Interesting post, I am reminded of a story on the HFY (humanity fuck yeah) subreddit about humans and aliens. The humans become surprisingly advanced compared to the rest of the galaxy. Every other civilization gets gifted nanobots to help them with tech after they stall for too long. Humans never stalled for very long, but all the places where civilization normally stalled are places where human textile improvements drove innovation. The other alien civilizations were all naked.
One of the other underestimated aspects of textiles in the medieval era is the importance of textile armor, the gamberson. It doesn't survive in the archeological record, but all the other evidence we have points to it being very common and very important. In a society based around agriculture the primary layer of defense was grown in the fields, not mined in the mountains.
The tradition of cloth armor continues with modern Kevlar, but Kevlar comes from oil production, because of course the most important thing to fight over is also used in producing armor.
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Notes -
Interesting post, I am reminded of a story on the HFY (humanity fuck yeah) subreddit about humans and aliens. The humans become surprisingly advanced compared to the rest of the galaxy. Every other civilization gets gifted nanobots to help them with tech after they stall for too long. Humans never stalled for very long, but all the places where civilization normally stalled are places where human textile improvements drove innovation. The other alien civilizations were all naked.
One of the other underestimated aspects of textiles in the medieval era is the importance of textile armor, the gamberson. It doesn't survive in the archeological record, but all the other evidence we have points to it being very common and very important. In a society based around agriculture the primary layer of defense was grown in the fields, not mined in the mountains.
The tradition of cloth armor continues with modern Kevlar, but Kevlar comes from oil production, because of course the most important thing to fight over is also used in producing armor.
You sound like you would enjoy "the Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World" by Virginia Postrel
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