Opus Anglicanum
From Cunnan
Background
Opus Anglicanum is the term used in medieval continental inventories to describe English embroidery. It was famed for its fine goldwork and skilful use of the techniques of underside couching and split stitch. Such embroidery was used for both ecclesiastical and secular textiles, although very few of the latter have survived.
This high quality English embroidery was made of expensive imported materials and was very labour intensive. Nuns and noblewomen did a great deal of embroidery as one would expect, but large embroideries like the Syon Cope were made by highly trained professionals, both men and women. They were employed in workshops which were funded by merchants and noble patrons. It was the merchants who took the profits, not the embroiderers who received only modest payments for their work. Most workshops were in London where the necessary capital was available and which was the principal port through which the imported materials arrived.
Stitches and Techniques
Gold was used in large expanses as background for figures that were embroidered in coloured silks. Another characteristic of Opus Anglicanum was the general vivacity of expression and pose in the figure modeling of features — the use of split stitches worked spirally, for example, to suggest rounded cheeks and black, popping eyes. Minutely observed birds and animals, clearly based on contemporary animal drawings, figured largely in the decorative schemes.
Extant Pieces
- Syon Cope - from Syon Abbey, Middlesex. Made between 1300 and 1320, the cope would have been worn by a high-ranking priest or bishop.
- Fragment of two figures and vines - Wall-mounted picture frame, Textiles Dept., * T72A-1922 English, 1310-40, Ophrey fragment. Underside couching, stem stitch and a little raised work. Silk and silk-gilt thread - http://www.thorngrove.net/athenaeum/hang7.htm
- Detail of an orphrey embroidery on the Pienza Cope England, second quarter of the 14th C (about half way down the page) - http://www.kwantlen.bc.ca/~donna/sca/pelican/
- The Steeple Ashton Cope - http://www.thisislimitededition.co.uk/item.asp?category=History&ID=283
