Scarlet (cloth)

Scarlet was a type of fine and expensive woollen cloth common in Medieval Europe. In the assessment of John Munro, 'the medieval ''scarlet'' was therefore a very high-priced, luxury, woollen broadcloth, invariably woven from the finest English wools, and always dyed with kermes, even if mixed with woad, and other dyestuffs. There is no evidence for the use of the term ''scarlet'' for any other textile, even though other textiles, especially silks, were also dyed with kermes.'John Munro, �
Scarlet
��, in ''Encyclopaedia of Medieval Dress and Textiles of the British Isles c. 450-1450'', ed. by Gale Owen-Crocker, Elizabeth Coatsworth and Maria Hayward (Leiden: Brill, 2012).

Characteristics

The origins of the word "scarlet" have been debated quite extensively and are crucial to understanding what scarlet actually was in the Middle Ages. The word certainly came to English from Old French ''escarlate'', which is one of a wide range of similar words in the Romance languages such as Provençal ''escarlat'', Spanish ''escarlata'', Portuguese ''escarlate'', Italian ''scarlatto'', and medieval Latin ''scarlat(t)um''. The origin of this romance word, however, has been more widely debated. For a long time the origin was thought to be a Persian word which takes forms like ''saqalāt'', ''siqalāt'', or ''suqlāt''. However, the romance word is now thought to come from Arabic ''siklāt'' (plural ''siklātūn''), denoting very expensive, luxury silks dyed scarlet-red using the exceptionally expensive dye kermes. Arabic ''siklāt'' is first attested around the ninth century, and now thought also to be the origin of the Persian word, which is first attested around the 1290s. The origin of the word ''siklāt'' is itself uncertain and may come from the Late Roman term ''sigillatus'' (Latin)/''σιγιλλατον'' (Greek), denoting a kind of cloth decorated with seal-like patterns (from Latin ''sigillum'' 'seal'). The word then came to be used of woollen cloth dyed with the same dye. The most obvious route for the Arabic word ''siklāt'' to have entered the Romance languages would be via the Arabic-speaking Iberian region of Al-Andalus, particularly Almería, where kermes was produced extensively.

Recent work has discredited an alternative suggestion that the word ''scarlet'' originated in the Germanic languages. Henri Pirenne, in an argument elaborated by Jean-Baptiste Weckerlin,J.-B. Weckerlin, ''Le Drap 'escarlate' au moyen âge: essai sur l'étymologie et la signification du mot écarlate et notes techniques sur la fabrication de ce drap de laine au moyen âge'' (Lyons: 1905). argued that the term ''scarlet'' originated in the Germanic words related to Dutch ''schar'' ('shear') and ''laken'' ('cloth'), in which case scarlet was originally highly sheared cloth. They argued that the word spread from Germanic to other European languages due to the dominance of the Low Countries in the medieval wool trade. They guessed that ''scarlet'' became associated with the colour red because this was among the most prestigious colours, and therefore most fitting for exceptionally fine cloth. However, their ideas have not proved a good fit with the full range of European evidence: most importantly, historical evidence for the production of scarlet does not indicate more extensive shearing than other cloth. It is now thought that terms like Old High German ''schar-lachen'', Middle Low German ''scharlaken'', and the Scandinavian derivatives (Danish ''skarlagen'', Swedish ''skarlakan'', Icelandic ''skarlak'', ''skarlakan'') originally referred to highly sheared cloth produced on the horizontal treadle loom that came into use in northern Europe around the eleventh century. Meanwhile, Germanic words like Old Norse ''skarlat'', Middle High German ''scharlât'', and early modern Flemish ''schaerlat'' are all now thought to have been borrowed from the Romance words which themselves derived from Arabic ''siklāt''.

It has long been claimed that scarlet cloth was produced in red, white, blue, green, and brown colors, among others, with carmine red being merely the most common colour. However, recent work has argued that this is a misunderstanding of the use of colour-terms in medieval cloth production, and that references to other colours in scarlet production refers to their colour before dyeing with kermes.

Scarlet cloth was particularly fashionable in Europe during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but fell out of fashion during the sixteenth to seventeenth.

Appearances in popular culture

It is probable that the name of the character Will Scarlett in the Robin Hood legends referred to this type of cloth, similarly to the common occupational surnames (e.g. Weaver, Cooper, Fletcher, etc.).

Notes

{{fabric

Woven fabrics