STITCH FOCUS | Couching - Discussing the halo in the Cuthbert Maniple Recreation Project

In this video I provide a commentary of my working process when stitching the halo on the St Cuthbert Maniple Embroidery Recreation Project.
The St Cuthbert maniple is an early 10th-century church vestment, hand embroidered in gold and silk threads. The halo is worked in couched gold. The silk couching thread is also used to create a zig zag pattern.
The maniple, along with a matching stole, were re-discovered in the tomb of St Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral, England, in 1827. Both were stitched by embroiderers in early medieval England, who were commissioned to make them by Queen AElfflaed (Ælfflæd). She wanted to give them as a present to the Bishop of Winchester but it's thought he never received them...
You can also read about the stole, maniple and a set of embroidered ribbons that were also found in St Cuthbert's tomb, in my book, 'The Lost Art of the Anglo-Saxon World: the sacred and secular power of embroidery'. It can be bought at either
www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Art-Ang...
or
www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/the-...
You can read about how the stole and maniple were viewed by early medieval society in my latest article, 'Embroidery and its early medieval audience: a case study of sensory engagement', published in World Archaeology. Copies can be bought here: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/...
You can watch The St Cuthbert Maniple Recreation Project Part I - The Origin Story here: • The St Cuthbert Manipl...
You can watch The St Cuthbert Maniple Recreation Project Part II - The Materials here: • The St Cuthbert Manipl...
You can watch The St Cuthbert Maniple Recreation Project Part III - Stitches here: • The St Cuthbert Manipl...
You can also watch The St Cuthbert Maniple Recreation Project Part IV - Creation through Images here: • The St Cuthbert Manipl...
Check out some of the other goldwork embroidery being stitched here:
• A glimpse at goldwork ...

[@chermar3]

really enjoyed watching this video fantastic project

[@EarlyMedievalEmbroidery]

Thank you! I'm so pleased you enjoyed the video.

[@AcupictrixDrJessicaGrimm]

Lovely video again! You talk about flattening the goldthreads. How do you do that? I am still puzzled by this step of hammering or burnishing often mentioned in the literature for the Kaisergewänder in Bamberg and the Hungarian Coronation Mantle. It does not seem to work with modern materials.

[@EarlyMedievalEmbroidery]

Thank you! Well, flattening the threads was an experiment in itself, which I'm going to do a video on. I'm hoping to get it sorted and live soon. We don't have any information about how or why gold threads were flattened. I do have a number of ideas as to the why, which I'm playing around with at the moment. I did find the flattening process difficult and I'm not sure it was entirely successful. I still need to analyse the results though. I think modern materials might be a bit too 'springy' by nature and that may be why it doesn't seem to work...

[@AcupictrixDrJessicaGrimm]

@@EarlyMedievalEmbroidery looking foward to that!

[@EarlyMedievalEmbroidery]

@@AcupictrixDrJessicaGrimm great! I'm so glad to hear that.

[@MonksModernMedievalCuisine]

Painstaking! Over 5 hours to complete the halo... you have the patience of a....saint. Sorry, couldn't resist.

[@EarlyMedievalEmbroidery]

Where are the emoji faces? Insert hilarious laughing ones. Thank you

[@MonksModernMedievalCuisine]

@@EarlyMedievalEmbroidery 😂😂😂