Ropes and Cordage
Period rope and cordage was made from a much more limited range of fibres than modern examples, and with a more limited range of techniques.
Most were made from hemp or flax. Functionally and in terms of appearance, quite similar materials. Both tend to be grey –greenish, and make good quality rope.
Period rope and cordage was made from a much more limited range of fibres than modern examples, and with a more limited range of techniques.
Most were made from hemp or flax. Functionally and in terms of appearance, quite similar materials. Both tend to be grey –greenish, and make good quality rope.
Most ropes would seem to have been plain or hawser laid, of three strands twisted together. If you look at the rope from the side it will look like a series of diagonal lines. Braided ropes when viewed like this look like a diagonal weave: these are not period.
Coir, sisal and cotton, common in later periods, do not seem to have been used in our period. These are typically pale brown or white, and the former two appear ‘hairy’.
Much rope was treated with tar: it appears dark brown / black with a distinct smell. In various period sources non tarred rope seems to be described as ‘white’ rope.
Some cordage could be more elaborate, for example the cord ordered for NMA bandoleers, being of blue and white twisted together.
The cords used as clothing items could be made laid up from three or more strands. Exotic effects could be produced by different twisting patterns and different coloured elements, and even gold and silver threads. Such cords could also be produced by simple plaiting, finger looping, and lucetting.Things to avoid:
Modern style braided rope, such as sash cord.
Sisal ‘hairy’ pale brown cordage.
Synthetic materials.
Thick, flabby cotton piping cord.
Tapes and Ribbons
Just like cloth, tapes and ribbons were produced by weaving techniques, and used the same materials. It could be used for a variety of things, including practical functions such as ties on shirts, through to more ornate functions.
Full scale looms could be used, as could small inkle/heddle style looms and also tablet weaving, although this last was becoming less common.
Linen tape / ribbon was used for a whole variety of functions, including ties on shirts and breeches, hatbands, edging garment and also as decoration on garments. It could range from sturdy unbleached coarsely woven material to finely woven and dyed. Tabby weave was common, but twill weaves (chevrons) was also available.
These nice linen collar ties by Gina B
Silk was used for finer grade ribbon, which could be augmented with metal threads and embroidery, fringing etc. It could be very costly indeed.
Inkle (or heddle: the looms were slightly different, although the product was the same) was suitable for home or small scale production on small looms. It uses woollen threads, often pre dyed to produce patterns, and was used for things like hatbands, leg ties, drawstrings etc. Caddis uses the same technique but finer linen threads: it could be used for similar purposes and also as a decorative braid on clothing.
Colours used in ribbons were obviously the same as those in other cloths, with the same limitations. However, since it is obviously much easier to bleach and dye small items it is probable that a higher proportion of tapes and ribbons were treated than cloth as a whole. Authentically dyed and unbleached linen tape is easily available at a very reasonable price: often more cheaply than incorrect modern ribbon.
There are a number of accounts which suggest that ribbons were used as field signs and regimental identification symbols. It should be borne in mind that if you are obtaining thousands of yards for this purpose it is unlikely to be costly stuff.
Things to Avoid
Modern ribbons are usually synthetic and much too fine, smooth, shiny and brightly coloured. Although fine quality ribbons were available they would have been very expensive, and well beyond the reach of the common soldier. It is most unlikely that a soldier would be wearing pounds worth of ribbons around their knees to keep their hose up. If you cannot see the weave obviously at the range of several feet then the ribbon is too fine for normal purposes.
For common soldiers broad coloured ribbons should only be used for a definite purpose, such as a field sign etc. Things like leg ties should normally be narrow tapes, inkle and so on.
Cloth Colours
Wool:
Woolen cloth production in the C17th involved at least two and usually three separate stages, normally carried out by different workers. The first stage was spinning, the second weaving and the third dying. Spinning was normally a part time or cottage industry. Farmers families were frequently involved in spinning their own wool production, others spun on a subcontracting basis.
The actual weaving was normally the preserve of professionals, partly due to the space and capital investment required, and partly due to the need to comply with legal cloth specifications.
Wool cloth dying was also largely a professional exercise, not least due to the difficulty of handling a whole bolt of wet cloth. There are three ways in which coloured cloth can be produced. Firstly the cloth can be woven from yarn made from coloured wool. Sheep breeds available in the period were white (actually unbleached, of course!), various browns and black. In practice the black fleece was not considered of the best quality, and was normally mixed with the fleece of white sheep to produce various shades of gray, (although black cloth could be produced in this way, for example monks robes, which were supposed to be coarse cloth.) Secondly, the spun yarn can be dyed and then woven into cloth: this method is particularly effective for producing patterned cloth, but does not seem to have been popular in the C17th. The third method is to dye the finished cloth, this being the usual technique in the period. Cloth intended for dying would be normally be prepared from the lightest colour wools, carefully treated, as any colour in the material or residual grease or dirt would adversely affect the dying process.
