Warp Transposition and the Mystery of the Missing Seal Tag

In traditional weaving, once the warp is created the position of a warp thread relative to its neighbors is fixed. Not so when tablet weaving — just pick up one or more tablets, transpose them across the pack, and continue weaving. This ability to reorder the cards while weaving dramatically distinguishes both tablet weaving and the resulting woven structure from traditional weaving techniques.

Based on a cursory search of the web and my small library of tablet weaving books, the method is neither widely seen nor referenced. Snow and Snow introduce the method in a simple “shuffling weave” project (p. 68, 71). Crockett mentions it briefly as an example of “free-form” tablet weaving (p. 135). Specht and Rawlings show a simple band (p. 53). Collingwood, as one might expect, discusses tablet transposition in some depth, and describes how to weave the pattern found on a medieval seal tag (pp. 278-280).

This fall the Banditos, the band-weaving study group of the Weavers Guild of Minnesota, started a project to study textures produced by tablet weaving. We used as reference a set of notes from a workshop Linda Hendrickson gave several decades ago. Included in her notes are several exercises that require transposing cards.

To prepare for that part of the study, I decided to recreate the example given by Collingwood and and to read Collingwood’s original source, an article by Audrey Henshall in The Archaeological Journal. I threaded 24 4-hole tablets, each with the same color in 10/2 Perle Cotton, in this order: 3 cards white, 6 red, 3 white, 3 green, 6 red, and 3 green. Tablets were alternately S- and Z-threaded. No border tablets. Weaving proceeds as follows:

1. Move the leftmost three white tablets to the right, over three red cards.
2. Move the rightmost three white tablets to the left, over three red cards. The six white tablets are now joined, bordered on each side by three red tablets.
3. Repeat the same action on the right half of the warp: move the leftmost three green tablets to the right, over three red tablets, and the rightmost three green cards to the left, over three red tablets. The six green tablets are now joined, bordered on each side by three red tablets.
4. Turn all tablets forward.
5. Weave six picks, turning all tablets forward one quarter turn.
6. Move the tablets back to their original position. Be sure to move the white and green tablets over the red cards to undo the twining caused by the first three steps.
7. Turn all tablets forward.
8. Weave six picks.
9. Repeat.

Here’s the weaving sequence in action:

When twist build-up became excessive, I reversed the turn after the third of 6 picks between transpositions. Here’s the result:

And a close-up:

 

What Are Seal Tags?

A seal tag is a way to attach a seal to a document to prove that a document is genuine and to verify the identity of its author. Developed in the middle ages in Europe, it consists of a tape and a wax seal that identifies the author. The tape is affixed to the document by inserting it through one or more slits in the document and then pressing the seal onto the ends of the tape to form a sealed loop. The tape may be a strip of parchment (sometimes still attached to the document), a woven band, or a braided string. Pictured below is the seal tag on a document delivered to Durham Cathedral circa 1194 AD (source: Henshall 1964). The tape is tablet-woven with a double-faced design.

 

The Dead End and its Resolution

Henshall describes five seal tags including the tag pictured above, but she does not describe any tags woven by transposing warps. Nor do the accompanying photos show any evidence that the method was used. This is puzzling, given Peter Collingwood’s usual zeal in thoroughly researching historical references.

This mystery was resolved, thanks to the detective work of Viking-age historian Carolyn Priest-Dorman. Another SCA enthusiast and blogger Amalie wrote about Collingwood’s reference and also reached a dead end. Priest-Dorman’s comment on that blog post brings the mystery to an interesting but sad close:

In correspondence, I asked Peter about that warp transposition band in February 1997. He told me he wove the band that is pictured in TTW from a drawing that Audrey Henshall made of the original band. He got intrigued and wrote off to the old address he had for her in Scotland. She replied to him that she had downsized her tablet weaving notes years ago (some to John-Peter Wild, but most were just pitched out) and had never gotten around to publishing that band. He then suggested to me that the best course of action would be to write the Cathedral Library at Durham for further information. It wasn’t mission-critical to me at the time, so I never did. Alas.

It would be very exciting if that band were to re-emerge!

Indeed, it would.

References

• Amalie von Brisache, “A Dead End on Durham Warp Transposition“.
• Peter Collingwood, The Techniques of Tablet Weaving. Robin & Russ, Handweavers, McMinnville Or, 2002,
• Candace Crockett, Card Weaving. Interweave Press, Loveland, Co 1973.
• Audrey S. Henshall. “Five Tablet Woven Seal Tags”. The Archaeological Journal, London, Vol CXXI, 1964.
• Marjorie and William Snow,  Step by Step Tablet Weaving. Golden Press, New York, 1973.
• Sally Specht and Sandra Rawlings, Creating with Card Weaving. Crown Publishers, New York, 1973.