When Did Weaving Become a Male Profession? Ingvild Øye Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

DANISH JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY, 2016 VOL. 5, NOS. 1–2, 34–51 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21662282.2016.1245970 RESEARCH ARTICLE When did weaving become a male profession? Ingvild Øye Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY The article discusses the development and technological changes within weaving in the Middle Received 21 June 2016 Ages when it developed into a major craft and one of the most important industries of the Middle Accepted 5 October 2016 Ages in Northern Europe. While prehistoric weaving appears as a predominantly female work KEYWORDS domain, weaving became a male profession in urban contexts, organised within guilds. Hence, it Textile production; has almost become a dogma that the expanding medieval textile industry, and corresponding technology; weaving; transition from a female to a male work domain, was caused by new technology – the horizontal gender roles; crafts; guilds; treadle loom. By utilising various source categories, documentary, iconographic and archaeological Middle Ages; Northwestern evidence, the article substantiates that the conception of the medieval weaver as a male craftsman Europe should be adjusted and the long-established dichotomy between male professional craftsmen and weavers, and women as homework producers of textiles should be modified, also when related to guilds. The change from a domestic household-based production to a more commercially based industry took place at different times and scales in various areas of Europe and did not only involve men. Introduction answers to these questions may also have conse- quences for other conceptions of the organisation of This article focuses on the development and technolo- crafts, work, productivity, gender roles and relations, gical transformations within weaving in the Middle and medieval society in general. Next to food produc- Ages – a period of expanding urbanisation, commer- tion, textile production constituted the most impor- cialisation and specialisation within crafts, often orga- tant industry of the Middle Ages (Munro 2000b). The nised as guilds. The aim is to illuminate the interaction early medieval sources to this technological change between textile production, technology and the actors. are scanty and uncertain. As for gender roles, sources Here, gender and the social organisation of the pro- are also more ambiguous than stated in previous duction also play an important role. In prehistory, research. Here, later conditions, not least related to weaving appears as a predominantly female work the establishment of guilds in the High and Late domain, and it is first in the Middle Ages weaving Middle Ages, may have affected earlier interpretations becomes a male profession in urban contexts. Hence, of this technological transformation and shift in gen- it has almost become a dogma that the transition from der roles. To address these issues from a more holistic a female to a male work domain was the result of new outlook, several source categories have to be consid- technology – the introduction of the horizontal loom. ered: contemporary archaeological remains related to It has been regarded as unlikely that the expanding textile production in various contexts, iconographic urbanweavingcentresinEnglandandelsewhereofthe and written evidence, as well as later ethnological twelfth century and onwards could have been using sources. anything other than the new treadle loom. But were Textile production and weaving clearly represent thenewloomsonlyusedbymen,andwhendidthey long achieved competency and expertise within a replace the old vertical looms? culturally defined female work sphere centuries The issues addressed in this article thus concern before the introduction of the horizontal loom. how, when and where technology in weaving changed According to the anthropologist Francesca Bray, and who the agents were behind such change. The one fundamental way in which gender is expressed CONTACT Ingvild Øye [email protected] Department of Archaeology, History, Cultural Studies and Religion, University of Bergen, P.B.7805, 5020 Bergen, Norway © 2016 The Partnership of the Danish Journal of Archaeology DANISH JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY 35 in any society is through technology, where technical by foot by ‘men’ and without further contextualisation. skills and domains are generally divided between The passage in Rashi may indicate that the horizontal and within the sexes, thus shaping masculinities loom was a rather new implement at that time, and and femininities. Such gender systems are generally therefore needed to be explained in relation to the regarded as more difficult to change than material better-known vertical loom. His interest in the tool technologies – and reveal how technology is indi- relates to the implications it poses related to definitions cated in gender inequalities. This has also tended to of work, not to