Medieval knitting – A hot new pastime

In Europe the Medieval era, AKA the Middle Ages, officially lasted from the 5th century to the 15th century, beginning with the fall of the Roman Empire in the West and ending with the Renaissance, the Age of Discovery. That's not far short of 1000 years of complex human endeavour, all neatly wrapped up in one short description.

It's hard to imagine knitting being hot stuff, a brand new, thrilling craft that swept the land. But we know that towards the end of the Middle Ages knitted goods became incredibly popular, dramatically so from the 1300s onwards, spreading like wildfire across Europe. No wonder the Victoria and Albert Museum in London is home to such a fascinating collection of ancient knitted items.

The ancient origins of knitting

Knitting goes a lot further back than the Middle Ages. The oldest knitted artefacts are socks from Egypt, dating from the 11th century, surprisingly complicated in design and very finely done. Some ancient artefacts look so very like knitting that it's hard to tell the difference, for example, Roman-Egyptian toe socks from the 3rd - 5th centuries, which used a 'Coptic stitch' that may have been knitting's forerunner. But the actual origin of knitting is probably the Middle East, from where it spread to Europe and later to the USA.

Knitting in the Middle Ages

Archaeological finds and medieval tax documents reveal the popularity of knitting in 1500s England. So many hats were being knitted at the time that special protectionist controls were put in place by the government. The Cappers Act of 1571 said everyone aged more than six in England, except "Maids, Ladies, Gentlewomen, Noble Personages, and every Lord, Knight and Gentleman of 20 Marks Land", must wear a knitted cap on Sundays and holidays, except when travelling. The act, therefore, helped protect the living of the countless cap knitters of England.

These caps were, “of wool knit, ticked and dressed in England, made within this Realm, and only dressed and finished by some of the Trade of Cappers, upon pain to forfeit for every Day of not wearing three Shillings four Pence". If you belonged to the middle classes your cap might be trimmed with ribbon to imitate the expensive silk versions worn by the posh and rich. These caps were knitted very like the French beret of today, 'in the round'.

Knitting trends from the Middle Ages onwards

Knitting fast became so fashionable and popular that knitting guilds started opening their doors, the earliest of them appearing in the 1300s. It took three years' special training to become an apprentice or 'journeyman', and to be fully qualified you had to create a series of masterworks to demonstrate your skills. These were often a cap, a woollen jacket, a pair of fingered gloves and a flower-patterned wall hanging.

Knitting was accepted as part of a refined lady's repertoire, also a socially acceptable way for posh people in financial dire straits to earn extra cash. The poor knitted too, to make money, and knitting was widely taught in orphanages and 'poorhouses'. The earliest knitting schools turned up in Lincoln, Leicester and York in the late 1500s, and hand-knitting for money was a big deal in Yorkshire well into the 1800s.

In the early 1600s a trend for knitted silk jackets called 'waistcoats' arose. Knitted by hand in plain silk yarn, the most expensive contained metal thread made from real gold or silver plus beautiful contrasting colours. Sometimes the complex silk panels were knitted abroad – mostly in Italy – then imported for people to sew together at home.

In 1838 the National Society's Instructions on Needlework and Knitting was published, effectively the world's first knitting instruction book. It was designed to help the organisation promote Christian education, especially among the poor. But pupils were taught how to sew and knit by their teacher because the instructions in these early knitting books were so difficult to understand.

Carry on the knitting tradition

Whenever you knit, you join the dots with people who lived a thousand or more years ago. Every time you cast on you're continuing a tradition that goes back millennia. No wonder knitting feels so natural – it's more or less part of the human condition. Fancy a go? Walk this way for really gorgeous knitting wool!