Late Medieval English Embroidered Conventional Flowers

Abstract

This article concerns surviving examples of late medieval embroidered conventional flowers. The flowers are classified in terms of their structure. Photographs of typical examples are included. The count of surviving examples shows that four of the surviving types occur more frequently than the others. Of these four, two have clear Christian iconography, while the other two derive from classical devices. The distribution of variations within the types raises questions about how the variation in the designs arose, and how the embroidered flowers were traded.

Notes

1 Some can be seen in the holdings of the Victoria and Albert Museum. The most useful published list of pieces surviving in the Provinces is the one in J. C. Cox and A. Harvey, English Church Furniture (London: Methuen, 1907), even though the list is now out of date. A second list was published as an appendix to Mrs Head, The Lace and Embroidery Collector (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1932). A new list is under preparation. In the interim, ‘A Draft Gazette of Early Ecclesiastical Textiles in the Provinces’ was issued in conjunction with the lecture, ‘Locating Pre-Victorian Ecclesiastical Textiles in the Provinces’, presented by the first author at the Textile Society ‘Who Cares? Ecclesiastical Textiles Study Day’, 27 March 2015. Most of the surviving pieces are in England. There are a few pieces in Wales and some in museums in Edinburgh and Glasgow. We do not know of any in Northern Ireland.

2 C. H. Hartshorne, ‘English Medieval Embroidery’, Archaeological Journal, 1 (1845), pp. 318–35; Part 2, Archaeological Journal, 4 (1847), pp. 285–301. The work was subsequently published anonymously as a book by Parker in 1848. The illustrations in Hartshorne are thumbnail drawings. Full colour plates of seven conventional flowers are included in M. Barber, Some Drawings of Ancient Embroidery (London: Henry Sotheran, 1880). We have not been able locate copies of the drawings by A. Blencoe, Ecclesiastical Embroidery; Working Patterns of Flowers, of the Full Size, from Ancient Examples, published under the superintendence of the Ecclesiological (late Cambridge Camden) Society, pp. 1–12 (London: Masters, 1848). Full details of each of the twelve sheets are given in an article in The Ecclesiologist, 67 (August 1848), pp. 176–78, where we are told that the plates were printed at Cowell’s Anastatic Press. The trade catalogue for Masters, 1848, says that the work was issued ‘On Sheets Nos. 1 to 12, 6d. each; or in Two Parts, 3s. each; by post, 3s. 6d.’. B. Morris said in her book, Victorian Embroidery (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1962), that a set of the plates was in the Print Room of the V&A, but they cannot be located there now, and extensive enquiries by us and others have so far failed to locate any of the sheets.

3 While the embroidered devices have traditionally been called ‘conventional flowers’, it should be noted that, although some depict the flowering part of a plant, others depict fruiting bodies, or only foliage.

4 ‘Types’ can be regarded as the genera of the Linnaean binomial system for plants, while ‘forms’ roughly equate to species. For the present work we have chosen to be ‘lumpers’ rather than ‘splitters’. For more detailed studies of certain flowers it might be more helpful to split some types into subtypes. For example, we have included in our Type IIMN 1 flowers with three- or five-point leaves, two or three flutes of various kinds, with or without knops, which from a distance look very similar, and also some outliers.

