Medieval Clothing and Textiles. Volume 12 [12] 1783270896, 9781783270897

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Contents GRZEGORZ PAC The Attire of the Virgin Mary and Female Rulers in Iconographical Sources of the Ninth to Eleventh Centuries: Analogues, Interpretations, Misinterpretations MEGAN CAVELL Sails,Veils, and Tents: The Segl and Tabernacle of Old English Christ III and Exodus THOMAS M. IZBICKI Linteamenta altaria: The Care of Altar Linens in the Medieval Church JOHN BLOCK FRIEDMAN Coats, Collars, and Capes: Royal Fashions for Animals in the Early Modern Period FRANCES PRITCHARD A Set of Late-Fifteenth-Century Orphreys Relating to Ludovico Buonvisi, a Lucchese Merchant, and Embroidered in a London Workshop JONATHAN C. COOPER Academical Dress in Late Medieval and Renaissance Scotland CAMILLA LUISE DAHL Dressing the Bourgeoisie: Clothing in Probate Records of Danish Townswomen, ca. 1545–1610

ROBIN NETHERTON is a professional editor and a researcher/lecturer on the interpretation of medieval European dress. GALE R. OWEN-CROCKER is Professor Emerita, The University of Manchester.

an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge IP12 3DF (GB) and 668 Mt Hope Ave, Rochester NY 14620-2731 (US) www.boydellandbrewer.com

Editors Netherton & Owen-Crocker

Cover image: Detail of Balthazar with greyhound in heraldic collar, from Adoration of the Magi triptych, by Joos van der Beke van Cleve, 1525 (Detroit Institute of Arts, no. 45.420). Photo: Kristen Figg, with courtesy of the Detroit Institute of Arts.

MEDIEVAL CLOTHING AND TEXTILES

Medieval Clothing and Textiles 12

MEDIEVAL CLOTHING AND TEXTILES

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Edited by Robin Netherton and Gale R. Owen-Crocker



Medieval Clothing and Textiles Volume 12

Medieval Clothing and Textiles ISSN 1744-5787

General Editors Robin Netherton Gale R. Owen-Crocker

St. Louis, Missouri, USA University of Manchester, England

Editorial Board John Hines Christine Meek Lisa Monnas M. A. Nordtorp-Madson Frances Pritchard Lucia Sinisi Eva Andersson Strand Monica L. Wright

Cardiff University, Wales Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland London, England University of St. Thomas, Minnesota, USA Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, England University of Bari, Italy Centre for Textile Research, Copenhagen, Denmark University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA

Medieval Clothing and Textiles Volume 12

edited by

ROBIN NETHERTON and

GALE R. OWEN-CROCKER

THE BOYDELL PRESS

© Contributors 2016 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 2016 The Boydell Press, Woodbridge ISBN 978-1-78327-089-7

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. This publication is printed on acid-free paper.

Typeset by Frances Hackeson Freelance Publishing Services, Brinscall, Lancs

Contents Illustrations

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Tables

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Contributors

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Preface

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1          

The Attire of the Virgin Mary and Female Rulers in Iconographical Sources of the Ninth to Eleventh Centuries: Analogues, Interpretations, Misinterpretations Grzegorz Pac

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2        3    

Sails, Veils, and Tents: The Segl and Tabernacle of Old English Christ III and Exodus Megan Cavell

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Linteamenta altaria: The Care of Altar Linens in the Medieval Church Thomas M. Izbicki

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4        5           6    

Coats, Collars, and Capes: Royal Fashions for Animals in the Early Modern Period John Block Friedman

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A Set of Late-Fifteenth-Century Orphreys Relating to Ludovico Buonvisi, a Lucchese Merchant, and Embroidered in a London Workshop Frances Pritchard

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Academical Dress in Late Medieval and Renaissance Scotland Jonathan C. Cooper

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7  Dressing the Bourgeoisie: Clothing in Probate Records of Danish    Townswomen, ca. 1545–1610    Camilla Luise Dahl Recent Books of Interest

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Contents of Previous Volumes

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Illustrations The Virgin Mary and Female Rulers Fig. 1.1 Dedication page from the Bible of San Paolo fuori le Mura Fig. 1.2 Dedication page from the Liber Vitae, Winchester Fig. 1.3 Mary-Ecclesia in the Petershausen Sacramentary, Reichenau Fig. 1.4 Judgment of Solomon from the Bible of San Paolo fuori le Mura Fig. 1.5 St. Æthelthryth in the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, Winchester Fig. 1.6 Empress Theodora from mosaic of San Vitale Church in Ravenna Fig. 1.7 Ivory plaque showing an empress Fig. 1.8 Ivory plaque showing Otto II and Theophanu crowned by Christ

3 4 5 8 12 17 18 20

Royal Fashions for Animals Fig. 4.1 Lapdog with belled collar from St. William window, York Cathedral Fig. 4.2 Leather dog collar with heraldic brass escutcheon, found in Leiden Fig. 4.3 Arms of Simon de Varie from his prayer book Fig. 4.4 Balthazar with greyhound from Adoration of the Magi by Joos van der Beke van Cleve Fig. 4.5 Monogram on dog collar from the Unicorn Hunt tapestry series Fig. 4.6 Talbot with fleur-de-lys collar from the Unicorn Hunt tapestry series Fig. 4.7 Hunting dogs in protective jackets from the Devonshire Hunting Tapestries Fig. 4.8 Duchy of Brabant and its enemies from the Charter of the Duchy of Brabant Fig. 4.9 Monkey in a tightly fitted jacket from the Luttrell Psalter Fig. 4.10 Monkey in a cowled garment from De Natura Rerum Fig. 4.11 Will Somer and a dressed monkey from family portrait of King Henry VIII vii

65 66 67 69 76 77 82 84 86 88 89

Illustrations Fig. 4.12 Dressed bear supporters from glass panel with arms of Brugg Fig. 4.13 Heraldic bears on the tapestry of Guillaume Jouvenel des Ursins

91 93

Late-Fifteenth-Century Orphreys Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2 Fig. 5.3 Fig. 5.4 Fig. 5.5

Front of chasuble with embroidered pillar orphrey Back of chasuble with embroidered cross orphrey Detail of pillar orphrey showing St. Sebastian Detail of cross orphrey showing the Rood of Lucca Legend of the Holy Face of Lucca, Paris

96 97 99 102 103

Academical Dress in Scotland Fig. 6.1 Funeral effigy of Hugh Spens, provost of St. Salvator’s 115 College Fig. 6.2 Funeral effigy of Alexander Young, principal of St. Leonard’s      118 College Clothing of Danish Townswomen Fig. 7.1 Fig. 7.2 Fig. 7.3 Fig. 7.4 Fig. 7.5 Fig. 7.6 Fig. 7.7 Fig. 7.8 Fig. 7.9 Fig. 7.10 Fig. 7.11 Fig. 7.12 Fig. 7.13 Fig. 7.14 Fig. 7.15 Fig. 7.16 Fig. 7.17 Fig. 7.18

Map of the four main towns around the Sound in the sixteenth century Probate of Marine, midwife in Malmoe, 1573 Probate of Else, wife of an alderman in Elsinore, 1591 Epitaph of David Hansen and family, ca. 1599, Elsinore Epitaph showing typical church dress, ca. 1585, Køge Epitaph showing short shoulder capes, 1576, Odense Stone effigy showing doublet and skirt, early seventeenth century, Malmoe Tombstone showing an open gown, 1591, Zealand Carved stone epitaph showing layered outfits, Malmoe Epitaph showing kirtles with front lacing, 1591, Flensburg Epitaph showing doublets and skirts, early seventeenth century, Tønder Epitaph showing Scottish and Danish headwear, early seventeenth century, Elsinore Altar table painting showing partlet or upperpart with ruffled collar, ca. 1550, Zealand Wall painting showing ruffled collars, ca. 1560, Zealand Epitaph showing large collars, 1606, Elsinore Altar panel painting showing traditional church clothes trimmed with velvet borders, early seventeenth century, Malmoe Epitaph of Anne, wife of an alderman in Ronneby, Blekinge, 1587 Naïve painting of a wealthy couple, 1583, Elsingburg viii

132 135 136 141 144 146 148 150 152 154 156 164 166 167 169 170 172 173

Illustrations 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 Clothing of Danish Townswomen Table 7.1 Table 7.2 Table 7.3 Table 7.4 Table 7.5 Table 7.6 Table 7.7 Table 7.8 Table 7.9 Table 7.10 Table 7.11

Outerwear 179 Details specified for short capes (krave) 180 Upperwear garments and related decorations 181 Headwear listed with outerwear/upperwear 182 Types of kirtles, skirts, and bodices 183 Details specified for kirtles, skirts, and bodices, period I 184 Details specified for kirtles, skirts, and bodices, period II 185 Details specified for kirtles, skirts, and bodices, period III 186 Underwear and linen clothing 187 Legwear and footwear 190 Belts/girdles and purses 191

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Contributors ROBIN NETHERTON (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. A journalist by training, she also works as a professional editor. GALE R. OWEN-CROCKER (Editor) is Professor Emerita of the University of ­Manchester. Among her recent publications are articles on “Dress” (2014) and “­Textiles” (2012) in Oxford Bibliographies Online: Medieval Studies, both with E ­ lizabeth ­Coatsworth; The Lexis of Cloth and Clothing in Britain ca. 700–1450, a database available at http://lexisproject.arts.manchester.ac.uk; Medieval Dress and Textiles in Britain: A Multilingual Sourcebook, with Louise Sylvester and Mark Chambers (2014); Encyclopedia of Dress and Textiles in the British Isles c. 450–1450, with Elizabeth ­Coatsworth and Maria Hayward (2012); and five co-edited books on Anglo-Saxon culture. She was recently presented with a book of essays celebrating her career, Textiles, Text, Intertext, edited by Maren Clegg Hyer and Jill Frederick. MEGAN CAVELL is Junior Research Fellow in the Department of English Studies, Durham University, and author of Weaving Words and Binding Bodies: The Poetics of Human Experience in Old English Literature (2016). Her research specialty is Old English and Anglo-Latin literature, with particular interests in poetics, material culture, and animal studies. She also runs “The Riddle Ages: An Anglo-Saxon Riddle Blog” (www.theriddleages.wordpress.com), a collaborative project to provide translations and accessible commentaries for the Exeter Book riddles. JONATHAN C. COOPER is Senior Lecturer in Sustainable Land Use and Technology at Harper Adams University. He is a Fellow of the Burgon Society, founded to promote the study of academical dress. He has published previously on the history and development of Scottish undergraduate dress and on the dress of the rectors of the Scottish universities. CAMILLA LUISE DAHL is an archivist at the Archives of the Island of Bornholm, Denmark. She holds a master’s degree from the University of Copenhagen and also studied at the Centre for Textile Research there. Her main research area is medieval xi

Contributors and early modern Scandinavian dress, particularly clothing references in historic documents. She serves on the editorial board of Dragtjournalen, a dress journal published by a consortium of Danish museums. JOHN BLOCK FRIEDMAN is Visiting Scholar at the Center for Medieval and ­Renaissance Studies at Ohio State University and the author, editor, or associate editor of thirteen books as well as numerous articles. Forthcoming works include the chapters “Hair and Social Class,” in A Cultural History of Hair in the Middle Ages, edited by Roberta Milliken, and “Dogs in the Identity Formation and Moral Teaching Offered in Some 15th-Century Flemish Manuscript Miniatures,” in Our Dogs, Our Selves: Dogs in Medieval and Early Modern Society, edited by Laura Gelfand. THOMAS M. IZBICKI is Humanities Librarian Emeritus at Rutgers University. His research centers on the late medieval church, especially canon law. He has written extensively on Nicholas of Cusa, the papacy, and the discipline for administering the sacraments; his article in this volume derives from his research on the Eucharist. Currently, he is examining the anointing of the sick in the later Middle Ages. GRZEGORZ PAC is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of History, University of Warsaw. His research focuses on queenship and the cult of saints, especially the Virgin in the early and high Middle Ages. He has recently published a book about the social role of women in the Piast dynasty to the mid-twelfth century. FRANCES PRITCHARD is Curator (Textiles) at the Whitworth Art Gallery and an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Manchester. Her recent publications have focused on early medieval textiles from Egypt. She is currently researching tenthto twelfth-century textiles from excavations in Dublin for the National Museum of Ireland.

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Preface Volume 12 of Medieval Clothing and Textiles ranges through art, artifacts, documentary text, and poetry, with new research addressing both functional applications and symbolic representations of dress and textiles. John Block Friedman breaks new ground for this journal with his article on real and imagined clothing for royal pets and other animals. Grzegorz Pac compares depictions of sacred and royal female dress in three significant manuscripts—Carolingian, Anglo-Saxon, and Ottonian—and evaluates attempts to link them together. Jonathan C. Cooper describes the clothing worn by scholars in Scotland’s three pre-Reformation universities and the effects of the Reformation on academic dress. Camilla Luise Dahl, in a double-size article, analyzes descriptions and valuations of women’s garments itemized in Danish probate inventories and explains what these references can tell us about changing fashions in the early modern period. Turning to textiles, Frances Pritchard examines the iconography, heraldry, and inscriptions on a worn and repaired set of embroidered fifteenth-century orphreys to show that they must have been commissioned in London by an Italian merchant family. Megan Cavell focuses on the rhetorical treatment of textiles associated with the Holy of Holies in Old English biblical poetry. Thomas M. Izbicki’s chapter summarizes documentary evidence for the choice of white linen for the altar and the responsibilities of a priest for keeping it clean and in good repair. Frances Pritchard is stepping down from our editorial board after this volume. She has been with us since volume 1, and we thank her for her expertise, which has been applied to submissions to Medieval Clothing and Textiles on many occasions. Our thanks go to all our board members as well as the many other scholars who have generously agreed to review article submissions and consult with authors. 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 gale. [email protected] (for Leeds). Potential authors for Medieval Clothing and Textiles should read the guidelines at http://www.distaff.org/MCTguidelines.pdf, and send a 300-word synopsis to Professor Gale R. Owen-Crocker, 181 Chester Road, Hazel Grove, Stockport SK7 6EN, UK; email [email protected]. Authors of larger studies interested in submitting a monograph or collaborative book manuscript for our subsidia series, Medieval and Renaissance Clothing and xiii

Preface ­ extiles, should apply using the publication proposal form on the website of our T publisher, Boydell & Brewer, at http://www.boydellandbrewer.com/authors_submit_ proposal.asp. We encourage potential authors to discuss their ideas with the General Editors, Robin Netherton and Gale Owen-Crocker, before making a formal proposal.

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The Attire of the Virgin Mary and Female Rulers in Iconographical Sources of the Ninth to Eleventh Centuries: Analogues, Interpretations, Misinterpretations Grzegorz Pac

In western Europe the formalization of the position of wife of the ruler started taking shape in the Carolingian period. She began to be crowned as empress alongside her husband, and the practice of anointing her as queen was adopted.1 Simultaneously with the introduction of formal coronations of queens and empresses in the West, rulers’ wives were gradually included into the world of Christian symbolism, and their special position, confirmed by religious rites, required a theological explanation and foundation.2

This research was covered by the grant “Images of the Virgin Mary and Ecclesia as Female Rulers in the Context of the Religious and Political Culture of the Early Middle Ages,” funded by the Foundation for Polish Science, which also supported the publication. I would like to thank Gale R. Owen-Crocker and Valerie L. Garver for their comments and suggestions, as well as Dominik Purchała for his advice on using public domain resources and Creative Commons licenses.   1 See Gunther Wolf, “Königinnen-Krönungen des Frühen Mittelalters bis zum Beginn des ­Investiturstreits,” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte 107, Kanonistische Abteilung 76 (1990): 62–88, passim; Grzegorz Pac, “Koronacje Władczyń we Wcześniejszym Średniowieczu—Zarys Problematyki” [Coronations of Female Rulers in the Earlier Middle Ages: Outline of the Subject], in Gnieźnieńskie Koronacje Królewskie i ich Środkowoeuropejskie Konteksty, ed. Józef Dobosz et al. (Gniezno, Poland: Urząd Miejski w Gnieźnie, Instytut Kultury Europejskiej UAM w Gnieźnie, Instytut Historii UAM w Poznaniu, 2011), 43–57, passim, where further reading. In the context of the present article, queens and empresses will not be sharply distinct. A similar approach is to be found in other studies of the subject, for instance: Pauline Stafford, Queens, Concubines, and Dowagers: The King’s Wife in the Early Middle Ages, 2nd ed. (London: Leicester University Press, 1998); Franz-Reiner Erkens, “‘Sicut Esther regina’: Die Westfränkische Königin als consors regni,” Francia 20 (1993): 15–38, passim; Simon MacLean, “Queenship, Nunneries and Royal Widowhood in C ­ arolingian Europe,” Past and Present 178 (2003): 3–38, esp. 7, note 9. The potential differences in the ideology related with royal and imperial have yet to be carefully researched but as a subject significantly exceed the framework of this article.    2 For the first queens’ ordines, see Janet L. Nelson, “Early Medieval Rites of Queen-Making and the Shaping of Medieval Queenship,” in Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe, ed. Anne J. ­Duggan (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 1997), 301–15, passim; Julie A. Smith, “The Earliest Queen-Making Rites,” Church History 66, no. 1 (1997): 18–35, passim.

Grzegorz Pac Research on queenship ideology is undoubtedly a vivid and important field of recent medieval studies. Focusing on the religious basis of the ruler’s consort position and its biblical models, students of the subject have shown the role of the Queen of Heavens, the Virgin Mary, already for centuries titled regina,3 as an important point of reference for the terrestrial queen.4 The confident conviction that the role of the Mother of God in queenship ideology was so crucial from the very beginning can in fact be called into question, but this is not the place to undertake that subject. My goal in this article is much more limited: I would like to show how the assumption of an ideological bond between Mary and the ruler’s consort, in some cases perhaps too easily accepted, may have led us to misinterpretations of particular sources. I would like to show that only analyzed in a wider context can they help us to better understand queenship ideology as well as the perception of the Virgin in the early Middle Ages. As examples, I have taken three iconographical sources, that is, miniatures from three different codices. The first of these images is from the so-called Bible of San Paolo fuori le Mura or the Bible of Charles the Bald (fig. 1.1),5 produced under the patronage of the ruler between ca. 866 and ca. 875.6 Another image is the famous dedication page of the Liber Vitae from New Minster, Winchester (fig. 1.2),7 a confraternity book containing names of monks and benefactors of the abbey, which was produced and began to be filled about 1031. The final example is from the Petershausen Sacramentary (fig. 1.3),8 the work of Anno, a scribe from the extraordinary centre of Ottonian art that is Reichenau Abbey, made between ca. 970 and ca. 980. As we can see, each of these images comes from a different context, respectively Carolingian, Anglo-Saxon, and Ottonian. However, in all three cases dress has been supposed to play a key role in the confirming or undermining of the ideological bond between the terrestrial and heavenly queen. This assumption was made by outstanding historians and art historians; quotations from their works, representing that viewpoint, will be provided later, in the parts of this article discussing each case.

   3 See Marie-Louise Thérel, Le Triomphe de la Vierge-Eglise: A l’Origine du Décor du Portail Occidental de Notre-Dame de Senlis: Sources Historiques, Littéraires et Iconographiques (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1984), 224–30; Henri Barré, “La Royauté de Marie pendant les Neufs Premiers Siècles,” Recherches de Science Religieuse 29 (1939): 129–62 and 303–34, esp. 137–39; Henri Barré, “Marie, Reine du Monde,” Études Mariales 3 (1937): 19–91, passim; Georges Frénaud, “La Royauté de Marie dans la Liturgie,” in Maria et Ecclesia: Acta Congressus Mariologici-Mariani in Civitate Lourdes Anno 1958 Celebrati, vol. 5, Mariae Potestas Regalis in Ecclesiam (Rome: Pontificia Academia Mariana Internationalis, 1959), 57–92, esp. 73–74; Manuel Garrido, “La Realeza de María en las Liturgias Occidentales,” Estudios Marianos 17 (1956): 95–124, passim.    4 See for example Stafford, Queens, 27; Janet L. Nelson, “Medieval Queenship,” in Women in Medieval Western European Culture, ed. Linda E. Mitchell (New York: Routledge, 1999), 179–207, at 186.    5 Rome, Abbazia di San Paolo fuori le Mura, 1r.    6 William J. Diebold, “The Ruler Portrait of Charles the Bald in the S. Paolo Bible,” Art Bulletin 76, no. 1 (1994): 6–18, at 6.    7 London, British Library, MS Stowe 944, 6r.    8 Heidelberg, Germany, Universitätsbibliothek, MS Cod. Sal. IX b, 40v.

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The Virgin Mary and Female Rulers

Figure 1.1: The dedication page from the Bible of San Paolo fuori le Mura, also known as the Bible of Charles the Bald, ca. 866–75 (Rome, Abbazia di San Paolo fuori le Mura, fol. 1r). Photo: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

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Grzegorz Pac

Figure 1.2: The dedication page from the Liber Vitae, Winchester, ca. 1031 (London, British Library, MS Stowe 944, fol. 6r). Photo: The British Library, public domain, Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.

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The Virgin Mary and Female Rulers

Figure 1.3: Mary-Ecclesia in the Petershausen Sacramentary, Reichenau, ca. 970–80 (Heidelberg, Universitätsbibliothek, MS Cod. Sal. IX b, fol. 40v). Photo: Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, Creative Commons license CC-BY-SA 3.0.

VEIL OF VIRGINS?

The veil is an element of dress of particular interest. However, some of the existing research simplifies its meaning, which in fact, as we will see, may be very diverse, ranging from the symbol of holy virginity to a regular element of married women’s attire. French historian Dominique Iogna-Prat turns his attention to the image of Charles the Bald in the Bible of San Paolo fuori le Mura, where the emperor’s wife, Richildis, is depicted along with him. She is also mentioned in the poem below the image: “On the

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Grzegorz Pac left the noble wife, beautiful as always.”9 Iogna-Prat suggests interpreting this source together with another depiction of a royal couple, more recent by around 150 years: the dedication page of the Liber Vitae from New Minster, Winchester, presenting Cnut and his wife Emma-Ælfgifu. The latter has a veil on her head and is receiving another from an angel. “That is the veil of virgins, as Mary is located above the queen,” claims Iogna-Prat, and asks, “Why does the queen have a veil in both images? What is the sense, in these circumstances, of the symbol of virginity?” Looking for an answer, the historian indicates interestingly the importance in queenship ideology of the virtue of marital chastity, and the fertility connected with it,10 suggesting also the bond of the veil with the Virgin.11 Patrick Corbet, referring to Iogna-Prat’s statement, states openly: “The bond between the Virgin and female ruler in these miniatures is manifested especially by the virginal veil put on the heads of Richildis and Emma.”12 Why would a veil be a symbol of virginity? Neither author is clear in this point, but they may be referring to that worn by consecrated virgins—nuns or canonesses. If so, they would be overlooking one important fact—that the nun’s veil, although undoubtedly in this case related to chastity, was not a sign of virginity in itself, but rather of the status of “bride of Christ” and was modeled on that of married women, just like the rite of its receiving imitated the rite of a regular wedding.13 In fact, technically, nuns were married or at least engaged women, only to the Celestial Bridegroom.

  9 “Nobilis ad laevam coniux de more venustat,” Bible of San Paolo fuori le Mura, 1r, La Bibbia ­Carolingia dell’ Abbazia di San Paolo Fuori le Mura, ed. Marco Cardinali (Vatican City: Edizioni Abbazia San Paolo, 2009), 19. See also Ernst H. Kantorowicz, “The Carolingian King in the Bible of San Paolo Fuori le Mura,” in Late Classical and Mediaeval Studies in Honor of Albert Mathias Friend, Jr., ed. Kurt Weitzmann et al. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955), 287–300, at 288, 291–97; Valerie L. Garver, Women and Aristocratic Culture in the Carolingian World (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009), 32–33; Diebold, “Ruler Portrait,” 8–9. As Garver (32–33) rightly notes, writing about the two women to the ruler’s left on this image, although it could be argued that they are the personifications of provinces paying homage to the emperor, the poem under the illustration mentioning the ruler’s wife on his left identifies the figure we are interested in as Richildis.  10 On the meaning of chastity in queenship ideology, see Grzegorz Pac, “Biblical Judith in the Ideology of Queenship of the Early Middle Ages,” in “Et credidit populus: The Role and Function of Beliefs in Early Societies,” ed. J. Szacillo, J. Eaton, and S. McDaid, special issue, Quest 8 (2009): 75–89, at 78–80, http://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/QUEST/JournalIssues/­­­Issue8Proceedings­of­t heMARSConference (accessed Feb. 25, 2014), where further reading.  11 Dominique Iogna-Prat, “La Vierge et les Ordines de Couronnement des Reines au IXe Siècle,” in Marie: Le Culte de la Vierge dans la Société Médiévale, ed. Dominique Iogna-Prat, Éric Palazzo, and Daniel Russo (Paris: Beauchesne, 1996), 100–7, at 103; Dominique Iogna-Prat, “Le Culte de la Vierge sous le Règne de Charles le Chauve,” Les Cahiers de Saint-Michel de Cuxa 23 (1992): 97–116, at 114.  12 Patrick Corbet, “Les Impératrices Ottoniennes et le Modèle Marial: Autour de l’Ivoire du Château Sforza de Milan,” in Iogna-Prat, Palazzo, and Russo, Marie: Le Culte, 109–135, at 123–24.  13 Philip L. Reynolds, “Marrying and Its Documentation in Pre-Modern Europe: Consent, Celebration, and Property,” in To Have and to Hold: Marrying and Its Documentation in Western Christendom, 400–1600, ed. P. L. Reynolds and John Witte, Jr. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 1–42, at 18, where further reading; Réginald Grégoire, “Il Matrimonio Mistico,” in Il Matrimonio nella Società Altomedievale, Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo 24 (Spoleto: Presso la sede del Centro, 1977), 2:701–94, at 720–41.

