Ostrich wool and fraudulent practices
Fraud was a major concern for merchants and private buyers alike throughout the mediaeval and early modern eras. With no overarching national or international bodies to check on the conformity of products to expected standards, it fell to local authorities to police such matters. Maintaining the accepted weights and measures was of particular importance and these were often made available to all by providing gauges often carved in stone. These indicated size or volume and to facilitate use, these standards were often placed in or next to churches that were close to marketplaces and fairs.
Late-mediaeval hollowed out stone for measuring volume in front of the church of Saint-Cirq-Lapopie and the fifteenth-century standard for mâconnais tiles in the church of Notre-Dame of Cluny.
However, such measures were often insufficient. In the Renaissance, fraud took on many guises and could be difficult to identify. There are well-documented instances that involved the falsification of papers, replicating coins with base metals, or imitating the producer’s mark in order to sell at a higher price.1 Fraudsters in such cases were playing for particularly high stakes. The punishment for such crimes was generally death.2
More often than not, however, fraudulent practices were of a less spectacular nature. Everyday commerce in the sixteenth century was littered with cases of sellers offering wares that were either inferior in quality or intentionally misrepresented.3 Unscrupulous merchants sought to maximise their profits with, then as today, buyers always on the lookout for good deals. This gave swindlers a chance to con naïve customers with attractive, but flawed, products.
The anthropomorphised figure of Fraud holding fishing rods that entice men to make mistakes, as the fool beneath her hands over his wealth. Detail of an engraving by Dirck Volckertsz. Coornhert after a design by Willem Thibaut (Antwerp: Hieronymus Cock, second half of 16th c.) Rijksmuseum, RP-P-BI-6555X.
This was true when goods were sold retail, but it was also the case when they were sold wholesale. In a commercial system that depended heavily on intermediaries to ship goods across countries and continents, there was a whole string of people trying to benefit from the sale of the same merchandise as it moved from its place of production to its point of retail.4 An instance of wholesale fraud detected in Rouen in the second half of the sixteenth century shows us how these were detected, confirmed and reported.
In the late Autumn of 1571, a local merchant, Jean Lequesne, became convinced that he had been sold some poor-quality goods. Lequesne was described as an ‘espicier’, literally a spice-seller, though in practice they often had a wider brief – Cotgrave in his 1611 dictionary also translates the term as ‘grocer’ or ‘drug-seller’.5 Certainly, it was a well-respected trade. He had, he thought, been sold a bad consignment of what was characterised as ‘ostrich wool’.
Engraving of an ostrich and putti by the anonymous ‘Master of the Die’, after Raphael, (Rome: Antoine Lafréry, mid 16th century), British Museum, V,5.164.
Ostriches were well-known in Renaissance Europe. Their natural habitat in Africa was described by travellers and, more importantly for most people, their eggs and feathers were collected as precious items by the richest members of society and had been for centuries.6 In the mid-fourteenth century, no lesser figure than Edward Plantagenet, the Black prince, had chosen ‘sable, three ostrich feathers with scrolls argent’ as a heraldic device for his ‘shield for peace’ which was included on his tomb in Canterbury Cathedral. The feathers followed trans-Saharan camel routes through Africa before being shipped over to Europe, becoming increasingly plentiful in the sixteenth century.7
Contemporaries were well-aware, therefore, that ostriches were unable to furnish what would rightly be considered wool. In reality, it was meant to be ostrich down taken from the neck, belly, and under the wings of the bird, if the article of the _Encyclopédie_ is to be believed. It would have been a subsidiary product of lesser value than the eggs and feathers that were destined for a more luxury use – even if increasing supply made them available at lower prices during the early modern period.
Hat with ostrich feathers, detail of an engraving by Lucas van Leyden, ca 1520, Rijksmuseum, RP-P-OB-1773
That Lequesne was involved in the commerce of ostrich wool is interesting: it suggests that the intermediary merchants could have been the same as those who imported the spices that where his stock-in-trade. That he thought that he might have been duped into acquiring low quality goods suggests that he dealt in them enough to detect problems. He confronted his provider, another Rouen merchant named Pierre Jouenne. As their disagreement continued after some initial exchanges, Jouenne called on some colleagues to settle the debate: two hatmakers were asked to check independently the quality of the wool.
