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Guest - Katrin Sprang Discussion
18. September 2026
Hi Rachel, I have looked for more photos of you, but that was not very successful. I found a link on...
Guest - Beatrix Sprang Discussion
15. September 2026
That lozenge pattern element is not a photograph, but a scan. So it should be to scale. But I pinned...
Guest - Katrin Sprang Discussion
15. September 2026
I was not referring to Rachel's reconstruction (is the reconstruction you refer to the one photograp...
Guest - Beatrix Sprang Discussion
14. September 2026
There is something Rachel did not mention. She told me: "Well, I worked with the measurements we too...
Guest - Katrin Sprang Discussion
14. September 2026
Well, this is certainly developing into an interesting discussion. Firstly, going from that lovely l...
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Chartres Things.

One of the leads to more depictions of yarnwinders (from two people, independently, the Internet is a small place after all) was to the North Porch portal of Chartres cathedral. There are, among many other things, scenes from the active life as opposed to the contemplative life, and the active life shows women at textile work.

I had a little rootle around to find out a tiny bit more about the portal, and the sculptures, including their date, and quickly found that Chartres has a lot of info online. For instance, there's a very cool overview about the programme on the portals by Alison Stones, done in collaboration with the Uni of Pittsburgh, and which you can find here. The Uni of Pittsburgh also has a searchable database with images from Chartres, accessible here.

So if you feel like looking at some sculptures and some stained glass - enjoy!
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Things I did today...
Getting back on track.
 

Comments 2

Kyrshah on Mittwoch, 21. März 2018 06:29

I'm not so quite sure that those ladys are really working only with wool. Or am I just not aware of all steps to prepare a fleece in medival times? The first sculpture may implicate that it's wool, but when I look on the forth one, I see a tool that is more used to make linnen fibers. And I don't get any idea what the third women is doing and for what purpose? The leather on her knee implicates that her tool is a really sharp one. Any suggestions what she is exactly doing?
Nice details are that the distaff is stickt in the womans belt and that the handles of the combs are very broud and have two rows of teeth. All women wear diffrent sorts of headgear so it implicates that they are either six diffrent ladies or that is the same lady showed on diffrent days. I personally would take my guess on the first option.

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I'm not so quite sure that those ladys are really working only with wool. Or am I just not aware of all steps to prepare a fleece in medival times? The first sculpture may implicate that it's wool, but when I look on the forth one, I see a tool that is more used to make linnen fibers. And I don't get any idea what the third women is doing and for what purpose? The leather on her knee implicates that her tool is a really sharp one. Any suggestions what she is exactly doing? Nice details are that the distaff is stickt in the womans belt and that the handles of the combs are very broud and have two rows of teeth. All women wear diffrent sorts of headgear so it implicates that they are either six diffrent ladies or that is the same lady showed on diffrent days. I personally would take my guess on the first option.
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Katrin on Mittwoch, 11. April 2018 13:23

I completely agree that it's not necessarily all wool. The two women who are "working the wool" are, in my opinion, working flax or hemp, or a similar fibre. The third woman might be scutching flax, using the protection on her knee either against the edge of the tool (which does not need to be really sharp) or to keep at least some of the splintery woody bits from embedding themselves into the cloth of her dress.

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I completely agree that it's not necessarily all wool. The two women who are "working the wool" are, in my opinion, working flax or hemp, or a similar fibre. The third woman might be scutching flax, using the protection on her knee either against the edge of the tool (which does not need to be really sharp) or to keep at least some of the splintery woody bits from embedding themselves into the cloth of her dress.
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Montag, 21. September 2026

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