Burgundian Gowns

This is a little bit of a work around trying to pin some information in Pinterest because I can't get the photos to upload but I can pin them. So I am uploading them here.

The Master of Mary of Burgundy: A book of Hours for Engelbert of Nassau. The Bodleian Library, Oxford. Published 1970 J. J. G. Alexander

The heroine unlaces her underdress, by the Wavrin Master in L'historie de Girart de Nevers, Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale, ms. 9631, f. 11. Taken from Scott, M. 1980, The Historie of Dress Series- Late Gothic Europe, 1400-1500.  Humanities Press, USA.

Mucking around with dyes.

OK this blog post is going to be a bit lighter on with the research than my usual posts. That's because this post is about my experimentation with dye. In particular this post will be looking at my experiments into dying with Woad using a Fermented urine vat.

Going back to the previous post I used the Stockholm Papyrus to examine the way that woad was prepared and used as a dye. Woad was not just thrown in a pot with a bit of urine and which then successfully dyed wool it had to be prepared to do this. The Stockholm Papyrus does in fact describe this process.

104. Collection of Woad.
Cut off the woad and put together in a basket in the shade. Crush and pulverize, and leave it a whole day. Air thoroughly on the following day and trample about in it so that by the motion of the feet it is turned up and uniformly dried. Put together in baskets lay it aside. Woad, thus treated, is called charcoal.

105. Dyeing in Dark Blue.
Put about a talent of woad in a tube, which stands in the sun and contains not less than 15 metretes, and pack it in well. Then pour urine in until the liquid rises over the woad and let it be warmed by the sun, but on the following day get the woad ready in a way so that  you (can) tread around in it in the sun until it becomes well moistened. One must do this, however for 3 days together.

106. Cooking of Woad Charcoal.
Divide the woad charcoal into three parts including that which is above the infused urine. Mix one of the parts in a convenient manner, put it in a pot and build a fire beneath it. You will perceive whether the woad is cooked in the following manner. When it boils, stir carefully and not in a disorderly fashion, so that the woad does not sink down and ruin the kettle. When the woad cracks in the middle the cooking is perfect. You should take away the fire from the underneath, but should nevertheless stir within the pot. Cool the under surface of the pot by sprinkling with cold water. Then take and put it in the vat a half a choenix of soap weed. Pour enough of the cooked woad over (it), lay poles or reeds over the edge of the vat, cover with mats and build a moderate fire under it so that it does not boil over and (yet) does not become cold. Leave it 3 days. Boil up urine with soap weed, skim off the scum, and put in boiled wool. Then rinse off in a convenient manner, press out, card it, and put the wool in the dye liquor. When it appears to you to be right, take the wool out, cover up the vat against and build a fire beneath it in the same way. Put 2 minas of archil in the liquid, after you have boiled the archil and in doing so have skimmed off the scum. Then put the dyed wool in. Rinse off in salt water and cool it off. Dye in blue twice a day, morning and evening, as long as the dye liquor is serviceable.

(Caley, E. R. 1926)

Most of the description in the above three sections is about preparing the Woad. Only the last few sentences actually relate to dying the wool in the Woad and the Urine.

Woad does in fact need to be treated before it can be used to dye wool. As I didn't actually have the time or resources to treat the Woad I looked for a place where I could get Woad that had been treated in a traditional manner. I found http://www.woad.org.uk/html/extraction.html which you will see processes Woad in a manner very similar to the directions given above. The eventual product is an extraction of Woad similar to the Woad Charcoal mentioned in the Stockholm Papyrus.

So to short circuit the whole process I got myself some Woad extract the theory being that not everyone would have it available at home even in the sixth century and so someone was probably selling Woad Charcoal as an extract so that people could dye their clothes.

The next step is basically adding archil which is another purplish dye substance (HubPages Inc. 2010¶1) which probably just deepened the colour then put the already soaked wool into the dye substance- woad plus urine, which is heated slightly.


So where did this leave me. First of all to dye with woad I had to make the decision, was I going to try and use a technique that was likely to be used during the Migration Anglo Saxon period or not. As this whole project was to try some of these sorts of techniques the answer was fairly obvious. This meant that my next objective was to collect enough urine to be able to set up a urine dye vat.


