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Distaff Construction

By HL Brighid Ros

I started with a piece of 2x2 pine, a soft wood. This was a choice on my part. In period I would have cut a branch of a local tree, either, elder, willow or perhaps an evergreen such as pine, approximately the length of the distaff I was making. I would then have aged the branch until it was dry enough to work with.

Using a hand saw I cut the 2x2 to the length of 42”. This would be long enough to work with, while giving me some length to play with in case of a disaster carving the end.

I then took the cut piece and sat at a shave bench, pushing on the “board” to keep the wood clamped down took some getting used to. After several adjustments to the wood, I used a drawknife to begin to shave off the corners and create a rounded surface for my distaff.

Knots were a challenge, after consulting with HL Matusz, and HL Cedric, I made the decision to work with the knots instead of against them. I would smooth around the knots leaving my distaff thicker where the knots were this would make the job easier, and give the distaff some character. To smooth the knots, I used small strokes with a spoke shave, concentrating on shaving with the grain instead of against it.

After doing more research into the construction, consulting the plans available in Aldon Amos’ Big Book of Hand Spinning, and examining woodcuts, and portraits painted within period, I came to the conclusion that the 2”x 2” piece of wood was much too thick. I did not think that I would be able to shave enough off, evenly, to create a distaff of the quality I was after.

So I began again, from scratch. I purchased a length of 1 1/6” x 1 1/16”, and began the process over again. One of the advantages of the new piece of wood was the lack of knots. Using the same techniques and tools, I cut the wood again to the length of 42”.

It was more complicated to use the shave bench with the smaller diameter wood. Finding an acceptable angle that would hold the wood when I pushed on the treadle was a bit of a challenge. The new wood was also softer than my original piece, so I had to adjust the amount of pressure required to hold the wood without denting it. As it began to be shaped I eventually used a piece of leather to cushion the edge to prevent the head from gouging the distaff.

The draw knife was used to take off the corners and begin to round the length of wood. The angle at which the knife is held determines how deep blade cuts into the wood. My piece of wood was too long for my arm reach so I adjusted the working length with the shave bench, working pretty much in thirds. Drawing the knife towards me to shave off the amount I wanted, and then I would turn the piece of wood and begin to cut on the next edge.

Once I had a roughly round “stick”, I used the spoke shave to refine the round shape I was after, and then used a small finishing plane to smooth the surface. The most challenging part of this phase, was finding the high and low spots along the distaff by sighting down the edge of the wood. Almost like sighting down the barrel of a gun. It took practice to see the dips and ridges that I had created and patience to attempt to smooth them.

I could find no documentation on how to create a finish for the distaff. I made a choice, based on the logical assumption, that if a distaff was used to hold wool, it would eventually develop a natural patina from the lanolin. Using raw, unwashed wool, I “polished” or rubbed the wool across the wood, using enough force to create friction and actually heat up both the distaff and the wool, releasing the lanolin, which soaked into the wood. The feeling of the distaff was completely different after working with the wads of wool. It created a smooth, matte finish.

Creating the cage required some assumption, and imagination. Distaffs were such a common tool used by women, that there appears to be very little written documentation describing those in the 10^th – 15^th centuries. There is wonderful article on the website for the Kingdom of Ealdormere, but I am loathe to cite information from it due to a lack of bibliography, or sources cited. I finally decided that one of the examples in the article written by Ercadg béan úi Padraic would serve as the inspiration for my choice of the “cage” or “egg beater” design. Observing the included illustrations of distaffs, it appears that the ends were rounded, and that any carving or “cage” would have to have been located several inches from one end. The purpose of the carving or “cage” would have been to attach the end of the roving, combed wool that was to be spun. Flax would have been attached with a more conical shaped “basket” as the painting from “The Miller’s Tale” illustrates.

I decided to use reeds to create the cage with which to hold the ends of the wool. This was a choice I made relying on the assumption that reeds would have been readily available. I drilled two holes in the upper part of the distaff, (this would have been accomplished with a brace and bit) and threaded lengths of reed through them. I fastened the ends of the reeds 7” below the holes, using thread, and wetted cotton twine. Wetting the twine allowed it to stretch as it was wrapped around the base of the reeds, as it dried it tightened around the reeds to secure them.

The Distaff

A distaff is defined as a stick or staff upon which a bundle of the fiber to be spun was loosely bound, and it was either held in the left hand or stuck in the belt. The distaff has been used throughout history.

Leonidas of Tarentum a 3^rd Century B.C. poet refers to a distaff in his poem The Spinning Woman:

Morning and evening, sleep she drove away,

Old Platthis = warding hunger from the door,

And still to wheel and distaff hummer her lay

Hard by the gates of Eld and be nana hoar:

Plying her loom until the dawn was gray,

The long course of Athene did she tread:

With withered hand by withered knee she spun

Sufficient for the loom of Godly thread,

Till all her work and all her days were done.

And in her eightieth year she saw the wave

Of Acheron – Old Platthis - kind and brave (1)

A distaff was used in the production of wool and flax to create thread to make linen or yarn for knitting, or weaving of wool cloth. It was used in conjunction with a drop spindle.

