I’ve been down an enormous rabbit hole now for more than a week. I’ve been reading about the history of hats (working toward the Scottish Blue Bonnet’s emergence), and the more I learn, the more I need to know.
Inevitably, I wend my way back to another archeology article (or 10) that is less of a wild goose chase and more of interest total immersion.
One of the very interesting places I ended up was in Copenhagen. Well, not physically there, but at the Center for Textile Research at the University of Copenhagen. There, textile scholar Dr. Jane Malcolm-Davies undertook a project to better understand the construction of 16th century caps. These are the split-brim, iconic Tudor caps you often see in portrait paintings of the time, such as the man in this Holbein portrait.
From my recent blogs on my first attempt to knit one of the blue bonnets, you’ll already know that for most men, these were knitted, fulled, and then brushed to create a velvety nap. The gentleman above is likely wearing a silk-velvet, rather than knitted cap. Those above a certain income level could wear the velvet or fur, and the fulled and brushed knitted caps did a pretty good job of imitating that velvet pile look.
With such variety, it’s unsurprising that one would show the very narrow, almost brimless style often favored in the Highlands of Scotland.
Dr. Malcolm-Davies had knitters prepare swatches, knit in the round, working from what would have been the top of the hat (with only a few stitches) out toward the brim. Each was 5″ in diameter, and they were from different yarns. One would be fulled, and the other left as-is for comparison.
Two of the traditional fulling methods used included pounding with wooden mallets (to imitate the process used in a fulling mill), and stomping it with their feet in hot water. The “waulking” method used in Scotland for lengths of fabric used the hands or feet of women arranged around a table folding and rubbing the wool. It is normally accompanied by song.
The final step is raising the nap. This was traditionally done using teasel weeds. This example is likely a modern reproduction, but it gives you a good idea.
Here you see both a large teasel frame for brushing fabric, and a seated gentleman using a teasel cross.
Because the research project used a variety of fleece, and because the length and diameter of the napped fibers were measured, it should come as no surprise that the long-staple wools, like Wensleydale or Teeswater produced the longest nap. Those sheep breeds didn’t develop until the 19th century, so the contemporary breeds (for us) most like those used for the 17th century caps are the primitive Shetland and Orkney varieties.
Finally, the nap was shorn to an even depth. Really long nap actually would have made it a little more difficult to do that final shearing (or would at minimum have taken longer), so this is just an aside because I have to understand all options.
When I read the various articles I use for my research, I usually go right to the references and bibliography at the end to get to the earliest sources I can find.
This cap recovered from a bog in Caithness, was discovered in 1920 by peat diggers (a similar occurrence to the Shetland Gunnister find). Like the Gunnister find, the man had not been robbed, but the difference here was that this man had been murdered by bashing in his skull.
The difference between this and many of the other caps I’ve looked at is that this one is sewn from woolen cloth. For that reason, I hadn’t given it much thought.
Why he was killed was, of course, a mystery, as was when. And we always wish we knew the “who.” More recent, careful analysis of these finds has brought some intriguing bits of information to light.
Several coins were found in one of his pockets.
The most recent of the coins was one from the reign of William and Mary (this is just an example of that type), giving an affirmative date of no later than 1694, so clearly before the end of the 17th century.
Also in his pocket was another clue; a ball of yarn. Small balls like this often were carried by drovers — the men who brought cattle to market, walking the distance on foot.
Why was that diagnostic? These balls of yarn were used if the drover had to go off into the woods (perhaps to round up a stray cow, or maybe to get out of bad weather). Tied onto the branches of the trees, the drover could get back to the droving road by following the yarn. The Scottish name for these small balls is clew.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word was recorded in Old English (usually spelled cliwen or cleowen) as long ago as 897. In the Middle English period the “n” was dropped and the “ew” spelling was introduced. The sense of “clew” or “clue” as a key to a problem emerged in the early 1600s, originally as a figurative use of that earlier word. It meant “a ball of thread, employed to guide any one in ‘threading’ his way into or out of a labyrinth … or maze.”
This idea comes out of Greek mythology, where Ariadne provides Theseus with a ball of string to find his way back from the maze of the minotaur’s labyrinth.
By the 17th century, clew (sometimes now spelled clue) meant “that which points the way, indicates a solution, or puts one on the track of a discovery; a key. Esp. a piece of evidence useful in the detection of a crime. (OED).
I’ve known for quite a while that the Scottish word for a small ball of yarn was clew, but didn’t discover the distant roots of the word we know now as part of the fundamental elements of forensic science — following the clue. Even though I’ve now strayed waaaaaay off topic, I’m sure you can understand why I’m so in love with research. It’s the little, “insignificant” bits that often stay with me when the other pieces fade in my memory. And I do love words.
A very happy 4th of July to those celebrating in the US. To everyone, stay calm, craft on.