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Isatis tinctoria, also called woad (), dyer's woad, dyer's-weed, or glastum, is a flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae (the mustard family) with a documented history of use as a blue dye and medicinal plant.
Its genus name, Isatis, derives from the ancient Greek word for the plant, ἰσάτις. It is occasionally known as Asp of Jerusalem. Woad is also the name of a blue dye produced from the leaves
Woad was an important source of blue dye and was cultivated throughout Europe, especially in Western and Southern Europe. In medieval times, there were important woad-growing regions in England, Germany and France. Towns such as Toulouse became prosperous from the woad trade. Over time, woad's cultivation spread across Europe, where it was an important trade good until the 16th century when indigo, a plant from the New World, started to replace it.
Woad was eventually replaced by the more colourfast Indigofera tinctoria and, in the early 20th century, both woad and Indigofera tinctoria were replaced by synthetic blue dyes. Woad has been used medicinally for centuries. The double use of woad is seen in its name: the term Isatis is linked to its ancient use to treat wounds; the term tinctoria references its use as a dye. There has also been some revival of the use of woad for craft purposes.
Much has been made of a passage in Julius Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico () about the appearance of the Britons:
Vitrum has frequently been translated as "woad" but more typically means "glass". Experimental formulations of body paint made from woad mixed with different binders have yielded colours from "grey-blue, through intense midnight blue, to black". While many have argued that woad was used as a pigment in tattooing, experimental work has been unsuccessful due to its caustic nature. Analysis of the Cheshire bog body Lindow Man from the late Iron Age/early Roman period has revealed that Britons of the time may have used a copper- or iron-based pigment in body decoration.M. R. Cowell, P. T. Craddock (1995), "Addendum: Copper in the Skin of Lindow Man", Bog Bodies: New Discoveries and New Perspectives, British Museum Press, p. 74 f.
Woad was one of the three staples of the European dyeing industry, along with Reseda luteola (yellow) and Rubia (red). Chaucer mentions their use by the dyer ("litestere") in his poem The Former Age:
The three colours can be seen together in tapestries such as The Hunt of the Unicorn (1495–1505), though typically it is the dark blue of the woad that has lasted best. Medieval uses of the dye were not limited to textiles. For example, the illustrator of the Lindisfarne Gospels () used a woad-based pigment for blue paint. As does the late 13th century North Italian manual on book illumination Liber colorum secundum magistrum Bernardum describe its usage.
In Viking Age levels at archaeological digs at York, a dye shop with remains of both woad and Rubia have been excavated and dated to the 10th century. In medieval times, centres of woad cultivation lay in Lincolnshire and Somerset in England, Jülich and the Erfurt area in Thuringia in Germany, Piedmont and Tuscany in Italy, and Gascony, Normandy, the Somme River (from Amiens to Saint-Quentin), Brittany and, above all, Languedoc in France. This last region, in the triangle created by Toulouse, Albi and Carcassonne, known as the Lauragais, was for a long time the biggest producer of woad, or pastel, as it was locally known. One writer commented that "woad ... hath made that country the happiest and richest in Europe."
The prosperous woad merchants of Toulouse displayed their affluence in splendid mansions, many of which still stand, as the Hôtel de Bernuy and the Hôtel d'Assézat. One merchant, Jean de Bernuy, a Spanish Jew who had fled the Spanish Inquisition, was credit-worthy enough to be the main guarantor of the ransomed King Francis I after his capture at the Battle of Pavia by Charles V of Spain. Much of the woad produced here was used for the cloth industry in southern France, (2025). 9781860113604, Cadogan Guides. ISBN 9781860113604 but it was also exported via Bayonne, Narbonne and Bordeaux to Flanders, the Low Countries, Italy, and above all Britain and Spain.
After cropping the woad eddish could be let out for grazing sheep. The woad produced in Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire in the 19th century was shipped out from the Port of Wisbech, Spalding and Boston, both the last to northern mills and the USA. The last portable woad mill was at Parson Drove, Cambridgeshire, Wisbech & Fenland Museum has a woad mill model, photos and other items used in woad production. A major market for woad was at Görlitz in Lausitz. The citizens of the five Thuringian Färberwaid (dye woad) towns of Erfurt, Gotha, Bad Tennstedt, Arnstadt and Langensalza had their own charters. In Erfurt, the woad-traders gave the funds to found the University of Erfurt. Traditional fabric is still printed with woad in Thuringia, Saxony and Lusatia today: it is known as Blaudruck (literally, "blue print(ing)").
In the Marche region, the cultivation of the plant was an important resource for the Duchy of Urbino in Italy. To fully understand the importance of this industry in the State of Urbino, it is enough to read the comprehensive Chapters of the art of wool in 1555, which dictated prescriptions regarding the cultivation and trade of woad, whether in loaves or macerated (powdered).G. Luzzatto - Notizie e documenti sulle arti della lana e della seta in Urbino "Le marche" VII 1907 p.p. 185-210 Testifying to the importance that this crop had in the economy in addition to the archival documents was the identification of a hundred millstones surveyed by Delio Bischi in the province of Pesaro and Urbino, the original use of which had become completely unknown as their memory had been lost.Delio Bischi - Convegno internazionale sul Guado, Erfurt (Turingia) 3-7 Giugno 1992, Estratto da Esercitazioni dell'Accademia Agraria di Pesaro Serie 3a – Volume 24°- Anno 1992
With the development of a chemical process to synthesize the pigment, both the woad and natural indigo industries collapsed in the first years of the 20th century. The last commercial harvest of woad until recent times occurred in 1932, in Lincolnshire, Britain. Small amounts of woad are now grown in the UK and France to supply craft dyers. The classic book about woad is The Woad Plant and its Dye by J. B. Hurry, Oxford University Press of 1930, which contains an extensive bibliography.
A method for producing blue dye from woad is described in The History of Woad and the Medieval Woad Vat (1998) .
Woad is biodegradable and safe in the environment. In Germany, there have been attempts to use it to protect wood against decay without applying dangerous chemicals. Production of woad is increasing in the UK for use in , particularly for , and dyes.
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