1. Names your group of 2-3
Working alone, but with reference to work of Cleo (on black) and Robin (dragon's blood dyeing)

2. describes your annotation plans (2 annotations)
1) My main annotation will be about textiles and dyeing in MS Fr. 640.

There are relatively few dye recipes in MS Fr. 640, compared to casting or pigment recipes, so my first question will be why is dyeing included in this collection? What is being dyed (cloth, wool, silk, leather, fur)? What knowledge is expected, or tacit, versus what is included? Are the recipes on dye he is including successful? Are they commonly used methods, found in other books, or are they unusual? Can I find examples of textiles dyed in this manner (I don't expect so, since few extant garments have been scientifically tested).

I am also interested in the way that the author-practitioner writes about textiles and textile merchants, he seems to have a keen interest in the prices of finished and unfinished textiles, and includes this information near recipes on dyeing, suggesting that he was acquiring this information from someone in the trade. He also mentions accountancy practices in relation to textile merchants, reminding us that textiles were among the most valuable goods in early modern Europe.


I would like to try 38v - dying black: "take lye made from quicklime and white lead, 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 lye made of lime" - then use this method to try other colors, as mentioned in other recipes.

2) Collaborative annotation on 'Against nose bleeding and for dyeing' on 38v with Robin.
Questions: What color does dragon's blood produce? Do the medicinal properties relate to the cultural importance or use of this color?


3. lists the recipes from MS Fr. 640 (and any other source) that you have identified so far (include full recipes if practical)

Recipes for dying:

p013r
To dye
Mix sal ammoniac and vitriol and boil them together. Then mix in some laque or vert-de-gris and azur or similar color, and dye, which will not come off if the animal does not shed. Non bona

14v
dyeing damasked cloth
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.

32v
Mat Makers
Two kinds are made in Toulouse, one to cover rooms’ walls which are finely woven, almost like straw hats worn by villagers, and are made in long rolls, some 10 straws wide, others 13. And they work on them mainly in summer and winter. Then when they prepare it they sew it, but beforehand they dye it in usually three colours: green, red and sometimes purple. The green one is made with only a pastel tincture since green is made from yellow and blue, so the pastel dyes the dark yellow straw. It becomes bright green. For red they use some alum and brazil wood, for purple they use pastel and some coperous which darkens blue with its black tincture.

38v
Black color for dyeing
Take lye made from quicklime and white lead, 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 lye made of lime

38v
Against nose bleeding and for dyeing
Pound some of the kind of “vinete” or “lapathum acutum” that is red-veined, which is called dragon’s blood, and apply it on the bleeding person’s forehead. This herb is a strong dye & makes beautiful violet.

38v
Crimson
Because one “aulne” costs seven or eight lb. to dye, they use cloth 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.

40r
Dye
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.

44r
Dyes from flowers
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.

57v
Florence lake is better than that lake from Flanders because in Florence they make the best dyes. To make a beautiful flesh color, the reddest and brightest lake is the best, because those that are purple and violet as a result of the addition of too much alum make a flesh color that appears as if one is very cold. This is why women who want to color their cheeks crush Florence lake very finely, then fill a little cotton with it, which they later wrap in a little fine cambric. And thus they rub the lake on their cheeks and then, with another clean cotton, they blend.

Painting techniques - simulating textiles:

59v
Clothes’ folds
You have to pay attention to not represent some fake ones, and so copy the ones naturally made. A rough fabric does not have any folds, taffetas and silk fabrics do have some more and black veil has even more. Make sure that their way is either horizontal or vertical

63v
Velvets and blacks
One must make the main layer very thick, and the folds and highlights of the meste lighten a lot with white and on the ends of its light, you apply a white line. For blue and green velvets, you shade with coal made from peach pits which is very black. Concerning the lacquer, the carbon black that produces a reddish black on lacquer for velvets. The common charcoal produces a whitish black.




Textiles as tools

13r-v
Fine raw silk sieves
Musline of raw silk is made on a weaver to make very fine and delicate sieves. And for that effect, you must not choose raw silk whitened by sulphur smoke which renders the silk full of a sticky steam that would hold the flour and hinder it from passing through so well. But for this effect, choose yellow and natural raw silk because it is stronger and rejects flour as horsehair does.

