Two Late 15th Century European Clothing Handbooks

At the request of Daniel Serra of ChronoCopia Publishing, I am reviewing the following books.  They are very similar to each other and even contain some of the same content, so it makes sense to review them together:

Malmborg, A. & Schütz, Willhelm, A Handbook for Men's Clothing of the 15th Century: Historical Clothing from the Inside Out. (ChronoCopia Publishing AB 2018).

Malmborg, A. & Schütz, Willhelm, A Handbook for Women's Clothing of the 15th Century: Historical Clothing from the Inside Out. (ChronoCopia Publishing AB 2018).

These books are beautifully produced.  They are printed on thick, glossy paper and are lavishly illustrated with clear diagrams and large, full color photographs showing clothed figures excerpted from period works of art.  But these books are very short (48 pages each).  At $19.90 USD for each on Amazon.com, they are a bit more expensive than the titles in Osprey Publishing's Men-At-Arms series, which are the same length and are of similarly high quality with regard to paper, photographs, and layout.

These books are too brief to be a comprehensive guide to everything there is to know about late 15th century costume.  For example, they are too small to give much information about clothing patterns, or surviving items of period clothing, or to discuss differences in costume from one European country to another.

Are Malmborg and Schütz's  handbooks worth one's money and time?  I think the answer to that question is "yes," but only for people who are just starting to learn about late 15th century costume.

What kinds of information do these books provide?  That can be discerned by scanning through the books chapters and headings.  The book's contents are divided into three chapters:  "The Period;" "A Wardrobe;" and "Accessories."

"The Period" is subdivided into five sections: "Historical context;" "The dress idiom;" "Dyes;" "Fabrics;" and "Sewing Techniques."  "Historical context" briefly describes the political situation in Europe as it existed during the period.  "The dress idiom" describes the physical outline of period costume--what I think of as its "silhouette"--and mentions some of the features of that costume, such as pleats, layers, and the importance of fabric choice in displaying social rank.  "Dyes" describes the substances used to achieve fashionable colors, and images give a sense of how those colors appeared.  "Fabrics" discusses the types of fiber used in most period fabrics and the most popular weaves used, while "Sewing Techniques" illustrates the stitches used for clothing construction.  This chapter appears with substantially the same content in both books.

The "Wardrobe" has a separate section for each item that comprises a typical outfit for a man or woman of the period (depending upon which of the two volumes you are reading), from head to toe and from the skin out.  For each item, the reader is told the fabrics from which each garment is made, the garment's basic shape, and general information about construction, tailoring techniques, and fit.  Though no sewing patterns are provided, good general advice about how to construct each garment is provided.

The "Accessories" section describes non-clothing items that are nonetheless part of a typical outfit, such as pins, jewelry, and belts.  Finally, there is a page listing the sources of the images used in the book, and a separate page listing useful books to consult for further study of 15th century clothing.

The sort of information that these handbooks provide is the information needed to develop an "eye" for when a costume looks "right."  Information that fosters such an "eye" is immensely helpful because it guides the learner in determining which other books to buy or read. Having an "eye" for the costume of a period is essential in learning how to design and construct costumes that make the wearer look as though he or she has just "stepped out" of a period artwork.  It also provides a useful framework for delving into patterns and pattern books and for understanding the clothing of figures shown in period art.  But the would-be 15th century costumer or reenactor will still need to study further in order to learn enough to be able to construct convincingly accurate 15th century clothing.

For that reason, these books would better be described as "primers" rather than "handbooks". The term "handbook" is typically used for a start-to-finish reference guide to all of the essentials of a subject, and as such may be usefully consulted by those with prior experience in the subject.  Malmborg and Schütz's books are not "handbooks" in this sense.  People with experience making or studying 15th century costume will already know most of the information presented in these books and likely will not be interested in consulting them.

On the other hand, a "primer" is a short introduction to a subject, such as the type of short text given to children to teach them how to read.  Malmborg and Schütz's books are more like primers in that they teach the uninitiated how to "read" clothing images in period art and what types of information they will need to seek in order to sew convincing period clothes.

