For Young People
Discovery of Silk
It is reputed that silk was discovered by the Chinese Empress His Ling Shi in 2640 B.C. when she found that a single beautiful thread could be gained from a cocoon. There are a number of tales as to how she discovered this: some say that she noticed the caterpillars making their cocoons in her garden and unwound one; others say a cocoon fell in her bath and as one of her maids fished it out she noticed its beauty and ability to be unwound; some say a cocoon fell into her tea and again she noted its beauty and ability to be unwound. However it was discovered, it is true that she encouraged cultivation of mulberry trees, rearing worms and reeling silk and personally devoted herself to the care of silk worms.
The Chinese were the first to develop silk and maintained the monopoly for around 3,000 years. This is particularly amazing considering the desperation of other nations to learn the secret. Chinese Imperial law at one decreed death by torture to anyone who disclosed the secret of sericulture. Two of the earliest pieces of silk known to exist were excavated in the Henan Province, China made around 3630 B.C. and Zhejiang Province around 2750 B.C.. Created during the Han Dynasty 206 BC - 220 AD stones have been discovered illustrating the production of silk and by the Han Dynasty silk was a highly sophisticated industry developed in the imperial workshops. In 1145 Lou Shou the administrator of Yuqan Count produced text and pictures known as 'Pictures of Tilling and Weaving' which detail the production of silk.
The famous Silk Road as it was called in the nineteenth century actually began in the 2nd century B.C. and carried silk, jade and spices and spread Buddhism. Although this declined in the seventh century it was because the sea trade proved far safer. Silk was exported to Rome as early as the first century A.D. when it was literally worth its weight in gold. When Marco Polo brought silk with him it added impetus to Italy's love affair with the fabric so that by the thirteenth century Italy was the silk centre of the west and continued to dominate the European market for centuries.
There are a number of stories about how silk left China which are clearly of a romantic nature but two stories have historical credibility. In around 140B.C. a Chinese princess hid some eggs in her headdress when she was married to an Indian prince from Hotan. Though the date of this has been contested the secret certainly went to India around this time. Then sometime during third century A.D. the Koreans captured a number of girls who were carrying a supply of silk worms and through them the knowledge spread to Japan. The secret did not reach Europe till later when two Persian monks went to China as Christian missionaries and on their return they went to Emperor Justinian at Constantinople who persuaded them to return to China and bring the secret back to him for a large amount of money. This they did and in 552 A.D. they brought Justinian some eggs inside one of their bamboo walking canes. This lead to sericulture spreading though the Byzantine Empire. The Arabs learnt it and passed it to Spain, then Sicily and Italy in the middle Ages.
King James I of England attempted to establish sericulture in England but failed. During the 1300s silk weaving came to England and then in the late sixteenth century the persecution of the French Huguenots who were skilled silk workers meant the English industry flourished as they came to Spitalfields, London. Lyon in France began to flourish as a centre of silk in the 16th century. It was not until the early 1800s that America began to develop a silk weaving industry helped by the emigration of skilled European workers. However China, Japan and India have continued to be the largest producer of raw silk which other countries import and weave.