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Scarlet was a type of fine and expensive woollen cloth common in Medieval Europe. In the assessment of John Munro, 'the medieval scarlet was therefore a very high-priced, luxury, woollen broadcloth, invariably woven from the finest English wools, and always dyed with kermes, even if mixed with woad, and other dyestuffs. There is no evidence for the use of the term scarlet for any other textile, even though other textiles, especially silks, were also dyed with kermes.'
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The Ciompi Revolt was a rebellion among unrepresented labourers which occurred in the Republic of Florence, from 1378 to 1382. Those who revolted consisted of artisans, labourers, and craftsmen who did not belong to any guilds and were therefore unable to participate in the Florentine government. These labourers had grown increasingly resentful over the established patrician oligarchy. In addition, they were expected to pay heavy taxes which they could not afford, forcing some to abandon their homes. The resulting insurrection over such tensions led to the creation of a government composed of wool workers and other disenfranchised workers which lasted for three and a half years.
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Broadcloth is a dense, plain woven cloth, historically made of wool. The defining characteristic of broadcloth is not its finished width but the fact that it was woven much wider and then heavily milled in order to shrink it to the required width. The effect of the milling process is to draw the yarns much closer together than could be achieved in the loom and allow the individual fibres of the wool to bind together in a felting process, which results in a dense, blind face cloth with a stiff drape which is highly weather-resistant, hard wearing and capable of taking a cut edge without the need for being hemmed.
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The medieval English wool trade was one of the most important factors in the medieval English economy. The medievalist John Munro notes that "[n]o form of manufacturing had a greater impact upon the economy and society of medieval Britain than did those industries producing cloths from various kinds of wool." The trade's liveliest period, 1250–1350, was 'an era when trade in wool had been the backbone and driving force in the English medieval economy'.
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The Shrewsbury Drapers Company was a trade organisation founded in 1462 in the town of Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. The members were wholesale dealers in wool and later woollen cloth. The Company dominated the trade in Welsh cloth and in 1566 was given a regional monopoly in the Welsh Wool trade. In the seventeenth century the trade had difficulties particularly during the English Civil war and then further declined in the eighteenth century with the industrialisation of cloth production and the improvement of transport infrastructure. This made it practical for merchants from Liverpool and elsewhere to travel into Wales and purchase cloth directly from the producers. The Reform Acts of the early nineteenth century took away the power of the trade guilds and the trade ceased. Since that time the Shrewsbury Drapers Company has survived and continues as a charity that runs almshouses in Shrewsbury.
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The textile industry in Aachen has a history that dates back to the Middle Ages. The Imperial city of Aachen was the main woolen center of the Rhineland. Certain kind of woolens made there were illustrated as "Aachen fine cloth". These high-quality fine woolens have a plain weave structure using carded merino wool yarns, and a raised surface. The production of high-quality, fine cloth required fine foreign wool and skilled craftsmen and was reserved for town craftsmen. It involved regulated steps including sorting, combing, washing, spinning, fulling, dyeing, shearing, and pressing the wool. The finished products were inspected and authorized with a town trademark before being sold and exported. Fine cloth was a major export in the Middle Ages.
Agnes li Patiniere was a 13th-century Flemish cloth-dyer in Douai. In 1286, along with 44 other employees, she sued her employer, a wool merchant called Jehanne Boinebroke, complaining of unpaid wages, underparyment, unfair property seizures and evictions without proper cause.
References
- 1 2 John H. Munro, 'Medieval Woollens: Textiles, Textile Technology and Industrial Organisation, c. 800-1500', in The Cambridge History of Western Textiles, Volume 1, ed. by D. T. Jenkins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 181-227 (219).
- ↑ Lloyd, T. H. (2005) [1977]. The English Wool Trade in the Middle Ages. London, New York and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. pp. 36–39. ISBN 978-0-521-01721-3.
- ↑ Mansfield, Mary (2005) [1995]. The Humiliation of Sinners: Public Penance in Thirteenth-Century France. Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press. p. 252. ISBN 978-1-5017-2468-8.
- ↑ Castel, Robert (2003). From Manual Workers to Wage Laborers: Transformation of the Social Question. New Brunswick, NJ and London: Transaction Publishers. p. 458. ISBN 978-1-4128-5134-3.
- ↑ Ennen, Edith (1987). Die europäische Stadt des Mittelalters (in German). Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. p. 178. ISBN 978-3-525-01341-0.
- ↑ Howell, Martha C. (2009) [1988]. Women, Production, and Patriarchy in Late Medieval Cities. Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press. p. 108. ISBN 978-0-226-35506-1.
- ↑ Derville, Alain (1997). "Les élites urbaines en Flandre et en Artois". In Société des historiens médiévistes de l'enseignement supérieur (ed.). Les élites urbaines au Moyen âge: XXVIIe Congrès de la SHMES (Rome, mai 1996) (in French). Paris, France: Publications de la Sorbonne. p. 125. ISBN 978-2-85944-329-0.