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The Virgin Mary and Female Rulers However, interestingly, although the veil as a symbol of consecrated virginity had a long tradition in Christianity, it gained importance, as noticed by Valerie L. Garver, only in the ninth century, the period which gave us the first miniature discussed here. In the Merovingian period of the sixth and seventh centuries, not all consecrated women wore veils, and the ritual of nuns entering a convent was not yet fully developed.14 This may also have been the case in Anglo-Saxon England, as two surviving seals of nuns from the second half of the tenth and the first half of the eleventh century may suggest: while one of the nuns wears a veil, another is presented bareheaded.15 Talking about the “virginal veil” the authors may also be thinking of the virginal state as such, and referring rather to maidens than nuns. But, as noted above, married women wore veils as well. Furthermore, later sources suggest that in the High Middle Ages they differed from maidens precisely by having their heads covered, while the latter had theirs bare.16 It appears, however, that, at least in the period we are dealing with, the veil did not play such a role as a sign of the marital state of a lay woman. Commenting on the scene of the Annunciation in an eleventh-century German gospel book, in which the Virgin is wearing a white veil,17 Margaret Scott notes that it suggests both married and unmarried women wore their hair covered in this time;18 or, to put it more carefully, at least that is how they were depicted by artists, who “certainly did not distinguish between maiden and matron,” as Gale R. Owen-Crocker remarks about Anglo-Saxon art.19 Also for us, how women of various states were depicted in the early Middle Ages is of more interest than how they actually dressed. And it seems that in the ­iconography of that period it is simply not possible to distinguish their marital state based on dress, because in fact all women, regardless of being maidens, wives, or widows, lay or religious, were presented in veils. From this point of view the statement that the veil has to be “the symbol of virginity” is very doubtful, as it could be in fact be related with every woman’s state. Based on iconography, we cannot simply say whether in each particular case a veil is virginal or marital, but considering that in the case of  14 Garver, Women and Aristocratic Culture, 90. See also Gisela Muschiol, Famula Dei: Zur Liturgie in Merowingischen Frauenklöstern (Münster, Germany: Aschendorff, 1994), 49–50.  15 The veiled one is Edith of Wilton, a daughter of Edgar I; see Catherine E. Karkov, The Ruler Portraits of Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2004), 114–16. The one with an uncovered head is Godgytha; see Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Dress in Anglo-Saxon England: Revised and Enlarged Edition (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2004), 219–20, where it is also suggested that Godgytha’s hair could possibly be a copy of that from a man’s image on the other side of the seal die—this could be a reason that her head is uncovered. For both seals, see also Patricia Halpin, “Women Religious in Late Anglo-Saxon England,” Haskins Society Journal 6 (1994): 97–110, at 106–7.  16 See for example Roberta Gilchrist, Medieval Life: Archaeology and the Life Course (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2012) 84; Chiara Frugoni, “The Imagined Woman,” in Silences of the Middle Ages, ed. C ­ hristiane Klapisch-Zuber, A History of Women in the West 2 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard ­University Press, 1992), 336–422, at 385; Paul B. Newman, Daily Life in the Middle Ages (Jefferson, NC: ­McFarland & Co, 2001), 119. See also Frugoni, “L’Iconografia del Matrimonio e della Coppia nel Medioevo,” in Il Matrimonio nella Società Altomedievale, 2:901–64, at 922, note 76.  17 London, British Library, MS Harley 2821, 22r.  18 Margaret Scott, Medieval Dress and Fashion (London: British Library, 2007), 27, caption to fig. 11.  19 Owen-Crocker, Dress, 219.

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Grzegorz Pac

Figure 1.4: The Judgment of Solomon, detail of the frontispiece to the Book of Proverbs from the Bible of San Paolo fuori le Mura (Rome, Abbazia di San Paolo fuori le Mura, fol. 188v). Photo: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Richildis we are dealing with a married woman, we can assume that the one on her head is more probably the latter. WOMEN IN THE BIBLE OF SAN PAOLO FUORI LE MURA

In the direct context of that image, the above-mentioned difficulties in telling apart maidens, married women, and widows in the art of the period based on their attire are confirmed. In fact, as we will see, it is enough to take a look at other images in the Bible of San Paolo fuori le Mura to notice that the headdress of the empress is rather typical for almost all women presented in the codex. However, contradicting the proposition of Iogna-Prat and Corbet, a comparison with the other illustrations of the codex not only does not suggest any reference to virginity, but rather implies through some details that Richildis is a married woman. Let us start with the miniature depicting the emperor and his wife, in which veils, although simpler than that of the empress, are worn also by the personifications of the four cardinal virtues and by the woman standing beside the empress, probably her attendant (fig. 1.1).20 While the personifications of virtues may be virginal, in the case of the attendant, the decorative dress and gold earrings show clearly that she is not a nun. However, to understand fully the veil’s meaning—or lack thereof—it is necessary to look past this most commonly reproduced and discussed of the Bible’s miniatures. It will then become clear that although, for example, the virgin from the prophecy of Isaiah, who shall “conceive and bear a son” (Isa. 7:14; fol. 117v), wears a veil, it is not in any way a feature distinctive of her state. In a scene from the First Book of Kings (1 Kings 3:16–27), King Solomon judges two women arguing over which is the mother  20 Kantorowicz, “Carolingian King,” 288; Garver, Women and Aristocratic Culture, 32; Diebold, “Ruler Portrait,” 9.

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The Virgin Mary and Female Rulers of a child. Both women, certainly not virgins—in fact, as the Bible says, prostitutes— have white veils on their heads (fol. 188v; fig. 1.4). Similarly, in an illustration from the book of Exodus (Exod. 2:1–10; fol. 21v), both Pharaoh’s daughter and the sister of Moses are wearing veils, while Moses’s mother has apparently used her veil to wrap her son, and that is why she is bareheaded. Finally, we have an image which leaves no doubt that a veil is worn by a married woman—namely Hannah, one of Elkanah’s two wives and mother of Samuel (1 Sam. 1:1–28; fol. 83v). A veil with gold decoration, similar to the one underlining the high status of Richildis and the richness of Charles’s court,21 is worn also by other women in the Bible of San Paolo fuori le Mura. Such a veil is to be seen on the head of Paula (fol. 3v), a wealthy Roman matron and friend of St. Jerome, of whose love for silk in the time before she entered the convent Jerome himself wrote,22 and on the biblical Judith, who “put away the garments of her widowhood” and “clothed herself with the garments of her gladness” (Jth. 10:2–3)23 in order to seduce Holofernes (fol. 234v). This change of attire is very significant—Judith as a pious widow was a model of chastity for medieval commentators,24 and this choice of a more ornate outfit, including headgear (mitra), reflects the suspension of this state. Judith dresses the way she did when her husband was alive, and she goes to Holofernes to charm him with her beauty. Since Hannah also has a veil with gold decorations (fol. 83v) and, on the other hand, all unmarried women are presented in simple, white veils, it can be claimed that the one on the head of Richildis is somehow a negation of the virginal status: the empress is dressed in a way which is proper for a married woman. It was also certainly not appropriate for consecrated virgins, as according to Valerie Garver, the ornate dresses of both queen and her attendant were probably made of silk, the use of which by nuns was not allowed.25 Apart from these details, it can be stated with certainty that in the twenty-four full-page miniatures of the Bible of San Paolo fuori le Mura, where over a dozen women are depicted, all of them, regardless of their state, are wearing veils, with the exception of Eve and the mother of Moses, who used her veil to wrap her son. Can it be said then that Richildis’s veil has something to do with virginity? Rather not. But could it have been an idea of the miniaturist, as currently suggested by scholars, to use this part of female attire to link the imperial consort with the Virgin? Let us take a look at the image of the Virgin in the scene of the Pentecost (fol. 295v). As it turns out, Mary is the only woman in the codex whose veil is purple, not white, which makes her appearance clearly different from Richildis and other women in the Bible’s miniatures.

 21 Garver, Women and Aristocratic Culture, 33.  22 Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi Epistulae, vol. 2, Epistulae LXXI–CXX, ed. I. Hilberg and M. Kamptner, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum 55, 2nd ed. (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1996), ep. 108, cap. 15, 326.  23 “… exuit se vestimentis viduitatis suae … et induit se vestimentis iucunditatis suae,” Biblia Sacra: Iuxta Vulgatam Versionem, ed. Bonifatius Fischer and Robert Weber (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1983); translations of the Vulgate text from the Douay-Rheims translation.  24 Pac, “Biblical Judith,” 76–78.  25 Garver, Women and Aristocratic Culture, 58–59.

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Grzegorz Pac Ernst Kantorowicz explained the lack of a crown on the empress’s head, claiming that the Bible was made for Charles and Richildis’s wedding in 870, while the imperial coronation of the latter took place six years later.26 However, the veil itself on the heads of rulers’ consorts is nothing exceptional, because it seems that queens and empresses, like other women, wore them, and a veil can be seen, together with the crown, on almost every depiction of Carolingian, Ottonian, or Anglo-Saxon queens and empresses.27 In other words, a veil on Richildis’s head makes her similar to other royal or imperial consorts and in fact probably to any other married woman. THE ATTIRE OF EMMA-ÆLFGIFU

The veil is to be found also on the head of the second figure recalled by Iogna-Prat and Corbet, Emma-Ælfgifu, depicted along with her husband, Cnut, on the dedication page of the New Minster monastery’s Liber Vitae (fig. 1.2). But before we deal with this, we have to pay some attention to the other element of this queen’s attire: the decorative band on her forehead under her veil, interpreted by some scholars as a royal diadem.28 From our point of view the question is of some importance, because if it is a diadem, the interpretation proposed by Catherine E. Karkov could be correct. She claims: “Ælfgifu’s diadem is very like that worn by Mary in the picture of the ‘Quinity’ in Ælfwine’s prayerbook (Cotton Titus D.xxvii, fol. 75v) and its use may have been intended to reinforce the association between the two women”;29 this seems convincing, considering that both of these images from Winchester are probably by the same hand.30 We must, however, notice differences between the way this element is represented in both images: Ælfgifu’s band/diadem is located under her veil, while that of Mary in the “Quinity” is worn on top of the veil. Owen-Crocker notes that the diadem on  26 Kantorowicz, “Carolingian King,” esp. 297. On the subject of the coronation of Richildis, see Wolf, “Königinnen–Krönungen,” 66.  27 For example, see images: Emma, wife of Lothar II, from the so-called Psalter of Emma (original not preserved; hand-drawn copy in Jean Mabillon, Annales Ordinis S. Benedicti, vol. 4 [Paris: Caroli ­Robustal, 1708], 30); Theophanu, wife of Otto II, on the ivory plaque from Castello Sforzesco in Milan; Cunigunde in the Pericops Book of Henry II (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm. 4452, 2v); Gisela, wife of Conrad II, in the Speyer Gospels (Madrid, El Escorial, Real Biblioteca, Cod. Vitrinas 17, 2v); finally, the above-mentioned Emma in the Encomium Emmae Reginae (London, British Library, MS Add. 33241, 1v).  28 Catherine E. Karkov interprets this element of attire as a diadem and has no doubt that it is a symbol of Ælfgifu’s royal status: “The diadem that Ælfgifu wears may then indicate nothing more than the fact that she is queen of the English”; Karkov, Ruler Portraits, 129. Jan Gerchow is somewhat more careful, although he also calls this decorative band a diadem, but is not so convinced about its meaning. He writes: “Emma wears a circlet under her veil, which together signify her as royal—or at least noble—as well as a married woman”; Gerchow, “Prayers for King Cnut: The Liturgical Commemoration of a Conqueror,” in England in the Eleventh Century, ed. Carola Hicks (Stamford, UK: Paul Watkins, 1992), 219–38, at 224–25.  29 Karkov, Ruler Portraits, 129–30.  30 Mary Clayton, The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Anglo-Saxon England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 166.

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The Virgin Mary and Female Rulers Mary’s head is an example of a band made of solid metal, and though she notices the similarities between decorations on this headband and that of Ælfgifu, she also takes note of the differences in the ways of wearing. She writes that Mary’s diadem, as opposed to Ælfgifu’s band, “is worn lower over the brow.”31 In a similar way to that of the “Quinity” Mary, a veil is worn under a diadem or crown by the women rulers mentioned above in continental images and by Emma in an image from Encomium Emmae Reginae.32 In fact, if Ælfgifu’s headband from the miniature in the Liber Vitae were to be a diadem, it would be the only known example from the iconography of this period in which a diadem is worn under, and not on top of, a veil. More convincing is therefore the interpretation of Owen-Crocker, that the decorative band on Ælfgifu’s head is rather a binde, a band of material, the ends of which may account for the two decorative strips seen hanging down at her back, reminiscent of a stole. The binde probably indicated a lay woman, or perhaps simply a married woman.33 Both these elements, that is the bands of material and the headband/diadem, distinguish this woman from Mary. Ælfgifu, as opposed to the Virgin, seems also to have an additional element of outer attire, a type of cloak, the end of which is visible at the back, while in the front it is obscured by the queen’s headdress.34 Apart from this, however, Ælfgifu’s attire is quite similar to that of the Virgin.35 In fact, as noted by scholars, it is similar to that of any consecrated or lay woman.36 This applies also to Ælfgifu’s veil-hood, covering her head, neck, and shoulders (this type of veil is sometimes called a wimple37), which is identical with that worn not only by the Virgin Mary, but also by other women in Anglo-Saxon art of the period, regardless of their status.38 A good example is the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold from the 970s, in which the veils of the Virgin and her female attendants in scenes of her Dormition,  31 Owen-Crocker, Dress, 225.  32 See above, note 27.  33 Gale R. Owen[-Crocker], “Wynflæd’s Wardrobe,” Anglo-Saxon England 8 (1979): 195–222, at 214– 15; Gale R. Owen-Crocker, “Pomp, Piety, and Keeping the Woman in Her Place: The Dress of Cnut and Ælfgifu-Emma,” Medieval Clothing and Textiles 1 (2005): 41–52, at 48–50; Owen-Crocker, Dress, 224–25. Linking the binde with a laywoman is deduced from the way the latter is described in the Indicia Monasterialia, an Old English handbook of manual gestures for monks from the mid-eleventh century. However, to make the matter of the headband and diadem even more complicated, let us note that the gold headbands we can see, for example, in wills, are called in Old English bend or bænd—the word glossing sometimes Latin diadema and nimbus; Owen-Crocker, Dress, 225.  34 Owen-Crocker, “Pomp,” 48–49. See also Stacy S. Klein, Ruling Women: Queenship and Gender in ­Anglo-Saxon Literature (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), note 4, 201–2. The latter author, listing the differences between the two figures’ attire, cautiously describes the band beneath the veil as “a decorated diadem or fillet around her head.”  35 Owen, “Wynflæd’s Wardrobe,” 196.  36 Klein, Ruling Women, 2 with note 4 (201–2). This lack of differentiation in women’s dress is typical of Anglo-Saxon art of this period, in which at the same time the attire of lay men is distinct from that of consecrated or holy men; ibid.; Owen, “Wynflæd’s Wardrobe,” 196.  37 Desirée Koslin, “Wimple,” in Encyclopedia of Dress and Textiles of the British Isles c. 450–1450, ed. Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Elizabeth Coatsworth, and Maria Hayward (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 629–30, where further reading.  38 Owen, “Wynflæd’s Wardrobe,” 215–16; Klein, Ruling Women, 2. See also Owen-Crocker, Dress, 219– 24.

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Grzegorz Pac

Figure 1.5: St. Æthelthryth in the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, Winchester, ca. 970s (London, British Library, MS Add. 49598, fol. 90v). Photo: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

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The Virgin Mary and Female Rulers women at the tomb, the choir of virgins, and the abbess of Ely, St. Æthelthryth (fig. 1.5)39 are identical and not different from those in the dedication miniature of the Liber Vitae. Once again, therefore, we are dealing with a veil, which does not really help us to differentiate the state of the woman wearing it. THE VEIL AND THE VIRGIN

However, the garment on the dedication page of the Liber Vitae that intrigues scholars more is what is believed to be a second veil, received rather than worn by the queen, which is, according to Iogna-Prat, a “veil of virgins.” However, as we have just seen, the last is difficult to prove,40 because in Anglo-Saxon art the veil of consecrated virgins was often presented as practically identical with that of other women. Here, as on the Continent, nuns generally wore veils as a sign of their spiritual life, though in art they have various styles and it is hard to say what “the veil of a nun” looked like.41 Therefore, not only does Ælfgifu’s extra veil not implicate any connection with virginity, but, as we will see momentarily, it could also have many other meanings. It is not even necessarily a veil. Although, as will become evident, the composition of the miniature seems to link Ælfgifu with the Virgin, the piece of material over the queen’s head should be connected not with the latter, as suggested by Iogna-Prat, but directly with the Saviour. Considering possible meanings of the veil, it has been proposed that it may be a sign of the special protection of the Virgin.42 Annemarie Weyl Carr claimed that in fact this is the veil of the Virgin herself, which was in Byzantium a sign of her care as well as the victory given to the imperial couple;43 the bond between the relics of the Virgin’s attire and victory was also known in the West, including Normandy.44 On  39 London, British Library, MS Add. 49598, 102v, 51v, 2r, 90v (respectively). On the codex and its iconographical program, see Robert Deshman, The Benedictional of Æthelwold (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995).  40 Cf. however also the opinion of Gale R. Owen-Crocker, who associates the additional veil of Ælfgifu with a monastic-like “holy veil,” as according to her, “secular women also probably wore ‘holy veils’ on religious occasions”; Owen-Crocker, “Veil,” in Owen-Crocker, Coatsworth, and Hayward, Encyclopedia, 612; Owen, “Wynflæd’s Wardrobe,” 219. The author agrees herself that “as she [i.e. Ælfgifu] does not actually wear it, this is not very strong evidence”; Owen, “Wynflæd’s Wardrobe,” 219. In fact such an understanding of the second veil from the Liber Vitae dedication page is not very likely, as one can expect some sort of parallel between the symbolic meaning of Ælfgifu’s extra veil and Cnut’s crown.  41 Owen, “Wynflæd’s Wardrobe,” 218–20; Owen-Crocker, Dress, 222–24; Owen-Crocker, “Veil,” 612. Cf. however also the above-mentioned remarks, that not necessarily all Anglo-Saxon nuns had to wear veils; see above, p. 7, with note 15.  42 Karkov, Ruler Portraits, 131; Frugoni, “L’Iconografia,” 954 n. 206.  43 Annemarie Weyl Carr, “Threads of Authority: The Virgin Mary’s Veil in the Middle Ages,” in Robes and Honor: The Medieval World of Investiture, ed. Stewart Gordon (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001), 60–93, at 61–71.  44 Weyl Carr noted that the symbolic meanings of the veil and tunic of the Virgin overlapped. The relic of the Virgin’s tunic, from Normandy, must have been known to Emma, as it was kept in Chartres

13

Grzegorz Pac the other hand, according to Owen-Crocker, the additional veil could also signify the royal status of Ælfgifu: the Indicia Monasterialia, a sort of Old English handbook of manual signs for silent monks, says “The sign of the king’s wife is that you extend [your hand] about your head, and afterwards set your hand above your head,” which seems to refer to some sort of veil, perhaps coupled with a crown.45 Linking the veil with queenship, one could also see it as a symbol of the virtue of chastity, as IognaPrat did.46 However, as Weyl Carr noted,47 although the subject of chastity appears in Carolingian queens’ ordines,48 in Anglo-Saxon ones, as shown by Pauline Stafford, it is completely lacking, as is the subject of fertility or marriage; the ordo used in 1017 during Emma-Ælfgifu’s consecration stresses rather the queen’s role in establishing peace and her participation in royal power.49 Although there is certainly a connection between Mary and virginity or chastity in general, the relation between the veil and the Virgin in the miniature of the New Minster Liber Vitae is not clear. This does not mean that there is no parallel between the two female figures in the miniature, as it is probably not a coincidence that Mary is standing on the side of the queen. Emma-Ælfgifu’s connection with the Virgin is, in my opinion, the only convincing explanation, why it is she, and not the king, standing on the right hand of Christ, although students of the subject have raised various explications.50 Therefore, aiming to link Ælfgifu and Cnut with both patrons of New Minster, the Virgin Mary and St. Peter, respectively, the artist placed them on those saints’ sides.51 Depicting Mary to the right of Christ is not anything surprising, especially as this is the side she is on in the scene in which the Savior is flanked by the Virgin and St. Peter, called by Robert Deshman “the insular Déesis.”52 It is also worth noting that Mary is always standing on the right hand of Christ in scenes of the Crucifixion, while the Apostle John is on Christ’s left,53 which also may have influenced and appears in the Norman chronicle of Dudon from Saint-Quentin, written for the kin of the future queen of England in the end of the tenth century. He describes how Chartres was miraculously defended from Rollon, Emma’s great-grandfather, with the help of the relic of the tunic; Weyl Carr, “Threads of Authority,” 71–72. See also Karkov, Ruler Portraits, 130–31.  45 Owen[-Crocker], “Wynflæd’s Wardrobe,” 207 with note 5; Owen-Crocker, “Pomp,” 51.  46 See above, note 11.  47 Weyl Carr, “Threads of Authority,” 76.  48 See above, note 10, also notes 1 and 2.  49 Pauline Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith: Queenship and Women’s Power in Eleventh-Century England (Oxford: Blackwell, 2001), 166–68, 177–78. See also Karkov, Ruler Portraits, 129.  50 See Karkov, Ruler Portraits, 123–29, esp. 127–29.  51 Joachim Ott, Krone und Krönung: Die Verheissung und Verleihung von Kronen in der Kunst von der Spätantike bis um 1200 und die Geistige Auslegung der Krone (Mainz am Rhein: Philipp von Zabern, 1998), 221.  52 Deshman, Benedictional, 200–1; Deshman, “The Iconography of the Full-Page Miniatures of the Benedictional of Aethelwold” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1970), 112–13; Deshman, ­“Benedictus Monarcha et Monachus: Early Medieval Ruler Theology and the Anglo-Saxon Reform,” ­Frühmittelalterliche Studien 22 (1988): 204–40, at 224 with note 89. Deshman is making reference to an observation of Ernst Kantorowicz, “Ivories and Litanies,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 5 (1942): 56–81, at 78–80. See also Clayton, Cult of the Virgin, 158–59.  53 The list of Crucifixion scenes in Anglo-Saxon art is to be found in Clayton, Cult of the Virgin, 173–74.

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The Virgin Mary and Female Rulers the composition of the discussed miniature, especially considering the gold cross presented in the very middle of it. In fact, Ælfgifu and Cnut stand at the foot of the cross exactly in the places usually occupied by the Virgin and St. John, respectively.54 But even if we agree that Mary is shown as the queen’s special protector, the veil does not necessarily have anything to do with the Mother of God, any more than the crown of Cnut is related to St. Peter.55 Angels are the messengers of God himself, and in this miniature they additionally point to the giver of the heavenly gifts received by the royal couple.56 They may be symbols of royal status, but also of eternal life—the crown can be a crown of life,57 while the veil can be interpreted as a stola, a robe received by souls of the saved during the Last Judgment, while those of the damned remain naked.58 This interpretation fits very well to the context—the miniature prefaces a scene of the Last Judgment (fol. 6v–7r) and opens a book containing the list of those whose names are inscribed in the Book of Life, including the king and the queen themselves.59 “The veil” therefore would be a symbol of salvation, which can be hoped for by the queen, thanks to the intercession of New Minster’s patrons, St. Peter and especially the Virgin, as well as the prayers of monks, secured by the Liber Vitae itself. MARY AS THEOPHANU?

Discussing the problem of links between Mary and the terrestrial queen in the context of attire we cannot omit a very simple matter. As noted at the very beginning, the Virgin was titled queen and believed to be one. There is therefore nothing surprising in the fact that she was depicted as a female ruler, that is, with such elements of attire as, for instance, the crown. That made her, of course, similar visually to terrestrial royal or imperial consorts. It would, however, be much more significant if we could show a case in which the Virgin’s dress in an image is not only generally inspired by queenly  54 I am grateful to Professor Gale Owen-Crocker for this suggestion.  55 Weyl Carr (“Threads of Authority,” 60–61) is of a different opinion. She writes: “The visual alignment of their placement and clothing links Emma and Mary together with the veil: as Cnut receives the crown of kingship from Christ through St. Peter, Emma receives a veil associated with the Virgin.”  56 See Ott, Krone und Krönung, 224.  57 On the crown of life, see Ludwig Körntgen, Königsherrschaft und Gottes Gnade: Zu Kontext und Funktion Sakraler Vorstellungen in Historiographie und Bildzeugnissen der Ottonisch-Frühsalischen Zeit (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2001), 279–82; Ott, Krone und Krönung, 168–210, 237–57.  58 Renate Kroos, Der Schrein des Hl. Servatius in Maastricht und die Vier Zugehörigen Reliquiare in Brüssel (Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1985), 176; Gerchow, “Prayers for King Cnut,” 225. While Kroos interprets this veil as stola secunda, the apocalyptic dress in which souls are dressed on the Day of Judgment, Gerchow believes it could also be stola prima, which saved souls receive immediately after death. See also Karkov, Ruler Portraits, 130; Ott, Krone und Krönung, 221. For more on the stola, see Kroos, Der Schrein, 172–77.  59 Körntgen, Königsherrschaft, 175–77; Ott, Krone und Krönung, 220–29. See also Otto G. Oexle, “Memoria und Memorialbild,” in Memoria: Der geschichtliche Zeugniswert des liturgischen Gedenkens im Mittelalter, ed. Karl Schmid and Joachim Wollasch (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1984), 384–440, at 392–94; Gerchow, “Prayers for King Cnut,” 230–35; Karkov, Ruler Portraits, 131–32, 140–45; Deshman, “Benedictus Monarcha,” 223–24.

