Linen means a fabric made of plant fibers, also hemp or the like. It is not possible to grow linen, you grow a plant not a fabric.

Since the 1990s, we have been working to determine which bast fiber plants are used for making textiles, both historical and modern, because they are often misrepresented in museum collections and in the trade. Today, we cannot assume that either a heritage object or an industrial fabric contains the promised fiber, and this is commonly the case with fabrics of hemp and flax. In recent decades, a lot of industrially manufactured textiles have appeared on the market in America and Europe which were said to be made of European hemp, but which after analysis have proven to be made of flax. However, if the material was produced in China, it was usually as promised because the largest amount of hemp fabrics are produced there. Despite this, we have come across industrial yarns from East Asia that are said to be hemp, but which are in fact made of synthetics. This results in part because hemp is more difficult and costly to produce than flax. However, the reason for this systematic falsification is primarily economic, today the demand for environmentally friendly hemp textiles is greater than the supply, and therefore they command a higher price. Today, the production of fabrics from European hemp is almost non-existent.

Mangle board dated 1725 from Bohuslän in Sweden.

The inverse applies to hemp textiles in museum collections, which are frequently attributed to flax or linen. This is partly because the textile makers themselves did not document the plant source, and when professional guesses have been traded for a while, they tend to be converted into facts. Similarly, the term "flax" is frequently used instead of fibers, which has contributed to a strong centralization of this plant, as if there had been no others. This is clearly seen when ancient tools are named, for example, flax-brake, flax-hackle or flax-brush, even though it is not certain whether they were used for preparing flax or hemp or other bast fibers. For instance, in Scandinavia hør was the ancient word for a flax plant, and they could have more accurately been called hør-brake, hør-hackle or hør-brush.

It is important how our material heritage is communicated, so we simply use "brake", "hackle" or "fiber brush" to minimize the trading of qualified guesses. Otherwise there is a risk that natural resources and local peoples will be marginalized.

How to distinguishing hemp, flax or nettles is explained in:

Identification of Blended Hemp Textiles from the Middle Ages to the 20th Century https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14759756.2022.2053276

If you prefer a pdf, please send us a message we will be happy to share it.

E-mail: skoglund.clarke@gmail.com