At 10:42 PM -0500 8/26/05, Robin Netherton wrote:
A friend is sending off some scholarly material to a publisher, and wants to doublecheck some information. She got it from a published source, but it's a bit out of her area, and she wants to make sure the source hasn't been superceded (or wasn't incorrect in the first place).So -- I'd love to know if anyone has any hesitations about the following passage, which is her own wording based on the published information. The context is 12th c. France: Commercial relations with the Orient expanded rapidly, bringing cendal, a silk similar to our modern taffeta, often red, paile, a brocaded silk from Alexandria, siglaton, a gold brocade for luxury garments, osterin, a purple silk, and samite, a heavily embroidered silk, often with precious metal. Cendal, paile, siglaton, osterin, and samite are all italicized. I believe she is secure about the fabric words themselves; it's the definitions she wants to verify.
In technical textile contexts, I have generally seen "samite" used _currently_ to describe a type of weave -- the sources I can lay hands on at the moment describe it as a 1:2 weft-faced compound twill. That is, the modern writers are using it as a technical term for this specific weave types. I don't know whether it might have had a different or more general meaning in the 12th century.
Heather -- ***** Heather Rose Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://heatherrosejones.com> ***** _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
