English 12th Century Felt Hat

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Entry Summary Period/Date: 1180-90 Country of origin/Style: English Description: Felt hat with trim seen in Canterbury Cathedral painting. Materials used: • Wool roving • Indigo dye • Silk thread Processes/Techniques used: • Hat was measured and patterned • Hat was felted and fulled • Hat was indigo dyed • Tablet weaving pattern for a turtle was created • Trim was tablet woven • Trim was appliquéd to the hat Primary Sources came from the following references: •

Birth and christening of St. John the Baptist. North wall of St. Gabriel's Chapel. Canterbury Cathedral, Canterbury.

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Collingwood, P. (2002). The techniques of tabletweaving. McMinnville, OR.

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Holmqvist, V. (2009, June 27). Arachne's blog: My weaving and other textile crafts. . Retrieved August 25, 2011, from http://windwraith.blogspot.com/

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Tancred Borenius, E. W. (1976). English Medieval Painting. New York: Hacker Art Books.

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Background In the painting of the Birth and Christening of St. John the Baptist on the north wall of St. Gabriel’s chapel in Canterbury Cathedral; Zechariah is wearing a conical felt hat with trim just above the brim (Davenport, 1972, p. 133). A recreation of this image from English Medieval Painting (Tancred Borenius, 1976) transcribed some details from this wall painting. From examination of the original and the sketch, this hat is pointed on top, fitting the head up to that point, has a small brim, and has a piece of trim just above the brim. This is obviously a ceremonial event, and the dress in the painting is that of upper nobility.

Felt hat from 1180-90 England, Canterbury Cathedral, St. Gabriel’s Chapel (Davenport, 1972, p. 133)

This hat has its origins in the Greek petasus hat, shown in the coin below from the 400’s BC (The New York Sale, 2011). This coin shows the Head of Hermes wearing a petasus.

North wall of St. Gabriel's Cathedral (Birth and christening of St. John the Baptist) showing the felt hat worn by Zechariah

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I chose to tablet weave the trim for this hat. Tablet weaving uses a set of tablets or cards with holes that carry the warp (down the length) threads and open and close the shed to make patterns. The images of tablet weaving show women working between two posts to do their weaving, although there is one portable loom shown in an illumination and a lap loom was found in Bergen, Norway.

For this project, I created a double-faced weave of a turtle pattern that I created myself. The double faced weave produces a two-sided trim with the same image. Double faced weaves were common in this period, and elaborate designs were created. I used a small loom to create this project.

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An example of silk tablet weaving from the 12th century (Collingwood, 2002, pp. 212, 217)

Materials Item Hat

Medieval material Crowfoot (1992, pp. 75-76) has some information about felting in the middle ages. Eight felt pieces from 14th century London were described. They were made from sheep’s wool. Some also had animal hair incorporated with the wool. The pieces show signs of mechanical damage from the felt-making process. One piece is possibly a hat brim.

My material Wool roving

Dye

Blue was common in this century. Blue came from an indigo-based dye, which came from Wode or the Indigo plant from the Indigofera family. Indigo was cultivated in India and exported to Europe; wode was common throughout Europe (Geijer, 1979, p. 208)

Indigo dye was used. I used an indigo dye that was chemically pre-reduced with thiourea dioxide (yes, urine works too) to avoid the long reduction process of vat dying.

Trim

In the medieval felt deposits described in Crowfoot (1992, p. 75), Some of the items were dyed, and some dyed felt was found as a group but it is uncertain if they originally formed a pattern. Trim was most commonly made from silk. The silk used in this period was mostly filament silk, wound off the silk cocoon in a single long fiber. Three to four of these fibers were twisted into a thread (Geijer, 1979, pp. 4-6). Complaints in literature of the poor quality of silk may point to spun silk being found throughout Europe Orphreys (trim) of silk often brocaded with gold were known in this period (Davenport, 1972, p. 136). Here is an example of silk tablet weaving from the 12th century (Collingwood, 2002, pp. 212, 217)

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I used spun silk for my fiber in the weaving. I attempted to get filament silk from Kreinik, but no one had this in stock from the set of stores I called across the US. I had one store special order it in, but it came in too late for this project.

Techniques Felting Step

Medieval Information

Process

Patterning hat

No information could be found for medieval methods of patterning for hat making in this period.

