Linen, or manchester, is an important component of any household. From the 13th century onwards, household inventories made following a death afford us quite precise descriptions of the type, origin, decoration and quantity of linen owned by members of the wealthier classes. The poor, as always, are to a large extent left out, as their goods were too meagre and ragged to warrant such record. The term ‘linen’, covering all household fabrics from underwear to cheese cloths, is a pointer to the supreme importance of the fabric itself through the ages. What follows is a synopsis of the types and usage of household linen during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Linen is produced from flax, and has been used since Ancient Egyptian times; personal and household linen seem to have come into widespread use during the Classical period of the Greeks and Romans. Linen was used everywhere, by everyone from the nobility to the middle classes, while hemp was woven into coarser cloth, used mainly by the poorer classes, and the wealthiest could extend to silk, imported at great price from the East.
Cotton garments were first brought to Spain by the Arabs in the 8th century. In the 13th century, after the Crusades, cotton goods were imported into Europe through Venice, but remained rare and precious because of the monopoly. Cotton flocking for the mattresses of the rich gave cotton its reputation for luxurious softness.
Predominantly, manchester was white. A variety of damask patterns were used once this weaving style came into use in the sixteenth century, and the Dutch, particularly, used heavily ironed creases to create patterns in the seventeenth century. Earlier, decorations on linen were achieved by embroidery, tassels and fringing, pulled-work, stripes and designs woven into the fabric. White-on-white needlework appeared in the Renaissance, eventually developing into lace at the end of the sixteenth century.
Hainault - 15th C.
Rheims - finest batiste from late 14th C.
Holland - 2nd half of 15th C. - batiste-like linomple and other fine textiles from Holland became the ultimate in luxury sheeting.
Batiste, a very fine, tightly woven linen, invented in the 13th C. by Baptiste of Cambrai, gains in popularity in the late sixteenth/early seventeenth centuries, and linomple disappears.
"Historians date the beginning of the aesthetic career of beds as a distinct piece of furniture to the 12th century, when the French vocabulary concerning bedding also emerged, remaining almost unchanged to this day."
Beds were an obvious outlet for luxurious tastes in those who could afford them, and as such were censoriously viewed by social critics, such as Harrison, writing in 1557:
Our fathers and we ourselves have lyen full ofte upon straw pallettes, covered only with a sheet, under coverlets made of dogswain or hopharlots…and a good round logge under their heades, insteade of a boulster. If it were so that our fathers or the good man of the house had…a matteres or flock bed and thereto a sacke of chafe to rest hys heade upon, he thought himself to be as well loged as the lorde of the towne, so well were they contented. Pillowes, they sayde, were thoughte mete only for women in childebed. As for servants, if they had any sheete above them, it was well, for seldome had they any under their bodies, to keepe them from the pricking staws, that ranne oft thorow the canvas, and rased their hardened hides.
The most basic bedding was usually a pallet stuffed with straw or leaves. Wealthy people might lay a woollen mattress on top of this. A soft mattress called a couste or couette went on next, made of ticking of wool or silk fustian and stuffed with chaff, feathers or down. Occasionally, this item might be filled with balls of unprocessed cotton (flocking) from the Orient. The French couette gives us the English word quilt. During the early 14th century, an undersheet of fustian was added to the pile. Only after all these preparations would the sheet or sheets be added. ‘Bed sticks’ were used to smooth the sheets onto the huge beds of the period, in which it was normal for several people to sleep together, all naked against the sheets, harsh or soft - which explains a good deal of the interest which was taken in the fabric. Blankets, woollen and sometimes lined with fur, were added and then covered with a bedspread in a fashionable colour and pattern. A long, flat pillow or a bolster ran the width of the bed, with personal pillows placed on top of this. Pillowcases were used from the 12th century, often richly decorated. Small, scented pillows containing musk, amber and saffron (lavender and violet only became popular much later) might be scattered over the bed. Warming pans were used from the 15th century, to warm the pristine, white sheets before the master or mistress went to bed.
