Rushes versus matting?

In the interests of starting another topic, here's one that's been gnawing at me for some time: Did medieval English households, great or small, really strew rushes on the floor? Or were the rushes more likely to be made into mats, which would be easier to remove and stow away as desired?

There is much written evidence referring to rushes being strewn and thus presumably loose, but no known visual documentation (paintings, tapestries, etc.). And it's rather difficult to believe that when trailing gowns were the fashion, ladies would have put up with loose vegetable matter clinging to and possibly staining their hems. Yet apparently the rushes used for strewing would have been strong and smooth, not given to stickiness.

Be that as it may, there is at least one picture of woven rush matting in use circa 1410, though not in England: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Les_Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_duc_de_Berry_Janvier.jpg

Tamara

That is a great question.....I have always read about that as well, and wondered. I cannot imagine living in a place with so much dust, bugs, and other things on the floor, but I have read of sweeping the rushes out. I always imagined it rather like the old tradition of sweeping with wood shavings. I have (somewhere) "The Guide of Medieval Life" which, I think, Stephen, suggested. If I can find it, and if it addresses rushes, I will share.
On Nov 3, 2013, at 2:49 PM, "khafara@..." <khafara@...> wrote:

In the interests of starting another topic, here's one that's been gnawing at me for some time: Did medieval English households, great or small, really strew rushes on the floor? Or were the rushes more likely to be made into mats, which would be easier to remove and stow away as desired?

There is much written evidence referring to rushes being strewn and thus presumably loose, but no known visual documentation (paintings, tapestries, etc.). And it's rather difficult to believe that when trailing gowns were the fashion, ladies would have put up with loose vegetable matter clinging to and possibly staining their hems. Yet apparently the rushes used for strewing would have been strong and smooth, not given to stickiness.

Be that as it may, there is at least one picture of woven rush matting in use circa 1410, though not in England: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Les_Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_duc_de_Berry_Janvier.jpg

Tamara

Tamara wrote:

" There is much written evidence referring to rushes being strewn and thus presumably loose, but no known visual documentation (paintings, tapestries, etc.). And it's rather difficult to believe that when trailing gowns were the fashion, ladies would have put up with loose vegetable matter clinging to and possibly staining their hems."

Marie responds:

Two things that have often puzzled me too, Tamara.

---In , <> wrote:

In the interests of starting another topic, here's one that's been gnawing at me for some time: Did medieval English households, great or small, really strew rushes on the floor? Or were the rushes more likely to be made into mats, which would be easier to remove and stow away as desired?

There is much written evidence referring to rushes being strewn and thus presumably loose, but no known visual documentation (paintings, tapestries, etc.). And it's rather difficult to believe that when trailing gowns were the fashion, ladies would have put up with loose vegetable matter clinging to and possibly staining their hems. Yet apparently the rushes used for strewing would have been strong and smooth, not given to stickiness.

Be that as it may, there is at least one picture of woven rush matting in use circa 1410, though not in England: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Les_Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_duc_de_Berry_Janvier.jpg

Tamara

Would the rushes have been dried and thus more or less inert?

Jess

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From: mariewalsh2003 <[email protected]>;
To: <>;
Subject: RE: Rushes versus matting?
Sent: Sun, Nov 3, 2013 10:36:59 PM

 

Tamara wrote:

" There is much written evidence referring to rushes being strewn and thus presumably loose, but no known visual documentation (paintings, tapestries, etc.).  And it's rather difficult to believe that when trailing gowns were the fashion, ladies would have put up with loose vegetable matter clinging to and possibly staining their hems."

 

Marie responds:

Two things that have often puzzled me too, Tamara.  

---In , <> wrote:

In the interests of starting another topic, here's one that's been gnawing at me for some time:   Did medieval English households, great or small, really strew rushes on the floor?  Or were the rushes more likely to be made into mats, which would be easier to remove and stow away as desired?

There is much written evidence referring to rushes being strewn and thus presumably loose, but no known visual documentation (paintings, tapestries, etc.).  And it's rather difficult to believe that when trailing gowns were the fashion, ladies would have put up with loose vegetable matter clinging to and possibly staining their hems.  Yet apparently the rushes used for strewing would have been strong and smooth, not given to stickiness.

Be that as it may, there is at least one picture of woven rush matting in use circa 1410, though not in England:  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Les_Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_duc_de_Berry_Janvier.jpg

Tamara

One google site I found is historicalfictiononline.com. Discussions there indicate a debate about rushes vs. rush mats, which continues. I had always thought that the nobility etc. moved so residence so frequently partly because of sweeping out loose rushes. ut perhaps it was even more imperative to cleanse the latrines/garderobes? Judith

Tamara wrote:

" There is much written evidence referring to rushes being strewn and thus presumably loose, but no known visual documentation (paintings, tapestries, etc.). And it's rather difficult to believe that when trailing gowns were the fashion, ladies would have put up with loose vegetable matter clinging to and possibly staining their hems."

