Medieval Clothing and Textiles 17 1783275987, 9781783275984

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Medieval Clothing and Textiles Volume 17

Medieval Clothing and Textiles ISSN 1744-5787

General Editors Cordelia Warr

University of Manchester, England

Monica L. Wright

University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA

Editorial Board Eva Andersson Strand

Centre for Textile Research, Copenhagen, Denmark

Elizabeth Coatsworth

Manchester, England

Sarah-Grace Heller

Ohio State University, USA

Maren Clegg Hyer

Snow College, Utah, USA

Thomas M. Izbicki

Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA

Christine Meek

Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland

Lisa Monnas

London, England

Robin Netherton

St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Gale R. Owen-Crocker

University of Manchester, England

Lucia Sinisi

University of Bari, Italy

Book Reviews Editor Robin Netherton

St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Founding Editors Robin Netherton and Gale R. Owen-Crocker

Medieval Clothing and Textiles

Volume 17

edited by CORDELIA WARR with ANNE KIRKHAM ROBIN NETHERTON GALE R. OWEN-CROCKER and MONICA L. WRIGHT

THE BOYDELL PRESS

© Contributors 2023 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner First published 2023 The Boydell Press, Woodbridge ISBN 978-1-78327-598-4 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-8001-013-71(ePDF) The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620-2731, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate Cover image: St. Mark, Rylands Latin MS 164, Horae (Paris), fifteenth century (ca. 1430), fol. 28v, detail. © University of Manchester, by permission.

Contents Illustrations vi Tables

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Contributors xii Acknowledgements xiv Preface xv 1 Embroidered Beasts: Animals in the Bayeux Tapestry Gale R. Owen-Crocker

1

2 The Sleeve from Bussy-Saint-Martin: A Rare Example of Medieval Quilted Armor Catherine Besson-Lagier

28

3 The Administration of Cloth and Clothing in the Great Wardrobe of Edward I Charles Farris

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4 Hanging Together: Furnishing Textiles in a Fifteenth-Century Book of Hours Anne Kirkham

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5 Gilt-leather Embroideries from Medieval Sweden and Finland Amica Sundström and Maria Neijman

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6 From Hennin to Hood: An Analysis of the Evolution of the English Hood Compared to the Evolution of the French Hood Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson

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Recent Books of Interest

183

Author Index, Volumes 1–16

189

Illustrations FIGURES

Animals in the Bayeux Tapestry Fig. 1.1 Silk fragment, Bukhara, seventh to eighth century (London, Victoria and Albert Museum) Fig. 1.2 Bayeux Tapestry, Scene 2 Fig. 1.3 Bayeux Tapestry, Scene 19 Fig. 1.4 Bayeux Tapestry, Scene 23 Fig. 1.5 Bayeux Tapestry, Scene 7 Fig. 1.6 Bayeux Tapestry, Scene 10 Fig. 1.7 Bayeux Tapestry, Scene 53 Fig. 1.8 Bayeux Tapestry, Scene 22

5 6 7 8 11 13 15 23

The Bussy-Saint-Martin Sleeve Fig. 2.1 The Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve, linen and brown silk taffeta, twelfth or thirteenth century 29 Fig. 2.2 The parts of the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve 32 Fig. 2.3 The textile layers in the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve 33 Fig. 2.4 The glove of the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve 34 Fig. 2.5 The glove compared to an anatomical sketch of the hand 35 Fig. 2.6 Seams between the fingers in the re-created replica of the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve 36 Fig. 2.7 The lower portion of the palm of the glove of the BussySaint-Martin sleeve 37 Fig. 2.8 Seams and stitching used in the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve 38 Fig. 2.9 Quilting in the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve 39 Fig. 2.10 Pad stitching in the re-created replica 40 Fig. 2.11 Two lines of stitching along the curved edge in the re-created replica41 Fig. 2.12 Seam around the thumb in the re-created replica 41 Fig. 2.13 Junction between fingers and palm of the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve42 Fig. 2.14 Detail of figure 2.1, showing the upper part of the smaller fragment48

Illustrations Fig. 2.15 Fig. 2.16 Fig. 2.17 Fig. 2.18 Fig. 2.19 Fig. 2.20 Fig. 2.21 Fig. 2.22 Fig. 2.23 Fig. 2.24 Fig. 2.25 Fig. 2.26 Fig. 2.27 Fig. 2.28 Fig. 2.29 Fig. 2.30

Inner arm view of the re-created replica 49 Joining of the glove and the sleeve in the re-created replica 50 Sleeve pattern of the pourpoint of Charles de Blois 53 Comparison of the sleeve of the pourpoint of Charles de Blois with the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve 54 The shape of the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve superimposed over the pourpoint of Charles de Blois 55 Patterns for the creation of a gambeson 55 Front view of the sleeve attachment in the re-created replica 56 Back view of the sleeve attachment in the re-created replica 57 Re-created gambeson modeled with the arms out of the sleeves (front)58 Re-created gambeson modeled with the arms out of the sleeves (back)59 Re-created gambeson modeled with the arms inside the sleeves and gloves 60 Detail of a tomb effigy of a knight, Ouville-L’Abbeye, SeineMaritime, France 62 Detail of the tomb effigy of Lord Hugo II de Heusden, Viscount of Ghent 63 Detail of the bas-relief of the Drapers’ Guild in Reims Cathedral, thirteenth century 64 Detail of a female figure (front), stone, ca. 1270, Troyes, France 65 Detail of a female figure (back), stone, ca. 1270, Troyes, France 65

Furnishing Textiles in a Book of Hours Fig. 4.1 The Lord’s Prayer, Rylands Latin MS 164, Horae (Paris), ca. 1430, fol. 13r Fig. 4.2 Office of the Dead, Rylands Latin MS 164, fol. 153r Fig. 4.3 The Gospel of Luke, Rylands Latin MS 164, fol. 23v Fig. 4.4 The Gospel of Mark, Rylands Latin MS 164, fol. 28v Fig. 4.5 Nativity, Rylands Latin MS 164, fol. 74r Fig. 4.6 Annunciation, Rylands Latin MS 164, fol. 215v

110 111 112 113 114 115

Gilt-leather Embroideries Fig. 5.1 Detail of the Skepptuna coverlet (Stockholm, Swedish History Museum)119 Fig. 5.2 Part of the Dalhem 1 coverlet (Stockholm, Swedish History Museum)121 Fig. 5.3 Detail of the Skokloster 1 textile (Stockholm, Swedish History Museum)122 vii

Illustrations Fig. 5.4 Fig. 5.5 Fig. 5.6 Fig. 5.7 Fig. 5.8 Fig. 5.9 Fig. 5.10 Fig. 5.11 Fig. 5.12 Fig. 5.13 Fig. 5.14 Fig. 5.15

Detail of the Waller embroidery, ca. 1500 (New York, Metropolitan Museum, Cloisters Collection) 124 Detail of the Dalhem 2 textile (Stockholm, Swedish History Museum)125 Detail of joining seams from the Skokloster 2 textile (Stockholm, Swedish History Museum) 126 Detail of the back of the Dalhem 1 coverlet 128 Detail of the Aspö cushion (Stockholm, Swedish History Museum)129 Detail of corner decorations on the Dalhem 1 coverlet 131 Detail of the Masku coverlet (Helsinki, National Museum of Finland) 132 Detail of the Dalhem 1 coverlet 136 Reconstructed square of the Dalhem 1 coverlet before decoration139 Reconstructed square of the Dalhem 1 coverlet after decoration139 The finished reconstruction of the Skepptuna coverlet 140 The finished reconstruction of the Dalhem 1 coverlet 141

Hennin to Hood Fig. 6.1 Lady of the court viewed from the back, after Hans Holbein the Younger 147 Fig. 6.2 Anne (or Ann) Leigh (d. 1557), after her effigy, Godshill, Isle of Wight, Hampshire 147 Fig. 6.3 Mary of Burgundy (1457–82), after a statue by Gilg Sesselschreiber, 1513–16 148 Fig. 6.4 Frances Brandon (1517–59), Duchess of Suffolk, after her effigy, Westminster Abbey 148 Fig. 6.5 Joan Neville, Countess of Arundel (ca. 1424–62), after her effigy, Arundel, Sussex 148 Fig. 6.6 Anne of York (1439–76), Duchess of Exeter, after her effigy, Windsor Castle 148 Fig. 6.7 Margaret Agard (1441–1500), after her effigy, Rolleston, Staffordshire150 Fig. 6.8 The parts of the English hood, after a portrait of Mary Wotton, Lady Guildford, by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1527 152 Fig. 6.9 The parts of the French hood, after a drawing of Diane de Poitiers (1500–66) by Jean Clouet, ca. 1520 152 Fig. 6.10 Isabel of Bourbon (ca. 1436–65), wife of Charles the Bold, after a diptych by an unidentified artist 153

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Illustrations Fig. 6.11 Fig. 6.12 Fig. 6.13 Fig. 6.14 Fig. 6.15 Fig. 6.16 Fig. 6.17 Fig. 6.18 Fig. 6.19 Fig. 6.20 Fig. 6.21 Fig. 6.22 Fig. 6.23 Fig. 6.24 Fig. 6.25 Fig. 6.26 Fig. 6.27 Fig. 6.28 Fig. 6.29 Fig. 6.30 Fig. 6.31 Fig. 6.32

Elizabeth Marshall (d. 1490), after her effigy, Norbury, Derbyshire154 Maria Baroncelli, after the Portinari Triptych by Hugo van der Goes, ca. 1475 155 Wife of Hippolyte de Berthoz (d. 1503), after the Martyrdom of St. Hippolytus Triptych by Dierick Bouts and Hugo van der Goes, ca. 1470–74 155 Daughter of Sir Thomas Urswyk, after his effigy, 1479, Dagenham, Essex 156 Margaret Cobham, after her effigy, after 1484, Brancepeth, County Durham 157 Woman said to be Joan Bagot, wife of John Curzon (d. ca. 1450/1456), after her effigy, Kedleston, Derbyshire 157 Grace Teye, Lady de Grey, after her effigy, ca. 1494–95, Merton, Norfolk 158 Anne Osgard (d. 1508), after her effigy, Chilton, Suffolk 158 Lady, after a miniature by Lucas Horenbout, ca. 1525 159 Elizabeth Dacre, wife of Sir Richard Huddleston, or Margaret Neville, his mother, after her effigy, Millom, Cumbria 160 Anne Gaynesford (d. 1490), after her effigy, Checkendon, Oxfordshire161 Jeanne de Laval (1433–98), after the Matheron Diptych by Nicolas Froment 161 Unidentified young woman, after an undated painting by Jean Perréal 162 Margaret of Austria (1480–1530), after a painting by Jean Hey, ca. 1490 163 Marguerite d’Agoulème (1492–1549), after a medal from before 1500 163 Margaret Dymmok, wife of Richard Vernon (d. 1517), after her effigy, Tong, Shropshire 163 Edith Fitz-Herbert (ca. 1457–1511), after her effigy, Ashover, Derbyshire164 Unidentified lady, after an effigy, ca. 1520–25, Deerhurst, Gloucestershire164 Perhaps Mary Courtenay, Lady Lisle (d. 1524), after her effigy, Thruxton, Isle of Wight, Hampshire 164 Margaret Seymour (d. 1520), after her effigy, Carisbrooke, Isle of Wight, Hampshire 166 Unidentified lady, after a drawing by Hans Holbein the Younger, ca. 1532–43 166 Jane Seymour, after a portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1536–37167 ix

Illustrations Fig. 6.33 Fig. 6.34 Fig. 6.35 Fig. 6.36 Fig. 6.37 Fig. 6.38 Fig. 6.39 Fig. 6.40 Fig. 6.41 Fig. 6.42

Margaret More (Mrs. Roper), after a drawing by Hans Holbein the Younger, ca. 1527 167 Lady age 61 years, after a portrait of Edward III, Lord Windsor, and his family, attributed to the Master of the Countess of Warwick, 1568 169 Marie d’Assigny, Madame de Canaples (1502–58), after a painting by Jean Clouet, ca. 1525 169 Unidentified English lady, after a drawing by Hans Holbein the Younger, ca. 1533–37 169 Anne of Brittany (1477–1514), queen of France, after a medal by Nicolas Leclerc and Jean de Saint-Priest, ca. 1499 171 Author’s experimental reconstruction of an English hood of 1536/37174 Patterns for the wired frame, edge of pearls, and frontlet 179 Pattern for the oreillette 180 Pattern for the black hood 181 Pattern for the lappets 182

Full credit details are provided in the captions to the images in the text. The editors, contributors, and publishers are grateful to all the institutions and persons listed for permission to reproduce the materials in which they hold copyright. Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders; apologies are offered for any omission, and the publishers will be pleased to add any necessary acknowledgement in subsequent editions.

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Tables The Bussy-Saint-Martin Sleeve Table 2.1 Materials used in the Bussy-Saint-Martin Sleeve

33

The Great Wardrobe of Edward I Table 3.1 Accounts of the Great Wardrobe

75

Hennin to Hood Table 6.1 Timeline of different headwear worn in France and England172–73

Contributors CATHERINE BESSON-LAGIER has a doctorate in archaeology and teaches history. She is a member of the French medieval historical re-enactment association Les Guerriers du Moyen Age and has been its president for twelve years. She researches the history of costume in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries with a principal inter­ est in re-creating medieval civilian and military clothing. Her scientific approach involves successive experimentation and close collaboration with craft workers who are concerned with historical techniques. CHARLES FARRIS is a curator at Historic Royal Palaces, based at the Tower of London. After completing his Ph.D. at Royal Holloway, University of London, on the piety of Edward I, he worked on projects at the University of Westminster, the Chaucer Heritage Trust, and Historic Royal Palaces. His research focuses on the history and material culture of the British monarchy. KAREN MARGRETHE HØSKULDSSON holds a degree in fashion design from Kunsthåndværkerskolen (now Designskolen Kolding) in Kolding, Denmark, and works as a freelance designer, cutter, tailor, and lecturer. Her research focuses particularly on headwear as a means of dating historical images. She is currently pursuing a project detailing the evolution of European ladies’ headwear from the late fifteenth to the late sixteenth centuries, including regional, age, and class variation. ANNE KIRKHAM (Assistant Editor) is an art historian, based at the University of Manchester, who teaches and researches Western medieval art. Her Ph.D. on texts about art written in the Middle Ages developed her interests in several areas of art, including her principal focus on manuscript illumination. A recent interest in textiles, prompted by work on a woven fifteenth-century Tree of Jesse altar-front owned by the University’s Whitworth gallery that led to two conference papers, has encouraged her to look at the intersections between manuscript illumination and textiles. MARIA NEIJMAN is a handicraft consultant and is unit manager for the cultural history collections at the State Historical Museums of Sweden. She has a long involvement with reconstructing historical textiles and is an expert in plant dyeing. She lectures on historical textiles and has published books on weaving and on medi­eval costume. With Amica Sundström, she runs the company Historical Textiles, which aims to spread knowledge about Swedish textile cultural heritage and the re-creation of historical textiles.

Contributors ROBIN NETHERTON (Acting Assistant Editor) is a costume historian specializing in Western European clothing of the Middle Ages and its interpretation by artists and historians. Since 1982, she has given lectures and workshops on practical aspects of medieval dress and on costume as an approach to social history, art history, and literature. Her published articles have addressed such topics as fourteenth-­ century sleeve embellishments, the cut of Norman tunics, and medieval Greenlanders’ interpretation of European female fashion. A journalist by training, she also works as a professional editor. She co-founded and for fifteen years co-edited Medieval Clothing and Textiles. GALE R. OWEN-CROCKER (Acting Editor) is Professor Emerita of the University of Manchester. She has published extensively on early medieval culture, especially dress and textiles, most recently Textiles of Medieval Iberia: Cloth and Clothing in a Multi-cultural Context (2022), Art and Worship in the Insular World (2021), Sense and Feeling in Daily Living in the Early Medieval English World (2020), and Clothing the Past (2018). She directed the Manchester Lexis of Cloth and Clothing Project (http://lexisproject.arts.manchester.ac.uk) and is Chief Editor of the Encyclopedia of Medieval Dress and Textiles of the British Isles c. 450–1450. She co-founded and for fifteen years co-edited Medieval Clothing and Textiles. AMICA SUNDSTRÖM is an archaeologist and is senior curator with responsibility for the archaeological and cultural history textile collection at the Swedish History Museum. She has for a long time engaged in reconstructions of historical textiles and has a particular expertise in handweaving. With Maria Neijman, she runs the company Historical Textiles, which aims to spread knowledge about Swedish textile cultural heritage and the re-creation of historical textiles. CORDELIA WARR (Editor) is senior lecturer in Art History at the University of Manchester. Her work focuses on Italian art of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. She has published widely on the representation of clothes, including Dressing for Heaven: Religious Clothing in Italy, 1215–1545 (2010) and “In persona Christi: Liturgical Gloves and the Construction of Public Religious Identity” (Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 2019). Her most recent book is Stigmatics and Visual Culture in Late Medieval and Early Modern Italy (2022). MONICA L. WRIGHT (Editor) is the Granger and Debaillon Professor of French and Medieval Studies at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Her publications include the book Weaving Narrative: Clothing in Twelfth-Century Romance (2009) and many articles on the use of clothing in medieval French literature. She wrote a chapter on literary representations of clothing in literature for the “Medieval Age” volume of the six-volume Cultural History of Dress and Fashion (2016). Her most recent article in Medieval Clothing and Textiles (in volume 14) examined the French literary sources for the term bliaut.

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Acknowledgements The editors and publishers are grateful to the Marc Fitch Fund, the Pasold Research Fund and an anonymous donor for financial support towards illustrations in this volume. .

Preface This volume contains six essays arranged chronologically. Contents extend from the eleventh century to the sixteenth and geographically from England to the francophone world and Scandinavia, covering material remains, art, documentary material, and the value of reconstruction as a research technique. Topics include garments, soft furnishings, and more utilitarian textiles. Our readers are always interested to learn of surviving medieval textiles, especially little-known ones. Catherine Besson-Lagier accordingly examines a little-known piece of clothing dated between 1160 and 1270 from Bussy-Saint-Martin, France (Chapter 2). Identified as a sleeve associated with medieval padded armor, its shape and composition were documented during its restoration in 1995. The article places this item of clothing in its historical, textual, and archaeological contexts; offers hypotheses on the general shape of the garment to which the sleeve could have been attached; and presents the results of experiments with the creation of such a garment that takes account of the technical characteristics of the original sleeve and argues for the value of reconstruction as a research methodology. Moving from this obscure medieval textile to the best-known of them, the embroidered Bayeux Tapestry, and focusing on the more than 700 animals depicted in the Tapestry’s main register and borders, Gale R. Owen-Crocker (Chapter 1) notes that whilst many of them are recognisable types, remarkable for their vitality, they are not spontaneous creations from life. Rather, they are very dependent on earlier textile art and recent manuscript models and, in addition, were constructed with templates. The author suggests that many of the animals are not merely authentic accessories of medieval life (in the main register) or decoration (in the borders) but that they provide subtle clues to human emotions and motivations in the power struggle which the Tapestry depicts. Continuing the focus on embroidery, Amica Sundström and Maria Neijman investigate a group of medieval Scandinavian textiles which they call gilt-leather coverlets, after the narrow gilded strip of leather used to decorate these embroideries (Chapter 5). The preserved objects have been used in churches, but written sources show that they were present in secular environments as well. The combination of materials, techniques, and design makes these embroideries unique to medieval Sweden and Finland. The authors describe the preserved objects and show how reconstructions of them can create a deeper understanding of their construction and expression. Also on the theme of textiles as soft furnishings, Anne Kirkham examines textile screens, canopies, curtains, and other furnishings as depicted in a fifteenth-century

Preface French Book of Hours, Manchester, Rylands MS 164 (Chapter 4). They occur in both religious scenes and depictions of contemporary medieval life. The author compares their deployment across images in the book, whilst closely considering individual elements, recognizing the recent growing interest in furnishing textiles as amongst the most valued objects of medieval visual culture. Reconstruction is at the heart of Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson’s exploration of the evolution of the English and French hoods in the sixteenth century, which draws on the author’s expertise as a freelance designer, cutter, and tailor (Chapter 6). Although the two types of hood reflect the two cultures’ partialities to straight lines supported by rigid interlining and organic movements of fabric, respectively, their components are surprisingly alike. The two types follow parallel paths in their evolution from medieval hennins to their fully developed versions. Høskuldsson’s experimental reconstruction of an English hood from 1536–37 offers a new interpretation of this type of headwear and a possible reason why it was eventually overtaken by the French hood. Charles Farris provides a fascinating insight into the medieval English royal court through the mysterious world of the Great Wardrobe, the household department responsible for sourcing, storing, and distributing various goods including cloth (Chapter 3). His paper seeks to untangle the system of account in the Great Wardrobe, for those whom cloth and clothing is the chief concern. Focusing on the latter years of the reign of Edward I (r. 1272–1307), for which significant records have survived, it identifies and describes the great variety of these accounts, hoping to encourage and support new research. The editors thank the board members and the many other scholars who have generously devoted their time and expertise to review article submissions and consult with authors. Volume 17 appears after a general hiatus in scholarly output due to the COVID pandemic and additional disruptions caused by other illness. Editing began jointly by Monica L. Wright and Cordelia Warr, was continued by Cordelia Warr with considerable input from Anne Kirkham, then the volume was finally prepared for publication by Gale R. Owen-Crocker in conjunction with Robin Netherton. The editors are grateful for the support they have received from the publishers, and Boydell wish to thank those who stepped in to help. We continue to consider for publication in this journal both independent submissions and papers read at sessions sponsored by DISTAFF (Discussion, Interpretation, and Study of Textile Arts, Fabrics, and Fashion) at the international congresses held annually in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and Leeds, England. Proposals from potential conference speakers should be sent to [email protected] (for Kalamazoo) or [email protected] (for Leeds). Potential authors for Medieval Clothing and Textiles should read our author guidelines at http://www.distaff.org/ MCTguidelines.pdf, and send a 300-word synopsis to [email protected]. Authors of larger studies interested in submitting a monograph or collaborative book manuscript for our subsidia series, Medieval and Renaissance Clothing and Textiles, should apply using the publication proposal form on the website of

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Preface our publisher, Boydell & Brewer, at https://boydellandbrewer.com/boydell-brewerprospective-authors. We encourage potential authors to discuss their ideas with the General Editors, Robin Netherton ([email protected]) and Gale Owen-Crocker ([email protected]), before making a formal proposal. We are pleased to announce the publication of the fifth volume in this series: Textiles of Medieval Iberia: Cloth and Clothing in a Multi-cultural Context.

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Embroidered Beasts: Animals in the Bayeux Tapestry Gale R. Owen-Crocker

The Bayeux Tapestry is an eleventh-century embroidery over 68 metres long and about 50 centimetres wide, depicting, in the form of a continuous graphic narrative with succinct, Latin captions, (alleged) events prior to the Norman Conquest of England.1 The chief protagonist is the English earl, Harold Godwinsson, brother-in-law of King Edward the Confessor. Harold is portrayed as pious and heroic, but is trapped into swearing an oath to William, Duke of Normandy. He reneges on his oath to take the throne of England (as Harold II) on the death of the childless Edward, but loses it to William, dying at the Battle of Hastings. The Tapestry exhibits the viewpoint of the Norman conquerors, relating that Harold, intending perhaps to visit Normandy (not mentioned in English sources), was captured by Guy of Ponthieu and taken from Guy by William; and that Harold was a perjurer, justifiably replaced by William, the rightful heir;2 but sometimes it seems sympathetic to the English or appears to exhibit wry wit at the expense of both sides. It is acknowledged to be of English design, almost certainly conceived in Canterbury since there is widespread use of images from Canterbury manuscripts as models

An earlier version of this paper was given at the online conference of the Medieval Dress and Textile Society (MEDATS) in November 2021. The research is part of a wider project, to be published as “Cloth Creatures: Animals on Textiles from England and Wales, Seventh to Eleventh Centuries,” in Maren Clegg Hyer and Gale R. Owen-Crocker, eds., Animalia: Animal and Human Interaction in the Early Medieval English World, Daily Living in the Anglo-Saxon World 5 (Liverpool, UK: Liverpool University Press, forthcoming). 1

2

Now available at https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/la-tapisserie-de-bayeux/decouvrirla-tapisserie-de-bayeux/explorer-la-tapisserie-de-bayeux-en-ligne, accessed Aug. 29, 2022. This version includes the nineteenth-century numbering of scenes which, while not always incontrovertible, provides a useful form of reference. William of Jumièges, see The Gesta Normannorum Ducum of William of Jumièges, Orderic Vitalis and Robert of Torigni, ed. Elisabeth M. C. Van Houts (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992– 95), 2:158–61, and William of Poitiers, see The Gesta Gvillelmi of William of Poitiers, ed. and trans. R. H. C. Davis and Marjorie Chibnall (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998), esp. 68–71, 100–1, 130–31.

Gale R. Owen-Crocker for scenes in the Tapestry.3 It was made after the Battle of Hastings of October 1066, which it depicts, and probably before the disgracing of Odo, half-brother of William the Conqueror, who features in it in a favourable light: Odo was imprisoned in 1082 and banished from England in 1088. The Tapestry portrays 762 animals (not counting decorative animal heads on ships, buildings, and furniture),4 including domestic/tamed/farm animals (horse, dog, hawk, pig, sheep, ox, donkey/ass, pack pony, hen/cock, goose, goat); wild animals, to some degree familiar to the artists and original audience of the Tapestry (boar, crane/heron, dove, fox, peacock,5 hare, frog, deer, bear, fish); foreign, exotic animals known to the artists from images and stories (lion, camel, possible ostrich);6 and fantasy creatures of similar artistic or literary origins (winged lion, winged horse, dragon, amphisboena, senmurv, centaur, homodubius). Animals occur in the central register of the frieze as accessories in the narrative of human ambition and rivalry related there; and in the top and bottom borders, where the default filling is a regular alternation of paired creatures. They are also found in the borders as occasional singletons, as actors in fables, and in scenes that might or might not be fables. Tapestry scholarship has developed since studies such as the 1907 book by Louis Champion, himself a cavalry commander, which sought to identify the 3

4

5

6

First recognised by Francis Wormald, “Style and Design,” in The Bayeux Tapestry: A Comprehensive Survey, ed. Sir Frank Stenton (London: Phaidon, 1957), 28–31, and since both modified and developed in David J. Bernstein, The Mystery of the Bayeux Tapestry (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986), and in numerous articles by Cyril Roy Hart, Michael J. Lewis, and myself. Discussed in detail in Gale R. Owen-Crocker, “Embroidered Wood: Animal-headed Posts in the Bayeux ‘Tapestry,’” in Aedificia Nova: Studies in Honor of Rosemary Cramp, ed. Catherine E. Karkov and Helen Damico (Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2008), 106–38, reprinted as Chapter 13 in Gale R. Owen-Crocker, The Bayeux Tapestry: Collected Papers, Variorum Collected Studies Series (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2012). The peacock, native to India, may seem an exotic inclusion in this list; but peafowl bones have been identified from middle and late Anglo-Saxon sites. Peacock feathers were considered luxury items in the Roman and Viking worlds, and peafowl flesh was edible; Kristopher Poole, “Bird Introductions,” in Extinctions and Invasions: A Social History of British Fauna, ed. Terry O’Connor and Naomi Sykes (Oxford: Windgather Press, 2010), 160–62. Olaf Hoskuldsson, a tenth- to eleventh-century Icelandic merchant and landowner, who features in several Icelandic texts, was nicknamed “the Peacock,” so the bird’s magnificence must have been familiar in the northern world. The identification of an ostrich in the lower border of Scene 48 was made by J. Bard McNulty, The Narrative Art of the Bayeux Tapestry (New York: AMS Press, 1989), 1–2, on the basis of the star beside it and a myth that the ostrich could not lay eggs unless it could see the Pleiades. McNulty saw the ostrich as representing Duke William as a symbol of military prowess, an interpretation disputed by Wolfgang Grape, The Bayeux Tapestry: Monument to a Norman Triumph, trans. D. Britt (Munich: Prestel, 1994), 41–42. McNulty’s point was developed further in J. Bard McNulty, Visual Meaning in the Bayeux Tapestry: Problems and Solutions in Picturing History, Studies in French Civilization 28 (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen, 2003), 19–21. The bird is the left-hand one of a pair; its partner has no accompanying star.

2

Animals in the Bayeux Tapestry characteristics of eleventh-century Norman horses from the depictions in the Tapestry,7 and Hélène Chefneux’s classic recognition in 1934 of a series of fables in the borders, which did not consider them as other than decorative,8 to recognition that details of horses (particularly inconsistent details) may be semiotic and that, just as Aesop’s Fables had moral significance for human beings, so the Tapestry’s border fables (and other border details), may have relevance to the themes of the story being played out in the main register. Such interpretations remain the subject of scholarly disagreement. The Tapestry creatures are widely admired for their liveliness as well as their variety. However, the following study will question their supposed realism, considering the artistic conventions employed in the Tapestry, some possible sources, and the workshop methods of design. It will examine the uses of different embroidery stitches, choices of colour combinations, and the possible thematic significance of some of the animals. Horses, which appear most frequently, will be the subject of a detailed examination. CONVENTIONS AND SOURCES

The apparent naturalism of the Bayeux Tapestry animals stands out in contrast to earlier Anglo-Saxon art (metalwork, sculpture, and manuscript illumination, as well as the few surviving textiles) where recognisable species and individuality are rare.9 However, any assumption that the Bayeux animals were copied from life is probably mistaken, or at least an incomplete appreciation of artistic conventions. The border creatures are posed in unnatural ways, usually with the farther foreleg advancing, a convention of figure-depiction that goes back to ancient Egyptian art. They turn their heads to face backwards and often bite their tails or wings. Lions’ tails are arranged artificially between the legs to loop over the body and finish in the air or in the mouth. Lions’ tails also often end with a triple flourish, more like conventional vegetal ornament than the characteristic rounded tuft of hair. Birds often have one or both wings displayed, though they are firmly grounded, their feet on the line which marks off the upper border from the main register or near the bottom margin of the Tapestry, as if they were walking or standing, rather than flying. 7

8 9

L. Champion, Les Chevaux et les Cavaliers de la Tapisserie de Bayeux (Caen, France: Libraire de la Sociétés Antiquitaires de Normandie, 1907), available online at https://gallica. bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k65335761.texteImage#, accessed Aug. 29, 2022. I am grateful to Sylvette Lemagnen for this reference. Hélène Chefneux, “Les Fables dans le Tapisseries de Bayeux,” Romania 60 (1934): 1–35, 153–94. Only the zoomorphic figureheads of some of the Tapestry’s ships reflect the nonrealistic Ringerike, Mammen, and, in one case, Urnes styles; Owen-Crocker, “Embroidered Wood,” 108–14. There are recognisable, but stylized, animals in the illustrated texts of eleventh-century Canterbury such as the Old English illustrated Hexateuch (London, British Library, MS Cotton Claudius B.iv), a paraphrase of the opening books of the Old Testament in the Old English language. See http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=cotton_ms_claudius_b_iv_fs001r, accessed Aug. 29, 2022.

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Gale R. Owen-Crocker Pairs of creatures, often facing plants, sometimes in compartments of various shapes, are common in the history of decorative textiles, including Coptic wool tapestry and Islamic and Byzantine woven silks (fig. 1.1). From imported textiles, northwest Europe became familiar with depictions of realistically shaped, though often unrealistically decorated, birds such as eagles, doves, ducks, and peacocks, along with Asian and African animals such as camels and elephants, and fantasy creatures such as the senmurv (a dog-bird, placed in the border above Scene 40), griffin (a combination of eagle and lion, placed in the border above Scene 7), and winged lion. The senmurv had a long tradition in silk textiles going back to Sassanian art and Zoroastrianism, though any religious association had long been lost by the eleventh century. The griffin, too, goes back to Middle Eastern culture, though it was also prominent in Classical art. The winged lion probably appears on textiles because of its place in Middle Eastern mythology, but it was also a biblical (Old Testament) beast.10 As an image, it received reinforcement in European art through depictions of the lion as the emblem of St. Mark, which was sometimes winged. Although the border design certainly does not employ all the creatures that might have been available from imported cloths (there are, for example, no elephants or obvious ducks on the Bayeux Tapestry) there is an unmistakeable debt to silk textiles in its pairs of animals within compartments, created by diagonal bars (fig. 1.2, lower border), or in individual compartments (fig. 1.2, upper border), flanked by foliage. However, in the Bayeux Tapestry the partners sometimes differ, not just in colour, which was a device already used in manuscript illuminations that borrowed paired animals from silks,11 but also in details of anatomy and position, and occasionally, in the manner of stitching, such individualisation being achievable in embroidery where each cartoon image is separately drawn and hand-stitched, but not in silk weaving with its mechanical repetition of pre-set patterns. The winged lions in the border shown above Scene 19 (fig. 1.3) differ in colour and anatomical details (tail, haunch, front paw) but are stitched in a very similar way. Those in the border above Scene 23 (fig. 1.4) are very similar, if not identical, in outline but exhibit both a different concept of colouring wing feathers and dividing off the muzzle, and different stitching: the left-hand animal has stem-stitched wings, head, and tail; the right-hand one uses laid and couched work for these areas.12 Repetition with variation and a line of two related but contrasting parts are fundamental features of Old English poetry, a taste reflected in much Anglo-Saxon art with its balanced but asymmetrical designs. The irregular spacing of the borders was evidently also

10 It appears in Daniel’s first dream vision, Daniel 7:4. 11 For instance the Trewhiddle Style creatures at the bases of the arches in the Royal Bible, London, British Library, MS Royal 1.E.vi, 4r, probably ninth century. See http://www. bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=royal_ms_1_e_vi_f004r, accessed Aug. 29, 2022. 12 The lions in figure 1.3 appear to be in full cry and full of movement, reflecting the urgency of the soldiers beneath them. It may be significant that the lions at figure 1.4 bite their own wings, as do the pair of birds to their right. Perhaps they suggest that Harold is damaging himself by his action in swearing this oath.

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Animals in the Bayeux Tapestry

Fig. 1.1: Fragment of silk textile showing paired lions in compartments and two types of running quadrupeds flanking a stylised tree. Silk panel, Bukhara, seventh to eighth century. Photo: Copyright © Victoria and Albert Museum, London, acc. no. 763-1893.

in keeping with eleventh-century Anglo-Norman taste, escaping the rigidity of the mechanically produced regularity of imported woven silks. “Harold Dux” (later “Harold Rex”) is first named as he rides on horseback, carrying a bird of prey, accompanied by hounds (Scene 2, fig. 1.2). Raptors and hounds will accompany Harold, and his captors, Guy of Ponthieu and William of Normandy, up to Scene 14, that is, throughout the first length of cloth and in the first scene on the second.13 This initial depiction of Harold as hunter is sometimes discussed from a socio-historical viewpoint, since he is known to have been an enthusiastic hawker/ falconer: he owned hunting lands in England and Wales and is alleged to have owned books on hawks and falconry.14 It has been suggested that raptors and hounds accompanied him because some sport was intended on his journey, or that the birds of prey carried to Bosham and thence to France were intended as diplomatic gifts from King 13 The Tapestry consists of nine pieces of linen, unobtrusively joined. The first seam occurs at the end of Scene 13. 14 Ian W. Walker, Harold: The Last Anglo-Saxon King (Thrupp, Stroud, UK: Wrens Park Publishing, 2000), 134–35 and note 29.

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Fig. 1.2: Harold as hunter, with raptor and hounds, and his entourage setting off for Bosham (Scene 2); contrasting arrangements of upper and lower borders. Detail of the Bayeux Tapestry, eleventh century. All Bayeux Tapestry images with special authorization of the City of Bayeux.

Gale R. Owen-Crocker

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Fig. 1.3: Pair of winged lions in full movement above Scene 19, where William’s soldiers ride on Dinan. Detail of the Bayeux Tapestry, eleventh century.

Animals in the Bayeux Tapestry

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Fig. 1.4: Pair of winged lions biting their own wings, and birds biting their wings, above Scene 23, Harold’s oath. Detail of the Bayeux Tapestry, eleventh century.

Gale R. Owen-Crocker

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Animals in the Bayeux Tapestry Edward, to his kinsman William of Normandy.15 Both were known for their passionate interest in hunting with raptors.16 However, this was a sport for the rich. Ownership of a bird of prey reflected the lordly status of the man who carried it, and was used as such an indicator in art and literature.17 In the Tapestry the bird probably has significance quite apart from its authenticity as a feature in eleventh-century elite life, in indicating the variations in Harold’s position as the raptors change hands between Harold, his captor Guy, and his rescuer and rival William. A point that has not been taken into account in discussion of Scene 2, however, is the long-established textile tradition of depicting hunting scenes, often consisting of rider, bird of prey, and a hound or hounds.18 The “Rider Silk,” the remains of a precious tenth- or eleventh-century textile preserved in the coffin of St. Cuthbert and excavated in 1827, though stylistically different from the Bayeux Tapestry image, is an interesting example of this motif because it was probably in England when the Bayeux Tapestry was made. It may have been added to the Cuthbert relics at the documented translation of the saint in 1104, or at some later, undocumented opening of the tomb.19 The motif, which shows a rider with a bird of prey on his hand and a hound beneath the horse, as well as a frieze of hares, the intended target of the hunting, was a traditional one going back to Sassanian Persia and Byzantium. The modelling of creatures in the Tapestry on art is not confined to the textile tradition or to the exotic animals, foreign to a western European artist, which they depicted. Even familiar domesticated or farmed animals are based on models in illustrated manuscripts: Cyril Hart has demonstrated that the Tapestry’s dogs (main register, fig. 1.2, and lower border, Scene 12) and eels (lower border, Scene 17) are from

15 First suggested by C. R. Dodwell, “The Bayeux Tapestry and the French Secular Epic,” Burlington Magazine 108 (1966), reprinted in The Study of the Bayeux Tapestry, ed. Richard Gameson (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 1997), 54 n. 33. 16 Respectively, Frank Barlow, ed. and trans., The Life of King Edward Who Rests at Westminster, Oxford Medieval Texts, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992), 62–63; and Davis and Chibnall, Gesta Gvillelmi, 24–25. 17 See Gale R. Owen-Crocker, “Hawks and Horse-Trappings: The Insignia of Rank,” in The Battle of Maldon AD 991, ed. Donald Scragg (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991) reprinted as Chapter 15 in Owen-Crocker, Bayeux Tapestry: Collected Papers, 220–29. 18 The tradition continued throughout the Middle Ages and into modern times. The hunting motif featured repeatedly in papers on different epochs at the MEDATS conference mentioned in the opening note of this article. 19 Six fragments of this precious silk tenth- or eleventh-century textile were recovered. Probably Spanish, possibly from Cordoba, it is printed in gold with some form of glue. It was best seen in a painted photograph dating to 1888, but the Victoria and Albert Museum were unable to locate this when it was requested by the author. See Anna Muthesius, “Silks and Saints: The Rider and Peacock Silks from the Relics of St. Cuthbert,” in St. Cuthbert, His Cult and His Community to AD 1200, ed. Gerald Bonner, Clare Stancliffe, and D. W. Rollason (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 1989), 350, 358; Muthesius’s own drawings of the Rider Silk appear at 349. G. Brett, “The ‘Rider’ Silk,” in The Relics of St. Cuthbert, ed. C. F. Battiscombe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956), 470–83, considered it Persian.

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Gale R. Owen-Crocker illustrations of the zodiac (Sirius and Hydra respectively);20 the ox (Scene 7 border, fig. 1.5, and Scene 40/41) with its distinctive neck wrinkles and bent legs, if not also from a zodiac (Taurus), might be borrowed from an emblem of St. Luke, or from a lost copy of Aesop’s fables;21 specific horses derive from drawings in Canterbury manuscripts, with possible associations brought by those relationships to anyone who knew the manuscripts (see below, pages 14, 26). What might pass today as authentic country scenes may be, partially at least, modelled on art. The bottom border below Scene 10 (fig. 1.6) shows ploughing, sowing seed, harrowing (perhaps, if this is a left-to-right sequence of events, to cover the seed) and scaring of birds off the seed.22 The man sowing seed from a bag is probably, like other images in the Tapestry, copied from the eleventh-century illustrated Harley Psalter, or from its ninth-century source, the Utrecht Psalter.23 The context, Psalm 36 (37) asserts God’s forthcoming judgement on the wicked and His support of the righteous, who are characterised as agricultural workers in the illustration though not in the text. At verses 25 and 26 the “seed” of the righteous man is his descendants: “I have not seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread … his seed is blessed.” The scaring of birds with a sling is, as David Bernstein noted, based on an image of Abraham in the Old English illustrated Hexateuch.24 Again, the biblical context is procreation. Abraham has complained to God “I go childless … to me thou has given no seed” (Genesis 15:2–3), is promised descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky (Genesis 15:5), and is pictured scaring birds off the sacrifice he has made to God (15:11).25 If these Tapestry images are anything more than decorative, they must be about dynasty, though the exact meaning of them is unclear. King Edward the Confessor had failed to 20 Cyril Hart, “The Cicero-Aratea and the Bayeux Tapestry,” in King Harold II and the Bayeux Tapestry, ed. Gale R. Owen-Crocker (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2005), 161–78. 21 Respectively, Hart, “Cicero-Aratea,” 166; cf. the front of the ox in the Book of Cerne, Cambridge, University Library, MS Ll.1.10, 21v, https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MSLL-00001-00010/96, accessed Aug. 29, 2022; and Stephen D. White, “The Fables in the Borders,” in Elizabeth Carson Pastan and Stephen D. White with Kate Gilbert, The Bayeux Tapestry and Its Contexts: A Reassessment (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2014), 10, identifying the border hunt as one of the “canonical” fables in the Tapestry, The Lion’s Share. 22 I have discussed this scene and interpretations of it as a fable, genre scene, or commentary on the text in Gale R. Owen-Crocker, “Reading the Bayeux Tapestry through Canterbury Eyes,” in Anglo-Saxons: Studies Presented to Cyril Roy Hart, ed. S. Keynes and A. P. Smyth (Dublin: Four Courts, 2006), 243–65, reprinted as Chapter 4 in Owen-Crocker, Bayeux Tapestry, Collected Papers, 258–61. Hélène Chefneux (“Les Fables,” 18–20) implausibly identified the sequence as the fable of The Man Sowing Flax, the Swallow and the Birds. White, “Fables,” 168, identified the bird-scaring as the fable Farmer and Birds. 23 Respectively London, British Library, MS Harley 603, 21r, https://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=harley_ms_603_f021r, and Utrecht, Netherlands, Universiteitsbibliotheek, MS 32, 21r, https://psalter.library.uu.nl/page?p=49, both accessed Aug. 29, 2022. Both manuscripts were in a monastic library in Canterbury in the eleventh century. 24 Bernstein, Mystery, 40; London, British Library, MS Cotton Claudius B.iv, 26v. 25 Bible texts are quoted from the Authorized Version. In the Vulgate (Latin) Bible, the word translated here as “seed” is semen in every case. The Old English version either omits the phrase or uses ofspring (fol. 27r, line 3).

10

Fig. 1.5: Guy of Ponthieu and his entourage arresting Harold (Scene 7). Detail of the Bayeux Tapestry, eleventh century.

Animals in the Bayeux Tapestry

11

Gale R. Owen-Crocker continue the English royal line as he had not produced a child. His kingdom was being run by earls, predominantly men of the Godwin dynasty, his wife’s family. William of Normandy, through his kinship with Edward’s maternal line, will seek the English throne for his own, Norman dynasty. The agricultural sequence is placed below the scene where William’s messengers intimidate Guy into giving up his prisoner Harold to William. Perhaps the most likely interpretation is that the person preparing the ground and protecting the seed that has been planted is William, planning his own inheritance of the English throne. Scene 41 of the Tapestry shows Norman pillaging of England, and the slaughter of a sheep, ox, and pig; a pony with panniers stands to the right. Again, though the animals must have been familiar to the designer, there is evidence that models were used for this scene, selectively yet eclectically. The mis-en-scène of the sheep butchering is probably borrowed from the Hexateuch, fol. 29v, where Abraham prepares a meal for unexpected visitors, who are in fact angels bringing good news (Genesis 18). The Hexateuch image shares with Bayeux the details of one taller and one smaller figure (perhaps a child), a raised axe, and the holding of the animal by its horns, though the animal in the manuscript, as in the Bible, is a calf, not a sheep. The cooking pot over a fire to the right of the Tapestry scene is probably also borrowed from the Hexateuch scene. The choice of animals for slaughter in the Tapestry is probably taken from a different source, sacrifice scenes on Roman sculpture, in particular Scene IX of Trajan’s Column, which depicts an ox, a sheep, and a pig, while a pony with panniers stands to the right.26 Knowing the contexts of the source images suggests an ironic view of the situation on the part of the Bayeux designer: the English are forced to entertain the Norman invaders as if they were honoured guests, but in fact the loss of their animals is a sacrifice for the English. BIBLE IMAGERY

Although, as demonstrated, the Bayeux designer uses images from illustrations of biblical texts, other accepted Christian imagery is generally avoided. Certain creatures had become established Christian symbols in art, but if the Bayeux artist uses such creatures, they are largely detached from their religious associations. The peacock, familiar from ancient art, had become a Christian symbol of resurrection. In the Tapestry, if symbolic of anything, it is probably pride, as peacocks occupy the border above William, seated, and Harold, standing before him arguing his case: two proud 26 Gale R. Owen-Crocker, “Stylistic Variation and Roman Influence in the Bayeux Tapestry,” in The Bayeux Tapestry Revisited, ed. Micheal Crafton, Peregrinations 2, no. 4 (2009): 71– 75, https://digital.kenyon.edu/perejournal/vol2/iss4/4, accessed Aug. 29, 2022; reprinted as Chapter 5 in Owen-Crocker, Bayeux Tapestry: Collected Papers, there at 17–20. Images of Trajan’s Column can be found at https://www.nationalgeographic.com/trajan-column, accessed Aug. 29, 2022. That Trajan’s Column was the ultimate source of several Bayeux images was first established by Otto Karl Werkmeister, “The Political Ideology of the Bayeux Tapestry,” Studi Medievali, 3rd ser., 17 (1976): 535–95.

12

Fig. 1.6: Agricultural images below Scene 10, where William’s men persuade Guy to give up his prisoner Harold to William. Detail of the Bayeux Tapestry, eleventh century.

Animals in the Bayeux Tapestry

13

Gale R. Owen-Crocker men confronting one another.27 When two surprisingly drab peacocks, one making a near-human, upward gesture with its wing, stand below the Norman army in full array, we might understand they are saying “They even outdo us.”28 The ox with bent legs, if not derived from the zodiac sign Taurus, was probably copied from an emblem of St. Luke, but here in the Tapestry it appears in the lower border as a galloping (and unlikely) participant in a hunt (fig. 1.5), and as dead meat for the Norman army (Scene 40/41). The designer does draw on biblical knowledge occasionally: in the upper border of Scene 53, a pair of doves carry olive branches, more usually found as decorative motifs between creatures. The image derives from the dove that returned to Noah’s ark with a sprig of an olive tree in its beak (Genesis 8:11), and became an emblem of peace in early Christianity; also, the Holy Spirit descends in the form of a dove in all the gospel accounts of Christ’s baptism. The audience may recognise an ironic emblem of peace above the bloodiest scene of the battle (fig. 1.7), but probably there is no reference to the Holy Spirit.29 Similarly, the terrified lamb that flees an English axe above Scene 56 may remind the viewer of the biblical sacrificial lamb (Isaiah 53:7), helpless in the face of threat, but it is not representing Christ.30 The suggestive emblems are in the same spirit as the adaptation of manuscript images, especially those from the Old English version of the Hexateuch, to the secular context of the Tapestry. The immediate monastic audience of the Tapestry who knew the source manuscripts in the religious houses of Canterbury and were steeped in Christian symbolism might have been alert to the associations, such as Abraham’s seed, the sacrificial lamb, and many more, but the Norman patron would not, and, as the Tapestry moved further from its origins, associations were lost, until the rediscovery of the manuscript borrowings in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. COLOUR

When the Tapestry first came to popular attention in Victorian England, the press were disparaging about its unrealistic use of colour.31 Today’s eye seems more ready to read the colour as it was intended, seeing no absurdity in a dark blue sheep with 27 Argued in detail in Gale R. Owen-Crocker, “Squawk Talk: Commentary by Birds in the Bayeux Tapestry?” Anglo-Saxon England 34 (2005), 237–56, reprinted as Chapter 9 in Owen-Crocker, Bayeux Tapestry: Collected Papers, 248–49. “Proud as a po” is a medieval simile though I have not been able to trace it back as far as the 11th century. 28 Ibid., 249. 29 Ibid., 247. 30 First suggested in Gale R. Owen-Crocker, “The Bayeux Tapestry: The Voice from the Border,” in Signs on the Edge: Space, Text and Margin in Medieval Manuscripts, ed. Sarah Larratt Keefer and Rolf H. Bremmer Jr, Medievalia Groningana (Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 2007), 235–58, reprinted as Chapter 10 in Owen-Crocker, Bayeux Tapestry: Collected Papers, 245. 31 Anna C. Henderson, “Through Victorian Eyes: Re-assessing Elizabeth Wardle’s Replica,” 166, and Gale R. Owen-Crocker, “Colour and Imagination in the Bayeux Tapestry,” 47–48, both in Making Sense of the Bayeux Tapestry: Readings and Reworkings, ed.

