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SILK AND CHRISTIANITY

Dr. V. R. Shenoy and Dr. A. R. Shenoy
INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
CONNECTED WITH SILK
The purpose of this introduction is to inform the reader about the various
civilizations in Christendom involved in the historical story of silk. Since this
article is about the history of silk in relation to Christianity and not history of these
civilizations alone, we have tried to keep this introduction as concise and as
pertinent as possible without leaving out any relevant facts.
Roman Empire:
The Roman Empire arose from the Roman Republic when J ulius Caesar and
Augustus Caesar converted it from a republic into a monarchy. Rome reached its
pinnacle in the 2nd century AD.
By the late 3rd century AD, the city of Rome no longer served as an effective
capital for the extent of the empire and various cities were used as new
administrative capitals. Successive emperors, starting with Constantine I,
privileged the eastern city of Byzantium, which he had entirely rebuilt after a siege.
Later renamed Constantinople, and protected by formidable walls in the late 4th
and early 5th centuries, it became the largest and most powerful city of Christian
Europe in the Early Middle Ages. Since the Crisis of the Third Century, the
Empire was intermittently ruled by more than one emperor at once (usually two),
presiding over different regions. At first a haphazard form of power sharing, this
eventually settled on an East-West administrative division between the Western
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Roman Empire (centered on Rome, but now usually presided from other seats of
power such as Trier, Milan, and especially Ravenna), and the Eastern Roman
Empire (with its capital initially in Nicomedia, and later Constantinople). The
Latin-speaking west, under dreadful demographic crisis, and the wealthier Greek-
speaking east, also began to diverge politically and culturally. Although this was a
gradual process, still incomplete when Italy came under the rule of barbarian
chieftains in the last quarter of the 5th century, it deepened further afterward, and
had lasting consequences for the medieval history of Europe.
The descent of the Roman Empire refers to the societal collapse including both the
gradual disintegration of the political economic, military, and other social
institutions of Rome and the barbarian incursions that brought about its collapse in
Western Europe. It is broadly agreed that the Roman Empire in Western Europe
ended when Romulus Augustus was deposed as Western Roman Emperor in 476
AD while still young.
Constantine I:
In addition to building Constantinople, Constantine I is perhaps best known for
being the first Christian Roman emperor; his reign was certainly a turning point for
the Church. In February 313 AD, Constantine met with Licinius in Milan where
they developed the Edict of Milan. The edict stated that Christians should be
allowed to follow the faith of their choosing. This removed penalties for professing
Christianity (under which many had been martyred in previous persecutions of
Christians) and returned confiscated Church property. The edict did not only
protect Christians from religious persecution, but all religions, allowing anyone to
worship whichever deity they choose.
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Byzanyine Papacy:
The Byzantine Papacy was a period of Byzantine domination of the papacy from
537 to 752 AD, when popes required the approval of the Byzantine Emperor for
episcopal consecration, and many popes were chosen from the apocrisiarii
(liaisons from the pope to the emperor) or the inhabitants of Byzantine Greece,
Byzantine Syria, or Byzantine Sicily. J ustinian I conquered the Italian peninsula in
the Gothic War (535-554 AD) and appointed the next three popes, a practice that
would be continued by his successors and later be delegated to the Exarchate (a
diocese of the Eastern Orthodox Church) of Ravenna.
Nestorianism:
Nestorianism holds that the human and divine persons
of Christ are separate The Nestorian doctrine was
condemned as heretical at the First Council of Ephesus
in 431 AD and the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD,
leading to the Nestorian Schism in which churches
supporting Nestorius broke with the rest of the
Christian Church. Followers of theNestorian church
found refuge in Persia, Serindia (The term Serindia
combines Seres (China) and India to refer to the part of
Asia also known as Sinkiang(Xinjiang), Chinese
Turkestan or High Asia), and India. In India, the
Nestorians are largely based in Kerala; their Church also known as the Assyrian
Church of the East in India is located in Trichur, Kerala.

ANestorianChristianfigure,inkand
coloursonsilk(fragment)from
Dunhuang,China9thCenturyTang
dynasty,Steincollection,
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Frankish Papacy:
From 756 to 857 AD the papacy shifted from the orbit of the Byzantine Empire to
that of the kings of the Franks. Pepin the Short (ruled 751-768 AD), Charlemagne
(reign 768-814 AD) (co-ruler with his brother Carloman I until 771 AD), and
Louis the Pious (r. 814-840 AD) had considerable influence in the selection and
administration of popes. The "Donation of Pepin" (756 AD) ratified a new period
of papal rule in central Italy, which became known as the Papal States. The
coronations of Pepin, Charlemagne, and Louis by popes planted the idea among
generations of European rulers that the pope could confer legitimacy to the title of
"emperor."
Division of the Church into Eastern Orthodox and Western (Roman Catholic)
Branches:
The East-West Schism 1054 AD, sometimes known as the Great Schism formally
divided medieval Christianity into Eastern (Greek) and Western (Latin) branches,
which later became known as the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman
Catholic Church, respectively. Relations between East and West had long been
embittered by political and ecclesiastical differences and theological disputes.
PURPLE SILK IN THE SEMIOTIC EXPRESSION OF POWER
According to Aristotle, raw silk was brought from the interior of Asia (China) and
weaved into fabric on the Greek Island of Kos (Cos) around 400 BC (Aristotle,
History of Animals, v 19). Silk was known in ancient Rome. William Smith
describes the following in his Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 1875:
The rage for the latter (silk) increased more and more. Even men aspired to be
adorned with silk, and hence the senate early in the reign of Tiberius (14 AD to 37
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AD) enacted a condemnation of silk -Ne vestis Serica viros foedaret". In the
succeeding reigns, we find the most vigorous measures adopted by those emperors
who were characterized by severity of manners, to restrict the use of silk, whilst
Caligula and others, notorious for luxury and excess, not only encouraged it in the
female sex, but delighted to display it in public on their own persons
Elagabalus (218-222 AD) was the first Roman emperor to wear silk. Up to the
early empire, Roman citizens still had the freedom to wear purple according to
their means. It was the introduction of the silk industry that signalled the change.
A set of customs that arose during the transitional period when the Roman Empire,
from being a republic became an imperial state, was further stylized with oriental
inspiration particularly Tang Chinese in the Eastern Roman Empire (Xinru Liu).
This combination of eastern and western traditions was exemplified in the use of
the colour purple on silk textiles as the highest attribute of status. The semiotic
association of purple silk with power whether spiritual or temporal was reduced to
an elaborate code by the Byzantines; this semiotic trait of the Byzantine Church
was also adopted by the Western Roman Church.
Such was the Byzantine semiotic passion for silk that their efforts were always
directed in the securing of the silk route and monopolization of the silk trade.
Thus, the Byzantine support to the Abyssinian Christian war against the Yemeni
J ewish Himyari Kingdom during J ustins reign 518-27 AD can be viewed as an
effort to secure the passage of silk through the Yemeni territory as caravans of
Byzantine traders were frequently attacked and killed by the soldiers of the
Himyari King Yusuf Dhu Nuwas (Joseph Tobi and Y. Tobi).
Byzantine rulers patronized the Church with donations of Silk. Ever since Emperor
Constantine gave a robe fashioned with golden threads to Bishop Macarius of
J erusalem for use on the occasion of Baptism (M. Shepherd 1967, 63) custom
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designed silks made in Byzantine imperial workshops continued to be used for

ceremonial purposes such as for church hangings and altar covers. Purple silks,
gold-woven silks and whole silk continued to be given to Christian priests
(Starensier 1982, 161, 178). To portray themselves as patrons of Christianity,
Emperor J ustinian and Empress Theodora had their images made on the altar cover
of silk and gold in Hagia Sophia along with that of Christ and the Apostles. The
Byzantine emperors, while enriching the Church with their patronage also
visualized themselves in the image of J esus Christ and promoted their concept of
social order and aesthetics among the clergy. It was as if royal power was
projected as divine power. Thus on Easter the Byzantine emperor would play the
role of Christ. The purple garment designed for this festival was an elaboration of
the purple garment worn by the crucified living Christ depicted in the Syriac
Rabbula Gospels, a 6th century illuminated Syriac Gospel Book scribed by
Rabbula (ca. 586 AD, Starensier 1982. 196-197). See below.

