Human Industry, Chapter 7
CAP. VII.
foreign: OR, The Art of Spinning and Weaving; with the several Materials of Garments among sundry nations.
WEE come now ad Vestificin… ingenia (as Tertullian speaks) to the Art of Spinning and Weaving; l. de Pall.which, though they be vulgar Occupations, yet are no vulgar Mysteries and inventions, as appears by the various instruments that are used for both. The former invention, to wit Spinning, is ascribed to less Deity than Minerva the Goddess of Wisdom:foreign Hes. Ovid calls it
—Divinae Palladis artem.
Hee that considers the Wheel, the Wherve, the Spindle, with other Tacklings and Accoutrements that belong to Spinning, with the fabrick of the Loom and Shuttle, and other instruments of Weaving, will confess that it was no vulgar wit that devised and framed them.
In Dantzick in Poland there was set up a rare invention for weaving of 4 or five Webs at a time without any humane help; it was an Automaton or Engine that moved of it self and would work night and day: which invention was supprest, because it would prejudice the poor people of the Town; and the Artificer was made away secretly (as 'tis conceived) as Lancellotti the Italian Abbot relates out of the mouth of one Mr Muller a Polonian that had seen the device.
The first Garments that wee read of, were made of Figg-leaves sowed together, as our first-parents did, Gen. 3. 7. Paul the Hermite (desirous to take the thriftiest way and simplest to live) made him a suit of the leaves of Palm-trees.
Nexilis antefuit véstis, quàm textilis unquam.
Suits of the primitive fashion were made of the skins of Beasts, which men killed for food: cùm antea induviae hominum, erant brutorum exuviae, H…urn. l. 1. Spinning is a subordinate Art to Weaving, and therein Arachne was excellent in her time, and presumed so much on her skill that shee challenged Pallas her self to a tryal of skill in this Mystery.
—Tantus decor affuit arti,
Sive rudem primos lanam glomerabat in orbes,
Seu digitis subigebat opus repetita que longo
Vellera mollibat, nebulas aequantia tractu.
Whether shee orb-like rowl'd the ruder wool,
Or finely fingered the selected Cull,
Or draw it into cloud-resembling flakes,
Or equal twine with swift-turn'd Spindle makes.
As thread is spun and made of wool, silk, hair, hemp, flax and the like: so cloth is weaved and webs are made of these several sorts. The nettle affords a kinde of thread like hemp, whereof Nettle-cloth is made. I have seen cloth made of the innermost bark of a tree; Mr Purchas makes often mention of the like; Strabo of the Massagetes hath the same: Massagetae vestiuntur libris arborum, quòd lanâ careant, Strabo l. 11. Geogr. And Purchas saith farther, That of certain Palm-trees, Velvets, Sattens, Damasks, and Taffita's are made, in the 6th book of his Pilgrimage and description of Africa: which Art the Europaeans are ignorant of, I suppose. The Mexicans make cloth of the bark of the Maguei that famous Tree, which bears the Coco which wee call Coker-nut, and which is a Cornu-copia of it self, as …u-Bartas describes it.
—which serves in Mexico
For weapon, wood, needle, and thread, to sow,
Brick, honey, sugar, sucket, balm and wine▪
Parchment, perfume, apparrel, cord and line.
Monsieur Peyresc, that great storer and preserver of the rarities of Art and Nature, had a kinde of a Pumpion brought from Mecha, that was thready within like silk; and hee had also a little web of cloth that had been made of that thread, which was very good silk, as Dr Gassendi relates in the life of the said Peyresc. Besides this, there is no Sericum vegetabile, no vegetable silk, as some have supposed; there is no such delicate wool as to make silk of, growing upon the leaves or barks of trees, as Virgil sings of the A…thiopian and Cathaian Forrests.
Qui nemora Aethiopum molli canentia lana,Georg. l. 2.
Vellera que è foliis depectunt tenuia seres?
