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textiles-msg - 9/1/12

 

Medieval cloth. Silks, wool, cotton, linen.

 

NOTE: See also the files: looms-msg, silk-msg, cotton-msg, linen-msg, velvet-msg, piled-fabrics-msg, hemp-cloth-msg, fabric-SCA-msg.

 

************************************************************************

NOTICE -

 

This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.

 

This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org

 

I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter.

 

The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors.

 

Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s).

 

Thank you,

   Mark S. Harris                  AKA:  THLord Stefan li Rous

                                         Stefan at florilegium.org

************************************************************************

 

From:    Jamie Elfsdottir

To:      Matthew Newman

Date: 31-Dec-89 05:47pm

Subject: Fabrics...

 

I'm CERTAINLY no expert on this but I can throw in my two cents worth. Cotton

was known back to the time of the Egyptians.  But for a Romanicized Celt, it

probably would not have been worn.  It would be VERY rare much beyond the

immediate Mediteranian until well in the 1400's. LINEN, on the other hand,

which is produced from the FLAX plant, *would* be known to just about all

cultures. However, again, it would be relatively rare.  Silk, saving in the

Eastern Mediterranian cultures or any culture having commerce with the Persian

Empire, would be almost unheard of until the 1200's to 1300's when the

returning Crusaders would start introducing it to Europe.  The BULK of fabrics

worn by the Celts in this time would be wool, furs, leather and *some*

undergarments made of linen (especially in the upper class).

  

As for boots, what we know call a boot is a relatively recent accomplishment.

For one, it requires the use of a lathe and tinker's dam to make the foot.

Second, joining the soul to upper would be beyond most Medieval footwear

makers. At *best* you might find a sort of Amerind form of a knee-high soft

moccasin. You might want to check on the types of boots worn by the Couriers

des Bois of New France (also sometimes called Plainsmen's Boots) for an

example of what I'm talking about.  Most people either wore no shoes, wooden

shoes (especially in wet areas), sandles or low booties with cross-gartering.

I hope this helps at all.

  

   I remain, as always

                                  Yr. Servant,

                                    Canair James St. Aubyn

 

 

From: karplus at ararat.ucsc.edu (Kevin Karplus)

Date: 11 Nov 90 22:35:25 GMT

 

I have been reading some textile histories recently---there is really

a surprising amount known about medieval fabrics, despite the

relatively small number that have survived.

 

Here are some of the tidbits I picked up (sorry no sources---you'll have

to do your own reading!).

 

When machine spun thread was first introduced, it was used only for

weft, not warp, because it wasn't strong enough.  It took years before

machine spun yarn was as strong as hand spun.  I believe that handspun

is now generally of significantly lower quality than machine spun,

mainly because yarn is too cheap to justify the immense amount of

skilled labor needed to produce high-quality handspun.

 

The finest medieval fabrics were generally silks (as the finest modern

fabrics are) but linen and wool were quite common for less sumptious

garments. Many Islamic sects prohibited the wearing of silk for men,

and so some very fine cotton and linen was also woven.

 

Reeled silk hasn't changed much over the last 400 years, and the

finest work done today is no finer than the finest work done then.

Silk may be somewhat cheaper today, and simple pattern weaves may be

available, but the patterned silk velvets and brocades aren't much in

demand these days, and so are essentially unavailable.

 

Linen varies a lot in fineness, partly because of different harvesting

and retting practices.  The finest linen now available may not match

the finest available in the past, because the economics of linen

production require maximizing the yield, a very different goal than

obtaining the finest fibers.

 

The best of the medieval cloth was very good indeed, but so is the

best of the modern cloth, but don't expect to find either at a

discount yardage store.  

 

The bulk of medieval weaving was for commercial purposes---sturdy pack

cloth, woolen garments, ... .  This material has for the most part not

been preserved or recorded.  Modern utilitarian cloth is probably as

good or better for the purposes intended, and is definitely much

cheaper. True duplications of medieval utilitarian cloth is rare, as

linen and wool are now luxury fibers, rather than everyday ones.

 

(Incidentally, the finest stuff I've woven in 72/2 linen lace at about

36 ends per inch---that is fine by modern handweaving standards, but

still rather coarse by commercial or medieval weaving standards.)

 

Knud Kaukinen           Kevin Karplus

inactive in the West    teaching at UCSC

 

               

From: haslock at rust.zso.dec.com (Nigel Haslock)

Date: 12 Nov 90 21:35:05 GMT

Organization: DECwest, Digital Equipment Corp., Bellevue WA

 

In article <8802 at darkstar.ucsc.edu>, karplus at ararat.ucsc.edu (Kevin Karplus)

writes:

> I have been rNeHing some textile histories recently---there is really

> a surprising amount known about medieval fabrics, despite the

> relatively small number that have survived.

 

Me too.

>

> Here are some of the tidbits I picked up (sorry no sources---you'll have

> to do your own reading!).

 

Me too.

>

> The finest medieval fabrics were generally silks (as the finest modern

> fabrics are) but linen and wool were quite common for less sumptious

> garments.

 

The chinese were, in period, weaving silk at 400 to 600 threads per inch. Silk

has the advantage of not needing to be spun so much as the other available

fibers.

 

> Linen varies a lot in fineness, partly because of different harvesting

> and retting practices.

 

Linen is also a hairier yarn than silk which makes it more difficult to

open the shed to pass the shuttle through. The hairiness tends to abrade the

adjacent fibers. When the threads are fine, they are also weaker but have to

take more abrasion because the shed has to be opened so many more times for

every inch of fabric.

>

> (Incidentally, the finest stuff I've woven in 72/2 linen lace at about

> 36 ends per inch---that is fine by modern handweaving standards, but

> still rather coarse by commercial or medieval weaving standards.)

 

My reference claimes that the period definition of fine cloth was that it had

more than 2000 warp threads and was evenweave, i.e. the same number of treads

per inch for both warp and weft. This doesn't help much if you don't know the

width of the cloth. A few pages later, I found the remark the one of the

English kings tried to legislate a change from five quarters of a yard to

six quarters of a yard. If we assume that the 2000 threads applies to

5/4 yds we get 2000threads/ 45inchs or 44 trheads to the inch.

 

       Fiacha

       Aquaterra, AnTir

 

                 

From: kay at hjuxa (35G-KAY)

Date: 13 Nov 90 16:48:29 GMT

Organization: DEC

> width of the cloth. A few pages later, I found the remark the one of the

> English kings tried to legislate a change from five quarters of a yard to

> six quarters of a yard. If we assume that the 2000 threads applies to

> 5/4 yds we get 2000threads/ 45inchs or 44 trheads to the inch.

>

To further muddy the waters, there is the question of which type of "yard"

the knight was referring to.  Something I ran accross in reading about the

100 Years War was the reference to arrows.  A thesis I read in the Mich.

State library speculated that the "cloth yard shaft" of the English longbow

was a _Flemish_ yard, or ell, not an English yard.  This makes the arrows

long for those folks, but average today; an ell is 28 inches.  (Can

someone check this against the findings on the "MARY ROSE"?)

 

According to my calculator, if 2000 is a good figure for the 5/4 yard,

this brings the thread count up to 57 and a bit threads per inch

(2000/28*5/4) at 5/4 yards and 47+ at 6/4.  Yow!

 

>       Fiacha

-

       Bart the Bewildered, Carillion, East

       (mka Paul Kay, Freehold, NJ, USA)

       (kay at unx.dec.com, kay%bart at unx.dec.com, bewildrd%bart at unx.dec.com)

                 

From: haslock at rust.zso.dec.com (Nigel Haslock)

Date: 14 Nov 90 20:31:49 GMT

Organization: DECwest, Digital Equipment Corp., Bellevue WA

 

I have finally brought my reference to work and I am now quoting from

'The Book of Looms' by Eric Broudy.

One historian has written that the best of Flemish clothmakers utilized

over seventy different specialists. Another has put the number at

twenty-six...

.

.

.

A Suffolk clothier who in 1618 made twenty broadcloths a week would employ in various ways five hundred persons.

.

.

.

All first-class cloth had the same quality weft and warp and a set number

of warp threads that guaranteed the closeness of the texture. In Provins,

for example, the number was 2200. Cloth with only 2000 (vingtaines) was

considered cheap.

.

.

.

One dispute from 1406 concerns a decree of Henry IV who ordered that the

width of cloth be increased from five-quarters of a yard to six-quarters.

.

.

.

Wheel spun yarn was prohibited in Abbeville in 1288. In 1290 a Drapers Guild

regulation at Speyer prohibited the use of wheel spun yarn for the warp but

allowed it for the weft. The medieval wheel was more like a mounted spindle

than a spinning wheel. It had no flyer until the late fourteenth century and

was turned by a hand crank until the development of the crank and connecting

rod in the early sixteenth century. Guild members felt that a finer

stronger thread could be spun by the drop spindle, and this simple tool

remained the preferred method until the fifteenth century.

 

Back to me confusing things. The book includes a number of interesting

pictures and illustrations. Most of them show a two treadle, two harness

loom. These date from 1368 to 1641. One shows a two man, four harness

counterbalance loom (from the back so you can't see the treadles. This

is apparently taken from the Ypres Book of Trades c 1310 but the illustration

was taken from a book dated 1847.

 

The book has an extensive bibliography but does not give references for

any of the quotes above.

 

Given Bart's comment about the clothyard during the hundred years war and the

fact the Henry VIII defined the english yard at its current value. I tend to

believe that the 2000 or 2200 threads are squished into 35 inches ( 5/4 of

28"). I would appreciate any further data on this point.

 

       Fiacha

       Aquaterra, AnTir

 

 

From: DRS at UNCVX1.BITNET ("Dennis R. Sherman")

Date: 3 Dec 91 03:32:00 GMT

Organization: The Internet

 

For further information on period construction techniques, see

if you can find (probably via interlibrary loan from a school with

a textiles specialty)

 

Flury-Lemberg, Mechthild; _Textile Conservation and Research, a

documentation of the textile department on the occasion of the

twentieth anniversary of the Abegg Foundation_; Bern: Abegg-Stiftung,

1988.

 

Its filled with pictures and drawings showing original articles and

the steps taken to preserve them - which often means taking them

apart to clean (giving good pattern examples - some are even

drafted to [metric] scale).  Lots of discussion of materials used.

Articles include tapestries, flags, embroidery, garments (including

knit gloves of the 15th century, if memory serves, and shoes with

cork soles) a full Landesknecht uniform - the color pictures are

glorious - 16th century shirts, and all kinds of neat stuff.

This is a fun book, especially if you are interested in clothing

construction.

 

   Robyyan Torr d'Elandris                Dennis R. Sherman

   Kapellenberg, Windmaster's Hill        Chapel Hill, NC

   Atlantia                               drs at uncvx1.bitnet

                                           drs at uncvx1.oit.unc.edu

 

 

Subj: fleeces

Date: 6 Feb 92

From: ron at mlfarm.com (Ronald Florence)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Organization: Maple Lawn Farm, Stonington, CT

 

Our flock of Cotswold and colored sheep was recently sheared, and we

still have a few excellent fleeces available for sale to handspinners.

We will be offering these fleeces to our semi-commercial buyers soon

(they run spinning schools).

 

The Cotswold fleeces are extremely long-staple and lustrous, ranging

in color from bright white to ivory.  To keep the fleeces clean, the

sheep are raised on pasture, fed no alfalfa hay before shearing, and

are sheared by Kevin Ford, using blades.  The fleeces are skirted and

free of belly wool, hay, and second cuts.

 

sheep       weight      breed       comments

 

George            17.0  Cotswold    very white, long

Jeffery           12.0  Cotswold    very white, medium-staple

Moses       11.5  Cotswold    medium-long lamb fleece SOLD

Amy               11.5  Cotswold    long, very lustrous

Sydney            11.0  Cotswold    long

Dumpling          10.0  Romney X    grey/brown, medium      SOLD

Amew        14.0  Cotswold    long, very lustrous

Pearl             12.0  Cotswold X  coffee-colored, long

Ramona            8.5   Cotswold    medium

Maggie            13.5  Cotswold X  cafe-au-lait, long            SOLD

Grace       13.5  Romney            long, heavy crimp

Mary              11.0  Romney X    silver/charcoal, coarse

Annie       14.0  Cotswold X  pale silver, long       SOLD

Oreo              7.5   Columbia X  cafe-au-lait, fine            SOLD

Brennan           17.0  Cotswold    long, very lustrous

Quimby            7.5   Cotswold    medium

Remy              10.0  Cotswold    medium, very white

Change            9.0   Cotswold    medium, very white lamb fleece

Continuity        12.0  Cotswold    long lamb fleece        SOLD

Serenity          5.0   Cotswold    medium-short, white lamb fleece

 

We charge $4 per pound for the long-staple (7-10 inch) fleeces, and $3

per pound for the medium-staple (4-7 inch) fleeces.  We will pay UPS

shipping on all prepaid orders.

 

Please send email, call 203.535.3815, or fax 203.535.3576.  Thanks.

--

                        Ronald Florence

                        ron at mlfarm.com

 

 

Re: authenticty and social reality

Date: 16 May 92

From: ilaine at panix.com (Liz Stokes)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix & Internet, NYC

 

In article <1992May15.173841.27660 at watson.ibm.com> mittle at watson.ibm.com (Josh Mittleman) writes:

>It occurs to me that there may be some arts in which is impossible to

>re-create them except in the context of an inauthentic SCA invention.  For

>example, consider court ceremony.  It is impossible for a court ceremony to

>be completely authentic, since the things we are trying to do are by their

>nature not authentic.  Does this bar any possibility of a Laurel for

>re-creating period ceremony?

 

      I'd been hoping to let this arguement pass me by, but no dice.

We live in the modern world, and it is impossoble for all arts to be completely

authentic, not just some. You can get further than most with the textile arts.

Weaving was something that was done in the home, with tools still available

today. However, you are then stuck as either early period or peasant. If

you have any interest in Renaissance or Tudor garb you are out of luck unless

you are capable of weaving at ovdf 1000 threads per inch. Ok, there is an old

workshop in Italy, if you can pay $900 a meter. However, when trying to make

an authentic piece  you have to make choices and compromises, not just in

your everyday projects, but in your long term killer-authentic pieces.

      Sticking to a field I know about, you cannot make absolutely authentic

linen bobbin lace. There is little demand for super-fine linen thread today,

even the companies which make linen lace thread have been dropping the finest

sizes in the last few years 180/2 went 5 or 6 years ago, 140/2 went a couple

years ago, the best I have found lately is 120/2. The threads you can get

have slubs and are not the perfectly even texture of period threads. I can

spin very fine, but even 120/2 is beyond my skills. Cotton is an appropriate

substitute, because it is available in finer sizes, and smoother texture than

linen today.

