History of silk
{{Short description|none}}
{{Update|part=modern usage|reason=the most recent information is from 2006|date=July 2024}}
File:Court ladies pounding silk from a painting (捣练图) by Emperor Huizong.jpg, a Chinese silk painting sucby Emperor Huizong of Song, early 12th century.]]
The production of silk originated in Neolithic China within the Yangshao culture (4th millennium BCE). Though it would later reach other places in the world, the art of silk production remained confined to China until the Silk Road opened at 114 BC. Even after trade opened, China maintained a virtual monopoly over silk production for another thousand years. The use of silk within China was not confined to clothing alone, and silk was used for a number of applications, such as writing. Within clothing, the color of silk worn also held social importance, and formed an important guide of social class during the Tang dynasty of China. Zhao, Feng. "Silk: origin and globalization." Textiles and Clothing along the Silk Roads (2022): 15-30.
Silk cultivation had reached Japan by 300 AD, and by 552 AD the Byzantine Empire managed to obtain silkworm eggs and were able to begin silkworm cultivation while the Arabs also started to manufacture silk at around the same time. As a result of the spread of sericulture, Chinese silk exports became less important, although they still maintained dominance over the luxury silk market. The Crusades brought silk production to Western Europe, in particular to many Italian states, which saw an economic boom exporting silk to the rest of Europe. Developments in the manufacturing technique also started to take place during the Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries) in Europe, with devices such as the spinning wheel first appearing at this time. During the 16th century, France joined Italy in developing a successful silk trade, although the efforts of most other nations to develop a silk industry of their own were unsuccessful. Zhao, Feng. "Silk: origin and globalization." Textiles and Clothing along the Silk Roads (2022): 15-30.
The Industrial Revolution changed much of Europe's silk industry. Due to innovations in the spinning of cotton, cotton became much cheaper to manufacture, leading to cotton production becoming the main focus for many manufacturers, and causing the more costly production of silk to shrink. New weaving technologies, however, increased the efficiency of producing silk cloth; among these was the Jacquard loom, developed for the production of highly detailed silks with embroidery-like designs. An epidemic of several silkworm diseases at this time caused production to fall, especially in France, where the industry never fully recovered.
In the 20th century, Japan and China regained their earlier dominant role in silk production, and China is now once again the world's largest producer of silk. The rise of new imitation silk fabrics, such as nylon and polyester, has reduced the prevalence of silk throughout the world, being cheaper and easier to care for. Silk is now once again thought of as a luxury good, with a greatly reduced importance compared to its historical heyday.
Early history
=First appearance of silk =
The earliest evidence of silk dates back to more than 8,500 years ago (late 7th millennium BCE) and has been found at the early Neolithic Age tombs of Jiahu, China.Yuxuan Gong, Li Li, and Juzhong Zhang [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5152897/#:~:text=Prehistoric%20biomolecular%20evidence%20of%20silk,burial%20objects%20were%20not%20ubiquitous. "Biomolecular Evidence of Silk from 8,500 Years Ago"] Biomolecular evidence, reported from a study, showed the existence of prehistoric silk fibroin in the tombs. Rough weaving tools and bone needles were also excavated, indicating the possibility that the Jiahu residents may also have possessed basic weaving and sewing skills required for making textiles. Other evidence of silk include items found at sites of the Yangshao culture in Xia County, Shanxi, where a silk cocoon was found cut in half by a sharp knife, dating back to between 4000 and 3000 BC. The species was identified as Bombyx mori, the domesticated silkworm. Fragments of a primitive loom can also be seen from the sites of Hemudu culture in Yuyao, Zhejiang, dated to about 4000 BC.
The earliest extant example of a woven silk fabric is from 3630 BC, used as wrapping for the body of a child. The fabric comes from a Yangshao site in Qingtaicun at Rongyang, Henan.{{cite book |title=Chinese Silk: A Cultural History |last=Vainker |first=Shelagh |year=2004 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-0-8135-3446-6 |pages=20, 17}} Similar remains of silk fabric were discovered at another Yangshao site located in Wanggou, Henan, in the year 2019. The fabric was used to wrap the body of a child placed inside a burial urn.{{Cite web|url=https://www.chinasilkmuseum.com/info_180.aspx?itemid=27699|title=China Focus: World's earliest silk fabrics discovered in central China's ruins-China Silk Museum|website=www.chinasilkmuseum.com|access-date=25 March 2023}} Scraps of silk were found in a Liangzhu culture site at Qianshanyang in Huzhou, Zhejiang, dating back to 2700 BCE.Tang, Chi and Miao, Liangyun, [http://203.72.198.245/web/Content.asp?ID=27524&Query=1 "Zhongguo Sichoushi" ("History of Silks in China")] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071123095921/http://203.72.198.245/web/Content.asp?ID=27524&Query=1 |date=2007-11-23 }}. Encyclopedia of China, 1st ed.{{cite web |url=http://www.asianart.com/textiles/intro.html|title=Textile Exhibition: Introduction|access-date=2007-08-02 |publisher= Asian art}} Other fragments have been recovered from royal tombs in the Shang dynasty ({{circa|1600–1046 BCE}}).{{in lang|fr}} Charles Meyer, Des mûriers dans le jardin du mandarin, Historia, n°648, December 2000.
