The chapter discusses William Morris’s understanding of pattern and his designs for wallpaper and woven and printed textiles. It acknowledges his call for pattern that would be soothing and restful for the viewer. The chapter explains that, for Morris, pattern was nonetheless expected to function on an intellectual level. Good pattern could engage with personal, political and ethical issues at a level of high seriousness, he thought. Reference is made to Morris’s reading of Gottfried Semper and to Morris’s partial translation (from a French edition) of Ferdowski’s Shahnameh (c. 1010 CE) recounting pre-Islamic Persian myths. Looking at Morris’s theoretical and instructional writing and considering designs of the early 1880s such as Windrush and Strawberry Thief, the chapter explores themes of fabrication, stylisation of plant forms, cultural exchange, the ongoing redeployment of ornamental motifs and aesthetic engagement with Persian culture as well as allusions to familial and romantic love. Traits of Morris designs such as symmetrical paired figures, crossing plant stems, vertical ‘tree of life’ axes, emphatic meanders in certain designs, variations in scale and composite plant forms are investigated and interpreted. The chapter demonstrates that Morris’s designs offer evidence of his commitment to the intellectual dimensions of pattern.

In this chapter tomb paintings join the selection of texts (preserved on stone, papyrus, and leather) to show the role of dependence as a structural feature of pharaonic society. Foreigners were acquired through raiding and warfare, and settled in both existing and new communities. An actual trade in persons is also documented and varying aspects of the experience of such individuals is examined, as they were exploited by those who purchased them or passed them on as gifts. Changes over time in the vocabulary of dependence are discussed, as are the different types of work and production in which such dependents were involved. Non-free dependents were employed on the land, in animal herding, and in artisanal workshops, especially textiles, as well as in the home. The key economic role of Egyptian temples is a constant feature of the period.

In Roman Egypt, Greek remained the language of rule but the introduction of the Roman legal system and practices resulted in changes within the bureaucracy and an increase in documentation. Declarations were now required for birth, death, taxes, and much else. There were minor changes in the vocabulary of slavery, but in terms of acquisition and use much remained unchanged. There was an active market in slaves who were primarily employed in the home. There is further evidence for slaves in labouring jobs, artisanal roles, in entertainment and sex work. Imperial slaves held some important administrative roles, and slaves might act as business agents in urban settings. Slave labour was little used in agriculture, though the balance between free and unfree changed over time. As earlier, the boundaries between these categories were sometimes blurred. There is evidence, too, for the manumission of slaves. Documents translated in this chapter illustrate the situation.

This chapter introduces slavery during the three centuries of Ptolemaic rule in Egypt for which papyri, recycled in mummy casing or discovered archived together, provide a wealth of texts in both Greek and Egyptian Demotic. Greek settlers brought a developed form of slavery to Egypt. Traditional forms of dependence, however, continued in domestic as in temple contexts, where sacred slaves were dedicated to a god. The terminology of slavery is scrutinised and Greek city law codes examined for information on slaves. The third-century BC archive of Zenon provides many details on where slaves came from and how they were acquired. Slaves are mainly found in a domestic context but there is some evidence for workshop employment, especially in textiles; evidence for their use in agriculture is minimal. To gain their freedom slaves might benefit from testamentary grants but running away was the more usual method.

This short text is an example of a visitation, where the Church authorities visit a church and make a report about the state of the material furnishings or.more commonly in later accounts, the behaviour of the clergy and laity. These reports provide fascinating details about the objects to be found in churches, the physical state of the buildings, and about the morality or lack of it of individuals in each parish. Here it is the church furnishings, books, candlesticks and textiles which are commented on.

The section on town life and trade includes an early town charter for Newcastle, an item in a Patent roll recording payment made to a ‘tranter’ who travelled the country sourcing food for the king, rules for a craft Guild in the Records of Leicester, a Close roll in which the king sets the price of wine in London in 1315, and excerpts from the port records of imports and exports, with names of ships, the ship’s owner and the contents of the cargo.

The growth of light industry, the military industrial policies, the growth of capital goods and the creation of a major highway network, The slow decline of coffee

This chapter establishes the political and cultural context for what follows through an examination of the reign of Pope Leo III (795–816) and his alliance with the Franks, notably Charlemagne, whom he crowned as Roman emperor on 25 December 800. A primary focus is the political and other messages implicit or explicit in the construction and decoration of new reception spaces at the Lateran patriarchate and Saint Peter’s, aimed at reinforcing the new role of the papacy in temporal as well as spiritual matters, and the mosaic decorations for which Leo was responsible in the churches of Santa Susanna and Santi Nereo ed Achilleo. An analysis is provided of the exceptionally detailed list of papal gifts to Roman churches, known as the ‘Donation of 807’, and the chapter concludes with an analysis of the possible sources of papal wealth necessary to make such extravagant largesse possible.

