Fulling
Encyclopedia
Woolen
Woolen or woollen is a type of yarn made from carded wool. Woolen yarn is soft, light, stretchy, and full of air. It is thus a good insulator, and makes a good knitting yarn...
clothmaking
Textile manufacturing
Textile manufacturing is a major industry. It is based in the conversion of three types of fibre into yarn, then fabric, then textiles. These are then fabricated into clothes or other artifacts. Cotton remains the most important natural fibre, so is treated in depth...
which involves the cleansing of cloth (particularly wool
Wool
Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....
) to eliminate oils, dirt, and other impurities, and making it thicker. The worker who does the job is a fuller, tucker, or walker. The Welsh word for a fulling mill is pandy, which appears in many place-names.
Process
Fulling involves two processes, scouring and milling (thickening). Originally, fulling was carried out by literally pounding the cloth with the fuller's feet (hence the description of them as walkers), or hands, or a club. In Scottish Gaelic tradition, this process was accompanied by waulking songWaulking song
Waulking songs are Scottish folk songs, traditionally sung in the Gaelic language by women while waulking cloth. This practice involved a group of people beating newly woven tweed rhythmically against a table or similar surface to soften it...
s which women sang to set the pace. From the medieval period, however, it often was carried out in a water mill.
These processes are followed by stretching the cloth on great frames known as tenters and held onto those frames by tenterhooks. It is from this process that we derive the phrase being on tenterhooks as meaning to be held in suspense. The area where the tenters were erected was known as a tenterground
Tenterground
A tenterground or tenter ground was an area used for drying newly manufactured cloth after fulling. The wet cloth was hooked onto frames called tenters and stretched taut so that the cloth would dry flat and square....
.
Scouring
In Roman times fulling was conducted by slaves standing ankle deep in tubs of human urineUrine
Urine is a typically sterile liquid by-product of the body that is secreted by the kidneys through a process called urination and excreted through the urethra. Cellular metabolism generates numerous by-products, many rich in nitrogen, that require elimination from the bloodstream...
and cloth. Urine was so important to the fulling business that urine was taxed. Stale urine, known as wash, was a source of ammonium
Ammonium
The ammonium cation is a positively charged polyatomic cation with the chemical formula NH. It is formed by the protonation of ammonia...
salts and assisted in cleansing and whitening the cloth.
By the medieval period fuller's earth
Fuller's earth
Fuller's earth is any non-plastic clay or claylike earthy material used to decolorize, filter, and purify animal, mineral, and vegetable oils and greases.-Occurrence and composition:...
had been introduced for use in the process. This is a soft clay-like material occurring in nature as an impure hydrous aluminium silicate
Aluminium silicate
Aluminium silicate has the chemical formula 2SiO3. It has a density of 2.8 to 2.9 g/cm³, a vitreous lustre, a refractive index of 1.56, a Mohs hardness of 4.5-7.5 , and can have orthorhombic crystallography...
. This seems to have been used in conjunction with wash. More recently, soap
Soap
In chemistry, soap is a salt of a fatty acid.IUPAC. "" Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 2nd ed. . Compiled by A. D. McNaught and A. Wilkinson. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford . XML on-line corrected version: created by M. Nic, J. Jirat, B. Kosata; updates compiled by A. Jenkins. ISBN...
has been used.
Thickening
The second function of fulling was to thicken cloth by matting the fibers together to give it strength and increase waterproofing (felting). This was vital in the case of woollensWoolen
Woolen or woollen is a type of yarn made from carded wool. Woolen yarn is soft, light, stretchy, and full of air. It is thus a good insulator, and makes a good knitting yarn...
, made from short staple wool
Wool
Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....
, but not for worsted
Worsted
Worsted , is the name of a yarn, the cloth made from this yarn, and a yarn weight category. The name derives from the village of Worstead in the English county of Norfolk...
materials made from long staple wool. After this stage, water was used to rinse out the foul-smelling liquor used during cleansing.
Fulling mills
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, a fulling mill is called a pandy
Pandy
A pandy is another name for a fulling mill.Pandy may also refer to several places in Wales:* Pandy, Monmouthshire, a village near Abergavenny* Pandy, Wrexham, a village in the Ceiriog Valley* Pandy, Powys, a village in Powys...
