Finding the Sheldon Weavers: Richard Hyckes and the Barcheston Tapestry Works Reconsidered

摘要

The tapestry manufactory established by the will of William Sheldon in 1570 was an unusual commercial venture in Elizabethan England. Its furnishing products, mostly small in size, found a ready market in an increasingly affluent society. Little research has focused either on the tapestries, many more of which have come to light since the only survey carried out in the 1920s, or on the men who worked for the factory's directors, Richard Hyckes and his son Francis, successive heads of the royal repair shop from 1569 to 1609. This article presents a fresh interpretation of the subject, drawing on a diverse range of sources never previously used, to assemble a more complete record of the men behind this famous but little explored tapestry works.