Of course, this description only applies to wealthy and luxurious households. Peasants would often have had no sheet at all, a bare straw pallet to lie on if they were lucky, and a ragged blanket. They doubtless often slept in their clothes for warmth. One surviving inventory of a peasant’s goods describes the chattels of a man who died in 1293, whose ‘household stuff’ consisted only of a bolster, a rug, two sheets, a brass dish and a trivet. Although this man was a mere peasant, and not used to physical comforts, this bedding seems pitifully scanty to cope with an English winter. Blankets could be part of the allowance given by a lord to the families on his estate, and would frequently have been thin and poor indeed, especially after a year’s hard wear. Monastic beds, as a comparison, were also less than luxurious - Benedictine monks slept fully clothed on a narrow, cheaply padded mattress, without sheet or couette. A poor family’s blanket might be washed but once a year, the drying time for heavy woollen cloth meaning the wash would have to wait for summer, when the family could afford to lie cold if necessary. It has been posited that even wealthy families washed their linen rarely, accounting for the large numbers of sheets in many inventories. Medieval noble households owned colossal numbers of sheets. Over one hundred sheets of linen or hemp were owned by numerous ladies, some owning many hundreds, along with bolts of linen for making up new items when required.
In the fifteenth century, Charlotte of Savoy had a secret, rose-scented chest in which she locked away "two embroidered pillowcases, hand towels in Holland cloth, eight bed sheets of Holland cloth, bed sheets of cotton, two embroidered towels in linomple and two sheets of linomple, each one made of six cloths and six ells wide." She died in 1483, at which time this luxurious amount of linen was worth a considerable sum.
Blankets and bedspreads varied enormously in colour, often chosen to match or offset the bedcurtains Bedspreads have always been ornate, and some paintings show coverlets with very bold patterns in several colours. One 14th century painting shows a bed covered in a tartan coverlet. Ref. Venetian bedspreads in the early Renaissance were gold-embroidered silk. Around 1525, French coverlets were quilted (pique) in designs such as these, owned by Pierre le Gendre: "one quilted in diamonds surrounded by boughs, [another] in hemp with fleur-de-lys in the corners and a rose in the middle, [and] the most precious, in diamond-quilted linen, of three breadths and two-and-a-half ells wide." From the 15th century, coverlets were decorated with the techniques of reticella and punto in aria (Venetian lace).
Personal pillows were very much like modern pillows in shape, and usually white. Bolsters of cylindrical shape are also seen, often decorated with tassels or embroidery, and seem to be designed for use as extra support, rather than for sleeping on. Pillowcases came into use in the 12th century. In the early 14th century, twelve checked pillowcases were owned by Clemence of Hungary, queen of Louis X of France. In the fifteenth century, the wife of the king’s barber slept in a bed with linen sheets, a feather pillow, a couette in Flemish ticking, a canopy and linen bedcurtains. Pillowcases began to be decorated with lace in about 1580.
Sheets were always white, as far as can be seen from paintings, although some are extensively blackworked in broad stripes, with the pillow decorated to match. They are generally made from linen or hemp, probably most commonly hemp up until the late fourteenth century. Rarely, silk would be used by nobles truly flamboyant and very wealthy, even so early as the twelfth century. Sheets generally were made of several widths, sewn together, and it was an item of great luxury to have sheets with but one seam, or none at all, as these had to be made on specially-constructed looms.
Very little linen was actually dedicated to bathing in medieval times; the ubiquitous word ‘napkin’, or in French ‘touaille’, covers a multitude of purposes from wiping the mouth at table, to protecting manuscripts from greasy hands, to grabbing a pot from the fire or drying one’s face after washing.