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Grzegorz Pac attire, but patterned on a particular queen or empress contemporary to the artist. That could be a sign of the exceptional link between the Queen of Heavens and the specific royal consort who had been taken as a model for that particular representation. This sort of interpretation was offered by outstanding German art historian Anton von Euw. Discussing the Petershausen Sacramentary, a product of Reichenau Abbey’s scriptorium, he turns his attention to images of Christ and the enthroned Mary-Ecclesia (fig. 1.3) placed adjacent to one another (fols. 40v–41r). He writes about the latter: “Mary is depicted by Anno [the artist of the Sacramentary] as a Byzantine empress. In this context it appears that the artist could have had in mind the empress Theophanu, who in the year 972—maybe at the time of the Petershausen Sacramentary’s production—married Otto II (967–983) in Rome and on the way back visited the abbeys of St. Gall and Reichenau along with her husband and parents-in-law.”60 In another place, von Euw claims that the image of Mary was created “probably under the influence of images of Byzantine empresses. In a way it could reflect the appearance of empress Theophanu.”61 Similarly, Rosamond McKitterick, commenting on the same miniature, writes: “The painter of the Petershausen Sacramentary […] portrayed the Virgin as an Ottonian queen, a compliment to the earthly queens then in power—Adelhaide and Theophanu—if not to the heavenly one.”62 Let us just note that both authors in a way simplify the problem, calling the figure “Mary,” when in fact it is not really possible to determine whether the figure here is the Virgin Mary or an Ecclesia-Church figure.63 However, taking into account the long tradition of interpreting the figure of Mary as an allegory of the Church,64 as well as iconographic arguments collected by Kristen M.  60 Anton von Euw, “Der Darmstädter Gero-Codex und die Künstlerisch Verwandten Reichenauer Prachthandschriften,” in Kaiserin Theophanu: Begegnung des Ostens und Westens um die Wende des Ersten Jahrtausends, ed. Anton von Euw and Peter Schreiner (Cologne: Schnütgen-Museum, 1991), 1:191–225, at 215–19; translation mine.  61 Anton von Euw, “Sakramentar aus Petershausen,” in Vor dem Jahr 1000: Abendländische Buchkunst zur Zeit der Kaiserin Theophanu, ed. Anton von Euw and Gudrun Sporbeck (Cologne: Schnütgen-Museum, 1991), 122; translation mine.  62 Rosamond McKitterick, “Women in the Ottonian Church: An Iconographic Perspective,” in Women in the Church, ed. W. J. Sheils and Diana Wood, Studies in Church History 27 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), 79–100, at 88.  63 Although McKitterick (ibid., 88 n. 26) indicates: “Some have interpreted this figure as a representation of Ecclesia.”  64 For the early Middle Ages, see Hervé Coathalem, Le Parallelisme entre la Sainte Vierge et l’Eglise dans la Tradition Latine jusqu’à la Fin du XII Siècle, Analecta Gregoriana 74 (Rome: Pontificae Universitatis Gregorianae, 1954); Leo Scheffczyk, Das Mariengeheimnis in Frömmigkeit und Lehre der Karolingerzeit, Erfurter Theologische Studien 5 (Leipzig: St. Benno, 1959), 390–428; Henri Barré, “Marie et l’Église: Du Vénérable Bèda à Saint Albert le Grand,” Études Mariales 9 (1951): 59–143, passim; Georges Frénaud, “Marie et l’Église d’après les Liturgies Latines du VIIe au XIe Siècle,” Études Mariales 9 (1951): 39–58, passim; Thérel, Triomphe, 78–193. See also Henri Barré, “Marie et l’Église dans la Pensée Médiévale,” Vie Spirituelle 91 (1954): 124–41, passim; Simon C. Mimouni, “La Figure de Marie au Moyen Age: Mère et Epouse du Christ: Quelques Réflexions,” in Simon C. Mimouni, Les Traditions Anciennes sur la Dormition et l’Assomption de Marie: Études Littéraires, Historiques et Doctrinales (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 319–39, esp. 328–30 (first published in Donne Tra Saperi e Poteri nella Storia delle Religioni, ed. Sofia Boesch-Gajano and Enzo Pace [Brescia, Italy: Morcelliana, 2007], 167–82).

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The Virgin Mary and Female Rulers

Figure 1.6: Detail of Empress Theodora in the mosaic of San Vitale Church in Ravenna, from the first half of the sixth century. Photo: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

17

Grzegorz Pac

Figure 1.7: Ivory plaque showing an empress, from the beginning of the sixth century (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). Photo: Andreas Praefcke, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

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The Virgin Mary and Female Rulers Collins, this scholar’s proposition that the female figure from Petershausen combines characteristics of both Mary and Ecclesia seems convincing.65 Notwithstanding, the thesis of von Euw is, of course, very inspiring. If he were right, Mary-Ecclesia from the Petershausen Sacramentary would not only express the general idea that the Mother of God is a queen, as other depictions of the Virgin as a female ruler do, but link her with a particular imperial consort. This would be done by imitating the dress of this particular female ruler—in the case of Theophanu, because of her origins, a Byzantine imperial gown. On the other hand, the idea is quite risky.66 This is not only because we do not really know what dress Theophanu actually wore—although several images of her are known,67 obviously none of them can be treated as a portrait. The idea that Mary-­ Ecclesia is depicted as a Byzantine empress and therefore, potentially, modeled on Otto II’s wife is problematic also because, as I will try to prove, the attire of Mary is not based on the contemporary dress of Byzantine empresses. LOROS OF EMPRESS, LOROS OF MARY

Although this image of Mary-Ecclesia may show some similarity with older images of empresses, the imperial dress from the time of the Petershausen Sacramentary production was distinctly different, especially through the presence of the loros. This suggests that the attire seen in the miniature rather has its roots in the iconographic tradition of presenting Mary, especially in the Italian image type known as Maria Regina. Even those elements which may have been influenced by contemporary female attire, such as jewelry, and could be therefore similar to those worn by Theophanu herself, are not distinctive in any way and could easily have been modeled on ornaments of any other wealthy woman of that time. Speaking about Mary from the Petershausen Sacramentary, Anton von Euw refers to analogues that employ images of Byzantine empresses from the distant past, that is, the Greek Late Antique period. They are the image of Theodora in the mosaic of San Vitale Church in Ravenna from the first half of the sixth century (fig. 1.6)68 and two ivory plaques depicting empresses from the beginning of the sixth century, one of which is in Florence and the other in Vienna (fig. 1.7).69 In fact, however, in all these examples the empresses’ crowns with pendilia and necklaces (especially Theodora’s massive collar, or maniakion) are different from the ones in the Sacramentary. But even  65 Kristen M. Collins, “Visualizing Mary: Innovation and Exegesis in Ottonian Manuscript Illumination” (Ph.D. diss., University of Texas at Austin, 2007), esp. 126–31, 153–57.  66 See Collins, “Visualizing Mary,” esp. 120–21.  67 These have recently been collected by Gunther Wolf, “Die Bildlichen Darstellungen der K ­ aiserin Theophanu (ca. 959–991),” in Wolf, Kaiserin Theophanu: Schriften (Hanover: Hahnsche ­ ­Buchhandlung, 2012), 223–31.  68 Euw, “Darmstädter Gero-Codex,” 215.  69 Ibid. The plaques are in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, and the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

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Grzegorz Pac

Figure 1.8: Ivory plaque showing Otto II and Theophanu crowned by Christ, ca. 982–83 (Musée National du Moyen Âge, Paris, accession no. Cl. 392). Photo: Clio20, Creative Commons license CC-BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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The Virgin Mary and Female Rulers if von Euw is right and some similarity between Mary-Ecclesia from the Petershausen Sacramentary and those images can be found, it would mean only that the former looks like a Byzantine empress from the early sixth century, which does not have to mean that she also resembles one from the second half of the tenth. In fact, the attire of Byzantine empresses of the period contemporary to Theophanu and the production of the Sacramentary was different from that of the early sixth century, as in the middle of that century a new element of imperial attire appeared. This new element, soon a main part of imperial insignia, was the loros, a type of long, embroidered scarf worn over a garment, falling down straight in front.70 The loros, an imperial insignia par excellence,71 was worn also by empresses, usually with a massive collar,72 and in depictions from the tenth, eleventh, and early twelfth centuries, it is precisely the loros and crown that distinguish imperial couples.73 There is no reason to suppose that this element of Byzantine imperial attire was not known in the West, especially as it was depicted also on coins, which could easily have reached there. The evidence for such knowledge is presented by an ivory plaque produced in Germany or Italy (now in the Cluny Museum, Paris), showing Otto II and Theophanu in Byzantine imperial dress (fig. 1.8).74 It seems that in the West, the appearance of a Byzantine empress was well known, and the loros was recognized as its necessary element. In other words: If Anno had wanted to depict Mary-Ecclesia in the Petershausen Sacramentary as Byzantine consort, as proposed by von Euw, he would not have omitted this crucial part of imperial dress. As Mary-Ecclesia was different from the contemporary empress, perhaps the model for this image was the Roman type of Virgin images called Maria Regina, as suggested by Collins.75 That could explain why the loros is omitted here, as it is also  70 Bissera V. Pentcheva, Icons and Power: The Mother of God in Byzantium (University Park: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 23–25; Nikolaos Gioles, “Byzantine Imperial Insignia,” in Byzantium: An Oecumenical Empire, ed. M. Evangelatou, H. Papstavrou, and P.-T. Skotti (Athens: Hellenic Ministry of Culture, 2002), 63–75, at 66–68. See also Maria G. Parani, Reconstructing the Reality of Images: Byzantine Material Culture and Religious Iconography (11th–15th Centuries) (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 18–19.  71 Elisabeth Piltz, “Middle Byzantine Court Costume,” in Byzantine Court Culture from 829 to 1204, ed. Henry Maguire (Washington, D.C.: Harvard University Press, 1997), 39–51, at 43–44.  72 Ibid., 41.  73 See depictions of imperial couples from this period, for example the tenth-century plaque with Romanos II and Eudokia (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cabinet des Médailles, no. 300), a depiction of Michael VII and Mary in a codex containing the Homilies of John Chrysostom from ca. 1071–81 (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cod. Coislin 79, 1v), and two mosaics from the Hagia Sofia in Constantinople depicting Constantin IX Monomachos with Zoe (1044) and John II Komnenos with Irene (ca. 1118).  74 Jacqueline Lafontaine-Dosogne, “The Art of Byzantium and Its Relation to Germany,” in The Empress Theophano: Byzantium and the West at the Turn of the First Millennium, ed. Adelbert Davids (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 211–30, at 212–13.  75 Collins, “Visualizing Mary,” 117, 138–45, 155. On early depictions of the Maria Regina type, see Daniel Russo, “Les Représentations Mariales dans l’Art d’Occident: Essai sur la Formation d’une Tradition Iconographique,” in Iogna-Prat, Palazzo, and Russo, Marie: Le Culte, 173–291, esp. 194–209; Thérel, Triomphe, esp. 231–36; Franz Rademacher, Die Regina Angelorum in der Kunst der Frühen Mittelalters, Die Kunstdenkmäler des Rheinlandes 17 (Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1972), esp.

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Grzegorz Pac lacking on most images of this type (even though it was present on the oldest of the group, the sixth-century Maria Regina from the church of Santa Maria Antiqua in Rome). As Bissera Pentcheva noted in her book about depictions of the Virgin in Byzantium, younger Roman images of the Maria Regina type, although still dressed in a way that could be understood by the viewers as “royal” or “imperial,” have no loros; good examples are the so-called Madonna della Clemenza in the church of Santa Maria in Trastevere, probably from the early eighth century,76 and three other images from the same century: in the oratory of the Basilica of St. Peter from the time of John VII’s pontificate, and from the mid-eighth century, the fresco in the Theodosius chapel in Santa Maria Antiqua church,77 as well as an image from the San Clemente church.78 According to Pentcheva, the reason for this change relates to an ideological shift. When the fresco in the church of Santa Maria Antiqua was made, the depiction of Mary was modeled on the appearance of contemporary empresses, including a new element of imperial attire: the loros. This was done because this image of the Virgin was the emanation of the imperial ideology, as the patronage of the Byzantine court was still present in Rome.79 This link was loosened in the later period, when the Byzantine influences in Rome weakened, as opposed to the role of the papacy, in whose political theology the image of Maria Regina took an important role.80 Under the patronage of the popes the Virgin’s iconography was the manifestation of the political independence of the papacy. Her attire expressed therefore the general idea of her majesty rather than a direct relation with Byzantine rulers. That is why it did not need to copy every single element of their specific imperial insignia, such as, for instance, the loros.81 Looking at one of those images, the picture of the Madonna della Clemenza, it is difficult not to notice the inspirations from the above-mentioned images of empresses 20–69; Marion Lawrence, “Maria Regina,” Art Bulletin 7, no. 4 (1925): 148–61, esp. 150–54; John Osborne, “Images of the Mother of God in Early Medieval Rome,” in Icon and Word: The Power of Images in Byzantium: Studies Presented to Robin Cormack, ed. Antony Eastmond and Liz James (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2003), 135–56, passim; Osborne, “The Cult of Maria Regina in Early Medieval Rome,” Acta ad Archaeologiam et Artium Historiam Pertinentia 21 (2008): 95–106, passim. Recently the problem of Maria Regina images was raised by Maria Lidova, “The Earliest Images of Maria Regina in Rome and the Byzantine Imperial Iconography,” Niš & Byzantium 8 (2010): 231–43, passim.  76 John Osborne, “Early Medieval Painting in San Clemente, Rome: The Madonna and Child in the Niche,” Gesta 20, no. 2 (1981): 299–310, at 305 with notes 38 and 39; Osborne, “Images of the Mother,” 140 with note 31; Ursula Nilgen, “Maria Regina: Ein Politischer Kultbildtypus?” Römisches Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 19 (1981): 1–33, at 5–6 with note 7; Pentcheva, Icons and Power, 22 with note 73; the whole discussion has been collected by Michael A. Matos, “The Icon of the Madonna Della Clemenza: Patronage, Placement, Purpose” (M.A. thesis, Florida State University, 2005), 4–15.  77 Pentcheva, Icons and Power, 21–23. See also Matos, “Icon of the Madonna,” 12.  78 Osborne, “Cult of Maria Regina,” 98; Osborne, “Early Medieval Painting,” esp. 307–9.  79 Pentcheva, Icons and Power, 21–22.  80 Ibid., 22–23, 25. See also Matos, “Icon of the Madonna,” 12–15. On the meaning of this image in the papal ideology of the period, see Mary Stroll, “Maria Regina: Papal Symbol,” in Duggan, Queens and Queenship, 173–203, esp. 175–77; Nilgen, “Maria Regina,” esp. 5–8; Thomas F. X. Noble, Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 129–34; and sources cited above in notes 75–76.  81 Pentcheva, Icons and Power, 25–26.

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The Virgin Mary and Female Rulers from the early period, before the loros was incorporated into the imperial garment. Those inspirations are particularly clear when one compares the crown and collar of the Madonna della Clemenza to that of Empress Theodora from San Vitale, created many centuries earlier, but still present as a possible pattern.82 And this is perhaps the key issue—the papal icon that was to illustrate the idea of Mary as a royal figure was, as we have seen, inspired not so much by existing imperial dress as by other representations, especially because it was created when Byzantine presence in papal Rome was rather weak. Similarly, the Madonna della Clemenza itself, like other images of a loros-less Maria Regina, may have become a model for new images.83 One of them would be Mary-Ecclesia from the Petershausen Sacramentary. ICONOGRAPHIC TRADITION AND CONTEMPORARY JEWELRY

In some way, therefore, the Byzantine style of the Petershausen image could have been mediated by Italian images of the Virgin Mary, taking a pattern from older images of the empress, such as, for instance, that from San Vitale in Ravenna. Some similarities between Mary-Ecclesia and contemporary empresses would therefore be a result of common roots rather than direct copying. Not all elements are so clear and easily explained as the loros. For instance, a cross held by the female figure could be inspired by an attribute of contemporary Byzantine rulers,84 including empresses (at least those who had some sort of independent power).85 However, it has to be noted that in Ottonian art the cross was a typical attribute of the figure of Ecclesia,86 and in the early Middle Ages, also, Mary herself is quite often depicted with it.87 It is therefore difficult to prove that in this case the pattern was taken from the Byzantine insignia of imperial power rather than from the Western iconographic tradition of presenting both Ecclesia and Mary. However, some elements of Mary-Ecclesia’s attire can be explained as being inspired not by iconographic tradition, but rather by contemporary female appearance. For example, the collar, as was noted above, is different from the massive collars from San Vitale or the Italian images of Maria Regina, but instead calls to mind those from the above-mentioned sixth-century ivory plaques.88 A similar one can also be found on the Ecclesia image from the Bamberg Commmentaries, a codex produced in Reichenau

 82 Lidova, “Earliest Images,” 237.  83 Ibid., 239; Osborne, “Images of the Mother,” 137.  84 Gioles, “Byzantine Imperial Insignia,” 72–74.  85 Cf. the coins of Theodora I (842–55) and Theodora II (1055–56).  86 Henry Mayr-Harting, Ottonian Book Illumination: An Historical Study, 2nd ed. (London: Harvey Miller, 1999), 2:35, 42–44, 92, 148–53 with the examples he lists.  87 See for example images of Mary in the eighth-century Sacramentary of Gellone (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS lat. 12048, 1v) and the tenth-century New Minster Charter (London, British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian A.viii, 2v) or the so-called Virgo Militans, equated with Mary (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 17.190.49).  88 Von Euw, “Darmstädter Gero-Codex,” 215.

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Grzegorz Pac (where the Petershausen Sacramentary was made) around the year 1000.89 Looking for possible models for both, it is worth paying attention also to archaeological material. German scholar Mechthild Schulze-Dörrlamm recalls a few examples from the tenth century: a necklace from a treasure buried around the year 971 in the Bulgarian Preslav, and one probably from the tenth century found in the cemetery in Pereds, in West France, in the department of Vendée. An even closer analogue can be found in two necklaces from female graves from the mid-tenth century from Tiszaeszlár-Bashalom in Hungary, whose beads, like those on the image from the Sacramentary, are affixed to diamond-shaped gold plates.90 All of them are more or less contemporary to the Petershausen Sacramentary and described by Schulze-Dörrlamm as Byzantine or imitating Byzantine patterns.91 The same can be undoubtedly said also about the finery from the so-called Gisela-Schmuck treasure, found in 1880 in Mainz, including the maniakion, which I am leaving here, as it is different in its construction and appearance from that on the miniature in the Petershausen Sacramentary.92 The dating of this hoard of jewelry is still disputed, with proposals from the second half of the tenth century to the mid-eleventh century.93 However, the objects it contains, as well as those from the Empire and other places in Europe recalled by scholars as analogues for the ones in Gisela-Schmuck, certainly show a distinct presence of Byzantine-style jewelry in Germany and elsewhere in Europe in those times. As noted by Hiltrud Westermann-Angerhausen: “the adaptation of the Byzantine or more generally Mediterranean models in the goldsmith’s craft […] had already been going on before the marriage of Theophano and this process retained momentum far beyond the middle of the eleventh century.”94 Therefore, although it cannot, of course, be ruled out that the collar of Mary-­ Ecclesia from the Petershausen Sacramentary is a depiction of that worn by ­Theophanu herself, it does not seem to be very likely. Considering similar ones found not only  89 Bamberg, Germany, Staatsbibliothek, MS Bibl. 22, 4v. See also Mayr-Harting, Ottonian Book Illumination, 2:31–35.  90 Mechthild Schulze-Dörrlamm, “Juwelen der Kaiserin Theophanu: Ottonischer Schmuck im Spiegel Zeitgenössischer Buchmalerei,” Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt 19 (1989): 415–22, at 415–19; Schulze-Dörrlamm, Der Mainzer Schatz der Kaiserin Agnes aus dem Mittleren 11. Jahrhundert: Neue Untersuchungen zum Sogenannten “Gisela-Schmuck” (Sigmaringen, Germany: Jan Thorbecke, 1991), 91–93.  91 Schulze-Dörrlamm, “Juwelen der Kaiserin Theophanu,” 415–16, 418; Schulze-Dörrlamm, Mainzer Schatz, 91.  92 Schulze-Dörrlamm, Mainzer Schatz, 91–93; Hiltrud Westermann-Angerhausen, “Spuren der Theophanu in der Ottonischen Schatzkunst?” in von Euw and Schreiner, Kaiserin Theophanu, 2:193– 218, at 217; Westermann-Angerhausen, “Spuren der Theophano in der Ottonischen Schatzkunst?” in Kaiserin Theophanu Prinzessin aus der Fremde: Des Westreichs Grosse Kaiserin, ed. Gunther Wolf (Cologne: Böhlau, 1991), 263–78, at 277. The latter article is a shortened version of the one from the volume edited by von Euw and Schreiner. It appears in English translation as “Did Theophano Leave Her Mark on the Ottonian Sumptuary Arts?” in Davids, Empress Theophano, 244–64.  93 See sources cited in previous note, where further reading; see also Christiane Wolf Di Cecca, “Vom Schmuck der Herrscherinnen in Ottonisch-Salischer Zeit: Dichtung und Archäologische Funde,” in von Euw and Schreiner, Kaiserin Theophanu, 2:219–230, at 219–29, passim.  94 Westermann-Angerhausen, “Did Theophano Leave Her Mark,” 259–61.

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The Virgin Mary and Female Rulers in Bulgaria or Hungary, but also western France, as well as other archeological evidence of Byzantine or Byzantine-inspired jewelry, also from the Empire, we should be rather cautious. It seems that finery of this type was well known and maybe even fashionable in tenth- and eleventh-century Europe and certainly was not worn only by Greek women like Theophanu. CONCLUSIONS

As we can see, the Byzantine elements of the attire of Mary-Ecclesia from the ­Petershausen Sacramentary may have had various sources, and the thesis that they were inspired by the appearance of Theophanu, although attractive, has in fact a weak basis. Similarly to the idea of linking the veils of royal consorts with virginity and the Virgin Mary, it is based on a strong conviction about the importance of the Mother of God in queenship ideology of the early Middle Ages. But both, as I have tried to show, are rather difficult to defend in the wider context of iconographical sources as well as the material culture of the times. This seems to be especially important when one tries to interpret together two sources from different contexts, as in the case of Iogna-Prat’s interpretation of a veil in Carolingian and Anglo-Saxon illustrations. Obviously it is always tempting to find a sort of universal interpretative key which suits each case. It appears that in contemporary studies of medieval queenship as well as the iconography of the Virgin, the conviction about a strict, ideological relation between terrestrial and heavenly queen is sometimes believed to be such a universal key. However, we have to remember that it is based mostly on the gender similarity between those two figures and usually ignores other factors. Although nobody can deny the fruitfulness of using gender categories in medieval research, I believe it is also worth remembering that it should not lead us to disregard other categories. Considering the importance of saintly intercessors in medieval religiosity, among which the Virgin was undoubtedly believed to be one of the most powerful, it would be surprising if men did not also use her mediation; in fact they did, not excepting rulers. This can be easily noticed also in the iconography of the period we are dealing with, as shown by images of kings or emperors and Mary, such as Edgar’s New Minster Charter, where the king is flanked by both St. Peter and Mary;95 the dedication page of the Seeon Evangeliary, showing Emperor Henry II presenting the Virgin with a codex;96 or the image from the Warmund Sacramentary in which the Virgin crowns Otto III.97 A similar observation was made by Collins, who also analyzed Ottonian  95 London, British Library, MS Cotton Vespasian A.viii, 2v. See Clayton, Cult of the Virgin, 158–59; Deshman, “Benedictus Monarcha,” 224–25.  96 Bamberg, Germany, Staatsbibliothek, MS Bibl. 95, fols. 7v–8r. See G[ude] S[uckale]-R[edlefsen], “Evangelistar,” in Kaiser Heinrich II: 1002–1024, exhibition catalog, ed. Josef Kirmeier et al. (Augsburg: Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte, 2002), no. 113, 273–74; Stefan Weinfurter, “Heinrich II: Bayerische Traditionen and Europäischer Glanz,” in Kirmeier et al., Kaiser Heinrich II, 22.  97 Ivrea, Italy, Biblioteca Capitolare, Cod. LXXXVI, 160v. See Robert Deshman, “Otto III and the Warmund Sacramentary: A Study in Political Theology,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 34, no. 1

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Grzegorz Pac iconography presenting Mary with ecclesiastical figures. She pointed out that although the Virgin was often shown as a holy patron of nuns or canonesses, we can also easily find many examples of her playing a similar role for monks or bishops. In fact Mary, as Collins shows, seems to be an important and powerful intercessor for different figures, regardless of their sex.98 I would suggest that such a perspective in the research of the Virgin’s patronage is much more promising than overemphasizing the importance of her and her venerators’ gender. How does this affect interest in Mary’s attire? Of course studying images of the Virgin can still play an important role for anybody interested in medieval female garments. But does the point of view presented above close the possibilities for using that research in the wider perspective of religiosity or ideology? I don’t think so. It must be remembered that, considering the lack of corporeal relics of the Virgin (apart from milk, etc.), her garments played a very special role in medieval Marian devotion.99 They could also be crucial in political theology, as in the case of the role of the Virgin’s mantle or veil in Byzantium, shown for instance by Weyl Carr.100 In Byzantium, Mary’s maphorion (mantle) was a sign of her guardianship over a ruler, but the devotion related to it does not seem to be gendered; in fact, as the same author noted in another place, in the case of the Eastern Empire, Mary “protects the state regardless of the sex, or sexes, of its heads.”101 This special role of Mary’s attire was undoubtedly present also in the West, to recall only well-known examples of her tunic enshrined as a relic in Chartres or the iconographical type of mater misericoriae, the Virgin with a mantle of protection, popular since the thirteenth century. It is not a coincidence that the latter example comes from a later period, as the Virgin’s significance in Western Christendom increased gradually from Late Antiquity until its peak in le grand siècle marial, the twelfth century, making her place absolutely incomparable with other saints not only in theology, but also in common devotion. It seems to me that this process of what Miri Rubin called “the emergence of Mary’s hegemony”102 is still obscure for us in many aspects and requires further study. Considering this and the previous conclusion about the exceptional role of dress in Marian cult, I am sure that not only is there still a promising perspective for the study of Mary’s attire, but also that such research may play an important role in our understanding of medieval religiosity.