It takes a surprisingly short period of time to collect 20 Litres of urine however a piece of advice if you ever decide to do this make sure you collect it in a smaller bucket and empty it in the shortest possible time into a bigger bucket once a day. The smell as urine starts to ferment is quite intense. Another thing that I had not thought through properly is the placement of my bucket. Looking back it should have been quite obvious that this was an outside job. At the time I put the large bucket of urine into my main bathroom, the one my kids use, because it would be warm, essential for the process, and because it was convenient. This lasted about two weeks until I realised that I was spending an hour or two per day with the window wide open trying to air the bathroom of the smell created from opening the bucket for about 30 seconds per day.



My husband had the delightful job of transferring 20 Litres of stale fermenting urine down the stairs and out into our backyard where, to keep it warm it was wrapped up in blankets and plastic bags and a brew belt put around the dye bucket.

 Illustration 1: Urine dye vat wrapped up to keep warm.

After the vat had fermented for a number of days wool was added to it. While I was successful in getting a quite lovely woad blue, as shown in my previous post it was nowhere near as fast as using a straight indigo vat, even though the chemicals from Woad and Indigo are the same. With the woad to get a good rich colour takes 1-3 days in the vat. Again this fits very well with the timings in the Stockholm Papyrus.

Illustration 2: Wool after one day in the Woad Urine Fermentation Vat

Illustration 3: Wool carded and spun after 2 days in the Urine, Woad Fermentation Vat.

What about other dyes.

The two other dyes that can be seen in the above picture show wool dyed in Weld and Madder, two colours that were available in Migration Period Anglo Saxon England. While there is not as much information, especially about Weld in the Stockholm Papyrus, the information on how these dyes could be used was available. First and foremost both of these wools are Mordanted. The Stockholm Papyrus gives details for Mordanting wool with Alum and other mordants.

94. Mordanting for Sicilian Purple.

Put in the kettle 8 chus of water, a half a mina of alum, 1 mina of flowers of copper (and) 1 mina of gall-nuts. When it boils put in 1 mina of washed wool. When it has boiled two or three times take the wool out. For when you leave it therein a longer time then the purple becomes red. Take the wool out, however, rinse it out and you will have it mordanted.

(Caley, E. R. 1926)

Alum is not actually readily available in England so to use it as a Mordant for clothing from the Anglo Saxon period in England would be unreasonable for large amounts of yarn or fabric. However aluminium collecting plants such as Clubmoss do grow in England and these would be a source of aluminium for mordanting fibres (Walton Rogers, P. 2007:37).

While I cold have experimented with using copper and other forms of Mordant for dyeing I had not done a lot of dyeing with traditional plant based dyes and so thought that it was better to start with a mordant that was safe enough to be used in my kitchen. So I have used Alum as the Mordant. During the Anglo Saxon period I would have used the Clubmoss to obtain my Mordant.

The directions form mordanting wool using alum is basically to boil up the alum, put in the washed and soaked wool and then leave it for a while, I usually left my wool overnight. Dyeing is pretty much the same. The basic directions for dyeing wool once you ignore the addition of different sorts of colour preparation, is to prepare a pot of colour, put the soaked pre-mordanted wool into the colour, boil it up and then leave it overnight. This is exactly what I did for to colour my wools. I left the preparation of the colour to the experts http://www.wildcolours.co.uk/ who prepare their extracts in traditional ways, and dyed my wool.

100. Another (Recipe).

To dye with mulberries. Take and crush unripe bunches of grapes and mordant the wool therein for 3 days. On the fourth day put this grape juice in another pot and boil the wool therein, but when it boils lift it out, rinse it with water and let it become cold. Then take juice of mulberries and boil up until it boils twice. Put the wool in and let it become cold therein and it will be a fine excellent purple.

It is amazing how many different colours can be obtained by different strengths of dye and by using the exhaust of the dye pot- this is dying one skein of wool and leaving it overnight and then using the same pot to dye another skein a weaker colour.

Illustration 4: Wool mordanted with alum and dyed with Madder. Dark- twice dyed, medium- once dyed. Pale- exhaust for the dark wool.

Illustration 5: Wool mordanted with alum and died with Weld. Bright- once died with Weld. Greenish/ yellow, exhaust pot for a much brighter Weld, not shown that looks almost fluorescent yellow.

Caley, E. R. (1926) “The Stockholm Papyrus : An English Translation with brief notes”  Journal of Chemical Education  IV:8 : 979-1002. http://www.clericus.org/etexts/Stockholm%20Papyrus.htm Accessed 18/09/2012

HubPages Inc. 2010. 'Dye Plants II: The Atlantic Purple Wonder Archil lichen Roccella tinctoria.'

http://taxusbaccata.hubpages.com/hub/Dye-Plants-II-The-Atlantic-Purple-Wonder-Archil-lichen-Roccella-tinctoria (accessed 19/09/2012)

Walton Rogers, P. 2007. 'Cloth and Clothing in Early Anglo-Saxon England: AD 450-700'. Council for British Archaeology, York, UK.