Whose mistake Pliny hath followed, speaking of the Seres lanificio sylvarum nobiles, &c. in the 6th book of his nat. hist. c. 17. & Indos suae arbores vestiunt: which Authors Lipsius follows in his Commentaries on Tacitus. But, the truth is, that silk is made and spun out of the bowels of a little Grub or worm, which is called the Silk-worm, which feeds upon lettices and the leaves of Mulberries, and no otherwise, as Julius Scaliger learnedly shews in his Exercitations against Cardan. Exer. 159. c. 9. and the Seres or people of Cathaia were the first that made use of this Spinners thread, and keemed it and weaved it into a web, from whence it hath the name of Sericum: from them it came first into Europe, tam multiplici opere, tam longinquo orbe petitur, ut in publico Matrona transluceat, saith the excellent Pliny, who inserts many a moral lesson among his natural observations: so far these thin aery stuffs, this ventus Textilis (as Petronicus calls it, and foreign as Gr. Nazianzen) is fetched, that it may be fit for Ladies; who delight in such diaphanous weares and foreign wares: it was of high esteem in all ages.
This precious fleece was onelyonly used to adorn
The sacred loynes of Princes heretoforn,
saith the divine Bartas. And in another place;
—flecces fit for Princes robes
In Serean forrests hang in silken Globes.
But not growing naturally upon the trees, but spun by the worm that feeds upon them in the forrest.
One Pamphilia of the Isle of Coos was the first that weaved silks: whence Coa vestis properly is used for silk; the first that wore a garment hereof in Europe, was the Emperour Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. The worm was first brought into Europe in the Emperour Justinians time, by certain Monks that had travelled Cathaia: They brought the eggs only to Constantinople, and then hatched the worms by putting the eggs in warm dung.
The Spiders lawn or web which he hangs upon the hedges, and (sometimes) in our windows, though it affords matter of wonder to the considerate beholder, that shall observe the accurateness and …venness of the thread, and the Geometry and regularity of the work in all points, yet it is of no use, except the sight of it hath (perhaps) given a hint to the art of Weaving. Only in the Summer Islands and in some other parts of the West-Indies there are Spiders that (in Summer) spin perfect raw silk, both in substance and colour; the thread so strong that birds are entangled therein. These spiders are bigger than ours, and of rich, orient colours, as Oviedo the Spaniard hath related, and Captain Smith our Countrey-man in his description of those Islands.
The Prophets of old wore garments made of Hair, whence Elias is called vir pilosus, the hairie man, 2 Reg. 1. 8. St John the Baptist had a garment made of Camels hair, Matth. 3. 4. Grograms are made of Goats hair, pulled from off their backs: which kinde of Goats, B…bequius reports that he had seen in Asia, whose hair was very fine and glistering, not inferior to silk, and hanging to the very ground: they have four horns, saith Seal, Ex. 199. Camelots or Chamlets are made of Camels hair, which is so fine, especially those of Persian race, that they may compare with Milesian wool for fineness, as Aelian reports, and the great ones used to wear thereof in those Countries.
Flax and hemp were first drest in Aegypt; Fine linnen, with broydered work, and sails, first came from Aegypt, saith the Prophet Ezek. C. 27. V. 7. and the Aegyptians are decyphered by this periphrasis in Isaiah, They that work in fine flax, and weave Net-works, Isa. 19. 9. The Aegyptian priests did alwaies weave linnen in the Temples, and therefore are termed linigeri; so did the Jewish Priests, their Ephods, Miters, and other Vestures were linnen; and so the Priests of most Nations,
Velati lino & verbena tempora vincti. Virgil.
Of finest Flax their Vestures are,
And on their heads they vervain wear
The fine linnen so often mentioned by Moses for the holy garments, is made of the Bombase or Cotton that grows in balls upon certain shrubs; which kind of shrub is termed foreign, by Theophrast, the Wool-bearing Tree, and foreign. simply, the Tree; whence Linum Xylinum in Tremellius his Translation is still rendred in the English Bible fine linnen; so that the fine linnen vestments of the Priests were made of Bombase, as the learned Salmasius hath observed in his Exercitations upon Solinus: so that the woolbearing Trees in Aethiopia which Virgil speaks of, and the Eriophori arbores in Theophrastus, are not such trees as have a certain wool or dowl upon the outside of them, as the mall-Cotton, but short trees that bear a ball upon the top, preg…ant with wool, which the Syrians call Cott, the Grecians Gossypium, the Italians Bombagio, and We Bombase.
