Some pouches and purses of the St Thomasguild part I

The kind of medieval pouches shown in a previous blogpost, as well as those described in the catalogue of medieval textiles from the treasury of the St. Servatius church in Maastricht, the Netherlands (see photo below) did inspire Anne to make some pouches as well.

A 14th century pouch made from four pieces of Italian lampas silk (red/green/white with gold threads) with red pompoms. The pouch was made from four downward tapered segments, of which two were cut out from the same repeated pattern (birds and other animals). The leather lining is connected to the outer fabric with the seam covered with a green braid. The attachment and closing cord of the bag is also made of a green braid. The pompoms are attached to the side and bottom of the pouch. 16 cm height, 18 cm width. Image from the book Mittelalterlichen Textilien von St. Servatius in Maastricht by A. Stauffer.

Annes version of this pouch is smaller (7 cm height, 8 cm wide) and made of embroidered silk. Blue silken pompoms are attached at the four corners, as well as at the drawstrings. The inside is made of a cream-coloured silk. We would like to place some remains of St. Thomas (or fragments of his clothes) inside the pouch, like that of the reliquary pouch from Maaseik (Belgium), but have not found some yet. Early next year, Anne will visit India and perhaps she can locate a something of him (for instance, a brick from the palace that St. Thomas built or a tooth from the dog who brought the hand of the cup-bearer that offended St. Thomas at the wedding feast).

Different views of Annes pompom pouch.

 

Six textile fragments and a small leather purse: the contents of a reliquary pouch from the shrine of Johannes Nepomucenus from the St. Catharina church in Maaseik, Belgium. The pouch (right) and fragments (left) are dated between 1200 and 1400. The pouch itself is made of silk and measures 11 cm (height) by 9 cm (width). At the sides are small metal beads or pearls. Photos from KIK IRPA, Brussels, Belgium.

Another small purse (also 7 cm height by 8 cm wide) that Anne made of some leftover red silk with a cream-coloured pattern. The inside is the same cream silk as the pompom pouch. The drawstring consists of two colours of silken embroidery thread, and made as medieval rope (but using a cordless power drill to speed up the process).

Annes second pouch. you can clearly see the holes at the top of the pouch through which the drawstring goes.  

The pouch closes by pulling the string simultaneously at the opposite sides.

The Maastricht brickstitch pouch with silk stitching on linen ground. Yarn colours are red (now beige), bright blue and gold-plated silver. Inside of the pouch is red taftsilk. Height 9 cm, width 14 cm. Image from the book Mittelalterlichen Textilien von St. Servatius in Maastricht by A. Stauffer.

 

The following green and red pouch is based on the brickstitch pattern that is found on a reliquary pouch (dated around 1300) in the Maastricht treasury. A handout of this pattern (used to embroider the pouch) can be found at the excellent Medieval Silkwork blog. This pouch has been Annes first attempt at brickstitch embroidery. The pouch measures 10 by 13 cm, while the actual brickstitch area is (twice) 10 by 10 cm. The inside and the border are made of red silk. The pouch closes with a two-coloured drawstring, made the same way as described above. The pouch now holds a collection of embroidery yarn and utensils. An interesting post on medieval embroidery yarn and the modern equivalents is also found at the Medieval Silkwork blog.

Annes version of the Maastricht brickstitch pattern pouch. Both sides are embroidered with the brickstitch pattern.

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Making a sedia tenaglia part 2 steam bending

Did steam bending of furniture exist in medieval times? That is a difficult question to answer. It is very likely that it did exist. At least the technique was used in the medieval body-building industry. Wooden planks for the hull had to be bend before they were clinked with nails to the frame and the overlapping planks, and this was much easier to do with the help of steam.  Archaeological finds of lapstrake built boats also confirm that steaming of the wooden planks was used in boat building.

Noah building the ark. A favourite medieval boat-building scene. You can see that the boat is nailed and lapstrake built, but no steam-bending is being done here. Histoire Ancienne jusquà César. Manuscript Add. 15268 folio 7v. British Library, London, UK.

 

A reconstructed steam-bending scene from the Vasa Museet (Stockholm, Sweden). 

The Vasa was built in 1626-1627.

