Today marks the start of the Chinese New Year (or the Lunar New Year), this year the Year of Dog, an animal which symbolises luck! However, doing any of the following is deemed unlucky: cleaning clothes, using scissors, sweeping floors and encountering crying children. Some omens are easier to avoid than others…
With the use of scissors being forbidden, that got us here thinking. Here in Lincoln, scissors were probably used as part of the wool trade. Lincoln’s attractive location along the banks of the River Witham facilitated a prosperous, expanding wool trade during the early medieval period with finished textiles transported east along the River Witham and then exported abroad (Pawley 2001). The flat, open agricultural land provided a perfect location to rear sheep.
Some rather fierce looking sheep from Lincolnshire…
In particular, two shades of these textiles were highly prized: the coveted Lincoln green and Lincoln scarlet. Lincoln was renowned for not just the high quality of dye used but also the consistency of the colour (apparently Kendal green which was notoriously inconsistent)! The green colour, created by dying the wool with woad and then with ‘dyers broom’, was less expensive than Lincoln scarlet, a cloth that was aimed at more affluent members of society (Santos 2013). Lincolnshire green (or greene as it was known) was, of course, made famous by being worn by Robin Hood and his merry men, or so legend has it.
Sadly, the textile industry collapsed between 1275 and 1300 AD. The loss of wool staple, which designated that Lincoln was a key place for its trade, was a result of increasing competition from both nearby towns such as Boston and from abroad (Stocker et al 2003).
So, getting back to the Chinese New Year, it appears we’re all exempt from doing laundry, using scissors and cleaning floors today – great news for a Friday! Although managing to avoid crying babies may provide more of a challenge, particularly for those here at AAL with young children…
References
Pawley. S., 2001, Maritime Trade and Fishing, 1500 – 1700, In: An Historical Atlas of Lincolnshire, Bennett. S, and Bennett. N (eds), Phillimore, West Sussex
Santos. C., 2013, Lincoln: Where Robin bought his ‘Hood’, The lincolnite http://thelincolnite.co.uk/2013/05/lincoln-where-robin-bought-his-hood/ (16th February 2018)
Vince. A., 2003, The new town: Lincoln in the High Medieval Era (c.850-c.1350) pp. 159-249, In: Stocker. D (eds), The City by the Pool, Oxbow Books, Oxford