(1971), 1–20; Pierre A. Mariaux, Warmond d’Ivrée et Ses Images: Politique et Création Iconographique autour de l’An Mil (Bern: Peter Lang, 2002); Evan A. Gatti, “In a Space Between: Warmund of Ivrea and the Problem of (Italian) Ottonian Art,” Peregrinations 3, no. 1 (2010), 8–48.  98 Collins, “Visualizing Mary,” esp. 69–115.  99 Weyl Carr, “Threads of Authority,” 61. 100 Ibid. 101 Annemarie Weyl Carr, “Thoughts on Mary East and West,” in Images of the Mother of God: Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium, ed. Maria Vassilaki (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2005), 277–292, at 282. 102 Miri Rubin, Mother of God: A History of the Virgin Mary (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), title of part III. Note however, that here the phrase is used in a stricter sense, relating it to the period between 1000 and 1200.

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Sails, Veils, and Tents: The Segl and Tabernacle of Old English Christ III and Exodus Megan Cavell

This paper examines how the image of the Holy of Holies—the veiled sanctuary of God in the Judeo-Christian tradition—was interpreted and embellished by the poets of two early Anglo-Saxon works: Christ III and Exodus.1 Christ III is the third consecutive poem about the life of Christ to appear in the late-tenth-century Exeter Book of Old English poetry (Exeter Dean and Chapter MS 3501). With a distinctly meditative style,2 it focuses on Judgment Day and the second coming of Jesus. Exodus appears in the late-tenth-century/early-eleventh-century Junius Manuscript (Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 11), which contains poetry and illustrations. This poetically complex Old English poem is famous for introducing original imagery and dramatic diction into its narration of the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt. Despite their differences, the two poetic works share an anglicizing approach to the interior curtains of the Herodian temple and the movable tabernacle. In Christ III, this anglicizing can be seen in the emphasis upon the temple veil as high-status treasure, which is portrayed much like a prized Anglo-Saxon tapestry. Exodus, on the other hand, adapts the tabernacle for an Anglo-Saxon audience by merging it with the pillar of cloud (another potentially This article is a revised version of a paper read at the 2014 International Medieval Congress at Leeds, England. The session, on “Things,” which was organized by Gerhard Jaritz (Central European University, Budapest), was moderated by Isabella Nicka, from the sponsoring institution, Institut für Realienkunde, Universität Salzburg, Krems. I would like to thank everyone involved in the session, as well as all those who have provided helpful comments and suggestions for the paper’s revision: Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Alison Knight, and this journal’s anonymous reviewers.   1 R. D. Fulk lays out the evidence for Christ III’s early date in A History of Old English Meter, Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992), 397–99. Similarly, the composition of Exodus has been dated to the eighth century by Fulk, 391–92; Dennis Cronan, “Poetic Words, Conservatism, and the Dating of Old English Poetry,” Anglo-Saxon England 33 (2004): 23–50, at 40–1 and 46–49; Leonard Neidorf, “Lexical Evidence for the Relative Chronology of Old English Poetry,” SELIM: Journal of the Spanish Society for Mediaeval English Language and Literature 20 (2013): 7–48; and Peter J. Lucas, ed., Exodus, rev. ed. (Exeter: Exeter University Press, 1994), 71–72.   2 Margaret Jennings, “Structure in Christ III,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 92, no. 4 (1991): 445–55, at 452.

Megan Cavell confusing concept in need of translation3) in a passage steeped in exile imagery. Together, these poems point toward the different cultural meanings attributed to sacred textiles, and the desire of Anglo-Saxon composers to bring descriptions of such objects into line with Old English poetic idioms and ideals. CONTEXTUALIZING THE TEMPLE VEIL AND TABERNACLE

The immediate context of both textile objects can be found in their biblical representations. Since the veil is mainly described in passing, I will begin with it. Included in the biblical list of miraculous events that mark the death of Christ is the tearing of the temple veil: Jesus autem iterum clamans voce magna, emisit spiritum. Et ecce velum templi scissum est in duas partes a summo usque deorsum: et terra mota est, et petrae scissae sunt. Et monumenta aperta sunt: et multa corpora sanctorum, qui dormierant, surrexerunt. (Matt. 27:50–52)4 [And Jesus again crying with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And behold the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top even to the bottom, and the earth quaked, and the rocks were rent. And the graves were opened: and many bodies of the saints that had slept arose.] Jesus autem emissa voce magna expiravit. Et velum templi scissum est in duo, a summo usque deorsum. (Mark 15:37–38) [And Jesus, having cried out with a loud voice, gave up the ghost. And the veil of the temple was rent in two, from the top to the bottom.] Et obscuratus est sol, et velum templi scissum est medium. Et clamans voce magna Jesus ait: Pater, in manus tuas commendo spiritum meum. Et haec dicens, expiravit. (Luke 23:45–46) [And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst. And Jesus crying out with a loud voice, said: Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. And saying this, he gave up the ghost.]

Jesus’ cry and the veil are the two constants across the synoptic gospels (both are omitted in John). While Luke expands upon these features to include the darkening of the sun,5 Matthew’s gospel fleshes out the scene most, with a description of an

  3 For more on the cognitive processes that underlie the merging of cloud-pillar, nautical imagery, and the tent, see Miranda Wilcox, “Creating the Cloud-Tent-Ship Conceit in Exodus,” Anglo-Saxon England 40 (2011): 103–50.   4 All biblical citations refer to Bonifatius Fischer et al., eds., Biblia Sacra: Iuxta Vulgatam Versionem, 5th ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2007). Quoted Vulgate translations refer to the DouayRheims Bible (1899), available online at http://www.drbo.org. All other translations are my own.   5 All three of these gospels also include a reference to darkness from the sixth to ninth hours, although these come several verses earlier in Matthew 27:45 and Mark 15:33. At 23:44, Luke’s invocation of this motif immediately precedes the quoted passage.

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The Segl and Tabernacle e­ arthquake, the opening up of graves, and the splitting of rocks (which echoes the veil in its similar use of the verb scindere). Notably, the Latin version of Tatian’s early gospel harmony, the Diatessaron, which was highly influential in the West, follows Matthew in including the above phenomena.6 Given that the veil is one of the two recurring features associated with Christ’s death in the gospels, its significance, which is not immediately evident from these depictions, is worth addressing. Commentators and scholars have long connected the temple veil with the curtains that surrounded the Holy of Holies in the Jewish temple of Solomon. However, Daniel M. Gurtner, who has explored this image in detail, notes that “neither the evangelists nor the author of Hebrews provide any description of the veil within the Herodian temple which stood in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus’ death.”7 Hebrews does, however, offer a detailed portrait of a temple veil’s purpose in its earlier, Solomonic context:8 Tabernaculum enim factum est primum, in quo erant candelabra, et mensa, et propositio panum, quae dicitur Sancta. Post velamentum autem secundum, tabernaculum, quod dicitur Sancta sanctorum. (Heb. 9:2–3) [For there was a tabernacle made the first, wherein were the candlesticks, and the table, and the setting forth of loaves, which is called the holy. And after the second veil, the tabernacle, which is called the holy of holies.] His vero ita compositis, in priori quidem tabernaculo semper introibant sacerdotes, sacrificiorum officia consummantes: In secundo autem semel in anno solus pontifex non sine sanguine, quem offert pro sua et populi ignorantia. (Heb. 9:6–7) [Now these things being thus ordered, into the first tabernacle the priests indeed always entered, accomplishing the offices of sacrifices. But into the second, the high priest alone, once a year: not without blood, which he offereth for his own, and the people’s ignorance.]

Thus, the temple veil functions to cordon off a sacred space, the care of which is assigned to a select group of priests. At a literal level, then, the tearing of the veil is significant because it breaks with tradition and reveals an area that was previously off-limits. Figuratively, however, the veil represents a great deal more. As Herbert L. Kessler notes in his discussion of the clash between Jewish and Christian artists over this symbol, the Epistle to the Hebrews establishes “a contrast between the inaccessibility of the sacred in Judaism with the holy objects of Christianity open to all,” which is interpreted in the context of the covenant between God and the people.9 By tearing

Eduard Sievers, ed., Tatian: Lateinisch und Altdeutsch mit Ausführlichem Glossar, 2nd ed., Bibliothek des ältesten deutschen Literatur-Denkmäler 5 (Paderborn, Germany: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1892), 270–1.  7 Daniel M. Gurtner, “The Veil of the Temple in History and Legend,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 49, no. 1 (March 2006): 97–114, at 97.   8 For further references to veils in Jewish temples from Solomon to Herod, see ibid., 102.   9 Herbert L. Kessler, “Through the Temple Veil: The Holy Image in Judaism and Christianity,” in Kessler, Studies in Pictorial Narrative (London: Pindar Press, 1994), 49–73, at 66.   6

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Megan Cavell the temple veil, “the incarnate Jesus […] replace[s] the tabernacle/temple,” and thus declares a new covenant.10 Such an understanding of the temple veil’s significance finds a clear vocalization in Anglo-Saxon England. Indeed, Bede’s treatise on the tabernacle directly invokes the temple veil, saying: Vnde et moriendo in cruce uelum templi discidit atque ea quae tecta fuerant archana sanctorum patefecit et post resurrectionem discipulis apparens aperuit illis sensum ut et haec et alia scripturarum secreta spiritaliter reuelatis oculis mentis perspicere possent.11 [Whence, dying on the cross, he both rent the veil of the temple and revealed those secret places of the saints that had been hidden. And after the resurrection appearing to his disciples, he disclosed the meaning to them, so that they would be able to understand these and other secrets of the scriptures spiritually, their mind’s eyes having been unveiled.]

That the temple veil and the movable tabernacle depicted in the Book of Exodus are inextricably linked is further evident in Bede’s discussion of the tabernacle’s curtain, of which he states: “Quid autem idem uelum figuraliter exprimat apostolus ad Hebraeos manifeste declarat […]. Velum hoc, caelum interpretatur.”12 [Moreover, figuratively, this represents the same veil that the apostle unmistakably announces to the Hebrews … . This veil is interpreted as heaven.] That a new covenant is involved also does not escape Bede, who describes the placement of the ark of the covenant within the Holy of Holies in Exodus 30:6, saying: “Archa namque ut suo loco expositum est dominum salvatorem demonstrat, uelum quod ante archam pendebat ipsum caelum designat cuius adita dominus uicta morte penetrauit, ut, sicut apostolus ait, appareat nunc uultui Dei pro nobis”13 [The ark as explained in its proper place represents the Lord saviour, (and) the veil that hung before the ark represents heaven itself, into which, having conquered death, the Lord approaching entered, “so that,” just as the apostle says, “he may now appear in the face of God on behalf of us”]. Given the overt association between the temple veil and the tabernacle in the Bible and in commentaries upon it, the depiction of the tabernacle in Exodus also deserves the careful attention of anyone interested in the temple veil. Much of the latter half of the Book of Exodus is given over to describing God’s instructions for the building of the movable tabernacle and the carrying out of said instructions. Because this task takes place during the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt, it makes sense that cloth is a key component of the tabernacle. That is, the Israelites’ itinerant situation explains the use of a tent initially, rather than the inner sanctuary of a stone temple, as the tabernacle will come to be later. Mentioned repeatedly in chapters 25–27, 35–36, and 38, the curtains of the tabernacle are made “de bysso retorta, et hyacintho, ac purpura, coccoque bis

10 Ibid., 63. 11 De Tabernaculo, in Bedae Venerabilis Opera, part 2: Opera Exegetica, 2A: De Tabernaculo, De Templo, In Ezram et Neemiam, ed. D. Hurst, O.S.B., Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 119A (1969): 3–139, at Liber I, p. 40, lines 1387–91. Italics as in the text. 12 Ibid., Liber II, pp. 70–1, lines 1131–37. 13 Ibid., Liber III, pp. 129–30, lines 1427–30.

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The Segl and Tabernacle tincto, variatas opere plumario facies” (Exod. 26:1) [of fine twisted linen, and violet and purple, and scarlet twice dyed, diversified with embroidery]. These are, notably, the same materials used to make the priestly vestments described in chapters 28 and 39, although the tabernacle also includes the additional materials of “pilos caprarum” (Exod. 25:4) [goats’ hair] and “pelles arietum rubricatas, pellesque janthinas” (Exod. 25:5) [rams’ skins dyed red, and violet skins]. In total, variations of the formulaic phrase “Hyacinthum et purpuram, coccumque bis tinctum, et byssum” (Exod. 25:4) [Violet and purple, and scarlet twice dyed, and fine linen] that include all the constituent elements occur sixteen times in the Book of Exodus. The repetitive focus on the colour and quality of the cloth is particularly significant for a discussion of Old English biblical translations because the poetic Exodus elides such a focus. Christ III’s temple veil, on the other hand, seems to draw from it. TRANSLATING THE HOLY OF HOLIES

The detailed introduction to the temple veil and tabernacle above was necessary to trace the established continuity between these key textiles from the New and Old Testaments. But how were these textiles imagined in literature? Before we address that question in relation to the two Old English poems with which this paper is concerned, a key Germanic analogue merits mention. This is the ninth-century Old Saxon alliterative verse gospel known as the Hêliand. The Hêliand shares several links with Anglo-Saxon England,14 and so forms a useful analogue to the Old English poetic passage discussed further below. The continental text describes the temple veil in the following terms:     erða biboda, ¯ hrisidun thia hôhun bergos,    harda stênos clubun, ¯ felisos after them felde,    endi that fêha lacan tebrast an middion an tuê,    that êr managan dag an themo uuîhe innan    uuundron gistriunid hêl hangoda   —ni muostun heliðo barn,

14 Given the strength of connections between Alfred’s court and the Carolingian world, it is perhaps unsurprising that Old Saxon literature is known to have circulated in Anglo-Saxon contexts. In particular, the Old Saxon Genesis acted as the immediate source for Old English Genesis B, while the Junius Manuscript’s drawings are likely derived from the same tradition; see Barbara Raw, “The Probable Derivation of Most of the Illustrations in Junius 11 from an Illustrated Old Saxon Genesis,” Anglo-Saxon England 5 (1976): 133–48. Similarly, the provenance of the Hêliand’s C-text is irrefutable evidence that the Old Saxon verse gospel existed in England by the tenth century at the latest. For more on the Hêliand’s connection to England, see Otto Behaghel, ed., Heliand und Genesis, 9th ed. (Tübingen, Germany: Max Niemeyer, 1984), xix–xx; James E. Cathey, ed., Hêliand: Text and Commentary, Medieval European Studies 2 (Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Press, 2002), 23; Alger N. Doane, The Saxon Genesis: An Edition of the West Saxon Genesis B and the Old Saxon Vatican Genesis (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978), 53; and Doane, “The Transmission of Genesis B,” in Anglo-Saxon England and the Continent, ed. Hans Sauer and Joanna Story, with assistance from Gaby Waxenberger (Tempe, AZ: Arizona Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2011), 63–81, at 63–65.

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Megan Cavell thia liudi scauuon,    huat under themo lacane uuas hêlages behangan:    thuo mohtun an that horð sehan Iudeo liudi—   grabu ¯ uuurðun giopanod dôdero manno,    endi sia thuru drohtines craft an iro lîchamon    libbiandi astuodun up fan erðu    endi uurðun giôgida thar mannon te mârðu. (lines 5662b–74a)15 [The earth quaked, the high hills shook, hard stones split, boulders across the field, and the variegated curtain tore in two in the middle, that which had for many days inside the temple, adorned with wonders, hung unharmed—the children of warriors, the people, were not able to see what of holies was covered up under the curtain: then the Jewish people were able to look upon the hoard—the graves of dead men were opened, and through the Lord’s craft they stood up from the earth living in their bodies and appeared there to the people as a miracle.]

If we compare these lines to the gospel passages above, we can see that they follow Matthew’s list of the miracles that accompany Jesus’ death. This is perhaps unsurprising given the Hêliand’s debt to the Diatessaron,16 which depicts this scene in the same way. However, it should also be noted that where Matthew, Mark, and the Diatessaron include only a brief reference to darkness between the sixth and ninth hours, the Hêliand refers directly to the darkening of the sun in a long and elaborate passage.17 The Hêliand then goes on to describe the Jewish reaction to the miraculous phenomena, which it imagines to be one of malicious doubt.18 Thus, whereas the New Testament and Bede’s commentary reflect a tradition of understanding the tearing of the temple veil in terms of Christianity’s replacement of the Jewish covenant with God,

15 Behaghel, Heliand, 199. 16 For more on the Diatessaron and its relationship to the Hêliand, see William L. Petersen, Tatian’s Diatessaron: Its Creation, Dissemination, Significance, and History in Scholarship, Supplements to Vigiliae Christianae 25 (Leiden: Brill, 1994); Petersen, “New Evidence for a Second Century Source of The Heliand,” in Medieval German Literature: Proceedings from the 23rd International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 5–8, 1988, ed. Albrecht Classen, Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik 507 (Göppingen, Germany: Kümmerle, 1989), 21–38; Ulrich B. Schmid, “In Search of Tatian’s Diatessaron in the West,” Vigiliae Christianae 57, no. 2 (2003): 176–99; and Valentine A. Pakis, “(Un)Desirable Origins: The Heliand and the Gospel of Thomas,” Exemplaria 17, no. 2 (2005): 215–53, reprinted in Pakis, ed., Perspectives on the Old Saxon Heliand: Introductory and Critical Essays, with an Edition of the Leipzig Fragment (Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Press, 2010), 120–63. Note also that Bede’s commentary on the Gospel of Luke, In Lucae Evangelium Expositio, may have acted as a source for the Hêliand; see Ernst Windisch, Der Heliand und seine Quellen (Leipzig: Vogel, 1868), 24 and 81. However, Bede holds firm to the interpretation evident in De tabernaculo—that the tearing of the temple veil indicates a new, more inclusive covenant: “Scinditur autem uelum templi ut archa testamenti et omnia legis sacramenta quae prius tegebantur appareant atque ad populum transeant nationum” [But the veil of the temple is split so that the secrets of the covenant and all the sacraments of the law, which were covered before, are visible and pass over to the people of the nations]. Bedae Venerabilis Opera, part 2: Opera Exegetica, 3: In Lucae Evangelium Expositio, In Marci Evangelium Expositio, ed. D. Hurst, O.S.B., Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 120 (1960): 6–425, at Liber VI, pp. 406–7, lines 1737–40. 17 See lines 5621–33a. 18 See lines 5677b–82a.

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The Segl and Tabernacle the Hêliand reveals its more pragmatic nature as a conversion text: by emphasizing the “evils” of nonbelievers, whose “slîði hugi” (line 5678b) [cruel minds] were “farhardod an iro herten” (line 5679a) [hardened in their hearts], it aims to appeal directly to its audience of potential converts. Indeed, this translation goes even further when it comes to the temple veil, which is depicted as all that stands between the people and great treasure. Thus, the sacred space and items within the veil are referred to as a horð (hoard). Certainly Hebrews tells us that the items kept within the Holy of Holies are treasures: Aureum habens thuribulum, et arcam testamenti circumtectam ex omni parte auro, in qua urna aurea habens manna, et virga Aaron, quae fronduerat, et tabulae testamenti. (Heb. 9:4) [Having a golden censer, and the ark of the testament covered about on every part with gold, in which was a golden pot that had manna, and the rod of Aaron, that had blossomed, and the tables of the testament.]

However, the implication is that it is not the decorative gold that makes these items treasures, but rather their divine use and associations. The Old Saxon glosses interestingly over this, and in doing so implies that Christ’s death revealed treasures that were previously hidden from the people. It is safe to say that in Germanic cultures, hoarding treasure is generally not good practice, while distributing it is considered kingly behaviour.19 Thus, Christ is depicted as a noble leader who makes vast amounts of very physical wealth available to the people. And so, when charged with explaining the finer details of a foreign religion to the Saxons, the poet adapts the biblical source to fit the cultural and poetic norms of the target group. We might expect, then, something similar in Old English poetry, given that it shares a poetic style and history with Old Saxon. However, here, in a passage closely linked to biblical descriptions of Jesus’ death,20 we have a unique approach to the temple veil. Within the context of Christ’s second coming, the poet of Christ III gestures toward the crucifixion and the tearing of the veil:     Sunne wearð adwæsced, þream aþrysmed;    þa sio þeod geseah in Hierusalem    godwebba cyst þæt ær ðam halgan    huse sceolde to weorþunga    weorud sceawian; ufan eall forbærst    þæt hit on eorþan læg on twam styccum.    Þæs temples segl, wundorbleom geworht    to wlite þæs huses, sylf slat on tu,    swylce hit seaxes ecg 19 See Elizabeth M. Tyler, Old English Poetics: The Aesthetics of the Familiar in Anglo-Saxon England (York: York Medieval Press, 2006), 16–18 and 22–24. For further discussion of the material culture of treasure, see Tyler, ed., Treasure in the Medieval West (York: York Medieval Press, 2000). 20 For potential sources of the poem, see Frederick M. Biggs, The Sources of Christ III: A Revision of Cook’s Notes, Old English Newsletter Subsidia 12 (Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1986), 23.

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Megan Cavell scearp þurhwode.    Scire burstan muras ond stanas    monge æfter foldan, ond seo eorðe eac (lines 1132b–43a).21 [The sun was extinguished, obscured by evils; when the people in Jerusalem looked upon the best of fine cloths, which before the crowd was supposed to regard as an ornament in the holy house; from above it broke apart entirely, so that it lay on the earth in two pieces. The veil of the temple, worked with wondrous colours for the adornment of the house, slit itself in two, as if the sharp edge of a blade had pierced it. Likewise, many shining walls and stones smashed to the ground and the earth.]

Both poems depict the same miraculous signs and both note the temple veil’s wondrousness. However, while the Hêliand follows the precedent of commentators who emphasize the veil’s role in separating the people from the Holy of Holies (admittedly, through the more Germanic context of the hoard), Christ III follows the precedent of the gospels in making no attempt to explain what the veil covers. Where it differs significantly from the gospels is in its depiction of the veil’s material. Rather than a mere covering for treasure, Christ III portrays the veil as a treasure in and of itself. This Old English passage is, therefore, exceptional. In emphasizing the veil’s colourful nature and quality—it is wundorbleom geworht (worked with wondrous colours) and godwebba cyst (the best of fine cloths)—the poem appears to echo the Book of Exodus’ repeated references to the tabernacle’s “­Hyacinthum et purpuram, coccumque bis tinctum, et byssum” (Exod. 25:4) [Violet and purple, and scarlet twice dyed, and fine linen]. Indeed, godweb, literally “Godcloth,” often glosses or translates purpura, with all its connotations of imperial, royal, and sacral cloth.22 Even if a knowledge of the Exodus tabernacle’s appearance is present, however, the ornamental status of this veil seems to be unique to the poet. The assertion that the crowd was supposed to look upon the veil to weorþunga (as an ornament) ðam halgan huse (in the holy house), the quality of which was to wlite þæs huses (for the adornment of the house), indicates an understanding of the veil as less a divider23 and more a decoration. Of course, tapestries and fabric hangings were used for both purposes in Anglo-Saxon monasteries, churches, and secular spaces.24 While the most famous material example is the Bayeux Tapestry, there are also notable references to such pieces in Beowulf and the Liber Eliensis.25

21 George Philip Krapp and Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie, eds., The Exeter Book, Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 3 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1936), 34. 22 This thick, silken material was not limited in colour to purple. For more on its makeup and uses, see Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Dress in Anglo-Saxon England: Revised and Enlarged Edition (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2004), 211; C. R. Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art: A New Perspective (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1982), 145–50; and John Munro and Gale R. Owen-Crocker, “Purple,” in Encyclopedia of Dress and Textiles in the British Isles c. 450–1450, ed. Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Elizabeth Coatsworth, and Maria Hayward (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 436–38. 23 As in the Hêliand and commentaries discussed above. 24 See Dodwell, Anglo-Saxon Art, 129–45. 25 Ibid., 133–36.

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The Segl and Tabernacle If further evidence of the anglicization of the temple veil is required, Christ III’s reference to the cloth’s tearing provides it. With perhaps more agency than a regular piece of fabric can be assumed to have, the veil “sylf slat on tu, swylce hit seaxes ecg scearp þurhwode” [slit itself in two, as if the sharp edge of a blade had pierced it]. The significance of swords to Old English poetry does not require belabouring, but it is perhaps worth noting that, outside of proper names, collocations of seax and ecg are restricted to poetry,26 as is the verb þurhwadan.27 This Christ III passage is certainly, then, steeped in the poetic idiom that would make it particularly appealing to an Anglo-Saxon audience. A final term that merits closer attention is segl, because it holds the key to the link between the temple veil and the tabernacle. We can say with certainty that segl is not merely present in Christ III for the sake of alliteration, since “t” governs the alliteration of the line in question: “on twam styccum. Þæs temples segl.” Nor can the term be implicated in potential cross-alliteration, unless we relax the rule that the consonant cluster “st” alliterates only with itself. The choice of segl is, therefore, intriguingly nonstructural. Indeed, as the source of the present-day English “sail,” Old English segl is far more common in nautical contexts.28 In fact, this example from Christ III is the only narrative instance where segl is applied to a veil or curtain.29 The Latin velum, which is the term of choice for the temple veil in the Vulgate, has a similar double meaning of both “sail” and “curtain,” which may have prompted the use of Old English segl here. However, it is significant that the Latin term’s textile-related senses had a broader range,30 while “sail” is by far the primary sense of the Old English term. Christ III’s idiosyncratic use of segl is particularly important because of the already-established link between the temple veil and the tabernacle in the Book of Exodus. In the poetic Exodus’ much-discussed description of the pillar of cloud and fire that guides the Israelites through the desert, we once again see imagery of curtains and sails merge: 26 The other two collocations appear in Beowulf, lines 1545b–6a, and Riddle 26, line 6a. 27 This verb also appears in Christ III, line 1282a; Beowulf, lines 890b and 1567b; Daniel, line 463a; Elene, line 1065a; and the Battle of Maldon, line 296b. 28 That the nautical sense is primary is in keeping with the linguistic development of the term, as discussed in Katrin Thier, “Sails in the North—New Perspectives on an Old Problem,” International Journal of Nautical Archaeology 32, no. 2 (2003): 182–90, at 183. 29 According to a search of the Dictionary of Old English online corpus, there are six poetic instances of the simplex segl outside of the Exodus and Christ III examples that this paper discusses, as well as two further instances of the nautical compounds seglrad (sail-road/sea) and seglgyrd (sail-yard). A search of the corpus also reveals twelve prose instances of the simplex segl and one instance of the compound seglgeræd (tackle), the contexts of which all point toward ships’ sails. The thirty-six non-narrative, glossarial instances of segl and segl-compounds equally point to the primary sense of the term as nautical. Twenty of these occurrences take the form of the compounds seglbosm (sailbillowing) and seglgyrd (sail-yard). Most of the remaining sixteen instances of the simplex gloss specific types or parts of sails, with only four occurrences glossing the ambiguous velum (sail/ curtain). Note, however, that five instances of segl and seglgyrd gloss Latin labarum (banner/flag). See Antonette diPaolo Healey, John Price Wilkin, and Xin Xiang, eds., The Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus (Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project, 2009), s.v. “segl-” and “segel-.” 30 Thier, “Sails in the North,” 183.

