Brief history of the lucet braiding tool

Rici using a lucet during a reenactment

The lucet is a tool for cordmaking or braiding. Cords, shoelaces, drawstrings, laces for hair or clothing fastening were made by hand, before the industrial revolution, and some say that the two-pronged item known as lucet was one of the making methods.

Nowadays, hand-making cords is not common: with the creation of machines to make leaces quickly and cheaply, hand tools for the same purpose disappeared. You can see it used during historical reenactments, though, mainly Medieval-themed events. There, you’ll see lyre-shaped wooden lucets, with two prongs to weave the cord, sometimes a hole to host the cord during the process, sometimes with a handle.

Well, the debate about the ancient shape of lucets and the use of tools catalogued as cordmaking instruments starts here. Are those lucets we see in Medieval fairs a historically accurate item?

First of all: findings. Do we have evidence of tools used as lucets in ancient times? When are they dated? There’s not universal agreement among experts: everything about the so-called lucet is controversial, from the shape to its origins.

Archaeologists say we have a short number of finds through the Middle Ages that could be called lucets, but they’re easily misunderstood, in one way or another. Those first so-called lucets were simple, made from readily available material such as bones. They’re in most cases hollow bones with two prongs on top, sometimes with also a third larger prong of uncertain use. They are usually considered by the excavators to be disposable tools.

We don’t know how many items the archaeologists simply catalogued as bone findings, not recognising they had a purpose. If not decorated and maybe broken, the misunderstanding is an easy one. It can happen, for example, for bone whistles: if you don’t notice the aligned holes because your find is broken, you can easily label it as meal remains.

Confirming that a tool is a lucet used for cordmaking is very hard also because the context is not always enough of a help. Moreover, there’s not a specific shape that’s universally recognised as a lucet: there’s a variety of two-pronged objects (even three-pronged!) that have been identified as tools for cordmaking, flat or hollow tubes.

The bone finds from Coppergate, on the other hand, have more similarities to the other ones catalogued as lucets.

They are made of bone, as the most part of presumed Medieval lucets are, and the two prongs are parallel, as we can see in more common findigs from Scandinavia. They are trimmed cattle nasal bones, bearing few signs of modifications and without any sign of wear around the two parallel prongs.

For many, the lack of such signs is a proof against the use of those artifacts for braiding. They are so rough that they could easily be butchery leftovers that were mistaken for tools.

As it’s often noted, any two-pronged item could serve as a lucet, and that’s one of the most significant drawbacks for any research about the medieval history of such a tool.

The Lund artifact is small piece of tubular sheep bone 65mm long and with a diameter of 20mm. It has finely carved teeth, two shorter and thinner ones aligned with each other, plus a larger one behind. It’s contextually dated to the second half of the 11^th century.

It’s famous for its two-word runic inscription.

Here’s the abstract from the research published in 2021 on Danske Studier:

The artefact is contextually dated to the second half of the 11th century. The bone piece is provided with finely carved teeth and carries an inscription in runes. The identification of each rune character is uncomplicated. The inscription says: tinbl:bein.

The second sequence bein represents the noun Rune Danish bæin, Old Danish bēn ‘bone’ in all probability with reference to the piece itself and it is plausible that the inscription forms a compound designating the utensil in question, but which utensil? The difficult task is to interpret tinbl? The first suggestion by the late runologist, Erik Moltke, related the runes to the noun Rune Danish tæinn, Old Danish tēn ‘spindle’ and alternatively, to the noun and verb Old Danish twinnæ ‘a twine/to twine’ suggesting the artefact being a utensil for twining threads together, i.e. a twining-bone. Erik Moltkes suggestions seem neither linguistically nor technically convincing. The bone piece was a unique find in 1961, but now a number of similar archaeological artefacts seem to constitute a whole group. In this article, I suggest that the sequence tinbl reflects the noun Old English timple known as a loan word in post-medieval Nordic languages. The present day English form is temple and the present day Danish form is tempel and the word designates an implement used in weaving. Consequently, the runic object must be a temple-bone (Old Danish *timpelbēn) an end-piece of a primitive medieval temple.