      So, you have a choice between using the authentic material, and having

a piece that is lower quality than the period piece would be, or using a

substitute, and having the appropriate fineness. However, I can use a period

style pillow, bobbins, pins, etc. and turn out a pretty darn good compromise.

      I have a couple of lace bobbins which I feel are more period than any

I will ever own. My lord hand carved them for me in his spare time, whilst

he was signed on with the Golden Hinde. He doesn't know anything about bobbin

styles, but I showed him a couple, explained the necessary features for

functionality, and told him it was period for sailors to carve bobbins to give

to their lacemaker girlfriends. Well it is :) Anyway, the bobbins are modern

in style, but they have this totally authentic karma :):):)

      Anyway, total authenticity is impossible. The choices we make when

we compromise, and the reasons for them reflect are scholarship and our own

personal feelings. Sometimes we go for looks, sometimes we go for material,

and sometimes the provenance of an object is it's greatest appeal. No one

ever got a Laurel for absolute and perfect authenticity, because it can't be

done, and there is no reason to deny one for not reaching an ideal.

                                          -Ilaine

--

Liz Stokes         |   "No Officer, I'm not carrying any weapons. These?

Ilaine de Cameron  |    They're just wool combs, harmless spinsters use them.

                  |    Yes I realize they have 50 6 inch razor sharp steel

ilaine at panix.com   | spikes. Each. But they're not weapons ..."

 

 

Subject:book review: textiles and clothing

Date: 1 Jun 92

From: SHERMAN%TRLN.DECnet at uncvx1.acs.unc.EDU ("Dennis R. Sherman")

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

 

Greetings to the Rialto from Robyyan.

 

My copy of _Textiles and Clothing_, the latest in the Museum of London

series about medieval finds arrived this weekend.  For those that

don't know, this is a series of books on recoveries from archeological

sites in London.  The first three books in the series are _Knives and

Scabbards_, _Shoes and Pattens_, and _Dress Accessories_.  The titles

are indicative of the subject matter of each :-)

 

These books are terrific research and reconstruction material.  They

include detailed descriptions, drawings, and photographs of recovered

articles, in many cases with patterns from articles disassembled for

preservation. And they have *large* bibliographies.

 

This particular volume, _Textiles and Clothing_, contains information

of interest to anyone working with cloth, although I think it will be

of most use to weavers.  There are no complete garments included,

although there are many fragments (i.e. pieces of a sleeve, a foot

from hose, a couple of hoods, etc.)  I don't think there are sufficient

clothing fragments to base a complete set of garb on the information

here, but the information on details (how to sew buttonholes or

eyelets, making cloth buttons, how hems and edges are turned or bound)

is quite valuable.

 

Selections from the table of contents:  (typos mine, multiple --

indicate places where I left things out)

 

Techniques used in textile production

      wool-hair-linen-wilk-dyes-looms

Wool textiles

      state of preservation-the weaves of the cloths-three-shed

      twills---tabby weaves--tapestry-knitting-felt

Goathair textiles

Linen textiles

      self-patterened weaves -- finishing

Silk textiles

      ---sources of supply---tabby woven---weft-patterened---satin

      damask

Mixed cloths

Narrow wares

      tablet woven braids--fingerloop braids-plaited braids--

      -garters---hairnets

Sewing techniques and tailoring

      sewing threads-sewing techniques-bindings and facings-

      fastening methods---dagges

 

I highly recommend this series for people interested in historical

accuracy in their reconstructions.

 

All are available from Her Majesties Stationary Office (HMSO):

 

      HMSO Publications Centre

      PO Box 276, London, SW8 5DT

      071-873-9090 (remember to dial for England first)

 

They take Visa and MasterCard.  Prices on the books are different, and

vary with the exchange rate.  _Textiles and Clothing_ cost me just

under $55, including surface mail shipping.

 

Bibliographic data (try to get your local library to order these

books! :-) --

 

Elisabeth Crowfoot, Frances Pritchard and Kay Staniland; _Medieval

finds from excavations in London:4, Textiles and Clothing

c.1150-c.1450_; London: HMSO, 1992.  ISBN 0 11 290445 9

*--------------------------------------------------------------------*

* Robyyan Torr d'Elandris  Kapellenberg, Windmaster's Hill  Atlantia *

*--------------------------------------------------------------------*

* Dennis R. Sherman              Triangle Research Libraries Network *

* dennis_sherman at unc.edu       Univ. of North Carolina - Chapel Hill *

*--------------------------------------------------------------------*

 

 

Subject: Brussels Longcloth

Date: 22 May 92

From: ewright at convex.com (Edward V. Wright)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Organization: Engineering, CONVEX Computer Corp., Richardson, Tx., USA

 

Brand/Blair/Thorgrim/Jascha writes:

 

>I have been diligently reading upon the subject of garb in the 14th century,

>and one passage I have read is most puzzling.  It says that the common cloth

>of everyday wear was Brussels Longcloth ... what would be the modern

>equivalent?

 

It would help if you gave us a more specific reference -- title, author,

and page number -- or at least more information about who, where, and when

in the 14th century this passage referred to.  I doubt this statement could

have applied to everyone, everywhere during the 1301-1401 period.  Was this

statement a quotation from a period source or a modern author's commentary?

If the latter, does the author cite any evidence or give sources for the

claim? If so, that's the place to start.

 

In period, the word "cloth" was usually synonymous with "wool."  If a

person meant another type of fabric, such as linen or silk, he usually

said "linen" or "silk" rather than "cloth."  So, Brussels Longcloth,

assuming that is a period term, was almost certainly wool.  "Longcloth"

might refer to the length of fabric on a bolt, just as "broadcloth"

referred to the width of the fabric, or it might mean something else.

Brussels is almost certainly the city where the fabric was woven.

 

Consult the Oxford English Dictionary and see what it says about

"longcloth." Also try Linthicum's "Costume in the Drama of Shakespeare

and his Contemporaries," which has a very complete section on types of

fabrics and the dates they were first produced.

 

-- Nicholas van Leyden

 

 

Date: 26 May 92

From: Beth.Appleton at f4229.n124.z1.fidonet.org (Beth Appleton)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

 

DC> have lady fighters, and male embroiderers.  No inquisition, no Church

Sorry, you hit a button.  I will let others more knowlegable than I give   you the info on female fighters in period.  The bit I'm writing back      about is the male embroiders:  they are very, very period.  It was a      trade, and as such, was practiced largely by men in period.  Current      thought on the Bayeux Tapestry say that it was probably done by monks.    About the only thing to do with fibres that wasn't done by men was  spinning......

   If you'd like, I'll try to find my sources for this info again.

               Gwenllian Cwmystwyth ferch Morfudd

 

 

Subj: Early Saxon Fashion

Date: 12 Jun 92

From: PRIEST at vaxsar.vassar.EDU (CAROLYN PRIEST-DORMAN)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

 

Unto the Fishyfolk of the Rialto, particularly Walburga, greeting from Thora!

 

I hope I'm not confusing you all with this....  With respect to very early

Saxon fashion, I have some responses to Walburga's posting.  (I get the Digest,

so if I am a day behind, I apologize to everyone.)  She says:

 

>metal brocaded tablet weaving?  please, that's oop for my persona

>by about 100 years!  

 

Not unless your persona is from the second century or earlier, it's not.  The

Taplow Barrow finds, a late 6th or early 7th century burial site in

Buckinghamshire, had loads of gold brocaded tablet weaving.  Similar finds come

from Bifrons and Chessel Downs in the same period.  Late in the sixth century a

Frankish princess married into Saxon royalty in southeast England, and she

apparently brought this Frankish fashion with her.  Similar finds in

Frankish/Saxon lands, some of them in silk, date back to the third century.  So

strictly speaking, the technique is not OOP for you.  Now, if you want to argue

that your persona would never have worn the stuff, well, that's another matter.

;> (Check out Elisabeth Crowfoot and Sonia Chadwick Hawkes, "Early Anglo-Saxon

Gold Braids," MEDIEVAL ARCHAEOLOGY IX (1967), pp. 42-86.)

 

>the rich still

>had tablet weaving at the borders of the chiton-things, but unless i

>weave the whole garment, i can't do much about that...  

 

Well, the application of separately tablet-woven edgings to a garment is also an

early period phenomenon.  You could always do the tablet-weaving separately and

sew it to the garment, if you can't fit a warp-weighted loom into your life. ;>

 

>and it was

>wool, not silk,  it just used the warp or woof threads, i forget

>which, to braid togther to make a firm edge for the piece of cloth.

 

Right; silk garments are unsupportable for a woman of your persona's time and

social position.  But I was speaking of the general technique of metal brocaded

silk tablet weaving (current from the sixth through the at least the fifteenth

century) rather than implying that you should make a silk peplos.  Actually, I

was razzing Aryk for implying that early period garb couldn't be a creative

time sink unless it was embroidered. ;>

>i realize that the only dyes in the Sutton Hoo find

>were madder, woad, and cochineal (??),

 

That's "madder, woad, and weld."  Those are the only three which have been

identified on the Sutton Hoo textiles.  Cochineal is a New World phenomenon;

kermes was the Old World equivalent, although sometimes it is called "Polish

cochineal" in books.  Lac was also occasionally used, more in the East than in

the West.  The predominant colorants from these three red dyestuffs are

similar, but chemically distinguishable.

 

>the reading i have done indicates that only

>cloaks were completely undyed...

 

Hmmm, this seems a little bit general.  Of the eleven different textiles

definitely made of wool (as opposed to the vegetable fiber textiles, the

wool-brocaded linens or the indeterminate) found in the main Sutton Hoo grave

(early- to mid-seventh century), only four of them tested positive for

dyestuffs. (One of these textiles was a tufted pile weave thought to have been

a cloak, dyed yellow with weld.)  One tested positive for naturally pigmented

wool. The other six did not reveal any dyestuffs.  None of the linen textiles

tested positive for dyestuffs.  Of course, some dyes may have been fugitive.

Still, I think it possible that linen undertunics may have been undyed, or that

cloaks may have been dyed.  (The source for this is Elisabeth Crowfoot's "The

Textiles," in vol. 3, part I, of THE SUTTON HOO SHIP-BURIAL (London:  British

Museum Publications Ltd., 1983).  This volume is ed. Angela Care Evans, but the

entire set is ed. Rupert Bruce-Mitford.)

******************************************************************************

Carolyn Priest-Dorman                   Thora Sharptooth

Poughkeepsie, NY                        Frosted Hills

priest at vassar.edu                       East Kingdom

******************************************************************************

 

 

From: haslock at rust.zso.dec.com (Nigel Haslock)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: biblio, sails, shoes, & lead

Date: 14 Jul 1993 16:00:15 GMT

Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation - DECwest Engineering

 

Greetings from Fiacha,

 

Ranvaig, your apologise is as gracious as it is unnecessary. I delight in

opportunities to discuss both fabrics and tents and I have always learned

something from such discussions.

 

As I indicated ealier, there is a lot that I do not know about Viking sails.

 

However, there is a difference between wet and saturated. A heavy dew will wet

a piece of fabric but not saturate it. There is also the detail that a

competant sailor will know the limitations of his craft. If the weather gets

bad enough to threaten the integrity of his sail, a modern sailor will either

reef or replace the sail, if not sail under bare poles. I assume that Viking

sailors were smart enough to do this.

 

The weight of a wet linen sail is not at issue since linen is stronger wet than

dry. One of the books on fibers that I read claimed that only silk has a

higher tensile strength than linen (modern fibers excluded). Thus if a linen

sail is going to fall apart, so is a woolen one.

 

The issue of wool as a luxury fabric is something I need to explain in more

detail. Wool has always been used to make luxury fabrics (but this does not

mean that all luxury fabrics have been made from wool). Thus there is the

economic issue of utility fabrics. With a limited amount of raw wool, one can

make a luxury fabric (if one knows how), make a utility fabric or sell the wool

and buy the needed fabric with the proceeds.

 

By the end of the twelfth century, the flemish weavers were the masters of

weaving in the Northwest corner of Europe. At that time it is possible that

the economics of fabric altered to the point where it made sense for England to

sell the majority of its wool production and buy woven stuff from the flemish

weavers. Certainly England's national economy gradually became dependant on

or fueled by wool exports. The low countries grew flax and produced fine linen

but did not support sheep.

 

As for linen for tents, I am not sure where, other than tent suppliers, to look

for it. Ask for linen canvas and you will find some. For woolen tenting you

would need to find coat weight worsted twill. Woolen blanketing is the wrong

class of wool for the job. That is, I do not know of commercially available

woolen fabrics that compare with canvas (canvas being traditionally linen).

 

The point of using worsted twill is that worsted wool is that the worsted is

spun to minimise space between the fibers and so is both harder wearing and

less likely to absorb water. The twill weave is traditional for sails because

it packs the threads closer together and so is more successful at holding the

wind. Thora Sharptooth has sent me a description of a find of what is presumed

to be a woolen sail. The brief description is a close match for coat weight

worsted twill (although the distinction between worsted and woolen spun

yarn was not being made at that time).

 

The point is that I have seen canvas suitable for tents but I have not seen

woolens suitable for tents. When making tents I prefer to use polycotton

because of the price and the colors. I do not know of a source for cheap

linen canvas!

 

      Fiacha

      AnTir

 

 

From: palmer at cis.ohio-state.edu (sharon ann palmer)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: biblio, sails, shoes, & lead

Date: 16 Jul 1993 04:26:07 -0400

Organization: The Ohio State University Dept. of Computer and Info. Science

 

In article <221aif$mb9 at usenet.pa.dec.com> haslock at rust.zso.dec.com (Nigel Haslock) writes:

 

>higher tensile strength than linen (modern fibers excluded). Thus if a linen

>sail is going to fall apart, so is a woolen one.

 

I did not mean to suggest that either would fall apart.  The reverse rather.

 

>Wool has always been used to make luxury fabrics

>With a limited amount of raw wool, one can

>make a luxury fabric (if one knows how), make a utility fabric or sell the wool

 

Sorry no, you wouldnt take the same fleece and choose to make either

luxury or utility fabrics.  For a luxury fabric, you need a very

fine thread, which means it must be spun from a very fine fiber.

Today luxury fabrics are made from merino, cashmere, quivit, etc.

Wool is graded into super-fine, fine, medium and coarse.  The thicker

fibers tend to be longer as well.  (I still dont know too much

about period breed names).

