Printed Fabric & Robert Forrer

Following my last post regarding what appears to be a loros on a miniature representing Empress Matilda, a lady on the 12th Century Enthusiasts Facebook group brought a potential problem to my attention:

“I do have a quibble about the fabric possibly being block printed / block printed fabrics being common. This is sadly not true. I got all excited about this too, years ago, and did a dive into it, only to find that the sources that were claiming this (based on Forrer’s work) were disproven. Donald King (A highly respected textiles curator at the V&A) in a 1960 paper showed that the 12th c / Rheinish printed fabrics were Victorian fakes. As far as I know (and I’m trying to double check) King’s work hasn’t been contradicted. The Victorian-era source is available online and widely circulated (it does have good parts), but the Donald King article I had to get ILL. I have scans if you’re curious. It’s possible that there were printed fabrics in the 12th c, but its highly unlikely that they would be worn by an empress, or that they were widely available.”

Sadly, I must admit that I was not familiar with who “Forrer” was (unlike names like Goddard or Viollet-le-Duc) and had to do a bit of “searching up” (as my 11 year old puts it). Here’s what I found.

Dr. Robert Forrer was born in Switzerland in 1866. He became interested in archeology and published a monograph on the metal objects associated with the pile dwellings in the Robenhauser wetland near Zurich by the time he was 17. In 1887 he married a German fashion designer from Berlin, and the couple settled in Strasborg, France. Different articles that I found variously describe him as an archeologist, pre-historian, art historian, art dealer, museum director, monument protector, collector, graphic designer, and antiquarian. I’m fairly certain I need to learn more about him to find out which descriptor fits the best, although at this point I’m inclined to think it’s the last one. According to an article about him on the German language Wikipedia, he had a tendency to fixate on one subject until either his interest or ability to learn more about it were exhausted, then sell the related collection and move on. I need to figure out how to verify that claim.

For our purposes here, his relevant work is two books published in the 1890s, “Die Zeugdrucke der byzantinischen, romanischen, gotischen und späteren Kunstepochen” (Printed Fabrics of the Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, and Later Art Epochs), Strasbourg, 1894, and “Die Kunst des Zeugdrucks vom Mittelalter bis zur Empirezeit,” (The Art of Fabric Printing from the Middle Ages to the Empire Period), Strasbourg, 1898. I see that both are available as part of the Open Library project on the Internet Archive. My next step will be to spend some time examining them.

As the lovely lady on the 12th Century Enthusiasts list offered to send me the scans of the article refuting the provenance of the printed textiles which Forrer identified as 12th century, I will wait on those as well before making any conclusions. In the meantime, gentle readers, please take my blithe assertion in the previous post about printed fabrics with a grain of salt.

For further reading:

Die Zeugdrucke der byzantinischen, romanischen, gotischen und späteren Kunstepochen on Open Library

Die Kunst des Zeugdrucks vom Mittelalter bis zur Empirezeit on Open Library

Eva Andersson’s blog post about a pair of early 14th century outfits she used block printing on where she cites Forrer.

An interesting blog post about Robert Forrer as a collector of medieval bits.

What is Matilda Wearing?

A question was raised on the SCA Garb Facebook page yesterday:

“So while looking into this image, I know with my prior information about 12th Century fashion [that] Matilda is wearing a bliaut or something similar, and a veil, and possibly wimple on her head beneath her crown. The only problem I cannot for the life of me figure out the whole ensemble she is wearing here.

Would anyone that is more experienced in 12th Century fashion be able to give a more accurate description of what she’s wearing, and that I could bring into my own interpretation? I’m very new to the 12th Century so any advice is really appreciated.“

Excellent question! Let’s start by noting that this image of the Empress Matilda is taken from a larger image representing her granddaughter Matilda of England’s “coronation” as Duchess when she married Henry the Lion of Saxony. As such, she is being represented symbolically (she actually died a year before her granddaughter was married). As her husband, Henry V of Germany, was a Holy Roman Emperor, she is depicted here wearing a “loros” – the Byzantine/Italian stylized version of the ancient “trabea triumphalis” a type of toga reserved for the consuls of Rome. The loros could only be worn by the emperor, empress, and certain high officials on ceremonial occasions. It was not everyday wear. The loros itself was a long strip of heavy decorated cloth that was originally draped over the shoulder, wrapped around the body, and then draped over one arm. As time progressed, the empress’ version was no longer draped over her shoulder, but was attached by hooks under her collar. This is what the dark red vertical strip and “belt” are. It’s not actually a belt, but a part of the loros itself, which would have been wrapped around her midriff.

Empress Matilda is depicted wearing her loros over a gown of blue patterned with stars. This could be intended to represent brocade (she was Empress, after all, was rich enough, and had connections with the Byzantines who were the sole producers in Europe at the time), or it could represent a block-printed fabric, which was also a common technique at the time. While the loros would have been embroidered, it is doubtful that an all-over pattern on the gown would have been done the same way.

