Textiles Archive
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The Queen of Sicily’s Paris Shopping List, 1277
Posted on May 16, 2013 | No CommentsSarah-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. -
Acquiring, Flaunting and Destroying Silk In Late Anglo-Saxon England
Posted on May 4, 2013 | No CommentsThis paper will argue that vibrantly coloured silks and other elaborate textiles were ubiquitous in England in the late Anglo-Saxon period. -
Handspinners of the Later Middle Ages and Renaissance
Posted on January 6, 2013 | No CommentsThe Handspinners of Paris, France: In 1270, a royal judge, Etienne Boileau, compiled “Le Livre de Metiers” (The Book of Trades) which contained the ordinances of 100 Parisian craft guilds. By consulting the surviving tax rolls of 1292, 1300, and 1313, it is possible to determine the extent to which these crafts were practiced. -
Life, Death, Fate and Female Embodiment: Weaving in Viking Age and Medieval Iceland
Posted on January 3, 2013 | No CommentsVideo of a lecture on medieval Icelandic textiles. -
Technological Development in Late Saxon Textile Production: its relationship to an emerging market economy and changes in society
Posted on December 2, 2012 | No CommentsThe process of change from domestic textile production in early Anglo-Saxon England (5th - mid-7th century) to the more commercially based, organised industry of the late Saxon period (late 9th - 11th century) is a long and complex one. -
New research on how the Bayeux Tapestry was made
Posted on November 15, 2012 | No CommentsA University of Manchester researcher has thrown new light on how the world famous Bayeux Tapestry was made over 900 years ago. -
Coptic Dress In Egypt: The Social Life Of Medieval Cloth
Posted on October 21, 2012 | No CommentsCoptic textiles in most collections present a very rich iconography, somewhat derived from classical traditions, which has also attracted the attention of art historians. Very little of their work, however, has made any headway in our understanding of the contemporaneous meanings of Coptic textile images and other decorations. -
Cultural Identity and Dress: The Case of Late Byzantine Court Costume
Posted on October 7, 2012 | No CommentsAt the earliest stages of its development, ceremonial costume was often a more ornate and luxurious version of contemporary attire. It's use in a ritual context, however, resulted in its becoming imbued with a symbolic significance, a significance that epitomized the political and religious ideology of the state in general and the self perception of the ruling class in particular. -
The fabric of society: The organization of textile manufacturing in the Middle East and Europe, c. 700 – c. 1500
Posted on October 7, 2012 | No CommentsIn recent years several attempts have been made to use institutional theory to explain this divergence between the Middle East and Europe. Most of these attempts focus on the organization of international trade. -
Textile and Embroidered Bookbindings of Medieval England and France
Posted on October 3, 2012 | No CommentsThese are rich, elaborately crafted objects that required binders to collaborate with craft persons skilled in needlework. Beautifully woven fabrics were used, some of which were made for clothing. O -
Maculate Conceptions
Posted on September 30, 2012 | No CommentsFor the greater part of human history...disease has been understood in terms of its manifestations on the outside of the body. more than any other sign, t has been spots that have signified the onset of disease... -
Expressions of Power – Luxury textiles from early medieval northern Europe
Posted on September 17, 2012 | No CommentsThis paper focuses on luxury textiles from archaeological and non-archaeological contexts in north-western Europe. -
“Semiotics of the Cloth”: Reading Medieval Norse Textile Traditions
Posted on July 29, 2012 | No CommentsReading textiles from medieval Norse society supplements written sources and also provides insight into the voice of the individual who created these textiles. -
Working women and guildsmen in the Flemish textile industries:Gender, labor and the European Marriage Pattern in an era of economic change