Carol responds:

Well, there's Sir Thomas More's (fictional) scene of Elizabeth Woodville sitting "alone alow on the rushes" after she gives her younger son into Richard's custody. I always thought that it was "among the rushes," but "on the rushes" does make it sound like a woven mat. (More, by the way, liked to add realistic little touches--like privies and strawberries--to his imaginary scenes, and what would be more realistic at that time, considering that customs hadn't changed much in thirty years, than floor rushes?)

More than four centuries after More's novel (for lack of a better term), Charlotte Bronte has Jane Eyre sprinkling sand on the floor of a cottage and making designs in it with a broom. By that time, of course, people no longer threw food scraps on the floor, but it seems that the sand must be some sort of successor to rushes as a floor covering.

To return to Richard's time, I seem to recall that well-to-do English people used Persian carpets as wall hangings, rather like arrases, because they were too valuable to walk on.

Carol


---In , <> wrote:

In the interests of starting another topic, here's one that's been gnawing at me for some time: Did medieval English households, great or small, really strew rushes on the floor? Or were the rushes more likely to be made into mats, which would be easier to remove and stow away as desired?

There is much written evidence referring to rushes being strewn and thus presumably loose, but no known visual documentation (paintings, tapestries, etc.). And it's rather difficult to believe that when trailing gowns were the fashion, ladies would have put up with loose vegetable matter clinging to and possibly staining their hems. Yet apparently the rushes used for strewing would have been strong and smooth, not given to stickiness.

Be that as it may, there is at least one picture of woven rush matting in use circa 1410, though not in England: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Les_Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_duc_de_Berry_Janvier.jpg

Tamara

Carol: Thanks for the More citation. I've wondered if the term "rushes" was sometimes used as a shorthand for rush matting the same way "steel" is often a shorthand for the things made from it -- Conan Doyle has Sherlock Holmes, the fencing enthusiast, speaking of "a foeman worthy of his steel". More's use of "on the rushes" rather than "in the rushes" is another data point to indicate that the gentry at least were more likely at this point in time to be turning rushes into mats rather than just dumping them on the floor.

This why the Janvier illustration from Tres Riches Heures is so valuable. It shows woven rush matting of exactly the sort you'd expect a noble house in England of that period to have, except that it is smack in the heart of France.

From what little I've found so far, the impression I get is that the poorer classes still may have done the strewn-rushes-and-herbs bit, but people of Richard's social stratum would be more likely to have rush matting -- it would be so much easier to install and remove, and with far less mess. They probably still threw herbs on top of the matting -- Elizabeth I was apparently fond of meadowsweet as a strewing herb -- but they wouldn't be slapping green rushes down straight from the punt.

Tamara

I've

The general impression I'm getting is that poorer households would strew

---In , <justcarol67@...> wrote:

Tamara wrote:

" There is much written evidence referring to rushes being strewn and thus presumably loose, but no known visual documentation (paintings, tapestries, etc.). And it's rather difficult to believe that when trailing gowns were the fashion, ladies would have put up with loose vegetable matter clinging to and possibly staining their hems."

Carol responds:

Well, there's Sir Thomas More's (fictional) scene of Elizabeth Woodville sitting "alone alow on the rushes" after she gives her younger son into Richard's custody. I always thought that it was "among the rushes," but "on the rushes" does make it sound like a woven mat. (More, by the way, liked to add realistic little touches--like privies and strawberries--to his imaginary scenes, and what would be more realistic at that time, considering that customs hadn't changed much in thirty years, than floor rushes?)

More than four centuries after More's novel (for lack of a better term), Charlotte Bronte has Jane Eyre sprinkling sand on the floor of a cottage and making designs in it with a broom. By that time, of course, people no longer threw food scraps on the floor, but it seems that the sand must be some sort of successor to rushes as a floor covering.

To return to Richard's time, I seem to recall that well-to-do English people used Persian carpets as wall hangings, rather like arrases, because they were too valuable to walk on.

Carol


---In , <> wrote:

In the interests of starting another topic, here's one that's been gnawing at me for some time: Did medieval English households, great or small, really strew rushes on the floor? Or were the rushes more likely to be made into mats, which would be easier to remove and stow away as desired?

There is much written evidence referring to rushes being strewn and thus presumably loose, but no known visual documentation (paintings, tapestries, etc.). And it's rather difficult to believe that when trailing gowns were the fashion, ladies would have put up with loose vegetable matter clinging to and possibly staining their hems. Yet apparently the rushes used for strewing would have been strong and smooth, not given to stickiness.

