Dye ovens and dye wheels: I've got a clever plan

So I was trolling through my sources looking for period dye recipes, and one such source (the Plictho of Gioanventura Rosetti, c. 1548) not only told me what to put in with the fabric, but also instructed me to "give it four or five rounds on the turn wheel."

Wheel? What wheel?

That sounded super convenient for maintaining the constant motion that is vital for an evenly dyed piece, so I clearly had to have one.

This is an illustration from the Plictho showing dyers at work:


We can find a similar apparatus c. 1433, in a book depicting tradesmen at work (and an almost identical illustration from a 1425 edition of the same work): (f53v from Die Hausbucher der Nürnberger Zwölfbrüderstiftungen)

It doesn't look like the wheel you might have expected. Water wheels (about what I was picturing) are used to power more "wheely" wheels in use in e.g. fulling cloth and milling woad, etc. The dye wheel is less of a wheely looking wheel and more of a hand-cranked spit type device.

These illustrations feature another thing I immediately had to make: the "dye oven." It's a stone or brick structure with a fire built inside, and a metal vessel inset into the top (it's not a shallow pan - look at the 1433 illustration, and you'll see the bottom of the vat in the fire). This dye oven thing would support a very large, heavy dye vat filled with dye and fabric, and channel heat to the entire surface of the vat rather than concentrating it on the bottom like a pot hung over a fire would have. This seems to be an ideal structure for dyeing with madder, as it can have a fire lit in it to heat the bricks, then cleared out, leaving warm bricks, so that the madder would not boil and therefore turn brown.

A dyer with the former vat-over-open-fire method is sneaking around the margins of the Smithfield Decretals c. 1325. By 1425, the dye oven and dye wheel were iconic tools of the dyer. I would therefore theorize that they existed before that date, otherwise they wouldn't be obvious identifiers of a dyer. I personally think they would have showed up in the mid-14th century, because of the sudden labor shortage wrought by the Black Death. Laborers died in droves and consequently labor was more expensive. The dye oven and wheel ensure that the fire need not be fed as frequently and the cloth need not be agitated by so many workers (the Plictho illustration shows only one guy with a pole and one guy turning the wheel, as opposed to illustrations missing the wheel which seem to have more dudes with poles).

Dudes with poles c. 1482. British Library, Royal Ms 15 E. III f.269

The dye oven is essentially a bread oven with the top cut off and a vat inserted. Dye and bread ovens are illustrated both as smooth and as obviously made of some kind of stacked unit. Some extant bread ovens found in Slovakia were made of stacked quarried stone and covered in a clay mixture for further insulation, which would produce a smooth exterior. Variously, bricks were used to make kilns and ovens in other finds, even before they were typically used to build dwellings, etc.

I am investigating two methods of oven building: buying bricks, stacking them, and covering the resulting structure in a mixture of clay and sand, and also making my own bricks which will be stacked in the form of the oven without a clay covering (you don't need as much insulation to dye as you do to bake, because you can keep the fire going with most dyestuffs).

Master Tiberius Iulius Rufus has made his own kiln, so I picked his brain about how to make ovens and bricks. He has supplied a brick recipe: 50% silica sand, 20% fire clay, 20% red art clay, 10% local clay, straw, and water. This is mixed, stuffed into forms, taken out, air dried, and then fired. (This is also pretty similar in content to an analysis of extant bricks - maybe a little more sand.)

The dye wheel can be constructed pretty simply with wooden poles stuck in the ground (for the 1425 version - the 1548 version has wheel-holders built into the oven) with hooks stuck on them to support another pole with a handle on it.

Stay tuned for pictures!