16v
To take fine forehead hair off
Have a loose silk needle and put it tight through hair bulbs and they will bite the silk like fine cotton wisps

52r-v
The Work done in Algiers
Have a colt of three of four years and feed it on barley and straw cut in the same way as that which they use to feed horses in Spain. Let it drink water from a good fountain or river water. I do not know if it would be good sometimes to let him drink the water of sulfur springs, and to sometimes give him fenugreek or other hot foods, for the intention of the worker is to use the heat of his manure, and the climate here is cooler than that of Algiers. Keep it in a warm place and use it and make sure it loses none of its manure or urine, of which you will make a mass or two so that while one cools the other will keep its heat and be suitable to continue. Also have a large flask as thick as possible, one finger thick if it can be so made, and with a capacity of one pitcher or clay jug, and around the feast of St John place a dozen and a half chicken eggs, that is to say, the egg without the egg white and the germ. Others say sixty yokes. And with this dozen and a half of chicken egg yokes put one half ounce (others say sixty eggs and a half pound) of female silk worm eggs. And after carefully luting the flask (I do not know if air will be needed for the generation) and bury it in the heat of the manure up to the neck, and leave it there until several worms are engendered and then remove the flask and do not bury it in the manure anymore. But put it on the hot layer of the manure until all the worms are eaten and consume one another by shriveling and stirring, and only one remains. Once this has happened, you must lure it at regular intervals, day and night, with the assistance of two men, who will care for it in shifts, and you will lure it with an egg yolk covered in gold leaf or with a liquid yolk into which the gold leaf has been incorporated. And be careful that it does not miss such fodder (some say one egg yolk per hour, others say three, but the thing itself will demonstrate the practice). So nourished in this way it will grow in two month or seven weeks and will become like a serpent, one span and four fingers long, and one pound in weight, and as the wings will begin to develop, you must kill it, doing so with a charcoal fire in a ring around the bottle one span away from it, and at that time lute the bottle well so that it does not exhale or to be safer, go away until the fire is completely blown out and that everything is cold again. Because the exaltation may be dangerous. And for that moment, when you take it with some tongs, do cover your mouth with some good vinegar and have a protection and cover yourself with it. Once it has died out, put it into a cloth or a canvas made of silk and fold it and hold it to a board exposed to air and the sun will dry it. Once it is well dry, powder it in a mortar and keep this powder cautiously Because one ounce of this one thrown on 3 pounds of melted transforms it into a finer than the other one. But there is not so much pitch. You also have to choose the oldest possible which has often melted before and finely hammered into blades or other works, and at first purify it by melting and throwing it into some honey and vinegar. The completion time for such work is nine months from Saint John’s day until the 25th April.



Information about textiles, their trade, their value, their production

16v
Silk
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.

38v
Merchants
Those who retail velvet and other materials do not keep double-entry books because they sell in small quantities and recording these details would be too much effort. They only have their sales book and account books. But those who sell in bulk and those who traffic in woad have a double-entry book.

39r
Dyers woad
It is grown in Auragnes 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 dyers woad and wheat are cultivated alternately. For cultivating dyers woad, the soil is ploughed with iron 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 dyers woad is the one from Carmail and the one from Auraigne. And sometimes the dyers woad is good in one field and worthless in another that is closeby. The quality of the dyers woad 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 mold-like veins. It is pressed in the dyers’ cistern, and to fill a cistern, six bales are needed. Several wool 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.


44v
Horsehair sieves
They are made often in Normandy with horsetail hairy that they clean with some washing water because they pick them out with their mouth and separate short and broken ones. They do not make the thread longer than the sieve and it is round. They attach the black or white hair at the two edges of the thread, according to the piece they want to make. And the thread is woven above and below like any other fabric. And passing a small flat stick of ii or three fingers wide between two, they pass between after two bits of hair at each step strike and weave with three steps. The entire sieve is made of xvii bits of hair. They sell them by dozens and each xxx sols. They bring them to Toulouse to send them then to Spain and there, they exchange it with silk

