The best research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a range of disciplines.

The best new research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a variety of angles and approaches.

The best new research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a range of disciplines.

The best new research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a variety of angles and approaches.

The best new research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a range of disciplines.

The essays in this collection focus on Italy, with contributions on dress in multicultural Ravenna, footwear in Lucca and aristocratic furnishings, using evidence from documents of the sixth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries respectively (with the first translations into English of two of them); and a discussion of Boccaccio's treatment of disguise involving Christian/Islamic identity shifts inhis Decameron. Two essays examine dress in visual sources: the Bayeux Tapestry is discussed as a narrative artwork that adopts various costumes for semiotic purposes; and a study of French andEnglish portraits, especially uncoloured drawings which show detail of dress construction, is used for a new interpretation of the female headdress known as the "French hood". Another chapter considers surviving artefacts: a detailed study of a piece of quilted fabric armour, one of two such items surviving in Lúbeck, Germany, reveals how it was made and suggests reasons for some of the unusual features. Finally, there is an investigation of the commercial vocabulary related to the medieval textile and fur industries: the terms used in Britain for measuring textile and fur are listed and discussed, especially the unique use of Anglo-French launces in a document of 1300.

Contributors: Jane Bridgeman, Mark C. Chambers, Jessica Finley, Ana Grinberg, Karen Margrethe Hoskuldsson, Olga Magoula, Christine Meek, Gale R. Owen-Crocker.

The studies collected here range through art, artifacts, documentary text, and poetry, addressing both real and symbolic functions of dress and textiles. John Block Friedman breaks new ground with his article on clothing for pets and other animals, while Grzegorz Pac compares depictions of sacred and royal female dress and evaluates attempts to link them together. Jonathan C. Cooper describes the clothing of scholars in Scotland's three pre-Reformation universities and the effects of the Reformation upon it. Camilla Luise Dahl examines references to women's garments in probates and what theyreveal about early modern fashions. Megan Cavell focuses on the treatment of textiles associated with the Holy of Holies in Old English biblical poetry. Frances Pritchard examines the iconography, heraldry, and inscriptions on a worn and repaired set of embroidered fifteenth-century orphreys to determine their origin. Finally, Thomas M. Izbicki summarizes evidence for the choice of white linen for the altar and the responsibilities of priests for keeping it clean and in good repair.

The second decade of this acclaimed and popular series begins with a volume that will be essential reading for historians and re-enactors alike. Two papers consider cloth manufacture in the early medieval period: Ingvild ye examines the graves of prosperous Viking Age women from Western Norway which contained both textile-making tools and the remains of cloth, considering the relationship between the two. Karen Nicholson compliments this with practical experiments in spinning. This is followed by Tina Anderlini's close examination of the details of cut and construction of a thirteenth-century chemise attributed to King Louis IX of France (St Louis), out of its shrine for the first time since 1970. Three papers consider fashionable clothing and morality: Sarah-Grace Heller discusses sumptuary legislation from Angevin Sicily in the 1290s which sought to restrict men's dress at a time when preparation for war was more important than showy clothes; Cordelia Warr examines the dire consequences of a woman dressing extravagantly as portrayed in a fourteenth-century Italian fresco; and Emily Rozier discusses the extremes of dress attributed by moral and satirical writers to the men known as "galaunts". Two textual studies then show the importance of textiles in daily life. Susan Powell reveals the austere but magnificent purchases made on behalf of Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of King Henry VII, in the last ten years of her life (1498-1509); Anna Riehl Bertolet discusses in detail the passage in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream where Helena passionately recalls sewing a sampler with Hermia when they were young and still bosom friends.

The best new research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a range of disciplines.

Topics in this volume range widely throughout the European middle ages. Three contributions concern terminology for dress. Two deal with multicultural medieval Apulia: an examination of clothing terms in surviving marriage contracts from the tenth to the fourteenth century, and a close focus on an illuminated document made for a prestigious wedding. Turning to Scandinavia, there is an analysis of clothing materials from Norway and Sweden according to gender and social distribution. Further papers consider the economic uses of cloth and clothing: wool production and the dress of the Cistercian community at Beaulieu Abbey based on its 1269-1270 account book, and the use of clothing as pledge or payment in medieval Ireland. In addition, there is a consideration of the history of dagged clothing and its negative significance to moralists, and of the painted hangings that were common in homes of all classes in the sixteenth century. Robin Netherton is a professional editor and a researcher/lecturer on the interpretation of medieval European dress; Gale R. Owen-Crocker is Professor of Anglo-Saxon Culture at the University of Manchester. Contributors: Antonietta Amati, Eva I. Andersson, John Block Friedman, Susan James, John Oldland, Lucia Sinisi, Mark Zumbuhl

This volume continues the series' tradition of bringing together work on clothing and textiles from across Europe. It has a strong focus on gold: subjects include sixth-century German burials containing sumptuous jewellery and bands brocaded with gold; the textual evidence for recycling such gold borders and bands in the later Anglo-Saxon period; and a semantic classification of words relating to gold in multi-lingual medieval Britain. It also rescues significant archaeological textiles from obscurity: there is a discussion of early medieval headdresses from The Netherlands, and an examination of a fifteenth-century Italian cushion, an early example of piecework. Finally, uses of dress and textiles in literature are explored in a survey of the Welsh ‘Mabinogion’ and Jean Renart's ‘Roman de la Rose’. Robin Netherton is a professional editor and a researcher/lecturer on the interpretation of medieval European dress; Gale R. Owen-Crocker is Professor of Anglo-Saxon Culture at the University of Manchester. Contributors: Brigitte Haas-Gebhard, Britt Nowak-Böck, Maren Clegg Hyer, Louise Sylvester, Chrystel Brandenburgh, Lisa Evans, Patricia Williams, Katherine Talarico.

The best new research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a range of disciplines.

The best new research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a range of disciplines and with a special focus on reconstruction and re-enactment.