A variety of images of dye vats, dye ovens, and other ovens can be found on my pinterest here

Works consulted include:
Plictho of Gioanventura Rosetti, c. 1548
The stone and Middle age ovens in Loess sites of Slovakia: Influences on their quality for food preparation, in Bread, Ovens and Hearths of the Past, by Danica Stassikova-Stukovska
Ancient Clay Bricks: Manufacture and Properties by F. M. Fernandes et al
The Mediæval Mason: An economic history of English stone building in the later Middle Ages and early modern times, by Douglas Knoop and G. P. Jones

Medieval Red Dye: fun with pH

A class I'm going to teach as soon as I get a good space and time. We will have REAL LIVE DYE VATS! and take-home fabric swatches (big ones) for 10 people (spectators welcome). This is a basic introduction to natural dyeing in a period fashion with the super interesting addition of how to mess with the color you get using period pH-altering additives. Here's the handout so far:

Medieval Red Dye: Fun with pH

This class will cover the basic process of natural dyeing with cochineal (a period substitute for kermes; kermes is nearly extinct now and prohibitively expensive, and they are very similar bugs) as well as how alterations in the pH of the dyebath can alter the color of cloth dyed with a red dyestuff. A more acidic dyebath will produce a warmer shade, whereas a basic dyebath will producer a cooler shade. When working with cochineal/kermes, acid makes red and basic makes a purple. Madder yields orange and pink. These pH altering additives are vital ingredients in achieving a more precise shade of your choosing rather than just letting your chosen dyestuff dye whatever color it would like to be.

The basic method of dyeing is as follows: Mordant your fabric, prepare the dye vat, insert fabric and keep it moving as best you can, rinse, and hang to dry.

Our ingredients will be alum, cream of tartar, chalk, and cochineal, and 100% wool as our fabric. These mordants and dyestuffs are all food ingredients, but don't drink the dyebath, it is not very tasty and it has enough cochineal to turn your mouth rather red. Although a variety of other ingredients were used in period, including in the sample recipes, we will be using simple recipes to save time and avoid nasty things like arsenic.

A mordant essentially helps the dye to "stick" to the fabric. It bonds with the fiber and later with the dye, making the dye less likely to wash off or fade. Alum (potassium aluminum sulfate) was one of the favorite mordants in period, mentioned in many recipes, and we will use it today. Many period recipes do not mention a lot of things that we would consider essential to a recipe, such as precise quantities of mordants or dyestuffs to add to a vat. As a result, we must combine multiple period recipes to deduce what they would have done in some cases, and just guess as to some quantities.

Half of the wool samples have been prepared by boiling in alum and water, and half have had (cream of) tartar added to the alum and water. Cream of tartar renders these samples more acidic. Stockholm (see the period recipes list) recommends boiling for an hour and then leaving it overnight, whereas the Plictho only recommends boiling for an hour, and specifies that each pound of cloth should have half an ounce of alum and an ounce of tartar (for the acidic dyebath). These have all been left overnight. One recipe in Segreti per Colori recommends leaving the fabric to mordant for 3 days and 3 nights, so you have a wide range of mordanting time options.

Many recipes recommend adding more alum to the dye vat itself, so the mordanting liquid will just be topped off and more things added to it rather than discarding it. This is much more efficient. The Plictho implies that this may have been done in period, and certainly period arts and sciences were very efficient with materials and it would be unlikely that they would have discarded this.

For our acidic dyebath, the one with the tartar, we will proceed to add 6 ounces of pestled cochineal for each pound of wool. (I often put my dyestuffs in several small "teabags" - this saves a whole lot of time picking bits off of the fabric, and is plausibly one of the processes that could have been used but not mentioned, such as what exactly the "wheel" is - see illustration - or the form of the apparatus used to hold the dye vat.) We will also add some (eyeball it - a tablespoon or two for this smallish amount of fabric) more alum and tartar. This is a simplified version of the Plictho recipe to save time. The tartar will produce a warmer, redder color than you would get without it or with the addition of basic pH materials.

f53v from Die Hausbucher der Nürnberger Zwölfbrüderstiftungen c. 1433. This is the apparatus which appears, I believe, in the later 14th century, which makes dyeing much more efficient. The "wheel" (the rod with the crank) allows you to keep fabric moving and get it out of the vat more easily, while the "dye oven" as I call it holds up your dye vat and traps heat well. Stay tuned for my recreation of this majestic setup.

