2/1 Twills: Rippenköper

© Carolyn Priest-Dorman, 2000

The “rippenköper,” or “repp twill,” has no standard equivalent name in English. The weave was first identified, named, and explained in 1967 by Hans-Jürgen Hundt in an archaeological publication. Rippenköper is a catch-all term for those twills, usually 2/1, whose basic structure alternates bands of warp-faced twill with bands of weft-faced twill, “usually after every third pick” (Bender Jørgensen, p. 14). Although it is a very simple
weave, I haven’t found it yet in a modern book.

Two Asymmetrical Pavy Weaves

© Carolyn Priest-Dorman, 2003

A year ago my article “Some More Medieval Linen Weaves” presented a number of multishaft medieval liseré weaves of pavy design. One important design feature common to all these textiles was that the wales of the pattern all lined up and met perfectly. Accordingly, when I was attempting to draft an 8-shaft version of a pavy liseré weave for that article I focused a lot of attention on getting the diagonals to line up perfectly.

Last summer, however, I ran across two historic pavy weaves that are markedly irregular; their float arrangements are not perfect, and the wales do not line up perfectly. Further, the structure of these particular two textiles is not a liseré; it is a gebrochene. That is, it is an “Ms and Ws” structure with twill floats in both warp and weft systems, not just in the weft system as with a pavy liseré.

Middelburg-Nassau-Grimbergen, draft no. 1

One is part of an antependium from Middelburg-Nassau-Grimbergen, now in the Koninklijk Instituut voor het Kunstpatrimonium in Brussels. It dates to the first third of the 16th century. A complete analysis was not available to me, but the drawdown by J. Vynckier (de Jonghe, p. 70) was. The other is a large fragment of linen (Tx 63) in the collection of the Abbey of St. Truiden in Tongeren, Belgium. It was analyzed by Daniël de Jonghe (pp. 270-272), who assigns it a date similar to that of the Middelburg piece. Although the piece is a fragment, the complete width of 33.6 cm survives, including both tabby selvedges. Like most medieval ecclesiastical linens, it is woven with Z-spun singles line linen. The thread count is about 60 ends and 45 picks per inch, and the cloth is bleached.

If the structural analyses by de Jonghe and Vynckier are correct as printed, then the two textiles are curious inversions of one another. Both textiles are identically drawn in, yet their tie-ups are exact opposites. If, however, the structural analysis by Vynckier is drawn using a different convention than that by de Jonghe, then the two textiles may be closely related.

Middelberg-Nassau-Grimbergen draft no. 2

De Jonghe’s textile analysis can be checked against the photo of Tx 63; as always, he represents the warp with black and the weft with white. I was not able to check Vynckier’s analysis against the antependium because I do not currently have access to a photo of the actual textile. But if Vynckier’s drawdown uses white to represent the warp and black the weft, then the two textiles could be woven on the same warp using the same tie-up by simply changing the treadling sequence. Because de Jonghe dates them together due to their commonalities, it’s worth considering that they might be closely related, perhaps from the same production center. Accordingly, I give two different versions of the Middleburg draft, for those who’d like to try weaving them both on one warp without switching tie-ups.

St.-Truiden Tx 63

The draft called “Middleburg 1” is the one I first derived from the drawdown. It assumes the black-warp, white-weft CIETA convention that de Jonghe uses. The “Middleburg 2” draft I based on my hunch that the two textiles are related, and that Vynckier might have represented the textile “backward” from the CIETA convention. Instead, it is predicated on a white-warp, black-weft convention. The draft for Tx 63 is cut down and reworked from that of de Jonghe (p. 272), whose drawup and draft present more than a complete repeat and are tied up differently than I would do it.


Sources:

Daniël de Jonghe, “De Textieldocumenten uit Sint-Truiden: Technologische Bevindingen,” pp. 63-105 in Stof uit de Kist: De middeleeuwse textileschat uit de abdij van Sint-Truiden. Leuven, Belgium: Uitgeverij Peeters, 1991.

Daniël de Jonghe, catalogue entry for Tx 63, pp. 270-272 in Stof uit de Kist: De middeleeuwse textileschat uit de abdij van Sint-Truiden. Leuven, Belgium:  Uitgeverij Peeters, 1991.


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This article was originally published in Issue 35 (March 2003) of Medieval Textiles, the newsletter of the medieval textiles study group of Complex Weavers.  The drafts and drawdowns I submitted were created using the freeware drafting program, WinWeave.  Using GIMP, I have turned the original drafts into graphics for republishing here.

Viking Age Pick-Up Double Weaves from Sweden and Norway

© Carolyn Priest-Dorman 2005

 The pick-up double weave technique flourished in medieval Scandinavia. Some of the earliest examples are narrow bands, while later examples are generally large coverlet-sized textiles. From a love of the patterns on them I was drawn inexorably into  a consideration of their structure and production methods. This particular research project centered around three questions. Did pick-up double weave date back as far as the Viking Age? If so, which of the modern versions of pick-up double weave was most likely to be the one used in the originals? And which type(s) of loom might have been used?

Early double weave textiles strongly resemble early Scandinavian tablet-woven textiles in their geometric patterning. For years they had intrigued me. I saw no reason why they shouldn’t date to the Viking Age, but most early assessments of their age identified them as somewhat later. Happily, more recent radiocarbon dating has assigned new and, to me, completely believable dates to these textiles. Not only are these textiles Viking Age, but at least one–the Marby fragment–is from the Early Viking Age (see Nockert & Possnert, 112-114, for the English summary of the dating). That part of the research project, at least, was easy!

