HSF #13--A Coppergate Cap

Because I was planning to be away on vacation for most of the week of July 14, I needed a quick project (again!) if I was going to participate in the "Under $10" challenge.  It took me a while to decide upon one that fits in with my interests, but I finally hit upon one I find very satisfying.

Recently, I managed to obtain a copy of Penelope Walton's (now Penelope Walton Rogers) book on the textile finds at the Coppergate site in York, England.  The book has been out of print for years and the cheapest copy I have ever seen on the market before now was priced at nearly $200.00 USD.  So I was pleased when ALibris, acting on a wish list reminder I'd left years ago, sent me e-mail about a copy that was available for about $33.00 USD after including shipping costs from Germany. In reading the book, I was particularly impressed with the precision of Walton's description of the silk cap found at Coppergate.  I knew I had some unused silk purchased for another project in more than sufficient quantity (about a yard and a half), so I decided that a Coppergate cap would be my $10 project.   I almost finished the cap on July 14, but because we were scheduled to leave for vacation early on the morning of the 15th, I didn't quite manage it.  However, I was able to finish it today, so now here it is, along with my ruminations on making and wearing the cap.

The completed cap

Cap inside out, showing the inside seam

I wanted to make the tie strings from the same silk used for the cap--but realized, in the nick of time, that it would be nearly impossible to tie such a slippery silk securely to itself.  The worker who made the original cap must have come to the same conclusion, because Walton detected vegetable fibers consistent with linen at the points on the cap where the tie strings must have been sewn.  I could have used some of my leftover white ramie for the tie-strings, but I wasn't able to find it after a quick search--and didn't have the energy or time to make a more intensive search for it.

I attempted to use the dimensions of the original cap--roughly 23 inches by 7 inches.   This piece of fabric produces a very shallow cap compared to the one I made previously.  It occurs to me that the original might have been for someone with a much smaller head than mine, but it's also possible that the overall effect shown in my pictures was the intended one--without additional evidence, it is impossible to tell.  In addition to the shallowness of the cap in generaly, sewing the curve along the back of the head was problematic.  Walton said that the cap was sewn up in the back with a curve ending at a point about two inches (50 mm) from the rear corner, but when I did that, my cap still had a small, nubby point, and not the smooth curve over the top of the head shown in Walton's sketches.  So I re-sewed the seam a few more times until I got a curve that better approximated Walton's sketches.  As a result, I had two points to fold aside inside the cap, not just the one Walton reports on the original (see photograph above).

Since the original cap was not found in a grave, there's no evidence about how it may have been worn.  I came up with three ways (see photographs below). One is to tie it under the chin.  A second is to tie it under the chin, but with the edges of the cap tucked behind the ears, and the third is to tie it at the back of the neck, under the occipital bone.  In all three pictures, I am wearing the cap with my hair fastened into a bun just above the nape of my neck.  That hairstyle gives the cap the most flattering shape; the problem with the cap forming a "point" at the top of my head was more obvious and less attractive when I did not do this.

All three methods look pretty similar in wear, though I prefer tying the cap in back because it hides the darker linen tie-strings and produces a slightly more becoming position of the front corners.  With or without a bun, however, this cap is much more attractive than my last attempt to make such a cap with the tie-strings fastened directly to the bottom corners.  The higher location for the tie-strings is also consistent with Walton's finding of linen fragments and indications of tie-fastening-stitches about 5-6 inches from the lower corners of the original cap.

One final note:  Walton's sketches show a series of wrinkles while the cap was in wear, parallel to the line of the shoulders.  My design fits too closely over my head to produce such wrinkles.  Could it be that the original was that much shorter (or longer) than the head of the original wearer? Or perhaps the fact that the original seems to have been made of a less slippery silk in a different weave (tabby) made the difference.  I may have to make another cap to see whether I can come up with a theory on this subject.

THE CHALLENGE:  #13 -  Under $10

Fabric:   A rectangular piece of fine white silk twill, about 23 inches by 7 inches, purchased long enough ago that I don't remember the price (but a piece small enough for this project would have been well under $10).  Also some scraps of natural-colored linen, from the fabric I bought for the bog blouse project, to make into tie strings.

