From a drawing in 'Chambéry à la fin du XIVe siècle', Timoleon Chapperon, 1863.
Source Firkin
Paper pattern with small dust particles and 45-degree strokes.
Source Atle Mo
This background pattern looks like bamboo to me. Feel free to download it for your website (for your blog perhaps?).
Source V. Hartikainen
Not the most creative name, but it’s a good all-purpose light background.
Source Dmitry
Adapted from a drawing in 'Line and form', Walter Crane, 1914.
Source Firkin
This seamless light brown background texture resembles a wallpaper with vertical stripes. One way to use it is as a tiled background on web sites.
Source V. Hartikainen
To get the tile this is based on select the rectangle in Inkscape and use shift-alt-i
Source Firkin
Formed from a tile based on a drawing from 'Viaggi d'un artista nell'America Meridionale', Guido Boggiani, 1895.
Source Firkin
Same as Silver Scales, but in black. Turn your site into a dragon with this great scale pattern.
Source Alex Parker
Feel free to download and use it, or see the rest of the dark background patterns that I have made. Anyway, I hope you will find something that you like.
Source V. Hartikainen
From a drawing in 'Uit de geschiedenis der Heilige Stede te Amsterdam', Yohannes Sterck, 1898.
Source Firkin
It looks like a polished stone surface to me. Download it for free, as always.
Source V. Hartikainen
A pattern derived from repeating unit cells each derived from part of a fractal rendering in paint.net.
Source Firkin
The file was named striped lens, but hey – Translucent Fibres works too.
Source Angelica
Light gray version of the Binding pattern that looks a bit like fabric.
Source Newbury
A seamless pattern the unit cell for which can be had by selecting the rectangle in Inkscape and using shift+alt+i.
Source Firkin
From a drawing in 'Gately's World's Progress', Charles Beale, 1886.
Source Firkin
Prismatic Isometric Cube Wireframe Pattern No Background
Source GDJ
Lovely pattern with splattered vintage speckles.
Source David Pomfret
From a drawing in 'Friend or Fortune? The story of a strange year', Robert Overton, 1897.
Source Firkin
Number 3 in a series of 5 beautiful patterns. Can be found in colors on the submitter’s website.
Source Janos Koos
A seamless green background texture. The image is distributed under a Creative Commons License (like all of the images here).
Source V. Hartikainen