At the Empress’ wrist, we can see that she is wearing a white undergarment with tight, ruched cuffs. This was almost certainly linen. The sleeve would have been cut about 4-6 inches longer than her arms, so that it could be pushed up and form those distinctive lines at her wrist when worn.Over top she is wearing a mantle, fastened with a large brooch. The brooch probably would have been pinned into, or hooked onto the front of her gown so that the weight of the mantle did not choke her.

Regarding the veil/wimple:Today we think of a veil as a cloth that goes over the head, and a wimple as something that goes under the chin. However, in the 12th century, a “veil” was very specifically a headcovering worn by nuns. A “wimple” was length of cloth, that could be worn as a head scarf by women … but the word was also used to refer to lengths of cloth used for other purposes: as a banner on a lance, as neck scarf worn by men, or even as a bandage! It was, however, always linen. I think that is what the Empress is shown wearing here: a linen wimple, wrapped around her head and tucked into her dress. This way of wearing a wimple I think must have been rather similar to the way fashion scarves were worn by mid-20th century women

An Extant 12th Century (almost) Belt

In the discussion of appropriate belts for the 12th century re-enactor or costumer, a problem has been the apparent lack of extant examples of belts from that century.  However, sometimes you stumble on something interesting, as I did a few days ago:  I was feeling frustrated and somewhat dejected with the progress of my project to archive and edit the message history of the old 12th Century Garb List.  Taking a break, I surfed over to to Pinterest (I know, I know; evil, evil Pinterest) and found this:

It’s a pin with a photo of a belt and a link to an Austrian re-enactor’s website.  The caption says “The truss of Philip of Swabia, Speyer Cathedral Treasury.  (1177-1208) made of tablet-woven silk.
(Source:  Nikolaus Hofbauer, “Neues aus de Gotik”)”

The Philip in question, the youngest son of Frederick Barbarossa, lived from 1177 to 1208, when he was assassinated at the age of 31.  He was buried in the 13th century, of course, but it seems very possible that this belt could have been manufactured in the 12th.  The term “bruchenband” which Google Translate rendered as “truss” is apparently a word used by German-speaking re-enactors to refer to the belt or cord that holds up men’s brais.

Mr. Hofbauer’s blog post is about the flax linen belt he made for his 14th century kit.  Of the Philip of Swabia belt he wrote:

“Dabei orientierte ich mich an zwei Dingen: Dem einzigen mir bekannten erhaltenen Exemplars eines Brouchenbands und den von mir so geschätzten kunsthistorischen Abbildungen aus der ersten Hälfte des 14.Jahrhunderts.

Der angesprochene Bruchengürtel stammt von Philipp von Schwaben (geboren im Februar oder März 1177 in oder bei Pavia, gestorben 21. Juni 1208 in Bamberg), ist eine wunderbare Arbeit aus brettchengewebter Seide und weist eine Verschlussart auf die meinen Erwartungen und Vermutungen entspricht:

Dem nach der Graböffnung erschienenen Abschlussbericht kann man folgendes, gut beschreibendes Zitat entnehmen:

“… sind für die erste Schnur zwei Löcher in vertikaler Richtung durch Brettchengewebe und Futter gestochen und diese in Art eines Knopflochstichs versäubert. Die durch beide Löcher nach vorne eingezogene Schnur ist mit einem Halbschlag und einer Halbschleife gebunden. Man kann annehmen, dass diese Schnur zum Schließen des Gürtels gedient hat. …”

Die wiederum deckt sich mit den bis etwa 1350 üblicherweise abgebildeten, schnallenlosen Waffengürteln hochmittelalterlichen Stils:”

I don’t read or speak German, but Google Translate gave me the following translation (undoubted flawed, but enough to get the gist):

 
“In doing so, I oriented myself on two things: the only preserved specimen of a broche ribbon and the art-historical depictions from the first half of the 14th century that I so valued.

The mentioned Bruchengürtel comes from Philipp von Schwaben (born in February or March 1177 in or at Pavia, died June 21, 1208 in Bamberg), is a wonderful work of tablet-woven silk and has a closure that meets my expectations and assumptions:

The final report published after the grave opening can be taken from the following, well-descriptive quote:

“… for the first cord, two perpendicular holes were left in the tabletweaving, and were overcast in the manner of a buttonhole stitch. The cord, pulled in through both holes, is bound with a half-hitch and a half-loop.   It can be assumed that this cord served to close the belt. … “

This in turn coincides with the buckle-less arms belts of the high medieval style, commonly depicted until about 1350.” 

It turns out, I had already encountered this belt years ago, but hadn’t really thought much about it because I saw in Master Guntram von Wolkenstein (Eckhard Gartz)’s documentation for his 13th century belt back in 2003, and I have been narrowly focused on the 12th century.  Apparently Peter Collingwood has pictures of this belt in his book (which I don’t have a copy of), and Nancy Spies mentioned it in “Ecclesiastical Pomp and Aristocratic Circumstance” (which I recently acquired).

Looking for more information, I found that Elizabeth Coatsworth and Gale Own-Crocker have a write up about it in their recent book, “Clothing the Past: Surviving Garments from Early Medieval to Early Modern Western Europe”  (2018).