14

Fig. 1.7: Norman horses fall at a spiked ditch (Scene 53), with doves of peace above. Detail of the Bayeux Tapestry, eleventh century.

Animals in the Bayeux Tapestry

15

Gale R. Owen-Crocker two yellow legs, yellow horns and outline, and a green tail (upper border over Scene 12), but rather an animal with several distinctive parts, the farther legs seen from the inside, distinguished from the nearer legs seen from outside. The Bayeux embroiderers may give an animal unrealistic colours even when it might have been possible to choose a tone closer to nature: the Aesop fable of the fox, the crow, and the cheese appears three times in the Tapestry borders, but only at its second occurrence (in the lower border of Scene 16) is the crow stitched in a natural-looking blue-black, its wing feathers, beak, and eye marked out in yellow. At its first appearance (beneath Scene 4) the crow is red and light green, colours that are prominent in the scene above—though blue-black is used for some outlines of human bodies, so evidently was available. The third time the crow appears (above Scene 24) it is red, with red and yellow wings. The fox, which has been yellow before, is red with a yellow tail in this manifestation. Not only do the embroiderers not seek to be realistic, they do not seek to be consistent in the colouring of the same animal, any more than they do with the colours of the costumes, hair, and horses associated with repeated appearances of human protagonists. TEMPLATE DESIGN

Although the designer was continually inspired by pre-existing models, the drawings were clearly not copied directly onto the linen. Images taken from manuscript pages would have had to be scaled up for the main register, or down for the narrower borders, and they were evidently laid out by experienced draftspersons using templates, as already demonstrated in an article in Medieval Clothing and Textiles. Despite their apparent animation, the Bayeux animals were constructed in parts, since, for example, the same wing reoccurs, and that wing template was also used for shields. Likewise the same leg occurs on different animals, and the same curve is used for a creature’s anatomy as for an inanimate object. The complex horses, made with up to eight templates, occasionally reveal the method of composition when the draftsperson has not always assembled the horse parts convincingly, giving a beast an over-small head, or disproportionately long/short body.32

Anna C. Henderson with Gale R. Owen-Crocker (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016). 32 Maggie Kneen and Gale R. Owen-Crocker, “The Use of Curved Templates in the Drawing of the Bayeux Tapestry,” Medieval Clothing and Textiles 16 (2020): 31–66, esp. 50–53. Geometric composition is suggested also by François Murez, “La Géométrie Construit l’Espace et Rythme le Temps dans la Tapisserie de Bayeux,” 124–47, and Patrick Arman Savidan, “L’Invention Plastique d’une Conquête,” 289–309, both in L’Invention de la Tapisserie de Bayeux: Naissance, Composition et Style d’un Chef-d’Œuvre Médiéval, Colloque International, Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux, 22–25 Septembre 2016, ed. Sylvette Lemagnen, Shirley Ann Brown, and Gale R. Owen-Crocker (Bayeux, France: Point de Vues / Ville de Bayeux, 2018).

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Animals in the Bayeux Tapestry MEANING OF THE BORDERS

The fables placed in the Bayeux Tapestry borders can easily be interpreted as commentary on the main characters. For instance, in the fable of the fox, the crow, and the cheese, which appears three times, the cheese—the prize—is the English throne; Harold is the crow, gullible and susceptible to flattery (William presenting him with arms), and so dropping the cheese; William the more cunning fox who gets the prize in the end. In the fable of the wolf and the crane, which appears in the bottom border under Scene 5 as Harold crosses the Channel and above Scene 24 as he returns to England, the crane plausibly reflects Harold. Rather than bemoan its lack of reward for taking a bone out of the wolf ’s throat, the crane is advised that it is lucky to have escaped having had its head in the wolf ’s mouth. Similarly, Harold is lucky to have been allowed to return to England; he might, like his brother Wulfnoth, have ended his days as a Norman captive. The hunting scene beneath Scenes 12 and 13,33 in which huntsmen and hounds assail a stag from both sides, parallels Harold’s situation above. Already a prisoner of Guy, whose party travel left to right, he is about to be “rescued” by William, whose group approach from the right, into another dangerous relationship. Harold is the hunted stag. Likewise the tethered bear, taunted by an armed man (with Norman hairstyle) in the border beneath Scene 11, may represent more than the popular sport of bearbaiting: the bear may represent Harold, captured and disarmed by Guy.34 It is possible that some of the border animals reflect the mood of the moment in the main register. Boars are associated with battle in Anglo-Saxon metalwork and poetry; it is therefore natural that they should take a great interest in the aggressive army below them at Scene 18. Two addorsed dragons may indicate scarcely contained anger, as Duke William confronts Guy of Ponthieu above them at Scene 13. There are more instances that could be cited;35 but it is undeniable that many other border creatures do not obviously lend themselves to semiotic interpretation, especially those which appear repeatedly, such as lions and goose-like birds.

33 A suggested interpretation as the fable The Stag at the Spring is implausible: The stag is so entranced by its own reflection that the hounds catch it. There is no water here. 34 Richard David Wissolik, “The Saxon Statement: Code in the Bayeux Tapestry,” Annuale Medievale 19 (1979): 96. Shirley Ann Brown, “Cognate Imagery: The Bear, Harold and the Bayeux Tapestry,” in Owen-Crocker, King Harold II, 149–60, esp. 158, in a suggested parallel with the Song of Roland’s Ganelon, argues the bear also anticipates Harold’s avarice in later seizing the crown. 35 See further, Owen-Crocker, “Voice from the Border,” 244–54.

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Gale R. Owen-Crocker HORSES

A majority of the animals in the Tapestry are horses: there are 192 in the main register and borders,36 as well as three donkeys or mules,37 and other donkey-like38 or horse-like creatures.39 They appear in thirty of the fifty-eight scenes. These depictions include some recent innovations in both warfare and agriculture. William of Normandy had adopted the bold plan of shipping horses over the English Channel in order to fight as cavalry. (At Hastings the English retained the traditional practice of fighting on foot.) The Tapestry shows the transportation of the horses in ships, not realistically but sufficiently clearly to demonstrate the importance of this tactic.40 Cavalry warfare, having occupied three scenes in the earlier part of the Tapestry, depicting the Brittany campaign, in an anticipation typical of the Tapestry’s narrative structure, is demonstrated again in the climactic Battle of Hastings, which fills eleven scenes, some of them very long, accounting for about a third of the surviving Tapestry. The border below Scene 10 (fig. 1.6) depicts the agricultural sequence discussed above (pages 10, 12) that includes a horse wearing a collar pulling a harrow and what appears to be a donkey in a breast-band harness pulling a plough, which is surprising since a horse is stronger than a donkey and a plough heavier than a harrow. No model has so far been suggested for the equine images: the Psalter illustrations from which the man sowing seed was probably derived include ploughing with oxen. Oxen also pull ploughs in illustrations of the occupation for the month of January in the two extant Anglo-Saxon calendars.41 The replacement of oxen with equines must have been relatively new at the time the Tapestry was made, and the designer may have been 36 This total includes the pack pony in Scene 41; the horse ridden by a hunter in the border below Scene 13; a pair of horses linked together, but otherwise without tack, above Scene 51; and a dead horse, casualty of the Battle of Hastings, beneath Scene 53. 37 All in the borders: a donkey pulling a plough beneath Scene 10, and donkeys grazing, threatened by predators beyond foliage, above Scene 48 and below Scene 49. 38 A pair of homodubii (part man, part donkey) above Scene 11, an identification suggested by Cyril Hart, “The Canterbury Contribution to the Bayeux Tapestry,” in Art and Symbolism in Medieval Europe: Papers of the “Medieval Europe Brugge 1997” Conference, vol. 5, ed. Guy de Boe and Frans Verhaege (Zellik, Belgium: Instituut voor het Archeologisch Patrimonium, 1997), 13–14. 39 Two doubtful winged centaurs (much repaired) beneath Scene 2 (fig. 1.2) and one beneath Scene 18; and a pair of winged horses, grazing, above Scene 51. 40 Their heads appear above the sides of six invasion ships at Scene 38, an alternative to the shields ranged along the sides of two others. There is no indication of bodies and legs until Scene 39 where two horses are disembarked, and their large proportions are incompatible with the size of the ship out of which they step. The horses appear to travel untethered on the open deck, without stalls. Such an arrangement would be impractical, not to say dangerous, in the rough waters of the English Channel. 41 London, British Library, MS Cotton Julius A.vi, 3r, and MS Cotton Tiberius B.v, 3r. See, respectively, http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=cotton_ms_julius_a_vi_f003r and http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=cotton_ms_tiberius_b_v!1_f003r, accessed Aug. 29, 2022.

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Animals in the Bayeux Tapestry aware of the change, but not familiar with the niceties. The use of horses for draft was made possible by the invention of the horse collar, which enabled the horse to use its strength without pressure on the windpipe, and was of economic advantage since horses have more endurance than oxen.42 The horses depicted in the main register are both a narrative feature—being used for journeys and battle—and a graphic device. The designer, evidently required to produce a pictorial narrative of predetermined length, cleverly used the long bodies of horses to help fill that space,43 occupying 45% of the main register,44 at the same time producing a visually attractive rhythm of alternating horizontal and vertical, using horses, ships, and at Scene 37 a large barrel to contrast with upright images of standing figures, buildings, and natural features. The (generally) forward thrust of the Tapestry provided by the men on horseback and the ships (and also by running dogs and forward-indicating gestures) is punctuated with the stasis of architecture or landscape. There is remarkable variation both in the way horses are drawn and in the way they are embroidered. Each horse (and rider) is a complex piece of embroidery. Horses are outlined in one colour in stem stitch. Their bodies and near-side legs are usually embroidered in a single (contrasting) colour apart from a pair of contour lines at shoulder and haunch. The outline colour is usually reprised in some minor details: hooves are always, and horseshoes often, embroidered in a different colour from the main body; so are the inner faces of horses’ far-side legs. This contrast in the legs can produce an elaborate interlacing effect when horses and riders are closely bunched. For example, at Scene 7 (fig. 1.5), the group of riders supporting Guy of Ponthieu has been economically drawn: there are four riders with shields but only the leading horse, in green, is pictured in full. The red, yellow and blue horses tucked in behind and overlapping one another in similar poses are indicated only by their rumps.45 There are, however, fourteen horse legs, not enough for four horses, but nevertheless conveying a group convincingly, with the additional colours dark blue and dark green indicating far legs. Manes are depicted in several different ways (cf. figs. 1.2, 1.5, 1.7, and 1.8) and embroidered with considerable variety, often in more than one colour. Their chief 42 Champion (Les Chevaux, 68) considered the Tapestry to have the earliest depictions of the (metal) stirrup; but an earlier type precedes it in London, British Library, MS Cotton Cleopatra C.viii, 4v and 5r. The stirrup with metal footplate does, however, seem to have been a recent development, appearing in Scandinavia and England only in the eleventh century. See Wilfred A. Seaby and Paul Woodfield, “Viking Stirrups from England and Their Background,” Medieval Archaeology 24 (1980): 87–122, esp. 104. 43 I have not identified a source for this device. Scenes of riders in book art are constrained by the limits of the page, and in the graphic narrative of Trajan’s Column, the relatively few horseback scenes are crowded and the horses rather short. 44 This does not include the horse heads visible in ships, since in this case it is the long bodies of the ships that are space-fillers. 45 It is a general rule in the Tapestry that the most important figure (and his horse) is in the foreground and is not overlapped. In practice, a minor figure may appear to be proceeding in front of the more important character, but is overlapped by him, as Harold is by William at Scene 14 and Harold’s companion is by Harold at Scene 24.

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Gale R. Owen-Crocker colour always contrasts with the body colour, but generally matches some other part of the horse anatomy, far leg or hoof. Tail sometimes matches mane, sometimes matches body colour, sometimes is simply depicted in blue-black.46 Horse tack also contrasts with the main body colour. It is usually outlined in one colour and filled in with another. There is considerable variety in the way it is embroidered, especially the band which runs round the horse’s chest to the saddle, which ranges from single to double to decorated with roundels. Stirrup leathers, again outlined in one colour and filled with another, may or may not contrast in colour with the stirrups themselves, and with the spurs. A horse which is highly decorated in one way may be simple in another. For example, William’s horse at Scene 14 has an elaborate breast band but a simple, monochrome mane. Differences in the way horses are depicted and grouped suggests different hands at work in the creation of the cartoon which the embroiderers followed. The early part of the Tapestry exploits groups of five: four closely grouped at the rear, following the dominant figure—Harold at Scene 2 (fig. 1.2),47 Guy at Scene 7 (fig. 1.5), and Harold at Scene 8 (where Guy leads the subordinate group but is foregrounded to show his current superior status). It occurs again at Scene 13 where Harold leads a group, but the focus here is on the central confrontation between Guy and William, and the pattern is discontinued thereafter. The device of overlap is used throughout the Tapestry to suggest multiple numbers of horses and riders, but it is manifested in different ways. In Scene 2, in what I will call an “echo effect,” the artist inserts additional backs and heads/chests of horses, showing no sense of perspective, since what is meant to be the far horse is longer and taller than the nearer one. In Scenes 6 and 8 the artist overlaps rumps only, using almost identical outlines, and reducing the number of legs. At Scene 8, part of an additional horse head and two moustached (thus English) heads at the back, behind three partial horses and clean-shaven men with the “foreign” hairstyle (shaved at the back) suggest, in an economical way, a group of English and French following Guy and Harold. At Scene 48, as the Norman army mass for battle left to right, it is the foreparts of the horses that are overlapped, the rear parts represented by a few back legs, but nowhere near the full complement. The heads and shields of additional riders, minus horses, increase the impression of the size of the group. This form of overlapping is retained, more distanced, as the Norman army advance and gallop towards the English. The Normans attacking the English from the other side in the long Scene 51 are overlapped the other way. There are five riders and evidently five horses here. We have five tails, five manes, but only one head and only two pairs of forelegs. The depiction of horse equipment evolves during the course of the Tapestry. In Scene 2 there is no attempt to indicate bits, and the horses have no girths. From Scene 7, where Harold is arrested by Guy of Ponthieu, horses have bits, but only Guy’s horse has a girth. This is not an indication of a difference between English and continental 46 See also Owen-Crocker, “Colour and Imagination,” 48–49. 47 There are in fact three horse rumps and three riders’ heads in the front rank of the sub­ ordinate group, but only two horse heads, and only seven horse legs.

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Animals in the Bayeux Tapestry horse tack, since on Harold’s return to England he rides a horse with a bit and does so again at Scene 50, immediately before the Battle of Hastings. Girths are always intermittent, arguably being concealed by the rider’s leg in many cases, sometimes occurring on the horse of the dominant figure in a scene,48 sometimes favoured by the artist/draftsperson who drew a group.49 Otherwise the horse equipment is basically standard, with bridle, reins, saddle, breast band, and stirrups. Small details, such as buckles on straps or fringe around the saddle, are used occasionally; it is possible they were added at the whim of the embroiderer. Fringes occur even as late in the Tapestry as Scene 56, when one might have expected the workers to be justifiably bored/fatigued/ eager to finish and therefore working as economically as possible. Although horses in the same group may have similar positions, no two consecutive horses have identical colouring. This suggests advance planning in the embroidery workshop, since there were only ten colours of wool.50 There are also contrasts in technique, which were perhaps not all pre-planned but choices made as images were stitched. Count Guy’s horse, as its rider confronts Harold on his landfall in Ponthieu (fig. 1.5), has mane, bridle, reins, and breast band sewn in closely packed stem stitch. The threads on the body were first laid vertically and secured by horizontal threads (themselves couched down with tiny stitches) which has left a pattern of horizontal lines. The threads on the legs were laid lengthways and secured across, changing direction at the joints of the farther legs, which emphasises their shape. It may have been unfinished: the girths and the horseshoes are not filled in. (The saddle too is left unstitched, but that is the case for the majority of horses in the Tapestry.) The adjacent horse is of similar size and pose, though there are small differences in tack, in the angles of legs and head, and in the mane and forelock. We might speculate that the two horses were worked at about the same time since they use the same colours:51 both are outlined in red and filled with green and yellow, albeit used in a contrasting way. 48 Guy arresting Harold (Scene 7) and escorting him to Beaurain (Scene 8); William confronting Guy (Scene 13) and receiving the keys of Dinan (Scene 20). 49 Two riders approaching Dol (Scene 18); Vital and two soldiers (Scene 49); the Norman army advancing (Scene 51). 50 Pinkish or orange-red, brownish-violet red, mustard yellow, beige, blue-black, dark blue, mid blue, dark green, mid green, and light green. There is also white, natural wool but that is not used on the horses. The natural cream of the linen backcloth is sometimes exploited as an extra colour (for example in rows of shields, saddles) but sometimes may remain because the embroidery was not completed. Descriptions of the colours from Isabelle Bédat and Béatrice Girault-Kurtzeman, “The Technical Study of the Bayeux Tapestry,” in The Bayeux Tapestry: Embroidering the Facts of History, ed. Pierre Bouet, Brian Levy and François Neveux (Caen, France: Presses Universitaires de Caen, 2004), 91. The mid blue has faded to dull green on the front of the Tapestry but is evident on the back. A selection of images of the reverse is at https://www.photo.rmn.fr/Package/2C6NU05WWFF8, accessed Aug. 29, 2022. 51 This whole group of horsemen, and the arrest of Harold which precedes it, as well as the upper and lower borders at this point, share the predominant green, yellow, and red shades with only small touches of darker green and blue-black. A lighter yellow in the upper border is self-evidently repair work.

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Gale R. Owen-Crocker Guy’s horse is predominantly yellow with green mane, far legs, and tack; two blueblack hooves, and a red tail. The second horse uses the same colours in reverse: the body is green, the details yellow. In this case the tail is yellow, fanning out in contrast to the body of the red horse behind. The laid and couched work is done differently from Guy’s horse: on the front of the body, from reins to chest, the threads were first laid horizontally, the upper threads which secured them making a vertical pattern. The direction of work changes at the neck, legs, and rear of the horse. This image employs laid and couched stitch to fill in the mane and tack, though using stem stitch for the upper part of the bridle, the lowest part of the saddle frame, and the shoes on the two rear hooves. It seems likely that one embroiderer worked the lower part of the horse, up to the reins—seated at the bottom of the framed-up embroidery work—and another (or the same person working in a different stint), operating from the top with the cartoon upside-down, embroidered the upper part of the horse and rider. The person working the lower part (or possibly the draftsperson who put the cartoon on the linen) was evidently confused by the legs of horse, rider and an incomplete horse behind, misplacing the line of the horse’s belly. We should, on the evidence of this confusion, perhaps be suspicious of the rider’s garment, a long, split tunic or wide-legged culottes, unique in the Tapestry, someone perhaps mistaking the line of the leg from calf to knee for a fold in cloth.52 A group of horses at Scene 22 (fig. 1.8) suggests creative drawing and embroidering since it employs rare additional decoration and contrasting stitch direction, as well as colour variation to differentiate animals and their riders. Almost alone among the Tapestry’s horsemen, these three have embroidery filling their saddles. The figure to the right is evidently Duke William since he, alone of the three, rides a stallion and there is gartering on his legs, as well as (simple) decoration at the bottom of his mail and on the breast band of his horse. Apart from a few other instances of such breast bands,53 decorated horse trappings are otherwise absent from the Tapestry (which is surprising considering the number of stirrup mounts, decorated cheek pieces, and harness links which have been revealed as common in late Anglo-Saxon England thanks to metal detector finds, and with which King Edward’s wife, Edith, is said to have delighted in decorating the king’s riding equipment).54 William is firmly in charge at this point and is about to extract an oath from Harold, shown in the following scene. Harold and his horse are almost identical in shape to William and his mount, the draftsperson having used some of the same templates. However, Harold rides a mare, showing his status is subordinate to William, though, like the Duke, he wears 52 The long, split tunic is, however, evidenced from early twelfth-century art. See Gale R. Owen-Crocker, “The Significance of Dress in the Bayeux Tapestry,” Medieval Clothing and Textiles 13 (2017), 8–9. 53 William’s at Scenes 14 and 20, Harold’s at Scene 24, all in the second piece of linen so probably peculiar to one workshop. Scene 24 also has embroidered saddles. 54 Michael Lewis, Andrew Richardson, and David Williams, “Things of this World: Portable Antiquities and Their Potential,” in The Material Culture of Daily Living in the Anglo-­ Saxon World, ed. Maren Clegg Hyer and Gale R. Owen-Crocker (Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 2011), 254–57; Barlow, Life of King Edward, 24–25.

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Fig. 1.8: William and Harold approach Bayeux (Scene 22); creative drawing and embroidering. Detail of the Bayeux Tapestry, eleventh century.

Animals in the Bayeux Tapestry

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Gale R. Owen-Crocker spurs, indicating his individual prestige.55 An echoing partial horse and rider appears behind and above Harold, indicating a larger entourage supposedly farther from the viewer, but, in a failure to apply perspective, the distant horse is actually larger than Harold’s horse in the foreground. The embroidery of all three horses and their tack is carried out in red, yellow, and two shades of green, with blue-black confined to outlines, but the three horses appear different because the colour combination is used in different ways each time. The body of Harold’s horse is worked in laid and couched work leaving horizontal lines on the surface. The rump of the echoing horse and the rump of William’s horse, in front, are worked in the opposite direction, ensuring that a difference of texture reinforces the difference of main colour. In her important 2005 article, Sarah Keefer analysed several aspects of the Bayeux designer’s use of horses.56 In relation to the phenomenon she called “gender-shifting horses,” she examined the relationship and shifts in status between Harold, Guy, and William (up to Scene 14). Harold is originally pictured riding a stallion, but his diminished status is conveyed by him riding a gelding under escort to Beaurain by Guy on a stallion. He rides a mare to William’s palace, followed by William on a priapic stallion behind him, the combination perhaps reminding the viewer of the naked, priapic man and naked, slightly coy, woman in the border beneath Scene 13. Keefer describes Harold’s position as “here decidedly inferior to William, with his status to be compared to the naked woman … half-unwilling but nevertheless flirting with danger that can only resolve itself one way.”57 The Tapestry designer repeatedly uses the priapism of stallions to convey the aggressive masculinity of their riders. Examples include: at Scene 10 (fig 1.6), a horse associated with William’s bullying messengers, sent to persuade Guy of Ponthieu to part with his prisoner; mounts of the Norman army setting off on the Brittany campaign, and throughout that campaign despite the physical implausibility of such erections (Scenes 16–19);58 and at its successful conclusion and William’s arrival at Bayeux (Scenes 20–22). Harold, on his return to England, rides to King Edward’s court on a priapic stallion which indicates, Keefer plausibly suggests, “Harold’s lust for power.”59 The same interpretation may be put on William’s horse, brought to him at Scene 47 as he prepares to leave Hastings for the battlefield; all the Norman horses advancing in the same scene exhibit the same assertiveness, as do those in the long Scene 51,

55 The presence and absence of spurs, as Sarah Keefer points out, are semiotic details in the Tapestry indicating what she calls “warrior’s pride.” See Sarah Larratt Keefer, “Body Language: A Graphic Commentary by the Horses of the Bayeux Tapestry,” in Owen-Crocker, King Harold II, 96. As Champion notes (Les Chevaux, 105), “L’éperon n’a sa raison d’être que pour demander au cheval l’effort supreme, réveiller chez lui une sensibilité éteinte, ou appuyer nettement les exigences.” For peaceful travel there is no practical reason to wear spurs. 56 Keefer, “Body Language,” 93–108. 57 Ibid., 96–97, quotation at 97. 58 Keefer notes that “it is impossible for a stallion to gallop with a full erection.” Ibid., 100. 59 Ibid., 101.

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Animals in the Bayeux Tapestry beneath the words of William’s rallying speech which demands that they approach the battle viriliter (“manfully”), the body language of the horses demonstrating that virility. The encounter between William and Guy, both mounted, at Scene 13, is a climac­ tic point which ends the first movement of the Tapestry and brings together for the first time the two rivals for the English throne, Harold and William. William rides a stallion, not particularly priapic, but deep chested, with a large head, strong neck and big haunches. Guy, facing him, though he carries a bird of prey, an emblem of prestige, rides a spindly mare with asses’ ears. This is one of a series of details that, in main register and borders, operate to undermine Guy in the eyes of the audience, making him look unmanly and foolish; donkeys and asses were already notorious for stupidity in Apuleius and Aesop, and, if these asses’ ears include a debt to the biblical story of Balaam’s ass, the designer may have been indicating also that he was greedy, probably accepting a bribe to hand over his prisoner.60 Knowledge of the Bayeux designer’s sources, and reading the text around the models utilised, may convey something of the designer’s attitude to the events being illustrated.61 The modelling of William’s horse at Scene 47 on Esau’s unmounted horse with its distinctive stiff forelegs in the Old English illustrated Hexateuch suggests (since Esau was the wronged brother, deprived of his birthright by Jacob) sympathy for William, that he was justified in his claim on the English throne which Harold had taken.62 Twice the Bayeux design models falling Norman horses on an image of the allegorical vice Superbia (Pride) from an illustrated version of Prudentius’s poem Psychomachia.63 The first instance comes as Normans are trapped in quicksands while crossing the River Couesnon for the Brittany campaign (Scene 17); on this occasion Harold, the English earl, will come to the rescue. The second occasion is at a climactic point in the Battle of Hastings where three horses tumble (Scene 53, fig. 1.7). The Superbia parallel is the third horse in the sequence (the tail of which penetrates the word Franci) which, like the River Couesnon casualty and Superbia’s horse, is being spurred on by its rider.64 Superbia’s agonised, fallen horse at folios 15v and 16r of MS Cotton Cleopatra C.viii is depicted without tack. That the second falling horse in the 60 Examined in detail in Gale R. Owen-Crocker, “Fools in the Bayeux Tapestry,” Text 42 (2015): 4–11. 61 For a more detailed explanation, referencing medieval methods of study and memorising, see Gale R. Owen-Crocker, “Reading the Mind of the Bayeux Tapestry Master,” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 3rd ser., 15 (2018; published 2021): 37–66, esp. 40–49. 62 London, British Library, MS Cotton Claudius B.iv, 51r; Keefer, “Body Language,” 101–5. 63 London, British Library, MS Cotton Cleopatra C.viii, 15v; Keefer, “Body Language,” 97– 100. 64 Keefer (“Body Language,” 99), describes Superbia’s horse as “spurred on to ruin by her arrogance.” The words calcaribus urget cornipedem (“with spurs she urges on the hoofed animal,” my translation) appear at lines 253–54 of the text; Prudentius, Psychomachia, in Prudentius, vol. 1, Preface. Daily Round. Divinity of Christ. Origin of Sin. Fight for Mansoul. Against Symmachus, trans. H. J. Thomson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1949), 296, at https://archive.org/details/prudentiuswithen01pruduoft/page/296/ mode/2up, accessed Aug. 29, 2022. Keefer notes that both the Couesnon and Hastings

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Gale R. Owen-Crocker Bayeux group of three has only bridle and reins but no saddle or breast band suggests that this image may also have been inspired by the image of Superbia, the simplification of tack emphasising the body of the suffering animal. In both cases the source of the image suggests the designer considered the Normans were exhibiting Pride, and thus authors of their own downfall. However, as Michael Lewis has recently pointed out, the pit into which Superbia falls in the Psychomachia had been dug, and concealed, by Fraus (Deceit).65 Although the third Bayeux horse falls at the approach to a hill, probably brought down by an English foot soldier who has grabbed the girth and speared the rider, the first horse, and probably the second, in the group are casualties of a ditch which has been spiked, presumably by the English. The Superbia association raises the possibility that the designer here associated the English with Fraus, Deceit. It is significant that the caption at this point says that English and French are killed in battle together: Hic ceciderunt simul Angli et Franci in prelio. Always self-referential, the Tapestry here recalls the earlier military episode, the Brittany campaign, where Harold and William campaigned successfully together. Now at war with one another, the troops of both die in the battle. An implicit condemnation of both sides which have brought about this carnage (exhibiting, respectively, Pride and Deceit) is perhaps a reflection of monastic opinion, which is more in line with the doves of peace in the upper border than the militaristic main register, but this was not a view that would have been obvious to a secular audience unfamiliar with the manuscript art in the Canterbury libraries. The tragedy, as the caption makes clear, is the death in battle of men. Yet at this point in the Tapestry the horses take prominence; dying in horrific circumstances, and joined by a sprawled, dead horse in the lower border, they graphically convey the horrors of war. CONCLUSION

Eclectic in its sources, the Bayeux Tapestry derives animals from both the ancient textile tradition and from recent manuscripts. The layout of its borders owes a debt to mechanically woven silk cloth, but the embroidery medium allows the creatures vitality and individuality. The Tapestry was created in an era when art made little or no use of facial expression; meaning was conveyed by gesture, action, context, and of course by accompanying text. The text of the Tapestry is brief and the work is to some extent enigmatic. The ubiquitous animals contribute subtle insights concerning the emotions and changing status of the principal characters. Physical details of the horses in the main register are key to the men who ride them, and some, at least, of the border animals provide commentary on the action which is sometimes in harmony with the orthodox, pro-Norman view of the story, but occasionally ironic and independent. horses are chestnuts. If this is deliberate, such colour consistency would be unusual in the Tapestry. 65 Michael J. Lewis, “The Ælfgiva of the Bayeux Tapestry,” forthcoming; Prudentius, Psychomachia, 296–97.

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Animals in the Bayeux Tapestry Although the Tapestry was almost certainly designed in a monastic milieu, and partially modelled on manuscripts in monastic libraries, its use of Christian imagery is limited; creatures used symbolically in religious contexts are rarely utilised that way for a narrative essentially about secular ambition (though not without a moral message). Close study of the Tapestry’s animals can reveal details of workshop practices, at both the drawing and the embroidery stages, enhancing our understanding of an art form that must have been popular in its day, but of which the Bayeux Tapestry is the sole remaining example. With no independent evidence about the art of wool embroidery, no documentary or archaeological material to illustrate where and how workshops operated, all that is known of the Tapestry must come from the evidence of the artefact itself. Homing in on small details, like how a border bird was constructed and stitched, is one way of adding to our knowledge of this unique artwork.

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The Sleeve from Bussy-Saint-Martin: A Rare Example of Medieval Quilted Armor Catherine Besson-Lagier

Medieval garment pieces still in a good state of preservation are extremely rare. The quilted Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve (fig. 2.1) is one of them. Listed in France’s Monuments Historiques (1954),1 it has been exhibited as a relic of St. Martin of Tours since the nineteenth century in the church of Bussy-Saint-Martin, in the Seine-et-Marne region of France. The sleeve is relatively well preserved, forming a cohesive whole that goes from the fingertips to the neckline. It is made of silk and layers of linen, padded with cotton. However, it is not fully intact. The report of the restoration carried out in 1995 points out the sleeve’s incomplete condition, including notable wearing-out of the outside layer of brown taffeta, which shows traces of rust.2 The cotton stuffing is visible in many places and shows signs of mould, and many insects were extracted from the cotton stuffing during restoration. The inside lining of the sleeve is almost

This article follows on from a project to produce a replica of the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve. An early report of this project, focused on the patterns and techniques for making the sleeve, was published online in May 2017, see https://guerriersma.com/SiteOld/contenu/ Articles_tutos/manche_bussy/manche_bussy.htm, accessed Sept. 19, 2022. I wish to express my thanks to the Mairie of Bussy-Saint-Martin and the Association des Amis de BussySaint-Martin. I also wish to thank the following for their help, remarks, support, and inspiration: Lucette Besson, Elise Leboucher, Caroline Piel, Domitille Cès, Céline Aulnette, Sèverine Watiez, Joachim Chenot-Hervillard, Cristoph Houbrechts Vanhoorne, Sylvie le Bour, Frédéric Giro, David Nicolle, Cordelia Warr, Anne Kirkham, Robin Netherton, Gale Owen-Crocker, and Monica Wright. Translation of the article has been arranged by Christophe Gilliot and the editors. 1

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“Fragment d’un ancient vêtement vénéré sous le nom de chape de Saint Martin et enfermé dans un reliquiaire, lin, époque Moyen Age” [Fragment of an old garment venerated under the name of St. Martin’s Cloak and enclosed in a reliquary, linen, Middle Ages]. Caroline Piel and Isabelle Bédat, “La Manche de Saint Martin à Bussy-Saint-Martin (Seine-et-Marne),” Coré 2 (March 1997): 38–43, at 38. Isabelle Bédat, “Manche dite de Saint-Martin, Classée Monument Historique—BussySaint-Martin—Seine-et-Marne,” Rapport de Conservation—Restauration (unpublished report in the archives of Mée-sur-Seine, 1995). Some findings from the restoration report were published in Piel and Bédat, “La Manche.”

Fig. 2.1: The Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve, linen and brown silk taffeta, twelfth or thirteenth century, Church of Bussy-Saint-Martin. It is positioned in its reliquary to display the inner face of the main sleeve piece and the palm of the glove. A small, separate fragment is laid on top of the main sleeve piece, with its longest edge aligned along the upper edge of the main sleeve at the elbow. Photo: Yvan Bourhis, Département de Seine-et-Marne, by permission.

The Bussy-Saint-Martin Sleeve

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Catherine Besson-Lagier entirely gone. The glove is remarkably well preserved, but with evidence of it having been ripped near the wrist. Radiocarbon dating indicated that the sleeve was created between 1160 and 1270. Following its restoration, the sleeve was micro-vacuumed, sealed in a layer of transparent wrap, and reset in its reliquary. The Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve is a remarkable object that brings to light a great deal of knowledge of tailoring and testifies to the elaborate character of sewing and assembly techniques in the late twelfth to thirteenth centuries. At the same time, it raises a number of questions. In its current state, the preserved sleeve has an independent existence. No other garment or piece of a garment can be matched with it. Is it possible that this sleeve was always unattached and not what remains of an initially complete, sleeved garment? The poor condition of some parts of the sleeve can be explained by its age and the vicissitudes of past preservation. But the good condition of the glove is surprising, with restorers noting that parts of the linen are still practically white. So, is it possible that the glove, and even the sleeve, have never been used? Apart from the restoration report in 1995, there has been little study of the sleeve. New and deeper research was needed for a better understanding of the nature of this artefact. This article describes the techniques used to make the sleeve and examines evidence from contemporary texts (which provide the vocabulary for discussing the sleeve in relation to cloth armor) and visual sources. To test hypotheses proposed here, I created a replica of the sleeve, along with a possible associated body garment, and conducted experiments on horseback and in combination with armor and weapons. The goal was to produce a better understanding of how the sleeve was made, how it functioned, and its possible identity as part of a garment (perhaps one that was never completed) or as an independent piece of clothing. HISTORY OF THE SLEEVE

The origin of the sleeve is very difficult to establish. Between 1792 and 1795 it was handed to Abbot Boivin, priest of the church of Bussy-Saint-Martin, by a nun from the royal abbey of Chelles.3 But nothing is known for certain about its earlier history. The sleeve has been linked to the relic known as the Cloak of St. Martin, recorded at Auxerre in 1271. St. Martin of Tours (d. 397), one of the most venerated saints in France, was a young Christian convert from Pannonia who was serving with the Roman cavalry in Gaul when he severed his cloak in two and gave half to a needy beggar. Soon after, he relinquished arms to devote himself to a religious life.4 His cloak became a significant emblem of his sanctity and many Christian establishments claimed to have part of it, including contested claims for the sleeve in the church of Bussy-Saint-Martin where it

3 4

Jean-Pierre Laporte, Le Trésor des Saints de Chelles (Chelles, France: Société Archéologique et Historique de Chelles, 1988), 226, notes 24 and 25. On St. Martin of Tours, see “St. Martin of Tours,” Catholic Online, https://www.catholic. org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=81, accessed Sept. 19, 2022.

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The Bussy-Saint-Martin Sleeve was and is exhibited in a reliquary.5 However, it is obvious that the form of the BussySaint-Martin sleeve has nothing in common with the short cloak that every Roman soldier, including St. Martin, would have worn in the fourth century. First proposed as part of a gambeson (medieval defensive padded jacket), rather than St. Martin’s cloak, when examined at the end of the nineteenth century,6 the sleeve joins a very short list of preserved padded garments from the Middle Ages. That list includes the aketon of Isabelle de France (ca. 1260), the brial of Dona Theresa Gil (ca. 1300), the pourpoint of Charles de Blois (ca. 1364 or later), the aketon of the Black Prince (ca. 1376), the pourpoint of Charles VI of France (ca. 1378), and the cloth-armor tabards of Lübeck (1420–70). These are considered later in this article. The Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve might be the oldest such survival on this list, and more can be learned about it through studying its materials, composition, and construction. MATERIALS AND COMPOSITION

The sleeve is 90 centimeters (35½ inches) long. It is for a left arm and is made of three padded elements: the main fragment (1), which has a flared S-shaped upper edge, that covered the outside of the arm; a smaller fragment (2) that appears to be an elbow piece, with visible stitches on the outside and along an incurved edge; and finally a complete glove (3) (fig. 2.2). Thanks to an analysis of the materials included in the restoration report, we know that the sleeve is made of brown silk taffeta and linen, as shown in table 2.1. The linen is tabby (plain) weave in Z-spun thread. The palm of the glove is made of three linen fabrics of different densities. The padding used is raw cotton, which still contains the remains of seeds. It is up to 8 millimeters (⅓ inch) thick in some places but might origin­ally have been thicker: an earlier reliquary, from before the nineteenth century, was made of two glass panes squeezing the sleeve between them, which may have crushed it somewhat. Three linen threads of different colours are used for a variety of stitches. The composition of the textile piece is not the same everywhere. First, there are variations in the main fragment (fig. 2.3). From the upper edge to just above the elbow joint, two composite fabrics are sewn together (A). Each composite is made up of a layer of taffeta and another of linen, holding cotton padding between them. From the elbow to the wrist there is just one composite fabric (B) formed of taffeta on either side of cotton padding, without any linen. The composition of the small fragment is identical to that of the forearm of the main fragment: cotton padding between two layers of taffeta. This consistency might confirm the identity of the small fragment as a remainder of the inner side of the sleeve covering the forearm. 5 6

On the claim and its contestation, see Alphonse Collon, La Chape de Saint Martin à Bussy d’après L’Abbé Fossin: Critique Historique (Paris: Librairie Religieuse H. Oudin, 1897). Xavier Barbier de Montault, “Fausse Relique [de Saint Martin],” in his Œuvres Complètes, vol. 13 (Poitiers, France: Imprimerie Blais et Roy, 1899), 304–8.

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Catherine Besson-Lagier

Fig. 2.2: Outer faces (top) and inner faces (bottom) of the main fragment (1), the small fragment (2), and the glove (3) of the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve. A: composite fabric with silk taffeta, cotton, and linen, six layers; B: composite fabric with silk taffeta and cotton, three layers; C: linen, one layer. The total length of the sleeve, including the glove, is 90 centimeters (35½ inches). The main fragment is 66 centimeters (26 inches) long, 37 centimeters (14½ inches) wide at the top, and 12 centimeters (4¾ inches) wide at the wrist. The small fragment is 27 centimeters (10½ inches) long and 17 centimeters (6¾ inches) wide. The glove is 24 centimeters (9½ inches) long and 14 centimeters (5½ inches) wide. Drawing: Catherine Besson-Lagier, after illustrations in the unpublished restoration report (1995).

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The Bussy-Saint-Martin Sleeve Table 2.1: Materials used in the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve Material

Fiber

Threads per cm, warp/ weft

Dye

Brown taffeta (outer fabric)

Silk

34/39–48

Tannin

Canvas (inside sleeve)

Linen

24/26

None

Linen (palm/thumb)

Linen

20/26

None

Linen (index finger)

Linen

24/17

None

Linen (other fingers)

Linen

32/34

None

Padding

Raw cotton

—

None

Blue stitching thread

Linen

—

Indigo

Brown stitching thread

Linen

—

Not known

White stitching thread

Linen

—

None

Fig. 2.3: Sectional views through the textile layers in the main fragment of the Bussy-SaintMartin sleeve. Drawing: Catherine Besson-Lagier, after illustrations in the unpublished restoration report (1995).

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Catherine Besson-Lagier

Fig. 2.4: Inner face (palm) of the glove of the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve. Photo: Catherine Besson-Lagier, courtesy of the Church of Bussy-Saint-Martin.

The glove presents a complex structure. Its outer side, covering the back of the hand, including the digits, seems to be of the same composition (B) as the forearm of the sleeve (silk/cotton/silk), and at the wrist we see the continuation of the brown taffeta to the inside of the glove. The palm is made in a single layer (C) using linens of different density (fig. 2.4). The thumb and the index finger are protected by a stronger fabric, while the other fingers are covered by a more supple linen cloth. Rather than the simpler shape of a palm with four fingers and a side section for the thumb, the 34

The Bussy-Saint-Martin Sleeve

Fig. 2.5: Left, pattern for the glove of the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve showing a downwardpointing thumb extension in one piece with the palm. Drawing: Catherine Besson-Lagier, after illustrations in the unpublished restoration report (1995). Right, anatomical sketch of the hand showing the muscles of the thumb and of the little finger at the wrist. Drawing: Catherine Besson-Lagier.

glove presents a more elaborate cut which includes the thumb and the palm in one and the same section, the thumb piece pointing away from the fingers (fig. 2.5, left). The padded fabric that protects the back of the hand extends over part of the palm, largely covering the muscles and tendons that allow the thumb and the little finger to bend (fig. 2.5, right). This design demonstrates how perfectly suited the glove is to the anatomy of the hand. It shows good ergonomic construction for manual dexterity and making the act of gripping easier. The glove also has another individual feature: the inner side of each finger is covered by a yoke of cloth. Each of these is of one piece, and its edges wrap around the sides of the finger to form the equivalent of a modern-day glove finger. Each glove finger is linked at its base to the one next to it by a short perpendicular seam (fig. 2.6). It is hard to tell if the glove was previously joined to the sleeve. The restorers in 1995 noted signs of a tear at the base of the glove, in the part where it is now linked to the sleeve. But it is impossible to identify the nature or the cause of this tear. In the 35

Catherine Besson-Lagier

Fig. 2.6: Detail of seams between the fingers in the re-created replica of the Bussy-SaintMartin sleeve. Photo: Catherine Besson-Lagier.

nineteenth century, when the sleeve was placed in its reliquary, the glove had been attached to the sleeve with glue. Was the glove initially created as an extension of the sleeve (as the perfect alignment of the sewing lines in the padding of both the glove and the sleeve would seem to attest) and then stitched to it along the inner side of the wrist (fig. 2.7)? Or was the glove made separately and then sewn to the sleeve at the wrist? In their current state and given the available information, the only certainty is that the glove and the sleeve belong to the same cloth set.

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The Bussy-Saint-Martin Sleeve

Fig. 2.7: Close view of the lower portion of the palm of the glove (as viewed in fig. 2.4), showing the remains of a seam between the palm and the wrist of the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve. Photo: Catherine Besson-Lagier, courtesy of the Church of Bussy-Saint-Martin.

SEAMS AND CONSTRUCTION

The main sleeve piece, the smaller fragment, and the glove are made of various overlapping fabrics joined using a variety of different stitches depending on their purpose. For this article, they have been termed running stitch a, pad stitch b, running stitch c, running stitch d, and whip stitches e, f, g, and h.7 Their distribution is shown in figure 2.8. Running stitch a is used in the quilting of the front and rear pieces of the sleeve as well as on the outer side of the glove (fig. 2.9). The stitches are 1 to 1.5 millimeters long (less than 1/16 inch) and very close together. They form parallel lines about 3 7

The description of the stitches used here follows that used in the 1995 restoration report, but the labeling system and the order differ slightly for clarity in the following discussion.

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Catherine Besson-Lagier

Fig. 2.8: Seams and stitching used in the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve. Labeling is explained in the article’s text. Drawing: Catherine Besson-Lagier, after illustrations in the unpublished restoration report (1995).

centimeters (1⅛ inches) apart. This system ensures the layers are held together and form a strong whole. The re-creation conducted for this study demonstrated the difficulty in piercing through the successive different layers of fabric. It necessitated a stab stitch, passing the needle up through the fabrics and then back down in two separate movements. This technique is similar to embroidery on a frame, which raises the question of whether frames were used to create elements of padded clothing. Pad stitch b is used to join the two identical composite padded fabrics that cover the outside of the upper arm, allowing the fabrics to become one while remaining supple 38

The Bussy-Saint-Martin Sleeve

Fig. 2.9: Quilting in the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve. Photo: Catherine Besson-Lagier, courtesy of the Church of Bussy-Saint-Martin.

39

Catherine Besson-Lagier

Fig. 2.10: Pad stitching (in white thread, aligned with the brown thread of the quilting) used in the re-created replica of the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve. Photo: Catherine Besson-Lagier.

(fig. 2.10, white stitching). It is done by driving the needle through each opposing layer of linen in turn. The sewing lines are perfectly aligned with those of the quilting but have much larger stitches (about 15 millimeters, or ⅝ inch). Having the two quilted fabrics sewn together helps to increase their resistance to damage by a weapon. Running stitch c is a very tight stitch used along the lateral edges of the upper part of the sleeve and along the edge of the incurved opening of the smaller fragment (fig. 2.11). Running stitch d is used to join the two sides of the glove (fig. 2.12). The sewing was done with the glove inside-out. It was initially surprising for us that such a simple stitch was used, since the fingers’ movements put strain on the fabrics. But our re-creation showed that the fibres of the linen thread connect tightly with those of the taffeta and can take the strain. The first three whip stitches (e, f, and g) are used to join the layers of padded fabric along their edges, once the layers are folded over the inside. They are used for the upper arm and forearm of the sleeve, and the stitch density varies according to the location and quantity of the fabrics to be joined, respectively 32, 18, and 25 stitches per 4 inches (10.2 centimeters). The widest spaces between the stitches (whip stitch f ) 40

The Bussy-Saint-Martin Sleeve

Fig. 2.11: Two lines of stitching (running stitch and whip stitch) along the curved edge of the small fragment used in the re-created replica of the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve. Photo: Catherine Besson-Lagier.

Fig. 2.12: Seam around the thumb, shown turned inside-out, in the re-created replica of the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve. Photo: Catherine Besson-Lagier.