gendered labour as such.1 Being a make women ‘invisible’. New technologies may, Talmuic reference, it may also be questioned how however, also promote processes of boundary work representative this early mention is for the European and renegotiations of which is considered masculine area as a whole.2 This is not so obvious either for its and feminine (Bray 2007, pp. 38–42). novelty or as for gender. It has, however, often been It is therefore not unlikely that innovations within taken as an indication to be used for wider general- textile production were adopted, adapted and devel- isations (e.g. Hoffmann 1964,Kjellberg1979,Walton oped by those who had the experience and expertise Rogers 1997,Henry2005). The loom’smedievalori- in this field of work. Additionally, transgressing gins have been doubted and may rather have Oriental established gender roles could threaten masculinity beginnings and may have entered Europe from the and cause loss of honour, as evidenced in the Norse ByzantineEmpireatanearlystage(e.g.Endrei1961, sagas (Meulengracht Sørensen 1995). The present Munro 2000a,p.18).Butontheotherhand,theloom hypothesis is that the transition of weaving imple- may not necessarily have a common origin (Wild ments and gender roles may have been a gradual 1987, p. 460).3 According to recent finds of pit houses process and that male weavers were not necessarily with possible traces of horizontal looms, it had reached the main agents in the earliest periods when tradi- the northern parts of Switzerland by the ninth and tionally men appear as the most visible actors as tenth centuries (Windler 2008,pp.213–215). The heads of households. spread of the loom further north, its relation to earlier types of looms and the actors involved are therefore examined in the following. When was the horizontal loom introduced – and There is no doubt that the horizontal loom was how did it work? worked by treadles in a sitting position in contrast to The origin and diffusion of the horizontal treadle loom the vertical warp-weighted loom, being worked in Northwestern Europe in the Middle Ages is not so standing and upwards against the gravity force. clear. Traditionally it is regarded as a medieval inven- Still, the archaeological evidence of the whole con- tion, dated to the eleventh century, when it is also first struction is meagre and the first illustrations appear mentioned, although indirectly. It is written in several centuries later, and in some cases also in a Hebrew, by Rabbi Solomon Izhaqi, better known as simplified way. Although the archaeological remains Rashi of Troyes (1040–1105) after his home town in of the different loom categories can only be traced as France, in his commentary on the tractate Shabbat of fragments, they still leave clues about dating and the Babylonian Talmud in the context of a discussion different constructive elements in time and space. about what kind of tasks that should be reckoned as The medieval iconographical evidence of treadle work and thus prohibited on the Sabbath (Shabbath looms from England and other parts of Northern 105a). In a section about weaving, the Talmud seeks to Europe indicates that there were different types of define how many threads a weave may be joined before looms in use and that the horizontal loom also this is counted as work. It is in this context Rashi changed over time. However, a common character- comments upon different ways of weaving and makes istic is that it has warp threads stretched out hor- a reference to ‘. that part of the loom of weavers who izontally between two beams, the cloth beam in front weave by foot which is in place of the rod that goes up of the seated weaver and a warp beam at the far end and down in the loom used by women ’ (translation in of the loom frame; to this treadles were connected, Carus-Wilson 1969,p.69).Othersrefertothissource linked by pulleys as parts of the mechanism for less precisely (e.g. Hoffmann 1964,p.260,Munro making the shed. They were joined to the heddles, 2000a, p. 17), generally replacing ‘weavers’ who weave i.e. loops for the warp threads, and fastened to the 36 I. ØYE shaft rods that could be lifted and lowered by the treadles, creating the shed, the space between the two layers of warp threads, where the weft threads could pass through (Grenander-Nyberg 1975, p. 36). The pulleys were basically formed as a block wheel with a groove for a string to run over and could be attached to heddle horses,4 again connected to the heddle rods and the treadles (Figures 1 and 2). Figure 2. Weaver at the loom c. 1250: one of the earliest depictions of the horizontal loom, appearing to be a two- treadle type. A shuttle is used to insert the weft. Here, pulleys are threaded on the upper loom bar without being connected to heddle horses (MS 09.32v with permission from the Master and Fellows of Trinity College Cambridge). Reeds, frames with vertical slits to separate the warp threads and hold them in positions as it was woven, were also parts of the loom (see Figures 3, 8 and 9).

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