After silk production (sericulture) originating in ancient China reached medieval Byzantium, Spain and Italian city states such as Florence, Milan, Venice and Lucca, luxurious, highly prized silk materials began to be produced wherever climate and economic conditions permitted. The nascent French silk industry was actively promoted by the monarchy: from the 1460s Louis XI encouraged Italian weavers to settle and operate in centres including Lyon and Tours; later, in 1540, under Francois I, Lyon gained the monopoly of raw silk imports, setting the city on track to become pre-eminent in European silk manufacture. Throughout Renaissance Europe, superior Italian and French silks dyed in rich colours, dazzling brocaded (woven patterned) silks and soft, sumptuous velvets were coveted for domestic furnishings; banners, pavilions, canopies and horse trappings; church vestments and ceremonial textiles; and an array of courtly apparel – ladies’ gowns and hoods, and gentlemen’s gowns, cloaks, doublets, trunk hose and hats. Alongside costly furs and jewels, expensive silk garments and draperies were unrivalled for their intrinsic worth and impressive visual display. The use of silks was even restricted by a series of sumptuary laws to the upper echelons of society.

Britain was too cold for the successful rearing of silkworms, but a silk industry slowly developed here from the Middle Ages onwards. For example, hand throwing of loosely twisted silk thread for embroidery existed from early on, prompting the incorporation of a company of silk throwsters by 1629. In 1607/08, King James tried to cultivate a British silk industry to rival that of the continent by ordering the planting of thousands of mulberry trees, but unfortunately they turned out to be black mulberries, not the white mulberries on which silkworms thrive but were unsuited to the English climate.

Above all, British silk textile production was advanced by the arrival of Protestant refugees from the Netherlands and France in the late 1500s and late 1600s. These included Huguenots fleeing silk-producing areas of southern France, bringing with them much-needed weaving expertise and the draw loom. Flemish and Dutch weavers settled in London’s East End, notably the area around Spitalfields, and in Norwich, Ipswich, Colchester, Maidstone and Sandwich. The main influx, however, came following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), when around 50,000 religious refugees sought safety in England. With more new skills and fresh techniques, by the mid/late 17th century British producers were manufacturing a wide variety of silk textiles that had previously had to be imported, from ornate figured (patterned) and lustrous jewel-like silk materials for the social elite to cheaper silks and mixed fabrics for the middle classes. The burgeoning industry also covered ‘small wares’ including ribbons, thread and buttons, and accessories such as ladies’ hoods and silk stockings. {