A HISTORY AND EVOLUTION OF SPINNING
by Lady Siobhan nic Dhuinnshleibhe
Known Whorl Spinners of Atlantia
(c)2000 Heather McCloy
A handspindle is defined
as any implement that can be twisted or rotated by hand to twist fibers
together into yarn.
Handspindles can be divided into two general categories: a
dropspindle, in which the thread is formed as the spindle spins while
gravity pulls it to the ground; or a suspended spindle, where the spindle
is spun on a set surface like a top and the thread is created by pulling
the fiber away from the spindle. Spindle spinning is an art form – whereas
modern spinning mills can produce large quantities or yarn in short
periods of time, the types of yarn that can be spun are limited by the
mechanics of the machines themselves - they cannot rival handspun yarns in
delicacy and versatility. At
one point, handspinners in India were able to spin almost half a million
yards of yarn from a single pound of cotton (Hochberg). In handspinning,
you can design the exact kind of yarn you desire with any variations in
texture or color or thickness that you wish – your only limitation is your
own skill level in spinning.
Most authors agree that
the practice of spinning fibers to form thread and yarns has been in
existence for over 10,000 years.
The spinning wheel, the tool most commonly associated with the art
of spinning, was not introduced to Europe until in the late Middle
Ages/early Renaissance. Thus,
the dropspindle was the primary spinning tool used to spin all the threads
for clothing and fabrics from Egyptian mummy wrappings to tapestries, and
even the ropes and sails for ships, for almost 9000
years.
Whorls from hand spindles
have been dated back to 5000 BCE in Middle Eastern excavation sites. Bette Hochberg in her book
Handspindles puts forth the theory that, since the wheel is
generally agreed upon to have been invented somewhere around 3500 BCE, it
is possible that the use of dropspindles helped man to discover the
wheel. By observing the
process of rotation as it applied to the whorl of a spindle, early man
might have made experimented with that rotation by placing it upon a
vertical plane instead of a horizontal one and thus created the
wheel.
Spindles and spinning are
also an integral part to the mythology and folklore of many cultures. Plato likens the axis of the
universe to the shaft of a spindle with the starry heavens as the whorl
end of his Republic.
The Bible mentions spindles and spinning. Spider Woman, a Goddess in Navaho
culture, taught them the art of spinning. Arachne challenged the goddess
Minerva to a spinning and weaving contest and was turned into a spider in
Greek mythology. In Germanic
and Teutonic cultures the three Fates spin, measure and cut the threads of
life of mortals. Even our
modern fairy tales mention spinning, as in Rumplestilskin, Sleeping
Beauty, and East of the Sun and West of the Moon.
But despite the myriad
stories and myths involving spinning and the numerous archaeological finds
involving spinning implements, scientists have not been able to determine
the location and time period in which hand spindles were first used. Most believe it was somewhere in
the Middle East, but no definitive evidence can place the craft before the
Neolithic period. Whorls made
of clay and stone have been found dating as far back as this period, but
the spindle shaft itself has not – leading experts to believe that most
shafts were made of wood, and thus disintegrated over time. The earliest whorls were made of
soft stone like sandstone or limestone that could be shaped without metal
tools, but later whorls could be ornately carved and decorated out of
materials from bone, porcelain, glass, precious metals and semi-precious
stones and came in all shapes and sizes. However, it is very likely that
other objects were used to spin fibers into thread before the creation of
the handspindle itself.
Spinning fibers into
thread was initially accomplished without the use of any tools at all;
however, this method was more time-consuming. The fibers were held in one
hand, and the other hand was used to pinch off a portion of the
fiber. The fibers were then
twisted by hand between the fingers while simultaneously being pulled out
to create longer lengths of thread.
Thread made in this manner is referred to as twisted yarn, rather
than spun yarns. A figurine
carved from the tusk of a wooly mammoth wearing a loincloth made of
twisted threads was carbon dated back to 25,000 BCE, but it is difficult
to determine if the threads in her garment were twisted or spun (Hochberg).
The oldest actual “tool”
used for spinning thread were common rocks. Archaeologists theorize that this
tool was in common use by primitive peoples, but do not have good
supporting archaeological evidence for this theory. As the first spinners were nomadic
tribes from pre-agrarian societies, it is unlikely that they would have
carried their rocks from camp to camp, and would use stones found at each
new site for their spinning.
A leader thread would be spun by twisting the fibers between the
fingers to a desired length, then the resulting thread would be tied
around the rock. The rock
could then be rotated to spin the fibers as they are played out between
the fingers. Spinning with
rocks is still done in remote parts of Asia among the nomadic
tribes.