Be that as it may, there is at least one picture of woven rush matting in use circa 1410, though not in England: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Les_Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_duc_de_Berry_Janvier.jpg

Tamara

If it's any help, it's still traditional in some stables to braid straw into mats and lay a mat across the threshold of each horse's stall. (Not inside the stall -- that would make it too difficult to muck out.) Possibly a hangover from medieval rush-matting?

~Weds

---In , <justcarol67@...> wrote:

Tamara wrote:

" There is much written evidence referring to rushes being strewn and thus presumably loose, but no known visual documentation (paintings, tapestries, etc.). And it's rather difficult to believe that when trailing gowns were the fashion, ladies would have put up with loose vegetable matter clinging to and possibly staining their hems."

Carol responds:

Well, there's Sir Thomas More's (fictional) scene of Elizabeth Woodville sitting "alone alow on the rushes" after she gives her younger son into Richard's custody. I always thought that it was "among the rushes," but "on the rushes" does make it sound like a woven mat. (More, by the way, liked to add realistic little touches--like privies and strawberries--to his imaginary scenes, and what would be more realistic at that time, considering that customs hadn't changed much in thirty years, than floor rushes?)

More than four centuries after More's novel (for lack of a better term), Charlotte Bronte has Jane Eyre sprinkling sand on the floor of a cottage and making designs in it with a broom. By that time, of course, people no longer threw food scraps on the floor, but it seems that the sand must be some sort of successor to rushes as a floor covering.

To return to Richard's time, I seem to recall that well-to-do English people used Persian carpets as wall hangings, rather like arrases, because they were too valuable to walk on.

Carol


---In , <> wrote:

In the interests of starting another topic, here's one that's been gnawing at me for some time: Did medieval English households, great or small, really strew rushes on the floor? Or were the rushes more likely to be made into mats, which would be easier to remove and stow away as desired?

There is much written evidence referring to rushes being strewn and thus presumably loose, but no known visual documentation (paintings, tapestries, etc.). And it's rather difficult to believe that when trailing gowns were the fashion, ladies would have put up with loose vegetable matter clinging to and possibly staining their hems. Yet apparently the rushes used for strewing would have been strong and smooth, not given to stickiness.

Be that as it may, there is at least one picture of woven rush matting in use circa 1410, though not in England: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Les_Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_duc_de_Berry_Janvier.jpg

Tamara

That makes sense.

As I stated earlier, the impression I get is that while poor families may well have strewn unmatted rushes as well as herbs, by the fifteenth century the nobility in England and France used rush matting and the only thing they strewed were the scented herbs like tansy and meadowsweet.

Tamara

---In , <wednesday.mac@...> wrote:

If it's any help, it's still traditional in some stables to braid straw into mats and lay a mat across the threshold of each horse's stall. (Not inside the stall -- that would make it too difficult to muck out.) Possibly a hangover from medieval rush-matting?

~Weds

---In , <justcarol67@...> wrote:

Tamara wrote:

" There is much written evidence referring to rushes being strewn and thus presumably loose, but no known visual documentation (paintings, tapestries, etc.). And it's rather difficult to believe that when trailing gowns were the fashion, ladies would have put up with loose vegetable matter clinging to and possibly staining their hems."

Carol responds:

Well, there's Sir Thomas More's (fictional) scene of Elizabeth Woodville sitting "alone alow on the rushes" after she gives her younger son into Richard's custody. I always thought that it was "among the rushes," but "on the rushes" does make it sound like a woven mat. (More, by the way, liked to add realistic little touches--like privies and strawberries--to his imaginary scenes, and what would be more realistic at that time, considering that customs hadn't changed much in thirty years, than floor rushes?)

More than four centuries after More's novel (for lack of a better term), Charlotte Bronte has Jane Eyre sprinkling sand on the floor of a cottage and making designs in it with a broom. By that time, of course, people no longer threw food scraps on the floor, but it seems that the sand must be some sort of successor to rushes as a floor covering.

To return to Richard's time, I seem to recall that well-to-do English people used Persian carpets as wall hangings, rather like arrases, because they were too valuable to walk on.

Carol


---In , <> wrote:

In the interests of starting another topic, here's one that's been gnawing at me for some time: Did medieval English households, great or small, really strew rushes on the floor? Or were the rushes more likely to be made into mats, which would be easier to remove and stow away as desired?

There is much written evidence referring to rushes being strewn and thus presumably loose, but no known visual documentation (paintings, tapestries, etc.). And it's rather difficult to believe that when trailing gowns were the fashion, ladies would have put up with loose vegetable matter clinging to and possibly staining their hems. Yet apparently the rushes used for strewing would have been strong and smooth, not given to stickiness.

Be that as it may, there is at least one picture of woven rush matting in use circa 1410, though not in England: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Les_Tr%C3%A8s_Riches_Heures_du_duc_de_Berry_Janvier.jpg

Tamara