The Roman writer Pliny first used the name Rubia for madder, because of the red colour of its roots. Tinctorum is derived from the Latin word for dye. In ancient times, madder roots were used in various parts of the world as a dye, particularly in Asia, where the plant is indigenous, and in Egypt. One of the oldest known examples of textile dyed with madder root is a belt discovered in the tomb of Tutankhamen (1350 B.C.)

But textiles dyed with madder were also found in the ruins of Pompey and in ancient Corinth. The ancient Greeks used madder as a dye and in the Roman Empire, the most important red dye was extracted from madder. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the knowledge of dyeing with madder was lost. This dyeing technique was only still employed in the Byzantium Empire and the Far East. During the Dark Ages, from 600 to 900 A.D., many dyers headed for Italy. And from there, they migrated to France, the Rhineland and even England.
Charlemagne stimulated the cultivation of madder in the Middle Ages. In this way, the plant arrived in the Netherlands, in particular in Zeeland and on the South Holland islands. It was here that madder became an economically important crop.

From 1600 to 1900, there was a lively trade in madder throughout Europe. In 1826, the French chemist Pierre-Jean Robiquet discovered that madder roots contained two colouring agents: the red alizarin and the rapidly fading purpurin. In 1868, the German chemists Karl Graebe en Karl Lieberman succeeded in synthetically producing alizarin in the BASF laboratories from coal ash, anthracite, by treating it successively with bi-chromated potassium and concentrated sodium sulphate. In this way, alizarin became the first colouring agent to be produced synthetically. This synthetic alizarin was less expensive than the alizarin from the madder, as a result of which, madder cultivation rapidly declined.

At the beginning of 1900, professional cultivation had completely disappeared. In the mid-1990's, the Wageningen professor, Ton Capelle, had the idea to once again conduct further research into the extraction of dye from the madder. This finally resulted in the thesis "Red, redder, madder": analysis and isolation of anthraquinones from madder roots (Rubia tinctorum)", with which Dorien Derksen gained her Phd. in 2001 from Wageningen University. Since January 2005, she has been the Manager, Research, Development & Production at Rubia Pigmenta Naturalia. The company originally began as a co-operative led by the founder Prof Capelle and since October 2004, it has been formally commercially active in the market, led by Anco Sneep.