A silkwoman was a woman in medieval, Tudor, and Stuart England who traded in silks and other fine fabrics.Kate Ash, 'Silkwomen', Gale Owen-Crocker, Elizabeth Coatsworth, Maria Hayward, Encyclopedia of Medieval Dress and Textiles of the British Isles (Leiden: Brill, 2012, pp. 522-523.Marian K. Dale, 'The London Silkwomen of the Fifteenth Century', Economic History Review, 4 (1933), pp. 324-5. London silkwomen held some trading rights independently from their husbands and were exempted from some of the usual customs and laws of coverture.Amy Louise Erickson, 'Coverture and Capitalism', History Workshop Journal, 59:1 (2005), pp. 1-16: Tim Stretton, 'Women', Susan Doran & Norman Jones', The Elizabethan World (Routledge, 2011), pp. 337, 341, 347. The trade and craft of the silkwoman was encouraged by a statute of Henry VI of England as a countermeasure to imports of silk thread, and a suitable occupation for "young gentlewomen and other apprentices".Nicholas Harris Nicolas, Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York: Wardrobe Accounts of Edward the Fourth (London, 1830), p. 242. Silkwomen in London
In 1421 Alice Corsmaker paid 6s-8d to the Mercer's Company of London to trade as a silkwoman.Lisa Jefferson, Medieval Account Books of the Mercers of London, vol. 1 (Ashgate, 2009), p. 329. Alice Bradbridge was recognised as a "sister" of the Worshipful Company of Drapers.Tim Stretton, 'Women', Susan Doran & Norman Jones', The Elizabethan World (Routledge, 2011), pp. 337, 341, 347.
Silkwomen in London manufactured silk thread from raw silk imported from Italy, wove and sold ribbons, braids, cord, girdles, and trimmings, called "narrow ware",Kay Lacey, 'The Production of 'Narrow Ware by Silkwomen in Fourteenth and Fifteenth Century England', Textile History, 18:2 (1987), pp. 187-204: Maria Hayward, Great Wardrobe Accounts of Henry VII and Henry VIII (London Record Society, 2012), p. xxxi. and made other silk goods.Anne F. Sutton, 'Two dozen and more silkwomen of fifteenth-century London', The Ricardian, vol. 16 (2006), pp. 46-58. In the Elizabeth period, silkwomen also provided linen goods including lawn sleeves and partlets.Janet Arnold, Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd (Maney, 1988), p. 229.
Silkwomen supplying the royal wardrobe Emmot Norton and Matilde Dentorte were London silkwomen supplying the wardrobe of Joan of Navarre, queen consort of Henry IV of England with silk thread, cord, gilt silk ribbons or bands, and latten rings and fixings, in 1420, when she was a prisoner at Leeds Castle. Four other women sold cloth for her gowns.Alec R. Myers, Crown, household, and Parliament in fifteenth century England (London: Hambledon, 1985), pp. 95-99, 121-3.
Anne Claver (died 1489) was a silkwoman to Edward IV.Anne F. Sutton, 'Alice Claver, Silkwoman, (d. 1489)', Caroline Barron, Medieval London Widows, 1300-1500 (Hambeldon Press, 1994), p. 129. She supplied silk thread for sewing or embroidery, ribbons, a mantle of blue silk lace, and wove silk thread into laces and tassels to be applied to bookbindings.Nicholas Harris Nicolas, Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York: Wardrobe Accounts of Edward the Fourth (London: Pickering, 1830), p. 117. She made a silk fringe in yellow, green, red, white, and blue. She may have supplied five counterpoints for covering beds, with imagery, scripture, and verdure, and four "costerings" or wallhangings chequered in red and blue with roses, suns, and crowns.Nicholas Harris Nicolas, Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York: Wardrobe Accounts of Edward the Fourth (London, 1830), pp. 117-8, 125, 242. She made tufts of silk to decorate the coronation gloves of Richard III, and buttons for his and Anne Neville's robes.Anne F. Sutton, 'Alice Claver, Silkwoman of London and Maker of Mantle Laces for Richard III and Queen Anne', The Ricardian, 5 (1970), p. 24.