In 13th century Paris, twenty-six bathhouses, run by a guild, offered steam and tub baths for various prices, sometimes including a meal and a bed. A stool would be provided to assist the bather in climbing out of the deep bath, and one or more servants are usually pictured standing by as well. Foot mats are not represented. By the end of the 14th century, it was commonly recorded that people of all classes bathed in France, Italy, Saxony, Bohemia and Germany. The lack of cleanliness and horror of bathing often associated with the Middle Ages dates only from the Renaissance, when the morality of public bathhouses came more and more under suspicion, and when it was also widely believed that immersion in water facilitated the spread of epidemics. ‘Washing’ by wiping the visible parts of one’s body was not once again replaced by bathing until the mid-eighteenth century. However, in medieval times, it became increasingly fashionable to have your bath drawn in the privacy of your own home, and it is thus that dedicated bath linen came into being, despite the absence of towels, as we are used to them. The most predominant item of bath linen in the inventories is the ‘bathtub sheet’, a large cloth used to drape the inside of the wooden tub, protecting the bather from splinters and making the bath more comfortable. Curtains often protect the bather from view, also helping to keep the heat of the water in. In 1403, Princess Marguerite of Flanders bought 64 ells of ‘common cloth’ (toille bourgeoise) to pad two bath tubs, and red Malines cloth for a canopy.
The towelling we use today did not exist at all, and most medieval towels seem meagre by comparison with our own. Paintings show people fresh from the bath, being wrapped by servants in cloths so large they seem to be bed sheets, which may be the case. Such towels as are seen hanging appear to be far smaller, made of linen or hempen cloth.. They are narrower than a modern towel, more what we would consider a hand towel, and are edged with fringing, often knotted into a pattern. Many have striped or figured designs along the short edges, in the indigo colour which predominates. These edgings may be woven or embroidered. Some are simple stripes, of various widths, while others are complex geometric patterns and even pictures. The absorbency of these linen towels was somewhat increased by the use of particular weaves which lend greater density to the material, including huckaback, honeycomb, lozenge and diamond Jacquard weaves.
Such towels are part of an ancient ritual, observed throughout the medieval period and still practised in Arab countries today, of washing the hands, face and often the feet at various times, especially first thing in the morning, before meals and to welcome guests with courtesy. A basin of water scented with rosemary or camomile would be offered, with a towel, often very elaborate, for drying. In the early 14th century, Charles V had wash basins for this purpose of silver and of enamel "dotted on the edges with roses and tiny royal crests."
Tables being used merely as display space are often shown covered by what appear to be quite thick and gloriously patterned carpets, such as we would use on a floor. Tables in use for study or reading sometimes have a tablecloth or rug on them, and are at other times bare. For mealtimes, a white cloth of varying magnificence appears in noble houses, its frequency as always decreasing the further down the social scale one goes, so that people in taverns may eat from the bare boards, while the poorest have neither table nor cloth. Benedictine monks covered their tables at mealtimes, as is evidenced by the stricture that any brother arriving late must eat separately from the rest, with neither cloth nor wine for his tardiness. Early tables, even in noble houses, were not graced by cloths unless it were a banquet, but by the 12th century the custom was almost universal throughout France and Italy. The use of tablecloths spread quickly from the aristocracy to the merchant classes, and by the fifteenth century, all but the poorest households would have owned at least one such cloth.
Tablecloths were of linen, perhaps cotton in a wealthier household, or silk as a rare luxury, and were often decorated in much the same way as the towels - with embroidery (most often gold, with blackwork in silks of green, indigo, black or red), woven-in designs (especially stripes), tassels or knotted fringing. The fringing occasionally has beads incorporated, which are both decorative and functional, as the weight of glass or pottery beads would help prevent the cloth from blowing about in a breeze. The beads may be coloured, although the fringing and tassels seem to appear only in white. Certain types of weave produce an in-built monochrome pattern (such as a wheat-weave), the most common being the small or large diamond pattern known as ‘Venetian-style lozenge’, which is still produced today. Small flower patterns are mentioned in the early fifteenth century in more than one inventory. Damascus weave, invented in Flanders and known today as damask, did not appear until the Renaissance; although once established, it quickly outpaced other fabrics as the favoured table linen of Europe. Figured damask depicted many things, from religious tales to the triumphs of kings, natural beauty and hunting scenes.
