At 03:49 PM 4/18/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Greetings!
>
>>For the dyes used in coloring woven materials, I have no suggestions. I am
>>sure that they have also been studied and documented. The "hippie" period
>>looked for "natural dyes", and I am sure that your university reference
>>librarian can find materials on the use of dyestuffs in medieval times.
>
>A good place to start on that topic would be E. Crowfoot, F. Prichard and K.
>Staniland, _Textiles and Clothing c.1150-c.1450: Medieval Finds from
>Excavations in London_ (London: HMSO, 1992). There is an appendix there
>which gives a good account of which dyestuffs have been positively
>identified in those finds by modern chemical analysis.
>In order by frequency of occurance, these were: madder, kermes (often
>called "grain"; probably the source of the colour "sanguine" in household
>accounts), woad/indigo (likely the source of "perse" in household accounts),
>lichen purple, and a range of yellows including weld and possibly
>brazilwood. There were some dyes which could not be identified, and about
>37% of the finds contained no dye at all, meaning that either they were not
>dyed or the dye has leached out over the centuries.
>
> I also beleive that a good deal of work in this field has been done by
>those studying Norse archaeology.
>
> Another excellent resource are fibre guilds (Ontario has an excellent
>one) where a good number of folks have studied natural dyeing in depth and
>could actually tell you about the medieval techniques. When I'm not
>studying Domincan education, I research medieval clothing, but construction
>techniques and household accounts, rather than dyeing, are my fields of
>expertise.
>
>Susan Carroll-Clark
>
>
>
Forgive me, but if "brazilwood" was from Brazil, it was an export from the
Portugese colony in South America and was not available until the early
1500's, Jim
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