Theearliestcrucifixioninanilluminatedmanuscript,fromtheRabbulaGospels(source:BibliotecaMediceaLaurenziana).
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Purple silks thus became sacred vestments for the church. In the Byzantine court,
in sacred art works court costumes (purple silks) covered the bodies of the images
of Christ, Mary and the angels (Reinhold 1970, 65).
On a beautiful silk tapestry in the Vatican, depicting the Annunciation repeated in
the intertwining circles (Enyclopedia. of World Art. xiv. pl 11), the Virgin is
seated beside a basket of purple.

TheAnnunciation,Constantinople.8thearlv9thcentury(silktwill,height33.7cm,width68.6cm)fromMuseoSacro,
Vatican
According to Lethaby the design of this subject is of the eastern type in which the
Virgin is seated and has by her side a basket of "purple", a scheme which is
followed on the Coptic dyed linen and the Coptic embroidered roundel at Victoria
and Albert (V & A) Museum, South Kensington.
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AnnunciationbytheAngelGabriel,CopticLinenembroideredinSilk,Egypt600799fromV&AMuseum
There is also an apocryphal literature on this subject, which perhaps explains the
strengthening semiotic association of purple silk with Christian divinity. It is said
that the Virgin spent her youth spinning purple (thread) in a temple. Around the
year 670, a pilgrim in J erusalem saw a tapestry showing Christ and the Apostles
which was allegedly woven by the Virgin (Starensier 1982, 454).
According to Evangelatou, the apocryphal Protoevangelion (gospel) of J ames
could be the reason for the powerful semiotic connection with the colour purple as
in many representations of the Annunciation in Byzantine, the Virgin is shown
spinning the purple thread destined for the new temple veil as narrated in the J ames
Gospel. Evangelatou elaborates The spinning of the purple thread appears in
scenes of the Annunciation from the fifth century onwards. It soon became a
standard iconographic element, present in most depictions of the event in
Byzantine art. Up to the ninth century, a basket that contains the purple skein was
frequently depicted next to the Virgin, who usually holds a spindle with yarn or one
end of the spun thread. From the Middle Byzantine period onwards; however, the
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basket was usually omitted from the composition. In most cases, Mary holds the
spindle, whether she is shown seated or standing before the heavenly messenger
who approaches her. As is well known, the theme of the spun purple skein in
Annunciation scenes is inspired by chapters 10-11 in the apocryphal
Protevangelion of James: Now there was a council of the priests, and they said:
Let us make a veil for the temple of the Lord. And the priest said: Call unto me
pure virgins of the tribe of David. And the officers departed and sought and
found seven virgins. And the priests called to mind the child Mary, that she was
of the tribe of David and was undefiled before God and the officers went and
fetched her. And they brought them into the temple of the Lord, and the priest
said: Cast me lots, which of you shall weave the gold and the undefiled (the
white) and the fine linen and the silk and the hyacinthine, and the scarlet and
the true purple. And the let of the true purple and the scarlet fell unto Mary and
she took them and went unto her house... In the Kariye Museum, formerly the
church of St Saviour in Chora (Turkey) there is a representation of this theme from
the Gospel of J ames.

VirgintakingthepurpleSkeinstoweaveaveilfortheTemplefromKariyeMusem,Turkey

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Byzantium's expression on various shades of purple colour and weaving-
embroidery techniques served to designate increasingly complicated bureaucratic
and clerical hierarchies.
ABOUT PURPLE
Purple dye produced from murex, a shellfish found in the eastern Mediterranean,
had been an attribute of status from as early as the second millennium BC in the
Near East (Reinhold 1970, 8). Since the cost of extracting the dye from a large
quantity of shellfish was extremely high, and purple was the only fast colour
known to the ancient Mediterranean world, it became the most durable symbol of
status in history. Phillipa Scott states the following about murex in relation to silk
in the Byzantine Empire: But it was in the eastern Roman Empire of
Byzantium that the murex purple fashion reached its all-time apogee. When
Emperor Constantine established his new city, Constantinople, in 330, the
Byzantines embraced the symbolism of purple. Ancient Phoenicia and Syria
became Byzantine territories. Syrian merchants were accorded special privileges
in the imperial city, for they brought the most desirable dyestuffs and the most
desirable purple-dyed silk, some already woven and some as thread, to supply the
imperial weaving ateliers. The Byzantine silk industry was strictly regulated by
guilds, and silks of both purple and purple-and-gold were imperial monopolies.
Many Byzantine laws regulated the sale, production and wearing of purple and
punishment for their breach was severe.
The Byzantine State with an increase in the supply of raw silk preserved the
prestige of its silk textiles through an elaborate weaving technology and the purple
dye. Having deprived its own citizens of the right to wear purple, Byzantine rulers
never let the secret of making the purple dye pass to others. All purple dye-houses
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were concentrated in Constantinople from the reign of J ustinian. After Tyre and
Beirut (the ancient centres of purple dye technology) fell to the Persians and later
to the Arabs, this knowledge did not spread outside Byzantium (Starensier 1982,
78). The government monopoly on purple was so strict that after the fall of
Constantinople in 1453 AD, the production of murex purple stopped totally. In
place of the purple for church vestments Pope Paul II declared the scarlet dye from
cochineal kerms to be the colour for clerical robes and hats (Reinhold 1970, 70).
To preserve the uniqueness of the Byzantine court, sumptuary laws against its own
citizens and the prohibition of commercial exportation were necessary. Up to the
tenth century, the gold embroiderers, state clothiers, tailors and purple dyers
worked in the proximity of the imperial palace (Starensier 1982, 235). Emperor
Leo VI allowed scraps of purple silks to be traded in the domestic market, only
once, at the end of the 9
th
century.
THE KOMMERKIAROI:
Silk weaving started in the eastern Mediterranean area in the Roman period. The
Roman Empire, later the Byzantine Empire, relied on imported silk yarn for
centuries, even after Byzantium developed its own sericulture. During the reign of
J ustinian or one of his successors, a law was enacted to put a ceiling price of 15
nomismata on the sale of one pound of raw silk within the empire. Only imperial
officials with the title of kommerkiarioi were authorized to obtain raw silk from
foreigners (Oikonomides 1986)
According to Oikonomides, The Byzantine state controlled commercial
transactions through the kommerkiaroi; agents whose field of activity was trade. In
the sixth century, kommerkiaroi was the name given to the imperial employees
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who, at the Syrian border, bought on behalf of the Byzantine state the silk imported
from the East. Around 630, the term kommerkiaros was translated into the
scholarly Greek language as "lord of the silk cloth". The number of kommerkiaroi
subsequently increased significantly, and they acquired a special type of lead seal
showing the emperor, an indication that the seals were placed on commodities of
particular value, such as silk. On the reverse of some of these seals is the imprint
of the burlap from the sack containing the silk merchandise (Oikonomides, 2002
p.984).
According to Muthesius, The earliest documented Byzantine silkworms (most
plausibly mulberry plantations as well) were located in fifth-century Byzantine
Syria. Concerning the distribution of mulberry plantations and the production of
raw silk, the evidence of the seals of the kommerkiarioi is important. The earliest
seal of a kommerkiarios belonged to an officer based in Antioch under Emperor
Anastasios (Muthesius 2008).
In the wake of Islamic expansions and territorial losses, Byzantium faced the threat
of losing its sericulture and domestic silk supply. To preserve its silk industry,
Byzantium had to move its sericulture to the northwest. A study of the seals of the
kommerkiariois shows that the positions of these officials cum traders were always
located in the area of silk production. Their jurisdictions in the seventh century
were still quite close to the early centres of the silk industry. In the eighth century
their command shifted to the western part of Asia Minor. By the early ninth
century, the seals of the kommerkiariois were found only in the territory west of
Constantinople (Oikonomides 1986, 43-7). According to Oikonomides, in this
period, the kommerkiariois were probably agents to promote sericulture in the de-
urbanized areas, as silk was undoubtedly a very vital component of the Byzantine
economy.
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Xinru states: Most western scholars are of the opinion that the Chinese carefully
guarded their technology of sericulture. This is based on the legend that the
Khotanese smuggled the eggs of silkworm from their east neighbour (Hsuan
Tsang, 1021-22)... A wooden plaque depicting the silk princess obtained from
Dandan-Oilik excavations in Taklamakan by Aurel Stein, dated 7
th
to 8
th
cent AD
and now in the British Museum clearly confirms this part of the silk story:

AChineseprincess(secondleft)defiedtheemperor'sembargobyhidingmulberryseedsandeggsofthesilkmothinher
headdressandsmugglingthempastaborderpost.Anattendantdrawstheviewer'sattentiontothisbypointingtothe
princess'shead(Khotan,7
th
to8
th
centAD,SteinCollection,BritishMuseum)
According to Procopius a Byzantine
Historian from the 6
th
century AD,
Nestorian monks smuggled the eggs of
silkworm from Serindia. There is an
undated image from French sources
(Wikipedia) showing Nestorian monks
handing over silkworms to Emperor
J ustinian.


TheemperorJustinianreceivessilkworms,552AD.
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Xinrumentions about the erroneous conviction of historical Chinese sources about

the existence of sericulture in ancient Rome - technology transfer of silk was
probably much more complicated than these legends indicate. The history of the
later Han Dynasty (25-220 AD) written in the fifth century AD, recorded that the
Roman empire had a flourishing sericulture and that people wore embroidered
silks. At least in the fifth century AD, the Chinese thought that the Roman Empire
was a strong and vast country similar to China. Naturally there should be
sericulture in that country (HHS 88/2919). Later Chinese historical sources
continued to repeat this description of the Romans. If the Chinese thought that
sericulture was already established in the Roman Empire, there was no point in
keeping its technology a secret. However, much of the connected research and
literature shows that in the Mediterranean only the Byzantines for much of the
early middle Ages (500-1500 AD) had sericulture. The Roman Empire was a great
consumer of silk; by the year 380 AD, Marcellinus Ammianus, a 4th century
Roman historian reported, "The use of silk which was once confined to the nobility
has now spread to all classes without distinction, even to the lowest." The desire
for silk continued to rise over the centuries. The price of silk was very high in
Rome. The best Chinese bark (a particular kind of silk) cost as much as 300 denarii
(a Roman soldier's salary for an entire year!); going by such reportage, it is evident
that ancient Rome had no sericulture, perhaps the ancient Chinese historical
understanding about sericulture in the Roman Empire was misplaced.
THE SILK CONNECTION BETWEEN THE STATE AND
CHURCH IN BYZANTIUM
The reluctance of the Byzantine emperors to let purple and gold embroidered silks
be traded in domestic and foreign markets did not come in their way in donating
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magnanimously these luxuries to churches and priests. Sharing prestigious silk

vestments with the Christian church was only one of the ways in which Byzantine
emperors sought to enhance their political power through the church. The Church
in turn benefited from its use as a tool for political power by the emperors and
grew more powerful.
From the time that Constantine legalized the Christian church to the reign of
J ustinian I, fundamental social changes occurred in the eastern Roman Empire
which further strengthened the Church vis--vis the Emperor. The Archbishops
became permanent local leaders. While eparches (governors or prefects) as state
officials sent by Constantinople stayed in office for only short terms and had few
local contacts, archbishops held their episcopates for long periods, if not life terms,
which enabled them to build local ties (Cormack 1985,75). With the weakening of
state functionaries and the breakdown of civic structures, local wealth flowed into
religious institutions. Cormacks study of Thcssaloniki, a city in northern Greece,
shows that in the seventh century, aristocrats donated their wealth to the church of
St. Demetrios to build a haven of peace and safety, instead of giving money to
maintain public and civic facilities as they used to do (Cormack 1985, 94).
From Constantine to J ustinian, Byzantine emperors encouraged the spread of the
Christian church not only because their religious faith required them to do so, but
also because an ideologically unified religious institution could serve the important
purpose of defending and expanding the empire (Walker 1985, 184-185).
The rise of the Church and the decline of imperial power contributed to a change in
the perspective of Byzantine citizens. They attributed their successesmilitary
victories and accomplishments in other endeavoursto the grace of God and help
from saints, and their failures to the scourge of God and saints as a punishment for
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their sins. Constantinople became the city of the Virgin. In 717, the patriarch
attributed the failure of an Arab attack on the city to the Virgin instead of to the
military campaign of Leo III (Cormack 1985, 107). The accumulated financial and
spiritual power of the church caused many tensions with the imperial power, which
ultimately led to the iconoclasm (intolerance and destruction of religious images)
of the eighth century.
Eventually, in the 9
th
cent AD, when the iconoclast tides finally regressed, the
Christian church in the empire emerged even more powerful as an ideological
force and institution and achieved greater autonomy from the monarchy. The
grandeur of the enthralling Eucharistic rites of the Byzantine Church made possible
by the richness of silks so impressed Prince Vladimir of Kiev, that he chose
Christianity as his state religion, soon Russians chose to follow in his footsteps.
SILK IN BYZANTINE DIPLOMACY
Byzantine rulers considered silks to be a financial resource as important as gold,
and the administration of silk production was under the ministry of mint since the
fourth century. Later changes in administration never really separated the silk
industry from the fiscal department (Starensier 1982, 492).
Inter-cultural trade did not prosper in the early medieval world. The monetary
system in Europe, as well as in Asia, was not comprehensive. The collapse of the
Roman Empire with its implications devastated economy generally all over
Europe, especially Western Europe it perhaps even contributed to discontinuity of
coins in Europe and the lack of interaction of different coinages in the early
medieval world; this helped make silk one of the best gifts and a very useful tool in
diplomacy. The Byzantines used the dazzling effect of silk displays in parades and
court ceremonies in impressing both Byzantine citizens as well as foreigners. With
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the fading of military glory, Byzantium relied increasingly on maneuvering foreign

relations to keep its trade going, to defend its borders and even to get support for
domestic power struggles. In 705, J ustinian II regained the throne with the aid of
the Bulgarian King Khan Tervel. As a token of his gratitude, J ustinian II presented
silk cloth and purple leather to the Bulgarians in addition to an export license for
controlled Byzantine goods (Lopez 1945, 32). This was a strategy the empire often
employed to buy off barbarians along its borders (Starensier 1982, 290),
The Byzantines sent silks as largess to Islamic rulers or as dowries to German
kings. From the eighth to the twelfth centuries, about sixteen marriages between
the Byzantine and German empires were negotiated or arranged and Byzantine
envoys invariably carried silks as gifts (Muthesius 1984, 250). In 1100, the
Byzantine emperor Alexis I Comnenus paid 100 purple silk garments to a German
king (Reinhold 1970, 70). The Byzantine rulers acknowledged gratitude by
presenting their gifts as religious donations; thus in 1261 Emperor Michael VIII
donated an altar frontal portraying the saints Lawrence, Sixtus and Hippolytus all
patron saints of Genoa, to the city in gratification for its help in recapturing
Constantinople from the Latin emperor, Baldwin II (Starensier 1982, 349). The
examples of religious donations that brought Byzantine and eastern silks to western
churches are numerous.