During the later epoch, the knowledge of silk production was spread outside of China, with the Koreans, the Japanese and, later, the Indian people gaining knowledge of sericulture and silk fabric production. Allusions to the fabric in the Old Testament show that it was known in Western Asia in biblical times.{{in lang|fr}} "Soie'" (§2. Historique), Encyclopédie Encarta Scholars believe that starting in the 2nd century BC, the Chinese established a commercial network aimed at exporting silk to the West. Silk was used, for example, by the Persian court and its king, Darius III, when Alexander the Great conquered the empire.
Even though silk spread rapidly across Eurasia, with the possible exception of Japan, its production remained exclusively Chinese for three millennia. The earliest examples of silk production outside China are from silk threads discovered from the Chanhudaro site in the Indus Valley civilisation, which are dated to 2450–2000 BC.{{Cite journal|last=Meadow|first=Richard|title=New Evidence for Early Silk in the Indus Civilization|url=https://www.academia.edu/27010012|journal=Archaeometry|date=January 2009 |language=en}}{{Cite journal|last1=Good|first1=I. L.|last2=Kenoyer|first2=J. M.|last3=Meadow|first3=R. H.|date=2009|title=New Evidence for Early Silk in the Indus Civilization*|journal=Archaeometry|language=en|volume=51|issue=3|pages=457–466|doi=10.1111/j.1475-4754.2008.00454.x|issn=1475-4754|url=https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/1/14117751/1/287832.pdf}} The analysis of the silk fibres shows presence of reeling and sericulture, and predates another example of silk found in Nevasa in peninsular India, dated to 1500 BC.
The Siberian Ice Maiden, discovered in the Pazyryk burials, was found clad in a long crimson-and-white striped woolen skirt, with white felt stockings. Her yellow blouse was originally thought to be made of wild tussah silk, but closer examination of the fibres revealed the material not to be Chinese in origin, and was instead woven from a wild silk of a different origin, potentially India.{{cite book|title=The Atlas of World Geology|last=Bahn|first=Paul G.|publisher=Checkmark Books|year=2000|isbn=978-0-8160-4051-3|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/atlasofworldarch00paul/page/128 128]|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/atlasofworldarch00paul/page/128}}
=Myths and legends=
File:Lacquer painting from Ch'u State.jpg painting from the Jingmen Tomb (Chinese: {{lang|zh|荊門楚墓}}; Pinyin: {{lang|zh-latn-pinyin|Jīngmén chǔ mù}}) of the State of Chu (704–223 BC), depicting men wearing traditional silk dress and riding in a two horsed chariot]]
Many myths and legends exist about origin of silk production. The writings of both Confucius and other Chinese traditions tell a story about Empress Leizu; one day, in about 3000 BC, a silk worm's cocoon fell into her teacup .{{cite web|url=http://www.silk.org.uk/history.htm|title=The History of Silk|access-date=2007-10-23|publisher=The Silk Association of Great Britain|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929063801/http://www.silk.org.uk/history.htm|archive-date=2007-09-29}} Wishing to extract it from her drink, the 14-year-old girl began to unroll the thread of the cocoon. Seeing the long fibers that constituted the cocoon, the Empress gathered other cocoons and wove it into cloth. Having observed the life of the silkworm on the recommendation of her husband, the Yellow Emperor, she began to instruct her entourage in the art of raising silkworms - sericulture. From this point, the girl became the goddess of silk in Chinese mythology.
Knowledge of silk production eventually left China via the heir of a princess who was promised to a prince of Khotan, likely around the early 1st century AD.Hill (2009), "Appendix A: Introduction of Silk Cultivation to Khotan in the 1st Century AD.", pp. 466-467. The princess, refusing to go without the fabric that she loved, decided to break the imperial ban on silkworm exportation.
Though silk was exported to foreign countries in great amounts, sericulture remained a secret that the Chinese carefully guarded; consequently, other cultures developed their own accounts and legends as to the source of the fabric. In classical antiquity, most Romans, great admirers of the cloth, were convinced that the Chinese took the fabric from tree leaves.{{cite web | title = Les relations entre le monde romain et la Chine: la tentation du Far East | url = http://www.clio.fr/BIBLIOTHEQUE/les_relations_entre_le_monde_romain_et_la_chine__la_tentation_du_far_east.asp | author = Jean-Noël Robert | publisher = clio.fr | access-date = May 6, 2007 | language = fr | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070522153024/http://www.clio.fr/BIBLIOTHEQUE/les_relations_entre_le_monde_romain_et_la_chine__la_tentation_du_far_east.asp | archive-date = May 22, 2007 | author-link = Jean-Noël Robert }} This belief was affirmed by Seneca the Elder in his work Phaedra, and by Virgil in his work Georgics. Pliny the Elder notably accurately determined where silk came from; speaking of the Bombyx or silk moth, he wrote in his Natural History that, "They weave webs, like spiders, that become a luxurious clothing material for women, called silk."Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia 11.xxvi.76
Silk usage in Ancient and Medieval China
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In China, silkworm farming was originally restricted to women, and many women were employed in the silk-making industry. Even though some saw the development of a luxury product as useless, silk provoked such a craze among the high society that the rules in the {{transliteration|zh|Li Ji}} were used to limit its use to the members of the imperial family.
