Misplaced Pages

#471528

107-469: 14th and 15th-century sabatons typically end in a tapered point well past the actual toes of the wearer's foot, following fashionable shoe shapes of the era . Sabatons of the late 15th and early 16th century followed the duckbill shoes of the time, ending at the tip of the toe but often extending greatly wider. The sabatons were the first piece of armour to be put on, and were made of riveted iron plates called lames . These plates generally covered only

214-539: A patten would often be worn over the shoe outdoors, as the shoe by itself was generally not waterproof. Images from a 14th-century manuscript of Tacuinum Sanitatis , a treatise on healthful living, show the clothing of working people: men wear short or knee-length tunics and thick shoes, and women wear knotted kerchiefs and gowns with aprons. For hot summer work, men wear shirts and braies and women wear chemises. Women tuck their gowns up when working. Woodblock printing Woodblock printing or block printing

321-565: A blank hidden page. Later the sewn bindings were preferred rather than pasted bindings. Only relatively small volumes ( juan 卷 ) were bound up, and several of these would be enclosed in a cover called a tao , with wooden boards at front and back, and loops and pegs to close up the book when not in use. For example, one complete Tripitaka had over 6,400 juan in 595 tao . Despite the productive effect of woodblock printing, historian Endymion Wilkinson notes that it never supplanted handwritten manuscripts. Indeed, manuscripts remained dominant until

428-424: A consequence the idea of printing and its advantages in replicating texts quickly became apparent to Buddhists, who by the 7th century, were using woodblocks to create apotropaic documents. These Buddhist texts were printed specifically as ritual items and were not widely circulated or meant for public consumption. Instead they were buried in consecrated ground. The earliest extant example of this type of printed matter

535-557: A court that, like many in Europe late in the century, was extremely refined and fashion-conscious. He himself is credited with having invented the handkerchief ; "little pieces [of cloth] for the lord King to wipe and clean his nose," appear in the Household Rolls (accounts), which is the first documentation of their use. He distributed jeweled livery badges with his personal emblem of the white hart (deer) to his friends, like

642-478: A form of modesty and piety. Many in the lower classes wore their undergarments to bed because of the cold weather at night time and since their beds usually consisted of a straw mattress and a few sheets, the undergarment would act as another layer. Over the chemise, women wore a loose or fitted gown called a cotte or kirtle , usually ankle or floor-length, and with trains for formal occasions. Fitted kirtles had wide skirts made by adding triangular gores to widen

749-411: A jeweled or metalworked belt. Over time, the hanging part of the sleeve became longer and narrower until it was the merest streamer, called a tippet , then gaining the floral or leaflike daggings in the end of the century. Sleeveless overgowns or tabards derive from the cyclas , an unfitted rectangle of cloth with an opening for the head that was worn in the 13th century. By the early 14th century,

856-530: A local governor. Eventually he was dealt with by the governor's successor, who presumably executed Gong. Timothy Hugh Barrett postulates that Gong's magical jade block was actually a printing device, and Gong was one of the first, if not the first printer. The semi-mythical record of him therefore describes his usage of the printing process to deliberately bewilder onlookers and create an image of mysticism around himself. However, woodblock print flower patterns applied to silk in three colours have been found dated from

963-426: A mounted knight's feet would be at perfect height for strikes from dismounted soldiers, and so sabatons or other foot armour would be vital when riding into battle. An earlier solution was for the mail of the chausses to completely cover the foot, but later the mail terminated at the ankle, either overlapping the outside of the sabaton or extending beneath it. The effigy of Richard Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick in

1070-417: A new dimension of cultural reverence. Those who considered themselves real scholars and true connoisseurs of the book did not consider imprints to be real books. Under the elitist attitudes of the time, "printed books were for those who did not truly care about books". However, copyists and manuscripts only continued to remain competitive with printed editions by dramatically reducing their price. According to

1177-523: A silk satin lining. This type of coat, originally worn out of sight under armour, was in fashion as an outer garment from about 1360 until early the next century. Only this and a child's version (Chartres Cathedral) survive. As an indication of the rapid spread of fashion between the courts of Europe, a manuscript chronicle illuminated in Hungary by 1360 shows very similar styles to Edward's English version. Edward's son, King Richard II of England , led

SECTION 10

#1732797447472

1284-403: A single block for a whole page, appeared in Europe in the mid-15th century. As they were almost always undated, and without statement of printer or place of printing, determining their dates of printing has been an extremely difficult task. Allan H. Stevenson , by comparing the watermarks in the paper used in block books with watermarks in dated documents, concluded that the "heyday" of block books

1391-533: A specific date of printing was discovered in the Mogao Caves of Dunhuang in 1907 by Aurel Stein . This copy of the Diamond Sutra is 14 feet long and contains a colophon at the inner end, which reads: "Reverently [caused to be] made for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his two parents on the 13th of the 4th moon of the 9th year of Xiantong [i.e. 11 May, AD 868 ]". It is considered

1498-538: A tight top over the torso, with breeches or trousers below, was to become the distinctive feature of European men's fashion for centuries to come. Men had carried purses up to this time because tunics did not provide pockets. The funeral effigy and "achievements" of Edward, the Black Prince in Canterbury Cathedral , who died in 1376, show the military version of the same outline. Over armour he