But I believe that some part of their vesture was also of Flax, Mundissima lini seges indatui & amictui sanctissimis Aegyptiorum Sacerdotibus usurpatur, saith Apuleius in Apologia.
Hadrianus Junius a most learned man in his description of the Netherlands, doth highly extol the fine linnen made by the soft hands of the Belgick Nuns in Holland and the Town of Cambray, called from thence Hollands and Cambricks; quarum cum nive certat candor, cum sindone tenuitas, cum bysso pretium; so he speaks of them, and calls them Regum & Reginarum praecipuas delicias; the chiefest delight of Kings and Queens.
There is a certain Shell-fish in the Sea called pinna, that bears a mossie dowl or wool whereof cloth was spun and made, as Tertullian speaks in his book de pallio. Et Arbusta nos vestiunt, & de mari vellera. These are his words; not only Trees afford wool, but also the Sea to clothe us withal; this wool or moss is so soft and delicate, that it is nothing inferiour to silk saith Lacerda, and therefore he calls it Byssum marinum, Sea silk, in his notes upon Tertullian, though the true Byssus be lost, and also the Carbasus, whence Carbasinae vestes, insomuch that great Clerks can scarce tell us what they were, but that fine Stuffs were anciently made of them. One Ferdinand Imperatus, a Drugster of Naples, a great storer of exotique and domestique Rarities, had some of this Sea-silk both weaved and unweaved, and also the Shell-fish that did bear it. Men have found a way not only arbores Nere, sed & lapides, not only to spin threads from Trees, as Tertullian speaks of the Seres, but also from stones. There is a stone called Lapis Caristius, and Lapis Cyprius, from the Countries that this stone or mineral is found, to wit Cyprus as Strabo, and mount Caristus in Attica, as Trallianus and Dioscorides report; it is like Allom in colour, and being beaten with a Mallet, it shews like a small hair, therefore called Trichitis, or the hayrie stone by some Greek Authors, & Alumen Plumaceum, or downy Alom, by the Latinists it is also called for the resemblance of it, villus Salamandrae, Salamanders wool:Langii Epist. Medicin. This hair or dowl is spun into thread, and weaved into cloth, and the cloth so made hath this strange property, that being cast into the fire it will not burn, but if it be foul or stained, comes forth more bright and clean out of the flames; it is therefore called also Amiantus. Ferdinand Imperatus (before mentioned) had a piece of this cloth much like white silk. Of this hairy stone some made wick for candles that would not consume or burn out: such a candle was made by Callimachus, and hung up in the Temple of Minerva at Athens, as Salmasius relates in his Plinianae exercitationes:
There was a vegetable of this kinde, a sort of Flax called by the Grecians Asbestos and Asbestinos, that had the like property with the mineral before mention'd, saith the same Salmasius, whereof Pliny makes mention in l. 9. of his History, c. 1 and calls it Indian flax, and linum v…vum, quick inconsumptible flax. Solinus makes mention of some sayls made in Crete of this stuff, quae inter ignes valebant (as he saith) that would not take fire, if it hath this property indeed, it is pity to put it to such vulgar use as to serve for sayls, that would better serve at our tables; for if men had table-clothes and napkins of this stuff, they might prefet them before Diapers and Damasks, for it would save some cost & no small trouble in washing and drying such houshold implements, it is but throwing them into the fire, and they are presently washed and dryed at once.
Pliny indeed esteemed it equivalent to pearl and precious stone, for it was hard to be found, and difficult to be weaved, for the shortness of it (as he says) the bodies of Kings were used to be wrapt in this kinde of cloth when they were to be burnt, that the ashes might be preserved unmixt, for to be laid up in urns or pitchers, as the manner then was.
Pliny saw some Napkins of this sort in his time, and the experiment of their purifying demonstrated. One Podocattar a Cyprian Knight, and who wrote de rebus Gypriis in the year 1566. had both flax and cloth of this sort with him at Venice, and one Thomas Porcacchius hath seen the same in that Knights house, and many others with him, as he relates in his work concerning the Rites of Funerals. Ludovicus Vives also saw a Towel of that kinde at Louaine in Brabant, as he relates in his Commentary upon St Augustine de Civitate Dei, l. 21. c. 6.