Cecily Walcot worked on furnishings and decorations for the coronation of Henry VII in October 1485. Walcot provided fringes of gold and silk thread for the royal canopy. Kateryn Champyon alias Claver made ribbons for the king's girdles, and Kateryn Walshe supplied fringes and ribbon, some in the green and white Tudor colours.Leopold George Wickham Legg, English Coronation Records (London, 1901), pp. 206-8 Agnes Dey or Sey and Alice Claver provided red ribbons.William Campbell, Materials for a history of the reign of Henry VII, vol. 2 (London, 1887), p. 15Anne F. Sutton, 'Alice Claver, Silkwoman of London and Maker of Mantle Laces for Richard III and Queen Anne', The Ricardian, 5 (1970), p. 247, for Katherine Champyon alias Claver, and misreadings of 'Claver' by previous authors.
Elizabeth Langton (whose mother-in-law Jane Langton was also a silkwoman) , Elizabeth Lock, Jane Lock, Margaret Ashley, and Elizabeth Worssop supplied the royal wardrobe in the years 1498 to 1511.Maria Hayward, Great Wardrobe Accounts of Henry VII and Henry VIII (London Record Society, 2012), p. xxxi. Elizabeth Lock or Lokke supplied frontlets and hoods for the gable hoods worn by Elizabeth of York.Nicholas Harris Nicolas, Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York (London: Pickering, 1830), p. 14, 68, 92. She provided black velvet hoods for Lady Catherine Gordon, the widow of Perkin Warbeck, in October 1498 and in March 1499, and a crimson velvet bonnet in 1502,Joseph Bain, Calendar of Documents relating to Scotland, 1357-1509, vol. 4, (Edinburgh, 1888), p. 420 no. 36. and in November 1498 and April 1499 black velvet bonnets with a gold border and partlets for Lady Anne Percy, one of the gentlewomen attending Elizabeth of York.Maria Hayward, Great Wardrobe Accounts of Henry VII and Henry VIII (London Record Society, 2012), pp. 10, 18, 38, 46. Jane Lock made a crimson velvet bonnet for Catherine Gordon in 1503 and two velvet frontlets.Calandar Documents Scotland, 4, p. 420 Elizabeth Worssop made gold fringes for hose worn by Henry VII in 1510.Maria Hayward, Great Wardrobe Accounts of Henry VII and Henry VIII (London Record Society, 2012), p. 85. in November 1510 Margaret Ashley supplied coloured ribbons and sarcenet silk fabric in several colours for tippets worn by Mary Tudor, then known as the "Princess of Castile".Maria Hayward, Great Wardrobe Accounts of Henry VII and Henry VIII (London Record Society, 2012), p. 91.
Joan Wilkinson and Mistress Vaughan Joan or Jane Wilkinson provided silks for Anne Boleyn. George Wyatt mentioned that Anne and her gentlewomen practised embroidery and made shirts for the poor.Samuel Singer, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey (London, 1827), pp. 442–443. After Anne Boleyn's arrest, her chaplain William Latymer forwarded books that he had bought for her to Wilkinson.Maria Dowling, 'Chronickille of Anne Bulleyne', Camden Miscellany, XXX (1990), pp. 28–29.