For approximately a millennium, the right to wear silk was reserved for the emperor and the highest dignitaries. Silk was, at the time, a sign of great wealth, due to its shimmering appearance, created by the silk fiber's prismatic structure, which refracted light from every angle. After some time, silk gradually extended to other classes of Chinese society, though this was mainly the uppermost noble classes. Silk began to be used for decorative means and also in less luxurious ways; musical instruments, fishing, and bow-making all utilized silk. Peasants, however, did not have the right to wear silk until the Qing dynasty (1644–1911).
Paper was one of the greatest discoveries of ancient China. Beginning in the 3rd century BC, paper was made in all sizes with various materials.{{in lang|fr}} Histoire des techniques p.455 Silk was no exception, and silk workers had been making paper since the 2nd century BC. Silk, bamboo, linen, wheat and rice straw were all used, and paper made with silk became the first type of luxury paper. Researchers have found an early example of writing done on silk paper in the tomb of a marchioness, who died around 168{{vague|reason=AD or BC?|date=October 2020}}, in Mawangdui, Changsha, Hunan. The material was more expensive, but also more practical than bamboo slips. Treatises on many subjects, including meteorology, medicine, astrology, divinity, and even maps written on silk{{cite web |url=http://www.travellady.com/Issues/December03/AHistoryofSilkMaps.htm |last=Plous |first=Estelle |title=A History of Silk Maps |access-date=2007-05-20 |work=TravelLady Magazine |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928015706/http://www.travellady.com/Issues/December03/AHistoryofSilkMaps.htm |archive-date=2007-09-28 }} have been discovered.
File:Children Playing on a Winter Day.jpg, by Su Hanchen (active 1130s–1160s), Song dynasty]]
During the Han dynasty, silk became progressively more valuable in its own right, and was used in a greater capacity than as simply a material; lengths of silk cloth were used to pay government officials and to compensate citizens who were particularly worthy. In the same manner that one would sometimes estimate the price of products according to a certain weight of gold, a length of silk cloth became a monetary standard in China, in addition to bronze coins. Many neighbouring countries began to grow envious of the wealth that sericulture provided China, and beginning in the 2nd century BC, the Xiongnu people regularly pillaged the provinces of the Han Chinese for around 250 years. Silk was a common offering by the emperor to these tribes in exchange for peace.
Silk is described in a chapter of the {{transliteration|zh|Fan Shengzhi shu}} from the Western Han period (206 BC–9 AD), and a surviving calendar for silk production in an Eastern Han (25–220 AD) document. The two other known works on silk from the Han period are lost.
{{blockquote|The military payrolls tell us that soldiers were paid in bundles of plain silk textiles, which circulated as currency in Han times. Soldiers may well have traded their silk with the nomads who came to the gates of the Great Wall to sell horses and furs.Liu (2010), p. 12.}}
For more than a millennium, silk remained the principal diplomatic gift of the emperor of China to neighbouring countries or vassal states. The use of silk became so important that the character for silk ({{lang|zh|糸}}) soon constituted one of the principal radicals of Chinese script.
As a material for clothing and accessories, the use of silk was regulated by a very precise code in China. For example, the Tang dynasty and Song dynasty used colour symbolism to denote the various ranks of bureaucrats, according to their function in society, with certain colours of silk restricted to the upper classes only. Under the Ming dynasty, silk began to be used in a series of accessories: handkerchiefs, wallets, belts, or even as an embroidered piece of fabric displaying dozens of animals, real or mythical. These fashion accessories remained associated with a particular position: there was specific headgear for warriors, for judges, for nobles, and others for religious use. The women of high Chinese society also followed these codified practices, and used silk in their garments alongside the addition of countless decorative motifs. A 17th-century work, {{transliteration|zh|Jin Ping Mei}}, gives a description of one such motif:
{{blockquote|Golden lotus having a quilted backgammon pattern, double-folded, adorned with savage geese pecking at a landscape of flowers and roses; the dress' right figure had a floral border with buttons in the form of bees or chrysanthemums.}}
File:Women placing silkworms on trays together with mulberry leaves (Sericulture by Liang Kai, 1200s).jpg|alt=A small ink drawing showing a group of women inside an open-walled house preparing trays of mulberry leaves; more trays are stacked in another room behind them.|The silkworms and mulberry leaves are placed on trays.
