Chronology and Distribution

Having examined the processes of production, the next step is to set the textile crafts in their archaeological background. Distribution plots have been constructed, in order to investigate where the separate sub-crafts were practised on the site and to examine how they compare with other industries. In addition, some attempt has been made to place the Coppergate material in its regional context, although here the patchy nature of the evidence from other sites has caused problems. Much work needs to be done before the origins of theYorkshire textile industry are fully understood.

Period 1, late 1st–late 4th century or later

The only Roman textile tools recovered from 16-22 Coppergate were spindle whorls for drop-spindle spinning.Two were found in sealed Roman layers and eight, redeposited, in later levels. Spindle-spinning is a portable craft and later historical evidence suggests that spindle and whorl were carried about in much the way that our grandmothers carried their knitting, ready for a convenient moment. Since the area of the excavation lay near the fortress, in a part of the town occupied by temples, commercial establishments and a small cemetery (p.1689), the spindle whorls are most likely to have been dropped by women passing through. Indeed, most of the small number of textile tools from RomanYork come from the opposite side of the River Ouse, in the colonia or civil settlement (RCHMY 1, 82, 143;Wild 1970, 134; and unpublished data).

Period 2, 5th–mid 9th century

There are no textile-related artefacts securely dated to the Anglian period, when the site was largely unoccupied. A weaver’s sword-beater was found in an Anglian pit outside the area of the main excavation, alongside the 8dl century helmet, but both sword-beater and helmet are likely to have arrived in the pit when it was back-filled in the early AngloScandinavian period (p.881,AY 17/8).

Evidence for Anglian occupation of the old Roman town is limited to a thin scattering of pottery, stonework and metal artefacts, none of which has any bearing on textile manufacture (AY 8/1, 5-7; AY 16/5, 390-9;Waterman 1959, 60-1). For full-scale cloth production it is necessary to go to the large Anglian village atWest Heslerton, 40km (25 miles) north-east of York, or the smaller community at Flixborough, Lincs., 48km (30 miles) south-east (Fig. 837), both of which have yielded quantities of textile tools, especially loomweights (Walton Rogers unpublished c). York seems to have been, rather, an ecclesiastical and administrative centre, although by the 8th century there was a trading settlement, or wic, a little way down-river from the Roman town. Part of this wic has been excavated at 46-54 Fishergate (Fig.849, pp.1808-9) and a small number of artefacts there suggest that textiles were being made, using tools similar to those at Flixborough (1265-73, AY 17/9).

Fig. 837 Sites in theYorkshire-Lincolnshire region mentioned in the text:

Period 3, mid 9th–late 9th/early 10th century

The area of the Coppergate excavation began to be re-occupied in the mid 9th century. The stratigraphic, ceramic (AY 16/5,489) and biological evidence (AY 14/7, 528-9, 664, 702) suggests that human activity was largely in the north-west half of the site, although any associated buildings must either pave left no clearly identifiable traces, or have lain outside the area of excavation. How far this re-occupation of the site is connected with the Scandinavian incursions, which led up to the capture ofYork in AD 866, is unknown, but it is clear that the later 9th century marked the start of a long period of Scandinavian influeoce in the town.

A fully fledged textile industry seems to have swung into action as soon as the site was re-occupied. Although the quantity of material recovered is relatively small (Fig.839, p.1795), a complete cross-section of the textile crafts is represented. Dyed raw wool and dyeplants; flax; fibre-processing spikes; a spindle and spindle whorls; loomweights and a rough-out for a cigar-shaped pin-beater (the sword-beater probably also belongs to this phase); teasels and a shearboard hook; stone slick-stones; needles and shears were all recovered from Period 3 (Fig.838). In short, all the processes of production, which take raw flax and wool and make it into finished cloth and garments, were being practised on or near the site in the first 40 or 50 years of the Anglo-Scandinavian occupation.

This textile industry is clearly Anglian or Anglo-Saxon in origin. Most of the tools from Period 3 could be set down at 8th century Fishergate,York, or Flixborough without arousing any comment. Only the finishing and dyeing evidence is new, although this must be owirig to the better preservation of organic material, such as dyeplants and teasels, at Coppergate. Certainly, textiles from local Anglo-Saxon cemeteries such as West Heslerton show that finishing and dyeing were already, to a limited extent, part of the Anglian inheritance.