So these handbooks are not for everyone.  However, costumers who are beginning to develop knowledge of 15th century clothing, or historical fiction writers who are looking for enough costuming information to convincingly describe their characters, may find them a pleasant way to learn to visualize how a 15th century man or woman should be dressed.  For people in those circumstances, it would be hard to find an easier and better point of entry into the study of 15th century costume, and I recommend the books for that purpose.

Making a Wimple

Having decided that I wanted to make a wimple, I became curious about what we know about wimple construction in the Middle Ages. 

A quick Internet search suggests that the answer is "not much." Although my favorite wimple technique is to sew a tube big enough to frame my face and just a bit longer than the distance between my chin and the middle of my breastbone, I suspect that the medieval approach was simply to pin a band of cloth, or even another veil, around one's face and chin, as suggested by the De Caversham Household site, here. 

Modern costuming approaches seem to engineer the construction based upon the desired final appearance of the veil-wimple combination.  For example, this version is a modified version of my tube-shaped wimple, made wider and with a curved edge at the bottom for a wider, more drapey appearance.  This one (the page in German, but it has illustrations and the text is easily translatable via Google Translate) uses a long piece of cloth that is pointed on one end, but can be wrapped and tied around the head in a manner suggesting a turban/veil/wimple combination.

I think that I will sew a simple tube again, since that will be simple and quick to do, will not require a pattern, and will work with other veils that I have.

Enigmatic Beauty

Last week I learned, through a short note from Professor Beatrix Nutz relating to an article of hers that I had just downloaded from Academia.edu, that she has also published an article about a set of textile finds from Lengberg Castle that, though originally thought to be part of a bra-type undergarment, are actually the remains of a headcovering with a section of sprang in it.

The article can be downloaded from Academia.edu here (free account required). It's called "Enigmatic Beauty:  The Decorative Headwear of Lengberg Castle," and Professor Nutz, Rachel Case, and Carol James are listed as authors.  Curiously, similar types of headwear are shown on men as well as women in period art, suggesting that this type of headcovering was a symbol of a particular status.

It's an article well worth reading by anyone with an interest in late medieval clothing, particularly German and Austrian late medieval clothing.

Getting Dressed in the 14th Century

This week, I found a fascinating pair of videos on YouTube, meant to illustrate how Europeans from all walks of life would have gotten dressed, and what they would have worn, in the 14th century.  They are fascinating because they show not only the items of clothing that would have been worn, and how they were put on, but also plausible reconstructions of where they would have hung, or been laid, overnight while the wearer was sleeping.  

The video embedded on the left shows Piers the Ploughman.  A second video shows two working women, dressing and helping each other dress, here.  Both are based upon images found in the Luttrell Psalter, a 14th century illuminated book of prayers originally commissioned and owned by  Sir Geoffrey Luttrell; it now resides in the British Library in London.  The channel in question, CrowsEye Productions, has "getting dressed" videos for other eras as well, including World War I and the 18th century.  The Luttrell Psalter is especially useful to show everyday life in the 14th century, because many of the images therein do just that; they show scenes from life on a manor like Sir Geoffrey's manor in Lincolnshire. Another reason why the Luttrell Psalter is an especially appropriate series of images for CrowsEye to bring to life is that CrowsEye Productions is based in Lincolnshire!

CrowsEye has made vidoes showing folk getting dressed in other periods, namely, the 18th century and World War I.  Their Patreon page states that their ultimate plan is to make videos showing people getting dressed from many different periods of English history, from the Viking era to World War II, but they are seeking suggestions as to which period to tackle next.   Anyone who has followed my blog will easily guess that it's Vikings I'd like to see next!

Paper on Advanced Tailoring Based on Lengberg Finds.

About two months ago, I posted a link to a YouTube presentation about how analysis of some of the 15th century Lengberg Castle finds support the use of unusual techniques in tailoring for women's garments.  

