The silk industries fueled the economic expansion of Medieval Christian and Muslim countries like petroleum fueled the economic growth in the 20thC
Before the 10thC, silk was available only as a luxury commodity imported from China. For more than 6,000 years, multi-generational Chinese clans and their businesses controlled the international distribution of silk fabrics.
While others may have had knowledge, only the Chinese had the know-how to industrialize silk production. The industry was so critical to the economy of ancient China that the Empress, personally, celebrated the blossoming of white mulberry trees; and the beginning of the silkworms’ life cycle.
According to lore, silkworm eggs escaped China hidden inside the walking sticks of Nestorian monks who were preaching Christianity about 550 CE. Originally from the Mediterranean region, their walking sticks were probably formed from stalks of the giant fennel plant.
Lightweight and durable, the plant’s pith burned evenly and slowly so stalks were frequently used for fire carriers. Maybe Prometheus didn’t steal fire from Mt. Olympus, he stole the fennel plant and a way to transport fire. At the end of a hard day, having a live coal snug in the stalk, ready to ignite into a cooking fire, was a godsend.
Fennel stalks were also used to store salves and oils for injuries incurred along the way; and, for smuggling. Silkworm eggs – the size of pin-pricks, may have been simply stashed inside the stalks and walked home. How the silkworm eggs survived the journey from the Mongol Empire to Constantinople; and did the monks nurtured generations of silkworms along the way? These are art history mysteries. Supposedly, the preachers did present themselves at the court of Emperor Justinian with silkworm eggs. After careful tending with a steady diet of white mulberry leaves, the eggs hatched into worms. The worms spun cocoons and the unwinding commenced.
From the 10th to the 18thC, cultivating silkworms was a kitchen table industry which produced a vital source of income for families, who also cultivated fields of mulberry trees. Mothers, daughters and grandmothers devoted six months a year to tending and feeding silkworms. Similar to panda bears, silkworms have only a single food source.
Technically, silkworms are the larval form of the silk moth. Females could lay as many as 500 eggs with the potential to grow into a hatch of silkworms. The voracious, blind larvae of Bombyx mori ate about a ton of mulberry leaves to form their cocoons, which produced approximately 12 pounds of raw silk.
“Reeling” was the technical term for unwinding silk filaments from cocoons. The process began with degumming the filaments. Silk-spinning animals (insects are animals) evolved a fluid management system that enables them to transform fibroin fluids into solid fibers. In order to keep their cocoons together, silkworms excrete an adhesive substance, the protein Sericin. The adhesive had to be dissolved off in hot water before cocoons could be unwound into threads. Threads were then wound into skeins for weaving and dyeing.
Silk threads produced light, soft and warm fabrics, which were more widely available to consumers by the 12thC. Silk has always been a luxury commodity which was lavishly displayed in Medieval painting. Scenes from the life of the Blessed Mother were popular motifs usually showing her swathed in overabundance of finest silk fabrics. The Madonna and Child motif was a popular signal of prosperity, especially when she was clothed in royal blue colors.
While the motif was predictable, most of the paintings prominently displayed huge volumes of elegantly folded silk garments in astonishing arrays of colors. The extravagance may have been purely promotional. Showing the Blessed Mother, elegantly clothed in unique, richly colored and gilded silk fabrics in church would have been well placed advertising. Parishioners were producers and customers too. By the 12thC, 20% of the workforce in central Italy was employed making silk. Even Michelangelo’s family was in the silk trade.
Silk’s shimmering appearance is due to the triangular shape (like a prism) of the silk filaments. Their internal structure refracts transmitted light and reflects it back at different angles to generate different colors. The brilliance of silk relies on how the fabric folds, slows and shimmers when the fabric moves.
Even though made from biomaterial, some silk fabrics had the capacity to age very slowly. Assuming some air circulation and moderate humidity, silk fabrics, especially, brocade silks embellished with metallic threads, were durable for about 60 years.
“Shot silk” (cangiante) was the most dramatic effect used to create depth and drama in flowing silk draperies or evening gowns. The iridescence of shot silk was woven into fabric using a plain-weave technique and two threads dyed different colors. One color was used for the vertical warp threads and another for the weft threads. For custom fabrics made for the über rich, threads were dyed first then combined chromatically before woven together to generate the famous cangiante effect of the Renaissance.
About 1234 CE Marco Pollo returned to Venice from his travels through Tibet and China. The Mongols had defeated the Jin Dynasty and claimed their silk industries.They introduced high sheen, thicker, warmer lampas silk textiles. Marco Polo introduced Venetians to elaborate decorative motifs. The Mongols extensive use of metallic threads transformed their silk brocades into light reflecting fabrics. The first lampas reach European markets called “panni-tartarici” or Tartar cloths. While fabrics were made heavier with golden threads, they were packable so textiles were valuable trade commodities, a sort of currency during the Medieval era.
Lampas was a luxury fabric, a silk brocade with decorative, often narrative motifs woven into the fabric. To make this style of silk brocade, multiple colors of threads were woven into complex patterns. The incorporation of metallic threads, which were woven with a range of brightly colored threads which transformed silk “lampas” fabrics into glittering, cascading gowns and glittering draperies.
Golden threads were combined with colored threads into complex patterns so each lampas was unique – the fabric of choice for outstanding Italian influencers of the 13thC.
Captions:
Scroll from the Beijing Museum of Art
Silk moths
Giant fennel plant in nature
Silk worms
Silk larvae
15thC silk women
The Annunciation, oil transferred from wood to canvas, ca. 1434, by Jan van Eyck (National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC)
Silk filaments
Sistine chapel designed by Michelangelo
St. Vincent and Donor by unknown Spanish masters 15th C Prado Museum