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Catherine Besson-Lagier

Fig. 2.13: Junction between fingers and palm of the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve. Photo: Catherine Besson-Lagier, courtesy of the Church of Bussy-Saint-Martin.

are on the side edges of the upper part of the sleeve and on the incurved edge of the smaller fragment. Whip stitch h is the tightest stitch, with 65 stitches per 4 inches, and is used for joining the fingers to the inner side of the glove (fig. 2.13). Looking at where each density of whip stitch is used suggests that the spacing of the whip stitches was linked to the anticipated strain to which the seams would be subject. A detailed study of the sleeve shows the very elaborate pattern design and the range of sewing techniques. The stitches that are still visible seem very regular and their selection seems to follow from at least two criteria: first, maximum cohesion between the different layers that make up the parts of the sleeve, and, second, optimal resistance to strain. I concluded that the sleeve’s materials, composition, and construction were consistent with its identification as an element of medieval quilted armor. ORIGIN, USE, AND VOCABULARY OF MEDIEVAL PADDED AND QUILTED ARMOR

The fact that cloth armor was worn by medieval fighters is clear from contemporary text sources. Literature (chansons de geste, courtly romances), account books, inventories, trade regulations, and legal documents referenced the aketon (auqueton/hoqueton) and the gambeson in both Western and Eastern contexts. Over time, the use of aketon became less frequent and the word pourpoint became more common. The word aketon (or hoqueton or auqueton) may come from the Old Arabic word al-qutun (cotton).8 The word was first used to designate a cotton fabric of lesser 8

For numerous spelling variants and sources, see the University of Manchester Lexis of Cloth and Clothing Project database, http://lexissearch.arts.manchester.ac.uk, s.v. “acton”;

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The Bussy-Saint-Martin Sleeve quality exported from Syria throughout the Mediterranean from the tenth century onwards.9 Meanwhile, according to David Nicolle, cloth armor made of felt, silk, and cotton may first have appeared in the equipment of Islamic warriors and then spread to the Byzantine world in the ninth century.10 In the West, before the First Crusade, references in texts to jaseran (a coat of overlapping metal plates mounted on cloth associated with North Africa) also seem to suggest Arabic influence on medieval Western armor.11 In 1191–92, the Arabic chronicler Abou’l-Mehacen Youssof described crusading infantrymen wearing a very thick garment of felt and a coat of mail.12 By the end of the twelfth century, aketon appeared in a variety of contexts, including a padding of auqueton,13 a paile of auqueton,14 or an auqueton under a coat of mail.15 Increasingly, the word referred to a protective garment, padded and quilted, worn under the hauberk, as related in Le Roman de Gaydon (ca. 1230): Sur l’auqueton qui d’or fu pointure Vesti l’auberc qui fu fort et serren [Over the aketon sewn with gold thread, he dressed with the hauberk which was strong and tight]16

Accounting records of ca. 1315 show the word aketon was still in use for a garment worn under plate armor, but that it was made of silk: “Pour un auqueton de blanc cendal pour vestir plates” [For one aketon of white taffeta to wear with plate

Charles Du Fresne Du Cange et al., eds., Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis, 10 vols. (Niort, France: L. Favre, 1883–87), s.v. “aketon”; Middle English Dictionary, online ed. (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2001; henceforth MED), https://quod. lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/dictionary, s.v. “aketoun”; Gilles Ménage, Dictionnaire Étymologique de la Langue Françoise, 2 vols. (Paris: Briasson, 1750), s.v. “hoqueton”; Victor Gay, Glossaire Archéologique du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance (Paris: Librairie de la Société Bibliographique, 1887), s.v. “auqueton.” 9 Maurice Lombard, Les Textiles dans le Monde Musulman du VIIe au XIIe Siècle, Etudes d’Économie Médiévale 3 (Paris: Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 2002), 67–78. 10 David Nicolle, Arms and Armour of the Crusading Era, 1050–1350: Islam, Eastern Europe and Asia (London: Greenhill, 1999), 514. 11 David Nicolle, The Crusades (Oxford: Osprey, 2014), 49. 12 Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, Historiens Orientaux, vol. 2 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1884), 251; David Nicolle, Warriors and Their Weapons Around the Time of the Crusades: Relationships Between Byzantium, the West, and the Islamic World (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2002), 20. 13 Alexandre de Paris, Le Roman d’Alexandre, trans. Laurence Harf-Lancner (Paris: Livre de Poche, 1994), 188, verse 25. 14 From the Chanson d’Antioche, quoted in Gay, Glossaire, s.v. “paile.” 15 From Le Roman de Guillaume au Court Nez, quoted in Ménage, Dictionnaire, s.v. “hoqueton.” 16 From Le Roman de Gaydon, quoted in Gay, Glossaire, s.v. “hoqueton.”

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Catherine Besson-Lagier armor].17 Thus it appears that a word first used to designate a fabric (cotton) was later applied to certain garment types made with that fabric and then to the same garment types made with other fabrics. First seen in the middle of the twelfth century, the word gambeson comes from the words wamba, meaning belly (Old High German), wambeis (Middle High German), and wambais (Old French). Identified as a padded and quilted protection, it became more and more common in texts.18 The Livre des Assises (ca. 1260) of Jean d’Ibelin, which regulated the conditions of judiciary combat, confirmed its military utility in stating that a knight may wear a guanbeison, or else wear over his chest and belly a protection called a contrecuer.19 According to Jean de Joinville, in a further connection between Arabic and European medieval combatants, gambesons were used by Arabic fighters during the Seventh Crusade (1248–54), since he related taking a gambeson of tow (linen tow or hemp) from a Saracen to use as a shield.20 There is also the related expression cote gambeisiée, as worn by the knight in Le Conte du Graal (ca. 1180–90): Une cote mout aeisiee, De drap de soie ganbeisiee, Que desoz son hauberc vestoit [A very comfortable coat, made of silk, quilted, that was worn under his hauberk]21

The pairing of the words cote and aisée (comfortable) would seem to refer to a large garment. Called ganbeisiee, this coat was most likely padded and quilted. Such garments are mentioned as late as 1296 in the accounts of the armaments of a ship from Flanders with 4,511 cotes gamboisées.22 Thus, a knight’s combat clothing might have comprised an aketon or a gambeson (both referring to a defensive padded garment) worn with a hauberk (coat of mail). De Joinville and his companions, when wounded, were forced to give up their hauberks and wear only their gambesons.23 The extent of protection varied with time, geography, combat role, and circumstance. A passage from the mid-thirteenth-century Norse saga 17 Accounts of the Hôtel de Robert d’Artois cited in François Buttin, “Du Costume Militaire au Moyen Age et Pendant la Renaissance,” Memorias de la Real Academia de Buenas Letras de Barcelona 12 (1971): 393. 18 Lexis of Cloth and Clothing database, s.v. “gambeson”; Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. “gambeso”; MED, s.v. “wambais” and “gaumbisoun”; Ménage, Dictionnaire, s.v. “gamboison”; Gay, Glossaire, s.v. “gambeson” and “gamboison”; J.-B.-B. Roquefort, Glossaire de la Langue Romane, 2 vols. (Paris: Crapelet, 1808), s.v. “contrecurée.” 19 Jean d’Ibelin, Le Livre des Assises, ed. Peter W. Edbury, Medieval Mediterranean 50 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 240; Roquefort, Glossaire, s.v. “contrecurée.” 20 Jean de Joinville, Vie de Saint Louis, ed. and trans. Jacques Monfrin (Paris: Garnier, 1995), 288–89. 21 F. Lecoy, ed., Le Conte du Graal (Perceval), 2 vols. (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1998), 1:40, lines 1153–58. 22 Augustin Jal, Archéologie Navale, 2 vols. (Paris: Arthus Bertrand Editeur, 1840), 2:322. 23 De Joinville, Vie de Saint-Louis, 298–99.

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The Bussy-Saint-Martin Sleeve Speculum Regale describes how protective layers were worn by a cavalryman: He put on first a lightweight gambeson, then an iron protection worn over the chest, then a hauberk, and, finally, a second gambeson, this one sleeveless.24 In France and England, social class and military rank were determinants of combat clothing. From the end of the twelfth and through the thirteenth centuries, infantrymen were equipped with cloth armor that was often their only outer protection. Ordinances for levying militia and assizes of arms described the mandatory military equipment for people according to their revenue or their social status. They included a frequent grouping of an iron cap, a spear, and a wambais25 or pourpoint26 or tunicas gambesatas sive gambesonos.27 By the fourteenth century, references to the pourpoint, or purpoint in Old French, had become more common.28 The word may come from the Latin form perpunctus, made of per (through) and pungere (to prick or pierce), and may initially have referred to a sewing technique done with small stitches,29 as mentioned in Le Roman de Gaydon: “Vestent gambais porpoins menuement” [dressed in gambesons sewn with small stitches].30 Thus, following an evolution comparable to that of the word aketon, which originally referred to cotton fabric but came to mean a particular garment made from cotton and that endured as a name even when such garments were made of other fabrics, pourpoint was perhaps a word initially referring to a sewing technique that came to refer to a garment made using that technique. To summarize, during the twelfth century, the words aketon and gambeson were associated with the knight. In the thirteenth century, the word gambeson became more common and was also associated with infantrymen. And by the first half of the fourteenth century, plate armor was worn over cloth armor.31 Cloth armor was referred to most often by the words aketon or gambeson, but aketon seems little by

24 Laurence Marcellus Larson, trans., The King’s Mirror (Speculum Regale—Konungs skuggsjá) (London: Oxford University Press, 1917), 218. A sleeveless gambeson is also mentioned in A.-M. Chazaud, “Inventaire et Comptes de la Succession d’Eudes, Comte de Nevers, Mort en Terre Sainte,” Mémoires de la Société Nationale des Antiquaires de France, ser. 4, vol. 2 (1871): 164–206, at 192. 25 William Weir, A Well Regulated Militia: The Battle over Gun Control (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1997), 5; William Hudson, ed., The Records of the City of Norwich, vol. 1 (Norwich, UK: Jarrold, 1906), 205. 26 H. C. Maxwell Lyte, ed., Close Rolls of the Reign of Henry III of England 1227–1272, 4 vols. (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1902), 1:398. 27 Anne Terroine, Un Abbé de Saint-Maur au XIIIe Siècle, Pierre de Chevry, 1256–1285, Société d’Histoire du Droit, Collection d’Histoire Institutionnelle et Sociale 1 (Paris: Klincksieck, 1968), 110–11. 28 Germain Demay, Le Costume au Moyen Age d’Après les Sceaux (Paris: Dumoulin, 1880), 120; Lexis of Cloth and Clothing database, s.v. “pourpoint”; Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. “perpunctum”; MED, s.v. “purpoint”; Gay, Glossaire, s.v. “auqueton.” 29 Émile Littré, Dictionnaire de la Langue Française, 4 vols. (Paris: Hachette, 1872–77), s.v. “pourpoint”; Lexis of Cloth and Clothing database, s.v. “pourpoint.” 30 Jean Subrenat, ed., Gaydon, Chanson de Geste du XIIIe Siècle, Ktêmata 19 (Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 2007), verse 9256. 31 Buttin, “Du Costume Militaire,” 393.

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Catherine Besson-Lagier little to have been replaced by the word pourpoint. We can note the continuous use of the words over a long period that was marked by much evolution in arms and armor, but it remains difficult to establish what exactly is meant by the vocabulary in the texts.32 Relevant to the research here, this includes difficulty in establishing whether terminology might indicate whether garments were sleeveless, or had fully fitted, partially attached, or detachable sleeves. In most cases, the texts only name these cloth-armor garments. Sometimes we find details about the nature of the materials used to make them, and in the examples from the late twelfth century to the early fourteenth century, we can note that the same fabrics are used: linen cloth; stuffing of silk and cotton, most likely raw, used for the padding; and taffeta usually making up the outer layers of the garment. These same fabrics are present in the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve. The materials, therefore, support classifying the sleeve in the category of light cloth armor worn underneath the hauberk or plate armour. Intended to cushion blows without hindering the fighter’s mobility, such garments needed to be both supple and strong. As for the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve, nothing could describe it better than these lines composed around 1200: Puis li font vestir un gambés De soie et de coton porpoint [then he was dressed in a gambeson, made of silk and close-stitched quilted cotton].33

RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SLEEVE

The next step in my research about the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve was to make a replica, for purposes of verifying the hypotheses about its construction and testing its use. Making the replica sleeve The first demand of the project was to choose the fabrics. Finding exact reproductions of those used in the original piece was impossible, so the closest modern textile fabrics and chemical dyes were used: brown silk taffeta; raw, undyed cotton stuffing; white linen cloth; brown, undyed, and blue linen threads. I created a sleeve piece based on the original and fitted it to a model. The proportions made it clear that the sleeve goes all the way up to the base of the neck and that its flared shape allows for protection of the shoulder joint and some of the adjoining area of the chest and back. The upper part, which is thicker, ensures better protection for the upper arm, but it is not wide enough to fully encircle the upper arm. However, the presence of two lines 32 About these questions see Odile Blanc, “Histoire du Costume: L’Objet Introuvable,” Médiévales 29 (1995): 65–82. 33 William Roach and Robert H. Ivy, Jr., eds., The Continuations of the Old French Perceval of Chretien de Troyes, vol. 2, The First Continuation (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1950), lines 1032–33.

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The Bussy-Saint-Martin Sleeve of stitching (running stitch c and whip stitch f) serve to finish the edges of the sides of the original sleeve, indicating that the space left open on the inside of the upper arm is almost certainly intentional. The lower part of the original sleeve, however, is clearly incomplete. This was solved by adding another piece to the inside of the forearm, based on the smaller fragment, which seems to be the remains of the original.34 To deduce the full size and shape of this piece, I focused on the presence of running stitch along with whip stitch on the upper part of the incurve of the original (fig. 2.14). Set about 8 millimeters (⅓ inch) apart from each other, the two lines of stitching achieve a flat and careful finish, very different from the sewing around most other parts of the sleeve, but identical to the finish along the open edges of the upper arm (marked c/f on both pieces in figure 2.8). I extended the smaller piece to re-create this portion of the incurve in a symmetrical manner, forming a rounded-off V shape with a finished edge. This edge would sit in the bend of the elbow and complete the opening formed by the finished edges on the upper part of the sleeve. The poor condition of the small fragment left the question of where exactly the top of the piece (the highest points of the V shape) ended. In keeping with the idea that the use of both running stitch and whip stitch served to finish open edges, that would suggest the seam joining the smaller piece to the inner side of the forearm would end where the double stitching started on the upper part of the main sleeve edge. This hypothesis was tested and appeared valid. Placed any higher, the joining of the pieces would not allow the elbow enough mobility. Situated any lower, the elbow would be uncovered. Having determined the placement of the smaller fragment, I extended the lower part of that piece to reach the wrist, as shown in figure 2.15. The next step was to re-create the glove and then to attach it to the sleeve (fig. 2.16). Finally, a matching right sleeve was also constructed in order to proceed with further practical testing. Constructing the replica sleeve provided a great deal of information. First of all, it was possible to establish the order in which the pieces were created. It was necessary to make the entirety of the upper sleeve (made of the two layers of silk/cotton/linen composite joined with pad stitch) to be able to attach the forearm of the sleeve. The quilting was sewn in after the edges were folded over. The edges were then finished using whip stitch. This order of work was determined by both technical imperatives and personal deduction in the absence of other technical information in the restoration report. Making this prototype also shed light on the extensive technical thought and long-learned experience behind the making of the original. It would appear that the fabrics were chosen for their mechanical properties and combined in layers to achieve 34 This element, which was positioned on the outer side of the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve in the nineteenth century, was repositioned more logically to the inner side during the 1995 restoration. As currently displayed in the reliquary (fig. 2.1), it lies on top of the main sleeve fragment, with its longest edge aligned midway along the upper edge of the main sleeve.

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Catherine Besson-Lagier

Fig. 2.14: Detail of figure 2.1, showing the upper part of the smaller fragment of the BussySaint-Martin sleeve. Part of the curved edge is finished with lines of running stitch and whip stitch. The detached fragment is displayed lying on top of the main sleeve piece. Photo: Joachim Chenot-Hervillard, by permission, courtesy of the Church of Bussy-Saint-Martin.

48

The Bussy-Saint-Martin Sleeve

Fig. 2.15: Inner arm view of the re-created replica sleeve, showing the proposed full shape of the small fragment. Photo: Catherine Besson-Lagier.

49

Catherine Besson-Lagier

Fig. 2.16: Joining of the glove and the sleeve in the re-created replica of the Bussy-SaintMartin sleeve. Photo: Catherine Besson-Lagier.

50

The Bussy-Saint-Martin Sleeve resistance to penetration. This resistance was observed during the quilting process, a particularly difficult task in the upper sleeve, which is thickest. It required the use of a triangular needle to make the very small running stitches. The parallel sewing lines ensure that all the different layers of fabrics are held together tightly, and the use of small stitches would avoid the risk of them getting caught in the rings of a hauberk. The pad stitch strengthens everything without creating any additional strain because the stitch is relatively long. The use of the pad stitch does raise some questions: Why sew two groups of three layers separately only to later join them together by sewing, when the logical thing to do would be to sew the six layers of fabric in one go? The slight slack between the two “sandwiches” created by the pad stitches was perhaps an additional bonus in making the garment more resistant to piercing weapons. The glove’s structure shows the same degree of experience to create an effective form. The two flat sides of the glove are given volume thanks to the short perpendicular seams between the fingers. This gives the glove very good ergonomic capability. The sleeve in combat conditions The sleeves, at this point still isolated elements, were then tested in a military context typical of the thirteenth century: The fighter would be mounted on horseback, would have worn a hauberk over the sleeves, and would have wielded a sword with one hand and carried a cavalryman’s shield. During the first attempt, the sleeves shifted under the weight of the hauberk, particularly when the horse galloped and when lively movements were made with the arm. So, for the next attempt, the sleeves were connected to each other with leather bonds knotted in the middle of the back and the chest. This arrangement proved to be more stable during the same set of tests. The testing demonstrated a high level of function. The elbow bend in the sleeve made it easy to flex the arm, as it forms a kind of pocket that frees the elbow joint and gets rid of any strain. The shoulder joint moved without any hindrance, since the form of the sleeve follows any rotation movement perfectly. The upper arm was better protected from blows because of the thicker padding in that part of the sleeve. The design of the glove fingers ensured the flexibility required to grip a sword hilt firmly. The stronger linen protected the thumb and index finger, which can be most exposed in a combat situation. The more supple linen was perfectly suited to the other fingers, as they are folded over the hilt of the sword. The rigidity of the mail mitten was thus compensated by the suppleness of the glove. Finally, once the hauberk was removed, the wearer was able to easily pull his arm in and out of the sleeve thanks to the curved form. These first results were satisfying because they confirmed the ergonomic quality and comfort of the entire sleeve. However, there was some question about the point of being able to take the arm out of the sleeve if it is not attached to another garment. This led to the decision to create a torso protector. It is important to note here that the restorers of the original sleeve pointed out the absence of stitch marks that would suggest its attachment to a body piece.35 This 35 Bédat, “Manche dite de Saint-Martin,” 42.

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Catherine Besson-Lagier objection can be countered by the fact that the edge is not preserved in its entirety, so stitch traces might no longer be present or visible. What is more, testing so far had shown that the whip stitches left no traces once they were undone, because the taffeta fibres closed up easily. Finally, it is possible that the sleeve was made to be part of a larger garment that was never finished. Making a body protector garment The next decision was to determine the shape to give this torso protection. The elbow bend of the sleeve and the very high-set shoulder seam are two characteristics that the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve has in common with another, somewhat later, archaeological artefact, the pourpoint of Charles de Blois, which has been redated to ca. 1380 (postdating Charles’ death in 1364).36 This pourpoint is a close-fitting civilian piece of court or dress armour, too restrictive for military use. However, notwithstanding the decades between the garments, there are similarities between them. The materials used are identical—cotton stuffing, linen and silk cloth—and both are quilted. The quilting is visible on the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve, but in the pourpoint it is hidden by the outer layer of silk. The stitches are all made with linen thread. The pattern of the pourpoint sleeve is more complicated (fig. 2.17). The upper arm has two main pieces and is made wider at the armhole edge with the insertion of four triangular gussets. These give it the characteristic amplitude of pourpoints described as à grande assiette, in reference to a style of deep-set armholes. The forearm, also made of two parts, has a deep incurved cut at the elbow joint where it is sewn to the rest of the sleeve. Figure 2.18 shows a more detailed study of the pattern as compared with the BussySaint-Martin sleeve. There are obvious similarities, as demonstrated by the way the top of the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve would fit into the arm opening of the pourpoint (fig. 2.19). Despite the chronological gap between the making of these two garments, their similarities were convincing enough to provide a solid basis for an attempt at re-creating the torso part of a gambeson. The intention to ensure uniformity with the sleeves dictated use of the same fabrics (silk taffeta, cotton padding, linen cloth, linen thread), sewing techniques, and internal composition depending on the part in question. The form was based on elements from the pourpoint of Charles de Blois and information contained in guild regulations governing armourers and coustepointiers of Paris in 1296.37 This document mentions the word quartier, which is also used in descriptions of later pourpoints and jacks. It is therefore likely that a gambeson was made of four vertical quarters, two in front and two in the back. The re-creation (fig. 2.20) is joined at the front and the

36 Odile Blanc, “Le Pourpoint de Charles de Blois: Une Relique de la Fin du Moyen Âge,” Bulletin de Liaison du Centre International d’Études des Textiles Anciens 74 (1997): 64–82; Blanc, “Histoire du costume,” 70 n. 14. 37 Georges-Bernard Depping, ed., Réglemens sur les arts et métiers de Paris, rédigés au XIIIe siècle et connus sous le nom du Livre des métiers d’Étienne Boileau (Paris: Crapelet, 1837), 371.

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The Bussy-Saint-Martin Sleeve

Fig. 2.17: Sleeve pattern of the pourpoint of Charles de Blois. Drawing: Catherine BessonLagier, after the illustration in Adrien Harmand, Jeanne d’Arc: Ses Costumes, Son Armure (Paris: Librairie Ernest Leroux, 1929), 116, fig. 14.

back by a central vertical seam from the neckline to the groin, left open below that point in order to maintain the ease needed for mounting a horse. As visual sources do not show any opening on the front of a gambeson, the reconstruction has a round neck opening with a slit in the back. The front and back are both cut to allow for the placement of the sleeves. The S-shaped cut of the sleeves fitted perfectly at the arm openings (figs. 2.21 and 2.22). The Parisian regulations of 1296 listed fabrics used in the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve. The document uses the words tèle (canvas) and cendal (taffeta) to refer to the outer layers; silk stuffing, cotton, and ploits (folds) of cloth for the padding. The level of padding required varies for the different parts of the gambeson. In the upper part of the front and the back, the shortest padding layer must be a demi aune (a half ell, around 55 centimeters or 22 inches) and de demy quartier au meins (inside at least half of the garment quarter). The garment is thinner in its lower part. Consequently, in the re-creation, the upper half of each body quarter consists of two thicknesses of the 53

Catherine Besson-Lagier

Fig. 2.18: Comparison of the sleeve pattern of the pourpoint of Charles de Blois (left, shown without gussets) with that of the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve (right). Hatched area represents the part added in the re-creation. Drawings: Catherine Besson-Lagier, after illustrations in Harmand, Jeanne d’Arc, 116, fig. 14, and the unpublished restoration report (1995).

three-layer composite fabric (silk/cotton/linen), with the linen faces joined together with pad stitch, as in the upper part of the sleeve. The lower half of each body quarter is made of three layers (silk/cotton/silk). The cotton padding is at least 8 millimeters (⅓ inch) thick over the entirety of the chest. The final weight of the gambeson is about 3 pounds (1.4 kilograms). This result is consistent with the weight requirements in professional regulations, one of which (around 1311) forbids the use of any less than three pounds of cotton filling.38 Similarly, accounting records for Mahaut d’Artois (around 1314) list two pounds of cotton and one pound of silk stuffing for an aketon.39 The sewing techniques were identical to those of the sleeve and were used in the same contexts. However, whip stitch was used to attach the different parts of the gambeson together, as was done with the pourpoint of Charles de Blois. The S-shaped upper edges of the sleeves were sewn to the garment body very close to the neckline. The side edges of the upper sleeve (which, as noted earlier, were finished with lines 38 René de Lespinasse and François Bonnardot, eds., Les métiers et corporations de la ville de Paris: XIVe–XVIIIe siècles, 3 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1886–97), 2:319. 39 Jules-Marie Richard, Une Petite-Nièce de Saint Louis: Mahaut, Comtesse d’Artois et de Bourgogne, 1302–1329 (Paris: Champion, 1887), 223. Elsewhere, regulations set the maximum weight of an aketon at six pounds. Lespinasse, Les métiers, 2:319; Georges Espinas, La Vie Urbaine de Douai au Moyen Age, 4 vols. (Paris: Auguste Picard, 1913), 4:131.

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The Bussy-Saint-Martin Sleeve

Fig. 2.19: Hatched areas show the shape of the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve superimposed over the pourpoint of Charles de Blois. Drawing: Catherine Besson-Lagier, based on a drawing by Janet Arnold viewable at http://theschoolofhistoricaldress.org.uk/?page_id=124.

Fig. 2.20: Patterns (front and back) for the creation of a gambeson incorporating the pattern of the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve. Drawing: Catherine Besson-Lagier.

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Catherine Besson-Lagier

Fig. 2.21: Front view of the sleeve attachment in the re-created replica. Photo: Catherine Besson-Lagier.

of both running stitch and whip stitch) were left open, as were the lower edges of the arm openings on the body (figs. 2.23, 2.24, and 2.25). Testing the gambeson The experiments were conducted in the same way as before, on horseback, with the gambeson worn underneath the hauberk, and the rider handling a sword and a shield. The first surprise was how very light the garment was, and how supple and how comfortable it was. Its general form fitted the body very well. The flared upper edge of the sleeve, which forms a vertical arch over the shoulder, lifts the gambeson, so no strain was felt. The rotation movements of the shoulder while striking with the sword were not hindered. The garment also showed a remarkable ability to absorb the weight of the hauberk. The mail slid easily over the taffeta without getting caught on any of the stitches, something that often happens with gambesons with an outside layer of linen. Once the hauberk was removed, the fighter was easily able to remove his arm from the lower sleeve and glove without having to take off the gambeson. This would allow the fighter to re-equip himself quickly in case of an emergency. In another test, in which parts of the side edges of the sleeve were sewn to the body pieces, the sleeve reduced 56

The Bussy-Saint-Martin Sleeve

Fig. 2.22: Back view of the sleeve attachment in the re-created replica. Photo: Catherine Besson-Lagier.

the arm’s range of motion both vertically and horizontally and proved too much of a hindrance. This supported the original choices for the construction of the gambeson. It was also observed that a single test of the gambeson was enough to dirty the linen palm of the glove. Contact with the mail is inevitable, and handling the sword causes chafing of the mail mitten on the cloth of the palm. This is all the more interesting 57

Catherine Besson-Lagier

Fig. 2.23: Re-created gambeson modeled with the arms out of the sleeves (front). Photo: Catherine Besson-Lagier.

when considering the current state of the original glove. Whilst it appears to have been cleaned, in our opinion this would not have been enough to eliminate the traces of contact with metal elements. This fact reinforced our doubts about the Bussy-SaintMartin sleeve having ever been used. COMPARISONS OF THE BUSSY-SAINT-MARTIN SLEEVE WITH VISUAL SOURCES

As noted, the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve is a rare survival of medieval padded clothing. Comparison has been made above with the pourpoint of Charles de Blois. The few other preserved archaeological pieces of padded clothing would seem to have only 58

The Bussy-Saint-Martin Sleeve

Fig. 2.24: Re-created gambeson modeled with the arms out of the sleeves (back). Photo: Catherine Besson-Lagier.

limited relevance to the sleeve. As noted earlier, they include, from the thirteenth century and for women, the aketon of Isabelle de France (ca. 1260) which is sleeveless and features cotton padding between layers of linen,40 and the brial of Dona Theresa Gil (ca. 1300).41 From the fourteenth century there are the aketon of the Black Prince (ca. 1376), made of linen covered with silk on the outside and wool on the inside, with 40 Sophie Desrosiers, “Dessous Royaux du XIIIe siècle,” Histoire et Images Médiévales 6 (2006): 72–78. Conserved at the Convent of St. Francis, Paris. 41 Amalia Descalzo Lorenzo, “Ajuar funerario de dona Teresa Gil S.XIV” https://www.culturaydeporte.gob.es/mtraje/dam/jcr:c88a4753-6f02-44ab-9f95-6a1bddcd9287/01-2008. pdf, accessed Sept. 21, 2022. Conserved at the Museo del Traje, Madrid.

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Catherine Besson-Lagier

Fig. 2.25: Re-created gambeson modeled with the arms inside the sleeves and gloves (front). Photo: Catherine Besson-Lagier.

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The Bussy-Saint-Martin Sleeve vertical topstitching on the whole garment,42 and the child-sized pourpoint of the dauphin, later King Charles VI, of France (ca. 1378), made of linen padded with wool and covered with crimson silk damask.43 Still later, from the fifteenth century there are the cloth-armor tabards of Lübeck (1420–70) with strikingly prominent quilting lines.44 Visual sources also offer limited help. Their heterogenic nature is more revealing of the great diversity of garments than of an overall perspective. The two-­dimensionality of painting provides only a surface view, often from the front. Views of the sides and backs of garments are rarer, as are details of seams and fastenings and, of course, garments worn under other garments. Whilst some sculpted figures may be viewed in the round, tomb effigies generally present a view looking down onto the front of a clothed figure in repose, with some limited view of the side of the figure, possibly sculpted in less detail. On some recumbent effigies of knights the edge of a thin undergarment stitched with vertical lines can be glimpsed under a hauberk, but not so well as to indicate the main shape of the garment, least of all any sleeves. Most of the French recumbent effigies were destroyed during the Revolution, and very few military examples have been preserved. Among them, the recumbent effigy (ca. 1326) in Saint-Denis for the heart of Charles I of Anjou shows a relatively thin garment with parallel stitching lines, perhaps a quilted coat or aketon, extending beyond his hauberk at the neck and wrists, which may suggest something of a garment to which the sleeve could relate.45 The neckline of a recumbent effigy of a knight from the Priory in Ouville-L’Abbeye, Seine-Maritime, also shows a garment with the distinctive lines suggesting quilting beneath the hauberk (fig. 2.26). An arrangement offering support to views on the glove can be observed on the sword-holding right hand of the recumbent stone effigy of Lord Hugo II de Heusden, Viscount of Ghent (ca. 1247; fig. 2.27). Mail entirely covers the wrist and the back of the thumb and hand, but the inside of the thumb and the palm are covered by a smooth leather or cloth piece favoring the grip of a weapon, such as on the glove of the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve, which would fit inside a mail mitten. Amongst manuscript images, the mid-thirteenth-century Crusader Bible at the Morgan Library in New York City illustrates the superposing of several protective layers in combat. Notably it shows foot soldiers wearing garments with very wide armholes over ones with sleeves, providing double protection to the upper body whilst retaining

42 Janet Arnold, “The Jupon or Coat-Armor of the Black Prince in Canterbury Cathedral,” Journal of the Church Monuments Society 8 (1993): 12–24. Elizabeth Coatsworth and Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Clothing the Past: Surviving Garments from Early Medieval to Early Modern Western Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 255. 43 Tasha D. Kelly, “The Tailoring of the Pourpoint of King Charles VI of France Revealed,” Waffen- und Kostumkunde 55, no. 2 (2013): 153–80. Conserved at the Musée des BeauxArts, Chartres. 44 Jessica Finley, “The Lübeck Wappenröcke: Distinctive Style in Fifteenth-Century German Fabric Armour,” Medieval Clothing and Textiles 13 (2017): 121–52. 45 Viewable at https://www.tourisme93.com/basilique/charles-anjou-roi-de-sicile.html, accessed Sept. 21, 2022.

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Fig. 2.26: Detail of neckline from the recumbent stone tomb effigy of a knight from OuvilleL’Abbeye, Seine-Maritime, France. Photo: Yohann Deslandes, © Musée-Metropole-RouenNormandy. Reproduced by permission

some ease of movement (folio 3v).46 Two illuminations by the English artist Matthew Paris (ca. 1200–1259) feature figures wearing cloth protection with empty sleeves that hang from the backs of the shoulders and end in gloves: in one case worn over a hauberk by a rider,47 and in the other, over a tunic by a foot soldier.48 (In both cases, 46 Abraham’s vengeance, in the Crusader Bible (also known as the Maciejowski Bible; New York, Morgan Library, MS 638), 3v; https://www.themorgan.org/collection/crusaderbible/6, accessed April 18, 2022. 47 Heraclius takes down St. Alban’s head, in Matthew Paris, The Book of St. Alban (Dublin, Trinity College, MS 177), 38v; https://digitalcollections.tcd.ie/concern/works/8p58pm63q, accessed Sept. 21, 2022. 48 Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, Part II, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 16, 48r; https://parker.stanford.edu/parker/catalog/qt808nj0703, accessed Sept. 21, 2022.

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Fig. 2.27: Detail of mail mitten on the right hand from the recumbent stone tomb effigy of Lord Hugo II de Heusden, Viscount of Ghent. Photo: Cristoph Houbrechts Vanhoorne, by permission, courtesy of the Oudheidkundig Museum van de Bijloke, Ghent, Belgium.

it is unclear whether the sleeves are connected to the garment visible in the picture or to another garment worn under it.) These arrangements differ from the proposal made here that the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve would be part of a garment worn under a hauberk. However, these examples clearly show sleeves ending in gloves that allow the arm to be easily inserted or removed. The Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve can also be compared to certain representations of civilian garments from the first third of the thirteenth century. Both men and women wear types of outer garments with sleeves of varying length and width sewn together only along the forearm area so that the arm may be put in or taken out of the lower part of the sleeve. The sleeves may be tight at the wrist to avoid them hindering the movements if worn whilst working or riding. Or the arms may be removed and the empty sleeves flung over the shoulder or knotted together. Outdoor versions of 63

Catherine Besson-Lagier

Fig. 2.28: Detail of the stone bas-relief of the Drapers’ Guild (or Shop) on a pier base on the facade of the north transept of Reims Cathedral, thirteenth century. The tops of the sleeves are pleated and fit diagonally on the shoulders. Photo: Catherine Besson-Lagier.

these garments are mostly associated with men. A knee-length version was used by the labouring classes, and a longer, mid-calf-length version by burghers or nobles, as seen in the stone bas-relief of the draper’s shop on the north transept portal in Reims Cathedral (fig. 2.28). Examples of such garments on women include a noblewoman on horseback (Queen Ælfgifu/Emma) in the Life of St. Edward the Confessor, again probably the work of Matthew Paris,49 and a sculpted female figure (ca. 1270) in Troyes (fig. 2.29). The sculpture features a prophet trampling on the torso of a woman, possibly enacting a scene criticizing female clothing eccentricities. Over her cote, the woman wears a garment that has sleeves pushed back over the shoulders. These sleeves are tightly pleated at the shoulder seam, which is very high, attached to a narrow strip of cloth that forms the collar. On the back, the sleeve comes almost at a right angle to the torso (fig. 2.30).

49 Cambridge University Library, MS Ee.3.59, 4r; https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MSEE-00003-00059/13, accessed Sept. 21, 2022.

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Fig. 2.29: Detail of a female figure, showing a front view of the shoulders, stone, ca. 1270, France. Troyes, Museum of Beaux-Arts, Inv. 887.8. Photo: Carole Bell, by permission of Ville de Troyes.

Fig. 2.30: Detail of the stone figure in fig. 2.29, showing the back of the left shoulder. Photo: Carole Bell, by permission of Ville de Troyes.

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Catherine Besson-Lagier CONCLUSION

It is difficult to pronounce on the balance of influence between civilian and military clothing in this period, but the pourpoint of Charles de Blois attests to the permeability between these two categories of garments. Its structure was borrowed from military garments but its very refined silhouette shows that it was adapted to the demands of the period’s civilian fashion. It is difficult to be this certain about the Bussy-Saint-Martin sleeve, but aspects of its design suggest a military purpose that aligns with images of military attire found in contemporary textual and visual sources. It seems legitimate to consider it a milepost in the evolution of padded garments with a military purpose. Depictions of civilian garments with free-hanging sleeves from the thirteenth century might allow for the sleeve to be claimed as a garment from that century, if our hypotheses are correct. Further study of this artefact outside the reliquary in which it is currently contained could permit verification of the hypotheses advanced here, as well as offer greater insight into the materials and techniques of medieval cloth armor production.

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The Administration of Cloth and Clothing in the Great Wardrobe of Edward I Charles Farris

Those interested in the material culture of the medieval English royal court are inevitably drawn into the mysterious world of the Great Wardrobe, the household department responsible for sourcing, storing, and distributing various goods, including cloth. The clerks of the Great Wardrobe kept careful records of all of these activities, many of which have survived.1 Such records have both their allure and their difficulties, as acknowledged in 1991 by Kay Staniland: Medieval documentary evidence has been little explored by dress historians and yet is a rich and varied source, providing facts, details and statistics not otherwise available. True, the documents present many problems of comprehension and translation, and abound in undefined terminology, but nevertheless the factual information they provide is vital to an understanding of clothing in this period.2

Over the past forty years, historians including Frédérique Lachaud, Lisa Monnas, Stella Mary Newton, Caroline Shenton, Kay Staniland, Juliet Vale, and Malcolm Vale, have demonstrated just how informative such documentation can be.3 The published This paper stems from research begun while working on the Arts and Humanities Research Council funded Lexis of Cloth and Clothing: Medieval Royal Wardrobe Accounts project. I would like to thank the AHRC, members of that project, and others who have offered advice in the writing of this paper. These include Paul Dryburgh, Hannes Kleineke, Kay Staniland, and Louise Sylvester. Thanks also to Frédérique Lachaud who kindly offered advice and shared copies of her work early in this research. My special thanks to the editors and anonymous reviewers whose comments greatly improved this paper. All errors are my own. 1 2 3

A number of these are now available online through the Anglo-American Legal Tradition database: http://aalt.law.uh.edu, accessed Aug. 30, 2022. Kay Staniland, “Clothing Provision and the Great Wardrobe in the Mid-Thirteenth Century,” Textile History 22 (1991): 239–52, at 239. Frédérique Lachaud, “Textiles, Furs and Liveries: A Study of the Material Culture of the Court of Edward I (1272–1307)” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Oxford, 1992); Frédérique Lachaud, “Liveries of Robes in England, c. 1200–c. 1330,” English Historical Review 111 (1996): 279–98; Frédérique Lachaud, “Dress and Social Status in England before the Sumptuary Laws,” in Heraldry, Pageantry and Social Display in Medieval England, ed.

Charles Farris literature is particularly strong on the period between the reigns of Henry III (1216–72) and Edward III (1327–77), of whom the latter emerges as the archetypal flamboyant prince who provided a model of magnificent sartorial kingship not surpassed until the reign of Henry VIII (1509–47). Despite the attractions of this material, its difficulties are not inconsiderable, especially for first-time users. Fortunately, there are numerous aids that can help to alleviate many of these challenges, in particular those of palaeography and language.4 Printed sources are also extremely useful, especially those which transcribe and translate, such as those printed by Her Majesty’s Stationery Office in the 1970s and 1980s and, more recently, collections like Medieval Dress and Textiles: A Multilingual Sourcebook.5 Unfortunately, the accounts of the Great Wardrobe pose another

4

5

Peter Coss and Maurice Keen (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2002), 105–23; Lisa Monnas, “Silk Cloths Purchased for the Great Wardrobe of the Kings of England, 1325–1462,” Textile History 20, no. 2 (1989): 283–307; Stella Mary Newton, Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince: A Study of the Years 1340–1365 (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 1980); Stella Mary Newton, “Queen Philippa’s Squirrel Suit,” Documenta Textila, ed. Mechthild Flury-Lemberg and Karen Stolleis (Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1981), 342–48; Caroline Shenton, “Philippa of Hainault’s Churchings: The Politics of Motherhood at the Court of Edward III,” in Family and Dynasty in Late Medieval England: Proceedings of the 1997 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Richard Eales and Shaun Tyas (Donington, UK: Shaun Tyas, 2003), 105–21; Kay Staniland, “Clothing and Textiles at the Court of Edward III (1342–1352),” in Collectanea Londiniensia: Studies in London Archaeology and History Presented to Ralph Merrifield, ed. Joanna Bird, Hugh Chapman, and John Clark (London: London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, 1978), 223–34; Kay Staniland, “Medieval Courtly Splendour,” Costume 14 (1980): 7–23; Kay Staniland, “Welcome Royal Babe! The Birth of Thomas of Brotherton in 1300,” Costume 19 (1985): 1–13; Kay Staniland, “The Nuptials of Alexander III of Scotland and Margaret Plantagenet,” Nottingham Medieval Studies 30 (1986): 20–45; Kay Staniland, “Court Style, Painters, and the Great Wardrobe,” in England in the Fourteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1985 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. W. Mark Ormrod (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 1986), 236–46; Kay Staniland, “The Great Wardrobe Accounts as a Source for Historians of Fourteenth-Century Clothing and Textiles,” Textile History 20 (1989): 275–82; Juliet Vale, Edward III and Chivalry: Chivalric Society and Its Context, 1270–1350 (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 1982); Malcolm Vale, The Princely Court: Medieval Courts and Culture in North-West Europe, 1270–1380 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). The Institute of Historical Research and the National Archives offer online and onsite palaeography courses. Information on language can be found in The Oxford English Dictionary, online ed., http://www.oed.com; Anglo-Norman Dictionary, online ed., https:// anglo-norman.net; Lexis of Cloth and Clothing Project database, http://lexissearch. arts.manchester.ac.uk (hereafter cited as LexP); and Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Elizabeth Coatsworth, and Maria Hayward, eds., Encyclopedia of Dress and Textiles in the British Isles c. 450–1450 (Leiden: Brill, 2012). Benjamin F. Byerly and Catherine R. Byerly, eds., Records of the Wardrobe and Household 1285–1286 (London: HMSO, 1977); Benjamin F. Byerly and Catherine R. Byerly, eds., Records of the Wardrobe and Household 1286–1289 (London: HMSO, 1986); Louise M. Sylvester, Mark C. Chambers, and Gale R. Owen-Crocker, eds., Medieval Dress and Textiles in Britain: A Multilingual Sourcebook (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2014). See also Samuel Lysons, “Copy of a Roll of Purchases Made for the Tournament of Windsor Park,

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The Great Wardrobe of Edward I significant challenge, namely the peculiarities of the administration that produced them. The royal household was a complicated world with its own idiosyncrasies of accounting practice. Navigating its accounts can be difficult. They often seem to overlap and interact in their content, but not always in obvious ways. If one understands a little of how the Great Wardrobe worked, and has a basic grasp of the range of accounts it produced, then one has a much better chance of finding the information required. Fortunately, one historian made understanding English medieval royal administration his life’s work. Thomas Frederick Tout produced a six-volume guide titled Chapters in the Administrative History of Medieval England.6 Indeed, Tout was especially interested in the workings of the Great Wardrobe, and he dedicated a sizable chapter to its analysis.7 However, it will be evident to any who have read Tout’s work that cloth and clothing was not one of his priorities. Therefore, the following paper will summarise the system of account in the Great Wardrobe, for those for whom cloth and clothing is the chief concern. The subject is a large one and it is necessary to be selective. This paper will focus on the latter years of Edward I’s reign, around the turn of the fourteenth century. The logic for choosing this focus is based on two factors. First, the number of surviving Great Wardrobe accounts for this period are particularly high. Indeed, where possible this paper will focus on the twenty-ninth year of Edward’s reign (1300/1), for which an almost complete series of accounts survive. Secondly, I believe it was during this period that the parameters of the Great Wardrobe’s business and authority began to crystallise. Edward I inherited from his father the blueprint for his administration, but then began to refine it in his characteristically businesslike manner—improving processes to maximise income. During these turbulent later years of Edward’s reign, the complicated administrative system which his clerks had developed began to crack. Overtaken by Scottish wars (1296–1307), petty disputes within the royal family, and more serious political issues between the king and the leaders of the community of the realm relating to taxation and the exercise of royal prerogative, the king’s energies and finances were severely tested.8 Indeed, the considerable quantity of household documents which survive for this period may be a result of an administrative backlog in the final years of the reign. Subsidiary materials may have been stored in greater quantities until the Exchequer audits of household materials could be completed.9

6 7 8 9

in the Sixth Year of King Edward the First, Preserved in the Record Office at the Tower,” Archaeologia 17 (1814): 297–310. For a briefer introduction see Stanley B. Chrimes, An Introduction to the Administrative History of Medieval England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966). Thomas Frederick Tout, Chapters in the Administrative History of Mediaeval England: The Wardrobe, the Chamber and the Small Seals, 6 vols. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1920–33), 4:349–437. Michael Prestwich, Edward I, 2nd edition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 469–555. My thanks to one of the anonymous reviewers for suggesting the relationship between administrative backlog and document survival.

69

Charles Farris THE WARDROBE AND THE GREAT WARDROBE

The king’s household (hospicium regis) was broken down into departments with specialist duties like the kitchens, butlery, pantry, and the Great Wardrobe. All of these reported to a superior office called (rather confusingly) the King’s Wardrobe (garderoba regis)—often just called the Wardrobe. This was the most senior administrative body within the royal household, and the other departments were accountable to it. The King’s Wardrobe was then accountable to the Exchequer from which it derived much of its income, and in return had to submit accounts. The relationship between Exchequer, Wardrobe, and various household departments generated a great quantity of documents, which allows us to explore the workings of royal administration and expenditure in considerable detail. The first known reference to the “great wardrobe” (magna garderoba) was on Feb. 7, 1253, and a few years later it became a common feature in household accounts.10 The Great Wardrobe was the department of the royal household responsible for sourcing, purchasing, storing, and distributing nonperishable goods. These items included cloth, furs, spices, electuaries (medicines), and wax. Stella Mary Newton suggested that these goods were stored together because the merchants who traded in cloth also traded in spices.11 This, though, is not the full story, and goods were in fact sourced from a vast number of merchants both in England and overseas. Two more pertinent factors were the longevity of the goods and the manner of their use. In short, items that had a long shelf life, and were going to be needed, but not necessarily immediately, were intuitively bought, administered, and stored together. While other departments of the king’s household purchased consumables for immediate consumption, the Great Wardrobe was concerned with those items which could and often needed to be stored.12 At the start of Edward I’s reign, the Great Wardrobe was co-administered by the partnership of a layman (often a tailor or merchant) and a royal clerk, a system Tout termed the “dual buyership.”13 Clerks were ordained members of the church who provided the royal household with secretarial and administrative services. The dual buyership system, first developed under Henry III, elegantly married the skills necessary for the task: practical knowledge of business and merchandise with numeracy, literacy, and familiarity with royal administration. For roughly the first decade of Edward’s reign this system continued. Edward’s Great Wardrobe was presided over, from August 1274 until June 1282, by royal clerk Giles of Oudenard and Adenettus (sometimes Adam) the king’s tailor.14 Adenettus then continued to work with Giles’s clerical successor, Hamo de Legh. Their names were listed jointly on the Exchequer enrolled accounts until November 1286, after which Hamo became solely responsible. 10 Tout, Chapters, 4:349. 11 Newton, Black Prince, 14. 12 Tout, Chapters, 4:351. 13 Ibid., 4:368. 14 Ibid., 4:369. Note: Edward I was overseas when he acceded to the throne in 1272 and did not return to England until 1274.

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The Great Wardrobe of Edward I For the rest of Edward’s reign the Great Wardrobe was under the sole control of a royal clerk. This transition may, though, have been more gradual than it appears. Adenettus continued to make purchases for the Great Wardrobe for many years. Furthermore, Adenettus served as controller to Roger de Lisle, Hamo’s clerical successor, for his entire tenure from 1287 to 1295. The Great Wardrobe often liked to train its clerks internally, a practice widespread in the royal household. Roger de Lisle had previously served under Hamo de Legh, and then replaced him when he died.15 Roger de Lisle was replaced by John Hustwaite, who served from 1295 until 1300 when he was replaced by Ralph de Stokes. Stokes’ value and experience was affirmed by Edward II who reappointed him on the death of Edward I in 1307, and he remained in post until 1320.16 The majority of accounts under discussion in this article originate from Stokes’ tenure as clerk. The various responsibilities of the clerks are only fully recognised when the accounts of the office are scrutinised. The household ordinance of 1279 is characteristically vague, stating clerks were to buy at three fairs a year all the things which appertain to the great wardrobe. And let this man be keeper of the great wardrobe. And let him go to the fairs to make these purchases, and let him be sworn to the king with special reference to this business. And let the usher of the wardrobe be his controller, and him view the purchases and the liveries and testify to the account.17

This job description quickly became out of date. Purchases were made far more frequently than three times a year, and the clerks of the Great Wardrobe appear almost constantly engaged in acquisitions. The terminology also became obsolete. The lofty title of “keeper of the great wardrobe” (custos magne garderobe) was in fact not used frequently until the reign of Edward III. Under Edward I the clerks generally had to make do with the title “clerk of the great wardrobe” (clericus magne garderobe) and were not what Tout termed “men of great mark.” Occasionally the title of clerk was paired with another. These included buyer (emptor), issuer (liberator), and purveyor (provisor), which is indicative of their numerous duties.18 In total, Tout identified that the clerk of the Great Wardrobe had five principal functions: purchase, storage, manufacture, distribution, and account.19 The documents under discussion below shed light on all these activities. The clerks of course did not act alone. Tailors like Adenettus appear intermittently throughout the accounts, often making items for the king but also, as we will see, helping to organise the various stores and workshops of the office. These included

15 16 17 18 19

Ibid., 4:372. Ibid., 4:375. Translated in ibid., 4:370–71. Later translations by the author unless stated. Ibid., 4:375. Ibid., 4:413.

