The Textile Industries of Roman Britain

Abstract

T he achievement of textile producers in Roman Britain is highlighted most strikingly by two sets of entries in the Edict of Diocletian, a conspectus of traded goods and services available across the Empire, published in A.D. 301. The British birrus, a hooded cape of wool, is ranked equal sixth in a list of fourteen categories of birrus distinguished from one another by price and quality. 1 A corresponding, but shorter, list of tapetia, wool rugs, puts both the British first-class and second-class grades ahead of all the rest: the British tapete, in short, was second to none. 2 No other British product was deemed worthy of mention by the compilers of the Edict; prima facie, therefore, one could argue that textile production was Britain's leading industry by the late third century A.D. Can such a notion be substantiated? Since the last survey of the textile industry of Roman Britain in 1970 3 new material has been uncovered and new perspectives developed. In what follows I will assess or reassess the data, reviewing the economic as well as the technological aspects. 4 The corpus of textiles and textile-related artefacts is comparatively meagre, so any economic evaluation must inevitably be coloured by current thinking about the Roman economy as a whole and risks being overtaken by shifts of emphasis. Some recent reviews of the economic structure of the British province have looked no further than to pottery manufacture for insights into industrial performance and the nature of trade and exchange within and across provincial boundaries. 5 To the archaeologist, pottery survives in statistically seductive quantities and its study is largely untrammelled by written sources; 6 but Keith Hopkins famously asked: 'Would the distribution map of the ancient wool trade look like recent maps of the distribution of ancient pots? The answer to this question is surprisingly critical for the study of the ancient economy.' 7 In reacting to that challenge I will deal with the stages of textile manufacture in their traditional order: some represent virtually independent industries, but all are ultimately interlocked. FIBRES AND THEIR PREPARATION Sheep's wool and flax were the principal cloth fibres of Roman Britain, supplemented for specific functions (cordage, sailcloth, etc.) by hemp and occasionally by animal hair. Silk appears as an import. 8 1

The Exploitation of Animals in Roman Britain

“…Some assemblages, particularly in the later Roman period, have quite high percentages of adult animals, supporting the contention that woollen textile production was a significant consideration in sheep husbandry for some RomanoBritish farmers (Grant 2004, 378;Maltby 2010, 290;Wild 2002). Young lambs were slaughtered in quite large numbers on some sites.…”

The Construction, Use, and Discard of Female Identities: Interpreting Spindle Whorls at Vindolanda and Corbridge

“…Whilst conducting an admirable attempt to revise previous dogmatic interpretations of potentially gendered artefacts, Vass (2010: 132) himself is not free from problematic inferences, such as the assertion that 'spindle whorls could not be built in any typology as they all look the same.' His basic statement that size, weight, and the relationship between them affect the type of yarn produced had already been noted by Wild (1970;2002: 10), expanded upon by Mårtensson et al (2006), and is treated in all modern guides to spinning such as Franquemont (2009).…”

Fertile Imaginations: Pastoralist Production and a New Interpretation of a Roman Period Relief Sculpture from Bath

“…Woollen textile production was most likely to have been organised on a small-scale during the Late Iron Age and Roman period, judging from the widespread distribution of items associated with weaving (Wild 1982: 119). For the Roman period, Vindolanda near Hadrian's Wall has produced numerous examples of woollen fabrics that help support the suggestion of woollen manufacturing traditions in this region (Wild 2002). However, a better association between the genii cucullati and sheep husbandry can be found from examining the local context in southwest Britain, particularly rural sites where the genii cucullati have been found and where faunal assemblages from the Roman period are more informative.…”