FABRIC NAMES & DESCRIPTIONS

SEWING TOOLS

SEWING TECHNIQUES

COLOUR NAMES

FUR & LEATHER NAMES

EMBELLISHMENTS

BUTTONS

EMBROIDERY

DYESTUFFS & DYEING

Period Fabrics & Sewing
CLOTH WIDTHS - PATTERNS & DESIGNS - KNITTING
LINENS - WOOLS - TIRETAINES - SILKS - VELVETS - HEMP - COTTON

Please select the link for the following information about period fabrics and making them into clothes.

- SEWING TOOLS - Scissors, needles etc
- SEWING TECHNIQUES
- Looking at stitches and seams
- EMBELLISHMENTS
- Spangles, pressed metal, jeweled bands.
- BUTTONS
- EMBROIDERY on clothing
- COLOUR NAMES
- Colour names referred to in documents
- DYESTUFFS & DYEING
- FABRIC NAMES
- Fabric names referred to in documents
- FUR & LEATHER NAMES
- Fur and leather names referred to in documents

Cloth widths
The width of a horizontal loom governed the size of fabric which was available int he medieval period.

The most common measurements for cloth were the yard (the length of an outstretched arm), the nail (two and a quarter inches wide) and the ell. Of these, the ell was the most common length used for the measurement of cloth. In England, this distance was usually 45 inches if the cloth is English. If it is Flemish, an ell is measured at 27 inches. Although these were fairly standard measurements for regular production, it was possible to produce woven fabric of larger sizes for special commissions. In 1304, two women wool merchants, Aleyse Darcy and Thomasin Guydichon, are recorded as having sold to the Earl of Lincoln:

...one piece of cloth, embroidered with diverse works in gold and silk.. eight ells (thirty feet) in length and six ells (twenty-four feet) in breadth...

for the huge sum of 300 marks. It doesn't record what the cloths intended use was, but it does give us an idea of the possible size of cloth manufacture at that time. Some looms, which required two workers, permitted fabric to be made in lengths up to 30 metres and as wide as two metres, although this was not the general standard. The fulling process required to produce certain fabrics reduced the width of most material to about a metre and a half.

Patterns and designs
Fabric was often woven into brocades and geometric designs. Diamond and square patterned cloths known as diaper were woven from silk, linen and in some areas, cotton. The fabric was woven in a pattern of one colour only.

Damasks, rich patterned heavy material of silk or linen featured cloth which the pattern appears reversed on the back of the fabric. Intricate patterns of brocaded silk were a feature of silk velvet on velvets. The artichoke cynara scolymus was grown plentifully during the medieval period and was featured in many medieval fabric designs from the 13th to 15th centuries.

Other patterns featured repeated designs within circles and teardrop shapes with flowers and animals within. A beautiful example of this is the silk woven with gold thread patterned silk from Sicily dated at between 1325 and 1350. It belongs to a garment often referred to as St Elizabeth's Cloak.

Knitting
Examples of knitted items have been found in the medieval period, although not many are preserved. In a late 14th century altarpiece, Mary is depicted knitting for a young baby Jesus, although in her essay Weaving and Gender Division of Labour in the Middle Ages, the author Ruth Karros asserts that knitting was in fact a craft which was restricted to men.

Shown at right is a knitted woolen cap from a London deposit dated around 1500.
Shown at left is a pair of red knitted socks which are housed in the V&A Museum. They are dated somewhere about 300-500 AD, and in good repair and have no moth holes. It appears by the construction of the socks that they are designed to be worn with sandles of some kind. Image used with kind permission of Amanda and Jane at THEWOMANSROOMBLOG.

While this is stubstantially earlier than the medieval period, it shows that the skill of knitting items such as socks was known since before that time. These particular socks would have been worn with slippers or overshoes which have a piece between the toes much like many leather sandles of today.

Linens
Information from the Tacuinum of Vienna described linen clothing thus:

the nature of linen is cold and dry in the second degree. It's optimum is light, splendid and of the beautiful kind while it is described as useful to moderate the heat of the body. The dangers of linen, however, are that it presses down on the skin and blocks transpiration.

In order to neutralize the dangers, one was instructed to mix it with silk. The effects were described as drying up ulcerations and primarily good for hot temperaments, for the young, in summer and in the southern regions.