Their involvement in this case was related to one of the main uses of such material. To make the felt of hats, hatmakers around Rouen were known to use ostrich wool right into the eighteenth century, though they seem to have often substituted goat or camel hair, or employed weaving techniques to imitate ostrich.8 This variety has led to some scholarly debate, with some authors suggesting that ostrich wool was in fact never worked into the fabric of hats.9 But our document does suggest they were using it: they were called in as expert witnesses over and above merchants of other trades. Local knowledge in hat-making was particular strong, as is suggested by the proximity of town of Caudebec-en-Caux, a few miles west down the Seine, which was so famous for its output that felt hats became known as ‘Caudebecs’.
Stain-glass window representing a procession in Caudebec, ca 1520, attributed to Arnold van Nijmegen, Church of Notre-Dame de Caudebec-en-Caux.
In any case, the hatters went to Lequesne’s home where they were led into a ground floor room where he kept a half-bale of ostrich wool that he had acquired from Jouenne. After checking the quality of its contents, the concluded that it did not meet expected standards, described as neither ‘loyal nor merchant’ to use contemporary wording. They explained that a number of the strands were foul and rotten and no longer usable. They further identified the presence of what they termed ‘moyelle’, probably a form of the word ‘moelle’, that referred to pith found in the core of some plants with hollow stalks. This had been mixed into the duvet, filling out the ostrich wool with cheap produce to con the unwary buyer.
Once this verdict pronounced, they were then led to another house, this time on the street of Beautiful Women (‘rue des belles femmes’) in an adjacent parish, to inspect a similar half-bale from the same consignment sold by Jouenne. There, they reached the same conclusions: the goods were in poor condition and strands of cheap wool had been interspersed to increase both weight and volume. In other words, in both cases, the merchant had been swindled and had unknowingly bought sullied products.
‘La rue au [sic] belles femmes’ in Jacques Le Lieur’s _Le cours de la Fontaine de Yonville_ , (1526), digitised for Rotomagus.
One of the goals of the inspection of these bales was to pacify the situation and, having declared their findings, they sought a solution to compensate the injured party. They estimated that the financial prejudice represented the considerable sum of 25 _livres tournois_ for the first half bale – at a rate of 5 _livres_ per hundred local pounds-mass (the equivalent of around 51,65 kg), whilst for the second half bale, that was in an even poorer state, this compensation rose to 6 _livres_ per hundred pounds-mass. In other words, the process resulted in a substantial refund, a settlement that satisfied Lequesne.
Jouenne, on the other hand, found himself seriously out of pocket. Such a large repayment must have wiped out any profit he might have made from selling on the half-bales. It was Jouenne and not Lequesne who requested that the notaries register officially the result of the inspection. This allowed him in turn to pursue the wholesaler who had provided the goods in the first place. The name of the culprit? He is identified as ‘Adrien Bourmense’, a merchant from the Low Countries. This is undoubtedly a Gallicised form of the Dutch name Adriaan Bormans, a name which appears to be connected to Amsterdam.10
Signatures of Jouenne, the wholesale merchant, as well as Le Maistre and de Planes, the hatters.
Such international connections were far beyond the jurisdiction of Normandy’s courts, highlighting a heavy reliance on trust in the development of trade networks. While Jouenne may have sought (and perhaps even secured) compensation from Bormans, the case illustrates that, in the Renaissance, importing high-value goods like ostrich wool involved taking considerable risks.