File:Men preparing twig frames where silkworms will spin cocoons (Sericulture by Liang Kai, 1200s).jpg|alt=Five men prepare boards with embedded twigs, which are placed face-down on a raised frame.|Twig frames for the silkworms are prepared.
File:Weighing and sorting the cocoons (Sericulture by Liang Kai, 1200s).jpg|alt=Two women, two men and a child sit at a table, sorting white cocoons in baskets.|The cocoons are weighed.
File:Soaking the cocoons and reeling the silk (Sericulture by Liang Kai, 1200s).jpg|alt=Two workers soak cocoons in a large vat of water, in front of a weaving loom.|The cocoons are soaked and the silk is wound on spools.
File:Weaving the silk (Sericulture by Liang Kai, 1200s).jpg|alt=A woman weaves the silk thread on a large, room-length loom, while a child spins more thread in the corner.|The silk is woven using a loom.
=Silk moths and production techniques used in China=
File:Brocart de soie français.jpg - Lyon 1760–1770]]
Silk was made using various breeds of lepidopterans, both wild and domestic. While wild silks were produced in many countries, the Chinese are considered to have been the first to produce silk fabric on a large scale, having the most efficient species of silk moth for silk production, the Bombyx mandarina, and its domesticated descendant, Bombyx mori. Chinese sources claim the existence in 1090 of a machine to unwind silkworm cocoons; the cocoons were placed in a large basin of hot water, the silk would leave the cauldron by tiny guiding rings, and would be wound onto a large spool, using a backward and forward motion. However, little information exists about the spinning techniques previously used in China. The spinning wheel, in all likelihood moved by hand, was known to exist by the beginning of the Christian era.{{clarify|reason=When does the 'Christian era' begin?|date=May 2021}} The first accepted image of a spinning wheel appears in 1210, with an image of a silk spinning machine powered by a water wheel that dates to 1313.
More information is known about the looms used. The '{{transliteration|zh|Nung Sang Chi Yao}}, or Fundamentals of Agriculture and Sericulture (compiled around 1210) is rich with pictures and descriptions, many pertaining to silk.Joseph Needham, Francesca Bray, Hsing-Tsung Huang, Christian Daniels, Nicholas K. Menzies, Science and Civilisation in China, Cambridge University Press, 1984 p. 72 {{ISBN|0-521-25076-5}} It repeatedly claims the Chinese looms to be far superior to all others, and speaks of two types of loom that leave the worker's arms free: the drawloom, which is of Eurasian origin, and the pedal loom, which is attributed to East Asian origins. There are many diagrams of these that originate in the 12th and 13th centuries. When examined closely, many similarities between Eurasian machines can be drawn. Following the Jin dynasty (266–420), the existence of silk damasks was well recorded, and beginning in the 2nd century BC, four-shafted looms and other innovations allowed the creation of silk brocades.
The Silk Road and trade (2nd–8th century)
{{further|Silk Road|Sino-Roman relations}}
Image:Transasia trade routes 1stC CE gr2.png
File:Ménade danzante, Casa del Naviglio, Pompeya.jpg from Pompeii showing a Maenad in silk dress, 1st century AD]]
Numerous archaeological discoveries show that silk had become a luxury material appreciated in foreign countries well before the opening of the Silk Road by the Chinese. For example, silk has been found in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, in the tomb of a mummy dating to 1070 BC.
Both the Greeks and the Romans - the latter later than the former - spoke of the Seres, "people of silk", a term used for the inhabitants of Serica, their name for the far-off kingdom of China. According to certain historians, the first Roman contact with silk was that of the legions of the governor of Syria, Crassus.{{Cite web |date=2014-11-14 |title=Banners of Carrhae - EARLY CHURCH HISTORY |url=https://earlychurchhistory.org/military/deadly-banners-of-carrhae/ |access-date=2025-02-26 |website=earlychurchhistory.org |language=en-US}} At the Battle of Carrhae, near the Euphrates, the legions were said to be so surprised by the brilliance of the banners of Parthia that they fled.
The Silk Road toward the west was opened by the Chinese in the 2nd century AD. The main road left from Xi'an, going either to the north or south of the Taklamakan desert, one of the most arid in the world, before crossing the Pamir Mountains. The caravans that travelled this route to exchange silk with other merchants were generally sizeable, constituting 100 to 500 people, as well as camels and yaks carrying around {{convert|140|kg|lb}} of merchandise. The route linked to Antioch and the coasts of the Mediterranean, about one year's travel from Xi'an. In the south, a second route went by Yemen, Burma, and India before rejoining the northern route.{{in lang|fr}} "Histoire de la Route de la soie", Encyclopædia Universalis{{in lang|fr}} Charles Meyer, "Les routes de la soie: 22 siècles d'aventure", Historia, n°648 December 2000.