I first patterned the hat on paper based on head measurements plus 30% for shrinkage during felting.

Laying the fibers

For medieval processes, I’m going to refer to information about felting in Mongolia, which has not changed since the middle ages. There is little information available on the process of medieval felting, but the processes have not changed much. All pictures and captions are from “Felting in Mongolia” (2001).

The felt making process starts by pulling drafts of wool off the roving. This is done by grasping the edge of the roving loosely, and pulling a group of fibers off. This ensures that each draft is relatively the same size and thickness.

Crowfoot (1992, pp. 75-76) has some information about felting in the middle ages compliments these processes. Eight felt pieces from 14th century London were described. They were made from sheep’s wool. They show signs of damage from the felt-making process. One piece is possibly a hat brim. Some of the items were dyed, and some dyed felt was found as a group but it is uncertain if they originally formed a pattern. The scale of European felting processes for millenary work was much smaller than what is shown in the images from Mongolia, and was probably more similar to my processes.

“The beaten wool is now placed on the 6

I had started this project intending to do a yellow and white interior. I changed my mind part way through, and modified my process to head towards the indigo dying of the entire hat. You can still seem some of the yellow on the inside of the hat, but it’s barely noticeable.

Next, I laid out the drafts on top of a resist that keeps the top and bottom of the fibers from felting. All drafts are laid vertically, then a layer is laid horizontally, then alternating layers are laid until the desired thickness is reached. This hat felt was 16 layers of drafts. (note: Image is for reference only, this is a different hat.)

mother felt in such a way as to have the fibers relatively parallel.”

Felting

I started the wet felting process. Using hot soapy water in place of the medieval chemicals, I wet down the fibers. I pressed them together with my hands first, pressing down and agitating slightly with my hands. Once it was holding together fairly well, I moved on to the felting process.

”After the layers are laid out war water is spread out over the wool in small drops. A large pole is then placed across one end of the new felt. Both the new wool and the mother felt are rolled up tightly around the pole. Medieval felting processes used chemicals to help the felting process.

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As in the Mongolian technique, I chose to roll the wool to make it felt. I used bamboo mats to provide a hard backdrop to press against when felting the fibers. I rolled the moistened fiber mat up into the mats.

Wet hides are wrapped around the felt and then strong rope binds the roll together. Loops are attached to each end of the pole.

Ropes are then attached to these loops and tied horses or camels which then pull the roll across the steppe (Felting in Mongolia, 2001). “

The cuticle of the fibers opens up with the warm water and interlocks with other fibers through friction. The soap helps the cuticle open up and lets the fibers slip past each other in only one direction, locking them together. I rolled the bundled fibers for about 5 minutes, and then I opened the back up, turned the fibers 90 degrees, and rolled them back up. I felted for another 5 minutes. Alternating by 90 degree angles lets the felt shrink in both horizontal and vertical directions equally, keeping the piece square. This hat took about 1.5 hours to felt.

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After the fibers were holding together, I cut out the resist and hand fulled and shaped the hat for another hour. When the hat was the right size and shape, I ended the felting process and rinsed the fabric in cool water.

Dyeing Step Dyeing

Medieval Information Indigo was extracted from the Wode plant by grinding the leaves into a paste, dry the paste in tight balls so they ferment, and crush into a powder. The powder is re-wet and fermented for 2 weeks. The indigo pigment is now highly concentrated. This pigment needs to be chemically reduced in a fermentation vat with wood ash and held the temperature at 122 F for 2-3 days (Edmonds, 2006).

Process I started with the 60% pre-reduced indigo and dissolved into a warm water bath. I slowly stirred it, and left it to sit for an hour.

The dye is now a greenish yellow color. The item is placed into the vat, and after a few minutes, it’s slowly pulled out. The fabric oxidizes and turns blue.

Over the course of that hour, a bloom developed on top of the dye. This bubbling mess is removed, leaving the yellow/green dye exposed.

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I immersed the hat into the dye for 23 minutes, pulled it out and let it oxidize for 5 minutes. I repeated this 3 times to achieve a dark color.

I rinsed the hat carefuly in warm then cool water. As the hat was very close to the right size, applying warm water and squeezing at this point is quite problematic. I blocked the hat on a “head” padded to the measurements of my husband’s head. I let it dry for a day.

