[Regia-NA] Silk

[Joy Cain]

You don't say what you have, but I am assuming fabric?

Silk, I think, was very rare in Anglo-Saxon England and would have come 
in the form of manufactured goods: threads, bands or fabrics. The 
fabrics themselves would have either come from Byzantium or points east 
(so you would be looking at the gorgeous patterned Islamic influenced 
fabrics).

More likely, you would have seen silk threads for embroidery or tablet 
weaving. Silk referenced in Crowfoot or Bender-Jorgensen indicate an "I" 
twist to the threads. This means the silk would have been reeled 
directly from the cocoons and minimally twisted (or thrown) for cording. 
The rest may have been seen as waste.

Spun silk comes from the silk left over from the reeling process. Only 
half of a cocoon is reelable (and the filament can be over a mile long). 
It is degummed (the sericin binding the cocoon together is removed using 
a soap and soda solution), picked apart, cut into standard lengths and 
combed. The combing process ends with a product called "laps" which are 
either industrially spun or sold to modern spinners in the form of 
"bricks" or roving. The combing has waste that is known as noil. The 
noil is the short bits with chaff, generally from the interior of the 
cocoon (this is where the silkworm is getting tired spinning and decides 
to give up entirely and concentrate on other things like metamorphosis). 
It is carded and spun and used in fabrics. It has a low luster and often 
has a fishy smell to it. Spun silk as an industry was started in England 
in the 1700s in Spitfials among other places.

Real raw silk is silk that still has the sericin (gum) in it. It has a 
low, warm luster, forms a stiff fabric and has good water and abrasion 
resistance. What is sometimes called raw silk is really silk noil which, 
as I said above, is waste silk. Silk noil fabrics are rough and textured 
looking with a tendency to pill. An unlikely product in Anglo-Saxon England.

Dupion silk is another textured silk that has a slub surface. This was 
reserved for royalty in the east and is woven from reeled threads from 
"double" cocoons - these are the cocoons in which two silkworms have 
started spinning their cocoons adjacent to each other and form an 
overlapping wall.

(can you tell I teach classes on silk?)

Thora - please add your comments!!!!

Joy

Tate William T Jr TSgt 352 OSS/SCSC wrote:

>A question for the textile experts...
>
>I have some small quantities of silk, but wanted to find out which was
>correct.  I have a bit of the shiny stuff and some that is labeled "raw" (it
>is indeed a bit on the rough side and doesn't have the shimmer of what I
>normally associate with silk).  Would one be more appropriate than the
>other, or are they both equally valid, or do we have enough documentation to
>determine?
>
>Bill
>  
>