5 Terminology. A leaf will be said to be coiled (Fig. 13) if its tip is coiled like the tip of a fern frond, and curved (Fig. 12) if it is curved along its length. The word flexed (Figs. 3, 12) will be used to describe a leaf whose edges are lifted towards each other to form a gulley or trough, while the word folded (Figs. 1 and 2) will be used to describe a leaf which is folded, almost at right angles, part way along its length. Five-point leaves (Fig. 5 bottom right) have a point at the tip and two points on each side, while seven-point leaves (Figs. 4 top left, 5 top left) have a point at the tip and three points on each side. Most of the names used for the bodies of flowers, such as round, oval, conical and lens-shaped, need no explanation. The word swollen (Figs. 5–7) is used to describe the body of one of the variants in a collection of closely related flowers. The body is wide at the bottom, reducing to a narrow neck at the top. It might be a round-bottomed flask shape tapering to a narrow neck, with the bottom supported by the edges of a pair of leaves, or the leaves might cut through the bottom of the flask to make it appear flat. In some cases, the sides might be flattened, even straight, and occasionally the bottom also consists of two straight sections, so that the whole body is kite-shaped. There are two main types of tops of flowers. The first consists of two or more cones, separated by embroidered lines, which might end with the cones or extend beyond them. In some cases, the upper ends of the cones are embroidered to look like the open top of a narrow vase, or flute. In other cases, the cones end with sections of circles, which sometimes have a point raised in the middle of them. In some cases where the separating lines end with the cones, there is a wide band of contrasting colour across the wide top of all the cones. All these tops will be called flutes — open (Fig. 1), closed (Fig. 6 top right), pointed (Fig. 6 bottom) or fringed (Fig. 11). The second main type of top has a stumpy cone at the centre, with a sheath that is sometimes wrapped round the cone, and is sometimes a backing to the cone, showing three points, while in other cases the embroidery does not distinguish between the central cone and the backing, so that the top appears as just three points. This type of top is somewhat reminiscent of the fruiting body of a flower enclosed by a spathe, and will here be called a spathe — closed (Fig. 15), open (Fig. 13 top right) or three-point (Fig. 7 top left). In some cases there is a knop between the body of a flower and its top, which might be represented as a sphere (Fig. 5 bottom right), or be lobed (Fig. 5 top left) or sharp-edged (Fig. 13 top right), and sometimes represented by a circle with no attempt at perspective. There are two main types of bottoms of flowers. The first is a cushion, which may be roughly oval in shape, or with two lobes, or with almost straight sides with curved corners, or taller than broad. These will be called cushions, double cushions (Figs. 1 and 2), square cushions (Fig. 12); and cupped cushions (Fig. 10). The three-point bases are very variable, sometimes a prominent central spike with two side spikes, or a shorter central point with longer side points rising from a narrow base, or a wide base with three spikes above, sometimes no more than points. Round-bottomed cup-shaped bases also occur, and the bases can occur in combinations. The three-point base used at the bottom of many of the embroidered flowers derives from the calyx. It occurs in star form and in cushion form and is occasionally somewhat intermediate between the two. In a few cases the calyx is integral with the stem, either with three long points, like a three-pronged spear, or with a round base and indented top with three points. More often the base is separate from the stem and is worked like an irregular three-point star, or as a cushion with round base and indented top, though sometimes inverted with the round ‘base’ at the top (Fig. 5 bottom right). Forms of the three-point base are often applied at the bottom of flowers of pomegranate type (Fig. 6 bottom), even though the calyx of the pomegranate occurs above the fruit, not below, where it is shown enlarged as a two- or three-flute. The three-point ‘base’ is sometimes used as an internal part of the body of a flower (Fig. 3 top left).

6 Counting types of flowers on the eighty-one pieces known to us in the public domain in Britain gives a strong indication of which occur frequently and which are less common. Note that the count is of the number of pieces, not of the number of copies of each flower on the pieces. The number of pieces in private hands is unknown. We have traced twenty-seven pieces of late medieval English embroidery powdered with conventional flowers in foreign museums and churches, though we believe that there are many more. Adding the number of types of flowers on those pieces does not change the order of the four most common types.

7 The only other case of which we are aware in which more than one form of a type of flower occurs on a single parament is the altar cloth at St Mary the Virgin, Brixham, which has two forms of the Type I 1, one with a four-flute top and one with a three-flute top.

8 See K. Heard, ‘“All Holie Companye of Heaven”: Uniformity and Individuality in the Iconography of Late Medieval English Orphreys’, in Iconography of Liturgical Textiles in the Middle Ages, ed. E. Wetter (Riggisburg: Abegg-Stiftung, 2010) pp. 155–62. The Morton copes at Oscott College and in Stockholm both have more than one form of this pomegranate type, but not as many as the Arundel cope.

9 An example of Type III 1 with a vertical band in the body is shown in Barber, Some Drawings of Ancient Embroidery, pl. 15. The piece was in private hands in 1880, and we have not seen a surviving example of this kind.

