Hi again! I'm back (and so soon!)

Since I had two presentations this past weekend, that means I have two (count 'em - TWO) new papers. The majority of my effort went into the data analysis paper posted earlier today (You can find that post here), but this is the second paper I wrote, meant to accompany a half-hour demonstration of the techniques I describe. Forgive me if the descriptions are difficult to follow - since these were written to accompany a demonstration, I skipped the effort of making videos or drawings to go along with the descriptions.

If you have any questions on those techniques I'm describing, feel free to post a comment and I'll reply with a clarifying comment or - if I can - a picture or video.

Get the paper here

Thanks for your interest!
Sadb

Research on the Annals of Ulster

Greetings!

I recently finished writing and presenting a paper that examines cultural influence on Early Medieval Ireland through the lens of violent incidents recorded in the Annals of Ulster, 431-1199 CE. If you're interested in reading it, feel free to read and download it at the link below.

Read and/or Download here!

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to comment below.

Thanks for your interest!
Sadb

Research Question Woes: Ponderings and Rantings

Okay. So. I have thoughts on thesis statements and research questions.

Some readers may know and some may not, but I graduated with a bachelor's degree two years ago. That degree was in Electrical and Computer Engineering, and my coursework shows it. Some readers may also be familiar with my undergraduate thesis, available elsewhere on the blog, that is most definitely not in engineering.

That paper represents the sum of my knowledge of medieval Irish garments at the time when it was written. It was also completed around 3:00 in the morning just before I mailed it out to my thesis advisor in September of 2014 after I had gone to a beer festival. That isn't really relevant to this post, but I recently re-read it and I feel the need to defend some of my grammatical, logical, and "spelling" choices. I had my boyfriend proofread it in the hope that he would catch errors that I had missed, but alas.

I've been reading a series of essays comprising a book called "Anglo-Saxon England: Norse-English Relations in the Period before the Conquest." I finished it today and one of the things I took away from it was this: a scholarly paper has to have a thesis statement because it has to have a point. What it does not have to have is completely new information to add to the field. That was one of the things I missed in my thesis: I knew that the point was to add to my chosen field, but I had always been taught that I needed to set out a question, then defend it. That was how papers were written in school: make an assertion and defend. Assert and defend, assert and defend, all through grade school and into college. When I wrote a historiography in my junior year of high school (one year before secondary graduation, for those not familiar), we were assigned the introduction first, or rather the approach we would take. We had a couple days between when we chose our topic to when we wrote our introduction, during which we weren't expected to do in-depth research on our topic. We decided on our methods of presentation before we knew much of anything about the material that was available on our subject and what it might provide for us.

Here's what I wish our assignments had been:

1. Decide on a topic
2. Present a body of evidence
3. Write a research question
4. Present a rough draft of evidence and a refined research question
5. Present a conclusion and a finalized research question
6. Present an introduction, thesis statement, and a second rough draft of evidence
7. Present final paper

The idea behind this process is that unless a full experiment has been conducted as in a scientific study, the researcher will continue to refine their understanding of the topic as their writing progresses. Reading, reshuffling, and rewriting are all part of the investigative writing process as I understand it now, and the idea of what kinds of questions can be covered in a given format is enhanced as writing progresses. Had I really understood that coming out of high school, I may have approached my Honors thesis in a much more scientific way. I had the knowledge of what a "good" paper might look like and I had been writing thesis statements and defending them since they taught us how to write an essay back in third grade. I was considered a very good essay writer, but all I was doing was writing to the same format that I had been taught, and I could find evidence to support almost any claim that I thought to be true. I even wrote a thesis using a similar strategy in high school. I may post it sometimes, if I can bring myself to do it - it's an exercise in "Dear Reader, I have a big topic to cover and I'm supposed to prove something. Sincerely, Me."

When I approached my thesis, I was already late to the party. I hadn't even entered the Honors college until my second year, and finding a thesis advisor on an Ag/Engineering campus that had both the time and the background to advise a thesis on medieval history took the better part of six months. In a stroke of (I think) genius I turned to the Apparel Design (i.e. fashion) college to focus on fashion instead of history or archaeology, since the history department was busy and half of the archaeology department was on sabbatical. So I found my advisor with one and a half, possibly two years out of the usual four to write my thesis. Then, I had to have a research question/thesis statement on file with the Honors college before I had had time to really dive into research. The college made it clear to us that the question on file did not have to be the question I actually answered or approached in my paper, but I thought that meant that I was allowed to change topics. After years of training in "Assert, Defend" I was darn well going to Assert, and then Defend.

