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 include:

• Linnen - mainly for underclothes and lining wool
• Cotton - rare in late period, almost completely non-existant in easrly 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, nicer
• hemp - used by peasants sometimes in place of linnen mostly. coarser than linnen.
• nettle cloth - yes early period people made cloth from nettles, I think it was somewhat like linnen