This article focuses on a group of five double weave textiles executed in the same weave structure. Four of them are securely datable to the Viking Age, and the fifth seems to belong in the same category even though it hasn’t been securely dated. Each has a double warp system, half wool and half linen, and is woven with a double weft system as well. Each warp system interlaces with a weft system of the same fiber type in tabby structure, giving two separate layers; the two layers  interpenetrate, or exchange places, to build up the patterns. One side is colorful wool with white linen patterns, while the other side is white linen with colorful wool patterns.


Historic Examples

At least four securely dated Viking Age double weave textiles survive: the Revsund border, Överhogdal IV, the Marby fragment, and the Kyrkås hanging. Two examples (the Revsund border and the Marby fragment) are narrow bands in the 6-7" range. Överhogdal IV is a frieze about a foot wide, part of the Överhogdal group of textiles, a wall hanging stitched together of five narrower friezes woven in various techniques at different times, which was preserved at a Swedish church. The fourth is the Kyrkås coverlet, surviving in four fragments of which the largest is rectangular and roughly one meter square (Franzén & Nockert, 108).

Although I couldn’t locate any secure date for the Rennebu fragment, I consider it likely to be a Viking Age textile as well; it is very similar in size to the Revsund and Marby pieces, and in technique to the entire set of four pieces. However, it does differ in one important respect from the Revsund and Marby pieces: in addition to geometric  pattening, the Rennebu fragment has human figures worked in the weftwise direction, i.e., it was meant to be displayed horizontally like a frieze. Narrow horizontal orientation such as this is paralleled in early pictorial textile work by the ninth-century Oseberg tapestry and the eleventh-century Bayeux embroidery. The figures on the Revsund border, on the other hand, were meant to be displayed vertically. The Marby piece is inconclusive since it is entirely geometric in patterning and can be viewed without prejudice from either orientation.

These five textiles share several technical features. Most early woven textiles from Scandinavia involved fine singles threads; in contrast, however, most of both the linen and wool thread used in these pieces was two-ply and more coarse. All save the Marby fragment feature a striped wool warp, a design feature quite remarkably uncommon among indigenous Viking Age textiles. In four cases, including the Marby fragment, the wool weft is entered in stripes. Three of the five are striped in both systems. The Kyrkås coverlet is especially remarkable in this regard, with three colors of wool used in each system, yielding the startling effect of white linen patterning on wool plaid! All display quadrate geometric patterning, often involving interlaced elements, and some also have pictorial elements.


Structural Issues

Engelstad discusses the apparent historical relationship between loom type and double weave structure (see page 133 for an English summary). While she does differentiate between the warp-weighted and the two-beam upright loom, it seems clear that the pick-up double weaves under consideration here were more likely to have been woven on the warp-weighted loom. However, she doesn’t go into the mechanics at all. A warp-weighted loom would easily permit the wool and linen systems of the warp to hang each at its own tension. A two-beam loom, by forcing all the warp to be wound onto the same warp beam, would have permitted the wool warp to stretch out of all proportion to the linen. These cloths, particularly the narrow ones, could easily be woven on either a standard warp-weighted loom or an upright loom with a weighted warp, i.e., a warp-weighted loom that stands vertically rather than leaning.

Structurally, it is readily possible to distinguish between two major types of pick-up double weaves, the reversable and the non-reversable. Textiles in reversable weave have the same appearance (with opposite coloration) on both faces of the cloth, and the patterns tend to be blocky in appearance. Textiles in non-reversable weave are one-sided, with the back side often not at all resembling the front side; however, the technique  permits more curvilinear patterning than in reversable. Some modern names for non-
reversable double weave are bohusväv, finsketäcke, finnväv, täkänä, and Finnweave. However, Finnweave is also used in some contexts as a name for reversable double weave, which can confuse and mislead. The specific quality of reversability is more important than the name an instructor might use for the weave structure.

The Viking Age double weaves are all of the reversable type. Back before I knew they dated to the Viking Age, and mostly out of structural curiosity, I blew up the best photos I found in books (Branting & Lindblom was great for this!) and tried to identify the weave structure from views of the front face only. Subsequently as I read Franzén & Nockert, Nockert & Possnert, and then reread Engelstad, I discovered I had correctly identified the structure, although I hadn’t figured out anything new and I still hadn’t figured out exactly how to weave one.

After the Viking Age but still during the Middle Ages, the technique of non-reversable double weave became popular in Scandinavia; it was executed on treadle looms.  However, weavers there did not entirely abandon the technique of reversable double weave. In Gudbrandsdal, a district of Norway, people were working it on the warp-weighted loom “until well into the ninteteenth century” (Engelstad, 133). Unfortunately, no records of the specific methods they used appear to have survived. The Technical Bibliography, below, offers some suggestions for information on reversable double weave. Becker & Wagner from the Historical Bibliography is also useful for technical information; it is an English version of the Norwegian-language explanation by Signe Haugstoga first printed in Engelstad, with the same set of drawings.

The Överhogdal IV textile proves that warping over a cord is an (although likely not the only) appropriate method for this technique. The cord-loop method for warping is recorded in “Åklevev pa Oppstodgogn,” a documentary film shot by Per Gjaerder and Marta Hoffmann that was posted on the website of the Norsk Folksmuseum for a couple of years. This film of early twentieth-century weavers at the warp-weighted loom, and several others like it, was shot during the research that led to Marta Hoffmann’s publication of The Warp-Weighted Loom. It was thrilling to discover the museum had made them available for viewing (and devastating when they disappeared from the site), because they offered practical physical documentation of that rarest and most precious of information, how people go when they “go like this.”

Warping on a cord can be done very simply over two pegs or posts an appropriate distance apart. This type of textile requires a warp with pairs of threads in each system. Accordingly, a linen and a wool thread would be held together and wound simultaneously; every complete circuit of the two pegs would create one warp unit (two threads of each fiber type). When the right number of warp units have been wound, a cord is passed through the entire set of loops on the “far” peg, that is, the peg at which new threads are never started. The cord and loops are carefully lifted off and transferred to the loom.