The Use of Dyed yarns in the Early Anglo Saxon period

According to Walton Rogers, P. (2007:62-63) it is extremely difficult to conduct dye analysis on textile samples from the early Anglo Saxon period. However of a group of samples from the 5-7^th century that were analysed results showed that two thirds of larger fabric pieces had no detectable dye and that of those that do have traces of dye the most common colours are mostly shades of;

• blue
• green
• brown
• yellow
• with reds and purple being used for narrow woven bands and accessories such as bags and headdresses.

This limited use of colour is possibly also indicated by the limited number of terms in Old English that were used for colour suggesting that colours were poorly differentiated before the 7^th century (Walton Rogers, P. 2007:63).

Of the colours that were identified the plants that were identified as producing those colours are;

Blue- Woad Isatis tinctoria identified from the presence of indigotin

Yellow- Weld Reseda luteola or Greenweed Genista tinctora, identified from Luteolin which can be produced by either plant.

Red or pink- Plants from the Madderwort family. Dyers Madder Rubia tinctorum was readily available during the Roman period however other possible sources of red from the Madder family included Ladies bedstraw Gallium verum and Wild madder Rubia peregrina evidence suggests that these native species may have been in more common use as a dye source throughout the 5^th and 6^th centuries.

Purple- Lichen

Walton Rogers, P. 2007:63

Origin of Dyes

Dyeing of cloth has a very long history with fragments of dyed cloth being found as early as 2000 B.C. Early colours were probably stains or from iron rust and different coloured clays (Liles, J. N. 1990: 1). Colours other than clay colours have been found in a linen fragment of cloth dated to approximately 3500 B.C found in Thebes. The colour is an indigo colour probably derived from one of the many indigo bearing plants, the most common of which, in Europe, is Woad (Liles, J. N. 1990: 54).

The Dye Process

While there analysis has been done on the presence of dyes in Anglo Saxon fibres and we can identify likely plants for the colours in textiles I have not been able to find much to indicate how textiles were dyed and what sort of process they have gone through. While some dyes such as woad do not need a mordant most vegetable dyes need a mordant to help set the colour permanently in fibre (Barber, W. J. W. 1990:235-238). A mordant is a separate chemical that combines with the dye in such a way as to attach the colouring matter to the fibre with a lasting chemical bond. Some mordants such as copper and iron also change the hue or the tone of the colour. While we know in some cases light fastness was not a focus on early period textiles it is obvious that in some cases it was and that mordants must have been used.

One place that we can look for evidence of mordanting and of dyeing processes is Roman literature and pre-Roman literature. It is reasonable to assume that although there are some differences between techniques used in Roman Britain to those used in Anglo Saxon Britain that some knowledge of textile production and processes would have remained. As we are able to see that dyes that were used in the Roman period were also used in the Anglo Saxon period we can assume that at least some of the techniques used in Roman Britain remained in Anglo Saxon England.

The Stockholm Paypyrus c. 300 AD contains multiple recipe's for mordanting cloth-

Mordanting for Sicilian Purple.
Put in the kettle 8 chus of water, a half a mina of alum, 1 mina of flowers of copper (and) 1 mina of gall-nuts. When it boils put in 1 mina of washed wool. When it has boiled two or three times take the wool out. For when you leave it therein a longer time then the purple becomes red. Take the wool out, however, rinse it out and you will have it mordanted.

Another (Recipe).
Take the wool and clean with soap weed. Take blood stone and put it in a kettle. Put therein previously boiled chalcanthum. Put in the wool previously mordanted in urine, alum, and misy. Lift the wool out, rinse it with salt water, let it become cold, and brighten the purple with gall-nut and hyacinthe. It has a very beautiful foreign appearance.



Dyeing in a Rose Color.
Rose color is dyed in the following way. Smear the rolls of wool with ashes, untie them, and wash the wool in the liquid from potter’s clay. Rinse it out and mordant it as previously described. Rinse it out in salt water after mordanting and use rain water (which is so) warm that you cannot put your hand in it. Then take for each mina of wool a quarter of a mina of roasted and finely pulverized madder and a quarter of a choenix of bean meal. Mix these together by the addition of white oil, pour it into the kettle and stir up. Put the wool in the kettle and again stir incessantly so that it becomes uniform. When it appears to you to have absorbed all the dye liquor, however, brighten it by means of alum, rinse it out again in salt water, and dry it in  the shade with protection from smoke.
(Caley, E. R. 1926)

The Stockholm Papyrus shows use of mordants such as alum, copper and iron all still in use today to mordant fabrics. I have specifically included the above recipe for dyeing a Rose Colour as not only does it use alum as the mordant but it specifically uses madder one of the herbs known to have produced reds and pinks in Migration Period Anglo Saxon finds.

