So what is Blackwork, and where did it first originate from? The well known theory of its popularity is the probable connection with Catherine of Arogan. Born in 1485 in Alcala de Henares in Spain, she was the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain., who at the age of only 16, was sent to England in 1501 to marry Prince Albert, the eldest son of King Henry V11. Arthur died very soon after they were married, a marriage which was never consummated. She was then the centre of a political argument between Henry V11 and King Ferdinand. Indeed, there was a shared attraction between Prince Henry, who was Arthur's younger brother, and Catherine. King Ferdinand wished to collaborate a union between them, but it was not so simple to proceed.
When Henry V11 finally died, Henry V111 came to the throne in 1504, and then married Catherine and she became the Queen of England. She was a popular and well loved Queen with the people, but on a personal level with Henry, they had five miscarriages of boys and only one surviving daughter, Mary Tudor, who eventually became Queen Mary. Henry needed a male heir to the throne, and it was because of this need that he persued an annulment of their marriage in order to legally marry his mistress, Anne Boleyn.
Catherine refused the divorce and Henry punished her by taking away her status in society, her daughter and her home.
She spent her last years in semi-isolation and died in Kimbolton in 1536. The Pope also refused an annulment and
Catherine would not enter a convent. Because of this, the Church of England was formed and King Henry was the
supreme head of the Church. This position enabled Henry to grant his own divorce and left him free to marry Anne,
who was now pregnant with the future Elizabeth 1, which for Henry was indeed a great disappointment. Anne
never saw her daughter become Queen of England, and was beheaded in 1536.
The Court was greatly influenced by the fashion trends which Catherine brought from Spain. Her love of lace and
embroidery became most popular with the ladies costume design. She was greatly skilled in the art of embroidery, and
it is believed that she embellished several of Henry's own tunics.
Blackwork was used on cuffs and collars mainly as a form of reinforcement and a substitute for lace, which at this
time was extremely expensive and not available to the less wealthy. The reversible scrolling designs on the collars
and cuffs was partly due to Catherine's influence, and gave Blackwork a distinctive Spanish feel.
With this Spanish influence, Blackwork was referred to as Spanishwork, and she helped to make this form of
embroidery an immensely popular style of decoration which adorned costumes in the 1500s. So intricate were the
patterns used, they could almost have been mistaken for lace. The work produced on collars and cuffs was reversible
due to both sides being viewed. These scrolling designs were immensely popular during Henry V111's reign. Lace
itself was heavily taxed and these intricate patterns became a cheaper form of decoration, only the wealthy nobility
could afford to use the real thing on their lavish costumes.
There are very few examples which have survived the centuries past, due mainly to the types of threads that were readily available at that time. The harsh alkaline soaps used to wash garments, and the black dye used in the thread contained iron which made it more liable to rot. In some cases the dye actually produced iron-mould in the linen. With ingredients such as elder bark, soot, vitriol, filings, Calcined Allom and Vitriol, it is surprising that any needlework survived at all. We are most fortunate during the Tudor period to have excellent court painters who have recorded the intricacy of the costume embroidery, allowing the numerous patterns used to be noted and used in today's designs.
The most famous Court painter during the Tudor reigns was Hans Holbein the Younger, who captured many of the tunics
which Henry V111 wore. He was also a designer of the King's robes and accessories. His consistant eye for immense detail
within these paintings allowed this double running stitch to be named Holbein Stitch. Born in 1497 in Ausberg, he worked
mainly in Basel as an artist painting murals and religious works, and designed stained glass windows and printed books.
He also painted the occasional portrait. When he travelled to England in 1526 he became involved within the circle of
Thomas Moore where his work built him a high reputation within the Court, painting portraits of Henry V111 and others
such as Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell. He also designed jewellery, plate and other precious objects. His portraits were
renowned in their time for their likeness, and painted with a rare precision.
