by Lady Almaith ingen Chormaic
Quilting covers a wide variety of sewing techniques from simple hand quilting to elaborate forms of appliqué and patchwork. Certainly all these techniques were in use during the Middle Ages. Economy necessitated reusing expensive fabrics once their original purpose had been fulfilled. This reuse often involved some form of quilting.
Quilting was used not only for bed covers, but also as wall hangings to keep out drafts and as clothing from defensive armor to petticoats and doublets. Unfortunately for history, quilted items were designed to be used, used and worn out. Thus many have not survived the test of time and wear. We have precious few quilted artifacts remaining in museums and private collections as first hand examples. Secondary examples can be found in realistically carved statues and in paintings, woodcuts and other illustrations from the period as well as in written works such as poems or household account inventories.
Which leaves us with the question what was quilting in the Middle Ages? Here is what we know:
Materials.
Quilt tops and backings were made from linen, twilled cotton or silk fabrics. Often quilts were made from the same materials as the lining in clothing. Fustian, which is a twilled cotton material with a short nap, was considered very suitable for quilts. Also, sarcenet, a soft silk material, is still used for linings today. Other medieval fabrics used were checklaton, a bright and rich material, which was described as a "kind of gilded leather" in The Faerie Queene. Also quilts were made from lute-string, a lustrous, silk material. Taffeta, now called shot silk, was considered a high enough quality for upper class households. A lesser grade linen would also have been very suitable for making bed coverings or wall coverings. (Colby, Quilting p26)
Batting or padding was just about anything goes: wool, cotton, or linen that was not fit for spinning was laid between the fabrics for padding and warmth. Also used were rags, hay, feathers, old cloth or nothing at all. Domestic items were filled with whatever was economical and handy. The Linen Armours Guild, which made defensive body armour and padding, had strict regulations governing the quality of materials that could be used for padding in quilted armour items. (Colby, Quilting p 20-21) So, the quality of the batting was determined by the intended use of the article.
Threads used for quilting were made from linen, cotton or silk.
Patterns.
Earlier period quilts featured scenes of animals, basic geometric shapes or elements of nature. The mid to late Middle Ages saw much more intricate scenes from Medieval life and legend, Christian and heraldic symbols, vines, flowers, trees, animals, knotwork, geometric patterns. Elements that were popular in other decorative crafts were also popular in quilts.
Quilting.
Backstitch in a contrasting color was often used for quilting around the primary design elements. Then, a running stitch was used in a color similar to or the same as the background fabric for the filler quilting between major elements in the design. Quilting was done in close rows, leaving very small areas of fabric unquilted. This would have been necessary to keep the loose batting from moving. Common filler designs included: lozenge or diamond patterns, echo quilting, stippling, straight lines, cross hatch, vines, flowers, trees, words, spirals, Greek key patterns, just about any geometric or natural designs were deemed appropriate.
Whole Cloth.
A whole cloth quilt is made from a whole sheet of uncut fabric for the top and backing and is held together with stitches. There is a quilt from 16th century Germany that is an example of white thread on white fabric with a geometric repeating pattern stitched all over the fabric. (Staniland p 40)
Appliqué.
Both appliqué and reverse appliqué were used during the Middle Ages.
Appliqué is the sewing of a piece of fabric onto the top of a background fabric. There are examples in the Middle Ages of large squares of variously colored fabrics having designs appliquéd onto them and then the individual squares are sewn together to make the quilt top. In this way smaller pieces of fabric, which are easier to work with, can be used. It allowed for economy by being able to use larger scraps as the ground fabric.
Reverse appliqué is when the top layer of fabric is cut out to show the background fabric beneath and the edges of the top fabric are then hemmed. Think of creating a window frame through which the background fabric is seen.
Cloth of the Middle Ages often did not fray much, so, an appliqué could be held with hemstitching. Silks and velvets did fry and the edges had to be held in place with couched cords or even beeswax. (Staniland p 33) Blanket-stitching and hemstitching were often used to attach the appliqué. It was not uncommon to find embroidery or gilded leather embellishing the top of an appliquéd item.
Patchwork.