Not long after the conquest of Egypt in 30 BC, regular commerce began between the Romans and Asia, marked by the Roman appetite for silk cloth coming from the Far East, which was then resold to the Romans by the Parthians. The Roman Senate tried in vain to prohibit the wearing of silk, for economic reasons as well as moral ones. The import of Chinese silk resulted in vast amounts of gold leaving Rome, to such an extent that silk clothing was perceived as a sign of decadence and immorality.
{{blockquote|I can see clothes of silk, if materials that do not hide the body, nor even one's decency, can be called clothes. ... Wretched flocks of maids labor so that the adulteress may be visible through her thin dress, so that her husband has no more acquaintance than any outsider or foreigner with his wife's body.|Seneca the Younger|Declamations Vol. I.Seneca the Elder, Declamations Vol. I.}}
China traded silk, teas, and porcelain, while India traded spices, ivory, textiles, precious stones, and pepper, and the Roman Empire exported gold, silver, fine glassware, wine, carpets, and jewels. Although the term "the Silk Road" implies a continuous journey, very few who traveled the route traversed it from end to end; for the most part, goods were transported by a series of agents on varying routes, and were traded in the bustling markets of the oasis towns. The main traders during Antiquity were the Indian and Bactrian traders, followed by Sogdian traders from the 5th to the 8th century AD, and then followed by Arab and Persian traders.
In the late Middle Ages, transcontinental trade over the land routes of the Silk Road declined as sea trade increased. Centuries went by, civilizations, and dynasties were formed, prospered, or perished, but the route that linked the continents of Europe and Asia survived and expanded, becoming known as the Silk Road.Ma, Debin. "The Modern Silk Road: The Global Raw-Silk Market, 1850-1930." The Journal of Economic History, vol. 56, no. 2, 1996, pp. 330–55. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2123969. Accessed 21 Oct. 2022.
{{cite web|url=http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=18006 |title=The Megalithic Portal and Megalith Map: Silk Road, North China [Northern Silk Road, North Silk Road] Ancient Trackway |publisher=www.megalithic.co.uk |access-date=2008-07-05 |last=Hogan |first= C. Michael}} The Silk Road was a significant factor in the development of the civilizations of China, India, Ancient Egypt, Persia, Arabia, and Ancient Rome. Though silk was certainly the major trade item from China, many other goods were traded, and various technologies, religions and philosophies, as well as the bubonic plague (the "Black Death"), also traveled along the silk routes. Some of the other goods traded included luxuries such as silk, satin, hemp and other fine fabrics, musk, other perfumes, spices, medicines, jewels, glassware, and even rhubarb, as well as slaves.{{Cite book| first= Francis| last= Wood| year= 2002| title= The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia| publisher= University of California Press| location= Berkeley, CA| pages= [https://archive.org/details/silkroadtwothous0000wood/page/9 9, 13–23]| isbn= 978-0-520-24340-8| url= https://archive.org/details/silkroadtwothous0000wood/page/9}}
Global spread of sericulture (4th–16th century)
Image:Thr muze art islam 4.jpg inspired two-sided silk cloth, with winged lions and tree of life, from the early Islamic period in Iran, National Museum of Iran.]]
File:Afrasyab Chinese Embassy, carrying silk and a string of silkworm cocoons.jpg, Sogdia.{{cite book |last1=Whitfield |first1=Susan |author-link=Susan Whitfield |title=The Silk Road: Trade, Travel, War and Faith |year=2004 |publisher=British Library. Serindia Publications, Inc. |isbn=978-1-932476-13-2 |page=110 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ArWLD4Qop38C&pg=PA110 |language=en}}]]
Although silk was well known in Europe and most of Asia, China was able to keep a near-monopoly on silk production for several centuries, defended by an imperial decree and condemning to death anyone attempting to export silkworms or their eggs.{{Citation needed|date=March 2021}}{{Cite web |last=Helzer |first=Sarah |title=The Silk Road |url=https://stowawaymag.byu.edu/the-silk-road |access-date=August 12, 2024 |website=Stowaway Magazine}} According to the {{transliteration|ja|Nihongi}}, sericulture reached Japan for the first time around 300 AD, following a number of international students, having been sent from Japan to China, recruiting four young Chinese girls to teach the art of plain and figured weaving in Japan.Cook (1999), 144. Techniques of sericulture were subsequently introduced to Japan on a larger scale by frequent diplomatic exchanges between the 8th and 9th centuries.
