A Brief History of the Fur Trade Part 1

The Role of Beaver in the European Fur Trade

Prized for their warmth, luxurious  texture, and  the  longevity of fur as a material, furs have played a large role  in clothing people since the beginning of  human  history.  For everyday use or costume and decoration, furs  have been used for the  production of outterware such as  coats and cape, garment and shoe lining, a variety of head  coverings, and ornamental trim and trappings. 

European and Asian trade in felts and fur stretched back centuries, if not millennium.  Depending on the supply of animals, Russian, Northern Scandinavia, and Central Asia were the major supplies of this trade through the 15^th  century. Furs were supplied to the Mediterranean and Middle East through Constantinople.  This trade can be traced back to the Classical Greek and Roman periods, and through to the modern era.  In the ninth and tenth centuries, Scandinavian and Viking Rus traders traded to Northern and central Europe a variety of furs including: marten, reindeer, bear, otter, sable, ermine, black and white fox, and beaver.^[1]  There was a substantial population of the European Beaver throughout northern Europe and Siberia, until they became severely depleted in the 17^th century due to over-hunting.  

From fur pelts three primary materials used in clothing production can be derived:  the full pelt (fur and skin), leather or suede (the skin with all fur removed, and felts (removing the fur  from the pelt, and processing it with heat and pressure to  form a piece of pliable material).  Due to the strength and  malleable quality of felts, they were used extensively in hat making.  The physical structure of beaver fur predisposes it to the felting process, making it a highly desirable fur for felt production. Wool felting was known "as early as Homer and as late as Caesar, felt was used for cheap protection against arrows and as padding under heavy metal armour."^[2] It has been suggested that it was in Constantinople that wool felting techniques were first applied to beaver fur.^[3]  From there, knowledge of felting spread north, to Russia, along trade routes.  J. F. Crean suggests that wool felting likely spread to western Europe after the sack of Kiev by the Tarters in 1240, when artisans fled west.  However, beaver felting  techniques did not diffuse westward, and the beaver felting industry  remained centralized in Russia until the late 17^th century. With a monopoly on both supply and industry, the Russians developed and refined techniques for processing beaver fur.  Essential to the felting process was a step known as combing, which separated the beaver's guard hairs from the downy under wool that was desired for felts.  The careful guarding of this trade secret helped to maintain the Russian  monopoly. 

Beaver pelts could be made into either full-fur or felted-fur  hats. Evidence of felted beaver hats in western Europe can be  found in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, written in the late 14^th  century: "A MERCHANT was there with a forked beard / In motley, and high on his horse he sat, / Upon his head a Flandrish beaver hat."^[4]  Beaver hats were imported into England from Holland and Spain until the 15^th century, after which England was able to obtain beaver felts from Russia, via Holland, and manufacture the actual hats within the British Isles.

Nonetheless, George Stubbes reported in his Anatomie of  Abuses that beaver hats were sold at 40 shillings a piece  and were "fetched from beyond the sea,"^[5]  indicating that the British industry was not, or was not able, to  completely control the domestic market.

Unfortunately, due to population depletion of the European beaver, by 1600 nearly all exports of beaver fur and felts from Russia stopped.

To be continued...

Feinstein, Kelly. Fashionable Felted Fur: The Beaver Hat in 17th Century English Society.