This is no makeshift industry. Spinning and weaving skills may have been commonplace (see pp.1821-2), but the finishing of cloth with teasels and shears is a craft that requires considerable experience and one which would have been practised by relatively few in the 9th century (see p.1775). Dyeing also needs a settled environment and access to a range of raw materials. The character of this 9th century industry will be re-examined later in the volume (p.1824).

The distribution plot for Period 3 (Fig.839) shows the material spread broadly over the site, but a little more concentrated in the north-west half, as might be expected from the pottery and biological evidence.Weaving, however, may have been practised at the opposite, River Foss, end, for reasons which will be explained in the discussion of the Period 4B material (pp.1797-1803). A thin spread of dyeplants (illustrated in AY 14/7, 712, fig.196j) were probably brought in by wind-blow or trampling, from an area immediately outside the boundaries of the excavation (ibid., 529).

Fig. 838 Textile equipment and textiles from Period 3 (AD 850–900).Teasels and madder root have been replaced by modern representatives

Fig. 839 Textile production evidence from Period 3: distribution plot of raw wool and artefacts; for the distribution of dyestuffs, see AY14/7, 702. Cigar-shaped pin-beater, 6670, is not included on this plot. For additional key see Fig. 790, p.1705

Fig. 840 Fibre processing in Period 4B: raw wool, flax waste and iron spikes. For additional key see Fig. 790, p.1705

Period 4A, late 9th/early 10th century-c.930/5

In the early 10th century there was a re-orientation of properties at Coppergate, to an alignment at right-angles to the street.The evidence of the pottery suggests an intensification of activity at this time (AY 16/5, 489) and industrial crafts had begun to find a footing. The spread of textile equipment, however, seems to be much as before (not illustrated). The number of sub-crafts may even have contracted, as teaselling may have been lost from the repertoire at this stage.

Period 4B, c.930/5-c.975

As R.A. Hall has described in his introduction, Period 4B saw the division of the site into four tenements (labelled A, B, C, D), their boundaries defined by wattle fences. Post and wattle buildings were set up at the street end of each tenement and the street itself must have been in existence by this stage. The extensive industrial activity of this period includes iron-smithing, non-ferrous metalworking (gold, silver, copper and lead), amber working, wood-turning and glass manufacture. These crafts concentrate in, but are not limited to, individual tenements (AY 16/5; 17/6; 17/7).The evidence from Tenement A in Period 4B is slight, due to interference from later structures.

The distribution plots for textile equipment show iron spikes for fibre processing widely scattered over the site (Fig.840). Later historical evidence suggests that flax was generally processed outdoors or in a large barn, whereas wool-combing was more an indoor craft. To see whether this was true of Coppergate, the site was divided into three zones (Fig.840) and the spikes from each zone examined in detail (Table 151).The spikes resembling the

Table 151 Fibre-processing spikes from Period 4B as shown in Fig. 840

W = 90–110mm long, rounded or rectangular cross-section

Fa = 60–85mm long, all cross-sections

Fb = 90–110mm long, rectangular cross-section

Fig. 841 Spinning equipment from Period 4B: a wooden distaff and spindle, and spindle whorls of potsherd, stone, bone, antler and lead. For additional key see Fig. 790, p.1705

teeth in known wool-combs (90-110mm long and rounded or rounded rectangular crosssection) did indeed prove to cluster in and around the buildings and taper off towards the back of the site. Sheep parasites, perhaps debris from the processing of wool, follow a similar distribution pattern (AY 14/7,699,704), although much of the raw wool itself comes from in and around backyard pits (pits 32431, 37089), where the wool may have been used for latrine wipes. The spikes more likely to be from flax heckles, especially those 60-85mm long (pp.1727-31), occur in all zones, but are most common at the rear of the site, where some flax waste was also recovered (AY 14/7, 562). This, then, explains the widespread distribution of fibre-processing spikes in all periods at Coppergate, the plots for indoor wool-comb teeth having overlapped with outdoor flax heckle spikes.

Spinning more obviously concentrates in and around the buildings (Fig.841).The cluster of spindle whorls around the building on Tenement C may be artificially inflated by some bone whorls which were discarded during manufacture (pp.1741-3) and by lead whorls, which congregate suspiciously close to an area of lead working (p.812, AY 17/7), but the remaining whorls of stone and bone are often well worn and are spread evenly through the buildings on Tenements B, C and D. They are supported by a distaff on Tenement B and a spindle on Tenement D.