1605-465: A veil and wimple, and a simple knotted kerchief was worn while working. In the image at right, one woman wears a red hood draped over her twisted and bound hair. Footwear during the 14th century generally consisted of the turnshoe , which was made out of leather. It was fashionable for the toe of the shoe to be a long point, which often had to be stuffed with material to keep its shape. A carved wooden-soled sandal-like type of clog or overshoe called

1712-678: Is a fragment of a dhāraṇī (Buddhist spell) miniature scroll written in Sanskrit unearthed in a tomb in Xi'an . It is called the Great spell of unsullied pure light ( Wugou jingguang da tuoluoni jing 無垢淨光大陀羅尼經) and was printed using woodblock during the Tang dynasty, c.  650 –670 AD. A similar piece, the Saddharma pundarika sutra, was also discovered and dated to 690 to 699. This coincides with

1819-456: Is a technique for printing text, images or patterns used widely throughout East Asia and originating in China in antiquity as a method of printing on textiles and later on paper . Each page or image is created by carving a wooden block to leave only some areas and lines at the original level; it is these that are inked and show in the print, in a relief printing process. Carving the blocks

1926-621: Is considered the most accurate of Buddhist canons written in Classical Chinese as well as a standard edition for East Asian Buddhist scholarship. In the Kamakura period from the 12th century to the 13th century, many books were printed and published by woodblock printing at Buddhist temples in Kyoto and Kamakura . The mass production of woodblock prints in the Edo period was due to

2033-468: Is reddish-brown on one side and plaid on the other, and remains of plaid and checkered wool fabrics dating to the 14th century have also been discovered in London. Fur was mostly worn as an inner lining for warmth; inventories from Burgundian villages show that even there a fur-lined coat (rabbit, or the more expensive cat) was one of the most common garments. Vair , the fur of the squirrel, white on

2140-407: Is shown wearing a short fitted arming-coat or jupon or gipon , the original of which was hung above and still survives. This has the quartered arms of England and France, with a rather similar effect to a parti-coloured jacket. The "charges" (figures) of the arms are embroidered in gold on linen pieces, appliquéd onto coloured silk velvet fields. It is vertically quilted, with wool stuffing and

2247-529: Is skilled and laborious work, but a large number of impressions can then be printed. As a method of printing on cloth , the earliest surviving examples from China date to before 220 AD. Woodblock printing existed in Tang China by the 7th century AD and remained the most common East Asian method of printing books and other texts, as well as images, until the 19th century. Ukiyo-e is the best-known type of Japanese woodblock art print. Most European uses of

SECTION 20

#1732797447472

2354-538: Is the collection of twenty-nine Kaempfer Prints ( British Museum , London), brought in 1693 by a German physician from China to Europe, which includes flowers, fruits, birds, insects and ornamental motifs reminiscent of the style of Kangxi ceramics. Equally famous is the compilation Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden , published in two parts between 1679 and 1701. It was initiated by the scholar and landscape painter Wáng Gài and expanded and prefaced by

2461-409: The renmen-tai ( ja ), in which several characters are written in succession with smooth brush strokes. As a result, a single typeface was sometimes created by combining two to four semi-cursive and cursive kanji or hiragana characters. In one book, 2,100 characters were created, but 16% of them were used only once. Despite the appeal of moveable type, however, craftsmen soon decided that

2568-747: The Byzantine Empire . However printing onto cloth only became common in Europe by 1300. "In the 13th century the Chinese technique of blockprinting was transmitted to Europe", soon after paper became available in Europe. From 932 to 955 the Twelve Classics and an assortment of other texts were printed. During the Song dynasty , the Directorate of education and other agencies used these block print disseminate their standardized versions of

2675-690: The Classics . Other disseminated works include the Histories , philosophical works, encyclopedias, collections, and books on medicine and the art of war. In 971 work began on the complete Tripiṭaka Buddhist Canon ( Kaibao zangshu 開寶藏書) in Chengdu . It took 10 years to finish the 130,000 blocks needed to print the text. The finished product, the Sichuan edition of the Kaibao Canon , also known as

2782-471: The Collegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick , shows how 15th century Italian-style sabatons would have been worn. These consist of a toe cap, four articulated lames, a foot plate and ankle plate, and a hinged heel cap, joined with buckled straps. Although the spurs are missing from the effigy, remains of rivet holes and staples may represent the way that the spurs would have been directly attached to

2889-568: The English cottager cannot buy anything like the amount of printed matter for his penny that the Chinaman can for even less. A penny Prayer-book, admittedly sold at a loss, cannot compete in mass of matter with many of the books to be bought for a few cash in China. When it is considered, too, that a block has been laboriously cut for each leaf, the cheapness of the result is only accounted for by

2996-623: The Han dynasty (before AD 220). Inscribed seals made of metal or stone, especially jade, and inscribed stone tablets probably provided inspiration for the invention of printing. Copies of classical texts on tablets were erected in a public place in Luoyang during the Han dynasty for scholars and students to copy. The Suishu jingjizhi , the blibography of the official history of the Sui dynasty , includes several ink-squeeze rubbings, believed to have led to