A hooked stick is another
ancient “tool” used for spinning.
Whereas the rock would be used more like a dropspindle, a stick cut
from the branches of a tree would be used to spin the fibers by rolling
the stick horizontally along the length of your thigh to put twist into
the fibers. The first sticks
may have been straight, and were a natural outgrowth of rolling the fiber
along the length of their leg to twist the fibers. As with the rock, the time and
place of the origin of this spinning tool is unknown.
Eventually, man hit upon
a way to combine both the rock and the stick to create a tool that could
provide greater twisting momentum for improved ease in spinning the
yarn. A whorl, often made of
clay, bone or a soft rock, was attached to the spindle. The spindle could then be twisted
by hand with the weighted end of the shaft suspended on the ground, or
rolled along the thigh. It
could also be used as a drop spindle, where the whorl could be placed at
the top or bottom of the spindle.
A variation of this style, the bead-whorl spindle, is considered to
be the most widely-used style of spindle throughout history. It is specifically designed to
spin fine yarns which require a lot of twist, and was in widespread use
throughout Asia, the Middle East and Africa where short-staple fibers such
as cashmere, cotton and camel were used. These spindles often had slim
shafts, a pointed end to reduce friction with the ground, and hooked or
pointed tops so that it could be used for either suspended or drop
spinning. The bead is usually an inch or less in diameter and made of a
dense material like stone or metal so that it rotates quickly to provide a
lot of twist. Some styles of
bead-whorl spindles place the bead in the center of the spindle, so that
the yarn can be spun both above and below the spindle.
Another type of weighted
spindle that was commonly used was a cross-arm spindle, where a piece of
wood or bone was attached to the bottom of the hooked spindle instead of a
rounded whorl. These types of
spindles were used exclusively as drop spindles, either twisted by hand or
rolled along the thigh to start the rotation while the yarn is pulled out
from the fibers. Eventually
the cross-arm style was expanded upon to create a double cross-arm
spindle, commonly known today as a “Turkish” dropspindle. This style was used across the
Middle East, and is formed by two arms that interlock (often at right
angles) at the bottom of the spindle to allow for more balanced spinning
than the single-arm style.
Some sets come with two sets of arms, so that you can use one set
for thinner yarns and the second set for thicker yarns, and others come
with arms of two different weights, allowing you three possible weight
combinations for spinning on the spindle.
The most common form of
dropspindle used today is known a hooked high-whorl spindle. This spindle has the whorl located
less than half the length of the spindle, with a hook at the top. This type of dropspindle has been
used since the twentieth century BCE in Egypt, where wall paintings depict
spinners spinning and plying their yarns on hooked high-whorl
spindles (Hochberg). Some spindles of this style have
two whorls, one above the other, with a space to wind the yarn between the
whorls. This type of spindle
was in common use throughout the Middle East, Asia and Africa. Another variation of this style is
the carved one-piece spindle, in which the spindle was made of
lathe-turned wood with a wide top to act as a built-in whorl. These were
most often used among European nobility of Italy, France and Spain in the
19th century, once spinning was taken up as a pastime instead
of being a daily chore, and were often decorated with gilt and colored
enamel.
Whereas high-whorl
spindles were in common use in the East, drop spindles where the whorl was
placed at the bottom of the spindle predominated Europe and Greco-Roman
areas. These low-whorl
spindles were most commonly used to spin longer-staple fibers such as
linen, silk and wool, and are still in widespread use in India, Indonesia,
Peru and the Philippines.
Low-whorl dropspindles are second in popularity today to high-whorl
spindles for most modern day spindle spinners.
Medieval spinners often
used a distaff, (a stick with a fork or ornate comb on the tip used to
hold long-staple fibers while spinning) to hold their fibers while they
were spinning with a spindle.
This stick was usually held under the left arm according to most
pictures – meaning that the spinners would have had to set their spindles
in motion with their right hand, and feeding their fiber with the right
hand. In fact, the term “drop
spindle” wasn’t common during that time period – you either spun “on the
distaff” or “on the wheel.”
In fact, use of the distaff was so common that the term “distaff
side” of one’s family indicated relations on the maternal side of the
family. Wool and flax were
most commonly spun with distaff and dropspindle, even after spinning
wheels became the popular tool of choice for spinning shorter-stapled wool
and flax tow.