Today, I found a paper on Academia.edu.  The paper is a more formal write-up by Dr. Nutz, Rachel Case, and Marion McNealy of their hypothesis.  It was presented at the North European Symposium for Archaeological Textiles (NESAT) at the Czech Academy of Sciences last year.  The paper is illustrated with photographs and reproductions of period art, and though the images are in black and white, they include photographs of completed reproductions based on the authors' theories and other material that compliment the slideshow. 

Anyone interested in the history of tailoring, or late medieval women's clothing, should check out this paper.

Menswear of the Lombards

Paul the Deacon, from a period MS  Artist unknown

 MS from Laurentian Library, Plut.65.35, fol 34r

(Wikimedia Commons)

As I previously posted, I recently learned of, and obtained, an ePub copy of the following book:

Gordino, Yuri. Menswear of the Lombards. Reflections in the light of archeology, iconography and written sources. (Bookstone, Dec. 25, 2016).

The Lombards were a Germanic people who conquered and ruled substantial portions of Italy between the mid-sixth and late eighth centuries CE.

My only regret is that I do not have a printed, paper copy of this book instead of an electronic copy. The book is lavishly illustrated, mostly with photographs of reproduction fabric, weapons, accessories, and clothing from the Lombard culture between roughly 550 CE and 770 CE that are based upon the research in the book.  Many of the illustrations show reproductions in lovely, primary colors that look as though they were made with period-available dyes. Despite the book's title, some of the photographs show women in period Lombard clothing, as well as men.  It would be wonderful to see those images as color photographs printed on good paper. 

The book is so beautifully illustrated that it is difficult to focus on the text.  It would be wrong to consider either text or illustrations in isolation, however, because examination of period art forms a critical element of Mr. Gordino's conclusions.  According to Mr. Gordino, information about Lombard clothing has to be derived from multiple sources, including "archaeological data, written sources and iconographic evidence" since surviving items of clothing from the region are nonexistent and only small textile scraps have been recovered from archaeological sites.  Consequently, a number of sketches based upon the most important pieces of period art appear in the book as illustrations, highlighted to demonstrate information about particular garment types. The text also discusses clothing information from Paul the Deacon's history of the Lombards, which is a major source of information about the Lombards in general (see the image in the photograph above).  In addition, the author has reviewed the available evidence in light of what is known of other Germanic people's clothing during the period of the Lombards' rule, though little explicit discussion appears on this point.

For those who are familiar with the known information about contemporary Germanic races associated with other parts of Europe, the book's conclusions will not be surprising.  They include the following:

• Lombard men typically wore undershirts and drawers made from linen.  The drawers were made with a drawstring with legs extending to just above the knee, like the underbreeches that appear in the art of the later Middle Ages in northern Europe.
• The most commonly found weaves are tabby, herringbone twill, diamond twill, and repp. Higher status men tended to wear the diamond and herringbone twill weaves, which were dyed in bright colors.
• There is some evidence for trousers as outerwear, decorated with a broad ornamental band at the hem.
• There is also evidence that other men wore leg wrappings, as did the Anglo-Saxons and various northern European peoples.
• Outer tunics were long-sleeved and A-shaped.  They came to about the knee and were decorated with broad bands of contrasting cloth, either in a straight line from shoulder to shoulder (including the neck area) or with a broad band from shoulder to shoulder and a perpendicular band starting from the neck and running down the middle of the torso to about the waist level.  
• The outfit was completed with a short (no longer than to the hem of the tunic) cloak, fastened with a brooch on the right shoulder, with the opening exposing the right side of the body.  
• There is evidence for two different types of hat:  a pillbox style, and a felted hat shaped like an inverted modern flowerpot with a small brim.  
• There is also evidence that low, slipper-like shoes were worn by Lombard men.

The book concludes with an essay on the type of sword belt of which evidence is most often found in Lombard graves.  

Menswear of the Lombards has a few drawbacks.  It is short, especially given the breadth of subject matter covered. Possibly in consequence, long descriptions of the evidence or of the analysis leading to the author's conclusions do not appear.  In addition, the book is written in English, which judging from the grammatical constructions used does not appear to be the author's primary language.  Thus, it's important to read the text slowly at first, making frequent reference to the illustrations based upon the period art evidence in order to absorb the author's meaning.  There is a significant bibliography, but note that many of the sources listed are written in Italian.

