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flintheath_as) wrote2022-03-05 10:50 am
flintheath_as) wrote2022-03-05 10:50 am
Sir Gawain’s Green Belt Part 1
Last August, at Raglisn’t in Bourn, I began a Golden Egg challenge. For those not familiar, a Golden Egg challenge is an arts and science project of intermediate difficulty for the person doing the project. It must be completed in a year from announcement and presented to members of the Society of the Golden Egg for approval, after which the person who completed the project becomes a member of the Society for three years. The goal is to encourage artisans to continually improve their skills and set high goals for themselves.
My challenge is to recreate the green belt given to Sir Gawain in the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is my favourite Arthurian story and the lady’s belt is a major part of the story, representing Gawain’s momentary slip from the faithfulness and honesty he shows elsewhere in the poem and therefore his human fallibility, but also the difficult dilemmas in which he was placed during the poem and how he navigated them: the lady asked him to hide the belt from her husband and he did so, even though that meant breaking a promise he had previously made to her husband. At the end of the poem, he continues to wear the belt as a baldric as a reminder of the adventure and its lessons and it becomes common among the Knights of the Round Table to do the same. I like the symbolism as well as the story of the poem and wanted to make a copy of the green belt for myself. This meant that the first step of my challenge was to research what the belt should look like and what techniques would have been used.
The description of the belt given in the poem is slight – it’s the entire quote I gave above – so all I knew going in was that it was made of green silk, hand-embroidered and decorated with gold. A different translation to modern English described it as “all embroidered with finger-work” instead of “braided round about and embroidered by hand”, which I assume means the same thing. I interpreted it as meaning that the decoration was added after manufacture with a needle and thread rather than during the weaving process as brocade.
I narrowed the time period for research to the 14th Century since the only surviving contemporary manuscript of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight dates from about 1400. It almost certainly existed in some form before that and some scholars have speculated that it has pre-Christian origins, identifying the Green Knight with a Green Man nature god figure. However, even if I assume that the story has ancient origins it is common for medieval poems to adopt the fashions and manners of the time they were written; the anonymous poet would surely have intended a girdle that looked like the kind of thing ladies wore at the time he was writing or reciting. Given that we don’t know whether the surviving copy was the first written version, I treated the whole preceding century as fair game.
My research began with reading academic texts on medieval belts and girdles, as well as articles on the poem itself. While this research strategy yielded a lot of interesting studies on the content, symbolism, and context of the poem that I might use as the basis of a later article, they weren’t much help for the likely design and manufacture of the belt. I then moved on to trying to find surviving art from the period that showed ladies’ girdles and could give me an idea of how long, narrow strips of textile such as girdles were manufactured in general. This was a lot more successful, though made a lot harder by the fact that in the 14th century it was common to wear an outer garment that hid the girdle. This is even reflected in the poem: the lady’s girdle is over her kirtle, but under her mantle. While inconvenient, this confirmed the strategy of focussing on 14th century fashion.
Despite the problem of the girdle usually being hidden, there were a few pieces of surviving art that were useful.
The tomb effigy of Anne of Bohemia, who died in 1394, shows her girdle clearly: a very narrow band which, in the etching I found that shows the entire effigy (Figure 1), appears to have a zig-zag decorative pattern. Assuming the drawing is accurately scaled, the girdle is a little narrower than her eye, making it about 15mm wide. This is a lot narrower than I expected, but as I went on to discover is probably accurate. Narrow belts and girdles are also shown in other art such as a stained-glass window of the Virgin and Child at the church of St John the Baptist, Fladbury (Figure 2). In this image, Mary is shown to be wearing a narrow girdle, fastened at the front with a long tail hanging down over her skirt, as seen in Anne of Bohemia’s effigy.
Figure 1: Tomb Effigy of Anne of Bohemia
Figure 2: The Virgin and Child, Church of St John the Baptist, Fladbury
I did not expect to be able to find any surviving textiles once my attempts at reading academic texts and looking through digitised museum collections dried up, since textile rarely survives across multiple centuries unless it is deliberately preserved, which appears to have been uncommon for girdles. However, four silk tablet-woven braids were found in 14th-century deposits in London. All of them were produced with double-faced weaves and therefore were probably used as items on their own rather than as a trim. Three were extremely narrow and may have been used for a purpose like hair fillets or spur leathers, but the fourth is likely to have been a girdle. Like the girdle shown on Anne of Bohemia’s effigy, it appears to have been about 15mm wide, while the narrow ones were about 8.5-12mm wide. They also have lozenge patterns woven into them, which is consistent with the zig-zag design on the effigy’s girdle.
This was further backed up by a surviving metal strap end which was found with a fragment of textile still trapped in it (Figure 3). It’s not clear what the material of the fragment is – it might be silk, but other suggestions include wool and linen – but the strap end is 16mm wide, suggesting that this was also the approximate width of the belt. Close-up images of the textile taken through a microscope (Figure 4) suggest that it is tablet-woven, since the twisted warp is visible.