3103-596: The Kaibao Tripitaka , was printed in 983. Prior to the introduction of printing, the size of private collections in China had already seen an increase since the invention of paper. Fan Ping (215–84) had in his collection 7,000 rolls ( juan ), or a few hundred titles. Two centuries later, Zhang Mian owned 10,000 juan , Shen Yue (441–513) 20,000 juan , and Xiao Tong and his cousin Xiao Mai both had collections of 30,000 juan . Emperor Yuan of Liang (508–555)

3210-455: The Ming dynasty author Hu Yinglin , "if no printed edition were available on the market, the hand-copied manuscript of a book would cost ten times as much as the printed work", and also, "once a printed edition appeared, the transcribed copy could no longer be sold and would be discarded". The result is that despite the mutual co-existence of hand-copied manuscripts and printed texts, the cost of

3317-572: The Mongol invasion of 1232. King Gojong ordered another set to be created and work began in 1237, this time only taking 12 years to complete. In 1248 the complete Goryeo Daejanggyeong numbered 81,258 printing blocks, 52,330,152 characters, 1496 titles, and 6568 volumes. Due to the stringent editing process that went into the Goryeo Daejanggyeong and its surprisingly enduring nature, having survived completely intact over 760 years, it

Sabaton - Misplaced Pages Continue

3424-875: The Northern Song dynasty around the year 1041 by the commoner Bi Sheng . Metal movable type also appeared in the Southern Song dynasty . The earliest extant book printed using movable type is the Auspicious Tantra of All-Reaching Union , printed in Western Xia c. 1139–1193. Metal movable type was used in the Song, Jin , and Yuan dynasties for printing banknotes. The invention of movable type did not have an immediate effect on woodblock printing and it never supplanted it in East Asia . Only during

3531-620: The Silk Road . A fashion for mi-parti or parti-coloured garments made of two contrasting fabrics, one on each side, arose for men in mid-century, and was especially popular at the English court. Sometimes just the hose would be different colours on each leg. Checkered and plaid fabrics were occasionally seen; a parti-coloured cotehardie depicted on the St. Vincent altarpiece in Catalonia

3638-505: The 11th century, central government offices were saving tenfold by substituting earlier manuscripts with printed versions. The impact of woodblock printing on Song society is illustrated in the following exchange between Emperor Zhenzong and Xing Bing in the year 1005: The emperor went to the Directorate of Education to inspect the Publications Office. He asked Xing Bing how many woodblocks were kept there. Bing replied, "At

3745-488: The 39 year old Su Shi remarked upon the unforeseen effect an abundance of books had on examination candidates: I can recall meeting older scholars, long ago, who said that when they were young they had a hard time getting their hands on a copy of Shiji or Han shu . If they were lucky enough to get one, they thought nothing of copying the entire text out by hand, so they could recite it day and night. In recent years merchants engrave and print all manner of books belonging to

3852-491: The Ming and Qing dynasties did wooden and metal movable types see any considerable use, but the preferred method remained woodblock. Usage of movable type in China never exceeded 10 percent of all printed materials while 90 percent of printed books used the older woodblock technology. In one case an entire set of wooden type numbering 250,000 pieces was used for firewood. Woodblocks remained the dominant printing method in China until

3959-610: The ability to take dye and its being a good insulator. This century saw the beginnings of the Little Ice Age , and glazing was rare, even for the rich (most houses just had wooden shutters for the winter). Trade in textiles continued to grow throughout the century and formed an important part of the economy for many areas from England to Italy. Clothes were very expensive, and employees, even high-ranking officials, were usually supplied with, typically, one outfit per year, as part of their remuneration. Woodblock printing of cloth

4066-401: The art critic Li Yu and the landscape painter Wáng Niè. It was noted for the quality of its polychrome and drawings, which influenced Qing painting. In 989 Seongjong of Goryeo sent the monk Yeoga to request from the Song a copy of the complete Buddhist canon. The request was granted in 991 when Seongjong's official Han Eongong visited the Song court. In 1011, Hyeonjong of Goryeo issued

4173-442: The belly and grey on the back, was particularly popular through most of the century and can be seen in many illuminated manuscript illustrations, where it is shown as a white and blue-grey softly striped or checkered pattern lining cloaks and other outer garments; the white belly fur with the merest edging of grey was called miniver. A fashion in men's clothing for the dark furs sable and marten arose around 1380, and squirrel fur

4280-613: The book had declined by about 90 percent by the end of the 16th century. As a result, literacy increased. In 1488, the Korean Choe Bu observed during his trip to China that "even village children, ferrymen, and sailors" could read, although this applied mainly to the south, while northern China remained largely illiterate. In modern times, Chinese printing continued the tradition begun in medieval times. Black-and-white woodcuts were generally replaced by colored ones, achieved by printing successive runs with different inks. Between

4387-533: The carving of their own set of the Buddhist canon, which would come to be known as the Goryeo Daejanggyeong . The project was suspended in 1031 after Heyongjong's death, but work resumed again in 1046 after Munjong 's accession to the throne. The completed work, amounting to some 6,000 volumes, was finished in 1087. Unfortunately the original set of woodblocks was destroyed in a conflagration during

