It is my limited understanding that poor people picked apart and reused sleeves, bodice, waistband, as needed, and that "motley" was a term for the semi random assemblage of bits the poorest wore.
Death demanded ceremony which included donations of cloth to the poor, even the cere cloth used to wrap the body. A stipulated length of woolen cloth had to be used for this as part of a price support model in England for centuries.
Clothes in the v&a collection show complex woven patterns and colours. Alum trading is used as a background for Dorothy Dunnets historical fiction because of its importance in medieval die work.
https://acoup.blog/ has done a piece on the labour effort to make cloth in pre industrial times. It's huge. You'd keep the accumulated labour investment in cloth as long as possible.
Death demanded ceremony which included donations of cloth to the poor, even the cere cloth used to wrap the body. A stipulated length of woolen cloth had to be used for this as part of a price support model in England for centuries.
Clothes in the v&a collection show complex woven patterns and colours. Alum trading is used as a background for Dorothy Dunnets historical fiction because of its importance in medieval die work.
https://acoup.blog/ has done a piece on the labour effort to make cloth in pre industrial times. It's huge. You'd keep the accumulated labour investment in cloth as long as possible.
It was a store of value, indeed.-