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Charles Farris Robinettus the tailor and Geoffrey the tailor and pavillioner (tent maker),20 the latter of whom was perhaps Geoffrey of Merith, also described as the king’s tailor.21 There were also part-time deputies working under the clerks, like John de Carleton, Robert de Ryston, and Elias Whetely.22 These are shadowy figures who appear only occasionally in the accounts but who must have frequently been extremely important in the dayto-day organisation of the department. Information on wages is patchy. The principal clerks received an annual grant of £20, while the deputies were paid between just 6d. and 12d. each day.23 The king’s tailors’ wages were also not considerable and do not appear to have risen above 7½d. each day.24 The clerks would also have received an allowance for livery robes, or in the case of the sub-clerks, cloth to make them. The principal clerks of the Great Wardrobe received an annual cash allowance for robes of 4 marks, placing them level with the controllers of the King’s Wardrobe, but predictably below the keepers of the King’s Wardrobe, who received twice as much.25 In addition to clerks and subordinates were the vast number of merchants who provided the Great Wardrobe with the goods it needed. Some of these merchants, like Reginald de Thunderle, citizen and sometime sheriff of London, had a closer relationship still, often acting as buyers for the Great Wardrobe. This arrangement gave the Great Wardrobe greater reach and flexibility, acquiring goods when the clerks were indisposed. For the crown this had financial advantages too. These merchants, unlike the clerks of the Great Wardrobe, incurred the debts personally on the crown’s behalf. Frédérique Lachaud has shown that these debts could be considerable and were often paid back slowly, citing the case of Reginald de Thunderle who in 1305 was owed nearly £2,700.26 In a small way, these merchants may have helped to fill the void left by the fall of the Riccardi, the king’s Italian bankers and chief creditors in the first half of Edward’s reign, in 1294.27 Lachaud has also suggested that the relative dearth of manuscript evidence for the Great Wardrobe in the first half of Edward’s reign may have been because the Riccardi were so instrumental in supplying the office with goods.28 However, it may also be that as accounts were successfully enrolled by

20 Unless stated otherwise, all manuscript shelfmarks are to London, National Archives. E 101/361/17, m[embrane] 1; E 101/359/4, m. 1. 21 E 101/367/17, m. 2. 22 E 101/370/10/11; E 101/367/17, m. 5. 23 See below, under “Rolls of travel expenditure.” 24 Tout, Chapters, 4:371. 25 For example, compare London, British Library, Add. MS 7965, fol. 123, and Liber Quotidianus Contrarotulatoris Garderobae Anno Regni Regis Edwardi Primi (London: J. Nichols, 1787), 313. 26 Lachaud, “Textiles, Furs and Liveries,” 71; Henry C. Maxwell Lyte, ed., Calendar of Close Rolls, 1296–1302 (London: HMSO, 1906) 192. 27 Prestwich, Edward I, 401–3. 28 See Lachaud, “Textiles, Furs and Liveries,” 50; and Richard W. Kaeuper, Bankers to the Crown: The Riccardi of Lucca and Edward I (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973).

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The Great Wardrobe of Edward I the Exchequer, subsidiary accounts were discarded.29 Italian merchants continued to be important suppliers of the Great Wardrobe later in the reign, particularly with high-status fabrics, as is evident in their numerous references in Great Wardrobe accounts, particularly in accounts of purchases.30 In order to appreciate the full range of business conducted in the Great Wardrobe it is necessary to appreciate the variety of documents available for study. These are not restricted to those produced within the Great Wardrobe itself, due to the system of enrolling accounts with the Exchequer. The following sections will describe these various accounts and the system that produced them. It is necessary to begin at the end of the accounting process, with the accounts which could be termed the most senior. These are the pipe rolls, produced by the highest (in theory at least) of all governmental departments, the Exchequer.31 Pipe rolls The pipe rolls of the Exchequer (London, National Archives, E 372) were annual accounts which recorded primarily the payments and debts of the county farms, telling the king how much money he had received from his various county sheriffs and how much he was still owed.32 During the thirteenth century the pipe rolls also frequently included summaries of the expenditure of the king’s household—including those of the Great Wardrobe.33 Like all heads of royal household departments, the clerks of the Great Wardrobe were responsible for their expenditure and submitted accounts to their superiors in the King’s Wardrobe for audit. In turn the King’s Wardrobe submitted their accounts to the Exchequer, for audit and enrolment in the pipe rolls. By necessity the enrolled Great Wardrobe entries were very concise, including just a few lines detailing the types of goods purchased, a grand total of expenditure, and the name of the clerk responsible for the account. Audits of keepers’ accounts were not usually annual, but rather at the end of their keeperships. Occasionally, entries indicated unusual expenditure to help explain particularly high figures. For example, the pipe roll for 1278/9 recorded that in 1274 the Great Wardrobe spent £4,294 17s. 8d. on the king and queen’s coronation.34 Therefore, the pipe rolls do occasionally provide information not available elsewhere, especially for years when few subsidiary documents have survived. However, under usual circumstances they provide little 29 Compared with the latter years when documents had to be retained in greater numbers, see above, p. 69. 30 See also E 101/353/7, mentioned in Tout, Chapters, 4:352 n. 3, which is a contract between the keeper of the King’s Wardrobe and the Ballardi, dating from 32 Edward I (1303/4). 31 A table of Great Wardrobe receipts and expenses enrolled in the pipe rolls can be found in Tout, Chapters, 4:102–8. 32 These accounts were duplicated in another set of accounts known as the chancellor’s rolls (E 352) which occasionally reveal additional material. 33 For an introduction to enrolment of wardrobe accounts, see Benjamin L. Wild, The Wardrobe Accounts of Henry III (London: Pipe Roll Society, 2012). 34 E 372/124, fol. 47d.

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Charles Farris more than totals of annual expenditure within the Great Wardrobe. To learn more about the workings of the Great Wardrobe we need to go back to the accounts from which the enrolled pipe roll entries were compiled. Wardrobe books Until 1290 the accounts submitted to the Exchequer from the King’s Wardrobe were in the form of a roll. From 1291/2 accounts were submitted in book form.35 These comprehensive accounts were compiled in duplicate, one titled the controller’s book and the other the keeper’s.36 These books provide an impressive summary of the expenditure of the royal household and its constituent departments, including the Great Wardrobe. The Great Wardrobe usually occupied its own chapter towards the rear of the books. These chapters provide more detailed information than the pipe rolls, providing a top-level breakdown of expenditure in separate paragraphs. That for 1300/1 will serve as an example.37 The first paragraph summarised £1,253 14s. 5d. spent upon various coloured cloths (predominantly cloth made from wool and predominantly destined for clothing). The second, £315 7s. 8d. spent on furs and skins. The third, £1,591 11s. 9¾d. spent on wax, spices, and electuaries. The fourth, £781 16s. 4d. spent on mercery (cloths generally not destined for clothing, including high-status fabrics and more utilitarian fabrics made from plant fibres). The fifth, £152 13s. 3½d. spent on various administrative expenses. These included transportation and communication, and the cost of processing textiles through steaming (humidacione), measuring (ulnacione), folding (plicacione), and shearing (retonsione)—which reminds us that many of the cloths purchased were in a relatively raw state. The sixth recorded the clerk’s wages of £20. The final paragraph recorded the expenses of the king’s tailor, which amounted to £32 14s. 6d. The breakdown of Great Wardrobe expenditure in the wardrobe books provides an indication of the variety of departmental activities and how costs were divided. In addition, the totals they supply, when coupled with those found in the pipe rolls, provide a remarkably complete series of figures of Great Wardrobe expenditure across the reigns of the first three Edwards. Happily, these were printed by Tout. However, to learn more we need to step back into the Great Wardrobe itself and scrutinise the accounts drawn up within it (from which the wardrobe book totals were taken). (See Table 3.1.) Rolls of purchases A great deal of the clerk of the Great Wardrobe’s time was spent organising acquisitions. These were recorded in annual accounts called rolls of purchases.38 The corresponding 35 Prestwich, Edward I, 143. A printed example of a wardrobe book (1299/1300) is Liber Quotidianus. See also E 101/369/11 (1305/6) and London, British Library, Add. MSS 7965 (1296/7) and 7966A (1300/1). 36 The printed Liber Quotidianus is the controller’s book for 1299/1300. 37 London, British Library, Add. MS 7966A, fol. 153. 38 For example, E 101/359/18 (1300/1), E 101/371/18 (1302/3), and E 101/366/4 (1303/4).

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The Great Wardrobe of Edward I Table 3.1: Accounts of the Great Wardrobe Purchase

Issue

Administration

Manufacture

Rolls of purchases

Rolls of prests of cloth

Arrays of stock and issues

Rolls of the king’s tailors

Bonds

Rolls of issues of cloth (for Rolls of travel robes) expenditure

Memoranda

Rolls of issues of cloth (mercery) Warrants Bills

roll of purchase for 1300/1 is E 101/359/18, and will serve as an example. The account is eleven membranes long and was compiled by Ralph de Stokes, then clerk of the Great Wardrobe. It is organised into sections which recorded the different types of goods acquired. These included wool cloths (described as drap[er]ie); furs and skins; wax, spices, and electuaries; and “cloth of gold and other things.” The totals from each of these sections correspond exactly to those of the first four totals in the wardrobe books and it seems likely they were used to compile the latter. The account records every purchase in some detail, including cost, quantity, supplier, and occasionally place of purchase. Before looking at these entries in more detail it is worth briefly discussing some accounting conventions used within the Great Wardrobe. The accounts were compiled of membranes of vellum sewn chancery style (foot to head). Latin is the primary language, although technical terminology appears in a variety of other languages.39 All of the Great Wardrobe accounts were “working documents” containing evidence of audit and features which made the work of the clerks easier. Marginalia were particularly useful. The right-hand margin was used for subtotals, the foot of each section for section totals, and the foot of the document for grand totals and summaries. The left-hand margin was often used for section titles, and also for keeping running totals of quantities of goods. The latter was used when compiling stocktakes. Various financial abbreviations indicating audit are extremely common, and it is clear that each entry was subject to considerable scrutiny. The abbreviations p[ro]b’ and p[r]a’, both seemingly variations of probatus (checked), indicate where figures have been checked, or proven. Finally, the dorse (reverse) of 39 See Mark Chambers and Louise Sylvester, “Language Use in Manuscripts of the Royal Wardrobe and Petitions: Evidence for the Study of Dress and Textile Vocabulary,” English Manuscript Studies 1100–1700 17 (2012): 262–79; and Laura Wright, “Mixed-language Business Writing: Five Hundred Years of Code-switching,” in Language Change: Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics, ed. Ernst Håkon Jahr (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1999), 99–118.

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Charles Farris accounts were used both for audit and reference, often recording a short summary of the account within. This provided the clerks with reference, and sometimes subtotals, without having to unroll the entire document. The first section of the account of purchase for 1300/1 recorded “drapery.” These cloths were all made from wool and predominantly destined for clothing. The section is broken down into types: scarlet,40 coloured cloth, stiffened rayed/striped cloth (rad’ affort[is]),41 black say (nigra essaia),42 rayed/striped stanford cloth (rad’ staunford),43 and English cloth (Angl’). The last of these contained quantities of regionally produced cloths like candlewekstrete44 and narrow Cornish russet (Russ’ stricti de cornub’).45 Cloth is recorded by the cloth, piece, ell, and half or quarter ell (in descending order of size). An ell (ulna) is a common unit of length for cloth, but one that varied throughout the Middle Ages, often from place to place. In England it was usually 45 inches (about 114 centimetres) although local variations were not uncommon; for example in Shropshire an ell was 54 inches (about 137 centimetres).46 Each entry records considerable detail of the sale. For example, a typical entry reads: Johanni de Dokelington pro ij bl’ prec’ panni iiij li. Viij li.47 [John of Ducklington for two bluet48 (cloths) priced at £4 the cloth £8]

Total costs for each section are recorded in the right-hand margin. In the left-hand margin a later hand has noted the cost and quantities of each product. Other marginalia on the left-hand side indicate if the cloth had been received through forfeiture (forisfact’), and therefore not paid for. Regulations concerning the quality and dimensions of cloth had existed in England since 1197, and in 1272 the length, as well as width and quality, of cloths were regulated. Merchants whose cloths did not meet these specifications could be fined or have their cloths confiscated.49 These accounts make it clear that some of these cloths were taken directly into the Great Wardrobe.

40 “The medieval scarlet was a woollen textile and not originally a colour; subsequently use of the term ‘scarlet’ as both a noun and adjective for that vivid red colour was derived from the textile’s name.” John Munro, “Scarlet,” in Owen-Crocker, Coatsworth, and Hayward, Encyclopedia, 477–81. 41 LexP, s.v. “ray.” 42 A silk or wool fabric, in this context likely made from wool. Mark Chambers and Elizabeth Coatsworth, “Say,” in Owen-Crocker, Coatsworth, and Hayward, Encyclopedia, 476–77. 43 A kind of high-quality wool cloth. LexP, s.v. “stanford.” 44 A type of inexpensive cloth originally produced in or associated with Candlewick Street in London. LexP, s.v. “candlewick street.” 45 A wool cloth, often of russet colour or some similar neutral colour, worn primarily by the poor or by labourers. LexP, s.v. “russet.” 46 Elizabeth Coatsworth, “Ell,” in Owen-Crocker, Coatsworth, and Hayward, Encyclopedia, 189. 47 E 101/359/18, m. 1. See also the section on “Bonds,” below. 48 A wool cloth that was often, but not always, dyed blue. LexP, s.v. “bluet.” 49 See Lachaud, “Textiles, Furs and Liveries,” 82–86.

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The Great Wardrobe of Edward I The account for 1300/1 recorded goods with a total value of £74 10s. 10d. confiscated in this way at fairs in London, Northampton, York, and Kingston-upon-Hull.50 The subsequent sections recorded entries roughly using the system outlined above. However, a few peculiarities are worth noting. The units used for cloth were not appropriate for recording furs and skins. Instead these were recorded in various other units. For example, miniver, typically the white winter belly fur of the red squirrel, is listed in both furs (ffur’) and hoods (caput’).51 Furs, which were larger, cost between 30s. and 50s. each, and were recorded as being seven or eight rows (tirs’) of skins long.52 Hoods were smaller, cheaper, and shorter, costing between 5s. and 13s. 4d. each and were just three to four rows long. The considerable difference in prices indicates that the rows of hoods, as well as being fewer, were almost certainly narrower than those of the furs.53 Furs were commonly used for lining clothing, and the system of furs and hoods would have made them easier to purchase, organise, and distribute. The last section of the roll of purchases, titled “cloth of gold and other things” (panno[rum] ad aur’ et alia[rum] re[rum]), was concerned with cloth principally destined for non-sartorial purposes. These were sometimes termed “mercery” and included both high-status fabrics like silks and cloth of gold and cheaper utilitarian fabrics like canvas.54 Among the former were staggeringly expensive cloth-of-gold fabrics on canvas (perhaps in this context fine flax threads) and silk, some described as being of tars or turkey,55 the most expensive of which cost £8 each cloth.56 These fabrics were not always straightforward to obtain. Many were bought from Italian merchants and their English associates, while others were (perhaps more surprisingly) bought from the Church. In 1300/1 these included four cloths from the dean and chapter of Hereford Cathedral and three from the Priory and Convent of Worcester.57 It is tempting to suggest that these may have been previous gifts from wealthy patrons but sadly no details were recorded. Utilitarian fabrics made from plant fibres were also

50 E 101/359/18, mm. 2–3. 51 Miniver was highly prized in medieval fashion. Occasionally the term “pured” was added to indicate a more expensive variety, where any of the surrounding grey fur has been trimmed. See Elspeth Veale, The English Fur Trade in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon, 1966), 228–29. 52 Veale, English Fur Trade, 28. 53 E 101/359/18, mm. 5–9. 54 “Textile; fabric or material made from flax and/or hemp.” LexP, s.v. “canvas.” 55 Tars indicated a “Textile; silk cloth originally from or associated with the Mongol Empire in Asia.” Turkey indicated a “Textile; fabric from Turkey. Latinate equivalent to Middle English turkie clothes.” LexP, s.v. “tars”; “pannus de Turkie.” 56 E 101/359/18, m. 10. See also David Jacoby, “Oriental Silks at the Time of the Mongols: Patterns of Trade and Distribution in the West,” in Oriental Silks in Medieval Europe, ed. Juliane von Fircks and Regula Schorta (Riggisberg, Switzerland: Abegg-Stiftung, 2016), 92–123. 57 E 101/359/18, m. 10.

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Charles Farris grouped in this section, including carde,58 mappa,59 and canvas. Of these, canvas was bought in the greatest quantities, often by the 100 ells (26s. to 38s.) or the ell (5d. to 6d.).60 Canvas was the great workhorse fabric of the medieval world, being used for everything from lining, stiffening, and packaging to making tents. It is no surprise it was bought in such large quantities. At the foot of the account, on the last membrane, was a grand total of all purchases, which in 1300/1 amounted to £3,942 10s. 3d.61 A note below the total, dated January 1309, asserted that of this total £3,892 17s. 5d. had been settled, and that £49 12s. 10d. was still outstanding. This demonstrates that although the crown was often tardy in settling its debts, the accounting system was rigorous enough to cope with these delays. It does, though, remind us that the Great Wardrobe, like other household departments, did much of its business on credit. Michael Prestwich has noted that the ability of the King’s Wardrobe to operate on credit was one of its great strengths, giving it flexibility that the Exchequer did not have.62 This leads us to our next type of Great Wardrobe document. When purchasing on credit the Great Wardrobe clerks offered bonds instead of money, many of which have survived. Bonds Bonds were acknowledgments of debt, written on parchment sealed with the personal seal of the clerk who issued them. Having been issued with a bond it was up to the merchant who had provided cloth or other wares for the Great Wardrobe to pursue their debt. A number of options were then open to them. They could try to catch the Great Wardrobe clerks on days when they had cash. They could circumvent these clerks by going to the clerks of the King’s Wardrobe from whom the Great Wardrobe got much of its money. They could also go to the Exchequer itself or even to a local sheriff in the hope of retrieving payment. The National Archives holds several examples of petitions (SC 8) recounting that merchants often pursued their debts for many years.63 Bonds were generally written in Latin and formulaic. An example is served by E 101/684/57/16, which records the aforementioned purchase of bluet cloth from John of Ducklington. It reads: Memorandum quod dominus Rex tenetur Johanni de Dokelington pro panno ab ipso empto / London anno xxix per manus Rad’ de Stokes clerici magne Garderobe illustris / Regis Angl’ in Octo libr’ sterl’64 58 “A kind of fabric; possibly linen; typically used for curtains and linings.” LexP, s.v. “carde.” 59 “Textile; cloth; cloth covering. In Latin accounts, used as a general term for napery, etc.: napkin; tablecloth; undercloth; cloth or napkin used in the performance of mass; cloth for the refectory.” LexP, s.v. “mappa.” 60 E 101/359/18, m. 11. 61 Ibid. 62 Prestwich, Edward I, 137. 63 For example, SC 8/267/13314 and SC 8/53/2609. These are written in French and refer to bonds as bille. 64 E 101/684/57/16.

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The Great Wardrobe of Edward I [Memorandum that the lord king is bound to John of Ducklington for cloth bought from him at London in the 29th year by the hand of Ralph de Stokes, clerk of the Great Wardrobe of the illustrious king of England, for eight pounds sterling.]

Unlike the corresponding entry in the roll of purchases, the bond makes no mention of the type or colour of the cloth because this information was not required for reimbursement. The seal which would have authenticated the bond has long been lost, but on the reverse of the account is a red circular mark where it was once affixed. This would probably have been the personal seal of Ralph de Stokes, the keeper of the Great Wardrobe who issued it. The crown often owed multiple accumulated debts to individual merchants, which then had to be settled in instalments. For example, Henry of Lincoln, a merchant of Great Yarmouth, held one bond which recorded he was owed £64 3s. 4d. for cloth bought from him at the fair of St. Ives in 1300/1 by Reginald de Thunderle, who often acted as a buyer for the Great Wardrobe. The same bond noted that Lincoln had received £61 2s. 11d. from the Exchequer for two debts, dating back to 1296–98 when he had provided cloth for the Great Wardrobe through the clerk John de Hustwayt.65 Another surviving document records that Lincoln had provided six other parcels of cloth to the Great Wardrobe at the St. Ives, Great Yarmouth, and Boston fairs between 1296 and 1301 totalling £380 73s. 9d. Two of these debts have been struck through, perhaps indicating that they had been settled, and a note at the bottom recorded that Lincoln had received £104 at the Exchequer at Westminster on June 28, 1297, in part payment of his debts.66 These were just some of the debts which Lincoln was owed, as testified by numerous bonds and other accounts. Supplying the Great Wardrobe could be profitable but it was not for the fainthearted, nor those hoping to get rich quick. To be a successful supplier to the king required patience, personal resources, and, no doubt, good creditors. Rolls of prests of cloth The accounts described above were concerned with goods entering the Great Wardrobe; many more recorded goods leaving it. The first of these were rolls of prests of cloth.67 A prest was an advance in money or kind, often as an advance on wages, or an advance to enable a member of the household to complete his work. In the Great Wardrobe prests were issued in fabrics and furs for a variety of reasons. These were carefully recorded in the rolls of prests of cloth, which detailed each recipient, the reason for the issues, the goods issued, and their value. In addition, they would often also record the official who had authorised the issue, often the keeper of the King’s Wardrobe. The entries make it clear that most of these were advances on their wages (super vadiis suis) often specifying they were for robes (ad robam/s). The subject of 65 E 101/354/19/1. 66 E 101/354/19/2. 67 For example, E 101/357/26 (1299/1300), E 101/359/4 (1300/1), E 101/366/5 (1303/4), and E 101/367/26 (1304/5).

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Charles Farris royal livery has been explored in detail by Frédérique Lachaud, who has used these accounts to demonstrate that the type and colour of the cloth and furs issued were important markers of status and position within the royal household.68 It is important to remember that household knights and clerks usually received money for their robes instead of materials, the sums of which clearly indicated status.69 Prests of cloth were also used for settling royal debts (super debito). For example, in 1300/1 the queen was issued with twenty-two cloths (worth £68 16s. 8d.), by the hand of her treasurer John Godley, to partly settle a debt of £100 which she had previously lent the King’s Wardrobe.70 This surprising entry reminds us how precarious royal finances could be and also that this was far from a wholly cash economy. Finally, cloth was also issued in prests for officers to complete their work (super officio). For example, in 1300/1 Robinettus the king’s tailor was issued with parcels of cloth and fur worth 114s. 6d., in likelihood for making clothing and furnishings for the king.71 What these issues of cloth have in common is that they were either settling a debt or could be written off against wages or expenses of the household. Therefore, for every prest issued, the clerks recorded its financial value in addition to the items being given out. This is compared to other Great Wardrobe accounts of issues, for which no financial return could be expected and therefore the value of the goods were not recorded. The first of these were rolls of issues of cloth (for robes). Rolls of issues of cloth (for robes) Rolls of issues of cloth (for robes) recorded items of drapery and furs issued for making clothing for the king, his family, and various other dependents.72 The king’s family would of course have had their own households, including even Edward’s youngest sons, Thomas of Brotherton and Edmund of Woodstock.73 Unlike the robes issued in the rolls of prests, these were effectively given out of favour, rather than feudal or financial obligation. The accounts reveal that these robes were often issued at specific times of the year like Christmas, Pentecost, and winter. These are not financial accounts, recording no values of the goods issued. Therefore their primary purpose was to keep an eye on stock and protect the clerks from any allegations of foul play. No account survives for 1300/1, but those for other years provide an indication of content. The account for 1304/5 begins by describing two sets of robes made for the king at Christmas.74 The first of these was made of murrey cloth dyed in grana and 68 69 70 71 72 73

Lachaud, “Liveries of Robes”; Lachaud, “Dress and Social Status.” For example, see Liber Quotidianus, 310–31. E 101/359/4, m. 1. Ibid., m. 6. For example, E 101/366/8 (1303/4) and E 101/367/17 (1304/5). Alison Marshall, “The Childhood and Household of Edward II’s Half-Brothers, Thomas of Brotherton and Edmund of Woodstock,” in The Reign of Edward II: New Perspectives, ed. Gwilym Dodd and Anthony Musson (York, UK: York Medieval Press, 2012), 190–204. 74 E 101/367/17, m. 1.

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The Great Wardrobe of Edward I furred and lined with miniver. Murrey is a dark red or purple colour,75 and in grana (“in grain”) reveals it was dyed with kermes, an expensive red dyestuff made from the desiccated eggs of the female shield louse.76 These red and white furred robes, to our eyes at least, must indeed have looked especially festive. This robe also consumed a further half a fur of cheaper grover,77 for furring the sleeves of the tunic, perhaps a very small economy measure. The account recorded a number of sets of robes made for the king that year, supplemented with a variety of accessories, including two pelts (pellita), eight pairs of hose (caliga[rum]), two hats (capella) lined with fur, and three headdresses (kouverchef), the grandest of which was made of cloth of tars and lined with miniver.78 These accounts are therefore invaluable for understanding the sartorial culture of the court. The account also describes a number of garments made for specific activities or purposes. The king had a jupon of English russet to wear at the table (ad induendum dum sedet mensam).79 He had three sleeveless/short-sleeved tunics (colobia) of which one was green and specified as being for riding, while another was blue (pers’) and for the rain (pro pluvia).80 There were also two mantles of russet of Douai for “sitting and rising in the night” (ad sedend’ et insurgend’ de nocte).81 Interestingly, the account records other nocturnal garments for members of his wider household, including fourteen black say jupons for the king’s yeomen, to attend to the king in his chamber at night, and also fur-lined garments for Robert, Hugh, and Geoffrey, the king’s watchmen.82 These are fascinating little glimpses into court life not available elsewhere. The king also had a set of robes of black say (nig’ essaya) lined with fur “for the riverbank” (ryparya), presumably for hawking.83 The variety of clothes made for Edward I suggests he was not as sartorially austere as some chroniclers have suggested.84 They do, though, suggest a relatively conservative outlook where high-status fabrics, like silks and cloth of gold, were concerned. These were generally reserved for spiritual purposes, and not used for secular clothing. The account of 1304/5 records cloth being issued to a number of individuals who were outside the king’s immediate family. These included Edward Balliol, son of John 75 Mulberry or purple-red cloth. LexP, s.v. “murrey.” 76 See John Munro, Gale R. Owen-Crocker, and Hazel Uzzell, “Kermes,” in Owen-Crocker, Coatsworth, and Hayward, Encyclopedia, 301–2. 77 “Raw Material; untrimmed fur or fur of the whole animal (squirrel), probably representing Old French ‘gros vair’ (cf. vair).” LexP, s.v. “grover.” 78 E 101/367/17, m. 2. 79 Ibid. A jupon was a type of light tunic or surcoat. LexP, s.v. “jupon.” 80 E 101/367/17, m. 2. 81 Ibid., m. 1. 82 Ibid., m. 5. 83 Ibid., m. 1. Hawking was frequently practiced along riverbanks where ducks and other waterfowl were hunted. See Robin S. Oggins, The Kings and Their Hawks: Falconry in Medieval England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), especially 82–108. 84 For example, Commendatio Lamentibilis in Transitu Magni Regis Edwardi, in Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II, ed. William Stubbs, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 2:5.

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Charles Farris Balliol (the former king of Scotland), and his tutor Walter de Fray. Balliol received robes at Christmas and Easter and a number of other items of clothing and furnishings.85 There was also a large collection of boys in Edward’s care—the sons of his nobles. Each received robes lined with lambskin or budge at Christmas and Pentecost, and a number of additional items including corsets and covers for beds (huciam lecti).86 Towards the end of the account is a small collection of goods issued for other reasons. Amongst these were goods issued to the clerks of the Great Wardrobe. Ralph de Stokes received goods for making new furred robes at Christmas and Pentecost, and his subclerks Robert de Ryston and Elias Whetely were also issued with fabric and furs. This was either a perquisite of their position or a hangover from the time when the Great Wardrobe was semi-independent of the household.87 Goods were also issued to make robes for a small number of intimate servants, to make furnishings for the king’s hall, and for distribution to the poor on Maundy Thursday.88 Rolls of issues of cloth (mercery) Rolls of issues of cloth (mercery) were primarily concerned with cloth issued for non-sartorial uses.89 Like the rolls of issues of cloth (for robes), they are chiefly concerned with fabrics issued for the use of the royal family and a select number of dependents. They are not financial accounts, and do not record the value of goods distributed. The accounts are organised into sections by fabric type, beginning with high-status fabrics including silks and cloths of gold. These are followed by soft furnishings like cushions and tapestries, and finally utilitarian, plant-based fabrics like canvas. Each of these is broken down into individual issues, recording the recipient, purpose, and quantity of stock issued. Below each section is a stocktake broken down into three sums: first, the quantity of goods remaining from the previous year; secondly, the quantity of goods bought that year;90 and finally, the sum of these two figures, minus the total of issues (including the sum of prests recorded in the separate account). This provided a sum of remaining stock. Goods in stock which had not changed from the previous year were recorded separately at the foot of the account.91 These accounts are especially useful for studying royal interior decoration. We learn, for example, that in 1301/2, the king’s chamber was decorated with green sindon curtains, and a matching mattress cover (culcitra); green and indigo samite cushions

85 E 101/367/17, m. 2. 86 Ibid., mm. 3–4. Corset here could refer to a bodice, tight-fitting undergarment, or similar types of form-fitting garment such as a doublet, tunic, or jerkin. LexP, s.v. “corset.” 87 Ibid., m. 5. Ryston and Whetely each received seven ells of coloured cloth (color’) and a fur and a hood of lambskin (agn’). 88 Ibid., mm. 4–6. 89 For example, E 101/361/17 (1301/2) and E 101/367/18 (1304/5). 90 Presumably these totals were taken from the dorses of the rolls of purchases, although no contemporary matching accounts survive to confirm this assumption. 91 E 101/361/17, m. 5.

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The Great Wardrobe of Edward I (quissinis); and two grey squirrel throws lined with green sindon.92 In addition, hangings (tapeta) in reds, blues, and greens were used for decorating walls and occasionally beds. Sometimes these were also pictorial. For example, one large hanging issued for the king’s hall at Westminster to celebrate the feast of All Saints (November 1) was heraldic (j magn’ tap’ de arm’). Royal beds (lectī) could be particularly luxurious. Two made for the wedding of the Countess of Holland,93 Edward I’s daughter, consumed four and a half pieces of samite, five cloths of cloth of gold on canvas, one cloth and five ells of cloth of tars, and a considerable quantity of sindon, including twelve ells of yellow for the curtains of the one bed, and twelve of red for the other.94 Kay Staniland has shown that these accounts can also shed wonderful light on the preparations for royal births.95 The account records that cloth of gold was usually reserved for religious purposes. Much of it was offered at shrines and altars by the king, his family, and members of his wider household. Lachaud has pointed out that these were often turned into altar cloths and vestments as a constant reminder of the king’s patronage and favour.96 Royal chapels were appropriately lavish. In 1304/5 the king’s chapel was adorned with green samite cushions and curtains. The altar was adorned with frontals made from cloth of gold on tars and a cover (coop[er]end’) for after Mass made from purpura—a rich silk fabric sometimes but not always of a purple or crimson colour. There was also a purpura lectano, perhaps a lectern cover.97 Vestments were similarly lavish. Master Walter, chaplain of St. Stephen’s Westminster, was provided with a chasuble (casula) of cloth of gold on silk (in serico). The king’s daughter Mary, a nun at Amesbury, received cloth of gold on tars for vestments for feast days, and more cloth of gold on silk for vestments for ferial (non-feast) days.98 Cloths of gold were also issued for exequies (funeral rites); for example, two cloths of gold on silk were donated for the funeral at Winchester of Arnaud de Gaveston, father of the controversial favourite of Prince Edward.99 A quasi-secular use of cloth of gold on silk was for making the ceremonial garments (coyntes’/cointise) for the investing of new knights, some of whom were issued with further parcels for making coverlets or cushions (culcitra), likely used in their vigils.100

92 Ibid., m. 1. Sindon was a fine linen fabric; LexP, s.v. “sindon.” Samite was a silk fabric in a weft-face compound weave, usually twill; Elizabeth Coatsworth, “Samite,” in Owen-­ Crocker, Coatsworth, and Hayward, Encyclopedia, 475. 93 Elizabeth of Rhuddlan (1282–1316) was Countess of Holland by her first marriage of 1297 to John I, Count of Holland, who died in 1299. In 1302 Elizabeth married Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford. 94 E 101/361/17, mm. 1–2. 95 Staniland, “Welcome Royal Babe.” 96 Lachaud, “Textiles, Furs and Liveries,” 253–54. 97 E 101/361/18, m. 1. 98 E 101/367/18, m. 1. 99 E 101/361/17, m. 1. 100 Vale, Princely Court, 101–2.

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Charles Farris The accounts also recorded the issue and uses of large quantities of plant-based fabrics like carde, mappa, manutergium,101 toile (tela),102 and canvas. These were often highly utilitarian. In 1304/5, for example, carde was used for lining curtains, covers, vestments, and even saddlecloths, in addition to being used in the construction of beds. Occasionally, these entries record wonderful details, like the saddlecloth (huc’) made for Princess Mary, bearing the arms of England and Spain—indicative of her father and late mother.103 Mappa and manutergium, often used as more general terms for napery, were simply issued in large parcels to the households of the king and his various children without specifying how these parcels were used.104 Toile was similarly issued in large parcels to various households, but was also issued in numerous smaller parcels for specific uses like making clothes, furnishings, and beds. That toile was a finer, white fabric is suggested by its use for making various ecclesiastical vestments like albs, amices, and surplices.105 Canvas was much coarser and used primarily for making and lining horsecloths of various types, as well as being issued in larger parcels to all the royal households for a variety of packaging and utilitarian purposes. Issues of smaller parcels of canvas for specific purposes offer lovely snapshots into court life. For example, Friar Luke, the king’s confessor, received four ells of canvas to package up (trussand’) his books for his journey from London to court. Similarly, three ells were used to package up the robes of the king’s youngest sons, Thomas and Edmund, for a journey from Westminster. Such entries remind us that Edward’s court was a peripatetic one and that huge quantities of canvas were needed to facilitate this mobility.106 Warrants and bills All goods leaving the stores of the Great Wardrobe, whatever the purpose, had to be authorised. Each would-be recipient of goods had to present a document called a warrant which confirmed this authorisation.107 The National Archives holds numerous bundles of these warrants, which demonstrates that they were retained as proof of discharge. These documents were often issued by the king himself, the Keeper of the King’s Wardrobe, or even other members of the royal family.108 These warrants, written in French or Latin, sometimes contain details not found in the issue accounts where they were ultimately recorded. The Latin example below was issued by the king 101 “Accessory; towel or napkin; cloth covering for the hands; specifically, a napkin used during the administration of Holy Communion, often associated with the facitergium.” LexP, s.v. “manutergium.” 102 Used to refer to various textiles, though often specified as various kinds of linen cloth. LexP, s.v. “toile.” 103 E 101/367/18, m. 3. 104 Ibid. 105 Ibid., mm. 4–5. 106 Ibid., mm. 5–6. 107 Tout, Chapters, 4:413. 108 For example, E 101/366/16/42 (John of Droxford), E 101/366/16/80 (Queen Margaret), E 101/370/10/3 (Edward, Prince of Wales).

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The Great Wardrobe of Edward I in March 1305 and commanded the clerk to issue John de Warenne, one of the noble sons in his care, with robes for him and his companions for Christmas and Easter: Edwardus dei gracia Rex Anglie Dominus Hibernie et Dux Aquittannie dilecto nobis Radulpho de Stokes clerico magne garderobe nostre salutem Mandamus / vobis quod Johanni de Warenia puero in custodia nostra existenti et tribus sociis suis decentes robas pro festo natalis domini proximo preterito et pro festo pasche / proximo futuro habere faciatis videlicet pro dicto Johanne unam robam cum tribus garniamentis et pro quolibet sociorum suorum unam robam cum duobus / garniamentis Et nos vobis inde in compoto vestro debitam allocattionem habere faciemus Datum sub privato sigillo nostro apud Westmonasterium vij die / marcis Anno regni nostri xxxiij109 [Edward by the grace of God King of England, Lord of Ireland and Duke of Aquitaine, to our well-beloved Ralph de Stokes clerk of our Great Wardrobe greeting. We command you that you cause John de Warenne, a boy being in our custody, and his three companions, to have appropriate robes for the feast of Christmas last past and the feast of Easter next, that is to say for the said John one robe with three garments and for each of his companions one robe with two garments. And we shall cause you to have due allowance made for this in your account. Given under our privy seal at Westminster on 7 March in the thirty-third year of our reign.]

In addition to formal warrants were bills. These were generally briefer and written in Latin, and were probably issued by the clerks of the King’s Wardrobe.110 They were either addressed to the clerk of the Great Wardrobe or, in cases of his absence, to one of his deputies.111 These slips were folded over, so just the name of the recipient was visible, and then sealed with the clerk’s seal, the imprints and remnants of which can still be seen. Like warrants, these were retained as proof of issue. Much of the business described in these bills can found in their corresponding entries in other accounts of issues. For example, the bill below commanded Ralph de Stokes to issue Walter, the chaplain of St. Stephen’s, with cloth of gold and other fabrics for vestments and altar cloths, as recorded in the aforementioned roll of issues of cloth (for robes).112 Stokes—Liberetis domino Waltero capellano palacij Westmonasterij pro altare capelle sancti stephani in eodem palacio de dono domini / regis unum pannum ad aurum pro una casula et alium pannum ad aurum pro uno frontale et lineam telam / ad albam et amicam. Liberetis etiam eidem carda ad dictam casulam lineandum113 [Stokes—Issue to master Walter the chaplain of the palace of Westminster for the altar of the chapel of St. Stephen in the same palace of the gift of the king one cloth of gold for one chasuble and another cloth of gold for one frontal and linen cloth for an alb and amice. Issue also carde to line the aforesaid chasuble.] 109 E 101/366/16/43. 110 Tout, Chapters, 4:413. 111 For example, E 101/370/10/8, 9, 11 and 12. The first two were addressed to Ralph de Stokes and the last two to John de Carleton. 112 E 101/367/18, mm. 1 and 3. 113 E 101/366/16/28.

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Charles Farris Arrays of stock and issues While rolls of issues of cloth (mercery) acted as stocktakes for the various fabrics recorded in those accounts, fabrics made from wool and furs were recorded separately in arrays of stock and issues (Magnum Arraeamentum Magne Liberationis).114 These accounts are broken down into sections, each recording a particular type of cloth or fur. These recorded first the stock remaining from previous years, and the quantity that had been purchased. They then recorded outgoings, broken down into prests, issues, and shrinkage (retractione). The last term refers to the wastage during processing, a term which survives in accountancy jargon today. The subtraction of issues from stock provided a remaining total which was recorded both in the right-hand margin by each section, and then repeated on the dorse of the account. Encouragingly, the figures in these accounts stand up to scrutiny, matching exactly the totals recorded in the aforementioned accounts of purchases, accounts of issues of prests, and accounts of issues of cloth for robes. Indeed, it was likely from these that they were compiled. The system, although laborious and seemingly complicated, does seem to have worked. These accounts provide an excellent overview of the purchase, storage, and consumption of the Great Wardrobe. When coupled with the totals recorded in the rolls of issues of cloth (mercery) they provide a detailed overview of the Great Wardrobe’s annual consumption of goods. Rolls of travel expenditure Rolls of travel expenditure are more informative than their title suggests, including information on wages, administrative costs, and the processing of materials.115 Transportation was especially important because Edward I was an inherently peripatetic king. The account for 1300/1 demonstrates that the Great Wardrobe hired numerous horses, carts, and boats for moving goods from place to place. These included moving newly purchased goods to their stores, and then to locations where they were needed. The Great Wardrobe at this time maintained a central store at the Tower of London, perhaps in the lost tower to the east of the White Tower, known as the Wardrobe Tower. These accounts describe how other smaller stores had to follow the court, especially during times of war. The accounts also record regular expenses, including purchasing cloths and cords of various types to package and secure these goods, and wax for sealing. There was also parchment for compiling the accounts, sending letters, and making bills and other documents. The costs of processing cloths appears too, like the £4 9s. 6d. paid to William de Oseburn, shearer (retonsori) of London, for shearing a variety of cloths.116 A short separate paragraph records the total expenses of Robinettus the king’s tailor, which were submitted by him in a separate account.117 114 For example, E 101/359/19 (1300/1), E 101/360/22 (1301/2), E 101/363/21 (1302/3), E 101/366/9 (1303/4), and E 101/367/20 (1304/5). 115 E 101/359/24 (1300/1); E 101/367/13 (1304/5) (fragment). 116 E 101/359/24, m. 4. 117 See “Rolls of the king’s tailors,” below.

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The Great Wardrobe of Edward I Happily, the account sheds a little light on the work and wages of the clerk and his deputies too. Ralph de Stokes received £20 a year, a figure noted in the wardrobe books. However, the account describes that Stokes was frequently away on business and required deputies to act on his behalf. These deputies looked after the Great Wardrobe’s stock, wherever it might be, and made issues when required. The first of these, John de Carleton, was paid 12d. each day for remaining in Scotland for more than half the year, receiving a total of £10 2s. The second deputy recorded was clerk Robert de Ryston, who was paid a lesser sum of 6d. each day for remaining with the wardrobe at York while Stokes visited the fairs of St. Botulph in Boston, St. Giles in Winchester, and St. Edward in Westminster. Finally, another more junior auxiliary named Stephen Mean was hired for the entire year at 3d. each day. His role seems to have been centred on transportation, frequently taking goods from place to place and organising the rental of carts.118 Rolls of the king’s tailors The final types of account to consider are those of the king’s tailor.119 These offer precious glimpses into his work, recording the expenses of making a variety of goods. The account of 1300/1 begins by recording the cost of making robes for the king, at 6s. each, these including materials, described as described as filo120 et serico121 (linen and silk thread), the bulk of the cloth, of course, having already been issued by the Great Wardrobe.122 The account also recorded the making of individual items of clothing and accessories. These include twelve coifs (tene) “for the head of the king,” costing 2½d. each; twelve pairs of linen robes (presumably undergarments) at 8d. each; and twelve pairs of gloves (cirotecis) at 2d. each pair. Three more expensive pairs of gloves were made from deer skin (cervo) at 3s. each, and were specified as being for the river bank (ripar’), presumably for hawking, and perhaps worn with the hawking garments described above.123 The accounts also reveal details of the construction of furnishings, for example telling us that two pairs of curtains made for the king’s chamber cost 18d. each pair to make, and were affixed with 300 metal rings, costing 4s. 6d.124 The account reveals that much of the tailor’s time was spent making banners for the king decorated with the king’s arms and those of national saints. In 1300/1 Robinettus made flags (vexilliorum) and smaller pennons (pencels) bearing the arms of the king and saints Edward the Confessor, Edmund of Bury, and George, all national saints evoked in times of warfare. The larger banners ranged in price from 12d. for St. 118 E 101/359/24, m. 1. 119 C 47/3/11 (1279/80); C 47/3/14 (1277/8); E 101/359/20 (1300/1). 120 Yarn or thread, in this context most likely referring specifically to linen thread. LexP, s.v. “file.” 121 Silk fibres, in this context most likely silk thread. LexP, s.v. “sericum.” 122 E 101/359/20, m. 1. 123 Ibid. 124 Ibid.

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Charles Farris George to 5s. for the arms of the king, reflecting the complexity of the designs. Most of the flags were made from sindon, except for the 430 smaller pencels of St. George which were made from tela. Michael Prestwich has observed that Edward’s infantry had worn armbands with the cross of St. George as a kind of uniform in the 1270s.125 These pencels demonstrate the cementing of the tradition of St. George as an English royal military patron, one which was further promoted in the reign of Edward III by his association with the Order of the Garter. The account recorded the issue of these flags and others in store from the previous year. Many were issued to the king, some specified as for decorating royal interiors. Others were issued to diverse individuals around the country, including (in 1300/1) several persons situated on the border with Scotland such as the Abbot of Melrose, the Forester of Selkirk, and the Earl of Dunbar.126 Flags were important reminders of English royal power, and it is clear that dynastic tensions in Scotland added considerably to the tailor’s work. We know much of the tailor’s work was based in London, as £4 was paid to John of Durham for the rental of a house in the city for manufacturing and storing Great Wardrobe goods. The property was guarded all year round by a custodian who was paid 2d. each day.127 However, the tailor himself was often peripatetic. The account records the tailor’s expenses transporting goods to and from the court. Predictably, many of these goods were brought to the king from London where they were made. For example, in 1300/1 Robinettus brought the king new robes for Christmas to Feckenham, and new furnishings for the king’s chamber at York. However, it is clear that the tailor took goods wherever they were required, and if necessary made additional journeys to deliver them. For example, in November 1300 he hired two horses to transport robes, saddles, armour, and other diverse things from Newcastle to York. Horses appear to have been sufficient for moving these goods, and there is no mention of hiring carts. However, on occasion the king’s tailor clearly needed help with transportation and hired a boy at a rate of 3d. each day.128 These expenses make it clear that the role of the king’s tailor went far beyond manufacture, and often necessitated travel to court and further afield. While serving the crown was prestigious, it was not always profitable. As with the merchants discussed above, much of the tailors’ work was remunerated on account. Although the year’s total of £32 14s. 6d. was submitted to the clerks of the King’s Wardrobe and enrolled in their book, it was certainly not all paid for. The tailor would have had to join the queue of people waiting to be paid for the services he had provided. Given the poor state of royal finances at the end of Edward I’s reign it is no surprise that debts were not settled by the time Edward II was on the throne. A petition to Edward II from Alice le Taillor, widow of Robinettus, which was likely made in the 1320s, records a number of debts owed to her husband had still to be 125 Prestwich, Edward I, 199–200. 126 E 101/359/20, m. 2. 127 Ibid., m. 1. 128 Ibid., mm. 1–2.

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The Great Wardrobe of Edward I paid. The petition notes that she still had bills for these debts, comprising £34 3s. 4d. for his robes and wages and other necessaries and purchases for the Great Wardrobe, and another larger bill totalling £229 10s. 11d. She pleaded for the debts to be settled for the sustenance of herself and her children who were in a state of poverty.129 It is unclear if these debts were ever settled. CONCLUSION

The Great Wardrobe was evidently a robust and flexible department, which could adapt to meet the considerable and often changing needs of the king. Clerks acquired huge quantities of goods, both personally and through merchants acting for them, in order to keep their stores replenished. Goods were largely separated into three groups: sartorial goods; non-sartorial goods; and wax, spices, and electuaries—the last of which have been beyond the remit of this paper. Sartorial goods were dominated by “drapery,” that is, cloths made from wool of a variety of colours. Furs and skins were also important in this category and helped to delineate status. Non-sartorial goods included high-status fabrics like silks and cloths of gold, as well as more utilitarian fabrics made from flax and hemp. These groupings were not completely fixed—for example, with furs occasionally being used in furnishings, and linen being used in clothing—however, they provide a useful generalisation which seems to have been adopted by the clerks themselves. Taken together the accounts provide a strong indication of the workings of the Great Wardrobe and give glimpses of what must have been a truly remarkable material culture at court. Students interested in an array of subjects, including overseas and domestic trade, clothing and fashion, textiles and furs, and royal administration, can exploit these accounts, which provide many details not available elsewhere. It is hoped that this paper will aid and stimulate such research, saving some time and frustration. Although the challenges of language and palaeography remain, the rewards available are considerable. Records of the Great Wardrobe do not survive in sufficient quantity for the reign of Edward II to allow direct comparison. The fact that Ralph de Stokes remained clerk of the Great Wardrobe until 1320 might suggest that many of the practices endured. The totals of Great Wardrobe annual expenditure which Tout has recorded are incomplete for Edward II’s reign, and some low figures might suggest a reduction in work from the reign of Edward I.130 However, this may be a false reading due to incomplete evidence. New accounts do appear to have developed, like the “rolls of issues of stores,” which recorded issues of wax, spices, cloth of gold, and other non-wool fabrics like canvas and carde.131 Other accounts are more familiar, like the roll of purchases for 1323/4 by the clerk Thomas Useflete, which is not dissimilar from the rolls of purchases created 129 SC 8/144/7198. 130 Tout, Chapters, 4:102–5. 131 E 101/381/2.