Marta Hoffmann’s suggestion that pick-up double weave was probably woven on the warp-weighted loom using “not more than one heddle rod” is manifestly unsatisfactory. Even assuming that at most one free shed might be provided by either a shed stick (which she doesn’t mention) or by the main shed rod of the loom, it would still be necessary to pick out at least two of the required four separate tabby sheds, plus all the pick-up patterning, by hand. This method would be at least a level of magnitude more complex than the freehand rosepath method to which she compares it (Hoffmann, 186f). She also considers the meaning of the medieval textile designation “ferskeptr,” or four-shaft (Hoffmann, 209), mentioning that Engelstad suggests it might refer to a type of double-face weave (Hoffmann, 364, note 45). On a warp-weighted loom fitted with four separate heddle rods, each with its own set of brackets, it would be a laborious yet somehow familiar task for a modern weaver to weave reversable double weave. It would
be largely the same as working with a table or floor loom using a straight twill draw (1234...) and a skeleton tie-up. However, Viking Age weavers might have been able to exploit the basic shed separation provided by the shed rod of a warp-weighted loom to simplify the weaving method.

In my puzzling on the best way to weave a pick-up double cloth on a warp-weighted loom, I have begun to think that the simplest tool might be an upright loom with a weighted warp. It might even be possible for two people to work in tandem, one on each side of such a loom. Most considerations of the warp-weighted loom do not tackle the question of the angle at which such a loom may slant. Many such looms are (or were) leaned against a convenient wall or beam; the slant of the uprights combines with gravity to make the natural tabby shed large and easy to clear. It is only convenient to work from one side of such a loom, the side that slopes away from the weaver’s head. However, the specific angle at which any warp-weighted loom did slant is completely conjectural. It is likely to have varied from instance to instance. While it is likely that the angle of slant tended to vary within only a fairly small number of degrees, it is also possible that some looms did in fact not slant.

A full-size, or even oversize, loom would be required for wide pieces such as the Kyrkås coverlet. However, the small upright loom found in the Oseberg ship burial (dated to 834 CE) might be a perfect tool for weaving a narrow double weave band. I am pursuing this question in a practical way with my warp-weighted loom and my small Oseberg loom. If I am successful, watch this space for a report!



Historical Bibliography

Becker, John, and Wagner, Donald B. Pattern and Loom: A Practical Study of the Development of Weaving Techniques in China, Western Asia and Europe. Copenhagen: Rhodos International Publishers, 1987. A good technical discussion of the historic method, borrowing from the explanation in Engelstad.

Branting, Agnes, and Lindblom, Andreas. Medieval Embroideries and Textiles in Sweden, 2 vols. Uppsala and Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksells Boktryckerei, 1932. Exceptional plates of some of these pieces, especially the Kyrkås piece, which was what sparked my interest in the topic. Authorship of Chapter II, “Swedish Double-Weavings and Double-Sided Weavings of Foreign Origin” is credited in a footnote to Viivi Sylwan.

Engelstad, Helen. Dobbeltvev i Norge. Fortids Kunst i Norges Bygder, Serie II  Publikasjon VI. Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, 1958. Excellent historic survey of large numbers of historic Norwegian double weaves; includes a catalogue and an English summary.

Franzén, Anne Marie, and Nockert, Margareta. Bonaderna från Skog och Överhogdal och andra medeltida vägbeklädnader. Stockholm: Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och  Antikvitets Akademien, 1992. Best single source for technical as well as art historical information on this topic, although some of the datings they report have since been reassessed.

Hoffmann, Marta. The Warp-Weighted Loom: Studies in the History and Technology of an Ancient Implement. Oslo: The Norwegian Research Council for Science and the Humanities, 1974 [Robin and Russ Handweavers reprint; original printing 1966, Studia Norvegica 16].

Nockert, Margareta, and Possnert, Göran. Att Datera Textilier. Södertälje, Sweden: Gidlungs Förlag, 2002. The most recent word on dating. Some wonderful photos and a brief English summary, but not very technical.

http://www.norskfolke.museum.no/prosjekt/WebStar/katalog.html?kategori=10224&side=1&video=0 . Norsk Folkesmuseum, Oslo. This URL leads to what used to be the listing of the museum’s archival film footage relating to the practice of traditional textile arts in Norway. According to my notes, I was last able to view these films on 15 May 2003.

Sundstrom, Amica. “Tidigmedeltida Textilier från ett Hus i Sigtuna: en tekstilarkeologisk analys och diskussion.” Laborativ Arkeologi 2003-2004, University of Stockholm. http://www.archaeology.su.se/pdf/asundstrom.pdf, last accessed 26 February 2005. Brief consideration of these textiles as part of her survey of early medieval domestic textiles; two photos. 


Technical Bibliography

Atwater, Mary M. Mary Meigs Atwater Recipe Book: Patterns for Handweavers. Salt Lake City: Wheelwright Press, Ltd., 1969.

Black, Mary E. The Key to Weaving: A Textbook of Hand Weaving for the Beginning Weaver, Second Revised Edition, pp. 219-225. New York/London: Macmillan Publishing Company/ Collier MacMillan Publishers, 1980 [1957]. Some terminology confusion (she calls both reversable and non-reversable “Finnweave”), but still useful for the orderly way in which the double weave options are laid out.

Cyrus-Zetterström, Ulla. Manual of Swedish Handweaving, 2nd U.S. edition, trans. Alice Blomquist. Newton Centre, Mass.: Charles T. Branford Co., 1977.

Irwin, Allison. “Doubleweave Pick-up.” Handwoven, vol. XX, no. 1 (January/February 1999), pp. 36-39.

