Liturgical lace

Liturgical lace refers to the use of lace as a form of liturgical ornamentation at the crossroads of religious art and decorative arts.

Though it is often believed that "no documentary evidence exists that lace was made before the 15th century", it has also been shown from ancient Egyptian nets that embroidered patterns from Antiquity could be found. The first trace of the use of lace in a liturgical context was found in the Egyptian sarcophagus. Bead-net dresses, mentioned in Egyptian literature since the Three Tales of Wonder (known also as the Tales from the Westcar Papyrus ) and depicted in Egyptian art as the costume sky goddess, Nut, from the third millennium B.C, can be seen as the oldest form or liturgical lace. In fact, given that these dresses were too heavy to move in, and having been found solely within tombs, it seems like they primarily served a funerary and liturgical function. They were made by stringing beads together on a net which was then worn over a linen dress. This early design known as a square knotted mesh netting was, therefore, a geometric design similar to sprang.

Based on Ephesians 5 and the visions of the supper of the lamb in the book of Revelation, liturgical lace has been described as a way for the Church to symbolize itself as a virginal bride celebrating the divine marriage with the heavenly spouse. Liturgical lace has also been compared to the fishing nets of the apostles, especially as the Venetian lace is said to have originated from the Venetian sailors' art of knitting nets.

Liturgical lace may have been disseminated in the Catholic Church through the migration of monks from the East such as Nilus the Younger. Lace may have also evolved alongside realistic ornamentation from the gammalion and cross-shape lace to more figurative representations such as flowing scrolls and vine leaves, as found in manuscript ornamentation as monasticism developed both male and female convents under the lead of Benedict of Nursia and Scholastica.

This pairing of male and female liturgical lace has its earliest representation with the linen alb of Francis of Assisi presumably made by Clare of Assisi.

By the early 13th century, the Ancrene Wisse, an anonymous monastic rule for female anchoresses cautions nuns against devoting too much time to lace and ornamental work, to the detriment of work for the poor.

Lace industries, which sprang up like mushrooms all over Europe during the sixteenth century, encouraged the addition of lace to embellish the Catholic liturgy.

By the 1660s, Venetian needle lace became the most fashionable lace, with the patronage of the Catholic Church. Its characteristics with the exaggeration of three-dimensional qualities of needle lace; creating patterns which could be divided into parts allowed for the production of large-scale ecclesiastical items like vestments and church furnishings that were "conspicuously extravagant."