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| Medieval tanner |
Tanners enjoyed the exclusive right to purchase cow hides from butchers. The lighter, smaller skins of sheep, goat, pig, and deer were handled by fellmongers and preserved by tawers (also known as a tawyers or whittawers).
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| Medieval furrier |
Because horns and hooves had no value to a butcher, they often left them attached to the skins. Wherever the tanner discarded horn cores and hooves, their remains are a sign that a pit was associated with a tannery.
Horners valued the outer layer of the horn. So the archaeological remains of tanneries typically include pits where horn cores and hooves have been discarded along with scraps of leather (1º, 2º, 3º). However, glue could made by boiling scraps of leather, adding to the stench of the tanning operation.
Barks, Roots, Fruits, Nuts and Leaves are used for their tannic acid to tan skins. Tannin converts hides permanently into leather. Oak, hemlock, fir, mangrove, wattle, eucalyptus, acorn caps, sumac, pine, spruce, willow and many more have been used all around the world for this process that seems almost magical in it's ability to transform fragile, rot-prone skin into a material with much loved unique properties. Natural Leather Tanning relies heavily on these traditional materials.
The full article and list can be read at http://www.skillcult.com/blog/tanningmaterials
Of interest: 13th century cat- and goat-hide shop excavated in England.
Making parchment: video.
Medieval tanning pits - Birmingham ~1300
Click on images to enlarge.
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| View of medieval tanning pits - wood-lined trenches and pits in scale model of Birmingham, England around 1296 CE. |
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| Tanner scraping hides close-up of lower centre section of image above. |
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| View of medieval tanning pits from different angle scale model of Birmingham, England around 1296 CE. |
Modern Vegetable-Tanned Leather (So Expensive) - BusIn > .
Take a video tour of the model of medieval Birmingham (tanning pits at 2m 35s, new window)
The following summary of the tanning process is adapted from here.
After removing the horns and hooves, and trimming unusable portions of the hide (belly, areas around head and legs, udders, and hide edges), the tanner washed blood, dung, and dirt from the hide.
Next, fat, hair, and flesh were removed—usually by immersion in a solution of lime or urine. (In sufficiently warm conditions, the hide could be sprinkled with urine and folded hair-side inward to encourage rotting of the hair follicles.)
After treatment, loosened hair was scraped from the hide with a blunt single-edged knife, and flesh was removed with a sharper, double-edged knife.
After rewashing, the hide was de-limed and and softened by one of two alternate processes:
a) an alkali-rich process of immersion in warm dog dung or bird droppings
b) drenching in a solution of barley or rye in stale beer or urine
The hides were washed again, then agitated in a solution of crushed oak bark. After being layered with ground bark, the hides were transferred to a pit filled with a weak tanning solution. Later, they would be moved to a tank containing a high concentration of tannins, in a process that required at least a year to complete.
After 12-18 months soaking in tannin solutions, the tanned hides were rinsed, and smoothed using a two-handled setting pin. Next, they were dried slowly in a dark shed before being sent to a currier, for stretching, shaving, and softening by the application of greases, sometimes brain.
Although oak bark was used extensively in Britain, other plant materials were substituted: fir, white willow (Salix alba), sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa), oak galls, birch, alder, hemlock, heather, and the rhizomes of some ferns.
Tanning Videos >> .
Full Bark Tanning Process - Video Series - SkCu >> .
Best Traditional Leather Tanning Videos - SkCu >> .
Tanning and Leather - SkCu >> .
Hide Tanning - SkCu > .
Hide Glue, from Start to Finish - SkCu >> .
Brain Tanning Hair On 1 - SkCu > .
Brain Tanning Hair On 2 - SkCu > .
Brain Tanning Hair On 3 - SkCu > .
How I Process Deer Legs for Sinew, Skins, Bones, Hooves and Glue Stock - SkCu > .
How to Remove Sinew from a Deer - SkCu > .
How to Remove Backstrap Sinew Cleanly, Without Wasting Any Meat 1 - SkCu > .
How to Remove Backstrap Sinew Cleanly, Without Wasting Any Meat 2 - SkCu > .
How to Remove Backstrap Sinew Cleanly, Without Wasting Any Meat 3 - SkCu > .
The Magic Ingredients That Turn Skin Into Leather - Barks, Roots and Leaves for Natural Hide Tanning > .
Q&A, Tanning Furs v.s. Leather - SkCu > .Leather from Salmon (or other fish) Skin - Zed > .
Why Vegetable-Tanned Leather Is So Expensive - BusIn > .
Ancient tanneries—now a tourist attraction—have been discovered beneath the modern city of Nottingham within a system of caves cut into the soft sandstone as houses, cellars and workplaces.
