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In both illustrations you can clearly see the shape of the distaff. Although the head is covered in wool, it appears to be thicker in the middle. My assertion of an eggbeater cage is consistent with the shape under the wool. |
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The Distaff
HL Brighid Ross
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In both illustrations you can clearly see the shape of the distaff. Although the head is covered in wool, it appears to be thicker in the middle. My assertion of an eggbeater cage is consistent with the shape under the wool. |
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This distaff is meant to be carried or tucked into a belt for use “on the go”. This would set the time frame for this piece to be before the mid 15th Century when spinning wheels became more prevalent in Europe early in the 14th century. (1)
I have used as a model distaffs shown in the Luttrell Psalter.
I started with a piece of 2x2 soft wood. This was a choice on my part. In period I would have cut a branch most likely of alder, birch or oak, all woods long native to Scotland (2). It would have been cut to approximately the length of the distaff I was making, and then aged 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 drawknife 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 since 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.
With my first attempt creating a distaff, 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 still liked the
idea of the cage made from reeds, so I drilled four small holes about
3” from the upper holes through which the reeds are threaded. The
pressure of the bend in the reeds, keep them in these small holes
creating the cage effect I was looking for, without the twine. So far
I have had no problem with the reeds popping out of the holes once the
distaff is dressed. |
2. ”Millennium Guide to Scotland's
Woodlands” 22 Jan. 2004
3. Baines, Patricia. Spinning Wheels, Spinners
and Spinning pg. 95
Although I was satisfied with my first attempt I continued to research to create a distaff that I would be able to document to specific time period. I chose to use as my inspiration a distaff from a picture by Gerard Dou (1613-1675) while many of the tools are the same for this project; I found that the process was quite different.
This time, I started with a piece of 1 1/16” x 1 1/16” hemlock for the stock of the distaff. This was a choice on my part. I retrospect I wish I had chosen a harder wood, oak or ash, but for economic reasons I chose hemlock. In period I would have cut a branch approximately the length of the distaff I was making. Once again, I would then have aged the branch until it was dry enough to work with. It would probably have been oak, ash or birch, which were long indigenous to Scotland. (4). Pine was also available, but that also is a soft wood.
Using a hand saw I cut the 2x2 to the length of 36”. This is the maximum length that would fit into the lathe. In period I would have used a spring lathe. After fastening the length of wood into the lathe, I used a wood chisel to cut while the lathe spun the wood. I then used a scraping tool to smooth it out.
As in my first distaff made using a shave bench, 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. I found it difficult to hold the tool at the right angle to smooth the wood without creating ridges or making that area of the distaff smaller than the rest. It was a time consuming process. I can appreciate how much more difficult it would be to have to control the spin of the wood with a foot pedal on a spring lathe. I then used handfuls of shavings to further smooth the surface, holding the shaving loosely in the palm of your hand and cupping your hand around the spinning wood. This acts as an abrasive to smooth the wood. Because hemlock is a rather soft wood, I had a hard time making the surface smooth enough not to catch the wool fibers. This is another reason for using a harder piece of wood, such as alder or ash. It was much more difficult with the lathe than it had been with the hand tools. Finally, after consulting with Lord Marcus, (who owns the lathe, and was kind enough and patient to teach me how to use it) I tried using some bee’s wax and a strip of leather to create a smooth finish. This seemed to work, so I decided to see if the raw wool technique I had used to finish my first distaff would work on the lathe turned distaff. The theory behind using the wool as a finish is to heat the wool with the friction of the spinning wood, and then buff it with a strip of leather. This created a smoother, surface with nothing to catch and tear at the wool roving. I also surmised that constant presence of the wool on a period distaff would create a natural patina as a finish. Because the hemlock is a soft wood, I found it more difficult to apply the wool without catching fibers on the small wood burrs left by the distaff and the finishing plane. But I kept applying more wool until there was a fairly smooth matt finish on the stock of the distaff.
4. ”Millennium
Guide to Scotland's Woodlands” 22
Jan. 2004
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In these painting the top of the distaff is clearly seen, from two different angles. This is very rare, in most other depictions; the head of the distaff is covered with either flax or wool. The distaff in the Dou paintings is a bowl shaped “cage” that holds the roving, or unspun wool. This style of distaff would be used with a spinning wheel, since obviously it would be difficult to balance the wool in a bowl shaped cage when walking. In the picture the distaff is connected to the spinning wheel, but I decided to attach the distaff to a stool Leaving it free standing. |
| “Old Woman Eating Porridge” Gerard Dou
1632-37, oil on panel, private collection |
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| Gerard Dou again appears to use the same
spinning wheel in a third picture. But this time the top of the distaff is
different. There is no band at the top and the “fingers” are of a
different size and shape. But they also appear to be set into a collar
that holds them to the distaff. Whether this is a second top for the
distaff or merely an artist’s different rendering is unknown. The enlargement below is from the Prayer and shows more of the construction of the distaff top. |
 Dou, Gerard. Tobias and Anna, Louvre, Paris |
| After blowing up the picture and showing it to Lord Marcus he pointed out that the "fingers" appear wider towards the base, with ends that were fitted into the collar with a dovetail joint. These fingers are stabilized at the top by a band almost like a barrel is held together. I agreed with his assessment, and decided to use this method to construct the cage. | |
I decided that I wanted to base the cage of the second distaff on an example seen in several paintings by Gerard. Gerrit Dou.