SILK IN THE CULT OF SAINTS AND CHRISTIAN EXPANSION
IN POLYTHEISTIC EUROPE
Due to the association of silk with relics, most silk samples from the early
medieval world, whether they be Byzantine, Persian, Central Asian or even
Chinese, have survived in the tombs of saints and church treasuries in Europe. The
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connection of exquisite silks with the relics of saints and religious institutions was
a component of the rise of the cult of saints and the spread of Christianity in
Europe.
The centuries of conflicts and assimilation with a view to either defeat the
Barbarians or integrate them within the Roman Empire finally took a toll on the
institutions and civic structures of Rome and eventually resulted in the Empires
collapse in the 5
th
century (Geary 1988, 38). However, the legacy of Roman
influence, both political and cultural continued and inspired the Romanized
barbarian kingdoms in their quest to build a civic structure in Europe. This process
was slow and governmental administration was weak and it was in such a situation
of debilitated governance that the Christian church functioned as the key
institutional force in the consolidation of European civilization.
Christian religious institutions, which provided some cohesion in chaotic late-
antiquity and early medieval Europe, were mainly vassals of the feudal lord. Their
clergy were related to aristocrats by blood. In the Frankish Merovingian period,
most of the bishops in the Frankish kingdom were old Roman aristocrats. Gregory
of Tours (575-594 AD as bishop) was of distinguished senatorial stock from both
sides of his family; thus, in a way Roman influence maintained its continuity
ecclesiastically in a Christian age.
The Christian church did not have an easy road in spreading its influence in
Europe. It had to establish itself in the whole of Europe through many
proselytizing efforts. In this process, the cult of saints became the major medium of
cultural influence helping expand the geographical extent of Christianity from the
more civilized and already Christianized territory of the former Roman Empire to
the less civilized and still pagan western and northern Europe. Silk textiles
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preserved in western and northern European churches arc material evidence of the
religious and cultural infiltration. The commonality of traditions and manners
across various communities and peoples in Europe that we understand today as
European culture can be attributed in no small measure to the cult of saints in
evolving European Christendom.
The cult of saints helped consolidate their national identity and
thus states based on those identities. The most well known
example in this respect is that of the abbot Suger of St. Denis
who mobilized France to fight against Henry V of Germany in
the early twelfth century, thus Panofsky mentions: While the
hosts were assembling, the relics of Saint Denis and his
Companions were laid out on the main altar of the Abbey, later
to be restored to the crypt 'on the shoulders of the king himself.
The monks said offices day and night. And Louis le Gros
accepted from the hands of Suger, and 'invited all France to
follow it', the banner known as the 'Oriflamme'that famous
'Oriflamme' that was to remain the visible symbol of national
unity for almost three centuries yet at the same time, to
proclaim the king of France a vassal of St. Denis; for the 'Oriflamme' was in
reality the banner of Vexin, a possession the king held in fief of the Abbey
The Oriflamme or gold flame (image on the right, source: Societe de
lOriflamme) going by one of many accounts, is described as a crimson silk
vexillum with three tails, green fringe, and tassels. Like the Oriflamme, St
Georges cross appears on the English flag since he is the Patron Saint of England,
Similarly, St Andrews cross appears on the Scottish flag since he is the Patron
Saint of Scotland. The Union J ack which appears on the flag of the United
Oriflamme
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Kingdom is a combination of both St. Georges as well as St. Andrews crosses.

St. Andrew is also the Patron Saint of Russia and the Naval Ensign as well as the
Naval J ack of Russia display St. Andrews cross on them.

CHRISTIANITY IN ADDRESSING ESCHATOLOGICAL
CONCERNS
Like J udaism, early Christianity stressed upon the intrinsic goodness of this world.
Eschatological concerns like dealing with after life, heaven or hell, were
considered theologically insignificant (Placher 1984, 53). According to Brown the
late fourth century saw Christian theologists attempting to create a clear structure
of the world beyond; sin and final judgment became their greatest concern. This
concern saw the genesis of various specific Christian theological features which
led to relic-worship. Geary thinks that because Christians believed in the
resurrection of the dead body, they kept the relics of saints as a pledge that the
martyrs would pick up at the final judgment. According to Baynes, the Byzantines
believed that honouring the holy dead would make the saints speak to God on their
behalf. Bentley gives an example of the relics of a saint transforming the horror of
death into hope of attaining heaven. Since the saint's soul was in heaven, the relics
were links between earth and heaven.
The vision of the afterlife and the ways to achieve salvation were the decisive
factors in conversion of Western Europe to Christianity. There were various
approaches to salvation in Christianity, these included baptism, communion and
penance, but the goal of these approaches was either divine protection in this world
or the bliss of heaven. Eschatological visions of the bliss of heaven, the ruthless
torture of purgatory and the despair of hell urged pagan people to seek a safe
approach to the afterlife.
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In England, Bede (673-735 AD), a monk of J arrow and the author of the famous
Ecclesiastical History of the English Peoples related how a man who returned from
death after witnessing the procedure after death became a devout Christian. In 627
AD, King Edwin of Northumbria in North England held a council with his chief
followers to decide whether they should accept Christianity. One of his chief men
supported the conversion with the argument that Christianity provided a better
knowledge of the afterlife than did their original religion: 'Man appears on earth
for a little while, but of what went before this life and of what follows, we know
nothing. Therefore, if this new teaching has brought any more certain knowledge,
it seems only right we should follow it' (Bede). Webb mentions that when
Northumbrians suffered a plague and many people resorted to praying to local
deities and to witchcraft, Cuthbert (634-687 AD), then a prior and later the bishop
of Lindisfarne, preached with the promise of heaven. The logic was that if
Christianity could not help its faithful escape death, it would help them to go to a
better place after death; thus the eschatological comfort provided by Christian
reasoning was a powerful factor in the spread of Christianity in England as
elsewhere in Western Europe.
After their conversion to Christianity, in order to address their concern with the
hereafter, aristocrats in the Frankish kingdoms and English isles did everything in
their power to ensure their access to heaven. From the seventh century, Frankish
families built monasteries on their own property. According to Geary, the
monastery not only received family members who chose a religious life, but also
served as the necropolis of the family to pray for the souls of all members. St.
Denis was the necropolis of the Frankish rulers. In Carolingian times, the clerks of
kings guarded the relics of saints in palace chapels and provided religious services
to the loyal family (Rich 1973, 91-92). The Franks also made every effort to
Page|22