From the excavation of York, the coarser fabrics tended to be made

from poorly spun, thicker thread, and the poorer spinners were given

the poorer fleece to spin.  I havent seen the documentation for

the sail, but I would expect carefully choosen fleece, expert spinning,

and expert weaving.  The Viking era fabrics I have looked at were

singles (not plied), but with the spinning wheel, plying would

be easier and would make a stronger thread, but I have no idea if

this was really done.

 

>By the end of the twelfth century, the flemish weavers were the masters of

>weaving in the Northwest corner of Europe. At that time it is possible that

>the economics of fabric altered to the point where it made sense for England to

>sell the majority of its wool production and buy woven stuff from the flemish

>weavers. Certainly England's national economy gradually became dependant on

>or fueled by wool exports.

 

I shouldnt try to answer this without looking it up, but I believe that

England had always (since Roman times at least) exported raw wool, but

begining around this time, began to weave it themselves and export

the fabric also.  I am not sure of the date though.

 

>woolen fabrics that compare with canvas (canvas being traditionally linen).

 

I believe that canvas is the technical term for a type of weave.  I have

seen modern fabric labeled wool canvas, but it is not what you would be

looking for.  I just looked it up and this is not what the dictionary

says, but it is how modern weavers use the word.

 

>The point of using worsted twill is that worsted wool is that the worsted is

>spun to minimise space between the fibers and so is both harder wearing and

 

It also makes the fibers straighter within the thread, rather than

spiralling, making the thread stronger.

 

>Thora Sharptooth has sent me a description of a find of what is presumed

>to be a woolen sail. The brief description is a close match for coat weight

>worsted twill

 

I suspect the fibers in the sail will be thicker and longer than the

coat weight twill, even if the weave looks the same.  Softness and

suppleness are more desirable for a coat than a sail.  Mistress Thora,

does your source include this information?

 

>(although the distinction between worsted and woolen spun

>yarn was not being made at that time).

 

Basically worsted means that the fleece was combed, and woolen that it

was carded.  Combing is earlier, carding is period, but I believe after

the period you are considering.  There are differences in the way they

are spun.  Worsted is a smooth thread and woolen is a fluffy yarn.  

The words may not have been used in period.  I cant find a source,

but I believe woolen yarns were used for fabrics intended to be fulled.

 

Ranvaig                 

Sharon Palmer            palmer at cis.ohio-state.edu

(Who is trying to spin fine enough to weave vadmal on a warp-weighted loom,

when she isnt trying to card-weave, or trying to make lace, or trying

to raise two children.  But what I mostly do is read.)

 

 

From: priest at vaxsar.vassar.edu (Carolyn Priest-Dorman)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Tent Fabric

Date: 14 Jul 93 09:04:23 +1000

Organization: Vikings R Us

 

Unto the Fishyfolk of the Rialto, greeting from Thora Sharptooth!

 

Dave.Aronson at f120.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Dave Aronson) writes:

> SH> I know that in the pioneering era of the US, it was fairly common to

> SH> mingle [linen and wool] to produce a compromise between the costs and

> SH> attributes of each. It was called "linsey-woolsey" and

> SH> the idea supposedly

> SH> was brought over from the British Isles. Does anyone know how old this

> SH> practice is, and if it was ever done in period?

>It is forbidden in Orthodox Judaism, but I do not know if that is a recent

>development via extrapolative interpretation, or if it is of older origin, in

>which case it would probably be older than period.

>Yaakov?

 

I'm not Yaakov, but I'll have to do for now.  (I think he's somewhere between

Carolingia and Storvik, relocating, right now.)

 

This practice is called "sha'atnez," and is Biblically forbidden.  It says in

Deuteronomy 22:11 (Masoretic translation):  "Thou shalt not wear a mingled

stuff, wool and linen together."  This is one of the most fascinating

textile-related things in the Bible to me. ;>  Over the years several different

male commentators who did not know from spinning and weaving have tried to

explain this stricture in various ways.  My personal favorite is Rashi, whose

works demonstrate that he had a passing familiarity with the technology of

weaving and spinning (perhaps because he had several daughters and no sons):

his works are the first written source in Europe to mention the influx of the

horizontal treadle loom, sometime in the eleventh century in Troyes, France.

 

Anyway, Rashi's gloss of this commandment says:  "A mingled stuff denotes a

mixture. And our Rabbis have explained it:  Fulled (shin-nun-ayin), spun

(mem-vav-vav-yod), and woven (nun-vav-zayin)."  In other words, you should not

mingle wool and flax fibers together and then spin them and make cloth from it.

Since Thora is tenth-century and has figured out that a mingled stuff dyes

streakily and unpleasantly, this is pretty much the sense in which she

understands this commandment--to the extent that she has considered it, that

is!

 

One demonstrably period practice was to weave wool on a warp of linen.  The

fragments of this sort of cloth found in London and dating to the late 14th

century are thought to have been used as rugs, hangings, or bedcoverings.

(Three such remnants are described in the Museum of London's TEXTILES AND

CLOTHING.) Also from the London excavation are several velvet fragments where

the silk warp pile is crossed by linen or hemp weft, also late 14th century in

origin. A related earlier practice from farther east was to weave silk weft on

a vegetable warp; a Frankish woman's grave from the seventh century

(erroneously said to be Arnegunde) had two such silk blend fabrics in it, one

mingled with cotton--no doubt cheap Byzantine exports for the barbarian West.

;>

****************************************************************************

Carolyn Priest-Dorman               Thora Sharptooth

Poughkeepsie, NY              Frosted Hills ("where's that?")

priest at vassar.edu                East Kingdom

             Gules, three square weaver's tablets in bend Or

****************************************************************************

 

 

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

From: dwbutler at mtu.edu (DANIEL WALTER BUTLER-EHLE)

Subject: Re: Tent Fabric

Organization: Michigan Technological University

Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1993 08:23:12 GMT

 

Carolyn Priest-Dorman (priest at vaxsar.vassar.edu) wrote:

: Unto the Fishyfolk of the Rialto, greeting from Thora Sharptooth!

 

: Dave.Aronson at f120.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Dave Aronson) writes:

: > SH> attributes of each. It was called "linsey-woolsey" and

: > SH> the idea supposedly

: > SH> was brought over from the British Isles. Does anyone know how old this

: > SH> practice is, and if it was ever done in period?

: >It is forbidden in Orthodox Judaism, but I do not know if that is a recent

: >development via extrapolative interpretation, or if it is of older origin, in

: >which case it would probably be older than period.

 

: male commentators who did not know from spinning and weaving have tried to

: works demonstrate that he had a passing familiarity with the technology of

....random deletions......

: Since Thora is tenth-century and has figured out that a mingled stuff dyes

: streakily and unpleasantly, this is pretty much the sense in which she

: understands this commandment--to the extent that she has considered it, that

: is!

 

When I was a young lad (that's not to say that I'm no longer male, but no

longer young), the wise and ancient ones (who, I later discovered, were

often wrong) told me that the reason for this commandment was because

such a fabric was hard to wash (vegetable fiber cloth hangs to dry;

wool must dry flat) and it wouldn't wear well (the fibers deteriorate at

different rates depending on the environment).

 

And speaking of vegetable fiber cloth, until recently ropes and sails had

been made of hemp fiber (like, for hundreds and hundreds of years).  One

can make a pretty lightweight, but strong cloth from hemp.  I'd find it

hard to believe that period tent canvas wasn't usually hemp.  The word

"canvas" derives from "cannabis" (and if you read alt.hemp, you'll find a

dozen people constantly pointing this out).  Maybe someday I'll get up the

ambition to built a new loom, find a sizable patch of wild hemp (like six

acres), and make cloth for a new pavilion.  But my research hasn't turned

up enough good documentation on how to do it yet.

 

--Ulfin of Wyrmgeard   <dwbutler at mtu.edu> or <ulfin at mathlab.mtu.edu>

 

 

From: priest at vaxsar.vassar.edu (Carolyn Priest-Dorman)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: Tent Fabric

Date: 19 Jul 93 10:31:50 +1000

Organization: Vikings R Us

 

Unto the Fishyfolk of the Rialto, greeting from Thora Sharptooth!

 

About the Biblical prohibition against mixed textiles of linen and wool, Ulfin

of Wyrmgeard <dwbutler at mtu.edu> writes:

 

>When I was a young lad (that's not to say that I'm no longer male, but no

>longer young), the wise and ancient ones (who, I later discovered, were

>often wrong) told me that the reason for this commandment was because

>such a fabric was hard to wash (vegetable fiber cloth hangs to dry;

>wool must dry flat) and it wouldn't wear well (the fibers deteriorate at

>different rates depending on the environment).

 

I'm sure there are as many different rationalizations as there are

commentators. ;>  I do have to wonder, though, how often the wool garments of a

desert nomadic society would have been washed.  (Your Grace, you wouldn't

happen to have any information on that topic, would you?)  Certainly the

deterioration argument makes some sense, though.  

 

>And speaking of vegetable fiber cloth, until recently ropes and sails had

>been made of hemp fiber (like, for hundreds and hundreds of years).  

 

Perhaps you missed the elaborate discussion of the Viking Age wool twill sails

in another thread.  It is clear that Viking longships, at least, had sails made

of wool.  On those ships ropes were made not only of hemp but also of skin,

depending on the uses to which they were to be put.

 

>Maybe someday I'll get up the

>ambition to built a new loom, find a sizable patch of wild hemp (like six

>acres), and make cloth for a new pavilion.  But my research hasn't turned

>up enough good documentation on how to do it yet.

 

Good luck not getting arrested!

******************************************************************************

Carolyn Priest-Dorman               Thora Sharptooth

Poughkeepsie, NY              Frosted Hills ("where's that?")

priest at vassar.edu                East Kingdom

             Gules, three square weaver's tablets in bend Or

******************************************************************************

 

 

From: haslock at rust.zso.dec.com (Nigel Haslock)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: Tent Fabric or Viking Sails

Date: 20 Jul 1993 01:24:00 GMT

Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation - DECwest Engineering

 

Greetings from Fiacha,

 

The deal with tent fabric is that we have a 12th century source declaring

a switch to linen. The relevant questions were why and what was it a switch

from?

 

Viking woolen sails were offered as a choice to switch from and the

interesting and informative commentary suggests that the norse were making a

strong, fine, weatherproof material from wool. Such a material would be a

good candidate for tenting, especially when one considers that the 'viking

ship shelter' redutedly used the ships sail as a roof.

 

Thora's description of combing wool to separate the long straight hairs from

the short fuzzy stuff is clear but did not specify if the long hairs were used

or if the short fuzzy stuff was used (or if both were used for different

purposes). I am assuming that the long straight hairs were used for the

sail cloth. Being a misable spinner, I don't have a good feel for the right

answers in this area.

 

I doubt that the Vikings used significant quantities of hemp due to the

Scandinavian climate. That is, if flax is difficult to grow there, hemp is

next to impossible. Other folk have claimed to me that the vikings used card

woven bands for their rigging, presumably in wool.

 

I will admit that my original distrust of wool for sails was based on

descriptions of the results of saturating thick felt. I had not thought

deeply enough about cloth made from tightly spun wool.

 

It is important to realize the thickness of the fabric described in Thora's

posting. Threads woven at between 9 and 15 threads per centimeter are fine;

being a thirtyth on an inch across, if not finer. The resulting fabric will

be about twice as thick. I would guess that denim jeans are about the same

thickness of material. Notice that commercial canvas tents (Grimms and the

various army GP tents) are made from a thicker material. I believe that

modern sailors use heavier and stronger fabric for their mailsails.

 

The use of hemp now becomes interesting. I do not know enough about the fiber

to add to the discussion. I would like to see the OED citations for both

canvas and hemp but I will not have time to look them up for a few weeks.

 

I still suspect economics as the basis for the switch to linen tents though.

 

      Fiacha

      AnTir

      Haslock at zso.dec.com

 

 

From: priest at vaxsar.vassar.edu (Carolyn Priest-Dorman)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re:  Shoes, Wool

Date: 16 Jul 93 21:39:41 +1000

Organization: Vikings R Us

 

Unto the Fishyfolk of the Rialto, greeting from Thora Sharptooth!

 

Renee "Are-You-Amish?-Is-That-A-REAL-Fire?-Aren't-You-Hot-In-That?" Raduechel

(wow, it sounds like you have a great job!) writes:

 

>in your discussions of wool, sails, etc., has anyone

>mentioned the natural waterproofing that lanolin provides?  At our 1865

>Norwegian farm we discuss wool processing in the nineteenth century, including

>the fact that if you made garments from wool with the lanolin left in, it

>provided some protection from the elements.  Such a garment would be good for

>a fisherman, for example.  (We never leave the lanolin in, since doing so would

>mean leaving all the manure, etc., in the wool, too.)  Could lanolin be an

>additional factor in the choice of wool over another fabric?

 

Yes, if the wool had been left undyed.  However, both the Gokstad and Oseberg

fabrics had been dyed red (and are still discernibly red).  The probable dye

bath would have been madder root (by far the most common Viking Age red agent),

which would not color an unwashed wool, or, at least, would strip away the

lanolin if one tried to dye unwashed wool.  Those red sails would not,

therefore, have had the benefit of natural waterproofing.

*****************************************************************************

Carolyn Priest-Dorman               Thora "Are-you-Pilgrims?" Sharptooth

Poughkeepsie, NY              Frosted Hills ("is that near Valcor?")

priest at vassar.edu                East Kingdom

             Gules, three square weaver's tablets in bend Or

*****************************************************************************

 

 

From: priest at vaxsar.vassar.edu (Carolyn Priest-Dorman)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: biblio, sails, shoes, & lead

Date: 16 Jul 93 11:03:04 +1000

Organization: Vikings R Us

 

Unto the Fishyfolk of the Rialto, especially Ranvaig and Fiacha, greeting from

Thora Sharptooth!

 

This thread seems to have devolved into "techniques of early period

sailmaking," if I've got it right.

 

In response to Fiacha, Ranvaig wrote:

 

>For a luxury fabric, you need a very

>fine thread, which means it must be spun from a very fine fiber.

 

Penelope Walton says of the Coppergate textiles that the wool chosen for fine

yarns ("a smooth, glossy appearance, with fibres lying exactly parallel to each

other") is "predominantly coarse and is likely to come from a fleece with a

long staple and little crimp."  Most of the wools represented at Jorvik are

from one or another type of medium fleece.  More than the fiber, the technique

is what assures a luxury fabric:  in the Viking Age, combed wools were a luxury

fabric.

