Laurel Ann Wilson, Center for Medieval Studies at Fordham University

Volga to Vinland: Early medieval dress & textiles 9 November, 2024

The advent of the horizontal loom in Europe, which dates to the early eleventh century, led to the development of a different kind of cloth industry, one so extensive that it became knwn as the “grande industrie.” This industry, and the fine woolen broadcloth which was its main product, were among the primary catalysts for the enormous social and economic changes which are often referred to as the Commercial Revolution. The development of a wealthy merchant class, of organized networks of long-distance trade, of different forms of credit and bookkeeping, possibly even of the Western fashion system, can be traced in large part to the development of the grande industrie. It also had an enormous and ongoing impact on class structure and gender relations.

The importance of this later industry, however, has often led historians to overlook the existence of the European cloth industry which flourished in earlier centuries. The early medieval cloth industry was on a smaller scale than the grande industrie, depending more on individual artisans, primarily women, using warp-weighted looms. When the horizontal loom began to take hold, the warp-weighted loom did not disappear. Instead, it continued to be used by, and identified with, women. In this paper I will look at both the early medieval cloth industry, and the cottage industry which later developed from it. I hope to shed some light on what I believe to have been an entire under-the-radar women’s industry, which continued
long after the development of the grande industrie.