwiefalten. Her son, the Bohemian king and his wife Judith, (1164) received many different rare mantles decorated with gold and precious stones from the Greek emperor Emmanuel and the Hungarian king Etienne II.
Bishop Menhart of Prague received a magnificent mantle from the Emperor in Constantinople (1130). In 1253, King Premysl II brought many gifts to the Sultan of Egypt and Babylonia. Within these gifts, however, there are no fine fabrics, for these were not manufactured in Bohemia. Instead, Premysl II brought the Sultan many things made from Beaver Fur (autres des fourrures de castor).
The 14th century has many testaments to the many uses of silk and brocades of great value in the royal crypts of the St. Guy Cathedral. Italian brocades from Lucca and Venice are abundant, as well as a chinese brocade from the 14th century, all rich in colour and design. Such fabrics were so fashionable that even in the small village churches one could find richly embroidered chasubles from italian velvets or brocade. Many of the surviving brocades of the 15th and 16th century can be found in the chasubles of Bohemian, Slovakian, and Moravian churches.
Written accounts mention several pieces that have not survived. Around the middle of the 12th century, before his death, Olomouc Bishop Zdik gave Pope Eugene III (1145-1153) chasubles for divine services, richly embroidered by the Benedictines of the Convent of Saint George of Prague. In a letter dated April 15, 1151, the Pope thanked the abbess of the convent, Berthe, remarking on the skill and the art of the nuns of St. George. At the end of the 12th century, the German chronicler and Benedictine monk Berthold writes of a Bohemian noblewoman named Seztibrana (her name has obviously been poorly Latinized). She gave a grand chasuble to the Swabian convent of Reichenau. It was embroidered with the image of Christ surrounded by an oval halo and of Charlemagne. The old preserved inventories of the churches are another important source of information on the quality and existance of embroideries in the churches and convents of the middle ages. In these inventories, we find mention of innumerable chasubles and other liturgical vestments, all described with great variety and richness of ornamentation.
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Motifs, Materials, and Examples
Stitches used in the surviving pieces described inthis book are: Point fendu (point anglais) [This translates as Split Stitch http://home.iprimus.com.au/ijerry/sharonb/stitchdict/stitch/split.html], point plat [Translates as Flat Stitch - Not sure what this is but my GUESS is Satin Stitch http://home.iprimus.com.au/ijerry/sharonb/stitchdict/stitch/satin.html], point couche [Couching http://home.iprimus.com.au/ijerry/sharonb/stitchdict/stitch/couching.html]
Silk and gold thread were not the only materials embroiderers used. They embellished their creations with precious stones, filaments of metal, seed beads [perles], pearls, and ornaments stamped from thin sheets of gold and silver. Perles were the favourite addition for liturgical textiles, no doubt because of the impression of opulence it created. In his1458 Chronicle of Bohemia, Enne Sylvius described the magnificence of the Bohemian cathedrals and the priestsŐ perle-embroidered robes.
Fantastic horticultural elements such as stylized fruits, grenada flowers and palm fronds were among the most popular secular motifs in the fourteenth century. Under the influence of Charles IV and his wife Blanche de Valois, French stylistic themes were adopted en masse. Embroidered works mirrored popular artwork, taking on the graceful and organic lines of Master Theodorik and the International Gothic style. The altarpiece of Trebon, for example, is similar in character design and style to the Bible of Wenceslas IV. Both works are prime examples of late fourteenth century Bohemian art.
Many designs were not simply abstract ornamentation. In the surviving pieces, we see many of the same subjects as are found in prominent contemporary art. Religious figures and Biblical situations such as the life of Christ, Mary, and the Saints were featured. Such themes reflect the interest in parables and the devout character of the age. Alfred ThomasŐ work studying medieval Czech literature shows that the Bohemian people were not only deeply religious but also intensely realistic, enjoying ribald humour and intelligent satire as well. The devotional theme of the surviving embroideries reflects their religious purpose: as chasubles, mitre bands, and altarcloths. It was also a major factor in the survival of these pieces.
At the beginning of the 15th century, the economic, social, and religious ferments in bohemia were rising to the top. “Par dela le ferments economiques, sociaux et religieux dans lesquels se sont depuis lontemps cristallisees des contradictions dont au debut du XVeme siecle jaillira le mouvement revolutionnaire hussite, la boheme representait alors le noyau ideologique et artistique de l’euope centrale.” the court of charles IV was a centre for architects, sculptors, and painters of frescoes and tableaus. In 1348, the fraternity of Saint Luc, began the club of prague painters. The Painter Theodoric was called friend and dear, by charles IV, and was expemt from paing taxes in 1368 Master Theodorik had a great influence on styles of embroidery as well as on the international Gothic style.
Tresors de la Broderie discusses one outstanding embroidery work in particular from this era: the Antependium (altarcloth) of Cheb. Probably embroidered by the Clarisse nuns in Cheb (Eger), the cloth has an architectural structure divided evenly into arcades. Each arched arcade contains a favourite saint (Lucy, Catherine, Barbara, Agnes, Cecilia, etc) embroidered in tiny coloured seed beads. The saintsŐ clothes are done in blue and green, their lips in true red coral, the outlines, hair, eyes, and shoes in black beads. In the boder above the arcades are the twelve apostles, and below them is a now-illegible, inverted inscription. Drobna suggests this inscription may once have been a list of saints or even an extract from sacred text. In the arcades and on the columns are rosettes made from thin sheets of gold- and silver-gilt brass. This altarpiece has been repaired and components replaced many times, but it is still true to its original. See this Altarpiece HERE, at medievalbeads.com.
at the beginning of the 15th century, at the end of the so-called “beautiful style”, there are only a few surviving examples. The Hussite wars which consumed bohemia for the rest of the century would dampen all artistic endeavors, including embroidery.
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Links
Lace and Fine Textiles in Bohemia
Medieval Beadwork
Opus Anglicanorum
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Bibliography
Drobna, Zoroslava