Vadas József (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 13. (Budapest, 1993)
E. NAGY Katalin: „... elegyesen kötött öreg száras gomb" a 17. század második feléből
In pipe weawing the tablets were turned on their edges, creating two sheds. Without any turns in between the weft was threaded first in the top and then in the bottom shed. In case of a more complicated patter, separate pattern wefts (pattern weft, brocading weft) were used apart from the invisible main one. With embroidered bands tha base is tablet woven and the pattern is embroidered later, with flat stitches. Wool was the first material to be used, later polychrome silk threads, silk cores with gold or gilt yarns, wires, gilt or silvered leather were also applied; the invisible weft was silk or linen. Except for pattern wcfted bands, this kind of weaving usually gives a warp effect, since the invisible weft appears only on the borders of the band and the pattern is defined by the warps of different colours. 6 The technique was known and used in Hungary as well; excavation finds like the tablet woven belt fragments from the thirteenth-fourteenth century, provide us with direct evidence. 7 They were probably accessories of contemporary clothing and other objects for everyday use (e.g. harnesses). From the end of the thirteenth century, European clothing went through a great transformation, due to oriental influence. Instead of fibulas that were used to fix clothing, buttons became popular and fashionable. Buttons and buttonholes are originated from the Hun, Avar and Mongol nations, whereas buttons made of strings are attributed to the Ottoman Turks. 8 In the sixteenth century Europe was again effected by a strong oriental influence; Turkish clothing became popular through the Italians, especially in aristocratic circles. 9 It also affected the gala dresses of Hungarian aristocracy. After the technique of making string buttons and buttonholes had spread, trimmed and looped buttons became fashionable and by the mid-sixteenth century it was already the primary decoration of typical Hungarian clothing. It was in fashion up till the end of the seventeenth century. 10 We have rich descriptions about the dresses and clothes of these two centuries in contemporary lists, bequests, inventories, family correspondence, in chronicles of Hungarian and foreign travellers and in autobiographies. For a researcher, the names of materials and techniques that remained from this time are of tremendous importance. Some of the terms collected from the sources are still used today; some of the non-used ones have already bee identified, yet the meaning of a few has so far remained unknown. 11 When talking about the decoration of mentes, the descriptions of 16th-17th century menswear mention different works of button-making or band-weaving, without taking care to separate the two different activities. However, the Czuczor-Fogarasi dictionary clearly distincts the two: the button-maker is "a master, who makes buttons from silk or hair, twists strings and produces frogs-and-loops, belts etc.", whereas the band weaver (the words paszomános, paszományos, poszományos are all used in contemporary Hungarian) "is a weaver who weaves trimming-like materials, braids or bands in the first place", the weave is "a material made by band-weavers; it is not a mere weaver's or button-maker's work." 12 According to published archives 13 , earlier in Hungary button-makers were not working together with band-weavers but with weavers; it was only in the 16th century that they were founding their first guilds. 14
