Looking for any info on Tanners in the middle ages - can anyone help?

Answer 1

The craft of the tanner can be traced back 500,000 years. The ice age was survived due to the ability to skin and preserve pelts and hides. At first skins were smoked and stretched, but the next improvement came was to rub fats and the brains of the animal into the hide to soften and the make the leather pliable. Then, about 7000 years ago in the Middle East a dark liquor is made of the bark of trees that contained the chemical Tannin. The use of Oak bark was the basis for tanning in Northern Europe until the 20th century. Leather was used for a variety of things during the Anglo-Saxon period including shoes, belts, pouches. bookbinding's, cups, bottles, and bags. Garments like cloaks, hoods, and jerkins could be made and then oiled using fish or vegetable oils to make them waterproof. Blacksmiths and other metal workers would have worn leather aprons.

The production of leather from animal hides was time consuming and very smelly. So much so that tanneries were often far out of town because of the smell. Leather only works when it does not to hold water in it's pores. If water stays the leather will break down and rot. The hides of cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, and deer ( maybe horses) were all used. Once the animal was killed, the skin removed the first job was to get rid of any excess bits of flesh and fat. To do this the hide was soaked and pounded and placed over a wooden beam where it was scraped with a special knife. If the hair was to be removed urine, quicklime, and ash was used in a solution that the hide was steeped and rubbed or left to soak into the the surface. This loosened the hair and allowed it to be scraped off with a tool called a "scudder". The hide was then washed to stop the chemicals from affecting it further. At this point the hide is now a pelt.

After the hair and fat was removed the tanner had to prevent the pelt from stiffening or rotting in several ways. At this point it is white, slimy and is rawhide. If removed from the steeping pits the raw hide would begin to dry and shrink. Some of the pelts were removed from the liming pits and placed into vats that was a brew of dog dung, chicken and dove droppings. This would "fluff" open the pores in the skin due to bacterial action and neutralised the lime. This was called "bating the leather" and makes the leather soft and pliant. The amount of bating the leather underwent controlled how flexible the hide was to be. The pelts would spend a few hours in a pit containing ammonia ( from urine), de-liming them further and then they went into the tannin liquor pit. The pelts from start of finish would take about 3 months work and then they would sit in a layer pit for 10 months with layers of crushed bark between them. Cords were tied to the pelts so that can be lifted to judge their progress and moved from time to time. Only after this are the pelts pulled out and strung out to dry, scrubbed. The finishing of the leather began with cod oil being applied and rubbed with a thick wad of sheepskin. At this, point the leather can also be stained with the liquor from other tree barks, cod oil, and extra "slicking" with bone tools and to act as a final layer a blend of mutton fat, tallow, more cod oils. Now, that it was tanned and dried it can be made into any number of items. The most common leather use was for the soles of shoes. A new shoe would only last a few months before it needed to be repaired. Shoes were made using the "turn shoe" method which involves stitching the shoe together inside out.

The tanner belonged to a guild in the middle ages and there were different levels of tanners. The beginning tanner was the apprentice and the older tanner would be a master tanner. This was a hard job and as you can see dirty and stinky.