While wool has been used in clothing in Europe as far back as 1500BCE, the larger scale production of woolen textiles did not develop until the second millennium CE. By the 13th century, wool production had become essential to the economies of Italy and the Low Countries, and contributed to these regions becoming atypically urbanized in the Middle Ages. The taxation on raw wool exports was a source of great wealth for the English crown. In contrast, cotton production was absent from Europe until the 12th century, and the cotton manufacturing industry was not established until the 14th century in Germany.
Wool was so valuable due to the complexity and duration of its manufacturing process, where a single length of wool would take approximately 6,000 hours (250 days) to prepare in the 13th century. By the 17th century, labor productivity had risen to the point where the same quality of wool could be produced in less than half the time taken in the 13th century, although there had been no major technological advances in this time. The most significant technological developments had taken place around the turn of the first millennium CE, with the introduction of the horizontal loom, and around 1250, when the spinning wheel first appeared in Italy (Venice); these devices are thought to have originated in China and India respectively.