 The
Prayer of the Spinner- |
| When I originally studied the Dou's paintings, I had drawn the conclusion, that the cage was made from thinly planed wood that was bent to form the basket and secured by the band around the top. |
I chose to work with pine. While Scotch pine is
an available wood in Scotland, in retrospect I wish I had used a harder wood
such as alder. Using the pine, which was the most available wood caused the
scale of the distaff cage to be bigger than I had originally planned. Smaller
pieces were less stable and broke easily.
For the collar I chose a piece of 4"x4" fir and once again used the lathe to
turn the wood, using different wood chisels to create a piece with the radius
of about 3 “. I used the same methods I used on the base of the distaff to
smooth the wood.
For the "spokes" or "fingers" of the cage I used different lengths of 1"x 6"
pine. In period the carpenter (or most likely his apprentice) would have used a
coping saw, but in the interest of time I used a band saw to cut the shape of
the fingers. After studying the picture and discussing the design with Lord
Marcus (whose shop I was using) I decided on the shape and size of each finger.
Using a measuring gauge, I scribed a line 1/8" from the bottom on each side of
the base. I used a handsaw to make a ¼" deep cut. This set up the line for
follow when I used a wood chisel to chisel at an angle on both sides of the
wood. This created a dovetail on the bottom of the spoke.
Again with a measuring gauge and ruler, I, with
help from the mathematician Marcus, scribed the angles that I would have to
chisel out to create 6 joints for the dovetails to slide into.
Using a drill, (in period it would have been a brace and bit) I drilled a series
of small holes to remove some of the excess wood this would facilitate using the
chisel to create the socket for the dovetail to rest in. I found chiseling out
the wood for the sockets to be by far the most difficult part of the process.
The opening is smaller than the recess and it was extremely difficult to achieve
the correct angle. To add to the complication, each socket had to be
individually tailored to a specific dovetail. As each socket was completed it
was marked with a number that corresponded to a number on the finger for which
it was created. As wood was taken out of the collar it became more fragile, at
one point breaking and requiring that I glue it back together. In period, if a
fracture had occurred, the project might have been scrapped, and begun again,
but I chose to glue the stock and continue work on it after the glue had
dried. There was hide glue available in the 15th century so it would have been
possible to have also solved the issue with glue. Once all of the sockets were
carved, each individual finger with its dovetail end slid from the top and
secured by gently tapping them into place with a mallet.
Using a drill bit equal in
size to the distaff shaft I drilled a hole in the center of the collar so it
would be a tight fit onto the main shaft. I then used a mallet to install the
head onto the shaft.
To add stability to the distaff cage, and create the basket affect, I used a
piece of wood to circle the top of the distaff. The wood I chose to use was a
piece of 1/8" door board. My assumption is that in during the 16th
century a carpenter would have planed a piece of wood to about the same
thickness (1/8" or so), and steamed it to make if flexible enough to fit around
the top of the distaff cage.
Since the purpose of the band of wood along the top is to add stability, not
hold the "fingers" together by constriction, it was suggested to me that I make
a dado in each finger to keep the collar from slipping. This was accomplished by
making many small cuts with a saw across the section on each finger that would
hold the collar. I discovered another valuable lesson. I had made the decision
to use pieces of pine available at the shop for the fingers, in choosing the
wood I needed to cut two of the fingers across the grain instead of with it.
This weakened those fingers and both of them broke during the process. Again I
made the decision to repair the fingers with glue instead of creating new ones
and trying to match a new set of dovetails to the tailored sockets. Each finger
was glued and splinted overnight.
The collar was bent and clamped over night while the glue dried on the fingers.
Installing the top band was pretty uneventful. With an extra pair of hands, I
fit the circle of wood over the top of the basket and into each of the dados. I
continued to splint the repaired fingers so they would be protected from any
added pressure. I secured the collar with two copper rivets. It took two of us
to hold the distaff at an acceptable angle to hammer the rivets without causing
more stress to the “fingers” of the basket.