The evidence for weaving is less straightforward and requires a brief digression. The total number of loomweights from the site is very small (33 altogether), compared with the many hundreds recovered atWest Heslerton and Flixborough. Several of the examples from Period 4B and later are abraded pieces found in association with residual 9th century pottery (mainly HandmadeTypes 1 and 2, AY 16/5, 396-8, 515). It is possible, then, that the loomweights from 10th and 11th century levels are in fact 9th century material redeposited.

Loomweights, cigar-shaped pin-beaters and the sword-beater are representatives of the warp-weighted loom, while single-ended pin-beaters belong with the two-beam vertical loom (pp.1755-7).A distribution plot for these objects, as recovered from Periods 3, 4B and 5B (limited areas could be excavated to 4A, 5A and 5C levels) (Fig.842), shows a contrast between loomweights and sword-beater at the Foss end of the site and single-ended pinbeaters at the street end. Loomweights are heavy objects which are unlikely to have been dispersed far from where they were used.

The conclusion which best fits the evidence is that the warp-weighted loom was in action just outside the southern boundary of the excavation during the 9th century, but fell from favour during me early part of the 10th. Its place was taken by the two-beam vertical loom with single-ended pin-beaters and this form of weaving was probably practised in or near the buildings at the street end of the site.The two-beam loom may have first appeared in Period 4A, but became established in Period 4B, when six single-ended pin-beaters were recovered fromTenements B, C and D, with a rough-out for a seventh from the backyard of Tenement B.This changeover between looms can be matched atWinchester, where Keene has argued from the absence of loomweights, the presence of single-ended pin-beaters and some very convincing historical evidence, that the two-beam loom took over in the late

Fig. 842 Weaving equipment from Periods 3, 4B and 5B: clay loomweights, single-ended bone and antler pinbeaters,and wooden tapestry weft-bobbins.Half-made pin-beaters have not been included.For additional key see Fig. 790, pp. 1704-5

Fig. 843 Dyeplants from Period 4B.The figures in the key are derived from ‘abundance indicator values’ (for details see AY14/7, 710-3). Squares represent sampled areas on a 2m grid. No samples were examined from the blank areas. Key: 0—0; 1—1–5; 2—6–10; 3—11–15; 4—16–20; 5—>20

9th or early 10th century, although the warp-weighted loom continued in use outside the town until the 11th century (Keene 1990,203-8).

To return to Period 4B, the finishing of wool cloth with teasels must have disappeared by this stage. No teasels or shearboard hooks have been recorded, although organic materials (AY 14/7, 540-71) and iron artefacts (AY 17/6) were recovered in quantity from this period. Dyeing, however, was by now a well established craft. Remains of dyeplants, including madder, clubmoss, greenweed and woad, were found in dense concentrations, suggesting waste from dye-baths.The best evidence comes from in and around the buildings, although material was also recovered from the backyard area (Fig.843).

Tools for making and maintaining garments, that is, shears, needles and slick-stones, were recovered from Tenements B, C and D (Fig.844). Iron needles concentrate in the building on Tenement C, which is where they were almost certainly being made (pp.465, 512-3,547, AY 17/6), but the presence of an unused off-cut of silk in the same building suggests that fabrics were also being cut, and presumably stitched, there. Wool and silk

Fig. 844 Cutting, smoothing and stitching in Period 4B: glass slick-stones, iron shears, needles of iron, copper alloy and bone, threads of silk and wool, and a silk offcut. For additional key see Fig. 790, p. 1705

plied yarns, comparable with the thread used to stitch garments (pp.392, 409, AY 17/5), were also found on Tenements B, C and D.

Some of the iron needles seem to cluster in the backyard area of Tenements B and C (Fig.844), but this area included deposits which probably represent sweepings from house floors (AY 14/7, 551, 664).There is therefore no reason to see needlework as anything other than an indoor craft. Smoothing, however, may have been carried out outside, perhaps as part of the laundering process: of the 44 stone and glass slick-stones from the site, less than one-quarter were found inside buildings. Many of these slick-stones are well away from the main glass-working area on Tenement D and are likely to have been lost or discarded during use rather than manufacture.

