Re: Aaron, was Mirjam and Els

1. That was in a book on the history of boat building, and since at the time I was not really interested in knitting I did not copy down the particulars. The reference was to a collection of ship's manifests from the 12 th century for cargos from Dublin to the Continent including of some kind of woolen undergarments. The garments are not described as "knit", but the manifests are not in English. They should not be too hard to find in a reasonable research library. You will trust them more when you dig them up yourself. And, if you read this post all the way through, you will be heading for the library.

1. The absence of data is not the same as data confirming the absence. We have pre- 6th century *knit* socks form the Coptic town of Antoine in the Leicester Museum. We have extraordinarily fine *knit* silk knitting from Egypt that date 9th century or earlier. So, we know that both Christians and Arabs were knitting.prior to the Crusades or even prior to the high point of Viking trading. We just can not place knitting in Europe or Great Britain until later. Then, we have paintings in Europe that date to prior to 1400 showing sophisticated knitting in a setting that implies; 1.) everyone in the society viewing the painting knew about knitting, and 2.) that the artist and the viewers all thought that the craft of knitting dated back to the time of Christ. However, archaeologists have not found knitting implements in European or GB from those early times. (N.B. Older knitting implements have been found in dryer locations such as North Africa and Syria.) Why? Knitting implements either tend not to survive (i.e., metals that are resmelted, recast, or reforged) or are thought by archaeologists to be other kinds of tools (i.e., awls) or they simply decay in a damp environment (i.e., wood in a midden). I have proved that anyone accustomed to making arrows, can make very good wooden knitting needles in a matter of minutes. Thus, wooden needles, while useful are not precious. So these are working tools, and when they break, you toss them in the fire. They are not so valuable that you bury them to hide them from thieves. They are tools that are consumed in the work. Even the precious steel in sheep shears would be reforged generation after generation, and thus the metal content and style would evolve. That is, sheep sheers originally forged in the 10 th century would be reforged and reforged so that when they were finally discarded 500 years later, they would appear to be a 14th century artifact. Those Irish lived on the edge of a great Black Oak forest, so one would expect that their spinning whorls were wooden and were tossed in the fire when they cracked (or used for 300 years and discarded when the family got a spinning wheel.) In short, there would be very little at all, that archaeologists could find of an old Irish knitting tradition. We must rely on documents and inference.

2a. Less than 150 years ago, thousands of fisherman's ganseys were still being knit every year by fisherwives. They knit those ganseys year after year, and yet, very few authentic (actually worn fishing) 19th century ganseys survive today. I am not surprised. Those ganseys were fishing tools that were consumed in the work. Ganseys were repaired as long as possible, and then they cut the ganseys up and used the pieces of felt for shoe liners or nippers. And, the moths and the damp got the rest. One would think that the steel needles that those 19th century ganseys were knit on would still be around (even if they had gotten a bit rusty.) Try to find an authentic set with their appropriate knitting sheath! They have gotten quite rare. The same would have happened 500 or a 1000 years ago. Knitting and its tools vanish without a trace in a damp climate. We must infer knitting from indirect evidence, just as we must infer gravity and the curvature of space from indirect evidence.

1. In that line, Dublin was a major slave trading center during the late Viking times. For a century or so, it was a larger slave market than Rome. Craftsmen from South East Europe, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Spain,

**Portugal**, and North Africa all passed through Ireland as slaves. Many slaves were traded on to commercial centers such as York. But, some remained in Ireland. Some of those slaves may well have known how to knit. They were from places where we know that knitting was known at that time.

1. From 1400 to 1410 the single largest cargo item shipped from Dublin to the Continent was cod fish. The volume was significant, so it required a number of fishermen to catch it, and salt from *France* to preserve the cod. But, how did those fishermen stay warm while fishing ? They must have had

*knit* ganseys. It is the only thing that makes sense. Thus, by 1400, Ireland clearly had an extensive knitting tradition. This is consistent with the pictorial evidence from Europe - everyone knew about knitting. Such traditions take a while to develop. Of course this is speculation on my part, but how else did they have a fishing industry? This indirect evidence for a tradition of knitting in Ireland by 1400 makes the manifest for knit goods more than a hundred years earlier cited in paragraph 1 above, plausible.

1. Of course, one ship's manifest when I can not give a precise attribution makes the whole thing seem like the purest of speculation. But then, Newton's laws were pure speculation on the day that he first wrote them down. Today, we know that the Newton's Second Law does not always quite work (see Einstein, et al), So which of us would say that the disproven Law of Gravity is useless? Just because the Law of Gravity was pure speculation when it was written, and has been disproven; would you jump out of a 5th story window? No, Sometimes Newton's Second Law still works. Things fall down!

Do not beat on me for speculating, go look for evidence that contradicts or confirms. Go to artifact collections and find the wear marks that are the caused by knitting. I am sure you can recognize them better than any archaeologist. Or, confirm that the wear marks on all those "awls" are not what we would expect on a fragment of a knitting needle. Look at ships' cargo manifests, *if they were doing commercial scale fishing in the North Atlantic, then you can be pretty sure that somebody was knitting.* Think about that as you read, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky, which I believe contains references for paragraph 4 above. Ah, then we will have a fine kettle of fish!! Yes, it is much more than just a fine cookbook. Anyone that is interested in western history or life in old Europe should read Cod very carefully.

Yes, I expect screams of outrage as members of this group ponder Kurlansky's well documented data in _Cod_ in light of the analysis of this post. They knew where, they had salt, and they knew how to stay warm on the fishing banks! They sold fish to all of Europe. Therefore, they knitted? Who? (Not the Irish!!!????) When? How? : D

Aaron

"Richard Eney" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com...

I have written a long answer than deleted it. This is ridiculous, you keep piling up many facts , partly widelyknown and partly quite mysteriously known only to you, and when asked abouy them you can`t or won`t give the source. You also throw in some unkind remarks, about reasonable library. Not All reasonable libraries Neccessarily have books about Boat building. But my Own Librarray has at least 10 books that speak about Knitting history and cloths items, and wonder upon wonder only 3 even mention those Ganseys. Most important facts about those clothing items were already provided hereby various participants. But of course you don`t let those facts [ that were collected by people here from various not related sources] , to confuse your assumptions. Coptic -Egyptian socks were NOT knit they were naaldbound.. Same kind of sock was found in Massada , Which destroyed by the Romans. Thus the sock can be dated to 66-73 . In this context you can`t write `both Arabs and Christians , you have to write Muslims And Christians. None of the early painting of knitting show any complicated knittings. And Having painted it doesn`t Imply any of the things you claim. Painters Always set their People in an enviroment of their own Period. By doing it they didn`t imply that they thought People in former times knew or did anything. Since technological and cultural developments weren`t as quick , in former times like it happens in our time, people weren`t aware that things changed so much. And as they weren`t aware of it the painted people in Their own period and clothinfg. They only tells us that they lacked a feeling and knowledge of History. The knitting Maddonas, had another Sociological Goal, In those times Males are educated in schools and the profession of Bankers and diplomats [traveling away from home ] this is the Time society needs to Domesticate the women ,,thus the Knitting Maddonas are Posters to persuade women to saty home knit etc... And so it goes on and on ,, you mix facts with assumptions. Ps Knitting implements were found both in Holland [Esch] {See Richard Rutt book page 28.]. Dura Europus is not DRY place at all .... etc... mirjam i see that again i wrote a long letter,,,,