The first part of the inscription is the most interesting one for us here. Tinbl is considered by Olesen the modern form  temple, that designs a weaving tool to maintain the warp width and prevent narrowing. Consequently, the inscription designates the object as a “temple-bone” (Old Danish *timpelbēn).

Those two words give us a precious context for the use of the tool bearing them in relation to textile production. From here, the archaeologists started referring to any artifact with a similar shape to the Lund find.

The identification with the end-piece of a temple is tricky, though: you need two Lund-like items to make a  temple, but in most cases those finds are unique. So, someone proposed that solitary artifacts could have another function, original or repurposed, as lucets. Experimental archaeology supports this theory, as we’ll see. In 1968  Kerstin Petterson reproduced with a hollow teethed tool two extant braids from a woman’s burial in Gotland  (Sweden). More recent tests with artifacts from Sigtuna (Sweden), Oslo (Norway), Douai (France), Tyrol (Austria), all dated between the 10th and 13th century, gave the same  results. All showed the most significant problems were the shortness of the tool and the thin space between  the prongs, but lucetting produced a cord quite easily, nonetheless. So the use of those artifacts as lucets seems possible.

Nowadays, following those studies, the word tinblbein has become a synonym for lucet.

Another factor to consider is the hollow nature of the Lund item. For it to function as a temple mounted on a stick, a hollow end-piece would be expected, but it would ideally be closed on one end or have its body narrowing towards the tips, to accommodate the stick securely. While in most of the similar artifacts the body of the tool narrows towards the top, it’s not always the case.

Given the intricacies surrounding the temple theory, many researchers have proposed alternative functions for solitary artifacts like the Lund find, suggesting they may have been repurposed or served multiple original functions. Considering the significant investment of time and resources required to produce such artifacts in ancient times, it’s unlikely they were crafted without practical purpose. Both the temple and lucet functions are inherently linked to textile work, adding weight to the idea of multifunctional artifacts.

Experimental archaeology further supports the notion, particularly with the pioneering tests conducted by Kerstin Petterson in 1968.

The greatest number of lucet finds to date comes from Sweden. It could be because the Lund find is Swedish, or because local archaeologists are more sensitive on the lucet question, or just by chance.

In particular, the city of Sigtuna has given hundreds of those bone artifacts, now preserved in the Sigtuna Museum: if you visit its online archive and search for “tinblbein“, you find 85 items. The museum experts consider them to be common everyday tools, judging from their number.

The Sigtuna finds are less than 70mm long, some of them even smaller, a few with carved decorations. They all date from the 10^th -12^th century. They were found in association with Medieval textile crafts, along with finds of loom parts, metal sewing needles and bone needles for needlebinding. It’s not usual, I know just of a case in France where those artifacts were found in such a context.

A remarkable find is the bronze tool from Hossmo (Sweden), coming from a 2003 dig just outside the town cemetery. At first identified as a spinner, it was then compared to a similar find from Eketorp III, the medieval fortification of Öland (Sweden), so catalogued as a twining bone or tinbl bein, as artifacts with such a shape are called from the most famous find of Lund.

Another similar bronze tool was found in Övra Vannborga in connection with investigations of the years 1989-1991 in a context dated circa 600-800. This find is pretty ancient compared to the other possible lucets I mentioned.

And I discovered those are not the only metal tools that could be catalogues as lucets. From a survey in a manor house in Borg (Sweden) in 1992-93 emerged an iron tool, contextually dated to the Middle ages that could be compared to the others I listed.

It still seems that tools which could be identified as lucets are rare in metal. Since metals are non-perishable materials, if those tools were common in iron or bronze, we should have found more of them. It’s likely that instruments for such a household use were made of less noble and expensive material. More than one archaeologist underlined how lucets were probably disposable tools, as easy to make as to discard after use. We also have to consider that metals were often reused to make other things, though: this may be another reason for not having more finds like those.