Sabaton - Misplaced Pages Continue

4494-463: The chin and was pinned on top of the head; it descended from the earlier wimple (in French, barbe ), which was now worn only by older women, widows, and nuns . The barbet was worn with a linen fillet or headband, or with a linen cap called a coif , with or without a couvrechef ( kerchief ) or veil overall. It passed out of fashion by mid-century. Unmarried girls simply braided the hair to keep

4601-498: The common people and were mass-produced. ukiyo-e is based on kabuki actors, sumo wrestlers, beautiful women, landscapes of sightseeing spots, historical tales, and so on, and Hokusai and Hiroshige are the most famous artists. In the 18th century, Suzuki Harunobu established the technique of multicolor woodblock printing called nishiki-e and greatly developed Japanese woodblock printing culture such as ukiyo-e . Ukiyo-e influenced European Japonisme and Impressionism . In

4708-561: The creation of artistic books, and in preceding mass production for general consumption, were Honami Kōetsu and Suminokura Soan. At their studio in Saga, Kyoto, the pair created a number of woodblock versions of the Japanese classics, both text and images, essentially converting emaki (handscrolls) to printed books, and reproducing them for wider consumption. These books, now known as Kōetsu Books, Suminokura Books, or Saga Books, are considered

4815-399: The dirt out. The barbet and fillet or barbet and veil could also be worn over the crespine , a thick hairnet or snood . Over time, the crespine evolved into a mesh of jeweler's work that confined the hair on the sides of the head, and even later, at the back. This metal crespine was also called a caul , and remained stylish long after the barbet had fallen out of fashion. For example, it

4922-578: The disastrous Bal des Ardents in 1393 in Paris is the most famous example. Men, as well as women, wore decorated and jewelled clothes; for the entry of the Queen of France into Paris in 1389, the Duke of Burgundy wore a velvet doublet embroidered with forty sheep and forty swans, each with a pearl bell around its neck. A new garment, the houppelande , appeared around 1380 and was to remain fashionable well into

5029-663: The early 20th century, shin-hanga that fused the tradition of ukiyo-e with the techniques of Western paintings became popular, and the works of Hasui Kawase and Hiroshi Yoshida gained international popularity. A few specimen of wood block printing, possibly called tarsh in Arabic , have been excavated from a 10th-century context in Arabic Egypt . They were mostly used for prayers and amulets. The technique may have spread from China or been an independent invention, but had very little impact and virtually disappeared at

5136-584: The early duplication of texts that inspired printing. A stone inscription cut in reverse dating from the first half of the 6th century implies that it may have been a large printing block. The rise of printing was greatly influenced by Mahayana Buddhism . According to Mahayana beliefs, religious texts hold intrinsic value for carrying the Buddha's word and act as talismanic objects containing sacred power capable of warding off evil spirits. By copying and preserving these texts, Buddhists could accrue personal merit. As

5243-408: The end of the 14th century. In India the main importance of the technique has always been as a method of printing textiles, which has been a large industry since at least the 10th century. Nowadays wooden block printing is commonly used for creating beautiful textiles, such as block print saree, kurta, curtains, kurtis, dress, shirts, cotton sarees. Block books, where both text and images are cut on

5350-571: The end of the 16th and the beginning of the 17th century, three—and five—color prints appeared. The oldest surviving print is the Ten Bamboo Studio Manual of Calligraphy and Paintings (1644) by Hu Zhengyan , of which there are several copies in various museums and collections. It is still commonly reproduced in China today and its images are very popular: it includes landscapes, flowers, animals, reproductions of jades, bronzes, porcelain and other objects. Another outstanding series

5457-616: The end of the empire it remained cheaper to pay a copyist than to buy a printed book. Seven hundred and fifty years after the first imperially sponsored printed works in the Northern Song, the greatest book project of the eighteenth century, the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries (四庫全書), was produced as a manuscript, not as a printed collection. About 4 percent of it was printed in movable type in 1773, but it

SECTION 50

#1732797447472

5564-515: The engraver Charles-Nicolas Cochin ( Conquests of the Emperor of China , 1767–1773). The emperor himself commissioned the Jesuits to instruct Chinese artisans in the intaglio technique, but they did not obtain good results. Already in the 19th century, the growing xenophobia against Europeans was progressively relegating the use of engraving in China. In the 20th century, the genre was revived by

5671-653: The era of Later Silla . The document is printed on a 8 cm × 630 cm (3.1 in × 248.0 in) mulberry paper scroll. A dhāraṇī sutra was printed in Japan around AD 770. One million copies of the sutra, along with other prayers, were ordered to be produced by Empress Shōtoku . As each copy was then stored in a tiny wooden pagoda, the copies are together known as the Hyakumantō Darani (百万塔陀羅尼, "1,000,000 towers/pagodas Darani"). Woodblock printing spread across Eurasia by 1000 AD and could be found in

5778-451: The expense of producing more than 200,000 individual pieces of type. Even woodblock printing was not as cost productive as simply paying a copyist to write out a book by hand if there was no intention of producing more than a few copies. Although Sejong the Great introduced Hangeul, an alphabetic system, in the 15th century, Hangeul only replaced Hanja in the 20th century. And unlike China,

