Morris quotes from Article 24 in the Book of New Ordinances passed between 1509 and 1635, reproduced in History and Antiquities of the Worshipful Company of Leathersellers of the City of London by William Henry Black 1871: "No person of the said fellowship shall make, or do to be made, any poynctes or laces of ledder, silke, threde, or cadews; but that they shall be well and workmanly made, wrought, and clene sett on, perced and nailed, sharped, fylled and raised." This along with analysis of the insides of surviving aglets, shows that ties were made of leather, woven or braided silk, or wool tape (also known as cadews, caddis or caddow). Aglets varied a little in length and were generally conical in shape. Some of the decorative aglets were also tubular (with no taper). The two main methods of attaching the aglet to the tie are crimping and riveting, though riveting was more common.
Arnold mentions a purchase of tools for attaching the lace to aglet from 1579, "… for a bodkin a Hammer a litell Sythye and other Tooles to tagged Poyntes withal clenlye wrought". This and the ordinance above provide a glimpse of how points and aglets were made. A bodkin was a tool for piercing a hole in textiles and would have been used to make room for a rivet. I have been unable to find what a sythye is, other than possibly a small knife.
There are plenty of examples of points and aglets from finds and contemporary portraits. Each of the points presented here is an example of a type found in period. From left to right:
- Point made of wool tape. This was one of my early attempts at aglets.
- Point of leather and riveted or 'nailed'. Surviving aglets show traces of rust around the rivets which leads to the conclusion that the rivets were iron. I was unable to find a source for a soft iron and have substituted copper for the rivets.
- Point made of a hollow braid (from Swales and Williams, no. 12) of silk riveted to the aglet and crimped. Arnold includes figures taken from sample books of fingerloop braids (c.1600) which specify patterns for making points: 'to make a round and hollow poynte', 'to make a drum poynt', 'to make a 10 boed point in a wave' (pp 220-221).
- Point made of a silk tape or ribbon. The aglet has been crimped to stay in place.
- Pattern or shape of the aglet before it is formed.
- Point mode of a silk ribbon and crimped. The end of the ribbon protrudes out the small end or bottom of the aglet to form a decorative fringe as seen in Cheater with the Ace of Diamonds.
- A simple reproduction point sewn with silk braid. While not as historically accurate in construction, an aglet of this type is easily made from brass tubing.
- The points coming into the picture from the right were purchased from Historic Enterprises and are included for comparison.
The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds, c.1630 - Check out the 'tuft' on the end of the aglets.
Margaret Audley, duchess of Norfolk, 1562 - Decorative aglets on the gown.
The leather jerkin from the Waterer collection in Abingdon Museum has it's original silk points with rivited aglets.
References
- Archer, Ian W., The History of the Haberdashers' Company, Phillimore & Co. Ltd., Chichester, UK 1991. •Arnold, Janet, Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd, W.S.Maney & Sons Ltd., Leeds, UK, 1988.
- Egan, Geoff and Pritchard, Frances, Dress Accessories 1150-1450, Museum of London, London, UK 1991.
- Grunfeld, Frederic, Games of the World, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1975.
- Livings, Gerald, Aiglets, 2017.
- Morris, Robert, Headwear, Footwear and Trimmings Of the Common Man and Woman 1580-1660, Living History Reference Books Series, Stuart Press, Bristol, UK, 2001.
- Smedley, Gary, Aglets, published at Soper Lane, http://www.et-tu.com/soper/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=viewnews&id=12
- Swales, Lois and Williams, Zoe Kuhn, Fingerloop Braids, The Complete Anachronist #108, The Society for Creative Anachronism, 2000.
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