FAMILIAR YET UNKNOWN? COMINES’ TEXTILE INDUSTRY IN FLANDERS AND ITS CLOTH SEAL FINDS
FAMILIAR YET UNKNOWN? COMINES’ TEXTILE INDUSTRY IN FLANDERS AND ITS CLOTH SEAL FINDS

Summary/Abstract: Starting from the 13th century at the latest, the textiles meant for long-distance trade were marked with leaden seals indicating the site of production, quality of the cloth, distributing merchant, etc. Whereas the initial product – woven cloth – normally does not allow to pinpoint the exact place of production or has not survived at all, these small artefacts are well-suited to reconstruct, among other things, the late medieval and early modern trade connections and consumption patterns. However, whilst the archaeological study of cloth seals began in western Europe already more than 40 years ago, there are still numerous items and even groups of seals that are until today either unidentified or have not been handled at all. The present paper discusses one distinctive category of leaden cloth seals that were recently ascertained as quality marks of the well-known medieval and early modern Flemish textile production centre Comines (Dutch: Komen). Alongside the finds, we also give an in-depth overview of the historical background of Comines’ cloth production and trade during the 14th and 15th centuries. As of 2022, only eleven cloth seals of Comines are known to the authors but publishing this corpus will help to change the situation in the future. As the collected data shows, these finds can be expected from both rural and urban sites.

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