Report on the Textiles from Burgos Cathedral - Middelalder Centret

Most of the pieces have a crêpe-like structure in
the weave of the midsection caused by a hard spun
thread. The yarns used for the selvedges are less
hard spun. This creates a natural tightness of the
midsection while the selvedges appears wider and
looser. This feature would be even more pronounced
if the woven silks were after treated with for instance
hot water which would leave the hard spun threads
to tighten more than the threads in the sides.
On a few of the fragments there were clear
indications of piercing holes at the edge of the
selvedges. (For instance 00651983) This must be
due to a thread being pulled through the edges
helping to form the pleats and keep them together
much like modern carthridge pleating. It is not clear
if a pleating thread was pulled through the textile
while weaving, in order to keep the edges in place
while weaving it or if this was made solely as an
after treatment, where the fabric would be pulled
together and treated with for example hot water to
fix the pleats permanently.
Fig. 17-18
A group of textiles have additional crimped bands
sewn to the edges of the bands. These additional
edges are made solely by pleating the bands after
weaving and does not need any specific method
of weaving. The pleating isself is a simple zigzagpleats
of folded fabric held together with a thread
pulled through the fabric. In one fragment a piece
of pulling thread could still be seen. (00653737).
Some pieces had no visible signs of piercing holes
but had narrow pleats similar to those with piercing
holes,(e.g. 00653742). This piece had a gauzelike,
crêpe midsection and shiny, smooth and thick
edges. In this fabric a combination of weaving and
after-treatment had taken place. Like most of the
textiles the edges are slightly looser and wider than
the midsection due to the difference in number of
threads and the thread thickness. The tiny sharp
pleats, instead, was formed in the after-treatment.
As the pleats are made with sharp folds and do not
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appear irregular and uneven in shape; each pleat is
folded with precision of c. 0,4 cm deep.
One fragment with a similar type midsection and
selvedges had traces of a slightly different kind of
after-treatment as the whole surface of the fabric had
an overall impression of being pleated on the width
of the fabric. (00653754). There are no traces of
piercing holes in this fragment which cannot simply
have disappeared, possibly it was made with an even
simpler technique of folding the fabric backwards
and forward on itself, and treated to make the pleats
remain in place.
None on the pieces in the viewed group were made
of linen, but Gomez-Moreno who was leading the
excavation in 1946 mentions a few fragments of
linen made in the same way as the silks. 4 Such
methods are usually just semi-permanent and if
worn often they would require maintenance and repleating
regularly.
Two of the pieces in the examined group have woven
frills with no traces of after-treatment, which may,
however, have taken place on a secondary level,
perhaps while making them. The numbers 00651981
and 00651985 were very different from the other
fragments in the group. These two fragments have
soft, frilled edges that must have been formed as
part of the weaving. The frilled part is formed partly
by the warp threads of the selvedges being thicker
than the threads in the midsection.
Most of the pieces are long narrow bands with frills
along both selvedges. Only one of the examined
pieces had frills on only one selvedge (00651981).
Some of the silk bands must have been worn with
it’s full width wrapped around head and chin, but a
couple of the bands were folded at the middle on the
length of the fabric, forming two rows of frills on
one side of the band. Three numbers clearly had this
feature: 00651982, 00651983 and 00651985, but it
is also possible that more of the textiles have been
worn this way.
The frilled textiles from Burgos clearly share
similarities with contemporary Spanish images
of frilled headwear. 5 Different styles of frilled
3 See report, textile analysis by Marianne Vedeler.
4 Manuel Gomez-Moreno: El Panteón Real de las Huelgas de Burgos. Madrid, 1946, p. 76.
5 Ruth Mathilda Anderson: Pleated Headdresses of Castilla and León, 12 th and 13 th centuries. Notes Hispanic. The
Hispanic Society of America, vol. II, 1942. New York, 1942, pp. 51-80 , Joaquin Yarza Luaces (ed): Vestiduras Ricas. El Monasterio
de las Huelgas y su época 1170-1340. Patrimonio National, Madrid, 2005.