In conclusion, Menswear of the Lombards is well-worth its modest EPub price for costumers and other amateur scholars interested in the region and period, though it is far from the final word about Lombard costume.

New Book Alert

Recently, I found a flyer advertising the following new book on Academia.edu:

Stepanova, Iuliia. The Burial Dress of the Rus' in the Upper Volga Region (Late 10th-13th Centuries. Brill (March 2017).

According to the flyer:

"This book is devoted to the Old Rus’ dress of the Upper Volga area, as gleaned from the archaeological evidence of the burial sites. The organic remains of dress and metal and glass ornaments and fasteners are considered. Issues such as the social status and age of the buried individuals, as well as the influence of various ethnic groups (including East Slavic groups, Finno-Ugric tribes and the Balts) on the dress of the Old Rus’, are addressed through the study of variants of male and female headdresses, clothes and accessories. Furthermore, a detailed study of the evolution of the headdress and the structure of jewelry from the late 10th century to the 13th century is offered."

The book can be purchased from Brill here.  Unfortunately, it's expensive--$172.00 USD, or 149,00 Euros.  The e-book, unfortunately, is not much cheaper.--$157.00 USD.  Brill does have a program called Brill MyBook which allows scholars whose institutions have access to the on-line version of a Brill book to get a print-on-demand copy (in black-and-white only) for $25.00 USD/25 Euros.

I am not affiliated with an institution that belongs to the Brill program, and I have more pressing uses for $172.00.  However, I'm going to try getting a copy by interlibrary loan in a few months.  If any of my readers obtain a copy, I hope they will write about it in the comments.

Steppe Warrior Resource

This site is a well-organized collection of information about a corner of costume history about which it is difficult to find information--the clothing and other material culture artifacts associated with warriors of the Eurasian steppe during the Middle Ages. The author has had a web presence for quite a few years now, but he has redone and supplemented his web site so that it is much more useful and interesting than formerly. I commend it to my readers' attention.  That's not to say I'm asserting that his information is always completely correct, but that he provides sources and his site is a useful beginning for further research.

Gnezdovo and Pskov

Recently, I mentioned receiving the latest issue, Issue No. 53, of the Archaeological Textiles Newsletter (a periodical which, starting with the very next issue, will be called the Archaeological Textiles Review (click on the line for "2011" and scroll down).

One article in that issue particularly piqued my interest. The title of that article is:

Orfinskaya, Olga and Pushkina, Tatyana. 10th century AD textiles from female burial II-301 at Gnezdovo, Russia.

The authors begin by noting that Gnezdovo was occupied in the 10th century chiefly by "Scandinavians and Slavs."  This article is about another one of those 10th century chamber grave that are fashioned like an underground room, with boards lining all four interior surfaces.  Some jewelry was found; specifically, a number of beads large enough to make up a necklace; a silver cross, and fragments of an equal armed brooch and an "oval" brooch.  Two round birchbark pieces were also found in this grave (one split in two) with holes around their edges, as though they had been laced to a fabric piece to create a box, like the birchbark find in the Pskov grave. As at Pskov, textile fragments were associated with this putative birchbark box, suggesting that a costume had been stored inside it when the grave was sealed.  But unlike the Pskov grave and certain other graves at Gnezdovo that I have written about, this grave did not contain any textile finds resembling what is currently thought of as Viking era women's costume. 

Reconstruction of Dress 1 (ATN, No. 53, p. 39)

Instead of a large piece of fabric with loops that might have been an apron dress, there were substantial fragments of two dresses that incorporated silk brocades, fragments of a linen dress that included blue pieces as well as undyed pieces, and a scrap big enough to be identified as sprang but too small to be identified as a particular object or garment. Dress 1 had long sleeves with cuffs and a short, standing collar and a bodice portion made from a brocade that the authors believe, on the basis of the type of gold thread used in it, likely had been made in Northern China.  The illustration that appears to the right is from the article and shows two possible reconstructions of its original appearance. Dress 2 survived only in fragmentary form; other than ascertaining that it had a v-shaped neckline, the authors do not opine about how that dress was made.