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Megan Cavell     Þær halig God wið færbryne    folc gescylde, bælce31 oferbrædde    byrnendne heofon, halgan nette,    hatwendne lyft. Hæfde wederwolcen    widum fæðmum eorðan ond uprodor    efne gedæled, lædde leodwerod,    ligfyr adranc, hate heofontorht.    Hæleð wafedon, drihta gedrymost.    Dægscealdes hleo wand ofer wolcnum;    hæfde witig God sunnan siðfæt    segle ofertolden, swa þa mæstrapas    men ne cuðon, ne ða seglrode    geseon meahton, eorðbuende    ealle cræfte, hu afæstnod wæs    feldhusa mæst, siððan He mid wuldre    geweorðode þeodenholde.    Þa wæs þridda wic folce to frofre.    Fyrd eall geseah hu þær hlifedon    halige seglas, lyftwundor leoht;    leode ongeton, dugoð Israhela,    þæt þær Drihten cwom, weroda Drihten,    wicsteal metan. Him beforan foran    fyr ond wolcen in beorhtrodor,    beamas twegen, þara æghwæðer    efngedælde heahþegnunga    Haliges Gastes, deormodra sið    dagum ond nihtum.32 (lines 71b–97) [There holy God shielded the people against the terrible heat, he spread burning heaven with a covering, the hot air with a holy net. A weather-cloud evenly divided the earth and heaven with its wide expanses, guided the host of people, quenched the fiery flame, hot [and] heaven-bright. The people were amazed, the most joyous of multitudes. The protection of the day-shield sprang across the clouds; wise God had veiled the journey-path of the sun with a sail, so that the people did not perceive the mast-ropes, the earth-dwellers could not see the sail-yard, for all their skill, how the greatest of field-houses/tabernacles was fastened, when he honoured with glory those faithful to their leader. The third encampment was then a comfort to the people. The entire army saw how the holy sails towered there, the light air-wonder; the people recognized, the troops of Israel, that the Lord had come there, the Lord of hosts, to set up camp. Before them travelled fire and cloud in the bright-sky, two beams/pillars, each of which, the high-servants of the Holy Spirit, evenly divided by day and night the journey of the bold-minded ones.]

The poet’s departure from and expansion of the far more concise descriptions of this divine sign in the Bible has not gone unnoticed. Yet before summing up the critical response to these lines, it is worth noting their immediate biblical context: 31 See Herbert D. Meritt, Some of the Hardest Glosses in Old English (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1968), 18–19; and Peter J. Lucas, “The Cloud in the Interpretation of the Old English Exodus,” English Studies 51, no. 4 (1970): 297–311, at 303–5. 32 Lucas, Exodus, 87–91.

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The Segl and Tabernacle Dominus autem praecedebat eos ad ostendendam viam per diem in columna nubis, et per noctem in columna ignis: ut dux esset itineris utroque tempore. Numquam defuit columna nubis per diem, nec columna ignis per noctem, coram populo. (Exod. 13:21–22) [And the Lord went before them to shew the way by day in a pillar of a cloud, and by night in a pillar of fire: that he might be the guide of their journey at both times. There never failed the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, before the people.]

Unlike in the poetic Exodus, the Book of Exodus and the many other biblical passages that describe the scene depict a single pillar, taking the form of a cloud during the day and a flame during the night, which acts as a guide. The distinctive, shielding nature attributed to the poetic cloud in Old English, while not present in the Book of Exodus, is attested in several other biblical passages: Numbers 14:14, Psalms 104:39, Wisdom 19:7, and Isaiah 4:5.33 While any of these passages could have acted as the source of the cloud-as-protector-from-heat motif in Exodus, it is significant that in none do we see a reference to sails, nets, masts, or rigging.34 Indeed, it is this apparently original nautical imagery that has caught the attention of the scholarly community, so in tune to the poetic propensity for ships and sailing in other Old English texts like The Wanderer, The Seafarer, the riddles, Andreas, and Beowulf.35 There are, of course, plenty of explanations for the use of nautical imagery to describe the crossing of the Red Sea: the use of the ship as an exegetical symbol for the church;36 the allegorical tradition’s

33 For more on potential sources for this image from scripture, liturgy, commentaries, and other texts available to the Anglo-Saxons, see Samuel Moore, “On the Sources of the Old-English ‘Exodus,’” Modern Philology 9, no. 1 (July 1911): 83–108, at 88–90; James W. Bright, “The Relation of the Caedmonian Exodus to the Liturgy,” Modern Language Notes 27, no. 4 (1912): 97–103; Brian Green, “Gregory’s Moralia as an Inspirational Source for the Old English Poem Exodus,” Classica et Mediaevalia 32 (1979): 251–62; E. McLoughlin, “Old English Exodus and the Antiphonary of Bangor,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 70, no. 4 (1969): 658–67; Lucas, Exodus, 51–60; and Wilcox, “Creating the Cloud-Tent-Ship.” 34 For discussions of the Exodus-poet’s use of metaphorical associations that move from cloud to net, net to sail, and sail to tabernacle or encampment, see Wilcox, “Creating the Cloud-Tent-Ship”; Roberta Frank, “What Kind of Poetry is Exodus?” in Germania: Comparative Studies in the Old Germanic Languages and Literatures, ed. Daniel G. Calder and T. Craig Christy (Woodbridge, UK: D. S. Brewer, 1988), 191–205, at 193–97; and Lucas, “Cloud,” 298–99. On page 305, Lucas rejects Irving’s suggestion that the nautical imagery stems from an etymology of Jerome, arguing that this does not explain the use of multiple metaphors in the passage. See Edward B. Irving, Jr., ed., The Old English Exodus, Yale Studies in English 122 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1953), 31 and 74. For paronomasia as the potential root of the metaphor, we might also look to the nearly homophonous nouns sigel (sun) and insegel (seal). The former is mentioned in passing in Eric G. Stanley, “Old English Poetic Diction and the Interpretation of The Wanderer, The Seafarer, and The Penitent’s Prayer,” Anglia 73, no. 4 (1955): 413–66, at 432. 35 For discussions of the nautical imagery in Exodus, see Lucas, Exodus, 46–70, 50–1, 63, 68, 89–90; as well as Lucas, “Cloud”; Fabienne L. Michelet, “Lost at Sea: Nautical Travels in the Old English Exodus, the Old English Andreas and Accounts of the Adventus Saxonum,” in The Sea and Englishness in the Middle Ages: Maritime Narratives, Identity and Culture, ed. Sebastian Sobecki (Cambridge, UK: D. S. Brewer, 2011), 59–79; Wilcox, “Creating the Cloud-Tent-Ship”; J. R. Earl, “Christian Traditions in the Old English Exodus,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 71 (1970): 541–70; and Nicholas Howe, Migration and Mythmaking in Anglo-Saxon England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989), 72–107. 36 Earl, “Christian Traditions,” 561–63.

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Megan Cavell association of the crossing with salvation;37 biblical passages that refer to conversion and judgment in terms of fishing with nets,38 etc. However, neither these general impulses nor the specific biblical passages noted above explain the Old English Exodus’ link between the pillar of cloud and the tabernacle. That such a link exists in Exodus is indicated by line 85b’s use of the superlative to describe a tent as feldhusa mæst (the greatest of field-houses [i.e. the tabernacle]),39 as well as by line 81b’s use of the verb oferteldan, which—to coin a term—literally means “to over-tent.” Line 90a’s reference to the pillar/sail/tent as a lyftwundor (air-wonder) also ties the passage to the temple veil in Christ III and the Hêliand, both of which refer to its colourful decoration as wondrous (lines 1139a and 5666b, respectively). It seems likely that the sail imagery prompts the reference to the tabernacle. Indeed, a resemblance between sails and other large, functional textiles may be assumed at the visual level, given their use of common materials (wool).40 Constructed from occasionally dyed vertical pieces of fabric stitched together, those sails made of wool would be further patterned with checkered or diagonal strips in order to offset the cloth’s elasticity.41 Such concerns would also have been relevant to the construction of tents, so the association between sail and tabernacle imagery makes a great deal of sense. Linking these sets of imagery to the cloud pillar, Lucas maintains that the merging of metaphors demonstrates God’s controlling attitude toward the Israelites: While the physical phenomenon of the cloud gives symbolic shape to God’s presence and guiding power, the “sail”-metaphor reinforces the symbolic value of the cloud because the ground of the metaphor is God’s control of the exodus seen as a sea-journey. God’s control of the exodus is also the ground of the “tent”-metaphor (85; cf. 133, 223). In an admirably imaginative yet concrete way the metaphoric expression of the tent, together with that of the net (74), conveys the idea that the Israelites are herded together in a confined and enclosed space. Cowed into submissiveness, they are driven forward, as the “sail”-metaphor implies, by the inexorable will of God.42

37 J. E. Cross and S. I. Tucker, “Allegorical Tradition and the Old English Exodus,” Neophilologus 44, no. 2 (1960): 122–7, at 123. 38 See Matthew 4:19–20 and 13:47–48. Note that nette does not alliterate in Exodus, and so was likely chosen for nonstructural purposes. 39 Feldhus (field-house) is attested only in Exodus, here and at lines 133a and 223a. The superlative is used only in this passage, while the other two instances employ the same formulaic phrase, flotan feldhusum (field-houses of the sailors), to describe the tents of the Israelites. Translating feldhus here as “tabernacle” is justified by the way the poet sets this instance apart from the others and by the fact that hus is used to translate Latin tabernaculum with distinct religious connotations elsewhere in Old English. See Patrizia Lendinara, “The Old English Renderings of Latin tabernaculum and tentorium,” in Anglo-Saxonica: Beiträge zur Vor- und Frühgeschichte der Englischen Sprache und zur Altenglischen Literatur; Festschrift für Hans Schabram zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Klaus R. Grinda and Claus-Dieter Wetzel (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1993), 289–325, at 309–10. 40 Note that it is necessary to turn to evidence of sails from Scandinavia in order to fill out the AngloSaxon picture. Miranda Wilcox, “Sails,” in Owen-Crocker, Coatsworth, and Hayward, Encyclopedia of Dress and Textiles, 472–5, at 473. 41 Ibid. 42 Lucas, Exodus, 63. See also Lucas, “Cloud,” 300 and 311.

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The Segl and Tabernacle Playing off the tabernacle’s symbolic import as a dividing curtain drawn between the people and God, the poet of Exodus adapts a confusing image of an ethereal and divine pillar, which takes multiple, elemental forms, into terms more immediately accessible to an audience of Old English poetry. The driving out of a group in search of a homeland, the crossing of a hostile body of water, and the inability to reach one’s lord together make the nautical imagery of the exile motif all too appropriate. Of course, this recognition of the exile motif here is not new,43 but what is new is the recognition that the adaptation, elaboration, and anglicization that take place in this Exodus passage align it with the adaptation, elaboration, and anglicization that take place in Christ III. That these are two passages depicting the sacred textile of the Holy of Holies, that they deal with the first and second covenants between God and his chosen people, and that they share the use of the key word segl in connection to its rarer, secondary sense together demonstrate a link between the two poems.44 It is as though Christ III provides the solution to the problem posed by Exodus in its use of the exile motif: those who are unable to reach their lord through the tabernacle that simultaneously covers, protects, and divides can ultimately achieve reconciliation through the tearing of the veil. Taken together, the two poems present an intricate conversion narrative with shared elements, in which textiles play a key role. By way of conclusion, the fact that so many scholars have interpreted Exodus’ references to ship-beams and rigging as imagery of the cross further links this poem with Christ III’s description of the crucifixion.45 If the implication in Exodus is that the Israelites, not yet having encountered Jesus, do not understand just what it is they are witnessing, then the concealed cross also stands as a test for the Anglo-Saxon audience of the poem. The implication is that a familiarity with Christian narratives—typified through poems like Christ III—makes clear for this later audience the multivalent layering of Old and New Testament imagery. Whether concealed by sails or veils, the message of the divine covenant exists for those willing to unpick the poetic idiom of Old English biblical adaptations.

43 See, for example, Lucas, “Cloud,” 300; Cross and Tucker, “Allegorical Tradition,” 123–24; and Maxwell Luria, “The Old English Exodus as a Christian Poem: Notes Toward a Reading,” Neophilologus 65, no. 4 (1981): 600–6, at 602. 44 Note also that Stanley R. Hauer links Exodus’ segl to Peter’s vision of a heavenly linteum (linen curtain/sail/awning) full of animals in Acts 10:11–15, which represents the nullification of previous religious dietary restrictions. See Hauer, “The segl in the Old English Exodus,” Archiv für das Studium der Neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 225 (1988): 334–39. 45 For more on the verbal parallels between Exodus, The Dream of the Rood, and Elene, as well as the compound seglrod, see Peter J. Lucas, “Old English Christian Poetry: The Cross in Exodus,” in Famulus Christi: Essays in Commemoration of the Thirteenth Centenary of the Birth of the Venerable Bede, ed. Gerald Bonner (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1976), 193–209, esp. 198–200; Lucas, Exodus, 46–7 and 90; Earl, “Christian Traditions,” 562; and Judith N. Garde, Old English Poetry in Medieval Christian Perspective: A Doctrinal Approach (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1991), 41.

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Linteamenta altaria: The Care of Altar Linens in the Medieval Church Thomas M. Izbicki

A glimpse inside the sacristy of the church of Salle in 1368 makes immediately clear how much cloth a medieval parish of relatively modest size needed. Salle, in the archdeaconry of Norwich, had the full range of textiles, which are listed in an inventory compiled late in the reign of Edward III (ca. 1380). There were several sets of priestly vestments, one described as “decorated with gilded beasts,” as well as surplices and a choir cope. Items for the celebration of the Mass at the main altar included seven altar cloths, three towels, and six corporals for use with the consecrated elements. Other cloths present at the church in Salle included two altar frontals, a hanging for the lectern, two funeral palls, and three ceremonial banners. Other sets of vestments, including two copes of red silk, were listed according to the name of their donor, and an embroidered bench cover with two cushions was added later.1 A cathedral, like Saint Paul’s, London, had many more clergy serving altars and chantries. These priests needed much more fabric, including vestments, altar cloths, frontals, and corporals for the proper celebration of the Mass. Some of these were made with expensive materials like samite, and they frequently were heavily decorated. In addition, the bishops of London had miters, gloves, and other items made of cloth.2 All of this fits with an increased use of fine fabric in “a shared clerical culture,” including the assignment of differing vestments, blessed and sometimes given at ordination, to denote the hierarchy of minor and major orders among the clergy.3 This article originated as a paper delivered at the 2014 International Medieval Congress at Leeds, England. The author is grateful to Gale Owen-Crocker, Sarah Randles, and an anonymous reader for help with the text. All translations are mine unless otherwise noted.    1 The complete entry appears in John Shinners and William J. Dohar, Pastors and the Care of Souls in Medieval England (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998), 226–27.    2 See “Extracts from the Inventories: Three Inventories of St. Paul’s Cathedral,” in Medieval Dress and Textiles in Britain: A Multilingual Sourcebook, ed. Louise M. Sylvester, Mark C. Chambers, and Gale R. Owen-Crocker (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2014), 90–115.    3 Maureen C. Miller, Clothing the Clergy: Virtue and Power in Medieval Europe, c. 800–1200 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014), 182, 190.

Thomas M. Izbicki After a survey of the evidence regarding the regulation of altar cloths gleaned from medieval canon law, this essay will consider the challenges churches faced in acquiring and maintaining linens employed at the altar. A particular concern was the proximity of certain cloths to the Eucharistic elements, especially as the Real Presence of Christ in the sacrament was given a stronger emphasis from the eleventh century onward. Proximity to the sacred required that these linens be of fine quality, kept clean, repaired well, and, if stained with the consecrated wine, burned or kept locked away, a practice contrary to the usual efforts made in the Middle Ages to retain and reuse cloth. A brief comparison of visitation records from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries offers further evidence of the problems with church linens encountered in practice, including the impact of the Protestant Reformation on the ecclesiastical use of cloth in England. For our purposes four types of items will be given the most attention: corporals, altar cloths, frontals, and towels. Leaving aside the symbolic meanings medieval writers often assigned to them,4 each had a purpose, practical or decorative. Those nearest to the consecrated elements usually were made of linen, particularly the corporal, the name of which referred to the corpus, the body of Christ, placed upon it. At first, there was no real distinction between the palla, the cloth placed over the altar, and the corporal (palla corporalis). Even by the late thirteenth century, the term corporal still could mean either a large or a small cloth.5 However, these eventually became entirely separate, with “corporals” usually designating smaller linens used with host and chalice, while a larger cloth of linen (mappa) covered the altar. A further distinction was made in the fourteenth century, at least by the Dominicans, between the corporal under the chalice and the purificator, originally used to dry the priest’s hands when he washed them after communicating but later to clean the cup after the consecrated wine had been consumed (ablutions), but the term purificator does not appear in canon law.6 In addition, the long, narrow linen cover for the altar became separate from the hanging altar frontal, or antependium.7 The altar cloth of white linen served as the site of the Mass, while the frontal was largely decorative, even when color-coded to the liturgical season.8 Palla eventually came to mean the “chalice pall,” a square of starched linen placed over the cup to prevent anything from falling into it, but the term still could    4 See, for example, the allegorical interpretations of Amalar of Metz in On the Liturgy, ed. Eric Knibbs, 2 vols. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014), 1:xvi–xix. Amalar gave spiritual meanings to the corporal, otherwise called a sodon or veil, at 2:120–21, 140–41, 160–61, and 168–69.    5 Guilelmus Durantis senior (William Durand the Elder), Rationale IV: On the Mass and Each Action Pertaining to It, trans. Timothy M. Thibodeau (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2013), 241. Josef A. Jungmann, The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development (Missarum Sollemnia), trans. Francis A. Brunner, 2 vols. (Dublin: Four Courts, 1986), 1:52–53.    6 J. Wickham Legg, ed., Tracts on the Mass (London: Henry Bradshaw Society, 1904), 83. Use of the purificator only became common in the sixteenth century; see Jungmann, Roman Rite, 2:38.    7 The 1557 instructions for the priests of the diocese of Coutance specified three layers of linen mappae on the altar; see Legg, Tracts, 55.    8 The instructions for Mass in the Tridentine missal call the frontal a pallium; see Missale Romanum ex Decreto Sacrosancti Concilii Tridentini Restitutum … (Dublin, 1777), xxx–xxxi. These instructions also distinguish a corporal from a purificator.

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Care of Altar Linens mean a cloth under the corporal as late as the sixteenth century. In addition, towels (toalia, mappula, or manutergium) were provided both for the washing of the priest’s hands after accepting the offerings, known as the lavabo, and to prevent any drips from the priest’s nose or lips from contaminating the Eucharistic elements.9 Of these items, the corporal and altar linens were the most important. A ­sixteenth-century text said celebrating Mass without them was a mortal sin.10 The presence of these cloths was required by both universal canon law and local statutes, and they were discussed in guides to pastoral care. GRATIAN’S DECRETUM AND ITS COMMENTARIES

Medieval canon law was built up gradually on acts of councils, letters of popes, and writings of the Fathers of the Church, these last usually in the form of excerpts, not full texts. Canon law regulated clerical dress and the care of cloths used in church.11 An early example of concern for altar cloths is found in the Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals (ca. 852). Attributed to “Pope Clement,” the text required burning any altar cover (palla)12 or curtain (velum) worn out in use. The same letter entrusted the care and cleaning of these objects to the deacon together with the lesser clergy.13 Another Isidorean text, attributed to “Pope Sylvester” or to popes “Eusebius and Sylvester,” forbade celebrating the liturgy wearing silk or dyed cloth. The priest was to use “pure linen blessed by the bishop.” These requirements were explained as based on the wrapping of Christ’s corpse for entombment.14 A text of “Pope Stephen” said vestments were to be kept sacred and fitting (sacrata et honesta). Nor were they to be turned over to other uses, private or lay. Only consecrated persons (sacratis hominibus) were permitted to wear ecclesiastical vestments. Anyone who misused these and other liturgical materials was threatened with the fate of King Belshazzar of Babylon, who was visited with divine wrath for abusing the sacred vessels plundered from the temple in Jerusalem (Dan. 5).15 All of these texts later entered Gratian’s Decretum via intermediary collections

   9 For Dominican texts using toalia and mappula, see Legg, Tracts, 73, 95. Manutergia will be mentioned below. Jungmann, Roman Rite, 2:76–82.  10 Legg, Tracts, 203.  11 Miller, Clothing the Clergy; Thomas M. Izbicki, “Forbidden Colors in the Regulation of Clerical Dress from the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) to the Time of Nicholas of Cusa (d. 1464),” Medieval Clothing and Textiles 1 (2005): 105–14.  12 Charles Du Fresne Du Cange et al., Glossarium Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis (Frankfurt, 1710), vol. 3, part 1, 112, reproduced at http://www.uni-mannheim.de/mateo/camenaref/ducange.html (accessed Dec. 8, 2014).  13 Paul Hinschius, ed., Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae et Capitula Angilramni (1863; repr., Aalen, Germany: Scientia, 1963), 47.  14 Ibid., 450: “ut sacrificium altaris non in serico panno aut intincto quisquem celebrare missam presumat, sed in puro lineo ab episcopo consecrato … sicut corpus Domini nostri iesu Christi in sindone linea munda sepultum fuit.”  15 Ibid., 183: “Vestimenta vero ecclesiastica quibus domino ministratur, et sacrata debent esse et honesta. Quibus aliis usibus nemo dedet frui quam aecclesiasticis in de dignis officiis. Que nec ab

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Thomas M. Izbicki and influenced the development of the canon law of the sacraments.16 They are found in the third part of the collection, the Tractatus de consecratione ecclesiae (“Tract on the Consecration of a Church”), in the section on church buildings and their proper use. The “Clement” canon became c. Altaris palla (De cons. D. 1 c. 39),17 and the “Stephen” text became c. Vestimenta (De cons. D. 1 c. 42). The “Sylvester” text entered the Decretum as c. Consulto (De cons. D. 1 c. 46). The early canonists, writing during the twelfth century, had little to add to these regulations, and most of it was exegetical with little applicability to Church life. Paucapalea only repeated the story of Belshazzar’s feast, in which sacred things were misused, bringing down divine retribution, when glossing c. Vestimenta.18 Rufinus, glossing c. Altaris palla, called pallae “vestments of the altar” (vestimenta altaris), specifying that they were “veils” (sindones) square-cut and often decorated with precious stones (affixis … gemmis). He also distinguished between a palla and an altar frontal.19 Commenting on c. Vasa, the canonist said that corporals, like liturgical vessels, were to be kept clean.20 The commentary Fecit Moyses tabernaculum, printed with the summa by Stephen of Tournai, addressed the issue of who was to wash liturgical cloths. The author described the practice of having deacons do the washing as derogated by custom, but he found it acceptable to have pious women, like the verglonissae of Milan, do the washing.21 This text also said the prohibition of using silk extended to dyed cloth (fucatum). Linen, to be used instead, represented what was “innocent and without stain,” especially the body of Christ, which suffered blows, just as flax was pounded into white cloth.22 Huguccio of Pisa, one of the most influential commentators on the Decretum, aliis debent contingi aut ferri, nisi a sacratis hominibus, ne ultio que Balthasar percussit super haec transgredientibus et talia presumentibus veniat divina et corruere eos fatiat ad ima.”  16 The Decretum was composed in at least two stages during the early twelfth century and became the textbook for canon law at the University of Bologna. The third section, the De consecratione ecclesiae (“On the Consecration of a Church”), is divided into five Distinctions with multiple chapters. It is cited as “De cons.” with the number of the Distinction (D.) and the chapter (c.). The Decretum is cited here from Emil Friedberg, ed., Corpus Iuris Canonici, vol. 1 (1881; repr., Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1959).  17 The “Clement” text known as c. Nemo (De cons. D. 1 c. 40) forbade wrapping corpses in altar cloths (vestimenta altaris). The Ordinary Gloss (see note 27) to c. Nemo v. In mensa Domini, another portion of the “Clement” text, added a prohibition of using cloths touched by the priest after the consecration and chalice veils (vel forte palla, cui inoluit calicem) thus.  18 Paucapalea, Die Summa des Paucapalea über das Decretum Gratiani, ed. Johann Friedrich von Schulte (1890; repr., Aalen, Germany: Scientia Verlag, 1965), 144. See also Rufinus, Summa Decretorum, ed. Heinrich Singer (1902; repr., Aalen, Germany: Scientia Verlag, 1963), 546.  19 Rufinus, Summa Decretorum, 546. In this context, the veil may be the cloth used in receiving the offerings; see Jungmann, Roman Rite, 2:61.  20 Rufinus, Summa Decretorum, 546: “nunc qualia esse debeant vasa et corporalia, in quibus conficitur eucharistia … .”  21 Stephen of Tournai, Die Summa über das Decretum Gratiani, ed. Johann Friedrich von Schulte (1891; repr., Aalen, Germany: Scientia Verlag, 1965), 267: “pallas vero etc. His hodie generali consuetudine derogatum est. Forte autem non dicetur inconveniens, si haec religiosis feminis lavanda mandentur, sicut in ecclesia Mediolanensi verglonissae, i.e. quaedam religiosae mulieres oblatas praeparant ad sacrificium altaris.”  22 Ibid., 268.