Figure 3: Belt strap end and surviving textile
Figure 4: Close up of surviving textile
Accordingly, my goal is to use tablet-weaving to create a band approximately 15mm wide and about 160cm long, which will go around my waist and give a long tail to mid-shin height, which appears to be the length of the girdle on Anne of Bohmia’s effigy, allowing for the fact that I’m probably taller than her. It’ll also be long enough that, like Gawain, I can wear it as a baldric. To match the surviving girdle from the London deposit and the effigy’s girdle, I plan to weave it with a lozenge pattern in different shades of green that – as a stretch goal – I can pick out with embroidery later!
References:
- Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England. 1987. edited by Jonathan Alexander and Paul Binski, London, Royal Academy of Arts, 1987.
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Rendered Literally into Modern English from the Alliterative Romance-Poem of A.D. 1360, from Cotton MS. Nero A x in British Museum, trans. Ernest J. B. Kirtlan, “Representative Poetry Online.” Representative Poetry Online, rpo.library.utoronto.ca/content/sir-gawain-and-green-knight.
- Besserman, Lawrence. “The Idea of the Green Knight.” ELH, vol. 53, no. 2, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986, pp. 219–39, https://doi.org/10.2307/2873255.
- Crowfoot, Elisabeth, et al. Textiles and Clothing c.1150-c.1450. London; Woodbridge, Museum of London; The Boydell Press, 2001.
- Friedman, Albert B., and Richard H. Osberg. “Gawain’s Girdle as Traditional Symbol.” The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 90, no. 357, University of Illinois Press, 1977, pp. 301–15, https://doi.org/10.2307/539521.
- Gilbert, Rosalie. “Questions about Belt Fragment TEX01_ SEWF03.” Received by Becca Edney.
- Gilbert, Rosalie. “The Gilbert Collection - Strap Ends with Belt Fragments.” Rosaliegilbert.com, rosaliegilbert.com/thegilbertcollection_strapends_f.html.
- Tolkien, J R R. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. edited by Christopher Tolkien, London, HarperCollins, 2006.
My challenge is to recreate the green belt given to Sir Gawain in the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
She unbound a belt swiftly that embracing her sides
Was clasped above her kirtle under her comely mantle
Fashioned it was of green silk, and with gold finished,
Though only braided round about, and embroidered by hand;
And this she would give to Gawain, and gladly besought him,
Of no worth though it were, to be willing to take it.
(translated to modern English by J.R.R. Tolkien)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is my favourite Arthurian story and the lady’s belt is a major part of the story, representing Gawain’s momentary slip from the faithfulness and honesty he shows elsewhere in the poem and therefore his human fallibility, but also the difficult dilemmas in which he was placed during the poem and how he navigated them: the lady asked him to hide the belt from her husband and he did so, even though that meant breaking a promise he had previously made to her husband. At the end of the poem, he continues to wear the belt as a baldric as a reminder of the adventure and its lessons and it becomes common among the Knights of the Round Table to do the same. I like the symbolism as well as the story of the poem and wanted to make a copy of the green belt for myself. This meant that the first step of my challenge was to research what the belt should look like and what techniques would have been used.
The description of the belt given in the poem is slight – it’s the entire quote I gave above – so all I knew going in was that it was made of green silk, hand-embroidered and decorated with gold. A different translation to modern English described it as “all embroidered with finger-work” instead of “braided round about and embroidered by hand”, which I assume means the same thing. I interpreted it as meaning that the decoration was added after manufacture with a needle and thread rather than during the weaving process as brocade.
I narrowed the time period for research to the 14th Century since the only surviving contemporary manuscript of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight dates from about 1400. It almost certainly existed in some form before that and some scholars have speculated that it has pre-Christian origins, identifying the Green Knight with a Green Man nature god figure. However, even if I assume that the story has ancient origins it is common for medieval poems to adopt the fashions and manners of the time they were written; the anonymous poet would surely have intended a girdle that looked like the kind of thing ladies wore at the time he was writing or reciting. Given that we don’t know whether the surviving copy was the first written version, I treated the whole preceding century as fair game.
My research began with reading academic texts on medieval belts and girdles, as well as articles on the poem itself. While this research strategy yielded a lot of interesting studies on the content, symbolism, and context of the poem that I might use as the basis of a later article, they weren’t much help for the likely design and manufacture of the belt. I then moved on to trying to find surviving art from the period that showed ladies’ girdles and could give me an idea of how long, narrow strips of textile such as girdles were manufactured in general. This was a lot more successful, though made a lot harder by the fact that in the 14th century it was common to wear an outer garment that hid the girdle. This is even reflected in the poem: the lady’s girdle is over her kirtle, but under her mantle. While inconvenient, this confirmed the strategy of focussing on 14th century fashion.
Despite the problem of the girdle usually being hidden, there were a few pieces of surviving art that were useful.