My question here, though, would be: if you need a tool for a task and make yourself one, why you should make, use and discard? Ancient civilisations, for what I know, didn’t have the same frequency with disposable tools that we have nowadays. Wouldn’t be better to make a tool, as easy and quick and cost-labor effective as it may be, but one that you could reuse as you needed? A still open question, here, I suppose.

Between them, the tools are quite different. One has a very slender shape and is richly decorated on all sides with different types of angled lines. On this object, the two horns are slightly lower in relation to the wide prong. The other one is of a slightly simpler kind and doesn’t show the same craftsmanship of the first.

Also the lucet from Lund has two smaller prongs and a wider one. Since the later lucets have just two prongs, this shape seemed quite strange, to me, when I first saw it, to be associated to lucets. The Örja archeaologists seem so sure about the purpose of those two tools, because studies have shown confidence in defining the Lund find as a tool for cordmaking. I’m still curious about the purpose of the third bigger prong: what could have been its use, I have no clues.

Another group of finds I think interesting are three bone tools from the abbey of Wandignies-Hamage (France), from the excavations conducted in 1991-2002 and now preserved in the Arkéos Musée in Douai (France). They are catalogued as “tricotins” and dated to the 10th century. They are associated with other textile implements, thus giving us a clue for their use in textile working.

In my opinion they have a very strong resemblance to two decorated items from Sigtuna (Sweden), about which you can read later on.

I’m trying to discover more about those tools and their context: the association with other pieces used in textile work seems quite interesting to me.

About dates, all the above mentioned finds come from the early Middle Ages (before the 13th century) from the British isles or Northern Europe. See the timeline for a global view on the datings.

What about archaeological finds of braids? Textiles are rarely preserved because of their perishable nature, so examples of braids are quite rare.

There could be evidence from a woman’s burial from Barshalder, Grötlingbo parish, Gotland (Sweden): it’s from the late 11^th century and, among the rich textile finds, we have two braided cords. It seems that one of them had beads, and the other seemed to be fastened to a tortoise brooch, in a position that suggested it was used as a shoulder strap.

They are both square in section and roughly 3-4 mm and 1,5-2 mm across. The fact that they have a square section coincides with the outcome of a lucet braiding: indeed, Kerstin Pettersson wrote about this find in 1968 that experiments showed that a tool with two prongs gave a result close to the original cord.

Also, those cords seem made from a continuous length of string, like a lucet braid would. Cords made by fingerlooping, for example, are not made from a unique lenght of thread.

Pettersson tried several braiding techniques before lucetting, but none of them produced cords like the ones from Barshalder. She then tried different kinds of tools, with two, three or four prongs. The cords made with three and four-pointed tools came out too thick, the ones made with a two-pronged instrument were instead identical to the ones she studied, at least on the surface, without “un-braiding” the originals for a deeper look.

Still, there’s someone debating that this test or any other after that were unconclusive.

And, actually, my engineer husband pointed out that unravelling an ancient cord would not be the only way to ascertain how it’s made on the inside. We live in the 21st century and have access to technologically advanced nondesctructive analyses that in the 1960s were not common or even not yet available for archaeological studies.

X-Ray Computed Tomography is the technique he would suggest. It’s used, mainly in medical applications, to create a 3D model of the internal features of a solid object without destroying it.

Such a technique would be really useful in the study of the braids from Gotland: it could give a glimpse on the technique used to make them.

About the possible use of those hollow bones as lucets, I found an interesting point of view regarding a few 10th century tools from the circular fortress of Oost Souburg in the Netherlands.

The researchers here study a few decorated tools made from hollow bones. Nine of the ten finds are decorated. The objects were made selecting and working bones to obtain a rounded front and an almost flat back, which is always undecorated. The tools have three sharp and short teeth, maybe for pricking rows of holes in leather, in their interpretation. They are polished also between the teeth, though, something that wasn’t needed for that use. The researchers suggest that such a polishing would suit best a sort of comb.