Toroptsa dress (11th-13th c)

The linen fragments are just as interesting.  They appear to constitute the remains of a tunic or shift that was made from undyed, coarse linen on the top, with a skirt of blue-dyed, finer linen that was pleated onto the garment at approximately the level of the  waistline.  The description resembles a tunic found at the Toroptsa site in Izyaslavl, Russia, a sketch of which is reproduced at the left.  (I cannot reproduce the citation information, since I can no longer access the website from which I downloaded this image.)

The lesson I take away from this find as the ATN writeup describes it is that the contents of each grave excavated must first be examined on the basis of its own contents, without attempting to constrain the analysis in terms of what the analyst expects to find.  Although other finds in this area appear to be Scandinavian (i.e., Viking), this one does not appear to be even remotely like those finds.  To the contrary, this find contains jewelry that a Viking woman might have worn, a dress decorated with a Chinese brocade and made in a rather Chinese style, and another dress, perhaps an underdress, in a style that might have been found in a Slavic grave.  It's a useful reminder that all people do not always dress exactly the way their tribe, nationality, or station prescribe, but may adopt different clothing according to circumstances, and reconstructing the clothing may help us understand the circumstances that shaped the way they lived.

The article contains way too much detail for me to adequately summarize it here, and I commend it to my readers' attention.  In case you did not subscribe to ATN last year, be of good cheer:  you can purchase a copy of Issue No. 53 for 10 Euros, or wait another year or two and download a copy from the Internet, and read the article for yourself. 

Jacqui's Orkney Hood

The other day, I found an interesting article about the Orkney Hood, a roughly Viking era textile found more than 100 years ago in the Orkney Islands. A more detailed web version of the article may be found here.  A color photograph of the hood, from the National Museums of Scotland's website, may be seen here.

The article is by Jacqui Wood, a British archaeologist whose primary interest is the prehistoric period. Unlike most finds that old, the Orkney Hood is a complete garment, and Ms. Wood was commissioned to make a replica of the Orkney Hood, and wrote the article to describe what she learned in the process of making the replica. One example is how she learned that the hood was woven with threads of unequal thicknesses:

However when the weaving was complete and I measured the fabric and it was at least 20 cm too long! This was turning out to be a very challenging project. I had to go back to my measurements and re- think where I had gone wrong. It had to be something to do with the thickness of the weft threads as the width was the right measurement. I had wrongly assumed that all the weft threads in the fabric were the same thickness I found when I calculated the widths of the chevrons to the number of rows that there were in fact four very different thickness of yarn used for the weft. This was very noticeable with hindsight the 42 row band measured 4 cm where- as the 38 row band measured 5 cm. I ascertained that the four distinct yarns were as follows 7 rows per cm, 8 rows per cm, 9 rows per cm and 10.5 rows per cm. These different thicknesses of yarn were erratically distributed throughout the fabric.

Ms. Wood notes that the discrepancy of thicknesses is likely due to the fact that four different spinners made the thread used in the hood:

Having had some experience teaching groups of people how to spin on a spindle whorl I have found that people find their own thickness of yarn that they find easy to spin. Most students acquiring spinning skills find that they can easily spin an even yarn at their own personal thickness, some very fine yarn and some much thicker. Whereas a skilled spinner can spin any yarn thickness to order the average spinner tends to spin always at the same thickness. I suggest that therefore that there were four distinct spinners making the yarn for the hood. This would account for the uneven chevrons of the pattern. If a fine thread was added after a thick one this would form a ridge in the weaving and be noticeable, but if one always changed the direction of the chevron when a new yarn was added the difference is unnoticeable, as I found to my cost when making my first replication of the weaving.

I lack the skills at weaving to make these kinds of discoveries myself, so I am all the more impressed when someone who can weave engages in the process and documents what she finds. The rest of Ms.  Wood's report contains more discoveries of this type, and I recommend that anyone interested in weaving, or in the clothing of the early Middle Ages read it.

