Yarn for 16th Century Wool Stockings

Grazia Morgano

29 June A.S. XLVII

1 Entry Contents

Included is a sample of raw wool, a lock of clean wool, a skein of spun yarn, anda knitted swatch for gauge comparison.

2 What it is

This is stocking yarn for 16th century nether stocks. It is worsted-spun 2-plyyarn made from the wool of a brown-black Leicester Longwool lamb.

3 Background

3.1 Wool

Historians believe the English Longwool family of sheep breeds was broughtto Britain by the Romans some time before the fifth century. The Leicesters(including Leicester Longwool, Border Leicester, and Bluefaced Leicester) arethe foundation of the English Longwool family today, though they are not thewhole of it[6, p. 83]. Leicester Longwools today are known for the strength anddurability of their fiber[6, p. 94] M.L. Ryder’s study of sheep breeds for theAgricultural History Review gives Romney, Cotswold, and the Lincoln and Le-icester Longwools (by way of the Midland Longwools) as the descendants of theMedieval Longwools. He gives the Romney and Cotswolds as the most ancientbreeds in Britain. The Leicesters have undergone more selective breeding sincethe 18th century[9, p. 9-11].

3.2 Fleece preparation

Wool, fresh off the sheep, is full of “yolk,” a combination of grease (lanolin)and suint (sweat). There also tends to be bits of grass and other plant matterstuck in the fleece. It is possible to spin in the grease, but if there is too muchyolk, the wool can clump up[1, p. 28]. Ammonia has been a common cleaner formillenia, so it is no surprise that 18th century instructions for scouring a fleececall for urine as a source of ammonia in cleaning the wool. Oil would be addedback to the wool once it was cleaned to make combing and spinning easier[1,p. 30]. According to Robin Russo the oiling is to make the resulting combedtop smoother and keep static from forming during the combing process[7]

Both combing and carding fibers were done in the Renaissance. Combinginvolves moving two combs with a row or several of long teeth against eachother in perpendicular directions to transfer the fiber from one comb to theother. This can be seen in Figure 1 on page 6. Combing would separate thelonger fibers from the short ones, leaving little “tufts of fuzz.” The long combedfibers were pulled from the combs into a long “rope” of fiber called a sliverthrough a ring called a diz[1, p. 34]. The long fibers could be spun as is, whilethe short ones would then be carded to prepare them for spinning. Carding

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involves scraping the short fibres with wire tools[4, p. 79]. Carding can be seenin Figure 2 on page 6.

3.3 Spinning yarn

There are two main ways to prepare and spin wool. Today, these are known aswoolen and worsted. Worsted yarns are the result of combing the wool fibersso that they lay parallel. The fiber is then spun using short movements whendrafting (separating the fibers), and pinching with the hand to prevent twistfrom entering the fiber supply. This is called short-draw[2].

Woolen yarns are the result of carding the fibers, so they are untangled, butwhen the fiber is rolled off the cards into rolags they cease to be parallel (if theywere to start with). Woolen spinning is done by getting a large amount of twistinto the yarn nearest the spinning wheel then pulling the rolled up fibers outaway from the wool in a long motion, so that the fibers are trapped in the twistin whatever position they happen to have been in the handful. They do not lieparallell, so the yarn produced is loftier. This is called the long-draw. Thereare intermediary stages depending on how much care is taken in each step, howmuch skill the spinner has, and exactly what result the spinner wants[2].

The first spinning wheels in Europe were spindle wheels, turned using onehand while the other performed a long-draw, creating woolen yarn. This canbe seen in Figure 3 on page 7, an excerpt from the Luttrell Psalter. The yarnwould then be wound onto the wheel’s spindle manually, as with a drop spindle.Woolen yarns are weaker than worsted yarns due to their loftier shape andlower twist, so they were unsuitable for use as the warp thread on a loom andactually banned from use for warping in Speyer[1, p. 53]. This weakness wouldalso make them a poor choice for high-stress, high-wear articles of clothing suchas stockings.