It’s noted that those bones are hollow by nature, but have been hollowed further, and have been worked to make the opening larger or smoother. While I could like the idea of them being lucets (and the larger number ever found together in the same context), it must be noted that the bone at the edge of the hole has not been polished. Maybe they are not lucets, even though the researchers note that the inhabitants of Oost Souburg were partly dependent on wool production, so it’s probable that those tools, considering their context, are related to wool working.

The fact that they have three teeth is another clue against their identification with lucets: even if you consider three prongs to be a good number for a braiding instrument (which I don’t) the three-pronged tools that are considered lucets by researchers have two equal prongs plus a bigger one, not three equal ones. Still, the purpose of the third bigger prong remains a mystery to me, it seems more of an obstacle while making a cord on the other two progs.

It must be noted that the absence of one teeth in those Netherlands tridents did not make the tool useless: the missing teeth was polished in some cases, so the tool must have served a purpose even with two teeth. Maybe some of them in some specific cases have been used as cordmaking tools, after all? We’ll never know that, unfortunately.

I would like to study them more, though, because I think they could help giving light on the other bone tools that are considered lucets. For the moment, I’ll not list them among lucets, personally.

Was there a reason to make such a small instrument, while a bigger one would certainly be more handy? I never tried lucetting with a 3cm pronged hollow tube, but now I’m considering to give it a try. I’d like to have a better hand myself on this problem.

I recently happened to try lucetting with a tiny wooden lucet, with straight prongs just 3cm long and 1.5cm apart. I found it quick to work with and comfortable to hold, but it had a handle almost 10cm long. So, my own test can’t be considered experimental archaeology like the others I mentioned, because the size and shape of my tool are different from any Medieval find.

Since those considerations I’m writing now are already dense, I’ll leave the question for another time and another post.

About size, there’s also the opposite problem: I saw someone considering a lucet also very big U-shaped tools, about 20cm long.

A few sites in Norway have produced those long “U-shaped objects made of whalebone. The most famous one (at least among people who studied the lucet question) comes from Sømhovd (Norway). It’s 22.1 cm long, 2.7 cm thick and 6.4 cm wide, now at the NTNU Vitenskapsmuseet (item n. T13471). It’s date is also not coherent with the Medieval lucets we considered here, since this whalebone tool comes from the Late Iron Age.

This item has been identified with a lucet, mainly by reenactors, due to its two-pronged shape, but its size and conformation makes it impractical for cord making. Consider that the size of the tool doesn’t matter in relation to the final cord size: any sized lucet would produce a similar cord with the same yarn, it’s just the yarn size that matters. In my personal opinion a lucet too big could be even less handy than the very tiny tools discussed above.

This Norway find has very thick prongs with a square cross section, so not exactly comfortable to lucet with. Maybe a very big lucet could be handy with really thick yarn to make big braids that could in some use cases benefit from the elasticness given by the lucetting technique, but I would expect prongs with a circular cross section.

Its original identification with a line winder, a fishing instrument used to wind fishing line, is most likely true, especially considering it’s comparable to some modern fishing tools.

Beatrix Nutz was able to do some experimental archaeology with replicas. She used red silk thread for one experiment and two different blue wool yarns for other two tests. The experiments showed that lucetting with this tool is possible. Thin threads result in narrow cords that can pass through the bottom hole. To pick the stitches and pass them over the prongs you need the help of a needle or hook, as in the Norwegian experiments.

The author noted that the greatest problems are the short length of the tool (57 mm) and the short distance (a mere 5 mm) between the tips of the prongs. It’s strange to note that the tool is indeed large in proportion, being larger at the bottom (from 9mm to 21mm). I don’t know if it would be comfortable to handle, being so large in respect to its height. 