Similar evidence for long term use of Woad can be found. Later in the same text methods for using Woad to produce indigo coloured dye are given.

Dyeing in Dark Blue.

Put about a talent of woad in a tube, which stands in the sun and contains not less than 15 metretes, and pack it in well. Then pour urine in until the liquid rises over the woad and let it be warmed by the sun, but on the following day get the woad ready in a way so that  you (can) tread around in it in the sun until it becomes well moistened. One must do this, however for 3 days together.

Cooking of Woad Charcoal.
Divide the woad charcoal into three parts including that which is above the infused urine. Mix one of the parts in a convenient manner, put it in a pot and build a fire beneath it. You will perceive whether the woad is cooked in the following manner. When it boils, stir carefully and not in a disorderly fashion, so that the woad does not sink down and ruin the kettle. When the woad cracks in the middle the cooking is perfect. You should take away the fire from the underneath, but should nevertheless stir within the pot. Cool the under surface of the pot by sprinkling with cold water. Then take and put it in the vat a half a choenix of soap weed. Pour enough of the cooked woad over (it), lay poles or reeds over the edge of the vat, cover with mats and build a moderate fire under it so that it does not boil over and (yet) does not become cold. Leave it 3 days. Boil up urine with soap weed, skim off the scum, and put in boiled wool. Then rinse off in a convenient manner, press out, card it, and put the wool in the dye liquor. When it appears to you to be right, take the wool out, cover up the vat against and build a fire beneath it in the same way. Put 2 minas of archil in the liquid, after you have boiled the archil and in doing so have skimmed off the scum. Then put the dyed wool in. Rinse off in salt water and cool it off. Dye in blue twice a day, morning and evening, as long as the dye liquor is serviceable.

(Caley, E. R. 1926)

These methods are still commonly used when mordanting and dyeing with vegetable dyes now. Examples of some of the colours that can easily be obtained using herbs known to be available in Migration period England using methods similar to those given in the Stockholm Papyrus can be seen in the image below.

 

Illustration 1: Top- Weld, Mordanted with Alum. Middle- Madder, Mordanted with Alum. Bottom Woad done in a Urine Fermentation Vat.

Barber, W. J. W. 1990. 'Prehistoric Textiles' Princeton University Press, West Sussex, UK.

Caley, E. R. (1926) “The Stockholm Papyrus : An English Translation with brief notes”  Journal of Chemical Education  IV:8 : 979-1002. http://www.clericus.org/etexts/Stockholm%20Papyrus.htm Accessed 18/09/2012

Liles, J. N. 1990. ;The Art and Craft of Natural Dyeing: Traditional Recipes for Modern Use' The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, US.

Walton Rogers, P. 2007. 'Cloth and Clothing in Early Anglo-Saxon England: AD 450-700'. Council for British Archaeology, York, UK.

Types of Cloth available during the Migration Anglo Saxon Period- 5-6th Centuries.

Fibres

Very few textiles have been recovered in the Anglo Saxon period particularly in settlement area's. Those that have been recovered are usually small pieces that are attached to metal objects as part of the finds in a cemetery (Walton Rogers, P. 2007:49). Textiles that are recovered are mostly from graves where a person is buried rather than from where a person may have been cremated Walton (Rogers, P. 2007:50-58). The presence of metal also increases the likelihood that textile finds will be recovered in a grave, due to the preservation of textiles on the back of the goods. All of this means that that there is a bias towards the sort of textiles that evidence is likely to be found for towards those of the wealthy women, because they wear jewellery and those who practise inhumation rather than cremation as a burial rite.

While textile find themselves can be quite rare the difficulty then becomes one of distinguishing between different types of fibres. While both protein/ animal based fibres and plant/ cellulose fibres have distinct differences under a microscope it is often difficult to tell between the different types of fibre because of degradation of the find (Walton Rogers, P. 2007:60). In addition once the fibre has been identified as either a plant or animal based fibre to then distinguish between the types of plant or animal fibre that has been found poses extra difficulties.

