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:
“Every literary critic believes he will outwit history and have the last word.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)