History and Use
It embraces plain twilled cloth known as jean, and cut fabrics similar to velvet, known as velveteen, moleskin, corduroy etc. The original medieval fustian was a stout but respectable cloth with a cotton weft and a linen warp, possibly derived from El-Fustat, the name of a suburb of Cairo where cloth was manufactured. The term seems to have quickly become less precise, and was applied to a coarse cloth made of wool and linen, and in the reign of Edward III of England, the name was given to a woolen fabric. By the early 20th century, fustians were usually of cotton dyed various colors.
In a petition to Parliament during the reign of Mary I, "fustian of Naples" is mentioned. In the 13th and 14th centuries priests' robes and women's dresses were made of fustian, but though dresses are still made from some kinds, the chief use is for labourers' clothes.
Fustian, by the 1860s referred to any cut weft cotton fabric, and its manufacture was common in towns of the fringe of the Lancashire cotton region, such as Congleton in Cheshire, Mow Cop, Staffordshire and Heptonstall in Calderdale.
Read more about this topic: Fustian
Famous quotes containing the words history and and/or history:
“The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)