EDIT: Although it was once suggested that the hood might belong to the Viking Age, ingaborg correctly reminded me that the hood has since been carbon-dated to between (roughly) 200 and (roughly) 600 C.E., as Wood's article itself notes.  My apologies for the error.

Medieval Garments Reconstructed--Has Arrived!

A few weeks ago, using an Amazon gift card I received as a quid pro quo for taking a survey, I ordered a copy of the English language version of Medieval Garments Reconstructed, the new book by Else Østergård, Anna Norgard and Lilli Fransen describing the construction and replication of the more intact Herjolfsnæs finds.  

It arrived on Thursday, and I have been eagerly looking through it.  What I didn't realize when I ordered the book is that the authors not only recreated the cutting and stitching of the original garments, but they also spun the thread and wove the cloth to period specifications.  Each item reproduced is shown in a color photograph, along with a color photograph of the reproduction, and a scale-drawing of the pattern for the garment discovered by the researchers.  The authors indicate in a forward that the book was inspired by the fact that readers of Ms. Østergård's book, Woven Into The Earth, "desired additional pattern drawings, with instructions on how to produce a garment either as an exact reconstruction [i.e., as the authors did] or as an adapted reconstruction [i.e., from ready-made cloth but using the same pattern and types of stitches]."  (p. 9).

Other interesting surprises include:

• A photograph of buttons made for one of the garments from the same wadmal used to make the clothes.  They are described as nearly flat, and crafted so the top surface is smooth while the gathering needed to make the button shape is all concentrated on the bottom.  (p. 14)
• A color photograph of tablets for tablet weaving found at the site.  They are made from bone, and etched with simple designs.  (p. 13)
• An odd circlet, crafted from human hair using two twisted strands of hair.  (p. 11)
• A willow basket with a handle found on the site.  (p. 10)

Because my personal costume interests lie earlier in time than the medieval period, I do not expect to make any of the garments in the near future.  But later on, I may.  It is fascinating, and impressive to me, to have in one slender volume enough information to reproduce actual items of everyday medieval clothing.

If I find any other surprising facts as I continue to read the book, I will of course blog about them.

EDIT: I have finished my first read of the book. It turns out that the authors did not use period techniques in the sewing of the garments. The cloth (a 2/2 twill in white and brown, used for all the reconstructions regardless of color of the original) was woven on a modern horizontal loom, and the reconstructions were stitched with a modern lockstitch sewing machine. Finishing was a combination of modern and period techniques, as follows:

The necklines and some of the sleeve hems are finished with a matching cotton bias binding, sewn on first by machine and afterwards blind-stitched by hand. The bottom hems of the garments have been blind-stitched by hand. There is therefore no visible stitch on the right side of the garment.  (p. 42)

I assume the authors were precluded from making their reproductions entirely with period techniques by time considerations. Nothing, of course, need stop the reader from using period techniques throughout.

Interesting Underwear

Katrin Kania blogged Thursday about some fascinating archaeological finds at a site in Austria.  During renovations of a historic castle, substantial number of different artifacts, ranging in estimated date from the 12th through 18th centuries, were found in the fillings of one of the spandrels of the building's vaulted ceiling.

Scan of photo by Beatrix Nutz

The finds include, not merely textiles, but actual garments, some nearly intact.  The most interesting garment, to me, is a woman's undergarment, dated to approximately the 15th century.  This article by Beatrix Nutz includes a picture of the undergarment and discusses it and some of the other finds; I have made a scan of a black-and-white printout of just the image of the undergarment, which appears beside this paragraph.

A subligar I made for myself

Why am I so certain that the picture shows a woman's garment?  Because the garment is nearly identical to a woman's garment, known from archaeological finds  as well as artwork, called a subligar.  A subligar is a bikini-style underpant that ties on the sides, and they are known to have been worn by women in ancient Rome.  Beside this paragraph is a picture of a subligar I made for myself from white linen.  I think the resemblance is interesting.