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Weaving Step Pattern developm ent

Medieval Information

Process I developed my turtle pattern with Guntram’s Tablet Weaving Thingie (Gartz, 2006), a fabulous little computer program that lets the user experiment with patterns and colors to produce tablet weaving.

While this looks easy, how the colors and cards are set up affect what this pattern looks like when it’s woven. Does the turtle have a pointy nose? Does the edge have inward or outward sloping “embattlements?” This all carefully has to be set up to produce the image you wish to have on your band. This took me several hours and about 10 iterations to get it just right.

This program also lets me print out the card turning sequence I will use to create this 11

pattern. Some cards will go forward, some will go backwards at each turn, creating this pattern. Warping

Tablet weaving started in the BC era and continues to today. The closest references to the 12th century come from a set of 9th century tablets. These tablets were wood.

I threaded my silk through the 4 holes of the pack of cards. I placed my threads in a box to keep them from wrapping together while I warped. I used cardboard tablets for this project. While I own wood tablets, I was a little worried about the silk coming apart from rubbing on these tablets. They are not the smoothest thing.

Set of wooden tablets, 9th c., threaded in wool (Collingwood, 2002, p 15).

Threaded cards (Collingwood, 2002, p 54)

I tie off one end of the threads to an upright of 12

The upright looms we see in illuminations were probably used for warping as well as weaving. I use this style of loom for my warping.

(Holmqvist, 2009)

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my warping loom.

I drop one card and loop the threads and cards around the other upright, then back to the beginning upright. I then drop a second card and go around again. Eventually I have the whole pack of cards warped. They need to be straightened, threading direction put right and the whole thing gets moved to the loom.

Weaving

This image clearly shows an in-progress tablet weaving. You can see her two sets of cards and her shuttle.

Once the weaving was moved, I began to weave in the pattern. Certain cards were turned forwards at each “pick” or pass of the weft through the weaving. Other cards were turned backwards. This brought certain colors of thread to the top where they created the turtle pattern. The edge cards always turned forward to give a nice bound edge.

(Holmqvist, 2009)

I separate my forward turning cards from my backward turning cards to make weaving quicker. You can see this above.

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Attaching the trim

Trim was used to edge items in the middle ages. It’s often hard to tell how the trim was attached. Stab stitch and running stitch were probably used as they were both common this period (Carlson, 2002).

After I took the 27 inches of weaving off the loom, I carefully sewed it to the hat using a running stitch.

I turned under the edges of the trim and whipped them together with the same silk thread used for weaving. I kept a little extra trim beyond the join just in case I ever had to resize the hat larger. The join is shown below.

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Works Cited Birth and christening of St. John the Baptist. North wall of St. Gabriel's Chapel. Canterbury Cathedral, Canterbury. Carlson, J. L. (2002, February 25). Sewing Stitches Used in Medieval Clothing. Retrieved August 25, 2011, from http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~Marc-Carlson/cloth/stitches.htm Collingwood, P. (2002). The techniques of tabletweaving. McMinnville, OR. Crowfoot, E. P. (1992). Textiles and clothing c. 1150-c.1450. London: HMSO Publications Centre. Davenport, M. (1972). The book of costume. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc. Edmonds, J. (2006). The history of woad and the medieval woad vat. Lulu. Felting in Mongolia. (2001, Feb 8). Retrieved December 15, 2009, from http://members.tripod.com/Mongolian_Page/Felting/felting.html Gartz, E. (2006, January 12). Guntram's Tablet Weaving Thingie. Retrieved June 5, 2011, from Guntram's Tablet Weaving Page: http://www.guntram.co.za/tabletweaving/gtt.htm Geijer, A. (1979). A history of textile art. Totowa, NJ: Sotheby Parke Bernet Publications. Holmqvist, V. (2009, June 27). Arachne's blog: My weaving and other textile crafts. . Retrieved August 25, 2011, from http://windwraith.blogspot.com/ Tancred Borenius, E. W. (1976). English Medieval Painting. New York: Hacker Art Books. The New York Sale. (2011). Retrieved August 30, 2011, from ACSearch.info: http://www.acsearch.info/record.html?id=431985

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(Davenport, 1972)

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North wall of St. Gabriel’s chapel, Canterbury Cathedral (Birth and christening of St. John the Baptist)

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Pattern created with Guntram’s Tablet Weaving Thingie (Gartz, 2006)

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