Syndonus or Sindonis, as it would seem, was a bettermost sort of cendal. St. Paul’s had a chasuble as well as a cope of this fabric.
Taffeta, if not a thinner, was a less costly silken stuff than cendal; which word, to this day, is used in the Spanish language, and is defined to be a thin transparent textile of silk or linen: “Tela de seda ó lino muy delgada y trasparente.” Taffeta and cendal were used for linings in mediæval England. Chaucer says of his “doctour of phisike,”
In sanguin and in perse he clad was alle
Lined with taffeta and with sendalle.
Sarcenet during the fifteenth century took by degrees the place of cendal, at least here in England.
By some improvement in their weaving of cendal, the Saracens in the south of Spain earned for this light web a good name in our markets, and it became much sought for here. Among other places, York cathedral had several sets of curtains for its high altar, “de sarcynet.” At first this stuff was called from its makers “saracenicum.” But, in Anglicising, the name was shortened into “sarcenet;” a word which we use now for the thin silk which of old was known among us as “cendal.”
Satin, though far from being so common as other silken textures, was not unknown to England in the middle ages; and Chaucer speaks of it in his ‘Man of lawes tale:’
In Surrie whilom dwelt a compagnie
Of chapmen rich, and therto sad and trewe,
That wide were senten hir spicerie,
Clothes of gold, and satins rich of hewe.
When satin first appeared in trade it was called round the shores of the Mediterranean “aceytuni.” The term slipped through early Italian lips into “zetani;” coming westward this name, in its turn, dropped its “i,” and smoothed itself into “satin.” So, also, it is called in France; while in Italy it now goes by the name of “raso,” and the Spaniards keep up its first designation.
In the earlier inventories of church vestments no mention can be found of satin; but this fine silk is spoken of among the various rich bequests made to his cathedral at Exeter by bishop Grandison, about 1340; though later, and especially in the royal wardrobe accompts, it is very commonly specified. Hence we may fairly assume that till the fourteenth century satin was unknown in England; afterwards it met with much favour. Flags were made of it. On board the stately ship in which Beauchamp earl of Warwick, in the reign of Henry the sixth, sailed from England to France, there were flying “three penons of satten,” besides “sixteen standards of worsted entailed with a bear and a chain,” and a great streamer of forty yards in length and eight yards in breadth, with a great bear and griffin holding a ragged staff poudred full of ragged staffs. Like other silken textiles, satin seems to have been in some instances interwoven with flat gold thread: for example, Lincoln had of the gift of one of its bishops eighteen copes of red tinsel sattin with orphreys of gold.
Though not often, yet sometimes we read of a silken stuff called cadas, carda, carduus, and used for inferior purposes. The outside silk on the cocoon is of a poor quality compared with the inner filaments, from which it is kept apart in reeling, and set aside for other uses. We find mention of such cloths as belonging to the cathedrals of Exeter and St. Paul’s in the thirteenth century. More frequently, instead of being spun, it served as wadding in dress: on the barons at the siege of Caerlaverock might be seen many a rich gambeson garnished with silk, cadas, and cotton: