Fork weaver

Barchentweber (also Barchenter, Barchner, Parchner von Barchent , Arabic barrakan "coarse fabric" or "garment") is a historical craft. Fork weavers made a dense, light weave with a twill weave from linen warp and cotton weft .

history

When cotton appeared on the Central European markets in the 14th century, the southern German linen industry initially seized the opportunity to offer more sophisticated quality with a blend of linen and cotton. Cotton was also much more body-friendly than linen, and in contrast to plain linen weave, twill weave resulted in a visible, diagonal weave pattern that reinforced its markings when it was dyed because linen absorbed less color than cotton.

The increasing preference for brightly colored clothing since the late Middle Ages increased the demand for barking, which soon became a major competitor of the previously widespread wool and linen fabrics . Barchent weaving took off in Swabia, where the centers of Augsburg and Ulm were, but also in Bohemia and Silesia . The Fugger dynasty laid the foundation stone for their fabulous wealth in Augsburg with linen and barchent weaving. The weavers in Gerhart Hauptmann's play Die Weber , which deals with the uprising of the Silesian weavers in 1844 , were barch weavers.

literature

• Rudi Palla : The lexicon of the lost professions. From skinner to zokelmacher . Eichborn Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1994
• Josef Kallbrunner: On the history of the barch weaving in Austria in the 15th and 16th centuries in the quarterly journal for social and economic history , 1930, 23rd volume, issue 1, 76ff.