Another indication that (steam)bending was used in a more medieval house-hold context are the splint boxes. These boxes were already known in early medieval times (e.g. grave finds from Oberflacht in Germany, 6-7th century) and are still in use. Thin pieces (a few mm thick) of wood were bent with help of water, heat and steam to make oval or round forms. More on medieval splint boxes can be found on the blog of the Wienische Hantwërcliute 1350.

Spanschachtel box from the Augustinerchorfrauenstift Steterburg, 1st half of 14th century. Height 11 cm, length 29 cm, width 20 cm . Now in the Herzog Anton Ulrichs-Museum, Braunsweig, Germany. 

Medieval splint box with its contents: a mandrake in silk wrappings. The box was found under the choir stalls in Kloster Wienhausen, Germany. Image scanned from the booklet Der Fund vom Nonnenchor by Horst Appuhn.

Whether medieval furniture also was made from steam-bend wood is not clear. Some photos of extant pieces suggest that they were bend, but no information is given if this was really the case. Nor have I been able to check if the wood grain of these chairs follows the flow of the bend rails. Anyway, I have used the steambending technique for my sedia tenaglia.

Making the bending jig

To steam-bend wood a bending jig is necessary. The wood is pressed against the jig and takes the shape of the jig. My bending jig was made of two pieces of 2 cm mdf board, which was glued together to get a 4 cm thick board, i.e. the same width as the wooden rails. I roughly used my plan of sedia tenaglia to transfer the curves to the mdf board. Then, I hammered some nails along this first sketch of the curve and placed a thin strip of wood against it. This thin strip bends easily and forms a natural flowing curve, while being kept in place by the nails. The final curve of the wooden strip was now transferred on the mdf board with help of a pencil. A band-saw was used to saw the curve, and a belt sander to smoothen it. 

 

Glueing the two pieces of mdf to get a 4 cm thick board.

 

Using nails and a thin strip of wood (triplex)  to crate a natural flowing curve. The lines of the initial measurements can be seen on the mdf.

As all the wooden legs need to have the same curve, some additional part were needed for the bending jig. An end-stop was needed to ensure that the curve started at the same point for each leg. A flattening clamp was needed to ensure that no bending occurred below that point (i.e. the part of the X needs to be straight, only the backrest needs bending). The flattening clamp also made it possible to quickly slide the steamed leg into the jig.

 

The end stop and the flattening clamp of the bending jig.

 

Here you can see the jig with an unsteamed leg inside it. The arrows show the part that will be kept straight

 and the part that will form the bended backrest. 

The steambox

The steambox - used to steam the wooden rails - is modern made from laminated plywood. The inner edges are sealed with silicon kit. The ground surface has a slight angle towards the middle, so the that condensed steam will flow back into the kettle. In the middle of the box is a hole with a PVC pipe connected to (the lid of) a glue box beneath which is filled with water. The glue box is placed on an electric heater. Another version of a steambox can be found on the blog of Johann von Katzenelnbogen, who makes traditional and early medieval handcrafted furniture.

Schematic overview of the steambox.

The plywood steambox with the gluepot and the electric heater in the middle. 

On top of the steambox is a lid with two handles.

Two legs of my sedia tenaglia could be placed together in the steam box. They rest on wooden blocks so they do not get unevenly wet by the condensed water whichis flowing back to the PVC pipe/glue-pot.

Inside the steam box. Two legs are waiting on small wooden blocks. 

You can see the hole for the steam and the returning condensed water.

The steam-bending process

The wooden legs stayed in the steambox between half an hour to one hour. One at a time was taken out of the steambox with fingered oven mitts (initially the wood and the steam are hot) and quickly put into the jig. Then clamps were applied, starting from the middle and following the bend towards the end. It is necessary to have wooden blocks between the clamps and the steamed wood to spread the pressure. If you do not do this, the clamps will produce dents in the wood, which are difficult to remove. (With help of a clothes iron with steam you can try to inflate the dent again, but you must take care not to burn the wood instead). After half an hour, when the wood had cooled down, the clamps were removed and the bended rail was transferred to a spare jig, were it was clamped again for some hours. Meanwhile, the first jig could be used to bend the second rail.