Types of fibres that have been found in Migration Period Anglo Saxon burials include;

• Wool
• Horse hair
• Silk
• Flax/ Linen
• Nettle
• Hemp
• Cotton sewing thread, but not fabric has been identified on German sites during this period but not in Anglo Saxon England (Walton Rogers, P. 2007:60-62).

According to Walton Rogers, P. (2007:60) the number of wool and linen textiles found in grave sites is roughly equal. Out of 693 preserved textiles associated with metals 365 were of wool and 328 were of linen. This is not the sum total of all textiles finds from Anglo Saxon Britain but it does give an idea of spread of cloth. From this it can be understood that clothing made from either wool or from linen would be common in the Anglo Saxon migration period.

My Hordweard project is made from wool because of the ease of finding cloth of this type ready made and for the coat because of the availability of quantities of sheep wool that is available for spinning and weaving. To prepare flax for spinning into linen and to obtain enough quantity was not within the scope of my project at this stage.

Grading of Cloth

Textiles in the Migration Anglo Saxon period were less coarse than is often portrayed. Thread counts indicate that cloth of the style known as tabby had thread counts between 12 threads per cm and for 2/2 twill cloth had thread counts of between 8-14 threads per centimetre. Most commonly these thread counts were the same for both warp (the long threads set up on a loom going from one end of the cloth to another) and weft (the thread going across the loom and filling the gaps between the warp threads). Occasionally the warp threads had a slightly higher thread count than the weft threads (Walton Rogers, P. 2007:76).

My Anglo Saxon coat is woven in a tabby with a warp count of 4 and a weft count of 6 threads per centimetre. This is due to my ability, as this is my first large scale woven project and also to due to the capabilities of my loom.

The cloth that I will be using for the undergarments is a commercial cloth with thread counts of 12-16x12-16 threads.

Types of Weave

Anglo Saxon weaves are broken down into two different types of weaves tabby and twill and variations of each (Walton Rogers, P. 2007:67-77).

A tabby weave also known as a plain weave, is very strong especially when close set, this is because its over-one under-one structure produces the maximum internal friction in the cloth (Alderman, S. 2004:3).

 

Illustration 1: (Moller-Wiering, S. 2011:XV)

Twill is a fabric where either a warp end or a weft thread (pick) passes over or under two or more consecutive threads in a cloth creating what is known as a float. Where these floats sit creates the characteristic features of twill cloth (Alderman, S. 2004:25).

The cloth I am using for the my undergarments will be of wool in a tabby weave. The under-dress will be of a naturally pigmented wool in an off white colour. The over-dress will be of a wool dyed blue a colour that was starting to become more popular for fine fabrics towards the 6^th and 7^th centuries. Blue wool was found in a fine fabric with a 10-14 x 10 ZZ tabby in a sixth century Anglo Saxon grave (Walton Rogers, P. 2007:68).

Illustration 2: (Moller-Wiering, S. 2011:XV)

While my woven coat is of tabby a coat that I am making for the Hordweard as proof of concept will be of chevron twill with a 9x11 warp and weft.

I have mentioned this before but just for clarification the threads in an Anglo Saxon Migration period weave are not plied this makes it easier to weave a finer cloth but makes the threads, known as singles, harder to handle while weaving as the strength of a non-plied yarn, especially in wool, is much less than the strength of a plied yarn.

According to Walton Rogers, P. (2007:70) the single most common cloth found in Anglo Saxon graves was of twill with the threads spun with a Z twist for both the warp and the weft. Most of these examples are from the Migration period. Their thread counts range from 6x5 to 20x18 threads per centimetre. The majority of these fabrics are of wools that are naturally pigmented with either brown or black with dye found on only five of over 900 examples of twill cloth. This indicates that dyed fabrics were extremely rare and that large area's of cloth during the Migration period were almost certainly coloured based upon the natural pigmentation of the fibres available.

While pigmentation was rare it was slightly more common, although not extremely common to use a variety of different pigmented fibres to create stripes and patterns in the fabric (Walton Rogers, P. 2007:70-75).

The coat that I will be making as proof of concept uses natural pigments in dark brown and mid brown to create texture and some patterning in the fabric.

Finish of the Fabric

Fulling of fabric is the process of cleaning the fabric and felting it slightly so that it holds together and so that it becomes more weather proof (Barber, W. J. W. 1990:220-221). While it is difficult to tell if Migration Period Anglo Saxon cloth has been fulled the evidence seems to suggest that if fulling did occur that it was minimal.

Having said that the evidence for the knowledge of fulling prior to the Anglo Saxon period is extensive and it is difficult to see why knowledge of this skill, one that would help to weather proof clothing during cold wet winters in England would have entirely disappeared.

