This looks only at the coarser linens used for shirts and smocks, it does not look at the very coarse linen and hemp fabrics such as canvas. Linen came in a wide variety of types from the finest lawn to the coarse brown linens, such as barras, which were mainly used for packing but could if “well whited” serve for shirts. (1 p. 111) The Merchant’s Ware-house laid open: or, The Plain Dealing Linen Draper of 1696, lists no less than twenty five cloths suitable for use for shirts or smocks, and for each type it discusses the breadths of cloth available, whether it wears white, and if it wears thin. (2)
Detail of men in shirts from a
woodcut In Praise of the Blacksmith. EBBA 30173
The differences
in quality can be seen in an exchange in Shakespeare’s Henry IV, part I:
" Hostess: I bought you a dozen of shirts to your back.
Falstaff: Dowlas ! filthy Dowlas ! I have given them away to bakers' wives, and they have made bolters of them.
Hostess: Now, as I am a true woman, holland of eight shillings an ell."
Dowlas was a coarse type of linen. Falstaff says baker’s wives have made boulters of them, because a coarse open weave cloth was use to bolt [sieve] flour. The hostess exclaims that they are the far better quality holland.
Both dowlas and lockram were cloths that originated in France and were common throughout the seventeenth century, except at the very end when war with France destroyed the trade. Anderson wrote it was the "most profitable linen manufacture, never likely to be regained, of two particular species, viz., dowlas and lockram, chiefly manufactured in Normandy and Brittany ; of which England was said to have taken off to the value of two hundred thousand pounds sterling annually.” (3) The trade in dowlas and lockram was replaced with by another available coarse linen, hamborough, sometimes referred to as hamborough dowlas which, as the name implies, was from Hamburg. The Plain Dealing Linen Draper wrote “Dowlas from France..being prohibited and forbidden... therefore shall proceed with Dowlas from Hamborough.” (2 p. 8)
Coarse linens were sometimes used to provide smocks and shirts for the poor. The Beccles overseers accounts for 1644 show four yards of hamborough to provide a girl with two smocks and other linen items. (4 p. 52) Hamborough and lockram could also be used for coifs for poor girls as can be seen in the records of Christ’s Hospital Suffolk. (4 p. 51) At the end of the seventeenth century men in the almshouse at Shepton Mallet in Somerset were to receive “one plain neckcloth and dowlas shirt, both to cost 5s.” (5 p. 248)
Dowlas and lockram were often used to provide servants with shirts. In 1648 James Master purchased “11 ells of lockerum at 1s 4d per ell to make my footboy 4 shirts and for thread 15s.” (6 p. 173) The Earl and Countess of Bath purchased both fabrics for some of their servants. In 1646 dowlas costing 3s 8d is listed for Jonathan's shirts, and in 1649, “9 ells of lockeram for 2 shirts for same Bold & 2 for Ned Wingfield then 13s 6d.” (7 p. 69 & 277)
The wearing of such coarse linens was certainly seen as indicating a certain class or level of intelligence. In Glapthorne’s 1639 play, where there is much discussion of clothing, the character of Jeremy Hold-fast, son of a knight of Epping, says, “Thou thoughtst, because I did weare Lokram shirts Ide no wit.” (8)
Garments of lockram or dowlas are often referred to as coarse or fine. In 1675 Thomas Moggs had “Twelve course dowlas chirts” valued at 2s per shirt. (9 p. 76) Finer qualities of dowlas were available. The George Weston in 1637 had five “fyne dowlas shurts” listed in the goods he had “in the good shipp Called the Prudence of Bristol.” (10 p. 103) In 1686 a vicar, Richard Matthew, owned “2 fine dowlas shirts.” (11 p. 141)
The prices of dowlas and lockram could vary depending on the quality. For lockram Spufford shows a range of 8d to 32d a yard across the period 1570-1714, with an average price of 14d a yard. (12 p. 50) In 1644 John Willoughby purchases, “1 yard of dowlas 12d to mend my clothes.” (13 p. 256) In 1656 Giles Moore purchased 6.75 ells of dowlas to make two shirts, at a cost of 26d an ell. (14 p. 26)
There were complaints when shirts or smocks were considered too coarse. Early in the eighteenth century some shirts provided to a regiment of the army were considered by the soldiers to be “extream coarse,” and derided by them as “Hannover shirts.” This was spring 1715, after the succession of the Hanoverian King George, but before the Jacobite rebellion that began later that year. The Duke of Marlborough ordered the shirts destroyed, and that the “contractor furnish them with better.” Around two or three hundred shirts were therefore burnt at Whitehall. (15 p. 40)
Beyond shirts and smocks, the coarser linens could also be used for table and bedlinens, in the households of the nobility these were usually for the servants. The lists of linens in the Bath household includes in the 1648 list two pair of dowlas sheets and in the 1652 list, three dozen “new dowlas napkins bought in London.” (7 p. 300 & 301)
References
1. Spufford, Margaret. The great reclothing of rural England: petty chapman and their wares in the seventeenth century. London : Hambledon Press, 1984.
2. F., J. The Merchant's Ware-house laid open: OR, The Plain Dealing Linnen Draper. London : John Sprint and Geo. Conyers, 1696.
3. Anderson, Adam. An historical and chronological deduction of the origin of commerce. London : A. Millar, J. and R. Tonson, 1764.
4. Spufford, Margaret and Mee, Susan. The Clothing of the Common Sort 1570-1700. Oxford : OUP, 2017.
5. Cunnington, Phillis and Lucas, Catherine. Charity Costumes of Children, Scholars, Almsfolk, Pensioners. London : Black, 1978.
6. Robertson, S. The expense Book of James Master 1646-1676 [Part 1, 1646-1655], transcribed by Mrs Dallison. Archaeologia Cantiana. 1883, Vol. 15, 152-216, pp. 152-216.
7. Gray, Todd. Devon Household Accounts 1627-59. Part 2 . Exeter : Devon and Cornwall Record Society, new series, vol. 39, 1996.
8. Glapthorne, Henry. Wit in a constable A comedy written 1639. . London : Io.Okes, for F. C., 1640.
9. George, E. and George, S. Bristol probate inventories, Part 2: 1657-1689. Bristol : Bristol Records Society publication 57, 2005.
10. George, E. and S. eds. Bristol probate inventories, Part 1: 1542-1650. Bristol Records Society publication. 2002, Vol. 54.
11. Wyatt, P. The Uffulme wills and inventories 16th to 18th centuries. Exeter : Devon sand Cornwall Record Society, vol 40, 1997.
12. Spufford, Margaret. Fabric for seventeenth century children and adolescents' clothes. Textile History. 2003, Vol. 34.
13. Gray, Todd. Devon Household Accounts 1627-59. Part 1. Exeter : Devon and Cornwall Record Society, new series, vol. 38, 1995.
14. Bird, Ruth, ed. The Journal of Giles Moore of Horsted Keynes, 1655-1679. Lewes : Sussex Record Society, 1971.
15. Lawson, Cecil C. P. The History of the Uniforms of the British Army, Vol.1: From the beginnings to 1760. London : Norman Military Publishing, 1940 (1962 rpt).