Tied at back of head

Tied under chin, in front

Pattern:  I  followed Penelope Walton's detailed description of the nearly complete silk cap found in the Viking age levels of the Coppergate (York) dig, from her book The Archaeology of York:  Vol. 17: The Small Finds, Fascicule 5: Textiles, Cordage and Raw Fibre from 16-22 Coppergate pp. 360-363  (York Archaeological Trust 1989).

Year:   Approximately 975 CE, according to Penelope Walton. 

Notions:  Gutermann brand silk thread, in white.

How historically accurate is it?   Mostly. The pattern, even down to the size of the rectangular piece of fabric used to make the cap, is based on Walton's description of the actual find.  I incorporated a selvedge along one long edge in cutting the rectangle, like the original, and hemmed the piece all around with a rolled hem using silk thread, like the original, and the original has vegetable fiber remains in the right place to suggest that it had linen tie strings.   I also took care to place the tie-strings in the approximate location suggested by Walton's examination, and tried to sew the back seam curve in a similar position.  However, my silk fabric is a 2/2 diagonal twill, not a tabby, and it's a balanced weave, unlike the original (though it's roughly comparable in fineness to the original).  The original was not tested for dyes, and is now a golden brown, though Walton suggests that an undyed silk likely would have been a pale gold, not white, in color.  (Some of the photographs make my cap look gold, even though the fabric is snowy white; the photographs showing the cap in wear give a more accurate impression of the color.)  So about 70%-80%.

Tied under chin, behind ears

Hours to complete:   About 3 hours.  The original had a rolled hem on all four edges (even though one was a selvedge), and that hemming was the slowest and most finicky part of the job, and not just because I'm inexperienced at doing rolled hems.  The technique I learned for rolled hems requires you to crease the edge, a little at a time. With linen (and ramie, where I first tried it out) this is easy, because the fabric will stay creased once you've creased it.  Silk won't, though it may retain the mark of the crease for a bit while the fabric unbends. That means you have to grip the fabric by the fold while you're putting the stitch through it, and repeat the entire crease/grip process for each individual stitch, which is exhausting.  Also, I found it difficult to place the stitches so that the raw edge is completely curled under and hidden.  (It didn't help that my fabric had a fringe of loose threads extending a few millimeters beyond the selvage area.)

First worn:  For the photographs accompanying this post.

Total cost:  $0.00; I've had the silk fabric and thread for years, and I'd acquired the linen as part of a different project.  

Eye of the Needle Revisited

For many years, I assumed that the design of modern needles--with a long, slit eye on one end--was the epitome of needle design, and that earlier needles had more primitive, round eyes. I also thought that during the Migration Period and the Viking age, most sewing needles were made from bone, and were significantly thicker than modern needles. 

Needles from Coppergate, Rogers, p. 1782

As I read more about period costume and period textile implements and techniques, I learned that the first statement was wrong.  Although bone needles have been found in Viking sites, many of them likely would have been used for crafts such as nalbinding, and not for sewing ordinary clothes.  I also learned, largely from Eva Andersson's Tools for Textile Production from Birka and Hedeby, which describes a large number of Viking era finds from different locations, that most Viking age sewing needles were small, very thin, and made from iron.  That's why many of them did not survive--they rusted to powder in the graves.  Only  the surviving finds of needles inside needle cases, and large collections of needles such as the Roman era find at Magdalensberg , served to give the lie to the "bone needle"  myth.

In reading the copy of Penelope Walton Rogers's book Textile Production at 16-22 Coppergate that I recently downloaded, I learned that finds of needles with long, slit eyes were eventually displaced, in time by punched, round-eyed needles!  Rogers sums up the evidence this way:

There are two types of needle, one with a round eye which has been punched, the other with a long eye made by welding together the tips of a Y-shaped shaft (pp. 542-7, ibid.). The round-eyed needles become increasingly common over the 10th to 11th centuries and have almost ousted the long-eyed needles by the medieval period. It is difficult to establish whether this is a general trend, as relatively few iron needles have been recovered from other sites, but the same two methods of manufacture were noted in twelve iron needles from 8th to 12th century Fishergate, York (pp.1271-2, AY 17/9); only punched eyes were recorded in the iron needles from medieval Eastgate, Beverley (Goodall 1992, 152-3).