Lower quality and country cloths were often the greys and browns of the self coloured cloths, indeed grey seems to have been widely used in Essex’s Army. The white clothing issued to various units probably represents cloth which was intended to be dyed, but was taken for military purposes before this occurred.
Although various writers have produced much good work on C17th dying there is still much that is simply incorrect in circulation. Many of the errors are based on small scale ‘hippy’ inspired craft dying in the 60’s and 70’s. Much of this consisted of using random plants, without mordants, on inadequately prepared cloth: that the results were dull and weak is unsurprising, but bear little relation to professional C17th dying.
There is no doubt that dyers of the period were perfectly capable of producing strong and bright colours, including bright reds, dense blues, blacks and so on. A number of factors do have to be considered, however. Firstly, in many cases the fashion seems to have been for colours that were subdued rather than vibrant. Secondly, strong colours typically require more care, trouble and attention to detail than duller ones, so are normally more expensive. Thirdly, there is no doubt that traditional plant based dyes are not as colourfast as modern chemical dyes.
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| This is a selection of colours available for wool in our period, courtesy of the Rennaissance Dyer, highly recommended |
The subject of colourfastness needs to be examined in more detail. In modern clothes most loss of colour is due to washing. Since the whole garment is washed as one, this tends to affect the whole garment in a similar way, and since so much technology has been put into preventing such colour loss it is not a very major factor in most cases. In the C17th the biggest cause of colour loss was due to dye breakdown caused by UV light. Clearly this affects some areas much more than others: armpits, turnbacks etc are very little affected, whereas shoulders, the tops of arms etc are heavily affected. Since wool garments were rarely, if ever, washed in the period, this was not really a factor, but rainwater and bacterial breakdown in wet garments would cause colour loss, again tending to occur more in some areas than others. Another factor is ‘wearing white’: if the yarn was not completely penetrated by the dye then as the outer fibres wore away the colour would be lightened and eventually lost. Again, this would be very selective, concentrated on those areas that took most wear. On a garment such as a soldiers coat all these loss of colour factors could act on the same area: for example the shoulders would not only take much of the worst light and rain damage, but would also suffer the worst physical wear, so could rapidly become a very different colour to other areas of the coat.
Unfortunately, there is only one way to produce these effects in a re-enactment garment, and that is to use natural dyes and wear the garment a lot. Natural dyed cloth is available, although not common, and the price is higher (although overall, the extra cost is small if you allow that a good garment will last for 15 or more years). Fading can be accelerated by hanging garments outside for extended periods, although this is obviously not perfect.
In practice, most individuals will have items dyed with fade resistant modern dyes: however, the effect of this problem can be reduced by selecting duller and paler shades to start with.
Linen: Despite what is often said, linen is not difficult to dye, although some of the techniques that work well on wool are less suitable for linen.
The quality of linen depends mostly on the degree of sorting of the raw material. The plant fibres were sorted, with the finest and lightest fibres going to make the best cloth. A lesser degree of sorting produced a coarser product, while the rejected fibres could be used for canvas type materials. Unbleached linen typically has a greenish grey cast, while the coarsest grades could be more brownish.
Linen was widely bleached, as the whiteness of bleached linen was socially desirable and hence could command a better price. Only the finest grades of linen would really go white, lesser grades bleaching to a cream colour. Even on the best linen, this process, mainly using sunlight, did not produce the bright blue white of modern chemical bleaches and bio – whitening washing powders, but rather a soft white.
Unbleached linen will fade with washing and exposure to light: this is a natural process, and is in no way a problem from an authenticity point of view, but avoid using modern washing powders as these can spoil the nice soft cream colour.
For dying purposes obviously the whitest linen produced the best colours, so commercially dyed linen was probably reasonably expensive. On the other hand things like aprons could easily be dyed in the home on a small scale: coloured aprons and underskirts were common which could be linen or wool.
For true underwear (items worn next to the skin) undyed linen was used, as these were expected to be washed regularly. There were occasional fads for coloured starches, and a brief fashion for upper class nightclothes in black for mourning purposes, but to all intents and purposes underclothes were not dyed.
Evidence for black shirts among Cornish tinners rest on nothing more than a single quote of dubious provenance, which describes their shirts being as black as their hearts. Suggestions that their shirts were dyed black by the mining process is simply wishful thinking, as it is well established (if you care to look) that the tin mines stained red if anything. To use such a quote to justify the large scale production of black dyed shirts is simply not sustainable. According to others who have investigated it the supposed saffron dyed shirts of Highlanders rests on no firmer a foundation.
Linen could be produced with both textured and coloured patterns by the use of drawlooms: the patterns were often small and geometric or stylized. This would obviously be a more expensive product.
