114 Review Books Review Books 115

century. The relationships, business and personal, that governed the export and import of Tudor is backgrounded thoroughly in this book, so much so that it would happily sit somewhere between social history and history on the library shelves. Many people made a living through and with textiles in the Tudor period—from the shepherds and silkworm farmers, to 2 the weavers, dyers, finishers, through to all the many figures at court who

dealt in commissions and Photo: Bridgeman Images / Society of Antiquaries of London, UK Photo: Bridgeman Images / Burrell Collection, Glasgow, Scotland / © CSG CIC GlasgowBurrell Museums to the Collection City of Glasgow, 1944 / Gifted by Sir William and Lady transactions to bring the best of the 2 3 TUDOR TEXTILES world’s textiles to the English court. The administration of textiles By Eleri Lynn (after they had reached court) was Yale University Press, 2020 detailed and specific. Textiles were 208 pages, 132 colour illustrations, glossary kept in the Great Wardrobe, a ISBN 9780300244120 department under the Privy Hardbound, £35 Chamber. The Wardrobe ‘ordered, Reviewed by Jane Audas paid for, managed and maintained the stocks of cloth, dress and furnishings for the royal family and the court’. Then there were the many men needed to service textiles—to hand, for example, the king his

Photo: Bridgeman Images / British Library, London, UK / © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved napery: ‘First, the king washed his Photo: Bridgeman Images / British Library, London, UK / © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved 1 hands and dried them with a 4 towel. The towel was passed from the Tudor Textiles by Eleri Lynn covers the Working with the primary source lightly wrought. Her scholarship is gentleman usher to the “prince or own aggrandisement: huge tapestries, Tudor Textiles is, of necessity, the 1 The armorial binding of Martin and honeysuckle, with the cipher period from the accession of Henry material of one’s book should be a evident not only in what she has lord of the highest estate”, while the many in series, picturing heroic story of Tudor royalty; the textiles of de Brion’s description of the Holy ‘HA’ for Henry VIII and Anne VII in 1485 to the death of his decided advantage. It certainly means included, but equally in what she has nobleman of the second highest rank deeds. These would have the effect of the common people are not the Land, dedicated to Henry VIII, Boleyn. 0.38 x 2.69 m (1' 3" x 8' 10"). granddaughter Elizabeth I in 1603. It Lynn is well placed to argue her left out to ensure the book is fit for a held the basin under the king’s committing his healthy self-image to subject here. As with much decorative England, ca. 1540. Purple Burrell Collection, Glasgow covers textiles other than dress: opening premise: that textiles were non-specialist audience. The result is hands. When the towel was returned both cloth and to history, building art (particularly that which has embroidered with and metal Museums, 29.178a & b textiles for interiors, tents, pageants, at the heart of the Tudor court and still full of detail and evidence that to the gentleman usher, the part “in his reputation and legacy. Under his survived in public collections) the thread and pearls. British Library, cloths of estate and (as the Tudors were primary signifiers of wealth, may not have been drawn together in which the king hath wiped was daughter, Elizabeth I, rich and powerful were the people London, Royal MS 20 A IV 4 Tent design, probably for the might say) textiles for sundry other prestige and power. Tudor textiles a book before. Tudor Textiles is not carried by the usher above his head”. took precedence. And so domestic, who commissioned textiles of note 'Field of Cloth of ', 16th uses. Lynn is curator of the Royal cost more, and were valued and comparable to the forensic dive that Once the king was seated at the table, naturalistic, small ‘feminine’ textiles and beauty. The publication of this 2 Portrait of Edward VI, workshop century. Watercolour on paper. Ceremonial Dress Collection at collected more, than any other art form. is a book like Janet Arnold’s Queen the tablecloth was lifted over his lap. take over the book, too, in the form of book was timed to coincide with the associated with ‘Master John’, ca. British Library, London, MS Historic Royal Palaces and has in her The book’s stated remit is to cover Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock’d. Yet He was given a napkin, and the servant embroidered book covers and bed 500th anniversary of the ‘Field of 1547. Oil on panel. National Portrait Augustus III, fol. 18 care some 10,000 items dating back to the wider role of textiles at court, neither is it so light that will not have waiting upon him held another on . Lynn suggests this might be Cloth of Gold’, a meeting between Gallery, London the 16th century. Among the rather than details of materials and something to offer textile specialists. his arm.’ Pomp and ceremony, yes; all partly because Elizabeth not only Henry VIII and Francis I of France, in collections at Hampton Court Palace techniques. The long century Tudor Textiles, then, is a broadly centered on textiles. inherited Henry VIII’s over-sized Calais in 1520. A political event built 3 Valance (detail), England, ca. are Henry VIII’s Abraham tapestries, encompassed by the book means that writ story of elite textiles that were The shift in textile types during collection of textiles, but that she also and realised through magnificent 1532–6. Light cream silk woven with precious metals, and the a lot of the information presented is commissioned by and on behalf of the Tudor period is interesting. In the inherited the debt he incurred, textiles, it offered proof, if it were with linen backing, Bacton Altar Cloth, a spectacular piece necessarily general. But Lynn’s story the ruling head of the country textiles he commissioned, Henry VIII leaving her less able to commission needed, of the predominance of Tudor decorated with arabesque black of ecclesiastical textile bling. is by no means under-researched or during a rich and tempestuous seemed to have a decided taste for his large series of tapestries. textiles over all other art forms. silk velvet cutwork motifs of acorns