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 Emerita 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

The essays here take us from the twelfth century, with an exploration of an inventory of Mediterranean textiles from an Ifriqiyan Church, into an examination and reconstruction of an extant thirteenth-century sleeve in France which provides a rare and early example of medieval quilted armour, and finally on to late medieval Sweden and the reconstruction of gilt-leather intarsia coverlets. A study of construction techniques and the evolution of form of gable and French hoods in the late medieval and the early modern periods follows; and the volume alos includes a study of how underwear for depicted in Renaissance paintings and manuscript illuminations serves as a marker of class.

Meticulously researched text and nearly 700 illustrations depict wide range of apparel -- from fur-trimmed cloaks and brocaded robes worn by courtiers and the nobility to simpler mantles, tunics, gowns, and more.

Essays on costume, fabric and clothing in the Middle Ages and beyond.

This volume begins with a short introduction by Else Ostergard to the amazing finds of garments from the Norse settlement of Herjolfnes in Greenland. It then features chapters on technique - production of the thread, dyeing, weaving techniques, cutting and sewing - by Anna Norgard. Also included are measurements and drawings of garments, hoods, and stockings, with sewing instructions, by Lilli Fransen. A practical guide to making your own Norse garment!

Archaeologists and textile historians bring together 16 papers to investigate the production, trade and consumption of textiles in Scandinavia and across parts of northern and Mediterranean Europe throughout the medieval period. Archaeological evidence is used to demonstrate the existence or otherwise of international trade and to examine the physical characteristics of textiles and their distribution in order to understand who was producing, using and trading them and what they were being used for. Historical evidence, mainly textual, is employed to link textile names to places, numbers and prices and thus provide an appreciation of changing economics, patterns of distribution and the organisation of trade. Different types and qualities of cloths are discussed and the social implications of their production and import/export considered against a developing background of urbanism and increasing commercial wealth.

The varied cultural functions of dress, textiles, and clothwork are used in this collection of essays to examine long-standing assumptions about the Middle Ages. At one end of the spectrum, questions of dress call up feminist theoretical investigations into the body and subjectivity, while broadening those inquiries to include theories of masculinity and queer identity as well. At the other extreme, the production and distribution of textiles carries us into the domain of economic history and the study of material commodities, trade and cultural patterns of exchange within western Europe and between east and west. Contributors to this volume represent a broad array of disciplines currently involved in rethinking medieval culture in terms of the material world.