The fabric of the city : a social history of cloth manufacture in medieval Ypres / Peter Stabel.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stabel, Peter, Author.

Series:

Studies in European urban history (1100-1800) ; 59.

Studies in European urban history (1100-1800) ; volume 59

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Textile industry--Belgium--Ieper--History.

Textile industry.

nijverheid.

textielindustrie.

Flanders--History--To 1500.

Flanders.

Ieper (Belgium)--History.

Ieper (Belgium).

Ieper.

Local Subjects:

nijverheid.

textielindustrie.

Ieper.

Physical Description:

278 pages : illustrations, maps ; 26 cm.

Place of Publication:

Turnhout, Belgium : Brepols, [2022]

Summary:

Ypres, the most important cloth city in thirteenth-century Europe, provides the ideal example for unravelling how cloth shaped social relations in the medieval city.0Textile industries were one of the driving forces of the urbanisation process in medieval Northwest Europe, and nowhere was their impact so profound as in Flanders, where almost all larger and smaller cities were involved in manufacturing woollens from the 12th to the 16th century. Ypres, the third city in the county, was perhaps the most important concentration of industrial labour and capital in this period. In their heyday in the 13th and 14th centuries Ypres woollens were exported all over Europe and Ypres entrepreneurs and textile workers were able to adapt in very flexible ways to changes in demand. This book investigates not only what the impact of cloth manufacture was on urban society, it also tries to unravel the social mechanisms of industrial development in late medieval cities. It focuses on social inequalities and on the often difficult relationship between the various stakeholders in the urban cloth industry: merchants, entrepreneurs, guild masters and skilled and unskilled workers. Through the analysis work practices, wage levels, investment strategies, gender issues and political aspirations, it unravels how urban industries in the pre-industrial era shaped social relations in the city, how they moulded the urban fabric.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: ch. 1 Flemish Resilience? Cloth and its Markets

Ypres Cloth in Medieval Europe

Heavy and Light Cloth: A Broken Balance

An Industry in Continuous Transition

Conclusions: Rise and Decline of an Industry

ch. 2 Of Weaving Looms, Spinning Wheels and Fuller's Troughs. Cloth and Technology

Labour and Textile Technology

A Mercantile Prelude

Wool preparation

Weaving

Fulling

Cloth finishing

Dyeing

Conclusions: technological innovation and the emergence of the `grande draperie'

ch. 3 The Rise and Fall of Industrial Suburbia. Cloth and the Urban Fabric

Urban Change in Medieval Ypres

Revolt and Taxation

Textiles in the Urban Fabric

City Walls and Social Segregation

The `Marshy Meadow'

Towards a Post-Industrial City?

Conclusions

ch. 4 The Boinebrokes of Ypres. Cloth and Mercantile Capital

The Shadow of Boinebroke

The Boinebrokes of Ypres

A Hostile Take-Over?

How did Woollens Find their Way to International Customers? Merchants and Brokers

ch. 5 The Clothiers' Century. Cloth and Entrepreneurship

From merchant entrepreneurs to clothiers: a social revolution in 1280?

Access to Entrepreneurship

Monitoring Cloth Manufacture

Access to Capital

Conclusions: A Dance of Capital and Labour

ch. 6 The Rules of the Game. Cloth, Labour and Guilds

Craftsmen and Guilds

Clothiers and their Workers

Running a Textile Workshop

Starting a Guild Career: Apprenticeship

The Rewards of Skill: Journeymen and Unskilled Workers

Hiring a Labour Force

The Bells of Labour

ch. 7 All in a Wage... Cloth and its Rewards

Labour and Cloth

A Textile Wage: What is in a Name? Wages in Ypres

The preparation of wool

Shearing and cloth finishing

Textile Wages and Builders' Wages in the Fourteenth Century: a Comparison

ch. 8 `Whether He or She'. Cloth and Gender

Women, Guilds and Entrepreneurship

Gender Inclusivity in the Ypres Cloth Industry

It is (Becoming) a Man's World

ch. 9 A Time to Protest. Cloth and Revolt

Medieval Revolts in Flanders

Cokerulle: A True Social Conflict?

Revolt and Restoration 1302-1328

Social Friction and Political Dissent 1328-1377

The Last Revolts (Late Fourteenth-Fifteenth Centuries)

Labour Conflict, Political Conflict

ch. 10 Roads of Capitalism

A Rural Epilogue to an Urban Industry?

Ypres and Florence: Two Sides of the Same Coin?

Rise and Fall of a Textile City.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-274) and index

ISBN:

9782503600512

2503600514

OCLC:

1329224224

Publisher Number:

99992600700