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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]A Research Journey:
Trichinopoly Chainwork
Is It Viking Chain Knitting?
Date: November 11, 2004
Authored By:
Lady Apollonia Voss, m.k.a Lora-Lynn Stevens
Illustrated By:
Lady Þhora “Amber” Ottersdötter, m.k.a. Maggie Ahrens
Please contact Apollonia at for permission to repost or reuse any other uses.
A Research Journey: Trichinopoly Chainwork Is It Viking Chain Knitting?
Background
At some point, artisans researching and recreating Viking age, medieval or ancient arts, encounter a modern
source that mentions a technique or a type of object that
may
have been used in period. As the researcher, we
are drawn to the object or the idea and
hope
that it really was used as suggested. This paper shares my
journey researching a chain making technique attributed to the Vikings in recent literature.
During my research, I discover that the chain making technique in question is referred to by multiple
names by several authors. Early in my research, I refer to the technique as the knit style as suggested by the
author and artist of my introductory book. Later, I choose to adopt the name of trichinopoly chainwork to
refer to extant pieces and my own work made utilizing the method discussed .
A second chain making technique that I believe produces similar looking object is known as loop -in-
loop. I introduce this chain making method to contrast with trichinopoly chain work in the body of this paper
and in
Appendix 1:
Loop -in-loop Chainwork
.
I first become interested in Viking chain knitting when I was introduced to the book Great Wire
Jewelry: Projects and Technique by Irene From Peterson. Figure 1 shows the cover of the book displaying
two necklaces and a bracelet created by the author. In between the covers, I was exposed to a beautiful and
fascinating technique of jewelry construction referred to as Viking knitting. The author
claims that , “Finds in Scandinavia” provide evidence for the use of a structural “looping
technique” used by Vikings for jewelry and clothing (Peterson 7).
I loved the look of the finished product. The technique produces beautiful
hollow tubes of knitted chain. This book was originally published in what appeared to
Fig. 1: Photograph of
the Book Cover
Great Wire Jewelry
by
Irene From Peterson
me to be Danish. I kept the hoping of finding suitable proof of the use of this
technique by Vikings. Using Peterson’s instructions, I learned how to “knit” with wire
as I proceeded to research as many Viking jewelry resources as I could find. Figure 2 is a photograph of my
first completed silver chain. Figure 3 is a close up of this chain to better show its detail.
Page 1 © 2004 Lora-Lynn Stevens, known as Lady Apollonia Voss in the Society for Creative Anachronism.
A Research Journey: Trichinopoly Chainwork Is It Viking Chain Knitting?
Research Journey Begins
A day’s visit to the Smithsonian’s outstanding exhibit,
Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga
, in 2000 brought me
nosed-pressed -against-the -glass- close to a hack silver hoard.
Fig. 3:
Chain Detail
A hack silver hoard is a large cache of silver objects. The objects can be
partial pieces of jewelry or unneeded fragments left by a silversmith or jeweler.
Fig. 2: My First Knit Chain
Within the mass of silver was what appeared to be knit chain. You
simply cannot tell from examining the piece from a distance. Another construction technique known as loop-in-
loop chain making looks identical to my eye. Up close inspection, preferably with a magnifying glass, is the only
way a viewer can determine which construction process was employed to create a piece in question. Please see
Appendix 2 for an introduction to the loop-in-loop chain making technique and listing of example extant pieces
known to be created utilizing it.
I purchased a copy of the exhibit catalog, by Fitzhugh and Ward, and meticulously reviewed
each silver or jewelry photograph within it, in hopes of finding the fragment I had seen. There was indeed a
picture of the hack silver hoard I had seen. Unfortunately no additional information about the piece of chain
within the hoard could be discerned. I did, however, find something even better: two chains I had not seen in
person.
The first, is a 10th or 11th century example of a knitted chain from a Saami Silver hoard from the
Lapp people of Lämsä, Kuusamo, Northern Finland. This hoard contains a chain with an axe head pendant
that appeared be made in the knit style. The Saami, or Lapp peoples, lived in the mountains of Norway
and Sweden and in arctic lands of Finland, Norway, Russia, and Sweden and “were known to interact with
their Viking neighbors” (Price 70-71). Price identifies the axe-head pendant attached to the chain in question
as of “Estonian-Baltic design” and may have been traded to the Saami by the Vikings (Price 70- 71).