Ms. Nutz's article is in German, which I don't read, but Google Translate allowed me to pick out some interesting details about this undergarment from the article.  The undergarment found in the castle, like mine, is made from linen, but with "three layers" instead of one.  It was dated to sometime after 1440, based upon the age of the castle and the other findings, and confirmed by carbon-14 dating. 

Why do I find this garment so fascinating?  Because it suggests that perhaps the Roman style of underwear--consisting of a subligar for the lower body and a mammillare, or supporting band, for the breasts--not only became used in Northern Europe, but may have continued in use throughout the Middle Ages.  Who knows?  Perhaps Viking women used similar underwear.  As I have mentioned previously in this blog, at least one Birka find includes a small scrap of plain linen beneath what appears to be a pleated linen shift. Perhaps that plain scrap was part of a breastband.

For now, I can only hope that some future find turns up a subligar in a Viking context.

Medieval Garments Reconstructed--A Preview

The Oxbow Books/David Brown Book Company website has posted images of sample pages from Else Østergård's soon-to-be published book, Medieval Garments Reconstructed: Norse Clothing Patterns. You can find the images here. Each pattern page includes a photograph of the garment from which the reconstruction pattern was taken and a photograph of a garment reconstructed from the proposed pattern.  Moreover, each image is zoomable, so that you can read the sample pages and examine the photographs and pattern diagrams on them in detail.

It looks like a very informative and useful design. I can't wait to see the book.

Margaret Scott on Medieval Dress

A few weeks ago, I purchased a work of costume history that I have been ignoring for several years: Margaret Scott's Medieval Dress and Fashion (British Library, Sept. 15, 2009). The opportunity to look through the book before buying, coupled with the low price of the newly published paperback edition ($29.00 USD) induced me to make the purchase.  I have finished reading the book for the first time, and I am sufficiently impressed with it that I decided to write a review.

The first costume historians, such as Cesare Vecellio, were amateur ethnographers; persons who traveled widely and sketched the costumes they saw on their travels. Later, there were passionate amateurs who became interested in particular subjects (such as Mrs. Bury Palliser, who wrote A History of Lace) and thus became inspired to write about them.

Nowadays there are three basic approaches to the study of historic costume. One is the art history approach. Art historians, such as Anne Hollander, approach historic costume by examining period artworks in the context of the conditions that produced them, and draw conclusions about the costumes that must have been worn from that study. Archaeologists, such as Agnes Geijer and Inga Hagg, analyze remains from graves and other kinds of digs and attempt to reconstruct what was worn from surviving artifacts and the information that can be gleaned from those artifacts with careful visual examination and scientific testing. Others analyze period works of literature, wills, records of textile transactions, and other writings in an attempt to learn more about the production of textiles and costume, and to make deductions from that knowledge.

I personally believe that costume history will not advance until there is a more coordinated effort among these types of study, but sometimes a talented person will succeed in shedding much light on the subject of early costume by means of a careful approach to one of these three forms of discipline. When I started reading Dr. Scott's book, I thought at first that it might be such a coordinated work.

Dr. Scott is an art historian, so her primary approach is to look very closely at illuminated manuscripts and, using her general knowledge of the art and the period, tell the reader what those works communicate about period costume. Consequently, her book emphasizes the visual aspects of costume study. If she hadn't so much as written a single line, her book would still be worth buying for the numerous, large, color closeups of medieval illuminations in both secular and religious contexts. Every two or three pages, there are a full two pages of large color closeups of medieval illuminations, and there are also black and white photographs of illuminations throughout the book.  Moreover, many of these illuminations are not commonly seen in books on period costume, though like most pictures in books on medieval costume few images come from Eastern Europe or other non-Western European areas.

Because of the illustrations, this book is a treasure trove, at least for people who are not looking for detailed knowledge. It also has a fairly substantial bibliography. However, for serious researchers hoping for more detailed information, the book is of limited value, for a number of reasons.

