Wednesday, October 07, 2015

Early Midevial Spinning.

Early Medieval textile finds at South Moravia, Czech Republic show that they had fine spinning and weaving.

Early Medieval textiles, locally produced, in 59 different varieties, and woven to 16 to 20 threads per 10 mm (e.g., 50 threads per inch) were found. These were fine textiles.  Thus, many of the 244 samples reviewed were NOT the crude or coarse textiles that we associate with early the medieval period. Granted that 2,500 ypp is not what I would call fine spinning, but it was central Europe before central heating. It was cold, and they needed warm clothes.  And at 50 threads per inch, the fabrics are finer spun/ finer woven than any of the modern handspun/hand woven wool textiles that I see around.

That is, early medieval spinners spun weaving yarns finer than we see modern hand spinners spinning.

See Finds of Textile Fragments and Evidence of Textile Production at a Major Excavation Site of Great Moravia in Mokcice by Helena Brezinovo in NWSAT XI, The North European Symposium for Archaeological Textiles XI, May 2011, Esslingen am Neckar.

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