, and in Scotland, a waulk mill. In these, the cloth was beaten with wooden hammers, known as fulling stocks or fulling hammers. Fulling stocks were of two kinds, falling stocks (operating vertically) that were used only for scouring, and driving or hanging stocks. In both cases the machinery was operated by cam
Cam
A cam is a rotating or sliding piece in a mechanical linkage used especially in transforming rotary motion into linear motion or vice-versa. It is often a part of a rotating wheel or shaft that strikes a lever at one or more points on its circular path...
s on the shaft of a waterwheel or on a tappet
Tappet
A tappet is the noise made by a worn cam follower, however the term is widely used to represent the cam follower itself. In mechanical engineering it is a projection which imparts a linear motion to some other component within an assembly...
wheel, which lifted the hammer.
Driving stocks were pivotted so that the foot (the head of the hammer) struck the cloth almost horizontally. The stock had a tub holding the liquor and cloth. This was somewhat rounded on the side away from the hammer, so that the cloth gradually turned, ensuring that all parts of it were milled evenly. However, the cloth was taken out about every two hours to undo plaits and wrinkles. The 'foot' was approximately triangular in shape, with notches to assist the turning of the cloth.
History
The first references to fulling mills are reported in PersiaGreater Iran
Greater Iran refers to the regions that have significant Iranian cultural influence. It roughly corresponds to the territory on the Iranian plateau and its bordering plains, stretching from Iraq, the Caucasus, and Turkey in the west to the Indus River in the east...
from the 10th century. By the time of the Crusades
Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars, blessed by the Pope and the Catholic Church with the main goal of restoring Christian access to the holy places in and near Jerusalem...
in the late eleventh century, fulling mills were active throughout the medieval Islamic world
Islamic Golden Age
During the Islamic Golden Age philosophers, scientists and engineers of the Islamic world contributed enormously to technology and culture, both by preserving earlier traditions and by adding their own inventions and innovations...
, from Islamic Spain
Al-Andalus
Al-Andalus was the Arabic name given to a nation and territorial region also commonly referred to as Moorish Iberia. The name describes parts of the Iberian Peninsula and Septimania governed by Muslims , at various times in the period between 711 and 1492, although the territorial boundaries...
and North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
in the west to Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
in the east. They appear to have originated in 9th or 10th century in the Islamic world, either in the Middle East or North Africa. Mechanical fulling was subsequently disseminated into Western Europe through Islamic Spain and Italy
History of Islam in southern Italy
The history of Islam in southern Italy begins with the Islamic conquest and subsequent rule of Sicily and Malta, a process that started in the 9th century. Islamic rule over Sicily was effective from 902, and the complete rule of the island lasted from 965 until 1061...
in the 11th and 12th centuries.
The earliest known reference to a fulling mill in France, which dates from about 1086, was discovered in Normandy
Normandy
Normandy is a geographical region corresponding to the former Duchy of Normandy. It is in France.The continental territory covers 30,627 km² and forms the preponderant part of Normandy and roughly 5% of the territory of France. It is divided for administrative purposes into two régions:...
. The earliest reference in England occurs in the Winton Domesday
Winton Domesday
The Winton Domesday or Liber Winton is a 12th-century English administrative document which records the landholdings in the city of Winchester together with their tenants and the rents and services due from them. The city was not included in the surveys which produced Domesday Book in 1086. The...
of 1117–19. Other early references belonged to the Knights Templar
Knights Templar
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon , commonly known as the Knights Templar, the Order of the Temple or simply as Templars, were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders...
by 1185.
These mills became widespread during the 13th century and occur in most counties of England and Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, but were largely absent in areas only engaged in making worsted
Worsted
Worsted , is the name of a yarn, the cloth made from this yarn, and a yarn weight category. The name derives from the village of Worstead in the English county of Norfolk...
s.
Bibiography
- Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved June 30, 2005.
- E. K. Scott, 'Early Cloth Fulling and its Machinery' Trans. Newcomen Soc. 12 (1931), 30-52.
- E. M. Carus-Wilson, 'An Industrial Revolution of the Thirteenth Century' Economic History Review, Old Series, 11(1) (1941), 39-60.
- Reginald Lennard, 'Early English Fulling Mills: additional examples' Economic History Review, New Series, 3(3) (1951), 342-343.
- R. A. Pelham, Fulling Mills (Society for the Protection of Ancient BuildingsSociety for the Protection of Ancient BuildingsThe Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings was founded by William Morris, Philip Webb and J.J.Stevenson, and other notable members of the Pre Raphaelite brotherhood, in 1877, to oppose what they saw as the insensitive renovation of ancient buildings then occurring in Victorian...
, (mills booklet 5), c.1958) - A. J. Parkinson, 'Fulling mills in Merioneth' J. Merioneth Hist. & Rec. Soc. 9(4) (1984), 420-456.
- D. Druchunas 'Felting, Vogue Knitting, The Basics', Sixth & Spring Books, NY. (2005); p. 10.