The history of silk
For over 4,000 years, the Chinese have regarded silk as the luxury material par excellence.
Originally, only emperors were allowed to wear it. Later, the privilege was extended to the highest dignitaries. Then, as production techniques improved, its use became more widespread. Silk was considered far more precious than gold, and was used as a currency of exchange.
In the second century BC, the Han emperors, besieged by nomadic barbarians, needed allies and horses. To buy both, China gave up its most precious commodity, silk, and decided to open up to trade and the outside world. The Silk Road was born. Thanks to it, China began to spread silk westwards. The secret of silk production, however, was jealously guarded for over 2,500 years on pain of death.
Other peoples then invented various origins for this marvellous fabric. In Antiquity, the Romans and Greeks, great admirers of the fabric, were convinced that the Chinese gathered the thread from the leaves of trees! Virgil asserted as much in his "Georgics", and Pliny the Elder in his "Natural History".
In the 5th century, a Chinese princess was betrothed to the king of Khotan, an oasis north of the Tibetan plain. Unwilling to be deprived of the fabric she so adored, the princess broke the ban on silkworm exports and concealed a cocoon and mulberry leaves in her headdress, offering them to her betrothed king.
In the middle of the 6th century, the Byzantine Emperor Justinian is said to have used mysterious Christian monks as secret agents, who managed to conceal silkworms in their bamboo pilgrim's cane and brought them back to Constantinople. Byzantium thus finally had access to the raw material, without having to import it from China or pay the ransom imposed by Persian middlemen.
A century later, however, the Arabs were the great disseminators of the secret: after conquering Persia, they developed silk breeding around the Mediterranean. But the secrets and techniques of silk production didn't reach Western Europe until 700 years later. Italy and then France became the two leading silk-producing countries in Europe. Finally, some Huguenots who had fled France to Flanders established a silk-weaving factory in London's Spitafields in the 1620s.
Since then, we've known that the breeding of tiny caterpillars clinging to the branches of the mulberry tree can give rise to one of the most fascinating, sensual and resilient natural materials available, which has long been used to make the rich, sumptuous fabrics that adorn the most elegant and beautiful homes.
Not to mention all the fascination and softness silk evokes...
