Shelagh wrote:
Yes, I've seen references to Roman rigid heddles, and medieval ones, but no references to Viking age ones. I'm pretty sure that people were making woven bands then: would they perhaps have used heddle sticks and leashes?
One possibility is that such narrow bands could have been woven on warp-weighted looms, or on narrow upright looms such as the Oseberg "sprang" loom. Certainly the weaving of narrow bands for legwrappers (at about 10cm wide) in that period in northern Europe was evidently a warp-weighted loom process. There might even have been narrow wwlooms for just such usages. If the Oseberg hangings were woven on the "sprang" loom, as some experts think, then they must have had some method for achieving the tabby shed evident in the ground weave--perhaps using a shed stick and a single shaft with heddles.
Carolyn
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