Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Book in excellent unread/unused condition. Gift message in front otherwise like new. Softcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> A number of mordants were imported particularly potash produced from wood ashes by leaching Although this could be produced in England it was largely imported particularly from the Baltic by the mid-thirteenth century. Alum the most commonly used mordant after potash and the sole mordant used for scarlet was imported from Spain and southern Europe. The finest quality was said to come from the shores of the Black Sea and Genoese merchants were importing alum into England at the beginning of the fourteenth century: Verdigris and copperas were probably used as mordants; verdigris being used to fix colour while copperas tended to deepen the colour as well as fix it. Argol whilst not strictly a mor- dant was used with other mordants for brightening colour. Spain was the chief source of Gallipoli oil which came to England in the form of ready-made soap from Castile and was used in the manufacture of the highest quality cloths. Olive oil was imported to Bristol from Portugal which when old was used for dressing wool prior to spinning Dyers were dependent upon not only their skills but also their knowledge of the best foreign supplies of the dyestuffs required for their trade. Many dyers were people of substance and influence dealing directly with foreign merchants. Some were merchants and entrepreneurs rather than artisans the labour of dying being undertaken by employees. It was this dependence upon imported materials together with the need to ensure high quality which drew dyers together in cities with others who were buying and selling in order to regulate their trade and dyers were frequently members of the merchant guilds. There were many dyers in merchant guilds in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and no evidence of weavers and fullers being mem bers. The difference was between the somewhat more elevated position of town and city-based dyers who comparatively rarely had a designated guild (Bristol being an exception) and the weavers and fullers who were entirely outside merchant guilds and closely united in guilds of their own. (LL)