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Thanks to the enraged Protestants of the 16th Century, we know that the great ruffs of that era were dyed a rainbow of colors. According to Philip Stubbes, in his lengthy (and hilarious) polemic The Anatomie of Abuses the great monstrous Ruffes were "of all colours and hewes, as White, Redde, Blewe, Purple, and the like."
When I initially contemplated adding color to my starch I was thinking blue or yellow because those were common - blue using smalt or yellow using saffron (particularly in the early 17th Century if the frothy climax of Protestant indignation over the saffron dyed ruffs peaking around 1620 is any indication). And yet every time I talked about it with people invariably the thing people wanted to see was pink or purple ruffs. Me too!
( Yeah, it totally worked! )
When I initially contemplated adding color to my starch I was thinking blue or yellow because those were common - blue using smalt or yellow using saffron (particularly in the early 17th Century if the frothy climax of Protestant indignation over the saffron dyed ruffs peaking around 1620 is any indication). And yet every time I talked about it with people invariably the thing people wanted to see was pink or purple ruffs. Me too!
( Yeah, it totally worked! )
