Page 365 - J. C. Turner - History and Science of Knots

358 History and Science of Knots

ment and brought prosperity to Saxony. The Spanish Inquisition had forced
vast numbers of Dutch Protestants to flee, and in 1563 many of them settled
in Kent and spread westwards along the south coast, where the weather was
more clement. They brought their textile skills and taught the women of the
villages which gave them hospitality, so that individual techniques, not all of
which have survived, were associated with particular villages. In 1568 and
1572 two other groups, Protestants from Mechlin and French Huguenots were
welcomed into the Protestant England of Queen Elizabeth I, and settled in the
counties of Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire. To this day, there are bobbins
called `Huguenots'. The parchments on which the patterns for bobbin lace
were pricked could be used again and again, and when the holes had worn too
ragged for the design to be accurate a fresh parchment was laid underneath
and a new pricking made. At a time when writing was still a comparatively
rare exercise, this was the easiest (if not the only) way to take a copy, and the
prickings were jealously guarded.
Pattern-books were published around this time too, showing designs of
great complexity; it is interesting to note that all the designs of that era are
workable, showing that all pattern-drawers had a basic training in the craft
before being allowed to design any pieces. Those that have survived include de-
signs by Nicolo Zoppino, Giovanni Vavasore, and Matteo Pagan; their designs
specialising in strapwork interlacing, filet-lacis and punto in aria, respectively.
In Germany, too, filet designs by Sibmacher were published at Nuremberg,
while in France, patterns for cutwork and reticella were designed by Foillet.
Although all these pattern-books provide inspiration even today, probably the
best known remains the collection that Vinciolo of Venice published in 1587,
with a set of patterns for reticella and filet-lacis. He was one of the foremost
designers of the late C16th, and upon the marriage of Catherine de Medici
to Henri II went to the French court to be given the monopoly on the lace
for ruffs. There is some confusion between Queen Catherine of Aragon and
the patron saint of lacemakers (St Catherine of Sienna) in the later English
histories of this era; for Ampthill in Bedfordshire, where Catherine was sent
to live after her divorce from Henry VIII, always claims to have learnt lace-
making from the Queen in 1531, while the rest of England says the craft was
first taught by Flemish immigrants in the 1560s.
Perhaps the best indication of the truth lies in the fact that the Spanish
laces were needle-point, made with gold or silver wire and fine thread, while
the laces of Bedfordshire are made with bobbins and the early designs have a
marked family resemblance to those of Cluny in France. The first record of
lace being taught as a trade is in 1596, when a woman was employed to teach
bobbin-lacemaking to the orphans of the parish of Eaton Socon. She was paid
a weekly rate of 2d per child by the workhouse authorities, and the monies
from any lace that was sold went to offset the orphanage expenses.