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X. —Notes on some probable traces of Roman Fulling in Britain.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2011

George E. Fox
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Abstract

In the words of a well-known German archæologist, the work of the ancient fuller ivas twofold, to make ready for use the cloth fresh from the loom and to cleanse garments that had been worn.

How the handicraft here briefly described may have been carried on in Britain during the Roman period it will be the endeavour of the following notes to show. In order to render clearer the purpose to which the various remains were put, which will be examined presently, it will be necessary by way of illustration to refer shortly to such examples of Roman workshops as are still existing, of whose uses as fulleries there can be no doubt. These examples can best be seen in the ruins of Pompeii, and the principal establishment of the kind in that city, with its tanks and paintings, will illustrate in a fairly complete manner the subject in hand.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 59 , Issue 2 , 1905 , pp. 207 - 232
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1905

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References

page 207 note a Pompeii, its Life and Art, by August Mau, translated by Francis W. Kelsey.

page 207 note b In Reg. vi. Ins. viii. No. 20.

page 208 note a Real Museo Borbonico, iv. 13 et seq. For the detergents employed see Pliny, , Nat. Hist. xxxv. 57 (17), xxviii. 18 (66).Google Scholar

page 208 note b That such clubs were in use by the fullers for the purpose mentioned, at an early period, may be inferred from a passage in the Ecclesiastical History of Ensebius Pamphilus, Bishop of Cesarea in Palestine (written before 326), in which, describing the martyrdom of the apostle St. James, called the Just, in accordance with the account of that event given by a writer of the middle of the second century (Hegissipus), he says, Quidam autem ex eis, accepto fuste ex officina fullonis, quo comprimebat vestes, valide infligit ejus capiti: et sic Justus tradidit animam (Acta Sanctorum, xiv. 35). The figures of the apostle St. James in mediaeval art bear the emblem of his martyrdom in the form of a staff with a curved and thickened end, and this probably shows the form of club employed by the Roman fullers, as it is a well known fact that the shape of implements used in various handicrafts vary but little from age to age. At some period not ascertainable the processes of treading and beating appear to have been supplemented or superseded by a rude machinery worked by water-power, which raised and let fall hammers upon the cloth soaking in troughs placed beneath them, and this machinery, with some improvements, continued in use until early in the nineteenth century. The building containing it was called a fulling or tucking mill. A further process, not shown in the Pompeian paintings, was that of shearing the cloth after it was carded; bat a relief from the tomb of a fuller in the museum at Sens shows this process, as also perhaps the method employed, for stretching the material. A cast of this relief may be seen in the museum at St. Germain, near Paris, in Hall XXII. The carding combs appear to have been set with a kind of thorn and with the skins of hedgehogs. See Pliny, , Nat. Hist. viii. 37 (56).Google Scholar

page 209 note a For an illustration of this monument, see Smith, C. Roach, Collectanea Antiqua, v. p. xx.Google Scholar

page 210 note a Vol. xxiv. 129-135.

page 210 note b Vol. xxv. 215-227.

page 213 note a A stratum of fuller's earth is said to have been discovered in the hills round the villa. See Journal of the British Archseological Association, Proceedings of Cirencester Congress, 1869, xxv. 402.Google ScholarPubMed

page 213 note b At first sight the heated tanks suggest dyeing, but this requires a greater heat than could be obtained by means of a hypocaust. The dye should be boiling, but some dyeing may be effected at a less temperature.

page 216 note a Some stones from this have also been used in the foundations of the apse.

page 219 note a Vol. xxii. 49-84. I must here acknowledge the courtesy of Mr. Payne in permitting the reproduction of the plan of the remains accompanying this paper. My thanks are also due to Mr. R. Marchant for valuable information respecting the site.

page 223 note a It should be observed that no trace of pilie appear upon the beds in the southern half of the hypocaust. It is conceivable that this may be accounted for as follows. Dwarf walls of rubble forming a passage possibly as wide as the furnace at the northern end of the chamber may have been built on the level floor between the sloping beds for the length of those beds, and the pockets behind them then filled up with unmortared material, the whole being floored over. The heat from the northern pillared portion of the hypocaust would thus be conveyed to the southern pillared section, and if the floor over the intermediate passage was thin, considerable warmth would be obtained from it.

page 224 note a A drain in the south wall of this little chamber seems to show how wet the floor must have been made by the transfer of the dripping cloths from tank to tank.