Posted on July 23, 2012 | No CommentsTraditionally the European marriage pattern(EMP) is considered as one of the key elements in the demographic history of Early Modern Europe, preparing Europe for the transition towards the Industrial Era. But recently, mediaevalists have also tried to claim its origins... -
“Well Cut through the Body:” Fitted Clothing in Twelfth·Century Europe
Posted on July 22, 2012 | No CommentsBefore we go any farther, we should investigate the very practical suggestion that tightly fitted clothing resulted from developments in "cutting and sewing technology." In the case of twelfth century Europe, however, it seems there was no real change in the tools of the trade; for example, iron shears, which might seem primitive, continued to be used by tailors into the late middle ages. -
Primary Sources and Context Concerning Joan of Arc’s Male Clothing
Posted on December 7, 2011 | No CommentsA number of the clergy who had served on the tribunal later testified, during the posthumous investigations and appeal of the case (1450, 1452, and 1455-56) after the English were expelled, that the transcript and judges had misrepresented the circumstances and hence the theological implications. -
East and West: Textiles and Fashion in Eurasia in the Early Modern Period
Posted on December 6, 2011 | No CommentsFashion underpinned the commercial growth and cultural transformation of western society. From at least the sixteenth century, fashion’s demotic stimuli unleashed desires across European social ranks. -
The ‘Industrial Crisis’ of the English Textile Towns, c.1290 – c.1330
Posted on October 9, 2011 | No CommentsThe ‘Industrial Crisis’ of the English Textile Towns, c.1290 – c.1330 By John Munro University of Toronto Working Paper, 1998 Abstract: The paper’s thesis is that the chief causes for... -
Burgundian Costume: Being a study of women’s formal dress of Northern Europe, especially Burgundy and Flanders, in the later half of the 15th century
Posted on September 18, 2011 | No CommentsBurgundian Costume: Being a study of women’s formal dress of Northern Europe, especially Burgundy and Flanders, in the later half of the 15th century Vibbert, Marie Published Online Abstract “When I first joined... -
The Bayeux Tapestry: a stripped narative for their eyes and ears
Posted on September 13, 2011 | No CommentsThe Bayeux Tapestry: a stripped narative for their eyes and ears Brilliant, Richard Word and Image, Vol..7, (1991) Abstract The Bayeaux Tapestry, a masterpiece of medieval narrative art, tells the... -
How English is the Bayeux Tapestry?
Posted on September 13, 2011 | No CommentsHow English is the Bayeux Tapestry? Musgrove, David BBC History Magazine (2010) Abstract With a major conference about the Bayeux Tapestry at the British Museum this month, David Musgrove considers where... -
Medieval North European Spindles and Whorls
Posted on July 31, 2011 | No CommentsMedieval North European Spindles and Whorls Priest-Dorman, Carolyn Vassar University (2000) Abstract This document discusses spindle whorls and shafts found throughout the areas Scandinavians lived in during the Middle Ages... -
Historical Fencing Footwear: “What shoes to train in?” Ask instead, what did Medieval and Renaissance fighters wear?
Posted on July 31, 2011 | No CommentsHistorical Fencing Footwear: “What shoes to train in?” Ask instead, what did Medieval and Renaissance fighters wear? Clements, John ARMA, The Association of Medieval and Renaissance Martial Arts Abstract Footwear is... -
Aumônières, otherwise known as alms purses: Embellished textile purses in the European 14th century
Posted on July 24, 2011 | No CommentsAumônières, otherwise known as alms purses: Embellished textile purses in the European 14th century McGann, Tasha Kelly La cotte simple (2011) Abstract Pockets as we know them today were not in... -
North-European Trading Centres and the Early Medieval Craftsman; Craftsmen at Åhus, north-eastern Scania, Sweden ca. AD 750-850+
Posted on May 7, 2011 | No CommentsNorth-European Trading Centres and the Early Medieval Craftsman; Craftsmen at Åhus, north-eastern Scania, Sweden ca. AD 750-850+ Callmer, Johan (Institut für Geschichtswissenschaften) Central Places in the Migration and the Merovingian Periods,...