Starting in the 4th century BC, silk began to reach the Hellenistic world by merchants who would exchange it for gold, ivory, horses or precious stones. Up to the frontiers of the Roman Empire, silk became a monetary standard for estimating the value of different products. Hellenistic Greece appreciated the high quality of the Chinese goods and made efforts to plant mulberry trees and breed silkworms in the Mediterranean basin, while Sassanid Persia controlled the trade of silk destined for Europe and Byzantium. The Greek word for "silken" was {{lang|grc|σηρικός}}, from {{transliteration|grc|Seres}} ({{lang|grc|Σῆρες}}), the name of the people from whom silk was first obtained, according to Strabo.Strabo 11.11.1, 15.1.34. The earliest example of the adjective {{lang|grc|'σηρικός'}} was recorded in the 2nd century AD, found in Lucian ({{lang|la|De saltatione}} 63), Cassius Dio (43.24), and Pausanias (6.26.6). The Greek word gave rise to the Latin {{lang|la|'sericum'}}, and ultimately the Old English {{lang|ang|'sioloc'}}, which later developed into the Middle English {{lang|enm|'silk'}}.
Image:Justinien.jpg give the silkworms to the emperor.]]
According to a story by Procopius,{{Cite web|url=http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/550byzsilk.html|title = Internet History Sourcebooks Project}} it was not until 552 AD that the Byzantine emperor Justinian obtained the first silkworm eggs. He had sent two Nestorian monks to Central Asia, and they were able to smuggle silkworm eggs to him hidden in rods of bamboo. While under the monks' care, the eggs hatched, though they did not cocoon before arrival. The church manufacture in the Byzantine Empire was thus able to make fabrics for the emperor, with the intention of developing a large silk industry in the Eastern Roman Empire, using techniques learned from the Sassanids. These {{lang|la|gynecia}} had a legal monopoly on the fabric, but the empire continued to import silk from other major urban centers on the Mediterranean.{{in lang|fr}} Catherine Jolivet-Lévy and Jean-Pierre Sodini (2006), "Byzance", in Encyclopædia Universalis The silk produced by the Byzantines was well known for its high quality, owing to the meticulous attention paid to the execution of its weaving and decoration, with weaving techniques taken from Egypt used to produce the fabric. The first diagrams of {{not a typo|semple}} looms appeared in the 5th century.{{in lang|fr}} Histoire des Techniques p.435
The Arabs, with their widening conquests, spread sericulture across the shores of the Mediterranean, leading to the development of sericulture in North Africa, Andalusia, Sicily{{in lang|fr}} Anne Kraatz, Marie Risselin-Steenebrugen, Michèle Pirazzoli-t'Serstevens and Madeleine Paul-David (2006), "Tissus d'art", in Encyclopædia Universalis and Southern Italy's Calabria, which was under the Byzantine dominion. According to André Guillou,{{cite book | language=it|first1=André | last1=Guillou | first2=Paolo| last2=Delogu |title=Storia d'Italia | volume=III| chapter=Il Mezzogiorno dai Bizantini a Federico II | year=1983 | publisher=UTET}} mulberry trees for the production of raw silk were introduced to southern Italy by the Byzantines at the end of the 9th century. Around 1050, the theme of Calabria had cultivated 24,000 mulberry trees for their foliage, with growth still ongoing. The interactions among Byzantine and Muslim silk-weaving centers of all levels of quality, with imitations made in Andalusia and Lucca, among other cities, have made the identification and date of rare surviving examples difficult to pinpoint.{{cite journal | last1 = Jacoby | first1 = David | year = 2004 | title = Silk Economics and Cross-Cultural Artistic Interaction: Byzantium, the Muslim World, and the Christian West | journal = Dumbarton Oaks Papers | volume = 58 | pages = 197–240 | doi = 10.2307/3591386 | jstor = 3591386 }}
Catanzaro, in the region of Calabria, was the first center to introduce silk production to Italy between the 9th and the 11th century. During the following centuries, the silk of Catanzaro supplied almost all of Europe and was sold in a large market fair in the port of Reggio Calabria to Spanish, Venetian, Genoese, Florentine and Dutch merchants. Catanzaro became the lace capital of Europe, with a large silkworm breeding facility that produced all the laces and linens used in the Vatican. The city was famous for its fine fabrication of silks, velvets, damasks, and brocades.{{Cite web|url=https://www.madeinitalyfor.me/en/info/lantica-e-nobile-arte-serica/|title = The Ancient and Noble Art of Silk|date = 14 May 2015}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/place/Catanzaro-Italy|title=Catanzaro | Italy | Britannica|website=www.britannica.com|access-date=25 March 2023}} While the cultivation of mulberry was moving first steps in Northern Italy, silk made in Calabria reached a peak of 50% of the whole Italian/European production. As the cultivation of mulberry was difficult in Northern and Continental Europe, merchants and operators used to purchase raw materials in Calabria in order to finish the products, before reselling them for a higher price. Genoese silk artisans also used fine Calabrian and Sicilian silk for the production of velvets.{{cite book |last=Malanima |first=Paolo |editor-last=Fusco |editor-first=Ida Maria |title=La seta. E oltre...|publisher=Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane|language=it|date=2004|pages=55–68|chapter=Le sete della Calabria|isbn=88-495-0949-9}}
While the Chinese lost their monopoly on silk production, they were able to re-establish themselves as major silk suppliers during the Tang dynasty, and to industrialize their production on a large scale during the Song dynasty.[http://sino-platonic.org/complete/spp194_justinian_silk.pdf Heleanor B. Feltham: Justinian and the International Silk Trade], p. 34 China continued to export high-quality fabric to Europe and the Near East along the Silk Road; however, following the beginning of the first Crusades, techniques of silk production began to spread across Western Europe.