remind the living to pray for the dead. Lists of the names of the ancestor of
aristocratic families were preserved in abbeys for prayers. Xinru Liu opines that
the earnest concern with eternity among the Christians of Western Europe was
natural considering the extremely difficult and unstructured social conditions in
which they lived - warfare, famine and plague constantly decimated the population.
The upper classes may have suffered less in times of famine, but fratricide and
feuds for power often wiped out entire families.
Despite the alleged healing power of the saints and their relics, in early medieval
Europe, diseases took many lives of the bulk of the elite and the low-born. Thorpe
mentions that before the Frankish king Clovis converted to Christianity, his son
died just after being baptized in a white robe; Clovis, nevertheless, received
baptism, along with more than three thousand of his soldiers. His sister was also
baptized but died soon after. The theological explanation for all the calamities
falling on innocent and devout Christians was that the sins of the people incurred
the scourge of God. Sin was inevitable; there was no way to stop other people from
sinning, and hence the curse was also inevitable. The only hope, therefore, was the
promise of a better afterlife ensured by getting into the Christian fold. St.
Remigius, the bishop of Rheims comforted Clovis upon the death of his sister with
the assurance that since she had been baptized, she would certainly go to heaven
(Thorpe). On this matter of fate of the soul in the hereafter alone, the Christian
church never failed its faithful followers. Priests always baptized the living and
always took care of the dead to prepare them for heaven. Thorpe describes that in
the great plague of Auvergne in 571 AD, bodies piled up in churches. In St. Peter's
church in Clermont city, 300 bodies were buried on one Sunday. Rather than
fleeing from the city, the priest, Cato, buried the dead and continued to say mass
until he himself succumbed. Thus, the firm belief of the clergy in the evolved
Page|23

eschatological models of the church paved the way for a Christian Europe in late
antiquity.
ROLE OF RELICS IN TRANSITING FROM POLYTHEISTIC
FAITHS TO CHRISTIANITY IN PAGAN EUROPE
In spite of the several important theological debates between the iconoclasts and
iconophiles in the Eastern Church, neither the western nor the eastern churches
disputed the sacredness of relics. The second council of Nicaea in 787, where the
major aim was to reverse the iconoclast trend, ruled that all churches should have
relics under their altars (Bentley 1985, 214). In the Frankish empire in the early
ninth century, the council of Carthage ordered the destruction of all church altars
without the relics of saints (Geary 1978, 43).
The cult of the saints helped the church in its goal of making inroads into pagan
populations as saint cults helped to replace the many functions of pagan gods. The
Christians treated the relics of saints in a similar way to that of gods. Relics were
used as talisman in witchcraft. The queen of the English king, Ecgfrith, took away
the reliquary full of relics from Wilfrid the bishop and wore it as a necklace (Webb
1988, p. 142). Frankish kings collected relics in their palaces for protection (Geary
1988, 188).
For the Pope and Byzantine emperors, the distribution of relics helped propagate
Christianity, showed the superiority of their civilization and reminded barbaric
states of their predominant position in the religious sphere, if not in military power.
But for western European monarchs, whether Frankish, English or others,
collecting relics and establishing the norm that an altar with the relics of saints was
the centre of worship and ritual became a means to obtain protector saints for their
Page|24

states and subjects and thus consolidate their national states for example, the
oriflamme of St.Denis.
DEMAND FOR RELICS AND THEIR ROLE IN ENRICHING
THE POWER OF THE CHURCH
As Christianization proceeded in the Frankish Carolingian Empire relics were
necessary for all churches, and hence the demand for saint relics increased. Relics
were in short supply, especially in Europe, north of the Alps in Germany. Most
early saints were martyrs and naturally, martyrdom was the most easily recognized
standard for sainthood. Yet there had not been many opportunities to produce
martyrs in the regions north of the Alps. Churches in the west naturally looked to
and sought relics from Rome as martyrdoms mainly took place in this city.
Different kinds of transactions took place. The Abbot of St. Medard of Soissons
used Frankish imperial influence to compel the Pope to render him the body of St.
Sebastian in the early ninth century through Frankish imperial power (Geary 1978,
47). Geary states that the less influential abbots had to rely on professional relic
traders. These traders, like other traders in medieval times, travelled in caravans,
crossing the Alps periodically and then the continent to supply goods to England
The famous relic merchant, Deusdona, obtained the bodies of St. Peter and St.
Marcellinus for Einhard at Mulinheim (Geary).
When primary and important relics were not adequate to meet the demands of the
many churches in Europe, secondary relics, though not as good, bridged the gap.
The clothes of saints, especially those stained by their blood and the instruments
used in the torture of martyrs, were considered important relics (Bentley 1985, 42-
4). Theoretically these relics were as valued as the whole body. As early as the
fourth century, the Cappadocian father, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, made it clear
Page|25

that even a drop of blood from a saint or martyr was an efficacious relic.
Considering that many martyrs did not leave their entire bodies to devotees, this
claim was quite practical. There was a whole nomenclature on the different sets of
relics in medieval Europe (Bentley).
With the rise of the cult of saints and the traffic of relics into Western Europe, rose
the trade of silk. Silk textiles were preserved in churches in various forms: church
decorations and hangings, altar covers, decorations and wrappings on reliquaries
and shrines for saints, and shrouds and tomb covers for bishops and kings. In the
middle ages all the magnates, whether secular or clerical, were buried in
ecclesiastic institutions. Churches stored silks in their treasuries as a form of
wealth.
Even though the early Christian priests condemned the practice of burying the dead
with rich clothes and ornaments and tried to convince the people that irrespective
of how the dead were dressed, they ultimately faced God naked (Kyriakos), this
advice seemed applicable only to common Christians. With the burials of
commoners became unostentatious, more and more treasures went into the tombs
of priests, whether they had led austere or lavish lives. Kyriakos mentions that in
the fourth century, a bishop was buried with 'clean sheets, silk clothes, plenty of
myrrh and perfume' (Kyriakos 1974, 46). Both Kyriakos and Starensier mention
that by the fifth century, Christian holy men were all buried with their finest silk
liturgical vestments. Later, when the bodies of many such clergy were relocated,
their well preserved silks assumed great significance as secondary relics of
tremendous significance. This association of silk with the remains of the holy men
raised the divine status of silk and made it an object of veneration. The burial
ceremonies of holy men and the re-burials of saints became increasingly luxurious,
due to the anticipation of blessings in proportion to the donations made. The shift
Page|26

from burying luxuries with dead relatives to giving the luxuries to holy men or
saints became a norm in the middle ages and was connected to the eschatological
concerns of the donors. It was as if the holy souls of these saints would help the
dead relatives of the donors in the other world upon receiving generous donations
of silks.
In Western Europe the Franks buried goods with the dead on the basis of status.
Hence, silks and other objects of veneration were reserved for a few rulers and
quite a few saints. The rulers wanted to be buried dose to the saints; Charlemagne
was buried in the cathedral of Aachen and Charles the Bold was buried in St. Denis
(Panofsky 1979, 71). The relics of saints made people want to bury their dead in
churchyards, in the proximity of the holy power. According to Christian theology
and tradition, the difference between common human bones and those of saints
was that the latter produced miracles and so to mark the difference in order to
venerate and please the saint, Christians decorated the relics of saints. From the
sixth century, the lay people regarded silk clothes placed over a tomb as
acknowledgement of a canonized saint (Starensier 1987, 450). Gregory of Tours
described the silk covers on the tombs of St. Denis and St. Goar (Muthesius 1982.
286). By the eleventh century, the tombs of most bishops were covered with silks
(ibid., 287). In England too, Byzantine silks covered the corpses of eminent holy
and secular persons in churches (Dodwell 1982, 159). When Byzantine silks
depicting sacred images were not readily available in the West, country folks and
rural saints were satisfied with whatever silks were available. Even Fatimid silk
textiles with heathen images and Arabic inscriptions were used as shrouds
(Starensier 1982, 452). Thus, Churches became repositories of silks originating
from Byzantine, Islamic, Sassanid empires (Muthesius 1982).
Page|27

