For bulk soap making quite a lot of ashes are needed (and discarded) to leach good lye. Soapboiler guilds are known to have established in larger towns like Bristol, Castile and Marseille, making me wonder where does the ash come from? Using lime to calcine hearth ashes significantly boost the yield (and equally reduces waste) making ash from cooking and heating a possible source for potash, which makes soft soap as was made in Bristol. But what about soda ash? That was made from ashing barilla, a salt sequestering coastal plant, and was the ash of choice for hard soap producing area's like Castile and Marseille...
I assumed the soap boilers would buy their ingredients, like we would do now, from experienced ash makers for a quality product and dependable results (I'm speculating here...). But I had not come across any mention of transporting ash, only of the export of soap, until I came across the Journaal van Hugo en Cornelis van Ryck betreffende hun reis naar Jeruzalem (1561-1562) Hoofdstuk VI: Van Jerusalem naar Cyprus (Journal of Hugo and Cornelius van Ryck about their travels to Jerusalem, Chapter VI, From Jerusalem to Cyprus).
[4 oktober 1561]
Den IVen october hebben wy terstont beginnen tladen assche die welken coempt van Damasscho daermen glaessen van bact ende daermen seepe van maect. [55b]
[October 4, 1561]
The 4th of October we quickly started to load the ashes which comes from Damask, of which glass is baked, and soap is made. [55b]
I ran across this tidbit of information while doing a general search in the Digital Library for Dutch Literature on 'seepe', as I had just figured out what the middle Dutch word for soap would be. Research sure is fun!
For the complete text see:
http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/ryck020jour01_01/ryck020jour01_01_0010.php?q=seepe#hl1
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