Tag: Bacton Altar Cloth

One of the great pleasures in studying the Bacton Altar Cloth, even from afar mostly via photographs, is that so many intriguing questions present themselves. What materials were used? Who stitched the designs? How was the fabric and embroidery used before it was an altar cloth? How would contemporary viewers have interpreted the work? To answer such conundrums clearly will take considerable time devoted by many people with diverse expertise.

One question seemed easy enough, but has dominated our initial attempts to describe the altar cloth: what flowers do the embroidered motifs represent?

At first we flipped through the photographs identifying easy ones that we knew from our own gardens or from their frequent use in Elizabethan embroidery, but names for many motifs eluded us. We began discussing sepal prominence, stamen colour, fruit clustering, and leaf position. It’s been more than two decades since I’ve taken a botany exam or done fieldwork to plot species density, but those dormant skills are apparently still tucked away in some cobweb-clogged corner of my memory. The younger me never imagined, as I poured over my immense copy of Radford, Ahles, and Bell’s Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas, that one day I’d be attempting to decipher plant species depicted in four-hundred-year-old silk embroidery floss, yet here we are.

Luckily motif 1 (based on the “map” of motifs shared here), though sadly cut during construction of the altar cloth, was simple to describe: a daffodil.

Since this motif is partial, we could learn more about it by finding matching motifs elsewhere on the work. Number 58 from the left side panel is almost complete, and appears to be worked from the same pattern. Same downward-pointing yellow and white flower, same cluster of three leaves somewhat awkwardly appearing above the flower’s arched stem.

The colours chosen for these leaves and stem are a bit different from the first daffodil, and motif 58 does have some spaces where the fill colour is missing, but the outlines appear the same.

Are there any other daffodils? Yes, another partial one, also on the left side panel, motif number 61. Unfortunately not one that I managed to capture clearly and crisply, so this blurry image will have to do for now:

Might this daffodil be the missing half of the first daffodil motif? I think it possible. The colour difference between the photos is the result of the different light levels in the different parts of the display case and should not be taken to mean that the embroidered silks or the background were as strikingly different as they appear here.

When the embroidered cloth was cut, the cut edge was simply folded under, hiding part of the floral motif, which could account for the entire upward pointing blossom visible in motif 58 but missing from both motif 1 and 61.

Here are images of the backs of two daffodil motifs showing the slightly variable amount of fabric that was folded under.

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If you will allow me to just admire those colours a moment, the bright blue of the stems, the many hues of green that make up each leaf, the saturated orange and the delicate yellow of each blossom…sigh. Oh, to have seen this embroidery when it was fresh and new, each stitch of silk floss bright as from the dyer’s vat, not faded from centuries in the sun, each silver thread glistening in the candlelight instead of being tarnished and dull!

But never mind the amazing artistry of the piece – what are the species depicted? I thought that it was simple enough to call motif 1 a daffodil, but the more I looked, the more I doubted myself.

Thoughts, questions and observations to be continued.

On Saturday 9 January our little study group held a public but relaxed and conversational online meeting about the Bacton Altar Cloth as part of a lockdown-inspired series of more smaller, more accessible events hosted by the Medieval Dress and Textile Society. We shared our photos – ok, mostly my photos – of the Bacton Altar Cloth taken last winter when it was on display at Hampton Court Palace, answered queries from some of the nearly 120 people who joined the call, offered some of our unanswered questions and received many helpful suggestions from participants.

If you haven’t seen the Historic Royal Palaces video about conserving the altar cloth, I recommend taking a moment to watch it, as it provides an excellent summary of the history of the object and the people and places associated with the textile, shows some nice views of both the front and the back of the embroidery, and also explains much of the great excitement surrounding the Bacton Altar Cloth now.

During the MEDATS session we presented some of our observations about the materials and embroidery techniques with which the altar cloth was made, gave a summary of its history and its recent conservation, and hypothesised about which plant species each motif represents. We started with the motif that I numbered 1 (based on the map shared here) but only made it to motif 15 out of 80 because we spent so much time happily zooming in on details of the work, occasionally sharing images from herbals, jumping to other similar motifs on the altar cloth, debating the exact botanical features that define whatever species we were considering at that moment, and taking a wide variety of questions from the audience.

As we reluctantly concluded for lack of additional available time, the presenters (Christine Carnie, Jenny Worrall and myself, though we also dragged Natalie Bramwell-Booth into the discussion multiple times without warning and are immensely grateful that she was a good sport about the whole affair) suggested a second meeting two weekends following, which met with energetic approval.

Afterward we all noticed images from the talk, which had not been recorded, being shared online. Rather than attack people for taking screenshots without permission and sharing them without attribution, we discussed the problem and decided that, since I honestly don’t mind sharing the photographs I’ve taken, and since there is such great curiosity about the Bacton Altar Cloth and hunger for more images of it, I should begin posting photographs to my blog along with explanations of which plants we think might be portrayed in the motif.

Eighty motifs, though, it quite a lot of research and writing, and hours of time spent studying period herbals, illuminated manuscripts, and contemporary portraits. Let’s see how many patterns and plants we can name if we work together!