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People didn't just abandon their children (which I don't think is a revelation, just saying it conversationally).

Knitting and animal skins are both pretty well known as ways of obtaining cloth (or skin as it were), and getting skins wasn't such a big deal in times when there was no one saying that all the animals belonged to him.

I think it is less well understood how straightforward felting is; still not necessarily fun, but available to many people in an agrarian society. Also, we don't see weaving every day anymore, but a loom can be a very simple thing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:VerticalLoom.JPG

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp-weighted_loom

(Simple especially in the materials necessary, I guess I wouldn't want to promise to build you one tomorrow)



Yeah, I still think that it takes resources and I'm interested in that complete economy.

As for hunting, in the UK as early as 1200AD, peasants couldn't hunt on much of the land, the largest game they could hunt was probably not enough to provide much in the way of skins. Of course, the UK isn't the whole world, so this doesn't apply universally, but it's still an issue that plays into it I think. It's also really hard to bring down animals like deer, even if you have a bow and arrow. see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_hunting

This is the kind of stuff that fascinates me though, that loom looks simple, but could you just go out in the woods and get all the components with your every day, 1000 year ago equipment? Maybe, but still, that takes some time, resources and knowledge. Then once you have the darn thing, how do you even make clothes! I guess you just make a big square and cut holes in it? Either way, all of this really fascinates me.


UK (or England in 1200) was definitely a wool-based economy, leaving us the Wool Churches (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wool_church) and the Woolsack still sitting in the House of Commons.

how do you even make clothes

Tailoring is a thing. You'd learn patterns in your apprenticeship, then tailor to the body of the person who will be wearing it. Basic outlines would be marked in your workbench for daily use, but obviously the exact size needs to be adjusted.


Thanks for that link! I also kind of wonder what the non-tailor traded that tailor for their garments, and where the tailor got their tools/equipment/raw material, the whole shebang, so to speak.

As others have said, back then, everyone worked as much as possible just to get by, so I guess if you weren't a tailor, you were X, so there was something you could offer to exchange.




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