Page 366 - J. C. Turner - History and Science of Knots

A History of Lace 359

The fashion for lace brought many ancillary employments, and some
changes in the established methods. The fine smooth linen thread required
resulted in a greater awareness of the quality of spinning. Hand-spun threads
tend to show a tiny irregularity at roughly 50 cm intervals, this being the
approximate drop of the spindle; these nodes may be minimised by twirling
the spindle in a bowl with one hand while using the other to pull out the
raw fibre. Flax spun wet gives a finer thread than when dry-spun, so that the
spinsters often sat in cold, damp rooms to achieve the required standards. The
great ruffs themselves needed special laundering, and merchants opened spe-
cialist shops selling trimmings, mainly from Milan-hence the word `milliner'.
The domestic accounts of Hengrave Hall, near Bury St Edmunds (in Suffolk,
England),show that when Queen Bess stayed there in the course of a royal
progress, a woman from the nearby village of Flempton had to be brought
in specially to starch the Queen's ruff, and for this task she was paid 5 far-
things (quarter-pence) and her dinner. Saffron starch, used to give the lace
its distinctive creamy colour needed special preparation and the growing of
the saffron crocus gave a village its name (Saffron Walden) and livelihood;
while laundresses could earn the equivalent of a month's wages for teaching
the secrets of starching lace. For those who could not obtain saffron, the roots
of the wild arum were used-hence its country name of `lords and ladies'.
Many miniatures and portraits of this era record the clothing in such detail
that it is possible even to recognise the pattern-book from which the laces were
made! We also have a few domestic samplers of the era still in existence; the
earliest one we know of being worked before 1544. The embroideress, Isabel
Fleming, bequeathed her `beste sampler' to her daughter Anne, and the will
was proved on 8-vii-1544. This piece, and others of the era, shows the standard
of needlework achieved by women at home, and the sample-bands include cut-
work and drawn-thread work, and punto in aria, as well as stitched patterns
and elaborate ways of making a decorative seam.
One technique which appears to be peculiar to England is also found on
samplers of this .era: Hollie point. This produces a heavy lace in which the
design is made by a series of holes. Until the Dissolution of the Monasteries
its main use was in church furnishings, and the designs were almost invariably
biblical-Adam and Eve, the Tree of Knowledge, the Dove, and sometimes
the lily in a pot (a mediaeval symbol of the Annunciation.) Later it was used
as a technique for children's bonnets, etc, when the designs were simple floral
borders, sometimes with lettering in between the flowers.

The Early Seventeenth Century

Exploration, the circumnavigation of the world and the challenging of the
Church, had changed the balance of power and wealth in Europe. The C16th