As with most other fabrics, linen came in varying degrees of quality and fineness, from thick opaques to the very fine. The quality varied for its intended use and the status of the wearer. Linens were used for bedding, napery, underclothing, light-weight summer clothing and veiling.

The image shown at right comes from a copy of the Tacuinum Sanitatis and is the image for the properties of linen, which are described above.

Processing the flax into fibres, weaving and finishing was primarily done in rural areas. By the mid-14th century, the development in looms enabled workers to produce a much longer fabric woven all in one piece, which required great skill and was prized. In the late 14th century, Flemish linens were known as the finest.

Some samples of linen damask show a thread count of between 60 to 200 threads per inch, making them suitable for fine veiling.

Wools
Wool was the staple of medieval clothing for all classes- the quality varying hugely between the worsted fabrics of the poor to the very fine wools produced in England which were exported to Europe. Wool was weighed by the tod, which was usually measured at 28lb, although this was liable to local variation. The standard sack of wool for export was 364 pounds, and it was calculated that approximately 240 sheep were needed to provide the wool required for one sack. By the 13th century, there were about 50 different grades of wool.

Shown at right is a detail from the illuminated manuscript, the Duk du Berry's Book of Hours for the month of July depicting a man and a woman shearing sheep.

By the 13th century, Italian woolens and cottons were being sold internationally and there was an estimated eight million sheep in England alone. By the second half of the 14th century, Paris was at the very top of the field in the production and export of middle range woolens called biffes. Wools produced in Flanders in the 14th and 15th centuries became better and eventually rivaled the English ones for quality. The shorter the woolen fibre was, the tighter the weave and the heavier the finished cloth would be. The difference between better woolens and the lesser worsteds was essentially in the fulling and finishing. After fulling, the wet woolen cloth was stretched, burls removed, and the imperfections repaired before being placed over a bar and then teased before the final shearing. Dry shearing could be performed by repeated napping and clipping to produce a silky, smooth finish.

Often woolen clothing was dyed twice- once in the wool and again in the piece. Prices for woolen cloth varied depending on the finishing process- the more times a cloth had been sheared and finished, the more expensive the cloth was.

Wills and bequests often made particular mention of woolen clothing and specified the worth of the garment indicating what quality it might be. In 1313, Anicia atte Hegge, a widow from Hampshire, made a will on the surrendering of her holding to her son which included the stipulation that among other things, she would be provided with various items of clothing including a woolen garment every other year worth 3 shillings.

Woolen clothing and its properties are discussed in the medieval text Theatrum of Casanatense as:

having a warm and dry nature, the optimum kind being "the thin kind from Flanders". It's usefulness is it protects the body from cold and holds warmth although it's dangers were that it causes skin irritation.

Neutralization of the dangers were advised by the wearing of thin linen clothing, presumably underclothing, worn between the wool and the skin.

Tiretains
Tiretains were produced with a linen warp and woolen weft. It was commonly believed to be a fabric which was low-priced and lightweight- a fairly popular fabric for those of low status. Recent research suggests that tiretains were bought and used by nobility and royal household accounts show the purchase of it also for clothing indicating that tiretains were not as rough as we used to believe or that like wool, tiretains were produced in varying degrees of quality.

It appears to have been used for lightweight summer clothing, usually lined with silk and in one instance, lined with fur. One assumes that silk linings were not used in conjunction with a low-cost fabric popular with the lower classes. From these accounts, we can reasonably deduce that tiretains could be of a much higher quality than supposed.

In one record of the 1315 accounts of the Mahaut of Artois, there is a mention of tiretain being purchased at 26 ounces, indicating that silk was an ingredient of that particular piece of fabric. It is speculated that in that particular example, the silk may have replaced the linen warp.

It appears also that kermes, an extremely expensive dye, was used to dye tiretain. In 1268, two kermes-dyed tiretains were purchased for the English king. In 1328 the widow of Louis X owned an outfit of black tiretain, also dyed with kermes. When the French Queen Clemence of Hungary died, it was noted that 4 of her 35 garments were of tiretain of different colours and her husband the King had a coat also lined with tiretain. One assumes that a dye as expensive as kermes was not wasted on a fabric which was not of a suitably high quality, and the fact that it was purchased for king's clothing also indicates that the quality of the fabric was far superior to the rough fabric it was previously supposed to be.

Silks
Silks were expensive in the early part of the Middle Ages but popular with the wealthy, not only for the fabric's luxurious texture but its ability to hold dye and produce brilliant colours not available in other fabrics. Oriental silks were imported from the east and patterned or brocaded silks are often written about. Unliek other fabric, silks were almost always sold by the ounce rather than by length.

