Samite

For other uses, see Samite (disambiguation).
Detail from the "Martyr Cope" (1270), gold on red silk samite, brought from France in 1274. Uppsala Cathedral Treasury.

Samite was a luxurious and heavy silk fabric worn in the Middle Ages, of a twill-type weave, often including gold or silver thread. The word was derived from Old French samit, from medieval Latin samitum, examitum deriving from the Byzantine Greek ἑξάμιτον hexamiton "six threads", usually interpreted as indicating the use of six yarns in the warp.[1][2] Samite is still used in ecclesiastical robes, vestments, ornamental fabrics, and interior decoration.[3]

Structurally, samite is a weft-faced compound twill, plain or figured (patterned), in which the main warp threads are hidden on both sides of the fabric by the floats of the ground and patterning wefts, with only the binding warps visible.[4][5] By the later medieval period, the term samite was applied to any rich, heavy silk material which had a satin-like gloss,[6] indeed "satin" began as a term for lustrous samite.[7]

  1. ^ Oxford English Dictionary Online "samite" (subscription required), accessed 30 December 2010
  2. ^ Lisa Mannas, Merchants, Princes and Painters: Silk Fabrics in Northern and Italian Paintings 1300–1550, Appendix I:III "Medieval Silk Fabric Types and Weaves", Yale University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-300-11117-0, p. 297.
  3. ^ George E. Linton, The Modern Textile Dictionary, NY, 1954, p. 561
  4. ^ Anna Muthesius, "Silk in the Medieval World". In David Jenkins, ed.: The Cambridge History of Western Textiles, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003, ISBN 0-521-34107-8, p. 343
  5. ^ Dorothy K. Burnham, Warp and Weft, A Textile Terminology, Royal Ontario Museum, 1980, ISBN 0-88854-256-9, p. 180.
  6. ^ George S. Cole, A Complete Dictionary of Dry Goods, Chicago, W. B. Conkey company, 1892
  7. ^ Clothing Of The Thirteenth Century, 1928 on-line text)