POST Rare, pure and

The UK once had a substantial wool trade. In fact, England’s medieval prosperity was founded on wool. In the 13th century there were three sheep to every man, woman and child and wool was the biggest export. At this time, the job of the “fuller” was vital. The fuller was responsible for treating the wool with urine. Officially recognised as one of the worst jobs in history, the fuller spent all day trampling wool knee-deep in barrels of stale urine. It would take a good couple of hours of urine-soaked trampling to produce decent wool. Fulling went back to ancient times, but in medieval times England needed lots of fullers and lots of urine, a story that I have told countless times at countless events to make a point about technological change.

Making another common clothing material, leather, was just as disgusting. Leather treatment needed something called “alum”. Alum is a fixing agent that was used in a number of different industrial processes, including leather and wool manufacturing. Alum was made partly of urine, but another essential ingredient was dog faeces, which in those days was known as “pure”. The pure gatherers, who had a bad job but not as bad as the fullers, were paid to collect it from the streets and even kennels.

So however much you hate your job, just remember you’re not gathering urine or dog faeces. Thanks to technology.

Anyway… the main sources of alum in medieval times were the Middle East and, after 1461, the Papal States north of Rome but these sources meant long supply chains and were susceptible to disruption. When Henry VIII rather famously disagreed with church dogma on marriage, the Papal States cut off the alum supply. This was a national catastrophe.

 

This is why England needed its own supply and why, in 1604 at, Slapewath, near Guisborough, the first successful alum works were a cause for celebration. In a generation, England was self-sufficient. The alum works needed lots of urine, so it fetched a good price. Local households sold theirs for a small payment but as demand began to outstrip supply, the urine was brought by boat from London and elsewhere.

My point is that the modern equivalent of alum are the rare earth metals used to make mobile phones. Most of these come from China, so were that supply chain to be disrupted, the economic consequences would be significant.