The ground material is a silk twill damask. This fabric, it has been suggested, derives from Central or Inner Asia, and must have been extremely costly in the fourteenth century. The embroidery is worked with silver-gilt and silver thread and coloured silks with underside couching and split stitch.
Shield of arms of William de Clinton, depicted on the Catworth orphrey.
This particular piece (39 x 17 cm) consists of two smaller pieces sewn together. One of the two pieces depicts a figure, which may be that of St Edward the Confessor. He is holding a model of a church, which would be Westminster Abbey, which he founded in 1065. The smaller piece shows the shield of arms of the Clinton family (William de Clinton, 1st Earl of Huntingdon, who in 1328 married Juliana Leybourne. The shield of arms of her family is depicted on another fragment of the orphrey). William de Clinton is therefore the likely donor of the orphrey.
This piece is one of a series of five, all housed in the Victoria aand Albert Museum (acc. nos 836-1902 to 840-1902).
Source: BROWNE, Clare, Glyn DAVIES, and M.A. MICHAEL (2016). English Medieval Embroidery: Opus Anglicanum, exhibition catalogue, London, Victoria and Albert Museum. London, pp. 7 (Catalogue number 44, pp. 188-189).
V&A online catalogue (retrieved 31 January 2017).
WV