The archaeology of the Roman fullonica

In JRA 15 (2002) 20-44, M. Bradley argued that Roman fullers were not involved in the finishing of cloth as part of the textile-manufacturing process, but acted solely as commercial laundrymen; further, he questioned the archaeological evidence used to identify fulleries. His paper contains a number of misconceptions, especially in the use of archaeological evidence.Bradley attempts to argue that Roman fullers washed clothes, both new and worn, for other people, but that they did not form part of the manufacturing or finishing process of new goods before they were sold to the customer. I am not convinced that the evidence permits this conclusion, although I agree that service cleaning was an important part of their work. The nature of the genres of literary evidence surviving from antiquity is such that most writers would be unlikely to concern themselves with the place of fulling within the operations of textile-production and finishing; they are much more likely to refer to fulling in the context of operations more directly familiar to them or their readers, that is, the commercial cleaning aspect.Bradley writes (22):Diocletian's Prices Edict, with its individual pricings, certainly does not appeal to the logic of industrial wholesale; more likely, it was customary for an individual to purchase a rude uestimentum and then to put it through a series of ‘finishing’ services of his choice which included washing (and therefore initial shrinking of the fabric), combing, bleaching, dyeing and pressing (some or all of which were offered by the fullo).