German 16th century spangles - Flinderlein

This article is about spangles, flinderlein in german, during the first half of the 16th century, in Germany.

This painting show a Flinderleinschlager from 1628. Its from Hausbüchern, a so colled housebook, showing historical craft in Europe. You will find all the pictures here. The worker sits on his work block and uses a hammer and a punch to punch small metal plates, the flinders, out of a long sheet of brass.

According to the Textile research center (The TRC Digital encyclopedaedie of decorative needlework) spangles is a small thin piece of metal with a hole in them, to be able to attach them to the fabric. They are made by cutting a small piece off a spirally wound metallice wire. This piece is then used to form a small ring that is flattened out. Searching the different types on Wikipedia it says like this "Sequins are sometimes also referred to as spangles, paillettes, or diamantes, but technically differ. In costuming, sequins have a center hole, while spangles have the hole located at the top"
But I wont really get into the definition of the English words here. If you are interested to read more about that The Dreamstress wrote an excellent article about that, and you find it here.

However, in german, there is a lot of different words for the decorative metal disk. In inventories, presented by Zander-Seidel in Textiler Hausrat we find the most common - flinderlein/flinerlien.
But also gulden and silbern plettlein/plättlein, gold- and silver sequins? The Swedish word for flat is platt, and the German and Swedish language is very alike sometimes so the word could have the same root. So a little flat plate? Sequins!
Spitzlein - The word för pointy in Swedish is spetsig, so maybe spitzlein is some kind of little pointy spangle?
They are also describes as tucked in or hanging. Tucked in could be a description for pinned onto fabric and hanging (obviously) is hanging from fabric. Drop-shaped sequins that, through their mobility, captured the light more efficiently. Very popular during this period it seems.
In Stanilands Medieval craftsmen Embroidery it is said about spangles "Late medieval taste was particularly attracted to light-reflecting ornaments on clothing where movement would produce a multitude of glinting reflections. Consequently gold and silver motifs of all shapes and sizes were incorporated into embroidery". Fixed prices for spangle were regulated in Ordinance for making spangles from 1441. But this is in England. I don't know how this were regulated in Germany.

Spangles where used mostly on headwear in Germany, during this time period, but also as decoration on fabric for clothing. They where attached to fabric, to embroidery, to hairnets. There are not uncommon with spangles in paintings on German hoods during the 16th century. We see spangles on haarhauben and goldhauben, not on regular white linen hauben. Later spangles seems to be common together with lace. They could be made by gilded silver, gilded copper, brass and gold. 

In this painting, Portrait of a couple by Hans Brosarmer, I interpret it as spangles hanging from her shawl/gollar.

And in this one, a closeup of the painting Samson and Delilah by Lucas Cranach. She is wearing a haarhaube/goldhaube with spangles hanging from it.

And here, from 1538, Hans Schopfers Susana Prand von Aibling.

Or this lady, by Gerog Pencz, around 1540.

Or this little sweatheart by Jacob Seisenegger, Anna from Austria (I know, but the fashion is so alike).

I think it is fair to say that this is something worn only by the top of the society. The use of finer materials like gold and silver were regulated by sumptuary law.

My golden egg project contained spangles, even though I didn't make them. Then. But it might be a good time to try that out. I have never done spangles before. I wanted, as usually, make them as accurate as I could. So I asked a friend to make me a tool for spanglemaking. And he did! This tool may not be so common in the world today… As inspiration we looked at the tools that were made in the project The Plimoth Jacket, the making of a 17th century embroidered jacket with spangles. In the project they examined the historic lace spangles under a microscope at the museum of fine arts in Boston, made technical drawings of the spangles and created a tool to make historical accurate spangles. They made nearly 1000 gilded silver (silver that has been gilded with gold) spangles. Ungilded silver would suffer oxidation and need frequent polishing; gold does not oxidize.
The inspiration for the tool is obviously 17th century but in the paintings it is clear that teardrop-shaped spangles where common in Germany during the 16th century too.

The tool Torbjörn made me look like this.

And a friend of mine had a thin silver plate that I could try this out with, happy day!

First try...

It works!

And so does the next step.

If you hit to hard, this happens.

I might need to grind the edges before using them om a garment. But it works! Now I just need to decide what garment I will use my silver spangles on. In 16th century they would have been gilded, but I didnt have gilded silver, so this is close enough. It is going to be so much fun to use these on a garment!


Sources

https://trc-leiden.nl/trc-needles/techniques/applied/spangle-uk
Textiler Hausrat
Wikipedia 
Medieval craftsmen Embroidery
http://thedreamstress.com/2017/02/terminology-sequins-vs-spangles-their-history-in-fashion/
http://pressroom.winterthur.org/pdfs/Plimoth-Jacket.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2wCagM4pUkUZeGOb9r2krPekbvaRHkKrTX4LUj_wg-kGhc-yBP0dA1sHw

16th century german Gollar, with silk embroideries

While doing inventory last week it was obvious that I needed a new gown, so what do you think I made? I made a new gollar..! Not really true, but it sounded funny. 