Janson, John. “Celtic Knot Scarf." Handwoven, vol. XXIII, no. 1 (January/February 2002), pp. 32-33.

Moore, Jennifer. “Doubleweave: a workshop in your studio.” Handwoven, vol. XXIII, no. 1 (January/February 2002), pp. 26-31.

Van der Hoogt, Madelyn. “A Pick-up Handbook for Handweavers.” Weaver’s, Issue 24 (Summer 1994), pp. 8-13, 48-52. See page 50 for the section on reversable double weave. Includes a lengthy bibliography.

Scorgie, Jean. “Patterned Double Weave.” Handwoven, vol. VII, no. 2 (March/Apri.l 1986), pp. 56-57.

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This article was originally published in Issue 43 (March 2005) of Medieval Textiles, the newsletter of the medieval textiles study group of Complex Weavers.  Some of the information may be a bit dated now, and my thinking has evolved a bit on some aspects of the problem.  Also, I have yet to reconsider the section on loom types based on what I have learned since about Norwegian folk tapestry looms.  Nevertheless, I'm putting the article up here in the interest of keeping my work together and accessible in one place.

Here are links to images of the textiles mentioned in the text.  None of these were available on the web when the article was originally published.

• Revsund border 
•  Marby fragment
• Kyrkås textile 
• Överhogdal I-IV 
• Rennebu fragment (post-Viking Age) 

Even more remarkably, since I wrote this article the textile research footage from which Marta Hoffmann worked has re-emerged.  The Norsk Folkesmuseum channel at YouTube has reposted many of these very valuable films which show mid-century Sami women working with basic warp-weighted looms.  You can find the specific film mentioned above here at YouTube.  The section on warping over a cord begins at around 6:30.

I haven't been able to find a live current link to the Amica Sundstrom article.

Here are some additional bibliographical references that are relevant.

Keasbey, Doramay.  "Pick-Up Pattern: Five Techniques."  Handwoven, January-February 2011, pp. 46–49.  I haven't read this article on pick-up doubleweave yet, but Keasbey's technical articles are always useful.

Oscarsson, Ulla.  De gåtfulla Överhogdals-bonaderna [The enigmatic Överhogdal tapestries], trans. Anita Lahiri.  Östersund, Sweden:  Jamtli Förlag, 2010.  Although this only discusses the Överhogdal textiles I-III which are soumak and not double weave, this book does provide a list of early furnishing textiles that includes all the ones named in my article.  It also provides a post-Viking Age date for the Rennebu double weave (page 80).

A Medieval Kruiswerk Weave

© Carolyn Priest-Dorman, 2002

The ordinances of the London Guild of Weavers name several different linen products in their price list of 1456: linen cloth, plain towel, napery and towels of Paris work, "crosse werk," cross diamond, small knots, chains in work, "catrylettes," "damask knots with the chapelettes," and "all manner work made in draught work" (Consitt, pp. 205-207).  Many of these apparently were figured weaves.  While researching pavy weaves, I encountered a class of Renaissance linen patterning called in Dutch kruiswerk, or cross work.  Since cross work is listed as a 15th century weave in the London list, it drew my eye immediately.

J. Six's article mentions or shows photos of several kruiswerk examples, although none of them are dated to earlier than around 1600.  Kruiswerk is a subset of the gebrochene class of weaves, an elaboration of pavy in which certain design elements are stretched out by adding stairsteps to the typical Ms and Ws threading.  Unlike the pavy liseré weaves from the last article, they have twill floats of varying length in both systems on both faces of the textile.  The historic examples all require more than four shafts to weave.

None of the 17th and 18th century gebrochene variants in Zeigler or Lumscher look quite like kruiswerk; most of them are closer to pavy in style.  Marjie Thompson published the draft of an early 17th century kruiswerk, the "Earl of Mar canvas," in 1997.  However, late last spring I encountered an even earlier example, a textile dating to around the 15th century, Tx 60, documented among the holdings of the Abbey of St. Truiden in Belgium.  It is in the same pattern family as Six's kruiswerk examples and the Earl of Mar piece.

Here is a draft of Tx 60 from St. Truiden.  Daniël de Jonghe analyzed the weave and produced a draft which I have simply redrafted into a more standardized American notation.



This particular kruiswerk is woven on 12 shafts.  Unlike the Earl of Mar piece, its twill floats are balanced by an expanse of tabby ground.  The original textile remnant is a complete loomwidth of between 64 and 65.8 cm in width and 21.5 cm in length.  It is woven of linen, possibly bleached, at 23 warps and 17 wefts per centimeter.  Each selvedge is reinforced with a single S-plied thread (Stof uit de Kist, pp. 268-270).

It is not clear to me yet where Six got the term kruiswerk, but his article suggests there's an early manuscript with drafts of this type of weave structure.  I am looking into this more deeply, as it would be so nice to be able to identify kruiswerk as the "cross work" of the London regulations.


Sources:

Consitt, Frances.  The London Weavers' Company from the Twelfth Century to the Close of the Sixteenth Century.  Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933. 

Hilts, Patricia.  The Weavers Art Revealed.  Facsimile, Translation, and Study of the First Two Published Books on Weaving: Marx Zeigler's "Weber Kunst und Bild Buch" (1677) and Nathaniel Lumscher's "Neu eingerichtetes Weber Kunst und Bild Buch" (1708).  Ars Textrina, vols. 13-14 (December 1990).

Six, J. "Kruiswerk, Lavendel, Pavy en Pellen," Het Huis, Oud & Nieuw, vol. 10 (1912), pp. 105-122.