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Care of Altar Linens underlined the prohibition of giving sacred things to the laity, adding that this prohibition extended to clergy taking them for private uses. They had been “consecrated with a special blessing” (fuerunt speciali benedictione consecrate).23 Moreover, different liturgical cloths, when washed, were to be laundered in separate vessels.24 Huguccio said the linen of the corporals had been prepared, made white, with “much labor” (multo labore), just as Christ endured many tribulations.25 The corporal spread on the altar signified the shroud of Christ, in which Joseph of Arimathea wrapped him. The corporal was to be kept clean and white, like the body of Christ born of the Virgin.26 These commentaries on the Decretum culminated in the thirteenth century in the Ordinary Gloss, which accompanied many manuscript copies of the collection.27 The Gloss on c. Altaris palla, building on Rufinus, called this type of cloth “vestments of the altar” (vestimenta altaris), specifying “veils” (sindones), which were squarecut.28 The altar veil was described as hanging upon the altar (pendet super altare) or hanging in front of it (cortina ante), as an altar frontal.29 The Gloss on c. Vestimenta also recounted, as earlier Decretists had, the story of Belshazzar’s feast and that king’s being punished by God for misuse of sacred vessels. The Gloss on c. Consulto said this meant corporals were not to be made of silk.30 Linen was given a moral interpretation as meaning innocent and without stain or taint (macula).31 The Gloss, following earlier opinion, said that linen was to be interpreted as signifying Christ, who endured many difficulties before reaching his glory, just as linen was made pure and white with many blows. The faithful too could rise to heaven through their difficulties.32 PAPAL DECRETALS AND THEIR COMMENTATORS

Additional regulations were provided by the thirteenth-century popes. In the year 1215 the Fourth Lateran Council, convened by Pope Innocent III, issued the canon  23 Huguccio Pisanus, Summa Decretorum, Admont, Austria, Stiftsbibliothek, MS 7, fol. 338va–339ra, c. Palla and c. Nemo.  24 Ibid., fol. 338vb, c. Nemo: “nec iste sunt lauande in eodem uase.”  25 Ibid., fol. 339rb, c. Consulto: “corporale enim multo labore canditatur et ecclesias per multos tribulationes Christo conformatur.”  26 Ibid., fol. 339rb, c. Consulto: “significat sindonem in qua Christi corpus fuit inuolutum.”  27 The Ordinary Gloss was a compilation of individual glosses by earlier canonists on passages in Gratian’s Decretum. It was compiled early in the thirteenth century and revised after 1234 when the official collection of papal decretal letters had been issued.  28 Ordinary Gloss at De cons. D. 1 c. 39 v. Altaris palla.  29 Ordinary Gloss at De cons. D. 1 c. 39 v. Velum.  30 Ordinary Gloss at De cons. D. 1 c. 46 v. In serico: “In serico. corporali.”  31 Ordinary Gloss at De cons. D. 1 c. 46 v. Sed in puro: “Sed in puro. Vt innocens & sine macula intelligatur.”  32 Ordinary Gloss at De cons. D. 1 c. 46 v. Lineo: “Lineo. Quod tunsionibus multis ad candorem deducitur sic & Christus pressuris mulitis peruenit ad gloriam. ita & boni propter pressuras ad gloriam domini veniunt.” This connection of linen to Christ’s suffering body also is found in Rainer Berndt, ed., Hugonis de Sancto Victore de Sacramentis Christiane Fidei (Münster: Aschendorff, 2008), 373: “Linteum caro ejus, tunsionibus passionum ad candorem incorruptionis perducta.”

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Thomas M. Izbicki Relinqui, one of several texts intended to improve pastoral care. This text appeared in the collected constitutions of the Lateran council,33 then in the collection known as Compilatio Quarta (ca. 1216),34 and finally in the Decretals of Gregory IX, or Liber Extra, under the title “On Custody of the Eucharist, Chrism and Other Sacraments” (De custodia eucharistiae, chrismatis et aliorum sacramentorum; X 3.44.2).35 The canon required that liturgical vessels, vestments, altar cloths, and corporals not be left in an unclean state, lest this cause “horror” in the faithful: And there are others who not only leave their churches uncared for but also leave the service vessels and ministers’ vestments and altar cloths and even corporals so dirty that they at times horrify some people.36

They were instead to be kept “clean and bright” (munda et nitida). The decretal Sane (X 3.41.10) of Honorius III, Innocent’s successor, gave new importance to these requirements about care of liturgical cloths. It appeared in Compilatio Quinta, compilation of which had been mandated by Pope Honorius, and then in the Liber Extra under the title “On the Celebration of Masses, the Sacrament of the Eucharist and Divine Offices” (De celebratione missarum et sacramento eucharistiae et divinis officiis; X 3.41.10).37 These canons would be crucial for later efforts to regulate the proper care of cloths for sacramental use.38 The thirteenth-century canonists usually said little on this topic. When they did, they summarized the same two early-thirteenth-century canons or repeated similar sentiments, referring back to the Decretum to support their expositions. Thus the Casus Fuldenses on the Lateran decrees simply said all things related to the ministry were to be kept clean and bright.39 Vincent of Spain, glossing the Lateran decree ­Relinqui, cited c. Nemo to prove corporals and vestments were to be washed inside the church (intra ecclesiam).40 The Ordinary Gloss of Bernard of Parma on the Gregorian  33 Antonio García y García, ed., Constitutiones Concilii Quarti Lateranensis una cum Commentariis Glossatorum (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1981), 66–67, 147–48.  34 Emil Friedberg, ed., Quinque Compilationes Antiquae nec non Collectio Canonum Lipsiensis (1882; repr., Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1956), 144, Comp. IV 3.17.1: “De immunitate ecclesiarum et eius ornatu et reverentia reliquiarum.”  35 All texts of papal decretal letters in the Liber Extra or Decretals of Gregory IX (1234) are cited by X for Extra with number of book, subject title, and chapter, thus X 1.1.1. This collection appears in volume 2 of Friedberg, Corpus Iuris Canonici.  36 Norman P. Tanner, ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, 2 vols. (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990), 1:244: “Sunt et alii qui non solum ecclesias dimittunt incultas, verum etiam vasa ministerii et vestimenta ministrorum ac pallas altaris necnon et ipsa corporalia tam immunda relinquunt, quod interdum aliquibus sunt horrori.”  37 Friedberg, Quinque Compilationes Antiquae, 178, Comp. V 3.24.1: “De celebratione missarum.”  38 A note in a late-sixteenth-century edition of the canon law, at c. Relinqui, blames problems about liturgical cloths on the parish priest; see Petrus Pithou and Franciscus Pithou, eds., Corpus Juris Canonici Gregorii XIII Pontificis Maximi Iussu Editum …, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1695), 2:196: “per ejus incuriam.”  39 García y García, Constitutiones Concilii Quarti Lateranensis, 486. Damasus cited c. Vestimenta instead, 428.  40 Ibid., 313–14.

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Care of Altar Linens Decretals focused on the issues of clean cloths when interpreting c. Relinqui. Bernard summarized the text in the casus preceding his gloss before saying the cloths were to be kept clean to avoid horrifying the faithful (quod aliquibus interdum sunt horrori).41 The Gloss repeated what the text said about vestments being kept fitting and clean, a point reinforced with a reference to c. Vestimenta in the De consecratione.42 Geoffrey of Trani, commenting on the title “On the Celebration of Masses” in his summa on the titles of the Extra, repeated much of what had been said by the canons in that collection. The canonistic injunctions about the necessity of keeping vestments fitting and clean were summarized.43 This summa restated past measures about the cleaning of soiled vestments, saying the deacon and humbler clerics were to wash these garments “in the sanctuary” (possibly the sacristy). The provision of the “Clement” text for burning altar cloths and vestments used up in liturgical celebrations was reiterated too.44 Pope Innocent IV ignored these issues in his commentary on the Extra, but Henricus de Segusio, Cardinal of Ostia, known as Hostiensis, gave issues of sacrament and ritual more attention. The cardinal wrote an extensive summa on the titles of the Gregorian Decretals and an even more lengthy commentary on that collection. The summa said clerics should use good vestments, not profane clothing.45 No one except the clergy, and especially not women, were to touch sacred objects, including cloths, once they had been blessed.46 Hostiensis repeated the provision of the Gloss about the washing of cloths by the deacon and lesser ministers before repeating the provision of the “Clement” text about burning worn-out items. The ashes were to be buried, he said, in the baptistery or in a hole in the church floor over which people could not walk.47 Hostiensis’ commentary added details. Discussing pallae, he extended this term not

 41 Ordinary Gloss at X 3.44.2 Casus.  42 Ordinary Gloss at X 3.44.2 v. Vestimenta: “[Vestimenta] Vestimenta ecclesiae honesta & munda debent esse. de conse. dist. i. vestimenta.” At v. In profanis, the Gloss says that clergy were forbidden to wear “profane” garments even if they were donated by the laity.  43 Goffredus de Trano (Geoffrey of Trani), Summa Perutilis et Valde Necessaria Do. Goffredi de Trano Super Titulis Decretalium … (1519; repr., Aalen, Germany: Scientia Verlag, 1968), fol. 165vb.  44 Ibid., fol. 166ra: “Item pallas altarium et vestimenta clericorum cum sordida fuerint dyaconi cum humilibus ministris intra sanctuarium lauent. vt de conse. dist. i. nemo. et si fuerint vetustate consumpta incendio dentur. vt de cons. di. i. altaris.” Geoffrey also summarized the provision against wearing profane garments.  45 Henricus de Segusio (Hostiensis), Summa Domini Henrici Cardinalis Hostiensis … (1537; repr., Aalen, Germany: Scientia Verlag, 1962), fol. 187va: “Et est ar. Quod clerici possunt vti bonis vestibus: dumtamen cessent a prohibitis.”  46 Ibid., fol. 187va: “nec vestimenta seu ornamenta vel vasa altaris seu ecclesie servitio deputata aliquid aliud tangere debent nec aliis vsibus deputari nec ad nuptiarum ornamenta prestari. de conse. di. i. nemo per ignorantiam. et. c. vestimenta. et. c. nuptiarum. quod videtur intelligendum ex quo sunt per pontifices benedicta: vt. supra. de re. do. c. iii.”  47 Ibid., fol. 187va: “Cum vero talia sordida fuerint diaconi cum humilibus ministris infra sacrarium ipsa lauent. de consec. dist. i. nemo. et si fuerint vetustate consumpta incendio comburantur et cinere in baptisterio vel sub fossa ita quod non pedibus hominum conteri recondantur. de conse. dist. i.”

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Thomas M. Izbicki just to corporals but to their containers.48 He added that c. Relinqui only prohibited use of dirty cloths and did not prohibit use of ornamented ones for sacred purposes.49 WRITINGS ON LITURGY

Symbolism was important in medieval liturgical texts, some of which were written by prelates or canonists. Pope Innocent III, while still a cardinal and before he became a legislator as Roman pontiff, built his discussion of the Mass in part on the “Sylvester” canon. He said the linen corporals on the altar were based on the winding cloth used for Jesus’ burial.50 Innocent said the unfolded corporal under chalice and paten signified faith, while the folded corporal signified intellect, which was more limited in its grasp of mysteries.51 Sicard of Cremona, a canonist who wrote on liturgy, interpreted the corporal spread on the altar as signifying Christ’s body, born of the Virgin, which endured many tribulations before the Resurrection, just as pure linen was made with great labor. The unfolding of a corporal on the altar represented Jesus’ nailing to the cross. The fact that there were two corporals on the altar reflected the preparation by Joseph of Arimathea of the dead Christ for burial.52  48 Henricus de Segusio (Hostiensis), Henrici de Segusio Cardinalis Hostiensis Decretalium Commentaria, 5 vols. (1581; repr., Frankfurt: Vico Verlag, 2009), vol. 3, fol. 172ra: “[Ac pallas.] non solum corporales, sed etiam alias, quae ponuntur in subtractorio altaris. i. mappas, quae ponuntur sub corporalibus ad ipsam ornandam. de con. di. i. nemo per ignorantiam.” The cardinal added that the term did not extend to chrism cloths.  49 Ibid., vol. 3, fol. 172rb: “Tu dicas, quod de ornatu non potest hic sumi ar. sed de munditia tantum. De hoc tamen dic, vt no. supra de vi. & ho. cler. c. ii. ver. pannis.”  50 Innocentius III, De Sacro Altaris Mysterio, Libri Sex, Patrologia Latina Database (Alexandria, VA: Chadwyck-Healey, 1996; accessed Feb. 16, 2014), PL 217.832A–B: “Interim vero diaconus corporales pallas super altare disponit, quae significant linteamina, quibus involutum fuit corpus Jesu. Pars autem quae plicata ponitur super calicem signat sudarium, quod fuerat super caput ejus separatim involutum in unum locum. De his itaque tantum reperitur in canone: ‘Consulto omnium constituimus, ut sacrificium altaris non in serico panno, aut intincto quisquam celebrare praesumat, sed in puro lineo [al. linteo], ab episcopo consecrato, terreno scilicet lino procreato atque contexto, sicut corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi in sindone linea munda sepultum fuit.’”  51 Ibid., PL 217.832B: “Duplex est enim palla, quae dicitur corporale: una quam diaconus super altare totam extendit, altera quam super calicem plicatam imponit. Pars extensa, signat fidem, pars plicata signat intellectum. Hic enim mysterium credi debet, sed comprehendi non valet, ut fides habeat meritum, cui humana ratio non praebet experimentum.”  52 Gábor Sarbak and Lorenz Weinrich, eds., Sicardi Cremonensis Episcopi Mitrale Sive de Officiis (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2008), 176–77: “Quod diaconus corporale disponit, hoc est, quod evangelium Christum uel corpus Christi, immo totam ipsius humanitatem plene describit. Corporale enim corpus Christi significat, quia, sicut corporale de puro lino conficitur et multo labore in candorem vertitur, sic corpus Christi de utero Virginis per multas tribulationes in gloriam transiuit resurrectionis, uel significat ipsius corporis tribulationem, munditiam et gloriam; uel significat ipsum Christum, quia, sicut corporale complicatur ut nec initium, nec finis eius appareat, sic eius diuinitas initio caret nec finem habet. Et sicut oblata adiungitur corporali et ponitur in altari, sic caro iuncta diuinitati affigitur cruci. Vel significat sindonem, in qua Domini corpus legimus inuolutum. Ideoque Siluester instituit sacrificium altaris dumtaxat in panno lineo celebrari. Qui vero

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Care of Altar Linens William Durantis the Elder, another canon lawyer who wrote on liturgy, did a detailed exposition of the Mass, including the altar, its ornaments, and the vestments used by priests and bishops. His interpretations of all these things runs to the symbolic, focusing more on their significance than on their handling.53 Durantis expounded on the meanings of the cloths used in church. Among those that were hung up as festal decorations, he made particular mention of having a set of Easter frontals in three colors: black, white, and red. Each was removed during the readings at the Vigil, black representing the time before the Law, white the time under the Law, and red the “time of grace” ushered in by Christ.54 The canonist drew on Gratian’s Decretum for his brief discussion of the discipline of liturgical cloths. The texts of “Stephen” and “Clement” about not using sacred materials for secular purposes were repeated, along with requirements that the deacon “with more humble ministers” (cum humilibus ministris) wash soiled linens in the sacristy. The church was to have a special basin for hangings and another for washing the sacred corporals. Durantis also cited the Decretum (De cons. D. 4 c. 106) as saying nothing else should be washed in the vessel (uasa) in which corporals were laundered.55 The “Clement” canon about burning used-up cloths was cited, with an added provision that the ashes be buried in the baptistery, in the walls (in parietate), or into holes in the pavement (in fossis pauimentorum), where no one could walk on them.56 All altar cloths and vestments were to be blessed by a priest, setting them aside for liturgical use. Durantis’s text cited the dedication by Moses of the furnishings of the tabernacle (Gen. 26:1–16) as one of the authorities supporting this practice.57 Durantis gave particular attention to the corporal unfolded on the altar. The placing of it on the altar signified the cleanness of the faithful people, especially the ministers, free from the stain of carnality. This cleansing resembled the preparation of linen that “has been cleansed of all natural coloration and moisture.”58 Durantis’s duo corporalia ponit, duo significat linteamina, quibus Ioseph corpus Domini aromatibus conditum inuoluit; uel per unum multiplicatum, multiplicem Christi humanitatem, per alterum multiplicem laborem eiusdem.”  53 Guilelmus Durantis, Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, ed. Anselme Davril and Timothy M. Thibodeau, 3 vols. (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1995–2000); Timothy M. Thibodeau, “The Influence of Canon Law on Liturgical Exposition c. 1100–1300,” Sacris Erudiri 37 (1997): 185–202.  54 Durantis, Rationale, 1:47–48, at 48; The Rationale Divinorum Officiorum of William Durand of Mende: A New Translation of the Prologue and Book One, trans. Timothy M. Thibodeau (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), 1:45.  55 Durantis, Rationale, 1:52; Thibodeau, Rationale Divinorum Officiorum of William Durand, 48, citing a Council of Lérida as saying “that there be proper vessels for no other use than washing the corporal and the altar coverings, in which nothing else ought to be washed.” He also said there should be a third vessel for washing festal hangings. A similar instruction is found in the Ordo ad sacros ordines benedicendos; see Patrologia Latina Database, PL 78.220B (accessed Jan. 8, 2015).  56 Durantis, Rationale, 1:53; Thibodeau, Rationale Divinorum Officiorum of William Durand, 48.  57 Durantis, Rationale, 1:111: “Illud etiam nota quod palle altaris, uestimenta sacredotalia et huiusmodi ecclesiastica ornamenta benedicenda sunt.” Thibodeau, Rationale Divinorum Officiorum of William Durand, 99.  58 Durantis, Rationale, 1:378: “Interdum uero, dum sacredos manus abluit, dyaconus pallam super altare disponit: in quo admonentur ministri et populus ut sint ab omni carnali cupiditate mundi,

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Thomas M. Izbicki exposition of the corporal was based on the Decretum, saying it was not to be made from silk but from pure linen, consecrated by a bishop. Linen came from the earth and was related to the winding cloth in which the body of Jesus was buried. Nor was the linen to be dyed.59 Durantis gave an extended interpretation of the corporal, like the Fecit Moyses commentary and Sicard of Cremona. Durantis said that the linen was “beaten and cleansed with many blows.” Among the multiple meanings he assigned to the corporal was that it represented the Church as the body of Christ. Moreover, the corporal unfolded on the altar represented the shroud in which the dead Christ was wrapped. However, a corporal resting atop the chalice signified faith, more capable of grasping things divine than was human reason.60 Durantis’s discussion of vestments, from both the Old Testament and the New, has a few significant references to linen. The white linen of the alb represented, he said, both new life in baptism and “Christ’s garments,” which “were always clean and white” because of His sinlessness. Both cotton and linen acquired their whiteness “by thrashing and handling by artisans,” as human flesh was softened by chastisements for coming of grace. Following Sicard, Durantis said the linen cloth was “beaten and cleansed with many blows,” indicating the wiping away of earthly affections.61 The same, he said, was true of one of the two tunics of the High Priest, which signified chastity.62 On a slightly more practical note, Durantis discussed the sudarium, the linen cloth an attendant was to keep ready if the bishop needed to wipe off sweat, saying it signified “wiping off the human defilements of this life.”63 LOCAL REGULATIONS

Problems arose occasionally about providing a parish with liturgical cloths, costs for which seem to have been split, like many other expenses, between priest(s) and people. The early-thirteenth-century record of the customs of the diocese of Salisbury attempted to specify who would pay which costs. The parson was to provide corporals “made of fine linen cloth.” The chaplain (assisting priest) was to see that the altar cloth and all other linens were “clean and suitable.” The parishioners were to provide a silk chasuble and “all other types of vestments belonging to the altar.”64 A parish chaplain might be required to see the vestments and fittings were kept clean, but in the case of sicut ipsa palla est a naturali uiriditate et humore; mundita quoque corporalis significat munditiam populi fidelis.” William Durand, On the Clergy and Their Vestments: A New Translation of Books 2–3 of the Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, trans. Timothy M. Thibodeau (Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press, 2010), 241.  59 Durantis, Rationale, 1:378, citing De cons. D. 1 c. 46; Durand, On the Clergy, 241.  60 Durantis, Rationale, 1:379; Durand, On the Clergy, 242–43.  61 Durantis, Rationale, 1:187–88, 186: “sicut enim byssus, uel linum, candorem quem ex natura non habet multis tunsionibus attritum acquirit per artem … .”; Durand, On the Clergy, 148–49, 147.  62 Durantis, Rationale, 1:233; Durand, On the Clergy, 176.  63 Durantis, Rationale, 1:217; Durand, On the Clergy, 201.  64 Shinners and Dohar, Pastors, 224–25, from the “parish law” of the diocese of Salisbury. For a Moravian attempt to define whether priest or people should pay for vestments and bells “from their

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Care of Altar Linens theft, the negligent party had to replace stolen items.65 Parish accounts can include payments for new vestments or the repair of old ones. In addition, a parson was paid for blessing them, setting them apart from the materials used by the laity.66 Although a parish was supposed to pay for vestments, priests frequently owned their own, as shown in their wills. A poor priest might leave only one set, but a wealthier one, like John de Ufford, a son of the Earl of Suffolk (d. 1375), left three, together with two curtains and two altar towels.67 Bishops might bequeath a wider variety of liturgical cloths. The testamentary records of the English episcopate from 1200 to 1413 include, together with chasubles and other vestments, linen corporals, burses to contain them, altar cloths, and frontals. Even lectern hangings were included in these bequests. These materials might be elaborately decorated. One of two corporals belonging to Cardinal Simon Langham, archbishop of Canterbury 1366–68, was described as having images of the Lamb of God (agnus Dei) and four angels. Simon Mepham, another fourteenth-century archbishop of Canterbury, bequeathed corporals embroidered with the Crucifixion and the Coronation of the Virgin.68 Local councils and synods funneled canon law and the acts of general councils to the local level.69 These regional meetings occasionally looked at vestments and altar cloths, telling priests and people not just how to care for them but what to do if they were damaged or stained. They might even go in for prevention, like requiring provision of a towel at the altar to prevent dripping from lips or nostrils onto holy things. This requirement can be found in the influential statutes of Paris, which said the towel was to be attached to the missal.70 The same statutes required frequent washing of “the altar linens and garments” out of reverence and because Christ would be present during the Mass with his celestial court.71 If consecrated wine was spilled on a corporal, an altar cloth, a small part of a vestment like a fringe, or an alb, the Paris statutes required cutting out the affected material and placing it with the church’s relics. If a vestment (probably a colored chasuble) was stained, that part was to be burned and the ashes alms” (de elimosinis), see Pavel Krafl, ed., Synody a Statuta Olomoucké Diecéze Období Středověku (Prague: Historický ústav, 2003), 178–79.  65 Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church, vol. 2, A.D. 1205-1313, ed. F. M. Powicke and C. R. Cheney (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), pt. 1, 513: “Capellanus ecclesie debet providere quod mensalia et cetera vestimenta ecclesie ad altare spectantia sint munda et honesta.” The provision about theft follows.  66 Shinners and Dohar, Pastors, 231–32.  67 Ibid., 245, 249, 250.  68 C. M. Woolgar, ed., Testamentary Records of the English and Welsh Episcopate 1200–1413; Wills, Executors’ Accounts and Inventories, and the Probate Process (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2011), 143: “Item unum corporale cum ymaginibus cum sacro agno et iiiio angelis ii fr. Item unum corporale I”; ibid., 164: “Item corporalia brudata cum crucifixo et coronacione beate Marie.”  69 C. R. Cheney, English Synodalia of the Thirteenth Century (London: Oxford University Press, 1968).  70 Odette Pontal, Les Statuts Synodaux Français du XIIIe Siècle (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1975), 1:82: “[79.] Districte praecipitur, ut quilibet sacerdos habeat in celebratione misse, propter munditiam vestimentorum servanda, circa altare unum manutergium, pendens circa missale ad tergendum os et nares si fuerit necesse.”  71 Ibid., 1:58: “[16] Linteamina altaria et indumenta sepe abluantur, ad reverentiam et presentiam Salvatoris nostri et totius curie celestis, que cum eo presens adest quotiens missa celebratur.”

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Thomas M. Izbicki retained in the sacristy.72 This disposition of sacred cloths is very different from the frequent efforts to reuse materials typical of the laity. English synodal enactments had several things to say about liturgical cloths. An early-thirteenth-century canon from Canterbury required the priest to have a clean cloth to wipe fingers and lips after receiving communion.73 The same council decree mandated having a clean white cloth of sufficient size plus fitting linens and ornaments to use at the altar.74 The influential Salisbury statutes required placing a clean linen cloth over the viaticum carried to the sick.75 Archbishop Stephen Langton held a Council of Oxford in 1222, responding to the canons of the Fourth Lateran Council. The council, like its Canterbury predecessor, commanded use of a clean white altar cloth. Another Oxford canon said corporals no longer useful for the Mass were to be placed with the relics or burned in the presence of the archdeacon. It was the archdeacon, according to Langton and his suffragans, who was to see that a parish had proper linens and ornaments for the altar.76 Eventually the requirement that a towel be kept at the altar was added in England.77 The second statutes of Worcester (1229) required a parish to have two sets of vestments and two corporals of sufficient size (one festal and one for everyday, with which a priest might be buried), two altar frontals, three linens (at least one of them blessed), and a rochet or choir vestment.78 The third statutes of Worcester (1240) added a longer list of vestments, as well as corporals and other blessed linens.79 The second statutes of Salisbury (1234–44) said a priest was not to celebrate in dirty vestments or those worn out by age.80

 72 Ibid., 1:80: “[75] Si quid de sanguine Domini ceciderit super corporale, rescindendum est ipsum corporale et in loco reliquiarum servandum. Si palla altaris inde intincta fuerit, rescindenda est pars illa et pro reliquiis servanda. Si super casulam id est infulam vel super albam deguttat similiter fiat. Si super quodlibet vestimentum, comburenda est pars illa et puvis in sacrario reponendus.” The statutes of Soissons repeated this text; see ibid., 1:194.  73 Powicke and Cheney, Councils and Synods 2, pt. 1, 28.  74 Ibid., 25: “sindonem mundam et candidam amplitudinis congruentis, lintheamina et alia ornamenta que ad altaris officium spectant honesta.”  75 Ibid., 81.  76 Ibid., 111: “sindonem mundam et candidam et amplitudinis congruentis … . Vetera vero corporalia que non fuerint ydonea in altaribus quando consecrantur loco reliquiarum vel in presentia archidiaconi comburantur. Provideant etiam archidiaconi ut lintheamina et ornamenta altaris sint sicut decet honesta.” These decrees were repeated for the diocese of Winchester two years later; see ibid., 126. Likewise, an Exeter statute and a London enactment from the mid-thirteenth century said the archdeacon was to see that these materials were provided; see ibid., 232, 649.  77 Ibid., 185.  78 Ibid., 171: “In qualibet ecclesia hec subscripta ad minus haberi debent: in ornatu altaris duo paria vestimentorum cum duobus paribus corporalium amplitudinis congruentis cum una rocheta, unum festivale et aliud feriale in quo sacerdos altaris mortuus tumuletur, si necesse fuerit; due palle altaris, una festivalis et alia ferialis; tria lintheamina, unum benedictum ad minus … .”  79 Ibid., 296: “in qualibet ecclesia in ornatu altaris sint tres albe cum amitibus et stolis et manipulis; duo suppellicia et duo rochete; duo casule; duo paria corporalium; quattuor lintheamina benedicta; duo palle altaris … .”  80 Ibid., 378. Similarly see the first statutes of Chichester (1245–52) in ibid., 454.