I started with an embroidery with a gollar in mind a couple of weeks ago. And now its done. Its a undergollar in white linen, with a silk embroidery, and a high neck with a ruffle.

In a lecture held by Marion McNealy at medival week in Visby a couple of years back she talked about the gollar as bustsupport. As an extra layer with a double function, both to cover the neckline but also to get some extra support. As she said, using the dress as support is not going to give the support needed, especially if you lost weight. You could not just remake the dress every time that might happen. And if you depended on two dresses for support, that must have been really difficult during hot days, or for people working in the fields and other similar professions, or times when you for some reason used just one dress.  So I thought that I was going to try that out. My last gollar became to short and wont work that way. Its just pinned down and wont give that kind of support. I made a drawstring at the bottom and ended the garment right below the bust. But I have not yet been able to try it out for real.

Gollar

The garmen called gollar referees to a garment for women, that is used over a dress or between the dress and the shirt, to cover the decolletage. It could be made to only cover over the shoulders or like a vest. The garment were used during the first half of the 16th century, until it was replaced by jackets, dresses with high necked bodices and ruffles when the fashion changed with the reformation. The need for it were obsolete. According to Zander-Seidel, Textiler Hausrat, the inventories describe several different kinds of gollars - Brustgoller, schwebische goller, Tanzgoller, Zway halbhelsene goller (half-jacketed gollar) and Tipfelgoller for example. But there is no description of the different types. May a "Brustgollar" be a description of that kind of supportgollar? They could also be described as "high" or "round". A bit easier to understand... Gollars made by linen are not mentioned in the sumptuary law but so is gollars made by finer materials like cloth of gold, cloth of silver and velvet. The version of 1506 said that all women from the patriciate to the middle classes were allowed a gollar made from "Atlas, Damask or silk" (Textiler Hausrat). The deep and wide cut on the shoulder neckline was also regulated in the sumptuary laws. Therefore, if your neckline was to low, you needed to wear a high-necked hemden/shirt or a gollar not to get a vanity penaltie. Remember that when you are going to create a persona with credibility, use a gollar or a high necked shirt, or both.

I use the term gollar because I make German fashion. In English the same garment are called partlet. To my knowing it is spelled gollar today but in German 16th century inventories it is spelled goller.  In the Tudor Tailor it is said that "covering the throat was another sign of propriety, particularly after marriage, for lower and middling women". And also that partlets were used both over and under the bodies to fill in the neckline.

Embroidery

I made my embroidery on a loose piece of linen. The linen is from Medeltidsmode and has an even weave with 15-16 threads/cm. Its a nice linen for embroidery because the threads are clearly visible. Many 16th century German extant embroideries are thought to be borders. If they are borders that could mean that it was common to make embroidery on a loose piece of linen and sew that on to the garment. Roberta Orsi Landini and Bruna Niccoli presents the theory in the book Moda a Firenze - Lo stile di Elenora di Toledo e la sua influenza that embroiderers, or traders of fashion accessories, offered ready made bands of embroidery to be applied to clothing. This applies to Italy but may also be applicable to Germany. 

When I started with the embroidery for my new gollar I had one special in mind. A painting with a embroidery that you don't really see at first glance. But when you zoom in, there it is, a very delicate embroidery in gold/yellow/metallic.

Who she was is not known. But she is painted by Hans Mielich 1540 and the painting is hanging in Veste Coburg, one of the most well-preserved medieval fortresses of Germany, now a museum.

But I didn't want to do exactly the same, just be inspired by. Something delicate like this, the same color, the same feeling to it. For another embroidery I found a very nice mix of different shades that together became a similar color, that I used for this too. I use filament silk from De vere yarns in three different shades - Glow 085, Conch 087 and Sunrise 008. 

The pattern is first presented in Schönspergers patternbook from 1529. Its made with crossstitch and I used two threads of each of the three colours. That means each stitch is of 12 thread, many, I know. But I kind of liked the reliefeffect with the quite chubby stitches. And when I already started with that many I didnt want to change in the middle of it. 

 

Pattern

The inspiration for the gollar comes from this painting. Its painted by Cristoph Amberger 1531. She was the wife of the goldsmith Jörg Zörer. I searched for her name but could not find it.

The painting is located in Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid.  
I interpret this as a gollar and not a shirt. And that is because it has no pleats, it is smooth.

Its in white linen with a opening at the front, shoulder-seams and a high collar with a ruffle. The collar appears to be made of a separate strip of linen because the shoulder seam does not occur on the side. 

To close the gollar she has two of these lovely small buttons. A friend of mine made me buttons of the same kind, small round very cute ones that I decided do use. They are not exactly the same, but close enough. 