The importance of the distaff and its partner the drop spindle cannot be overstated. Candace Crockett in The Complete Spinning Book observes,

“These two hand spinning tools have come to us modified, but basically unchanged; form the time when knowledge of their use was a necessity for women in nearly all levels of society.” She goes on to note, “Distaffs and other spinning equipment from all over the world are quite similar – this similarity of tools from widely separated places points up the highly specialized us of spinning equipment.” (2)

Figure to the left from an archeological find in Yorkshire, could either be a small hand distaff or the upper end of a long distaff. It was made from a length of elder which has very hard heartwood. If it is not a hand distaff it could be the upper part of a long distaff whose use is documented in medieval English illustrations though most give little information about the shapes of the upper ends. A carving on a late Anglo-Saxon or Saxo-Norman marble font at East Hampshire shows Eve sitting with a long distaff in her belt. It has a pointed lower end, but the upper end is covered in fibre. This is probable the earliest English illustration of a long distaff and indicates that they were in use at least by the 11^th century. Illustrations in the 14^th century Holkham Bible show distaffs being held either at the belt or in the crook of the knee, and in the latter case, the upper end of the distaff has a carved knob.(3)

(1) Candace Crockett, The Complete Spinning Book, 1977, pg.14

(2) Candace Crockett, The Complete Spinning Book, 1977, pg. 11

(3) Morris, Carol A, Craft, Industry and Everyday Life: Wood and Woodworking in Anglo-Scandinavian and Medieval York 2000, pgs 2230-2231

The distaff was an integral part of a woman’s life. Spinning had to happen constantly, to ensure that there was enough clothing. A distaff tucked into a belt gave a woman the freedom of movement, while still keeping productive. Distaffs appear in many period works and portraits.

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. Old Woman with a Distaff. c. 1642. Oil on canvas. Museo del Prado, Madrid, Spain.

The Miller’s Tale, Ecole Nationales Des BeauzArts, Paris - Les quartre ètats de la Societè by Jean Bourdichon , 1490.

Tools

I endeavored to use period tools in creating the distaff. The following descriptions and illustrations are from The History of Woodworking by W.L. Goodman.

Hand Saw “The small framed saw is, much commoner, especially in the pictures of joiner’s and cabinet maker’s workshops. The earlier patterns, including that hung on the wall of the 13^th century joiner’s shop in the Chartres Cathedral window, the saw on the ground in the Bedford Book of Hours pictures of Noah’s Ark. (3)

Shave Bench The Roman’s also used a form of ‘horse’ for holding small workpieces during processing. The picture below is a relief showing a cobbler making a wooden last. He is sitting astride a small bench, and the workpiece is held firmly on a sort of anvil by means of a strap passing down through the bench top, and help taut with his left foot. Throughout the Middle ages the more primitive type of Roman bench describe above was retained with little variation, and there are a number of drawings, one of the earliest being a picture in the Mendel’schen Stiftsvuch’ (cartulary) of about 1400 at Nuremburg. (4)

3 Goodman, W.L. (1962). The History of Woodworking Tools. pg.

4 Goodman, W.L. (1962). The History of Woodworking Tools. pg.

Draw Knife An early form of drawknife, with the tangs for the handles bent up at right angles to the plane of the blade, is shown in the group of Viking ship-wrights tools in fig. 128, one with a straight cutting edge and the other slightly curved. Tools of this type known as the skobel, were widely used in medieval Russia for smoothing the surface of the timber after using the axe of adze, but no example has been noted on medieval illustrations in the West.(5)

Spoke Shave Documentation for the spoke shave is problematic. Although Mr. Goodman states that the word is recorded from as early as 1510, he states that there are no illustrations of the spoke shave until 1776. Another type of plane might have been used, for example this smoothing plane dated 1596. (6)

The Brace and Bit first appears in Northern Europe as a more or less fully developed tool early in the 15^th century. The main advantage of the brace is that the turning movement imparted to the bit is continuous and positive, and not intermittent, as with the augers, or with an idle return stroke as in the various bow, pump or strap drills. Its earliest use was as an auxiliary tool for boring a pilot hole.

This metal brace shows how far the tool had been developed by South German craftsman by the beginning of the 16^th century. (7)

5 Goodman, W.L. (1962). The History of Woodworking Tools. pg.

6 Goodman, W.L. (1962). The History of Woodworking Tools. pg.

7 Goodman, W.L. (1962). The History of Woodworking Tools. pg.

Bibliography

Amos, Alden. (2001). The Alden Amos Big Book of Hand spinning. Colorado: Interweave Press.

Birrell, Verla. (1973). The Textile Arts. New York: Harper and Row.

Crockett, Candace. (1977). The Complete Spinning Book. New York : Watson-Guptill Publications.

Gies, Frances and Joseph. (1994). Cathedral, Forge, and Waterwheel. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.

Goodman, W.L. (1962). The History of Woodworking Tools. London: G. Bell and Sons Ltd.

Morris, Carole A. (2000). Craft, Industry and Everyday Life: Wood and Woodworking in Anglo-Scandinavian and Medieval York York, England: Council for British Archaeology.

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