From the Guildmaster of the Worshipful Company of Broiderers
To the needleworkers and embroiderers of Lochac does Mistress Bess Haddon send greetings, and bids you welcome to the Worshipful Company of Broiderers.
For those who don’t know me, I have been in the SCA in Lochac for some twelve years and was awarded a Laurel for embroidery at Rowany Festival AS 28. Until three years ago I lived in Rowany but now live in Politarchopolis, where I moved to start a Master of Philosophy degree on the depiction of the Tristan and Iseult legend in medieval narrative embroidery.
At the moment I am guildmaster in name only since the patron of the Company, Her Excellency Viscountess Keridwen the Mouse is doing all the work while I struggle to finish my thesis. However, I hope to be more active soon, and plan to organise some classes and other activities for the guild. I am also itching to actually do some embroidery again, rather than just read about it.
The Worshipful Company of Broiderers is, as many of you will be aware, the resurrection of the former Needleworkers’ Guild of Lochac. In taking on this task I hoped to make the guild reflect the structure and concerns of a real medieval guild, and to expand the emphasis from simply encouraging members to do embroidery to also encouraging research into embroidery and into the medieval people who did it, both as professionals and amateurs. As a result, Viscountess Keridwen and I have spent some time revising the Company’s charter to better reflect the sorts of needlework which was done in the middle ages and renaissance. We also acknowledge that there is a lot we don’t know, so there is provision to add to and change the categories as more research is done.
The charter needs to be approved by the members of the Company, so we will have a meeting at Twelfth Night to discuss it. If you can’t be at the event, please send your views by e-mail or post to me or Keridwen and we will make sure they are represented. (I would ask that you don’t phone me as I really don’t have time to answer phone calls at the moment.)
We hope to see the newsletter expand for future issues, and so we would really contributions from you all. These need not be huge articles. We would also like to see such things as book reviews, materials reviews (e.g. is there a particular thread you’ve found useful), snippets of information or just a note on what you’re working on. Huge articles are of course welcome too. Please send any contributions to Keridwen at this stage.
One final note, some of you, especially those who know me, are probably wondering why I am using such a blokey title as ‘Guildmaster’. The answer is that it’s period. According to the research I’ve done into English and French embroiderer’s guilds, they had both male and female masters, that is people who had been judged by the guild to have reached a sufficiently high standard that they were allowed to train apprentices. The term I’ve found is always ‘master’, but let me know if you find any evidence to the contrary.
Yours in service,
Bess
Report from Midwinter
By Viscountess Keridwen the Mouse, Patron of the Company of Broiderers
At Midwinter Coronet Investiture at Mordenvale was the first showing for the Company of Broiderers in its new form. A display of needlework was held on the Sunday, to drum up interest in the Company and make the group visible. There were other guild giving displays at the same time. Hopefully it will become traditional for guilds to use the time on the Sunday of Principality events to hold their meetings and competitions.
Unfortunately, due to the short notice of the display, many people were unable to bring items along (also many people admitted to me that they intended to display their work, but forgot). Thanks greatly to Seona Sheachnasaigh and Joanna of the Beechwoods for bringing along display items. They were given small items in appreciation.
Many people took handouts and many signed up for the guild, and many also asked many wonderful questions on needlework, which kept me talking about my favourite obsession all morning. I enjoyed it immensely. Thank you all.
mouse…
An Idea from the North.
Part of the purpose of the Company, is to share knowledge and good ideas. Madilayn de Mer from Queensland has sent me a catalogue from a mail order company called Fox. They deal in all sorts of needlework and craft items – threads, hoops, sewing stands etc. To get a copy of this catalogue sent to you, call 1300 361 126. It might be useful if you are having trouble getting needlework supplies locally.
Mouse's Guide to Beading
What I Did on my Holidays
by Mistress Bess Haddon
You’re probably wondering why on earth you should be interested in what I did on my holidays. The answer is because I was funded by the Australian National University and the Pasold Research Fund (the people who publish the journal Textile History), to go to Europe to look at the embroideries which are the subject of my thesis. So, I got to spend eight weeks back-packing around Europe looking at medieval embroidery and talking to the art historians and conservators who are responsible for it. Needless to say, I had a wonderful time! So, I thought I’d share some of the experiences with you, and I’ll follow it up with a collegium at Rowany called ‘Bess’s Holiday Snaps’.
I had arranged to fly into Vienna because it was a cheapish way of getting there and would allow me to travel by train to Italy and then Germany without going too far out of my way. By serendipity I discovered a few weeks before I left that the Vestments of the Golden Fleece were in Vienna. These are a complete set of embroidered fifteenth century Flemish mass vestments in the Or Nué or shaded gold technique in which gold threads are couched down with coloured silks to form beautifully shaded pictures, and they are pictured in Kay Staniland’s book Medieval Craftsmen: The Embroiderers. Having discovered this, I had to go and see them. They are housed in the Schatzkammer, the treasury of the Imperial Palace, which is now a museum, and are on public display. They are unbelievably beautiful and unbelievably detailed. Despite having pored over numerous pictures of them in books, I was utterly unprepared for the actuality. They are very much finer than I had realised, using literally millions of tiny silk stitches to create an effect as detailed and subtle as the paintings of the day. I spent more than an hour looking at them, finding it difficult to comprehend the amount of work that had been needed to create them. They must have taken thousands of hours of work by the most highly skilled, professional embroiderers of the day, and in my opinion they are probably the best embroideries in the western world. I felt very, very inadequate.
Also in the Shatzkammer are the coronation robes and other garments of the Holy Roman Emperor. These include an under and over tunic, a cloak, boots and gloves, all very richly worked in gold thread and pearls. The gloves are particularly over the top, so thickly encrusted in pearls that it would have been very difficult for the emperor to move his hands while wearing them. The cloak is the very famous one pictured in Kay Staniland’s book and many others, showing a design of camels and lions worked in gold on a red silk ground. It also has Arabic inscriptions on it, showing that it had an eastern source. The over-tunic is covered with rondels of eagles which have been worked on a separate fabric and then cut out and appliquéd to the silk of the tunic. All of the coronation clothing was very beautiful and, while not exactly the sort of embroidery you’d want for tourney clothing, could be easily adapted to make special occasion SCA costumes. The light in the Schatzkammer was very dim, for conservation purposes, and I was not allowed to use a tripod (flash photography is particularly bad for textiles and should not be used even if the museum permits it), so my photos are not very good, but I bought numerous postcards and a book which shows some excellent details of the embroidery.
To be continued. Next: Italy and Nürnberg.
Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Back to Resources - Articles
The Charter
As you might have remembered from the last handout, we wanted to get the new charter approved by Their Highnesses at Spring Coronet. However, real life and theses conspired against us. There will be a meeting at 12th Night in Dismal Fogs to discuss the charter and get more input before it is finalised. The old and the new proposed charter were printed in the first handout. Please contact Mouse if you would like a copy.
Competitions
Decorated shirts or chemises
Beadwork on material (I say this to exclude jewellery – we are looking for needlework)
Who knows? Please, send me suggestions for competitions. If your local group is doing a particular style of work then let me know and we can compare your work to the rest of the Principality. So far the competition headings have been very broad. Should we start getting more specific – ie blackwork, slips, split stitch?
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