The first leg I tried to bend was about one cm thicker than the ones finally I used for the chair. The thicker leg could not be bend properly and veered back to a wrong angle. Perhaps this was due to a too short time in the steambox, but I decided to reduce the thickness of the rails. The thinner rails all bended perfectly well (except one that splintered), finally resulting in a chair having a lighter weight.

 

It is necessary to use wooden blocks between the iron clamps and the steamed leg of the chair. Steamed wood is soft and the pressure of the clamp will leave an ugly dent in the leg if no block is used to spread the pressure evenly.

At the straight end, hardly any iron camps are used.

Clamping starts at the straight end and then follows to the end of the curve.

 Sometimes the pressure of the previous clamps has to be increased when the bending proceeds.

Not all bending goes well. This leg cracked and split during the bending process. 

I had to make another one. Luckily it happened only once.

I will conclude the making of the sedia tenaglia in a next post.

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Medieval clothing from Vienna part 2

Continuing the story of the medieval clothing in Vienna, the next museum to visit was the Stephansdom. This cathedral has some special rooms containing the treasury of the church, for a large part paintings of the 14th century. While most of the saints wear old-fashioned gowns, some images show the normal close fitting 14th century dress.

The blessed Virgin with Jesus and a pea flower. Westphalian, end of the 14th century.

North Italian triptych. First quarter of the 14th century. Though quite small in this photo, the soldiers wear the costumes of this time period.

 A cycle of seven panel paintings around 1420. (1) The passing of Maria, with the apostles present. (Reputedly St. Thomas was not present at Marias death, but instead was the only one to see her ascend into heaven - with the presentation of Marias girdle to him by an angel)

(2) St. Catharina with her attribute the wheel and St. Barbara with the three windowed tower. (3) Saint Andrew with the cross and St. Eligius with the bishop staff and church building.

(4) Possibly St. Mary Magdalene with the jar of spikenard and St. Ursula with the arrow. (5) St. Agnes with a lamb and possibly St. Margareth with the dragon/devil.

 (6) This is Saint Thomas with his spear. Next to St. Thomas is an unknown bishop saint with his fingers pierced by sharp needles.

The next seven images are a cyclus of seven panel paintings from around 1390. (1) This panel contains the Holy Family visited by the three three magi (Balthasar, Caspar and Melchior). It happened that Saint Thomas later encountered Balthasar during his travels in India and had him baptised.

(2)  St. Ursula and the slaying of the virgins. The knight in front is wearing a fashionable knightly belt low on the hips. (3) A man with the child Jesus on his neck, and a saint with a chalice.

(4) St. George spearing the dragon and possible St. Magdalene (see also one of the previous panels). (5) Saint Mary with the child Jesus. Mary is wearing a cotehardie.

(6)  The annunciation, an angel visiting Mary. (7) St. Catherine with a wheel, St. Barbara with the tower and one with a palm branch.

  The Saint Andrew triptych. Painted around 1430.

Another museum with late 14th / early 15th century clothing is the Neidhart Frescos. These frescos were discovered in a house (Tuchlauben 19) that once belonged to the medieval cloth merchant Michel Menschein. In about 1407, he commissioned a series of four murals for his private dance-hall based on the (scandalous) songs by the legendary bard (Minnesänger) Neidhart von Reuenthal. Each fresco depicts scenes from one of the four seasons of the year. The different scenes are depicted against a dark coloured background, typical for the period around 1400, against which the light and bright colours stand out very well. Most of the figures wear stylish clothing of the end of the 14th, start of the 15th century. As I did not take photos here, the different scenes are from other internet sources and scanned from the guidebook.

Summer. On the left, a ball game depicted; in the middle some lovers and on the right a scene called the theft of the mirror, which suspiciously looks like a rape scene.

 Winter. a snowball fight and sledge ride.

Spring. The peasant brawl, with caricature peasant versions of knights.

Spring. The castle and men emerging from it: the so-called violet prank, where Neidhart finds the first violet in spring and covers it with his hat. He then calls the duchess to see the flower, but meanwhile a peasant has put this hat over a piece of dung.

Spring with the dancing scene and Autumn with a banquet by the fire; a table can be seen on the right.

Part 3 of medieval clothing from Vienna will show some real extant medieval pieces of clothing.

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