To summarise, the evidence for Period 4B suggests textile and garment production in the buildings on Tenements B, C and D, with some processes, such as flax preparation and laundering, being carried out outdoors.When allowance is made for tools which are likely to have been discarded during their manufacture, the remaining material shows the textile crafts spread evenly through the tenements, in contrast with the industrial crafts, which tend to concentrate on one, or sometimes two, tenements. A Scandinavian presence can be seen at this stage in a worn and repaired nålebundet sock 1309 and a Norse textile 1303, but the tools of textile production remain typically Anglo-Saxon.

Period 5A, c.975

Much of the material from Period 5A comes from dumps formed when the Period 5B buildings were being built in c.975.The textile-related artefacts are similar to those of Period 4B, except for the almost exclusive use of spindle whorls of cylindrical form B. Also from this period is a silk head-dress, from Tenement D (pp.374-5, 1372, AY 17/5), which in technical terms matches the silk off-cut from Period 4B, a second 10th century headdress from 5 Coppergate (pp.132-6, AY 17/3) and a third, of similar date, from Saltergate, Lincoln (ibid.;Walton 1993, 5-6).

Period 5B, c.975-early/mid 11th century

During Period 5B the wattle buildings of Period 4B were replaced by more solid structures and a second rank of buildings appeared on Tenements B, C and D (Fig.790, p.1705). Industrial activity of several kinds continued and high-lead glass manufacture seems to have overtaken metalworking on Tenement D (AY 16/5, 472-5). Unfortunately the end of this phase saw a considerable amount of dumping of material within buildings (ibid., 500-6), so that the distribution plots for this period are not an entirely reliable guide to the location of the textile crafts (Figs.845-8).

Nevertheless, it is clear that spinning, weaving and dyeing continued as before (Figs. 846- 7) and that there was a new emphasis on fibre processing.The rise in fibre-processing spikes, from 40 in Period 4B to 73 in 5B, cannot be matched in any other artefact (compare

Fig. 846 Spinning in Period 5B: wooden spindle and spindle whorls of stone, bone and antler. For additional key see Fig. 790, p.1705

Fig. 847 Dyeplants from Period 5B.The figures in the key are derived from ‘abundance indicator values’ (for details see AY14/7, 710-3). Squares represent sampled areas on a 2m grid. No samples were examined from the blank areas. Key: 0—0; 1—1–5; 2—6–10; 3—11–15; 4—16–20; 5—>20

the figures in Tables 145-50). As already described, it is difficult to distinguish between teeth from wool-combs and spikes from flax heckles, but a group of sharp straight spikes, tentatively identified as flax heckle teeth (2364, 2402, 2410, 2415) proved to cluster convincingly near a wooden flax pounder at the rear of Tenement C (Fig.845).The woolcombs and the flax scutching blade, however, may not have been used in the buildings in which they were found, as they formed part of dumped midden-like deposits.

The two-beam loom evidently remained in use in Period 5B, judging from the evidence of the pin-beaters, and two tapestry bobbins suggest that the loom was being used for patterned hangings or coverlets. There would have been no shortage of coloured wools for this craft, as dyeing was still being practised, probably on all four tenements (Fig.847). In previous periods, the dye-bath seems to have been emptied straight on to the outdoor ground surface, but in this phase a gully may have been used to drain off dye effluent from the building on Tenement A (context 2181: AY 14/7,591-2,750).

Fig. 848 Cutting, smoothing and stitching in Period 5B: glass slick-stones, iron shears, needles of iron, copper alloy and bone, bone thread reel and sewing thread in wool, silk and gold. For additional key see Fig. 790, p.1705

Other textile tools, including shears, glass slick-stones and needles of iron and copper alloy were now more broadly scattered across the site (Fig.848), probably as a result of repeated dumping and pit-digging. The evidence for needlework includes an early bone thread reel, 6689, a lump of beeswax possibly for waxing thread, 6696 (ibid., 608, 766), and some gold thread, 1410, which may have come from embroidery or braiding.

Period 5C, mid-later 11th century

Strata that can be attributed to this period were identified in restricted areas at the front and rear of the site. These layers included so much dumped material (AY 16/5, 509-10) that it is difficult to draw any satisfactory conclusions concerning textile production from the distribution plots (not illustrated). Fibre preparation seems to have continued to playa significant role (Table 145, p.1718), but the concentration of dye residues has diminished (AY 14/7,713) and may by now reflect redeposited material.

