Of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax...: The Cope!

At Great Northeastern War, in the summer of 2017, my dear friend Michael Acrensis was issued a writ inviting him to join the Order of the Pelican at Coronation in October of the same year. With such a great honor comes great regalia! At least, we really hope it does. I have included below notes and photos relating to the planning and construction of his Pelican cloak, done in the style of an ecclesiastical cope.

Thanks to his lady wife, Trice, I knew that Michael wanted a half circle cloak, and as the descendant of Crusaders, a decorated Cope seemed like just the thing. Because Michael's persona is in the late thirteenth/early fourteenth century, I tried to pull inspiration from copes, as well as other ecclesiastical embroidery, of that period.

This pinterest page shows most of the pieces I pulled inspiration from:
https://www.pinterest.com/ldykassandra/cope/

The three pelican panels, in specific, were taken from either the Pienza Cope (the center panel) and a fourteenth century dalmatica, entirely figured with Pelicans, from the Abbeg Foundation collection.

As for size, most of the historical copes I could find measurements for seemed to run about ten feet wide at the long straight edge by five feet at the longest (center) point. That left me to design an orphrey band that ran about ten feet long by six inches wide. After fiddling with the various possibilities, it came down to seven large panels, and six small panels - three sets of two repeated elements. The body of the cope was made of a deep red cotton damask, found by Trice at Pennsic, lined with a beautiful gold patterned silk. We decided to have the panels bordered by a thin gold trim to unite the band itself and also to work with the lining.

For the large panels we have: two vertical pelican panels, one horizontal pelican panel (for the back of the neck), a panel featuring the Archangel Michael, the Tree of Knowledge, and two panels featuring Michael's arms. For the small panels, two Crosses of Jerusalem (from his arms), two Crescents (also from his arms), and two Moons (representing Malagentia). The designs on the small panels were chosen by brainstorming with Trice and Mairghread.

I did the three Pelican panels, Mairghread took the two Arms panels, Camille des Jardins had the Archangel Michael, and Ninian did the Tree of Knowledge. Maria Beatrice della Mare (Trice) did both the two Crosses of Jersulsalem squares and the crescents. The moons were done by Mickel von Salm.

I do hope to eventually add photos of the entire project, but for the meantime I will add photos of my part of the project in process, and a few photos others have taken of finished sections, as well as a stunning portrait of Michael Acrensis wearing the cope, taken by Brendan Crane.

Here are my three pelicans, after finishing the embroidery but before cutting them out for applique onto the base fabric. Learning moment, kids: You might need to show people these pictures later, so you should probably iron the fabric first... They are done in the majority in chain stitch, only in one direction, because I felt it produced the feeling on feathers. Certain parts of the pelicans (beaks, feet, some parts of a wing) were done in satin stitch. I also used offset satin stitch to produce a basket weave effect for the nest. The eyes, being very small, are split stitch.

Here is a photo of Michael in Court, wearing the Cope with several of the panels visible. I will add the name of the photographer as soon as I have it!