English Embroidered Bookbindings

by Cyril Davenport

Spangles appear to have been introduced during the reign of Elizabeth, but they were never freely used on velvet, finding their proper place ultimately on the satin books of a later time. The spangles are generally kept in position either by a small section of purl (Fig. 6) or a seed pearl (Fig. 7), in both cases very efficaciously, so that the use of guimp or pearl was not only ornamental but served the same protective purpose as the bosses on a shield, or those so commonly found upon the sides of the stamped leather bindings of mediæval books.

Fig. 6. Spangle kept in place by a stitch through a short piece of Purl.

Fig. 7. Spangle kept in place by a stitch through a seed pearl.

Fig. 8. Binder's stamp for gold tooling, cut in imitation of a spangle.

It may be mentioned that the seventeenth-century Dutch binders, Magnus and Poncyn, both of Amsterdam, invented a new tool for gilding on leather bindings, used, of course, in combination with others. This was cut to imitate the small circular spangles of the embroidered books (Fig. 8), and the English and French finishers of a later period used the same device with excellent effect for filling up obtrusive spaces on the sides and backs of their decorative bindings. Thus it may be taken as an axiom that, for the proper working of an embroidered book, except it be tapestry-stitch or tent-stitch, on canvas, which is flat and strong of itself, there should invariably be a liberal use of metal threads, these being not only very decorative in themselves, but also providing a valuable protection to the more delicate needlework at a lower level, and to the material of the ground itself.

The earliest examples of embroidered bindings still existing are not by any means such as would lead to the inference that they were exceptional productions—made when the idea of the application of needlework to the decoration of books was in its infancy. On the contrary, they are instances of very skilled workmanship, so that it is probable that the art was practised at an earlier date than we now have recorded. There are, indeed, frequent notes in 'Wardrobe Accounts' and elsewhere of books bound in velvet and satin at a date anterior to any now existing, but there is no mention of embroidered work upon them.

The Forwarding of Embroidered Books.

The processes used in the binding of embroidered books are the same as in the case of leather-bound books; but there is one invariable peculiarity—the bands upon which the different sections of the paper are sewn are never in relief, so that it was always possible to paste down a piece of material easily along the back without having to allow for the projecting bands so familiar on leather bindings (Fig. 9). The backs, moreover, are only rounded very slightly, if at all.

This flatness has been attained on the earlier books either by sewing on flat bands, thin strips of leather or vellum (Fig. 10), or by flattening the usual hempen bands as much as they will bear by the hammer, and afterwards filling up the intermediate spaces with padding of some suitable material, linen or thin leather.

In several instances the difficulty of flattening the bands has been solved, in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century embroidered books, in a way which cannot be too strongly condemned from a constructive point of view, although it has served its immediate purpose admirably.

A small trench has been cut with a sharp knife for each band, deep enough to sink it to the general level of the inner edges of the sections (Fig. 11).

Fig. 9. Back of book sewn on raised bands.

Fig. 10. Band of flat vellum sometimes found on old books with flat backs.

Fig. 11. Typical appearance of a book, before it is sewn, with small trenches cut in the back in which the bands are to be laid; a bad method, but often used to produce a flat back.