 

>The Viking era fabrics I have looked at were

>singles (not plied), but with the spinning wheel, plying would

>be easier and would make a stronger thread, but I have no idea if

>this was really done.

 

No, what you have noticed is pretty much the way it was:  the Vikings wove with

singles, except when tablet-weaving.  (The spinning wheel was not known in

Europe until well after the date of the Oseberg and Gokstad ships.)

 

>>Thora Sharptooth has sent me a description of a find of what is presumed

>>to be a woolen sail. The brief description is a close match for coat weight

>>worsted twill

>>I suspect the fibers in the sail will be thicker and longer than the

>coat weight twill, even if the weave looks the same.  Softness and

>suppleness are more desirable for a coat than a sail.  Mistress Thora,

>does your source include this information?

 

The source I have for this is Anne Stine Ingstad, "Textiles from Oseberg,

Gokstad and Kaupang," in ARCHAEOLOGICAL TEXTILES:  REPORT FROM THE 2ND NESAT

SYMPOSIUM 1.-4.V.1984, which is #2 in the ARKAEOLOGISKE SKRIFTER series

(Kobenhavn: Arkaeologisk Institut, Kobenhavns Universitet, 1988).  About the

fragments judged to be from the sail, she says on pages 135-136:  "The Gokstad

find also included fragments of 2/2 twill, 63 of them.  They all have Z-spun

threads in both systems, and the threads are somewhat more firmly spun and a

little thinner in one system than in the other...."  Unfortunately, she does

not give a thread count.  Does anyone out there have a thread count for these

sails?

 

For comparison purposes, here's a reference from Ingstad's "The Functional

Textiles from the Oseberg Ship," in TEXTILSYMPOSIUM NEUMUENSTER:

ARCHAEOLOGISCHE TEXTILFUNDE 6.5-8.5.1981 (Neumuenster:  Textilmuseum

Neumuenster, 1982), pages 87-88:  "Let me now consider a group which apparently

represents the sails of the ship....  The closer system of threads has a count

of 12-16 per cm, the more open a count of about 9-13.  The wool of which these

fabrics are woven is fine and it looks as though the threads of the two systems

were of about the same thickness, and they were both Z spun, particularly

firmly." Context in the article suggests that she is discussing a plain 2/2

twill.

 

My soon-to-be apprentice Nicolette Bonhomme has just finished weaving a lozenge

twill wool that is almost the same fineness as the Oseberg sail fabric.  It is

quite fine and supple.

 

>Basically worsted means that the fleece was combed, and woolen that it

>was carded.  Combing is earlier, carding is period, but I believe after

>the period you are considering.  

 

Right. However, some of the Coppergate yarns, according to Walton, were spun

without having been combed first.  She speculates that very good spinners could

work directly from the fluffed-up staple.  These yarns look more "woolen" than

the obviously combed fabrics--fluffier and softer.

 

>The words may not have been used in period.  

 

Not until the early fourteenth century in England, according to Walton.  I

don't know about instances of this differentiation in languages other than

English.

 

>I believe woolen yarns were used for fabrics intended to be fulled.

 

Right again.

 

>Ranvaig                 

>Sharon Palmer            palmer at cis.ohio-state.edu

>(Who is trying to spin fine enough to weave vadmal on a warp-weighted loom,

 

Use as light a spindle as you can find; it helps enormously!

****************************************************************************

Carolyn Priest-Dorman               Thora Sharptooth

Poughkeepsie, NY              Frosted Hills ("where's that?")

priest at vassar.edu                East Kingdom

             Gules, three square weaver's tablets in bend Or

****************************************************************************

 

 

From: palmer at cis.ohio-state.edu (sharon ann palmer)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: biblio, sails, shoes, & lead

Date: 17 Jul 1993 00:10:01 -0400

Organization: The Ohio State University Dept. of Computer and Info. Science

 

Greetings to all from Ranvaig and especially to Thora Sharptooth

 

In article <1993Jul16.110304.751 at vaxsar.vassar.edu> priest at vaxsar.vassar.edu (Carolyn Priest-Dorman) writes:

 

>This thread seems to have devolved into "techniques of early period

>sailmaking," if I've got it right.

 

Fiancha is *trying* to discuss 12th century, but I guess I keep bringing

it back, because I am trying to study early period and am more familiar

with those sources.

 

>other") is "predominantly coarse and is likely to come from a fleece with a

>long staple and little crimp."  Most of the wools represented at Jorvik are

>from one or another type of medium fleece.  More than the fiber, the technique

 

I read something about the Jorvik finds that said the poorest fabrics

were made with inferior wool, but I've loaned by copy just now.  I dont

remember the exact wording, perhaps it meant the texture, rather than

the fineness.

 

The threads I have seen dont have much twist, that would make sense for

long staple wool.

 

I understand the at least some of the Viking's sheep were double-coated.

Thora, do you know of evidence that they separated the fibers?

That issue is what really started this thread.

 

>singles, except when tablet-weaving.  (The spinning wheel was not known in

>Europe until well after the date of the Oseberg and Gokstad ships.)

 

Fiancha was making the point that the spinning wheel might have made

linen more economical that during pevious times.

 

Thank you for the sources.

 

>>Basically worsted means that the fleece was combed, and woolen that it

>>was carded.  Combing is earlier, carding is period, but I believe after

>>the period you are considering.  

 

Again Fiancha was looking at the 12th century.

 

>Use as light a spindle as you can find; it helps enormously!

 

I have been using a supported spindle, but I dont know of the Vikings

using them.  I *own* some small clay spindle weights, but put them away

in a safe place and haven't seen it since. :-(

  

Renee Raduechel writes:

 

>On another subject:  in your discussions of wool, sails, etc., has anyone

>mentioned the natural waterproofing that lanolin provides?  

 

A very good point, but I will be surprized if there is any evidence.

It is possible to wash, or at least rinse out the wool and leave the

lanolin.

 

Ranvaig

Sharon Palmer    palmer at cis.ohio-state.edu

 

 

From: priest at vaxsar.vassar.edu (Carolyn Priest-Dorman)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: biblio, sails, shoes, & lead

Date: 19 Jul 93 10:32:37 +1000

Organization: Vikings R Us

 

Unto the Fishyfolk of the Rialto, greeting from Thora Sharptooth!

 

Ranvaig writes:

 

>I understand the at least some of the Viking's sheep were double-coated.

>Thora, do you know of evidence that they separated the fibers?

>That issue is what really started this thread.

 

Well, all the (mundane) specialists in early textiles in northern Europe are

agreed on the subject, so that's a good clue.  Hald, for example, says "Combing

is another method of disentangling wwool fibre, but it separates the longer

fibres from the short staple which is combed away; thus a fine, firm and smooth

yarn is spun from combed wool." (ANCIENT DANISH TEXTILES FROM BOGS & BURIALS,

p. 132)  But for hands-on graphic evidence I have Ilaine de Cameron to thank.

She showed me untreated wool from a double-coated modern sheep (a throwback

breed) and a pair of vicious looking woolcombs.  We know the Vikings had and

used both:  woolcombs and double-coated sheep.  Then she demonstrated what

happens when you comb the wool the way the sources agree that the Vikings did:

the long kemp comes away all nice and straight, leaving behind the the softer,

shorter, shinier stuff that all clings together.  (Ilaine, if you're out there,

jump in any time!)

*****************************************************************************

Carolyn Priest-Dorman               Thora Sharptooth

Poughkeepsie, NY              Frosted Hills ("Oh, Frosted FLAKES!")

priest at vassar.edu                East Kingdom

             Gules, three square weaver's tablets in bend Or

*****************************************************************************

 

 

From: jab2 at stl.stc.co.uk (Jennifer Ann Bray)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: Tent Fabric

Date: 20 Jul 93 11:30:10

Organization: STC Technology Ltd., London Road, Harlow, UK.

 

I have not seen the original accounts of Edward 2nds tents, but from

the talk given to the medieval dress and textile society last march it

looks as though they used linen and "carde". The "carde" was

apparently a wool linen mix which was sandwiched in between layers of

linen on some tents. There was no mention of the origin of the linen

cloth, in the abscence of evidence I could not say for sure whether

the linen was derived from flax, hemp or even nettles. I have heard

cloth made from all three described as linen.

Jennifer

Vanaheim Vikings

 

 

From: jab2 at stl.stc.co.uk (Jennifer Ann Bray)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: poor people wear wool?

Date: 20 Jul 93 12:11:36

Organization: STC Technology Ltd., London Road, Harlow, UK.

 

Ranvaig writes

"At least in my time (9th cent Danish) wealthy people wear linen or

silk and poor people wear wool."

 

I have doubts about this. Wool is warm, linen is not. Wool takes a

greater range of natural dyes than linen. The rich grave find at

Mammen in Denmark (admittedly later than 9th century) had woolen

textiles. Royal burials in other areas of scandinavia included many

woolen textiles, (e.g. Osebjerg, Egtved, Birka) Scandinavian settlements

yielded fine woolen cloth presumably belonging to rich people, (e.g.

York, & Dublin) Denmark has a history of producing woolen cloth in

types ranging from coarse to very fine which stretches back to the

Bronze age (see M. Hald's book on textiles from danish bog finds &

burials)

I can accept that silk was restricted to the rich. As it had to be

imported presumably it was more expensive than native produce.

I can also see that linen comes from flax which needs more tending

than sheep and needs better soil to thrive, so I could believe that

linen could be more expensive than woolen cloths. But I find it hard

to believe that the rich would not have worn wool.

Did I misinterpret your statement? did you mean only the rich wear

linen and silk, the poor only wear wool?

Jennifer

Vanaheim Vikings

 

 

From: grm+ at andrew.cmu.edu (Gretchen Miller)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: poor people wear wool?

Date: 20 Jul 93 22:27:29 GMT

Organization: Computer Operations, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

 

Ignoring the "in my period" part of the statement, there may be some

truth in the "rich people wear linen, poor people wear wool".  The

problem is there's probably something left out.  For example, in late

period on the Scottish borders, poor people wore (in fact were often

given) garments of UNDYED wool. So maybe the statement would be more

accurately put "Rich people wore dyed fabrics including wool, linen and

silk, while poor people wore what was cheapest and most readily

available: undyed wool."

 

toodles, margaret

 

 

From: jliedl at nickel.laurentian.ca

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: taffeta

Date: 22 Oct 93 13:11:16 -0500

Organization: Laurentian University

 

Good day to all from Ancarett Nankivellis.  Recently did Emer write:

 

In article <Pine.3.07.9310220704.B2257-b100000 at sun.cis.smu.edu>, jkubenka at sun.cis.smu.EDU (Jennifer Kubenka) writes:

> Greetings, good folk of the Rialto:

>

>     This is a simple question in need a simple answer.  I was given a

> I would wish to know if taffetta is an acceptable fabric to use

> in the creation of Italian Ren. garb.

> garb.

 

While I did respond to her request privately I thought a brief note on

the Rialto might be of general interest.  Jacqueline Herald's _Renaissance

Dress in Italy, 1400-1500_ glosses taffeta as:  "A plain woven silk,

used for lining sleeves, and for modest silk dresses."[228]  Henry VIII,

according to Stow's _Chronicle_, favoured hose made out of "ell broad

taffeta" fabric.  Not as luxurious as brocade or damask, it was,

nonetheless, period.

 

Ancarett Nankivellis

Janice Liedl

Laurentian University, Canada

JLIEDL at NICKEL.LAURENTIAN.CA

 

 

From: AGrunow at vitgwms1.telecom.telecom012.telememo.AU (Grunow, Aroleon)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Taffeta

Date: 26 Oct 1993 20:46:07 -0400

Organization: The Internet

 

This message is posted on behalf of my lady:

 

> By the way; are we sure that the term "taffeta" refers to the same

material

> in period times as in modern times?

 

I read an SCA costuming guide, which is currently out on loan, so I

unfortunately can't quote it directly, that the fabric which we moderns call

"taffeta" is quite unlike the fabric called "taffeta" in period. I remember

that period taffeta was described as a heavy draping high-quality material.

 

Unfortunately I do not know if any of the period materials had the texture

of drape (etc) of modern taffeta. Perhaps your local costuming laurel could

point you to some references?

 

Baroness Ingibjorg Ambasdottir (Jocelyn Grunow)

 

And I found this purely by chance while reading on the tram on the way to

work this morning:

 

In Complete Anachronist #64, "Scandinavian Textiles":

"Weavers consider taffeta a plain weave variation that is ribbed. The ribs

are created by grouping a number of threads together before they are crossed

by the threds from the opposite direction. The thread counts are therefore

always unequal. Ribs can also be created with threads of heavy weight

crossed by threads of lighter weight, but taffeta is not made this way. The

crisp, silk fabric currently being sold under the name taffeta is made with

an equal thread count. Only the fact that it is more firmly woven

differentiates it from silk broadcloth. It is one of several cases where the

retail name does not correspond to the more spcific weavers' definition.

"File" is the modern name of a fabric with a more pronounced rib than that

of traditional taffeta...To order a modern silk that looks like what the

archaeologists refer to as "resembling taffeta" you must specify that you

want a crisp silk with a "file"."

 

----------Sven the Stormdriven (Aroleon Grunow)---------

Baron of Stormhold (Melbourne, Australia)

in the Kingdom of the West

   AGrunow at VITGWMS1.TELECOM.telecom012.telememo.au

--------------------------------------------------------

 

 

From: haslock at rust.zso.dec.com (Nigel Haslock)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: Cloth

Date: 3 Nov 1993 00:31:54 GMT

Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation - DECwest Engineering

 

Greetings from Fiacha,

 

The cloth produced by the Anglo Saxons and the Normans was either wool or

linen. Cotton was unknown but fine silks did make their way to these parts

from Byzantium. I will ignore the coarse fabrics of hemp and the ocasional

use of other, more unusual fibers.

 

There is little difference between linens then and now. Unfortunately, linen

is not generally available and is considered to be expensive (all modern

fabrics are cheap by period standards, even silk). Light weight polycotton is

the common alternative to linen but muslin may be closer in terms of drape

and tendency to wrinkle. Linen is difficult to dye so bleached and unbleached

muslins have some assurance of looking reasonable. However, it is possible to

dye linen and it is also possible to weave linen with a high luster. Judicious

use of brightly coloured shiny fabric is not unreasonable.

 

On the other hand, there is a lot of difference between woolens then and now.

The closest equivalent to period woolens are the worsted wool suit fabrics.

Slightly heavier wool was felted and napped and generally abused to produce a

texture that might be mistaken for either doe suede or a very short pile

velvet. Wool dyes easily so multicoloured fabrics were usually woolens.