Tablecloths tend to be decorated along two of their four sides, either the short or the long sides. They were usually arranged so as to completely hide the table - often only a board laid on trestles - and were also ‘doubled’ to create an extra thickness and take up extra width, by folding the entire cloth in half before placing it on the table. This practice was still common until 1625, with an undercloth creating yet another layer. When a tablecloth was very long, the corners were occasionally knotted to keep them off the floor. Ref picture.
Etiquette at table included the idea that sharing the same tablecloth denoted equality of rank. The cloth might be laid at only the ‘high’ end of the table, when the master ate with his servants, or, when a cloth covered the whole of the table, small, decorated cloths could be laid at some places, when the rank of guests or host needed to be stressed. Such place mats were very precious, and beautifully worked.
Napkins as they are known today traditionally originated in the city of Rheims, noted for its fine cloth. The city presented King Charles VII with a set of table napkins at his coronation in 1422, but it is probable that personal table napkins were in use at court some little time before this. Fifteenth-century trousseaux included long, narrow runners, often identical in length and decoration to the tablecloth, which were laid over the cloth to protect it. Diners were expected to wipe their hands on this runner, rather than on the cloth itself. Italian inventories of roughly the same period mention guarda nappi - ‘cloth protectors’ - narrow pieces of cloth approximately two metres long, sometimes embroidered at both ends, and generally stored in multiples of six. Such runners obviously had to be shared between diners, sometimes in pairs, as were trenchers and cups at times, sometimes along the whole table. When cold collations (of sweetmeats and fresh and candied fruits) were served in 14th and 15th century France, serviettes de collation (‘refreshment towels’) were hung in the room. These serviettes were four ells long, and doubled over a wooden dowel set high on the wall, as on a modern towel-rail, for the use of all the guests. Individual napkins became fashionable in France towards the end of the fifteenth century, in matched sets and as singles, available in silks and linens of varying magnificence according to desire. By the end of the sixteenth century, they were so common they were even being used in prisons. Germans continued to eat cleanly with their fingers, and Italians with their forks, wiping their hands and mouths upon the tablecloth if necessary, although some were persuaded to adopt the French fashion. Even before the advent of individual napkins in European society, it was considered very crass to drink from a cup - often shared - without first wiping one’s hands and mouth. The rules of etiquette in the placement of the napkin varied with the fashion in clothing - Erasmus in the 16th century advised that "if napkins are distributed, yours should be placed on the left shoulder or arm; goblet and knife go to the right, bread to the left." When ruffled collars came into vogue, men knotted their napkins around their necks, while later still they were tucked into the collar to protect the expensive lace adorning fashionable shirtfronts. From the beginning of the seventeenth century, napkins were being folded into fanciful and decorative shapes for display upon the table at the start of the meal.
Just prior to the French Revolution, the standard size of table napkins was 45 by 35 inches, and the standard fabric white damask, often in matched sets, although the idea that all the table linen should match, cloth and napkins alike, did not surface until the 18th century.
Baer, Ann, Medieval Woman: Village Life in the Middle Ages, London, Michael O’Mara Books Ltd, 1996
Bennet, H. S., Life on the English Manor: a Study of Peasant Conditions, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989 [1937].
de Bonneville, F., The Book of Fine Linen, (trans. D. Dusinberre), Flammarion, 1994.
Duby, G., A History of Private Life (trans. A. Goldhammer), Mass., Harvard University Press, 1988.
Wright, L., Clean and Decent: the Fascinating History of the Bathroom and the Water Closet, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1960.
Carlo Crivelli, The Annunciation with St Emidius, 1486.
Domenico Ghirlandaio St Jerome, St Augustine, 1480.
Grimani Breviary, 1520.
Suggestions and comments should be sent to Geoffrey Linyiue.