KEME · Knitting early modern Europe: materials, manufacture and meaning
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2015-08-01 → 2017-07-31
- EU contribution
- €212,195
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-CAR
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Knitting early modern Europe: materials, manufacture and meaning
The principal aims of KEME were to address a major gap in textile history and to restart Jane Malcolm-Davies’s academic career. Despite its burgeoning popularity today, knitting as an historical industry and craft activity has almost no profile in academia. This may be, in part, because it is not a very ancient textile production process when compared with weaving, netting and knotting, which are millennia old. As a result, knitting is the poor cousin and little sister of dress scholarship. Very few archaeological or historical knitted garments or fragments have been systematically examined or accurately reported. Museum catalogues lack detailed information on them and, in many cases, knitted items are not even described as knitted. There has been almost no scientific analysis of the materials from which medieval and early modern knitware is made. There is no protocol for the accurate reportage of knitted material, which prevents its complexities from being captured – unlike the highly developed system of technical analysis available for woven textiles. Knitting is a very popular leisure activity and an important part of the contemporary textile and fashion industry. There is an enormous amount of knitted material in museum storage which has had no opportunity to delight or inspire scholars or knitters. Early knitware is of interest to hobbyists, contemporary fashion designers, and textile artists. There is also a large number of people who are interested in the reconstruction of historic dress, including knitted garments – for reenactment, museum education, and the entertainment industry. The overall objectives of the KEME project were to: identify and examine more than 100 knitted caps thought to date from the early modern era and document them using traditional observation and new microscopic methods; devise terminology for accurate reportage; publish a protocol for their examination; and publish the material itself online; use the data collected to devise an experimental archaeology project to investigate the processing of knitware in the past; secure access and sampling permission for the knitted caps held in museums worldwide; and seek collaborations with scientists to carry out a series of pioneering scientific analyses on them. These activities were intended to illuminate the dark history of knitware and use it as test case for a new approach to museum material which will challenge the prevailing preservationist philosophy. The personal objectives for the fellow were to boost her academic profile and status through supervision and career development, knowledge transfer and training, mentorship and collaboration and networking.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
The development of knitting was a key technological innovation for which there is little published scientific evidence. There are more than 100 knitted caps from the early modern era in museum collections worldwide - an astonishing number given the paucity of extant garments from the period. Despite their diverse locations, they have remarkable similarities in their materials and manufacture which illustrate trade in knitted caps as consumer goods in the emerging early modern European marketplace, demonstrate how knitting created new fashions for men indicative of rank and status, and facilitate theory on the cultural significance of the hat as an essential male accessory. My preliminary study of the caps tracks clear patterns in the data: five typologies are identifiable and when contextualised with pictorial and documentary sources, their cultural significance as functional and fashionable men’s wear is clear. I believe the caps’ potential as indicators of the development and growth of knitting technology is valuable yet vulnerable. The caps are fragile and deteriorating, a process accelerated by each viewing, for which there is pressing and unsatisfied demand. I propose immediate rigorous scientific study (radiocarbon dating, microscopic examination, x-radiography, fibre and dye identification, and degradation analysis) and interdisciplinary research into contemporary sources to chart an economic map of early knitting, to define terminology for further scholarly work, and to develop theory about men’s headwear in the 16th century. An online database will make the data accessible to scholars, museum pedagogues and craftspeople, who demand access to the caps. Journal articles, practical workshops and social media will disseminate my conclusions and my development of theory. I will give voice to an eloquent body of evidence about early modern knitting technology, which threatens to be silenced forever if scientific analysis is delayed.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET · KOBENHAVNCoordinatorDenmark
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union