[Mid] More on period quilting

More forwarded info from the SCA Arts Mailing List:

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Good gentles,

I did find the article on "Celtic quilts" that Lady Katherine mentions.
It's in _Threads_, Oct/Nov 1991. (Confusingly, it says "Celtic Quilts"
on the spine, but inside the magazine the article is titled "In the
Nature of a Curve," which makes it hard to find.)

The designs are certainly fine ones, and clearly derived from the many
surviving 19th-century whole-cloth quilts from Wales and the north of
England that have made this type of design famous. [1] The author,
Martha Waterman, is undoubtedly right too when she points out that
"extraordinary circular motifs have been left by practically every
culture in the world." And she points out (also correctly) that circular
and spiral motifs are found carved on standing stones throughout the
"Celtic" area, most of which seem to have been done in the Neolithic
(New Stone Age) era.

To connect these 2500+-year-old designs with those in traditional
19th-century Welsh quilted coverlets, though, is kind of a big leap to
make. I don't think we can conclude from just this evidence alone that
anything similar was necessarily being made in the medieval period. From
what Kay Staniland of the British Museum says about early quilting in
her book _Embroiderers_ [2], it sounds rather as though no one knows
much about *what* designs were being quilted in the 12th to 15th
centuries.

Basing motifs for a coverlet on the legend of Arthur certainly sounds to
*me* like exactly the kind of thing that might have been done by a
medieval stitcher. I have to admit, I'm a bit biased here, since I'm
making a small, pseudo-14th century quilted piece of my own right now.
But for myself, I try to keep in mind that I'm stretching things a bit
beyond what we actually have evidence for, and that my guess as to what
a medieval person might have done could be *way* off. Medieval people
did some extremely weird things by our standards.

Also, something labeled a "coverlet" doesn't necessarily *have* to be
quilted. An embroidered coverlet could just be a decorative bed cover,
perhaps with a backing attached so the back of the embroidery doesn't
show, but not necessarily with anything between. The 14th century quilt
Lady Carllein refers to (the "Tristan Quilt" or "Guicciardini Quilt")
only has cotton stuffed into the design areas; the background is simply
the front and back layers of linen stitched together. Even as late as
the 18th century you find from Southern plantations (U.S.A.) bed covers
of embroidery or applique that simply have a loose backing and are not
quilted or stuffed.

At any rate, an embroidered coverlet sounds like a fine project! I'm a
little envious of your good materials. They must have been a "find"!

* * * * *

[1] Martha Waterman also says that there is no book on making Welsh
quilts. There isn't one in print as far as I know, but I have a copy of
_Quilting: Traditional Methods and Design_ by Mavis FitzRandolph and
Florence M. Fletcher, Dryad Press, Leicester [England], 3rd revised
edition, 1968 (no ISBN&). The bibliography cites _English Quilting Old
and New_ by Elizabeth Hake, Batsford, 1937; _Traditional Quilting_ by
Mavis FitzRandolph, Batsford, 1954; and _Notes on Quilting_, published
by the Victoria and Albert Museum, H.M. Stationery Office, 1949. These
would all be very difficult to find, and also books of this vintage tend
to be more than a little vague about *when* things were done, usually
just saying, "In old times . . ." by which they can mean anything from
1066 to 1914.

[2] _Embroiderers_ in the "Medieval Craftsmen" series; North American
edition from the University of Toronto Press, 1991; ISBN&
0-8020-6915-0. This is, IMHO, the best inexpensive source on the history
of embroidery I've ever seen. *And* it's still in print, *and* it has
color pictures, *and* you can find it for under $25. Kay Staniland
certainly gives more information than *I* had ever seen all in one place
before.

Here's what she says on quilting (p.38-40)
-------------------------------------

    QUILTING

    Surviving examples of medieval quilting are exceptionally rare. Raw
wool or
    cotton sandwiched between two pieces of linen had long been used in
the
    creation of protective doublets for wear under chain mail or plate
armour.
    Some stitching was used to keep all layers in place, either vertical
or
    diagonal cross-hatching, and this is frequently indicated in tomb
effigies
    and manuscript illuminations. Garments of this kind were the
responsibility
    of the tailors and linen armourers in major western cities like
Paris and
     London from the thirteenth century at least.

    The practice possibly originated in the Near East or India but it is
not known
    when more decorative and elaborate quilting came into use in Europe.
The
    mastery of the technique evident in the large Tristan quilt worked
in Sicily
    at the end of the fourteenth century suggests several centuries of
evolution.

    Only small amounts of cotton wool were used in the Tristan quilt, in
the
    "stuffed quilting' technique where the cotton wool was introduced at
the
    back of the work after the decorative stitching had been carried
out. The
    ground of the work between the motifs was worked with close rows of
running
    stitches in white linen thread, whilst the outlines of the figures,
ships and
    buildings were worked in back-stitch in a brownish thread.

    A large fragment of a German coverlet of the fifteenth century is
made of a
    much coarser linen worked firmly in back-stitch with stylised animal
motifs
    within octagonal compartments formed by corded quilting, a method
whereby
     a cord of plied cotton thread was introduced after the parallel
rows of back-
    stitches had been worked. This is a very early example of the
technique and an
    equally interesting example of the combination of stuffed and corded
quilting."

_Embroiderers_ has several photos of the Tristan quilt and one of the
later quilt mentioned (which looks rather clumsy by comparison -- the
earlier one is quite elegant!). A caption notes that half of the Tristan
quilt is in the Victoria and Albert Museum -- that's the half you
usually see pictured -- and the other half is in the Museo Nazionale,
Florence. If anyone has a literature reference for the Florence half,
I'd be interested in hearing about it.

Regards,
(lady) Christian de Holacombe

____________________________________________________________
O Chris Laning
| <CLaning@igc.apc.org>
+ Davis, California
____________________________________________________________

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Received on Mon Jan 5 15:57:01 1998