First column: Bruges
Middle column: Bruges, Bruges, Bruges, Rosaline
Third Column: Rosaline, Old Flanders, Old Flanders, Duchesse
The often quoted picture in the Louvre Gallery, painted by Hans Memling (14— to 1494) and representing the Virgin and the Infant Christ surrounded by gift-bearers, among whom is a rich Brugeois wearing a gray costume trimmed with a bobbin-lace edging, certainly indicates that the industry existed in this epoch, and possibly had its center at Bruges, then the principal city in Flanders and the seat of the court. Furthermore, records prove that already at the opening of the 16th century, lace-making was included as a necessary part of the education of women. The edicts of Charles V requiring that it should be taught in all the schools and convents, greatly stimulated its development in Bruges, as well as throughout the entire Flanders and the provinces of Hainaut, Brabant and Antwerp. It became so popular an occupation for women that Charles’s successor, Philip II, required that the magistrates of Ghent and Bruges restrict the number of lace-workers in their cities, in order that the rich might find some women left willing to serve them. Another enlightening document shows that in 1544 Bruges counted 7,696 poor among her population, and that the department of public charity required of the young women among them that they should cease to walk the streets and should learn the lace industry. There were at that time many lace schools. During the following centuries, Bruges maintained her position as a lace center and was able to survive the death-blow the French Revolution dealt the industry. For we find, about the middle of the 19th century, the city still counted seventy-nine schools, attended by 2,722 pupils, while in Valenciennes, for example, lace-making no longer existed.
There is, then, a rich and ancient past back of the clicking bobbins of the Bruges of to-day. After four years of German rule it is still difficult to give accurate statistics, but generally speaking, in this city of 54,000 inhabitants, as many as 5,000 women and girls make lace of some sort. If you question the average woman, she will probably look at you in surprize and say: “How many lace-makers? Why, everybody; there is hardly a house in Bruges without its cushion and bobbins.” While if you put the same question to such a celebrated lace dealer as M. Gillemont de Cock, who counts gold and silver medals from many nations, he will be very apt to answer: “Madame, before the war I knew of about thirty, now I can not say!” The Lace Committee at Brussels considers 5,000 a fair estimate for Bruges and her contributing villages, which is the number given, too, by Professor Maertens of the Normal School.
By the Bruges district is meant chiefly Bruges, quite the contrary of the usual situation. One hears of the Alost region, for instance, and finds that while the villages of the surrounding area count thousands of workers, in the city of Alost itself very few are left. However, Bruges, too, counts some few outlying villages. Madame Ryeland, representative during the war of the Brussels Lace Committee, told me that forty communes contributed to her committee, the most important being Syssele (where Valenciennes is the favorite lace), Maldeghem (applications and filet), Saint Andre (Cluny and Valenciennes), Oostcamp and Lophem (Valenciennes), Saint Croix (Cluny and other guipures), and Saint Michele (an unusually beautiful Duchesse de Bruges).
In Bruges itself there are three important convent lace schools, working largely for the shops, but which also execute private commands; the convent school of the Apostolines, typical of those where the children learn a little Flemish, a little French, much catechism, and for the rest make the laces of the region from morning till evening; the school Defoere, and the well-known school Josephine. Each has between 100 and 200 dentellières, who make the popular Torchons and Clunys and Valenciennes, and also the more difficult Binche, with its mesh characterized by the airy “boules de neige,” snow-balls. They make, too, Old Flanders, which has a particularly strong and elaborate mesh; and of course the Duchesse de Bruges, or Bruges, for which the city is famous. In addition to the convent schools and a few other less important laique schools and some work-rooms, one finds in the Hospices, or free homes for the old, another goodly company working together. In their picturesque retreats some 200 old women pass their days making lace, chiefly Valenciennes.
There remain the individual households; to the common statement that in each one, some member makes some kind of lace, one might add, at some time during the year. If the children from these homes do not go to the schools to learn, they are taught by their mothers and grandmothers. A favorite Christmas gift to children is a cushion and set of bobbins, with which they soon learn to produce simple patterns. For example, Madame Roose, the daughter of the concierge of the Groothuis Museum, which houses the marvelous Baron Liedts collection of old laces, accustomed from childhood to see and hear of these laces, became herself a lace-maker and later a successful dealer and now has five daughters of her own, all of whom she has herself taught to ply their bobbins. The Lace Committee told me that during the war the clothing committee had difficulty in finding young girls and women who could darn and sew even moderately well; since childhood they had given all their time to lace-making. Conscious of the danger in this situation, the Lace Normal School preaches that until she has learned other necessary things, no young girl should be allowed to spend more than half a day over her cushion.
LACE NORMAL SCHOOL, BRUGES, BEGINNER’S CLASS
Symbolic color pattern on left-hand easel; demonstration bobbins attached to colored threads at right