[Sca-cooks] Puritans, was: Canadian Friends

[Laura C. Minnick]

Seton1355 at aol.com wrote:
>
> --
> [ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
> What kind of cloth Lainie?
> Phillipa
>
> > Uh, except for *scarlet* is a _kind_ of cloth, not necessarily a color.
> > It could well have been a misunderstanding on the part of the listener.

Wool. It was a tightly woven wool of a particular weight and fine
finish. A passage in Laura Hodges' _Chaucer and Costume_ says:

"Some assume that all clothing designated as scarlet is red in color,
but in Chaucer's time, that was not so. Marta Hoffman describes scarlet
or escarlate as a 'fine costly, woolen fabric' produced in many
localities, including England. It was the method of finishing, not a
particular color, that so distinguished scarlet from other woolens. Made
only of the 'finest combed wool', the woven cloths were foten sent
abroad for finishing. The coth was 'napped and shorn as many as four
times' according to medieval documents studied by J.B. Weckerlin, and in
the process, the 'construction was entirely obscured, the clothe was
finely pressed, and the surface became smooth, and as soft as silk'. The
cost of labor made scarlet expensive, and a cloth was not called scarlet
until and unless suitably finished."

She also mentions cost- scarlet was the most expensive fabric readily
available- and an alderman's livery of scarlet could cost between L14 2s
6d and L28 10s- a master mason earned up to 6 d per day. Scarlet went fo
13.33s per yard, while woolen broad cloths ranged from 5s to 6.67s per
yard. Silk velvet ran for about the same price as scarlet.

Scarlet could be dyed any color- red was very popular- an expensive dye,
and worthy of the fine fabric. But it was also dyed blue, dyed in pers,
which was very expensive ( and derived from woad), and there is also
mention of brown scarlet.

Does that help?

'Lainie