Textile equipment from other sites in Anglo-Scandinavian York

Coppergate lay in the heart of the Anglo-Scandinavian town, close to the main east-west road and the Ouse river crossing (Fig.849). Several other sites in the area have yielded Anglo-Scandinavian remains, although only one of these, at Clifford Street (Fig.849, 13) (Waterman 1959), has produced any extensive evidence for textile production.At Hungate (Fig.849, 6) there was a single stone spindle whorl and a clay loomweight, the loomweight being from early levels and possibly pre-Anglo-Scandinavian (Richardson 1961, 84-5); seeds of flax and weld were also found, although not abundantly (Godwin and Bachem 1961, 109-13). Four clay loomweights were found in the precincts of the castle, near Clifford’s Tower (Fig. 849, 19), the form of two of them suggesting an early, possibly Anglian, date

Fig. 849 (facing)York excavations mentioned in the text, shown together with the Roman fortress and the medieval walls in outline:

(Grove 1939); and a stone spindle whorl was found in Anglo-Scandinavian deposits at King’s Square (Fig.849, 3) (Wenham 1971, 168). At 6-8 Pavement (1972.21, 1974.21; Fig.849, 5), there were four spindle whorls (two bone, one stone, and one Roman potsherd), a bone spindle, a fragment of clay loomweight, a fragment of glass slick-stone and four iron spikes (p.l00, AY 17/3), but, as at Hungate, leather working seems to have been the more significant craft. Remains of greenweed, clubmoss and madder have been found in a recent re-examination of the 6-8 Pavement soil samples, although not in the concentrations in which they occur at 16-22 Coppergate (Fig.849, 10) (A.R. Hall, pers. comm.); small amounts of dyeplants have also been found at 22 Piccadilly (1987.22; Fig.849, 12) (Carron et al. 1995) and in bore-holes at All Saints, Pavement (Fig.849, 7) (Carron et al. 1996b); and greenweed has been identified in quantity in some Anglo-Scandinavian deposits at 1-9 Micklegate (1988-9.17; Fig. 849, 16), on the far side of the Ouse (AY 14/7,772), although other evidence for textile production on that side of the river is scant.

The Clifford Street excavation took place in 1884, long before the study of botanical remains such as dyeplants was an established part of archaeology.The textile tools, however, are much like those from Coppergate (Waterman 1959). They include spindle whorls of stone, bone, lead, clay (ibid., items 20.1-16) and jet (21.2), a bone spindle with an incised design of interlace and cross-hatching (12.5), single-ended bone pin-beaters (14.26, 14.37- 8;Waterman notes another pin-beater (14.27) from Nessgate (Fig.849, 9), and glass slickstones (22.36-7); no loomweights appear to have been recorded (ibid., 102). Most of the material seems to be from 11th century levels (ibid., 68) and some of the globular spindle whorls (form C) are likely to be post-Conquest, although form A and B whorls are the more common. More significantly, there is a single example of the sub-conical clay whorls which are so typical of Scandinavia in the Viking Age (20.6). This is the only convincing example of a Scandinavian textile tool from Anglo-ScandinavianYork.

Period 6, later 11th-17th century

York suffered at the hands of the Normans in the period 1067–9, but the town was eventually to recover and to re-establish itself as a mercantile centre and administrative capital for the north of England. At Coppergate medieval levels have been disturbed by repeated rebuilding, pit-digging and byVictorian cellars at the street end of the site; frequent attempts to level up the ground surface with land-fill dumps will also have introduced extraneous material. Distribution plots for Period 6 must therefore be used with care, as they are bound to include some early material, redeposited.

This disturbance of medieval stratigraphy is common inYork and probably accounts for the scarcity of securely dated medieval textile tools from the city.The nearest comparable evidence is from Beverley, which, likeYork, was a royal borough and a prominent medieval cloth town (Evans andTomlinson 1992). On the other hand, from the 12th century onwards written sources provide a valuable record ofYork’s textile industry and the role of the town’s merchants in the wool trade.

Since Period 6 represents some six centuries of occupation, it is easiest to follow each of the sub-crafts through the whole period, before summarising general trends.

