Silkwomen of the Later Middle Ages

Morgana de Mont-St-Michel

Throughout the Middle Ages, fiber preparation and handspinning were occupations open to women, and rarely pursued by men. Silk-making attracted women from many walks of life, from poor pieceworkers earning a daily wage, to Parisian apprentices, to the wives of London tradesmen and wealthy merchants of Cologne.

The craft of silk-making involved sorting cocoons, soaking them in cauldrons of near-boiling water to loosen the sericin, unwinding the cocoons onto skein-winders, re-winding the filament silk onto reels, and twisting it into thread.1

Silkwomen also spun silk from the noils and waste from the reeling process. Due to the short fiber length, spun silk has less strength and luster than reeled silk, and it is usually considered an inferior product. In 1469, the Consoli dei Mercanti complained to the Venetian government that the members of the silk guild "dare to weave their cloths with a weft of spun-silk noil (strazze de seda filada) instead of good and fine weft thread (testoio)."2 The officials decided to permit the use of spun silk thread for weft in silk fabrics and cloth of gold, provided that the sericin had been boiled off of the thread. The stronger reeled silk was still required for use as warp thread.3

The Silkwomen of Italy

The Por Santa Maria guild of Florence, which later came to be known as the Arte della Setta, was a multi-tiered guild. Originally established for the benefit of merchants who sold luxury silk goods, it was later dominated by the producers of silk fabrics, and regulated most activities associated with the production and sale of silk textiles.4 The third tier was occupied by poorly paid silkwomen, who did not own their own tools or materials. They did not pay the full fee for guild membership, so were not permitted to participate in guild administration. Nonetheless, they were subject to strict supervision by the guild, including threats of corporal punishment for poor workmanship.5

At the other end of the social scale, around 1490, Duchess Bianca of Monferrato embarked on a new hobby: sericulture. She employed a Catalan specialist to help her feed mulberry leaves to the silkworms, and she also purchased a cauldron for the Greek woman who unwound the cocoons for her.6

In 1570, a widow named Maria Bessea Brancaleoni submitted a patent to the Venetian government for a machine which could be used to wind and double silk or spin threads of flax, hemp, waste silk, carded wool and cotton. One woman, or even a child, could produce as much yarn using Brancaleoni’s machine as four women who were using conventional equipment. State officials viewed a model and agreed that it was “ingenious and beautiful and could easily accomplish” everything Brancaleoni promised. Still, the government officials refused to grant a patent, out of concern for poor women who might become unemployed if the machine was introduced to the silk industry.7

The Silk Spinners of Paris, France

In 1270, royal judge Etienne Boileau compiled Le Livre de Metiers (The Book of Trades), which contained the ordinances of 100 Parisian craft guilds. It included two separate guilds for silk spinners. One guild was for spinners who used large spindles, and the other was for spinners who used small spindles. According to Erica Uitz, author of Women in the Medieval Town, the smaller spindles were used to produce stronger thread, but she does not describe the technique involved. The large-spindle spinners were an exclusively female guild. The members worked independently in their own workshops, with the help of their children and apprentices. The guild of small-spindle spinners was open to men, but it seems to have remained exclusively female. Its members completed a seven-year apprenticeship. The 1292 tax register lists a joint payment for both guilds, which had a combined membership of eight female silk spinners in 1292, increasing to 36 in 1300. The Parisian silk trade flourished until the late 15th century.8

The Silkwomen of London, England

The earliest evidence of English silkwomen dates from the reign of Edward III, but the craft did not achieve prominence until the 15th century. Although the silkwomen of London were not organized as a guild, they generally pursued the craft as if they were. They trained apprentices, petitioned Parliament as a group for protection from imports, and conducted business transactions in the customary manner of the time.9

Some of the silkwomen were married to men of middle to high socioeconomic status. One was the wife of a goldsmith and alderman. Another was the widow of a knight and alderman. Two others were the wives of a fishmonger and a saddler. Elizabeth Stockton’s first husband was a mercer and mayor of London. Her second husband was a wealthy Florentine merchant, whom she apparently met through her business.10 While surviving records show that the silkwomen conducted their businesses independently, buying and selling silk on their own accounts, their husbands could be held liable for unpaid debts.11

The silkwomen purchased raw silk either directly from Italian merchants, or through a broker. They made silk threads of various sizes for sewing, embroidery and weaving. They also made small finished goods, such as silk ribbons, hairnets, tassels and fringes, but they did not weave wide silk fabrics for clothing or household use.12 Business transactions varied in size, from those small enough for an apprentice to make delivery and accept payment, to Jane Langton’s purchase of silk goods, valued at 300 pounds, from two Genoese merchants.13

The Silkmakers’ Guild of Cologne, Germany

The silkmakers’ guild only admitted women. Guild mistresses were often members of the prosperous, politically active mercantile class and enjoyed a high standard of living. According to the membership rolls of the silkmakers’ guild, kept between 1437 and 1504, there were 113 active silk mistresses. Only one is known to be unmarried. At least 78 were married or widowed. The fathers or husbands of at least 39 were council members. At least 20 had close male relatives who were in the silk trade or imported wool from England (and exported silk). Twenty-one more were married to merchants of other goods.14 Silk spinners, who established a guild of their own in 1456,15 were piece workers employed by the silk mistresses.16

Very few records mention women who purchased raw silk or sold finished products, which suggests that the women took charge of production for family-operated mercantile businesses, while male family members purchased the raw materials and sold the finished goods.17 Many of the silk mistresses had apprentices, often daughters of less socially prominent men (including brewers, bakers, and a barber) who rarely became mistresses in their own right. Those who did rise to the rank of mistress were born to, or married to, members of Cologne’s elite families.18 The great expense of raw silk may have prevented the apprentices from raising sufficient capital to establish their own businesses.

Guild mistresses were permitted to hire trained assistants who were not guild members. However, in 1469, the council stipulated that these assistants must be paid in cash, rather than in kind.19

Notes

  1. Carole Collier Frick, Dressing Renaissance Florence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), 20.
  2. Luca Molà, The Silk Industry of Renaissance Venice (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 164.
  3. Mola, 164.
  4. Frick, 20.
  5. Frick, 248.
  6. Molà, 217.
  7. Molà, 198-199.
  8. Erica Uitz, Women of the Medieval Town (London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1990), 51-52.
  9. Marian K. Dale, “The London Silkwomen of the Fifteenth Century,” in Sisters and Workers of the Middle Ages, ed. Judith M. Bennet et al. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), 26-27.
  10. Dale, 30, 37.
  11. Dale, 31.
  12. Dale, 32-33.
  13. Dale, 29, 30.
  14. Martha C. Howell, Women, Production and Patriarchy in Late Medieval Cities (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 125-126.
  15. Uitz, 57.
  16. Howell, 124.
  17. Howell, 126.
  18. Howell, 129.
  19. Howell, 128.

Bibliography

Dale, Marian K. “The London Silkwomen of the Fifteenth Century.” In Sisters and Workers in the Middle Ages, edited by Judith M. Bennet, et al. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.

Frick, Carole Collier. Dressing Renaissance Florence. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.

Howell, Martha C. Women, Production and Patriarchy in Late Medieval Cities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986.

Kolander, Cheryl. A Silk Worker’s Notebook. Loveland, CO: Interweave Press, 1985.

Molà, Luca. The Silk Industry of Renaissance Venice. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.

Uitz, Erica. Women in the Medieval Town. London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1988.

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