Stof uit de Kist: De middeleeuwse textielschat uit de abdij van Sint-Truiden.  Provinciaal Museum voor Religieuze Kunst, Begijnhofkerk, Sint-Truiden.  Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters, 1991.  (Textile analysis and catalogue entry by Daniël de Jonghe.)

Thompson, Marjie.  "The Earl's Canvas," Weaver's, Issue 38 (Winter 1997), pp. 38-40.



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This article was originally published in Issue 33 (September 2002) of Medieval Textiles, the newsletter of the medieval textiles study group of Complex Weavers.  The draft and drawdown I submitted were created using the freeware drafting program, WinWeave.  All my drafts were translated by the editor into better software for printing and publishing.  Due to the large size of the repeat, the draft was not printed in its entirety.  A separate drawdown was printed plus a draft of the complete threading plus the first half of the treadling.   

Using GIMP, I have re-edited my original draft into a graphic for inclusion here.  I have chosen to reintegrate the threading, tie-up, treadling, and drawdown back into a single graphic.  The tie-up is for rising shed/countermarche.  Having it all appear as a single image gives a better idea of how the threading, tie-up, and treadling work together to produce the patterning.

This post was delayed by several weeks due to my being so inexperienced at editing graphics.  I had to cut and paste several different pieces of the original draft together into one big image, then hand-retouch a great many of the seams literally pixel by pixel.  Fortunately, though, I learned a whole lot by doing so!  Hopefully the next work won't take so long to produce.

An Irregular Fustian Weave

© Carolyn Priest-Dorman, 2003

Sometimes interesting information comes along when you're researching something entirely different.  Take this unusual four-shaft weave, for example; I found it in an article on printed fustians. Even though the weave in and of itself isn't "complex," it formed the ground for two surprisingly elaborate late medieval printed textiles dated about 40 years apart.  Further, it represents the industrial use of a weave structure that I thought should be added to the knowledge pool of medieval four-shaft weaves.

Fustian is the English equivalent of "fustagnano," a medieval Italian term for a class of mixed-fiber products.  They were most typically woven on a linen warp with a cotton weft.  By the 12th century, the Italian cotton industry was cranking out a wide variety of these mixed-fiber textiles for the domestic market; for example, Perugian wares were commonly fustians.  Some types of fustians were brushed and napped, giving a texture like that of "brushed denim."  In the 15th and 16th centuries, fustians became popular all over Europe as linings for elaborate garments; many examples survive from the Elizabethan period as various types of domestic textile, e.g., hangings, bed linens, and the like.  They were also used by the middle classes as outerwear.

The two textiles printed over this unusual weave are pieces from the Victoria and Albert Museum:  V&A 1478-1899, a chasuble dating to around 1490, and V&A T280-1916, a fragment dating to around 1530.  Milton Sonday made the technical assessment and analyzed the weave structure of these two textiles.  The warp is Z-spun linen, the weft S-spun cotton, and the thread count is 24x24 threads/cm.  The structure is an irregular weft-faced twill with floats spanning two, three, and four warps.  No wales are evident.  Sonday likens the structure to that of satinette (Mitchell and Sonday, 109). 

I have re-drafted Sonday's analysis into something a little more familiar to handweavers while preserving the same interlacement.  See the draft for V&A 1478-1899 below.

Sources:

Arnold, Janet.  Patterns of Fashion: The Cut and Construction of Clothes for Men and Women c1560-1620.  London:  Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1985.

Thornton, Peter.  The Italian Renaissance Interior.  New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1991.

Endrei, Walter.  "Les Étoffes dites de Pérouse, leurs antécédents et leur descendance."  Bulletin du CIETA, no 65 (1987), pp. 61-68.

Mazzaoui, Maureen Fennell.  The Italian Cotton Industry in the Later Middle Ages 1100-1600.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

Mitchell, David, and Sonday, Milton.  "Printed fustians: 1490-1600."  Bulletin du CIETA, vol. 77 (2000), pp. 99-118.

Starkey, David, ed.  The Inventory of King Henry VIII, vol. 1, The Transcript.  Reports of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London, No. 56.  London: Harvey Miller Publishers, The Society of Antiquaries of London, 1998.

Willan, Thomas Stuart.  A Tudor Book of Rates.  Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1962.

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This article was originally published in Issue 37 (September 2003) of Medieval Textiles, the newsletter of the medieval textiles study group of Complex Weavers.  The draft and drawdown I submitted were created using the freeware drafting program, WinWeave.  All my drafts were translated into better software for printing and publishing.   Using GIMP, I have re-edited my original draft into a graphic for inclusion here. 

Some More Medieval Linen Weaves

© Carolyn Priest-Dorman, 2002


This article presents some multishaft self-patterned linen weaves that are a bit more complex than those of previous articles.  The interlacements can be woven on seven to 15 shafts.  All drafts were produced by the present author; with the exception of "Pavy 8," which is original, they were developed from drawdowns by the authors noted in the text.

Two basic classes of weave structure are represented by these more complex textiles.  Like some of the simpler self-patterned weaves, they share two basic principles.  First, they are self-patterned, with a single warp system and a single weft system.  Second, they display regularly repeating areas of different length floats in the same textile.

The first class has areas of twill floating in both systems on both faces.  Beyond "twill," this class of structure does not seem to have a specific name, although many of the weaves represented qualify as composite twills in CIETA terminology (Burnham, p. 29).  Many variants appear in Davison's chapter on "twill combinations," mostly based around the point repeat lozenge twill and the gebrochene, or "Ms and Ws," twill.

The point repeat lozenge twills covered in the previous article have some more complex cousins.  The Vatican's T-5, from the Museo Sacro collection, is a particularly attractive example (see draft).  This 13-shaft linen is of unknown medieval date (Volbach, pp. 16-17).  Its thread count is unavailable; however, Volbach's drawdown suggests the original proportions of the sett, four warps for every three wefts, yielding a lovely network of elongated twill lozenges filled with tabby.

