Sewing Linens

The transformation of flat linen textiles to underwear is described in Chapter 8. The cost of linen and the need to own as much underclothes and accessories as possible to maintain standards of propriety forced a strict economy on making these garments. All underwent the rigours of early modern laundry and needed to be firmly sewn together, yet finely enough to be worn comfortably under other clothing. Very little literature in the early modern period documents these processes, therefore, reconstruction is the primary research tool. The exercise of remaking linen shirts and shifts highlights the seamstress’s skills and knowledge, and emphasizes what impact different qualities of linen would have on the durability of the finished garments and cost of their making. How shirts and shifts could be ‘ready-made’ is also explored.

Manners and Health

Chapter 2 surveys and analyses early modern English conduct literature to determine what standards of cleanliness were essential for propriety. It revises accepted wisdom that insists the repetition of this advice over two and a half centuries must mean that it was not being followed, and suggests instead that such reiteration signified parental insecurity. The presentation of advice on cleanliness is influenced by shifting concerns of class during this period. Also included in Chapter 2 is a review of the popular health manuals that have been traditionally used to assess habits of cleanliness. In both genres, recommendations on cleanliness are insistent but imprecise, giving little indication of what to clean, when, and how often, but the health manuals point to other medical genres with more detailed discussions and specific advice.

Clean Bodies

Early modern English medical books are full of advice about cleanliness of the skin, the subject of Chapter 4. It was considered vital for the survival of infants and insisted upon in books dedicated to childcare. Babies needed washing and/or bathing with every change of their nappy/diaper. Surgeons, responsible for the external health of the body, also recommended regular washing of the skin. Washing performed the necessary function of removing sweat, a form of excretion, as well as preventing and treating skin ailments such as the itch, morphew, and scabies. Bathing was considered a particularly effective method of cleaning the skin and the literature on this subject is examined and reassessed.

Manufacturing Linens

The processing and marketing of linens expressly for use in underwear and accessories is examined in Chapter 7. The labour-intensive raising and refining of flax is described and the qualities desired in the finished textile are examined—fine, hardwearing, and washable. The property of whiteness demanded by propriety and which represented the cleanliness required by medical advice was particularly important. Centres of production, preferred brands, government support of linen production, and pricing are discussed, as well as the significance of imported plain white calicos from India as a suitable fabric for accessories and underwear.

Owning Linens

Chapter 6 surveys a range of different types of inventories to establish which of the visible and invisible linens and how many of each English people of various status and wealth owned between 1550 and 1800, and of their quality. Household and probate accounts provide valuable information on how frequently new linens were acquired. These documents reveal that almost everyone in early modern England owned some linen. Social class is clearly defined through linen—the best quality and most owned associated with royalty. However, even those on the parish had the linens—visible and invisible—that were necessary for propriety.

Clothing and Disease

Chapter 3 examines early modern English medical literature that discusses theories of contagion. Three fatal diseases—plague, smallpox, and typhus—and a host of minor ones were thought to be transmitted through dirty textiles and clothing. Only strict attention to clean clothing and domestic textiles could prevent their contagion. Another strand of medical theory involved the theory of insensible perspiration—a physiological function that was considered essential to good health. The best way to encourage this function was by wearing flannel underwear instead of linen. At one point, the implications of insensible perspiration led physicians to believe that changing a fever patient’s linen would be fatal. These theories came into conflict, for wool was thought to harbour contagions far more easily than linen fabrics, and doctors worried about the ‘putrid effluvia’ harbouring in a patient’s linens.

Digging the Dirt in the Pursuit of Cleanliness

The introduction outlines the historiography on cleanliness and the influence of Georges Vigarello on early modern social history and history of the body. It reviews both the philosophical and the practical aspects that make researching cleanliness so challenging. On one hand, the prejudices of contemporary observers and commentators are acknowledged and, on the other, the practice of cleanliness is so habitual it goes unnoticed and unrecorded. The methodology for the book is described, first to use traditional documentary sources from a variety of media to elucidate what advice was given about cleanliness in early modern England. In order to determine whether such advice was followed, a study of the material culture of cleanliness is proposed and outlined, acknowledging that it may be more successful for linen than for bodies. Finally the drawing together of these various strands of research is emphasized.

More Washing

The story of laundry continues in Chapter 10 with the labour of washerwomen and the economics of the service. There were several strategies that could be used to get the washing done: employing full-time laundry maids as part of the household, sending the linens out to be washed, or engaging a washerwoman to come in to do the work. Washing was considered an essential service, arrangements were made to ensure that orphans, apprentices, those ‘on the parish’ and in workhouses had laundry services provided. The necessity of washing for baby clothes is examined in the payments of ‘soap and candle’ for wet nurses. Finally, frequency of washing in analysed in relation to the numbers of linens people owned.

Wearing Linens

Chapter 5 begins the exploration of the material culture of clean bodies and clothes in early modern England. What were the ‘linens’ that doctors and moralists insisted must be clean? Linen clothing comprised two main groups: the visible and the invisible. The latter were linen undergarments—shirts, shifts, stockings, and drawers—requiring regular changing but remaining unseen when a person was fully dressed. Accessories worn on the head, around the neck, and at the wrists were the visible linens. Part of fashionable dress in a variety of forms, they were the outward sign that propriety was being observed and maintained. The relationship of visible and invisible linens to prevailing styles of dress is examined and how they changed according to fashion during the early modern period.

Sweet and Clean

Chapter 12 draws together the evidence from the preceding ten chapters to reassess theories and practices of cleanliness in early modern England. Those with servants had both clean laundry and the necessary materials for washing or bathing regularly provided. But all of these cost money and not everyone could afford them, so one’s ability to be clean was defined by class. Cleanliness of bodies and clothes is examined through the perspective of disease, in particular typhus. Its aetiology demonstrates that it can be prevented by the regular changing and washing of underwear. Its occurrence in early modern England indicates the degree to which everyone kept their linens clean and how widely medical theories about linen and contagion might have been understood. What kept bodies and clothes clean were the habits established in infancy and propriety’s insistence on these standards.