Anyway, the common aversion to wool next to the skin may an aversion to the

fabric rather than the raw material.

 

Cloaks we have been discussing, although it was my impression that the Irish

technique for producing curls of surface wool was a treatment for the inside

rather than the outside of the cloak and that the coils were formed by raising

the nap rather than by weaving tufts of wool into the fabric.

 

Everything I have read suggests that the most common fabrics were plain weave

but that the prized and expensive fabrics had complex weave textures (birds

eye twill, herringbone, etc).

 

On a practical note, making a tunic and braies from cotton or polycotton

will keep you adequately protected from the elements during the summer and

will serve while indoors at any time of year. Add a cloak to protect you

from the cold. Line in with a tightly woven fine fabric to check the wind.

Add wool or fur leggings to protect the shins and make a pair of shoes.

The cloak will be invaluable on clear summer nights too. Make it large enough

to share with a friend.

 

I hope this helps and I hope that any bad advice here will be quickly corrected

by folk who know more than I.

 

      Fiacha

      AnTir                   haslock at zso.dec.com

 

 

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

From: bcfrench at mothra.syr.edu (Barbara C. French)

Subject: Cloth

Organization: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY

Date: Wed, 3 Nov 93 15:50:05 EST

 

Also, consider linen blends. All the look of linen and none of the fuss.

Also cuts down *dramatically* on the price. A lot of my garb is made of a

rayon/linen blend that has nice drape and looks like linen.

 

Wool is nice, but remember these words: dry-clean only. You can handwash

wool too, but it's hard to get really bad stains out this way. I have a

silk/wool cloak that's very nice, but a pain if it gets dirty. I like the

freedom to pitch my garb in a washing machine -- particularly nice during

Pennsic. Some dry-clean-only court garb is fine, but personally I can't

afford all those dry-cleaning bills!

 

You can get a lot of different kinds of fabrics that has all the look of

period cloth without the cost or fuss. Of course, if you're really

interested in being as period as possible, you'll probably have to stick

to linen or wool.

 

...Cait

 

Caitrin Gordon, Delftwood, Aethelmark, East Kingdom

 

 

From: lecuyer at wam.umd.edu (CLIS library)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: Cloth

Date: 5 Nov 1993 20:59:16 GMT

Organization: University of Maryland, College Park

 

In article <60.38866.4226.0N189112 at canrem.com>,

Michael Stasica <michael.stasica at canrem.com> wrote:

>I have been able to learn the various cuts and styles of the period but,

>obviously, my research has not provided me with any idea of what material

>to assemble my first T-tunic and Braies from, let alone my undergarmets

>from. Although I do not have an allergic reaction to wools, I prefer to not

>wear them directly next to the skin.  With this in mind I ask for suggestions

>of materials and colours, that are available from our modern fabric stores,

>that will be functional and period.

 

Most everyone has addressed the type of material you need.

I will attempt to address the color. Always a tricky subject

this, because of the vast and sometimes contradictory

documentation on what kind of dyes were/were not available

in the time period you are looking for.

 

Safe bets: greys, browns, yellows (except for neon yellow), and

that off-white/beige/creme color most folks call "natural".

Greens are ok as long as they are too brillent or getting close

to "teal" (a very popular color in the stores right now).

Same with blues and red. Tea-dyeing or walnut shell dyeing

will tone down too-bright colors very well.

 

Debatable colors: Purple and black. I've heard these are hard to

get with natural dyes or are very expensive.

 

For ideas about colors available and color combinations look

at manuscripts. Look around at the local libraries and see

if any of them have the big repro book of the Bayeux Tapestry

that came out a couple of years ago. This can give you some

excellent ideas - not only about clothes, but material culture

as well.

 

Good luck!

Cathy/Kara

 

 

From: lecuyer at wam.umd.edu (CLIS library)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: Cloth

Date: 5 Nov 1993 21:03:50 GMT

Organization: University of Maryland, College Park

 

In article <1993Nov3.155005.18766 at newstand.syr.edu>,

Barbara C. French <bcfrench at mothra.syr.edu> wrote:

>Wool is nice, but remember these words: dry-clean only. You can handwash

 

Wool garments may be washed in a machine on cold as long as

you have washed the fabric before you made the garment (this

will cause shrinkage). 100% wool probably should be air dried,

but wool blends (which is mostly what is available anyway) can

be tumbled dry on gentle.

 

>wool too, but it's hard to get really bad stains out this way. I have a

 

Of course, stains *are* period. ;-)

 

Cathy/Kara

 

 

 

From: odlin at reed.edu (Iain Odlin)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: Cloth

Date: 8 Nov 1993 02:54:45 GMT

Organization: The Stuffed Animal Trauma Team  (We're Trained Professionals)

 

 

As a small follow-up to the colours of cloth article:  From the book  

"Historical Costumes of England" by N. Bradfield (Good source?  Bad? You

make the call...), page 20: "Colours [during the reign of William I,

1066-1100] -- Light blue, red, and greens were fashionable;  black, yellow,

reddy browns, and grey were also worn."

 

-Iain

------------------------- Iain Odlin, odlin at reed.edu -------------------------

                 10 Crosby Street, Level 3, Portland ME 04103

 

 

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: chamois and sarcenet

From: una at bregeuf.stonemarche.org (Honur Horne-Jaruk)

Date: Tue, 04 Jan 94 08:13:42 EST

Organization: got any to spare?

 

Greetings to Carol, and anybody else who wondered, from Honour Horne-Jaruk/

Alizaunde:

      The disadvantage of putting your computer next to your costume library

is that you find yourself doing stuff like this...

SARCENET. A thin soft silk textile having a slight sheen on the surface; of

taffeta weave, variously colored; sometimes `shot '.-- From `A dictionary of

English Costume ' by Cunnington, Cunnington and Beard. A&C Black,ltd.,

Publishers ISBN 0-7136-0370-4

      Chamois in period was leather from the Chamois goat, oil tanned, if

I remember correctly. What you have is almost certainly Chamois Flannel,

an extremely heavy cotton flannel napped to resemble Chamois. Cotton being

not native to 14th cent. ireland, it would HAVE to be imported. I can find

nothing, however, on cotton flannel that early; flannels were originally

wool. If you are comitted to the highest possible level of authenticity,

your chamois would make a marvellous lining- the stuff was developed

as a less scratchy version of wool flannel, after all... One important

Problem- Chamois, like the leather it's named after, soaks up water like

a sponge. Used as an outer layer, you either have a dry-weather-only cloak,

or you have to have the fabric made water resistant before sewing. (Many

dry-cleaners do Scotchgaurd (TM)  treatments.) Unfortunately, the treatment

will alter the lovely nappy finish; how much depends on which one you use.

      As to your other question: I ALWAYS prewash EVERYTHING as soon as

I get it home. So very few fabrics are really non-shrink that I just can't

afford to take chances. Chamois flannel is particularly bad in that respect;

turn your water heater way up and run it through twice.

      Other than that, I can't help much; 14th C. ireland isn't my strong

suit. Good luck.

      With thanks for your attention, I remain, yours in service to the

Society- (Friend) Honour Horne-Jaruk, KSA as Alizaunde, Demoiselle de Bregeuf.  

 

 

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Cotton - the rich person

From: david.razler at compudata.com (David Razler)

Date: Fri, 09 Dec 1994 00:43:00 -0500

Organization: Compu-Data BBS -=- Turnersville, NJ -=- 609-232-1245

 

William Thos. Powers wrote (in greatly edited form)

 

wt>However I believe good Guiliam is falling into a logical error;

 

wt>He wrote:

wt>   Well there were poor people and rich people in period. The nice thing

wt>   is when because of economic changes over the last 500 years it costs

wt>   you less to look like a rich person then a poor person. I'm thinking

wt>   of fabric here. In period for my persona (England c1490) wool and

wt>   linen would have been the most common fabric being that they are both

wt>   produced localy. However today velvet can often be cheaper than wool

wt>   or linen. Esp if you look around a bit.

wt>   Guiliam

 

wt>Can you actually find a wool or silk velvet cheaper than a plain weave w

wt>or linnen?  Don't *post* the source send it only to me by e-mail!  I

wt>believe what you are saying is that you can find velvet made of material

wt>used in period for cheaper prices. However if "fake" velvet is OK why no

wt>use fake linnen or fake wools and be more appropriate to your personna?

wt>Even a nylon velvet is usually 2-3 times as expensive as a "linnen look"

wt>cotton around here.  Are people less put upon when they work with modern

wt>upscale fabrics than with lessor stuff?  If this is encouraging folk to

wt>toward using stuff that is not appropriate for them; maybe we ought to

wt>rethink our opinions!

 

wt>Authenticity can be inexpensive in money terms; the price is "eternal

wt>vigilance". I now have a 100% linnen tunic; (My wife tells me that if I

wt>it at the forge, she will re-create one of the bog finds with me).  The

wt>cloth was more expensive than the wool I buy by about 33%.  I paid US$1.

wt>a yard for it at an interior decorators yard sale; it's a nice heavy lin

wt>too!

 

   Basing my information initially on Barbara Tuchman's A Distant Mirror

(which I have sitting here) and many readings and discussions of fiber

history:

 

   Throughout all but the end of period:

 

1) Silk was THE most expensive fabric in most of Europe due to import costs,

and the most durable.

 

2) COTTON was the second-most expensive, for the same reason and the labor

needed to produce it (aside from those fabled mages of the east with cotton

djins) [cough]

 

3) Linnen was THIRD and would only be used by a poorer person who couldn't

aford cotton or was wearing something to work the fields.

 

4) Wool was dirt cheap, relatively speaking, because sheep (who, as the

saying goes, ask so little and give so much) were kept evrywhere and

spinning/weaving etc. was done locally.

 

At the end of period, late 16th and early 17th C's, Linnen became the fabric

in vogue.

 

Also, of course, better-made fabric, embroidered stuff and genuine spun gold

integrated into the weave did increase price.

                                       Aleksandr the Traveller

                                       David M. Razler

                             aka [david.razler at compudata.com]

 

 

From: nusbache at epas.utoronto.ca (Aryk Nusbacher)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: Legends can get out of hand

Date: 28 Aug 1994 12:28:28 GMT

Organization: University of Toronto -- EPAS

 

In article <caradoc-2608941613290001 at tecate.libre.com>,

John Groseclose <caradoc at libre.com> wrote:

 

>Question: Was hemp cloth used anywhere of importance in period? I suppose

>I could research this m'self, but I though I'd ask.

 

The term "canvas" once meant hemp cloth -- "canvas" and "cannabis"

having been the same word.  I do not know when linen canvas became

available, nor where linen canvas was used in sailcloth.  In England

in the 16th century, however, sailcloth was generally made of hemp.

 

I don't know whether it still had the seeds in it.

 

Aryk Nusbacher

 

 

From: priest at vaxsar.vassar.edu

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: A&S OOP? (embroidery)

Date: 22 May 95 07:56:18 +1000

Organization: Vassar College

 

Greeting from Thora Sharptooth!

 

In an attempt to define a series of embroidery stitches, Her Excellency Ianthe

(Kim.Salazar at em.doe.GOV) wrote:

 

>      Double samite:  Samite was a heavy fabric, presumed to be silk.  Could

>      double-samite refer to quilting together two thicknesses of samite,

>      with trapunto style stuffing inserted in the pattern areas?  I know

>      this style of quilting was practiced in period, but quilting is not my

>      area of research.

 

Samite (Latin "samitum") is a compound twill weave developed by silkweavers in

the Eastern Mediterranean and points east during the centuries just after the

Roman period.  It was the luxury fabric of choice in Western Europe for several

hundred years, until the development of more intricate Spanish, Italian, and

Byzantine patterning methods supplanted it.  Large numbers of pieces of it

exist in Western European treasuries and museums.  Samite is highly patterned

and colored (except for the monochrome incised samites), with a twill texture,

and its exportation from Byzantium was carefully controlled.  

 

Although I suspect that the production of samite was curtailed or abandoned

after 1200, I am not sure, therefore I must guess.  My guess, based on what I

know of samite production in the years before 1200, is that it was probably not

used for quilting due to its intricate patterning (although it was sometimes

used as the groundwork for bead and pearl applique in what we would consider a

"Byzantine" style).  If I am wrong, and samites did continue to be produced

after 1200, then certainly the trapunto guess is plausible.

 

I wonder if "double samite" might refer to some sort of stitch work that had

the visual effect of a thick, lustrous twill weave--more of a textural

description than anything else.  Or perhaps it refers to a structural

similarity. Samite was woven using more than one color of weft (lat) in a

particular order (passee) based on the needs of the pattern's color

arrangement. Perhaps a technique is meant whereby two working threads interact

on the two sides of the ground weave by mirroring each other's movements and

sometimes changing sides?  (Is there such a technique known?  Remember, I'm

still guessing.)

 

I look forward to further clarifications; this is a fascinating question.

References for samite available upon request.

*****************************************************************************

Carolyn Priest-Dorman               Thora Sharptooth

Poughkeepsie, NY              Frosted Hills ("where's that?")

priest at vassar.edu                East Kingdom

           Gules, three square weaver's tablets in bend Or

*****************************************************************************

 

 

From: alkudsi at aol.com (AlKudsi)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: Fabric History

Date: 9 Mar 1996 01:28:33 -0500

Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364)

 

Ding. This question rang my bell...I'm doing some extensive research in

the area in the hopes of doing a Complete Anachronist on the subject.  I

do not claim to be an expert, or a serious scholar, but then, you didn't

ask for one...

 

Four of my favorite sources are:

 

WEAVING: A HANDBOOK OF THE FIBER ARTS, by Shirley Held. Published by Hold,

Rinehart, Winston.

 

WOMEN'S WORK: THE FIRST 20,000 YEARS, by Elizabeth Wayland Barber.

Published by Norton.

 

PREHISTORIC TEXTILES, also by Elizabeth Wayland Barber.  Published by

Princeton Press.

 

LOOMS AND TEXTILES OF THE COPTS, by Diane lee Carroll.  Published by the

California Academy of Sciences, through the University of Washing Press.

 

There are lots of others, but these are a good start.  Elizabeth Barber,

in particular, is both excellent at her research and topic, but an

interesting writer as well (something which cannot be said of every writer

in this or any other research field, unfortunately).

 

 

From: LIB_IMC at centum.utulsa.EDU

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: The Economics of the Middle Ages (Long)

Date: 27 Jul 1996 18:37:37 -0400

 

<snip>

 

>What were bags, tents and tarps made of?  

>Wasn't cotton expensive/nonexistant?

