Title: green-art
Subject: History and dyeing of Lincoln Green
Author: Edited by Mark Harris
Last saved by: Mark S. Harris
Keywords: dyeing, colors, cloth,medieval, England, green, Lincoln

green-art - 6/15/91

"Lincoln Green" by Sandra Sardeson. The dyeing and history of Lincoln Green.

NOTE: See also the files: dyeing-msg, mordants-msg, dye-list-art, felting-msg, textiles-msg, linen-msg, looms-msg, weaving-msg, color-a-fab-bib.

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From: TACON019 at ysub.ysu.edu (Fred Ullom)
Date: 15 Jun 91 21:08:09 GMT
Organization: Youngstown State University VM system (YSUB)

The following article may be of interest to those of you discussing the
color green.

-Fred
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred S. Ullom
tacon019 at ysub.ysu.edu
Youngstown State University
------------------------------------------------------------------------

LINCOLN GREEN by Sandra Sardeson

(Reprinted without permission from The Journal for Weavers, Spinners,
and Dyers, Vol. 158, April 1991.)

The name and fame of Lincoln Green has lived long after it ceased to
be manufactured, thanks to Robin Hood and his merry men of Sherwood
Forest. 'When they were clothed in Lyncolne grene they kest away their
gray' comes from A LYTELL GESTE OF ROBYN HODE circa 1510. In his
FAIRIE QUEEN Edmund Spenser (circa 1552-99) has the lines 'All in a
woodman's jacket he was clad of Lincolne Greene, belay'd with silver
lace.' Michael Drayton (1563-1631) wrote 'Swains in shepherd's gray
and girls in Lincolne greene.' The latter added a marginal note
'Lincolne anciently dyed the best greene of England' suggesting that
Lincoln Green was very much a thing of the past even by the early
seventeenth century.

The recorded evidence for Lincoln Green production is very sparse and
fragmentary. Sir Francis Hill's classic work MEDIEVAL LINCOLN, which
has recently been reprinted after a gap of twenty-five years (it was
first published in 1948) took twenty years to produce and it contains
what few references are available.

Lincoln scarlet was the most expensive (scarlet signifying the cloth
originally, not the colour). In 1198 the Sheriff of Lincoln bought
ninety ells (about 112 yards) of scarlet cloth for L30 although the
cloth was a finely finished high quality fabric it seems almost
certain that its high price was due mainly to the extremely costly
dye-stuff 'greyne' (graine) from Kermes or scarlet grain, a small
insect resembling that which provides the dye cochineal.

In 1182 the Sheriff of Lincoln bought:
        Scarlet at 6s 8d/ell
        Green (or fine cloth) at 3s/ell
        Blanchet also at 3s/ell
        Gray at approximately 1s 8d/ell
        (an ell is about equal to a yard.)
(This information is derived from the archives of the Pipe Roll
Society.)

Lincoln green was therefore the middle grade or quality of cloth
produced. It was first dyed blue with woad and then overdyed yellow
with either weld or dyers' greenweed. Woad was grown commercially in
Lincolnshire for hundreds of years, certainly from Elizabethan times,
when its cultivation was encouraged to depress importation. Claxby, in
Lincolnshire, was a centre of cultivation during that time and later
durning the reign of James 1 at Wykeham Grange near Spalding. It was
grown in the Fens as recently as 1938 but after this cultivation was
not continued when Skirbeck Woad Mill ceased production.

In this century the importation of indigo, which produced a better
stronger blue less expensively, contributed to the demise of woad
cultivation although, after 1878 and the invention of artificial
indigo, the crop had become less commercially viable. 'Blanchet' cloth
may have been dyed a pale blue using woad, or this could have been
bleached, although there is little evidence of bleaching at this early
date. This is in contrast to, for instance, gray which was undyed and
intended for everyday use.

Prior to the Middle Ages cloth production was a domestic industry at
the level of that which we would today describe as 'cottage' but after
this time increasingly it became urbanised resulting in greater
yardage production. By 1216 three textile craft guilds were
established in Lincoln - the Weaver', Dyers', and Fullers' guilds.
Collectively these produced the high quality scarlet cloth, Lincoln
green, and Lincoln gray. In 1813, Arthur Young, that prodigious writer
on all agricultural matters, noted that woad was being cultivated for
export to the manufactories of Yorkshire and Lancaster although by
this time the production of Lincoln green had ceased many years
before.

In 1984 to coincide with the important exhibition 'Lincoln comes of
age - 21 hundred years of Lincoln's history' Lincoln scarlet, green
and gray were again produced to resemble the original textiles.

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