"Nottingham was once known as Tigguo Cobauc in Old Brythonic meaning Place of Caves by the Welsh Bishop of Sherborne (Asser) in his The Life of King Alfred (893)." [w1]
"Two caves cut into the cliff face and opening out to daylight housed the only known underground tannery in Britain. The Pillar Cave was originally cut around 1250 but had been filled in by a rock fall by 1400. Cleared and reopened as part of the tannery in 1500 with circular pits cut to hold barrels. A second cave was also cut with rectangular clay-lined vats. The small size of the vats in these caves indicate that they were probably used for sheep or goats skins rather than cowhide. There was an opening to the River Leen where they would wash the skins in the town's drinking water." [wc]
Virtual flyround of the caves devoted to tanning:
Fly-round playlist - arch >> .
All you could possibly want to know about the archaeology of leather-working, particularly of footwear in huge pdf file.
2022 Fish Skin Leather ~ Restaurant Waste | BusIn > .
Take a video tour of the model of medieval Birmingham (tanning pits at 2m 35s, new window)
The following summary of the tanning process is adapted from here.
After removing the horns and hooves, and trimming unusable portions of the hide (belly, areas around head and legs, udders, and hide edges), the tanner washed blood, dung, and dirt from the hide.
Next, fat, hair, and flesh were removed—usually by immersion in a solution of lime or urine. (In sufficiently warm conditions, the hide could be sprinkled with urine and folded hair-side inward to encourage rotting of the hair follicles.)
After treatment, loosened hair was scraped from the hide with a blunt single-edged knife, and flesh was removed with a sharper, double-edged knife.
After rewashing, the hide was de-limed and and softened by one of two alternate processes:
a) an alkali-rich process of immersion in warm dog dung or bird droppings
b) drenching in a solution of barley or rye in stale beer or urine
The hides were washed again, then agitated in a solution of crushed oak bark. After being layered with ground bark, the hides were transferred to a pit filled with a weak tanning solution. Later, they would be moved to a tank containing a high concentration of tannins, in a process that required at least a year to complete.
After 12-18 months soaking in tannin solutions, the tanned hides were rinsed, and smoothed using a two-handled setting pin. Next, they were dried slowly in a dark shed before being sent to a currier, for stretching, shaving, and softening by the application of greases, sometimes brain.
Although oak bark was used extensively in Britain, other plant materials were substituted: fir, white willow (Salix alba), sweet chestnut (Castanea sativa), oak galls, birch, alder, hemlock, heather, and the rhizomes of some ferns.
- Oak bark contains both types of tannin: catechols and pyrogallols.
- Catechols are more astringent, act more quickly than pyrogallols, producing leathers of pink, red or dark brown hues: birch, hemlock, alder, and fir bark.
- Pyrogallols improve leather's wearing properties and resistance to water, so they are favored for sole leather, bookbinding, and upholstery. They produce pale leather varying from creamy or yellowish to light brown: sweet chestnut, oak galls, and oak-wood.
19th, early-20th century descriptions:
Leather, Parchment, Fur - ElQu >> .Tanning Videos >> .
Full Bark Tanning Process - Video Series - SkCu >> .
Best Traditional Leather Tanning Videos - SkCu >> .
Tanning and Leather - SkCu >> .
Hide Tanning - SkCu > .
Hide Glue, from Start to Finish - SkCu >> .
Brain Tanning Hair On 1 - SkCu > .
Brain Tanning Hair On 2 - SkCu > .
Brain Tanning Hair On 3 - SkCu > .
How I Process Deer Legs for Sinew, Skins, Bones, Hooves and Glue Stock - SkCu > .
How to Remove Sinew from a Deer - SkCu > .
How to Remove Backstrap Sinew Cleanly, Without Wasting Any Meat 1 - SkCu > .
How to Remove Backstrap Sinew Cleanly, Without Wasting Any Meat 2 - SkCu > .
How to Remove Backstrap Sinew Cleanly, Without Wasting Any Meat 3 - SkCu > .
Q&A, Tanning Furs v.s. Leather - SkCu > .Leather from Salmon (or other fish) Skin - Zed > .
Why Vegetable-Tanned Leather Is So Expensive - BusIn > .
Ancient tanneries—now a tourist attraction—have been discovered beneath the modern city of Nottingham within a system of caves cut into the soft sandstone as houses, cellars and workplaces.
"Nottingham was once known as Tigguo Cobauc in Old Brythonic meaning Place of Caves by the Welsh Bishop of Sherborne (Asser) in his The Life of King Alfred (893)." [w1]
"Two caves cut into the cliff face and opening out to daylight housed the only known underground tannery in Britain. The Pillar Cave was originally cut around 1250 but had been filled in by a rock fall by 1400. Cleared and reopened as part of the tannery in 1500 with circular pits cut to hold barrels. A second cave was also cut with rectangular clay-lined vats. The small size of the vats in these caves indicate that they were probably used for sheep or goats skins rather than cowhide. There was an opening to the River Leen where they would wash the skins in the town's drinking water." [wc]
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| remains of Medieval tannery discovered beneath Nottingham, England |
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| City of Caves tannery, Nottingham |
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| City of Caves tannery, Nottingham |
Fly-round playlist - arch >> .
All you could possibly want to know about the archaeology of leather-working, particularly of footwear in huge pdf file.
