Of 14th & 15th
Century England
By
Robin E. Muller
One of the results of the invention of printing and the consequent rapid development of the book trade in Europe in the late 15th Century was the search for new and attractive forms for the exterior decoration of books. The stamping and gold tooling of leather, introduce to Europe through Italy by Middle Eastern craftspersons, was always popular. However, beginning in the early years of the 14th Century rich textiles such as velvets and brocades had been used in wealthy circles for covering favorite and valuable manuscripts. From the 15th century on, velvet covers were often embellished by gold and silk embroidery relating to the content of the book. In England embroidery remained widely popular until the Civil War, dying out only mid 17th Century. The fragility of most textile bindings, especially when used in conjunction with heavy boards for parchment manuscripts has meant that few remain, in spite of the special furniture and props manufactured to display and support these books. Some examples do remain, in the Bodleian Library at Oxford and the Folger Shakespearean Library. This presentation will look at the design, construction and use of a variety of these remaining examples, made at a time when the ownership of silk and books carried the connotation of wealth.
Robin E. Muller studied studio Textiles at both Virginia Commonwealth University (BFA 1976) and the University of Michigan (MFA 1978). She has taught Textiles, Foundation, Craft History and Book Arts at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax, Canada since 1979. She began researching fabric bookbindings due to her combined interest in textiles and the book arts. She curated The Handbound Book in Nova Scotia at the Mary E, Black Gallery, Nova Scotia Centre for Craft and Design in 2002 with binder and historian Joseph Landry to commemorate the 250th anniversary of printing in Canada. It included a 32-page catalog published by Gaspereau Press and a video by the same title produced by Muller and Landry. Her current textile work involves weaving images, sometimes for book covers, on a TC1 computer jacquard handloom.