Cynthia asked on the facebook group Evangelical Church of Distaff Spinning how to use a distaff in a belt. I was heading to AROW, a relaxed re-enactors’ only weekend held by the Abbey Museum of Art and Archaeology ahead of the main Living history season and their Abbey Medieval Festival, so I thought it would be easier to do a quick video. Because there is no public here it meant I could set up my camera to take the video.
15thcenturyspinning
Using experimental archaeology to learn 15th century spinning techniques
15thcenturyspinning 
A helpful video indeed.
But I have a question, which I hope you can answer due to your better aquaintance with the matter: do you know, if cage distaffs are supposed to be wrong for medieval times ? I read somewhere (I can’t find that page) that cage distaffs are supposed to be later than medieval, but I never found any types of distaffs described for medieval times. And I wonder, if the really aren’t period, given that making a cage distaff out of a branch with its top twigs is pretty simple (I made mine of privet branches).
Sorry, if this is in the wrong place, but I don’t know, where to put questions.
Thanks,
Nathalie
Hi Nathalie, I don’t recall seeing any cage distaffs before 16th century. I have a lot of images on my pinterest page https://au.pinterest.com/kathelynea/spinning-research/ if you wanted to look and see what you find.