In 1147, while Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos was focusing all his efforts on the Second Crusade, the Norman king Roger II of Sicily attacked Corinth and Thebes, two important centers of Byzantine silk production. They took the crops and silk production infrastructure, and deported all the workers to Palermo and Calabria,Muthesius, Anna, "Silk in the Medieval World". In Jenkins (2003), p. 331. thereby causing the Norman silk industry to flourish.{{in lang|fr}} Georges Ostrogorsky, Histoire de l'état byzantin, Payot, 1956, reedited in 1977, {{ISBN|2-228-07061-0}} The sack of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204 brought decline to the city and its silk industry, and many artisans left the city in the early 13th century. Italy developed a large domestic silk industry after 2,000 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, Jewish, and Greek settlement, alongside many other immigrants from neighboring cities in southern Italy.{{in lang|fr}} Histoire des techniques p.551 With the loss of many Italian trading posts in the Orient, the import of Chinese styles drastically declined. In order to satisfy the demands of the rich and powerful bourgeoisie for luxury fabrics, the cities of Lucca, Genoa, Venice and Florence increased the momentum of their silk production, and were soon exporting silk to all of Europe, with 84 workshops and at least 7,000 craftsmen in Florence in 1472 alone.
In 1519, Emperor Charles V formally recognized the growth of the industry of Catanzaro by allowing the city to establish a consulate of the silk craft, charged with regulating and check in the various stages of a production that flourished throughout the 16th century. At the moment of the creation of its guild, the city declared that it had over 500 looms. By 1660, when the town had about 16,000 inhabitants, its silk industry kept 1,000 looms, and at least 5,000 people, in employment. The silk textiles of Catanzaro were not only sold at the Kingdom of Naples's markets, they were also exported to Venice, France, Spain and England.{{cite book |last1=Sakellariou |first1=Eleni |title=Southern Italy in the Late Middle Ages: Demographic, Institutional Change in the Kingdom of Naples, c.1440-c.1530 |date=2012 |publisher=Brill| isbn=978-900-422-4063}}
Use of silk in the Medieval period (5th–15th century)
=Importance as a luxury good=
The high Middle Ages (1000–1250 AD) saw continued use of established techniques for silk manufacture without change in either materials or tools used. Small changes began to appear between the 10th and 12th centuries, followed by larger and more radical innovations in the 13th century, resulting in the invention of new fabrics; other, more mundane fabrics made of hemp and cotton also developed. Silk remained a rare and expensive material, but improved technology saw Byzantine magnaneries in Greece and Syria (6th to 8th centuries), silk production centres in Calabria and those of the Arabs in Sicily and Spain (8th to 10th centuries) able to supply the luxury material in much greater abundance.Xinru Liu, Silk and Religion: An Exploration of Material Life and the Thought of People AD 600-1200, Oxford University Press US, 1998.
=Improved silk production technology=
The 13th century saw an improvement in the already-changing technology of silk production; as with the Industrial Revolution of late-18th century England, advances in silk production also possibly accompanied more general advances in the technology of modern society as a whole.{{in lang|fr}} Histoire des Techniques p. 553 At the beginning of the 13th century, a primitive form of milling silk yarns was in use; Jean de Garlande's 1221 dictionary and Étienne Boileau's 1261 {{lang|fr|Livre des métiers}} (Tradesman's Handbook) both illustrate many types of machinery which can only have been doubling machines. This machinery was further perfected in Bologna between 1270 and 1280.
From the start of the 14th century, many documents allude to the use of complex weaving machinery.{{in lang|fr}} Histoire des Techniques p.557 Depictions of fabric production techniques from this time period can be found in several places; the earliest surviving depiction of a European spinning wheel is a panel of stained glass in the Cathedral of Chartres,Ronan (1994), 68, alongside bobbins and warping machines appearing both together in the stained glass at Chartres and in a fresco in the Cologne Kunkelhaus ({{circa|1300}}). It is possible that the toothed warping machine was created by the silk industry, as it allowed the for a longer length of warp to hold more uniformity throughout the length of the cloth.
Towards the end of the 14th century, no doubt on account of the devastation caused mid-century by the Black Death, trends began to shift towards less expensive production techniques. Many techniques that earlier in the century would have been completely forbidden by the guilds for low-quality production were now commonplace (such as using low-quality wool, carding, etc.). In the silk industry, the use of water-powered mills grew.