Wheels capable of spinning long fibers were soon invented. These are some-times called “linen wheels” or “flax wheels” and had a flyer mechanism to windthe yarn onto a bobbin as it was spun. The fact that the wheel wound the yarnitself meant the spinner did not need to stop their spinning to wind the yarn byhand[1, p. 69]. By the middle of the 16th century, the use of linen wheel waswidespread. A widow who died in 1585 is recorded to have owned “two woollenwheels, two linnen wheels and a little fine linnen wheel with frame for fringe”[1,p. 90]. Modern spinning wheels continue to use the flyer/bobbin construction.

Distaffs appear to have been used to hold wool (just like linen), allowing fora short draw from the distaff[1, p. 88]. The timing of the addition of the foottreadle, freeing up both hands to draft the fibers with a short-draw, is unknown.Meister Jurgen Spinnrad was credited in the 18th century for introducing in the1530s the version of the spinning wheel used in Brunswick, but it is unknownexactly which changes he made to spinning wheel construction. Some historiansbelieve the foot treadle was his invention. The earliest illustration of a wheelwith a foot treadle is from 1604[1, p. 91-92].

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3.4 Use of yarn for stockings

Knitted stockings became popular in the 16th century, first for children andworkers. Records of George Medley of Tilty’s account books show that he pur-chased knit hosen for his nephew in 1550 and his kitchen boy in 1572[8, p. 65].In 1552 Parliament under Edward VI passed Acts of Parliament pertaining to“knitte hose,”[10, p. 26] implying they had some economic importance by thistime[8, p. 65]. Elizabeth also encouraged England’s wool trading in worstedstockings[10, p. 26], including the establishment of knitting schools and pro-grams for inmates to knit them[8, p. 76]. Knit wool stockings were commonenough for women that by 1586 Mary Queen of Scots wore “nether stocks ofworsted” over “Jersey hose white” at her execution[8, p. 66].

Wool was not the only material used for knit hose. Edward VI receivedSpanish silk stockings as a gift, as did Elizabeth. Silk hose were out of reach ofall but the wealthiest[8, p. 66-8]. Elizabeth oversaw the popularity of knit woolhose rise to the point that England was producing them for export to Germany,France, Italy, Holland, and Spain[8, p. 75]

Examples of extant knitted wool stockings prior to 1600 could not be found;however, the stockings found on a Gunnister, Shetland man in a peat bog canbe dated to the 1680s or 1690s based on the coinage in the man’s pocket. Thisis a bit late, but it is still before modern industrialization of yarn production.These stockings are knit from a “heavy 2-ply of mixed dark brown and blackfibres, knitted in the round at 71/2 stitches to the inch” wool yarn[8, p. 168]. Theyarn is described in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotlandas being “spun S,” referring to the direction of the twist of the single strandsmaking up the yarn. The spinning and the knitting are both described as “veryeven,” and the additional information that there were 10 rows of stitching perinch is given[5, p. 37].

Another pair of boot stockings dating to the 1640s exists in the Victoria& Albert Museum. This pair is also knit from 2-ply yarn, and there are 140stitches at the knee[11]. The gauge at which they were knit is not mentionedin the Victoria & Albert Museum’s description of the stockings, but 10 stitchesper inch seems reasonable by comparison to an actual knee.

4 This item

Most commercial combed top available on the modern market is Merino wool.Merino is a finewool, too weak to make socks that will last. The breed did existin the Middle Ages, but it was a Spanish breed[6, p. 135]. The rare LeicesterLongwool breed’s wool was purchased from a nearby shepherd after seeing thesheep being sheared (Figure 4 on page 7) because it is a known descendant ofthe medieval English Longwools.

First the wool was scoured. Due to concerns about biological processes, amodern detergent was used instead of stale urine. Two washes were done inwarm water with soap to remove the yolk, then the fleece was rinsed several

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times (Figure 5 on page 8). The fleece was allowed to air dry(Figure 6 onpage 8).

By feeling the wool, it was apparent the wool had not been completelystripped of its natural oil (lanolin), so it did not need to be oiled to comb easily.