10 P. Johnson, High Fashion in the Church (Leeds: Maney, 2002), p. 50, col. 2.

11 R. Bonito Fanelli, ‘The Pomegranate Motif in Italian Renaissance Silks: A Semiological Interpretation of Pattern and Colour’, La Seta in Europa Secc. XIII –XX (Firenze: Les Monnier, 1993), pp. 507–30, where there are other references. See also Johnson, High Fashion in the Church, pp. 61–64.

12 One distinctive feature of Italian velvets is use of serrated leaves, either artichoke/thistle leaves, or acanthus leaves. This has carried over to embroidered conventional flowers, where the pomegranate is given serrated rather than oval leaves, and even the conventional lily is graced with serrated leaves rather than strap-like leaves. While the serrations on woven leaves tend to be many and shallow, those on embroidered leaves tend to be few and deep. The use of pairs of acanthus leaves as supporters for other vegetal devices is ancient. An example of palmettes supported by pairs of acanthus leaves from the fourth century bc can be seen in E. D. Reeder, ed., Scythian Gold: Treasures from Ancient Ukraine (New York: Harry N. Adams, 1999), no. 105.

13 Alan Cole says that their construction corresponds with that of devices noted on certain fifteenth-century weavings, but their details differ from those of the original motives that were introduced from Oriental sources into Europe: A. Cole, Ornament in European Silks (London: Debenham and Freebody, 1899), p. 164.

14 Generally, but not universally. One art historian on overhearing a statement that the conventional flower patterns were generally thought to derive from those on Italian woven textiles, did demur and say ‘and others’, though without elaborating.

15 See ‘Des Cleres et Nobles Femmes, British Library, Royal 20 C. v’, in Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (London, British Library, 2011), no. 70, p. 245.

16 A. Branting and A. Lindblom, Medieval Embroideries and Textiles in Sweden (Upsalla: Almquist and Wiksells, 1932), pl. 54B; I. Esham, Birgittinska Textilier: Bridgettine Textiles (Stockholm: Statens Historiska Museum, 1991), p. 31.

17 Branting and Lindblom, Medieval Embroideries and Textiles in Sweden, pl. 64 C.

18 See note 16 above.

19 A. Dolby, Church Embroidery (London: Chapman and Hall, 1867), pl. 7, facing p. 57.

20 See the Hours of Catherine of Cleeves, Pierpoint Morgan Library, New York, M. 945, fol. 107r. Illustrated in C. de Hamel, A History of Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Phaidon, 1986), pl. 149, top left-hand corner.

21 F. Rhodes and P. Rhodes, ‘Medieval Embroidered “Water Flowers”’, Textile History, 47, no. 2 (November 2016), pp. 240–45.

22 The development of vegetal devices, including the palmette and lotus bud, is discussed in A. Riegl, Stilfragen: Grundlegungen zu einer Geschichte der Ornamentik (Berlin: Siemens, 1893); E. King, trans., Problems of Style: Foundations for a History of Ornament (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). An example of a lotus bud supported by acanthus leaves can be seen in Riegl, Stilfragen, fig. 113; see also fig. 116 and the top of fig. 114. An example of an amalgamated lotus bud/palmette with a pair of flexed, downward-curving leaves with serrated edges, below two pairs of inward-curving leaves with plain edges, dated to the second or first century bc, can be seen in I. Marazov, Ancient Gold: The Wealth of the Thracians: Treasures from the Republic of Bulgaria (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998), no. 55, p. 132. An example in which a broad-leaved lotus bud alternated with a skeleton form of a central vertical line with two pairs of curved lines, dated ad 79, can be seen in F. Baratte, Le Trésor d’Orvfèvrerie Romaine de Boscoreale (Paris: Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1986), p. 41.

23 The development of the Saxon form of the acanthus spray is discussed in T. D. Hendrick, Late Saxon and Viking Art (London: Methuen, 1974). The example of the acanthus spray at the bottom of the cross shaft at Colyton, Devon, is illustrated in pl. XXXIV and discussed on p. 40 of that book.

24 J. Rawson, Chinese Ornament: The Lotus and the Dragon (London: British Museum, 1984). We are grateful to Sau Fong Chan of the V&A Museum for telling us about this book.

25 Rawson, Chinese Ornament, fig. 6. While there is some similarity between the scrolling foliate border of this drawing and the borders of some European illuminated manuscripts, we have not located lotus motifs in any European drawings.