53v-54r
Silkworms
They are produced from grain, that is eggs, which are sold by the ounce, which is commonly sold in Languedoc 3 lb. and 5 s. The one from Spain brought by merchants is considered to be the best, because the worms coming from it are not so subject to illnesses and produce more silk. In Spain, one ounce of grain gives worms that commonly make 15 lb. of silk. But from one once produced in France, they do not make but 10 or 12. Three ounces of grain are to produce such a quantity of worms, with which you will be able to furnish a room with three or 4 shelves of wide boards. They begin to shed their skin on their own around Easter. And to do this, one has to put them in a pine box, like the ones in which we put pellet, warmly among feather cushions. And in the beginning, they shed their skin as little black ants, and as soon as there are two or three without skin, they have to be given white mulberry leaves. And then arrange them on the boards. And three times per day, it is necessary to change the leaves for fresh ones. And if during the day there is any storm or rainy weather, cloudy and cool, one needs to keep in the room three or 4 embers and with glowing coal, and to light incense until the room is filled with its smoke. And when the weather is warm and serene, they produce more and better silk. Some worms make it whiter, others more yellowish. And even if it is white, it can be yellowed when it is extracted with hot water. From their birth until the moment they make their cocoons and prisons, worms sleep and rest 4 times, and each time they remain 4 or five days resting without eating, as if they were dying so as to be born again, because each one sheds their skin and begins by uncovering the head, then consequently, on different days, the rest of the body, and they go from white to grey, and from grey to white. And if one of them has some sickness and does not have the strength to shed, one needs to help it and to be careful not to squash it, because if it gives off a yellow liquor, it is no longer worth anything. And they do not even serve much if one handles them. Around Pentecost, they begin to want to climb on the dry heather branches that we prepare and attach
to some of the upper boards, and one can tell when they want to climb up when, on the leaf, they stretch out and raise their heads and a part of their bodies when one takes them to heather branches where they stop and begin to spin their prison, which we call cocoon, generally the size of a pigeon egg, although there are some which are much bigger because it sometimes happens that two or three and up to 11 worms put themselves in a cocoon, which is hairy and cottony, around which ball is filoselle or floret, and of the cocoon, which is a white, solid, continuous and firm skin, silk is made. The cocoon is so hard that it is cut with difficulty with a fingernail. And yet to leave its prison, the worm eats away at it on one end, and after having stayed inside, living on its own juices for three weeks, it comes out, reduced in size by half. Because when it begins to spin, it is as long as a ring finger and has eight legs, and when it comes out it is less than half as long and only has four legs. On the other hand, it has become a butterfly and has wings; however, it does not fly. There are males and females. As soon as they come out of the cocoon, the male mates with the female, and they are put on a piece of white linen where they lay their eggs, which will not be good and viable if the male was not given to her. When the male has detached himself from a female, one must get rid of it because it would not be good to give it to another female. They finish spinning and laying eggs in three weeks and around Saint John’s Day. And then one keeps their eggs and grain until Holy Week, as mentioned. Some [worms] spin among the leaves and make their cocoons there without climbing high.
Margin note:
See Marco Girolamo Vida, Bishop of Alba and Cremonesi, wrote a poem on the nature of silkworms

Textile literacy / familiarity

107r
Part of the section Catching lizards and snakes
Good stone alum is white and as shiny as white silk


Other

94r
Part of the section on swords

Following is the wood of the grip which one glues or more fittingly [uses] some mingled wax which is made of wax and pitch, for rosin would be too hard. He heats it lightly, then rubs the wood of the grip so that the tang takes hold, or the threads, otherwise, when a thread frays off, the whole thing will break all at once. With iron thread or dog skin, one also uses glue. The trimming set on the wood, which is made of silk or thread, is called the cord, which is made from two or three threads twined on the spinning wheel, or 4 if the silk is thin. A cord a little bigger holds better. The rivements, which are also made of silk at both ends of the grip, are called the buttons. Some grips are made of silk, seal skin, iron thread reheated with gold and fine and false silver thread & velvet [thread]. Iron thread is of less price and is most durable. Next is that of silk, if one does not have the convenience of being close to the sea in order to recover some dog skin, which is quite convenient. The good skin costs fifty or lx s{ous} and makes 4 or five dozen grips. This one gives a good grip and a sure hand. To put it to work, if it is too hard, soak it for one or two hours in slightly lukewarm aqua fortis. Because if it were too hot, it would boil and spoil the skin. It is sewn with black thread