From fleece to fabric
Wool was the main clothing fiber of medieval Europe, with linen second and silk and cotton luxury or imported goods in most regions. Turning a fleece into a piece of cloth took many separate steps and many workers, and cloth became the leading manufacturing industry in several regions, including parts of England, Flanders and Italy. Few other products involved so many trades in a single chain.
Sheep and the wool supply
Sheep were kept on manors, monastic estates and peasant holdings. Some religious houses, such as Cistercian monasteries in England and elsewhere, kept large flocks and sold wool in bulk. Sheep were sheared in early summer, and the fleeces were sorted by quality, since wool from different parts of the animal and from different breeds differed in length, fineness and softness. Long-staple wool suited some types of cloth, short-staple wool others.
The wool trade became a major source of income and tax. Raw wool from England was exported in large amounts to weaving centers in Flanders and Italy, and the Crown taxed it. The details of customs rates and the wool staple, the designated markets for export, changed repeatedly. The later growth of English cloth manufacture meant that more wool was woven at home rather than shipped abroad, although this took place over a long period.
Preparing the wool
Raw fleeces were dirty and greasy. They were washed, then beaten or picked over to remove debris. Wool for dyeing was often dyed at this stage, with the natural dyes of the period. Next the fibers needed to be aligned. Carding with toothed boards or combing with heated metal combs separated and straightened the fibers. Combed wool tends to give smooth, strong worsted yarn; carded wool gives softer, fuzzier woolen yarn. Oil, often olive oil or butter in some regions, was worked in to ease handling.
Spinning
Spinning turned the prepared fibers into yarn. For much of the Middle Ages, the main tool was the drop spindle with a distaff for holding the fiber. A spinner drew fibers out, twisted them using the spindle’s weight and wound the finished yarn. The spinning wheel appeared in Europe around the later 13th century, according to most historians, and spread in the following centuries, speeding the work. Yet hand spindles remained in use for a long time.
Spinning was extremely common work for women, so much so that the word spinster originally described a woman who spun. It could be done at home between other tasks, and it provided income for poor women, widows and rural households. Because weavers needed far more yarn than a single weaver could produce alone, a large number of spinners was required to supply each loom. The part played by women and work is a central feature of the cloth trade, even though the highest positions in guilds were often held by men.
Weaving
Weavers worked on looms. In the early Middle Ages, upright warp-weighted looms were used in some areas. The horizontal treadle loom, operated with foot pedals that raised and lowered sets of warp threads, spread across Europe in the high Middle Ages and allowed more efficient weaving. The weaver passed the weft thread through the warp with a shuttle and packed it down with a beater. Wide looms required two people.
Cloth came in many types, with names that varied by place and are hard to match precisely to modern descriptions. Broadcloth was a wide woven fabric that was later fulled and finished. Lighter, cheaper textiles were also made. A weaver’s household shop might employ journeymen and family members, and in some towns weavers formed a distinct craft guild with particular standards for width, length and thread counts.
Fulling and finishing
Woven wool cloth was loose and greasy, and it needed to be cleaned and thickened. Fulling involved soaking the cloth in water with a cleaning agent, such as fuller’s earth or stale urine, and pounding it so that the fibers matted. Early fullers trampled the cloth by foot in troughs. In the later medieval period, many regions adopted water-powered fulling mills, in which wooden hammers pounded the cloth. These mills were among the first widespread mechanized industrial processes, and they were part of the wider growth of watermills and windmills. Fulling mills sometimes moved cloth making toward rural, stream-side locations, where guild controls were weaker.
After fulling, cloth was stretched on tenter frames to dry, a practice that gave rise to the phrase “on tenterhooks.” Shearers raised the nap with teasels and trimmed it with large shears to make a smooth surface. The cloth might be dyed at this stage, pressed, and inspected. Official seals were attached in some towns to show that the length and quality met local standards.
Organizing the industry
A cloth industry required coordination. In many places, clothiers or merchant entrepreneurs bought wool, handed it out to spinners, collected the yarn, paid weavers, sent the cloth to fullers and dyers, and sold the finished product. This arrangement, in which a merchant supplies materials to home workers, is often called the putting-out system. It tended to make craftspeople dependent on the merchant for work, and it grew in several regions in the late Middle Ages.
Cloth was sold at local markets and at trade fairs, where merchants from many regions gathered. Great cloth towns of Flanders and Italy became wealthy and politically powerful, and their disputes over wages and work conditions occasionally led to unrest. Wool and cloth also fed the fortunes of merchants whose merchant wealth shaped urban politics.
Quality, regulation and change
Town authorities and guilds regulated dimensions, thread quality and finishing. Cloth stretched, shrunk or shoddily made was liable to be seized or fined. These rules intended to protect both customers and the reputation of a town’s product.
The industry did not stay the same. After the Black Death in the 14th century reduced the labor force, wages in some places rose, and some producers turned to cheaper, lighter cloth. Shifts in trade routes, taxation and competition among regions changed which centers were strong. Specific figures for output are uncertain because records are incomplete, so historians usually give ranges and hedge general claims.