Since the publication of Dominique Cardon’s thesis ( “La Draperie au Moyen âge”, “Cloth manufacturing in the Middle Ages”) in 1999, and of the results of the excavations of early mediaeval dwellings in the Ile de France region ( “Un village au temps de Charlemagne”, “A village in the days of Charlemagne”, 1988), it has been generally admitted among archaeologists that in the Carolingian Period, “pit dwellings” showing three wedging holes are related to a type of vertical weaving loom with two poles backed by a strut .This hypothesis is called into question by the study of the “pit dwellings” excavated at Goudelancourt-lès-Pierrepont (département of the Aisne) in a housing sector (sector number 3), dug in 1997-2001, and by the experimentation carried out in the Archaeological Park at Marle (2008).
In addition, the discovery in a “pit dwelling”, again at Goudelancourt-lès-Pierrepont, of what may have been the frame of a horizontal weaving loom coming after a weaving loom with three wedging holes, might suggest, should other examples be discovered, that the horizontal weaving looms may have first appeared in France around the end of the 9th century, or perhaps at the beginning of the 10th century.