Women’s labor, with Anna Kelley
A conversation with Anna Kelley about women’s labor and occupations in the Roman and later Roman Empire. It turns out that they may have engaged in more types of business and workshop production, especially in textile manufacture and marketing, than contemporary gender norms suggest.
Spinning Destinies: Norns, Valkyries and the Art of Textile Production in the Viking Age
What we’re particularly interested in for the purposes of this lecture is the way in which the role of women as spinners and weavers is represented on the Osberg ship.
The King and his brother in a shrine – a story of textiles
King Canute’s shrine no longer holds the precious silk textiles placed in it at his enshrinement. Instead it is likely that the textiles from his brother’s shrine at some point have been moved to King Canute’s shrine.
Medieval Silkworm Farming: A Global Perspective
How silkworms have influenced trade and agriculture throughout the world in a story spanning millennia.
Two medieval textile exhibitions open in Washington D.C.
Dumbarton Oaks Museum and the George Washington University Museum, both in Washington D.C., have open new exhibitions that look at fashion, clothing and textiles from the medieval world.
Textile entrepreneurs and textile workers in the medieval city
What made the southern Low Countries in the Middle Ages unique in a European perspective was the weight of the region as an export-oriented industrial area.
To Clothe a Fool : A Study of the Apparel Appropriate for the European Court Fool 1300 1700
This study endeavors to aid the costumer in search of the historical clothes of the Medieval and Renaissance court Fool.
Women as Artists in the Middle Ages
This essay surveys the evidence of women as artists in the Western and Byzantine Middle Ages in the centuries between about 600 and 1400.
Norse North Atlantic Textiles and Textile Production: A Reflection of Adaptive Strategies in Unique Island Environments
Textile production was a key industry for the Norse colonies of the North Atlantic during the late Viking and Medieval period.
Medieval English Embroidery on Display for the Last Time at the V&A’s Opus Anglicanum Exhibit
The V&A Museum opened its latest medieval exhibit exhibit on Saturday: Opus Anglicanum: Masterpieces of English Medieval Embroidery. I had the opportunity to see it opening day and it was spectacular.
A Five-Minute Guide to Medieval Fabrics
I don’t know about you, but I often read descriptions of medieval clothing and want to know more about the fabric: what did it look like and what was its texture?
Fashion Old and New: Weaving and Tailoring in the Early Medieval and Early Modern Period
Fashion fan? Interested in medieval and early modern textiles? Then this was your session. 2 papers from opposite ends of the spectrum: Early Medieval weaving and Early Modern Tailoring.
Sewing as Authority in the Middle Ages
Analysing manuscripts, relics, indulgences, and even a bishop’s mitre, the article argues that stitching was a way to enact, or intensify, the ritual purpose of objects, whether that was ceremonial, devotional, or authoritative.
Move over Milan! Late Medieval and Renaissance Fashion in Venice
Milan may be Italy’s current fashion capital, but Venice had an important role to play in the development of the Italian fashion and textile industry since the late middle ages and renaissance period.
Working women in thirteenth-century Paris
This thesis examines the role of women in the Parisian economy in the late thirteenth century.
Women’s Devotional Bequests of Textiles in the Late Medieval English Parish Church, c.1350-1550
My investigation is set within the context of the current high level of interest in the workings of the late medieval parish.
Time, space and power in later medieval Bristol
With a population of almost 10,000, Bristol was later medieval England’s second or third biggest urban place, and the realm’s second port after London. While not particularly large or wealthy in comparison with the great cities of northern Italy, Flanders or the Rhineland, it was a metropolis in the context of the British Isles.
Women in early towns
What do we know about women’s role in these societies? What did women do and how numerous were they? And did they pay the same role in Viking-Age proto-towns as in more developed medieval urban communities?
Estreitement bende: Marie de France’s Guigemar and the erotics of tight dress
This article examines the change in women’s fashion that occurred during the 12th century. Garments went from loose and flowing to tightly fitted, featuring belts and laces. The author examines this cultural change through the romance stories complied in the “Lais” of Marie de France, specifically one featuring the character of Guigemar.
How to pleat a shirt in the 15th century
Based on the shirt fragments from the 15th century found at Lengberg Castle in East-Tyrol this paper describes the methods with which these shirts have been pleated, what type of stiches have been used for sewing and how the trimming strips were fashioned. Seventeen textile fragments could be identified as parts of shirts, fourteen of which feature either partially or totally pleated areas. Two sleeves with textile buttons and button holes, two sleeves with button holes, one sleeve with a textile button, one neckline and five fragments being either sleeve or collar are pleated on their entire width. One shirt each is pleated partially on the front, one of them with a preserved textile button. One sleeveless shirt is pleated at the shoulder.
Persian silk worn by Vikings, researcher finds
When the Oseberg Ship was discovered in Norway in 1904, more than one hundred silk fragments were found among its artefacts. New research has shown that these silks were probably purchased from Persia through a trade network.
Two dozen and more Silkwomen of Fifteenth-Century London
This article attempts to record systematically all the silkwomen of London who were daughters or wives of London mercers between 1400 and 1499.
Looming Danger and Dangerous Looms: Violence and Weaving in Exeter Book Riddle 56
I was inside there where I saw a wooden object wounding a certain struggling creature, the wood turning; it received battle-wounds, deep gashes.
From Flax to Linen: Experiments with flax at Ribe Viking Centre
The archaeological record shows that linen was an important part of Viking Age clothing. Linen cloth developed gradually from being virtually nonexistent in Scandinavia at the start of the first millennium AD…
The Queen of Sicily’s Paris Shopping List, 1277
Sarah-Grace Heller examines a letter sent by Charles I of Anjou, King of Sicily to one of his agents in Paris, where he provides a detailed order of textiles and clothing that he needed to have purchased.