 

Linen/flax, hemp.  Linen, btw, is actually stronger and more

durable than cotton.  It's just cheaper to produce and dye today.

Flax is also grown for its seeds, which are used to make Linseed

Oil (which some people claim can be used as a cooking oil, although

we tend today to use it as a varnish.  Until about 1300, Egyptian

linen was the best, with Spanish linen a near second.  In the 14th

century, the Dutch invented a method for cheaply and efficiently

breaking up the plant, and soon they became a center for linen

production.

 

Wool was a very common cloth, coming in different grades, for

different uses.  Note that some course English wools were at times

called "cottons".

 

Cotton manufacture was imported into Spain by the Moors in the 8th

century, and from there spread by the 12th century to Italy and

France, and by the 14th into Germany, and by the 15th even to

England. However, cotton was, at this time, more expensive to

produce, and the European grades were really inferior to those

grown elsewhere.

 

>What is homespun?  (I know it is cloth spun at home!  What would

>it typically be spun OF?) Or is homespun a term from early Col.

>America?

 

I don't know when the term came to be used, but essentially

Homespun is cloth that was spun and made at home, rather then

produced by professional spinners and weavers.  Since (in theory)

amateur spinners can't maintain the control over the quality of

the threads they spin that professionals can, the term is used to

refer to cloth of an uneven manufacture quality.  I suspect that

the term is post-Medieval, however many people made their own cloth

during the Middle Ages.

 

>What do peasants wear during the summer?

 

This is a complicated question since you are covering a large area

of land and time.  However, the laborer's costume (in fact, most

men's costume) consists of the basic pieces of leather boots; two

wool hosen (each a separate leg covering) each tied to a belt

(these are sometimes worn untied and pushed down); a pair of linen

drawers (These are very long early on, and get shorter as the tunic

length gets shorter.  In the 12th C, they were about knee length,

and tied around the knees like knickers); a long shirt, and a

tunic/cote over that.  The tunic/cote could be (and usually was)

for doing hard work.  Sometimes, we see "Peasants" shown barelegged

and/or barefooted.  [You might try looking for a book called "The

Common Man through the Centuries" by Max Barsis].

<snip>

 

I. Marc Carlson, Reference Technician   |Sometimes known as:      

McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa   | Diarmuit Ui Dhuinn

2933 E. 6th St., Tulsa, OK  74104-3123  | University of Northkeep

LIB_IMC at CENTUM.UTULSA.EDU (918) 631-3794| Northkeepshire, Ansteorra

 

 

From: gunnora at bga.com (Gunnora Hallakarva)

To: ANSTEORRA at eden.com

Date: Fri, 1 Nov 1996 01:15:44 -0600

Subject: Cloth of Gold

 

Heilsa, All.

 

Here's another bit of info gleaned from the Historical Costuming list:

 

Date:    Thu, 31 Oct 1996 08:15:26 -0500

From:    Gary Stephens <garys at FLEXNET.COM>

Subject: Re: Cloth of Gold

 

Cassandra wrote:

>        When was cloth of gold first used?

 

       According to an article by Cole Cioran, published in the August

Ursus, a newsletter I produce, cloth of gold was first used:

 

"        The first appearance of cloth of gold is difficult to date.

Surviving examples have been found in China as early as the 4th century

A.D., but the first surviving examples appearing in the west seem to

coincide with the opening of trade with China in the 13th century . "

 

>Was it in minor decoration or major

>parts of clothing?  I seem to remember a reference to a cotehardie bi-coloured

>using velvet and cloth of silver.

 

       It was both a woven fabric, that is, woven with actual gold thread

and coloured textile warp, as well as a gold leafing process, which was the

down-and-dirty form. If you would like a copy of that issue of Ursus, I

would be pleased to send you a back issue for an SASE. I have only about

six copies of that issue left. Write me under private e-mail.

 

Lorina J. Stephens

=============================

 

Wassail,

Gunnora Hallakarva

Herskerinde

 

 

From: John Francis Stracke <francis at netscape.com>

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Medieval Dress and Textile Society

Date: Tue, 12 Nov 1996 14:58:45 -0800

Organization: Netscape Communications Corporation

 

My father forwarded this to me from an Anglo-Saxon list he's on; thought

people might be interested:

 

> A little while ago I asked for information on Anglo-Saxon embroidery

> and a number of people sent bibliographical suggestions.  I thought

> they might be interested to know that there is a Medieval Dress and

> Textile Society - contact Frances Pritchard Deoartment of Urban

> Archaeology, Museum of London, london Wall, London EC2y 5HN O71 600

> 3699.

/=================================================================\

|John (Francis) Stracke |My opinions are my own.|PGP key available|

|Sr. LiveMedia Architect|=========================================|

|Netscape Comm. Corp.   | A man's concepts should exceed his      |

|francis at netscape.com   |  vocabulary, or what's a metaphor?      |

\=================================================================/

 

 

From: kwhisler at rpslmc.edu (Kathy Whisler)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: costume research books--??

Date: 18 Jan 1997 07:04:58 GMT

 

MISS PATRICIA M HEFNER (HPGV80D at prodigy.COM) wrote:

: Does anybody know of a good over-all costume research book? I'm looking

: for a book that would tell me how they made velvet, and other fabrics,

: as well as dyes used and this sort of thing. I know that this is a huge

: topic but I feel like an idiot not knowing a darn thing about this. I

: wouldn't mind sharpening my garb-making skills, either!! Advice, anybody

: ? Merci beaucoup!

 

I suggest _A History of Textiles_ by Kax Wilson, Westview Press, 1979.  I

believe it is still in print in paperback, it was a few years ago.  The book

has many helpful footnotes and bibilographic references.  Even though it is

illustrated only in black and white, the text (which I found fascinating)

makes up in usefulness for the lack of color.  However, it isn't really a

"costume book" per se.  It is just about fabric.

 

If you are really after a costume book, you should try to get a look at

_Textiles and Clothing c. 1150-c. 1450_ by Crowfoot, Pritchard, and Staniland.

You may have already seen it or heard of it.  It is from HMSO Books, 1992.  It

describes various garments and garment fragments that have been excavated in

London and includes *very* detailed descriptions of the fabric, as well as

photos of the items.  There is also some basic information on period dyes and

looms.

 

If you are interested in attempting natural plant dying yourself, I suggest

_The Art and Craft of Natural Dyeing: Traditional Recipes for Modern Use_, by

J.N. Liles, a zoology prof. at the University of Tennessee.  I believe that it

is also in print.  Prof. Liles gives his versions of traditional/period dye

recipes. It is an excellent book as a starting point.  Kind of like cooking

period dishes from the redacted recipes in _Take a Thousand Eggs or More_.  

His explanation of how to use indigo is one of the better ones I have found.

 

You are right, it is a huge topic.  You may be able to find some of the  

info. you want in a standard textile science textbook.  Good luck, and happy

researching!

 

--Kathy Whisler (Katerina Arondel)

 

 

From: tjustus at sprynet.com (T Justus)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: ramie ?= nettlecloth (was Re: [Q]s about Linen)

Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 05:11:33 GMT

 

I wrote

>>(Ramie is a vegetable fiber, also known as nettlecloth.)

 

Robert wrote

 

>Is it nettle cloth?

>My understanding is that nettles were indeed used in period to make cloth

><insert vague citation of viking/norse web sites here>.  I've

>read references to ramie before, but only with a vague explantion that

>it was similar to rayon.

>Do you (or anyone have definative info on this?

 

From _Linen: Hand Spinning and Weaving_ by Patricia Baines (1989)

 

Ramie : *Boehmeria nivea*

Ramie, known also as 'China Grass' or "Rhea', is a genus of

stingless nettle cultivated mainly in China and Formosa. It is a

perennial plant that grows to  height of 1-2 m (4-6 ft) or more. It

was also grown in North America and Europe in the nineteenth century.

 

Baines also notes that the common nettle, * Urtica dioica* grows

throughout Europe and has "been used  for making cloth on and off for

many centuries: the earliest known nettle fabric was found in a late

Bronze Age cinerary urn in Denmark."

 

Baines discusses how both ramie and common nettles are processed. She

notes that nettle fibers are creamy-white or gray and ramie fibers are

white and lustrous. Perhaps there are some spinners out there who have

experience with the two fibers?  

 

Rayon is a man-made fabric created (during WWII, I think) to mimic

silk. The fiber is a continous monofiliment, like that spun by the

silkworm.

 

Tracy Justus  AKA Clare de Crecy

 

 

From: Karen Williams <brettwi* at ix.netcom.com>

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: ramie ?= nettlecloth (was Re: [Q]s about Linen)

Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 01:01:12 -0700

 

morphis at niuhep.physics.niu.edu wrote:

> tjustus at sprynet.com (T Justus) writes:

> >(Ramie is a vegetable fiber, also known as nettlecloth.)

>

> Is it nettle cloth?

>

> My understanding is that nettles were indeed used in period to make cloth

> <insert vague citation of viking/norse web sites here>.  I've

> read references to ramie before, but only with a vague explantion that

> it was similar to rayon.

>

> Do you (or anyone have definative info on this?

>

> Robert

 

No. Nettle's not the same as either linen, ramie or rayon (which is made

from extruded wood pulp, a process originally invented early 20th

century to produce an imitation silk sold at imitation silk prices-- and

it was truly *awful* fabric then...), which are all bast fibers except

rayon. Chinagrass, which produces ramie, is a bast plant like the

European nettle, but not in the same plant family. I'll quote at length

from E.J.W. Barber's _Prehistoric Textiles_, ISBN 0-691-00224-X,

paperback edition (typos mine, of course!), page 19 [she just finishes

talking about linen and hemp, by the way]:

 

"Nettle and Other Bast Fibers

 

"The third bast fiber that we should consider is nettle, from the common

stinging nettle, urtica dioica. Other members of the nettle family have

been used for fiber too; urtica urens and urtica paviflora can be lumped

with urtica dioica for our purposes, whereas Boehmeria nivea, which

gives ramie (also known as Eastern Nettle, or Chinagrass), is native to

the Far East and a latecomer to the West, and will not concern us (see

Hald 1942,37; Kirby 1963, 148,180). The fiber is obtained by various

modified versons of the process used for flax and hemp (Hald 1942), or

by boiling with ashes, i.e., lye (Kirby 1963, 180).  Nettle, which was

still used into this century in northern, central, and easter Europe

(Hald 1942, 33-34), makes its earliest recorded entry onto the

archaeological scene in Scandinavia in the later Bronze Age-- early

first millenium B.C.-- at Voldtofte, Denmark."

 

       Professor Barber goes on to describe nettle cloth in teh context of her

commentary (not in any particular detail) as very similar to linen, but

whiter and finer. Also, she appends a footnote, number five, to the last

sentence, which says:

 

"Apparently the awareness that wonderfully soft shirts had been made out

of something so unlikely as stinging, prickly nettle, by inhabitants of

another land or time, fave rise to the European fairytale motif that

nettle shirts were magical ones-- obviously made by magic and, by

extension, endowing the wearer with magical powers (c.f. Hald 1942,

34)."

 

ciorstan here: the citations are:

 

Hald, Margarethe. 1942. "The Nettle as a Culture Plants" Folk-Liv

6:28-49 Kirby, R. H. 1963. _Vegetable Fibers_ (London)

 

Her footnote immediately brings to mind the Brothers Grimm tale, The

Seven Swans, no? And as I mentioned in an earlier article in a related

thread to this one, _Prehistoric Textiles_ is fascinating reading,

though a tad on the early side for SCA purposes despite our lack of

concrete early cut-off date.

 

ciorstan

 

 

From: priest at NOSPAMvassar.edu (Carolyn Priest-Dorman)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Cotton in medieval Europe (was Re: velvet)

Date: 11 Sep 1998 20:15:37 GMT

Organization: Vassar College

 

Lysander (lloyd at real.net.au) wrote:

>To my understanding, Western Europe (during the time that velvets came

>into use) used very little cotton.

 

There was a thriving cotton industry in northern Italy by the twelfth century,

working from imported raw materials (mostly Syrian and Turkish).  By the

fourteenth century the industry had spread over the Alps to Swabia in Germany,

where it thrived, although German production seems to have been limited to

fustian and other cotton-blend textiles (unlike Italy, which produced a

variety of high-grade all-cotton textiles).  Lower-priced exports from Germany

cut deeply into the Italian export business.

 

See Maureen Fennell Mazzaoui's _The Italian Cotton Industry in the Later

Middle Ages 1100-1600_ (Cambridge University Press, 1981) for much more

information.

******************************************************************

Carolyn Priest-Dorman              Thora Sharptooth

capriest at  cs.vassar.edu           Frostahlid, Austrrik

       http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/textileres.html

******************************************************************

 

 

Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 02:42:19 -0400

From: Melanie Wilson <MelanieWilson at compuserve.com>

To: "INTERNET:sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu" <sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu>

Subject: Scarlet

 

>Which seemed to argue that the term scarlet referred to the dye process

>rather than a color or a special type of fabric or weave. Basically that

>there was a highly expensive process involved in making a certain range

>of colors and that this was what made the cloth so highly prized, as

>well as the fulling etc.

 

Yes the colour(which we now know as scarlet) was a specific process but

there are various contampory sources that say things like,

bought 10 ells green scarlet, 5 ells blue scarlet etc. 13th C Eleanor de

Montfort's records as one example off the top of my head

 

I think it is a difficult one, in my period 13th C it seems Scarlet was a

cloth type, possibly most popular in a red colour, later it became a

colour(only) exactly when is hard to say for certain. That is my belief as

of today, it may well change if I find something else !

 

Mel

 

 

Date: Sun, 03 Jan 1999 11:02:54 PST

From: "T Cardy" <otterbabi at hotmail.com>

To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu

Subject: Re: A question about buckrum

 

Gentles,

 

Buckram comes in 4 different weights:  Baby, fine, single & double. It

is generally made of coarse cotton canvas that has been coated with a

water based stiffener and then slighty sanded to create an even, smooth

finish.

 

The reason for using a water based stiffener is that is can be steam

shaped and stretched into a variety of shapes.  Which is a primary

reasons it has been used almost exclusively for hats - although theatre

costume does utilize it for specialty pieces (eg. high stiffened cape

collars).

 

It is unsuitable for garment construction for a variety of reasons - but

the major one is the fact of its propensity of creasing and creating

permanent wrinkles.  The stiffener makes the cotton fibers extremely

brittle and once they are cracked they  create weak spaces and rip very

easily.

 

It you use it as a stiffener in a bodice/corset your body heat and

perspiration can cause it to remold itself and defeat the purpose of

using it in the first place.