There comes back my personal doubt: if you need to make a tool to perform a task in a more efficient way, why do you choose to make one so tiny? What’s the advantage, compared to bigger lucets or other braiding techniques? My question still remains open.

The research conducted by Beatrix Nutz is giving a real boost to the question of the lucet in Southern Europe. After the aforementioned finds from Tyrol (Austria), she’s currently studying more extant finds from Switzerland, Germany, Italy. I can’t wait for her new paper to be published! I had the priviledge of speaking with her about her research, but I’ll wait until the official publication, so I can give her proper credit.

In the meantime, I can cite an artifact from Italy, whose photos are available online.

From an early-Medieval layer of a settlement in Grado (Friuli Venezia Giulia, Italy) comes a tool about 50 mm long, with a flat back that has a small hole at the bottom. The front is decorated with two series of horizontal lines and diagonal ones crossing each other. It was found during the excavations conducted by the “Soprintendenza Archeologia, belle arti e paesaggio del Friuli Venezia Giulia”.

I got in touch with Dario Gaddi, who was part of the equipe of excavators. He said this Italian tool reminds him of the French finds from Hamage, mainly the one with horizontal lines on the front, even if the back of the French tool is not flat. He also suggested a connection with the tridents from The Netherlands. Besides the ones I mentioned from Oost Souburg, there are others from the Flemish and Southern Netherland coast, for example from Antwerp from the 10^th-16^th century. The researchers relate those Antwerp items to textile production. Far from being lucets, as I already said, I think knowing more about those tools could give valuable insights into all those two-pronged artifacts that are considered lucets.

A few museums in Northern Europe have several lucets in their collections, dating to the 18th or 19th century. Several pieces come from unknown sources or were purchased out of context, so giving them a specific date is hard. Comparing them to other tools, you could generally say they were made from the 18th century onwards.

We can also find a few lucets that were made with a lathe, by turning. One from the National Museum of Finland is dated to the middle of the 19th century. Other two examples from the Hallands konstmuseum in Halmstad (Sweden) have no date, but could be comparable to the Finnish one.

A notable lucet is one from the Hallands konstmuseum, that has several pieces but one in particular has an unfinished cord.

Among the post-Medieval lucets, the oldest one I came across is preserved at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Donated to the museum by of Mrs. A. Dean Perry in 1967, it’s made of mother-of-pearl with gold decorations, without handle nor hole.The prongs bend slightly outward at the tips. It has incisions around the golden applique, both on the front and on the back.

It’s said to come from Vienna (Austria) from 1765 and it’s part of a sewing kit which items are made from the same material.

I think it’s the most exquisite and precious lucet I’ve ever seen. It’s part of a set whose items are all made of the same noble materials: a sewing box with extractable drawer, bobbins, a needle case, scissors, paper knives, pencil, thimble… Unfortunately, it’s not on display at the moment.

The first lucet we made ourselves

Nowadays, when you see a lucet during a Medieval reenactment event, it’s usually lyre-shaped two-pronged and made of wood. It has a central hole just below the two prongs and can have a handle or not.

Looking at the few finds we have that are considered lucets, it seems that the most common shape during the Middle Ages, though, is of a bone tube with two prongs on one side, usually also a bigger third one. As you weave the braid, it goes inside the tube and comes out from the other opening.

If you live in a Medieval (or even Prehistoric household, I could venture) and need to make a two-pronged tool for braiding from the materials you have at hand, not needing a durable instrument, animal bones are convenient. Their shape provides a comfortable grip, they are readily available with no further effort after a meal, you can carve out two prongs and begin lucetting in no time. If the lucet breaks, you can just make a new one easily and quickly.