Most silks owned by churches were stored in church treasuries. But before the
twelfth century, most churches and monasteries did not have treasuries, in which
case reliquaries and altars were used for this purpose (Muthesius 1982, 264). Thus,
silks were inseparable from relics. The practice of using reliquaries as treasuries to
hold luxurious donations started in Byzantium (Rich, 1973, 72-3). In the Lateran
Palace of Rome, through the grille front of the Sancta Sanctorum, medieval
pilgrims could see a variety of reliquaries enclosing relics and silks (Muthesius
1982, 265). The shrine at St. Servatius, Maastricht, housed many silks including an
Islamic lion silk dated to the tenth-eleventh centuries, and a piece of purple twill
(ibid, 266).
The altar cover was considered a sacred piece of silk in a church as the altar often
contained relics. St.Gregory of Tours regarded the altar cover as a sacred
protection. Through his gifted vision Gregory predicted that King Guntram would
rush to the church of St. Martin to catch Eberulf, a Frankish noble and an enemy of
the king, who had taken refuge in the church. Gregory, in order to help the refugee,
suggested that he take the silken altar cover for protection (Thorpe 1974, 404).
Some of the altar clothes were from Byzantium with Greek inscriptions, as was the
altar cloth at St. Mark of Venice, and cloth for bread and wine at Halberstadt
Cathedral (Muthesius 1982, 280).
Being scarce, the relics of important saints often had to be divided into small
portions for distribution in churches all over Europe. Silk pouches, specially made
for relics, have been found in churches and archaeological sites. Quite a few of the
pouches were made of Byzantine silks, perhaps accompanying the relics from
Byzantium (Muthesius 1982, 267). A relic pouch made of the famous Samson silk
in 8
th
to 9
th
century Byzantine exists in the Museo Sacro, Vatican. In Sens
Cathedral, Burgogne, Eastern France, there is a relic pouch made of a lion silk in
Page|28

purple, sewn together with an olive green silk, both ninth-tenth century Byzantine
products (ibid.).
There is a Byzantine relic pouch from the 9th
century stored at St. Michael in Beromunster,
Switzerland it portrays lions and other quadrupeds
worked on a blue silk ground, lined with ruby red
taffeta. There are Seams at the bottom and along
one side. Two strips of similar silk, ending in
fringes, adorn the side edges. The drawstrings and
carrying-cords are tablet woven silk (Flury-
Lemberg 273).
Another Byzantine relic pouch from the 10th or 11th
century is stored at St. Michael in Beromunster,
Switzerland; it has a lattice-work wreath pattern worked
on a silk ruby red ground. It is made from a single linen-
lined piece of cloth, and has seams on two sides. These are
concealed by a narrow gold tablet woven border. The red
silk drawstrings and carrying-cords are adorned with 25
silver balls (ibid). Muthesius speculates that silks were
perhaps symbols of sacred bones. Even the less important
relics were associated with unpatterned tabby silks cut into
small squares of a few centimeters.
Silks made in Byzantine state workshops carried the inscriptions of rulers to
western European shrines, such as the lion silk at St. Servatius, on which is
Byzantinerelicpouchfromthe9th
century;storedatSt.Michaelin
Beromnster,Switzerland,source:
FluryLemberg,Mechthild.Textile
Byzantinerelicpouchfromthe
10
th
or11
th
century;storedatSt.
MichaelinBeromnster,
Switzerland,source:Flury
Lemberg,Mechthild.Textile
Page|29

inscribed during the reign of Ramanos and Christophoros the devout rulers (721-
731 AD) (Muthesius 1982, 16). For churches that could not obtain imperial gifts,
the less prestigious silks made in private workshops were better than anything
made locally (Lopez 1959, 77). With the revival of the private silk industry in
Byzantium, this kind of silk continued to reach western church treasuries. Thus, in
a sense, Byzantine material culture along with the relics and their associated silks
permeated all of Europe.
Following in the footsteps of the Byzantine material beauty and elegance in
ecclesiastical matters, the missionaries in Western Europe also needed beautiful
shrines to impress their converts. Clotild, the queen of Clovis, the King of the
Franks had the church decorated with hangings and curtains for the baptism of her
son, in order to arouse her husband's faith in Christ through the solemnity and
splendour of the ceremony (Thorpe 1974, 142). Poorer than Byzantine rulers, the
western rulers with their limited resources nevertheless, wanted to show their
generosity and piety to the church. Thus, when Pepin the Short (751-768 AD)
received a gift of the 'Rider Silk', patterned with parried emperors riding on horses,
from Emperor Constantine V, he donated it to St. Austremoines in Auvergne as a
shroud (Starensier 1982, 146). The attitude of the Franks towards silks was
ambivalent- Charlemagne used only luxurious textiles during festivals (Dalton
1961, 589). Charles the Bald incurred criticism for deviating from Frankish
traditions by wearing a Byzantine robe after being crowned by Pope J ohn VIII
(Lopez 1943, 35). However, Clovis (481-511 AD) one of the early Frankish rulers,
who was conferred the title of consulate by Emperor Anastasius in 507 AD, was
clad in purple when crowned in St. Martin (Thorpe 1974, 154). According to
Notker the stammerer, Charlemagne did not encourage his nobles to wear silk
dresses (Thorpe 1969, p. 167). Charlemagne wore the national dress of the
Page|30

Franks, but his tunic was edged with silk, according to Einhard (Thorpe 1969,
Einhard 23, p. 77). Charlemagnes wife, Luitgard, and his daughters, however, did
wear silk dresses (Muthesius 1982, 289). Also upon his death, Charlemagne was
shrouded in rich silks, the symbol of sacredness and elevated status. Thus,
resentment mixed with envy and admiration
sums up the attitude of Frankish rulers to
silks, the colour purple and other luxuries.
In keeping with their spirit of competition
with Byzantium, the Frankish kings donated
many silks to churches. Xinru Liu translates
from French while quoting from Sabbe in
giving a long list of royal donations: -
Charlemagne gave donations to a group of
churches; among them the splendid
collection of the church in Aix-la-Chapelle
made Eginhard admire, in 790, the
monastery of St. Goar which received two pieces of silk cloth from the emperor.
The St. Riquier Abbey under the Abbot Angilbert (789-814) acquired several
liturgical ornaments: 78 pieces of luxurious clothes, 24 silk dalmatics, 6 Roman
albs (a white tunic), and brocade amices, 5 stoles and 10 oraires in brocade. 5 silk
cushions, 5 mantles probably made in silk, 30 chasubles of silk, 10 of purple, 6 of
styrax, one of peach colour, 15 of brocade, and 6 of sendal (a thin, fine silk), out of
these certain number were definitely gifts of Charlemagne. In the period 823-833
Louis the Pious gave the St. Wandrille Abbey in Foutenelle 3 silk tissues with gold,
2 of styrax, one piece of Spanish cloth, 4 carpets, one tunic in Sacerdotal indigo. 4
chasubles in silk, 5 of purple, 3 of indigo sendal, 3 of green sendal, 1 of red sendal,
FragmentofCharlemagne'sshroudfromMuse
NationalduMoyenge,Paris.Itisa9
th
century
polychromeByzantinesilkwithaquadrigapattern.
Page|31