The tomb effigy of Anne of Bohemia, who died in 1394, shows her girdle clearly: a very narrow band which, in the etching I found that shows the entire effigy (Figure 1), appears to have a zig-zag decorative pattern. Assuming the drawing is accurately scaled, the girdle is a little narrower than her eye, making it about 15mm wide. This is a lot narrower than I expected, but as I went on to discover is probably accurate. Narrow belts and girdles are also shown in other art such as a stained-glass window of the Virgin and Child at the church of St John the Baptist, Fladbury (Figure 2). In this image, Mary is shown to be wearing a narrow girdle, fastened at the front with a long tail hanging down over her skirt, as seen in Anne of Bohemia’s effigy.
Figure 1: Tomb Effigy of Anne of Bohemia
Figure 2: The Virgin and Child, Church of St John the Baptist, Fladbury
I did not expect to be able to find any surviving textiles once my attempts at reading academic texts and looking through digitised museum collections dried up, since textile rarely survives across multiple centuries unless it is deliberately preserved, which appears to have been uncommon for girdles. However, four silk tablet-woven braids were found in 14th-century deposits in London. All of them were produced with double-faced weaves and therefore were probably used as items on their own rather than as a trim. Three were extremely narrow and may have been used for a purpose like hair fillets or spur leathers, but the fourth is likely to have been a girdle. Like the girdle shown on Anne of Bohemia’s effigy, it appears to have been about 15mm wide, while the narrow ones were about 8.5-12mm wide. They also have lozenge patterns woven into them, which is consistent with the zig-zag design on the effigy’s girdle.
This was further backed up by a surviving metal strap end which was found with a fragment of textile still trapped in it (Figure 3). It’s not clear what the material of the fragment is – it might be silk, but other suggestions include wool and linen – but the strap end is 16mm wide, suggesting that this was also the approximate width of the belt. Close-up images of the textile taken through a microscope (Figure 4) suggest that it is tablet-woven, since the twisted warp is visible.
Figure 3: Belt strap end and surviving textile
Figure 4: Close up of surviving textile
Accordingly, my goal is to use tablet-weaving to create a band approximately 15mm wide and about 160cm long, which will go around my waist and give a long tail to mid-shin height, which appears to be the length of the girdle on Anne of Bohmia’s effigy, allowing for the fact that I’m probably taller than her. It’ll also be long enough that, like Gawain, I can wear it as a baldric. To match the surviving girdle from the London deposit and the effigy’s girdle, I plan to weave it with a lozenge pattern in different shades of green that – as a stretch goal – I can pick out with embroidery later!
References:
- Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England. 1987. edited by Jonathan Alexander and Paul Binski, London, Royal Academy of Arts, 1987.
- Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Rendered Literally into Modern English from the Alliterative Romance-Poem of A.D. 1360, from Cotton MS. Nero A x in British Museum, trans. Ernest J. B. Kirtlan, “Representative Poetry Online.” Representative Poetry Online, rpo.library.utoronto.ca/content/sir-gawain-and-green-knight.
- Besserman, Lawrence. “The Idea of the Green Knight.” ELH, vol. 53, no. 2, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986, pp. 219–39, https://doi.org/10.2307/2873255.
- Crowfoot, Elisabeth, et al. Textiles and Clothing c.1150-c.1450. London; Woodbridge, Museum of London; The Boydell Press, 2001.
- Friedman, Albert B., and Richard H. Osberg. “Gawain’s Girdle as Traditional Symbol.” The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 90, no. 357, University of Illinois Press, 1977, pp. 301–15, https://doi.org/10.2307/539521.
- Gilbert, Rosalie. “Questions about Belt Fragment TEX01_ SEWF03.” Received by Becca Edney.
- Gilbert, Rosalie. “The Gilbert Collection - Strap Ends with Belt Fragments.” Rosaliegilbert.com, rosaliegilbert.com/thegilbertcollection_strapends_f.html.
- Tolkien, J R R. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. edited by Christopher Tolkien, London, HarperCollins, 2006.
Image Citations:
- Figure 1: Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons
- Figure 2: CC-BY-SA British Listed Buildings < https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/>, cropped to figures
- Figure 3: © Rosalie Gilbert, the Gilbert Collection < https://rosaliegilbert.com/thegilbertcollection.html>, used with - permission
- Figure 4: © Rosalie Gilbert, used with permission
- Figure 1: Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons
- Figure 2: CC-BY-SA British Listed Buildings < https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/>, cropped to figures
- Figure 3: © Rosalie Gilbert, the Gilbert Collection < https://rosaliegilbert.com/thegilbertcollection.html>, used with - permission
- Figure 4: © Rosalie Gilbert, used with permission
Acknowledgements:
I would like to especially thank Shannon, Nick, Jahanara, and Henric for helping me with my research, giving me tips, and lending me books, as well as for their general encouragement when I was flailing over my momentary suspicion that girdles were a figment of the general imagination due to the lack of evidence I could find.
I would also like to thank Rosalie Gilbert for kindly responding to my emails about her collection.