Fabric

The word fabric refers to any sheet of material made by weaving things together. This means that chainmaille is a fabric while paper is not. (of course, by this definition, felt isn't a fabric either)

So period fabric materials included:

• Linen - mainly for underclothes and lining wool
• Cotton - rare in late period, almost completely non-existant in early period, generally a fluffy fabric like flannelette, not often similar to our modern cotton
• Wool - used for dresses, tunics, cloaks
• Silk - expensive because it was brighter, stronger, and nicer.
• Hemp - used by peasants sometimes in place of linen. Hemp is coarser than linen.
• nettle cloth - yes early period people made cloth from nettles, I think it was somewhat like linen.