THE HISTORY OF ROPEMAKING

1. Hand twisting/braiding;
2. Simple mechanical advantage tools;
3. Compound mechanical tools;
4. Power machinery

     The beginning of rope making is lost in prehistory, but there are evidences of rope being made as far back as 17,000 BC These early ropes were twisted by hand or braided. The earliest indication of any type of mechanical advantage in making rope comes from early Egyptian evidence relating to the craft.

     According to Emily Teeter (Teeter 1987, 71-77) the Egyptians used a weighted rope tied to a stick to make rope. The rope to be made was tied to the weighted rope that was spun around the stick. The spinning imparted a twist to the strand. Three twisted strands would then be twisted together in the opposite direction. The idea that the ropes were made using a weighted rope came from inscriptions. In reality, this type of a system will not work. It is likely that the inscriptions were of a static material such as a weighted wooden dowel, paddle, etc. The dowels may have been carved to represent rope. A static method does work well, although it will not make long rope. This is very similar to the method used by the Southwest Indians in America about 1,000 AD.

     In the Middle Ages (from the thirteenth century to the eighteenth century), from the British Isles to Italy, rope was made using a "rope walk" method. This allowed for long ropes of up to 300 yards long or longer to be made (Sanctuary 1996, 7-13; Lane 1932, 830-847). Short ropes are useless on tall ships which require ropes to be long, relatively uniform in diameter, and strong. Short ropes would require splicing to make them long. The strongest form of splicing is the short splice, which doubles the diameter of the rope at the area of the splice. This would cause problems in the rigging hardware such as buckles and pulleys.

     The actual history of the rope making industry in medieval times is very scant, to say the least. One of the most comprehensive works on the history of rope, ROPE a history of the Hard Fibre Cordage Industry in the United Kingdom, has very little to say about the craft during this time period. "In 1393 we have a representation of the first stage of ropemaking-that of spinning the yarn-taken from the Mandelshes Portrait Buch in Nuremburg. So little difference from what was practiced for the next five hundred years in Europe is shown that this may serve as a text for a fairly full description of the art during the period indicated. (Tyson, 7). The first real improvement in the craft came with an invention in 1792 called the Cordelier. (Tyson, 8).

     From The Story of Rope, published by the Plymouth Cordage Company, we learn that, "Coming down to more recent times we find that rope-making had been going on for centuries with probably very little change, up to the time of the introduction of machinery and the establishment of the factory system." (Plymouth 1931, 19).

     Finally, "Yarns, twines and ropes can be made by machine nowadays, but the ropemakers of older days were accustomed to making all of these in a walk. The principal of the walk is that yarns are stretched out between revolving hooks, often 300 yards apart, and these hooks twist the yarns together…."

     "The layout of a medieval town like Bridport lends itself well to family rope or twine walks because of the long narrow alleys which stretch back from the main streets…a man would make twine and small ropes in the alleys off the main street with the help of his son, who turned a wheel to revolve the hooks. For many years after the introduction of local factories the walk method continued: indeed the last Bridport walk closed down only in 1970." (Sanctuary 1996, 9).

SIMPLE MECHANICAL ADVANTAGE

     Simple mechanical advantage comes from the use of some type of tool, which results in one twist in a strand/rope for one twist in the device. The Egyptian and Southwest Indian methods are examples of simple mechanical advantage.

     A tool more useful to longer rope making would be the simple JACK (Pictures 1-4). This tool will make longer ropes than the Egyptian or Native American Indian devices. However, it will take some time to accomplish this feat. The beauty of this system is that the simple jack could be made cheaply from wood and soft iron, something almost anyone would have had access to even in medieval towns such as BRIDPORT.

     Some of the more complex rope jacks may also be simple advantage machines. "In the days of hand-made rope a great quantity of 'small stuff' was wanted aboard ship, which could have been easily supplied by the ropewalks ashore, but was more cheaply produced aboard ship by the sailors themselves. Many ships carried small ropemaker's winches for the purpose." (Ashley 1944, 549). Many of these small winches were geared 1:1 since the rope being made was relatively short (less than 100 feet).

COMPOUND MECHANICAL ADVANTAGE

     Compound mechanical advantage allows for multiple twisting of the strands/rope for each turn of the tool. The multiple compound mechanical tool used to make rope using the "rope walk" method is also called a JACK (Sanctuary 1996, 10). The strands of the rope and then the rope itself is made when the wheel man turns the main wheel of the jack which causes the hooks to spin by means of either a pulley system or by means of a geared system (Sanctuary 1996, 10).

     The earliest of the compound JACKS were probably made using a pulley system. The early jacks appear to have had a large center wheel, much like a wagon wheel. Every village had a wheelwright, and such a center wheel would have been easy to come by. Around the large center wheel there was a leather or rope belt that was used to link the large wheel to smaller wheels at the top of the jack (Pictures 5-8; Sanctuary 1996, 8). As the center wheel was revolved once, the top smaller wheels would turn at a ratio of from 3 to 8 times to one. This would allow for the twisting of the strands and rope in a much faster manner than the simple advantage tools. However, make no mistake, the time needed to string out the yarn and to twist (or lay) the yarn into strands and then into rope would still take a long time.

