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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
CHAP. 1 11. WHAT WAS BUCKRAM ?
47
in Polo's route through the country, as at Ilija, close to Erzrum, and at Hássan Kali.
The Buckranzs of Arzinga are mentioned both by Pegolotti (circa 1340) and by Giov. d' Uzzano (1442): But what were they ?
Buckram in the modern sense is a coarse open texture of cotton or hemp, loaded with gum, and used to stiffen certain articles of dress. But this was certainly not the medieval sense. Nor is it easy to bring the media val uses of the term under a single explanation. Indeed Mr Marsh suggests that probably two different words have coalesced. Fr. -Michel says that Bouqueran was at first applied to a light cotton stuff of the nature of muslin, and afterwards to linen, but I do not see that he makes out this history of the application. Douet d'Arcq, in his Co»zj5tes de l'A1genterie, etc. , explains the word simply in the modern sense, but there seems nothing in his text to bear this out.
A quotation in Raynouard's Romance Dictionary has " Vestirs de polpra e de bisso que est bocaran," where Raynouard renders bisso as lin ; a quotation in Ducange also makes Buckram the equivalent of Bissus ; and Michel quotes from an inventory of 1365, " unanz culcitram pinctanz (qu. punctam ?) a/barn facta;iz de bisso aliter boquerant."
Mr. Marsh again produces quotations, in which the word is used as a proverbial example of whiteness, and inclines to think that it was a bleached cloth with a lustrous surface.
It certainly was not necessarily linen. Giovanni Villani, in a passage which is curious in more ways than one, tells how the citizens of Florence established races for their troops, and, among other prizes, was one which consisted of a Bucheranze di bambagine (of cotton). Polo, near the end of the Book (Bk. III. ch. xxxiv.), speaking of Abyssinia, says, according to Pauthier's text : "Et Et si y fait on moult beaux bouquerans et autres chaps de coton." The G. T. is, indeed, more ambiguous : " Il hi se font maint biaus dras banbacin e bocaran " (cotton and buckram). When, however, he uses the same expression with reference to the delicate stuffs woven on the coast of Telingana, there can be no doubt that a cotton texture is meant, and apparently a fine muslin. (Sec Bk. III. eh. xviii.) Buckram is generally named as an article of price, cheer bouqueraut, rice boquerans, etc., but not always, for Polo in one passage (Bk. II. eh. xlv.) seems to speak of it as the clothing of the poor people of Eastern Tibet.
Plano Carpini says the tunics of the Tartars were either of buckram (bukeranum), of pulj5ura (a texture, perhaps velvet), or of baudekin, a cloth of gold (pp. 614-615). When the envoys of the Old Man of the Mountian tried to bully St. Lewis, one had a case of daggers to be offered in defiance, another a bougzceran for a winding sheet. (Joinville, p. 136.)
In accounts of materials for the use of Anne Boleyn in the time of her prosperity, bokeram frequently appears for " lyning and taynting " (?) gowns, lining sleeves, cloaks, a bed, etc., but it can scarcely have been for mere stiffening, as the colour of the buckram is generally specified as the same as that of the dress.
A number of passages seem to point to a quilted material. Boccaccio (Day viii. Novel io) speaks of a quilt (coltre) of the whitest buckram of Cyprus, and Uzzano enters buckram quilts (coltre di Bucherame) in a list of Linajuoli, or linen-draperies. Both his handbook and Pegolotti's state repeatedly that buckrams were sold by the piece or the half-score pieces--never by measure. In one of Michel's quotations (from Baudouin de Sebourc) we have :
Gauler li fist premiers armer d'un auqueton Qui fu de bou,; heraut et plaine de bon coton."
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Mr. Hewitt would appear to take the view that Buckram meant a quilted material ; for, quoting from a roll of purchases made for the Court of Edward I., an entry for Ten Bucl:rams to make sleeves of, he remarks, " The sleeves appear to have been of pouzpointerie," i.e. quilting. (Ancient Armour, I. 240.)
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