Knitted silver wire of the type found in the 9th- through 11th-century Viking hoards in England and Scotland (discussed in a preceding post) and at other Viking sites, has also been found in 9th-century CE Irish hoards of altar vessels. Two such objects are of particular interest. The Derrynaflan Paten is decorated around its circumference with three knitted tubes (seen in greater detail here).

The tubes appear to consist of shorter segments with slightly different appearances (and perhaps structures) joined together. One of the alternating elements was created by a gently spiraling band of silver wrapped tightly enough around the tube to press into it, forming a secondary decoration.

The paten is described in great detail by Michael Ryan in The Derrynaflan Hoard and Early Irish Art, published in the October 1997 issue of Speculum. He notes that the knitting around its outer circumference is soft enough to risk being deformed during normal handling (for which reason the hoard includes a separate support for the paten). He also states that “nothing later than the ninth century occurs in the find” but does not provide a more specific date for the paten.

It is currently in the collections of the National Museum of Ireland, which dates it to the 8th century, together with the more widely known Ardagh Chalice. On the basis of the shared intricacy of their decorative detail, the museum believes that both can have been made in the same workshop, which was presumably near the sites where they were recovered. Unlike the jewelry found at the Viking sites, where the knitting was the centerpiece, the Irish knitting considered here was a decorative component of larger elaborate objects that would in all likelihood have been commissioned by the churches where they were found.

The following detail from one of the two strips of knitting on the chalice shows the same compound structure as that seen on the Viking and Egyptian knitted tubes. It is formed by alternating rows of different-colored wires worked over each other. This is placed alongside plain open-loop knitting. The most noteworthy difference between the knitting on the chalice and all the other early knitting examined here thus far is that it was worked flat.

This upsets the established notion of knitting first having arrived in Europe at some time after 1000 CE, from its Egyptian origin, via Islamic Spain. There is convincing evidence of knitting in yarn having traversed that path, nonetheless, but knitting in wire was well established in northern Europe by the time it did.

There is no way to determine if the contemporaneous appearance of tubular knitting in Egypt and the northern European sites is coincidental, or provides yet another indication of cultural exchange between those communities. (Ryan includes a footnoted reference to the silver used for decorating Viking objects seeming “to have been derived in the main from Islamic dirhams with inscriptions in Kufic characters…brought along Viking trade routes to the East.”) Similarly, there is no way to tell if the Vikings introduced the craft to Ireland or picked it up there — assuming that’s the way it happened, at all.

The knitting found at all sites displays the same fundamental structure. The yarn used in the one region and the wire used in the other can be knitted with the same tools, although the working properties of the respective materials make some implements and methods better suited to the one than the other.

The Ardagh Chalice was examined in minute detail by the Conservation Laboratory at the British Museum during the late 1960s. A report about it was presented by Robert Organ at a seminar on the Application of science in examination of works of art, in 1970. This report was included in the published proceedings of the seminar three years later, titled Examination of the Ardagh Chalice — A Case History.

The preceding photograph shows a detail of one of the decorative elements on the chalice presented in that report. It is the less complex of the two strips of knitted wire. The other is significantly more intricate, with an additional structure woven into the knitting and the legs of some of the knitted stitches tracing an elaborate path through the work. This parallels the secondary device worked into half of the knitting on the Derrynaflan Paten. I’ll return to it when I feel surer about my ability to provide an accurate description. Puzzling that out will likely reveal more about the method of production, the basics of which I intend to discuss next.

One of the largest hoards of Viking silver ever found was deposited in Cuerdale, England, during the first five years of the 10th century CE. It was discovered in 1840 and Edward Hawkins published An Account of Coins and Treasure Found in Cuerdale in two issues of the 1847 volume of The Archaeological Journal. The first includes illustrated descriptions of a number of silver chains, to which he then adds the following object.

“Fig. 84 is probably a portion of an armlet, in the collection of Mr. Assheton, and may be included among the chains; it is composed of fine wire knitted precisely in the same manner as a modern stocking; it is hollow, so that a large pencil may be easily passed within it; one end is inserted into a flat piece of silver, bent, the side riveted together, to contain the silver ring by which the two ends were united to fix it upon the arm.”