 Another example is the "bloeddoek" (cup cover?) at Hoogstraten in Belgium, which dates to the last quarter of the 14th century (De Jonghe, p. 66).  Although De Jonghe analyzed it as a 16-shaft weave, if his drawdown is correct it can be woven on 15 shafts and 15 treadles (see draft).  The twill sections involve floats over three threads.  De Jonghe's drawdown notes a shedding anomaly in the original that results from one tie-up having been omitted; whether error or intention is unknown.  The draft below preserves the original error, but adding Shaft 5 to Treadle 9 in the draft will perfect the shedding.

The second type of weave structure to be considered here is one with twill floats of varying length in only one system per side of the textile.  Specifically, these textiles have only weft floats on the face of the textile, against a foundation of tabby.   The appropriate CIETA terminology to apply to these textiles is liseré weaves (Burnham, p. 86).  The effect is similar to a brocade, except that the floats do not derive from a supplemental weft.  Many medieval linen or silk liseré textiles are quite elaborate, woven on various types of drawlooms.  The one presented here, the linen chasuble from the Church of St. Godehard, is simple enough to be woven on a 16-shaft loom (see draft).

This 14th century liseré textile, preserved at Hildesheim in Germany, exhibits a marvelous pattern reminiscent of tiled floors.  As far back as 1682, this particular pattern was being called "pavy" (Six, p. 110),  no doubt from the French pavé, or paving stone; the term may be somewhat older.  Pavy patterning can also be woven as a class of gebrochene twill.  Patricia Hilts' section on gebrochene weaves from the introduction of her The Weavers Art Revealed devotes some discussion to the development and augmention of just such a pattern.  However, a liseré pavy weave lacks the floats in the warp system that are characteristic of gebrochene pavy weaves.

The St. Godehard linen is woven on14 shafts (De Jonghe, p. 66), and the twill areas involve floats over four warps.  It was woven at about 80 ends and picks per inch, with a weft thread slightly thicker than the warp thread (Flury-Lemberg, p. 500).  I have drafted it from Flury-Lemberg's drawdown using a standard gebrochene threading and treadling.

(drafted for rising shed)

 A similarly patterned pavy liseré exists at Maastricht in the Netherlands; its weft floats are over five warps.  The thread count is about 45 ends and picks per inch (Stauffer, no. 138, p. 214).  The tabby sections are large, and the twill floats are arranged in pairs separated by a single warp thread.  Accordingly, it appears to have been woven on 18 or 20 shafts.  Another fragment of a pavy liseré  (number 7c) is preserved among the relics at Tongeren in Belgium, also with five-thread floats.  Its thread count is about 48 ends and 45 picks per inch (De Jonghe, p. 138).

The pavy liseré weave evidently even crossed over from the linen industry into the German fustian industry.  One 10-shaft pavy liseré from the 15th or 16th century (Endrei, p. 61), Cologne Z 1020, has a linen warp and a cotton weft (von Stromer, p. 121).  For all we know currently, other examples of fustian in this weave may also exist.  There are certainly other known examples of pre-1600 pavy weaves; however, they are not as accessible or well published as the ones in this article.  It is therefore difficult to know whether they are liseré pavys or gebrochene pavys.

Using the basic design principles of the pavy pattern, I attempted to devise a pavy liseré draft for only eight shafts.  I did not succeed with any number of shafts fewer than eight.

(drafted for rising shed)

The eight-shaft draft presented here (Pavy 8) preserves the proportions of all its constituent lozenges as well as the symmetrical arrangement of all the pattern lines, which is not always easy with this pattern.  However, due to the comparatively small number of shafts involved, the floats are relatively short.  Accordingly, the contrast between long floats and areas of tabby is not as great as it would be on a textile woven with more shafts.  For best effect, pavy liseré needs to be woven on more than 8 shafts.


Sources:

Burnham, Dorothy K.  Warp & Weft: A Dictionary of Textile Terms.  New York:  Charles Scribner's Sons, 1981.

Davison, Marguerite Porter.  A Handweaver's Pattern Book, Revised Edition.  Swarthmore, Pennsylvania:  Marguerite P. Davison, 1993 [1950]. 

De Jonghe, Daniël. "Technologische Beschouwingen," pp. 65-88, and "Relieken," p. 122-248 in Textiel van de vroege middeleeuwen tot het Concilie van Trente.  Tongeren Basiliek O.-L.-Vrouw Geboorte, vol. I.  Leuven:  Uitgeverij Peeters, 1988.

Endrei, Walter.  "Les étoffes dites de Pérouse, leurs antécédents et leurs descendance."  Bulletin de CIETA, no. 65 (1987), pp. 61-68.

Flury-Lemberg, Mechthild.  Textile Conservation and Research: A Documentation of the Textile Department on the Occasion of the Twentieth Anniversary of the Abegg Foundation. Schriften der Abegg-Stiftung, Volume VII. Bern:  Abegg-Stiftung, 1988.

Hilts, Patricia.  The Weavers Art Revealed.  Facsimile, Translation, and Study of the First Two Published Books on Weaving: Marx Zeigler's "Weber Kunst und Bild Buch" (1677) and Nathaniel Lumscher's "Neu eingerichtetes Weber Kunst und Bild Buch" (1708), Part I: Marx Ziegler's "Weber Kunst und Bild Buch".  Ars Textrina, vol. 13 (December 1990).

Six, J. "Kruiswerk, Lavendel, Pavy en Pellen," Het Huis, Oud & Nieuw, vol. 10 (1912), pp. 105-122.