1 of purple, 2 Roman capes, one of them was red sendal and decorated with green
fringe, another was in beaver fur; 1 oraire in brocade, 1 of styrax, 2 of sandal,
some cushions in silk and one cross-belt in brocade. In the same period, he also
offered one splendid vestment in rose silk, 5 chasubles in brocade, 12 in various
coloured sendal, 3 dalmatics and 3 pieces of brocade, as well as 8 luxurious
carpets to the abbey of Luxeuil, and 40 pieces of precious cloth, some chasubles
and 30 pieces of sendal in various colours to the abbey of Flavigny (translated
from French) (Sabbe 1935. 820-2).
Since the supply from Byzantine imperial workshops was unreliable and limited,
and, additionally, some of the designs on the silks available may not have been
consistent with the theology of western churches, the palace women of the
Carolingian and Ottonian royal houses embroidered sacred images on imported
Byzantine or other eastern silks. As embroiderers they could raise themselves to
the status of primary donors to churches (Starensier 1982, 329). The work of the
sister of Charles the Bald became the pillow of St. Remigius in 852 (ibid, 330).
The Ottonian court was even busier and produced more embroidered textiles for
saints (ibid, 332). In contrast to the Byzantine emperors who imposed their styles
and preferences on the church, the Ottonians deliberately cut their royal ceremonial
robes in the style of ecclesiastical vestments - clearly, a semiotic effort which was
meant to reflect upon the Christian nature of their state.
The Popes in Rome despite their differences with the Byzantine Patriarchate
followed the Byzantine tradition in one aspect - distributing silks to churches. In
the eighty year period from Pope Hadrian I (772-795 AD) to Leo IV (847-855
AD), five popes made numerous donations of silks to Roman churches (Muthesius
1982, 281-2), Following the Byzantine example, the Romans put silk hangings in
front of the portraits of Christ and the saints as well as in the shrines of saints.
Page|32

Pilgrims from Western Europe were impressed by the heavenly scene of dazzling
silk hangings in the church of St. Peter and in other churches in Rome (Xinru Liu).
The Popes also sent missionaries with gifts of silks to countries outside Italy. Pope
Gregory sent altar coverings and vestments, and a pallium for ritual performances,
presumably all made of silk, for Augustine in England (Bede). In the period when
England converted to Catholicism, popes continuously sent palliums to
archbishops there as tokens of honour and authority. In 624 AD, Pope Boniface V
sent a pallium with a letter to Archbishop J ustus who had just assumed the position
(Bede). In 634 AD, Pope Honorius sent another pallium to Honorius who had
succeeded J ustus as the metropolitan archbishop of Canterbury (ibid). In order to
convert King Edwin, Pope Boniface sent him a letter, a tunic with a golden
ornament and a cloak from Ancyra (Ankara), probably from Byzantium (ibid.).
Byzantine silks thus reached western European churches through the Roman
patriarchate.
English churchmen influenced by the silk displays in
the churches in Rome managed to procure their own
Byzantine silk supply to decorate their churches.
Church documents refer to priests in London who
owned patterned silk robes in the seventh and eighth
centuries, the early days of Christianity in Anglo-
Saxon England. The earliest sample is a small piece of
silk in a reliquary dated to the seventh century. This
piece was probably a fragment from a vestment buried
with a saint, and therefore became part of the relics of
the saint (Owen-Crocker 1986, 187). The shrine of Cuthbert preserved silks
varying from the seventh century 'Nature Goddess' silk to the tenth or eleventh
FragmentoftheNatureGoddesssilkof
St.Cuthbert:DurhamCathedraltreasury
Page|33

century 'Rider' silk (Flanagan JF). The association of silk with ecclesiastic
purposes was taken for granted, as indicated by the Anglo-Saxon use of the word
'godweb', meaning divine cloth, to refer to a kind of special precious silk. Due to
heavy demand, the Byzantine silk supply was never sufficient, and the technology
of weaving patterned silks was unavailable. Thus, English ladies, like their
Frankish counterparts, also learned to embroider gold on silks for the church. The
textiles were so heavy with gold that the value of gold exceeded the value of silk
(Dodwell 1982. 174). Archbishops, abbots and other high priests emulated the
Pope in distributing luxurious goods to those churches which came under their
pastoral responsibility (Starensier 1982, 486). Thus, even rural monasteries in
Europe could enjoy the luxury of silks to decorate their saints. An association
between saints and silks was thus established in European Christendom. With
more silks available, silks in churches were not only religious items to sanctify
relics and corpses and decorate shrines, but also stored treasures and valuable
commodities. Webb mentions about Abbot Benedict Biscop who brought back two
silk cloaks with good workmanship from his fifth trip to Rome. Later, he used the
cloaks to purchase three hides of land for his monasteries in Wearmouth and
J arrow.
Between the ninth and tenth centuries, many churches specifically kept special sets
of silk vestments for special occasions. Some of the archbishops owned purple of
various shades for celebrating different festive occasions (Muthesius 1982, 269).
The churches used every means to obtain such silks. The council of Aachen in 836
required those among the faithful who were lucky enough to possess silks to
donate them to the church (Starensier 1982, 449). The church of St. Denis, built by
the Frankish king, Dagobert I (629-638 AD) received many hangings of tapestries
woven of gold (Panofsky 1979, 87). Silk collections and treasures in this church
Page|34

increased over time. Suger, an abbot of St. Denis in the twelfth century, contended
that there would be no graver sin than to withhold from the service of God and His
saints what He had empowered nature to supply and man to perfect. It appears that
the Christian priests in Western Europe did not care about from where the silks
originated and the kinds of pattern they bore. In their view, silk was a luxury that
only the churches and saints deserved to use it. Xinru Liu contends that in the
early medieval world, commerce was not the most respected of occupations and
the status of merchants was quite low and so to acquire a luxury in the name of the
church sounded far better than to gain it for oneself and efforts to obtain silks in
Byzantium were often made under the pretext of getting them for a church. Even
so, only some met with success.
SILK MARKET IN EUROPE
The association of silk with relics and its use as a medium of divine expression in
the form of tapestries was the driving force behind silk trade in Medieval Europe.
In addition to the Byzantine imperial gifts and the golden embroidery added on
plain silk textiles from the Byzantine market or elsewhere, there were patterned
silks from other parts of the world. Thus European churches became in a sense,
keepers of world heritage, at least in so far as silks are concerned. Dorothy
Shepherd catalogued sixteen Sassanian patterned silk samples in church treasuries,
from the collections of Museo Sacro, Vatican; Cathedral Treasure, Sens and
Aachen; and Musee Diocesain, Liege.
The European churches repository of silks has enabled silk historians to
understand the geographical extent of the European silk market in the medieval
period and also the study of such silks which are almost non-existent in the areas of
their origin such as Bokhara zandaniji, Sassanid, Chinese etc.
Page|35

In the ninth to the eleventh centuries, Italian towns undergoing reform stopped
hoarding wealth in churches (Duby 1974, 150). The rise of Venice and other Italian
trading cities illustrates this transformation in medieval silk trade. The commercial
community in the Mediterranean region by the 10
th
and 11
th
centuries comprised
Christians, J ews, and Muslims. Goitein reports about twelve variations of silks
appearing in the Genizah papers (repository of J ewish religious, social and
economic history); the silks originated from such diverse places as Spain, Sicily,
Syria, Iraq, Iran, India and China. But, notwithstanding the wide range of silks,
there was a standard price set at two gold dinars a pound. Silk provided crucial
stability in international trade at a time when the monetary system was weak and
the markets feeble, according to Goitein, the very fact that around those times - 9
th

to 11
th
centuries, every trader in Europe and especially the Mediterranean carried
silk points to the reality that silk was used as a capital investment rather than a
commodity.
In spite of zealously guarded Byzantine monopoly over silk, Europe got its own
sericulture and silk industry largely due to a
chain of events in history connected with the
crusades. In 1147 while Byzantine emperor
Manuel I Komnenos was concentrating all his
efforts on the Second Crusade, the Norman
king Roger II of Sicily attacked Corinth and
Thebes, two important centres of Byzantine silk production. The attackers took the
mulberry crops and silk production infrastructure, and deported all the workers to
Palermo, thereby causing the Norman silk industry to flourish (Georges
Ostrogorsky). The plunder of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204
deteriorated the city and its silk industry, and many artisans left the city in the early
ThecoronationmantleofRogerIIofSicilywasmade
fromByzantinesilk,embroidered,3.4meterwide,
andweighed11kg:KunsthistorischesMuseumWien
Page|36