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Charles Farris by Stokes for Edward I.132 Similarly, the “roll of diverse expenses” for the same year contains much of the content found in the earlier accounts of travel expenditure. More research on the Great Wardrobe of Edward II is certainly required, since it has been rather neglected, especially when compared with that of Edward III, for whom the works of Kay Staniland and Stella Mary Newton among others have greatly advanced our understanding.133

132 E 101/379/12. 133 Staniland, “Clothing and Textiles”; Staniland, “Court Style”; Staniland, “The Great Wardrobe Accounts”; Newton, Black Prince.

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Hanging Together: Furnishing Textiles in a Fifteenth-Century Book of Hours Anne Kirkham

The prayer book Rylands Latin MS 164, produced in the mid-fifteenth century in Paris, is regarded by the John Rylands Library in Manchester, England, as its “finest” Book of Hours.1 Undoubtedly this accolade is indebted to both the quantity and the quality of its illumination (even though a few of the most significant pages of the book are missing). All pages have some border decoration and seventy-four of its 267 pages are designed with highly accomplished painted miniatures.2 Not the least of this accomplished painting are the sumptuous textile hangings and curtains, canopies, and cushions that feature in twenty-seven of the images, for example as part of the fitting out of the hall in which a lord feasts on the calendar page for January (fol. 1r) or as a screen stretched out across the landscape behind a group of worshippers in the miniature accompanying the Lord’s Prayer (fol. 13r, fig. 4.1). Throughout this book, the furnishing textiles catch the eye with their bright colours, decorative gold patterns, and naturalistic rendering of drapes and folds. What a frequent viewer of the book—perhaps today’s researcher, but, surely, its owners in the late Middle Ages—would also notice is the repetition of certain textiles in a number of the paintings. The most elaborate of these repeated textiles, included in twenty miniatures, is a purple cloth ornamented with gold plant forms and geometric patterns (figs. 4.1 to 4.6). Notably, it is seen on a number of the pages of special significance in a Book of Hours, including the openings of the gospel texts of Luke (fig. 4.3), Matthew, and Mark (fig. 4.4); of Prime (fig. 4.5) My thanks to Gale Owen-Crocker for encouragement and wise advice and to the editors and anonymous reviewers for questions and comments that have improved this article and inspired further research. 1 2

John R. Hodgson, “Through Painted Windows: The Art of Illumination,” in Riches of the Rylands: The Special Collections of the University of Manchester Library (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015), 45–46, at 45. The pages measure 22 by 15.5 centimetres (8.7 by 6.1 inches). The missing opening pages for Matins, Sext, and Compline of the Offices of the Virgin, and the original opening page to the Penitential Psalms (fol. 111r), would have featured detailed miniatures. See Anne Kirkham, “Contextualising the Interloper: Consistency and Inconsistency in Rylands Latin MS 164,” Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 93, no. 1 (2017): 23–43, at 23.

Anne Kirkham and Nones of the Office of the Virgin; and of two of the Offices of the Dead (fig. 4.2), but, also, in other images distributed throughout the book from its first appearance on fol. 13r to a last appearance as a screen behind the kneeling St. Clarus on fol. 245v. In this article I am interested in a number of ways of interpreting the furnishing textiles in the images of this prayer book, particularly the purple-and-gold textile that appears over and over again on pages that are each part of the same material object, that are physically extremely close together, and that could be viewed in rapid succession, but never all at the same time (without dismembering the book). In recent decades scholars have taken an increasing interest in painted textiles within narrative images. This reflects wider disciplinary attention in areas of visual culture outside the traditional areas of architecture, sculpture, and painting—with medieval and Renaissance textiles becoming a rich field of study.3 Taking account of these developments in the scholarship on textiles in the visual arts, and paying attention to the fact of the images being components of a singular visual object, the approaches to studying painted furnishing textiles attended to here are considered under three headings. The first deals with using painted textiles as documentary evidence of actual textiles, in terms both of the authenticity of colours and designs, and of the deployment of textiles in the imagined spaces in which they appear. The second deals with using painted textiles as evidence of commissioning and workshop practices, including the relationships between artist and patron and the scrutiny of painted textiles in the attribution of images to artists’ workshops, or particular hands. The third pursues ideas about the presence and roles of painted textiles in Books of Hours for their viewers. It will be immediately apparent that these areas are not mutually exclusive; indeed that analysis in one area may suggest results that challenge the validity of outcomes or approaches in another, but which may, nevertheless, advance understanding of and inspire further research on the painted textile in illuminated manuscripts. THE RELATIONSHIP OF PAINTED FURNISHING TEXTILES TO ACTUAL TEXTILES

It has long been a feature of dress and costume scholarship to consult representations in the visual arts to construct the wardrobes of different societies, corroborating the mediated visual evidence of clothed figures with archaeological and literary sources. 3

The European Research Council-funded TEXTILE: An Iconology of the Textile in Art and Architecture (2009–13) was an interdisciplinary research project focused around “meanings and functions of the textile medium in art and architecture from the Middle Ages to the present” (https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/92253_en.html, accessed Oct. 5, 2022). One of the ongoing outputs of the project is the journal Textile Studies, first published in 2010. Studies that have dealt specifically with textiles within painting include Cathleen S. Hoeniger, “Cloth of Gold and Silver: Simone Martini’s Techniques for Representing Luxury Textiles,” Gesta 30, no. 2 (1991): 154–62; John Osborne, “Textiles and Their Painted Imitations in Early Medieval Rome,” Papers of the British School in Rome 60 (1992): 309–51; and Lisa Monnas, Merchants, Princes and Painters: Silk Fabrics in Italian and Northern Paintings 1300–1550 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008).

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Furnishing Textiles in a Fifteenth-Century Book of Hours Scholars have similarly analysed representations of non-clothing textiles (loosely, “furnishing textiles”)4 to establish the appearance and use of such textiles. Most have also warned that the alluring detail of an exquisitely painted historic scene is invariably, as Lisa Monnas states, a “complex synthesis of artistic conventions and inventions, fused with some direct observation.”5 In addition, the scarcity of surviving textiles and the challenges of language and bias in contemporaneous literary sources to support what is represented add to the caution necessary in making claims about how faithful images of textiles were to real-life textiles. Nevertheless, since Books of Hours survive in large numbers and the subject matter of their illumination is relatively standardised, it is apparent that furnishing textiles feature in the images in similar ways across a great number of fifteenth-century examples.6 This provides encouragement for considering the depictions in an individual Book of Hours as a still useful source for studying textiles in the late Middle Ages. My particular focus in this study of Rylands Latin MS 164 will be on the purpleand-gold fabric that recurs frequently, mostly as a screen or as the lining of a canopy. However, in most of the images set in inside spaces, and in some images set outside, other furnishing textiles are present. Most of these are plainer than the purple-and-gold one, but, nevertheless, are sumptuous textiles in vivid reds, greens, and blues, with simple gold decoration. Throughout the literature on medieval textiles a distinction is made between luxury textiles, with complex pattern-woven silks amongst the most sought after, and the majority of manufactured textiles, made of wool or linen, either in their natural state or dyed in a single solid colour.7 Monnas points out the difficulties of interpreting the broad spectrum of textile colours and its associated terminology in the Middle Ages, but her work clearly demonstrates the sophistication of the market for coloured textiles.8 Désirée Koslin notes that the desire for brilliant, full-hued, and unambiguous colour in the Middle Ages evidenced, for example, in heraldry or stained glass, was harder to satisfy in textiles, because of the challenges in producing effective dyes, but, nevertheless, coloured fabrics were sought after and produced.9 In Rylands Latin MS 164, vibrant red, green, and blue textiles enlivening several scenes 4

It should be noted that modern uses of expressions such as furnishing textiles or soft furnishings, suggestive of accessorising and adding comfort, do not convey the essential structural function of some pre-modern textiles that physically divided space or symbolically communicated an individual’s status. 5 Monnas, Merchants, Princes and Painters, 217. 6 This can be confirmed by surveys of Books of Hours, for example Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham, Introduction to Manuscript Studies (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007), 208–21, or Christopher de Hamel, A History of Illuminated Manuscripts, 2nd ed. (London: Phaidon, 1994), 168–99. 7 Désirée G. Koslin, “Value-added Stuffs and Shifts in Meaning: An Overview and Case Study of Medieval Textile Paradigms,” in Encountering Medieval Textiles and Dress: Objects, Texts, Images, ed. Désirée G. Koslin and Janet E. Snyder (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), 233–49, 237. 8 Monnas, “Some Medieval Colour Terms for Textiles,” Medieval Clothing and Textiles 10 (2014): 25–57. 9 Koslin, “Value-added Stuffs,” 235–36.

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Anne Kirkham support a view that such expensive, jewel-bright, coloured textiles mirrored the actual possessions of wealthy patrons of exquisite Books of Hours. It would be expected that wealthier patrons also owned luxury pattern-woven textiles and tapestries. Sharon Farmer records the desire for luxury textiles made of silk or silk-velvet embroidered with gold and coloured silk threads.10 Such valuable textiles— with costly raw materials and complex design and production techniques—vied only with plate as the most important possessions of the wealthier classes in society. Allied to their value, the use of textiles was occasion-driven. When residences were empty, textiles were safely stored (or safely transported from residence to residence).11 Even when residences were occupied, the qualities of the textiles in use and on display were fitted to the occasion, with the most expensive textiles reserved for special occasions.12 Patterned furnishing textiles are seen frequently in images, and their appearance, to a greater or lesser degree, can be compared with actual textiles, either surviving or closely described in inventories or wills. Donna Cottrell’s exemplary study of the complex cloths of honour (luxury textiles suspended behind saints both to identify them and to honour them symbolically) in Jan van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece (ca. 1430–32) establishes close connections between the painted textiles behind Christ, the Virgin, and St. John the Baptist, and surviving textiles from the period.13 Her analysis focuses not only on what motifs were included—pelicans, unicorns, flowers, and trees—but their exact representation, their colours, pattern repetition and alignment, and their inclusion of textual elements. In the Ghent Altarpiece, even though only parts of each cloth of honour can be seen, the motifs and how they are organised are very clear. The recurring purple-and-gold-patterned textile in Rylands Latin MS 164 does not have such a range or clarity of motifs, but certainly it has flowers and other plant forms, as well as geometric forms. Distinctive amongst these forms is a sliced-open pomegranate. The regenerative association of the pomegranate’s many and densely packed seeds, in blood-red juice, with Christ’s resurrection, after his bloody crucifixion, made the fruit a frequently encountered symbol in Christian visual culture. Monnas notes the early classical origins of the pomegranate as a symbol of fertility and the “spiky top” of the fruit resembling a crown as reasons to see why the pomegranate was a popular “crossover motif ” that could signal royalty, dynasty, and courtly love as much as resurrection and spiritual immortality.14 Surviving fabric examples, and countless 10 Sharon Farmer, The Silk Industries of Medieval Paris: Artisanal Migration, Technological Innovation, and Gendered Experience (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), 167. 11 Margaret Goehring, “Taking Borders Seriously: The Significance of Cloth-of-Gold Textile Borders in Burgundian and Post-Burgundian Manuscript Illumination in the Low Countries,” Oud Holland 119 (2006): 22–40, at 27. 12 Penelope Eames, “Documentary Evidence Concerning the Character and Use of Domestic Furnishings in England in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries,” Furniture History 7 (1971): 41–60. 13 Donna M. Cottrell, “Unraveling the Mystery of Jan van Eyck’s Cloths of Honor: The Ghent Altarpiece,” in Koslin and Snyder, Encountering Medieval Textiles, 173–94. 14 Monnas, Merchants, Princes and Painters, 218.

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Furnishing Textiles in a Fifteenth-Century Book of Hours painted representations of vestments, aristocratic clothing, and religious and secular furnishing textiles, include the outline form of a pomegranate or representations of it cut through to expose its inner membranes and seeds. Koslin remarks on the popularity of pomegranate floral designs on clothing, decorative panels, and cloths of honour, beginning in the fifteenth century, whilst Margaret Goehring notes that the pervasiveness of the design at the end of the century is evident in its abundant variety.15 The purple-and-gold pomegranate fabric in the painted fifteenth-century living spaces of Rylands Latin MS 164 thus reflects actual fabrics that would be owned by those in the social strata who also commissioned and owned luxury Books of Hours. The fabric is the most complex of the furnishing textile designs included in Rylands Latin MS 164, which contains no textiles with multiple motifs, let alone narrative tapestries or painted cloths such as furnished the grandest of residences in the fifteenth century. The elaborate battle-scene tapestry on the walls of the magnificent banqueting hall in January’s miniature in the Très Riches Heures of John, Duke of Berry (ca. 1412–16, completed later in the fifteenth century) may represent a tapestry that he owned, but the Très Riches Heures is an extraordinary Book of Hours and its inclusion of such an involved narrative textile is unusual.16 It would be rash to conclude from an absence of complex narrative textiles in Books of Hours that such exceptionally ornate fabrics did not feature in the lives of the books’ patrons or owners, but certainly they owned and used the types of fine furnishing textiles more frequently depicted in Books of Hours. Many are readily familiar in their placement and function, for example as cushions or bed linens. Others need acquaintance with medieval practices—including the use of canopies and curtains with beds to add warmth, stop draughts, and allow privacy;17 cloths of estate (cloths of honour) to distinguish persons of rank; hangings to divide space and screen walls; and fine fabrics to wrap protectively or display precious items—to understand better the presence and use of the textiles. A closer analysis of some of the images in Rylands Latin MS 164 helps to make this clear. Of the scenes with furnishing textiles, the most intimate domestic interior is found in the bas-de-page border decoration of the book’s first page (fol. 1r), which displays the feast days for the first fifteen days of January.18 As with other standard contents of 15 Koslin, “Value-added Stuffs,” 240. Margaret L. Goehring, “The Representation and Meaning of Luxurious Textiles in Late Medieval Franco-Flemish Manuscript Illumination,” in Weaving, Veiling, and Dressing: Textiles and Their Metaphors in the Late Middle Ages, ed. Kathryn M. Rudy and Barbara Baert (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2007), 121–55, at 149. 16 Chantilly, France, Musée Condé, MS 65, 1v, at https://www.wga.hu/html_m/l/limbourg/ 01janvie.html, accessed Sept. 22, 2022. See Claire Sponsler, “Text and Textile: Lydgate’s Tapestry Poems,” in Medieval Fabrications: Dress, Textiles, Clothwork, and Other Cultural Imaginings, ed. E. Jane Burns (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 19–34, at 23. 17 Hollie L. S. Morgan, Beds and Chambers in Late Medieval England: Readings, Representations, and Realities (York, UK: York Medieval Press, 2017), 35–36. Night-time rituals included the formal lowering of bed curtains in the highest echelons of society, see Eames, “Documentary Evidence,” 46. 18 See https://www.digitalcollections.manchester.ac.uk/view/MS-LATIN-00164/11, accessed Aug. 27, 2022.

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Anne Kirkham Books of Hours, calendars were accompanied by series of images that were also relatively standardised. The image for each month reflected some seasonal activity often associated with food production but, in the early winter months, when agricultural work was minimal, the focus was on food consumption and on keeping warm by a fire. This is spectacularly shown in John of Berry’s banqueting hall, but is echoed in Rylands Latin MS 164. Squeezed into a roundel measuring just four centimetres (1.6 inches) in diameter, a finely dressed lord dines in style attended by two waiters and watched by a man behind the table (his steward?) and a small crowd at the door. The table is covered by a lozenge-diapered white cloth on which are a platter of meats, a piece of bread, a lidded cup and a knife. One attendant brings another dish, and there are possibly more courses in the display of covered plate on the white-cloth-covered chest or cupboard. Further back, two urns and two platters are displayed on a plain purple cloth. The bench on which the lord sits is just in front of a structural chimney-hood with a separately-hung, round fire screen, giving the visual effect of the customary canopy used to identify and augment a person’s elevated rank (discussed later in this article).19 The dining area is screened, from the floor to partway up a window, by a grey-green textile enlivened by an all-over pattern of five- or six-pointed gold stars that partitions the interior space. This tiny picture reflects documented fifteenth-century domestic priorities of cleanliness and orderliness, especially of fabrics, as discussed by John Crowley.20 They are epitomised by the tablecloth, the ordered display of tableware on white and coloured cloths, and the white towels carried over the shoulders of the attendants. Moreover, just as with the watching figures gathered at the door regarding the lord under a chimney-hood, the glittering fabric screening off the dining area from the larger interior space nods to adjustments in the later Middle Ages as communal living gave way to more individual and specialised living spaces that still enabled those at the top of social hierarchies to enjoy and demonstrate their privileged authority.21 Painted at the beginning of a luxury possession, the image subscribes to the pursuit of magnificence as a virtuous lifestyle, with its expenditure on and display of luxury an indication of generous liberality as much as of status. Justified by ideas then attributed to Aristotle in the treatise Nicomachean Ethics, such magnificence featured notably in the courts of Charles V of France (r. 1364–80), his siblings (including the aforementioned John of Berry), and his successors, and influenced the behaviour of rulers and wealthy individuals around Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.22 19 In Robert Campin’s (or follower’s) The Virgin and Child Before a Firescreen (ca. 1440), a round fire screen behind the Virgin serves as her halo. See https://www.nationalgallery. org.uk/paintings/follower-of-robert-campin-the-virgin-and-child-before-a-firescreen, accessed Sept. 16, 2022. 20 John E. Crowley, The Invention of Comfort: Sensibilities and Design in Early Modern Britain and Early America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 5. 21 Ibid., 11–17. 22 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Harry Rackham, Loeb Classical Library 73 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926), 205–07. The role of magnificence in cultural developments in the courts of Charles V and his successors is discussed in Burr Wallen, “Burgundian Gloire vs. Vaine Gloire: Patterns of Neochivalric Psychomachia,” in A Tribute

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Furnishing Textiles in a Fifteenth-Century Book of Hours The display of affluent living, accentuated by many fine textiles, in this dining scene underlines the standing of the diner to both those observing through the door and those looking at the book. In contrast to this miniaturised representation of at-home magnificence, the most expansive image of a residential interior is a deathbed scene (fol. 153r, fig. 4.2) depicted on the page with the first lines of the Office of the Dead, recited to accelerate a soul’s admittance to heaven. Medieval practices around death and burial were often depicted in this part of a Book of Hours, and the image in Rylands Latin MS 164 shows an ideal of Christian death at home, in bed, surrounded by loved ones and clerics.23 In the foreground is an imposing canopied bed in which a man is at the point of death; a woman, wearing a black headcovering, grey dress, and an apron, closes his eyelids with her finger and thumb. Two women wearing blue are seated at either side of the bed. The woman nearest the bed (the man’s wife?) looks down at her book (perhaps a Book of Hours). The other woman (his daughter?) wrings her hands (or perhaps clasps them in prayer). There are seven religious, wearing grey habits, in attendance. Further back in the space, two men are lifting one of two bags of valuables out of a chest. The prominence and construction of the bed in the image are appropriate to well-off households in the later Middle Ages. Both Penelope Eames and John Crowley have written about close correspondences in the history of late medieval housing and furnishing in England and France, and both highlight the significance of the bed.24 Eames proposes that the size of a bed’s celour (roof-piece of a canopy) was the best indicator of social status, with the celour’s form emphasised by luxurious fabrics. John Crowley, discussing the significance of the bed as a place for social interaction, highlights how bed linens conferred and conveyed value and prestige.25 In the deathbed scene, the bedcover is bright red and shimmers with gold, and the darker shading in the red and interruptions of the gold pattern suggest convincingly how the cover is folded back and how it falls to the floor at the end of the bed. The white bed linen (and the white fabric around the man’s head) accords with late-fourteenth-century French housekeeping advice about being “well bedded in white sheets and nightcaps.”26 Both the celour and the back of the canopy are lined with the purple-and-gold cloth that to Robert A. Koch: Studies in the Northern Renaissance, ed. Gregory T. Clark (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 147–75. 23 Roger Wieck, Painted Prayers: The Book of Hours in Medieval and Renaissance Art (New York: George Braziller, 1997), 119. Other images used with the Office of the Dead include the Last Judgment, Lazarus, and personifications of Death. The medieval concept of a “good death,” including its depiction in the series of symbolic deathbed images of the Ars Moriendi (Art of Dying), is discussed by Paul Binski, Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation (London: British Museum Press, 1996), 29–47. 24 Penelope Eames, Furniture in England, France, and the Netherlands from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century, Furniture History 13 (London: Furniture History Society, 1977); Eames, “Documentary Evidence”; Crowley, Invention of Comfort. On the components of the medieval bed see Morgan, Beds and Chambers, 20–41. 25 Eames, “Documentary Evidence,” 43; Crowley, Invention of Comfort, 7. 26 From Le Ménagier de Paris (ca. 1393), quoted in translation in Crowley, Invention of Comfort, 5.

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Anne Kirkham features in many of the images. The celour has a pelmet of green fabric, with a gold fringe pattern on its bottom edge, and attached inside the canopy are long curtains (one hooked up inside the pelmet) of the same green with repeating double rows of horizontal gold lines at regular intervals of around fifteen centimetres.27 Across from the bed, a bench top is covered with the same red-and-gold fabric as the bedcover. The form of the bench, with a pivoted single-plank back rest and squared-off bench ends, each with two finials, was valued in the Middle Ages for its alternative positions for the back rest, facing toward or away from a fire.28 It corresponds closely to the bench placed in front of the chimney hood on fol. 1r, but, unlike on fol. 1r, no one sits on this bench. Moreover, probable as the placement of a luxury fabric over the bench was, the double use of the red-and-gold textile calls as much attention to the unoccupied bench as it does to the now displaced lord deceased in his bed, suggesting that there are more meanings attached to the textiles in this composition than a convincing depiction of a living space, a point to which I will return. In another comparison, the screen of purple-and-gold cloth behind the chest of valuables rises in front of and partway up the windows, much as the grey-green cloth rises in front of the windows in the dining scene, again conforming to accepted ideas about the importance of textile hangings and screens that serve, in Tristan Weddigen’s words, as “a most vital element of a cultural ‘habitus’” in the creation and definition of medieval space.29 The proximity of bed and treasure chest reflects the reality of medieval living, in which the chamber was the heart of the home, acting as a multifunctional space for private occupation and, varyingly, public interaction.30 However, the configuration of the deathbed image also prompts reflection on human and divine space. That the distinctive purple-and-gold cloth appears immediately behind the dying lord, lining his bed’s canopy, and immediately behind his treasury, as a screen, underlines symbolically the earthly connection between the man and his money, from which he must be parted at his death.31 This is emphasised by the two men examining or removing valuables from the chest. Like the red cloth linking the occupied bed and unoccupied bench, the purple-and-gold cloth’s double presence suggests meanings for viewers that may attach to the textiles beyond literal ones. A final comparison, looking at the deathbed scene and the dining scene, is focused by the white cloths covering tables and chests in each image. The delicate white-on27 The author’s estimate made by comparison with proximate human heads. 28 Jozef De Coo, “A Medieval Look at the Merode Annunciation,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 44, no. 2 (1981): 114–32, at 115–16. 29 Tristan Weddigen, “Notes from the Field: Materiality,” Art Bulletin 95, no. 1 (2013): 34– 37, at 35. 30 Morgan, Beds and Chambers, 15–17; Katherine Anne Wilson, “‘In the chamber, in the garde robe, in the chapel, in a chest’: The Possession and Uses of Luxury Textiles: The Case of Later Medieval Dijon,” in Europe’s Rich Fabric: The Consumption, Commercialisation, and Production of Luxury Textiles in Italy, the Low Countries and Neighbouring Territories (Fourteenth to Sixteenth Centuries), ed. Bart Lambert and Katherine Anne Wilson (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2016), 11–33, at 25. 31 See Binski, Medieval Death, 43.

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Furnishing Textiles in a Fifteenth-Century Book of Hours white diamond pattern on the tablecloth in the dining scene recurs on the cloth covering the chest, serving as an altar with its cross, candlestick, and aspersorium (container for holy water), in the deathbed scene. It also recurs in a third domestic interior, namely on the tablecloth used for Christ’s Last Supper in a small roundel on fol. 133r.32 The use of such finely worked fabric for setting tables, displaying banqueting utensils, and respecting liturgical objects is well attested, and the repetition of the diapered white cloth in the three images underlines equivalences in the care and display of precious items both in secular and in religious environments. Turning from secular to religious environments, the interior spaces occupied by three of the four Evangelists in Rylands Latin MS 164 pose additional challenges in benchmarking the authenticity of textiles, since the spaces themselves are ambiguous. Following the usual convention in Books of Hours to depict John (fol. 21r) sitting in the landscape of the Island of Patmos, Luke (fol. 23v), Matthew (fol. 26r), and Mark (fol. 28v) write their gospels in well-appointed improvised “study” spaces. On fol. 23v, the architectural background suggesting a nave with a clerestory and an aisle beyond, and a tiny statue of a prophet figure in a niche above a column, suggest that Luke has established his study in a church (fig. 4.3). The space is defined by two textile screens (one of the purple-and-gold fabric, the other of gold with a red pattern) and three sizable pieces of furniture: a lectern on a dais at which Luke sits, another lectern, and a low cupboard. The sense of the space as a study is heightened by four textile-bound books, two at Luke’s feet, one improbably balanced on its binding on the second lectern, and one exquisitely painted with its pages fanning open and its gold clasps dangling over the edge of the cupboard on which it rests. Above and behind Luke is a canopy of pinky-red material decorated with a repeating stylised gold motif, suspended by gold cords attached to the top corners of the canopy. Matthew’s “study” is probably intended to be represented within a church, but the architectural clues are not definitive. It is a less formal setting than Luke’s, Matthew writes in a book set on his knees and has no canopy over him, though his chair is substantial and its back is lined with the distinctive purple-and-gold fabric. He, too, is in a space defined by a textile screen (red, with a gold plant and geometric pattern) and has textile-bound books to hand. Mark’s “study” is also probably, but not definitely, in a church setting (fig. 4.4). He writes in a book supported on a lectern, and there is another open book resting on a pedestal, which shares its form with some baptismal fonts. Two more textile-bound books are in a niche below a window. Defining the back of the space is a red-andgold textile screen similar to that in the image of Matthew. The most striking feature in Mark’s space is the canopy above Mark that is almost exactly the same as the one 32 Fol. 133r, the beginning of the Hours of the Holy Cross, has a unique page design in Rylands Latin MS 164. Outside of the calendar, it is the only page with images in roundels. See Kirkham, “Contextualising the Interloper.” The use of the book’s signature purple-­and-gold textile behind Christ and his disciples suggests it is original to the book, as does inspection of the gatherings conducted by the author with Mark Furness and John Hodgson at John Rylands Library in May 2017.

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Anne Kirkham above the deathbed on fol. 153r. It is similarly lined with the purple-and-gold cloth, and hung with green curtains. The pelmet has the same gold fringe pattern, and the curtains are decorated with repeating rows of gold horizontal lines—but here there are three lines, not two (as in the bed’s curtains), in each decorative band. The modulation of shade and the discontinuities in the gold lines are persuasive in suggesting the puckering of a thick fabric curtain that has been tucked behind the back of the chair, and the depiction includes two green-and-gold cords attached to the front corners of the canopy to show how such canopies were, as also on fol. 23v, indeed, slung from cords attached to ceiling beams.33 As with the bed canopy, the canopy on fol. 28v is convincing as a medieval textile structure. However, whereas the bed canopy certainly accords with how beds were furnished in the period, it is more difficult to assess the likelihood of a large canopy in a study space, especially for historically remote gospel authors. Whilst early medieval scriptoria were within monastic or palatial settings, and scribes used sloped desks for writing and needed to support texts being copied, the elaborate designs of some “desks” shown in manuscript illustrations seem impractical, as well as ostentatious for their purpose.34 Images in some secular books of the late medieval period include canopy structures in connection with a “study” space, notably on their dedicatory pages. Charles V of France, wearing crown and fleur-de-lis robe, is shown seated within a large wooden canopied structure, his finger on the corner of an open book on a multilevel desk, above the prologue of Denis Foulechat’s translation, commissioned by Charles and presented to him in 1372, of John of Salisbury’s Policraticus.35 Here, there are no textiles within the canopy structure, other than on its floor, and there are no other surrounding structures or furniture, but the image of Charles V “the Wise” surely references the politically significant installation of the royal library at the Louvre Palace in 1368.36 In the mid-fifteenth century, the opening page of a translation into French of Guido delle Colonne’s account (ca. 1287) of the destruction of Troy shows the translator in a wooden high-backed chair with a curved wooden canopy over, his finger touching one of two open books on desks to his left. The chair and desks are within a walled and windowed space further defined with rich fabric screens. The book’s historic link to Charles V is seen in the cloth of gold fleur-de-lis on royal blue lining the chair, whilst the prologue below the image notes the translation was one commissioned in 1380 by a mayor of Beauvais for the king.37

33 Penelope Eames, “The Making of a Hung Celour,” Furniture History 33 (1997): 35–42, at 35. 34 See Christopher de Hamel, Medieval Craftsmen: Scribes and Illuminators (London: British Museum, 1992), 4–7, 34–37. 35 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fr. 24287, 2r, at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8449687z/f7.item, accessed Sept. 22, 2022. 36 See Mark Cruse, “The Louvre of Charles V: Legitimacy, Renewal, and Royal Presence in Fourteenth-Century Paris,” L’Esprit Créateur 54, no. 2 (2014): 19–32, at 23–26. 37 London, British Library, MS Royal 16 F 9, 1r, at https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?IllID=40087, accessed Sept. 22, 2022.

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Furnishing Textiles in a Fifteenth-Century Book of Hours The examples show that canopied chairs were used in images connected with the authority of books, including their commissioning and translation, and, by extension, learning and the learned. In Mark’s and Luke’s imagined study spaces, the canopies conveyed the authority of the gospels and their writers in an updating to a period when a canopy identified and gave aura to the most important individuals in societies, well attested in the actual regular use of canopies over the seats of religious and secular leaders for hierarchical and ritualised reasons (and thus copied in fresco, panel, and miniature paintings).38 As noted, it offers a possible interpretation of the chimney-hood canopy arrangement on fol. 1r. In Rylands Latin MS 164, as well as the canopies over Mark and Luke, there are canopies over the Virgin on fols. 14r, 74r, and 217r; over King David on the replacement fol. 111r;39 over Pilate on fol. 135r; and over St. Leger on fol. 241v. Eames refers to the need for the authority figure to be recognised in any arena.40 This includes outdoors. Thus the purple-and-gold fabric canopy outside the byre (attached by a cord to the byre’s eaves) over the Virgin at the Nativity on fol. 74r (fig. 4.5) and the magisterial canopied throne, lined with the same purple-and-gold fabric, accommodating the Virgin and Child in a field of angels playing musical instruments (fol. 217r) reference canopies that were used in church and state processions, in outdoor ceremonies, and in military camps, and which travelled with royal and lordly owners as they moved from residence to residence. Yet there is not always a canopy where one might be expected. Whilst the Virgin is below a canopy lined with purple-and-gold cloth and hung with plain green curtains in the Annunciation on fol. 14r, there is no canopy in the Annunciation on fol. 215v (fig. 4.6). Instead, a screen of purple-and-gold cloth forms the backdrop to Gabriel whispering God’s message into the Virgin’s ear. On fol. 220r, the Virgin is sitting “in Majesty” in front of a cloth of honour made of the purple-and-gold cloth, but there is no canopy. Likewise for Matthew (fol. 26r), it is the purple-and-gold cloth lining of Matthew’s high-backed chair that highlights his status. So, if the purple-and-gold cloth works with a canopy, or sometimes alone, to identify and confer honour on the principal(s) of an image, perhaps the repeated use of this particular textile in Rylands Latin MS 164 was, critically, a symbolic one. Purple was the most prestigious of colours, as much as gold was the most precious of metals, and the association of purple with emperors and monarchs is firmly established.41

38 Crowley, Invention of Comfort, 10; Eames, “Making of a Hung Celour”; Eames, “Documentary Evidence,” 50; Maria Hayward, “Symbols of Majesty: Cloths of Estate at the Court of Henry VIII,” Furniture History 41 (2005): 1–11; Monnas, Merchants, Princes and Painters, 232, 237–38; Diana Norman, “Sotto Uno Baldachino Trionfale: The Ritual Significance of the Painted Canopy in Simone Martini’s Maestà,” Renaissance Studies 20, no. 2 (2006): 148–60. 39 The missing original fol. 111r and its replacement are the focus of Kirkham, “Contextualising the Interloper.” 40 Eames, “Making of a Hung Celour,” 36. 41 Monnas, “Some Medieval Colour Terms,” 48.

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Anne Kirkham Such knowledge supports both the making of actual purple-and-gold fabrics and their symbolic inclusion in the imagined scenes of a prayer book. Goehring has highlighted the semiotic importance of sumptuous textiles in Valois-Burgundian political traditions that manifested in the display culture of the court and court followers, not least as painted in its books, but her focus was on page borders painted to resemble cloth-of-gold textiles.42 However, certain symbolic uses of textiles within the miniatures of a book (and in painting and other visual arts) in the late Middle Ages were well understood. In connection with religious figures, it was often the case that scenes were relocated to contemporary spaces and featured current fashions in dress—perhaps making them more relatable to viewers (as with the use of canopies over Luke and Mark being relatable to contemporary practice)—but there were also established artistic conventions to underline the historical and/or geographical distance of a painted subject through the overt use of unfamiliar, non-local textiles or architecture.43 The purple textile with its fairly simple gold decorative forms of Rylands Latin MS 164 does not seem sufficiently exotic to invoke the unfamiliar or remote in the fifteenth century, when several silk centres in Europe (including Paris, Lucca, and Venice) were well established as producers of complex woven silks.44 It includes none of three common markers of exoticism (stripes, archaic motifs, and Arabic scripts) highlighted by Monnas in a number of painted textiles in fourteenthand fifteenth-century paintings.45 Moreover, the distinctive fabric is not used only in biblical scenes and those featuring saints, but also in scenes showing contemporary medieval life and death. As noted, it is draped across the landscape as a medieval lord and lady are amongst a group of worshippers praying to God in heaven (fol. 13r, fig. 4.1), and features twice in the deathbed scene (fol. 153r, fig. 4.2). It is also used in the scene of a burial (fol. 193r). Any symbolic function in the deployment of the cloth is not, therefore, about indicating distant biblical and religious figures, but must be sought in other medieval practices in making and experiencing the images. As the next part of the article will show, the shade of purple varies slightly and the gold design is not replicated exactly from one page to another, but the designs are sufficiently close to interpret each occurrence as intending to depict the same fabric. If the variations contribute to the difficulties of identifying it with an actual textile—if there was one—as the source of the painted textile, it still represents a type of prized fully patterned textile sought out by the most affluent in the later Middle Ages.46 Such 42 Goehring, “Taking Borders Seriously,” 22–29. 43 For discussion and examples see Monnas, Merchants, Princes and Painters, 217, 222–32; Joyce Kubiski, “Orientalizing Costume in Early Fifteenth-Century French Manuscript Painting (Cité des Dames Master, Limbourg Brothers, Boucicaut Master, and Bedford Master),” Gesta 40, no. 2 (2001): 161–80; and Michael Gnehm, “Orientalism in a Tent,” in Clothing the Sacred, Medieval Textiles as Fabric, Form, and Metaphor, ed. Mateusz Kapustka and Warren T. Woodfin (Berlin: Edition Imorde, 2015), 189–207. 44 Farmer, Silk Industries. Luca Molà, “A Luxury Industry: The Production of Italian Silks 1400–1600,” in Lambert and Wilson, Europe’s Rich Fabric, 205–34. 45 Monnas, Merchants, Princes and Painters, 222–30. 46 Eames, “Documentary Evidence”; Farmer, Silk Industries, 166–67.

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Furnishing Textiles in a Fifteenth-Century Book of Hours textiles were used in prestigious locations or on the most special occasions alongside other luxury and more practical textiles, all of which would be amongst the most valuable possessions of their owners. The images in Rylands Latin MS 164 support scholars’ understandings of medieval furnishing textiles with their attention to how beds were made, how curtains were draped, and how cloths were used to display precious objects—even down to the careful depiction of folds and pleats and puckers, and the cords that were used to suspend canopies. PAINTED FURNISHING TEXTILES AS EVIDENCE OF COMMISSIONING AND WORKSHOP PRACTICES

Margaret Goehring’s 2007 article on luxury textiles in Franco-Flemish illumination set out key areas for study: Did the textiles have personal or diplomatic intent? Were actual textiles copied? Were stock patterns available? How was copying done? Did illuminators or workshops have specific signature textile designs? What else did the textiles communicate?47 So far, this article has shown that images in Rylands Latin MS 164 generally support accepted views about the colours, designs, and deployment of furnishing textiles, but more can be learned, especially from considering the regularly used purple-and-gold fabric with its fine and complex design. As noted and widely known, purple and gold are historically associated with royalty, and this Book of Hours has been claimed as one made for the kings of France, which is thought possible,48 but is perhaps unlikely. A pattern of gold fleurs-de-lis against a blue background ornamenting the catafalque and a few small shields in a funeral scene on fol. 163v gives some support to this claim, but these are the only examples of this royal heraldic motif in the book (apart from its presence on a hanging alongside King David on the replacement fol. 111r). There are no other heraldic markers in the book to point to its commissioner. Manuscript scholars routinely seek to identify or confirm a book’s patron or first owner through armorial or nominal (for example, initials or rebuses) features of its decoration.49 This could include such features on depicted textiles to replicate actual practice. Documentary sources from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries highlight the prominence of heraldic iconography on precious furnishing textiles.50 Charles VI of France is shown in illuminated manuscripts of Pierre Salmon’s Dialogues with the king’s device of a crowned golden tiger on both his clothes and his bed linen.51 47 Goehring, “Representation and Meaning,” 122. 48 Salomon Reinach, “Sainte Geneviève sur Notre-Dame de Paris: Miniature Parisienne du XV. Siècle,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 64, no. 2 (1922): 257–64, at 261; M. R. James and Frank Taylor, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Latin Manuscripts in the John Rylands Library at Manchester (Munich: Kraus Reprint, 1980), 287. 49 The patron of a luxury Book of Hours would often be its first owner, but books could also be given as gifts and decorated for the recipient. 50 Maria Hayward, “Symbols of Majesty,” 6–7; Eames, “Documentary Evidence,” 43. 51 As noted by Farmer, Silk Industries, 166.

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Anne Kirkham Illuminated manuscripts commissioned by Duke Philip of Burgundy (1396–1467) include cloths of estate and carpets made specific to the commissioner through heraldry and inscriptions. One image of Philip attending Mass has at least eight different textile furnishings with designs that include his armorial bearings and a repeated pattern of gold fleurs-de-lis.52 However, the purple-and-gold textile of Rylands Latin MS 164 lacks the precise and recognisable motif that could associate it with a specific patron. Nevertheless, a Book of Hours of this richness of decoration must have had a very wealthy and distinguished patron who would have collaborated closely, directly or through advisers, with the scribes and artists producing the book. Such books were the subject of contracts, some in minute detail, aimed at an ordered design befitting the patron’s taste.53 As one consequence, leading illuminators would become familiar with luxury textiles through being commissioned to paint illuminated manuscripts. Affiliated to or closely associating with the court or noble households, these artists would have first-hand knowledge of the consumption of textiles (their importance as luxury possessions, and where and how they were used as furnishings and hangings) and of the actual look and feel of such textiles that they included in their images. The evidence is limited, but some illuminators might have been directly involved in producing designs for textiles. The extent to which an artist specialised in just one type of art, or practised several, varied, partly dependent on the shared or transferrable skills between one artistic practice and another. There are documents showing that artists were commissioned to design textiles in Italy, and close parallels have been observed in the drawing style, arrangement, and iconography of English manuscript illumination and opus anglicanum embroidery.54 Goehring cites specific examples from France and Belgium connecting illuminators with textile design: embroidery designs from the Parisian workshop of illuminator Jean Pucelle (ca. 1300–55), a motif in John of Berry’s Très Riches Heures taken from a page on which a repeating textile design has also been drawn, the tapestry designs of the so-called Master of the Très Petites Heures of Anne of Brittany (ca. 1500), and designs for tapestries and embroideries by the illuminator Gerard Horenbout of Ghent (ca. 1465–ca. 1541).55 Their knowledge of textiles would have allowed illuminators to have been realistically creative in their depictions of them. The suggestions that a tapestry painted in the Très Riches Heures copied an actual one or that duke Philip of Burgundy may have had his heraldic-rich textiles included in images have been mentioned, and Goehring proposes one mid-fifteenth-century example of a border decoration suggesting reliance on an actual textile,56 but examples are rare. Moreover, Goehring concludes that her examination of preparatory studies and underdrawings offered no real clue to discovering 52 Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique, MS 9092, 9r (ca. 1460). See Monnas, Merchants, Princes and Painters, 238–40, which includes a colour reproduction of the image. 53 Virginia Reinburg, French Books of Hours: Making an Archive of Prayer, c. 1400–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 22. 54 Kay Staniland, Embroiderers, Medieval Craftsmen (London: British Museum, 1991), 20. 55 Goehring, “Representation and Meaning,” 121–55. 56 Ibid., 131.

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Furnishing Textiles in a Fifteenth-Century Book of Hours how textile patterns were worked into Franco-Flemish illumination, albeit the close similarities of some textiles suggests copying by some process from one illumination to another.57 With regard to the process of manuscript painting generally, references in technical treatises, as well as illuminations left incomplete and those where preparatory work can be studied with modern technologies, testify to the use of underdrawing. Visual and verbal reminders about images were sometimes included in the margin of a page, so they would later disappear when the book was bound. Distinctive features shared by images both within and across books confirm copying as a practice, and it is also known from the survival of model books and pattern sheets—even records of lawsuits over stolen pattern sheets—and evidence that tracing methods were used.58 The close resemblance between the canopy above Mark (fig. 4.4) and above the dying man (fig. 4.2) was noted earlier, and the regular inclusion of the purple-andgold cloth has been noted throughout this study. Eric Millar argued that details as small as hair and bald heads, beards, and eyebrows, as well as features in backgrounds and frames, could be idiomatic, and connoisseurial attributions of manuscript illumination to a particular artist or workshop through examination of such details is a long-established practice.59 Such work has contributed to a general acceptance that Rylands Latin MS 164 was produced by the so-called Bedford Master’s workshop and followers,60 with several scholars identifying its miniatures with the so-called Dunois Master, who may (or may not) have been the Bedford Master’s son or his so-called Chief Associate.61 However, as underlined recently in a valuable study of the Coëtivy Hours, also associated with the Dunois Master workshop, studies of work identified with the Bedford Master and Dunois Master benefit from focusing on the extended nature of their workshops or even on the idea of “loosely affiliated collectives of book professionals” with flexible arrangements for collaboration in response to the opportunities

57 Ibid., 147. 58 De Hamel, Medieval Craftsmen, 49–57. On the marginal notes see Richard H. Rouse and Mary A. Rouse, Manuscripts and Their Makers: Commercial Book Producers in Medieval Paris 1200–1500, 2 vols. (Turnhout, Belgium: Harvey Miller, 2000), 1:250. 59 Eric Millar, The Parisian Miniaturist Honoré (London: Faber & Faber, 1959), 12–15. 60 Gregory Clark, Art in a Time of War: The Master of Morgan 453 and Manuscript Illumination in Paris During the English Occupation (1419–1435) (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2016); Sandra Hindman, Mirella Levi D’Ancona, Pia Palladino, and Maria Francesca Saffiotti, The Robert Lehman Collection, vol. 4: Illuminations (Princeton, NJ: Metropolitan Museum of Art and Princeton University Press, 1997), 23–24; Reinach, “Sainte Geneviève,” 261; Nicole Reynaud, “Les Heures du Chancelier Guillaume Jouvenal des Ursins et la Peinture Parisienne Autour de 1440,” Revue de l’Art 126 (1999): 23–35, at 28; Catherine S. Reynolds, “‘The Très Riches Heures,’ the Bedford Workshop and Barthélemy d’Eyck,” The Burlington Magazine 147, no. 1229 (2005): 526–33, at 532 n. 40; Eleanor P. Spencer, “Gerson, Ciboule and the Bedford Master’s Shop (Bruxelles, Bibl. Royale, ms, IV III, part II),” Scriptorium 19, no. 1 (1965): 104–08, at 105–07; Roger Wieck in Riches of the Rylands, 60. 61 Rouse and Rouse, Manuscripts and Their Makers, 1:298–99, 2:74.

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Anne Kirkham provided by the patronage of the most powerful in society.62 The researchers in the study of the Coëtivy Hours make use not just of direct observation, but also modern technologies that allow examination of underdrawings to analyse the techniques and skills used in the book, concluding that all combinations of single-authored miniatures, multi-authored miniatures, and miniatures underdrawn by one hand and painted by another were used.63 Lacking emblematic specificity, the furnishing textiles are not critical to the scholarship associating Rylands Latin MS 164 with Bedford-Dunois production, but, based on direct observation of their design and execution, they may provide further evidence of the flexibility in artistic practices of the Bedford-Dunois cluster. I have highlighted twenty occurrences of a purple cloth ornamented with gold plant and geometric forms, and I have no doubt that in each case it is the same textile being represented.64 However, there are slight variations in the design of the gold pattern and in how loosely the textile is painted across the twenty examples. In its first appearance on fol. 13r (fig. 4.1) there are two alternating repeating vertical patterns of gold decoration, each separated from another by a slim gold vertical band. The narrower pattern is of repeating isolated solid gold open flowers with empty centres, stacked one above the other. The alternating pattern is approximately three times wider than the narrower pattern and features a gold dotted pomegranate form with a curved outline and calyx. The same textile on fol. 153r (fig. 4.2), where it appears as the lining of the canopy over the bed, features a large, similar pomegranate form, but with two prominent leaf-form nectaries at the base and the dots extended into short strokes. The screen at the back of the scene is worked more loosely, but with the most formed part of the design being a pomegranate on the right that is partly obscured, yet simultaneously—and perhaps not accidentally—also illuminated in its centre by the flame of a candle. Strikingly, the pomegranate form on the canopy over the dying man is carefully repeated on a screen inside the historiated capital on the page, a feature remarkable since the whole capital measures just three centimetres (1.2 inches) across—it is the only illuminated letter in the book that contains this textile. There are no solid gold open flowers on the visible parts of the textile anywhere on fol. 153r. Versions of the pomegranate form dominate the examples of the purple-andgold cloth on fol. 14r (on the lining of the canopy over the Virgin in an Annunciation scene accompanying the Ave Maria prayer), fol. 14v (behind the assembled apostles accompanying the Credo), and fol. 19v (on a back wall against which the bowed head of a woman at confession is profiled). None of these has the open flower form. Yet, on fol. 90v, the purple-and-gold screen behind the ceremonial presentation of Christ at the Temple includes a solid gold open flower, with an empty centre, above Christ’s 62 Richard Gameson, Catherine Nicholson, and Andrew Beeby, “The Admiral, the Virgin, and the Spectrometer: Observations on the Coëtivy Hours (Dublin, Chester Beatty Library, MS W 082),” Gesta 59, no. 2 (2020): 203–31, at 204. 63 Ibid., 225. 64 Fols. 13r, 14r, 14v, 19v, 23v, 26r, 28v, 74r, 90v, 133r, 136v, 145r, 153r, 193r, 215v, 217r, 220r, 232v, 241v, and 245v.