All through my research process I had a goal of answering my question. I did eventually change my question to be more specific (remember, thesis statements have to be narrow and concise!) but the general idea remained the same: what did Irish women wear in medieval times? This was the question I had set out to answer, and that was the question I would explore, even if there was no answer just yet. Even if answering that question properly would take a lifetime of study and at least one book's worth of analysis and argument.

What I realized today, or perhaps I only think I realized it, is that the point of a scholarly article can and maybe should be the presentation of evidence. It should be to a particular end and it should make a point, but the paper's purpose can be to simply present evidence and not necessarily to persuade an audience to the author's point of view. Maybe all I needed to do in a paper was summarize what I had discovered about something without an end in mind. In other words, "Here's a thing I found. Look at the thing! Also, I think it does *this* but it might not be for that."

Everything I remember learning about paper writing in school focused on the question, or the assertion: "This is what I think." What I wish I had been taught, or what I wish I had focused on if it actually was taught, is the process and the evidence. I wish the message I had remembered was "I don't care what you think. What did you find out?"

I know that there are a lot of people out there who have been officially taught, as their degree or field of study, how to write a paper that presents evidence. What have you discovered?

Spinning Class Handout

Introduction

To say that spinning, the twisting of fibers into a strand, is an art with a long history is like saying there are a couple sheep in New Zealand. Fibers like wool, linen, hemp, jute, nettle, and silk have been used for thousands of years to make yarn, thread, cord, and rope that could be used to make clothing, nets, ship's sails, and even housing. Until the Industrial Revolution normalized machine-spun threads just under two centuries ago, these fibers were spun by hand.

This class will discuss two methods of spinning: European distaff spinning and drop spinning.

Terminology

Spindle: In spindle spinning, the spindle is the item used to twist the fibers into yarn. It also serves as a way to store the spun yarn.

Whorl: The round weight often attached to the spindle as a kind of "fly wheel." It helps keep the spindle spinning when it is suspended.

Shaft: The narrow part of the spindle. The shaft is used for holding the spun yarn and also as a handle. It is the most important part of the spindle, and can be used as a spindle on its own if the whorl is removable.

Roving: The most common way that fiber is prepared for spinning. Roving is formed by carding wool and then drawing it out into a thick rope.

Fleece: "Fleece" most commonly refers to raw wool. "A fleece" refers to the entirety of the wool shorn from a sheep. "A fleece" may have been sorted, or "skirted," but it refers to the whole instead of a portion.

Carding: Carding is the process of brushing wool. It separates the fibers, can remove some tangles, and makes the fiber easier to spin. Carding is relatively new in the history of spinning.

Combing: Combing is the process of using woolcombs to separate fibers. It can be used to remove tangles, short fibers, and foreign matter from wool and other fibers. I have found references to archaeological evidence that shows that wool combing is at least as old as the Viking Age, but it is probably much older.

Ply: Plying involves twisting two or more spun threads together to form a compound strand. It is usually much quicker than spinning single threads.

 

Drop Spinning

Aside from wheel spinning, drop spinning is the most common form of handspinning in modernized countries like the United States and most spinners today learned how to spin on a drop spindle.

Drop spinning consists of winding yarn around the shaft of the spindle, then securing the yarn at the top. The spindle is suspended from the yarn and given a spin, as if it were a spinning top. The fiber is drafted as the spindle spins and the spindle gets closer to the floor as the spinner drafts more fiber.

In this style of spinning, the ease of spinning and the quality of the yarn can be highly dependent on the weight, shape, and quality of the spindle because the speed and momentum of the spindle affects the speed and duration of the spin, while the weight of the spindle affects how thin the yarn can become before it breaks under the strain.

European Distaff Spinning

 

Spinning yarn using a distaff was so predominant in Medieval Europe that so far I have found it impossible to find a definitive medieval image of anyone spinning wool without a distaff. There are some examples that show women spinning without distaffs, but there is no unspun fiber visible, which has left some to conclude that they are plying yarn, not spinning fiber into single strands.

When spinning with a distaff, the unspun fiber is held on a stick (the distaff) that serves almost as a third hand, leaving one hand free to draft the fiber and the other to spin the spindle. The spindle can be rolled between the fingers or dropped, with a half-hitch knot holding the yarn in place. Because the spindle is supported, the shape of the whorl and the weight of the spindle are much less important than they are in drop spinning. Also, the distaff allows for much finer control of the fiber which can allow a spinner to spin fine yarn with relative ease.