I have chosen to display my 2nd distaff as free standing attached to a stool. This arrangement can be used for both spinning with a spindle and a spinning wheel. In the Pyrenees and Slovakia, where there was a tradition to attach the distaff to the leg of a chair – in the former on the right hand and in the latter on the left – it could be used both with a spindle and with a spinning wheel. (5)
5. Baines, Patricia. (1977) Spinning Wheels, Spinners And Spinning. pg. ?
 1513 Engraving by Lucus
Van Leyden. |
In this 16th Century engraving the distaff is clearly free standing and place on the right side for ease in spinning. The free-standing distaffs so often found in southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland, long turned poles mounted on little stools, were so suitable for spinning with either spindle or wheel. These distaffs often came apart in two places, making them easy to store out of the way when not required. |
The Distaff
The distaff is the holder for the cleaned and prepared fibers. When used with a spindle all types of fiber are attached to the distaff, often first pulled into roving and then wound on to it. The distaff has been used throughout history. (6) Leonidas of Tarentum a 3rd 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:
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 (7)
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.” (8)
6. Baines, Patricia. (1977) Spinning Wheels, Spinners And Spinning. pg. 94,
7. Crockett, Candace. (1977) The Complete Spinning Book pg.14
8. Crockett, Candace. (1977) The Complete Spinning Book, pg. 11
9. Morris, Carol A, Craft, Industry and Everyday Life: Wood and Woodworking in Anglo-Scandinavian and Medieval York 2000, pgs 2230-2231
 The 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 Saxon-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 fiber. This is
probable the earliest English illustration of a long distaff and indicates
that they were in use at least by the 11th century. Illustrations in the
14th 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. (9)
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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. |
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In this seventeenth century woodcut of women in the Balkans you can see them spinning while traveling. Spinning was such a time consuming yet simple and necessary job that women frequently spun thread while doing other things |
Tools
I endeavored to use period tools in creating the first distaff, and as many as possible in creating the second distaff. Most of 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 13th 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. (10)
|
 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. (11) |
Turner, from the “Mendel Housebook” c. 1436 |
Spring Pole Lathe Medieval European turners favored a
design called a "spring pole" lathe. In this form, a frame, usually of
sufficient height for the turner to stand, holds the piece being turned
between two upright posts (called poppets or puppets) on sharp metal points
(called centers). One end of a cord is attached overhead to a pole or
similar "springy" mechanism to provide recoil. The cord is then wrapped
around the piece to be turned and attached to a foot treadle. The turner
cuts on the down stroke, and then lets the spring pole power the return
motion. Later variations of the design incorporated a lever arm so the
spring pole could be mounted to the base of the frame instead of overhead,
or replaced the pole entirely with a bow mounted on upright posts. (12) |
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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. (13) |
 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.
(14) |
 The Brace and Bit first appears in Northern Europe as a more or less fully developed tool early in the 15th 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 16th century. (15) |
| Wood Chisels in their simplest form are sharpened pieces of metal. There are 4 basic forms, a rectangular, a gouge, a paring, and a slice. The chisels used by medieval turners looked much as they do today, having long handles for a two handed grip. (16) |
 From Left to right, Mendelschaen Hausbuch, the Merode Altarpiece, and Bordichon. (17) |
| Marking Gauge consists of a beam containing a metal point or scribe and a movable head that is used to set the distance to be measured. While no medieval examples survive a Renaissance sample was recovered from the Mary Rose. (18) |
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10. Goodman, W.L. (1962). The History of Woodworking Tools.
12. htp://www.his.com/~tom/sca/lathes.html
13. Goodman, W.L. (1962). The History of Woodworking Tools.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16 Halstead, Gary "European Woodworking Tools
600-1600 C. E
17 Ibid. pg. 17
18 Ibid pg. 22
Bibliography
Amos, Alden. (2001). The Alden Amos Big Book of Hand Spinning. Colorado: Interweave Press.
Baines, Patricia. (1977) Spinning Wheels, Spinners And Spinning. London: Anchor Press.
Birrell, Verda. (1973). The Textile Arts. New York: Harper and Row
Clark, Cecily, and Elizabeth Williams. (1984) Women in Anglo-Saxon England. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Crockett, Candace. (1977) The Complete Spinning Book. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications.
Diehl, Daniel. (1977) Medieval Furniture. Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books.
Ercadh béan úi
Padraic, . "Kingdom of Ealdormere: Distaff." Kingdom of Ealdormere
Society for Creative Anachronism. 20 Oct. 2002
http://www.ealdormere.sca.org/university/distaff.shtml
Gies, Frances and Joseph. (1994) Cathedral Forge, and Waterwheel. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.
Gies, Frances and Joseph. ( 1987) Marriage and Family in the Middle Ages. New York: Harper & Row.
Goodman, W.L. (1962). The History of Woodworking Tools. London: G. Bell and Sons Ltd.
Halstead, Gary
"European Woodworking Tools 600-1600 C. E." The Compete Anachronist #121:
(2003): 17-22.
Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia 2002. 1993-2001 Microsoft Corporation
“Millenium Guide to Scotland’s Woodlands” 22, Jan. 2004 http:/www.scotlandswoods.org.uk/ww/tt/tt.html