Fibre processing

During the Norman period there was extensive dumping at the river end of the site in order to raise the level of the land. Almost all of the 46 fibre-processing spikes dated to the 11th and 11th/ 12th centuries were retrieved from this dumped deposit, along with spindle whorls, needles and glass slick-stones. In the early 12th century, however, fibre-processing spikes re-appear in association with occupation activity and the preparation of fibres for spinning can be shown to have continued vigorously (Table 145, p.1718).The spikes are widely distributed in the 12th century plot (Fig.850), the blank area at the street end of the site being due to disturbance by modern cellars.The 13th century plot (Fig.851) seems to show a greater concentration on Tenements C and D, although some of the spikes on C come from another land-fill dump.

The fibres being processed were probably still both wool and flax. One of the 12th/13th century spikes from Tenement B (6601) has the remains of a wool-comb’s iron baseplate and the long spikes which became established at the end of the 12th century may be from a new form of wool-comb (pp.1729-31). Some of the shorter spikes and spikes with square cross-section are more likely to represent flax heckles. Indeed, althoughYork was best known for its wool products, the production of linen fabrics was probably an established industry in the town.There is archaeological evidence for flax-spinning at medieval Bedern (Walton Rogers in Ottaway and Rogers AY 17/15) and during the course of the 15th and early 16th century linen weavers slowly established their independence from first the tapiters (Swanson 1989, 37) and then the woollen weavers, so that they could finally form their own gild in 1518 (YCR, 3,47,65).

The evidence for fibre processing falls off dramatically towards the end of the 13th century (Table 145). A tool for rippling flax was recovered from a 15th century deposit on Tenement B, but the pine from which it is made did not grow in England, and its shape is very like Norwegian ripples (pp.1722-5). Since there is better evidence for trade than for crafts at the site in the 14th and 15th centuries (see below), it is possible that the broken ripple represents discarded merchandise.

Spinning

Spinning continued without interruption through Norman and later phases. The spinners were now mainly using round, lathe-turned stone whorls, form C, to weight their spindles (see pp.1737-41), although one cylindrical form B whorl, 6564 (not illustrated), is reliably dated to the late 11th or early 12th century.Two ornamented antler whorls and two clay whorls also appear to be authentically medieval. Form A whorls, on the other hand, are nearly all from disturbed parts of the site and are almost certainly residual, as are many of the bone whorls.

Fig. 850 Fibre processing in the 12th century. The long spikes are mostly dated to the end of the 12th century. For additional key see Fig. 790, p.1707

Fig. 851 Fibre processing in the 13th century. For additional key see Fig. 790, p.1707

Fig. 852 Spinning in the 12th and 13th centuries: wooden spindle, spindle whorls of stone, bone, antler and clay, and spun wool yarn. For additional key see Fig. 790, p.1707

The proven medieval whorls are distributed across the middle and rear of the site (Fig.852). Ten of the whorls come from deposits which could be associated with the use of the series of new buildings which were appearing further down the tenement plots; the remainder come from dumps and levelling deposits (pp.1706-7). The number of whorls dwindles in the 14th century, which may reflect the arrival of the spindle wheel in the early 14th century, followed by the true spinning wheel in the late 15th.The drive-whorl from a spindle wheel was recovered from a 17th century dump on Tenement D, but this was a secondary deposit and the object had probably been in use at an earlier date.

Weaving

One of the most significant items from the medieval levels is the wooden heddle cradle, which is part of a horizontal treadle-operated loom. This came from a late 11th century deposit close to the front of Tenement B and a century or so later a heddle rod from the same type of loom was deposited in a pit on the same tenement (Fig.853). It has been shown above (pp.1763-6) that the horizontal loom spread through the towns of north-west Europe during the 11th and 12th centuries andYork was evidently in the forefront of this new technology.

There seems to have been another type of weaver in action on Tenement A in the 12th/13th century (Fig.853).The iron weft-beater blade, 6608, and the bone bodkin-like pin-beater, 6675 (not illustrated), would have been used with the two-beam loom for the production of tapestry-woven rugs, hangings and coverlets (the pin-beater on Tenement C is from a secondary deposit and may be residual). The artisans using such tools were known as tapiters and an example of the tapiter’s craft, a fragment of tapestry (1422), was found in a 15th century pit on Tenement C.

Finishing

Cloth-finishing was probably no longer being carried out at 16-22 Coppergate. The biological samples from Period 6 are still in the process of investigation, but no teasels have been detected as yet (A.R. Hall, pers. comm.) and no shearboard hooks or cloth shears have been found among the ironwork (P. Ottaway, pers. comm.). The small number of tenter-hooks from Tenements A and D are more likely to represent hooks for tapestries and other wall-hangings (see p.1773).