Next, combs were borrowed from Baroness Rosalind Bennett so the woolcould be combed. The locks of wool were moved from comb to comb, movingthe combs in a perpendicular fashion, separating the fibers and allowing smallpieces of vegetable matter to fall out (Figure 7 on page 9). This aligned thefibers (Figure 8 on page 9). Then the wool was pulled from the combs into sliver(Figure 9 on page 10).

The wool was spun into fine singles, with the goal of creating a 2-ply yarnof a suitable thickness for period stockings. Most of the spinning was doneusing the two-hand drafting method common with treadle wheels (Figure 10 onpage 10), but some of it was spun with only one hand drafting the fibers froman inanimate object (in this case the comb acts as a distaff), as was done beforethe invention of treadle wheels (Figure 11 on page 11).

When two bobbins were filled with yarn, they were plied together, creatinga 2-ply yarn. The initial spinning was done with the wheel spinning counter-clockwise, creating a S-twist single. Plying is done in the opposite direction,to make the singles twist around each other, similar to rope. This strength-ens the yarn[2]. The plied yarn was then wound off the bobbin using a niddynoddy, similar to that shown in Pieter Pietersz’s 16th century painting “Manand Woman by the Spinning Wheel” (Figure 12 on page 11). The skein wastied together with handspun linen thread.

The resulting skein of yarn was then re-washed in hot water. This removesthe dirt and oils that accumulated from the spinner’s hands while spinning,and it sets the twist of the fibers so they are stable and will not be inclined tountwist[3]. This also gives it a chance preshrink before knitting.

A swatch of stocking stitch was knitted on size 1.75mm knitting needles. Theswatch is 40 stitches by 10 rows, or 6”x1” when pulled down from the needle,for a gauge of 7st/in and 10 rows/in (though knitting does stretch one directionwhile shrinking the other direction).

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References

[1] Patricia Baines. Spinning Wheels, Spinners and Spinning. B.T. BatsfordLimited, 1977.

[2] Abby Franquemont. Drafting: the long and short of it. DVD, 2009.

[3] Abby Franquemont. Respect the spindle. DVD, 2009.

[4] John Rigby Hale. Renaissance. Time, Inc., 1965.

[5] Audrey S. Henshall, M.A. F.S.A.ScoT. and Stuart Maxwell,M.A. F.S.A.ScoT. Clothing and other articles from a late 17th-centurygrave at gunnister, shetland. Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries ofScotland, 1952.

[6] Deborah Robson and Carol Ekarius. The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook.Storey, 2011.

[7] Robin Russo. Combing fiber. DVD, 2012.

[8] Richard Rutt. A History of Hand Knitting. Interweave Press, Inc., 1987.

[9] M.L. Ryder. The history of sheep breeds in britain. The AgriculturalHistory Review, 12(1), 1964.

[10] Irena Turnau. History of Knitting before Mass Production. Instytut HistoriiKultury Materialnej, 1991.

[11] Unknown. Pair of hose. http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O107795/pair-of-hose/. T.63&A-1910.

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Figure 1: Weaving, spinning, and combing flax. MS Fr. 598, f. 70v, BibliothequeNationale, Paris; 15th c. France

Figure 2: Weaving, spinning, carding wool, and combing flax. MS Royal 16 Gv, f.56, British Library, London; 15th c. France

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Figure 3: Woman spinning on the great or walking wheel. Luttrell Psalter, BritishLibrary, London; 14th c. England

Figure 4: Leicester Longwool lamb and its fleece, just after shearing

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Figure 5: Raw wool soaking in warm soapy water

Figure 6: Freshly-washed wool drying

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Figure 7: Small pieces of vegetable matter fall out of the wool during the combingprocess

Figure 8: The wool fibers are aligned and the luster is apparent when it is freshlycombed

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Figure 9: Pulling the wool from the combs through a washer being used as a diz

Figure 10: Using one hand to hold the fiber supply while the other hand drafts fromit

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Figure 11: Propping the fiber supply on an inanimate object from which one handdrafts the fibers

Figure 12: Pieter Pietersz, c1570, “Man and Woman by the Spinning Wheel”

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