For the basic dyebath, we will use chalk (well-ground, food grade calcium carbonate) which is a basic pH altering substance found in Innsbruck to make a cooler color from red dye. We will add a tablespoon or so of chalk and the same amount of alum to the dye bat with the cochineal (6 oz to 1 lb of fabric as in our acidic dyebath). Again, this is not a terribly precise recipe - add as much as you see fit.

Both of these vats will be boiled gently (don't boil your vat over) for 1 hour. Kermes/cochineal recipes direct you to boil the vat, but madder must not be boiled if you use it or else it will turn brown instead of pink or orange. While period master dyers were so well trained that they could tell by sight what the right temperature looked like, I find that without the training from a 7 year full-time apprenticeship, I need a food thermometer to tell what temperature my vat is. We will be dyeing using a modern burner rather than a wood fire or "dye oven" with wood fire for safety and convenience.

During the dyeing process, it is both vital and period to keep the fabric moving. In period, this was done by agitating the fabric with poles and/or cranking it over a dye wheel. This keeps the fabric from wrinkling and forming pockets, therefore taking up dye unevenly and resulting in an unfortunate tie-dye look (this may be appealing to the modern eye, but period dyers were looking for a uniform shade).

Most recipes do not specify what you should do once your fabric is cooked. Segreti recommends washing it in water afterward, which I also recommend as some dye will inevitably run off your fabric and it is better to rinse now than to have it run all over your clothes. We will rinse in cold water and hang our samples to dry. If you would like you can wash it in warmer water at home, with soap, vinegar, etc. if you want to make very sure no more dye will escape.



Some period recipes:

From the Innsbruck Manuscript, c. 1330, Austria
“Take chalk in a pot and pour water thereon and mix it well together and let it sink to the bottom of the pot so that the water becomes clear and take that same water and boil the brazilwood well therein, until it is cooked and mix in alum and with it dye red zendel.”

From the "Stockholm Papyrus" ("Papyrus Graecus Holmiensis") c. 300-400
"Mordanting and Dyeing of Genuine Purple.
For a stater of wool put in a vessel 5 oboli of alum (and) 2 kotyles of water. Boil and let it (become) lukewarm. Leave it until early morning, then take it off and cool it. Then prepare a secondary mordant (in which) you put 8 drachmas of pomegranate blossoms and two kotyles of water in a vessel. Let it boil and put the wool in. However, after you have dipped the wool in several times, lift it out. Add to the pomegranate blossom water about 1 ball of alumed archil and dye the wool by judging with the eye. If you wish, however, that the purple be dark, add a little chalcanthum and let the wool remain long in it. In another passage it is in the following way: But if you wish that the purple be dark, then sprinkle natron and a little chalcanthum in the dye bath."

From Segreti per Colori, a mid-15th century Italian manuscript
“To dye silk or cloth red: Take 1 lb. of silk, and 4 oz of soap, and put them into a cauldron with water, and let it boil until you see the silk appear starred. Then take it out, and wash it well in clear water until the silk becomes white; drain it well, and wring it with your hands, and then spread it out, and this is done when the silk is not boiled. Then take 4 oz of alum in another small vase and boil it, and dissolve it in clear water, and when it is dissolved take another large vase, and fill it with fresh water, and put the alum into it, and then put in the silk, and let it remain 3 days and 3 nights, and then wash it and stir it about well with fresh water, wringing it well with your hand until the alum is washed out. Then take a kettle of fresh water, and 3 oz of powdered brazilwood, and let it boil until reduced one third, then fill it up with fresh water, and boil it again until reduced one finger’s breadth. Then take it off the fire and divide the water into two portions, and into one of these put the silk and let it stand until it is cold. Then wring it with your hand, and put it back into the other water which you reserved, and let it be as hot as you can bear your hand in it. Then drain it and wring it well, and spread it out in the sun and it will be fine.”
"To dye very fine scarlet. -Take 1 lb. of verzino columbino well ground, and soak it in clear water for the space of two days, and then put it into a boiler containing 3 or 4 bocali, to boil until reduced by one-third, add to it 2 oz. of quicklime and 3 oz. of roche alum; and if the colour is pale add 2 oz. of fenugreek; and if you wish to have it of a fuller colour add a fogliecto of boiled lye and it will be of a fine colour."

