This is brief overview of the items in this display. As narrow wares encompass a large number of techniques, I haven't had a chance to do an extensive amount of research on all of these topics. Most of the research I have done started at the Soper Lane website. Soper Lane is dedicated to the research and recreation of working lives of 15th-16th century silkwomen.
Historical Information
Narrow wares consist of cauls (hand knotted hair nets), tablet woven trim, fringe, tassels, braids, silk ribbons, and other types of fiber arts. Now we call it passementerie, which is defined as: trimming of braid, cord, bead, etc., in any of various forms, but this is a post-period word as it is quoted as being from 18501. There is the word mercer, which means a dealer in textiles2. Some say because of this narrow wares would have been called merceries, but I haven't found any proof the word is a real word. The scope of this display involves narrow wares made from silk that would still be imported into England during this timeframe. The silkwomen bought silk direct from the Italian merchants and prepared it for use, either to be made up into finished items or for reselling as sewing and weaving silk. The raw filament silk was thrown to make it into threads and yarns. In throwing, the long fine filaments were twisted, doubled and combined to form various types of yarn, suited to various purposes (e.g. weaving, braiding, embroidery). The threads could be twisted both before and after they were combined to varying degrees of twist. Throwing was an industry in its own right, a job undertaken by people known as throwsters3. The silk may have been dyed by the silkwomen or it might have purchased already dyed. Blue silk may have been dyed using woad in England, or Indigo in Italy4. Green silk might have dyed using weld5and gold silk using saffron6. Black silk could have been done using "green nutshells" (walnut shells?) in period7 and red silk using cochineal8. The purplish silk was dyed using cochineal, the orange using madder, and the pink using a combination of the both.
Modern Information
All entries for this display are made of silk. All silks for these items have been purchased already dyed. The display consists of one gold caul, two tassels, and four fingerloop braids the tassels are made with. I first became interested in narrow wares when Mistress Ingveld suggested it to me by way of a mutual friend, as this concept hadn't really been investigated in Atlantia yet. I soon discovered that I have been doing similar work for years; I just hadn't narrowed down my research to one time frame. After Mistress Ingveld's suggestion, I read over several "how-to" books, started doing some research on line and took a class at University on caul making. At this current moment, I have had a chance to do some research on fingerloop braiding and a fair amount on caul and tassel making. Because so much about narrow wares hasn�t been touched on before, I�m constantly updating my research with new information. For details on each item, see individual documentation.
The narrow wares recreated here would have been made by silk workers, mostly women, who might have had their shops in one of two locations. These locations were either on the end Soper Lane where it meets London's Cheapside where the mercers were. The other possible location is the backside of Coleman St. where the weavers' were9. While I'm not completely certain of the dates, we can guess that the silkwomen were active from 1461 to 1509. We know these dates because one of the Soper Lane silkwomen, Alice Claver "sylkwoman", has been recorded as supplying goods to Edward IV (reigned 1461-70 and 1471-83 AD) through the Great Wardrobe for the occasion of a visit from the Duchess of Burgundy
The way the narrow wares were made can be broken down into two broad categories, hand woven and woven on one person sized looms. Finger loop braiding and tassel making are all items that would be made by hand. Tablet weaving, ribbon weaving, caul knotting and weaving fringe all have to be woven on one-person sized looms.
Bibliography
