Viking Embroidery

This piece of embroidery depicts a stag turning its head. It is carried out in the couching technique. A grave find from Björkö (Birka), Adelsö, Uppland, Sweden. This piece of embroidery depicts a stag turning its head. It is carried out in the couching technique. A grave find from Björkö (Birka), Adelsö, Uppland, Sweden.

Embroidery seems to be a relatively late development in Scandinavia. Textiles were generally adorned by other means, as for instance using different types of fibres for the fabric (wool/linen). 'Real' embroidery is known from the ninth century onwards.

When the Vikings spread outside of Scandinavia, they were influenced by contacts with the outside world, and embroidery appears to have been an aspect that was adapted by the Vikings. The embroidery finds at Mammen in Denmark (dated 970-971) reflect contacts with the west, apparently with the Anglo-Saxons. These embroideries are worked with chain stitch, raised herringbone stitch, stem stitch, and couching.

Other early embroideries, as for instance from Birka and Valsgärde in Sweden, seem to show affinities with decorative textiles from lands further east and southeast (Ukraine, Russia, or even the Byzantine empire). This influence is marked by the use of silver thread for its decorative effect, while the embroidery techniques are limited to stem stitch and couching and perhaps forms of the ösenstich (mesh stitch).

See also the Oseberg ship burial embroideries

Sources:

  • BENDER JØRGENSEN, Lise (1992). North European Textiles before 1000 A.D., Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press.
  • PRIEST-DORMAN, Carolyn (1992). Anglo-Saxon and Viking Works of the Needle: Some Artistic Currents in Cross-Cultural Exchange, download here.
  • PRIEST-DORMAN, Carolyn (1993; 1997), Viking Embroidery Stitches and Motifs, download here.

Digital source of illustration (retrieved 29 October 2016).

WV

 

Last modified on Saturday, 29 October 2016 16:50
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