Archaeologists and textile historians bring together 16 papers to investigate the production, trade and consumption of textiles in Scandinavia and across parts of northern and Mediterranean Europe throughout the medieval period. Archaeological evidence is used to demonstrate the existence or otherwise of international trade and to examine the physical characteristics of textiles and their distribution in order to understand who was producing, using and trading them and what they were being used for. Historical evidence, mainly textual, is employed to link textile names to places, numbers and prices and thus provide an appreciation of changing economics, patterns of distribution and the organisation of trade. Different types and qualities of cloths are discussed and the social implications of their production and import/export considered against a developing background of urbanism and increasing commercial wealth.

A clear and accessibly written guide to the medieval cloth-making trade in England.

The history of the Ancient Near East covers a huge chronological frame, from the first pictographic texts of the late 4th millennium to the conquest of Alexander the Great in 333 BC. During these millennia, different societies developed in a changing landscape where sheep (and their wool) always played an important economic role. The 22 papers presented here explore the place of wool in the ancient economy of the region, where large-scale textile production began during the second half of the 3rd millennium. By placing emphasis on the development of multi-disciplinary methodologies, experimentation and use of archaeological evidence combined with ancient textual sources, the wide-ranging contributions explore a number of key themes. These include: the first uses of wool in textile manufacture and organization of weaving; trade and exchange; the role of wool in institutionalized economies; and the reconstruction of the processes that led to this first form of industry in Antiquity. The numerous archaeological and written sources provide an enormous amount of data on wool, textile crafts, and clothing and these inter-disciplinary studies are beginning to present a comprehensive picture of the economic and cultural impact of woollen textiles and textile manufacturing on formative ancient societies.

Quantitative Studies of the Renaissance Florentine Economy and Society is a collection of nine quantitative studies probing aspects of Renaissance Florentine economy and society. The collection, organized by topic, source material and analysis methods, discusses risk and return, specifically the population’s responses to the plague and also the measurement of interest rates. The work analyzes the population’s wealth distribution, the impact of taxes and subsidies on art and architecture, the level of neighborhood segregation and the accumulation of wealth. Additionally, this study assesses the competitiveness of Florentine markets and the level of monopoly power, the nature of women’s work and the impact of business risk on the organization of industrial production.

A groundbreaking history of how the Black Death unleashed revolutionary change across the medieval world and ushered in the modern age In 1346, a catastrophic plague beset Europe and its neighbours. The Black Death was a human tragedy that abruptly halved entire populations and caused untold suffering, but it also brought about a cultural and economic renewal on a scale never before witnessed. The World the Plague Made is a panoramic history of how the bubonic plague revolutionized labour, trade, and technology and set the stage for Europe’s global expansion. James Belich takes readers across centuries and continents to shed new light on one of history’s greatest paradoxes. Why did Europe’s dramatic rise begin in the wake of the Black Death? Belich shows how plague doubled the per capita endowment of everything even as it decimated the population. Many more people had disposable incomes. Demand grew for silks, sugar, spices, furs, gold, and slaves. Europe expanded to satisfy that demand—and plague provided the means. Labour scarcity drove more use of waterpower, wind power, and gunpowder. Technologies like water-powered blast furnaces, heavily gunned galleons, and musketry were fast-tracked by plague. A new “crew culture” of “disposable males” emerged to man the guns and galleons. Setting the rise of Western Europe in global context, Belich demonstrates how the mighty empires of the Middle East and Russia also flourished after the plague, and how European expansion was deeply entangled with the Chinese and other peoples throughout the world.

Revised, updated and expanded, this second edition analyzes the structures and practices of European economies within a global context.

This book re-evaluates and extends understandings about how work was conceived and what it could entail for women in the premodern period in Europe from c. 1100 to c. 1800. It does this by building on the impressive growth in literature on women’s working experiences, and by adopting new interpretive approaches that expand received assumptions about what constituted 'work' for women. While attention to the diversity of women’s contributions to the economy has done much to make the breadth of women’s experiences of labour visible, this volume takes a more expansive conceptual approach to the notion of work and considers the social and cultural dimensions in which activities were construed and valued as work. This interdisciplinary collection thus advances concepts of work that encompass cultural activities in addition to more traditional economic understandings of work as employment or labour for production. The chapters reconceptualise and explore work for women by asking how the working lives of historical women were enacted and represented, and analyse the relationships that shaped women’s experiences of work across the European premodern period.

The history of textiles, more than that of any other artefact, is a history of human ingenuity. From the very earliest needles of 50,000 years ago to the smart textiles of today, textiles have been fundamental to human existence, and enjoyed, prized and valued by every culture. Silks from China, cottons from India, tapestries from Flanders, dyes from South America the appeal of different weaves, colours and patterns was long a motivation for trade, the exchange of ideas and sometimes even war. Mary Schoesers groundbreaking book, now revised and updated to incorporate new research, presents a chronological survey of textiles around the world from prehistory to the present. It explores how they are made, what they are made from, how they function in society and the ways in which they are valued and given meaning as well as reflecting on the environmental challenges they present today. World Textiles offers an invaluable introduction to this vast and fascinating subject for makers, designers, textile and fashion professionals, collectors and students alike.

From Paleolithic flax to 3D knitting, explore the global history of textiles and the world they weave together in this enthralling and educational guide. The story of humanity is the story of textiles -- as old as civilization itself. Since the first thread was spun, the need for textiles has driven technology, business, politics, and culture. In The Fabric of Civilization, Virginia Postrel synthesizes groundbreaking research from archaeology, economics, and science to reveal a surprising history. From Minoans exporting wool colored with precious purple dye to Egypt, to Romans arrayed in costly Chinese silk, the cloth trade paved the crossroads of the ancient world. Textiles funded the Renaissance and the Mughal Empire; they gave us banks and bookkeeping, Michelangelo's David and the Taj Mahal. The cloth business spread the alphabet and arithmetic, propelled chemical research, and taught people to think in binary code. Assiduously researched and deftly narrated, The Fabric of Civilization tells the story of the world's most influential commodity.

This is the first book to describe the early English woollens’ industry and its dominance of the trade in quality cloth across Europe by the mid-sixteenth century, as English trade was transformed from dependence on wool to value-added woollen cloth. It compares English and continental draperies, weighs the advantages of urban and rural production, and examines both quality and coarse cloths. Rural clothiers who made broadcloth to a consistent high quality at relatively low cost, Merchant Adventurers who enjoyed a trade monopoly with the Low Countries, and Antwerp’s artisans who finished cloth to customers’ needs all eventually combined to make English woollens unbeatable on the continent.