[Ravensfort] The history of the knitted scarf

jacinth jacinth at mail.ev1.net
Wed Apr 23 07:10:46 PDT 2003


For those who were discussing yesterday... I reprint a bit of the
conversation from HistoricKnit.  This doesn't mean what we call scarves
aren't period, but that there is no direct evidence for knitted scarves
in our timeframe.  I put it to you that it would be very hard to identify
a scarf is actually a scarf when all you have are fragments (as we find
in most archaeological finds due to the nature of ancient textiles):

---------------------
<<The history of knitting:  The History of the Scarf

These days, the first thing most children knit is a scarf.  It’s so simple,
so obvious:  you just cast on so many stitches and keep knitting until you
are bored or you are about to run out of wool, and then you cast off.
Voilà!  You have something wearable.

It may therefore come as a surprise to learn that there is some
controversy about the history of the scarf.  Some knitting historians
suspect that scarves like this are a relatively new clothing item.  There
are some grounds for believing that scarves as we know them ­long thin
(not necessarily knitted) strips of material for wrapping around the neck
against the cold ­ are a nineteenth-century invention.  For example:  my
dictionary says that the first use of ‘scarf’ to mean ‘a band of warm and
soft material worn round the neck in cold weather’ is in 1823.  And there
are no definite earlier specimens of knitted scarves than the early
nineteenth-century.  At that time, they were often called ‘mufflers’
or ‘comforters’, perhaps to distinguish them from the flimsy silk scarves
worn for fashion from a much earlier period.


There has been much debate about why knitted scarves are a late-comer
(amongst those who think it may be true).  Some say it might be because
the earliest knitting was in the round:  while it is perfectly possible to knit
scarves in this way (producing either double-thickness tubes, or scarves
pulled over one’s head to snuggle round your neck), it is not perhaps
obvious.   However (surprise, surprise) there are those who say that the
first knitting was in the flat.  It is also said by some that people knitted
shawls from mediaeval times, and they were not done in the round, so why
didn’t making scarves occur to them?  Yet others say that although
fragments have been found which could be shawls, they may not be.

You may ask how people could have kept their necks warm if scarves had
not been thought of:  well, they could have worn kerchiefs, neck-cloths
and snoodlike hoods ­woven, not knitted.  And they did undoubtedly wear
such things.  The question is whether they also wore knitted scarves.
When this was debated on the HistoricKnit e-list, the general (ironic)
conclusion was that our ancestors were just contrary:  here was a
perfectly obvious item to knit, but just to be annoying, they decided not
to.

[With thanks to members of the list.]>>

by Susan
sue-jez at hoyle-knight.freeserve.co.uk






More information about the Ravensfort mailing list