Dyeing

The scarcity of dyeplants from Period 5C suggests that dyeing may have departed from the site in the 11th century and no dye residues have been identified as yet in the Period 6 biological samples (A.R. Hall, pers. comm.). One insubstantial building to the rear of Tenement D enclosed a rectangular hearth and had a plank-lined drain resembling those in

Fig. 853 Weaving in the late 11th to early 13th centuries: wooden heddle cradle and heddle rod, weft-beater blades of iron and wood, and bone pin-beaters. For additional key see Fig. 790, p.1707

the medieval dye-works at Eastgate, Beverley (Evans andTomlinson 1992, 192, 282-6), but, again, no dye residues have been noted in a preliminary examination of pit fills associated with the building (A.R Hall, pers. comm.). While there is no real evidence for dyeing at medieval Coppergate, two sites to the south-east have produced evidence for the use of woad.There were woad residues, bran (to help fermentation) and calcareous material (to make the dye soluble), together with some greenweed and weld, in a 14th/15th century well fill at 22 Piccadilly (Carron et al. 1995); and woad and calcareous material in a pit at 17-21 Piccadilly (1990-1.29) (Hall 1995, 37).

Making garments

The evidence for needlework in the early Norman period, like fibre processing, comes from levelling dumps towards the rear of the site. In the 12th and 13th centuries, again broadly following the distribution panern of fibre processing, needles, shears and slick-stones are more widely spread over the site (Fig.854). The evidence for needlework diminishes, along with most of the evidence for the textile crafts, at the start of the 14th century, but a small netting needle (6634) dated to the 14th/15th century has been recovered from the rear of Tenement C, close to some silk thread (1457, AY 17/5) of the sort often used in hairnet-making.

Wool trade

Evidence for a trade in wool comes in the form of wooden pins from wool bales.These are all from the river end of the site (Fig.855).They seem to shift from Tenement B in the 12th/13th century (four examples), toTenement D in the 13th/14th century (two examples plus one residual in a 16th century deposit), back to B in the 14th century (four examples) and then toTenement C in the late 14th century and 15th century (seven examples). Most come from midden-like dumps, but the four from 14th century,Tenement B, seem to be related to the use of a large timber-framed building there (K. Hunter-Mann, pers. comm.).

It has already been described, how wool was collected in York, repackaged into large canvas containers and shipped down-river to Hull and the Continent (pp.1717-18). It is possible, then, that the river end of the site was used for the storage and repackaging of wool (and perhaps other merchandise). If this is the case then some of the other objects in the vicinity take on new meaning. Some ‘fell’ wool (1413, AY 17/5) on Tenement C is contemporary with the bale pins found there.The tool believed to have been used in the production of sacking (6653) (see pp.1761-2) comes from the same 14th century group of deposits as the two bale pins on Tenement D. Twined and plaited ropes and tightly twisted cords resembling modem string were also recovered from pits and cuts at this end of the site (pp.289, 291, 393-7, AY 17/5). All of these are appropriate to the repackaging of merchandise, especially wool (Fig.794, p.1717).

Fig. 854 Cutting, smoothing and stitching in the 12th and 13th centuries: glass slick-stones, iron shears, needles of iron and copper alloy, and a bone thread reel. For additional key see Fig. 790, p.1707

Fig. 855 Wool and bale pins from the late 12th to the 16th century. For additional key see Fig. 790, p.1707

Summary of the Period 6 material

The 11th to 15th centuries seem to have witnessed a sea-change on these four Coppergate tenements, from ‘workshop’ crafts to commerce.Websters and tapiters were at work onTenements A and B until the 12th or early 13th century, but evidence for the other medieval textile trades recorded in the town is lacking. It is difficult to prove archaeologically that crafts are absent from a site, but at Coppergate the gap left by the textile workshop tools is comfortably filled by the evidence for the wool trade.

Behind this shift from crafts to trade lies a steady background of fibre processing, spinning and needlework, which seem to have been practised on all tenements until the start of the 14th century. It will be shown below (p.1829) that these were regarded as domestic tasks, to be carried out by the women and servants of the household. Such work would have been done in the homes of artisan and merchant alike.