     Toward the end of the Middle Ages/Renaissance the pulley machines were replaced by geared machines. The gearing has a major advantage over the pulley machines in that gears do not slip, do not require adjustment of the pulleys, and do not suffer broken pulley belts. However, the gearing also required a more careful fitting, and the jack gains significantly in weight. The weight can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how portable one wishes the jack to be. In the medieval period, portability was not an important factor, and the weight of the jack (especially the flywheel) probably worked in favor of the wheel turner.

     The epitome of the rope jack would probably be represented in the rope making tools at the beginning of the 19th Century (1800 AD). The large iron rope jack used at Bridport, England at that time had complex planetary gearing connecting the fly wheel to five spinning hooks which were used to make up to a five strand rope. However, normally only three of the hooks would have been used (Sanctuary 1996, 10-13). A three-strand rope is stronger than a four or more stranded rope of the same diameter.

     In the late 1800s through the 1930s manufacturers in the United States adapted the large professional jacks of the period (and earlier periods) and miniaturized them for individual use. These same rope making machines were generally less than a foot in diameter and had gear ratios of only about 3 or 4 to 1. However, they were perfect for farmers and ranchers. Being portable and being able to take advantage of cheap hemp twine, the farmers/ranchers were able to make rope when and where they needed it, and they were able to tailor it to their own specifications. Such machines were generally made of cast iron. They could make rope in excess of 100 feet long and up to an inch or more in diameter. These machines were so well made that they are often still found in antique stores.

     The beauty of these machines or similar machines which might be made today is that they replicate exactly (although in a more compact package) the way rope was made in the medieval times down through about 1970 when the last Bridport rope walk closed (ibid. 9).

     HEMP (Cannabis sativa) has been the traditional material for rope making since at least Roman times. Hemp was replaced in about 1830 by Manila in maritime usage for the simple reason that it did not have to be tarred as hemp did to resist salt water. The variety of hemp used was and still is industrial hemp, which grows from 10 to 15 feet in height. It is not good for smoking since it does not contain enough THC to produce any kind of a high. It will however, give one a powerful headache.

     The bast fibers of the hemp stalk is what is used for both rope and cloth manufacture (including canvas). The following chart shows the relative strength of natural fibers used in cordage making from Roman times to the present and where the cordage was used (with a comparison with nylon for informational purposes).

COMMON NAME	PART USED	STRENGTH*	STRETCH
FLAX (Europe)	Bast	6.5 Gr/denier	1.8%
JUTE (India)	Bast	2.0 Gr./denier	1.7%
HEMP(Europe/Asia)	Bast	6.5 Gr./denier	1.8%
SISAL (Americas)	Leaf	4.5 Gr./denier	1.0%
ABACA(Manila Philippines)	Leaf	5.2 Gr./denier	4.0%
NYLON (About 1937)	Polyamide	8.0 Gr./denier	20%
*The strength of cords and rope is technically measured in grams/denier which is an old silk measure (Sanctuary 1996, 4).

     Suffice it to say that the fiber of choice for all rope during the medieval period and up to about 1830 was hemp. After 1830 manila was used in applications that involved sea or salt water. Up until 1937 hemp was preferred for all land use ropes and for canvas.

GUILDS

     There is good evidence, although scanty that there was a guild of ropemakers in London at least as early as 1328. The record shows that in that year five men were elected and sworn to govern the "ministry of Corders." (Tyson, 49). There was a guild and guildhall in Bridport, England as well. However, we are not sure how early it dates.

     Outside of England the ropemakers guilds seem to have existed as evidenced by the Tana of Venice, Italy. "The hemp-spinners of Venice were all members in their craft guild whether they worked in shops of their own or in the Tana.…Therefore, craftsmen who worked outside were in much the same situation as the masters working in the Tana, in that they also did not own the material on which they worked (the hemp) and were paid by the piece." (Lane, 839).

     It must be mentioned that the Tana was a rope factory owned and operated by the Venetian Republic. It was established in 1303 and existed for some five hundred years. It appears that, "The state had not faith enough in human nature to let this rope-maker go unwatched. For the sake of supervising him, it became involved in a manufacturing venture which might otherwise have been left to private enterprise." (ibid., 831).

     One would think that this government supervision would lead to difficulties between the government and the rope guild, especially since "the conditions of apprenticeship were dictated by the authorities of the Tana." (ibid., 841). Whatever the case, it still appears that the biggest problem of the Venetian ropemaker was obtaining the hemp needed to produce the rope. There seems to have been some type of merchant monopoly or cartel relating to hemp. (ibid., 834).

