[Ansteorra] Fustian (was RE: The period threads...)

Sir Lyonel Oliver Grace sirlyonel at hotmail.com
Thu Sep 21 08:03:08 PDT 2006


Salut cozyns,

In response to
>lizdenpeters at juno.com wrote
>>things.  I wear cotton garb (I have been told many times that cotton is 
>>not a
>>period material.) and will continue to do so….
>

Diarmaid says:

>Whoever told you that either was mistaken, or was misheard.  Cotton is 
>totally period.  It was extremely rare and pretty pricey in Europe for most 
>of the period (and actually stayed that way until the Industrial 
>Revolution).  The term “fustion”, in English, referring to a cotton/flax 
>(i.e. linen) blend, dates well into the 12th century.  The linen, it is my 
>opinion, was used to stretch the amount of cotton.  Raw, unspun cotton was 
>also shipped into Europe in increasing amounts, and even grown in southern 
>Europe by the 14th century.  So, uncommon and rare? - yes.  Expensive? - 
>yes.  Not Period? - no.  Should you use it? – not my problem.  I can give 
>you a lot of reasons, many of which have been presented on this list, for 
>why someone might not want to use it in favor of the (now) more expensive 
>linens and wools, but I am unlikely to be wearing what you will be 
>making.so do your own thing.

Yes, cotton fiber in cloth is period for most of Europe in the era you cite, 
but you say yourself that cotton was "extremely rare and pretty pricey." In 
light of that rarity and price, isn't it ironic that the most widespread use 
we see of cotton material in the SCA is for "field" clothing and peasant 
garb?

As for fustian, the name originally (modern dictionaries not withstandiing) 
referred to a coarse but wearable cloth. Like buckram, fustian started out 
with a heavy linen warp to give it strength. Unlike buckram, a softer 
loosely spun yarn was shuttled in as the weft. The result is a sturdy cloth 
with a soft enough surface to use against the skin with less risk of chafing 
than you would have with coarse weft.

References to fustian appear to predate cotton's appearance in England, 
however, so the weft yarn was originally most likely long-threaded wool or 
linen. The long-threaded yarns are more softer and more expensive, which 
tends to support Diarmaid's assumption that the linen warp was there to make 
the end product more affordable. The linen would also have made the end 
product more resilient.

I've not yet seen a reference that pinpoints when fustian went from the 
generic "coarse linen warp with soft something weft" to the standard "coarse 
linen warp with cotton weft" of the 18th century and beyond. For completely 
hidden liner materials of the sixteenth century gentry, surviving scraps of 
fustian appear to be all of the linen/cotton variety. For earlier centuries, 
I think the best you can say is that fustian in any given place and time 
*might* have contained cotton.

In all, however, I can see no rational argument that any Medieval European 
clothing was likely to have been made from %100 cotton fabrics. I'm sure 
someone somewhere in Europe must have managed to import some bolts of cotton 
cloth from some portion of the Arab world where it was purportedly more 
common. I owuld think, however, that such a coup would not have gone 
unremarked. I'd expect to see a reference somewhere to a well-known 
spendthrift like, say, Richard II wearing, "a remarkable gown of cotton 
tabby" or somesuch.

By the way, does anyone know what weaves of cotton were in use in Arab 
regions in the Middle Ages?

lo vostre per vos servir
Meser Lyonel
_________________________________
Micel yfel deth se unwritere.
		--AElfric of York





>From: "Marc Carlson" <marccarlson20 at hotmail.com>
>Reply-To: "Kingdom of Ansteorra - SCA, Inc." 
><ansteorra at lists.ansteorra.org>
>To: ansteorra at lists.ansteorra.org
>Subject: [Ansteorra] The period threads...
>Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 13:35:44 -0500
>
>This whole thread on being period…
>
>I’ve been reading through the past few days, trying vainly to catch up, but 
>I have some comments from all over.
>
>
>I should mention that cotton has one spectacular side benefit – things you 
>make in it don’t last as long as things made from wool and cotton, so your 
>embarrassing earlier projects rarely hang around for a long time.
>
>“Wool is hot in the summer”
>
>Guess what?  So is cotton.  So is standing around naked.  Summer in 
>Ansteorra is Hot.  Always has been, probably always will be.  And yes, I 
>wear layers of wool and linen in the summer.
>
>“Cell phones and Walkie talkies”
>
>I don’t much like them OUTside the SCA, so they are no bigger a distraction 
>for me INside than are the myriad other things that people 
>do/wear/say/smoke/drink/and so on.  That’s my problem, not yours.  If you 
>all don’t want them, either change the rules and get some serious standards 
>of dress and behavior; or just don’t use yours, and try to discourage your 
>friends.  Maybe eventually people will realize that they are being rude.
>
>"john fry" jefisme03 at gmail.com wrote in [Ansteorra] period on a budget
>>ok I've been reading along with your period not period posts, and now I 
>>want
>>to know how do you go period on a budget. I'm a current student with 
>>limited
>>amounts of money to spend on garb, but I still want to go to an event or 
>>two
>>when I have a chance, without being slapped around by the period nazis.
>
>It depends on what you want to do and what you mean by “go period”.  If you 
>want to present a vaguely periodoid appearance, then do that and don’t 
>sweat it.  If you’d like to aim towards being more accurate the SCA offers 
>an unparalleled opportunity to start small, and do the best you can NOW, 
>and use that as a foundation for later development.  A little bit every so 
>often isn’t that hard.  No one should be telling you that you have to have 
>it all right now.
>
>There have been a lot of suggestions in these threads, and I’m not sure 
>what I can add to them.  Aside from learn what is correct for your period, 
>whatever that is (even if your period is early 21st century SCA).  From 
>there you can build.
>
>First, it might be helpful to not immediately assume that someone who seems 
>to be critical of your efforts is being an “authenticity nazi”.  Most 
>people are just bad at expressing themselves.  Sure there’s great mythology 
>about them, but if you are attributing to malice what can be simply 
>explained by stupidity or incompetence of expression, that may be a bigger 
>problem.
>
>Certainly some people are just rude cretins trying to score points off you.
>
>Two stories – one took place at my first event.  I got chewed out by the 
>then Crown for being incorrectly dressed (and I’ve been in the military, I 
>know what getting my ass really chewed is like – this was a terrific job).  
>Was he right to do so?  I don’t think so (first of all, my outfit wasn’t 
>actually wrong.), but then again, since he was the King, I get to hold him 
>up as a shining example from then on …
>
>Second story – several years later, I was approached by a Local Pelican who 
>was trying to tell me that what I was wearing was surprisingly inaccurate, 
>and that my black kilt was just dead wrong.  I had to explain that I knew 
>that already, and was wearing for a reason.  I wasn’t offended, mostly 
>because I knew this particular gentleman didn’t actually mean to come 
>across as pompously as he did.  He just wasn’t very good at orally 
>expressing himself to other people.  Had I not known him prior to this 
>incident, I might have misread the situation.
>
>Marc/Diarmaid
>
>


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