During the earlier Roman period fulling was a large scale industrial activity undertaken in workshops. The process was began with individuals standing in large tub's treading cloth underfoot to loosen dirt and to allow the cleansing agents to penetrate the fabric. The cheapest cleansing agent was stale urine which was often collected from passers by in the streets. Once the woollen cloth was

cleansed it was hung out to dry. From there the nap could be raised using teasel or by hand (Wild, J. P. 1970:82-85). While there may be limited knowledge of fulling during the Anglo Saxon period at least five of the ZZ twill fabrics from the Anglo Saxon Migration period show evidence of a finish that includes raising of the nap. This tends to indicate that fulling of some sort was occasionally undertaken during this period (Walton Rogers, P. 2007:70).

Other evidence for possible fulling in the Anglo Saxon period is the use of the Anglo-Saxon word wealcan meaning to roll or toss about coming from the process of fulling wool (Barber, W. J. W. 1990:216). The work walk descends from this origin. While this suggests that fulling was used at some stage during the Anglo Saxon period it does not necessarily mean that fulling was undertaken during the Migration period.

While our knowledge of how much cloth may or may not have been fulled during the Migration period is limited it is reasonable to suppose that at least a minimal degree of fulling was done. I will be slightly fulling my coat once the weaving process is finished purely so that the cloth holds together. Handwoven fabric can unravel substantially once cut. To prevent the disintegration of my handwoven fabric I intend to slightly full it before cutting. This will also add to the weather proofing of my coat and help to minimise shrinkage. I will be fulling at an amount that would happen naturally due to wear and tear of cloth being used as a coat for day to day purposes. The twill I will be using for my proof of concept coat is also fulled to a similar amount, all threads can be seen individually but the fibres interlock slightly due to the fulling process.

Alderman, S. 2004 'Mastering Weave Structures: Transforming Ideas into Great Cloth'. Interweave Press LLC, Loveland, Colorado, USA.

Barber, W. J. W. 1990. 'Prehistoric Textiles' Princeton University Press, West Sussex, UK.

Möller-Wiering, S. 2011. 'War and Worship: Textiles from 3^rd to 4^th century AD Weapon Deposits in Denmark and Northern Germany'. Oxbow Books, Oxford, UK.

Walton Rogers, P. 2007. 'Cloth and Clothing in Early Anglo-Saxon England: AD 450-700'. Council for British Archaeology, York, UK.

Wild, J. P. 1970 'Textile Manufacture in the Northern Roman Provinces' Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Weaving

During the Early Anglo Saxon period the main form of large cloth weaving was the Warp Weighted Loom (Walton Rogers, 2007:28-29). This type of loom was thought to have first been used about the 14^th Century BC when it is first depicted upon rock art at Naquane, in the Camonica Valley in northern Italy (Barber. 1992:91-93). By the mid 3^rd millennium BC we have direct archaeological evidence for warp weighted looms in the form of weights and post holes (Barber. 1992:91-93).

A warp weighted loom is set up in such a way that the warp is held in place by what is known as as shed bar and heddle bars. The Shed is a bar about two thirds of the way down the loom that holds some threads out at an angle compared to the other threads that are left to drop straight towards the ground. Because of the lean on the loom this creates what is known as a shed, a gap between two sets of yarn.

Lower on the loom are heddle bars. These have strings tied to them and can sit into the heddle supports or can be held by the hand while the shuttle is passed through the shed. The heddles are the strings tied around the heddle bars. These are then looped around the lower yarn that is not held forward by the shed bar. When the heddle bars are pulled forward the heddles pull the lower yarn through and the shed is changed.

For good examples of how to build a warp weighted loom and the different sort of weaves that can be done on a warp weighted loom go http://www.illuminatedspaces.com/historicarts/wwl.htm

For a video on on construction and use of a warp weighted loom.

Once a loom was warped up weaving during the Anglo Saxon period comprised of passing the shuttle between the warp threads by using the sheds created by movement of the heddles and heddle bars. This movement would be alternated so that a weaving pattern could be achieved. Different patterns could be achieved based upon the number of heddle bars tied onto the warp threads and how the heddle bars were set up.

Once the shuttle with the thread wound around it was passed through the shed it was then beaten up by a weaving baton. These were in the shape of a sword and were used to beat the weft into place. (Walton Rogers and Riddle. 2006:3-4).