From the Plictho of Gioanventura Rosetti, c. 1548, Venice
"To dye cloth a very beautiful scarlet, in the manner of this City of Venice. First weigh your cloth, and for each piece [pound] of cloth use about 6 ounces of grain. For the mordanting, for each pound of cloth, use a half ounce of roche alum, and one ounce of white tartar well pestled and sifted. Have a cauldron, and have clear water and put into it the alum and the tartar. Make beneath a good fire to the end that it wants to boil. Then put in the cloth and make it boil continually for one hour with a good fire below. Then you will take out the cloth and send it to be washed in water that is well running and wash well and then prepare the full cauldron. Set it on the fire and see that inside there be four pails of strong water, well fatted and well pungent, together with the water. As it shows signs of wanting to boil, put in the grain but first see that it is well pestled. When it is about to boil put in the cloth and dive it, that is, poke it beneath, and give if four or five rounds on the turn wheel. Then remove out the cloth and let it cool. Then send it to wash in running water. Then prepare a new bath and give it two or three baths, that is with the bran, and for each bath one pound of roche alum and one pound of tartar. If the cloth is too open, give it a new bath, that is a quarta of bran without tartar, and one pound of arsenic well pestled. Note that it needs to boil one quarter of an hour, each and every new bath, with bran. Also, if the cloth were to be overloaded, give it a new bath with bran without tartar, with a pound of roche alum."

Fictional clothing in 15th and 16th century illustration

This paper is a quick overview of the topic of women’s dress in later 15th and early 16th century illustrations as an indicator of mythological, classical or allegorical origin. AKA "Artists making up crazy outfits that no one was actually wearing around on a daily basis." I could write reams more on the subject, but this is a succinct introduction. I entered this into East Kingdom A&S Champions a few years ago.
Here's the paper

On the mysterious "corset" of the 14th century

On the mysterious "corset" of the 14th century

The 14th century produced one particularly enigmatic garment: the corset. No, not that type of corset. It was most certainly not a reinforced bodice worn to shape the female figure. Many researchers have seen the word "corset" and assumed that familiar definition, but I assure you, that sort of corsetry dates from later centuries.

I cannot sew a garment and tell you "This is definitely exactly what corsets were." However, we do know a lot of things about them, and from these facts we can deduce what it might plausibly be. I am going to address the corset worn by ladies, though corsets were made for both men and women - most male and female versions of garments were pretty similar, having differences mainly in length between genders.

We can be sure that:

- corsets appear as early as 1322: "thirteen pieces of cloth for corsets for our said companion and her damsels" were ordered for Isabella of France (Strickland)


- and as late as 1403, made for Isabeau of Bavaria (Gibbons 385)

- one required 4 1/2 ells of cloth (Woolgar 233)*

- they did not form part of a suit (the set of cote, surcote, mantle, hood), and were sometimes accompanied by a matching hood or mantle (Newton 26, 33)

- the corset is suitable attire for dancing (Newton 74)

- they are usually made of "cloth" (i.e. wool) like the garments in a suit, and dyed in the same colors as other parts of a suit e.g. surcotes

- they could also be made of velvet (Newton 25)

- a corset could be richly embellished with pearls and embroidery, suggesting that it is an outer garment (Newton 56)

- a corset required slightly less fur to line than a surcote did: a surcote was lined with 386 bellies of miniver, while the manches and poignets required another 60 bellies; a contemporary corset required 300 bellies with another 40 bellies for manches and poignets (Newton 32)

- similarly, a corset required slightly less silk to line it than did a surcote (Newton 26)

- the corset was lined, like some surcotes, with a combination of squirrel furs and ermine (Newton 115)

- corsets ronts are mentioned in the period in which front fastenings were not yet fashionable; this term is used elsewhere to indicate that a garment goes on over the head, but may have some other meaning here (Newton 24)

- a corset could have ribbon ties/points, or buttons (Newton 25)