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Furnishing Textiles in a Fifteenth-Century Book of Hours head. The very same flower motif is immediately above the Virgin on the lining of her canopy on fol. 217r. On fol. 193r, where the cloth is used to bring a body to the graveside, there is a bounded band of stacked solid gold quatrefoil flowers with clearly defined pomegranate and geometric forms at either side. This band of solid gold quatrefoils alongside clear pomegranate and geometric forms recurs on the screen behind the enthroned but suffering St. Leger (having his eyes bored out) on fol. 241v and behind St. Clarus kneeling before the Pope on fol. 245v. Also, on fol. 245v, the Pope’s cloak is made of the purple-and-gold cloth; this is the only miniature in which the textile is used for clothing. Another variation occurs in images where the gold design is worked thickly, so that the gold dominates the purple, for example on a screen behind St. Luke (fol. 23v, fig. 4.3) and on the lining of the canopy over the Virgin on fol. 217r. These variations in how the fabric appears seem to rule out the mimetic copying of a stock pattern by one or several artists, even allowing for differences in skill and speed of working, but they do suggest a personally memorised template of a fabric type that was (to be) deployed as a special textile, possibly with individual artists having their own idiomatic version that was reproducible in their own work or transposable to the underdrawings of others. As a marker of Bedford-Dunois work, the design is found in, for example, the Bedford Hours (named for its patron, the Duke of Bedford, and informing the naming of the Bedford Master), which includes a great range of furnishing textiles, including designs in purple and gold that could be related generally to that in Rylands Latin MS 164.65 SPECULATIONS ON THE ROLE OF FURNISHING TEXTILES IN BOOKS OF HOURS

In the final part of this article, I consider the effect of the repetition of a distinctive textile by artists in a single devotional book in the material experience of its ownership and use. That many valuable textiles are on show in so many images when, in practice, their use was occasion-driven and they were otherwise stored safely away is countered by the mantra of conspicuous display. Even as they were personal prayer books, extensively decorated Books of Hours belonged to that class of luxury objects that were to be “looked at” by their owners and, selectively, by their families and peers—that is, the class of luxury object to which the most expensive textiles also belonged. Both Katherine Anne Wilson, discussing affluent Dijonnaise bourgeoisie, and Christina Antenhofer, discussing the Gonzaga court, call attention to the peer-conscious behaviour in the use and display of silks and tapestries.66 There would be contemporary logic, then, to the display of textiles in an object that was, itself, to be viewed. Moreover, 65 London, British Library, Add. MS 18850 (ca. 1430), see http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/ FullDisplay.aspx?ref=Add_MS_18850, accessed Oct. 5, 2022. 66 Wilson, “In the chamber”; and Christina Antenhofer, “‘O per honore, o per commodo mio’: Displaying Textiles at the Gonzaga Court (Fifteenth–Sixteenth Centuries),” in Lambert and Wilson, Europe’s Rich Fabric, 35–68.

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Anne Kirkham the logic around the occasion-driven deployment of textiles is maintained since the images included in the book are memorable occasions—the writing of the gospels; the key events in the Virgin’s life; and a medieval death, at which the use of luxury textiles would be justified. An answer, then, to how a memorable fabric functioned within memorable images may be found in the particular nature of an illustrated book as a visual object because its visual dimensions extend over many pages that are not viewed at the same time. An original user might have viewed two or more pages in rapid succession when following the text of a prayer and then returned to the book later in the day, or might have looked frequently at favourite images, or might have selected pages to show to others. Repeated features from page to page would help to establish the visual integrity of the object, which is often supported by a consistent mise-en-page and a consistent visual lexicon in the border decoration.67 Whilst the regularity of page design and border decoration in a single or several books may result from workshop practices that may be various and not now fully understood, the consistency of design and decoration in any one book perhaps added not only to the experience of ownership of a valuable object, but also to the mood and rhythm fitting to the rituals of prayer and contemplation. The repetition of a special fabric in a number of images—hanging together (on) the pages of the book—would assist this sensory experience. Assuming, then, that the original user of the book was struck with the purple-andgold textile’s frequent appearances, there is a case to be argued for both symbolic and aesthetic interpretations of the fabric. It first appears, quite distinctly and gloriously (and more extensively than in many of its other appearances), accompanying the Lord’s Prayer, immediately after the calendar and thus on possibly the most significant page of this Book of Hours (fig. 4.1).68 Amongst a small gathering of worshippers, a lord kneels in front of the purple-and-gold screen as he raises his face to God above. Earlier, I proposed that the use of the red-flushed-with-gold textile on fol. 153r (fig. 4.2) both as a cover over the man on his deathbed and as a cover for the unoccupied bench by the fire highlights that death marks not just a departure but a vacancy, much as, in the same image, the double use of the purple-and-gold fabric on the bed canopy and behind the treasure chest signals that the lord’s wealth and estate passes to others. In the Offices of the Dead, the textile occurs not just in the deathbed scene, but also in the burial scene (fol. 193r) where it is the inner face of the textile that is used to carry the body to the grave until immediately before its interment. It is therefore a textile that links the feelingly praying lord through to his Christian death and burial. That the textile is used as a special marker in several of the religious images in the book aids this spiritual connection. 67 Other Books of Hours, however, can be markedly diverse in page design and/or border decoration. 68 Probably the most significant page would be that for Matins of the Office of the Virgin, which is missing, but fol. 13r must have been significant given that the Lord’s Prayer is not a standard feature of Books of Hours. It is included immediately after the calendar, and its border decoration is exceptional for this book.

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Furnishing Textiles in a Fifteenth-Century Book of Hours Specific symbolic manipulations also appear in the purple-and-gold fabric. The juxtaposition in the deathbed scene (fig. 4.2) of the clear pomegranate form directly over the lord’s head on the bed canopy contrasts with that on the screen behind his treasure chest, which is obscured, but, at the same time, illuminated by a candle, as if highlighting his passing from material bodily form to ethereal spiritual existence. In two uses of the textile in scenes of the Holy Family, the representations of solid gold flowers with open centres directly over the heads of Christ (fol. 90v) and of the Virgin (fol. 217r) were surely intended to be viewed (also) as augmented haloes. Such suggestive readings would add to the special significance of a textile that is plausible in its appearance and deployment, and assists with the cohesion of the prayer book as a unified visual object (not a collection of images). The study here has moved from more concrete to less concrete arguments and discussion, respecting the fact that the painted textiles being studied belong not just to an image, but to images within a book. Whilst corroborating medieval preferences for coloured furnishing textiles decorated with gold thread was relatively straight­ forward due to the weight of scholarship so many have carefully advanced, reading tiny gold flowers on a textile as haloes must remain speculation. Nevertheless, the research has shown that ideas about the flexibility of workshop practice or about viewing responses to painted furnishing textiles may be developed by bringing together diverse approaches to the study of a single book’s images.

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Fig. 4.1: The Lord’s Prayer, fol. 13r. All images from University of Manchester, Rylands Latin MS 164, Horae (Paris), fifteenth century (ca. 1430). Photos: Copyright of the University of Manchester, by permission.

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Fig. 4.2: Office of the Dead, fol. 153r.

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Fig. 4.3: Opening of the Gospel of Luke, fol. 23v.

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Fig. 4.4: Opening of the Gospel of Mark, fol. 28v.

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Fig. 4.5: Prime, Office of the Virgin, showing the Nativity, fol. 74r.

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Fig. 4.6: Annunciation, fol. 215v.

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Gilt-leather Embroideries from Medieval Sweden and Finland Amica Sundström and Maria Neijman

This article aims to shed light on extant preserved gilt-leather embroideries from Sweden and Finland, dating from the early fourteenth to the early sixteenth centuries. The first part of the article discusses the identification and classification of these embroideries, and examines systematically their fabrics, colors, sewing techniques, motifs, and component textual elements. The analysis informs conjecture about the dating and uses of the embroideries. The second part of the article describes a reconstruction project to re-create two large gilt-leather coverlets and reflects on the role of reconstruction as a valid and valuable research method for acquiring in-depth knowledge about historical textiles.1 In Sweden and Finland there are a number of preserved medieval embroideries, which in the Middle Ages were referred to as “gilt-leather coverlets.” They are named after the thin strips of gilded leather that were characteristically used in these embroideries. Today, the terms intarsia embroidery or mosaic embroidery are commonly used to describe the underlying technique used in most of the gilt-leather embroideries. This involves cutting out the same motif from two squares of wool of different colors. The cut pieces are then exchanged for one another and whipstitched in place, in-filling the spaces in each ground fabric without any seam allowance. The result is two squares with the same motif, in inverted colors. Thin gilt-leather strips are couched down along the seams where the two colors meet. These leather strips, which lend to the embroidery its signature quality, gave rise to its name. Gilt-leather coverlets consist of a number of such squares, which have been joined by seams also covered in gilt-leather strips. The technique should not be confused with inlaid embroidery or with quilting. It is the couched gilt-leather stripping along with the joining technique and the imagery of the motifs that give these particular embroideries their own, distinctive visual character. 1

The reconstruction project in 2015 involved twenty-eight volunteer participants, as listed at the end of the article. A brief report was published online in 2016, see Maria Neijman, “Att återskapa två guldskinnstäcken / To recreate two inlaid woolen coverlets,” Historical Textiles by Two Textile Nerds, March 26, 2016, https://historicaltextiles.org/att-aterskapatva-guldskinnstacken-to-recreate-two-inlaid-woolen-coverlets, most recently accessed Sept. 2, 2022.

Gilt-leather Embroideries Among the few extant medieval intarsia embroideries outside Scandinavia is the royal seal bag of King Edward I in the collections of Westminster Abbey. It is dated to 1280 and, according to Clare Browne and Michaela Zöschg, was made using the intarsia technique.2 The Tristan Hanging, made in Germany ca. 1370–1400 and now in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, resembles the Swedish gilt-leather embroideries, but is, in fact, an appliqué embroidery with gilt-leather and silk details.3 The book Medeltida bonader och broderier i Sverige, published in 1927, referred to the coverlets as brudpällar or pällar, identifying them with the impression held in the 1920s that the coverlets had likely been used as wedding canopies when they were made.4 In our work, we have chosen to adhere to the term “gilt-leather coverlets,” corresponding to the Swedish word guldskinnstäcke, which is the oldest known term for these textiles. The Swedish medieval term täcke is associated with “covering something,” and should not be confused with the modern term täcke, which refers to a bedcover. We also use the broader term “gilt-leather embroideries,” as some examples are not part of a full coverlet. The surviving gilt-leather coverlets and gilt-leather embroideries are generally named after the respective churches where they were prior to entering various museum collections, mostly in Sweden and Finland. Two of the surviving pieces were in private ownership (one is still). Contemporary medieval sources confirm examples of private ownership of gilt-leather coverlets in the Middle Ages. One example from the 1450s is in the last will and testament of Svarte Åke Jönsson, who bequeathed “one gilt-leather coverlet to my daughter Ingeborg.”5 Inventories compiled at Turku Castle, Kastellholma Castle, Tavastia Castle, Vyborg Castle, and Gripsholm Castle, dating from 1523 to 1611, make it clear that gilt-leather coverlets and seat cushions made with the same technique were relatively numerous in these castles.6 Outside the scope of this article, there are several examples of similar embroideries dating from the second half of the sixteenth century and the seventeenth century.7

2 3 4 5 6 7

Clare Woodthorpe Browne, Glyn Davies, M. A. Michael, and Michaela Zöschg, eds., English Medieval Embroidery: Opus Anglicanum (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2016), 151. V&A 1370-1864, dark blue woolen cloth with appliqué figures in colored cloth and couched gilt-leather strips, see https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O86303/the-tristanhanging-hanging-unknown, accessed Sept. 2, 2022. Agnes Branting and Andreas Lindblom, Medeltida bonader och broderier i Sverige (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksells, 1928–29), 53–74. Svarte Åke Jönsson, letter and account book, no date, Stockholm, Swedish National Archives, C25, 13. The original reads “minne dotter Ingeborg i gulskins täkerne.” Riitta Pylkkänen, The Use and Traditions of Medieval Rugs and Coverlets in Finland (Helsinki: Archaeological Society of Finland, 1974), 20–21. Inga-Britt Wollin, Stugukläder: Rumsklädsel under tidig Vasatid (Stockholm: Nordiska Museet i samarbete med Konstvetenskapliga Institutionen vid Göteborgs Universitet, 1993), 37–40.

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Amica Sundström and Maria Neijman CLASSIFYING THE MEDIEVAL GILT-LEATHER EMBROIDERIES

This study centers on fourteen preserved textile pieces linked to medieval Sweden and Finland. Despite differences in visual impression and production, all these embroideries may be referred to as gilt-leather coverlets or gilt-leather embroideries. We have further subclassified them into four different groups based on their appearance and technical construction. Group 1 These embroideries consist of a single pattern shape cut out from two ground fabrics of different colors, with each shape moved to the other ground fabric and stitched in place. This results in two copies of the design, with the colors inverted. The pattern shapes may be decorated with appliqué, and all have gilt-leather strips covering the seams. These embroideries are relatively simple, with clean shapes, and display few, if any, decorative elements outside the cut-out pattern shape. To make one requires two pieces of woolen fabric in different colors, gilt-leather strips, and fabric or gilded leather for any additional appliqué. This group includes the textiles from Skepptuna and Ilsbo, as well as two out of four extant squares from the Skokloster 1 textile. The Skepptuna coverlet is a complete coverlet consisting of twenty-four squares and four borders (fig. 5.1).8 The squares measure 30 by 30 centimeters (11.8 by 11.8 inches) and the complete coverlet measures 163 by 225 centimeters (64.2 by 88.6 inches). The Ilsbo textile is a coverlet fragment measuring 140 by 180 centimeters (55.1 by 70.9 inches) with ten (out of an original twelve) preserved squares.9 The Ilsbo textile lacks gilt-leather strips, and instead has been made with linen strips plied together, but despite the lack of gilt-leather, we have chosen to categorize the Ilsbo textile as a gilt-leather embroidery, as its construction is technically identical to the other textiles in the group. The linen strips, just like the gilt-leather strips, create a clear framework and a stark visual contrast. The Skokloster 1 textile consists of four complete squares measuring 40 by 45 centimeters (15.7 by 17.7 inches), and fragments of a fifth one.10 Group 2 The embroideries in the second group have two pattern shapes cut from two ground fabrics of different colors. The shapes have then been moved and sewn into the other ground fabric, where the same pattern shapes have been cut out, so that the design appears twice, in inverted colors. These shapes consist of a central motif and a circle with decorated corners. The corner decorations are cut in the shape of fleurs-de-lis, oak leaves, or other foliage. The pattern shapes are decorated with appliqué and gilt-leather 8 Stockholm, Swedish History Museum, inv. no. SHM 3983:4. 9 Hälsinglands Museum, Hudiksvall, Sweden, inv. no. HM 4104. 10 Stockholm, Swedish History Museum, inv. no. SHM 24690:1.

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Fig. 5.1: Detail of the original Skepptuna coverlet showing a griffin (Stockholm, Swedish History Museum, inv. no. SHM 3983:4). Photo: Amica Sundström and Maria Neijman, courtesy of the Swedish History Museum.

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Amica Sundström and Maria Neijman strips. The circle contains decorative elements such as white wool appliqué or gilt-­ leather decorations forming vines or writing. To make the embroideries classified in this group requires two pieces of woolen fabric in different colors, gilt-leather strips, and fabric or gilded leather for any desired appliqué. This group includes the Swedish textiles Dalhem 1, Skokloster 2, Hög, and Östra Stenby, as well as the Finnish textiles from Masku and Sauvo. The Dalhem 1 coverlet is a complete coverlet measuring 212 by 289 centimeters (83.5 by 113.8 inches) consisting of twelve squares and four borders (fig. 5.2).11 The Skokloster 2 textile is a cushion with one square and a backing made of red leather, measuring 65 by 70 centimeters (25.6 by 27.6 inches).12 The Hög textile is a single square, 58 by 58 centimeters (22.8 by 22.8 inches), but including a corner from another square in the same color combination.13 The Östra Stenby textile was a coverlet fragment with nine squares and three borders, originally consisting of twelve squares and four borders. This textile has not survived, but a watercolor of it still exists.14 Each square of the embroidery measured 60 by 60 centimeters (23.6 by 23.6 inches). The border measurements are unknown. The Masku textile is a large coverlet fragment, measuring 210 by 280 centimeters (82.7 by 110.2 inches), with eight squares.15 The Sauvo textile is a coverlet with fragments of five squares, four of which are still joined together and the fifth fragment separated from the other four.16 The squares measure 43 by 43 centimeters (16.9 by 16.9 inches). Group 3 This group consists of textiles that display triple repeats in their designs. The two embroideries in this group vary slightly in their construction. With this in mind, we further subdivided the group into 3a and 3b. Group 3a In this group, a pattern shape is cut out from a ground fabric, and then moved and stitched into a ground fabric of a different color. Next, a circle is cut around the central motif. The circle, containing the central motif, is then moved back to the fabric from which the central motif was first cut. The embroidery, therefore, consists of three parts, where the central motif and the ground fabric are of the same color, while the circle is in a contrasting color. The result is two copies of the design, in inverted colors. This group, too, requires two pieces of woolen fabric in different colors, gilt-leather strips, and fabric or gilded leather for any additional appliqué. This group includes the other two of the four extant squares from the Skokloster 1 textile (fig. 5.3). 11 12 13 14

Stockholm, Swedish History Museum, inv. no. SHM 23022:25. Stockholm, Swedish History Museum, inv. no. SHM 24690:2. Stockholm, Swedish History Museum, inv. no. SHM 6932. The watercolor is reproduced in Bengt Jacobsson, Nils Månsson Mandelgren: En resande konstnär i 1800-talets Sverige (Lund: Bra Böcker i samarbete med Folklivsarkivet i Lund, 1983), 212–13. 15 National Museum of Finland, Helsinki, inv. no. NM 1223:1. 16 National Museum of Finland, Helsinki, inv. no. NM KM 70100:111-113.

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Fig. 5.2: Part of the original Dalhem 1 coverlet (Stockholm, Swedish History Museum, inv. no. SHM 23022:25). Photo: Amica Sundström and Maria Neijman, courtesy of the Swedish History Museum.

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Fig. 5.3: Detail of the Skokloster 1 textile (Stockholm, Swedish History Museum, inv. no. SHM 24690:1). Photo: Mervi Pasanen, courtesy of the Swedish History Museum, used by permission.

Group 3b The embroidery in this group has a pattern shape that was cut from a ground fabric, and then moved and stitched to a ground fabric of a different color. Next, a jagged circle was cut around the central motif, and the circle containing the motif moved and inserted into a ground fabric of a third color. This method produces three copies 122

Gilt-leather Embroideries of the design, in three colorways. The pattern shapes are decorated with appliqué and gilt-leather strips. The construction requires three pieces of woolen fabric in different colors, gilt-leather strips, and fabric or gilded leather for any appliqué. This group includes an unnamed embroidery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (fig. 5.4).17 We refer to it as the Waller embroidery, as it was sold to the museum by the Waller family of the Netherlands, a family with Swedish roots. The Waller embroidery consists of four squares with four borders, but it likely comprised twelve squares in its original state. In its extant state it measures 136 by 130 centimeters (53.5 by 51.2 inches). Group 4 Unlike the embroideries in the other groups, those in the fourth group have no cutout pattern pieces, but have a design embroidered directly onto a woolen fabric, using gilt-leather strips. A central motif is included, as well as a surrounding circle with decorated corners. The circle contains decorative elements such as white wool appliqué or gilt-leather decorations in the shape of vines. The composition is based on the same design principles as those of the embroideries in the other groups. As examples in this group lack any cut-out pattern shapes, there is no automatically corresponding version in another color. The embroideries require only a single piece of woolen fabric, gilt-leather strips, and materials for any desired appliqué. This group includes the Swedish Dalhem 2, Bysta, and Aspö textiles, and the Finnish Kiikaala textile. The Dalhem 2 textile is a coverlet fragment with twelve squares, each 36 by 36 centimeters (14.2 by 14.2 inches), and three borders (fig. 5.5).18 Overall, it measures 164 by 170 centimeters (64.6 by 66.9 inches). The Bysta coverlet is a complete coverlet consisting of nine squares and four borders.19 The Aspö textile is a complete cushion, measuring 62 by 69 centimeters (24.4 by 27.2 inches).20 The Kiikaala textile is a coverlet fragment with four preserved squares.21 FABRICS USED IN THE MEDIEVAL GILT-LEATHER EMBROIDERIES

Our analyses of the preserved embroideries show that almost all the gilt-leather coverlets are made from fabrics in different weaves and wool types. Those who made the coverlets seem to have had little regard for differences in both weave and wool type when selecting fabrics, and different wools may feature in the same embroidery. The weaves that occur in the embroideries are tabby, 2/1 twill, and 2/2 twill. The fineness of the fabrics varies considerably, from 11 by 7.5 threads per centimeter to 22 by 19 threads per centimeter.

17 18 19 20 21

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession no. 2011.430. Stockholm, Swedish History Museum, inv. no. SHM 23022:26. Privately owned at Bysta Manor, Närke Province, Sweden. Stockholm, Swedish History Museum, inv. no. SHM 26947:1. National Museum of Finland, Helsinki, inv. no. NM KM 57121.

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Fig. 5.4: Detail of the Waller embroidery showing a lion, ca. 1500 (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Cloisters Collection, 2011.430). Photo: Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Through the years, the fabrics used in the embroideries have become worn, and the weave types are now plainly visible. In places where appliqué has detached from the fabric, the underlying surfaces display heavy original fulling and a surface with a nap. When fabrics are heavily fulled their elasticity is reduced, with a more compact, less flexible material as a result. This makes it possible even to use bias-cut pieces, since their properties are no different from those cut along the grain. Pieces used for appliqué are predominantly made from wool fabrics, with some examples of linen and linsey-woolsey. The squares vary in size, with the smallest being 30 by 30 centimeters (11.8 by 11.8 inches) and the largest measuring 70 by 70 centimeters (27.6 by 27.6 inches). The most common size is around 55 by 55 centimeters (21.7 by 21.7 inches). In all the 124

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Fig. 5.5: Detail of the Dalhem 2 textile showing a pelican (Stockholm, Swedish History Museum, inv. no. SHM 23022:26). Photo: Amica Sundström and Maria Neijman, courtesy of the Swedish History Museum.

embroideries there are several squares that display joins in the wool fabrics, where pieces have been stitched together, with running stitch or backstitch, to make pieces large enough for the design. The seams have not had their allowances laid down, but remain unworked at the back (fig. 5.6). Sometimes fabrics of a similar quality are joined, but often the fabrics vary a great deal in weave, thickness, and color. This probably mattered less when the fabrics were new and still had more nap left on the surface, as the differences between fabrics would have been less obvious from a distance. Some gilt-leather coverlets, such as the Ilsbo textile and the Waller embroidery, have seams that indicate that the fabrics used were repurposed and once had another function. Both the shapes of the seams and the way the pieces have been joined are signs of this. These seams have their allowances laid down and have a more finished 125

Amica Sundström and Maria Neijman

Fig. 5.6: Detail of joining seams from the Skokloster 2 textile (Stockholm, Swedish History Museum, inv. no. SHM 24690:2). When fabrics are joined to become larger pieces, the seam allowance is visible on the back. Skokloster 2 has been made into a cushion, and the leather back of the cushion, seen to the right, shows that the leather also was joined to make a bigger piece. Photo: Amica Sundström and Maria Neijman, courtesy of the Swedish History Museum.

appearance than other seams on the coverlets. The embroideries in question were possibly made from fabric that had been used for clothing.22 There are indications that some of the embroideries have been reworked or remounted. The Dalhem 1 22 Maria Neijman and Amica Sundström, Uppland 2021: Guldskinnsbroderiet från Skepptuna kyrka (Uppsala: Upplands Fornminnes Förlag, 2021), 37–38.

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Gilt-leather Embroideries coverlet has one border on the short side of the coverlet where a substantial midsection appears to come from another embroidery. COLORS USED IN THE MEDIEVAL GILT-LEATHER EMBROIDERIES

Despite the fact that the gilt-leather coverlets and embroideries are very old, the colors are still vivid and well preserved. When comparing the back and front of the embroideries, it is evident that the colors were originally even brighter and deeper. The predominant colors are a deep red and a deep blue, but others, such as green, brown, purple, light green, and other shades of blue, have been used for the base color of the squares. The appliqué consists predominantly of white wool, but some woolen details feature in black, yellow, purple, green, and blue. The linen appliqué is white or blue. The Skokloster 1 textile has two different pieces of fabric woven from thread spun from blue and red wool. This yields an optical blend, which makes the fabric appear purple. Magnified, the fibers seem to have been extracted from old fabrics, blended, and then spun into new thread. None of the colors of the Swedish coverlets have undergone dye analysis, so we cannot know with any certainty which dyes were used. However, it is possible to speculate on the sources of dyes from the wealth of reference materials about previously analyzed fabrics, and from experience of medieval plant dyeing techniques. Comparisons indicate that madder was likely used to produce red, woad to make blue, weld to make yellow, and weld overdyed with woad to make green. SEWING TECHNIQUES IN THE MEDIEVAL GILT-LEATHER EMBROIDERIES

The fabric pieces have been sewn together with white, two-ply linen thread. Some appliqué and a number of details also feature blue linen thread. One of the embroideries, the square from Hög, has fragments of silk thread on some of its decorations. Examination of the embroideries shows clear signs that the squares of the individual coverlets were made by several different people, who were responsible for their own square(s). Close inspection of the seams demonstrates the individual “handwriting” of each maker, as revealed by the length of the stitches, how tightly they are pulled, how they are spaced, and whether they have been made diagonally or straight across the gilt-leather strips. Where the pattern pieces have been sewn together, the majority of the embroideries appear to have been stitched from the back. This is made plain by the manner in which the edges have been pulled together, forming a ridge at the back of the embroidery and a small “ditch” in the front. The stitches have been pulled tight, leaving no holes or gaps in the embroideries (fig. 5.7). During the reconstruction of some of the gilt-leather coverlets, several contributors pointed out that it was easier to make the gilt-leather strip on the front of the coverlet lie still and cover the seam if it was placed in the “ditch.” 127

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Fig. 5.7: Detail of the back of the original Dalhem 1 coverlet showing the visible ridge and two lines of stitching over the ridge, one for joining the two different fabrics and one for attaching the leather strip. Knots on the linen thread are also seen. Photo: Amica Sundström and Maria Neijman, courtesy of the Swedish History Museum.

The most common method for fastening the linen thread at the beginning of a seam was to use knots, which are plainly visible on the original textiles. On some of the embroideries, the thread has been fastened at the end by pulling it underneath a few of the previous stitches. The stitches vary in length, and the amount of fulling the fabrics have undergone is a factor in the length and placement of stitches. The more fulled the fabric, the shorter the stitches may be, and the closer to the edge. If a fabric has been fulled to a lesser degree, stitches need to be made farther away from the edges to prevent the fabric from fraying or breaking. The gilt-leather strips on the original textiles vary in width, even on the same textile, and sometimes within the same square. The width of the leather strips is between 128

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Fig. 5.8: Detail of the Aspö cushion showing overlapping leather strips (Stockholm, Swedish History Museum, inv. no. SHM 26947:1). Photo: Amica Sundström and Maria Neijman, courtesy of the Swedish History Museum.

1 and 3 millimeters (less than 1/8 inch). Today, the leather strips are dry, which has caused them to shrink and break. How long the strips were originally is difficult to say. There are, however, several places where the ends of two strips were overlapped and joined to make a longer strip (fig. 5.8). The effects of aging have caused the gold to come away in several places, but in the better-preserved parts of the embroideries, some gold remains. It is not just the seams that suggest several people were involved in making the individual embroideries. The decorations, too, indicate that this was the case. At a cursory glance, the squares of the Dalhem 1 coverlet look very similar, but close 129

Amica Sundström and Maria Neijman inspection reveals many differences from one pair of squares to another. The corner decorations vary (fig. 5.9), the circle appliques have different types of leaves, and one pair of squares does not have a circle around the central motif, but an octagon. Decorations may differ even within a matched pair of squares. The animals in the central motif may display different facial features, and the appliqué and spiral decorations may differ a great deal from one another. The variations lend to each animal a personal character and an expression of its own. All in all, the sewing and other details of the embroideries indicate that single textiles were indeed produced by several different individuals, and that these individuals were not working with a pre-designed pattern or drawing. It seems rather as if the persons involved based their work on an idea of the finished result, and that they were allowed personal freedom to create their part of the embroidery, according to a certain given framework. MOTIFS USED IN THE MEDIEVAL GILT-LEATHER EMBROIDERIES

In general, the embroideries are composed of squares featuring plant or animal motifs or heraldic symbols. The animals that occur most frequently are lions, unicorns, griffins, stags, leopards, and horses, but there are examples of centaurs, eagles, pelicans, and peacocks too. Coats-of-arms, the rose of the Virgin Mary (with five petals), urns with flowers, and winged hearts are other motif examples. The animal motif placed in a circle is no medieval invention, but draws its inspiration from older, Byzantine silk fabrics. This kind of silk fabric was imported from Byzantium during the Scandinavian Iron Age and the early Middle Ages. The silks were often samite, and the size of motifs could vary from a few centimeters to about 20 centimeters (about 8 inches). However, nothing but the motifs themselves connects the Byzantine silks to the gilt-leather embroideries, as the techniques, materials, and sizes are very different.23 The motifs appearing on the gilt-leather embroideries were common during the Middle Ages across large parts of Europe. Embroideries made from other materials and using other techniques may be of similar design. Among other examples, the whitework embroideries made by the nuns of Lüne Abbey at Lüneburg, Germany, display many similarities with the gilt-leather embroideries.24 The hanging from the church in Hvam, Iceland, too, displays such similarities.25 There are finds with very similar motifs made from other materials and appearing on different objects, such as brick floor tiles, wrought-iron decorations, wooden fixtures, and masonry details.

23 Agnes Geijer, Ur textilkonstens historia, 3rd ed. (Stockholm: Tiden, 1994), 288. 24 The authors viewed the whitework embroideries during a visit to Lüne Abbey on Aug. 5, 2015. 25 Elsa E. Gudjónsson, Traditional Icelandic Embroidery (Reykjavík: Iceland Review, 1985), 6–7.

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Fig. 5.9: Detail of corner decorations on the original Dalhem 1 coverlet featuring different shapes of the white woolen appliqué. Photo: Amica Sundström and Maria Neijman, courtesy of the Swedish History Museum.

In Sweden, these motifs remained popular until the nineteenth century, in both the paintings and the textile arts of the laboring classes.26 TEXTS IN THE MEDIEVAL GILT-LEATHER EMBROIDERIES

Several of the pieces have textual elements embroidered on them. These are all religious in nature: SACERDOTES ET LEUITE MINISTRI DOMINI; HEEL MARIA FRW; HEEL; AVE MARIA GRATIA PLENA DOMINUS TEKUM; IOFRU MARIA VAFRU BE; HELP IHESUS MARIA SON HELP IHESUS; IHS and M-, meaning the Virgin Mary.27 Almost all of the texts display linguistic errors. For example, some letters are rendered upside-down or mirrored. Sometimes, the lines forming a letter do not join up, which makes the letter hard to interpret (fig. 5.10). However, the overall meaning of the text tends to be mostly clear, which indicates that someone

26 Branting and Lindblom, Medeltida bonader, 66–74. 27 Inger Estham, “A Newly Discovered Intarsia and Gold Leather Embroidery,” in Opera Textilia Variorum Temporum: To Honour Agnes Geijer on Her Ninetieth Birthday 26th October 1988, ed. Inger Estham and Margareta Nockert, The Museum of National Antiquities, Stockholm Studies 8 (Stockholm: Statens Historiska Museum, 1988), 102–3.

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Fig. 5.10: Detail of the Masku coverlet with applied text in Latin (Helsinki, National Museum of Finland, inv. no. NM 1223:1). Some letters are upside down or mirrored. Photo: Amica Sundström and Maria Neijman, courtesy of the National Museum of Finland.

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Gilt-leather Embroideries able to read and write Latin compiled the texts, but that the people who created the embroideries were not necessarily literate. DATING THE MEDIEVAL GILT-LEATHER EMBROIDERIES

Only one of the embroideries has been carbon-dated, namely the Skepptuna coverlet, which was dated to the period 1440–1620, but with 68 percent certainty of a date before 1530.28 The Östra Stenby textile, no longer extant, was dated by reference to two featured coats-of-arms belonging to Torgils Knutsson and Hedvig von Ravensberg. The couple married in Stockholm in 1303, as is mentioned in The Eric Chronicle. Torgils Knutsson hailed from Östra Stenby, where the couple made their home after the wedding. Their families had no other ties, and it is likely that the coverlet was created in connection with this marriage.29 The Skokloster 1 textile was dated to the first quarter of the fourteenth century by Carl af Ugglas, as the motifs have significant similarities to the painted interiors of two nearby churches.30 Agnes Geijer dated the Dalhem 1 coverlet and the Skokloster 2 textile to the latter half of the fourteenth century or the early fifteenth century, based on their styles. The style of the Sauvo textile suggests a date in the fifteenth century.31 The Aspö, Dalhem 2, Bysta, and Kiikaala textiles, all from the fourth group, without cut-out pattern pieces but displaying similar couched work to the other gilt-leather coverlets, are dated to the early sixteenth century.32 We propose that the embroideries that include cut-out pattern shapes and have a lot of decoration, as exemplified by the Östra Stenby and Hög textiles, are the oldest. The Dalhem 1 coverlet and Masku textile, both from the second group, have fewer cut-out shapes, and therefore we believe them to be later than the Östra Stenby and Hög pieces. Embroideries that display a more stylized design, as exemplified by the Skepptuna coverlet and Ilsbo textile, are later than the embroideries with a large number of cut-out shapes. The embroideries that consist of only couched work, with no cut-out shapes, are usually dated to the early sixteenth century. We find that this dating chronology concurs well with our thoughts that gilt-leather embroideries were more complex in the early fourteenth century and became more simplified over time. Inventories in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries describe items that show widespread survival of this type of embroidery. Several of the descriptions included in these inventories specify that the embroideries are old-fashioned in their character.33

28 Margareta Nockert and Göran Possnert, Att datera textilier (Hedemora, Sweden: Gidlund, 2002), 99–100. 29 Branting and Lindblom, Medeltida bonader, 53–74. 30 Carl R. af Ugglas, “Till dateringen av våra medeltida mosaik: Och applikationsbroderier,” Fornvännen (1930): 372–76. 31 Pylkkänen, Medieval Rugs, 14–17. 32 Branting and Lindblom, Medeltida bonader, 53–74; Pylkkänen, Medieval Rugs, 17–18. 33 Pylkkänen, Medieval Rugs, 27.

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Amica Sundström and Maria Neijman USE AND FUNCTION OF MEDIEVAL GILT-LEATHER EMBROIDERIES

The function of the embroideries has been frequently discussed. Amongst other ideas and already noted at the beginning of the article, it has been suggested that the coverlets were used as wedding canopies, known as brudpällar in Swedish. Other suggestions have included their use as tapestries, cushions, and antependia.34 It is unlikely that the coverlets were used as hanging tapestries given their construction with seams that hold the embroideries together joining the pieces edge to edge, with hardly any seam allowances. Very little strain could be applied to these seams before they came apart. Even though the gilt-leather coverlets are not made from two layers of fabric, which would be the case with strictly appliqué embroideries, their size means that they are relatively heavy. In addition, there is no indication that the coverlets were ever lined, which makes it unlikely that they were used as wall hangings. The only coverlet that has something that could be interpreted as part of a lining is the Ilsbo textile, which still retains a very narrow strip of linen fabric attached along one edge. The Aspö textile and Skokloster 2 textile exist as cushions, and both retain their red leather backing. The Aspö textile, belonging to the fourth group, defined as being without cut-out pattern pieces, consists of a single gilt-leather embroidery, meaning that there was never a second square to account for. The design covers the entire surface of the cushion, and the assembly is still in its original form as a cushion. The final use of the Skokloster 2 textile seems to have been a cushion too (fig. 5.6). Today, the pieces are sewn together along just one out of four sides, and the size of the cushion seems not to have been adapted to the embroidery, as the design is larger than the back of the cushion. The Skokloster 2 textile belongs to the second group, featuring cut-out pattern shapes, so there was once another square with inverted colors, corresponding to the preserved item. The text on the embroidery, Sacerdotes et leuite ministri domini [Priests and Levites, servants of God] indicates that the embroidery had religious significance. In the Skokloster Church, where the cushion was, prior to relocation to the museum, there is a medieval bishop’s chair, painted in the same colors as the preserved cushion. As to the use of the gilt-leather coverlets as antependia, the Skepptuna coverlet is mentioned in several inventories as an antependium used for the church altar.35 The same is true for the Dalhem 1 coverlet.36 Antependium etymologically references something hanging down (pendere) before or in front of (ante) [something], and in the vocabulary of the medieval church was a term for an altar frontal. If such an item is conceived of as simply hanging vertically in front of an altar, some of the reservations about a coverlet’s use as a hanging would still apply. However, if the textile covered both the top of an altar and the front of it as one piece, the reservations recede. As noted earlier, the term coverlet or täcke indicates that the embroideries were used to cover something. Medieval sources have separate words for covers, bedcovers,

34 Wollin, Stugukläder, 37–39; Branting and Lindblom, Medeltida bonader, 54–57. 35 Recorded in the museum’s catalogue. 36 Recorded in the museum’s catalogue.

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Gilt-leather Embroideries and hangings, for example in the will of Jöns Pettersson in 1378.37 Therefore, the term can be interpreted as indicating that gilt-leather coverlets were created to lie on and over something. Supporting the idea that they were made to cover the top of an altar, the Östra Stenby textile, discovered in 1846 by Nils Månsson Mandelgren, was “nailed underneath other textiles covering the altar,” according to Agnes Branting and Andreas Lindblom.38 Persuasively, three of the gilt-leather coverlets—Dalhem 1 (fig. 5.11), Dalhem 2, and Skepptuna—have prominent wax droplets on them, as if a candle had dripped on them. The drops are located on the area of the coverlets that would have been on top of an altar, rather than on the part that would have hung down over the front of the altar. Another possible use for the coverlets may have been as funeral palls, with the corresponding Swedish term päll. The old meaning of päll is to cover something, and terms such as båre päll, bårapäll, and likpäll are all synonyms for bårtäcke, meaning a funeral pall.39 The two re-created coverlets, Dalhem 1 and Skepptuna, discussed below, have since been borrowed and used as funeral palls a number of times, and were placed on the coffins during the ceremonies. The coffins were amply covered by the coverlets, and their size fits the shape of a coffin very well, making this another plausible use. THE RECONSTRUCTION PROJECT

Re-creation of two gilt-leather coverlets The gilt-leather coverlets are indeed magnificent textiles from the Middle Ages. Their style and naive expression are most appealing, as is their extraordinary amount of detail. Even at a distance, their composition is impressive, and up close the artistry and details are fascinating. The gilt-leather coverlets speak to our imagination, and, as they have now lost much of their original splendor, we were eager to see what they may have looked like when new. The idea of being able to lay eyes on something resembling the once-magnificent originals was a motivating force. The sewing techniques used in gilt-leather coverlets are relatively simple and are quite similar to those used for making medieval clothes by hand. Even if we were not trained embroiderers, we believed our knowledge of sewing, weaving, dyeing, and medieval aesthetics would go far within a reconstruction project of this magnitude. Following our analysis of the Skepptuna coverlet, we had reached the conclusion that several people were probably involved in its construction, and we felt that a reconstruction project would benefit from similarly involving a group of people. Therefore, we invited a number of participants to contribute. We sent an invitation to thirty people 37 Stockholm, Swedish National Archives, Diplomatarium Suecanum Main Catalogue (SDHK), no. 11217, May 3, 1378, Strängnäs, issued by Jöns Petersson, canon of Strängnäs and priest in Vadsbro. The original refers to “tre sängtäcken, ett täcke, en väggbonad” [three bedcovers, one coverlet, one hanging]. 38 Branting and Lindblom, Medeltida bonader, 53–74. 39 Pylkkänen, Medieval Rugs, 27.

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Fig. 5.11: Detail of the original Dalhem 1 coverlet showing wax stains. Photo: Amica Sundström and Maria Neijman, courtesy of the Swedish History Museum.

whom we knew would be interested in doing the sewing and embroidery and, in addition, had an appreciation for medieval aesthetics. Our ambition was to re-create the Skepptuna coverlet, which consists of twenty-four squares and four borders. We were hoping that about twelve people would be interested in participating in the project. As it turned out, we had very much underestimated the interest, as all but two of the people asked said yes. This meant that the number of participants was greater than the number of squares of the Skepptuna coverlet. Instead of excluding any would-be participants, we chose to re-create an additional coverlet, the Dalhem 1 coverlet. The work was undertaken on a volunteer basis, but the Swedish History Museum offered to provide workshop space and an opportunity to exhibit the coverlets once they were finished. When the project began in Spring 2015, both of the original coverlets were on display at the museum—something that was important to us, as we wished to give participants an opportunity to study the coverlets for themselves, and compare and adapt the designs for their chosen squares. In the same way that the original squares had their own personalities, we wanted the hands of individual participants to shine through in the reconstructions. The ambition was never to produce exact copies of the originals, but rather to approximate the unique individual appearance of the squares by organizing get-togethers where participants could discuss and debate their work. 136

Gilt-leather Embroideries There were, however, elements that we considered crucial in order for the reconstructions to be credible interpretations of the originals. Among these were the choice of fabrics, the use of plant dyes, the use of gilt-leather strips of varying widths, and the distribution of work among different people. We felt these factors would all be vital to the end results. At the outset of the project, we ordered white fabrics in a number of different qualities, both tabby and twill, to match the originals. The white fabrics were cut into squares and dyed. For red squares the fabrics were dyed with madder, and for blue ones, with indigo. The blue colors of the original coverlets were likely dyed with woad, but this was one of the exceptions we had to make due to budget restrictions. The blue squares of the Dalhem 1 coverlet are very dark, and we managed to achieve this color by over-dyeing with walnut shells, after the fabric had first been dyed with indigo. Together, these dyes produce a very dark shade of blue. The green fabrics were dyed with weld and then overdyed with indigo. We dyed the fabrics on three different occasions, since we wished to produce slight variations within each color, which we felt would benefit the overall impression of the finished result. During our initial meeting at the Swedish History Museum, all participants practiced the techniques by making a sample. We held a presentation on the context and history of the coverlets, and participants chose which animal or border they wished to re-create. They chose either one square from the Dalhem coverlet, or a pair of matching squares from the Skepptuna coverlet. The first step was to draw up all the squares, with all the different animal figures in the correct size. Participants had the opportunity to adjust their drawings in relation to the originals at the museum. The work on the coverlets carried on throughout the spring. Every three weeks, the participants gathered at the museum to share experiences and ask questions. Our meetings were open to the visitors to the museum, who could follow the ongoing work and ask questions about the project. In periods between the public meetings at the museum, many participants met together in order to work on and discuss their embroidery. The meetings were important to the participants for exchanging information and discussing experiences, above all regarding the decorative elements of the embroideries. As project leaders, we encouraged participants to make stitches that felt personally comfortable to them in length and spacing. This was in order to achieve the same variation as is displayed in the originals. Results and reflections The time spent to re-create the Skepptuna coverlet amounted to approximately 650 hours, including pattern transfer, cutting, sewing, and assembly. For the Dalhem 1 coverlet, these tasks amounted to approximately 750 hours. Despite the fact that none of the participants had any significant experience of the sewing techniques used, we sensed that the majority quickly increased their working speed and improved their skill level. If we had initiated another reconstruction project with the same participants immediately after this one, it would likely have required significantly less time. Apart from the tasks listed above, the dyeing of the fabrics totaled thirty-two hours. 137

Amica Sundström and Maria Neijman Completion of the initial pattern drawings for the coverlets amounted to thirty-two hours. The work involved in cutting gilt-leather strips for the two coverlets took approximately sixteen hours. Not counted in these totals is the time spent on decision-making, in which participants jointly identified problems, pondered, discussed, tried solutions, and evaluated results. Even if the discussions and meetings took up a lot of time, they were invaluable for the outcome of the project. In total, the two coverlets required 1,480 working hours to make, which is around some 185 working days. The work could probably have been executed more quickly if a small number of people had been assigned to work on the project full-time, but there are no visual clues that indicate the originals were made by a small number of people; however, it is also rather unlikely that twenty-eight different people were involved. During our analyses of the originals, we identified some six or eight sewing styles per coverlet. The process of reconstruction has improved our understanding of the originals. At an early stage, we realized that it would be important to work out thoroughly the shapes of the motifs, in order to capture the desired visual expression. The shapes could not simply be copied from the originals, but we had to re-create the shapes of the motifs as originally cut, before they were stitched into place. The sewing technique automatically gave any motif a more rounded shape, which needed to be taken into account when creating a pattern in order to avoid distorting the shape of, for example, an animal. Once a motif was attached to its square, it became plain that decorations were required to give the impression of a complete animal, and not just a silhouette. The gilt-leather strips served as outlines, but also created a border between the animals’ different body parts, such as legs, ears, manes, and jawlines (figs. 5.12 and 5.13). In addition, the reconstructions (figs. 5.14 and 5.15) provided an understanding of the highly skilled craftwork of the originals and of how those who created the textiles achieved the magnificent effect of gilt-leather coverlets. At first, when the central motif is simply attached to the ground fabric, the result is less than striking. Only when decorations are added do the squares and animals truly come alive, as if the white details, the eyes and mouths, and the gilt-leather strips breathe life into the animals. In candlelight, the gold enhances the effect. The variation between the different creatures, and the fact that each square has its own decoration, provides the viewer with countless things to discover. Draped over the top and front of an altar, or over the top and sides of a coffin, such coverlets would have been made to be seen from a distance. Yet up close, the coverlets reveal further beautiful details that cannot be seen from a distance. A key factor to the successful outcome of the project was the commitment and joy of all those involved. The project would have been impossible without their efforts, and the organizers are most grateful for the time that everyone invested in their work. We are convinced that the result came out as well as it did because so many people contributed so positively.

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Fig. 5.12: Example of a reconstructed square of the Dalhem 1 coverlet before decoration. Reconstructed embroidery by Elin Jantze. Photo: Elin Jantze, by permission.

Fig. 5.13: Example of a reconstructed square of the Dalhem 1 coverlet after decoration. Reconstructed embroidery by Elin Jantze. Photo: Elin Jantze, by permission.

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Fig. 5.14: The finished reconstruction of the Skepptuna coverlet with 24 squares in red and blue and four green borders, with gilt-leather strips sewn as decorations. Photo: Ulf Bodin, by permission.

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Fig. 5.15: The finished reconstruction of the Dalhem 1 coverlet. Photo: Ulf Bodin, by permission.

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Amica Sundström and Maria Neijman RECONSTRUCTION AS A TEXTILE RESEARCH METHOD

We are both curious about and interested in the processes of working and construction, and, therefore, using reconstruction as a research method came naturally to us. In reconstructing a textile item, questions regularly occur and need answers in order for the work to proceed. The answers may be found by studying original artifacts and by looking for references in visual and written sources. The participants’ experiences of the reconstruction work and processes increases the understanding of how the originals (in this case, the coverlets) were produced, and what they originally looked like when complete and new. Through their individual work, many participants in our project felt a connection to the original textiles, and many thoughts were shared about how and in what circumstances the coverlets were originally produced. As the project has come to an end, and we analyze and reflect upon the work, we realize that many of the answers we were looking for were there before us the whole time, in the original coverlets. However, it was only after questions were formulated that we understood this was the case. It was then also clear when the originals could not provide answers and we were forced to look elsewhere, in other sources. The embroideries made us consider new areas of source material, such as painting and stonemasonry, to which, originally, we did not think we would have to turn. We came to appreciate that the medieval idiom was not always determined by material or medium, but that the same imagery may feature in many different settings. The practical work has provided experience and an understanding of the material. It increased understanding about which parameters mattered most for the final visual expression of the embroideries. Variations in thickness of the gilt-leather strips, differences in the “handwriting” of different embroiderers’ stitches, use of several fabric qualities and dyeing processes, and the way the embroideries were overseen emerged as the most vital parameters. The reconstructed embroideries were made from two different types of wool. This, when compared to the originals, affects the final visual impression, resulting in a “flatter” look in the reconstructed coverlets. The many different styles of sewing displayed in the original embroideries provided an insight into how several people were involved in their production. The visual expression of the embroideries we made was much enhanced by the different sewing styles our participants used in making them. Finally, it was interesting to discover how much the reconstruction required leadership and organization in order to carry it out, despite the fact that the actual work was done by separate individuals. It is likely that the production of the originals, too, required the same organization. We hold that we have learned more about the originals precisely because the reconstructions were made, and because many people were involved in their production. The tangible result of the project was, of course, the two lovely coverlets, but the most important thing gained was the knowledge generated by the project, both for us and for the participants. We cannot thank them enough for their efforts. The authors thank the participants in the reconstruction project: Agnes Bohman Boyle, Amica Sundström, Anders Klintholm Lilliehöök, Anna Malmborg, Anna Odlinge,

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Gilt-leather Embroideries Anna Sönsteby Lilliehöök, Barbro Bornsäter Mellbin, Elin Jantze, Eva Eriksson, Fia Makalös Lindblom, Hannah Ström, Ida Berg, Ingela Wahlberg, Kerstin Petersson, Khelan Butén, Lena Dahren, Lia de Thornegge, Linnea Vennström, Magdalena Fick, Maria Fransson, Maria Neijman, René Guthof, Sofia Berg, Thérèse Pettersson, Tove Kluge, Ulrika Mårtensson, Vea Collins, Ylva Nellmar.