In the second half of the 15th century, drawloom technology was first brought to France by an Italian weaver from Calabria, known as Jean le Calabrais,{{in lang|fr}} Histoire des Techniques p.639 who was invited to Lyon by Louis XI.{{cite book |language=it |last=Rubino |first=Angela |date=2006 |title=La seta a Catanzaro e Lione. Echi lontani e attività presente |publisher=Calabria Letteraria|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kOGJKQAACAAJ&q=seta+catanzaro|isbn= 88-7574-127-1|trans-title=Silk in Catanzaro and Lyon. Distant echoes and present activity}} He introduced a new kind of machine, which had the ability to work the yarns faster and more precisely. Further improvements to the loom were made throughout the century.[http://media.handweaving.net/DigitalArchive/books/wp_Chapter_01.pdf A Brief History of Figured Textile Production]
The silk industry in France
Image:Silk production France.svg
Though highly regarded for its quality, Italian silk cloth was very expensive, both due to the costs of the raw materials and the production process. The craftsmen in Italy proved unable to keep up with the needs of French fashions, which continuously demanded lighter and less expensive materials.{{in lang|fr}} Autour du Fil, l'encyclopédie des arts textiles These materials, used for clothing, began to be produced locally instead; however, Italian silk remained for a long time amongst the most prized, mostly for furnishings and the brilliant nature of the dyestuffs used.
Following the example of the wealthy Italian city-states of the era, such as Venice, Florence, and Lucca (which had become the center of the luxury-textile industry), Lyon obtained a similar function in the French market. In 1466, King Louis XI decided to develop a national silk industry in Lyon, and employed a large number of Italian workers, mainly from Calabria. The fame of the master weavers of Catanzaro spread throughout France, and they were invited to Lyon in order to teach the techniques of weaving. The drawloom that appeared in those years in France was called loom by Jean Le Calabrais.{{cite book |last1=Rossi |first1=Cesare |last2=Russo |first2=Flavio |date=2016 |title= Ancient Engineers' Inventions: Precursors of the Present}}
In the face of protests by the people of Lyon, Louis XI conceded to move silk production to Tours, but the industry in Tours stayed relatively marginal. His main objective was to reduce France's trade deficit with the Italian states, which caused France to lose 400,000 to 500,000 golden écus a year.{{in lang|fr}} Georges Duby (ed), Histoire de la France: Dynasties et révolutions, de 1348 à 1852 (vol. 2), Larousse, 1999 p. 53 {{ISBN|2-03-505047-2}} It was under Francis I in around 1535 that a royal charter was granted to two merchants, Étienne Turquet and Barthélemy Naris, to develop a silk trade in Lyon. In 1540, the king granted a monopoly on silk production to the city of Lyon. Starting in the 16th century, Lyon became the capital of the European silk trade, notably producing many reputable fashions.{{in lang|fr}} Gérard Chauvy, "La dure condition des forçats du luxe", Historia, n°648, December 2000 Gaining confidence, the silks produced in the city began to abandon their original Oriental styles in favor of their own distinctive style, which emphasized landscapes. Thousand of workers, the canuts, devoted themselves to the flourishing industry. In the middle of the 17th century, over 14,000 looms were used in Lyon, and the silk industry fed a third of the city's population.
Image:Planche Soie.jpg}} of Diderot and d'Alembert, showing the different steps in sericulture and the manufacture of silk.]]
In the 18th and 19th centuries, Provence experienced a boom in sericulture that would last until World War I, with much of the silk shipped north to Lyon. Viens and La Bastide-des-Jourdans are two of the {{lang|fr|communes}} of Luberon that profited the most from its now-extinct mulberry plantations.{{in lang|fr}} Guide Gallimard - Parc naturel LUBERON However, silk centers still operate today.Waters, Sarah. "The Silk Industry in Lyon, France." Museum of the City. Accessed 6 October 2017. http://www.museumofthecity.org/project/the-silk-industry-in-lyon-france/ {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171023063733/http://www.museumofthecity.org/project/the-silk-industry-in-lyon-france/ |date=2017-10-23 }} Working at home under the domestic system, silk spinning and silk treatment employed many people and increased the income of the working class.
=Silk industries in other countries=
England under Henry IV (1367–1413) also looked to develop a silk industry, but no opportunity arose until the revocation of the Edict of Nantes the 1680s, when hundreds of thousands of French Huguenots, many of whom were skilled weavers and experts in sericulture, began immigrating to England to escape religious persecution. Some areas, including Spitalfields, saw many high-quality silk workshops spring up, their products distinct from continental silk largely by the colors used.Thirsk (1997), 120. Nonetheless, the British climate prevented England's domestic silk trade from becoming globally dominant.
Many envisioned starting a silk industry in the British colonies in America, starting in 1619 under the reign of King James I of England; however the silk industry in the colonies never became very large. Likewise, silk was introduced to numerous other countries, including Mexico, where it was brought by Cortez in 1522. Only rarely did these new silk industries grow to any significant size.Peter N. Stearns, William Leonard Langer The Encyclopedia of World History, Houghton Mifflin Books, 2001 p. 403 {{ISBN|0-395-65237-5}}
