Inger Estham, who passed away in 2016, worked for many years as Director and Head of Department at the Textile Department of the Swedish National Heritage Board and the Swedish History Museum. She left unfinished research material covering a group of medieval embroideries, previously attributed to Albrict the embroiderer. This was bequeathed to Mari-Louise Franzén, previously Senior Curator at the textile collection at the Swedish History Museum, for further research and completion. An excerpt focusing on a specific silk quality has been selected, processed and published separately in this article. In her research Inger Estham observed seven embroideries made on a background of a silk, only fragmentarily preserved today. By means of comparative studies of international textiles, she has identified this quality of silk as sendal, a lightweight and thin silk tabby. Some minor clarifications have been made to Inger Estham’s text in order for it to stand separately. The text is concluded with an appendix, written by Mari- Louise Franzén, in which a few more examples of preserved medieval textiles with sendal are presented.
This article discusses the embroidered skull reliquary on foot, kept in the Linköping Castle and Cathedral Museum (SHM 3920:6). The reliquary was examined by Agnes Branting and Andreas Lindblom in 1928 and discussed in this journal by Axel Romdahl in 1929. Inger Estham describes the object in the 2001 publication on Linköping Cathedral and suggests that it was a gift from Vadstena Abbey to the cathedral for the translation of Bishop Nils Hermansson's relics in 1515. Our analysis of the textiles, the embroidery, the traces of lost ornaments and the iconography has led us to believe that the assumed provenance from the hands of the nuns of Vadstena Abbey is correct. However, the decoration on top of the lid, forming a typical Birgittine crown, would not be correct for a bishop: it wouldinstead be most appropriate for a Birgittine nun. Furthermore, the decoration and the execution of the embroidery correspond to textile production in Vadstena Abbey in the mid-15th century, not the early 16th. Finally, a description of the skull reliquary used at the translation of St. Catherine of Vadstena in 1489 fits rather well with what the Linköping reliquary is likely to have looked like originally. We therefore dismiss the reliquary's association with the translation of Bishop Nils Hermansson in 1515 and instead suggest a date no later than 1489.
Arkeologiska utgrävningar på Grönlands södra västkust, i gränsområdet till inlandsisen, har kastat nytt ljus över öns tidiga bebyggelseutveckling och dess plötsliga förfall. I lämningarna efter en medeltida gård har arkeologerna hittat bl a textilredskap och -fragment som pga sitt nedfrysta tillstånd bevarats ovanligt väl. Utgrävningarna har skett under dramatiska förhållanden, men livet på gården tycks ha haft ett minst lika dramatiskt förlopp.