Baptista Porta saw the same at Venice with a woman of Cyprus, and calls it Secretum optimum, perpulchrum, perutile, a very useful and profitable secret, Nat. Magia, l. 4. c. 25.
As stones and trees have been spun and weaved into cloth, so some mettals may be wrought to that use; Attalic garments were weav'd all of gold & thread, which sort of Vesture the Italians call Veste di Brocato dioro: Such a garment Mary the wife of the Emperour Honorius was buried in; for her Marble Coffin being digged up at Rome in the year 1544. where the foundation of St Peters Church was laid, all her body was found consumed save the Teeth and a few bones, but her golden apparel was fresh; out of which (being melted) was extracted 36 pounds weight of pure gold, as Aldourand relates in the first book of his Musaeum Metallicum. The Sidonians made the like kinde of garments, as appears by these verses in Virg. Aen. xi.
Tum geminas vestes ostro que auro que rigentes
Extulit Aeneas, quas ill… laeta laborum
Ipsa suis quondam manibus Sidonia Dido
Fecerat, & tenui telas discreverat auro.
St Hierom in one of his Epistle…, and and Paulus Diaconus do make mention of a sort of wool that was rained down in the year 1119▪ in the Reign of Valentinian and Valens, which fell most about Atrebatum, or the Province of Artois in Flanders, which was spun into cloth, and did much enrich the Country thereabouts.
The heavens rained down meat once for the people of Israel, now it rains down clothing;l. 1. de Provid. as there was coelum escatile, as Salvian speaks of the admirable Manna, when men did eat Angels food, so here was coelum textile, as I may so term it; the sky affords both food and …ayment! Some of this wool in memorial of the miracle, is preserved to this day in the chief Church of Arras; to wit, St Maries Church there.
De Plumificiis.
An Appendix of the Plumary Art.
IN Florida, and other places of the West Indies, the Inhabitants make garments of Feathers with marvellous Art and Curiosity; as also rare and exquisite pictures; for in those Countries there are Birds of rare plumage, of very gay and gaudy colours, that have a gloss like silk, and put down the pride of the Peacock; some are of orient green and some of excellent carnation and scarlet, more especially in their Phenicopters, Parrots, and Tomincios.
Their manner is to strip the Feathers from the Q…ills with neat pincers, and then to joyn them together with paste, mingling variety of colours in such a rare medley, that they make a very glorious shew. Ferdinando Cortes the Spaniard found abundance of these curious works in the Palace of Motez…m…, the wealthy Emperor of the Mexicans, which were such and so excellent, that none could make in silk, wax, or of needlework any things comparable to them; so he speaks in his second narration; and in his third he adds this, that they were so artificial and neat, that they cannot b… described in writing, or presented to the imagination, except a man sees them.
Cardinal Paleottus had the picture of St Hierom kneeling before a Crucifix made of this Workmanship, which was sent him from Spain; some Fryers that had resided in those Countries of America, had learn'd the Art (it seems) from the Natives.
These pictures are made so accurately, that it would pose a judicious eye to discern or distinguish them from those that are made with the pencil, or the art of the painter.
This art was not unknown to the Ancients in this Hemisphere of the world: St Hierom makes mention of operis Plumarii, this plumary workmanship, in his Commentary upon Exod. l. 26. 1. and on chap. 39. of Exod. v. 29.
Seneca makes mention of it in his Ep. 90. Non avium plumae in usum vestis conservantur, &c. So also Julius Fermicus l. 3. Astronom. c. 13. & Prudent. in Ha… martig.
—Hunc videas lascivas praepete cursu
Venantem tunicas; avium quo que versiculorum
Indumenta novis Texentem plumea telis.
If this art be lost in the old world (as indeed we can no where finde it on this side the Globe) it is preserved (it seems) in the new, and that in the highest perfection, insomuch that it puts down not only the admired pieces of Zeuxes and Apelles of old, but also those of Michael Angelo, and Raphael Urbin of later times: and the plumes of those birds seem to surpass all their colours, not only for luster and beauty, but also for duration and lasting.
See more of this Art in the learned Fuller his Miscellanea sacra, l. 4. c. 20. in Jos. Acostal. 4. La Gerda his Adversaria sacra. Pancirol. de novo Orbe tit. 1.