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Care of Altar Linens VISITATIONS AND ENFORCEMENT OF REGULATIONS

A turn toward enforcement can be found early on in the collection compiled by Abbot Regino of Prüm (d. 915) for the archbishop of Trier in the Rhineland. He required that synodal reviews of pastoral care include an inquiry about the state of the corporal on which chalice and paten were placed at Mass: Whether the corporal is of cleanest and whitest linen, and where it is put away.81

Likewise, early medieval Penitentials prescribed penances for priests who spilled the chalice on the linens, and one required him to replace the cloth at his own expense.82 By the end of the thirteenth century, the enforcement of discipline at the parish level usually fell to the archdeacon, not the bishop.83 The archdeacon conducted visitations in his assigned territory to examine the conduct of priests and people, as well as the state of the church, the manse, and the cemetery. (He was supposed to visit each parish once in a three year cycle.) Within the church, a visiting archdeacon was to look at the liturgical furnishings, including bells, vessels, vestments, and cloths. The most detailed visitation records provide insight into parish life, including defects in care of liturgical fabric.84 The archdeacon was able to impose penalties on priest and people, usually fines, and concern must have been felt when such a review was imminent.85 Thus a synod of Exeter (1287) complained about parishes possibly borrowing ornaments from each other to show the archdeacon.86 (Similar measures were adopted at Brno in Moravia, saying fines could be imposed payable to the archdeacon for allowing liturgical cloths, vestments, and vessels to fall into a state that would not be acceptable in “profane” cloths.87)  81 Regino, Das Sendhandbuch des Regino von Prüm, ed. F. W. H. Wasserschleben and Wilfried Hartmann (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2004), 20: “Si corporale ex mundissimo et nitidissimo linteo sit, et ubi recondatur.” The translation is mine.  82 These penitentials offer few theological reasons for their assigned penances; see John T. McNeill and Helena M. Gamer, eds., Medieval Handbooks of Penance: A Translation of the Principal “libri poenitentiales” and Selections from Related Documents (New York: Columbia University Press, 1938), 278–79, 309. On the costs of replacement, see ibid., 356.  83 However, for an example of a bishop intervening to require use of clean linens, see Adam J. Davis, The Holy Bureaucrat: Eudes Rigaud and Religious Reform in Thirteenth-Century Normandy (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006), 88.  84 Not just the corporals but their container might be reviewed by a visitor; see G. G. Coulton, “A Visitation of the Archdeaconry of Totnes in 1342,” English Historical Review 26 (1911): 108–24, at 122 (unum par corporalium cum repositorio). See also Shinners and Dohar, Pastors, 301.  85 Noël Coulet, Les Visites Pastorals (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1977).  86 Powicke and Cheney, Councils and Synods 2, pt. 2, 1006. The same synod also required that clergy, not the laity of the parish, have custody of church ornaments. A later statute of Exeter listed all possible cloths and vestments; see ibid., 1005–6.  87 Krafl, Synody a Statuta Olomoucké, 223: “[16.] Item precipimus et mandamus, ut palle altarium, vasa, corporalia et vestimenta consecrata, munda et nitida conserventur sub pena infligenda pro archidiacono, nimis enim videtur ab sordum in sacris sordes admittere, que non decet in prophanis.” The same statutes attempted to limit, among other things, the wearing of silk and precious furs by clergy to cathedral canons, prelates, and university graduates; see ibid, 226–27.

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Thomas M. Izbicki Two sets of visitations will be employed to illustrate how these records give insights into parish life. Most parishes have yet to find a full study like that done for Morebath in Devon.88 However, English examples can be drawn from visitations of the parishes dependent on St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. These were held more than 150 years apart, in 1297 and 1458.89 The other set derives from the archdeaconry of Josas in the diocese of Paris, a region that included Versailles and Montlhéry, in the mid-fifteenth century. These visitation records include very detailed reports on such issues as reception of communion at Easter, the choice of licensed midwives, the custody of the sacraments, and the care of the corporals used at Mass.90 The 1297 visitation of Navestock in Essex offers a good example of church possessions inventoried on site by visitors. They expected to find the fittings listed by recent archbishops of Canterbury,91 and they often found at least most of them. Among the cloth items listed was a funeral pall of red samite, indicating good finances or wealthy donors. The entire list included a lectern hanging, a Lenten veil, a towel, a purificator, two frontals for the main altar (one of red cendal, a lightweight silk fabric), two frontals for chapels (one of red and white striped cloth decorated with shields), and two linen altar cloths. Some were described as sufficient and some as not. The parish had several vestments, including some described as made of silk or cendal. Other cloths were used for special rites, including a veil to be held over a wedding couple.92 The 1458 visitation of Navestock noted some defects, including the lack of the outer part of a red velvet chasuble, as well as the absence of a corporal, a chasuble of cloth of gold in a green shade, and an alb of red samite. The vestments listed as present were made with velvet, silk, or cloth of gold. The visitors also listed two corporals, a Lenten veil, and two towels. 93 Considering the time between visitation records, these probably were not the same items listed many years before. The older ones, if not worn out, may have been stolen. In 1297, Aldbury had festal vestments including the apparels of the amice (parura amicti) decorated in pure gold (de auro puro).94 A second set of decorated vestments was for Sunday use. A third, for daily use, was decorated but more modestly. Corporals and a Lenten veil, rochets, and a towel were present. So were altar cloths, one decorated with roses. A Sunday frontal was ornamented with flowers, while the daily frontal was of linen. An offertory cloth was missing (deficit).95 In 1458, the same church had a silk vestment, probably a chasuble, decorated with moon and stars. Another vestment  88 Eamon Duffy, The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001).  89 W. Sparrow Simpson, ed., Visitations of Churches Belonging to St. Paul’s Cathedral, in 1297 and in 1458 (1895; repr., New York: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1965).  90 J.-M. Alliot, ed., Visites Archidiaconales de Josas (Paris: Picard, 1902).  91 Powicke and Cheney, Councils and Synods 2, pt. 2, 1122 (John Peckham), 1385–88 (Robert Winchelsey).  92 Simpson, Visitations, 1–6.  93 Ibid., 65–72.  94 The amice was worn round the neck of the celebrant.  95 Simpson, Visitations, 46–47.

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Care of Altar Linens was blue with orphreys in green. Other vestments and copes were equally elaborate. One had an image of St. Helena. Another had writing on it, Orate pro anima Johannis Shadworth (“Pray for the soul of John Shadworth”). Aldbury had corporals and two silk altar frontals (ii vestes de serico pro altare).96 Chiswick in 1297 lacked a lectern frontal, and two towels had been stolen. It did have a Lenten veil. Among other cloths present were a rochet, altar frontals (one of cut linen and one of cloth of gold), four pallae (two blessed), a festal vestment set including a maniple of “Saracen work,” and a samite chasuble. There were other vestments for Sunday and weekdays, the latter in bad shape. Also present were a choir cope and two corporals with their cloth containers. A dalmatic was missing, as were the offertory and wedding cloths.97 In 1458, Chiswick had a set of blue silk vestments with lions and gold knots and orphreys of red silk with gold suns. Another set of vestments was of green silk with golden flowers. A third was of green satin with silver lozenges.98 A red set had been given by one Walter Dolman; another set was of red silk with golden lions. There were other vestments, copes, pallae, corporals, and white altar frontals.99 Even when the English Reformation was well under way, in the sixth year of King Edward VI (1543–44), the parishes dependent on St. Paul’s still listed some liturgical cloths, like a green damask chasuble owned by Aldbury. Several vestments still owned by Chiswick were made of satin, damask, or silk, but only some copes, albs, and “old towells” were listed for Heybridge. Allowing for the possibility that some parishes might have hidden vestments and altar linens from Edward’s commissioners, we almost certainly are seeing the effects of liturgical change at the local level.100 The French visitation records go into more depth on the availability and condition of corporals, the linens most closely associated with the Mass. The visitors noted several examples of corporals in poor condition. In 1459 the visitors said of the chaplain at Issy-les-Moulineaux that he had not washed the corporals “as is found in the synodal constitutions.”101 This is but one example of priests ignoring the statutes in matters of liturgical cloth. Thus visitors to Chatillon-sous-Bagneux in 1458, finding the corporals dirty, required that the priest should have them cleaned by Martinmas. He had to

 96 Ibid., 107.  97 Ibid., 58. For an English translation, see W. P. W. Phillimore, Historical Collections Related to Chiswick (London: Phillimore, 1897), 103–5, digital edition at Hathi Trust Digital Library, http://babel. hathitrust.org (accessed July 19, 2014).  98 Simpson, Visitations, 110–11.  99 Ibid., 111. For an English translation, see Phillimore, Historical Collections, 108–11. 100 Simpson, Visitations, 115–22. For an English translation of the Chiswick visitation, see Phillimore, Historical Collections, 112–14. Unfortunately, Navestock is not included in the Edwardian records. Hiding cloth from the commissioners of Edward VI and Elizabeth I was especially common in the North of England; see Margaret Clark, “Northern Light? Parochial Life in a ‘Dark Corner’ of Tudor England,” in The Parish in English Life 1400–1600, ed. Katherine L. French, Gary G. Gibbs, and Beat A. Kümin (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1997), 56–73, at 64, 66. 101 Alliot, Visites Archdidiaconales de Josas, 69–70, no. 219: “Dictus vero capellanus emendavit non mundasse sua corporalia, prout in statutis synodalibus continetur.”

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Thomas M. Izbicki “emend,” probably in cash, for the uncleanness of those corporals.102 Another priest, at Clamart, had to emend for the corporals being both unclean and torn. He also was criticized for not telling his parishioners about this. It is unclear if he simply wanted to hide his slipshod conduct from the laity, but that is plausible.103 A prior of St. Saturnin at Chevreuse, Guillaume du Val, was threatened with a fine because the altar itself was unclean, as well as the corporals and altar cloth. The prior blamed this on his poverty, because the people did not sustain both parish and priory.104 At Bourg-la-Reine in 1461, the visitation led to the church wardens being required to have “good, useful and sufficient” corporals in place by the Feast of All Saints. The curate was fined for celebrating Mass with insufficient corporals.105 The chaplain of Louveciennes may have achieved the all-time record for negligence in this matter. In 1460 he admitted not just to failing to keep the corporals clean but to not having washed them for three years.106 After dealing with such problems, the visitors must have been relieved to find a church like that of Bruyères-le-Chalet, which had the reserved Eucharist and the corporals “well and fittingly disposed.”107 Something less usual had occurred at Viry-Châtillon in 1468. The church wardens complained that the chaplain had dropped a lighted candle on the altar, burning the altar cloths and ornaments.108 THE WASHING OF LINENS

One reason for dirty corporals may be found in the statutes themselves. For example, a statute from Tarragona (1329), based on the universal canons, required priests to wash the church’s dirty linens.109 A Bamberg statute (1491) forbade women to touch vestments and corporals. That left them, under local law, unable to provide the parish

102 Ibid., 35, no. 107: “et ut, infra festum hyemale beati Martini, mundet sua corporalia, et emendavit de immundicia.” 103 Ibid., 37, no. 114: “emendavit etiam, eo quod corporalia fuerunt reperta immunda et laxerata, quod non significavit parrochianis.” 104 Ibid., 46–47, no. 142: “Qui prior emendavit, eo quod altare erat valde immundum, et etiam corporalia, et mape dicti altaris; quare fuit iniunctum eidem priori, quod predicta abluentur, infra mensem, sub pena emende.” 105 Ibid., 114, no. 359: “dominus injunxit matriculariis, ut, infra festum Omnium Sanctorum, habeant corporalia bona, utilia et sufficientia. Item emendavit curatus, eo quod celebravit in corporalibus minus honestis et decentibus.” 106 Ibid., 75, no. 233 Louveciennes: “Dictus capellanus, scilicet frater Guillelmus Rigault, prior dicti loci de Marliaco burgo, emendavit non tenuisse sua corporalia munda, nec abluisse a tribus annis.” 107 Ibid., 89, no. 268: “et invenimus sacramenta Eucharistiae et corporalia bene et honeste disposita.” 108 Ibid., 318–19, no. 999: “Matricularii conquesti sunt, quod cappellanus ejusdem ecclesie, per ejus negligentiam, dimisit candellam ardentem cadere super nappas ejusdem altaris, et combussit ignis nappas et ornamenta altaris.” Similarly, an altar veil was burned at Calonge in the archdiocese of Tarragona in 1314 when a candle fell during Mass; see Christian Guillere, “Les Visites Pastorales en Tarraconaise à la Fin du Moyen-Age (XIVe–XVe s.),” Mélanges de la Casa Velázquez 19, no. 1 (1983): 125–67, at 158. The fire was blamed on the server. 109 Giovan Domenico Mansi et al., eds., Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio, 53 vols. (1901–27; repr., Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- u. Verlangsanstalt, 1961), 25:869–70.

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Care of Altar Linens with laundry service. Instead, the priest was expected, under the Bamberg regulations, to wash dirty corporals and other cloths in the sacristy.110 A synodal decree from Cyprus, imposing Western practices in the East, said the cloths covering the altar were to be washed four times in a year, on “Christmas, Easter, the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, and on the feast of All Saints.” The same decree said to wash the corporals monthly.111 Priests may have resented having to wash linens, regarding that work as beneath them. There was a great deal of washing to be done, and laundering was a humble calling.112 Daily masses, with wine poured and candles liable to drip or smoke, could result in soiling of both vestments and linens. Moreover, worse things could happen, especially when processions were held outside on certain feasts, like Corpus Christi. There were complaints from Hereford in the fourteenth century about silk vestments being dragged through cow manure, alongside linens that were “a disgrace.”113 Even the nave and sanctuary of a church could be filthy, requiring separate storage of most precious vestments.114 Despite such dirt, women were only grudgingly permitted to wash these cloths, and only after a cleric had handed them over, keeping the laundress away from the altar.115 Among those who might wash and mend liturgical cloths, according to the research of Katherine French on English parishes, could be the wives of church wardens or sextons. The former might have been showing their piety, and the latter might have thought this an extension of their husbands’ work maintaining the fabric and furnishings of the church. However, humble laundresses and launderers might be hired instead.116 Whatever their motives, women found themselves removing soot, candle wax, and even the droppings of bats.117 110 The statute added, much like what the “Clement” text had said, that worn-out vestments and corporals were to be burned, not handed over to secular uses. Johann Friedrich Schannat and Joseph Hartzheim, eds., Concilia Germaniae (Cologne, Germany: 1763), 5:619A: “Ordinamus insuper, ut mulieres sacra vasa contingere, & ad altare Sacerdotibus ministrare non praesumant. Statuimus, ut vasa ministerii, & sacra vestimenta, nec non locus Sacramenti, ac Reliquiarum, ac corporalia munda teneantur; cum autem corporalia sordida fuerint, non nisi per Sacerdotes intra Sacrarium abluantur. Itaque vestimenta & corporalia vetustate consumpta, ad humanos usus nullatenus redigantur, sed incendio tribuantur, & cineres, ut moris est, conserventur.” 111 Christopher David Schabel, ed., The Synodicum Nicosiense and Other Documents of the Latin Church of Cyprus, 1196–1373 (Nicosia, Cyprus: Cyprus Research Center, 2001), 194–95. 112 Carole Rawcliffe, “A Marginal Occupation? The Medieval Laundress and Her Work,” Gender and History 21, no. 1 (2009): 147–69, at 150, 152, 156, 161, 162. 113 Shinners and Dohar, Pastors, 298, 300. 114 Nicola A. Lowe, “Women’s Devotional Bequests of Textiles in the Late Medieval English Parish Church, c. 1350–1550,” Gender and History 22, no. 2 (2010): 407–29, at 418–19. 115 Exceptions for laundering can be found beginning in the Carolingian period; see Fiona J. Griffiths, “‘Like the Sister of Aaron’: Medieval Religious Women as Makers and Donors of Liturgical Textiles,” in Female Vita Religiosa Between Late Antiquity and the High Middle Ages: Structures, Developments and Spatial Contexts, ed. Gert Melville and Anne Müller (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2011), 343–374, at 347. 116 Katherine L. French, The People of the Parish: Community Life in a Late Medieval English Diocese (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001), 145, 188. 117 Katherine L. French, The Good Women of the Parish: Gender and Religion After the Black Death (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 17. John Mirk described the work of

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Thomas M. Izbicki It may be because of these realities that Walter of Eynsham, archbishop of Canterbury, made a very traditional provision for the keeping of liturgical cloths. His statute said corporals and other liturgical cloths were to be kept whole and clean. It then added: and they are to be washed often by persons deputed to this in the canon.

This was to be done out of reverence for the Eucharist.118 William Lyndwood, compiling the local canons of the province of Canterbury, quoted the Decretum as saying that corporals could not be made from silk, only pure linen blessed by the bishop. Nothing more or less precious was to be added to the linen. The corporal was to be kept spotless and clean because it represented the shroud in which Christ was wrapped for burial.119 Here too no concession was made to lay persons, especially laundresses, in the cleaning of corporals and other cloths. According to Lyndwood, drawing on the universal canons, this work was assigned to deacons and other “humble ministers.”120 The English canonist, glossing a statute of Edmund of Abingdon, archbishop of Canterbury, which said a vessel used in an emergency baptism at home might be given to the parish church out of reverence, suggested that it might be used in the washing of vestments.121 Despite their exclusion from the sanctuary, even when the linens and vestments needed cleaning, women could gain access less directly. They might give or bequeath cloth to the parish for liturgical uses. A bedsheet might, if made of linen, be given for use as an altar cloth or a houselling cloth to be used at communion, held under the chins of communicants. A kerchief might be turned into a corporal. These and other cloths might be embroidered by the women who gave them to the church. This gave them personal access, if indirect, to the sanctuary. Moreover, a woman might be remembered among the church’s benefactors and be seen as a virtuous woman who

laundering as burdensome but valuable, while bequests were made by the laity to support the hiring of laundresses; 29–30. 118 William Lyndwood, Provinciale (seu Constitutiones Angliæ) … Cui Adjiciuntur Constitutiones Legatinae D. Othonis et D. Othoboni … (Oxford, 1679; repr., Farnborough, UK: Gregg International, 1968), 235: “Linteamina Corporalia, Pallae, & alia indumenta Altaris integra sint, & mundissima, & saepe abluantur per personas ad hoc in Canone deputatas, ob reverentiam & praesentiam Salvatoris nostri, & totius caelestis Curiae, qua Sacramento Altaris conficiendo & confecto non est dubium inteesse.” The statute is based loosely on one from Paris; see Powicke and Cheney, Councils and Synods 2, pt. 1, 142, compared with Pontal, Statuts Synodaux, 1:58. Translation mine. 119 Lyndwood, Provinciale, 235 s: “Corporalia. Quae sc. Non debent fieri ex Serico, sed solùm ex Pano lineo puto terreno ab Episcopo Consecrato, de conse. di. i. c. ex consulto. Nec debet confici neque benedici Corporale de Panno misso in confectionem Farinae, vel alterius rei ad hoc quod stet rigidum siuper Calicem; sed erit de Lino puro absque mixtione alterius rei, sive praetiosioris, sive vilioris. Et erit candidum atque mundum, quia significat Sindonem, in qua Corpus Christi fuit involutum; & debet fieri de puro Lino, quia sicut Linum tonsionibus deducitur ad Candorem … .” 120 Ibid., 235 z: “In Canone deputatos. sc. per Diaconum, alios Ecclesiae humiles Ministros, de consec. dist. i. nemo.” 121 Ibid., 242 e: “Usus ecclesiae. Sc. Ut in illo laventur Vestimenta Ecclesie … .”

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Care of Altar Linens worked cloth, as had Mary, who, according to the Apocrypha, made the curtain of the temple in Jerusalem.122 CONCLUSION

A few general observations are in order. As the belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist became more literal, the items closest to the sacrament became the object of more detailed regulation. Honor for the Savior, who became present in host and chalice, was combined with a sense of ritual purity, removing these things not just from secular hands but potentially even from cleaning by pious women. Corporals and altar linens were particular concerns because of their closeness to the sacrament and the possibility that consecrated wine might be spilled on them. This staining with the blood of Christ made unclean linen objects too sacred to be reused for private or secular purposes. They were to be disposed of fittingly. Whether intact cloths, excised fragments of vestments, or ashes, they were to be saved among a church’s relics, alongside the ashes and the bones of saints.123 Corporals themselves could become relics in the truest sense. The well-known example is the corporal involved in the Miracle at Bolsena. The usual story about this relic, dated traditionally to 1263, is that a Bohemian priest on his way to Rome doubted the Real Presence in the Eucharist while celebrating Mass. The host bled onto the corporal, illustrating Christ’s presence to the doubting priest. The corporal was moved to the cathedral at Orvieto, where it now resides in the Chapel of the Corporal, which was constructed in the mid-fourteenth century.124 This story is represented in the Stanze, a suite of reception rooms in the Vatican Palace, decorated by Raphael for Pope Julius II in 1512, which place the pope, four cardinals, and Julius’ daughter Felice among the witnesses to the miracle.125 Another corporal, housed at Daroca in the lands of the crown of Aragon, was supposed to show bleeding onto linens when a priest hid six consecrated hosts during an attack by Muslims on an army of Christians in 1239. A bloodstained corporal is reported to have become the banner of the Christian army. There, as at Bolsena, the preservation of linens stained with the blood of Christ became even more literal than in the regulations about spills of

122 Lowe, “Women’s Devotional Bequests,” 408–12, 414–18, 421–22. 123 On ashes as relics, see C. J. K. Snoek, Medieval Piety from Relics to the Eucharist: A Process of Mutual Interaction (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 11, 15–16. 124 Dominique Rigaux, “Miracle, Reliques et Images dans la Chapelle du Corporal à Orvieto (1357–64),” in Pratiques de l’Eucharistie dans les Eglises d’Orient et d’Occident (Antiquité et Moyen Age): Actes du Séminaire Tenu à Paris, Institut Catholique, 1997–2004, vol. 1, L’institution, ed. Nicole Bériou, Béatrice Caseau, and Dominique Rigaux (Paris: Institut d’Etudes Augustiniennes, 2009), 201–245; L. Riccetti, “Dal Concilio al Miracolo: Mistero Eucaristico, Concilio Lateranense IV, Miracolo del Corporale,” in Spazi e Immagini dell’Eucaristia: Il Caso di Orvieto, ed. Gianni Cioli, Severino Dianich, and Valerio Mauro (Bologna: EDB, 2007), 171–227. 125 Dioclecio Redig de Campos, The Stanze of Raphael (Rome: Lorezo del Turco, 1968), 43–47.

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Thomas M. Izbicki the consecrated wine.126 Nonetheless, the miracle of Christ’s presence did not have to be so spectacular to be believed to occur. Even a spill from a chalice onto a corporal could create a relic of Christ’s Real Presence out of the linens that commentators on liturgy compared to the white flesh of Jesus.

126 A medieval account, Historia del sanct corpocrist de Luchent, appears in facsimile in Luch Chabàs, El Miracle de Llutxent: i Els corporals de Daroca: Relacions i Documents Estudiats (Valencia, Spain: Diputació Provincial de València, 1981).

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Coats, Collars, and Capes: Royal Fashions for Animals in the Early Modern Period John Block Friedman

Nobles, cloistered and secular religious, and merchants, among other prosperous social groups, owned a variety of pets in the Middle Ages.1 Following the culture historian Keith Thomas, I use the term pet to mean an animal that lived indoors, was not eaten, and was given a name.2 Such animals included dogs, cats, birds (such as

I am grateful to Sarah Brown, Thierry Buquet, Madeline Caviness, Kristen Figg, Kathrin Giogoli, Lisa Kiser, Dawn Maneval, Gale Owen-Crocker, Virginia Raguin, Melanie Schuessler-Bond, Lorraine Stock, Chet Van Duzer, Maureen Warren, and Annemarieke Willemsen for advice, information, and images in the preparation of this article. All translations are my own, with assistance as noted. In somewhat different form the material was presented in 2014 to the Medieval and Renaissance Program, Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, and at a DISTAFF session in 2015 at the fiftieth International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, Michigan.   1 For a general recent discussion of the various social classes of medieval pet owners, see Kathleen Walker-Meikle, Medieval Pets (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2012), 55–74. For early modern aristocratic pet ownership, particularly useful is Katharine MacDonogh, Reigning Cats and Dogs: A History of Pets at Court Since the Renaissance (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999).   2 Keith Thomas, Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England, 1500–1800 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996) makes these three points about pets on 112–15. For obvious cultural and historical reasons, much of the following pertains chiefly to dogs. See Linda Kalof and Brigitte Pohl-Resl, eds., A Cultural History of Animals (Oxford: Berg, 2007); Karl Steel, How to Make a Human: Animals and Violence in the Middle Ages (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2011); “The Animal Turn” (special issue), Postmedieval: A Journal of Medieval Cultural Studies 2, no. 1 (2011); Joyce Salisbury, The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages (London: Routledge, 2011); Liliane Bodson, ed., L’Animal de Compagnie: Ses Rôles et Leurs Motivations au Regard de l’Histoire (Liège, Belgium: Université de Liège, 1996); Aubrey Manning and James Serpell, eds., Animals and Human Society: Changing Perspectives (New York: Routledge, 1994); Elizabeth A. Moore and Lynn M. Snyder, Dogs and People in Social, Working, Economic or Symbolic Interaction (Oxford: Oxbow, 2006); Richard Thomas, “Perceptions Versus Reality: Changing Attitudes Towards Pets in Medieval and Post-Medieval England,” in Just Skin and Bones? New Perspectives on Human-Animal Relations in the Historical Past, ed. Aleksander Pluskowski (Oxford, Archaeopress, 2005), 95–104; Pluskowski, Breaking and Shaping Beastly Bodies: Animals as Material Culture in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxbow, 2007); and E. Fudge, Perceiving Animals: Humans and Beasts in Early Modern English Culture (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2000).

