Not to be confused with felting, the same process, but of loose fibers, not woven cloth, and boiled wool, for knitted cloth. Waulking could be done with the bear paw meat and feet.

In Medieval Europe, it was done in water-powered fulling mills. After the industrial revolution, coal and electric power were used. Removing the oils encourages felting, and the cloth is pounded to clean it and to encourage the fibers to felt, so in practice the processes overlap. Urine was so important to the fulling business that it was taxed in Ancient Rome. By the medieval period, fuller’s earth had been introduced for use in the process.

This is a soft clay-like material occurring naturally as an impure hydrous aluminium silicate. Worked through the cloth, it absorbs oils and dirt. It was used in conjunction with wash. More recently, soap has been used. This was vital in the case of woollens, made from carded wool, but not for worsted materials made from combed wool. Manual trampling, drawing after an Ancient Roman fresco in the Fullonica of Stephanus, Pompeii.

A fullonica is a fullery and laundry shop. Originally, fulling was carried out by the pounding of the woollen cloth with a club, or the fuller’s feet or hands. In Roman times, fulling was conducted by slaves working the cloth while ankle deep in tubs of human urine. Scotland, then are rather remote and un-industrialized region, retained manual methods into the 17-hundreds. In Scottish Gaelic tradition, this process was accompanied by waulking songs, which women sang to set the pace.

Fulling cloth by letting a waterfall agitate it. Model of a falling-stock machine, showing the set of hammers that drop in sequence to pound the cloth in the vats below. From the medieval period, the fulling of cloth was often done in a water mill, known as a fulling mill, a walk mill, or a tuck mill, and in Wales, a pandy. They appear to have originated in 9th or 10th century in Europe. The earliest known reference to a fulling mill in France, which dates from about 1086, was discovered in Normandy. The mills beat the cloth with wooden hammers, known as fulling stocks or fulling hammers. The stock had a tub holding the liquor and cloth.