Eventually, Elizabeth 1 became Queen of England in 1559. She too, was a skilled embroiderer, but as Catherine brought a
Spanish flavour to Blackwork, Elizabeth created an English style which contained not only scrolling patterns, but floral
designs. With each seperate piece of fauna outlined and then filled with geometric patterns, it created different densities
depending on the type of filling pattern used. Blackwork had now progressed from the collars and cuffs, and was no longer
reversible.
With the introduction of the printing press, designs for embroidery were now available. The black and white printed wooden
plates produced many ideas to be reproduced onto fabric. Tudor costumes for both male and females were covered in these
beautiful blackwork embroideries. Queen Elizabeth being the forerunner of this form of adornment. Blackwork is indeed mostly
associated during the Tudor and Elizabethan period.
The Stuart period brought a different style of fashion clothing, and the style was less decorative which saw the demise of
blackwork, and the embroiderers finding other forms of decoration. The sampler contained many decorative records during
the next two centuries but was less popular than other forms of embroidery. Fortunately, in the late 19th century it was
gradually revived, due to "History" becoming popular and Victorian embroiderers supporting many exhibitions of
historical embroidery which included Elizabethan work. It is because of this interest that blackwork was revived in the
20th century and now its popularity is steadily growing once again.
It was a selective revival where the embroiderer concentrated only on a few elements such as filling patterns, which meant
that the original form of blackwork was overlooked. The books and magazine stuck with this idea, and double running
stitch for outlining was favoured and overlooked the traditional styles of chain, coral, satin and buttonhole stitch.
The Needlework Development Scheme of Great Britain in the 1960's provided a huge influence on all types of embroidery,
and blackwork benefited greatly. It is now becoming a form of embroidery found in many different types of design, and
more experimental with the introduction of colour and larger variety of threads available.
Catherine most definately introduced and made Blackwork popular within the Tudor period, but previously to this era, how further back can this form of embroidery be traced?
This type of embroidery was used in England long before Catherine came over to England to marry Arthur. Chaucer, when writing the Canterbury Tales from 1390 - 1400, makes reference to this form of stitching in " The Mylleres Tale" :
"Fair was the young wyf, and therwithal
As eny wesil hir body gent and small.
A seynt sche werde, barrad al of silk:
A barm-cloth eek as white as morne mylk
Upon hir lended, ful of many a gore.
Whit was hir smokand browdid al byfore
And eek bygyade on hir coler aboute
Of cole-blak silk, withinne and eek without"
To interpret clearer, this read as:
"Her smock was white and embroidered in front and behind with coal-black silk and embroidered also on the inside and outside of the collar"
The true origins of blackwork were with the Arabs and Moors, and were brought to England by the soldiers and noblemen who returned from the Crusades in the Holy Lands in the 13th century. Chaucer died around 1400 which pre-dates Catherine of Arogan, and it confirms that blackwork was a popular form of decorating clothing. Moorish rule in Spain did not end until 1492 and had lasted for at least eight centuries, and Spanish culture had been influenced by Islamic and Moorish styles. The use of geometric motifs and all-over patterning were seen not only in their embroidery, but other textiles and architectural patterns. Circles, interlacing quatrefoils, rectangles, grapevines, heraldic griffins, geometric figures, these all influenced the Spanish designs.
One of the oldest pieces of embroidery was found in an archaeological excavation near Cairo, fragments of clothing and household textiles with examples of narrow bands worked in double running stitch. These dated back to the 14th and 15th century with geometric designs, Arabic inscriptions and patterns. It is still not known where these patterns and form of embroidery originated, but it appears that double running patterns were worked by the embroiderers in Islamic Spain and progressed to northern Europe, Italy and England.
Today, with the vast amout of information on hand at the touch of a button, computer software, travel, digital photography, we can collect much design source material. Where ever you look, there will be interesting patterns found on buildings, or groups of people or objects, and with a little imagination they can be turned into a design using various forms of geometric patterns.
Designers of today are moving further with their imagination, and as well as decorating clothing and making bands of patterns, blackwork is now produced within a different form of artwork, painting with different types of patterns using colour and shading to the full. From one simple stitch, this form of embroidery is now excelling itself towards great expectations in the future.