1.  Only a survey. Dr. Scott's book addresses European costume through art from the tenth through sixteenth centuries, so naturally she does not have room to discuss costume developments year by year, or country by country. She mentions a lot of interesting facts in passing, and it is up to the reader to decide which tidbits of information to follow up. This may be a challenge, because the book does not have footnotes or endnotes.

2.  Statements not based upon art history may be questionable. Like most specialists, Dr. Scott is not necessarily familiar with relevant topics that fall outside her specialty. For example, she comments upon one 12th century miniature in the Pierpont Morgan Library (Ms. M.736, f.gr.), which shows King Edmund giving alms to several peasants, including one with blue underbreeches and a pink sheepskin cloak (shown in the photograph to the right) as follows:

The poor receiving alms are most unlikely to have worn such colourful clothing in real life.  Blue underpants are even more unlikely, as underwear was made of linen, which is very difficult to dye, even though blue was one of the easiest colours to produce, from woad. ... Pink dyed sheepskin cloaks are equally unlikely--what we have here is an exercise in very pretty colour schemes.  (p. 45)

Dr. Scott may be correct that most folk needy enough to be begging for alms were unlikely to have dressed in dyed colors, but in my opinion some of her other assumptions in the above passage are questionable.  For example, blue was typically produced with woad, which, along with indigo (which contains the same dye substance, indigotin), are among the few vegetable dyes that work well on linen.  Several blue dyed samples of linen have, in fact, been found in 10th and 11th century graves, two at Birka, and one, more recently found, in Pskov, Russia.  In addition, although linen does seem to have been used commonly as underwear in the early middle ages, as the Viborg shirt, Manazan shirt, and St. Louis's shirt show, that does not mean that the very poor would have had linen instead of wool undergarments.

3.  Frustrating digressions. For no readily apparent reason, Dr. Scott occasionally comes forth with interesting information that is not readily available in the easily obtainable surveys of medieval costume. For example, in the chapter on sixteenth century costume, she mentions a German fashion for men (presumably wealthy ones) to wear their hair in "gold nets"--a claim I have not found in any other source.  Unfortunately, because there are no footnotes, it would be necessary to comb the bibliography (fortunately broken down by chapter) to attempt to ascertain the source of this interesting claim.  She also claims, in a discussion of Spanish women's costume in the late fifteenth century, that a particular hairstyle, which involves wearing the hair "in long tails ... hanging down their backs and wrapped in veils" (p. 168) and which I'd thought an Italian fashion is actually Spanish.  Here, a look at her bibliography suggests that her source is Ruth Anderson's excellent book Hispanic Costume, though once again there are enough other sources for the chapter that I have not encountered that it would be frustrating to attempt to confirm her statement.  

I am not sorry I bought this book. The great number of large color photographs from medieval manuscripts is very useful for costume research purposes, and some of the facts Dr. Scott scatters through the text are fascinating. At the paperback price, many costumers and costume scholars will find it a worthwhile purchase.  But it is not the type of book that can serve either as the introduction to, or a comprehensive discussion of, medieval costume.

More New Books

This is turning out to be a good year for new books related to costume. The people who published The Tudor Tailor just published a new book, The King's Servants. I just received my copy a week ago. Though it's no bigger than one of the Osprey military books (it's only 48 pages), it is packed with detailed information (and excellent illustrations) concerning men's costume of a particular period--1485-1511. The information is derived from period wardrobe accounts and makes a fascinating read.

Here's another book coming out this year that I'd like to buy: Marion Campbell, Medieval Jewellery: In Europe 1100-1500. V & A Publishing (November 1, 2009). ISBN-10: 185177582X. Judging by the product description that appears on Amazon, it will feature pictures of jewelry items in the V&A's collection. Fortunately for me, Amazon is selling the book for under $20 USD.

Finally, (speaking of Osprey military books, Timothy Dawson is publishing another book on Byzantine military life (and costume!) this year. Having covered (Middle) Byzantine infantrymen last year, he is publishing another Osprey book on (Middle) Byzantine cavalrymen this summer.

Clearly, it's going to be work, saving up for NESAT X. :-)