Supple as Voile, Sturdy as Canvas: The Cambridge History of Western Textiles

A fiber's outstanding characteristic is that its length is many times its width. To make a yarn, you place some fibers together, parallel to each other but not perfectly aligned, and twist them, adding more fibers as you reach the end of those in hand. Interlace the yarns, or the occasionally untwisted or partially twisted fibers, and lock them in place to make a textile—a web broader and longer than it is thick.

If this answer to the question "what is a textile?" is 100 percent accurate, it is also 99 percent useless. Setting aside its applicability to paper, leather, and noodles as well as textiles, its focus is only on morphology. Yet complications arise with any attempt to create a less general definition. Add something about specific fibers? Wool, linen, silk, and cotton are terms for some familiar fibers used in making cloth, but they are not the only textile fibers. Add more about the transformation of fibrous substances into thread or yarn? Felt is one common textile that does not rely on spun fibers. Consider the tools that produce textiles? A loom is used in weaving, but tablet (card) weaving, knitting, sprang, plaiting, and lace—all important textile techniques—do not involve a loom. Is a better descriptive element the color or pattern? Again, there are too many variations. Designs on textiles may be created by the interlacing patterns of the yarns, or by the application of extra yarns or fibers, or by the addition of color, or by a combination of such techniques. To emphasize any one of these aspects is to deny a host of other possibilities.

Nor does the above definition explain the usefulness of textiles, or suggest their economic or social values. Anthropologists frequently consider the textile traditions of a culture as one marker of civilization; this definition suggests nothing of those interests. Why are textiles such compelling objects of study—as objects indicative of a culture or society, as unique artifacts, or as complex arrangements of chemicals? The answer lies in their great variety. Voile is a textile, but so is canvas. To speak of "textiles" is not to refer to one thing, made in one way, lodged in a single discipline or associated with one epoch. Textiles have a physical structure, but they also have aesthetics and rituals of creation, use, and trade. And textiles have history that can be a part of, or separate from, structure, aesthetics, and rituals.

How do we know what we know about textiles? Textiles have had a presence throughout history, and studies in the history of textiles call on a remarkable range of information to build descriptions and arguments. The same questions inform beginning textile historians as well as the beginnings of textile history. What were textiles made of? Were they patterned and, if so, how? What tools were used? How long did transitions from one kind of tool to another take? Material evidence and oral traditions are the basis of our understanding of the earliest textiles. From recovered tools and textile fragments, archaeologists can document the presence of certain fibers as well as distinct weaves, methods of preparation, and finishes. They can also determine the size of completed cloths. Instrumental analyses can provide some dating along with genetic and structural information. Images such as drawings on walls and effigies can guide understanding about uses. For early human history, as for certain nonliterate cultures, these may be the only sources of information. But the same examination of physical objects continues to be a vital part of the history of textiles in the West up to the eighteenth century, and occasionally even later.

I do not mean to understate the significance of written records. The history of Western textiles can and does draw on a remarkable array of formal regulations, records of trade, and personal accounts from the ancient Near East, from the classical and Roman periods, and especially from the Middle Ages. These sources become increasingly important to tracing change as cloth production develops into an industry throughout the West. They enable historians to write about...