British plant fabric colours

[Erpingham]

While diving down internet rabbit holes, I found these lists of 16th century colours - a sort of early Farrow & Ball perhaps.

Favourites include Rat's Colour (grey) , Puke (dirty brown), Goose-Turd Green (yellow green), Dead Spaniard (another grey) and Dying Monkey (sadly unidentified). 

[Imperial Dave]

Sounds like citadel colours   

[Erpingham]

Sounds like citadel colours   

So, that's where they got their inspiration from

[Imperial Dave]

 

[Erpingham]

In two minds whether to create a new topic but have decided to try and keep things together.  I've been thinking of medieval clothing colours recently and have found a few more interesting sites with details of dyes and cloth.

https://companyofthestaple.org.au/what-colour-were-medieval-clothes/  This Australian website has some other interesting articles on aspects of medieval camp life, including some bits on mail armour.

https://rosaliegilbert.com/dyesandcolours.html  Some recipes and English cloth colour names here

https://rosaliegilbert.com/fabricnames.html Types of cloth - not that we need to model these on our figures 

These allow you to see the annoying medieval habit of calling a type of cloth and a colour the same name, even though they may not be the same colour  Scarlet is a notorious example.  Scarlet cloth was not always red.

Incidentally, in reference back to earlier posts, the Company of the Staple article reckons that cloth made from undyed wool of brown sheep isn't light fast and fades to golden brown.

There are doubtless more sites out there.  Some of the clothing sites touch on it as well.

Things to remember from these various articles are that the Middle Ages could be colourful.  However, costs of quality fabrics with expensive dyes restricted what people could get hold of, as did sumptuary laws.  Sumptuary laws in particular had a tiering effect.  You made sure you advertised your status through clothing.  If you were a retainer or a yeoman, you wouldn't want to be seen in the russet or hodden of an agricultural labourer.

[Imperial Dave]

good to keep it all together as a resource thread i think

[Erpingham]

Colours by no dyes.  A visit to a Tudor living history event at Kentwell Hall yielded the following image of hat making

You cannot view this attachment. 

These hats are all made of undyed wool.  While one is a creamy grey, the others are various shades of brown, with the two hats in progress being particularly dark. Shows the variation possible under the catch-all of undyed wool.

 

[Miltiades The Merchant]

I can't speak for medieval dyes but my father worked in textiles and informed me that back before the 70s they used specific recipes for cloth intended for parts of rural Africa. Essentially they dyed the cloth with natural dyes and salt based alkalis (to 'fix' the dye), didn't wash the excess off and then transported them in tightly wrapped bolts under waterproof coverings which allowed them to be floated down rivers behind small boats to isolated communities. This method allowed the waterproof covering to be used as tents, the wrappings as string/twine, etc. whilst the actual cloth could then be cut and the final wash applied by the locals and the colourful salty residue could either be drank (possible for folk religious/medicinal reasons) or used for some other suitable purpose. Apparently it was quite nutritious.

I'm wondering if a similar process was used in ancient times and if the dying process back then produced useful by-products. Also how strong were the dyes, would people potentially extract all they possibly could and be happy losing a richer colour but gaining the by-product?

[Erpingham]

I'm wondering if a similar process was used in ancient times and if the dying process back then produced useful by-products. Also how strong were the dyes, would people potentially extract all they possibly could and be happy losing a richer colour but gaining the by-product?

Using my medieval dyeing knowledge assembled in this thread, I approached the Tudor dyers at the event.  They were brewing up woad.  They were clear the only mordant salt they used was alum.  Alum is mildly toxic and deadly in large doses. A quick check on the internet tells me that woad isn't poisonous but tastes nasty.  Apparently, weld (used for yellow and with woad to make green) is mildly narcotic.  Was your father shipping yellow or green cloth?

[Miltiades The Merchant]

I'm wondering if a similar process was used in ancient times and if the dying process back then produced useful by-products. Also how strong were the dyes, would people potentially extract all they possibly could and be happy losing a richer colour but gaining the by-product?

Using my medieval dyeing knowledge assembled in this thread, I approached the Tudor dyers at the event.  They were brewing up woad.  They were clear the only mordant salt they used was alum.  Alum is mildly toxic and deadly in large doses. A quick check on the internet tells me that woad isn't poisonous but tastes nasty.  Apparently, weld (used for yellow and with woad to make green) is mildly narcotic.  Was your father shipping yellow or green cloth?

I'm not sure of the specific colours but he did say they sent gaudy patterned cloth, often with checker designs and stripes, for sarongs (I think the mill exported to India under the name Lancashire Sarongs). I imagine red would have been used due to the popularity in areas of Africa. He did say it was a little before his time but he was informed of the process, so specifics might be outside his knowledge. I imagine if they were discussing such uses the dyes used must have been non-toxic, although narcotic effects might have been acceptable or even desirable considering the situation.

[Imperial Dave]

Really useful info and the photos of the wool hats reinforces my choice of colours for painting

[Erpingham]

Chatting with the dyers was fun. In particular, talking about depth of colour based on length of time in the dye bath and also how tired the dye was (the first batch out has the strongest colour, weakening with each batch put through).  Also, how many colours were achieved by double dyeing (weld and woad for green, walnut and woad for black - you use the green husks of walnut to make a very dark brown).

[Imperial Dave]

I bet it was fascinating chatting with them

[Erpingham]

Picking this up again for some documentary evidence from medieval Yorkshire.  This is taken from John S. Lee
: Weaving in Late Fourteenth-Century Yorkshire: An Early Example of Proto-Industrialisation?


"In 1399 an inquisition considered infringements of the York weavers' guild monopoly over weaving coloured and striped woollen cloths within the county of Yorkshire.
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The inquisition describes the cloth being woven as 'blewe' (blue), 'plunket' (grey or light blue colour), and occasionally rayed (striped cloths).
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The inquisition does not record any red cloths being produced, which were dyed using madder, or scarlet cloths, dyed using kermes, both imported from the continent and requiring mordants.
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The inquisition shows that, while in the past plunket had been the most popular colour, with three-quarters of weavers producing plunket cloths, by 1399 blue had become the most popular, again produced by three-quarters of weavers. Of the 3,257 cloths sold in York in 1394–5, blue shades were most popular, accounting for 36 per cent; 26 per cent were red, 13 per cent white, 11 per cent green and the remaining 14 per cent included russets, blacks, checks and stripes."

Plunket is a nice name for a colour, I think 

[Ian61]

How about woad for blue?

It has always been my understanding that woad was imported from northern Europe rather than extracted here. The chemically very similar indigo was imported from the East into the Mediterranean world.
(Indigo dyes are bleached by the sun in such a reproducible way they can be used to monitor exposure to sunlight in a variety of odd environments.)