Margaret or Margery Guinet (died 1544), mother of Anne Locke, was a silkwoman to Anne Boleyn, Anne of Cleves, and Katherine Parr,Susan M. Felch, 'Deir Sister: The Letters of John Knox to Anne Vaughan Lok', Renaissance and Reformation, 19:4 (Fall 1995), p. 47. as the wife of Stephen Vaughan (merchant and MP) she was known as "Mistress Vaughan".Eleri Lynn, Tudor Textiles (Yale, 2020), p. 109. Vaughan recommended her work to Thomas Cromwell, claiming that she had already devised certain works for Anne Boleyn but that they had been forwarded to her.Maria Hayward, Dress at the court of Henry VIII (Maney, 2007), pp. 35, 328. Mistress Vaughan supplied crimson silk fringes for a close stool and tawny satin and ribbon to line a coffer made for the Lady Mary by William Green in August 1537.'Accounts of the Groom of the Stole', The Antiquary, 20 (London, 1889), p. 190. She provided supplies for saddlery for Anne of Cleves. Katherine Parr did not pay very promptly and her husband pursued the debts.Maria Hayward, Dress at the court of Henry VIII (Maney, 2007), pp. 328, 340. Vaughan's second wife was also called Margery Vaughan. She was the widow of Henry Brinklow. After Stephen Vaughan's death, she married George Rolle (died 1552), and subsequently Leonard Chamberlain.'VAUGHAN, Stephen (by 1502-49), of St. Mary-le-Bow, London', The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Mistress Addington was Anne of Cleve's silkwoman in 1539.Maria Hayward, Dress at the Court of King Henry VIII (Maney, 2007), p. 306. After the death of Margery Vaughan, Katherine Parr bought from the silkwoman Mistress Anne Shakerley, the wife of the mercer Rowland Shakerley.David Starkey, Inventory of Henry VIII (London, 1998), p. 437. In Scotland, Helen Ross worked for James V and Regent Arran in the 1530s and 1540s, she made trimmings for books, costume, and armour.Melanie Schuessler Bond, Dressing the Scottish Court (Boydell, 2019), p. 640: Alastair J. Mann, "Embroidery to Entereprise: The Role of Women in the Book Trade of Early Modern Scotland", Elizabeth Ewen & Maureen Meikle, Women in Scotland, p. 137.
Silkwomen to Mary I, Elizabeth I, and Anne of Denmark Marie Wilkinson was a silkwoman to Mary I of England,Alison J. Carter, 'Mary Tudor's Wardrobe', Costume, 18 (1984), p. 25: Calendar of Patent Rolls, Philip and Mary, 1 (London, 1937), p. 285. and was paid £200 in September 1553 by order of the Privy Council probably for works for Mary's coronation.Acts of the Privy Council, 4 (London, 1892), p. 350. She gave Queen Mary a "fair purse" as a New Year's Day gift in 1557.David Loades, Mary Tudor: A Life (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), p. 364. Wilkinson supplied Spanish lace, made clothes and shoes for Jane Foole, and provided materials to the Queen's French-born embroiderer, Guillaume Brellant or Brallot, (who had come to London from Normandy by May 1524 and worked with the English embroiderers William Ibgrave and Stephen Humble),Maria Hayward, Dress at the Court of King Henry VIII (Maney, 2007), 326–27. for a rich litter of black velvet. Mrs Baull or Ball and Mrs Malrye provided "silkwomen's stuff" for saddles.William Henry Hart, 'Expenses of the Royal Stables, circa 1554', Gentleman's Magazine (March 1861), pp. 278–9.John Nichols, llustrations of the manners and expences of antient times in England (London, 1797), p. 22
While Princess Elizabeth was at Hatfield House in 1551, Elizabeth Slannyng brought her velvet and silks.Viscount Strangford, Household Expenses of the Princess Elizabeth During Her Residence at Hatfield (London: Camden Society, 1852), pp. 32–33. Alice Smythe and Alice Montague served the royal wardrobe and Elizabeth I as queen.Patricia Wardle, 'Divers necessaries for his Majesty's use and service: Seamstresses to the Stuart Kings', Costume, 31:1 (January 1997), p. 16. Montague supplied "bone lace wrought with silver and spangles" in June 1572 and Mrs Swegoo, perhaps a "tirewoman", worked on head dresses for actors in The Masque of Discord and Peace.Margaret Jourdain, 'Lace as worn in England until the accession of James I', The Burlington Magazine, 10 (December 1906), p. 168: Martin Wiggins & Catherine Richardson, British Drama, 1533-1642, vol. 2 (Oxford, 2012), p. 80 no. 521.Albert Feuillerat, Documents Relating to the Office of the Revels in the Time of Queen Elizabeth (Louvain, 1908), p. 156
Alice Montague and the clothes of Elizabeth I