5885-430: The figure and some loosely garmented, although there is some mention of a "breast girdle" or "breast band" which may have been the precursor of a modern bra . Women also wore hose or stockings, although women's hose generally only reached to the knee. All classes and both sexes are usually shown sleeping naked—special nightwear only became common in the 16th century —yet some married women wore their chemises to bed as

5992-595: The first and finest printed reproductions of many of these classic tales; the Saga Book of the Tales of Ise ( Ise monogatari ), printed in 1608, is especially renowned. Saga Books were printed on expensive paper, and used various embellishments, being printed specifically for a small circle of literary connoisseurs. For aesthetic reasons, the typeface of the Saga-bon , like that of traditional handwritten books, adopted

6099-735: The form of a leishu (類書), a type of encyclopedic reference book used to help examination candidates. Imperial establishments such as the Three Institutes: Zhaowen Institute, History Institute, and Jixian Institute also followed suit. At the start of the dynasty the Three Institutes' holdings numbered 13,000 juan , by the year 1023 39,142 juan , by 1068 47,588 juan , and by 1127 73,877 juan . The Three Institutes were one of several imperial libraries, with eight other major palace libraries, not including imperial academies. According to Weng Tongwen, by

6206-437: The full length of each leg. Hose were generally tied to the breech belt, or to the breeches themselves, or to a doublet . A doublet was a buttoned jacket that was generally of hip length. Similar garments were called cotehardie , pourpoint , jaqueta or jubón . These garments were worn over the shirt and the hose. A robe , tunic , or kirtle was usually worn over the shirt or doublet. As with other outer garments, it

6313-399: The full suit had been developed, although mixtures of chain mail and plate remained more common. The visored bascinet helmet was a new development in this century. Ordinary soldiers were lucky to have a mail hauberk , and perhaps some cuir bouilli ("boiled leather") knee or shin pieces. The innermost layer of a woman's clothing was a linen or woolen chemise or smock , some fitting

6420-477: The half-literate, [...] which anyway had to be very brief because of the laborious process of cutting the letters". John Man's The Gutenberg Revolution makes a similar case: "wood-blocks were even more demanding than manuscript pages to make, and they wore out and broke, and then you had to carve another one – a whole page at a time". Commentaries on printing in China from the 1990s on, which cite contemporary European observers with first-hand knowledge, complicate

6527-487: The heads of fashionable ladies everywhere in Europe and England. Cauls , the cylindrical cages worn at the side of the head and temples, added to the richness of dress of the fashionable and the well-to-do. Other more simple forms of headdress included the coronet or simple circlet of flowers. Married women in Northern and Western Europe wore some type of headcovering. The barbet was a band of linen that passed under

SECTION 60

#1732797447472

6634-620: The heel cap of the sabaton, rather than being strapped on afterwards. "Sabaton" is also the name of a type of broad-toed Flemish shoe, popular in the Late Middle Ages. Sabaton is the name of a Swedish heavy metal band who write songs based on military history. 1300%E2%80%931400 in European fashion Fashion in fourteenth-century Europe was marked by the beginning of a period of experimentation with different forms of clothing. Costume historian James Laver suggests that

6741-419: The hem without adding bulk at the waist. Kirtles also had long, fitted sleeves that sometimes reached down to cover the knuckles. Various sorts of overgowns were worn over the kirtle, and are called by different names by costume historians. When fitted, this garment is often called a cotehardie (although this usage of the word has been heavily criticized ) and might have hanging sleeves and sometimes worn with

6848-644: The high literacy rate of Japanese people. The literacy rate of the Japanese by 1800 was almost 100% for the samurai class and 50% to 60% for the chōnin and nōmin (farmer) class due to the spread of private schools terakoya . There were more than 600 rental bookstores in Edo , and people lent woodblock-printed illustrated books of various genres. The content of these books varied widely, including travel guides, gardening books, cookbooks, kibyōshi (satirical novels), sharebon (books on urban culture), kokkeibon (comical books), ninjōbon (romance novel), yomihon , kusazōshi , art books, play scripts for

6955-429: The hundred schools, and produce ten thousand pages a day. With books so readily available, you would think that students' writing and scholarship would be many times better than what they were in earlier generations. Yet, to the contrary, young men and examination candidates leave their books tied shut and never look at them, preferring to amuse themselves with baseless chatter. Why is this? Woodblock printing also changed

7062-606: The industry began to decline, with stereotyped images. This coincided with the arrival of European missionaries who introduced Western engraving techniques. The Jesuit Matteo Ripa edited in 1714–1715 a series of poems by Emperor Kangxi, which he illustrated with landscapes of the imperial summer residence at Jehol . During the reign of Emperor Qianlong the one hundred and four maps of the Chinese Empire made by Jesuit missionaries were printed, as well as illustrations of his military victories, which he commissioned in Paris from

7169-486: The introduction of lithography in the late 19th century. Traditionally it has been assumed that the prevalence of woodblock printing in East Asia as a result of Chinese characters led to the stagnation of printing culture and enterprise in that region. S. H. Steinberg describes woodblock printing in his Five Hundred Years of Printing as having "outlived their usefulness" and their printed material as "cheap tracts for