Unfortunately, there are
no surviving examples early medieval spinning wheels, so one must look to
artwork and historical records for evidence of their existence. Evidence of spinning wheels
themselves do not appear in any historical records and artwork of the
13th century. In
her book Spinning Wheels, Spinners and Spinning, Patricia Baines
reports of written evidence to the presence of spinning wheels in Persia
in 1257; and linguistic evidence that suggests they came to Persia from
India, so it is entirely possible that they were in use prior to this
time. The earliest known
artwork depicting a spinning wheel comes from China around 1270 and
depicts a “wheel” with long bamboo spokes. This wheel, as well as the Indian
styles known as charkha wheels, were not rimed wheels at all, but rather
had a string running through holes in the tips of the spokes connecting
them in a zig-zag fashion, thus supporting the drive band. The drive band was connected to a
spindle turned on it’s side where the whorl might be, and powered by a
hand crank. The spinner would
turn the hand crank with one hand and spin off of the end of the spindle
with the other hand – thus the term “spindle wheel.”
While these rimless
spindle wheels were in use in Greece, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Italy and
Switzerland, they did not reach Europe until the late 13th
century. Baines reports a
mention of spindle wheels in Speyer (now Germany) dating from 1298 that
forbids the use of wheel-spun warp threads in weaving. Spindle wheels, as they can spin
fibers with less gravity and twist, created a softer yarn that would not
hold up to the warp tension as well as strong-spun warp threads. Baines notes: “The need for such a
regulation surely indicates that spinning on the wheel was an established
method by that time.”
Unfortunately, there is not enough evidence in the document to
define what fibers were being spun and what kind of wheel was being
used.
Devices similar to
spinning wheels with a conventional rim are pictured in windows of several
French cathedrals dating back to the 13th century in Amiens and
Chartes, areas known for their woolen goods in the medieval era. The pictures appear to show them
being used as bobbin winders for finished yarns, as opposed to wheels for
spinning yarns; but the use of a spinning wheel to spin wool seems to have
developed in France and Flanders (Baines) Wheels used to spin wool appear in
documentable evidence in Britain in the early 14th century as
pictures in the Decretals of Gregory IX, a manuscript that was illustrated
in England, and shows a woman carding, combing and spinning wool on a
wheel. The
Luttrell Psalter written and illustrated in East Anglia sometime between
1335-1340, illustrates wool carding and spinning on a
wheel.
Oftentimes, these spindle
wheels (with the exception of the small charkha wheels used in India) are
called “great wheels.” This
is not a medieval term, as smaller spinning wheels for comparison did not
come into use until more modern times. These smaller wheels, like the ones
made by Ashford, Louet, Majacraft and others, were developed late in the
medieval period to allow spinners easier handling of the longer staple
fibers like linen and combed wools.
Baines speculates that the silk reeling and throwing mills of
13th century Italy may have inspired the development of these
wheels, as flyers were used to load spun yarn onto bobbins. The thread was twisted as it left
the bobbin, rather than being twisted and then loaded onto the bobbin as
seen in modern flyer wheels.
The first published discussion of these machines doesn’t appear
until 1607, yet there is documentation that the technology for these
reeling machines was brought from Lucca to Bologna in 1272, and to
Florence and Venice in the mid 14th century. Apparently the weaving Guilds made
every attempt at keeping the existence of these reeling machines a
secret. (Baines)
The earliest known record
of a flyer wheel appears in the form of a picture from southern Germany,
dated from 1475-1480, and shows flax spinning. Other pictures from the Low
Countries dating from the early 1500s show small flyer wheels being used
to spin wool. Leonardo da
Vinci himself even worked on the mechanics of creating a flyer wheel, as
evidenced in his notes of 1490, but he did not invent the flyer wheel
itself. (Baines) Just as with the spindle wheels,
these flyer wheels were turned with a hand crank. The foot treadle present on most
modern spinning wheels was an even later addition, but there seems to be
little agreement as to their era of origin. In her book A Weaver’s
Garden, Rita Buchannan refers to “the development of the flyer and the
treadle-driven wheel in the 15th and 16th
centuries.” However, Patricia
Baines states that “There still seems to be no definite evidence (for foot
treadles) before the 17th century.”
Regardless of the method
and device used, as long as you are twisting fibers together to create
yarn, you are spinning. You
can get a good quality dropspindle for as low as $5 that will give you
yarn just as good as you can get on a spinning wheel, which usually starts
around $300. No matter how
much you spend on your tools, or how historically accurate your methods,
as long as you are creating yarn and enjoying yourself, you are keeping
this once vital part of our history alive.Want to read more about the history of yarn? Here is another wonderful article to read:
The History of Yarn
