Editing Isatis tinctoria (section)

===Medieval period onwards===
[[File:The hunt of the unicorn6.jpg|thumb|right|The tapestry series ''[[The Hunt of the Unicorn]]'' (here No.&nbsp;6: ''The Unicorn is Killed and Brought to the Castle'', {{circa|1500}}), was dyed with [[Reseda luteola|weld]] (yellow), [[Rubia|madder]] (red), and [[woad]] (blue).]]

Woad was one of the three staples of the European dyeing industry, along with [[Reseda luteola|weld]] (yellow) and [[Rubia|madder]] (red).<ref name=indigo>{{cite book|last=Balfour-Paul|first=Jenny|title=Indigo|year=2006|publisher=Archetype Publications|location=London|isbn=978-1-904982-15-9}}</ref> [[Chaucer]] mentions their use by the dyer ("litestere") in his poem ''The Former Age'':<ref>{{cite book |url=http://www.bartleby.com/258/62.html |section=The Former Age |via=Bartleby.com |editor-first=Walter W. |editor-last=Skeat |title=The Complete Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer |first=Geoffrey |last=Chaucer |date=1894}}</ref>

[[File:Schreber woad mill 1752.JPG|thumb|left|Illustration of German woad mill in Thuringia, 1752.]]
[[File:Pastel pigment cocagnes et feuilles - Muséum du pastel.jpg|thumb|left|Steps of the leaves to the blue dye.]]

:::No mader, welde, or wood no litestere
:::Ne knew; the flees was of his former hewe;

The three colours can be seen together in tapestries such as ''[[The Hunt of the Unicorn]]'' (1495–1505), though typically it is the dark blue of the woad that has lasted best. Medieval uses of the dye were not limited to textiles. For example, the illustrator of the ''[[Lindisfarne Gospels]]'' ({{circa|720}}) used a woad-based pigment for blue paint. As does the late 13th century North Italian manual on [[Illuminated manuscript|book illumination]] ''[[Liber colorum secundum magistrum Bernardum]]'' describe its usage.

In [[Viking Age]] levels at archaeological digs at [[York]], a dye shop with remains of both woad and [[Rubia|madder]] have been excavated and dated to the 10th century. In medieval times, centres of woad cultivation lay in [[Lincolnshire]] and [[Somerset]] in England, [[Jülich]] and the [[Erfurt]] area in [[Thuringia]] in Germany, [[Piedmont (Italy)|Piedmont]] and [[Tuscany]] in Italy, and [[Gascony|Gascogne]], [[Normandy]], the [[Somme River|Somme Basin]] (from [[Amiens]] to [[Saint-Quentin, Aisne|Saint-Quentin]]), [[Brittany (administrative region)|Brittany]] and, above all, [[Languedoc]] in France. This last region, in the triangle created by [[Toulouse]], [[Albi]] and [[Carcassonne]], known as the [[Lauragais]], was for a long time the biggest producer of woad, or ''pastel'', as it was locally known. One writer commented that "woad […] hath made that country the happiest and richest in Europe."<ref name="indigo"/>

<!-- [[File:Lycee-Fermat 15.JPG|thumb|Woad merchant [[Hôtel de Bernuy|Jean de Bernuy's 16th-century mansion]] in [[Toulouse]]]] -->
[[File:Bachelier - Hôtel d'Assézat - Toulouse - La cour d'honneur.jpg|thumb|Woad merchant [[Hôtel d'Assézat|Pierre Assézat's 16th-century mansion]] in [[Toulouse]].]]

The prosperous woad merchants of [[Toulouse]] displayed their affluence in splendid mansions, many of which still stand, as the [[Hôtel de Bernuy]] and the [[Hôtel d'Assézat]]. One merchant, Jean de Bernuy, a Spanish Jew who had fled the [[Spanish Inquisition]], was credit-worthy enough to be the main guarantor of the ransomed King [[Francis I of France|Francis I]] after his capture at the [[Battle of Pavia]] by [[Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor|Charles V of Spain]].<ref name="indigo"/> Much of the woad produced here was used for the cloth industry in southern France,<ref>{{cite book|first1=Michael |last1=Pauls |title=Gascony & the pyrenees |year=2007 |publisher=Cadogan Guides |location=London |isbn=978-1-86011-360-4 |edition=5th |first2=Dana |last2=Facaros |page=314}}</ref> but it was also exported via [[Bayonne]], [[Narbonne]] and [[Bordeaux]] to Flanders, the Low Countries, Italy, and above all Britain and Spain.

After cropping the woad eddish could be let out for grazing sheep.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000237/17891113/021/0002?noTouch=true|title=Keeping for sheep|newspaper=Stamford Mercury|date=13 November 1789|url-access=limited}}</ref>
The woad produced in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire in the 19th century was shipped out from the [[Port of Wisbech]],<ref>{{cite news|title=Shipping News|newspaper=Stamford Mercury|date= 11 April 1788}}</ref> [[Spalding, Lincolnshire|Spalding]] and [[Boston, Lincolnshire|Boston]],<ref>{{cite news|title=Boston Ship News|newspaper=Stamford Mercury|date=6 April 1792}}</ref> both the last to northern mills and the USA. The last portable woad mill was at [[Parson Drove]], Cambridgeshire, [[Wisbech & Fenland Museum]] has a woad mill model, photos and other items used in woad production.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Monger|first=Garry|title=Woad in the fens|journal=The Fens & Surrounding|volume=12|page=16|year=2019}}</ref>
A major market for woad was at [[Görlitz]] in Lausitz.<ref>{{cite book |first=Werner |last=Sombart |title=Der moderne Kapitalismus |edition=15th |date=1928 |volume=1 |page=[https://archive.org/details/dermodernekapita11somb/page/231 231] |publisher=München, Leipzig, Duncker & Humblot |url=https://archive.org/details/dermodernekapita11somb |url-access=registration |language=de}}</ref> The citizens of the five Thuringian ''Färberwaid'' (dye woad) towns of [[Erfurt]], [[Gotha (town)|Gotha]], [[Bad Tennstedt|Tennstedt]], [[Arnstadt]] and [[Langensalza]] had their own charters. In Erfurt, the woad-traders gave the funds to found the [[University of Erfurt]]. Traditional fabric is still printed with woad in Thuringia, [[Saxony]] and [[Lusatia]] today: it is known as ''Blaudruck'' (literally, "blue print(ing)").

In the Marche region, the cultivation of the plant was an important resource for the [[Duchy of Urbino]] in Italy. To fully understand the importance of this industry in the State of [[Urbino]], it is enough to read the comprehensive Chapters of the art of wool in 1555, which dictated prescriptions regarding the cultivation and trade of woad, whether in loaves or macerated (powdered).<ref>G. Luzzatto - Notizie e documenti sulle arti della lana e della seta in Urbino "Le marche" VII 1907 p.p. 185-210</ref> Testifying to the importance that this crop had in the economy in addition to the archival documents was the identification of a hundred millstones surveyed by Delio Bischi in the province of Pesaro and Urbino, the original use of which had become completely unknown as their memory had been lost.<ref>Delio Bischi - Convegno internazionale sul Guado, Erfurt (Turingia) 3-7 Giugno 1992, Estratto da Esercitazioni dell’Accademia Agraria di Pesaro Serie 3ᵃ – Volume 24°- Anno 1992</ref>