As regards the antiquity of the two sorts of frames (the low and high warp) the Beni Hassan wall paintings (1600 B.C.) include diagrams of horizontal (low warp) frames, with weavers squatting on the ground at work on them; while a vertical or high warp frame is represented on a Greek vase of the 5th century B.C. found at Chiusi (fig. 3), and corresponds with frames used in Scandinavian countries.[1] In both these last-named the lower ends of the warp threads are merely weighted, thus presenting some difficulty to the act of weaving, and of subsequently compacting the weft upwards, the warp not being taut and fastened to a beam, according to more ordinary usage, as, for instance, in the high warp frame illustrated in the codex of Rabanus Maurus, 9th century A.D., preserved at Monte Cassino (fig. 4). The words “de Geneceo” in this illustration point to a medieval survival of the earlier gunaikonites of the Greeks and the gynaecea of the Romans, which were the quarters set apart in the house of the well-to-do for the spinning, weaving and embroidery done by women for the household. From such ancient frames to similar haute and basse lisse frames of the French tapissiers nostrez and tapissiers sarrasinois governed under edicts (1226–70) of Louis IX., and so on to present-day Gobelins and Beauvais frames, the transition can be easily realized. The texture of all tapestry weavings presents no radical difference in appearance, no matter when or where produced.
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Fig. 3.—Penelope’s tapestry-weaving frame, from a Greek vase of the 5th century B.C. The standing figure is that of Telemachus. |
Within reasonable limits it is not practicable to sketch in a complete form the history, from the middle ages onwards, of the prosecution of the art by each of the many European towns that have become engaged in tapestry weaving. But the foregoing remarks will suggest, what seems to have been the fact, that a continuity in the knowledge of the art was kept up so that as Roman tapestry-weaving. favourable conditions occurred it would be called into practice. Artificers (male and female) such as the Roman plumarii wove tapestries with figures of Britons (Virgil, Georg., iii. 25)—“Purpurea intexti tollant aulaea Britanni,”—others with scenes from the story of Theseus and Ariadne (Catullus, Argon., xlvi. 267), besides many more for emperors and the wealthy. The demand for such production of the textrinae or trade workshops, and of the more private gynaecea, as well as the organization of workmen’s societies, collegia opificum, are evidence of circumstances lasting for some centuries in Rome that were favourable to tapestry-weaving there. Suggestive of Roman designs are the illustrations of part of a curtain or wall hanging (fig. 5), and of a hanging or couch cover (fig. 6); whilst the daintiest quality of tapestry-weaving for the ornamentation of a tunic is displayed in fig. 7. The ornamentation in fig. 5—a hanging 5 ft. 3 in. by 1934 in.—consists of a series of horizontal leafy bands or garlands and other devices: between the upper bands on a red ground is a bird on a leafy twig. This is Egypto-Roman work of about the 3rd century A.D. A portion of a linen cloth or couch cover ornamented with tapestry woven in coloured wools and linen thread is shown in fig. 6. At the top there is a fragment of a horizontal border of floral and leaf ornament beneath which, and enclosed by festoons of leaves, are two boys floating in the air and holding ducks; elsewhere are figures of boys running and carrying baskets of fruit, and large and small blossom forms or rosettes. This also is Egypto-Roman work, about the 4th century, and is 4 ft. 5 in. by 4 ft. 1 in. Fig. 7 presents a square (from a small tunic) of very fine warp and weft tapestry-weaving, with a child mounted on a white horse: in the border about him are ducks, fish and (?) peaches. This too is Egypto-Roman work of about the 2nd or 3rd century and is about 4 inches square. The square in fig. 8 is from a tunic or robe and is of tapestry-weaving in bright-coloured wools, with a representation of Hermes holding the caduceus in one hand and a purse in the other. About his head is a nimbus and his name in Greek characters. This again is Egypto-Roman work of about the 1st or 2nd century and is 612 inches square. The panel of tapestry-weaving in fig. 9 is from a couch or bed covering, and is wrought in purple wools and linen threads. The design recalls the description of the toralia or couch covering alluded to in Petronius Arbiter’s account of Trimalchio’s banquet, “on which were depicted men in ambush with hunting poles and all the apparatus of the chase.” This piece is also of Egypto-Roman work about the 2nd or 3rd century, about 12 in. by 10 in.
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Fig. 4.—High warp frame from MS. Codex by Rabanus Maurus (9th century). |
The well-known 6th-century Ravenna mosaics of the Emperor
Justinian and the Empress Theodora are rich with hangings and
costumes decorated presumably with tapestry weavings similar
to those just described. From the 5th century and
for many centuries later, monasteries,[2] nunneries and
Tapestry-weaving in
monasteries, 5th to 9th century.
Gilds of weavers.
the like, under ecclesiastical control or influence,
became centres of activity in this and cognate arts,
stimulated by the patronage of the Church and
courts; and in the 8th and 9th centuries the Emperor
Charlemagne’s body of travelling inspectors,
missi dominici, appears to have exercised for a time
a helpful influence upon such centres throughout France
and in parts of Germany. Two centuries later, free, as distinct
from bond, handicrafts men were forming local associations for
their industries, and in this movement the weavers took the lead
throughout England, Flanders and Brabant, France being a little
later.[3] The gilds of weavers in London and Oxford
were granted charters by Henry I. In the 11th century
gilds of wool weavers existed at Cologne and Mainz,
and in the following century there was a similar
gild at Spires: it is quite probable that some of their
weaving would be of tapestry.[4] The fragment in fig. 11 is
considered by authorities to be of 12th-century north European work,
- ↑ See modern Faroese frame figured by Worsaae. Afbildinger fra det K. Museum for Nordiske Old Sager. Copenhagen, 1854, p. 123.
- ↑ See Recherches sur l’usage et l’origine des tapisseries à personages, by A. Jubinal, 1840, p. 13.
- ↑ See L. Brentano’s History and Development of Guilds, § IV. “The Craft Guilds.”
- ↑ Eugène Müntz quotes a deed (between 1164 and 1200) witnessed by “Meginwart of Welt in burch,” a tapetiarius, as well as another (1177) in which mention is made of Fredericus, tapifex de familia ecclesiae.