     Places such as Bridport, England seem to have escaped some of this problem because the area around the town was a good hemp growing area. Also, merchants in the Steel Yard, London, where rope is first mentioned as being made in 1362, were free to have "monopolies in many directions, and were in a position to charge what they liked." (Tyson, 3). This allowed for stronger guilds, the maintenance of trade secrets, and a process allowing competition when inventions were made making the process easier, quicker, or the product better. And, indeed, England was the land of the major innovations in rope making beginning in about 1792.

THE MANUFACTURING PROCESS

     Written materials covering the rope-making process during the period of the rope walks are very difficult to obtain. The bibliography at the end of this paper lists all articles and books I was able to lay my hands on even through an extensive inter-library loan process through the UNLV library and an extensive Internet search. None of these books or papers showed pictures or diagrams of the actual machines used between 1100 AD and 1600 AD. About the best description of the process comes from Sanctuary. "At one end of the rope walk is the jack. This is a frame at waist height fitted with three hooks pointing along the walk. A crank handle and either gear wheels or a drive wheel and pulley belt rotates the hooks. At the lower end of the walk is a freely swiveling hook which can be drawn part way along the walk as the rope contracts during the making." (Sanctuary 1996, 10).

     In fact, in England, "The complexity of the work [of rope making] is probably the reason why the State was the only builder of ships to make its own cordage. Private shipbuilders would not be saddled with operations involving 1,000 ft. long ropewalks and the attendant apparatus, which included tar-kettles houses and tar cellars, as most naval rope had to be tarred to preserve it from the effects of sea water." (Tyson, 5).

     In the medieval rope walk days, rope making consisted of four parts:

1. Preparing the hemp for spinning;
2. Spinning the hemp into yarn;
3. Forming the yarns into strands; and
4. Laying the strands into rope.

     For ease of use and for transportability factors, the rope guild uses simple wood and steel jacks and geared rope jacks, which have the strand forming spinning hooks situated around the central large gear. A true medieval rope jack would have had a central gear at least 20 inches in diameter with all of the gears at the top of the central gear. Such a machine would be much too heavy to transport and set up for demonstrations. The portable machines used by the guild perform just as the medieval jacks would have except on a smaller scale. Thus, the guild does not make 1,000-foot ropes. It can, however, make ropes of up to about 200 feet in length.

     In its demonstrations, the guild uses sisal twine or yarn to allow young people to make ropes and keep the ropes they make. This is due to the fact that sisal is inexpensive compared to hemp, and the guild likes to make this activity available to the youths that attend the events free of charge. So far, we have received a lot of favorable comments about this activity, and it seems to be popular with the younger attendees.

COLORS

     The guild will make ropes of any color that was available to the dyers of the Middle Ages. In fact, the guild does use a scarlet thread to identify ropes it makes. The use of such identifying colored thread was common during the period of the ropewalks. However, it only became mandatory in 1664 that a colored yarn (called a "Rogue's Yarn") be spun "into every Government-made rope, a different colour being allotted to each yard." (Tyson, 5).

     The guild has chosen a red or scarlet yarn as its symbol for two reasons:

1. This is one of the oldest colors known. It was mentioned in the Bible, in the book of Exodus.
2. In 1464, Pope Paul II introduced this color as "Cardinals' Purple" even though it was actually a red-scarlet color made from the same insect as the dye mentioned in Exodus.

Ashley, Clifford W., 1944. The Ashley Book of Knots. Doubleday, division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. New York, New York.

Lane, Frederic Chapin, 1932. The Rope Factory and Hemp Trade of Venice in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, Journal of Economic and Business History, Vol. 4 No. 4 Suppl. (August 1932).

Plymouth Cordage Company, 1931. The Story of Rope; The History and the Modern Development of Rope-Making. Plymouth Cordage Company, North Plymouth, Mass.

Sanctuary, Anthony, 1996. Rope, Twine and Net Making. Shire Publications Ltd., Cromwell House, Princess Risborough, Buckinghamshire.

Teeter, Emily, 1987. Techniques and Terminology of Rope-Making in Ancient Egypt, Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, Vol. 73 (1987).

Tyson, William, no date. Rope, a History of the Hard Fibre Cordage Industry in the United Kingdom. Wheatland Journals, Ltd., London

A model of a simple rope jack showing the jack, top, free turning hook and rope being produced.	A simple rope jack showing the bent metal rods and wooden handle used to rotate them.
Simple rope jack illustrating the free turning hook with handle, the top which separates the strands and allows the rope to form behind it, and the jack proper	The simple rope jack model from the top, showing the twisted strands formed by the turning hooks on the jack and the rope forming behind the egg-shaped top.
* * * * * * * *
A picture of a compound rope jack showing the multiple hooks above the flywheel.	A top-down picture showing the small wheels which the hooks were attached to and the hemp grommet that connected them to the larger flywheel below.
The flywheel and rope grommet of the compound rope jack.	Various stages of grommet making which forms a smooth ring with no obvious variations in diameter.