Also the antler lucets, like the one from the Yorkshire Museum, could be easy to make: the antlers provide two ready-to-use prongs, if you need a hole you can just cut it, but it’s not mandatory. Their shape is closer to the one we are accustomed to in modern times. Considering those specific York artifacts, I doubt they could be handy to use, though: the two prongs diverge too much and curve outwards, weaving the thread on them would be hard and uncomfortable in my opinion. I could agree with the experts who identified them with pendants, considering that they are decorated and that the evidence of wear around the holes could suggest they were was intended for suspension.

Well, the debate about ancient lucets is not settled yet.

Somebody states that none of the so-called lucets from archaeological sites has been unmistakably proven to be used for cordmaking. There are other techniques to make braids with a square section, other than using a two-pronged item.

Also, if the use of the lucet was common, even though with a disposable tool, somebody argued that there should be a single common shape. If it was a videly used tool, sooner or later the population using it would select a comfortable shape and use only that. We have to say that, even if we agreed on all those artifacts being lucets, we have few finds to give a useful statistic about the most common shape in a certain period and place. Our knowledge stops where the archaeological evidence stops, unfortunately, and we can’t consider the samples we have to be representatives to draw unmistakable conclusions.

I suppose the current distribution of artifacts (for what I know to date) reflects the sensitivity of researchers on the matter. In Viking areas of Northern Europe, maybe because of the recent studies on the Lund inscription, the possibility of the identification of a find with a lucet is more present to the excavators. Archaeologists are growing more and more aware of this possibility when they find tools with certain shapes. Going on in making a list of all the tools with the characteristics I dscribed here could be useful as a help in finding more evidences, being them pro or against the lucet theory.

Looking at the finds I was able to come to, I see that the so-called lucets have three macro-groups of shapes, the first two in use in the Medieval times (a variation of the same kind), the third one in the modern era:

• a hollow tube with two prongs at one end (with the Tyrol variation to be considered, where the tool is not hollow from end to end)
• a hollow tube with three prongs at one end, two smaller on one side and one bigger (I don’t consider the Dutch tools with three equal prongs)
• a flat two-pronged item, with or without a handle, with or without a hole

Loads of questions, now. Why three prongs? Maybe the bigger one was just a decoration of some sort, or it helped the weaving in a way we didn’t discover yet. Or it wasn’t a cordmaking instrument in the first place. Is there a relation between those objects and the bone tridents that came out of other archaeological sites, like the Dutch fortress of Oost-Souburg? Why, if those ancient tools are indeed lucets, after the Midle ages there was such a drastic change in the tool shape? Is that related to the lack of finds for a few centuries?

Another point came out while discussing with a reenactor. Compared to other braiding techniques, like fingerloop braiding, for which we have enough evidences, lucet is suited to make endlessly long cords. With fingerloop you need to pre-cut your thread, and even with long yarns you’d need more than one person to produce long braids, going beyond the length of one weaver’s leg. Would they need really long laces with the elasticity that lucetted ones can give during the Middle ages? I don’t have an answer for that. Yes, fingerlooping has a long tradition and is well tested. Somebody argues, why the need of lucetting, and of a specific tool besides your fingers?

Also, comparing fingerloop braiding to lucetting you see that the former is well documented also in images or written resources, while the latter is not.

So, the conclusions we can draw now are… unconclusive. Are all those finds lucets or something else? Both options could be true, considering the evidence we have at the moment. Also, some of the so-called lucets could be used for cordmaking, others not.

The problem is, in my opinion, that we could settle this debate forever only if we came accross an unmistakable evidence of such an artifact being a lucet. If we found a site with a tool that has the unfinished cord attached, for example, that would be definitive proof.

To disprove instead the existence and use of such lucets in a specific era, we should find a comparable item in another context of use. But if they are just broken bones that remained from a meal, or pendants, or decorative objects, or fishing tools, or whatever, we’d never know for sure, considering the actual contexts we have now.

So, we still have to research about the matter, and that’s what I love about archaeological research: it never really ends. Indeed, it’s for this reason that I got involved in studying the history of those tools that somebody called lucets. Be sure, my research doesn’t stop here! I hope to come back again soon with news.