Glossary of material and clothing mentioned in 16th and 17th century wills

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: [unknown]

Manufacturing of material

Worsted - a tight smooth yarn spun from long staple fleeces. The fleece was prepared for spinning by being combed with heavy spiked wool combs that were heated to help them pass through the greasy fleece more easily^[1]

Woollen - a fluffy yarn where the fibres don't lie parallel to each other using fleece that had a shorter staple and was carded rather than combed and spun with a slightly different method to a worsted yarn.

Warp - the stronger thread that goes from top to bottom of the loom and needs to be strronger so it doesn't pull apart. Theses would have be prepared and spun to make a smooth strong worsted yarn which is stronger rthan a woollen type yarn

Weft - this is the yarn that goes across the width of the loom, as it isn't under as much tension as the warp the yarn can be more 'delicate'.

Fulling -this is a finishing process for the woven material. The cloth is washed and pummelled in order to felt the fluufy weft fibres together, hiding the weave and making the fabric more durable. A nap cvould be raised after fulling if required. The amount of fulling needed for different types of cloth varied depending upon what the cloth was going to be used for. Full length cloth hose needed a woollen fabric that had a twill weave and only lightly fulled so it had some elasticity

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Types of Material

Bay - lightweight woollen plain weave cloth with a worsted warp and a woollen weft with a napped surface

Broadcloth - Finest woollen cloth named for it larger width

Bysse - fine linen, also a vague name for any fine or costly material

Cadace - material used for padding doublets etc

Chamlet - lightweight material made from a mix of silk with hair and/or linen, could be watered or grosgrain, the most affordable silk: gowns limited to those with £40 a year

Chaloun - figured woollen material, a kind of tapestry used for bedspreads and hangings

Checklaton - a cloth of rich material

Cyprus/Cypress/sypers - a light transparent material, usually a silk and linen mix, sometimes with a crepe weave

Durance - closely weave woollen worsted used for aprons

Farandine/farrendon

Frieze - Very thick, heavy plain woollen weave, well fulled cloth. Made from cheaper fleeces not suitable for finer cloth

Frizado - similar to frieze but better quality

Fustian - the only common fabric in this era that might contain cotton thread. A linen or worsted warp and cotton or wool weft made in Lancashire and Genoa ("jean"), Ulm ("homes") Milan (twice the price of the others) and Naples (with a dense velvety nap that coud be embroidred or perfumed)

Grogram and buffin - Ribbed woollen worsteds, sometimes mixed with silk, buffin was more delicate

Grosgrain - made of silk, a type of taffeta with wefts thicker than the warp to give a ribbed surace, sometimes tabbied - given a moire effect

Holland - good to middling quality linen

Kendall - Narrow woollen fabric dyed green

Kersey - Wool cloth a yard wide

Linsey-wolsey - Loosely woven cloth of linen warp and woollen weft

Lockram - coarse loosely woven hemp material

Mockado - material made partly of silk and partly of wool, a mock velvet with a pile of wool not silk

Russells - a luxury worsted woollen cloth with a satin weave and sometimes a damask pattern

Russet -

• Country russett - coarse narrow wool cloth undyed and unfinished
  • Broad russet - better quality
    • London russet - as wide and expensive as broadcloth

Satin de Bruges/Bridges satin - a cheaper imitation of silk satin with close packed warp threads heading the linen weft. The warp could be silk or worsted

Sarcenet - lightweight even weave taffeta

Say and Serge - lightweight hard wearing woollen twill weave material. Some says had a silk warp, serges had a worsetd warp and a woollen weft.

Scarlet - wool broadcloth of highest quality dyed with kermes and usually red

Stammel - lesser quality than broadcloth, always red

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• Furs

The 1533 Act of Apparel denied the wearing of furs to agricultural workers,, husbandmen were to wear no fur at all, not even English lamb or rabbit allowed to yeomen.

Foybe - Beech/Stone marten

grey jenet - civet cat

budge or bogey - lamb

Flix fur of a hare or other animals

shanks - from the legs of sheep

coney - rabbit

Leopard

• libbards wombes - softer longer belly fur

lucerne - lynx

Items of clothing:

paned hose - breeches made of strips of different coloured cloth joined together

passement - gold or silver lace

statute lace - lace made according to a law that regulated its width and material

Useful links:

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/london-record-soc/vol38/pp215-229

Sources

1. ↑ staple = length of the fibre