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hrjI've tackled a lot of historic reproduction pieces that I wanted to try once and never felt the need to do again. When the project in question normally comes in pairs, this can be a problem. Fortunately, knitted silk ecclesiastical gloves were normally preserved as relics (either in the formal sense, or simply in the sense of being associated with a prominent figure). So the notion of only having one is at least vaguely supportable. I started this project well over a decade ago, and the knitting was so fidgety and required such intense concentration that I rarely got any momentum going. I had one finger left to go, when the excuse of an arts competition for textiles (suggested project: hand coverings) gave me the excuse to push it through to the finish. I include below the documentary notes I prepared to go with it.
My Inspiration
This glove is closely inspired by a pair of liturgical gloves recovered from the 13th century grave of Rodrigo Ximenez de Rada, Archbishop of Toledo and Primate of Spain. Information about the original is taken from the conservation report by the Abegg Institute. (Flury-Lemberg 1988) The original glove is knit from colored silk and gold thread. The article doesn’t mention the color of the silk, but typically liturgical gloves are red. The glove has a cuff of gold-brocaded tablet weaving. The article gives charted patterns for all the knitted motifs.
I’ve included a somewhat poor multi-generation image of the glove and charted patterns from the original publication. My apologies for the quality.
My Reproduction
My primary consideration in a choice of thread was to get as close as practical to the physical nature of the thread of the original. While the conservation report doesn’t specify the weight or twist of the silk, it is clear that the thread is very fine (ca. 10 stitches per cm) and silk-work of this era generally uses thrown silk rather than spun. I was able to obtain a very fine two-ply thrown silk thead in multiple colors and this inspired the project. I was not able to obtain either red or metallic gold thread in this weight, therefore I chose the two colors of what was available that had the best contrast to show the pattern. My thread is not quite as fine as the original, running ca. 6 stitches per cm on 0.75mm needles (the smallest I could obtain), so my glove has fewer repeats of the motifs than the original. I omitted the large agnus Dei motif from the back of the hand as I preferred to omit the religious designs). Therefore, due to the relatively small size of the other motifs, I was able to include all of the original pattern. In my glove, the band patterns extend further up the hand than on the original, where they end right below the start of the thumb. I retained the two-color diamond pattern on the thumb, following the original, however I found that this type of design resulted in a very bulky and inelastic knit, due to the thread floats, therefore for the other fingers I chose to use a plain color with knitted “rings” in the design color, following the model of several later ecclesiastical glove examples.
The glove was knit in the round on multiple double-pointed wire needles. Although no knitting needles survive from this early (and artistic depictions of knitting are later and show a larger scale of work), the physics of possible materials suggests that metal wire is the most likely type of needle for work on this small scale.
The cuff is tablet-woven red silk, brocaded with paired silver threads in a simple vine motif, taken from a band on a textile associated with the 8/9th century Saints Harlindis and Relindis (Spies 2000, p.126). I chose this design for it’s relatively small scale, rather than trying to match the time-period closely. The color of this band is more typical for the ground of brocaded bands as well as being more typical for the ecclesiastical gloves, however I didn’t have access to this thread when I began the knitting. I used a red silk in this case because I did the brocading as an “add on” to a piece of plain red silk tablet weaving for a scroll seal ribbon.
Bibliography
Flury-Lemberg, Mechthild. 1988. Textile Conservation and Research. Schriften der Abegg-Stiftung, Bern.
Spies, Nancy. 2000. Ecclesiastical Pomp & Aristocratic Circumstance. Arelate Studio, Jarrettsville. ISBN 0-615-11681-7
My Inspiration
This glove is closely inspired by a pair of liturgical gloves recovered from the 13th century grave of Rodrigo Ximenez de Rada, Archbishop of Toledo and Primate of Spain. Information about the original is taken from the conservation report by the Abegg Institute. (Flury-Lemberg 1988) The original glove is knit from colored silk and gold thread. The article doesn’t mention the color of the silk, but typically liturgical gloves are red. The glove has a cuff of gold-brocaded tablet weaving. The article gives charted patterns for all the knitted motifs.
I’ve included a somewhat poor multi-generation image of the glove and charted patterns from the original publication. My apologies for the quality.
My Reproduction
My primary consideration in a choice of thread was to get as close as practical to the physical nature of the thread of the original. While the conservation report doesn’t specify the weight or twist of the silk, it is clear that the thread is very fine (ca. 10 stitches per cm) and silk-work of this era generally uses thrown silk rather than spun. I was able to obtain a very fine two-ply thrown silk thead in multiple colors and this inspired the project. I was not able to obtain either red or metallic gold thread in this weight, therefore I chose the two colors of what was available that had the best contrast to show the pattern. My thread is not quite as fine as the original, running ca. 6 stitches per cm on 0.75mm needles (the smallest I could obtain), so my glove has fewer repeats of the motifs than the original. I omitted the large agnus Dei motif from the back of the hand as I preferred to omit the religious designs). Therefore, due to the relatively small size of the other motifs, I was able to include all of the original pattern. In my glove, the band patterns extend further up the hand than on the original, where they end right below the start of the thumb. I retained the two-color diamond pattern on the thumb, following the original, however I found that this type of design resulted in a very bulky and inelastic knit, due to the thread floats, therefore for the other fingers I chose to use a plain color with knitted “rings” in the design color, following the model of several later ecclesiastical glove examples.
The glove was knit in the round on multiple double-pointed wire needles. Although no knitting needles survive from this early (and artistic depictions of knitting are later and show a larger scale of work), the physics of possible materials suggests that metal wire is the most likely type of needle for work on this small scale.
The cuff is tablet-woven red silk, brocaded with paired silver threads in a simple vine motif, taken from a band on a textile associated with the 8/9th century Saints Harlindis and Relindis (Spies 2000, p.126). I chose this design for it’s relatively small scale, rather than trying to match the time-period closely. The color of this band is more typical for the ground of brocaded bands as well as being more typical for the ecclesiastical gloves, however I didn’t have access to this thread when I began the knitting. I used a red silk in this case because I did the brocading as an “add on” to a piece of plain red silk tablet weaving for a scroll seal ribbon.
Bibliography
Flury-Lemberg, Mechthild. 1988. Textile Conservation and Research. Schriften der Abegg-Stiftung, Bern.
Spies, Nancy. 2000. Ecclesiastical Pomp & Aristocratic Circumstance. Arelate Studio, Jarrettsville. ISBN 0-615-11681-7