- the corset can be made for a man or a woman (unknown if they were identical, or like surcotes, could be cut to different lengths depending on gender) (Newton 55)

- a corset was a garment for noble people, i.e. expensive (Newton 74)

- a corset could be particolored (Newton 27)

- ribbon was used to make corsets, potentially to serve as ties (Newton 25)



First, some etymology. "Corset" is derives from the French "cors," body. "Corset fendu" ("split body-garment") is the specific name given in French to the garment which in English is named the sideless surcote. Meanwhile, the "manches" it has are sleeves, and "poignets" translates from modern French into "cuffs."  This might refer to any lower part of a sleeve, either the lower half of a long sleeve or a tippet hanging from a short sleeve. (The corset we are seeking isn't a sideless - one wouldn't have to specify "fendu," and sideless surcotes very, very, very, very rarely have sleeves.)

As the corset has sleeves of some kind, and is differentiated from a mantle, we can determine that it is most like a surcote. It's not a mantle. It's not a cote - cotes aren't completely covered in decoration like some corsets were. Why hide your pearls under other garments? Similarly, its fur lining can be supplemented with ermine to give a richer look, revealing ermine at the visible parts of the lining or potentially using it as trim, after the fashion in which it was used on the surcote. But it is not a full surcote, as a surcote was part of a suit. It is different from the surcote in the amount of material needed to make it - approximately 3/4 as much as a surcote. It covers the torso and has sleeves, so this deficit must be evident in the lower half of the body.

This would provide a neat explanation as to why a corset was not part of the suit worn for formal occasions - the lower half of it did not have the length of a surcote necessary for optimum conspicuous consumption. One would look somewhat uncovered wearing the corset to a formal event.

I'll note from experience, the more sleeves you wear, the more difficult your life becomes, especially if they are fitted. If one is to wear a corset - a sleeved garment - one had maybe best avoid wearing a surcote, unless one's corset's sleeves are particularly large. It really does seem to be a surcote-replacement, being made with a matching hood or mantle much as other outfits would have a matching surcote and mantle or hood (for example, a wedding outfit which had a surcote matched to its mantle) (Newton 33). One could, perhaps, wear the corset instead of the surcote. This would be quite practical on the dance-floor, as the corset would not tangle the feet with the excess length present on surcotes. It would also get rather toasty wearing 3 lined garments to dance in. The corset would serve the function of preserving decency or a certain level of formality by covering the cote's upper parts, as well as a majority of the lower body, as the surcote did. I therefore think it most likely that one would wear either a corset or a surcote.

It does appear to be a 14th century innovation - certainly they must have existed before one was made for the queen in 1322, otherwise the term would have required some explanation for its account-entry, but I can find no mention of them. They also fall from favor after the end of the "age of the cotehardie," not appearing in accounts of the majority of the 15th century - the latest mention I have found is that Isabeau of Bavaria ordered corsets in 1403, when the fashions of the later 14th century were still popular (Gibbons 385). Therefore, if we are to find an illustration that may be a corset, we must seek it pretty much exclusively in the 14th century.

So, away we go to the world of illustration to seek a garment that is like a surcote in general cut (covering the torso, having sleeves) but is shorter, may or may not have any visible method of closure, may be lined in fur or silk, and is worn as some manner of outer garment in the fashion of a surcotte. There may be a hood or mantle worn with it. I have categorized 2 types of garments which fit the criteria of a corset: the garments which I casually call the "hunting surcote" and the "Coat-Thing."

Suspect #1: the "hunting surcote"

A "hunting surcote" (so named because the ladies of the Taymouth Hours are out hunting) features splits on the sides of the skirt, sleeves which are usually short with tippets, and a non-dragging skirt, shorter than the fashionable surcote. They appear to go on over the head. In this case the "poignets" might translate as "tippets." In this garment, some of the fabric savings is in reduced length, and some appears to be in less volume of skirt gore by the split.

 https://www.pinterest.com/pin/257760778644937912/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/257760778644940502/

A garment of the same cut can also be found here https://www.pinterest.com/pin/257760778647799228/