Linen was also commonly used for ribbons, tapes etc. Small items like this could be easily dyed.
Silk:
Silk was widely available, although by no means cheap. Modern silk is often very regular, fine woven and thin: in many cases it looks rather like a synthetic!
Period silk tended to be a thicker material, and considerably less regular. Silk was prized for its strength and shine, and its ability to take strong colours. The irregularities and slubs of hand spun or wild silk was considered as part of the fabric.
In practice silk can be considered as a luxury material, which was beyond the reach of ordinary people. It was used for high status ribbons, military sashes and as linings. Whole suits of silk were worn, but they would probably not have found their way onto campaign, as silk is not a practical fabric for the English climate.
Fashion:
In general there had been somewhat of a change in colour and material fashions. During the medieval period it seems that (among those who could afford it) the fashion was for the brightest colours that could be obtained, often worn in combinations which look garish in the extreme to the modern eye.
During our period, although bright colours were worn, the usual fashion was for strong, rich colours rather than bright: colours could be “saddened” deliberately to mute them. Among the better off black suits were fashionable, as were shades such as crimson, dark blue, bottle green and so on. It is often the case that really bright colours are seen on young men of fashion, rather than the middle aged.
Garments were often decorated with braid, frequently in the form of fine inkle etc. The most normal patterns covered the sewn seams, or ran parallel to them. In some cases the braid could almost cover the cloth. Braid could be metallic, or provide high contrast, but was also often similar or identical in colour to the cloth, providing a purely textural contrast.
Fashionable linen in the form of cuffs, collars and shirts was as fine and white as possible: often so thin that pleats can be seen through the overlying material.
Thanks to Chris Thomas for the bulk of the text here. I've just added some pictures.
17th century buttons were not pierced with two or four holes like those found now. Instead they had a shank on the back of the button, and the single attachment hole passed through that. This image courtesy of the Portable antiquities scheme.
Metal buttons were common, often made from lead, pewter tin or alloys of the same. These were usually cast, and the shank could be formed as one piece with the button, or could be in the form of a twist of copper alloy or iron wire set into the casting. Metal buttons could also be made from copper alloy, either cast as above, or in the case of flat buttons, punched from sheet with a loop soldered on the back. Buttons could also be made from wood, bone etc, but these styles were also shanked not pierced. Upper class buttons could be in silver, gold, or precious stones.Cloth buttons were also common: formed from scraps of cloth, or a wooden core, wrapped in a piece of cloth, these also had a shank formed by binding and stitching.
Things to avoid:
Here's a link to a nice piece about how to make your own thread wrapped and cloth buttons.Two images of thread wrapped buttons made by Gina B
Some repro buttons here in a modern workbox, hence the specs. There is a selection of cloth and thread covered ones here, by Gilly Morley, photo by Tom Aldwinckle
Here, again by Gilly is a row of cloth covered buttons on a soldiers brand new, bright blue coat. Photo by Tom again.On modern clothes buttons are normally sewn to the face of a garment. Although this style of attachment was used in the 1640s there were other methods. Buttons, especially those with long shanks, could be pushed through the cloth (sometimes between the threads, sometimes through a stitched eyelet) and secured by a cord or thong running through all the shanks at the back. Buttons could also be sewn into the edge of the garment by pushing the shank between the outer fabric and the lining. They could then be thonged or sewn in place.
In the 17th century the fashion was for large quantities of usually small buttons. On fashionable garments the buttons could be very close together, frequently almost touching. Simpler garments used fewer buttons but in general it is true that we generally use too few, too large buttons on our garments.
Things to avoid:
Plastic Buttons.
These are clearly not correct: plenty of authentic buttons are available and are frequently cheaper than buying modern buttons.
On modern clothes buttons are normally sewn to the face of a garment. Although this style of attachment was used in the 1640s there were other methods. Buttons, especially those with long shanks, could be pushed through the cloth (sometimes between the threads, sometimes through a stitched eyelet) and secured by a cord or thong running through all the shanks at the back. Buttons could also be sewn into the edge of the garment by pushing the shank between the outer fabric and the lining. They could then be thonged or sewn in place.
In the 17th century the fashion was for large quantities of usually small buttons. On fashionable garments the buttons could be very close together, frequently almost touching. Simpler garments used fewer buttons but in general it is true that we generally use too few, too large buttons on our garments.
Plastic Buttons.
These are clearly not correct: plenty of authentic buttons are available and are frequently cheaper than buying modern buttons.
Wooden Beads.
They were not used as buttons in our period, although they could form the core of thread buttons or cloth buttons.
Pierced Buttons.
Period buttons always seem to have some form of shank.
Wooden or other buttons which are very shiny, non native woods etc.
Wooden buttons would probably be small scale rural production. As such they would not be highly finished or use exotic woods. Ordinary grade metal buttons would not have a modern machine polished high gloss finish.
