Editor’s note: We are grateful for permission to present this translation of Art Historian Randi Nygaard Lium’s description of the Baldisholteppe (the Baldishol Tapestry), which appeared in her book, Tekstilkunst i Norge (Textile Art in Norway).
By Randi Nygaard Lium
The Baldishol tapestry, dated from 1040-1190 (with carbon dating), was found after a church auction in Baldishol Church in Nes in Hedmark in 1879. Louise Kildal, a niece of neighbors to the church, found the Baldisholteppet. After the auction ended, there were several items remaining, and it was among these leftovers that Louise found the tapestry. But when she found it, it was merely a rolled-up, dirty rag. She took it home and washed out the dirt and clay. She discovered it had an image, fine colors, and a special technique. It was so beautiful that she framed and hung it up in her home in Kristiania (now Oslo). Director Grosch from the Kunstindustrimuseum (the Arts and Crafts Museum) saw the tapestry and was very interested; it ended up with the museum purchasing it. Both the owner and buyer understood they had come upon a unique weaving that would gain a central place in textile history, both nationally and internationally. It is possible that the tapestry was woven in a workshop tied to a Middle Age monastery at Nesøya in Lake Mjøsa, a monastery that was tied to the Hamar diocese. A portion of the inventory in the Baldishol Church came from Nesøya.
This work is one of the very few tapestries in Gobelin technique that are preserved in Europe, and is the only preserved tapestry in this technique from the Middle Ages in Norway. It is a fragment of a longer weaving in the form of a frieze, which originally would have been 12 meters long. The fragment is 118 x 203 centimeters. It is woven with wool in the warp and weft.
The motif is divided into two architectural image sections with a man in each section. To the left we see a man with a bird in his hand and to the right a rider in armor on a reddish-brown horse. It is a colorful tapestry with clear colors, including red, white, blue, gold, and violet. The design is typical Romanesque. The men represent two of the twelve months, April on the left and May on the right. It is possible these two men were only a small part of a large weaving representing all the months. The short side doesn’t have an edging, but is torn, indicating it is part of a larger work. The fine colors, floral decorations and colored dots woven over the surfaces bind the two sections together.
On the Technique of the Baldisholteppet
The Baldishol tapestry is woven in Gobelin technique, which sets them apart from both the decorative textiles found in the Oseberg Viking ship, and the Överhogdals weaving. The tapestry in the Oseberg find also appeared to be woven in Gobelin, but there they used a “free” technique; that is, they created patterns by picking up threads.
Technically the Baldisholteppet is consistent with the weaving methods in the tapestry series from Halberstadt, Germany, and they anticipate the wave of European tapestries in Gobelin technique in the next centuries. Fully from the Middle Ages to our time Gobelin technique has remained the same. It was woven on an upright loom with a beam at the top and bottom, woven from the bottom to the top. It has a two-shaft binding with two pedals and two shafts. Pedals are not necessary, but then the shed must be plucked manually before the weft is laid in the warp.
The weft is wound into butterflies or wound on small bobbins. The weft is laid in the warp with arcs, and then beaten down so that the warp is completely covered. In this way you can create images, and almost any image can be woven.
It is easy to weave diagonal lines, but there are challenges in weaving a vertical line between two areas of color. If the color shift occurs along a vertical warp thread, a slit will occur unless the weaver uses a technique to weave the edges together.
Open slits can be sewn together after the weaving is finished and taken off the loom. Or, the weft threads of two colors along the slit can be interlocked while weaving. An alternative is dovetail technique, where you weave two, three or four threads from the two different colors around a common warp thread. The Norwegian name for this is hakke teknikk (dovetail technique). When the wefts are beaten in, the vertical line appears “hakkete,” or jagged.
Dovetail joins were used in the Baldisholteppet and the Halberstadt tapestries where two areas of color met vertically. Dovetail technique went out of use in European tapestries generally, but have been used in Scandinavia up to modern times.
Tapestry weaving in Gobelin technique had its first popularity in Europe in the 1300s. France, Belgium, and the Netherlands were the leading countries. Large and costly commissions came from influential cities like Arras, Paris, and Tournai to the upper classes all over Europe. There were also weaving studios in monasteries. The weavers were men who stood in lines in front of tall, upright Gobelin tapestry looms (haute-lisse) and wove. A large tapestry could take several years to complete. It was a close collaboration between the weavers and the painters who created the artistic cartoons, based on mutual respect. Tapestries were also woven on horizontal tapestry looms (basse lisse).
The Oldest Gobelin Find in Europe
This single find from the Baldishol church cannot in itself indicate that a living tradition for this type of weaving existed in Norway during the Romanesque period, but it is still fantastic that one of the Middle Age tapestries was preserved here.
The two other oldest preserved tapestries in Gobelin technique in Europe belonged to Saint Gerion church in Cologne and the cathedral in Halberstadt in Germany. The tapestry from Cologne was probably woven in the Rhine region in the 1000s. The motif is a reproduction of a Byzantine silk textile from the 800s or 900s, with an image of a mythical animal in a large circle. The tapestry from Halberstadt dates from the beginning of the 1100s. The ten meter long tapestry describes the history of Abraham and the Archangel Michael’s battle against the dragon. The style of image in the Halberstadt tapestry has ties to Romanesque period chalk paintings and painted icons.
Randi Nygaard Lium is a textile artist, author, and curator. Educated in Denmark, she has a degree in Art History from Aarhus University and studied weaving at Det Jyske Kunstakademi (Jutland Art Academy). She is the Senior Researcher at the Museum for Decorative Arts (Kunstindustrimuseet) in Trondheim, Norway. She was the Director of the Trondheim Art Museum (Kunstmuseum) from 1998-2011, and the Head Curator at the Museum of Decorative Arts, Trondheim, 1986-88. She has written several books on textile art, including Tekstilkunst i Norge (2016) and Ny Norsk Billedvev – Et Gjennombrud (1992). Her work has been shown in many exhibits in Norway and other countries, including a solo exhibition at the Design Museum Denmark in Copenhagen (2006). Her work is represented in several museums and in commissioned work in public buildings.
Translated by Robbie LaFleur