7276-405: The introduction of the mechanical printing press in the mid fifteenth century. Reliable figures of the number of imprints of each edition are as hard to find in Europe as they are in China, but one result of the spread of printing in Europe was that public and private libraries were able to build up their collections and for the first time in over a thousand years they began to match and then overtake

7383-416: The kabuki and jōruri (puppet) theatre, etc. The best-selling books of this period were Kōshoku Ichidai Otoko (Life of an Amorous Man) by Ihara Saikaku , Nansō Satomi Hakkenden by Takizawa Bakin , and Tōkaidōchū Hizakurige by Jippensha Ikku , and these books were reprinted many times. From the 17th century to the 19th century, ukiyo-e depicting secular subjects became very popular among

7490-529: The largest libraries in China. During the 16th and 17th centuries, printmaking enjoyed great popularity, especially in the illustration of books such as Buddhist texts, poems, novels, biographies, medical treatises, music, etc. The major center of production was initially in Kien-ngan ( Fujian ) and, from the 17th century, in Sin-ngan ( Anhui ) and Nanjing ( Jiangsu ). On the other hand, in the 18th century,

7597-466: The length of male hemlines progressively reduced, and by the end of the century it was fashionable for men to omit the long loose over-garment of previous centuries (whether called tunic, kirtle, or other names) altogether, putting the emphasis on a tailored top that fell a little below the waist—a silhouette that is still reflected in men's costume today. Wool was the most important material for clothing, due to its numerous favourable qualities, such as

7704-409: The mid-14th century marks the emergence of recognizable " fashion " in clothing, in which Fernand Braudel concurs. The draped garments and straight seams of previous centuries were replaced by curved seams and the beginnings of tailoring , which allowed clothing to more closely fit the human form. Also, the use of lacing and buttons allowed a more snug fit to clothing. In the course of the century

7811-474: The movable type system was kept mainly within the confines of a highly stratified elite Korean society: Korean printing with movable metallic type developed mainly within the royal foundry of the Yi dynasty. Royalty kept a monopoly of this new technique and by royal mandate suppressed all non-official printing activities and any budding attempts at commercialization of printing. Thus, printing in early Korea served only

7918-462: The next century. It was essentially a robe with fullness falling from the shoulders, very full trailing sleeves, and the high collar favored at the English court. The extravagance of the sleeves was criticized by moralists. During this century, the chaperon made a transformation from being a utilitarian hood with a small cape to becoming a complicated and fashionable hat worn by the wealthy in town settings. This came when they began to be worn with

8025-590: The number of all the preceding centuries combined. Private libraries of 10–20,000 juan became commonplace while six individuals owned collections of over 30,000 juan . The earliest extant private Song library catalogue lists 1,937 titles in 24,501 juan . Zhou Mi's collection numbered 42,000 juan , Chen Zhensun's collection lists 3,096 titles in 51,180 juan , and Ye Mengde (1077–1148) as well as one other individual owned libraries of 6,000 titles in 100,000 juan . The majority of which were secular in nature. Texts contained material such as medicinal instruction or came in

8132-527: The one he himself wears in the Wilton Diptych (above). In the miniature (left) of Chaucer reading to his court both men and women wear very high collars and quantities of jewelry. The King (standing to the left of Chaucer; his face has been defaced) wears a patterned gold-coloured costume with matching hat. Most of the men wear chaperon hats, and the women have their hair elaborately dressed. Male courtiers enjoyed wearing fancy-dress for festivities;

8239-401: The opening for the face placed instead on the top of the head. Belts were worn below waist at all times, and very low on the hips with the tightly fitted fashions of the latter half of the century. Belt pouches or purses were used, and long daggers, usually hanging diagonally to the front. In armour, the century saw increases in the amount of plate armour worn, and by the end of the century

8346-577: The other clouds a golden eagle, every eagle having in its beak a Garter with the motto hony soyt qui mal y pense embroidered thereon." Silk was the finest fabric of all. In Northern Europe, silk was an imported and very expensive luxury. The well-off could afford woven brocades from Italy or even further afield. Fashionable Italian silks of this period featured repeating patterns of roundels and animals, deriving from Ottoman silk-weaving centres in Bursa , and ultimately from Yuan Dynasty China via

8453-580: The present. The oldest extant book printed with movable metal type is the Jikji of 1377. This form of metal movable type was described by the French scholar Henri-Jean Martin as "extremely similar to Gutenberg's". Movable type never replaced woodblock printing in Korea. Indeed, even the promulgation of Hangeul was done through woodblock prints. The general assumption is that movable type did not replace block printing in places that used Chinese characters due to

8560-602: The prevailing wood-based technology extremely disturbing, even dangerous". Matteo Ricci made note of "the exceedingly large numbers of books in circulation here and the ridiculously low prices at which they are sold". Two hundred years later the Englishman John Barrow, by way of the Macartney mission to Qing China, also remarked with some amazement that the printing industry was "as free as in England, and

8667-477: The profession of printing open to everyone". The commercial success and profitability of woodblock printing was attested to by one British observer at the end of the nineteenth century, who noted that even before the arrival of western printing methods, the price of books and printed materials in China had already reached an astoundingly low price compared to what could be found in his home country. Of this, he said: We have an extensive penny literature at home, but