Stauffer, Annemarie.  Die Mittelalterlichen Textilien von St. Servatius in Maastricht.  Schriften der Abegg-Stiftung Riggisberg, Band VIII.  Riggisberg:  Abegg-Stiftung Riggisberg, 1991.

Stromer, Wolfgang von.  Die Gründung der Baumwollindustrie in Mitteleuropa.  Monographien zur Geschichte des Mittelalters, Band 17.  Stuttgart:  Anton Hiersemann, 1978.

Volbach, W.F.  I Tessuti del Museo sacro vaticano.  Catalogo del Museo sacro della Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, Vol. 3.  Città del Vaticano:  Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, 1942.

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This article was originally published in Issue 31 (March 2002) of Medieval Textiles, the newsletter of the medieval textiles study group of Complex Weavers.  The draft and drawdown I submitted were created using the freeware drafting program, WinWeave.  All my drafts were translated into better software for printing and publishing.  During that process the draft I created for the "bloeddoek," which specifically preserved the original shedding error Daniël de Jonghe noted in the original, was changed by the editor to correct the error.  The draft for the Godehard textile was truncated down to a quarter of its original threading and treadling, turning it from a gebrochene into a much simpler hin und wieder (point repeat lozenge) structure.

Using GIMP, I have re-edited each of my original drafts into a graphic for inclusion here.  The draft for the "bloeddoek" that appears here is the draft I intended to be published with the article, not the corrected draft which was published.  The draft for the Godehard textile shows the complete gebrochene threading and treadling repeat; due to the size of the draft, the rising shed indicators in the tie-up have been changed to black squares in order to make them more visible.
 

Yes, But What Does That Mean?: A Synoptic Tablet Weaving Lexicon for Beginners

© Carolyn Priest-Dorman 2002-2003

   
A number of excellent instructional books are available for beginning tablet weavers.  However, they don't all use the same words to mean the same things.  Teachers of tablet weaving don't all learn from the same sources, either, so you can't avoid this problem simply by learning from gurus instead of books.  It can be very frustrating to learn one set of technical vocabulary and then discover that another instructor or book uses a different set! 

Among the influential sources for vocabulary in English are the works of Mary Meigs Atwater, Peter Collingwood, Candace Crockett, Russell Groff, Egon Hansen, and Otfried Staudigel (see bibliography).  Most other sources derive from one of these five.  This article is designed to compare and contrast the beginner terminologies used in these sources (with occasional references to other sources) in order to help you translate vocabulary from one version to another and, in the process, figure out what it all means.  It's aimed at beginners, so only some vocabulary terms are included.  Yet the included terms should suffice to get you off and started on your first few projects.  If you have trouble wading through all the terminology, just remember that you're, in effect, reading a dictionary.  Look up what you need and ignore the rest until you need it, and you'll get along fine.

Atwater's book is the oldest of the group (1954), and Groff's and Crockett's the second-oldest (original publications 1969 and 1973).  Most of the plethora of books from the early 1970s that include tablet weaving use vocabulary like either Groff's or Crockett's.  Collingwood's terminology is generally the most rigorous from the perspective of structural analysis, although Hansen's analysis of a few of the early techniques has turned out to be the more insightful.  Also, Hansen's terms are frequently shorter and punchier, making them easier to drop into normal conversation.  However, while Collingwood wrote in his native English, Hansen's terms were translated from the original Danish.  Sometimes the translations resonate, sometimes they don't.  Staudigel's terminology, the youngest of the group, stands Collingwood's on its head, for reasons that will become clear below.

A Basic Assumption – Most works on tablet weaving assume that the weaver sits at or near one end of the warp, looking toward the far end of the warp, and that the weaving proceeds away from the weaver.  This is not the only way to tablet weave, by any means, but it is the most common.  Accordingly, most sources leave unsaid this basic assumption.  Thus you will need to keep it in mind as a spatial reference.  Once you've internalized it, it will become easy for you to adapt this frame of reference toward the less common weaving orientations.

Direction the Cards Face – Commercial weaving tablets are generally printed on one side with letters for each of the four holes.  Many authors take the sidedness of tablets into account when explaining their setups, and it is critical to the success of their patterns that you follow their expectations.  However, there is even less consistency on this point than elsewhere.  Beginners, don't be discouraged if this paragraph seems confusing; just look for the author you need to know about and ignore the rest for now.  Now then, climb aboard and hang on!  Atwater says that the tablets should face right, with Card 1 on the far right of the pack.  Hansen agrees with this, but only for right-handed people; he says left-handed people should read his patterns upside down and backwards!  The Snows and Staudigel say that the tablets should face right, with Card 1 on the far left of the pack.  Crockett says the say the same thing, only mirrored: the printed side of the tablets should face the weaver's left, with Card 1 on the far right of the pack.  Groff says the tablets should face left, with Card 1 on the far left of the pack.  But Collingwood transcends the entire question, expecting you to figure out everything based on his very informative graphs and threading instructions.  If your mind works like that, it's a very liberating approach; otherwise it's unbelievably confusing!

Threading Direction – If you want a tablet to be able to turn in the way that is common to tablet weaving, then there are only two (opposing) ways it can be positioned on its four warp threads. These two possibilities are called threading directions.  See the left half of each illustration below for the two possibilities.  You will note that the two tablets are labeled in their centers with an S and a Z.  These stand for "S-threaded" and "Z-threaded."  The S- and Z-threaded terminology is extrapolated from international conventions for describing textiles, and was first popularized for use in tablet weaving by Collingwood.  It describes an unambiguous visual clue you can find for yourself by assuming the Basic Assumption position and then looking down at the warp.   The slant made by the thread as it goes through the tablet, viewed from above the warp, goes in the same direction as the stroke in the middle of the letter:  \ for S-wise and / for Z-wise. See the right half of each illustration below for examples.  [Note:  weaving would take place from the left or down side of each photo, with the unwoven warp stretching away toward the right or upwards.]

