Lemster Ore
Lemster Ore (German: Lemster ore ) was a name in the British Isles from the Middle Ages to the early modern period for a particularly fine, short staple sheep's wool that came from sheep in the vicinity of the western English city of Leominster . Fabrics made from this wool were particularly fine and elastic.
The value that was attached to this wool can be seen in the records of the Florentine merchant Francesco Balducci Pegolotti , who worked as a deputy for the Compagnia dei Bardi in the British Isles at the beginning of the 14th century , and in his merchant's handbook Pratica della mercatura, among other things Prices for English wool stuck between 1317 and 1321. The highest prices were paid for Lemster Ore at that time. Based on 2014 silver prices, Philip Walling determined that a sack weighing 364 Avoirdupois would have cost around £ 3,000 . By comparison, a comparable amount of short-staple wool now makes £ 200.
Lemster Ore was held in high esteem in the 16th century . The English Queen Elizabeth I insisted that her stockings be made only from Lemster Ore. The English poet Michael Drayton , who died in 1631 , stated:
- Where lives a man so dull, on Britain's farthest shore
- To whom did never sound the name of Lemster Ore
- That with the silkworm's web for smallness doth compare
Freely translated the lines are:
- Even on Britain's furthest coasts hardly a man lives
- who has never heard the sound of Lemster Ore's name,
- whose fineness can be compared with the silk worm's web
According to Walling, the wool came from heather sheep, but not from a specific breed of sheep , but was primarily a result of pasture and the way the herds were kept. The original forms of heather sheep that wore this wool were widespread in England and Wales for a long time, but were pushed further and further into the west of the British Isles in favor of more productive sheep breeds. They were extremely small, slender and very frugal animals that could also cope with very poor pastures. The sparse willow, in turn, made this wool so fine. When the sheep were kept on lush pastures, the wool became coarser. In an attempt to improve these heather sheep by crossing modern breeds, these original heather sheep breeds with this specific wool quality were lost. Ryeland sheep are considered to be the breed of sheep that still come very close to this old type. Ryeland sheep are medium-sized, hornless sheep with short-staple wool, but Walling maintains that the quality does not come close to that of the original breeds. The fineness of the fabric is probably most comparable to that of merino wool . However, the merino sheep is a more modern breed that was not kept in the British Isles until the early modern period.
literature
- Philip Walling: Counting Sheep - A Celebration of the Pastoral Heritage of Britain . Profile Books, London 2014, ISBN 978-1-84765-803-6 .
Remarks
- ↑ Stacked is a technical term and describes the length of the wool fiber.
Single receipts
- ^ John Price: An Historical and Topographical Account of Leominster And its Vicinity . Facsim. ed., Leominster History Study Group, 2012, ISBN 978-0-9536314-4-5 , p. 198
- ^ Walling: Counting Sheep, p. 29
- ^ Walling: Counting Sheep, p. 28
- ^ Walling: Counting Sheep, p. 29