Sources

International Wool Textile Organization. History of Wool. <http://www.iwto.org/wool/history-of-wool/>.

Elizabeth's Fiber and Yarn Store. Introduction to the Spindle. <http://www.fiber2yarn.com/info/spindle.htm>.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Hunterian_Psalter_c._1170_Eve_spinning.jpg

https://15thcenturyspinning.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/15th-c-broughton-church-cambridgeshire.jpg

https://15thcenturyspinning.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/pinterest-com.jpg

Further Reading

The Joy of Handspinning. How to Use a Drop Spindle. <http://joyofhandspinning.com/spinning-yarn-with-a-drop-spindle/>.

Cathelina di Allesandri. 15thCenturySpinning (Blog). <https://15thcenturyspinning.wordpress.com/>.

Else Ostergaard. Woven Into the Earth: Textiles from Norse Greenland. Aarhus University Press. 2004. 

Abby Franquemont. Respect the Spindle. Interweave Press. 2009.

Alex McConnell. The Early Irish Chronicler (Blog). 2015. <http://www.irishchronicler.blogspot.com/>.

The Spindle Project

For An Tir's Twelfth Night 2015, I decided to start a whole new project and do some practical research while I was at it. The Dirty Dozen Largesse Derby provided me with the motivation to make a collection of handmade spindles and discover how they might have been constructed and used. Unfortunately, real life got in the way and I was not able to enter my spindles in the derby, but the project started an investigation into how spinning was done by everyday people before spinning wheels became widespread, and before the Industrial Revolution drastically changed the way textiles were made.

There were a few things I wanted to keep in mind for this project:
-First, it is important to remember that people in the middle ages would have mastered spinning at a very early age. First, since it was a vital skill, spinning was ubiquitous and a normal part of daily life. As such the spinners probably could spin much more nimbly than most people in this century. It was important to remember that certain skills that are difficult for modern people may have been second nature for these lifelong spinners. This is important because it means we cannot discard a technique like using a distaff as improbable just because it feels clumsy to us.
-Second, because spinning was so important, the spindle was first and foremost a tool and not an ornament. There are instances of decorated spindles, particularly in graves, but the vast majority of the spindles made were almost purely utilitarian in nature. They had to be as practical and efficient as possible with the technology and techniques known at the time.
-Third, it is important to discard preconceived notions of what spindle spinning may look like. Most people who spin on spindles today use drop spindles, whether they are top or bottom whorl. Some use supported spindles and other variants, but I'd hazard a guess that at least 90% of spindle spinning done in the 21st century is done on a modern-style drop spindle without a distaff. In order to approach this project with as little bias as possible, I started by completely discarding the idea of a drop spindle. If the evidence pointed me toward the drop spindle as the tool of choice, it would be because the evidence supported it and not because that is the spindle I know best.

So, what was I left with? The most essential basis of what I needed to create was that I needed a tool that could twist wool, linen, etc. into yarn that was good enough and consistently thin enough to be woven into usable fabric. I needed to follow the techniques and tools that we know were available at the time and, when possible, I needed to use the evidence we already have for what spindles looked like and how they were used.

Due to the volume of archaeological evidence, most of the extant pieces (spindle whorls, spindles) I reference here are from the Viking-Age towns of Birka, Kaupang, and Hedeby. For evidence of how spindles were used, I rely primarily on visual evidence from later Medieval illuminations, tapestries, and other artistic depictions. As a secondary source of information, I also reference the design of the spindle whorls as these can indicate the intended method of spinning.

The Materials

The extant spindle whorls from the middle ages show us that they could be made out of a wide variety of materials. In Scandinavia alone we have a body of evidence containing 1356 whorls and 46 spindles dating between the 8th and 15th centuries alone. The whorls are made from amber, antler, bone, clay, coral, glass, metal, lead, wood, and stone(1)(2) and generally weigh between 10 and 30 grams. Diameters cover a wide range that generally can be matched to the density of the material. Soapstone, a heavy stone that is relatively easy to carve, generally was carved into whorls between 3 and 5 centimeters in diameter, though there was one as small as 2cm(1). One could argue that some of the spindle whorls found might have been mislabeled as whorls when in fact they may have been used as beads. This is particularly possible for some of the more precious materials like amber, glass, and coral.