The original document, dated 12 November 1571, is to be found in the Archives Départementales de la Seine-Maritime in Rouen under pressmark 2E1/893. Here is a transcription of the document:
_« Nous Guillaume de Plasnes et Mathieu Le Maistre, aucuns maistres du mestier de chapellier en ceste ville de Rouen, certiffions à tous qu’il apartiendra que ce jourdhuy lundy xii me jour de novembre mil v c soixante et unze à la requeste et presence de sire Pierres Jouenne, marchant demeurant audit Rouen, nous sommes transportez en la maison de Jehan Lequesne, marchant espicier demeurant en ceste dite ville pour veoir et visiter certaine balle de layne d’autruche quy estoit discordable entre eulx pour raison que ledit Lequesne disoyt n’est loyalle ne marchande._
_Et estans en une salle basse de ladite maison nous a esté monstrée une demye balle de layne d’autruche que ledit Jouenne avoit vendue audit Lequesne et dont ledit Le Quesne et Jouenne sont demeurez d’accord et ayant quelle layne veu et visité avons trouvé qu’elle n’estoit conforme l’une à l’aultre et y en avoit de viciage et pourrye et en grand nombre de locquestz quy seroient laynes qui avoient esté ramassez ensemble_
_Et par semblable y avoit de la moyelle meslée parmy ladite layne, en quoy y auroit grand interest et neanmoins pour metre d’accord lesdites parties avons lymitté et moderé ledit interest de ladite layne à la somme de vingt cinq livres tournois quy seront cent solz ou envyron pour chacun cent d’autant que ladite balle peult poyser cinq cens ou envyron._
_Et oultre ledit Jouenne nous a faict transporter en une salle assize en la rue des Belles femmes parroisse Saint Andrieu auquel dict avoir veu une aultre demye balle de layne d’autruche que ledit Jouenne disoyt luy avoir esté envoyé de part un nommé Adrien Bourmense, marchant flamen, laquelle avons trouvé fort vicieuse et qu’il y avoit de la layne qui n’est bonne ne loyalle ains meslée en partye de pourye et aultre partye en locquestz et fort grosse layne et à noz advis et consciences qu’il y a dommaige et intherest de six livres et plus pour chacun cent poysant de ladite layne pour le present_.
_Et tout ce que dessus certiffions estre vray dont ledit Jouenne nous a requis la presente que avons signée de noz saings cy mis l’an et jour dessusdits. »_
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1. See, for instance, the exhibition ‘Faux et faussaires du Moyen âge à nos jours’, currently at the Archives Nationales in Paris and the accompanying catalogue. [↩]
2. See, in particular, the different cases discussed in Olivier Poncet (ed.), _Juger le faux : Moyen âge, Temps modernes_ (Paris, École nationale des chartes, 2011). [↩]
3. See the essays in Philip Lavender and Matilda Amundsen Bergström (eds), _Faking It! The Performance of Forgery in Late Medieval and Early Modern Culture _(Leiden: Brill, 2023). [↩]
4. This system is described for the sale of books in Malcolm Walsby, _Le commerce du livre imprimé dans la France de la Renaissance_ (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2025) pp. 99-138. [↩]
5. Randle Cotgrave, _A Dictionarie of the French and English tongues_ (London: Adam Islip, 1611) STC 5830, Lliijr. [↩]
6. For a short history of ostrich feathers in Europe, see Una Roman D’Elia, _Raphael’s Ostrich_ (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015), pp. 13-33. [↩]
7. See Ulinka Rublack, ‘Befeathering the European: The Matter of Feathers in the Material Renaissance’, _The American Historical Review_ , CXXVI (2021), pp. 19-53, especially pp. 24-26 & 42-43. [↩]
8. Rublack, _op. cit._ , p. 34. [↩]
9. In Jean-Antoine Nollet, _L’art de faire les chapeaux_ (Paris: s.n., 1765), the author suggests that was goat (p. 5), though the early work by Jacques Savary des Bruslons, _Dictionnaire universel du commerce_ (Paris: Jacques Estienne, 1723), asserts it was ostrich (vol. 1, col. 203) – something repeated in the _Encyclopédie_. Georges Dubosc in a short article ‘Les ‘Caudebecs’ de Caudebec’, _Journal de Rouen_ (3 juillet 1922) pp. 1-5 said that he identified camel hairs (see Zanola, Maria Teresa ‘Le feutre, du Caudebec au Borsalino: hommage au Chapeau’, in Marco Modenesi, Maria Benedetta Collini, and Francesca Paraboschi (eds), _« La grâce de montrer son âme dans le vêtement » Scrivere di tessuti, abiti, accessori. Studi in onore di Liana Nissim_ (Milano: Ledizioni: 2015), pp. 433-447. [↩]
10. See, for instance, the marriage of an Adriaan Bormans on 25 October 1608 recorded in the Amsterdam City Archives. [↩]
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OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
Malcolm Walsby (January 22, 2026). Ostrich wool and fraudulent practices. _Renaissances: archives and discoveries_. Retrieved January 23, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/15jqm
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