Dyeing Cloth in the 16th & 17th Century

Why Were Dyers Important?

Para1Dyers were skilled artisans involved in the production of clothing, responsible for coloring or staining various types of textiles, including wool, silk, and linen. During the 16th and 17th century, luxurious fabrics were some of the most valuable items that someone of high status (or an actor playing someone of high status) could own or wear. S.P. Cerasano’s analysis notes that actor Edward Alleyn records the colors of cloth in the descriptions (‘scarlettʼ, ‘purpellʼ, and ‘yelowʼ), the kinds of fabrics employed (‘damaskʼ, ‘velvettʼ, ‘silkʼ, and ‘cloth of gouldʼ), and even some decorations (‘gould butensʼ and ‘spannglesʼ) to remind us of the expense of the apparel.
Para2Laws in early modern England regulated who could wear particular colors; commoners were not allowed to wear the colors purple and crimson, as well as luxury fabrics like velvet, satin, and taffeta. Luxury threads could be made of gold or silver, and they were also limited to high-status individuals. High-end dyes were used for material often worn by members of clergy in the Church of England. Black was the most difficult color to obtain by dyeing, but it was also the most desirable in terms of status, hence the many portraits of individuals wearing black in the period.

Dyeing with Color

Para3The types of dyes produced during this era were natural. All textile dye colors were derived from plants, minerals, or even insects. In the 16th century, the most sought-after colors (other than black) were shades of red, followed by bright green, and sapphire blue.
Para4Red was the most popular color to dye clothing and the most expensive to produce. Madder, a plant native to Europe, was used for an affordable red dye, producing a rich ruby or maroon color. It was eventually replaced with cochineal, produced through crushing up Latin American insects. Clothes dyed with cochineal had deeper and more durable red color.

To Dye Wool Black

Para5Black dyed clothes became a status symbol because of the difficulty of keeping black dye pigmented. Black dye washes out of cloth easily and degrades quickly compared to other colours. Because of this, many historical recipe books contain recipes for black dye, ranging from inexpensive household procedure to ones that could only be done by skilled workers for wealthy buyers.
Para6 Gervase Markham published The English Huswife in 1615 and included the following recipe for a black dye:
First then to dye wool black, you shall take two pound of galls a growth on oak trees that are high in tannins that help fix dye on fabric and bruise them, then take half so much of the best green copperas ferrous sulfate, and boil them both together in two gallons of running water; then shall you put your wool therein and boil it; so done, take it forth and dry it.

Dyeing Controversies

Para7Skill was required to accurately determine how much dye was needed in the overall process, with the weight of the fibre proving a key detail to how much dye was used. The weight of thread fibres proved a controversial issue, as some dyers added deceitful mixtures to increase its weight (British History Online), which led to Royal intervention to incite fines in London for those who tried to sell poor-quality dyed goods. This sentiment ties in with the first Royal Charter for dyers introduced by King Henry VI in 1471.
Para8In England, women were barred from performing on stage until the 1660s. The acceptance of women on stage also coincided with their admittance into textile and dyeing guilds, a recognized form of training similar to modern-day labour unions.

Role of Immigrants in a Dyeing Industry

Para9Scholar Natasha Korda notes that refugees played a key role in revitalizing the clothing industry in England following a depression in the 16th century. Religious persecution of Protestants was common in countries surrounding England, so many of them fled to England. The influx of skilled labour in the cloth trades was a result of England’s acceptance of refugees.
Para10Their contributions included:
New methods for throwing silk cleaning, twisting, and preparing the fibers for dyeing and weaving
Figured patterns & weaving and embroidery improvements
An ability to produce luxury-grade materials

Key Print Sources

Cardon, Dominique. The Dyer’s Handbook: Memoirs on Dyeing. Oxbow Books, 2016. pp. 26–40.
Korda, Natasha. Labors Lost: Women’s Work and the Early Modern English Stage. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.

Key Online Sources

Cerasano, S.P. An Inventory of Theatrical Apparel (c.1601–2) MS 1, Article 30. The Henslowe-Alleyn Digitisation Project. https://henslowe-alleyn.org.uk/essays/an-inventory-of-theatrical-apparel-c-16012/. Accessed 10 Jan. 2023.
Dyers and dyeing. Analytical Index to the Series of Records Known as the Remembrancia 1579–1664. Eds. W. H. Overall, and H. C. Overall. London: EJ Francis, 1878, pp. 118–123. British History Online. Web. 18 Mar. 2022. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/index-remembrancia/1579-1664/pp118-123.
The Dyers’ Company. The Dyers’ Company and dyeing. 2022. https://www.dyerscompany.co.uk/dyeing/dyers-and-dyeing/.
Hohti, Paula. Exploring Historical Blacks: The Burgundian Black Collaboratory. European Research Council, 2019. https://refashioningrenaissance.eu/exploring-historical-blacks-the-burgundian-black-collaboratory/.
Phipps, Elena. Cochineal Red: The Art History of a Color. Museum of Art Bulletin, vol. 67, no. 3, 2010, pp. 2–29. https://www.metmuseum.org/met-publications/cochineal-red-the-art-history-of-a-color.
Watt, Melinda. Renaissance Velvet Textiles. Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2011. https://www.metmuseum.org/essays/renaissance-velvet-textiles.

Prosopography

Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

Melissa Walter

Melissa Walter is Associate Professor of English at the University of the Fraser Valley. Her research focuses on early modern English drama and English and European prose fiction. She is the author of The Italian Novella and Shakespeare’s Comic Heroines (U of Toronto, 2019), and co-editor, with Dennis Britton, of Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Authors, Audiences, Digital Technologies (Routledge, 2018). Her work on English theatre and the European novella has appeared in several edited collections, including Transnational Exchange in Early Modern Theater (Ashgate, 2008), and Transnational Mobility in Early Modern Theater (Ashgate, 2012). She has also written about Translation and Identity in the Dialogues in English and Malaiane Languages (Indographies, ed. Jonathan Gil Harris. Palgrave 2012). At the University of the Fraser Valley, she is a lead coordinator of UFV’s Shakespeare and Reconciliation Garden.

Michael Best

Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on Electronic Shakespeares, and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.

Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

Tyler Born

Tyler Born was a student at the University of Fraser Valley.

Orgography

LEMDO Team (LEMD1)

The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors.

University of Victoria (UVIC1)

https://www.uvic.ca/

Metadata

Authority title Dyeing Cloth in the 16th & 17th Century
Type of text Critical
Publisher University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform
Series Early Modern England Encyclopedia
Source
By Tyler Born, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions
Editorial declaration This document uses Canadian English spelling
Edition Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a
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Early Modern England Encyclopedia

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.
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Funder(s) Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Mitacs Globablink Research Internship
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