A cloth or yarn made from flax.
Although rough linen has been made occasionally from hemp (Cannabis sativus), flax (Linum usitatissimum) has always been the primary source for quality linen. The plant’s stem fibers are processed into the thread used for weaving linen. History’s oldest surviving garment is made of ancient Egyptian linen. Until the rise of cotton production and synthetic materials after the 1880s, linen was the most frequently used natural plant fiber from Europe to Russia and India in the east and Ethiopia in the south, although cotton (Gossypium) is more predominant in southerly climates. In colonial America, for example, linen was characteristic of northern areas, while cotton dominated the South.
Native from western Europe to Iran and south to North Africa, wild flax (L. bienne) is the most probable ancestor of the cultivated species L. usitatissimum. Edible and industrial oils have also been produced from both flax species. L. bienne seeds have been found in Middle Eastern archaeological sites dated to 9200–8500 B.C.E., proving the plant’s use predates domestication, but by 6000 B.C.E. L. usitatissimum seeds are more common in sites in Syria, an indication that they were part of the wheat and barley agricultural complex developing at the same time as irrigation technology. From the Fertile Crescent, cultivation spread westward to the Mediterranean basin and northern Europe, becoming common by the Bronze Age. Though not native to the Nile River valley, flax was farmed there as early as 5000 B.C.E. and became practically the sole wrapping material for mummies. Ancient priests in Judea, Egypt, Greece, and the Fertile Crescent often wore linen garments as a sign of purity.
The eastward spread of flax cultivation lagged behind Western distribution, but archaeo-logical evidence records its cultivation in Pakistan and India by 3000 B.C.E. Throughout the Eurasian landmass, linen cloth has been a staple item of exchange between sedentary peoples and nomads, along with horses, rice, grains, and weapons. This relationship was fraught with periodic crises of demand and supply tied to population migrations and conquests, such as the movement of the Huns, who depended on linen imports for summer clothing in the hot Central Asian steppes.
Flax cultivation flourished in the ancient Western world, whereas silk dominated in China and cotton dominated in India. Though linen production decreased after the fall of the Roman empire, production of Egyptian linen flourished under Muslim rule. Linen elaborately embroidered in silver and gold—called tiraz—was a medieval luxury good, particularly when the Fatimids (969–1171) sponsored commerce with Italy. The Ayyubids, however, who ruled Egypt and Syria from 1169 to 1252, turned to bulk flax thread production for export and then focused on sugar exports by the twelfth century. As flax acreage dwindled, medieval west European linens outpaced Egyptian ones. Flemish, Dutch, and northern Italian production attracted merchants seeking the fine linens of Ypres, Ghent, Bruges, Cambrai (hence “cambric”), Verona, Cremona, and Brescia at distribution markets like the famous four annual fairs in Champagne, France, sites of some of the earliest innovative banking. From the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, Spain was a major player in the linen trade, with reportedly 16,000 looms operating in Seville, its port with the Americas. To the north, the Hanseatic League’s wealth depended on linen, which remained the choice for under-clothing and for luxury dress throughout Europe, despite competition from silk. The poor wore wool.
Textiles were the major industry of the medieval and early modern periods and fueled interest in mechanization. As a result of the revocation of the edict of Nantes in 1685—meaning France no longer tolerated Protestants—many skilled linen manufacturers immigrated to England and Ireland, turning both countries into major fine linen producers. The first experimental spinning factory in England dates to 1797, but it took fifteen years to develop an effective system of industrial production. Early industrialization allowed British merchants to compete successfully in the nineteenth century against local manufactures throughout the world. Thereafter, manufacturing became mechanized worldwide, though north European linen dominated markets well into the twentieth century. Ireland, followed by Japan, Russia, and Belgium, remains the world’s finest linen producer.
Fabio Lopez-Lazaro
See also: Egypt; Hanseatic League.
Abu-Lughod, Janet. Before European Hegemony: The World System a.d. 1250–1350. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Friedman, John Block, and Kristen Mossler Figg. Trade, Travel, and Exploration in the Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia. New York: Garland, 2000.
Warden, Alexander J. The Linen Trade: Ancient and Modern. London: Frank Cass, 1967.
Zohary, Daniel, and Maria Hopf. Domestication of Plants in the Old World: The Origin and Spread of Cultivated Plants in West Asia, Europe, and the Nile Valley. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.