Thank you Lynne for providing the web address: http://www.mkheritage.co.uk/cnm/lace/index.html which gives a detailed history of the Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire lace industries. After discovering that Dr. Yallop considers Flemish immigration inconsequential in the Honiton lace industry I was surprised to realize that it is considered rather important to the Bedfordshire and Bucks industries. Last year when we had the Renaissance tapestry exhibit at the Met, Manie Kriel and Helene Dowler came to see it with me. The exhibit ends with the invasion of the Duke of Alva which apparently dealt a death blow to the Flemish tapestry industry. Manie made the interesting observation that the end of the Flemish tapestry industry seemed to correspond with the beginnings of the era of great lace making and we all wondered if there was a connection. In light of that, the following caught my eye: Lace was probably made in the Eastern Counties (Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire) prior to 1563. This was, and still is, a flax growing area. The first wave of lace makers from the continent came in 1563 to 1568. They were Flemish Protestants who left the area around Mechelen (Mechlin / Malines) when Philip II introduced the Inquisition to the Low Countries: � 1563: Twenty-five recent widows, makers of bone lace, settled in Dover, Kent; 400 settled in Sandwich, Kent; � 1567: It is estimated that 100,000 left Flanders when the Duke of Alva became head of the Spanish Catholic Army. Most of that number came to England. Second wave of lacemakers, many from Lille, left in 1572 after The Massacre of the Feast of Saint Bartholomew. Exactly how many is not known but many hundreds came to Buckinghamshire and Northampton
It would be so interesting to know more about this. Is there a relationship between the collapse of the tapestry industry and the flourishing of the lace industry? It stands to reason that refugee textile workers could not have traveled with the huge looms required for tapestry weaving, but lace bobbins are relatively portable. Devon - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED]
