[Principal Recipe 1: Damask Cloth]


Table of Contents

[Principal Recipe 1: Damask Cloth****]
[Principle Recipe 2: Green]
[Related Recipes]
<title id=“p015r_a1”>Damask Cloth</title>
<ab id=“p015r_b1”>You can make damask cloth of two different colours and imitate embroidery without adding anything else to it, as follows. Once it is is dyed yellow, pounce onto it such a pattern as will please you. Then you will sew some string or a bigger cord loosely onto the pattern and throw it into a dye of woad or pastel and it will become green, except that which is beneath the string, which will remain yellow because the green dye will not have penetrated there. And you can do the same with other colours and, instead of string or cord, add some pieces of poor quality cloth cut in Moorish shapes on top of the first colour. In that manner, you will have cheap embroidery.</ab>


[Principle Recipe 2: Green]


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<id>p158v_1</id>
<head>Colors for green leafs</head>

<ab>One usually paints them with oil colors, because distemper colors do not stay on. For marigold flowers, lightly ground minium for some of them; for more yellowish ones, mix in a bit of massicot. For green, the vert-de-gris is dark and too somber. If it is a yellowish-green, you can mix with the vert-de-gris a bit of yellow ochre and scudegrum. If the green is dark, mix in some coals made from peach pits, which makes a greenish-black, in the same way than the bone of an ox foot bone makes a bluish-black. And in such a manner, by judgement and discretion, put the color on the natural flower or leaf to see whether it is similar to the original. But paint it on very lightly so as not to cover the features of the work.</ab>
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[Related Recipes]


Recipes related to Yellow
<id>p010r_2</id>
<head><m>Stil de grain yellow</m></head>
<ab>It is made in <pl>Lyon</pl> from the <m>sap of weld</m>mixed with <m>chalk</m> or better yet with <m>ceruse</m>, which is appropriate for <m>tempera</m> and <m>oil</m>. </ab>
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<id>p063v_3</id>
<head><m>Scudegrun</m></head>
<ab>It is made with the broom flower well boiled in water, putting in it enough alum, then some ceruse.</ab>
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<id>p040r_1</id>
<head>Dye</head>
<ab>Some take Lapathium acutum maius, which seems to be rhapontic rhubarb or “vinette”,
and using the root, which is yellow in summer, they dye threads and similar things.</ab>
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Recipes related to Green
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<id>p063v_5</id>
<head> Flanders blue-green </head>
<ab>In the month of May, one puts some putrified cow dung under horse dung. Then mix them with iron.</ab>
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<id>p073r_1</id>
<head>For making <m>blue florey</m> varnish or <pl>Flanders</pl> <sup>varnish</sup></head>
<ab>Take the <m>blue florey</m> and <m>quicklime</m>, and put on around four fingers' worth of <m>water</m> and leave it to soak for one day. Take the <m>water</m> where the aforesaid <m>quickline</m> has soaked, and put your <m>blue <sup>florey</sup></m> with it, and put it on the <m>wood</m>.</ab>
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<id>p039r_2</id>

<head><m>Dyers woad</m></head>

<ab>It is grown in <pl>Auragnes</pl> where the soil is so fertile that if you grew wheat there

every year, it would fall over from the kernels being too full. This is why <m>dyers woad</m>

and wheat are cultivated alternately. For cultivating </m>dyers woad</m>, the soil is ploughed

with <m>iron</m> shovels like those of gardeners. Then with rakes, clods of earth are broken

up and tilled as for the sowing of some vegetable gardens. It is usually sowed on Saint

Anthony’s day in January. Eight harvests can be made. The first ones are the best. The best of

Auragne’s <m>dyers woad</m> is the one from <pl>Carmail</pl> and the one from

<pl>Auraigne</pl>. And sometimes the <m>dyers woad</m> is good in one field and worthless

in another that is closeby. The quality of the <m>dyers woad</m> can be recognized when you

put it in your mouth and it tastes like vinegar, or when you crumble and break it, there are silver

or golden mold­like veins. It is pressed in the dyers’ cistern, and to fill a cistern, six bales are

needed. Several <m>wool</m> flocks are kept there. And if it produces 15 dyings, it is said to

be worth 15 florins, if it produces 20 dyings, 20 florins. The good kind will dye up to 30 times and

usually up to 25 or 26.</ab>

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<title id=”p044r_a5”>Dyes from flowers</title>

<ab id=”p044r_b5”>Red poppies that grow amongst wheat make a very beautiful columbine on

white leather. The boufain makes a very beautiful blue. An herb which grows in hedges,

which has a stem similar to flax, long and broad leaves like little bugloss, which has a

violet flower verging on blue and looks like the fleur de lys, makes a quite beautiful turquin,

better than azure. Another columbine flower of the shape and size of the bugloss flower,

which has a leaf like that of the pansy, also makes a very beautiful turquin. It grows in wheat

in light earth.</ab>



Recipes for other colors


<id>p038v_1</id>

<head>Black color for dyeing </head>

<ab>Take <m>lye made from quicklime</m> and <m>white lead</m>, mix and leave to soak

and you will have a dark brown dye, and reiterating the same you will make black. Try other

colours with the <m>lye made of lime</m>.</ab>



<id>p038v_2</id>

<head>Against nose bleeding and for dyeing</head>

<ab>Pound some of the kind of “<m>vinete</m>” or “<m>lapathum acutum</m>” that is red-

veined, which is called <m>dragon’s blood</m>, and apply it on the bleeding person’s forehead.

This herb is a strong dye & makes beautiful violet.</ab>

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Techniques



<id>p013r_2</id>

<head>To dye</head>

<ab>Mix <m>sal ammoniac</m> and <m>vitriol</m> and boil them together. Then mix in some

<m>laque</m> or <m>vert­de­gris</m> and <m>azur</m> or similar color, and dye, which will

not come off if the animal does not shed. Non bona.</ab>





Economic Contexts



<title id=“p016v_a3”>Silk</title>

<ab id=“p016v_b3”>Crimson silk is more frequent than all the other ones because its colour is

not as expensive as blue or green ones which are, also, good bargain for the worker. Black

silk is less frequent because it costs a lot.</ab>



<id>p038v_6</id>

<head>Crimson</head>

<ab>Because one “aulne” costs seven or eight lb. to dye, they use <sup>cloth</sup>worth

seven or eight francs. But if one wants something beautiful, one should buy some white cloth

worth fifteen francs an “aulne” and dye it with some pure crimson woad & a little cochineal.

Black fabrics are very fine because the dye is inexpensive.</ab>

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ASPECTS TO KEEP IN MIND WHEN MAKING FIELD NOTES