Editing Tapestry (section)

===Weaving centres===
Where surviving tapestries from before around 1600 were made is often unclear; from 1528 [[Brussels]], by then clearly the main centre, required its weavers to mark tapestries of any size with the city's mark and that of the weaver or merchant.<ref name="Osborne, 759">Osborne, 759</ref>  At any one time from 1350 to 1600 probably only one or two centres could produce the largest and finest royal orders, and groups of highly skilled weavers migrated to new centres, often driven to move by wars or the plague.  At first Paris led the field, but the English occupation there after 1418 sent many to [[Arras]], already a centre.  Arras in turn was sacked in 1477, leading to the rise of [[Tournai]], until a serious plague early in the next century.  Brussels had been growing in importance, and now became the most important centre, which it remained until the [[Eighty Years War]] disrupted all the Netherlands.  Brussels had a revival in the early 17th century, but from around 1650 the French factories were increasingly overtaking it, and remained dominant until both fashion and the upheavals of the French Revolution and the [[Napoleonic Wars]] brought the virtual end of the traditional demand for large tapestries.<ref>Osborne, 759–760</ref>

There was always some tapestry weaving, mostly in rather smaller workshops making smaller pieces, in other towns in northern France and the Low Countries.  This was also the case in other parts of Europe, especially Italy and Germany.  From the mid-16th century many rulers encouraged or directly established workshops capable of high-quality work in their domains.  This was most successful in France, but Tuscany, Spain, England and eventually Russia had high-quality workshops, normally beginning with the importation of a group of skilled workers from the "Flemish" centres. 
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The form reached a new stage in Europe in the early 14th century AD. The first wave of production occurred in Germany and Switzerland. Over time, the craft expanded to France and the Netherlands, with Paris, Doornik and [[Atrecht]] being most notable. The basic tools have remained much the same.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, [[Arras]], France was a thriving textile town. "Arras" is still used to refer to a rich tapestry no matter where it was woven. Indeed, as literary scholar Rebecca Olson argues, Arras were the most valuable objects in England during the early modern period and inspired writers such as [[William Shakespeare]] and [[Edmund Spenser]] to weave these tapestries into their most important works such as ''[[Hamlet]]'' and ''[[The Faerie Queene]]''.<ref>{{cite book | last = Olson | first = Rebecca | title = Arras Hanging: The Textile That Determined Early Modern Literature and Drama | publisher = University of Delaware Press | location = Newark | year = 2013 | isbn = 978-1611494686 }}</ref>

By the 14th-century tapestries were also made in [[Bruges]], [[Oudenaarde]], [[Geraardsbergen]], [[Edingen]] and [[Gent]].

By the 16th century, [[Flanders]], the towns of [[Mechelen]], Leuven, [[Rijsel]] and Antwerp started producing tapestries. However, the towns of Oudenaarde, [[Brussels tapestry|Brussels]], [[Geraardsbergen]] and Enghien had become the centres of European tapestry production. 
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