A slightly longer version, though not as long as fashionable dragging surcotes, and worn while dancing https://www.pinterest.com/pin/257760778647936233/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/257760778651428294/ This image is sometimes labeled "the removal of the queen's corset" and the garment in question is clearly shorter than her cote - it barely drags the ground despite being held below shoulder level. It is worn over a laced-front cote. Newton remarks that "corsets ronts" could refer to corsets that went on over the head as this one does (Newton 24). Anne van Buren points out that the king and queen are dressed in penetential garb in these scenes (van Buren 66). This is more casual than the suit. It may or may not have slits; it is difficult to tell since it is in the process of being removed; it does have the particularly short length. (Thanks to Katerin ferch Gwenllian for pointing out this MS.)


Suspect #2: the "Coat-Thing"

The "Coat-Thing" features: an opening all the way down the front, with buttons closing at least part of the opening; sleeves, which may or may not be buttoned; and a non-dragging skirt, shorter than the fashionable surcote. In this case the "poignets" might translate as the lower part of the sleeve. This is different from the gardecorps of the 13th century in that it has no hood, is more fitted, has buttons, doesn't have those huge long dangling sleeves, and is shorter. All of these examples also appear later than the latest example of a gardecorps I can find. The reduced length, as well as the apparent lesser volume in the front of some examples, account for the smaller volume of materials used in the corset.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/257760778648836438/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/257760778648997442/
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/257760778648997453/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/257760778648997402/ - a somewhat unclear carving, but has the buttons in front and open sleeves of other Coat-Things.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/257760778651428408/ - a masculine example: the pink garment on the grey-haired man is identified by van Buren as an "old-fashioned" corset (van Buren 66). It displays the buttoned sleeves featured on several Coat-Things. The lack of front button closure, an innovation developed through the 14th century, is what I believe makes it old-fashioned. (Also, if the queen is wearing a corset in this MS as labeled above, the king might be as well - and his garment clearly has short sleeves with tippets and is shorter than the cote beneath, like the "hunting surcotes.")

It can be noted that there are not a whole lot of images which fit the description of a corset. I think this is actually pretty logical. The corset was perhaps a casual garment, certainly not part of the formal suit of garments (cote, surcote, mantle, optional hood) which would be more at home in the usually formal situations of artwork. If the queen was to be depicted, she would generally be in some sort of formal garments, not in a specific style of garment reserved for more casual wear.

In conclusion, I think it is possible that "corset" is not necessarily a specific term for one specific cut of garment, but rather a general category, like a modern "dress." I would call a wide variety of garments with the same basic features "dresses." The "corset" may be a general term for "a garment which is like a surcote: it covers the torso, at least part of the arm, and most of the lower body, but is too short to be a proper surcote." This encompasses a variety of cuts of body and sleeve. All of the above garments might have been called "corsets." There is certainly no other term floating around with such previously ill-defined meaning as "corset," and these pictured garments all display the features of corsets as defined above, which would be quite strange if featured in a surcote. Though I have defined the two types of garments I have seen illustrated, it is theoretically plausible that other cuts of corset might exist.

Tl;dr: a corset is pretty much a short surcote, not acceptable for formal occasions which require a surcote.


*The length of an ell varied wildly by place; in England an ell was 45 inches, in Flanders it was 27, and wool cloth was generally woven to a wider width than silks, e.g. 1.75 yards wide - 63 inches. Imagine, therefore, what you could make out of between approximately 3.5 to 5.5 yards of approximately 60" wide fabric. It's a surcote-like quantity. (The Medieval Tailor's Assistant 63) (Newton 24)



Works consulted include Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince (Stella Mary Newton), 
Lives of the Queens of England (Agnes Strickland),

The Queen as ‘social mannequin’: Consumerism and expenditure at the Court of Isabeau of Bavaria, 1393–1422 (Rachel C. Gibbons),

The Medieval Tailor's Assistant (Sarah Thursfield),
Illuminating Fashion: Dress in the Art of Medieval France and the Netherlands, 1325-1515 (Anne H. van Buren),

and The Senses in Late Medieval England (C. M. Woolgar).