Fall of Civilizations Podcast

A painting showing the industrial processes involved in the production of silk

Added 2020-02-24 11:29:35 +0000 UTC

"The silkworms and mulberry leaves are placed on trays". Cropped from Sericulture, The Process of Making Silk (蚕织图), a Chinese Song dynasty painting attributed to Liang Kai (梁楷).

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In China, silk-worm farming was originally restricted to women, and many women were employed in the silk-making industry. Even though some saw the development of a luxury product as useless, silk provoked such a craze among high society that the rules in the Li Ji were used to limit its use to the members of the imperial family.

For approximately a millennium, the right to wear silk was reserved for the emperor and the highest dignitaries. Silk was, at the time, a sign of great wealth, because of its shimmering appearance. This appearance was due to silk's prism-like shape/structure, which refracted light from every angle.

After some time, silk gradually extended to other classes of Chinese society, like the noble class and such. Silk began to be used for decorative means and also in less luxurious ways: musical instruments, fishing, and bow making. Peasants did not have the right to wear silk until the Qing dynasty (1644–1911).