8774-578: The reign of Wu Zetian , under which the Longer Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra , which advocates the practice of printing apotropaic and merit making texts and images, was translated by Chinese monks. The oldest extant evidence of woodblock prints created for the purpose of reading are portions of the Lotus Sutra discovered at Turpan in 1906. They have been dated to the reign of Wu Zetian using character form recognition. The oldest text containing

8881-829: The same time as the printing press from Europe. An edition of the Confucian Analects was printed in 1598, using a Korean moveable type printing press, at the order of Emperor Go-Yōzei . Tokugawa Ieyasu established a printing school at Enko-ji in Kyoto and started publishing books using domestic wooden movable type printing-press instead of metal from 1599. Ieyasu supervised the production of 100,000 types, which were used to print many political and historical books. In 1605, books using domestic copper movable type printing-press began to be published, but copper type did not become mainstream after Ieyasu died in 1616. The great pioneers in applying movable type printing press to

8988-553: The semi-cursive and cursive script style of Japanese writings was better reproduced using woodblocks. By 1640 woodblocks were once again used for nearly all purposes. After the 1640s, movable type printing declined, and books were mass-produced by conventional woodblock printing during most of the Edo period . It was after the 1870s, during the Meiji period , when Japan opened the country to the West and began to modernize, that this technique

9095-426: The shape and structure of books. Scrolls were gradually replaced by concertina binding (經摺裝) from the Tang period onward. The advantage was that it was now possible to flip to a reference without unfolding the entire document. The next development known as whirlwind binding ( xuanfeng zhuang 旋風裝) was to secure the first and last leaves to a single large sheet, so that the book could be opened like an accordion. Around

9202-414: The sides began to be sewn together, creating a sleeveless overgown or surcoat. Outdoors, women wore cloaks or mantles , often lined in fur. The houppelande was also adopted by women late in the century. Women invariably wore their houppelandes floor-length, the waistline rising up to right underneath the bust, sleeves very wide and hanging, like angel sleeves . As one might imagine, a woman's outfit

9309-462: The small, noble groups of the highly stratified society. Western style movable type printing-press was brought to Japan by Tenshō embassy in 1590, and was first printed in Kazusa, Nagasaki in 1591. However, western printing-press were discontinued after the ban on Christianity in 1614. The moveable type printing-press seized from Korea by Toyotomi Hideyoshi 's forces in 1593 was also in use at

9416-600: The start of our dynasty, there were fewer than four thousand. Today, there are more than one hundred thousand. The classics and histories, together with standard commentaries, are all fully represented. When I was young and devoted myself to learning, there were only one or two scholars in every hundred who possessed copies of all the classics and commentaries. There was no way to copy so many works. Today, printed editions of these works are abundant, and officials and commoners alike have them in their homes. Scholars are fortunate indeed to have been born in such an era as ours! In 1076,

9523-559: The technique for printing images on paper are covered by the art term woodcut , except for the block books produced mainly in the 15th century. According to the Book of Southern Qi , in the 480s, a man named Gong Xuanyi (龔玄宜) styled himself Gong the Sage and "said that a supernatural being had given him a 'jade seal jade block writing,' which did not require a brush: one blew on the paper and characters formed." He then used his powers to mystify

9630-590: The top of the foot. Some sources maintain that the broad-toed variant is the true sabaton, whereas the earlier versions should be referred to as a solleret. At least in theory, French princes and dukes were allowed to have toes of Gothic sabatons 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 times, lords (barons and higher) 2 times, and gentry only one time the length of their feet. If we assume pied du roi as the standard length, these would be 81.2 cm (32 in), 64.96 cm ( 25 + 9 ⁄ 16  in), and 32.48 cm ( 12 + 3 ⁄ 4  in), respectively. The sabaton

9737-474: The traditional narrative. T. H. Barrett points out that only Europeans who had never seen Chinese woodblock printing in action tended to dismiss it, perhaps due to the almost instantaneous arrival of both xylography and movable type in Europe. The early Jesuit missionaries of late-16th-century China, for instance, had a similar distaste for wood-based printing for very different reasons. These Jesuits found that "the cheapness and omnipresence of printing in China made

9844-425: The very end of Imperial China: As a result of block-printing technology, it became easier and cheaper to produce multiple copies of books quickly. By the eleventh century, the price of books had fallen by about one tenth what they had been before and as a result they were more widely disseminated. Nevertheless, even in the fifteenth century most books in major libraries were still in manuscript, not in print. Almost to

9951-411: The wideness of sale. Other modern scholars such as Endymion Wilkinson hold a more conservative and skeptical view. While Wilkinson does not deny "China's dominance in book production from the fourth to the fifteenth century," he also insists that arguments for the Chinese advantage "should not be extended either forwards or backwards in time." European book production began to catch up with China after