For my spindle whorls, I selected stone and wood in diameters that range between 3 and 5 centimeters depending on shape. Some of the whorls I was able to obtain have more of a donut shape rather than a spherical shape, which means they can have a larger diameter while weighing approximately the same as the spherical versions. It should also be noted that many of the stone whorls are made of semiprecious materials. While plausible, the use of precious stones as spindle whorls is not representative of common Medieval practice and is primarily a result of the materials that were available when I was buying my whorls.

Extant spindles, of which there are fewer, were generally between 7 and 12mm in diameter and 20 to 30cm long(1). I chose diameters that would fit my whorls snugly, which wound up being between 6 and 16mm. My first spindles were cut into 9 inch lengths from a 36 inch dowel, so they were all about 22cm. For the next few, I may cut the dowels into 12 inch lengths for a length of 30cm. My measurements may not necessarily be spot-on, but these spindles will definitely be in the right range.

The Design

The spindles I made were fashioned after medieval drawings and extant spindle whorls. Looking at images of the whorls on display at the museum in Birka (3), the whorls used ranged in shape from semi-spherical to discoid or donut-shaped. My first source mentioned quite a lot of whorls that were flat on one side and convex on the other (planoconvex). I don't see those in the images from Birka, but 37% of the spindle whorls found at Kaupang had this planoconvex shape. Another 29% of the Kaupang whorls were of a conical shape, which evidence suggests would have produced a faster spin, but they do not have much torque so they would be more suitable for wool than for plant fibers(2). Another quarter of the whorls had a regular disc or donut shape. Very few (4 out of 121) of the Kaupang whorls were spherical, which makes sense for a drop-spindling context. Combined with the thick spindle shafts, a spherical whorl would neither spin quickly nor have much torque, though they are quite useful for a style of supported spindling where the spindle is continuously spun between the fingers instead of being spun and left to hang. This type of supported spindling is used in modern Russian support spindles and it is my belief that a variant of Russian supported spindling was one style of spinning used immediately after the spindle was invented, but before drop spindling became the norm.

It looks as though the material of the whorl played a part in determining the shape of the whorl, or vice versa(2). Conical whorls were primarily made from lead or clay, while the discoid an spherical/semispherical whorls were more commonly stone. My guess is that the pliable nature of clay and (possibly) the castable/pliable nature of lead made It easier to form a cone, while stone whorls could be carved or sanded either by hand or lathe into a round shape.

Stone spindle whorls from the museum on the island of Birka, Sweden.

As one can see from the image, the holes in the Birka whorls are rather large in proportion to the size of the whorls themselves. As such, the whorls I used had holes that were as large as possible to accommodate what I imagine were fairly thick spindle shafts. My sources did not seem to indicate that the whorl holes were measured in addition to the extant spindle shafts, but I expect that the holes would closely match the sizes of spindles that were measured.

The design of the spindle shafts posed a greater problem than the design of the whorls. My initial design was based almost entirely off the Russian support spindles because there are so few extant spindle shafts and most artistic depictions of spinning show a mostly full spindle, which makes it difficult to see the underlying shape. However, further investigation yielded a slightly different design. There are a few extant spindle shafts discussed in the book Woven Into the Earth: Textiles from Norse Greenland that are presented in beautifully detailed pictures along with detailed measurements. In contrast to the vaguely conical spindle shape of a modern Russian spindle, these Greenlandic Norse spindles were the same diameter along most of the shaft with a slight bulge near one end that was roughly twice the diameter of the rest of the spindle at its largest point. Also notable is that not all of these spindles showed signs of wear by a whorl, which implies that a whorl was not always necessary for spinning. It should be mentioned, however, that Greenlandic Norse methods of spinning were not always standard, as evidenced by the relative absence of distaffs in the archaeological record and testimony by contemporaries that described Norse Greenlanders as using their heads as distaffs. Despite this regional difference, I would hazard a guess and say that the spindle designs of Norse Greenland did not differ greatly from spindle design in less remote areas.

Lessons Learned

• Spindle whorls from the Middle Ages took a wide range of forms, but most of them were made of stone or wood, weighed between 10 and 30 grams, and were discoid, hemispherical, or spherical in shape.
• Spindle shafts from the Middle Ages were usually between 20 and 30 cm long, mostly a consistent diameter, and usually had a bulge of some sort on one end.
• Hooks on spindles were not unknown, though they were likely not as common as hookless spindles.

Pictures of the Finished Spindles (Upcoming)

Sources

Carolyn Priest-Dorman. Medieval North European Spindles and Whorls. Vassar. 2000. <http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/spindles.html>.

