Fulling

From Free net encyclopedia

Fulling or walking is a step in clothmaking which involves the cleansing of cloth (particularly wool) to get rid of oils, dirt, and other impurities. The word comes from Latin, possibly via Old French; where the Latin word comes from is not known.

A fuller is the worker who does the job. In the process, fuller's earth was used. (This is a soft earthy material occurring in nature as an impure hydrous aluminium silicate.) The cloth might also be washed. After washing, to prevent shrinkage and wrinkling, the cloth would be stretched on great frames known as tenters and held onto those frames by tenterhooks. It is from this process that we derive the phrase being on tenterhooks as meaning to be held in suspense. The area where the tenters were erected was known as a tenterground.

In ancient times the process of fulling involved using the feet to wash the material in a vessel of stale human urine (a rich source of ammonia). Priests' urine was especially valued for this task.

Originally, this was literally pounding the cloth with the fuller's feet, but from the medieval period it was often carried out in a water mill in which the cloth was beaten with wooden hammers, known as fulling stocks. Such mills were known as fulling mills.Template:Industry-stub

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