13th century (Anne Kraatz et al). Eventually, Italy developed a large domestic silk
industry after 2000 skilled weavers came from Constantinople. Many also chose to
settle in Avignon to furnish the popes of Avignon. The sudden boom of the silk
industry in the Italian state of Lucca, starting in the 11th and 12th centuries was
due to much Sicilian, J ewish, and Greek settlement, alongside many other
immigrants from neighbouring cities in southern Italy. With the loss of many
Italian trading posts in the Orient, the import of Chinese styles drastically declined.
Gaining momentum, in order to satisfy the rich and powerful bourgeoisie's
demands for luxury fabrics, the cities of Lucca, Genoa, Venice and Florence were
soon exporting silk to all of Europe. In 1472 there were 84 workshops and at least
7000 craftsmen in Florence alone. By 15
th
century Italy had its own silk guild.
There is a 15
th
century manuscript about the rules of the silk guild titled Precetti
dellArte della Seta in the Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana, in Florence which
illustrates silk throwing, warp making and weaving (Schoesser). The loss of
monopoly over the silk trade in Europe weakened the Byzantine Empire
significantly and is counted as one of the many reasons that contributed to its
eventual fall in the mid 15
th
century.

Page|37

SILK IN CHURCH VESTMENTS

Roman Catholic Church, source: verbatim from Catholic Doors Ministry
online, for images: Wikipedia

THE BIRETTA
The biretta is a stiff square-shapped hat
with silk trim and tuft. It has three or four
ridges, called "horns," across the crown. It
is worn by the clergy. It is black for priests,
deacons, and seminarians, purple for
bishops, and scarlet for cardinals. The
biretta is now optional for clerics who are
celebrating or concelebrating Mass.


THE CAPPELLO ROMANO
A cappello romano, meaning Roman hat, is
a hat with a wide, circular brim and a
rounded rim worn by the clergy. It is made
of either beaver fur or felt, and lined in
white silk. It serves no ceremonial purpose,
being primarily a practical item. The
wearing of it is optional, but it is never worn
during services. It is generally uncommon
outside of Rome today. The pope wears a
red cappello with gold cords. All other
clerics wear black cappelli. A cardinal may
have a cappello with red and gold cords
with scarlet lining. A bishop's may have
green and gold cords with violet lining. A
priest may substitute black lining for his.
Cappelli worn by deacons and seminarians
have no distinguishing items.
Page|38

ARomanor"fiddleback"chasuble
Complex decoration schemes were often
used on chasubles of scapular form,
especially the back, incorporating the image
of the Christian cross or of a saint; and rich
materials such as silk, cloth of gold or
brocade were employed, especially in
chasubles reserved for major celebrations
THE CHASUBLE
The chasuble is the vestment that is put on
over all the other vestments during
Liturgical services. Originally this was a
very full garment, shaped like a bell and
reaching almost to the feet all the way
round. During a bad artistic period, the 18th
and 19th century especially, the Chasuble
suffered much from a process of shortening
a stiffening. Today there is a return to the
historical and beautiful, ample, nicely
draping Chasubles. The Chasuble
symbolizes the virtue of charity, and the
yoke of unselfish service for the Lord, which
the priest assumes at ordination.

PopeJohnXXIIIwearingthePapalFanon

THE FANON
The fanon is a shoulder cape that only the
pope wears. It consists of two pieces of white
silk ornamented with narrow woven stripes
of red and gold. It is nearly circular in shape
with a round hole in the middle for the head
to pass through, and with a small gold cross
embroidered in front. It is worn over the
alb, and only at solemn pontifical Mass.
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ArchbishopCelestinoMigliore,nunciotoPoland,wearinghis
purpleferraiolo
THE FERRAIOLO
The ferraiolo is a full cape, now almost
completely out of style, worn by clerics in
abito piano. It is scarlet watered silk for a
cardinal, violet silk for a bishop, violet wool
for a protonotary apostolic, and black wool
for any other degree of cleric. The Pope does
not make use of a ferraiolo.

THE GAUNTLETS
The gauntlets are the liturgical gloves that
are an option for bishops to use during
liturgical celebrations (as celebrant or
concelebrant, not in choir). They are made
of silk, and extend partially past the wrist.
They can match the liturgical color, or can
be always white. The gauntlets, like so many
vestments, developed out of necessity to help
keep the hands of the bishops warm during
liturgical ceremonies in cold, stone
churches. Since they became optional after
Vatican II, the gauntlets are today seen only
very rarely.

THE MANIPLE
The maniple is an ornamental vestment of
colored silk or damask over the left
forearms. Originally this vestment was a
handkerchief carried in the left hand or
thrown over the left arm. It symbolizes the
labor and hardship the priest must expect in
his ardent apostolate.

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St.ZenonofVeronawearingamitre.
THE MITRE
The mitre is the common headdress of
bishops, worn at liturgical functions. It is
either precious, golden (orphreyed), or
simple (simplex). The precious mitre is worn
by celebrants, the simple by concelebrants,
and the golden by the celebrant at an
ordination. All the cardinals wear a
damasked mitre (simplex) in presence of the
Pope. It is very tall, and is made of layered
white damask silk.

THE SOPRANA
The soprana is a black wool cloak worn by any cleric, but most notably by Roman
seminarians. It is rarely seen outside of Rome today. This cloak originated in the
seminaries of Rome, and used to include colored silk trim and facings, which were specific
to each seminary.

THE ZUCCHETTO
The zucchetto is the silk skullcap worn by
the Catholic clergy. It is white for the Pope,
scarlet for a cardinal, and violet for a
bishop. Priests may use a black cloth
zucchetto for everyday wear, but not during
the liturgy.


For the silk vestments in Eastern Orthodox Church; the reader is advised to visit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestment#Eastern_Church_vestments
CONCLUSION
After China, Byzantium monopolized silk, in a sense silk defined Byzantium the
fabric was to Byzantium what oil is today to the Middle East. In the wake of the
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collapse of the Roman Empire in the West, civilization and the institutions that
upheld it went into decay; the implications of such an event resulted in former
Roman territories such as Western Europe suffering a significant lack of coinage
and into such an economic vacuum, silk assumed importance both as a gift and as
capital, since silk spelt money in late antiquity and even the medieval ages. J ust as
with the case of Buddhism in China, J apan and Korea silk became a medium of
Christian religious expression in Byzantium as well as Europe and this by itself
contributed to the trade in silk from Byzantium to Europe.
The theological debates within the church about proliferation of art in the name of
God led to the iconoclasm in Byzantium which began in 730 and lasted till 843. In
Rome, however Pope Gregory the Great suffered from no such theological torment
he maintained that imagery was useful for teaching the Christian message to the
pagan and illiterate and for helping the faithful towards the contemplation of God
(Robin Cormack). This saw a flowering of Christian art and its expression on silks
in Europe, it became a common practice to bury Christian Priests and holy men
with silken shrouds - such silks, when the relics of such holy men were translated
(relocated to another place) also became important secondary relics. The
translation of relics played an important part in the cult of saints and the
subsequent Christianization, consolidation of Christian European nationalism in
the name of patron saints. The patron saints supposedly came to the aid of those
who invoked them, especially in battles and their most visible symbol would be
an appropriately decorated silken heraldic banner. The Galleria delle Tappezzerie
(Tapestry Gallery) in Vatican displays a fine collection of Silk tapestries with
religious imagery. Robin Cormack puts it, while speaking about the power of
icons in Christianity: As things of beauty and symbols of eternal truths, icons
transform their space into a vision of paradise; silk was an important medium
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which enabled this vision and in the process, the fabric itself became godly, no
small wonder that the Anglo-Saxons called it godweb.
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