10058-514: The world's oldest securely dated woodblock scroll. The Diamond sutra was closely followed by the earliest extant printed almanac, the Qianfu sinian lishu (乾符四年曆書), dated to 877. Evidence of woodblock printing appeared in Korea and Japan soon afterward. The Great Dharani Sutra ( Korean : 무구정광대다라니경/無垢淨光大陀羅尼經 , romanized :  Muggujeonggwang Dadharanigyeong ) was discovered at Bulguksa , South Korea in 1966 and dated between 704 and 751 in

10165-633: The writer Lou Siun, who founded a woodcut school in Shanghai in 1930. Influenced by contemporary Russian engraving, this school dealt especially with popular, agricultural and military subjects for propaganda purposes, as is evident in the work of P'an Jeng and Huang Yong-yu. In 1234, cast metal movable type was used in Goryeo (Korea) to print the 50-volume Prescribed Texts for Rites of the Past and Present , compiled by Ch'oe Yun-ŭi , but no copies survived to

10272-435: The year 1000, butterfly binding was developed. Woodblock prints allowed two mirror images to be easily replicated on a single sheet. Thus two pages were printed on a sheet, which was then folded inwards. The sheets were then pasted together at the fold to make a codex with alternate openings of printed and blank pairs of pages. In the 14th century the folding was reversed outwards to give continuous printed pages, each backed by

10379-471: Was a most astonishing thing for the people". This fashion may well have derived from military clothing, where long loose robes were naturally not worn in action. At this period, the most dignified figures, like King Charles in the illustration, continue to wear long robes—although as the Royal Chamberlain, de Vaudetar was himself a person of very high rank. This abandonment of the robe to emphasize

10486-449: Was generally also made of linen, and which was considered an undergarment, like the breeches. Hose or chausses made out of wool were used to cover the legs, and were generally brightly colored, and often had leather soles, so that they did not have to be worn with shoes. The shorter clothes of the second half of the century required these to be a single garment like modern tights, whereas otherwise they were two separate pieces covering

10593-645: Was generally made of wool. Over this, a man might also wear an over-kirtle, cloak , or a hood. Servants and working men wore their kirtles at various lengths, including as low as the knee or calf. However, the trend during the century was for hem-lengths to shorten for all classes. However, in the second half of the century, courtiers are often shown, if they have the figure for it, wearing nothing over their closely tailored cotehardie. A French chronicle records: "Around that year (1350), men, in particular, noblemen and their squires, took to wearing tunics so short and tight that they revealed what modesty bids us hide. This

10700-410: Was hand-carved movable wooden type. Indeed, the entire collection was only printed for the first time in the 1980s. Access to books, especially large works, such as the Histories , remained difficult right into the twentieth century. Not only did manuscripts remain competitive with imprints, they were even preferred by elite scholars and collectors. The age of printing gave the act of copying by hand

10807-614: Was known throughout the century, and was probably fairly common by the end; this is hard to assess as artists tended to avoid trying to depict patterned cloth due to the difficulty of doing so. Embroidery in wool, and silk or gold thread for the rich were used for decoration. Edward III established an embroidery workshop in the Tower of London , which presumably produced the robes he and his Queen wore in 1351 of red velvet "embroidered with clouds of silver and eagles of pearl and gold, under each alternate cloud an eagle of pearl, and under each of

10914-436: Was not commonly used by knights or men at arms fighting on foot. Instead, many would simply wear leather shoes or boots. Heavy or pointy metal footwear would severely hinder movement and mobility on the ground, particularly under wet or muddy conditions. Attacks against the feet are not common in dismounted combat, as a strike to an enemy's foot would typically put the attacker in a very awkward and vulnerable position. Conversely,

11021-468: Was not complete without some kind of headwear. As with today, a medieval woman had many options- from straw hats, to hoods to elaborate headpieces. A woman's activity and occasion would dictate what she wore on her head. The Middle Ages, particularly the 14th and 15th centuries, were home to some of the most outstanding and gravity-defying headwear in history. Before the hennin rocketed skywards, padded rolls and truncated and reticulated headdresses graced

11128-464: Was said to have had a collection of 80,000 juan . The combined total of all known private book collectors prior to the Song dynasty number around 200, with the Tang alone accounting for 60 of them. Following the maturation of woodblock printing, official, commercial, and private publishing businesses emerged while the size and number of collections grew exponentially. The Song dynasty alone accounts for some 700 known private collections, more than triple

11235-402: Was the 1460s, but that at least one dated from about 1451. Block books printed in the 1470s were often of cheaper quality, as a cheaper alternative to books printed by printing press . Block books continued to be printed sporadically up through the end of the 15th century. The method was also used extensively for printing playing cards . Ceramic and wooden movable type were invented in

11342-475: Was thereafter relegated to formal ceremonial wear. Ermine , with their dense white winter coats, was worn by royalty, with the black-tipped tails left on to contrast with the white for decorative effect, as in the Wilton Diptych above. The innermost layer of clothing were the braies or breeches , a loose undergarment, usually made of linen , which was held up by a belt. Next came the shirt, which

11449-580: Was used in Hungary until the beginning of the second half of the 15th century, as it was used by the Hungarian queen consort Barbara of Celje around 1440. Uncovered hair was acceptable for women in the Italian states. Many women twisted their long hair with cords or ribbons and wrapped the twists around their heads, often without any cap or veil. Hair was also worn braided. Older women and widows wore

#471528