Leather Embroidery pre-1625 CE

Last updated: Dec. 12, 2025, by Ken Stuart (kps1@cornell.edu)

This site presents an ongoing effort to catalog every known embroidered leather item up to about 1625 CE. Pending publication, the catalog is not yet available publicly, although a list of items that can be found online is. Check back or contact the author to be informed when it opens.

To-date, 452 potential articles, books, and online museum catalogs have been consulted while tracking down details of artifacts and looking for additions to this knowledge base. Some museums and authors have helpfully provided modern high-resolution, colored photos of various items, greatly clarifying details not apparent in old publications.

The catalog currently contains 1,482 items. Most of these are shoes, but there are also sheaths, belts, purses, shields, doublets, hats, and miscellaneous artifacts some of whihc unknown nature and purpose.

Catalog of Items in Online Museum Collections

References

Main catalog (available after publication)

pair of black shoes with red and yellow embroidered runes — Amor Vincit Omnia: 12th-Century Embroidered Shoes

Criteria for inclusion

+ Items generally before 1625 CE.
+ Provenance: Europe, Scandinavia, Britain & Ireland, the Middle East, Northern Africa, Western Asia.
+ Any leather artifact that has direct embroidery or decorative stitching in silk, linen, wool, or metal (e.g., gold, silver, tin).
+ Evidenced by surviving threads and/or holes that (probably) once held thread.
+ If in doubt, it is included... some authors' definitions and use of the word embroidery are more inclusive than others.

Criteria for exclusion

- Appliqué, inlaid leather, other embroidered material such as silk or velvet that is itself attached to the leather.
- Repairs made to parchment or vellum manuscript pages.
- Later related items: many pieces of embroidery on velvet or silk over leather are known; these include Ottoman quivers and bow cases, English gloves, various kinds of footwear, book coverings, etc., from 1600 on.
- "Gilt-leather embroideries" (from Scandinavia; thin strips of gilt leather overlaid on seams between woolen design elements).
- "Lamellar embroidery" that uses wide metal strips woven through slits in leather (e.g., from the grave of bishop Severus of Prague).

Table of helpful terms

When researching scholarly articles, it can be helpful to have a table of words and phrases that might be useful in searching them for relevant discussion. So far, articles in the following languages are included. Note that this is only a basic Google translation - actual words used can vary greatly in any given language.

Czech	cs	výšivka / vyšívané	kůže	ozdobná nit
Danish	da	broderi	læder	dekorative syninger
Dutch	nl	borduurwerk / borduursel / geborduurde	leer	decoratief stiksel
English	en	embroidery	leather	decorative thread / seam
French	fr	broderie	cuir	coutures décoratives
German	de	stickerei / bestickung / bestickt	leder	Ziersteppereien / Ziernaht
Italian	it	ricamo	pelle	cuciture decorative
Latvian	lv	izšuvumi	āda	dekoratīvais dūriens
Lithuanian	lt	siuvinėjimas / siuvineta	odą	dekoratyvinis siūlės
Norwegian	no	broderi / broderte	lær	pyntesøm / dekorative sømmer
Polish	pl	haft / haftem	skóra	ozdobne przeszycia
Portuguese	pt	bordada / bordado	couro	fio decorativo
Russian	ru	вышивк[*]	кожа	декоративный шов
Spanish	es	bordado	cuero	costuras decorativas
Swedish	sv	broderi	läder	dekorsöm / dekorativa sömmar
Turkish	th	nakış	deri	dekoratif dikiş