Hawkins makes a series of general remarks about the wire objects in the second part of the article.

“The wires of smaller diameter, scarcely larger than a hair…[were used]…in the production of several useful and elegant ornaments…The article 84 is produced from one continuous wire knitted precisely as a modern stocking is made, as will be perceived by examining the forms of the stitches both on the inside and the outside.”

A similar item was found in the Croy hoard near Inverness in Scotland, dating from some time not long after 820 CE. Joseph Anderson, the Keeper of the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, published a Notice of a Find of Silver Ornaments, &c, at Croy, Inverness-shire now Presented to the Museum in the 1876 volume of the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. This includes a description of a 6 inch long silver chain (also shown in a recent photograph taken by the museum).

“The Band of Knitted Work of fine Silver Wire, knitted with the ordinary knitting stitch, resembles the modern Trichinopoly work, and connects this find with those of Cuerdale and Largo, in both of which similarly knitted bands of silver-wire occurred.”

Anderson uses similar terms to describe yet another chain found at a 10th-century Viking burial site at Ballinaby, on the Scottish island of Islay. This was first presented as a lecture in 1881 and published two years later in Scotland in Pagan Times: The Iron Age.

“The chain of silver wire is an object of very peculiar character but its relations are not difficult to establish. A portion of a similar chain occurred in the Croy find; also in the Skaill hoard, to be subsequently described; in the hoard at Cuerdale; and in a small hoard found in the Isle of Inchkenneth. Its total length is 16 inches, and its width is ¼ inch. It is formed of silver wire of the fineness of sewing thread, knitted as a hollow tube, with the common knitting-stitch used in knitting stockings. The knots at the ends of the tube are produced separately and fastened on.”

This chain and the one from the Croy find were examined in 1978 by Helen Bennett of the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (whom we met previously in the discussion of how nålebinding became nalbinding). The results were communicated privately to Braham Norwick who was preparing an article titled The Origins of Knitted Fabric, published in 1980, including a photograph of the Ballinaby chain and Bennett’s report, which states:.

“I find them to be of identical looped structure, made from long lengths of wire, which at first sight strongly resembles stocking stitch. Both are in the form of flattened tubes, that from Croy having 16 ‘stitches’ per round (7 stitches and 6 rows per cm) and that from Ballinaby having 6 ‘stitches’ per round (6-2/3 ‘stitches’ and 7-1/2 rows per cm). Although the fabrics strong­ly resemble knitting, on examining them under the microscope I found the structure to be different. Whereas in knitting the loops are usually drawn through those of the preceding row, in these cases the loops have been drawn through the two preceding rows.”

The final sentence defines compound knitting, which can also be described as two overlapping systems of stocking stitch worked into the same fabric. It is the same structure as that of the Egyptian knitted tubes described in a previous post.

It is puzzling that Bennett regards this as being something other than knitting. In his book from 1987, Richard Rutt — who cites both her and Norwick extensively — goes beyond that and categorically excludes all of the wirework they described (including additional flat-knitted material) from the realm of knitting.

“…as Helen Bennett points out, the method by which they were made is far from clear. Recognizing their knitted structure does not give them a place in the history of hand knitting, unless some direct connection can be shown between the techniques of bending metal and of manipulating yarn.”

It didn’t take long before he reconsidered this. In correspondence with the editor of Piecework Magazine in 1990 (published in its Jan.-Feb. 2017 issue) about an article he had recently prepared where the compound knitted structure was described in detail (Knitted Fabrics from China, 3rd Century BC; more about this in a separate post), he says:

“I went on from that to have another look at the Celtic pieces which have knitted silver in them and discovered that the Celtic work was done with a knitting nancy. Complex knitting is much easier on a knitting nancy than it is on knitting needles.”

Knitting Nancy (aka knitting spool) is a common designation for a smaller form of peg loom normally associated with i-cord, although Rutt appears to be using it as a general name for knitting looms regardless of size. I will discuss them together with other methods for the tubular knitting of both yarn and wire in a later post. But first, I want to look at the flat knitting from 8th- or 9th-century Ireland mentioned parenthetically above.