14th – 15th
Century German Bag
12th Night AS XLVI
Renonys de la Fueille
Background
My project is a replica of an extant piece held by the
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, Dress and Textiles Department, catalogue
number 8699-1863.
The bag measures approximately 3 3/8 inches by 3 3/8 inches.
It is made from a single piece of fabric, most likely linen, with a seam at the
bottom and up one side. The bag is embroidered in satin stitch with coloured
silks. There is a band at the top with holes for a drawstring, and three
tassels hang from the bottom of the bag.
Context
Pouches or purses in the medieval period had the function
that pockets do in contemporary times. Both men and women used pouches in
various shapes and sizes. It s difficult to know the exact function of this
particular pouch, it could have been used to store personal items, religious
relics, or a number of other things. However, due to the richness of the
materials, this pouch was most likely made for the upper class or the church.
Construction Details
The sign underneath the example in the Victoria & Albert
Museum reads “Plied white linen thread and coloured silks in satin stitch on
linen.”
The embroidery is worked on even weave tabby-woven linen. A
variety of thread counts were used in period for these sorts of pieces, ranging
from 20 to 72 threads per inch. I used 28 count even weave linen as my base
fabric, as I am a beginner embroiderer and this was a good option for being
able to keep my stitches even and neat. As the fabric is completely covered
with the embroidery, I was more focussed on getting the overall look of the
project to match the extant example. The stitch used is commonly known as
German Brick Stitch, which is very similar to Satin Stitch. This style is
typified by repetitive geometric designs in a bright but limited colour
palette.
 |
| Figure 1 |
I used 4
ply Madeira silk for all of the embroidery, as I couldn’t find plied white
linen thread. I used 4 ply as it covered the fabric evenly. Right is a picture
from the Victoria & Albert website which shows the colours a little better
than the above picture. I decided to use the same basic colours; red, blue and
green. I used the motif embroidery pattern provided on the A Stitch out of Time website to get started. I then repeated the
motif until I had a finished panel of the right measurements. In the picture there is one seam visible on
the right side. I decided to fold my panel of embroidery so that the fold
created the left side of the bag, with a seam running along the bottom and up
the right side.
Extant examples of drawstring pouches have hanging cords and a pair of
drawstrings that pull against each
 |
| Figure 2 |
other for closure. No drawstring or hanging
cord survives on this example, but the band shows holes which would have been
used for a drawstring. The website A
Stitch in Time examines the possible methods of construction for the cords
and concludes that either fingerloop braid or plaiting was used. For the
hanging cord I used a modified version of the five loop fingerloop braid; Purstringe--3 bos reed, 2 bos white,
pattern number two on fingerloop.org. I used three bows instead of five because
the thicker cord looked too bulky for the small bag. The patterns on this
website have been transcribed from MS Harley 2320 from the 15th
century, the oldest existing fingerloop braid manual. I used the same pattern
for the drawstrings, but I halved the number of plies to make the cord thinner,
making each thread only 3 ply thick. I made the cords thinner because I would
not have been able to push a thicker cord through the fibres of the fabric, and
a pair of thicker cords would have bulked up the band. I used a sewing awl to
push holes in the fabric, then wiggled the cords through the holes. On the
extant piece there does not seem to be any visible stitching around the holes,
and none is needed as the fibres are not broken, merely pushed apart, so there
won’t be any fraying.
The band at the top could be either the lining of the bag folded down, or
a tape binding. No lining survives, but I have chosen to line my reconstruction
and fold it down to make the band at the top, as it is neater and I would like
to use the bag without damaging the back of the embroidery. I chose to use
white linen for the lining, as this is the type of fabric that was available in
period, and matches the look of the band in the extant example.
The tassels at the bottom are stiff and sewn into the fabric of
the bag itself rather than hung, as shown by the way the edge tassels
hang diagonally rather than straight down. I constructed my tassels in the
usual way, by winding the thread around a card, but each time the thread passed
the top of the card I also stitched it through the bag. This created stiffer
tassels that hang the same way as in the picture of the extant example.
 |
| Figure 3 |
Figure 2: A similarly embroidered bag in the Victoria and Albert Museum with intact drawstrings and haning cord.
Figure 3: Completed bag
Bibliography
A Stitch out of Time
Aumônières or Alms Purses
Crowfoot, Elisabeth, Frances Pritchard, Kay Staniland (2002)
Textiles and Clothing, Boydell Press,
Woodbridge
Fingerloop Braids
Harris, Jennifer, Ed. (2004) 5000 Years of Textiles, The British Museum Press, London
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