Rogers, p.  1781 (emphasis supplied).  Copper alloy needles were also  found at Coppergate; they too might be made with round or long eyes, and as with the iron needles, round eyes became more common over time.  Id. p. 1782.  Interestingly, none of the Coppergate needles look as modern as the long-eyed needles from Magdalensberg, but all of them are fine enough to sew with fabric and thread as fine as that commonly used for clothing today.  The picture below shows a number of both types of sewing needles found at Coppergate.

It is an interesting question why the eye-manufacturing technique changed.  Perhaps there was an increased demand for needles and the welding technique used to make long-eyed needles was too slow and cumbersome to keep up with demand.   Whatever the reason, it is not true that long-eyed needles are necessarily the product of a technologically more advanced culture than are round-eyed needles; I'll never make that particular mistake again.

Hot News for Medieval Textile Fans

I was checking out the York Archaeological Trust's website this evening, and discovered that Textile Production at 16-22 Coppergate by Penelope Walton Rogers, is now available for free download!  This book, like her other book Textiles, Cordage and Raw Fibre from 16-22 Coppergate, has been out of print for a long time. It appears that the Trust has decided to make its out-of-print works available for free download, so I hope to see the other Rogers textile book, eventually. In the meantime, I now have the Textile Production book to read.

The YAT download page is here.

EDIT: (June 5, 2011) Textile Production at 16-22 Coppergate isn't on the download page anymore! I don't know what happened (nothing else is missing), though I hope it will be back soon.

Finds from Anglo-Scandinavian York

I recently learned (again, from a mailing list) that the York Archaeological Trust in Great Britain has placed a number of its out-of-print books here for free download.

The availability of this new resource is interesting to me because the YAT has published numerous books of material culture finds on the Coppergate dig in York. The Coppergate dig is located in the heart of what had been the Danelaw, and the Coppergate finds give insight into Anglo-Scandinavian culture. [N.B.  Because these documents are book-length and demand for them has been brisk, it can be challenging getting one of the downloads to complete correctly.  Keep trying, and consider obtaining a software package that will accelerate the process.]

However, I have been able to download a copy of Finds from Anglo-Scandinavian York by Ailsa Mainman and Nicola Rogers. This volume includes an interesting variety of small finds, from jewelry to buckles to game pieces to nails to fragments from jars and other storage containers, and more.  Some of the more interesting tidbits of information I have gleaned from skimming through the manuscript include the following:

• A lot of portable sharpening stones, for sharpening needles and small blades (the book refers to them as "hones") were found.  Some of them were pierced on the end and could be hung, and at least one has a copper ring through the perforation, suggesting that it may have been worn as a pendant.  Most of them were made from schist.
• Amber (of a type that comes from the Baltic) beads and amber waste material were found, suggesting that Baltic amber was imported raw and worked into beads and other artifacts at the Coppergate site.
• 243 sewing needles were found in the Viking age stratum of the site.  89% of the needles were made of iron.  There were a very few needles made of bone or copper alloy. 
• A very small number of buckles and strap-ends were found.
• The few brooches that were found were made from an assortment of non-precious metals:  "Coppergate produced a total of nine disc brooches, of which one was made of copper alloy (10428), two of copper alloy and iron (10429–30),four of pewter (10600–3), and one of lead alloy with possible silvering on the front (10604). The ninth brooch was found during the watching brief at Coppergate (10629) and is made of lead alloy." (p. 2571).
• A substantial number of straight pins used in dress were recovered; they included some like the ring-headed pins found in the Viking age digs in Dublin, but included lighter pins with different ornamental details including polygons, trapezoids and spirals.  (See p. 2579 for illustrations).
• There were also finds of glass rings, which I can't find the reference for right now.

In short, this volume provides some interesting small details about ornament in Anglo-Scandinavian York.  More importantly, the fact that YAT has made this and other books free suggests that other out-of-print volumes may show up on the site in the future. There are two out of print YAT volumes by Penelope Walton Rogers (back when she was just Penelope Walton) that address textile finds in the Viking age stratum at Coppergate. Those are not available for free download now,  but I'm hoping that they will be soon.