S-threaded	S-threaded from above
Z-threaded	Z-threaded from above

Many tablet weaving instructional books, however, use different words to describe these two possible threadings.  Confusingly, Staudigel also uses the terms S- and Z-threading, but he uses them to mean the opposite of Collingwood!  That is, he uses the terms to describe the appearance of the tablet (again, when viewed from the Basic Assumption position) rather than the direction the thread takes through it.  However, other authors (e.g., Hendrickson and Spies) who use the terms S- and Z-threading follow Collingwood's usage.  Groff and the Snows use "threaded up" for S-threaded and "threaded down" for Z-threaded. Crockett, on the other hand, uses L for "left-threaded" and R for "right-threaded."  This system works if you look at the face of each tablet; the preponderance of visible thread (to the left of center, or to the right of center) tells you whether the card is left- or right-threaded.  Peter Collingwood's mnemonic for "translating" his understanding of Z- and S-threading (as opposed to Staudigel's–are you confused yet?) to R- and L-threading is "SaLaZaR," i.e., S=L and Z=R.  Accordingly, Crockett's or Hansen's "left" threaded equals Collingwood's S-threaded.  Crockett's or Hansen's "right" threaded equals Collingwood's Z-threaded.

So here's a table of equivalents.  Keep in mind that it's Collingwood's terminology I have illustrated above, and you should be able to work out what you need.

Table of Equivalents

Collingwood	S threaded	Z threaded
Atwood	threaded Down	threaded Up
Crockett	Left threaded	Right threaded
Groff	threaded Down	threaded Up
Hansen	from the Left	from the Right
Hendrickson	to the Left	to the Right
Snows	threaded Down	threaded Up
Staudigel	Z threaded	S threaded

Alternately threaded – Tablets alternating Z and S (or S and Z!) threading across the warp; accordingly, each tablet will be threaded in the opposite direction from its two next-door neighbors.  Hansen sometimes calls this "back to back"  In other European writings it's sometimes called "threaded left and right in pairs."

Home Position – The position the tablets take before weaving begins, specifically with reference to which holes go "up" when viewed from Basic Assumption position.  Not all sources use the term, but often the ones that do so rely on designs in threaded-in techniques, i.e., Atwater, Crockett, Groff, and the Snows. Atwater, Groff, and the Snows call for holes A and D to be uppermost, with the tablets facing the right.  Atwater calls this "beginning position," and Groff calls it "beginning position."  Crockett calls for holes A and D to be uppermost, while the printed side of the tablets faces left.  Hendrickson, in her instructions for double-faced weave, calls for holes B and C to be uppermost.  Any translations of one person's patterns into other arrangements should take this into account; otherwise they won't look at all like the pattern draft.

Turning Direction – Usually expressed as "forward" or "backward," or even F and B for short. Crockett uses "away" for forward and "toward" for backward.  Atwater uses "clockwise" for forward, and "counter-clockwise" for backward.

"Plain weave" – This term can be confusing because some of the less structurally sophisticated sources (e.g., Atwater, Crocker, Groff) talk about the normal or standard way of weaving as four forward, four backward.  But the weave structure of four-strand warp twining, continuously turned in a single direction, is what sets tablet weaving apart from any other type of band weave.  Accordingly, from within the context of tablet weaving "plain weave" defines this basic weave structure.  Outside the context of tablet weaving, however, "warp twining" is the preferred term, so as not to confuse it with potholder weaving! Also called "ground weave" by Hansen and "plain tablet weave" by Staudigel.

Threaded-in patterning – Hansen calls this "patterns as per diagram set-up."  Collingwood calls them "threaded patterns." 

That's more than enough for one issue!  Stay tuned for another installment in an upcoming issue.


Instructional Works Cited

Atwater, Mary Meigs.  Byways in Hand-Weaving.  Coupeville, Wash.:  Shuttle-Craft Books, Inc., 1988 [1954].

Collingwood, Peter.  The Techniques of Tablet Weaving.  London: Watson-Guptill, 1982.

Crockett, Candace.  Card Weaving, rev. ed.  Loveland, Colorado: Interweave Press, 1991.

Groff, Russell E.  Card Weaving: Complete Instructions plus 53 Patterns for Card Weaving or Tablet Weaving.  McMinnville, Oregon: Robin and Russ Handweavers, 1969.

Hansen, Egon.  Tablet Weaving: History, Techniques, Colours, Patterns.  Højbjerg, Denmark: Hovedland Publishers, 1990.

Hendrickson, Linda.  Double-Faced Tablet Weaving: 50 Designs from Around the World.  Portland, Oregon: self-published, 1996..

Snow, Marjorie, and Snow, William.  Step by Step Tablet Weaving.  New York: Golden Press, 1973.

Spies, Nancy.  Ecclesiastical Pomp & Aristocratic Circumstance: A Thousand Years of Brocaded Tabletwoven Bands.  Jarrettsville, Maryland: Arelate Studio, 2000.

Staudigel, Otfried, 1960-61. Der Zauber Des Brettchenwebens, or Tablet Weaving Magic:  Patterns from Oriental Countries and 25 Patterns in Plain Tablet Weave. Libri Books on Demand, 2001.

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This article was originally published in Issue 3 (August 2003)  of Knot Now, the newsletter of the Worshipful Company of Narrowworkers of the East Kingdom, SCA.  I have replaced the drawing in the original with photographs of a warped tablet, largely because neither my husband nor I could figure out whether one of us had drawn the original drawing.  I did not want to use someone else's work uncredited, hence the new illustrations.  

I don't have any notes on what the follow-up article was to contain; it never even reached the outline phase.