[MR] Silk Noil in period

[Terri Morgan]

Thank you Lady Alesia, for this wonderful post. It was quite informative and
I, for one, am going to save it for further reference. I had no idea that
the fabric was used in the period/cultures that we study save in minor
instances (and certainly never for clothing).

Dame Hrothny
(Post left below in case the reader's email service hiccupped and it was
missed. Or if you are reading this on the Lists I've cc'd.)

-----Original Message-----
From: atlantia-bounces at atlantia.sca.org
[mailto:atlantia-bounces at atlantia.sca.org] On Behalf Of Bonnie Harvey/
Alesia Gillefalyn
Sent: Monday, June 04, 2007 9:30 PM
To: atlantia at atlantia.sca.org
Subject: [MR] Silk Noil in period

Greetings all,

My memory has failed me.  Someone asked me about evidence of silk noil in
period and I promised to send them the information I have.  
Unfortunately I don't remember who it was so I am going to post what I have
here.  Sorry for the use of bandwidth but I hope I can the information to
the right folks.  

Alesia

Here is a link and an article
http://www.revivalclothing.com/index.asp?PageAction=Custom&ID=23

But for real archological evidence:
There is a piece of red silk noil cloth in existence. It was found wrapping
a Saint's relic in a Romanesque alter in a church in the So. French
mountains

The citation for the silk noil:

This was Relic wrapping #2 from the Comps-sur-Artuby (1st half 13th
C.) blood red (piece dyed) silk tabby of "carded silk from the discarded
parts of the cocoons" pp 211-212.

"Silk for Saint Andrew: Newly Discovered Relic Wrappings from Mountain
Churches in the south of France." by Domique Cardon pp209-213 in "Textilien
aus Archdologie und Geschichte" edited by Lise Bender Jorgensen, Johanna
Banck-Burgess and Antoinette Rast-Eicher.  260p, b/w illus (Wachholtz 2003)
ISBN 3529017124. Paperback.

Twenty-four short papers, forming a Festschrift for Klaus Tidow, examine the
archaeology and history of textiles throughout the Middle Ages and into the
modern period. A number of the papers are supported by experimental
evidence; others discuss in more theoretical terms the value of textiles in
archaeology. Several papers discuss the production, tools and marketing of
textiles through the ages, from ancient Rome to 19th-century Germany. The
remaining studies focus on Alamanni textual evidence from archaeological
sites, including cemeteries, medieval textiles from Germany, textiles from
neighbouring countries, including Scandinavia and France, experimental
archaeology and post-medieval textiles from Ireland, England and Hamburg.
The majority of papers are illustrated. Eight papers in English, the rest in
German.


Finally something definitive that might go towards documentation of using
silk noil, commonly called "raw silk" for garb.

Source:  "Silk Economics and Cross-Cultural Artistic Interaction: Byzantium,
the Muslim Word, and the Christian West"  by David Jacoby, in Dumbarton Oaks
Papers, Vol. 58. (2004) pp. 197-240 available on jstor for those who have
access)

Page 208, in reference to qualities of silk:

"The quality of the cloth also varied widely, depending on the raw materials
used and the nature of the weave.  Each domesticated silkworm produces a
continuous filament 900 to 1200 m long.  
Several of them were twisted together to increase the tensile strength of
thread entering into the weaving of high-and medium-grade textiles.  At the
lower end of the scale, silk cloth was woven of greige, the silk filament
still surrounded by gum sericin, the adhesive holding eseveral filaments
together, which prevents proper dyeing.

Since silk was an expensive raw material, most of it regardless of quality
was exploited to maximize profits.  Short fibers coming from damaged cocoons
and surface floss, as well as waste silk discarded in the process of turning
raw silk into thread, had first to be spun like wool, flax, cotton, or hemp
before being woven into a silk fabric of a coarse and uneven quality known
in Byzantium as 'koukoularikon'.  In the tenth century the ceremonial
garments and leggings of some contingents in the imperial army were made of
that cloth.  In 1022 a Jewish bride from a modest household living in the
Anatolian city of mastaura received from her mother a "double red
koukoularikon garment" worth 1 1/2 nomisma.  When the famous Marco Polo died
in Venice in 1324, he owned a piece of green chocholario and two bedcovers
of that same material, one yellow and the other blood-red, the provenance of
which is not stated.  The few examples adduced here, taken at random from
consecutive periods,different regions, and different social and cultural
settings, clearly hint at the wide diffusion of that type of low-grade silk
cloth."

And in the footnotes:

"Floss silk threads were also used for embroidery on silk and linen cloth of
the late Ayyubid and early Mamluk periods, discover on Jazirat Fara'un
(Coral Island) in the Red See south of Eilat..."