The making

I used a pattern I had at home, a pattern for a gollar with a high neck. But this time I wanted a high neck that was attatched to the bodice and not a piece of the fabric. So I needed to remake it a bit. I also wanted a longer gollar, so I added an extra 10 cm to the pattern while cutting. 

I remade it by pinning it on my maniquin, cutting of small pieces while working, to get the shape I wanted.  

This is a quite easy garment, made by three pieces of linen, one back piece and two front pieces (and the collar). There are just two seams, accept for the hemming and the drawstring, and those are on the shoulders. The pieces are sewn together by back stitch with a waxed linen thread. The seam allowance is folded and whip stitched.

The collar is made by two pieces of linen of the same kind as the rest, and one piece for the ruffle of a lighter linen. I thought it looked like the ruffle where almost laying down in the painting and the linen used where to thick for that. 

To keep that light feel to it I used a single piece of linen and made a rolled hem. Last time I made a ruffle I used two pieces put together. 

The ruffle is the pinned down to the neckpiece.

And whip stitched. 
And yes, that is a Dalecarlian horse on the pillow in the background. Now you know where I come from =) 

The embroidery is sewn on by putting it on the backside and turned, like this. The seam allowens ends up between the embroidery and the bodice. Im sorry for the very much unclear pictures of this, but further down I have pictures of how I made the drawstring at the base using the same method, look at those.

I did a basting stitch along the edge to make it more firm. The other end is fastened with back stitch to the gollar. 

And this is what it looked like in halftime. The collar is just laid around the neck here. Except for the embroidery this took me more or less a day. 

Continue working on the collar, by pinning it to a pillow to get tension and then attaching the collar to the gollar by whip stitch. Still only working with waxed linen thread.

I made the drawstring at the base the same way I attached the embroidery, by adding a strip of linen on the "wrong" side, with back stitch.

And when turned and ironed it look like this.

And then whip stitched on the top.

Drawstring on all three sides!

I made two fingerloop braids by looking at this tutorial. It was a new method to me, when you hold your hands a bit differently. I made mine in the same silk that I used for doing the embroidery, it took forever...

I attached it to the gollar by using couching stitch. Now there is no longer possible to see that the embroidery is made on a loose piece of fabric.

I didn't think it look liked the collar in the painting where overlapping so instead of buttonholes I made worked bars. The worked bars are made by blanket stitch over several strands of threads, three is this case, anchored  at two points in the fabric.

And attached the lovely buttons Åsa made for me.

Now this gollar could have been done. But I thought it needed something more...

So I made knots! I have not tried that stitch before. A fun one but I think I need a thicker tread next time, they turned out a bit small. Its the same, six threads, I used for making the embroidery. 

But now its done. I will have to get back to you after I tried it on a event, to see if it works for bustsupport, of if its just a nice garment.

Marleins wardrobe

Marleins wardrobe

My persona is named Marlein Eberlin. She is born in the end of the 15th century and therefore grown up, and probably married (Im not but she would probably have been so I am covering my hair), during the first half of the 16th century. She lives in the south parts of Germany, probably near Bamberg och Nurnberg, maybe Coburg! Oooh, I would love to go to Coburg... I really like the Italian influenced German fashion, the square-necked bodices, the flat waists, that is the common style during this period. She is a townswoman, not poor, but not high nobility either. She is allowed a smaller amount of silk, some embroideries by fine materials, but uses wool in most her dresses. When building her wardrobe I wanted to make garments that felt credible so I needed to start with deciding who Marlein is, what kind of clothing she would wear. Mostly according to her social status, what would be a credible level.

Her wardrobe contains the following garments:

Shirt - Hemd
A linen shirt, low neckline
A linen shirt, high neck
A linen shirt, off-centered neckline
A linen shirt with lace trimmings

Gollar - Goller
One linen undergollar
One linen undergollar with black silk embroideries
One red gollar in silk brocade
One black wool gollar with red wool lining

Headwear - Kopfbedeckungen
Three veils, one in wool, one in silk and one in linen
Two unterhaube with wulst
A haube with silk embroideries (A bit too fancy for Marlein)
One plain white haube

Apron - Schurz
White linen apron with drawn threadwork
One black wool apron
Linen smock apron

Kirtle - Unterrock
One orange wool kirtle lined with white linen
One red wool kirtle lined with natural linen, with velvet trimmings
One thick wool winterkirtle

Gown - Rock
One red wool gown with black wool trimmings.
One orange gown with red trimmings (not really a dress for Marlein, but now and then she dresses up as a woman of the tross).

Shoes and socks
A pair of low-heeled leather slippers
A par of red wool stockings
Three pairs of small linen socks
One pair of green knitted stockings

Outerwear
Schaube with fur-lining
Red wool jacket with linen lining

Belt
A thin green leather belt
A thin brown leather belt

Jewelry
Two rings
A necklace

In the making
A new gown in green wool with black trimmings
A new gown in blue wool with black trimmings
A linen gollar with golden silk embroideries