How the dyeing trade developed

The art of dyeing can be traced back to the Stone Age. The red-brown paintings of animals in the caves of Lascaux in the south of France dating from between 17,000 and 15,000 BC and the similar motifs of the rock paintings in Altamira in Spain are living witnesses to the prehistoric use of dyes and pigments. Archaeologists found bandages dyed blue, red and yellow on mummies in their 5,000-year-old graves in the Egyptian pyramids, too. The Etruscans, Greeks, Romans and other Mediterranean peoples were also familiar with a large number of dyes and techniques. There was a wide range of colours and from time immemorial our forefathers made use of a variety of raw materials from nature-plants, various types of wood, minerals or animal extracts.

The lotus tree and the madder root were used for red dye. Purple tones were achieved with the aid of litmus, walnut shells and pomegranate blossoms; the 'royal colour' purple derived from the snails of the genus murex had a special significance. Indigo and dyer's woad were suitable as a blue dye. The unassuming mignonette plant, also known as dyer's rocket, grows on rubble heaps and at the wayside. Its seed vessels and the saffron crocus produced a strong yellow.

In the beginning, dyeing materials were collected in the countryside and used for dyeing at home but over time it became customary to grow the dye plants oneself. In the biography of Charlemagne, written after his death in 814, it was reported that he strongly advised growing madder: a Mediterranean plant used in dying, which had been brought over the Alps to Northern Europe by Benedictine monks. A wall hanging from around 1070, known as the Bayeux Tapestry, owes its great value both as a historical document and a work of art to its colour fastness. The hanging is an embroidered picture story depicting the Norman conquest of England. The embroidery is in coloured wool, which has hardly faded even to the present day. The professional dyeing of textiles such as wool, linen, cotton and silk was provided by cloth makers. It was the Flemish in particular who plied this early craft and who were well-known for the high quality of their trade. Their work was first mentioned in documents in Vienna in 1208. The increase in finery meant that the guild of tailors became more and more important and from a historical point of view the proverb 'Clothes make the man' is less likely to be a cliché but rather a confirmation of the trade's importance.

From 1400 the dyers began to form independent guilds. As the individual processes in dyeing, i.?e. washing, bating, rinsing and dying depend on water, the trade settled near flowing water. 'Blauhandgasse,' a street in Frankfurt, is thought to be one such site.

On account of their botanical and animal origins, textiles contained residual substances from the manufacturing of the fibres which made the materials look grey and yellowish. This meant that they needed to be bleached before being dyed. The bleachers-a specialist branch of the dyeing trade-mostly spread the textiles on the municipal bleaching green. Bleaching was effected by the sun and, depending on the type of weave, various aids such as sour milk, potash and water were added in turn; however, it could take weeks of treatment for the textiles to reach the degree of whiteness desired. Smoothing, i.?e. pressing the bleached or dyed linen, was also part of the dyeing trade. It was to be some centuries before the dyers were in a position to avoid the time-consuming bleaching on the green and the arduous smoothing and replace these with efficient finishes.

Hides which had been tanned to make leather and then dyed were very popular at royal courts in the Middle Ages. Horse tack, shoes, and robust clothing were fashioned from coloured or gilded leather. Books, too, were given prestigious bindings, especially in sumptuous red. The leather from the Moroccan town of Fez was particularly valued for its suppleness and its uniform colouring. Even today tanneries there still use the old, traditional, energy-sapping methods: young men full the leather in large, brick vats filled with tanning agents, water and dyes.

In the Western World, mediaeval illuminations were based on brazilin, the dye from redwoods. Its origin was in East India and it was very much in demand. It reached Europe via the Silk Road before America was discovered. In the 16th century dye-producing woods were among the most coveted imports from the New World-the South American country of Brazil gets its name from the brazilwood. A fall in the price of basic foods and an increase in real wages in Europe in the late Middle Ages encouraged the specialised growth of plants suitable for dyeing and trading. Consequently, supra-regional markets emerged for a limited number of popular, high-quality plants for the natural dyeing process. Needless to say, their transport, even over large distances, was worth the effort.

The comparatively high capital requirements could only be met with investments by merchants, who not only organised distribution but controlled the entire supply chain of the dye business. However, these agricultural production systems were unstable: When the price of a dye decreased, this could not be cushioned by innovations as there was no mechanism for developing new technologies. As a result, quality gradually deteriorated to reduce production costs, which, in turn, completely ruined any sales opportunities. By the end of the 17th century, the most important, marketable dyes of European origin-dyer's woad, dyer's rocket and safflower which is also known as false saffron, with the one exception of madder-had