CHURCH LACE

For almost 1700 years, the Catholic church has been the dominant religion in most of Western Europe and has a rich history of accumulating power and wealth. The Catholic church demonstrated her wealth through architecture and luxurious tapestries and clothing, used in the ceremonies. Embroidery always formed a part of the ritual textiles, so it is hardly surprising the church expressed a strong interest in lace when this delicate fabric became fashionable from the 16th century onwards.

Lace was an especially appropriate fabric for religious textiles. Lace is extremely light and delicate, it has an almost magical quality to it, exuding purity. Therefore it became widely used as a decoration for religious cloth. At first, these lace trimmings remained relatively low-key, but as time progressed, the decorations became more luxurious. There are some fantastic laces to be found in church collections.

The clothing of the catholic priests is inspired on Roman vestiments, consisting of long flowing robes rather than vests and trousers. The Catholic clergy has a large wardrobe, consisting of different costumes for different occasions. Naturally, the costumes reserved for special holy ceremonies were richly decorated, as opposed to costumes for daily use. Lace appeared on altarpieces as well as on statues honouring the saints, but the best laces were preserved for ceremonial textiles that came into direct contact with the Holy Sacrament itself.

The Church desired to follow the latest fashion, and as a result there are exquisite religious laces of almost every type of lace that existed. Guipure, with its silver or golden threads, was widely used for the decoration of the altar. Magnificent pieces of Alençon, Point de Rose and other fine laces were worn by popes and bishops. Laces used as decoration in magnificent catholic cathedrals can now be found in collections and museums all over the world.

The Church obtained lace from different sources : some were ordered from lacetraders, some were made in convents and others were a gift from either noblemen or were made by noblewomen as a sign of devotion. The devotion shows in the attention to each and every stitch they applied, ecclestical laces were made in honor of god, and the laces could never be too beautiful.

It has to be said that a lot of church lace wasn't originally designed for liturgic use. These pieces were often gifts from the bourgeoisie or aristocracy.

The pieces made in convents and by devoted noblewomen were usually extremely splendid. The nuns and noblewomen were under no time pressure and could devote the utmost attention to every little detail. Some of the finest pieces are so detailed that they can only be truly appreciated under a microscope.

This picture shows a piece of ecclestical Point de Rose lace containing some specific religious symbols. The most obvious one is the Latin cross that is repeated throughout the entire length at certain intervals. This Latin cross is of course the symbol for the suffering of Jesus Christ. It is also the symbol most commonly associated with the Catholic church, although it has to be noted that the cross only appeared in christian religion from the 3th century onwards.

The lace also features grapes, the symbolic value of which we have discussed in a previous article. However, this is a specifically religious lace and as such, the grapes have a different symbolic meaning. In Catholic symbolism, the grapes are associated with the sacrament of the Holy Communion, the consecration of the blood and body of Christ. Grapes are often found on the communion table. The presence of the grapes on this piece suggest it was used in the sacrament of the Holy Communion,

Click the pictures to see the enlarged pictures.