 

There is only one manufacturer in Europe who actually makes double and

baby weight buckram - and they own the only one loom in existence that

make these weights.  The manufacturer does only one run per year

creating about 5,000 yds of each (when it's gone you have to wait

onother year for a new run).

 

Baby buckram is a light weight single weave fabric that is stiffener

finished on one side only, and as it's namesake is used on baby-fine

(ie. light weight projects).  Double buckram is double thread woven and

is stiffener finished on both sides - it is a marvelous material that I

use all the time for cavelier hats and later period picture hats. When

it is steam shaped it really holds its form - you have to use a heavy

thread when sewing it thought the coarse cotton can shred a finer

thread. ( I use button hole thread a lot)

 

The suggestion of using boned duck,canvas,denim & ticking are great

ideas for creating a firmly shaped bodice - they are very strong and

inexpensive fabrics - but you sometimes need layers of them to work

well. If a garment will be subjected to a lot of wear -   the best

fabric to use is cotille - it is a fabric with additional cross woven

fibers, is most commonly of fine linen (sometimes cotton) it is

preshrunk, polished, rip/tear resistant, and does not stretch. (yes, it

is expensive - but you don't need to triple layers to use it) I have

been making fine ladies speciallty dresses and corsets for years and

swear by (rarely at) this fabric - it also normally comes in pink, and

china white - making for a very attractive foundation.

 

There you have it - more than you every wanted to know about buckram

(believe it or not the condendsed version).

 

Graciously signing off - after prattling on,

 

Timothy Albrecht Van Vlear

 

 

Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1999 13:25:09 -0600

From: "I. Marc Carlson" <LIB_IMC at centum.utulsa.edu>

To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu

Subject: Re: A question about buckrum

 

<"T Cardy" <otterbabi at hotmail.com>>

>...The reason for using a water based stiffener is that is can be steam

>shaped and stretched into a variety of shapes.  Which is a primary

>reasons it has been used almost exclusively for hats - although theatre

>costume does utilize it for specialty pieces (eg. high stiffened cape

>collars).

 

Um, excuse me, but buckrum's most common useage, as far as I know is

in book binding.  It's the fabric stuff they cover the books in.

 

Marc/Diarmaid

 

 

Date: Mon, 04 Jan 1999 21:01:53 PST

From: "T Cardy" <otterbabi at hotmail.com>

To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu

Subject: Re: A question about buckrum

 

>Um, excuse me, but buckrum's most common useage, as far as I know is

>in book binding.  It's the fabric stuff they cover the books in.

>Marc/Diarmaid

 

The usage of buckram as a clothing stiffener dates back to New World

Orgins around about the early 1600's.  Sugar starching as a stiffener

became common in the the America's because it was quite easy to come by.

It was seen used as a stiffener in men's doublets to create smooth lines

without the use of boning.  This form of buckram was basically a

stiffened coarse linen dipped in sugar water.

 

To the best of my knowledge, in the 18th century, the fabric that we

know today as buckram was used predominantly in hat making and as a

lining shaper for stuffed furniture (loose horse hair sometimes being

the stuffing).

 

There is a slightly different, single woven weight buckram - with a

more open weave, that is used in contemporary bookbinding - it is also

more flexible.  Buckram used in millenery is a very stiff fabric that

can actually break if bent too sharply after it has been shaped.

 

I unfortunately don't know enough about bookbinding to disagree with

your statement, but I do know that the manufacturer of double buckram

and baby buckram is sold exclusively to garment manufacturers and

theatrical supply houses.

 

Timothy Albrecht Van Vlear

 

 

Date: Tue, 25 May 1999 12:07:47 -0500

From: Roberta R Comstock <froggestow at juno.com>

To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu

Subject: Re: Fiber Properties

 

On Mon, 24 May 1999 19:22:16 -0400 Irene leNoir <irene at ici.net> writes:

>...So far, I have the following

>* generally, natural fibers breathe, and so are cool in hot weather

>and warm in cold weather

>* generally, synthetics don't breathe as well, and aren't as

>comfortable in hot weather

>* polyester resists wrinkling

>* cotton is absorbent

>* wool is warm even when wet

>Can anyone think of any other examples, particularly of any fibers not

>mentioned above?

>Jessica Clark

>SCA: Irène leNoir

 

Wool and silk, being animal fibers, are made of proteins, which makes

them   slightly acidic.  They should not be bleached or washed with

Woolite (which is alkaline with a pH of 9).  I usually wash my wool and

silk with a pH balanced (slightly acidic) shampoo.  They benefit from a

bit of lemon juice or vinegar in the rinse water.   They are much more

elastic than plant fibers.  Wool and silk are the easiest of the natural

fibers to dye.

 

Cotton and linen are plant fibers made of cellulose, which makes them

slightly alkaline.  They can be bleached safely, but resist absorbing

dyes. Do not use acid rinses on plant fibers.  Cotton (a seed fiber) is

more receptive to dye than linen (a bast fiber, from the stem of the

plant).   Plant fibers are less elastic than animal fibers.  Linen is

less elastic than cotton.  Ramie, made from a stingless Asian nettle, is

very similar to linen.

 

Tow linen, made from the short fibers (as opposed to the long line

fibers) is softer than line, but less durable.

 

Synthetic fibers are usually colored before being extruded or spun and

generally cannot  be dyed at home.

 

Olefin, while not absorbant, does wick moisture away from the body.

 

Nylon and spandex seem to be the most elastic of the synthetic fibers.

 

Acrylics can be quite soft, but do not hold a knitted shape very well

unless blended with something else.

 

When working with blended fibers that have both animal and plant fibers,

treat the product as if it were entirely made of the more costly or

dominant fiber.

 

Hertha

 

 

From: kerric at pobox.alaska.net (Kerri Canepa)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: Corduroy as a period fabric

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 1999 19:07:40 GMT

 

Rosalinde

>Someone on the 'What sorts of fabrics' thread mentioned something

>about corduroy being a period fabric. I've heard this before, but

>would like more information (she says as she is midway through a

>dress made out of the very fine-waled corduroy). My impression

>was that it was originally made by cutting silk velvet so that it

>was waled. In this vein, it seems reasonable that the fine-waled

>stuff would be acceptable, but I've never heard yea or nay in a

>SCA context (I know it's widely used in some RenFests to make washable

>garb, but I am also aware that many Renfests should be /very/ carefully

>scrutinized for authenticity). Does anyone have any information about

>this?

 

Corduroy is a fabric where the pile is formed by creating thread loops with

supplemental weft threads and then cutting the loops. Velvet is similar but the

loops come from a supplemental warp threads. There's evidence that weft pile

fabrics existed in India and the Near East during the medieval period (I don't

have the precise info in front of me so this is from memory) but not in Europe

until much, much later.

 

What creates the wales is only cutting some of the loops. And just to confuse

things a bit further, true velveteen is a weft pile fabric as well. The cotton

velveteen available at JoAnns and Walmart is really a very short pile, cotton

velvet. I guess because of the short pile some marketer decided to distinguish

it from velvet by calling it velveteen somewhere in the mists of time.

 

Not sure I answered the question but hope this helps anyway,

 

Kerri

Cedrin Etainnighean, OL

 

 

Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 22:03:20 EST

From: <LrdRas at aol.com>

To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu

Subject: Re: sackcloth

 

In a message dated 2/22/00 2:00:23 PM Eastern Standard Time, SNSpies at aol.com

writes:

<< "sackcloth" >>

 

a coarse cloth of goat or camel's hair or of flax, hemp, or cotton

 

Ras

 

 

Date:    Tue, 13 Apr 2004 21:26:07 -0700

From:    Heather Strait <entropic_heather at YAHOO.COM>

Subject: Questions about cotton satin

 

> I am looking for the equivalent of cotton satin.

 

I have used the "sateen cotton" found with the quilting fabrics at Joann

Fabric and Crafts for several garbing projects now with great success. It

washes well, holds color well and drapes like a dream. I was especially

impressed with it's use for Roman garb, since it needed to be opaque

white, but soft and flowing.

 

I'm not sure how it holds up over time, but I didn't see any significant

changes when I pre-washed. It did fuzz up some, but once it was ironed,

the soft sheen returned. The possible down-side for use in high-Ren garb

is it's thinness, it may not withstand much stress over time, but if you

use a strong  lining and inter-lining, perhaps the stress would be spread

out enough.

 

It's available in several colors and runs around $6/yard regular price.

I'm sure the product is available other places, this is just where I can

get things in the small town I live in!!!

 

Genevieve Darroch

Flinthyll, Calontir

 

 

Date:    Thu, 15 Apr 2004 08:20:48 -0400

From:    Jessica Speer <speerj at UP.NET>

Subject: Re: SCA-GARB Digest - 13 Apr 2004 to 14 Apr 2004 (#2004-14)

 

Derek Brown wrote:

| > I am looking for the equivalent of cotton satin.

| >

| > At Bed, Bath, & Beyond, I saw 1000 count cotton bed sheets and it

| > seemed to me that this would make wonderful garb (but not at $200 a set)

| > and it was

| > probably the absolute best I might find for the equivalent of

| > Renaissance cotton satin.

| >

| > Does anyone know what the thread count might have been for Renaissance

| > cotton satin and where I might be able to buy the raw fabric and specify

| > the thread count I want?

 

| Not so.  Sateen is a weave in which the shiny texture is created by long

| weft floats, as opposed to the long warp floats in satin.

| --

| Adele de Maisieres

 

Sateen is the back side of satin. If the warp, satin, is the desired face,

the warp threads are the better quality and sett closer. If the weft,

sateen, is desires, the warp is a bit wider sett and the weft is the better

thread. Satin/sateen is a variety on twill in which there is no diagonal

line.

 

Margit Weaver

 

 

Date: Thu, 13 May 2004 19:20:34 -0400 (EDT)

From: "Theodora (AKA Rachael)" <ladythea at myway.com>

Subject: [SCA-AS] Bibliographic link

To: artssciences at lists.gallowglass.org

Cc: scabyzantine at yahoogroups.com, artemisia at lists.gallowglass.org

 

Found this while surfing today....

http://www.lib.umich.edu/area/Near.East/Textiles/Textiles.html

It is a textile bibliography that is broken down by topics and locations - this one specialized in near and mid-eastern.

 

Very cool!

Theodora

(Sentinels' Keep, Artemisia)

 

 

To:   CALONTIR at listserv.unl.edu

Date:    Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:26:42 -0600

From:    Cindy Kraus <cindy.kraus at COX.NET>

Subject: Re: Question for the Fiber Goob..er.. Fiber Experts..

 

"The Mary Rose tube is made of a couarse, black, woollen 2 ply yarn

which is S-spun and Z-plied."

 

For various reasons, I believe wool is traditionally z-spun

(clockwise) and s-plied while flax is s-spun (counterclockwise) and

z-plied. Wool can, of course, have the reverse spin/ply

directions. Flax grows with a natural twist to the fibers which

makes it better suited to a specific direction (based, oddly enough,

on which hemisphere it grows: northern or southern)  The above

directions are found in Europe.  Egyptian finds show linen with the

opposite direction of spin/ply which confused many analysts until

more of the biology was known.  Also, cotton and hemp will tend

toward the opposite direction of flax.  Have I confused you yet?

 

So, the above wool yarn actually has an unusual direction of spin/ply

for the typical wool of the time.  Not sure if this is significant or

not - it may simply indicate where the yarn originated, i.e., a place

that either more typically spins flax or a place with a very

localized custom of spinning wool contrary to the neighbors.  I would

suspect the former to be more likely.

 

Tamara

 

 

Date:    Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:04:12 -0600

From:    Cindy Kraus <cindy.kraus at COX.NET>

Subject: Re: Question for the Fiber Goob..er.. Fiber Experts..

 

<<< Tamara wrote:

 

"For various reasons, I believe wool is traditionally z-spun (clockwise) and

s-plied while flax is s-spun (counterclockwise) and z-plied.  Wool can, of

course, have the reverse spin/ply directions.  Flax grows with a natural

twist to the fibers which makes it better suited to a specific direction

(based, oddly enough, on which hemisphere it grows: northern or southern)"

 

I wonder if the natural twist of flax has to do with Corliolis Acceleration? >>>

 

I'm not sure if it's directly attributed to Coriolis Acceleration but

it does have to do with Earth's rotation relative to the sun.  Plants

tend to want as much sunlight as they can tolerate so they will

follow the sun during the course of a day.   Overnight, there is not

enough correction and the sun travels in the same direction each

day. This twist builds up over the days, weeks and months of the

plant's life and is more extreme the closer to the poles the plant

grows as the day is longer during the summer growing months.  This

also means the plants turn one direction in the northern hemisphere

and the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere.

 

Tamara

 

 

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:22:53 +1100

From: Raymond Wickham <insidious565 at hotmail.com>

Subject: [Lochac] Medici Granducal archive documents going online

To: <lochac at lochac.sca.org>

 

This looks like a great resource for italian late medieval textile and other resources:

http://www.medici.org/

 

 

From: Suzanne Booth <SuzanneBooth at YAHOO.COM>

Date: May 19, 2010 2:00:01 PM CDT

To: CALONTIR at listserv.unl.edu

Subject: Re: [CALONTIR] Cloth of Gold, was [CALONTIR] Hello?

 

On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 1:32 PM, 'wela Brown ‪<hywela91 at gmail.com>‬ wrote:

<<< But what I was thinking was, if it's so quiet on the list right now, can us costuming geek-types talk about cloth of gold?  Anyone got any info on it? >>>

'wela

 

A very quick search pulled up the following for me:

Per Mary Corbet's "Needle 'n Thread" website,

" ... cloth of gold consists of gold either beaten or worked into long strips and wound around a core (such as silk) and then this thread is used in weaving a very rich fabric, which is relatively stiff, heavy, and expensive. "

She says that Issue 31 of 'Complex Weavers' Medieval Textiles' "discusses medieval linen weaves, cloth of gold and goldwork, as well as twills and their designs".

The newsletter is available via the following link:

http://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/webdocs/mnm_mt31.pdf

Suzanne

--

THL Suzanne de la Ferté

Barony of the Lonely Tower

Kingdom of Calontir

 

 

From: Sherry Loveland <gaias_grotto at YAHOO.COM>

Date: May 19, 2010 4:00:17 PM CDT

To: CALONTIR at listserv.unl.edu

Subject: Re: [CALONTIR] Cloth of Gold, was [CALONTIR] Hello?