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From Hennin to Hood: An Analysis of the Evolution of the English Hood Compared to the Evolution of the French Hood Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson

The English hood—also known as the gable hood, the kennel headdress, or the pediment headdress—and the French hood are two distinctive types of headwear associated with sixteenth-century ladies of the court and the nobility in England and France. The English hood was worn only in England, while the French hood was worn in France and spread from there to England.1 These names are inventions of more recent times when historians needed a terminology specifying the type of headwear. Contemporary sources tend to speak of “bonnets” and “caps.” This earlier terminology, however, seems to cover most types of headwear for both men and women, and so is of limited value when making detailed distinctions. In this article, the author finds the two seemingly very different hoods to have a great deal in common, including an evolutionary trail that can be traced back to the hennins of the Middle Ages. By comparing their evolution from the truncated hennin to the fully developed English hood and French hood respectively, the author found the same basic ideas and components to be present in both cultures’ fashion every step of the way. The main difference seems to be that one culture favored soft, organic movements while the other was partial to straight lines.

The basic ideas in this article were presented in July 2017 at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds. The author wishes to thank Monica L. Wright, Cordelia Warr, Gale Owen-Crocker, Robin Netherton, and the anonymous referees for their most helpful and inspirational feedback and further discussions. The author would also like to thank Peter R. Davies, Peter Lagan, Judith Perkins, David Seacombe, Marian Henshell, Julia Curtis, Jane Hatton, and Hugh Dove for taking the trouble to investigate and send photographs of specific details of tomb effigies at the author’s request. Finally the author would like to remember Johnny Stenspil Jensen who in spite of his terminal illness insisted on carrying out the task of making a tutorial video to accompany this article, explaining the author’s experimental reconstruction of an English hood. Without him the video would not have been created. 1

“France” should here be understood in the widest possible terms to include all Francophone parts of Europe.

Hennin to Hood Presenting a timeline for the evolution of the English and French hoods, this paper seeks to track the intercultural inspiration in the development of the styles, with panels and bags still echoing parts of the truncated and transitional hennins. The paper also offers a possible explanation for the differences between the English hood and the French hood. Special attention is given to the English hood while referring to the author’s previous research into the French hood.2 THE SOURCES

This paper is based primarily on the study of portrayals of ladies from ca. 1470 to the late 1560s. Two-dimensional portraits in various media as well as sculpted effigies have been studied in detail to gain an understanding of the headwear’s anatomy and construction. This research included obtaining as much information as possible about each portrayal and the sitter in order to establish its value as a reliable source. Most of the illustrations in this article are the author’s line drawings after painted portraits, artists’ preparatory drawings, and funerary art (including brasses, incised slabs, and sculpted effigies). When an understanding of the headwear’s construction required a view from a specific angle, the author contacted local people who kindly responded by sending clarifying photographs. Painted portraits especially can be difficult to interpret if their colors are very dark, so the process often involved digitally lightening a photograph of a portrait, which then revealed enough details for a line drawing to be made. The process of making a line drawing brought the author close to all the details in a portrayal, and the result gives a clear picture of the author’s perception. Portraits painted from life are few and primarily represent royalty and donors of altarpieces. Images representing the dead are quite common, but should not necessarily be understood in terms of a personal likeness. In England, tomb effigies of varying artistic quality are found in old churches all over the country. Effigies were intended to present the deceased as they wished to be remembered, good Christians whose souls deserved to be evoked in prayer. A person commemorated in an effigy would be kept in sight, and thus in mind, of the local worshipers and, hopefully, in their prayers. Among the important things to portray in an effigy were piety, pedigree, and social rank. Piety would include renouncing ostentatious attire, pride being one of the seven deadly sins, so it would seem fair to conclude that effigies generally present a modest version of the styles worn by the living in a secular context. Three-dimensional monuments of high quality are a treasure to any costume historian, as they allow views from angles rarely presented in drawings, paintings, or brass effigies. To the author’s knowledge, Hans Holbein’s undated sketch of a lady of the court (fig. 6.1) is the only extant two-dimensional testimony portraying the back

2

Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson, “Hidden in Plain Black: The Secrets of the French Hood,” Medieval Clothing and Textiles 14 (2018): 141–77.

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Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson of an English hood from the court of Henry VIII.3 Based on details described below, the author would date this drawing to the late 1520s. Three stone tomb monuments portraying four wives of knights allow a view to the back of seemingly earlier versions of the English hood in which the panel (described below as a part of the English hood’s anatomy) is still long and its ends pulled back to form a vertical twin (that is, two-part) fall. The portrayal of Ann(e) Leigh (d. 1557; fig. 6.2) has been heavily restored with paint obscuring the details;4 the portrayals of Sir Richard Shirley’s two wives, Elizabeth Gifford (or Guildford; 1488–after 1518) and Anne Shelley (1481–ca. 1525), are rather crude;5 whilst the portrayal of Jane Shirley (or Sherley; 1484–1533) is easier to interpret.6 The apparently outdated style of these four ladies, when compared to Holbein’s drawing, might reflect a difference between court fashion in the capital and fashion for knights’ wives in the countryside of Sussex and the Isle of Wight.7 Another explanation, apart from a few more listed below, might be a deliberate aim for an outdated style, thus keeping sinful pride at a safe distance.8 This leaves Holbein’s sketch as a very important source of information about the iconic English hood’s construction and its fabric. Regarding funeral effigies as indisputable evidence of the fashion in the year of the portrayed person’s death would be jumping to conclusions. A knight would be presented in his armor, which he would probably not have worn away from battle or tournaments. A lady holding the title of duchess or countess would most likely be portrayed wearing a crown or coronet to match her rank. A crown puts a limit to the choice of headwear for her memorial, as the two items would have to co­operate. This can be seen in the case of Mary, duchess of Burgundy (1457–82), whose crown encircles the base of her hennin (fig. 6.3),9 and in that of Frances Brandon (1517–59), duchess of Suffolk, whose effigy shows her wearing a heavily embroidered alternative to a French hood (fig. 6.4).10 Another option was to alter the traditional shape and position of the crown to make it work with the headdress. Joan Neville (ca. 1424–62), countess of Arundel, is shown wearing an elongated crown shaped to follow a 1470s styling of a transparent veil on top of a cylindrical flowerpot hennin (fig. 6.5).11 Anne of York (1439–76), duchess of 3 4

London, British Museum, no. 1895,0915.991. Effigy of Sir James Worsley (d. 1538/45) and Ann(e) Leigh, All Saints Church, Godshill, Isle of Wight, Hampshire. 5 Effigy of Sir Richard Shirley (ca. 1478–1540) and his wives, Elizabeth Gifford/Guildford and Anne Shelley, St. Mary’s Church, Wiston, Sussex. 6 Effigy of Sir John Dawtrey (ca. 1470–1542) and Jane Shirley/Sherley, St. Mary’s Church, Petworth, Sussex. 7 Pamela Anne Walker, “Fashioning Death: The Choice and Representation of Female Clothing on English Medieval Funeral Monuments 1250–1450” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Manchester, 2012), 36–37. 8 Ibid., 93. 9 Statue of Mary of Burgundy by Gilg Sesselschreiber, 1513–16, Hofkirche, Innsbruck, Austria. 10 Effigy of Frances Brandon, Westminster Abbey, London. 11 Effigy of William Fitzalan (d. 1487) and Joan Neville, Fitzalan Chapel, Church of St. Nicholas, Arundel Castle, Arundel, Sussex.

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Fig. 6.1 (left): A lady of the court viewed from the back, after a drawing by Hans Holbein the Younger (British Museum, London, no. 1895,0915.991). Fig. 6.2 (right): Anne (or Ann) Leigh (d. 1557), wife of Sir James Worsley (d. 1538/45), after her tomb effigy, All Saints Church, Godshill, Isle of Wight, Hampshire. All drawings accompanying this article are by Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson.

Exeter through her first marriage, is portrayed with her crown sitting vertically on the bag of her headwear—although the version of the English hood depicted here was not worn until about a quarter of a century after her death (fig. 6.6).12 This leads to the problem of using funeral effigies for dating a specific fashion. An effigy could be commissioned by the person, or one of the persons, it represents and even created within their lifetime,13 and would probably portray the fashion at the time of the commission. It could be ordered by a widow or widower shortly after the death of a spouse, in which case it seems fair to assume that the attire portrayed would be that in use close to the year of death. An effigy could be commissioned by a son or another relation of a deceased couple; this might be done immediately 12 Brass effigy of Thomas St. Leger (d. 1483) and Anne of York, Rutland Chantry, St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, Berkshire. 13 An example is the brass portraying Thomas Pownder and his family. See Malcolm Norris, Brass Rubbing (New York: Dover, 1965), 36 and 41.

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Fig. 6.3 (top left): Mary of Burgundy (1457–82), after a statue by Gilg Sesselschreiber, 1513–16, Hofkirche, Innsbruck, Austria. Fig. 6.4 (top right): Frances Brandon (1517–59), wife of Adrian Stokes, duchess of Suffolk by her first marriage to Henry Grey, duke of Suffolk, after her effigy in Westminster Abbey. Fig. 6.5 (bottom left): Joan Neville, countess of Arundel (ca. 1424–62), after her effigy in the Fitzalan Chapel, Church of St. Nicholas, Arundel Castle, Arundel, Sussex. Fig. 6.6 (bottom right): Anne of York (1439–76), wife of Sir Thomas St. Leger, duchess of Exeter, after her brass effigy in the Rutland Chantry, St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, Berkshire.

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Hennin to Hood after the death of the remaining spouse, when the time was right financially,14 or at another time long after the death of the persons in question.15 Due to the methods used in the workshops involved, brass effigies, especially, should be approached as less reliable portrayals of the favored fashion in the year of the commemorated person’s death.16 Effigies created long after the person’s death could be made in the fashion of the time at which the memorial was created, or could be designed to look old-fashioned in an attempt to better represent the deceased. The former seems to be the case with the brass effigy to Anne of York (fig. 6.6). Here the style of her headdress is a match to a number of effigies portraying ladies who passed away between ca. 1505 and ca. 1515. Anne’s second husband, Thomas St. Leger, died in 1483. Had he commissioned the brass whilst a widower, her headdress would probably look like that of Margaret Agard (1441–1500; fig. 6.7).17 Anne St. Leger, the only daughter of Anne of York and Thomas St. Leger, married George Manners, presumably about 1490, and he inherited the title of Baron de Ros (or Roos) from his uncle, Edmund de Ros, in 1508.18 The author speculates that this new title, and the wealth which went with it, might have inspired the eleventh Baron de Ros to commission a memorial to his parents-in-law in the St. Leger Chantry (now the Rutland Chantry) in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle. This chantry was founded by Thomas St. Leger and also holds an elaborate chest tomb portraying George Manners and Anne St. Leger. Another possible reason for the outfit in a memorial not automatically reflecting the latest fashion would be that an older person is less likely to adopt a new fashion.19 14 Money was short for a grand memorial to John Paston, which was at least ten years late, if it was ever created. Colin Richmond, The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century, vol. 2: Fastolf ’s Will (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 45–46. 15 Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, unjustly executed for treason in 1547, was buried in the Tower of London. His body was brought to Framlingham, Suffolk, in 1614, to a grand monument erected by his son. John Martin Robinson, The Dukes of Norfolk (Chichester, UK: Phillimore, 1995), 42, 50–51. 16 Malcolm Norris, Monumental Brasses: The Memorials I (London: Phillips & Page, 1977), 132–33, 268, and 274–76. 17 Incised slab of John Rolleston (d. 1485) and Margaret Agard, St. Mary’s Church, Rolleston, Staffordshire. 18 Sir Bernard Burke, Burke’s Genealogical and Heraldic History of Peerage, Baronetage of the British Empire, 30th Edition (London: Harrison & Sons, 1868), 322. 19 Although the mortality rate among younger women was high compared to our time, the predominantly youthful look of women on effigies did not necessarily reflect a high proportion of women who died young. Effigies of older women were often shown without aging faces. This could be based on the medieval doctrine that thirty-three was the age of Christ at the time of his crucifixion and resurrection. Following his example, thirty-three would be the age of any resurrected Christian, which would mean that effigies should portray the deceased as they would look in eternal life; see Emile Mâle, L’Art Religieux de la Fin du Moyen Age (Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, 1908), 434. Another explanation could be a tradition of flattering idealization in funeral effigies; ibid., 459. Or this practice may simply reflect the observation that the face of a person can look surprisingly young in death.

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Fig. 6.7: Margaret Agard (1441–1500), wife of John Rolleston (d. 1485), after their incised slab, St. Mary’s Church, Rolleston, Staffordshire.

An elderly lady might still keep to the fashions of past times, and a modern look could thus be discarded in favor of an older one for the lady’s memorial. One such case is the brass memorial to John Gage, Esquire, and his two wives in St. Peter’s Church, Firle, East Sussex. In correspondence with the workshop responsible for the memorial, he rejected the first preparatory drawing involving heart-shaped wired hair and French farthingales and gave specific instructions describing an older look for the appearances of his wives.20 To the author’s knowledge, no painted devotional portrait of a woman who had not taken the vow of chastity has survived on British soil to allow a comparison to the fashions found in effigies. In francophone parts of the continent, however, altarpieces with donor portraits seem to have survived in a higher number than effigies. And in both cultures a secular portrait is very rare prior to the 1520s. So there is room for speculation regarding whether or not fashions found in funeral effigies and devotional portraits would be identical to fashions worn outside of a religious context.

20 Malcolm Norris, Monumental Brasses: The Craft (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1978), 93.

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Hennin to Hood THE ANATOMIC SIMILARITIES OF THE ENGLISH HOOD AND THE FRENCH HOOD

To the author’s knowledge, no English or French hood has survived. Fortunately both types of headwear have been portrayed in detail by skilled artists. The most striking feature of the iconic English hood (fig. 6.8) is the gable-shaped edge, where pearls, precious stones in gold settings, and cloth-of-gold lappets form a frame of four (almost) straight lines and three angles around the lady’s face. A striped frontlet attached inside the gabled front blocks the view to the lady’s hair.21 In contrast to this, the French hood (fig. 6.9) offers a crescent of silk satin and two rows of pearls and precious stones in gold settings behind a pleated ribbon, the creppin, leaving a significant amount of the lady’s hair on display. In both types of headwear, an oreillette covers the ears,22 and the rear part is a black hood. In the author’s interpretation, the black hood in both styles consists of a bag, a fall, and a panel. The panel is covered by the lappets in the iconic English hood. The panel of the French hood is decorated with a jeweled edge (the upper billiment). This decoration is mirrored in the English hood by the lappets, formed by a single elongated rectangle made from rich fabric in a patterned weave. The oreillette of the French hood is decorated along its front edge with another crescent of pearls or goldsmith’s work (the lower billiment), which is matched by the English hood’s gable-shaped edge of pearls. The pleating of the French hood’s creppin gives a striped impression as it forms a bridge between the oreillette and the lady’s hair. In the English hood, this is mirrored by the frontlet of striped fabric forming a bridge between the gabled frame and the lady’s forehead.23 Thus, although the same components are found in the two hoods, they still look quite different. THE TRUNCATED HENNINS

The truncated hennin in its early form is found in French portraits dating from between ca. 1445 and ca. 1465. It is basically a tall cone shape leaning slightly backwards, with a transparent veil draped on top (fig. 6.10). The hennin is about as tall as the lady’s head measured from the chin to the crown, and its circumference at the base equals the circumference of the lady’s head. Any hair that might not be covered by the hennin has been removed, leaving a very high forehead and both ears in plain view. A 21 This is elsewhere interpreted as braids. Ninya Mikhaila and Jane Malcolm-Davies, The Tudor Tailor (London: Batsford, 2006), 147. 22 In the author’s interpretation, the oreillette of the French hood is a coif that covers the ears (oreille is French for “ear”). Although it seems odd to use a French word when describing a part of a distinctly English hood, the term will be used in this paper to ease a comparison to the author’s construction theory regarding the French hood; Høskuldsson, “Hidden in Plain Black,” 144–46. 23 An inventory indicates that they could also come without stripes. Muriel St. Clare Byrne, The Lisle Letters, 6 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 6:203.

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Fig. 6.8 (top): The visible parts of the English hood, also known as the gable hood, after a portrait of Mary Wotton, Lady Guildford, by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1527 (St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri, no. 1:1943). Fig. 6.9 (bottom): The visible parts of the French hood, after a portrait drawing of Diane de Poitiers (1500–66) by Jean Clouet, ca. 1520 (Musée Condé, Chantilly, France, no. MN 273).

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Fig. 6.10: Isabel of Bourbon (ca. 1436–65), Countess of Charolais (1454–65), second wife of Charles the Bold, after a diptych by an unidentified artist (Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent, Belgium, no. S-99).

small semicircle at the front edge at the center of the lady’s forehead is, in the author’s interpretation, a glimpse of a metal frame holding the headwear in place. A similar if not identical silhouette, adding only half of the height of the lady’s head, is found in English funeral effigies such as the alabaster portrayal of Elizabeth Marshall (d. 1490; fig. 6.11).24 Again, the hennin goes around the circumference of the lady’s head and leaves the ears in plain view, with all uncovered hair removed. This hennin seems to come further down the lady’s forehead for a firmer grip. Whereas the French truncated hennin forms a smooth cone shape, the English hennin clearly has an indentation along the center front. When covered by a draped opaque veil, this creates a cone-shaped silhouette with a dent at the top. The author’s interpretation of the two hennins is that the French truncated hennin is created from a single trapezoid 24 Effigy of Ralph Fitzherbert (d. 1483/4), Lord of Norbury Manor, and Elizabeth Marshall, Church of St. Mary and St. Barlok, Norbury, Derbyshire. Similar headwear is found in the effigies to Elizabeth Wynnington (ca. 1428–78), St. John the Baptist Church, Kinlet, Shropshire; to Elizabeth Devereux (1413–75) wife of Sir John Milbourne (ca. 1404–35), St. Mary’s Church, Burghill, Herefordshire; to an unidentified lady, All Saints Church, Grendon, Warwickshire; to a lady thought to be Elizabeth Popham (ca. 1410–76), wife of John Wadham (Sir John III) (ca. 1402–76), St. Peter’s Church, Ilton, Somerset; and to the wife of Sir Thomas Greene (1400–62), traditionally said to be Philippa Ferrers (ca. 1393–1427), whereas the author speculates that it could be his second wife Marina Bellers (ca. 1414–89), St. Bartholomew’s Church, Greens Norton, Northamptonshire.

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Fig. 6.11: Side and top views of the headdress of Elizabeth Marshall (d. 1490), wife of Ralph Fitzherbert (d. 1483/4), after her tomb effigy, Church of St. Mary and St. Barlok, Norbury, Derbyshire, and a plaster cast (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, no. Repro.A.1916-214).

shape, while the English hennin is created very much like a bishop’s mitre, only rotated to locate the peaks at the sides of the head. French portraits dating from between ca. 1465 and ca. 1485 present the hennin with a narrower cone shape. By the late 1470s, the base of the hennin had shrunk to match three-quarters of the circumference of the lady’s head. It had been tilted backwards to an angle of about 45 degrees, and it had been embedded at the base in a cuff, much shorter than the hennin itself (fig. 6.12). The author finds this hennin cuff of the late 1470s to be the part that would develop into the bag of the French hood over the following forty years. Another addition is a long panel covering the top of the lady’s head, her hair, and her ears. The panel appears to have been stitched to the base of the cuff and folded back away from her face. It would follow the curve of the head from the top, going down at either side before disappearing behind her shoulders. This would have left a large window open showing the back of the lady’s neck if the ends of the panel had not been brought together to form a fall. A statue portraying Mary of Burgundy allows an interpretation of this early version of the fall (fig. 6.3). THE FLOWERPOT HENNIN AND CYLINDRICAL HENNINS

If avoiding any display of hair was a major issue with the taller hennins, a new style worn in quite a few portraits painted in the francophone part of the Netherlands between ca. 1473 and ca. 1485 must have been a rather daring fashion. The narrow 154

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Fig. 6.12 (left): Maria Baroncelli, wife of the Florentine banker Tommaso Portinari (ca. 1424–1501), after her representation in the Portinari Triptych, by Hugo van der Goes, ca. 1475 (Uffizi, Florence, no. 1890-3192). Fig. 6.13 (right): The wife of Hippolyte de Berthoz (d. 1503), Burgundian court official, after the Martyrdom of St. Hippolytus Triptych, by Dierick Bouts and Hugo van der Goes, ca. 1470–74 (St. Salvator’s Cathedral Museum, Bruges, Belgium, no. S.S.004).

hennin had lost its cuff with the attached panel and had shortened to match half the height of the lady’s head, resulting in it looking very much like an upside-down flowerpot. The lady’s hair was tightly pulled back with just a bit of it visible at the edge of the hennin. A transparent veil on top created a teasing ambiguity, as the hair was covered and simultaneously in plain view (fig. 6.13). On the right wing of the Moreel Triptych, painted by Hans Memling in 1484, the mother, Barbara van Hertsvelde, still wears the conical flowerpot hennin while her daughters wear short, cylindrical hennins resembling the pillbox hat fashionable in the 1960s.25 Taller cylindrical hennins matching half the height of the lady’s head are frequently found in English brass effigies associated with deaths between ca. 1471 and ca. 1490. This cylindrical hennin has a width closer to the circumference of the lady’s head, and it is pushed extremely far back on the head (fig. 6.14). The brass frame,

25 Bruges, Groeninge Museum, no. 0000.GRO0091.I-009.I. Hans Memling painted cylindrical hennins worn by young women as early as in the Presentation in the Temple, ca. 1470–80 (Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Samuel H. Kress Collection, no. 1961.9.28). See https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.46127.html, accessed Aug. 31, 2022.

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Fig. 6.14: One of the three elder daughters of Sir Thomas Urswyk (ca. 1415–79), after his brass effigy, 1479, Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Dagenham, Essex.

looking very much like a pair of antennae pointing backwards, keeps the hennin in place while holding a transparent veil, styled to a rigid “butterfly” shape. THE TRANSITIONAL HENNINS AND HOODS

In England, effigies associated with the period ca. 1485 to ca. 1500 present the transition where the hennin goes from being a separate item to being the box-shaped bag of a hood. It seems first to have been the early French truncated hennin that acted as an inspiration for the erect position and the cone shape, with the width matching the circumference of the lady’s head (figs. 6.15 and 6.7). Later the cone shape is lost (figs. 6.16, 6.17, and 6.18). The transitional English hennin also incorporates the panel from the late version of the French truncated hennin ca. 1465–ca. 1480 (figs. 6.3 and 6.12), only in England the panel is not gathered at the back to form a narrow fall. At first it follows the hennin’s edge to a point behind the ears and from there it keeps going outward until it ends at the far end of the lady’s shoulders (figs. 6.15, 6.17, and 6.18). This would leave the back of the lady’s neck exposed if extra fabric were not brought in to close the gap. Two-dimensional effigies (figs. 6.7 and 6.17) provide an interpretation of this additional fabric as differing from that of the hennin and the panel.26 When the English 26 The difference indicated in such images could be interpreted as a different color or a different type of weaving.

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Fig. 6.15: Margaret Cobham (d. 1471), second wife of Ralph Neville, second Earl of Westmorland (d. 1484), after photographs of her wooden tomb effigy, after 1484 (destroyed by fire in 1998), St. Brandon’s Church, Brancepeth, County Durham.

Fig. 6.16: Side and top views of the headdress of a woman said to be Joan Bagot, wife of John Curzon, thirteenth Lord of Kedleston (d. ca. 1450/1456), after her effigy, All Saints’ Church, Kedleston, Derbyshire.

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Fig. 6.17 (left): Grace Teye, Lady de Grey, after her brass effigy, ca. 1494–95, St. Peter’s Church, Merton, Norfolk. Fig. 6.18 (right): Anne Osgard (d. 1508), wife of Robert Crane (d. 1500), after her tomb effigy, St. Mary’s Church, Chilton, Suffolk.

transitional hood develops an angled shape around 1500, the panel seems to follow the edge of the bag all the way to the nape of the neck, resembling the tradition portrayed in the statue of Mary of Burgundy (fig. 6.3), only in England the ends might not be sewn together at the center back. This would leave them to drop as a vertical twin fall (fig. 6.2) as opposed to the iconic twin fall spreading widely (figs. 6.1, 6.8, and 6.19). The early transitional hennin adds a height matching three-quarters of the height of the lady’s head. This can be seen in a wooden effigy of Margaret Cobham (d. 1471; fig. 6.15) and her husband. Margaret was the wife of Ralph Neville, second Earl of Westmorland, who died in 1484. Unfortunately their effigy can today only be studied in photographs and drawings, as it was destroyed in a fire.27 An incised slab to Margaret Agard (d. 1500) and her husband, Sir John Rolleston (d. 1485) gives a two-­dimensional presentation of a similar hennin (fig. 6.7). The artist has taken the approach of presenting the sitter from more than just one angle, thus managing to portray the top of the hennin even though the lady’s head is not bent forward. The top of the hennin seems to have been created by gathering fabric at the center under a concealing button. A stone effigy said to portray Joan Bagot and her husband John Curzon, thirteenth lord of Kedleston, justice of the peace and sheriff, allows a study of a transitional 27 Matthew Ward, The Livery Collar in Late Medieval England and Wales: Politics, Identity and Affinity (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2016), 23. Photographs are available in a blog entry focused on her husband Ralph Neville, second Earl of Westmoreland, who died in 1484; see A Medieval Potpourri, July 10, 2022, https://sparkypus.com/2022/07/10/ ralph-neville-2nd-earl-of-westmorland-his-home-brancepeth-castle-and-burial-inbrancepeth-church, accessed Sept. 3, 2022.

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Fig. 6.19: A lady variously identified as Anne Boleyn, Mary Boleyn, Bessie Blount, and Catherine of Aragon, after a miniature by Lucas Horenbout, author’s dating ca. 1525 (Strawberry Hill Collection, Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University, New Haven, Conn., no. sh-000468.)

hennin’s top where the fabric is clearly supported by a rigid material and arranged to create a top from triangles (fig. 6.16).28 A problem with regarding Joan Bagot’s hennin as a firsthand depiction of her wearing a transitional hennin of the later type is that her husband died either ca. 1450 or in 1456, which is prior to the fashion of even the taller hennin in England. The inscription on the tomb, however, is incomplete, as it leaves a blank for the name for John Curzon’s wife and also a blank for the year of his death.29 The author speculates that the effigy might have been erected in the late 1480s or early 1490s. One explanation could be that John’s heir, Richard Curzon, fourteenth lord of Kedleston, took his time to raise a monument to his parents. Another explanation could be that the tomb might later have been incorrectly labeled as portraying John Curzon and Joan Bagot; the couple had another son, who was named John after his father and became a justice of the peace like him. He also married a woman named Joan (née Fitzherbert) and died in 1492.30 The author has been unable to find any record for the death of Joan Fitzherbert. The top of the transitional hennin, as shown on the monument, is created from four rigid triangles. Tops created from four rigid pieces gathered to form a cross with a large rosette at their centers are found in the effigies to Alice Gifford, wife of Sir John Anne (d. ca. 1490);31 and Elizabeth Howard, wife of 28 All Saints’ Church, Kedleston, Derbyshire. 29 Arthur Collins, Sir Egerton Brydges, Collins’s Peerage of England; Genealogical, Biographical and Historical, vol. 7 (London: F. C. and J. Rivington et al., 1812), 296. 30 Darryl Lundy, The Peerage, https://www.thepeerage.com/p57268.htm, accessed Aug. 31, 2022. 31 St. Mary’s Church, North Aston, Oxfordshire.

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Fig. 6.20: Front and top views of the headdress of Elizabeth Dacre, wife of Sir Richard Huddleston, or Margaret Neville, his mother, after the tomb effigy in Holy Trinity Church, Millom, Cumbria.

Sir Henry Wentworth (d. 1482).32 The effigy to either Elizabeth Dacre or Margaret Neville portrays a transitional hennin, where the fabric has been gathered to form a dome-shaped top (fig. 6.20).33 A large rosette on top of a double star has been placed at the center, where it might either conceal a heavy gathering or fill in a void.34 In brass effigies the dome shape with the rosette is more often found with a striped effect going up the sides of the hennin before heading for the center of the top (fig. 6.21).35

32 Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Wethersfield, Essex. The author thanks Davis Seacombe for providing photographs. 33 Sir Richard Huddleston (the Elder) died 1484/5, and his wife, Margaret Neville, died 1499. Their son, Sir Richard Huddleston (the Younger) was married to Elizabeth Dacre, and they both died ca. 1505. Holy Trinity Church, Millom, Cumbria, http://www.millomchurchofengland.org.uk/ourchurches_holytrinity.html, accessed Aug. 31, 2022. 34 A similar example is found in the effigy to Joyce Strelley (born ca. 1430), wife of Humphrey Salway/Salwey (born ca. 1421), marshall/escheator to Henry VI, in St. Mary’s Church, Stanford-on-Teme, Worcestershire. The author thanks Rev. Julia Curtis for investigating and confirming this. 35 Other examples are found in brasses portraying Jane/Elizabeth Lambert/Lambard, St. Nicholas Church, Hinxworth, Hertfordshire; Elizabeth Charles, wife of Sir Edmund Clere (d. 1488), St Andrew’s Church, Stokesby, Norfolk; Joan, wife of Geoffrey Sherard (d. 1490), St. Mary Magdalene’s Church, Stapleford, Leicestershire.

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Fig. 6.21 (left): Anne Gaynesford (d. 1490), wife of Richard Bowett, after her brass memorial, Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Checkendon, Oxfordshire. Fig. 6.22 (right): Jeanne de Laval (1433–98), second wife of René of Anjou (1409–80), after an undated portrait by Nicolas Froment in the Matheron Diptych (Musée du Louvre, Paris, no. RF 665).

The author has found no evidence of the transitional hennin with a flat top being worn in France, but a variant of the dome-shaped version appears in an undated portrait by Nicolas Froment (1435–ca. 1486; fig. 6.22). The sitter is Jeanne de Laval (1433–98), the second wife of René of Anjou (1409–80), also known as “Good King René” of Naples. Jeanne wears a narrow transitional hennin positioned far back on her head. The bag, shaped like a hybrid between a gothic window and a dome, seems to have the same circumference and position as the earlier narrow hennin (fig. 6.12) and is not quite as deep as the dome-shaped hennins found in the English effigies. The author interprets this headwear as sharing the idea of a fall created from the panel (figs. 6.2 and 6.3) with lappets on top. The portrait of Jeanne de Laval, part of the Matheron Diptych, was probably painted between 1476 and 1480.36 The facial features and the angles of portrayal match the couple’s portraits in the Burning Bush Triptych (1476) in Aix Cathedral, also painted by Nicolas Froment. The only differences apart from their attire are a few signs of aging, such as grey hair for René of Anjou, which could indicate a date later than 1476. The diptych portrait is not sufficiently detailed to give information on the construction of the dome-shaped hennin.

36 Paris, Musée du Louvre, no. RF 665. The Louvre dates it ca. 1475.

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Fig. 6.23: An unidentified young woman, after an undated painting by Jean Perréal, active 1483–1530 (Musée du Louvre, Paris, no. RF 1993-20).

From about 1490, various transitional hoods appear in France before the iconic French hood is eventually established about 1520.37 One variant forms a veil with its decorated front folded back (fig. 6.23). Another variant is a panel decorated with an edge of gold, pearls, and precious stones in front of a very long bag, shaped like the tall truncated hennin only without its rigid support (fig. 6.24). In a third style, a fairly wide veil seems to have replaced the bag in portraits from the late 1490s (fig. 6.25 and similar medals), while the fall has climbed to drop from the top of the lady’s head, and the flipped-back panel reveals the lady’s hair from forehead almost to crown. By 1500, the English transitional hennin has moved to a position at the back of the head (figs 6.17 and 6.18). This box bag shrinks to a depth of one-quarter of the lady’s head measured from the chin to the crown. Prior to forming a diamond shape around 1520 (figs. 6.1 and 6.2), the rigid bag is found in other shapes. It forms the top four sides of a hexagon in the monument portraying Margaret Dymoke (or Dymmok) in Shropshire (fig. 6.26).38 In the effigy of Alice Southill in Rutland, the box bag forms a square.39 The panel grows longer and drops over the back of the shoulder and down to about armpit level (figs. 6.27 and 6.28), and the lappets, 37 Høskuldsson, “Hidden in Plain Black,” 165. 38 Effigy of Richard Vernon (d. 1517) and Margaret Dymoke/Dymmok, St. Bartholomew’s Church, Tong, Shropshire. The author thanks Peter R. Davies for providing photographs. 39 Effigy of John Harrington (d. 1524) and Alice Southill, Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Exton, Rutland.

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Fig. 6.24 (left): Margaret of Austria (1480–1530), after a painting by Jean Hey, ca. 1490 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, no. 1975.1.130). Fig. 6.25 (right): Marguerite d’Agoulême (1492–1549), after a medal from before 1500 (viewable at www.altesses.eu/ princes_max.php?image=0112c5fcfb, accessed Nov. 16, 2021).

Fig. 6.26: Front and side views of the headdress of Margaret Dymoke/Dymmok, wife of Richard Vernon (d. 1517), after her tomb monument, St. Bartholomew’s Church, Tong, Shropshire.

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Fig. 6.27: Edith Fitzherbert (ca. 1457–1511), after her tomb monument, All Saints Church, Ashover, Derbyshire.

Fig. 6.28 (left): An unidentified lady, after a brass effigy, ca. 1520–25, St. Mary’s Church, Deerhurst, Gloucestershire. Fig. 6.29 (right): Perhaps Mary Courtenay, Lady Lisle (d. 1524), after her effigy, Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Thruxton, Hampshire.

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Hennin to Hood appearing as a decorative aspect on top of the panel close to the turn of the century (fig. 6.18), grow to match it (figs. 6.27, 6.28, and 6.29). Effigies thought to be from the first two decades of the sixteenth century portray a high peak at the center front (fig. 6.26), which requires the support of a frame of rigid material.40 The frame starts at the top of the head and goes down along the sides of the face, stopping shortly before it reaches the shoulders (figs. 6.26 and 6.27). While the front is shaped to a very high peak, a frontlet with diagonal stripes appears between the rigid frame and the lady’s head (fig. 6.26). Based on experiments, the author interprets this frontlet as two padded tubes covered with human hair and a ribbon running in a spiral movement. The tubes would be stitched to the front of a tight-fitting coif.41 The tubes overlap at the center front, filling most of the gap. The portrayal of Edith Fitzherbert (ca. 1457–1511) on her tomb monument (fig. 6.27) presents a variant in which the frontlet is a single padded tube.42 A reversed version of the high peaked front, leaving the low end at the front and the peak at the rear, is found in some effigies dated between 1510 and 1520. When first seeing this style in brasses (fig. 6.28) and incised slabs, the author interpreted it as an unconventional portrayal of the iconic gable-shaped front. The same “backwards” style is, however, also found in sculpted effigies such as that of Margaret Seymour (d. 1520) on the Isle of Wight (fig. 6.30).43 THE ICONIC ENGLISH HOOD

By around 1520 the frame has lost height, and at the same time it has gained width; the widest point is located halfway up the lady’s forehead, and from there it comes back towards her face at the cheeks (fig. 6.19). This calls for new means for keeping the frame in the right shape. The Museum of London holds a gable-shaped brass frame,44 the only archeological evidence of the gabled front. The metal frame consists of a single brass wire, folded to form three rows, and the author has copied this for an experimental reconstruction of an English hood.45 At the front, the edge of the rigid frame is decorated with fabric in a patterned weave (fig. 6.29), and the author speculates that this would be a patterned ribbon of rich material, making it the first version of a decoration later evolving into an edge of pearls. The lappets, the other decorative part, are sometimes portrayed as being quite plain (figs. 6.6 and 6.31), but more commonly they are made from rich fabric in a 40 See “Rigid Shapes Versus Organic Movement,” below. 41 The author speculates that this padded style has caused the interpretation of the frontlet as braids with ribbons as found in Mikhaila and Malcolm-Davies, Tudor Tailor, 147. 42 Effigy of Thomas Babington (d. 1518) and Edith Fitzherbert, All Saints Church, Ashover, Derbyshire. 43 Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Carisbrooke, Isle of Wight, Hampshire. 44 The Museum of London, no. Z64o, viewable online at http://collections.museumoflondon. org.uk/online/object/117855.html, accessed Aug. 31, 2022. 45 See “The Reconstruction,” below.

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Fig. 6.30 (left): Margaret Seymour (d. 1520), second wife of Sir Nicholas Wadham (ca. 1472– 1542), after her effigy, Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Carisbrooke, Isle of Wight, Hampshire. Fig. 6.31 (right): An unidentified lady, after a drawing by Hans Holbein the Younger, officially dated ca. 1532–43 (Royal Collection, London, no. RCIN 912255).

patterned weave, and by ca. 1520 the most favored pattern is one of diamond shapes. These lappets were long enough to reach the upper arm (fig. 6.29). The frontlet is by 1520 no longer formed by padded rolls. Now it consists of two sections of unpadded fabric—preferably with an outside made from striped silk—following the gabled shape while overlapping at the center front. This type of frontlet would stay with the English hood until it went out of fashion, as would the iconic diamond shape of the box bag. Probably as a consequence of the bag changing into a diamond shape, the fall changed as well. It was separated from the panel and stayed below the bag, and was split down the middle to form a twin fall. The two halves were spread apart, becoming visible from the front (figs. 6.1 and 6.19). The inside surface of the twin fall, which faced the body, would thus in part be in contact with the dress. Part of the fall’s width would be made from a smooth fabric creating a slip, probably in order to allow free movement of the head. The rest would be made from velvet: the direction of the pile would cause friction against the surface of the dress. This would keep the sides of the fall in their widely spread position, as opposed to dropping vertically under the influence of gravity. The author’s interpretation of the smooth fabric as being silk taffeta has been deduced from its matte shine in portrayals, especially preparatory 166

Hennin to Hood

Fig. 6.32 (left): Jane Seymour, after a portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1536–37 (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, no. GG 881). Fig. 6.33 (right): Margaret More (Mrs. Roper), favorite daughter of Sir Thomas More, after a drawing by Hans Holbein the Younger, ca. 1527 (Kupferstichkabinett, Kunstmuseum, Basel, Switzerland, no. 1662.31).

drawings, of English hoods. This twin fall could have been considered a daring fashion, similar to the French hood’s display of so much hair, as the back of the lady’s neck was now exposed, and even more so as the neckline of the dress would form a V at the back (fig. 6.1). About 1525 it became fashionable to turn up the ends of the lappets and pin them to the top of the gabled front (figs. 6.19, 6.31, 6.32, and 6.33). This meant that both sides of the lappets would be visible, and that they should preferably both showcase the valuable patterned fabric. It also meant that the lining of the lappets became visible. The matte shine to this usually white lining suggests silk taffeta. An exception to the above would be when the headwear was dressed down, as in the case of mourning. For such occasions both sides of the lappets would be made from plain silk (fig. 6.31). The decoration of the supportive frame changed as well. The binding of the edge with precious fabric had been replaced by a narrow, flat, forward-facing edge of pearls (figs. 6.19, 6.32, and 6.33). When the lappets were folded up, the panel beneath it was shortened to a level above the lappets’ folds, making it invisible to the spectator. This gave a clear view to the ends of the oreillette’s front pieces, which—given a decorative part to play—were now bent outwards. 167

Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson Towards the end of the 1520s the styling of the twin fall was altered as well. This was done by flipping one side of the fall upward and arranging it on top of the hood, thus leaving a single fall hanging down on the other side and breaking the Renaissance rule of a strictly symmetrical silhouette (figs. 6.31 and 6.32). In Holbein’s drawing of Margaret More, Mrs. Roper, she presents a more symmetrical styling by wearing both falls flipped to the top of her head (fig. 6.33),46 but surviving portraits presenting this styling are rare.47 A very late example of an English hood is worn by a woman identified only by her age (61 years) in the portrait of Edward Windsor, third Baron Windsor, and family from 1568 (fig. 6.34). She is portrayed against a black background, making it extremely difficult to decipher the details in the black parts of her headwear, but it looks as though both the bent ends of the oreillette and the lappets have disappeared, leaving a clear view to the now very short panel of the black hood. Only the oreillette, a ruffle playing the part of an edge of pearls, a tight-fitting coif, and a frontlet cover in one piece, are clearly defined, all of them completely white. A white covering that totally or partially conceals the frontlet is found in a few other portraits. The author speculates that this white frontlet in combination with black lappets could be interpreted as a plainer style, associated with older women and widowhood, and in some degree related to the author’s theory about signs of mourning in connection with the French hood, discussed elsewhere.48 The author believes that the same is true in relation to the combination of black lappets and the absence of an edge of pearls (as also seen in fig. 6.31). ADAPTATION OF THE FRENCH HOOD

By ca. 1520, the bag of the fully established French hood looks like the short cone shape of the soft hennin cuff; only here the far, narrow end of the cone shape leaves a horizontal line as it is sealed off by stitching from side to side to form a bag (fig. 6.35). When the French hood is introduced at the English court in the late 1520s, it is not an exact copy of the French hood as worn in France.49 For instance, the English version’s cone-shaped bag (fig. 6.36) is longer than the original French design; like a wind bag, which would be the result of removing the rigid support from the early transitional hennin (see fig. 6.15). 46 Basel, Switzerland, Kunstmuseum, Kupferstichkabinett, no. 1662.31. 47 Another example is found in a sketch by Hans Holbein portraying Jane Astley, Lady Meutas (London, Royal Collection, no. RCIN 912222). 48 Høskuldsson, “Hidden in Plain Black,” 151–59. 49 Hall’s Chronicle tells of a performance at the English court at Christmas 1512 where ladies dance wearing “French hoddes on their heddes.” It is unusual for Hall to define types of ladies’ headwear, so this must be out of the ordinary. The author’s interpretation is that the “French hoddes” are of a kind that in this article is called “transitional hoods” and that they are worn as theatrical costumes in the performance to make the ladies symbolize France. Edward Hall, Hall’s Chronicle (London: J. Johnson et al., 1809), 535.

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Fig. 6.34: A lady age 61 years, after a portrait of Edward III, Lord Windsor, and his family, attributed to the Master of the Countess of Warwick, 1568 (Mount Stuart, Isle of Bute, Scotland).

Fig. 6.35 (left): Marie d’Assigny, Madame de Canaples (1502–58), after a painting by Jean Clouet, ca. 1525 (National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, no. NG 1930). Details of bag and fall after a drawing by Jean Clouet (Musée Condé, Chantilly, France, no. MN 262). Fig. 6.36 (right): An unidentified English lady, after a drawing by Hans Holbein the Younger, author’s dating ca. 1533–37 (Royal Collection, London, no. RCIN 912218).

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Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson It is a common theory that the French hood was introduced to the English court in the late 1520s by Anne Boleyn, who had lived in France for several years.50 She might very well have been a trendsetter, and even more so after catching the eye of the king. But looking at the superficial timeline of different headwear worn in France and England (table 6.1) it would not be the first time a fashion appeared in England roughly a decade after it started in France. And Anne Boleyn is portrayed on a medal from 1534 wearing an English hood.51 The time where the hair-hiding English hood and the hair-displaying French hood are both worn in England might be interpreted as similar to the period ca. 1470–85 when the hair-hiding hennins were found alongside the flowerpot hennins, which displayed hair through a transparent veil. If advertising one’s wealth through the display of jewelry was the focus of fashion, the French hood had the advantage of its upper billiment. Whereas the lappets of an elaborate English hood would “only” be made from very expensive fabric, the upper billiment of the French hood enabled a display of clusters of pearls, large diamonds, and other precious stones in gold settings. The two billiments of the French hood together could contain over twice as many pieces of goldsmith’s work as the narrow space on the English hood’s single edge of pearls would allow. The billiments of the French hood could be admired from the sides as well as from the front, whereas the English hood’s edge of pearls would present itself best when seen from the front. Furthermore, the author’s experiments indicate that dressing the English hood would require much more time (and many more pins) than dressing the French hood. If virtue, interpreted as covering all of the lady’s hair,52 was the main issue, the English hood would be preferable. In 1537, Queen Jane Seymour requested that her ladies wear English hoods.53 One reason could be to keep the young ladies from looking too enticing in the presence of the king.54 A second reason could be that Jane wished to demonstrate her distance from her immediate predecessor, Anne Boleyn, by favoring the English hood. According to surviving drawings by Hans Holbein, the French hood in its early days in England differs from the French hood as worn in France. As with the flowerpot hennin, this new fashion was adapted to the local taste. Around 1500, the panel of the French lady’s transitional hood is long enough to cover her shoulders (fig. 6.37). 50 At least half a decade earlier, a miniature by Lucas Horenbout in the National Portrait Gallery, London (NPG 6453) from ca. 1521 (the author’s dating according to table 6.1; the museum dates it to ca. 1525) portrays Princess Mary (later Mary I) wearing a French hood. This portrait is inscribed “The Emperor” and is thought to be a portrait meant for her fiancé between 1521 and 1525, the Emperor Charles V. This could be interpreted as proof that the French hood was a court fashion in England from the early 1520s. The author interprets the choice of headwear for this portrait differently, as a result of the tradition that a princess after her betrothal at an early age to foreign royalty would be brought up in the culture of her future home and would be dressed accordingly. 51 London, British Museum, no. M.9010. 52 Saint Paul, 1 Corinthians, 11:5–15. 53 Byrne, Lisle Letters, 4:163. 54 Ibid.

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Fig. 6.37: Anne of Brittany (1477–1514), queen of France, wearing a transitional hood, after a portrait medal by Nicolas Leclerc and Jean de Saint-Priest, issued ca. 1499 (Samuel H. Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., no. 1957.14.1122.b).