This form of weaving could be done on both a wide loom and on a thin loom. However if using a wide loom there are restrictions as it is very hard to pass the shuttle through from one side to another unless the loom is restricted to about 65-75 cm in width. It is therefore likely that any cloth woven on a loom wider than this would need at least two people to participate in the weaving. This is certainly backed up by diagrams showing one person on each side of a larger loom (Barber. 1992:106).

For reasons of speed, convenience and access my weaving has not been done on a warp weighted loom. Instead it has been done on an upright loom. While this has a similar way of constructing the cloth, by using an upright loom, the details of how this are done are different. My loom beats the weft threads down on the loom instead of up. This plus the weight of the reed on my upright loom changes the rations of the warp to weft threads resulting in a slightly different cloth. Details of the types of cloth available during the Migration Anglo Saxon period are for another post. However to view my loom and weaving watch the embedded video.

Barber. E, 1992. Prehistoric Textiles: The Development of Cloth in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, USA.

Walton Rogers, P. 2007. 'Cloth and Clothing in Early Anglo-Saxon England: AD 450-700'. council for British Archaeology, York, UK.

Walton Rogers, P. and Riddler, I. 2006. Early Anglo-Saxon textile manufacturing implements

from Saltwood Tunnel, Kent. CTRL Specialist Report Series. Channel Tunnel Rail Link London and Continental Railways Oxford Wessex Archaeology Joint Venture. London and Continental Railways, UK.

Preparing the Fibre for Spinning

Although I have been continuing my Hordewearde research my blogging is way behind where my research is up to. My production is ahead of my blogging but also well behind my research. Currently my production includes; 30+ balls of yarn, I lost count somewhere. 6 drop spindles worth of white yarn to be dyed for the tablet woven boarders and two bobbins worth of silk for the headband if I decide to do it and actually get that far. I have also woven almost a meter of cloth.

So my yarn is being done with both a drop spindle and a spinning wheel depending upon what part of my garment I am spinning. But aside from explaining my reasoning for what I am spinning and why I have not actually spoken much about the construction of yarn and what decisions I have made as far as constructing my yarn goes.

The notation for spun yarn is usually given in the terms Z or S. Z twist is when the spindle or wheel on a spinning wheel has been rotated in a clockwise direction. S is when the spindle or wheel on the spinning wheel has been rotated in the anticlockwise direction. (Walton Rogers. 2007:66-67).

There are a number of different ways to prepare wool for spinning. During the Early Anglo Saxon period combs were used to comb out the fibre so that it could be spun. Very few early Anglo Saxon combs have been found but they were probably very similar to the Roman combs that are found on many Roman sites where textiles are manufactured. Using this is a guide it was probable that wool was prepared during the Early Anglo Saxon period in the same way that it was prepared during the Roman period where a handful of fibre was pulled through the teeth of a short toothed comb of the type displayed here http://www.allfiberarts.com/library/graphics/roman/roman507.jpg (Walton Rogers. 2007: 15).

There are two main types of spun yarn that are produced depending upon the type of carding and spinning that are done. These are worsted and woollen yarn. Worsted is a smooth and strong yarn that is durable and long wearing. Woollen yarn is a softer yarn and does not last as long (Robson and Ekarius 2009:19). The type of yarn that is produced depends very much on the way that the fibre is prepared in the combing or carding stage. Combing helps to align the fibres so that they are parallel to each other. This produces a worsted style of fibre (Robson and Ekarius 2009:24)

During this project to save time I have used pre-carded wool. Pre-carded wool aligns all of the fibres together and produces a worsted wool similar to the process of combing during the Anglo Saxon period.

When weaving the most common sort of cloth found in Early Anglo Saxon burials is what is known as a ZZ tabby. Tabby is a very simple weave structure where the weft passes under and over individual warp threads one at at time. This is the type of weaving that most people will have seen or done in Primary School.

Diagram produced by Jauncourt http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tabby1asm.png 

A ZZ tabby is one where both the warp and the weft are spun with a Z twist and the yarn is not plied. Plying is the process of spinning two yarns together usually using the opposite twist so the way the singles (single yarns) were spun. For example if I had two Z spun singles I would ply them together using an S twist.

Next blog I will discuss more about weaving in particular the type of weaving that I am doing and why I have made the choices to use the tools that I have chosen to use.

