Encountering Medieval Textiles and Dress

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

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2. Introduction

   1. Introduction

      • Désirée Koslin, Janet Snyder

      Pages 1-3

3. The Early Middle Ages

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 5-5

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   2. Appearance and Ideology: Creating Distinctions between Clerics and LayPersons in Early Medieval Gaul

      • Bonnie Effros

      Pages 7-24

   3. From Self-Sufficiency to Commerce: Structural and Artifactual Evidence for Textile Manufacture in Eastern England in the Pre-Conquest Period

      • Nina Crummy

      Pages 25-43

   4. Dressing the Part: Depictions of Noble Costume in Irish High Crosses

      • Maggie McEnchroe Williams

      Pages 45-63

4. The Central Middle Ages

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 65-65

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   2. Marie de France’s Bisclavret: What the Werewolf Will and Will Not Wear

      • Gloria Thomas Gilmore

      Pages 67-84

   3. From Content to Form: Court Clothing in Mid-Twelfth-Century Northern French Sculpture

      • Janet Snyder

      Pages 85-101

   4. Fashion in French Crusade Literature: Desiring Infidel Textiles

      • Sarah-Grace Heller

      Pages 103-119

   5. “Christ as a Windblown Sleeve”: The Ambiguity of Clothing as Sign in Gottfried von Straßburg’s Tristan

      • Margarita Yanson

      Pages 121-136

   6. Addressing the Law: Costume as Signifier in Medieval Legal Miniatures

      • Susan L’Engle

      Pages 137-153

5. The Late Middle Ages

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 155-155

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   2. From Battlefield to Court: The Invention of Fashion in the Fourteenth Century

      • Odile Blanc

      Pages 157-172

   3. Unraveling the Mystery of Jan van Eyck’s Cloths of Honor: The Ghent Altarpiece

      • Donna M. Cottrell

      Pages 173-194

   4. Marked Difference: Earrings and “The Other” in Fifteenth-Century Flemish Art

      • Penny Howell Jolly

      Pages 195-207

   5. The Margaret Fitzgerald Tomb Effigy: A Late Medieval Headdress and Gown in St. Canice’s Cathedral, Kilkenny

      • Elizabeth Wincott Heckett

      Pages 209-222

   6. “As Proud as a Dog in a Doublet”: The Importance of Clothing in The Shoemaker’s Holiday

      • Linda Anderson

      Pages 223-231

   7. Value-Added Stuffs and Shifts in Meaning: An Overview and Case Study of Medieval Textile Paradigms

      • Désirée Koslin

      Pages 233-249

6. Back Matter

   Pages 251-270

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In this wide-ranging study of costume history contributors explore fashion, textiles, and the representation of clothing in the middle ages. Essays combine the perspectives of archaeology, art history, economics, religion, costume history, material culture, and literary criticism and explore materials from England, France, the Low Countries, Scandinavia, Germany, Italy, and Ireland. The collection focuses on multiple aspects of textiles and dress - their making, meaning, and representation - and explores the impact of international trade and other forms of cultural exchange.

• archaeology
• crusades
• culture
• England
• fashion
• France
• gender
• Germany
• history
• ideology
• law
• manuscripts
• material culture
• Middle Ages
• technology

"An outstanding series of essays by historians, art historians, and literary specialists on a wide variety of topics in medieval textiles, from manufacture and use, to style, fashion, iconography, and the many shades of social meaning."

- William W. Clark, Queens College and the Graduate Center, CUNY

"This volume demonstrates the wide variety of excellent new work now being done on dress and costume history. The papers are rich in content and cover a wide variety of periods and subject matter."

- Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University

"The volume is a valuable addition to the both the library of a general reader and a costume historian. For the general reader the books provides ready access to information ranging over a six-hundred year period. For the costume historian there is a wealth of detailed information to add breadth and depth to one's knowledge, with an additional resource of information in the form of copious endnotes and bibliographic references."

- Sandra L. Rosenbau, Dress

DESIREE KOSLIN teaches at SUNY's Fashion Institute of Technology in the graduate Museum Studies Costume and Textile Department.

JANET SNYDER teaches the History of Art and Architecture in the Division of Art of the College of Creative Arts at West Virginia University.

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