Below are some extant samples of Italian silks from the mid-to-late 14th century. They show a diverse range of designs, colours and themes which were probably brighter when new.

In Europe, silks were also being locally produced. By the 14th century, silks from Lucca dominated the market for aristocratic silks. Lucca, Venice, Genoa and Bologna were also known to produce silks of exceptional quality which were much desired by nobility. Records from 1324 indicate that Paris was producing silk and gold thread brocades and that English Royal household accounts show purchases of Parisian silk from the years 1324 to 1333.

Velvets
Silk velvets were extremely expensive and were a luxury fabric only for the richest of the rich. They were often brocaded with large patterns, often floral. The green, patterned silk velvet shown at right was made in Venice in the late 15th century and features an artichoke design. It is interesting to note that the artichoke was believed to have strong aphrodisiac powers and one wonders if wearing artichokes was hoped to invoke the same feelings of desire to the wearer.

Velvet was produced with either simple or compound weaves being elaborated by introducing a supplementary warp over a series of very small rods. The rods are removed leaving small loops, which can be shorn or left as loops which form the velvet pile. Both simple and compound velvet weaves can be enriched by sets of yarns on the surface of the cloth which produces a brocade. Mustyrdderyllers is known to be a 15th century cloth from Muster-de-Villiers. It is suggested that the name may also be derived from "mestier de velours" meaning half-velvet- similar to velveteen.

Fustian appears to be constructed in the same way as velvets, being described as a coarse twilled cotton cloth sometimes made with a linen warp and cotton weft, woven in the same way as velvet and with a sheared surface. The word fustian can be found in records as early as the 11th and 12th centuries and is associated with heavily wefted materials, especially those with weft floats that could be cut to produce pile. Fustian was made in Italy, Spain, Germany and Holland and was first mentioned in England in 1114.

Archaeological evidence exists of a garment in which King Philip 1 of France was buried, was constructed of woolen velvet. It is dated at 1108. A further reference to woolen velvet comes from a study of velvet production in the early middle ages from Tournai in 1380.

According to research by Lydie LaBarthe:

fragments of twill and cotton velvet have been found dating back to 9th century in France. The textile known as pile on pile or double velvet is also one of the oldest known velvet weaving techniques. Three dimensional textiles with looped or cut pile are supplementary weft compound weaves. As early as 2000BC the Egyptians made linen fabrics with extra linen weft pulled out into loops for both effect and warmth.

Hemp
Hemp was known and cultivated for cloth production in the middle ages. There are several references to crops of hemp which were to be harvested for textile use.

One such reference comes from Christine de Pisan in Le Livre des Trois Vertus. She writes of the duties of an aristocratic wife and says that while such a wife may not actually do any of the weaving in her household herself, she must be knowledgeable about every facet of the process so that she may oversee each and every stage of the process- from the selection of the fleeces to the final construction of finished garments. She adds specifically:

..she will have her tenants grow hemp that her chambermaids will spin and weave on winter evenings.

The image at right is taken from an unknown source and shows a woman spinning with a drop spindle.

Cotton
It appears that clothing made of cotton or cotton/linen and cotton/silk blends was not entirely unknown, although the production of cotton is accorded to specific time periods.

From the 7th to the 13th century, cotton and cotton/silk blends came out of the far east. Merchants in Egypt exported flax, dyes and cotton fibres. It is not unusual during that period to see references to clothing made entirely or partially of cotton. During the 13th century, according to Mazzaoui's publication Italian Cotton Industry, the manufacture of cotton items in northern Italy rivalled wool in the numbers of workers it employed. The cloth produced was of medium weight and used for undergarments, bedding and summer clothing. Another source, Ibed, speaks of cotton clothing and blankets, flanelettes and quilted cottons which competed with coarse linens. It should be mentioned, however, that Italians did not produce luxury cotton fabrics, prints, tapestry weaves or brocades.

Frances and Joseph Gies, in their book Cathedral, Forge and Waterwheel, Technology and Invention in the Middle Ages discuss weaving of cotton and go on to say that during the 14th century, the use of cotton spread throughout the continent and Europe for use as coifs, veils, wimples, handkerchiefs, purses and clothing linings. There seems to be no reference to cotton clothing in England at these times.

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