Although Mongol authority built its empire through military might and administration, the cultural construction of empire happened through artistic exchange. Visions of desire, beauty, and power – as well as the materials that made creativity possible – were essential to the ideological projects of Mongol imperial reach. As governors of a Eurasian-wide commercial empire, Mongol rulers required effective visual representations of their power that could easily be understood by diverse audiences. This could be achieved through widespread dissemination and integration of material culture. Reliance on already recognizable symbols of authority that could be adapted and repurposed for contemporary political goals was both expedient and effective.

Under Mongol rule and the Pax Mongolica, Song China became part of the much wider world of the Mongol Empire. Although it was split into four khanates in 1260, Qubilai consolidated control over Goryeo and Dali and, where conquest failed (as in Dai Viet, Kamakura Japan, and Java), pursued diplomatic and commercial relationships, especially on the Indian subcontinent. Mongol rule integrated China into an overland global economy parallel to the maritime one in the South Seas and the Indian Ocean. Ceramic production under the Mongols played a major role in maritime trade, while the blue-and-white porcelain seen in the Yuan exemplifies contact across Eurasia. Textile production likewise stimulated commerce and contact across Eurasia. Silk production long antedated this era, but patterns and designs produced under the Mongols exhibit Central Asian influences, as silk from China made its way westward as far as the Mediterranean and beyond. The Mongol era dietary, A Soup for the Qan, illustrates Eurasian interconnections visible through the lenses of food and medicine. Along with steppe shamanism, the Mongols favored Tibetan Buddhism, but they also implemented policies of official toleration toward recognized faiths (including Eastern Syriac and Roman Catholic Christianity), creating one of the most ecumenical societies in world history.

Early hopes that the economy could be revived quickly were soon dashed. T. V. Soong’s projects strained the budget as well. Japanese reparations were of little help. The foreign exchange issue remained a difficult problem

State enterprises had the upper hand over private firms. Foreign firms found it difficult to do business in China as well. Textiles did well at first but encountered supply and energy problems. Much of the cotton textile industry was controlled by the government, especially mills that had been run by the Japanese during the war and then taken over by the government. Electric-power generation has difficulty recovering. Many plants had suffered damage during the war and could not replace damaged equipment.

At the end of 1946: Had China reached a tipping point?

In Chapter 4 explores Joan Hassall’s (1906–88) illustrations for The Folio Society’s editions of Jane Austen’s novels and stories. Completed between 1957 and 1963, and then added to in 1975, these editions tend to be criticized for blending too seamlessly into Austen’s novels. Hassall, whose style was anachronistic in the 1950s through the 1970s but fittingly like that of Austen’s time, can seem (and has been described as) apolitical, unassertive, and small, descriptors that were once negatively applied to Austen. Hassall took a craft-based ownership of the Austen canon, finding the author in even the smallest of notches and grooves of her engravings. She collected, for example, scraps of ribbons and fabrics from the Georgian era, which she then copied and traced onto her woodblocks and patterned onto the covers, frontispieces, and chapter headings of her Austen editions. Hassall is less reinventing the nineteenth-century novel than retracing and reinhabiting it. Yet she, like the other artists in this book, invested an enormous amount in her readings of the novels, not just in the details of her images, but in the labor of engraving itself, which she did despite nearly crippling arthritic pain.

At first glance, the burial beds and couches in many Etruscan tombs look very similar to those found in Lydia, Phrygia, and other parts of Anatolia. Closer inspection reveals striking correspondence of formal details like carved headrests while at the same time highlighting essential differences of arrangement and usage. Iconographic evidence for beds and couches in Etruscan funerary art (tomb paintings and relief cippi) also shows a distinctive Etruscan approach to covering these furnishings with textiles. While the formal similarities do indicate that Etruscan and Anatolian elites knew and used shared furniture styles, they cannot be used to support theories of migration or cultural influence from Anatolia to Etruria since most of the Etruscan examples are earlier than the Anatolian parallels. Key differences in usage further remind us that even with a shared vocabulary of form, distinct cultural dialects can persist.