Robson, D and Ekarius, C 2009. The Fleece and Fibre Sourcebook: More than 200 Fibres from Animals to Spun Yarn. Storey Publishing, North Adams, MA. USA

Walton Rogers, P. 1997. Textile Production at 16-22 Coppergate. The Archaeology of York The Small Finds. Volume 17: The Small Finds. General Editor: P.V. Addyman. http://woeka.no-ip.org/byfrost/AY17-11-Textile%20Production.pdf (accessed 15/02/2012)

Walton Rogers, P. 2007. Cloth and Clothing in Early Anglo-Saxon England. AD 450-700. Council for British Archaeology, UK.

Spinning and Wool Preparation

Once the fleece has come off the sheep it needs to be prepared. During the 6^th Century Anglo Saxon period this was probably done by using an upright comb. At this stage there is no archaeological evidence for exactly how this was done during the early Anglo Saxon period (Walton Roger, P. 2007:15). However it is known that the Roman's used an upright woolcomb fixed to a table or stand or just held as can be seen in the photographs on this site http://www.allfiberarts.com/library/aa04/aa062304.htm

Once the fleece was combed it could be used for spinning. Wool spinning was done using a spindle and whorl. There are lots of examples of Anglo Saxon spindle whorls. They are one of the most common of grave finds and always associated with women (Walton Roger, P. 2007:.23). To get an idea of the size of a spindle whorl go to http://www.suffolk.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/B83F49AD-64E1-4917-B8D6-CDA5FF798D67/0/SpinningandWeaving.pdf this pdf gives 1:1 drawings of grave finds used for spinning and weaving during the Anglo Saxon period.

Spindle whorls have been found in Anglo Saxon graves made from a wide variety of materials such as bone, clay, lead and antler (Crowfoot, E. and Hawkes, S. C 1967:69, 75, 79, 80) crystal and glass (http://www.kornbluthphoto.com/HistoricalBeads1.html). The most commonly found spindle whorl, as can be seen by the embedded movie are lead. This is not because this was the most commonly used material as this short piece incorrectly observes but because these are the easiest for us to find because they can be found through metal detection, for that reason this clip focuses on them.

Spindle whorls are classified according to their shape and when they were used. A good overview of the shape of spindle whorls can be found in Walton Rogers book (2007:25). The spindle whorls I use for some of my spinning are based on the A1, B2 and B3 categories which were all common during the 5^th and 6^th centuries. They have a spindle shaft made out of Mulberry. I have used Mulberry because it was available during the Anglo Saxon period as can be seen by its use in medicine during that period (Delacourt, J. 1914:On the Mulberry Tree). It is extremely rare for spindle shafts to be found, this is thought to be because they were made out of wood and so decompose easily leaving just the whorl as part of the grave finds (Walton Roger, P. 2007:23). 

Replica Spindle whorls showing shapes that were common during the Anglo Saxon 5th and 6th Centuries.

Replica Spindle whorls showing shapes that were common during the Anglo Saxon 5th and 6th Centuries.

 The whorls were made by Flamming Gargoyle Pottery http://flaminggargoyle.multiply.com/

It seemed reasonable to assume that any wood that came to hand could be used as a spindle. So when making my spindles to be used for SCA events and for spinning the fibre for my tablet woven bands I have used a wood that was commonly available during the 5^th to 6^th century Anglo Saxon period.

Completed drop spindles. Using Mulberry wood for the spindle shafts.

Although spinning wheels were not introduced until 1287 (McNabb, W.J. 2004¶5) I have utilised a spinning wheel for this project. For the smaller amount of spinning that will be used for the tablet woven bands I have used a drop spindle. This is because I can do a finer thread using a spindle and because I need a lot less thread to make the tablet woven bands. However for the majority of the outfit that I am creating I need a large amount of thread. With my non-cloth making commitments I simply do not have the time required to make all of that thread using a drop spindle.

Spinning the bulk of my thread on the modern spinning wheel.

1. Crowfoot, E and Hawkes, S. C. 1967. 'Early Anglo-Saxon Gold Braids' Medieval Archaeology, 11 (1967), pp. 42-86.
2. Delacourt, J. (Ed) 1914. Medicinea De Quadrupedibus http://www.archive.org/stream/medicinadequadru00delcuoft/medicinadequadru00delcuoft_djvu.txt (accessed 1/11/2011)
3. Kornbluth Photography 2011. http://www.kornbluthphoto.com/HistoricalBeads1.html
4. McNabb, W. J. 2004 'Spinning and Spinning Wheels: A Brief History of Machines for Making Thread and Yarn' http://www.crofters.org/personal%20essays/spinning.htm (accessed 1/11/2011)
5. Walton Rogers, P. 2007. 'Cloth and Clothing in Early Anglo-Saxon England: AD 450-700'. council for British Archaeology, York, UK.