There is no evidence that the patchwork patterns that we think of, as patchwork today existed in the Middle Ages. Most of those patterns can be traced back only a couple of centuries and are very American in their origin. However, patchwork did exist in the Middle Ages. Patchwork was sewn as side by side piecing as well as applied patchwork in which geometric shapes are appliquéd next to each other on a background fabric. Patchwork grew out of necessity obviously. The need to cover a hole or strengthen a worn piece of fabric was easily solved by applying another piece of fabric over the area. Also, scraps of expensive fabrics or portions of richer fabrics that were no longer usable in their original form, were too valuable to simply discard, instead they would be applied to other fabrics as decoration.
Squares, rectangles and triangles are all common design elements found in articles with applied patchwork particularly in the Middle East and parts of Asia.
Side by side piecing as might be done today, was done in India by Buddhist monks between 500 and 900 AD. (Gwinner p22) They used scraps of fabric left behind by travelers on the Silk Road to make articles that look very much like the crazy quilts of later centuries. The difference being that there are no fancy stitches as the Victorians would have added and the shapes of the pieces are primarily geometric; rectangles, squares and triangles.
Inlay patchwork is a method where "pieces of cloth are cut to shape and inserted into similar pre-cut areas of the ground fabric." (Ellis p73) Often the seams are covered with a couched cord. This method has been found in Egypt between 1250 and 1517.
Trapunto.
Also called stuffed work, this method involves doing all the quilting, then poking the padding between the threads of the backing fabric to raise certain selected areas of the quilt. More modern trapunto techniques also allow for a slit to be cut in the backing fabric and the padding inserted through the slit, which is then stitched closed again. Trapunto is an area of debate where the Middle Ages are concerned. Some experts say that it was done and others say it was not and maintain that the raised effects were achieved simply with the close rows of quilting. There are no concrete examples that we can point to showing conclusively that it was or was not a technique used during the Middle Ages.
Binding
In some cases the edges of the quilt were folded in and sewn closed. A cord might then have been couched over the seam. There are also examples of mitered corners on applied binding as is often done today. There is an existent example of a blanket with frayed edges where the top and backing of the quilt are sewn together and the remaining edging allowed to fray making fringe around all 4 sides of the blanket. (Staniland p 40)
Uses for Quilts.
Quilts were used as bed covers, hangings around the bed, bed canopies, tents, wall hangings (Some enormous hangings to keep drafts out of drafty castles and homes), church hangings and vestments, heraldic banners, bags, caps, decoration on clothing of all kinds, anything sewn could be decorated with some kind of quilting technique.
A primary use of quilting during the Middle Ages other than domestic uses was in the making of defensive body armor and padding. Leather, linen or canvas was stuffed with various kinds of padding and sewn in straight lines or a crosshatch pattern with strong thread. Quilted garments were also worn under or over the outer armor for additional protection and padding. In 1272, Edward I first chartered the Linen Armours which was a guild of tailors who had, "the sole right to cover armour and to make stuffed and quilted armour, padded and quilted helmet linings and so on." (Colby Quilting, p12)
In Conclusion
The remaining examples of quilting obviously were a part of a complex and rich working art that had been in development for generations, centuries, even millennia. Which leaves us to view the solitary survivors of time and draw the best conclusions we can as to what the lost quilts and hangings might have looked like. It would be logical to assume that if the quilters of the time borrowed a few design elements from another art form, they also probably borrowed many others. We say that art imitates life; it did in the Middle Ages as well. Those quilters then, just as now, were inspired by the world around them.
Bibliography
Arnold, Janet. Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlocked. Leeds, Great Britain: W.S. Maney and Sons. 1988 ISBN: 0 901286 20 6
Colby, Avril. Quilting. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd. 1972. ISBN: 0 7134 2665 9
Colby, Avril. Patchwork. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd. 1958. ISBN: 0 7134 0392 6
Crowfoot, Elisabeth, et al. Medieval Finds From Excavations in London vol 4: Textiles and Clothing 1150-1450. Boydell Press: Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK, 2001 (Museum of London) ISBN: 0-85115-840-4
Ellis, Marianne. Embroideries and Samplers from Islamic Egypt. Oxford: Ashmolean Museum. 2001. ISBN: 1 85444 135 3
Gwinner, Schnuppe von. The History of the Patchwork Quilt. West Chester, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing, Ltd. 1988. ISBN: 0 88740 136 8
Loomis, Roger Sherman. Arthurian Legends in Medieval Art. London: Oxford University Press. 1938.
Staniland, Kay. Medieval Craftsmen Embroiderers. Buffalo: University of Toronto Press. 1991.ISBN: 0 8020 6915 0
© 2004 P Girard
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