The history of piracy can be traced as far back as the 13th century B.C.E. to sea-faring marauders in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas and extends all the way to current times as pirates still navigate parts of the globe threatening commercial vessels. The Greek historian Plutarch, writing in about 100 A.D., defined pirates as those who attack maritime cities and ships without legal authority. 
Pirate raids would follow the trade routes from India to America via Africa and those ships navigating through the Caribbean would most often fall prey to pirate attacks. The boom in piracy that began in the 1580s paralleled the tremendous increase in trade and travel that grew out of the expeditions of the Spanish, Portuguese, British, and Dutch explorers and their succeeding colonial endeavors. As trade expanded to include the new colonies, the shipping routes along the Eastern seaboard of America and parts of the Indian Ocean and the west coast of Africa were often targeted by marauding pirates. 
In the 16th century Italy and Belgium became centers of lace production as their artisans developed a refined form of needlework that would become popular adornment to the wardrobes of the growing bourgeoisie and aristocracy of Western Europe. Lacework developed from the open decorative technique of embroidery and was in its early manifestations called cut-work. As embroidery was used to finish the hems of garments and would add slight flourishes of thread patterning along edges of cloth it allowed needlework to separate itself more and more from the greater garment and evolve into a coveted item in its own right.
As early as the 14th century the Italian and Flemish states had developed economic ties and traded goods between each other through their shipping routes and it would be these two centers that would become centers of lace craftwork as much as fine art production. By the 16th century they were centers of the Renaissance movement that promoted new levels of aesthetic appreciation and technological advances in manufacture, engineering, and printing among other things. Lacework, as an art of intricate patterning that would serve to enrich textiles as much as add refinement to the fashions of the new middle classes and the extant nobility, came into great favor at this time. Women would use pattern books (that had become available through new printing practices) to develop their lacework by setting a network of crossing threads upon a frame in defined patterns.
Set into the frame, beneath the network of threads, was the quintain (the background fabric) that would be sewn to the network where necessary in accordance with the patterning while any excess quintain would be cut away. These networks of thread would be laid out according to a geometric pattern radiating from a center and would combine open-work with heavily embroidered sections. The other form of lacework that came out of this period was referred to as lacis, patterns coming from a French tradition of working along a gridded network ground and establishing shapes according to compilations of squares on the grid.
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Lace trade relied on small manufacturing centers out of Antwerp, Brussels, Venice and Florence (and subsequently France) and as markets expanded and fashion and textile trends were made available to more than the noble classes, pedlars would distribute them to provincial centers where they would be sold at market to the ever-growing consuming bourgeois class.
*image– 16th century Italian lace, Henry III cypher and arms |
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The infamous pirate that we associate with danger and daring on the high seas is a strong presence in the imagination of children and adults alike. Piracy has existed for as long as seafaring vessels have existed but the glorified history of piracy as we know it reached a peak in the period known as the Golden Age of Piracy, between 1690 and 1730. The pirates preyed on merchant vessels, mostly in the Atlantic and Caribbean, and created an aura about them that instilled fear and trepidation in anyone who came across the iconic Jolly Roger. Piracy was most closely associated with this symbol of entertainment with death; lore about the pirates’ customs as well as costume rose with the prevalence of the Jolly Roger at sea.
Pirates took a firm place in the legends and stories of 17th and 18th century Europe, in novels such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island and Lord Byron’s poem, The Corsair. The description of the pirate in literature and legend may not have matched the reality of the hard-bitten and tattered fighter at sea, but became vivid enough to last through the centuries in a picturesque make-over. The pirate we envision is festooned with his flintlock pistol and trusted cutlass at either side and dons a tricorn hat as he ascends his ship’s masthead with telescope in hand to sight the next ship to be looted. The tricorn was a hat with its three sides turned up in a triangle when looked at from above– it was typically made of wool felt and came in basic colors such as brown and black, though sailors and pirates would adorn their hats in any number of ways. The clothing pirates wore was not different from that of their contemporary sailors and would have consisted of canvas doublets and breeches, linen shirts, and stockings– items designed to be somewhat consistent with the requirements of manning a ship.
