Pelts and palisades: The story of fur and the rivalry for pelts in early America — Themes and Context

rld’s commerce in pelts, with the Romans reaching out not only for the far eastern trade in precious fur such as sable and ermine but into northern Europe, to Flanders and even into Scandinavia for beaver, otter and bear--and for more ermine. For ermine was becoming the garment of state wherever royalty held court, pure white ermine being held in highest esteem. Demand for this regal fur far exceeded the means of supply. Not until the Germanic hordes cycloned down from the north did the impetus of this Italian trade in fine pelts abate.

Then all trade, culture, and even most western knowledge of the world, shrank almost into oblivion. The Dark Ages settled down upon civilized Europe.

It took the impact of Mohammed’s vicious attack on Christendom and Islam’s subsequent conquests in the Mediterranean to stir the western world from its lethargy. The resulting Holy Crusades awakened curiosity about Moslem luxuries and better ways of living. Western trade was restimulated; merchants again began bidding up fine furs.

There was a new, stepped-up demand for ermine pelts by dignitaries of the Church and other nobility. Fashion came to require quantities of mantles and robes of the royal white, as whole systems of protocol on the use of ermine were established. To indicate rank on state occasions the lustrous white robes of the nobility were often decorated with the ermine’s black tail tips or the paws of the black lamb. Decrees were issued permitting peers to wear trimmings of the white fur on their scarlet gowns. And, king and judge having originated as one, it was but natural that the judiciary came to be permitted the use of white ermine as the badge of high legal dignity, of purity.

The ermine, a slim little animal of the weasel family which produces a semi-durable pelt of soft, glossy fur, is thought to have gotten its name from Armenia, a fur center in ancient times. Medieval writers often referred to the ermine as the Armenian rat. However it was the breed inhabiting the northern latitudes of Asia that was most sought after because of its snow-white fur.

In winter the live ermine’s coat ranges from creamy white in northern Europe to pure white in parts of Siberia; the tip of its tail is always black. During the summer the white fur usually darkens in varying degrees to a yellowish brown except for the underparts of the animal’s body. Medieval nobility’s choicest ermine pelts were those which were all pure white, except of course for the black tail tips. Because these came from Siberia they could be obtained only through eastern trade channels.

To make terminal contacts with these eastern channels eager Italian merchants risked their fortunes and their very lives. Eventually, like most frontier traders, they won through by individual enterprise. Commerce with the Moslems was a hazardous business however, even after two rising emporiums of Italy, Genoa and Venice, built armed navies to support it. But bartering and warring, sometimes between themselves, the Genoese and the Venetians extended their trade and their navies gained complete control of the Mediterranean, to make it once more the main western highway of Eurasian commerce.

These encounters, with the Arabs and the ancient cultures they had preserved, eventually reawakened a long dead interest in the far east too. In the thirteenth century the Venetian traveler, Marco Polo, penetrated beyond the Moslem barrier to the East, visited the Great Kublai Khan in Cathay and returned to write a wondrous tale about what he had seen in the Orient.

There was gold plate, and there were sapphires, rubies, emeralds and pearls to be had in the far eastern countries, just as the ancients had said. For proof, road-weary Marco Polo brought home with him samples of these jewels sewed in the linings of his tattered clothing. Also, in plenteous variety in the East he had found spices for seasoning and deodorizing, commodities for which all Europe yearned desperately during the middle ages.

And, Polo reported glowingly, there were silks, and priceless furs!

The clothes of the wealthy Tartars in the far east were for the most part of gold and silk stuffs, lined with costly furs, such as sable and ermine and black fox, in the richest manner. Robes of vair were much to be seen also. These consisted of hundreds of tiny Siberian squirrel pelts, the grey backs and white bellies of which were joined together checker fashion. In winter the Tartars wore two gowns of pelts, one with the soft, comforting fur inward next to their skin, and the other with the fur outward to defend them against wind and snow.