Textiles

The creation of textiles was part of the life of every household. This domestic production, of peasants’ making their own cloth and other textile items, should be distinguished from the manufacture of textiles in workshops run by guilds (see page 216). Textiles manufactured for sale included woolen cloth, linen cloth, and silk woven in various weights and patterns, such as velvet and brocade. Producing wool involved five processes, namely, carding (combing), spinning, weaving, fulling, and dyeing. Florence was internationally famous for the quality and quantity of wool produced there during the 14th century; its silk luxury goods became an important commodity during the Renaissance.

Florence dominated the European supply of luxury fabric in the 15th century, including the furs and elaborately woven cloth produced for the papacy. Clients for Florentine cloth ranged from the courts of Burgundy to harems in Turkey. By offering tax relief to silk workers who relocated to Florence, the city guaranteed a large pool of skilled spinners and weavers. In addition, new types of silk cloth were developed, the most popular of which was “shot silk” in a taffeta weave with the warp and weft threads of different colors. The color of a gown designed from this fabric would change, depending on shifting light and shadow as the wearer moved. Such novelties enhanced the appeal of silk across Europe and beyond.

Woolen and silk cloth alone were expensive, and tailoring and embellishment such as embroidery added to their cost. Some embroidery threads consisted of spun gold or silver, making them costly indeed. In Florence, silk workers were paid much

8.3 Brocaded velvet, with silk and metallic thread, late 15th or early 16th century. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1912 [12.49.8])

Handbook to Life in Renaissance Europe

Better than wool workers, an important reason why silk fabric could cost five to six times more than wool. Even though the manufacture of woolen cloth required 27 steps and that of silk only nine, the relatively low wages of wool workers by the 15th century resulted in a lower-priced product. In addition, the weaving of fine silk was quite time-consuming on the hand-powered looms of the Renaissance. A skilled weaver might take as long as three months to produce enough brocaded silk velvet for a sleeveless overgown. Cloth of gold, with gold or silver threads woven as an additional weft, was so costly that an outfit might have only the sleeves made of this luxury fabric. The fashion in Florence after about 1450 was detachable sleeves for fancy gowns, which allowed the wearer to display a variety of sumptuous fabrics with a single gown. The dyeing process also added to the cost of both silk and wool, especially since the deep red preferred by many people derived from a very expensive powder. The status of the cost may have been one reason why the aristocracy conspicuously wore such a color. That red was, in fact, created from the kermes louse, dried and ground into powder in the Far East and shipped to Florence.

Investing in luxury items such as silk was smart financial strategy in the expanding economy of mid15th-century Europe. As is wool, refined from the fiber shaved from sheep, silk fibers are produced by an animal. Sericulture is the growing of mulberry trees on which silkworms can feed to produce their fibers. Naturally the manufacture of silk textiles was related to sericulture, and regions that cultivated their own silkworms usually made a better profit in silk manufacture because the raw fibers were not supplied by a third party. The relatively mild climate of Europe permitted the spread of sericulture, even in England.

In addition to textiles manufactured from raw materials found in Europe, cotton was a desirable trade good purchased by the European market. Cotton’s role in the economic balance of trade was related to that of other commodities shipped from the Middle East. Cotton yarn and bales of cotton from Syria, for example, reached European cities via the port of Venice. Much of this fiber was woven into a popular utilitarian cloth called fustian, with a woof of cotton and a warp of flax (the fiber from which linen was made). (For more information on textiles, see chapter 12.)