Hemp

A verse work of agricultur al advice written by a 16th century English farmer. An enlarged edition of his work, Five Hundreth Pointes of Good Husbandrie , was published in 1573.

A history of medieval Italian textiles and their production .

Most of us are familiar with flax and its byproducts, including linen and linseed oil. However, two related plants show up in East and Central Europe for similar purposes: hemp (Cannabis sativa) and nettle (Urtica dioica). Both hemp and nettle fibers were used to make cloth, as well as being used for food and medicine.

Use of hemp in period. In ropes, as an intoxicant, clothing. Hemp seeds in food. Recipes. Sources for hemp seed.

Cloth and clothing made with hemp fibers.

The first certain proof of hemp in Norway is from the Viking age. Woven textiles of hemp were placed in graves in Southwestern Norway around the year 1000. They were probably fragments of sail. Otherwise the usual material for Viking ship sails was wool or nettle fibre. Hemp fibre was most important to the Vikings as material for cordage. Until hemp came into use, ropes and lines were mainly produced from the bast of lime trees. The long, supple hemp fibres made it possible to produce better cordage, which in turn was an important precondition for the long sea journeys of the Vikings.