Page 2 © 2004 Lora-Lynn Stevens, known as Lady Apollonia Voss in the Society for Creative Anachronism.
A Research Journey: Trichinopoly Chainwork Is It Viking Chain Knitting?
Subsequently, I learned that Saami hoard including the axe-head pendant neck chain was originally
part of the
Viking: The North Atlantic Saga
traveling exhibition however, I was not fortunate enough to have
viewed this particular hoard during my visit, since it had previously been returned to its lending museum. Figure
5 is a drawing based on a photograph of the Saami Hoard axe-head pendant necklace by the National
Museum of Finland, the owner of the piece.
There is a second photograph of interest contained within the exhibition catalog (Fitzhugh and
Ward 19.) This figure entitled
A Viking Hoard
shows a pair of oval brooches, coins made into pendants,
pendants made of glass beads strung on wire, separate silver beads, a detailed silver bracelet or perhaps a
mounting of some sort, and a length of knit silver chain that may be made in the style in question.
Now I was hooked. There appeared to be some evidence for the existence of knit chains. Further,
these chains are somehow related to the Vikings. But are they made in the knit or loop-in-loop technique?
You just cannot tell by looking at a photograph. More investigation was needed.
I learned that the chain bearing the axe-head pendant was owned and exhibited by the National
Museum of Finland. Girded with this knowledge, I sought out the museum’s website. I looked in every corner
of the English version of the site and saw no mention of the axe-head pendant neck chain. The drawing shown
in Figure 5 was discovered several years later in a Finnish language only area of the website. Without really,
expecting a reply, I emailed the curator of the museum with specific questions about
the piece as I had seen it in the exhibition catalog and continued my search for other
sources.
I had forgotten about the exhibition catalog’s photograph of the “Viking
Hoard” from the National Geographic Magazine for several years, as I followed
other leads. Yes, I have been piecing documentation together for more than six
Fig. 5: Saami Hoard
chain with axe-head
pendant as shown in
the National Museum
of Finland.
years now. After backtracking over research leads, I was reminded that this one was
not followed up. I obtained a copy of the issue containing the photograph at a
library book sale. Even after viewing the photograph in it’s original context, there
Page 3 © 2004 Lora-Lynn Stevens, known as Lady Apollonia Voss in the Society for Creative Anachronism.
A Research Journey: Trichinopoly Chainwork Is It Viking Chain Knitting?
are no clues as to whether the piece is created in the woven technique or loop-in-loop technique and remains
unclassified by me. Unfortunately, during a pre-moving cleaning binge, the issue was thrown away and I have
been unable to regain the citation of the article displaying the photograph.
Trichinopoly Chainwork
The first juicy book requested via interlibrary loan arrived. Within it I learned that there were, indeed,
more surviving examples of knit chains. Further, the chain making technique had a name—trichinopoly
chainwork.
According to the author, James Graham-Campbell (30), the trichinopoly
chainworking technique is a made by circular knitting (he uses the word plaiting) with
continuous wire. The technique is introduced in the context of two silver pins from
Viking-age graves in Scotland. These pins date to the late ninth/early tenth century.
One was found with a male and the other with a female. The pin found with the
female is from Ballinaby (early tenth century.) These pins are shown in Figure
Fig. 6: Late 9th/ early 10th
century chain found in
Ballinaby Scotland as shown
in Graham-Campbell
6. Additional pieces described by Graham -Campbell as being created with the
trichinopoly method will reviewed after examination of the construction technique itself.
Figure 7 is the illustration used by Graham-Campbell to depict the construction of a
piece of trichinopoly chainwork contained in the Trewhiddle hoard found in Cornwall thought
to be deposited c.868. (Graham-Campbell Fig. 17). Graham -Campbell takes the
illustration from Wilson and Blunt
.
The structure of trichinopoly chains as shown by the illustration utilized by Graham -
Campbell, appear to me to be a match of the structure introduced by Peterson. His phrase
“circular plaiting “ (Graham-Campbell 30) could accurately be exchanged for the phrase
Fig. 7: Construction
Detail of Trichinopoly
Chainwork as Shown
in Graham-Campbell
“structured looping” employed by Peterson in her Viking chain knitting instructions (7).
Page 4 © 2004 Lora-Lynn Stevens, known as Lady Apollonia Voss in the Society for Creative Anachronism.
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