 

Cloth of Gold as produced in the Ottoman Empire was as previously stated gold thread wound around silk to give it tensile strength then woven. From my own research it was typically wound around yellow silk. Only the sultan was allowed to wear it unless he gave personal permission for a vizier to wear it. Only once was this documented as happening that I know of. The Ottoman Textile industry was regulated in 1502 such that robes of honor would hold the same value from sultan to sultan and year to year. "The length of fabric used to make a robe for the Sultan out of cloth of gold was regulated to 6000 threads long" I have some research on textiles in the ottoman empire. this is the most specific information I have on cloth of gold.

 

Aeldraed the Tall

 

 

From: Anne <orionsdaughter at gmail.com>

Date: February 22, 2011 12:55:26 AM CST

To: trimaris-temp at yahoogroups.com, the-triskele-tavern at googlegroups.com, brighthills at yahoogroups.com, SCA-Garb at yahoogroups.com

Subject: {TheTriskeleTavern} fabric history..

 

Was looking for something else and found this.. interesting article.

http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/198703/fabrics.from.the.middle.east.htm

 

 

From: Shane B

To: medievaltrivia at yahoogroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, February 22, 2011 6:27 AM

Subject: [Medieval Trivia] Fabric History...

 

http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/198703/fabrics.from.the.middle.east.htm

 

Fabrics from the Middle East

 

"Cecy has got some beautiful new dresses - a white muslin, a tarlatan and a pink silk.''

 

Susan Coolidge. What KatyDid, 1873

 

Written by Caroline Stone

Illustrated by Penny Williams-Yaqub

 

Does anyone know what "tarlatan" is any more? Or "tabby"? Or "fustian"?

 

Fabric names like those, and many others more familiar, have disappeared from shops and labels since our grandmothers' day. Today, we buy largely man-made products with equally manmade names: Dacron, polyester, Tricel, viscose and rayon.

 

Many of the old materials have been with us for centuries, and before they vanish altogether it is interesting to consider what they are - and were - and where they came from. When we examine their origins in diaries, literature and the records the past has left us, we see that many of them originated in the Middle East.

 

Of course, homespun cloths of different kinds were produced in England from the earliest times, and in the United States from the first colonization. But materials with native names like flannel, frieze, plaid, twill and linsey-woolsey in fact appear in the literature no earlier than more exotic materials from the East.

 

One of the earliest materials mentioned, in about the year 1000, is felt. The word comes from Old Slavonic, and it is conceivable that in some way both the word and the cloth reached England from Central Asia, where felt is still produced and much used for tents. The technique of quilting is mentioned a little later and was doubtless of great importance in the icy houses of the European Dark Ages.

 

In the 13th century, several new materials appear in English records, among them gauze, muslin, fustian, sendal and buckram; several of these names still exist today, but often they do not refer to the same cloth. A kind of weaver's version of Gresham's Law prevails, so that a name may be retained over centuries, originally designating a rich and splendid cloth and gradually degenerating in its meaning to refer to poorer, coarser stuffs.

 

Gauze, a thin transparent material of silk, linen or cotton, is first mentioned in 1279 under the name gazzatum; it was among the fabrics considered too luxurious for monks to wear. The name may come from the town of Gaza, and the cloth may be of the same type as the famous "veils of Cos" with which Caesar bade Cleopatra cover herself, for decency's sake, when she visited Rome in 43 B.C.

 

Muslin takes its name from Mosul, in Iraq, where it was originally made. According to Marco Polo, it was "a cloth of silk and gold," although the name has, for several centuries now, simply designated a fine cotton or silk material.

 

The name of fustian is thought to be derived from Fustat, the original name of today's Cairo and later a suburb of that city, where it was manufactured. Fustian was never very fine - it was originally a coarse cotton-and-flax mixture and then came to be a thick twilled cloth with a filled pile face. It is perhaps because of that soft padded surface that the word fustian has come to mean "pompous or inflated speech or writing." Fustian is first mentioned in the records of Trinity College in 1200, and in 1502 it appears in the accounts of the privy purse expenditure of Elizabeth of York, the wife of King Henry VII: "ij yerdes of white fustyan for sokkes for the Quene."

 

Sendal has definitely vanished from our vocabularies. The name is probably from the Greek sindon, fine linen, the same word as is used for the winding sheet of Christ. It was first mentioned in 1225 and in 1523 was still esteemed: "There was pyght up a pavilyon of crymasyn sendall, right noble and riche."

 

Buckram is another material which began fine and ended coarse. It was first mentioned in 1222 and its name maybe derived from Bukhara, a great cloth-making center now in the Uzbek S.S.R. Other possibilities are that the word comes from the Arabic qiram, tapestry or thin dress, or perhaps from kirim, the Turkic word for the Crimea.

 

In the 14th century, new materials flooded into Europe from the Middle East, largely as a result of the Crusades. Luxury materials of today, such as satin and taffeta, begin to appear, although the other great favorites, damask and brocade, are not mentioned until later centuries.

 

It has been suggested that the word satin is connected with the Arabic zaituni, meaning "like an olive" or - more likely -"coming from Zaitun," the Arab name for a city in China whose whereabouts are no longer known. Others say it comes from a Chinese word sze-tun or ssu-tuan, a smooth silk. Chaucer was the first to mention it in English, and in 1369 we have:"Ryght wel cledde in fyne blak satyn de owter mere." "Owter mere" was the French Outremer­beyond the seas - and was the term used generally for the Middle Eastern lands occupied by the Crusaders. Whether the fine black satin was made there or simply bought there, we have no way of knowing.

 

Taffeta was originally a plain glossy silk of any color. It seems to be linked to the Persian word taftah, a silken cloth, which in turn is derived from taftan, "to shine."

 

Most of the other 14th-century cloths are no longer in use, except serge, which has remained popular. Although the name ultimately derives from the Greek seres, silk, serge seems to have kept its character as a durable, unglamorous woolen cloth over many centuries. In 1386 Chaucer described a rich Oriental town as "the Citee large, Hanged with clooth of gold, and not withsarge."

 

Another early material that lasted into our grandmothers' time is tabby. This was originally a striped silk taffeta, but the word was later used as a general term for waved or watered cloth, like moiré silk. The name is taken from the Attabiy quarter of Baghdad where the cloth was made, as a 12th-century writer attests: "Here are made the stuffs called Attabiya, which are silks and cottons made of various colours." An early reference to this material occurs in the London Gazette: "Lost,...a child's Mantle, of Sky-colour Tabby."

 

Because of the irregular striped pattern of tabby cloth, the word also came to be applied to a new breed of cat that began to make its appearance in England at the end of the 17th century. Not long after, Dr. Johnson was complaining that the newfangled tabbies were driving out the true English black-and-white breed - but within a century, it was the tabbies themselves that were being acclaimed as "the true English cats," and certainly today they seem to be predominant.

 

Camlet appears in the West in the 14th century, and from the beginning its name is associated with the camel, from whose hair the lustrous cloth was supposedly woven. This may be mistaken, and more probable derivations are from the Arabic khamilah, the nap or pile of a fabric, or from an Arabic word for the Angora goat, which may also have provided raw material for the weave. Camlet was usually dyed bright red, and appears in an inventory, in 1413, of the wardrobe of King Henry IV: "Seven yards of red chamlett at 13s4d the remnant."

 

Cypress vanished two centuries ago. It is another material which began as something very rich, perhaps cloth of gold, declined to being a valuable satin, then to a simple mourning cloth by the year 1611, when Shakespeare wrote: "Lawne as white as driven snow, Cypresse blacke as ere was Crow." Naturally, it came from Cyprus, and when the poet Byron visited the island in the last century, he was struck by the long black cloaks of the women. On asking why they wore them, he was told it was in mourning for a Christian defeat in the Crusades.

 

But the Crusades ended and this, combined with the rise of piracy in the Mediterranean and the European discovery of the sea routes to the East, led to a decline in the quantity of fabrics imported from the Middle East. In the centuries to come, fashion veered toward fabrics from further east: from India, Persia, Indochina and China.

 

Damask is one of the last new materials from the Middle East. It originated, of course, from Damascus, the city which also gave the world both fine damascened-steel blades and the red damask rose - the most scented of all roses. First mentioned in 1480 - "A fayre whyte covering of damaske clothe" - damask retained its nature and use through the centuries. More than a century later, in 1609, we learn that "a Damask table cloth cost me eighteen pound." It is perhaps worth remembering that fine cloth was comparatively more expensive then than it is now, and there were fewer alternatives available.

 

In the same century as the first mention of damask, a mysterious entry appears in the accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland for 1488: "A covering of variand purpir tartar...and a unicorn." The unicorn remains unexplained, but the tartar, also known as "cloth of Tartary," seems to have been a many-colored woolen material, presumably imported from the Crimea, where the Tatar people live, or even further east. It is possible - barely -that this "variand" cloth was the ancestor of the tartan cloth that, more recently, has become the emblem of Scotland.

 

The word brocade was introduced in the mid-16th century, and the paintings of the period amply demonstrate the popularity of the cloth itself. Brocade was distinguished by its raised patterns that were originally of silver and gold embroidery. The origin of the word is disputed; the English form is taken from the Spanish which in turn comes from an Italian root that refers to the projecting "tooth" of the embroidered figures. But in Hakluyt's Voyages an account of Ormus says that "cloth of silke, brocardo, and divers other sortes of marchandise come out of Persia." Perhaps, then, brocade represented another triumph of Persian taste and craftsmanship.

 

Bombazine first appears in English in 1555. Its name is derived from bombyx, the Greek for silkworm, and a connection with the Persian word pampe, cotton, has also been claimed. In Elizabethan times it was more often used in the form "bombast," or padding, and thus, with fustian, came to mean a ranting, theatrical, insincere style. Bombazine itself did not come into its own until the Victorian period, when its invariable black became a symbol of sober respectability and hence preferred for housekeepers and mourners.

 

Calico, on the other hand, was one of the first materials to arrive from the further East. The name derives from the city of Calicut on India's Malabar coast, one of the chief ports in the trade between India and Europe. The poet Dunbar mentions the city in The Worldis Instabilitie in 1505, and in 1541 a letter to King Henry VIII speaks of "IX peces of Callicutt claith pertenyng to ane William Blaky in Leith." The cloth was soon in very general use, and in 1666 Pepys mentions in his diary "flags, which I had bought for the Navy of calico." Calico was described in 1753 as "an Indian stuff made of cotton sometimes stained with gay and beautiful colours." That is still an accurate description in the United States, while in England calico is plain white cotton, bleached or unbleached. Calico became immensely popular, especially in 19th-century America - a fact commented on in trade reports by Emerson.

 

Chintz was another material which came on the market about the same time and, in his diary for 1663, Pepys wrote, "Bought my wife a chint, that is, a painted Indian callico, for to line her new study." He was using the singular form correctly, for the word derives from the Hindi chint (plural chints), and the two forms were not confused to form our chintz until the late 18th century. The characteristics of Indian chintzes were their flower and bird designs and their high glaze, still to be found in traditional homes today and, indeed, now enjoying a revival.

 

The third fabric of this period, also much used for interior decorating, was dimity. In 1632 we read of "a hundred Camels loaden with Silkes, Dimmeties and other Commodifies." It was originally a stout cotton cloth with raised stripes and fancy figures that was usually used undyed for beds and bedroom hangings, although later it came to mean a rather lighter material. The word may be related to the Arabic dimyati, from the name of the important port of Damietta in Egypt, or perhaps from the Greek "two-threaded," referring to a doubled warp thread used in its weaving. (The name of the heavier samite cloth was similarly derived from the Greek for "six-threaded.") In either case it would seem likely that the material dates back far beyond the 17th century, but apparently it did not reach England, or did not happen to be recorded by that name.

 

The origin of duck, a strong untwilled linen or, later, cotton, is known. It reached England and the English language via the Dutch - where dock means "cloth" - probably from Indochina. It is first mentioned in 1640, and in 1780 Thomas Jefferson wrote in one of his letters: "What is to be done for tents, I do not know. I am assured that very little duck can be got in this country."

 

Percale was first imported from the East Indies in the 17th century, and the origin of the word is uncertain. Parqali, "rag" in Persian, has been suggested, and this is not unlikely, for Persian was then the lingua franca of much of the trading world.

 

Gingham, much used in the 19th century for waistcoats and umbrellas, and still a modern favorite, is derived from the Malay ginggang, originally an adjective meaning "striped." In 1615, we read, "Capt. Cock is of the opinion that the ginghams, both white and browne,... will prove a good commodity in the Kinge of Shashma his cuntry." By 1763, however, times had changed and gingham no longer came into the category of trade goods. In that year a reporter wrote that "ladies of taste are prodigiously fond of the Ginghams manufactured there" - and "there" meant industrial Manchester, England.

 

This rise in cheap textile production in the West was soon to have a serious effect on Oriental imports. In England, tweed and corduroy were coming in for common wear, while the fashionable world looked to France for its crèpes and voiles, chiffons and tulles, to say nothing of that useful sailcloth, toîle de Nîmes - now better known to us as denim.

 

Materials still came from the East, however. Cecy's tarlatan was introduced at the beginning of the 18th century and organdy a hundred years later. The origins of both words are lost, though we know they came into English from French. The materials themselves most probably came from India, perhaps by way of the French colonies. And in 1757 a thin linen, striped in pale blue and white, was introduced. It was known under the charming name of seersucker, from the Persian shir o shikar, milk and sugar, and is still worn today.

 

For the sake of their own markets, the 19th-century producers of factory-made textiles in the West did all they could to discourage the handmade cloths of the Orient. Admittedly, Kashmir shawls and Indian muslins remained in vogue, and toward the end of the century a growing interest in China led to a flow of crèpes de Chine, pongees, shantungs and tussores. But Eastern materials were - with a few exceptions - no longer priceless treasures; interests had shifted elsewhere.

 

Now in the 20th century, the wind has changed yet again. In both England and America, those who do not wish to wear Dacron, Courtelle or any of the acrylic fibres are more and more, like their grandparents, buying cottons and silk gauzes from India, heavy printed silks from Thailand, batiks from Malaya and Java, and foulards and satins from China and Japan. We can hope that, before too long, they will also be looking again for muslins, damasks, taffetas, and tabbies from the Middle East.

 

Caroline Stone is a freelance writer who divides her time between London, Rome and Seville. She is the author of The Embroideries of North Africa, published by Longman.

 

This article appeared on pages 2-5 of the May/June 1987 print edition of Saudi Aramco World.

 

<the end>



Formatting copyright © Mark S. Harris (THLord Stefan li Rous).
All other copyrights are property of the original article and message authors.

Comments to the Editor: stefan at florilegium.org