By 1525, the panel of the fully developed French hood has shortened and reaches no lower than the chin (fig. 6.35), and in France it stays at this length until about 1540. In England, the French hood maintains the chin length of the panel until about 1550. In both cultures’ interpretations of the French hood, the next step is to shorten the panel and end it at the level of the mouth. In France, this period is ca. 1540–ca. 1565, and in England it is ca. 1555–ca. 1580, with an interlude of alternative ways of styling it to make it appear shorter between ca. 1562 and 1569.55 In France, the panel of the French hood is consistently styled to a crescent shape, whereas in the English version it is styled to a flat top during most of the 1550s.56 RIGID SHAPES VERSUS ORGANIC MOVEMENT

During the period when hennins were worn, the French versions could create a slight trumpet shape (figs. 6.3 and 6.13) while providing a smooth basis for the embroidered fabric on top (figs. 6.10 and 6.12). They could also be made to create a pointed dome shape (fig. 6.22). The author interprets this ability as an indication that the supportive structure was created from buckram cut on the bias. A bias cut will allow a strictly geometric shape to change into a more organic shape when it is worked with water (or

55 Høskuldsson, “Hidden in Plain Black,” 167–69. 56 Ibid.

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Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson Table 6.1: Timeline of different headwear worn in France and England Evidence in France

Styles

Evidence in England

Portraits ca. 1454–65

Basic truncated hennin

Triangular hennin

Effigies ca. 1462–85

Portraits ca. 1460–85

Flowerpot hennin with a veil

Portraits and effigies ca. 1471–87

Portraits ca. 1465–80

Truncated hennin with a cuff

Transitional hennin with a flat folded or gathered top

Effigies ca. 1485–1500

One portrait ca. 1476–80

Transitional hennin in a dome shape

Effigies ca. 1487–1500

Portraits ca. 1490–1520

Transitional French hoods

Transitional English hoods

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Effigies ca. 1500–1520

Hennin to Hood Table 6.1 continued Portraits and Iconic English effigies hood with a diamond-shaped ca. 1520–60 bag Portraits ca. 1520–65 Portraits ca. 1575

Iconic French hood

One portrait ca. 1521–25 Portraits ca. 1528–90

steam) and an iron.57 Before the turn of the century, French fashion seems to have let all uplifting interlining go in favor of a natural interaction between fabric and gravity (figs. 6.23, 6.24, 6.25, and 6.37). The French hood’s panel developed ornamentation along the edge as well as a back-and-forth folded arrangement, revealing a part of the silk lining.58 This moves organically with the lady’s anatomy, gently indicating the shape of her shoulder while the soft folding of the fabric allows the decorated front to meander on its way down from the top of her head as an echo of the movements of the pleated creppin on the S-shaped front of the oreillette below. At the back, a fall drops from the top of the lady’s head (fig. 6.37). In contrast to this, the English versions favor straight lines running from the lady’s head to the far end of the hennin or bag (figs. 6.11, 6.14, 6.15, 6.16, 6.17, and 6.18) and even allow the rigid construction to leave a three-dimensional imprint on the top fabric (figs. 6.15, 6.16, 6.17, and 6.18) as a telltale sign of a very rigid material that has to be cut and scored in order to obtain the required flexibility.59 This controlled rigidity versus soft shaping and draping pinpoints what the author sees as the major difference between the tastes of the two cultures and subsequently the designs of the French and the English hoods respectively. In France, the designs are organically curved with a delicate elegance, whereas a taste for straight lines and a more robust look dominates in England. In the author’s opinion, the difference is not always so much a matter of a difference in the tailors’ patterns as it is a question of the choice of interlining. Identifying a suitable material to meet the demands of the rigid foundation turned out to be an essential part of the author’s experimental reconstruction of an English hood (fig. 6.38) in the style shown in Hans Holbein’s portrait of Jane Seymour (fig. 6.32). 57 See “The Reconstruction,” below. 58 Høskuldsson, “Hidden in Plain Black,” 149–50, gives a detailed explanation of this folding technique. 59 Another three-dimensional example is found in the effigy to Sir Thomas Radcliffe (1422– 95) and Margaret Parr, St. Kentigern’s Church, Great Crosthwaite, Cumbria. The author thanks Hugh Dove for providing the evidence.

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Fig. 6.38: The author’s experimental reconstruction of an English hood of 1536–37, in the style worn by Jane Seymour as shown in Figure 6.32. Photo: Johnny Stenspil Jensen.

THE RECONSTRUCTION

The author’s earlier experimental reconstruction of a French hood as portrayed in England around 1540 involved both buckram and linen interlining which, when cut on the bias, enabled the transformation of a rectangle into a crescent60—a metamorphosis that cannot be re-created by means of pasteboard, which another experimental reconstruction had suggested as the supporting material.61 The various hennins worn 60 Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson, “French Hood Tutorial” [video], posted by Johnny Stenspil Jensen, Nov. 14, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIPjroLf5dg, 6:29–7:25, accessed Aug. 31, 2022. 61 Melanie Schuessler, “French Hoods: Development of a Sixteenth-Century Court Fashion,” Medieval Clothing and Textiles 5 (2009): 129–60, at 157–60.

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Hennin to Hood in England and the variety of angled fronts and bags developing during the evolution of the English hood, however, seem to involve only shapes which could be re-created by folding a piece of paper. This brings pasted paper to mind as the rigid support for the different shapes. In 1570 the mathematician John Dee (1527–1608) talked about creating three-­dimensional geometrical figures from “fine pasted paper, such as pastwiues make womēs pastes of, & thē with a knife cut eue∣ry line finely, not through, but halfe way only, if thē ye bow and bende them accordingly, ye shall most plainly and manifestly see the formes and shapes of these bodies, euen as their definitions shew.”62 It has been suggested that “womēs pastes” refers to pasteboard connected to French hoods.63 John Dee’s father was a textile merchant and gentleman sewer at the court of Henry VIII, so John Dee might be referring to knowledge of tailoring gained during his childhood.64 The author has not, however, been able to find any other contemporary reference to either “womēs pastes” or “pastwiues” which might give a clue to a final interpretation. All that can be deduced with certainty is that John Dee expects his contemporary readers to be familiar with the correct interpretation of “womēs pastes” without further explanation. The author finds it tempting to link John Dee’s method of constructing three-­ dimensional “bodies” to the interlining that shaped all variants of the English hennins, as well as to the later box bags and the peaked or gabled fronts where the high flexibility of buckram would be unappreciated. When considering the material used to create the rigid support for English hennins and hoods, “fine pasted paper” would seem a possibility. There is evidence that outdated manuscripts ended up as a supportive lining in garments, at least garments for religious statues.65 Based on experiments, however, the author finds that layers of pasted paper tend to develop waves when drying, and a completely flat result is wanted to support the English headwear. A more promising result came from using layers of linen or cotton rags pasted together to create the support for hennins, box bags, and gabled fronts without first shredding, soaking, stamping, sieving, layering, pressing, drying, and pressing them again to turn them into paper.66 Using rags also offered the advantage of a stronger resistance to tearing, as the linen or cotton fibers would have first been twined and 62 Euclid, The elements of geometrie of the most auncient philosopher Euclide of Megara … With a very fruitfull præface made by M. I. Dee, specifying the chiefe mathematicall scie[n]ces, what they are, and wherunto commodious … (London: John Daye, 1570), https://quod.lib. umich.edu/e/eebo/A00429.0001.001, Book 11, accessed Aug. 31, 2022. 63 Schuessler, “French Hoods,” 151–52, and Valerie Cumming, C. Willett Cunnington, and Phillis E. Cunnington, The Dictionary of Fashion History (Oxford: Berg, 2010), 88. 64 J. J. O’Connor and E. F. Robertson, “John Dee,” MacTutor, School of Mathematics and Statistics at University of St Andrews, Scotland, August 2002, http://www-history.mcs. st-and.ac.uk/Biographies/Dee.html, accessed Aug. 31, 2022. 65 Nora Wilkinson, “Texts and Textiles: Finding Manuscripts in Unusual Places,” The Conveyor: News from the Bodleian Libraries Centre for the Study of the Book, June 6, 2014, http://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/theconveyor/texts-and-textiles-finding-manuscripts-inunusual-places, accessed Aug. 31, 2022. 66 Tim Barrett, “Chancery Papermaking” [video], May 28, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=e-PmfdV_cZU, accessed Aug. 31, 2022.

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Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson spun prior to the weaving as opposed to the non-woven structure of detached fibers in paper. All the rigid parts in the author’s experimental reconstruction could be made from sheets of pasted rags no larger than the size of a traditional place mat. These sheets consisted of four layers of redundant bed linen, pasted together with flour paste and left flat to dry. It proved easy to sew into the pasted rags, and when it came to pinning for dressing, the point of the pin could be embedded in the pasted rags, thus remaining harmless to the wearer. Based on experiments following the study of portraits and effigies, the author concludes that the support for the peaked front and the almost shoulder-length front of the oreillette in the transitional English hood (like the one in fig. 6.26) is provided entirely by pasted rags. A diagonal bend going from the tip of the center front peak to the far corner of the horizontal bend on either side of the head keeps the peak from collapsing and brings its rear edge in contact with the crown of the head (fig. 6.26, side view). Below the horizontal bend, the front of the oreillette moves backwards and disappears under the lappets (fig. 6.26, front view). The much lower peak of the iconic English hood was found to depend on brass wire being whipstitched onto the frame of pasted rags supporting the oreillette. A stone effigy from about 1524 portraying Lady Lisle (fig. 6.29) provided the key to the author’s interpretation of the unpadded version of the frontlet as more than merely decoration. The lady is portrayed wearing long lappets seemingly attached to the gable-shaped frame of pasted rags with a circular brooch. The frontlet of striped fabric sits tightly against her forehead, and the supportive frame comes very close to her face at the cheeks. But this is all the headwear there is. Nothing covers her long hair, which hangs down her back. This is most unusual, but a similar styling, only without the frontlet, is found in a couple of family brass effigies portraying daughters who probably died young.67 Even though the front of the headwear would most likely never be worn in life without the rest of the English hood, the idea that the front would theoretically be able to sit close to the head on its own might spring from reality. Through interaction with a narrow headband attached to the frame of pasted rags, the front (and subsequently the rest) of the headwear would be firmly secured to the head. The headband going behind the head could easily hide under the hair (fig. 6.29). This interpretation is incorporated into the author’s experimental reconstruction. In the author’s interpretation, the edge of pearls would be assembled from four separate pieces of pasted rags covered with white silk taffeta (fig. 6.39; for this and other construction patterns, see the Appendix). The separate pieces would then be whipstitched onto the edge of the frame of pasted rags. For dressing, the pieces would be joined together by pins at each corner and the ornamentation would cover the joins.68

67 Brass effigies to Thomas Jonys (Johns/Jones), All Saints Church, Witley, Surrey; Sir Anthony Fitzherbert (1470–1538), Church of St. Mary and St. Barlok, Norbury, Derbyshire; Thomas Mede (Meade/Meed), Church of St. Mary and St. Clement, Clavering, Essex. 68 Other experimental reconstructions tend to interpret the edge of pearls as a frame in one piece. Mikhaila and Malcolm-Davies, Tudor Tailor, 148.

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Hennin to Hood A drawing by Hans Holbein (fig. 6.31) provided the key to the author’s interpretation of the way in which the oreillette and the frame of pasted rags worked together. This drawing portrays an unidentified lady wearing an English hood without its edge of pearls. This allows a clear view of the thorough pinning of the thin oreillette to the thicker frame of pasted rags, something that would normally be invisible due to the edge of pearls. This drawing led the author to speculate that the frame of pasted rags is placed under the oreillette and is the same width as the front piece of the oreillette (figs. 6.39 and 6.40). A thin brass wire is, in the author’s reconstruction, added to the front and rear of the front section of the oreillette, with both wires being encased in the seam allowance. These wires enable the ends of the front section to be bent to a horizontal position below the ends of the frame of pasted rags. This fashion appears at about the time when the oreillette of the French hood starts curving to a crescent, in the early days of the iconic ram’s horn shape.69 In the author’s reconstruction, the oreillette of the English hood consists of three parts: a rectangular section to the front, an ear section, and a rectangular bag permanently gathered at top center and gathered by drawstrings along the bottom at the back of the neck to fit the curves of the head and hair (fig. 6.40).70 The ear section, with its ends cut to an angle of 45 degrees (clearly visible in figs. 6.31, 6.32, and 6.33), is located between the front section and the bag. The author’s choice of silk taffeta for the visible parts of the oreillette is based on the matte surface portrayed in the portraits and the assumption that linen would be too plain a fabric for ladies of the nobility to wear in plain view. Based on Hans Holbein’s drawing of a lady seen from the back (fig. 6.1) and his fine portrayal of the velvet’s shine, the author interprets the rigid, diamond-shaped bag as the result of folding and pinning an otherwise flat construction (fig. 6.41). Others have interpreted Hans Holbein’s drawing of the cross formation in the diamond shape differently: as fabric permanently folded to form triangles on top of a plain surface of buckram,71 or as a narrow ribbon of a contrasting color marking the cross on a padded satin surface.72 These alternatives leave the bag as a permanent, three-dimensional “box.” The author’s interpretation allows all items to be laid out flat for storage in a coffer.73

69 Høskuldsson, “Hidden in Plain Black,” 166. 70 There is no evidence for the shape of the oreillette’s bag. In the author’s experimental reconstruction it is inspired by two surviving coifs in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London: no. 756-1902, dated to ca. 1575–1600, and no. T.12-1948, dated to ca. 1570–99. 71 Mikhaila and Malcolm-Davies, Tudor Tailor, 146–48. A variant is presented by a costume-­ maker using the name Ildiko, “Tudor Gable Hood,” Ildi, Jan. 28, 2008, http://szildiko. blogspot.dk/2008/01/tudor-gable-hood.html, accessed Aug. 31, 2022. 72 A photograph of this without any reference is viewable at https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/84/41/02/84410235692bc12dd5f893a8a5684b1d.jpg, Aug. 31, 2022. 73 An inventory of 1540 puts two “bonettes of blak velvet,” two “Mufflers of blak velvet,” two “hoodes of blak velvet,” and a “cappe of blak velvet” in a “fflat trussing cofer” with nine

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Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson APPENDIX 6.1

Patterns and Materials for the Reconstruction The patterns given here (figs. 6.39–6.42) match the experimental reconstruction (fig. 6.38) of an English hood in the style worn by Jane Seymour in Hans Holbein’s portrait (fig. 6.32). They are made for a head circumference of 56 centimeters (22 inches). The finished reconstruction and its tailoring techniques are presented in a tutorial video.74 For the experimental reconstruction, the author made the assumptions that waste of fabric should be kept to a minimum, and that only valuable fabric should be displayed, while parts hidden from an audience would be made from inferior fabric. The construction theories were tested and adjusted through trial and error. Pasted rags and linen interlining are cut without seam allowance. Any other fabric is cut with a seam allowance of 1 centimeter (½ inch). The materials are as follows (with approximate conversions): •

white linen, 30 centimeters (12 inches), 150 centimeters (59 inches) wide

•

linen interlining, 120 centimeters (48 inches), 80 centimeters (32 inches) wide

•

pasted rags, two sheets, 20 × 35 centimeters (8 × 14 inches)

•

bias tape, 410 centimeters (162 inches)

•

thick brass wire, 162 centimeters (64 inches)

•

thin brass wire, 120 centimeters (48 inches)

•

black velvet, 30 centimeters (12 inches), 150 centimeters (59 inches) wide

•

black silk taffeta, 40 centimeters (16 inches), 140 centimeters (55 inches) wide

•

white silk taffeta, 70 centimeters (28 inches), 140 centimeters (55 inches) wide

•

striped silk taffeta, 10 centimeters (4 inches), 140 centimeters (55 inches) wide

•

rich fabric in a patterned weave, 15 centimeters (6 inches), 90 centimeters (36 inches) wide

•

drawstring, 80 centimeters (31 inches)

•

pearls and goldsmith’s work

frontlets, seventeen pairs of sleeves, twenty-two placards for gowns, and more. Byrne, Lisle Letters, 6:203–4. 74 Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson, “English Hood Tutorial” [video], posted by Johnny Stenspil Jensen, Jan. 23, 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qKHol317YY, accessed Aug. 31, 2022.

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Hennin to Hood

Fig. 6.39: Patterns for the wired frame, the edge of pearls, and the frontlet.

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Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson

Fig. 6.40: Pattern for the oreillette.

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Hennin to Hood

Fig. 6.41: Pattern for the black hood.

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Fig. 6.42: Pattern for the lappets.

Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson

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Recent Books of Interest Covering the Blade: Archaeological Leather Sheaths and Scabbards, by Marquita Volken and Olaf Goubitz (Zwolle: SPA Uitgevers, 2020). ISBN 978-9089320513. 300 pages, 361 black-and-white illustrations. Originally planned by Olaf Goubitz as the third volume documenting the Rijksdienst voor het Oudheidkundig Bodemonderzoek (ROB) collection of several thousand leather artifacts ranging in date from the twelfth through the seventeenth century, this volume has been completed by a team led by Marquita Volken. It now joins Goubitz’s Stepping Through Time and Purses in Pieces as a major work documenting and contextualizing archaeological leather objects. The foci in this volume are not only sheaths and scabbards but other items that “cover a blade” as well. The introductory chapter briefly surveys the use of scabbards and sheaths, outlines the basics of their construction, and offers a codification of sheath styles along with helpful diagrams to set out the terms used for various parts of the items whose blades are “covered.” With diagrammatic lists of the stitching, seam styles, and decorative methods recorded among the archaeological material, the authors provide a clear terminology base for understanding details in subsequent descriptions. Lastly, there is a discussion of issues with recording details of decorated leather in drawings. The main body begins with a chapter covering examples of related material from prehistory to the Roman period, relying on examples from outside the ROB collection. The next several chapters focus heavily on medieval material in the ROB collection, looking at sword scabbards from the twelfth to fifteenth centuries, dagger sheaths and scabbards from the late thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, knife sheaths from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, and a miscellany of items such as quill knife sheaths, penners, scissor cases, and protections for agricultural implements such as scythes and sickles. An additional chapter covers sheaths and scabbards from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Throughout, thoughtful attention is given to context of finds, period usage, and methods of construction and decoration. A final chapter covers details of reproductions of fourteen different items, ranging from a seventh-century knife sheath to a penner case from the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century. Here, the nitty-gritty of physically making things comes to the fore; this chapter has already become intensely used by makers of reproduction artifacts. The foreword states that “The present team obviously will never have the time, experience or expertise to make the book he [Olaf Goubitz] intended. But we tried.” They, by this reviewer, succeeded, having done his work honor and great service, not the least with the attention to detail but also by embracing the physicality of the objects

Recent Books of Interest under study and the importance of reproductions in understanding the nature of those artifacts. — Robert Charrette, Richmond, Virginia Crafting Textiles: Tablet Weaving, Sprang, Lace and Other Techniques from the Bronze Age to the Early 17th Century, edited by Frances Pritchard (Oxford: Oxbow: 2021). ISBN 978-1789257595. 240 pages, 187 illustrations (106 in color). A quick flip through the pages of Crafting Textiles promises a visual treat, with luscious color photography, explanatory diagrams, and informative reconstructions. A slower look reveals that each of the eleven chapters is rich in technical data, descriptions, wider context, and comparative material. Explanations are as clear as possible without digressing into an instruction manual. The studies here contain new research and experimental insight into items from recent excavations as well as older finds. This review focuses on those chapters covering textiles from the tenth to seventeenth centuries. Frances Pritchard draws on a wealth of archeological evidence to examine the production of tablet-woven bands in Viking-age Dublin, and their use in everyday life. The detailed survey includes simple wool trims as well as patterned bands in silk and metal thread, with evidence that they were produced locally. Regula Schorta analyzes a set of intricately patterned bands, attributed to Palermo and apparently tablet-­ woven—but which, she concludes, are neither tablet-woven nor from Palermo. While Joy Boutrup states that one purpose of her chapter on braided strings and Turk’s-head knots is to point out a lack of information, her subsequent analysis of passementerie from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries is clear, precise, and informative. The authors’ own reconstructions play a key role in several studies. Dagmar Drinkler and Carol James examine artwork of fifth-century Greece and Renaissance Europe depicting “outsiders” wearing flexible, form-fitting clothing in colorful geo­ metric patterns. Using sprang techniques known in both periods, the authors were able to reproduce wearable examples of these designs, but make no further claims. Thanks to the reconstructive efforts of Beatrix Nutz, Rachel Case, and Carol James, a fifteenth-­ century linen textile can be properly examined as headwear, not a bra; the authors analyze its loop braiding, needle lace, and sprang elements and compare them with similar finds from Lengberg. The theme of putting aside easy or historically repeated assumptions about a textile’s purpose or production methods recurs throughout the volume. For example, Lena Dahrén focuses on a set of late-sixteenth to early-seventeenth-century bobbin-made laces to determine how techniques changed according to the problem that needed to be solved, while pointing out where those methods differ from modern practices. The solitary paper on spinning doesn’t focus on a specific textile: Katrin Kania draws our attention to the technical characteristics of medieval yarn and production methods, while emphasizing the pitfalls of assuming our modern experiences applied to medieval spinners. The volume’s introduction contains a thoughtful dedication to the influential work of Peter Collingwood. In turn, the collection is a fitting tribute to the experimental methods and investigative rigor that Collingwood brought to the study of textiles. — Cindy Myers, Cincinnati, Ohio 184

Recent Books of Interest The Hidden Life of Textiles in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean, edited by Nikolaos Vryzidis (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2020). ISBN 978-2503587738. 304 pages, 112 illustrations (most in color). This fascinating volume arose from a 2016 workshop on “cross-cultural interaction and social practice in relation to textiles” held at the Benaki Museum of Islamic Art in Athens. The majority of the short papers relate to the medieval period. Inevitably many include interrelationships between Islamic and Christian arts, but a dense web of wider influences and identities is constructed in the book. Laura Rodríguez Peinado and Ana Cabrera-Lafuente propose a new approach to Andalusí textiles, using studies of fibres, dyestuffs, and techniques along with textual evidence to establish a new chronology and view the textiles as functioning in both secular and religious contexts, for display and private use, rather than divided into Christian north and Islamic south. Maria Sardi traces the origin and evolution of motifs on the many surviving Mamluk textiles from Central Asia and China and their combination with Islamic inscriptions. Vera-Simone Schultz’s rich article on “entangled identities” focuses on the Italian peninsula as receptor and conduit for fibres, designs, and cloths, which included such curiosities as raffia fabrics with velvety texture and palm-leaf cloths as well as woollens and magnificent silks. The construction of composite garments from textile of diverse origins and the imitation of fabrics from other centres of production are only two examples of the complexity of exchange manifested. Three chapters consider evidence other than material remains. Avinoam Shalem examines the imagery of textile descriptions in Arabic poetry, demonstrating the qualities of texture and drape and the perceived attractiveness of decorative borders, and exemplifying them in selected illustrations of textiles. Scott Redford uses frescoes and manuscripts to surmise that the flags of the Seljuk sultanate in Anatolia would have included checkerboard and zigzag patterns in red, and shapes featuring trailing streamers, influenced by, and also influencing, Byzantine flags. Marielle Matiniani-­Reber explores (in French) evidence for textile exchange demonstrated by the tenth-century Byzantine Book of the Prefect and the eleventh-century Arabic Book of Gifts and Rarities, illustrated by illuminations and surviving artefacts. Jacopo Gnisci presents a preliminary survey of textual and visual evidence for ecclesiastical dress in medieval Ethiopia, noting that the Ethiopian Orthodox Church remains textile-rich today. Three authors focus on post-medieval textiles: Nikolaus Vryzidis on the origins of animal motifs in sixteenth- to eighteenth-century Ottoman ecclesiastical silks; Elena Papastavrou on the iconography of early modern Greek ecclesiastical embroidery; and Dickran Kouymjian on seventeenth- to nineteenth-century Armenian altar curtains. The particular joy of this book is its revelation of many little-known or unpublished textiles, including an eighth-to-ninth-century saddle cover of patterned silk, and a square Chinese embroidery of an egret repurposed as a rhomboid-shaped appendage to Greek ecclesiastical regalia and understood as a pelican. Other highlights include an account of a brocaded, embroidered textile so heavy the mule that carried it could bear nothing else, and the number of early modern Greek female embroiderers who signed their work. There are occasional slips in the English—“angles” for “angels,” 185

Recent Books of Interest “lobbed” for “lobed”— but generally this is a well-written book containing individual bibliographies, a helpful glossary of textile terms, and a generous supply of good-quality illustrations. — Gale R. Owen-Crocker, University of Manchester Sartorial Politics in Early Modern Europe: Fashioning Women, edited by Erin Griffey (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019). ISBN 978-9462986008. 336 pages, 78 illustrations (11 in color). Erin Griffey’s wide-ranging compilation dips into diverse fields: politics, of course, but also economics, art history, theater, and material culture. This multidisciplinarity is a strength of the volume as it is of the field of clothing history in general. Sartorial Politics addresses a variety of people and settings from the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries, is well illustrated, and boasts a broad bibliography that will offer new sources to many. Most of the chapters focus on individuals. Sarah Cockram gives a very focused and detailed exploration of Isabella d’Este’s use of clothing, accessories, and symbolism. Julia Holm’s excellent discussion of Christina of Sweden does not discuss her possible cross-dressing but does leave the reader wishing for a longer treatment of the subject. Laura Oliván-Santaliestra follows Mariana of Austria’s representation in portraits with particular attention to her use of the Spanish farthingale (guardainfante) through her pregnancies. Maria Hayward’s treatment of Catherine of Braganza’s self-fashioning is a loosely organized collection of topics touching on her clothing and furnishings. Griffey discusses the iconography in portraits of the widowed Henrietta Maria. Three chapters focus on jewelry, beginning with Lisa Mansfield’s examination of Eleanor of Austria and her creation of her cultural identity. Susan Vincent explores Elizabeth I’s use of jewelry with her customary clarity and reviews the kinds of cultural work for which jewels were used. Jemma Field traces Anna of Denmark’s use of cipher jewelry to show her familial connections and forward her political aims. Three chapters address the topic thematically rather than focusing on a particular person. Isabelle Paresys surveys the performative nature of the clothing of several French queens, noting the sartorial ramifications for those who married into the royal family from other regions. Kirsten O. Frieling discusses the cultural (rather than political) interaction between foreign and native fashions when women married into princely German families. Juliet Claxton and Evelyn Welch explore the trade in luxury items during the reign of Charles II, centering their discussion on the probate inventory of a supplier of fashionable goods from abroad. Finally, Robert I. Lublin’s chapter on costuming courtly women in Shakespearean plays is an outlier, thematically speaking, touching on several loosely connected topics and drawing heavily on his previous work. The multidisciplinarity of this volume also proves to be a point of weakness, one it shares with the field as a whole. Several of the authors are experts in fields other than clothing history, and in some places, descriptions of what is worn in a portrait are misleading or wrong. Similarly, several chapters appear to have been translated into English by people not familiar with the field, who chose confusing and incorrect words for garments. Though the vocabulary of dress, especially across times and locations, is always problematic, this kind of misinformation is unfortunate and could proliferate 186

Recent Books of Interest if others cite this source. Despite this, Sartorial Strategies has much to offer historians of art, politics, culture, and economics as well as dress history scholars and helps to show how these avenues of inquiry are inextricably related. — Melanie Schuessler Bond, Eastern Michigan University Tudor Textiles, by Eleri Lynn (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2021). ISBN 978-0300260571. 208 pages, 132 color illustrations. Eleri Lynn’s position as the former curator of the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection at Historic Royal Palaces leaves her uniquely placed for access to inventories of the textiles used and commissioned by the Tudor court from the reigns of Henry VIII through Elizabeth I. Her book on the court textiles is lavishly illustrated with images of both the textiles themselves, and paintings and prints showing their use by the court to present and reinforce the message of “royalty” writ large. Lynn divides the book up to examine textiles associated with the Tudor court in terms of the global textiles trade (Chapter 1), use of textiles for competitive aggrandizement (Chapter 2), domestic and private spaces (Chapter 3), production and maintenance of court textiles (Chapter 4), and a general overview of textile production techniques (Chapter 5). For Tudor enthusiasts, the book doesn’t disappoint in terms of details about court practices (particularly Henry’s) of commissioning everything from cloth for garments to household linens to arras and tapestries, all of which were used as public displays of princely power. Lynn provides oodles of particulars about the textiles created for and used at Henry’s 1520 meeting with François I of France at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. She also discusses Elizabeth’s parsimonious use and reuse of the textiles inherited from her father. For those seeking minutiae about the textiles themselves, Lynn’s book disappoints in two ways. Lynn’s overly enthusiastic bias toward the Tudor court leads her to overstate its global importance and to skate over the lack of court support for English textile production (until the latter part of Elizabeth’s reign). Chapter 5 is oddly generalized and simplistic for those already familiar with fiber properties and cloth production. The book is worth owning for the illustrations and court details but is a somewhat disjointed effort that tries too hard to centralize the Tudor court on the global textile stage, and lacks nuanced discussion of 16th-century British cloth production. — Carla Tilghman, Lawrence, Kansas Le Vêtement au Moyen Âge: De l’Atelier à la Garde-robe, edited by Danièle Alexandre-­ Bidon, Nadège Gauffre Fayolle, Perrine Mane, and Mickaël Wilmart (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2021). ISBN 978-2503590080. 344 pages, 76 illustrations (most in color). This long-awaited collection, dedicated to the late Françoise Piponnier, is the product of a two-day conference held in Paris in 2016. It focuses mainly on the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Articles (all in French) are by such renowned scholars as Michel Pastoureau, Sophie Desrosiers, and the book’s editors Perrine Mane and Danièle Alexandre-Bidon. The volume is divided into four sections: materials; production and circulation; codification, transgression, and social uses; and imagination, 187

Recent Books of Interest heritage, and reinterpretation. It is therefore a wide range of aspects about medieval clothing and textiles that is under consideration. Some of these articles will indeed be extremely important, even precious, to scholars, and bring new and useful information. Desrosiers’ paper about the different kinds of silks in Italian production is a must-read that complements other work from various authors about the matter. Even though it may appear very technical to non-specialists, it remains understandable. The importance of the Champagne fairs in European economy and distribution is validated through Wilmart’s work, which demonstrates how the fairs served as hubs for exchange between Northern and Southern producers, between merchants and resellers, and thus through to smaller clients that served in turn as additional points of circulation, so fabrics could be dispatched even to the smallest places. It also considers local production and its evolution. Sophie Jolivet’s article about hoods explores the variety, changes, and popularity of this fashionable accessory in famous Burgundian courts over more than fifty years, while the less known, but strategically important and very interesting, court of Savoy is illuminated by Gauffre Fayolle, who describes the importance and hierarchy of clothing and materials for the three Savoyard diplomatic delegations to the council of Constance in the early fifteenth century. Mane’s article about tailors and dressmakers focuses on archaeological and iconographical evidence about these professions and brings new information as well as useful comparisons. These examples represent only a few of the broad spectrum of subjects. Inheritance, sumptuary laws, colors, and clothing of domestic animals are also studied. Three articles address the reappropriation of the medieval period in textiles and dress, demonstrating how the period is perceived in later eras. For instance, Sébastien Passot’s essay on medieval movie costumes discusses the different degrees of historicity, or non-historicity, and why specialists on medieval costume may never find satisfaction. Perhaps some articles may be found a little disappointing or repetitive, but the large majority are of great interest. — Tina Anderlini, Centre d’Etudes Supérieures de Civilisation Médiévale de Poitiers ALSO PUBLISHED

A Cultural History of Hair in the Middle Ages, general editor, Geraldine Biddle-Perry (London: Bloomsbury, 2022). ISBN 978-1350287518. 6 vols., notably including vol. 1: In Antiquity, edited by Mary Harlow; vol. 2: In the Middle Ages, edited by Roberta Milliken; vol. 3: In the Renaissance, edited by Edith Snook. Dressing the Scottish Court, 1543–1553, by Melanie Schuessler Bond (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2019). ISBN 978-1783272624. 740 pages, 27 black-and-white illustrations. Textiles of Medieval Iberia: Cloth and Clothing in a Multi-Cultural Context, edited by Gale R. Owen-Crocker, María Barrigón, Naḥum Ben-Yehuda, and Joana Sequeira (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2022). ISBN 978-1783277018. 416 pages, 80 illustrations (67 in color). 188

Author Index, Volumes 1–16 Amati Canta, Antonietta. “Bridal Gifts in Medieval Bari,” vol. 9 (2013). Anderlini, Tina. “The Shirt Attributed to St. Louis,” vol. 11 (2015); “Dressing the Sacred: Medallion Silks and Their Use in Western Medieval Europe,” vol. 15 (2019). Anderson, Joanne W. “The Loom, the Lady, and Her Family Chapels: Weaving Identity in Late Medieval Art,” vol. 15 (2019). Andersson, Eva I. “Clothing and Textile Materials in Medieval Sweden and Norway,” vol. 9 (2013). Beer, Michelle L. “‘Translating’ a Queen: Material Culture and the Creation of Margaret Tudor as Queen of Scots,” vol. 10 (2014). Benns, Elizabeth. “‘Set on Yowre Hondys’: Fifteenth-Century Instructions for Fingerloop Braiding,” vol. 3 (2007). Bertolet, Anna Riehl. “‘Like two artificial gods’: Needlework and Female Bonding in A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” vol. 11 (2015). Blatt, Heather. See Swales, Lois. Bond, Melanie Schuessler. See Friedman, John Block; Schuessler, Melanie. Brandenburgh, Chrystel. “Old Finds Rediscovered: Two Early Medieval Headdresses from the National Museum of Antiquities, Leiden, the Netherlands,” vol. 8 (2012). Bridgeman, Jane. “‘Bene in ordene et bene ornata’: Eleonora d’Aragona’s Description of Her Suite of Rooms in a Roman Palace of the Late Fifteenth Century,” vol. 13 (2017). Burkholder, Kristen M. “Threads Bared: Dress and Textiles in Late Medieval English Wills,” vol. 1 (2005). Carns, Paula Mae. “Cutting a Fine Figure: Costume on French Gothic Ivories,” vol. 5 (2009). Carroll-Clark, Susan M. “Bad Habits: Clothing and Textile References in the Register of Eudes Rigaud, Archbishop of Rouen,” vol. 1 (2005). Cavell, Megan. “Sails, Veils, and Tents: The Segl and Tabernacle of Old English Christ III and Exodus,” vol. 12 (2016). Chambers, Mark. “‘Hys surcote was ouert’: The ‘Open Surcoat’ in Late Medieval British Texts,” vol. 7 (2011); “How Long Is a Launce? Units of Measure for Cloth in Late Medieval Britain,” vol. 13 (2017). Chambers, Mark, and Gale R. Owen-Crocker. “From Head to Hand to Arm: The Lexicological History of ‘Cuff,’” vol. 4 (2008). Coatsworth, Elizabeth. “Stitches in Time: Establishing a History of Anglo-Saxon Embroidery,” vol. 1 (2005); “Cushioning Medieval Life: Domestic Textiles in Anglo-Saxon England,” vol. 3 (2007); “‘A formidable undertaking’: Mrs. A. G. I. Christie and English Medieval Embroidery,” vol. 10 (2014). Concha Sahli, Alejandra. “Habit Envy: Extra-Religious Groups, Attire, and the Search for Legitimation Outside the Institutionalised Religious Orders,” vol. 15 (2019). Cooper, Jonathan C. “Academical Dress in Late Medieval and Renaissance Scotland,” vol. 12 (2016).

Author Index, Volumes 1–16 D’Ettore, Kate. “Clothing and Conflict in the Icelandic Family Sagas: Literary Convention and the Discourse of Power,” vol. 5 (2009). Dahl, Camilla Luise. “Dressing the Bourgeoisie: Clothing in Probate Records of Danish Townswomen, ca. 1545–1610,” vol. 12 (2016). Dahl, Camilla Luise, and Isis Sturtewagen. “The Cap of St. Birgitta,” vol. 4 (2008). Davidson, Hilary, and Ieva Pīgozne. “Archaeological Dress and Textiles in Latvia from the Seventh to Thirteenth Centuries: Research, Results, and Reconstructions,” vol. 6 (2010). Evalds, Valija. “Sacred or Profane? The Horned Headdresses of St. Frideswide’s Priory,” vol. 10 (2014). Evans, Lisa. “‘The Same Counterpoincte Beinge Olde and Worene’: The Mystery of Henry VIII’s Green Quilt,” vol. 4 (2008); “Anomaly or Sole Survivor? The Impruneta Cushion and Early Italian ‘Patchwork,’” vol. 8 (2012). Farmer, Sharon. “Biffes, Tiretaines, and Aumonières: The Role of Paris in the International Textile Markets of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries,” vol. 2 (2006). Finley, Jessica. “The Lübeck Wappenröcke: Distinctive Style in Fifteenth-Century German Fabric Armor,” vol. 13 (2017). Friedman, John Block. “The Art of the Exotic: Robinet Testard’s Turbans and Turban-like Coiffure,” vol. 4 (2008); “The Iconography of Dagged Clothing and Its Reception by Moralist Writers,” vol. 9 (2013); “Coats, Collars, and Capes: Royal Fashions for Animals in the Early Modern Period,” vol. 12 (2016); “Eyebrows, Hairlines, and ‘Hairs Less in Sight’: Female Depilation in Late Medieval Europe,” vol. 14 (2018). Friedman, John Block, and Melanie Schuessler Bond. “Fashion and Material Culture in the Tabletop of the Seven Deadly Sins Attributed to Hieronymus Bosch,” vol. 16 (2020). Garver, Valerie L. “Weaving Words in Silk: Women and Inscribed Bands in the Carolingian World,” vol. 6 (2010). Grinberg, Ana. “Robes, Turbans, and Beards: ‘Ethnic Passing’ in Decameron 10.9,” vol. 13 (2017). Haas-Gebhard, Brigitte, and Britt Nowak-Böck. “The Unterhaching Grave Finds: Richly Dressed Burials from Sixth-Century Bavaria,” vol. 8 (2012). Hammarlund, Lena, Heini Kirjavainen, Kathrine Vestergård Pedersen, and Marianne Vedeler. “Visual Textiles: A Study of Appearance and Visual Impression in Archaeological Textiles,” vol. 4 (2008). Heller, Sarah-Grace. “Obscure Lands and Obscured Hands: Fairy Embroidery and the Ambiguous Vocabulary of Medieval Textile Decoration,” vol. 5 (2009); “AngevinSicilian Sumptuary Statutes of the 1290s: Fashion in the Thirteenth-Century Mediterranean,” vol. 11 (2015). Hennequin, M. Wendy. “Anglo-Saxon Banners and Beowulf,” vol. 16 (2020). Higley, Sarah L. “Dressing Up the Nuns: The Lingua Ignota and Hildegard of Bingen’s Clothing,” vol. 6 (2010). Høskuldsson, Karen Margrethe. “Hidden in Plain Black: The Secrets of the French Hood,” vol. 14 (2018). Hyer, Maren Clegg. “Textiles and Textile Imagery in the Exeter Book,” vol. 1 (2005); “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Imagined and Reimagined Textiles in Anglo-Saxon England,” vol. 8 (2012); “Text/Textile: ‘Wordweaving’ in the Literatures of AngloSaxon England,” vol. 15 (2019). Izbicki, Thomas M. “Forbidden Colors in the Regulation of Clerical Dress from the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) to the Time of Nicholas of Cusa (d. 1464),” vol. 1 (2005); “Failed Censures: Ecclesiastical Regulation of Women’s Clothing in Late

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Author Index, Volumes 1–16 Medieval Italy,” vol. 5 (2009); “Linteamenta altaria: The Care of Altar Linens in the Medieval Church,” vol. 12 (2016). Jack, Kimberly. “What Is the Pearl-Maiden Wearing, and Why?” vol. 7 (2011). Jackson, Cynthia. “The Broderers’ Crown: The Examination and Reconstruction of a Sixteenth-Century City of London Livery Company Election Garland,” vol. 16 (2020). James, Susan E. “Domestic Painted Cloths in Sixteenth-Century England: Imagery, Placement, and Ownership,” vol. 9 (2013). Jaster, Margaret Rose. “‘Clothing Themselves in Acres’: Apparel and Impoverishment in Medieval and Early Modern England,” vol. 2 (2006). Johnston, Mark D. “Sex, Lies, and Verdugados: Juana of Portugal and the Invention of Hoopskirts,” vol. 16 (2020). Keefer, Sarah Larratt. “A Matter of Style: Clerical Vestments in the Anglo-Saxon Church,” vol. 3 (2007). Kirjavainen, Heini. See Hammarlund, Lena. Kneen, Maggie, and Gale R. Owen-Crocker. “The Use of Curved Templates in the Drawing of the Bayeux Tapestry,” vol. 16 (2020). Krag, Anne Hedeager. “Byzantine and Oriental Silks in Denmark, 800–1200,” vol. 14 (2018). Ladd, Roger A. “The London Mercers’ Company, London Textual Culture, and John Gower’s Mirour de l’Omme,” vol. 6 (2010). Leed, Drea. “‘Ye Shall Have It Cleane’: Textile Cleaning Techniques in Renaissance Europe,” vol. 2 (2006). Magoula, Olga. “Multicultural Clothing in Sixth-Century Ravenna,” vol. 14 (2018). Meek, Christine. “Laboreria Sete: Design and Production of Lucchese Silks in the Late Fourteenth and Early Fifteenth Centuries,” vol. 7 (2011); “Clothing Distrained for Debt in the Court of Merchants of Lucca in the Late Fourteenth Century,” vol. 10 (2014); “Calciamentum: Footwear in Late Medieval Lucca,” vol. 13 (2017). Miller, Maureen C. “The Liturgical Vestments of Castel Sant’Elia: Their Historical Significance and Current Condition,” vol. 10 (2014). Monk, Christopher J. “Behind the Curtains, Under the Covers, Inside the Tent: Textile Items and Narrative Strategies in Anglo-Saxon Old Testament Art,” vol. 10 (2014). Monnas, Lisa. “Some Medieval Colour Terms for Textiles,” vol. 10 (2014). Muendel, John. “The Orientation of Strikers in Medieval Fulling Mills: The Role of the ‘French’ Gualchiera,” vol. 1 (2005). Munro, John H. “The Anti-Red Shift—To the Dark Side: Colour Changes in Flemish Luxury Woollens, 1300–1550,” vol. 3 (2007). Netherton, Robin. “The Tippet: Accessory after the Fact?” vol. 1 (2005); “The View from Herjolfsnes: Greenland’s Translation of the European Fitted Fashion,” vol. 4 (2008). Nicholson, Karen. “The Effect of Spindle Whorl Design on Wool Thread Production: A Practical Experiment Based on Examples from Eighth-Century Denmark,” vol. 11 (2015). Nowak-Böck, Britt. See Haas-Gebhard, Brigitte. Nunn-Weinberg, Danielle. “The Matron Goes to the Masque: The Dual Identity of the English Embroidered Jacket,” vol. 2 (2006). Oldland, John. “The Finishing of English Woollens, 1300–1550,” vol. 3 (2007); “Cistercian Clothing and Its Production at Beaulieu Abbey, 1269–70,” vol. 9 (2013). See also Quinton, Eleanor. Owen-Crocker, Gale R. “Pomp, Piety, and Keeping the Woman in Her Place: The Dress

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Author Index, Volumes 1–16 of Cnut and Ælfgifu-Emma,” vol. 1 (2005); “The Embroidered Word: Text in the Bayeux Tapestry,” vol. 2 (2006); “The Significance of Dress in the Bayeux Tapestry,” vol. 13 (2017); “Old Rags, New Responses: Medieval Dress and Textiles,” vol. 15 (2019). See also Chambers, Mark; Kneen, Maggie. Øye, Ingvild. “Production, Quality, and Social Status in Viking Age Dress: Three Cases from Western Norway,” vol. 11 (2015). Pac, Grzegorz. “The Attire of the Virgin Mary and Female Rulers in Iconographical Sources of the Ninth to Eleventh Centuries: Analogues, Interpretations, Misinterpretations,” vol. 12 (2016). Pedersen, Kathrine Vestergård. See Hammarlund, Lena. Pīgozne, Ieva. See Davidson, Hilary. Powell, Susan. “Textiles and Dress in the Household Papers of Lady Margaret Beaufort (1443–1509), Mother of King Henry VII,” vol. 11 (2015). Pritchard, Frances. “A Set of Late-Fifteenth-Century Orphreys Relating to Ludovico Buonvisi, a Lucchese Merchant, and Embroidered in a London Workshop,” vol. 12 (2016). Quinton, Eleanor, and John Oldland. “London Merchants’ Cloth Exports, 1350–1500,” vol. 7 (2011). Randles, Sarah. “One Quilt or Two? A Reassessment of the Guicciardini Quilts,” vol. 5 (2009). Rozier, Emily J. “‘Transposing þe shapus þat God first mad them of’: Manipulated Masculinity in the Galaunt Tradition,” vol. 11 (2015). Sayers, William. “Flax and Linen in Walter of Bibbesworth’s Thirteenth-Century French Treatise for English Housewives,” vol. 6 (2010). Schuessler, Melanie. “‘She Hath Over Grown All that Ever She Hath’: Children’s Clothing in the Lisle Letters, 1533–40,” vol. 3 (2007); “French Hoods: Development of a Sixteenth-Century Court Fashion,” vol. 5 (2009). See also Bond, Melanie Schuessler. Sciacca, Christine. “Stitches, Sutures, and Seams: ‘Embroidered’ Parchment Repairs in Medieval Manuscripts,” vol. 6 (2010). Sherman, Heidi M. “From Flax to Linen in the Medieval Rus Lands,” vol. 4 (2008). Sherrill, Tawny. “Fleas, Fur, and Fashion: Zibellini as Luxury Accessories of the Renaissance,” vol. 2 (2006); “Who Was Cesare Vecellio? Placing Habiti Antichi in Context,” vol. 5 (2009). Sinisi, Lucia. “The Wandering Wimple,” vol. 4 (2008); “The Marriage of the Year (1028),” vol. 9 (2013). Skoglund, Git. “Construction and Reconstruction of the Past: The Medieval Nordic Textile Heritage of Hemp,” vol. 16 (2020). Slefinger, John. “Historicizing the Allegorical Eye: Reading Lady Mede,” vol. 16 (2020). Stanford, Charlotte A. “Donations from the Body for the Soul: Apparel, Devotion, and Status in Late Medieval Strasbourg,” vol. 6 (2010). Staples, Kate Kelsey. “Fripperers and the Used Clothing Trade in Late Medieval London,” vol. 6 (2010). Straubhaar, Sandra Ballif. “Wrapped in a Blue Mantle: Fashions for Icelandic Slayers?” vol. 1 (2005). Sturtewagen, Isis. “Unveiling Social Fashion Patterns: A Case Study of Frilled Veils in the Low Countries (1200–1500),” vol. 7 (2011). See also Dahl, Camilla Luise. Swales, Lois, and Heather Blatt. “Tiny Textiles Hidden In Books: Toward a Categorization of Multiple-Strand Bookmarkers,” vol. 3 (2007).

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Author Index, Volumes 1–16 Swedo, Elizabeth M. “Unfolding Identities: The Intertextual Roles of Clothing in the Nibelungenlied and Völsunga Saga,” vol. 15 (2019). Sylvester, Louise. “Mining for Gold: Investigating a Semantic Classification in the Lexis of Cloth and Clothing Project,” vol. 8 (2012). Talarico, Kathryn Marie. “Dressing for Success: How the Heroine’s Clothing (Un)Makes the Man in Jean Renart’s Roman de la Rose,” vol. 8 (2012). Thomas, Hugh M. “Clothing and Textiles at the Court of King John of England, 1199– 1216,” vol. 15 (2019). Tiddeman, Megan. “Lexical Exchange with Italian in the Textile and Wool Trades in the Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries,” vol. 14 (2018). Tilghman, Carla. “Giovanna Cenami’s Veil: A Neglected Detail,” vol. 1 (2005). Twomey, Lesley K. “Poverty and Richly Decorated Garments: A Re-Evaluation of Their Significance in the Vita Christi of Isabel de Villena,” vol. 3 (2007). Vedeler, Marianne. See Hammarlund, Lena. Ward, Susan Leibacher. “Saints in Split Stitch: Representations of Saints in Opus Anglicanum Vestments,” vol. 3 (2007). Warr, Cordelia. “The Devil on My Tail: Clothing and Visual Culture in the Camposanto Last Judgment,” vol. 11 (2015). Wendelken, Rebecca Woodward. “Wefts and Worms: The Spread of Sericulture and Silk Weaving in the West before 1300,” vol. 10 (2014). Whitfield, Niamh. “Dress and Accessories in the Early Irish Tale ‘The Wooing Of Becfhola,’” vol. 2 (2006). Wild, Benjamin L. “The Empress’s New Clothes: A Rotulus Pannorum of Isabella, Sister of King Henry III, Bride of Emperor Frederick II,” vol. 7 (2011). Williams, Patricia. “Dress and Dignity in the Mabinogion,” vol. 8 (2012). Wright, Monica L. “‘De Fil d’Or et de Soie’: Making Textiles in Twelfth-Century French Romance,” vol. 2 (2006); “The Bliaut: An Examination of the Evidence in French Literary Sources,” vol. 14 (2018). Zanchi, Anna. “‘Melius Abundare Quam Deficere’: Scarlet Clothing in Laxdæla Saga and Njáls Saga,” vol. 4 (2008). Zumbuhl, Mark. “Clothing as Currency in Pre-Norman Ireland?” vol. 9 (2013).

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