26 A. S. Melikian-Chirvani, Islamic Metalwork from the Iranian World, 8–18th Centuries (London: HMSO, 1982), p. 240.

27 Paris, BNF, MSS Fr. 2810. Illustrated in Miniatures Flamandes 1404–1482 (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale de France, 2011), fig. 24, p. 57.

28 A similar device, with a fleur-de-lis in the middle, is used to powder a dalmatic in Linköping Cathedral, Sweden. See Branting and Lindblom, Medieval Embroideries and Textiles in Sweden, pl. 66B, detail pl. 67B. Also Esham, Birgittinska Textilier – Bridgettine Textiles, p. 34.

29 We know from medieval inventories that there were a great many vestments and frontals powdered with Stars of Bethlehem, as was prescribed for Epiphany (see W. H. St.J. Hope and E. G. C. F. Atchley, English Liturgical Colours (London: SPCK, 1918), p. 147). But we know of only two surviving examples, the cope at Chipping Campden, and the altar cloth at Romsey Abbey.

30 See note 22.

31 See note 21.

32 C. Woodeforde, Stained Glass in Somerset 1250–1830 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1946; Bath: Kingsmead Reprints, 1970), p. 63.

33 See note 8.

34 The flowers on the cope at Woodland in Devon, now made into a frontal, are so different in design and in execution from most embroidered conventional flowers that they might have been designed and embroidered locally. The last of the flowers of Type IIMN 1 (Fig. 7 bottom) is from Woodland. The church of St John the Baptist was built by the village without the blessing of the Bishop of Exeter and was consecrated in 1538 on the instructions of Thomas Cromwell. See H. R. Evans, ‘Woodland’, Reports and Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 92 (1960), pp.158–232.

35 U.-C. Bergeman, ‘Serial Production of Embroidered Orphreys in the Late Middle Ages’, Iconography of Liturgical Textiles in the Middle Ages (Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftung, 2010), pp. 171–82.

36 Seraphim usually occur together with representations of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We know of twenty-four late medieval embroidered Assumptions that have survived in whole or in part. There appear to be three main styles, but we are not aware of any study of these embroideries.

37 The book is reproduced in facsimile in N. Barker, Two East Anglian Picture Books (London: Roxburghe Club, 1988). One of the patterns is shown in C. Browne, G. Davies and M. A. Michael, eds., English Medieval Embroidery: Opus Anglicanum (London: V&A Museum, 2016), no. 78, p. 267. The botanical plates of Ashmole 1504 are reproduced in C. Putnam, Flowers and Trees of Tudor England (London: Hugh Evelyn, 1972); the rest of the plates, including those with the conventional flowers, are not included in that book.

38 Most of the fanciful flowers in religious illuminated manuscripts are asymmetric ones within scrolling borders. There are a few symmetric examples such as those displayed within roundels on the border of fol. 9v, the St Omar Psalter, British Library Yates Thompson 14, illustrated in S. McKendrick, et al., Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (London: British Library, 2011), p. 164. A stock of designs for fourteenth-century silk fabrics and embroidery, of which several fragments survive, is described in R. W. Scheller, Exemplum: Model-Book Drawings and the Practice of Artistic Transmission in the Middle Ages (ca. 900–ca. 1470), trans. Michael Hoyle (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1995); figs. 147 and 149 include some conventional flowers, though different from the ones described above.

39 T. T. Wildridge, The Misereres of Beverley Minster (Hull: J. Plaxton, 1879; republished Driffield: Honeyfields Books, 1982), pls. IX, XLIV, XLV.

40 R. Rosewell, Medieval Wall Paintings (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2008), fig. 248.

41 Illustrated in C. Oman, English Church Plate (London: OUP, 1957), pl. 2.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Frank Rhodes

Frank Rhodes was a Reader in Mathematics at the University of Southampton until his retirement.

Peter Rhodes

Peter Rhodes studied Fine Arts Valuation at Southampton Institute, and then became a dealer in antiquarian and second-hand books. For the past few years they have been seeking and recording pre-Reformation embroidery surviving in the provinces, together with seventeenth- and eighteenth-century ecclesiastical textiles. They have a particular interest in embroidered conventional flowers, cataloguing the different types, logging their occurrences and studying the origins of the designs.