Some interesting tartan info

[Sherry]

Came across this today:

Originally, the Scottish Tartan was a distinction of rank or position. It was not identified by weave but by the number of colours in the weave. If only one colour was used it depicted a servant, two, a farmer rank, three, an officer rank, five, a chieftain, six for a poet, and seven for a Chief. Eventually, clans or families adopted their own tartan, using a range of animal and earth colours which were frequently secret, only known to the weavers of the islands. They included yellows, blues, whites, greens, browns, reds, black and purple. Some say that a keen eye can identify the colour with a particular island, almost like a wine taster can identify the year and the vineyard

Chief's Dress Sett - worn by the chief and members of his/her family.
The Clan Tartan - worn by members of the clan.
The Hunting Tartan - Fall colours worn by members of the clan.
Mourning Setts - self explanatory.
District Setts - regional, worn by anyone in that region.
The Womens Sett - usually black and white colours.
The Royal Sett - The Royal Stewart, a free tartan which can be worn by anyone.
From: http://www.aldkiltmakers.com/ the Kilt Info section.

This is the description of this site's kiltmaker:
Meet Mrs Devine

One of the very few real kiltmakers left in Scotland, the company was started by one woman with a pride in her heritage and craft. With over 40 years of experience in her chosen trade, Mrs Devine now has over 20 employees; each trained to her own high standards. Taking 12 hours and 6000 stitches to complete a kilt means a lot of training is involved, a full 5-year apprenticeship.

The info seems, uhm, interesting...
Sherry

[bubba]

As I understood it the number of colors represented wealth more than rank. The wealthier the person the more colors they had woven into the tartan.

[michael steinrok]

Colors designated rank like the royal purple. It was hard to come up with hence the rank . Also number of colors allowed designated rank. Probably both of the above are right.

[macwilkin]

Sherry, et al: See Matt Newsome's article which debunks this myth:

...From the get go, he makes the mistake often repeated in early histories of the tartan by making reference to the Brehon Laws, which stipulated the number of stripes worn to indicate the rank of the wearer. Many today erroneously apply this to tartan – in other words, the more stripes in a clan’s tartan, the higher “rank” the clan was. (This would mean, of course, that poor Rob Roy would have been the lowest peasant, while the Earl of Airlie would have been the King of Kings!) The problem is that these Brehon Laws existed in Ireland, not Scotland, and dealt with striped ceremonial cloaks, not tartan of any kind. Yet this reference is repeated often enough that many take it to be true.

-- http://www.albanach.org/facts.htm

I'm sure Matt will have something to add to this. ;)

Cheers,

Todd

[GlassMan]

I do remember reading somewhere that during Queen Victoria's time when all the Clans were asked what "their" tartan was, some of the wealthier nobles tried to outdo each other with the numbers of colors used. (That might help explain why the Royal Stewart is so damn loud.) Maybe that bit of one-up-manship is what gave rise to the misunderstanding.

[Andrew Breecher]

Re: colours and rank/wealth. Obviously the more money you have, the better access you have to rarer dyes and fabrics. In England this resulted in sumptuary laws, designating the particular dyes, fabrics, and furs one could wear based on their station. A merchant might be wealthier than a duke, but he still couldn't wear the clothes that the duke had to go into debt to pay for. You still can't dress above your station. The most famous of these laws is the limitation of purple (and various shades of blue - hence the shade of "royal blue") for the royal family.

I don't know about the laws/traditions of various tartans, so I'm not even going to weigh in about that. Given the historical use of woad in northern Scotland, I'm sure that blue had play here, though most traditional tartans I can think of are mostly based on reds and greens.

Andrew.

[macwilkin]

I do remember reading somewhere that during Queen Victoria's time when all the Clans were asked what "their" tartan was, some of the wealthier nobles tried to outdo each other with the numbers of colors used. (That might help explain why the Royal Stewart is so damn loud.) Maybe that bit of one-up-manship is what gave rise to the misunderstanding.

In 1815, the Highland Society of London began to collect examples of "named Highland clan tartans" for a collection. All clans were asked to submit a sample, along with appropriate documentation. Blair Urquhart, in his "Tartans: The new compact study guide and identifier", says that many Chiefs were not even aware of what a "clan tartan" was, and in the case of Lord Macdonald, Urquhart quotes a letter from him where he states:

"Being really ignorant of what is extactly the Macdonald tartan, I request you will have the goodness to exert every means in your power to obtain a perfectly genuine pattern..."

Most of the time, the Chiefs were writing to writing to the tartan suppliers, like Wilson's of Bannockburn, asking them for "their" clan tartan, with some very funny results:

http://www.albanach.org/sources.htm

Cheers,

Todd