On Sun, 6 May 2007, Bonnie Booker wrote: > Blackwork is my thing. I taught it back at the Known World Art/Sci > Symposium in Orlando where you taught the Gothic fitted gown a few > years ago. It is more correctly known as "monochrome embroidery" and > was mentioned by Chaucer in Canterbury Tales. Chaucer mentions her > collar with blackwork inside and outside.
I'm aware of this reference -- it comes up a lot in discussions of 14th c. embroidery -- and I always pictured something like blackwork when I heard it, as it is black silk embroidery on a white smock, described as being all around the collar. But I'm wondering if that's the right interpretation of the following line, which indicates that the embroidery is "withinne and eek withoute." I can't think of a better way to read it, but smocks in this period were not designed to show outside the dress, and did not have necklines that could be turned outward -- that I know of -- to show the inside. Anyone have a better reading? --Robin _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