Ingvild Oye. Textile-Production Equipment. Things from the Town. Artefacts and Inhabitants in Viking-age Kaupang. Ed: D. Skre. Kaupang Excavation Project Publication Series, vol, 3, Aarhus University Press, pp 339-372. <https://www.academia.edu/1168001/Textile-production_Equipment>.

Birka Artifacts. <http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/BirkaArtifacts.html>.

On Wool and Linen (Context is Everything)

I was recently reading Mairead Dunlevy's book Dress in Ireland for a literature review. One of the seemingly inconsequential details that stood out to me is such a small detail that it took me 20 minutes to find it again. This article was originally part of my literature review, but I split it off since it was clear I was no longer reviewing Dress in Ireland, and had some thoughts I needed to get down on paper.

It is mentioned in the "The Sixteenth Century" chapter of Dress in Ireland that it is possible that the custom of using saffron as a dye came to Ireland "from Spain, a hot country where it was used in preventing 'that evil which cometh of much sweating and long wearing of linen'."[1] This was quite an interesting detail to me because it adds a potential extra reason for the prevalence of wool in clothing. Certainly this "evil" that came from wearing too much linen in Spain does not trump the affordability, warmth, and overall practicality of wearing wool in Ireland and other northern countries. That said, it is not unlikely that wool came to be seen as a wholesome material fit for good, sturdy clothing while a more finicky material like linen could bring disease upon the wearer if worn too often. Certainly in an area like Ireland, a person would likely catch a chill in winter if their only clothing were linen. Having a cultural association between wool and wholesomeness would add a dimension to fabric choice and could change the message sent by clothing. To sum up:

Wool:

• Advantages: cheap, affordable, warm, water-resistant, sturdy, produced locally, wholesome
• Disadvantages: occasionally uncomfortable, potential association with lower classes

Linen:

• Advantages: light, softens with age, fashionable, often imported, potential association with upper classes
• Disadvantages: cold in winter, expensive, less protective, can't wear as often (brings about "evils")

It should be noted that the advantages and disadvantages as categorized here are not set in stone. Locally produced vs imported goods, class association, fashionability, and affordability are all characteristics that may or may not be preferred by certain groups. Most of the people I know, for example, prefer locally-produced sturdy clothing over fashionable imports because they want to be seen as hard-working, practical people who support the local or national economy. In other circles, imported fashions and expensive tailoring are preferred because they show that the wearer is able to afford such things. In late medieval Ireland, wearing English or Irish styles became a political statement that showed the wearer's acceptance or rejection of English rule.

The "evil which cometh of [...] much wearing of linen" gave me a strong reminder of how important it is to consider context when studying fashion. Fashion is so closely tied to culture that it is arguably impossible to fully understand without a strong knowledge of the culture (and subculture) that wore it, in addition to things like history, origin, and how that culture and its groups viewed the fashion. Imagine if, in 400 years, someone concluded that people all over the world in the late 20th century all wore ripped black clothing covered in decorative safety pins. It would be an example of a unique subculture's fashion trend, in this case punk culture, being mistaken as the prevalent or accepted fashion of an entire society, completely ignoring the specific message sent by such a trend. Thus, I restate this as much for myself as for anyone else: context is everything!


[1] Dunlevy pg 54. Originally sourced from Edmund Spencer's A view of the State of Ireland written dialogue-wise between Eudoxus and Irenaeus, intro., James Ware, Marlborough, 1809, pp.101

Learn to Spin (with a Medieval flare) Class description and Lesson Plan

Name: Learn to Spin (with a Medieval Flare)
Class Fee: $5 to cover materials
Location: North Plains Senior Center, North Plains OR
Time: 1-3pm, Saturday January 31, 2015
Duration: 2 hrs
Limit: 6 students*

Class description: In this class, we will cover the essentials of spinning: tools, technique, and fiber. We will begin with a short lesson on how spinning was done in the Early Medieval period with a focus on Norse spindles and wool. Students will be presented with pictures of medieval spinners to better examine what spinning would have looked like in the Middle Ages, and we will briefly examine pictures of extant spindle whorls and data from three archaeological digs in Scandinavia. A discussion of fibers will follow, then a lesson on how to use a drop spindle with wool roving. The lesson will focus on the use of a bottom-whorl drop spindle and modern spinning techniques with discussion on how modern techniques differ from the medieval techniques. The lesson will conclude with a brief demonstration of spinning using a period spindle and a distaff. Students will take home one bottom-whorl drop spindle, some wool roving, and a printed information pamphlet with resources for further study if desired.

* Children 12 and under must be accompanied by an adult (single fee unless both are taking the class).