Tudor Textiles

Abstract

This well-written, very readable overview of Tudor textiles provides good illustrations and information about specific items that have survived from the period, or are well attested in the documentary record, together with others illustrated in contemporary artworks. The book’s strength lies in drawing clear links between extant textiles and other sources of information about them. Here Lynn’s experience as a former curator of furniture at the V&A Museum and familiarity with royal palace interiors shines through. There is no new research here for specialist readers, but it offers a good introduction to Tudor textiles with a heavy reliance on secondary sources—some of which are essential reading for understanding the fabrics of the era. The book does a good job of signposting newcomers to important texts such as Thomas Campbell on tapestries, Maria Hayward on inventories of royal possessions and Lisa Monnas on velvets and other silks. Some relevant research is not referenced: for example, West Dean Tapestry Studios’ reconstruction work for Stirling Castle has been documented by Caron Penney in Rediscovering the Unicorn Tapestries (2014); and Susan North has taken a long overdue in-depth look at linens (Sweet and Clean, 2020). This last would have been helpful in explaining that holland was not only an ‘exceptionally fine linen worn by the nobility’ but that it came in different qualities and was often listed in the wills and inventories of ordinary people. The Act of Apparel which came into force in 1534 (and was reiterated in ten subsequent regulations up to 1597) specifically permitted imported linen such as holland to ‘any person’. John Munro’s invaluable research on scarlets (‘The Medieval Scarlet and the Economics of Sartorial Splendour’, 1983) is also overlooked, which leads to a misunderstanding about its continued use for clothing throughout the sixteenth century. Lena Dahr en’s work on the production of gold and silver lace for clothing and furnishings (2010 and 2013) is another oversight. The chapter on ‘Materials and Techniques’ over-simplifies some key textile processes, but it is bolstered with high-quality illustrations, including close-up photographs of the Bacton altar cloth, which are a welcome addition to the evidence available for materials, fabrics and embellishments of the era. Personal contacts rather than peerreviewed sources or published craft experts are cited formany of the explanations of textile production, which is disappointing in what is one of the longest sections of the book. The distinction between woollen and worsted fabrics so pertinent to textiles of the era is not explained, although there is a reference to the ‘new draperies’ in chapter 1. The book avoids reliance on Kerridge (Textile Manufactures in Early Modern England, 1985), which is to be welcomed since his dense endnotes often obscure the irrelevance of the sources quoted for the sixteenth century. Many of the endnotes directly refer to original sources and this is of particular value in demonstrating the commission, manufacture, ownership and ‘biography’ of specific textiles made for members of the royal family and those close to them. There are some very interesting insights into individual people’s roles in the acquisitions of textiles and the extension of trade through Europe and far beyond it. The book explains contemporary terms for textile elements of furniture such as a ‘sperver’ (bed canopy) and technical terms for types of embroidery such as ‘slips’ (appliqu ed motifs), but refers to Mary I’s ‘skirt’ in her portrait by Antonis Mor (fig. 124) and the Bacton altar cloth as a purported ‘skirt’ rather than using the