John Block Friedman finches, s­ parrows, falcons, and parrots), squirrels, rabbits, hares, deer,3 badgers,4 smaller monkeys, marmots, and even bears. Kathleen Walker-Meikle suggests keeping pets was largely due to ostentation, signifying that the owner had room, food, and staff to care for them.5 From this perspective then, small pet accessories such as ornate protective bedcoverings, cushions, jeweled dog collars, monkey harnesses and m ­ obility-restricting blocks, gilt chains and embroidered muzzles for bears, and birdcages and cage coverings symbolized the plenitude of material assets and luxurious household goods, thus emphasizing pet owners’ elevated social positions. Though simple ostentation of this sort undoubtedly was a factor in medieval pet ownership, an alternative approach to understanding the proliferation of costly animal accessories may be through an exploration of the role these items played in personal or familial identity assertion in the material culture of vivre noblement. By this term I refer to the continual display and consumption of commodities through tournaments, crossbow and archery competitions (in the Netherlands), feasting with members of ancestral families, military service, gift exchange, and public celebrations such as entries and progresses, all to affirm and maintain the aura of nobility. In this practice, the keeping and display of pets played a significant role, and their accessories constituted a distinct form of medieval material culture—fashion for animals—in the ethos of vivre noblement. From the perspective of fabric, garment design, color, and use as insigniae identifying the wearer’s social status and role as part of a noble’s retinue, fashion for animals participated in the Northern European fifteenth-century love of texture, rich color, metal-fabric-jewel mixtures, furs, and identity-expressing badges. Fashion for animals was thus an additional means to extend and assert the pet owner’s identity in society, especially among the new urban merchants and among nobles, where the process of assertion took place daily and involved the public or semi-public consumption of the commodities just mentioned.6  3 Ryan Judkins, “‘There came a hart in at the chamber door:’ Medieval Deer as Pets,” Enarratio: Publications of the Medieval Association of the Midwest 18 (2013): 23–48.   4 Giovanni Antonio Bazzi (1477–1549) painted himself with two pet badgers on leashes in the fresco cycle for the life of Saint Benedict in the Benedictine Monastery of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, Tuscany.  5 Walker-Meikle, Medieval Pets, especially 55–57. See also Olivier Assouly, ed., Le Luxe, Essais sur la Fabrique de l’Ostentation (Paris: Institut française de la mode, 2005); and Christopher J. Berry, The Idea of Luxury: A Conceptual and Historical Investigation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).  6 See Kathryn Starkey, A Courtier’s Mirror: Cultivating Elite Identity in Thomasin Von Zerclaere’s Welscher Gast (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2013), especially chap. 4, and Wim de Clerq et al., “‘Vivre Noblement,’ Material Culture and Elite Identity in Late Medieval Flanders,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 38, no. 1 (Summer 2007): 1–31. For vivre noblement generally, see Françoise Autrand, “L’Image de la Noblesse en France à la Fin du Moyen Age: Tradition et Nouveauté,” Comptes-rendus des Séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 123, no. 2 (1979): 340–54; Marie-Thérèse Caron, Noblesse et Pouvoir Royal en France, XIIIe–XVIe Siècle (Paris: Armand Colin, 1994); Philippe Contamine, La Noblesse au Royaume de France de Philippe le Bel à Louis XII: Essai de Synthèse (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1997); Etienne Dravasa, “Vivre Noblement”: Recherches sur le Dérogeance de Noblesse du XIVe au XVIe Siècles (Bordeaux: Imprimerie Biere, 1965); and Gareth Prosser, “The Later Medieval French Noblesse,” in France in the Later Middle Ages, ed. David Potter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 182–209. For vivre noblement and

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Royal Fashions for Animals Thus, fashion for animals went far beyond ostentation and well into the realm of self-construction. Jean Wilson has described this process of reaffirming noble status (or appearing to have it) through consumption of commodities as “the conspicuously representational and performative evocations of that status [that] function to construct and maintain that aspect of identity in the eyes of peers and the broader population at large.”7 Commodities such as animal accessories, then, as Robert Rotenberg observed, “are objects onto which people project the power to alter the way the consumer is perceived by others,” and are accordingly integral to fashion and its use in identity assertion.8 The consumption of such commodities illustrates Norbert Elias’ concept of “prestige consumption,” and leads, in the user’s mind, to the maintenance of that prestige.9 So too, though this may not have been consciously recognized by those using fashions for animals, there was also the corollary projection of the power to control wildness and the instinctual side of nature by means of objects fashioned through human art and industry, and which in the case of collars and chains allowed people to control the animal wearers. By the term fashion I mean, following Sarah-Grace Heller, “a cycle of production, consumption, and disposal” of clothing and accessories.10 Response to fashion in dress typically involves someone emulating the garments or accessories of another, usually of higher perceived social position. Someone is “suddenly” wearing something different enough from the familiar to excite envy and the desire to possess a like object on the part of a beholder. Thus, fashion implies a culture where there is enough mobility of style to cause perceptible change as people regularly see what others wear and examine it for elegance and up-to-dateness. Indeed, fashion, as is often apparent today, can easily turn into costume.

  7

  8

  9

art, especially in the geographical region and time period treated here, see Jean C. Wilson, Painting in Bruges at the Close of the Middle Ages: Studies in Society and Visual Culture (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998), 13–41. Wilson, Painting in Bruges, 5. See also Roberta Sassatelli, “Consuming Ambivalence: EighteenthCentury Public Discourse on Consumption and Mandeville’s Legacy,” The Journal of Material Culture 2, no. 3 (1997): 339–60, especially 341–42, who speaks of “the use of commodities for … self-fashioning and self definition.” Robert Rotenberg, “La Pensée Bourgeoisie in the Biedermeier Garden,” in Bourgeois and Aristocratic Cultural Encounters in Garden Art, 1550–1850, ed. Michel Conan (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2002), 147–72, at 147. See also Arjun Appadurai, The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986); and Anton Schuurman and Lorena Walsh, eds., Material Culture: Consumption, Life-Style, Standard of Living, 1500–1900 (Milan: Università Bocconi, 1994).

Norbert Elias, The Court Society, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983). 10 Sarah-Grace Heller, “Fashion,” in Encyclopedia of Dress and Textiles in the British Isles c. 450–1450, ed. Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Elizabeth Coatsworth, and Maria Hayward (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 200–2, at 200. See also Heller, Fashion in Medieval France (Cambridge, UK: Brewer, 2007), 15–60; Margaret Scott, Fashion in the Middle Ages (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2011); and Christopher Breward, The Culture of Fashion: A New History of Fashionable Dress (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995).

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John Block Friedman Fashions for animals in the Middle Ages illustrate Heller’s cycle, for such fashions certainly followed those of nobles and the elite particularly as regards novelty, and presumably, disposability, since almost all of the items I discuss, even extremely valuable metal ones, have disappeared and can be known only from written or pictorial evidence.11 In the present article I examine depictions and descriptions of such fashions for animals in tapestries, in manuscript miniatures, in heraldic stained-glass panels, in paintings, and in French and English royal inventories and expense accounts. The study in such a deep past of these material objects obviously poses a special set of problems. Particularly challenging is the fact that they are ephemeral objects largely depicted in works of visual art and in accounts kept for their purchasers, yet which clearly had a reality to the beholders of all social ranks who saw them on a variety of “staged” occasions, ranging from hunts to royal progresses and civic entries to the stained-glass display in cathedrals and municipal buildings. What does fashion for companion animals say, and to whom is it speaking? What is its narrative? How does it fit in to the larger picture of European consumerism, commodification, visual cultural exchange, and consequent identity formation of both the aristocracy and the newly rich of the late Middle Ages and early modern period? How does fashion for animals relate, for example, to Pierre Bourdieu’s idea that consumption of goods, particularly the way it shows a certain taste in the process, helps to differentiate a higher-class group from a lower, and both formulates and expresses the identity of magnificence and splendor so much a part of the late medieval and early modern ethos of vivre noblement?12 ACCESSORIZING THE COURTLY DOG

Dogs are an obvious starting place to study the material culture of fashion for animals, as it was expressed in medieval art through depictions of collars and noted in royal expense accounts through payments for such collars and for canine torso garments. Late medieval dogs, as W. H. Auden remarked in his poem “Musée des Beaux Arts,” were just as “doggy” as they are today. The dogs most likely to have worn the collars and coats discussed here are of two main types. These are the short-haired, sleek, long-tailed greyhound, and the small, short-nosed, curly-haired lapdog, the Melitaean from the isle of Malta, a form of the modern bichon frise. The greyhound was extolled for its elegance by the thirteenth-century German natural scientist Albertus Magnus, while Albertus’ contemporary Thomas of Cantimpré, in his encyclopedia De Natura 11 The earliest collars in the Leeds Castle Museum collection are utilitarian metal, dating from the late fifteenth century. See Four Centuries of Dog Collars at Leeds Castle (Maidstone, UK: Philip Wilson, 1979), and C. R. Beard, “A Collection of Dog Collars,” The Connoisseur 105 (1940): 1–3. 12 See generally, Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), and Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature, trans. Randal Johnson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).

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Figure 4.1: Lapdog with belled collar and owner Beatrice de Ros, from St. William window, York Cathedral, 1414. Photo: York Glaziers Trust, courtesy of the Chapter of York.

Rerum, mentioned lapdogs as a distinct breed appealing to wealthy women: “the smallest dogs, which noble matrons carry at their bosoms.”13 I speak here only of dogs of whatever breed that were an integral part of the medieval courtly household, where a collar’s fashionability and magnificence could be immediately appreciated by an audience with opportunities for stylistic comparison. Such household dogs usually wore daily leather or fabric collars supporting small bells, or wider textile or fabric-covered leather collars ornamented with heraldic arms, insigniae, and personal mottoes as metal mounts or embroidery. Beatrice de Ros’s dog in the St. William window of York Cathedral wears a belled collar (fig. 4.1), while the 13 Kenneth F. Kitchell, Jr., and Irven Michael Resnick, trans., Albertus Magnus, On Animals: A Medieval Summa Zoologica (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), vol. 2, book 22, chap. 16, p. 1459, and Helmut Boese, ed., Liber de Natura Rerum von Thomas Cantimpratensis (Berlin: W. De Gruyter, 1973), book 4, chap. 13, p. 114. Scent hounds, blockier dogs such as the Talbot, are less commonly depicted but do appear in the Unicorn Tapestries, for example, as at figure 4.6.

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Figure 4.2: Leather dog collar with heraldic brass escutcheon, found in Leiden, dating to 1400–50 (Alphen aan den Rijn, Netherlands, Provinciaal Archeologisch Depot ZuidHolland, no. 7334e). Photo: After A. Willemsen and Marlieke Ernst, Medieval Chic in Metal: Decorative Mounts on Belts and Purses from the Low Countries 1300-1600 (Zwolle, Netherlands: Spa-Uitgevers, 2012), by permission.

earliest surviving leather collar known to me, from 1400–50, for a greyhound, found in a Leiden refuse pit, sports a heraldic brass escutcheon on a broad leather strap with a brass clasp (fig. 4.2).14 In contrast, purely decorative fabric collars for special occasions can be imagined by an example of a manuscript illumination (fig. 4.3) showing a motto or anagram

14 See Thomas French, York Minster: The St William Window, Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, Great Britain, Summary Catalogue 5 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 1e, p. 31. For the Leiden collar (Provinciaal Archeologisch Depot Zuid-Holland, Alphen aan den Rijn, 7334e), see Annemarieke Willemsen and Marlieke Ernst, Medieval Chic in Metal: Decorative Mounts on Belts and Purses from the Low Countries, 1300–1600, trans. Xandra Bardet (Zwolle, Netherlands: Spa-Uitgevers, 2012), 68 and 70, fig. 73. I am most grateful to Dr. Willemsen for calling my attention to this collar.

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Figure 4.3: Arms of Simon de Varie, from his prayer book, by Jean Fouquet, 1455 (Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, MS 7, 2v). Photo: Courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Museum.

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John Block Friedman of the initials of the very recently ennobled Simon de Varie, a treasury official of bourgeois origin under King Charles VII of France. Cartouches at top and bottom offer Varie’s mottoes in display script. The greyhound’s collar bears the motto “vie à mon desir” (“Life on my own terms”); the letter I is within the V, and the D joins the following E. This motto is an anagram of Simon de Varie’s name. “Plus que jamais” (“More than ever”) appears in the bottom cartouche. As with the manuscript’s other identity-asserting heraldic images, this miniature celebrates Varie’s new station in life, with its opportunities for the use of heraldry, available in France and England only to the nobility. Varie’s role as a royal official brought not only patents of nobility but also the wealth necessary to commission a manuscript of this quality with some miniatures by the court illuminator Jean Fouquet. The greyhound collar in the miniature allowed him to assert his recent noble identity forcefully through mottoes and initials.15 Varie was an example of the new noble de robe, a court administrator who achieved nobility through royal fiat or by the purchase of land that carried a hereditary title of nobility. Besides Varie with his collared greyhound, another notable of this sort was Guillaume Jouvenel des Ursins (1401–72), the chancellor of France under King Charles VII, who borrowed a bear motif from the ancient Italian family of Orsini, with whom he fraudulently claimed ancestral ties. He used the bear, wearing a cape with Orsini arms, and foliage popularly called “bear’s breech” as his self-fashioning and identity-­ affirming and ‑asserting emblems. He too had his portrait painted by Jean Fouquet.16 The perfectly controlled greyhound (fig. 4.4) that accompanies Balthazar in the right-hand panel of the 1525 Adoration of the Magi triptych by Joos van Cleve (Joos van der Beke, 1485–1541), now in the Detroit Institute of Arts, wears an ornamented fabric collar with a heraldic escutcheon, presumably bearing the arms of the triptych’s

15 Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, MS 7, 2v. See James H. Marrow, The Hours of Simon de Varie (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1994). See the Introduction for Varie. For his milieu and its typical concern for identity assertion, see Alain Collas, “Les Gens Qui Comptent à Bourges au XVe Siècle: Portrait de Groupe des Notables Urbains,” Annales de Bretagne et des Pays de l’Ouest 101, no. 3 (1994): 49–68. On Varie’s and other nobles de robe’s mottos, see Colette Beaune, “Costume et Pouvoir en France à la Fin du Moyen Age: Les Devises Royales vers 1400,” Revue des sciences humaines 183 (1981–83): 125–46; Gaston Saffroy, Bibliographie généalogique, héraldique et nobilaire de la France (Paris: G. Saffroy, 1968); and F. Piponnier, Costumes et Vie Sociale: Le Cour d’Anjou aux XIVe–XVe siècle (Paris: Mouton, 1970), 231–61. 16 See most recently Jennifer Courts, “Weaving Legitimacy: The Jouvenel des Ursins Family and Constructing Nobility in Fifteenth Century France,” in Dressing the Part: Textiles as Propaganda in the Middle Ages, ed. Kate Dimitrova and Margaret Goehring (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2013), 141–52, and Courts, “The Politics of Devotion: Patronage and the Sumptuous Arts at the French Court (1374–1472)” (Ph.D. diss., Florida State University, 2011), especially 86–111. For older studies of the Jouvenel des Ursins family and the nobles de robe, see Louis Battifol, “Le Nom de la Famille Juvenal des Ursins,” Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes 50, no. 1 (1889): 537–58; Charles Hirschauer and A. de Boüard, “Les Juvenel des Ursins et les Orsini,” Mélanges de l’École Française de Rome 32, no. 1 (1912): 49–67; and Peter S. Lewis, “La Noblesse des Jouvenel des Ursins,” in L’État et les Aristocraties: France, Angleterre, Écosse, XIIe–XVIIe Siècle, ed. Philippe Contamine (Paris: Presses de l’École Normale Supérieure, 1989), 79–101.

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Figure 4.4: Detail of Balthazar with greyhound in heraldic collar, from Adoration of the Magi triptych, by Joos van der Beke van Cleve, 1525 (Detroit Institute of Arts, no. 45.420). Photo: Kristen Figg, with courtesy of the Detroit Institute of Arts.

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John Block Friedman commissioner.17 The all-white dog is carefully balanced against the black magus Balthazar, who wears the turban, striped hose, and elaborately tied fabric garter that typically signal alterity, Islam, and paganism in late medieval art.18 The dog’s collar shows human control just as the disturbing symbolic clothing of the magus is “controlled” by the event depicted in the center panel. Images of dog collars in late medieval art show them somewhat idealized, like the one in the triptych, often constructed of jeweled velvet, reflecting the prevailing taste for garments and hangings mixing silk, gold and silver thread, rich colors, and even extensive solid metal and jewel ornamentation so characteristic of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries in Northern Europe and Britain.19 Interestingly, velvet is not clearly shown in manuscript miniatures before 1450, though by the end of the century, artists luxuriated in its sheen and texture.20 There is ample evidence for the nobility’s personal attention to such textile and metal collars and for their great expense. For instance, Philip the Good, Duke of 17 This is Detroit Institute of Arts no. 45.420. On the artist, see John O. Hand, Joos Van Cleve: The Complete Paintings (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 79, 81, 151, cat. 61.1. 18 For stripes on the hose or garments of fools, prostitutes, mockers of Christ, executioners, and the like, see Ruth Mellinkoff, Outcasts: Signs of Otherness in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages, 2 vols. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), s.v. “stripes,” and Michel Pastoureau, The Devil’s Cloth: A History of Stripes and Striped Fabric (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001). For the fabric bow or knot as a sign of alterity, see Mellinkoff, Outcasts, 1:70, where Pilate wears one as a headband; a Cyclops wears such a knotted sash with a similar significance in Christine de Pisan’s Épître d’Othea à Hector (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fr. 606, fol. 11, ca. 1400–2), reproduced in Jean Porcher, Medieval French Miniatures (New York: Abrams, 1961), pl. 61. For the turban and other aspects of “orientalizing” costume, see John Block Friedman, “The Art of the Exotic: Robinet Testard’s Turbans and Turban-like Coiffure,” Medieval Clothing and Textiles 4 (2008): 173–91. 19 The literature on velvet and metallic textiles is extensive. I have found these works particularly useful for the preparation of this article: Lisa Monnas, Renaissance Velvets (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 2012); Monnas, Merchants, Princes, and Painters: Silk Fabrics in Italian and Northern Paintings 1300–1550 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009); Fabrizio de Marinis, Velvet: History, Technique, Fashions (New York: Idea Books, 1994); Annalisa Zanni et al., Velluti e Moda: Tra XV e XVII Secolo, exhibition catalog (Milan: Skira, 1999); and Elizabeth Coatsworth and Gale OwenCrocker, “Velvet,” in Owen-Crocker et al., Encyclopedia, 613. For metallic fabrics, see Alexandria Abarria, “Cloth of Gold,” Complex Weavers’ Medieval Textiles 31 (March 2002): 8–10; Lisa Monnas and Hero Granger-Taylor, eds., Ancient and Medieval Textiles: Studies in Honour of Donald King (London: Pasold Research Fund, 1989); Gina M. Barrett, “Metallic Threads: A Background to Their Use in Textile Work,” Soper Lane, http://www.ginabarrett.ginabsilkworks.co.uk/index.php/articles; J. P. P. Higgins, Cloth of Gold: A History of Metallised Textiles (London: Lurex, 1993); Anne E. Wardwell, “Panni Tartarici: Eastern Islamic Silks Woven with Gold and Silver (13th and 14th centuries),” Islamic Art 3 (1988–89): 95–173; Chiara Buss, ed., Silk, Gold and Crimson: Secrets and Technology at the Visconti and Sforza Courts, exhibition catalog (Milan: Silvana Editoriale, 2009); 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, no. 1 (2006): 22–40; and Lisa Monnas, “Cloth of Gold,” in Owen-Crocker et al., Encyclopedia, 132–33. 20 Scott, Fashion in the Middle Ages, 19. On that same page, Scott shows an illumination by Simon Bening from ca. 1525–30 in the prayer book of Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg (Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, MS Ludwig IX 19, 302v) with a rider in a blue surcote, in which the depiction of the light hitting the pile shows the fabric is velvet.

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Royal Fashions for Animals Burgundy, ordered in 1420 a crimson velvet greyhound collar with two gold shields or escutcheons bearing his arms. Embroidered in letters composed of tiny pearls was his motto “moult me tarde” (“much delays me”).21 In 1463 King Louis XI of France ordered from the goldsmith Jacques de Chefdeville a collar for his greyhound Chier (“Dearie”) of metal lined with crimson velvet requiring gold weighing 2 marcs, 2 ounces, 3 gros, and 28 grains. Here is the invoice: A collar of ten segments hinged with crimped gold wire, a buckle and its tongue, a tab, four other [protective] spikes set in downward curving leaves, fifty bosses, fifty rivets, three studs and three rivets. … And in copper settings ten large spinels, twenty pearls, one ruby, one jacinthe, and one crystal panel the said king has provided. And also foil placed beneath the said spinels, ruby and jacinthe to give them better color.22

The cost for the above was 246 livres, 12 sous, and 8 deniers. In addition there was “a quarter-yard of crimson velvet for a lining, doubled under the collar; this was furnished twice because the first one was not large and rich enough to please the king; 55 sous, 1d.” To get a sense of the comparative monetary value of this gold greyhound collar, consider that the noted bibliophile Louise de Savoie, wife of Charles, Count of Angoulême, and the mother of François I, paid her court manuscript illuminator Robinet Testard 35 livres tournois in 1496 for his wages for a year. Thus, this collar cost almost seven years’ wages for a highly skilled book painter.23 From this description we see that King Louis’ greyhound was wearing a collar whose form and ornamentation must have resembled, and rivaled in value, the ornamental collars and neck chains with pendants worn by members of late medieval noble, military, and chivalric orders, such as that which Antoine the “Bastard” of Burgundy wears in Rogier van der Weyden’s portrait of him in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels. Indeed, such dog collars fulfilled the badge function of much medieval jewelry. As Ronald Lightbown noted in his monumental study of medieval personal ornament, the identity-asserting and ‑affirming collars, chains, and badges “more than any other

21 See Victor Gay, Glossaire Archéologique du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance (1887; repr., Nendeln, Liechtenstein: Kraus, 1967), 1:414. 22 The expenditure record for Louis XI’s collar is from Gay, Glossaire, 1:414: “Jacques Chefdeville orfevre—ung collier d’or pour ung des levriers dudit Sr (Louis XI), nommé chier, le quel colier est de 10 pièces à charnières de fil d’or de quypeure, une boucle et le mordant, ung toret, 4 autres mordanz hachiez à feuilles renversees, 50 bossettes, 50 rivetz, 3 clouz et 3 rivets; emploié 2 m. 2 o. 3 gros et 28 grains d’or. Et en icellui avoir assis et mis en cuivre 10 gros balays, 20 perles, ung ruby, une jassinte et ung cristal en table que le dit seigneur lui a fait bailer. Et aussi avoir livre la feulle pour lesdit balays, ruby et jassinte, pour leur donner meilleure couleur. Pour tout 246 livres, 12 sous, 8 d. Pour ung quartier de veloux cramoisy, pour garnir et doubler par dessoubz ledit colier, le quel il a convenu donner par deux fois, parce que à la première foiz il n’estoit pas assez large et riche au plaisir dudit seigneur, 55 sous, 1d.” I am grateful to Kristen Figg for help with the translation of this passage. 23 Edmond Senemaud, La Bibliothèque de Charles d’Orlèans, Comte d’Angoulême au Chatêau de Cognac en 1496 (Paris: A. Claudin, 1861), 61: “A Robinet Testart, enlumineur, la somme de trente-cinq livres tournois pour ses gaiges dudit an.” (1497).

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John Block Friedman type of mediaeval jewel … [were] a blazon of the spiritual, political or social allegiances and affiliations of the wearer.”24 COLLARS AS COMMODITIES

Let us take a moment to examine the makeup of these dog collars to see how they fit into the late medieval patterns of commodification and consumption so important for material culture and fashion theory. To learn just how these animals’ fashion accessories asserted their owners’ identity, it is necessary to see such accessories as material objects, mute things, in Lorraine Daston’s phrase, which “cannot speak for [themselves], thereby inviting representation by those who can speak and to whom the objects matter.”25 Though the commodity value of the gold work, pearls, and other gems of Philip’s and Louis’ collars is clear, the crimson velvet support and lining need a few words of explanation. In the fifteenth century, velvet was a commodity at the height of fashion. Enormously expensive, woven of Eastern or Italian silk, it chiefly came from Lucca and Florence. It had a significant testamentary value, and velvet garments and soft furnishings are regularly itemized in wills and inventories, as for example in the inventory of garments and hangings such as tester bed ceilings in the castle of Louise de Savoie at Cognac, and in the inventory of King Henry VIII of England.26 Velvet’s use in garments was confined by medieval sumptuary legislation to certain classes of people defined by socioeconomic level (possession of property and income) and status as nobility through birth. For example, in England, a statute of 1463–64 (Edward IV) regulated its wearing by persons of lower social rank: “no knight bachelor or his wife … shall wear any cloth of velvet on velvet, except knights of the order of the garter and their wives … no esquire or gentlemen, or anyone else below the degree of knight, or their wives … shall use or wear … any velvet … or any cloth of silk simulating them.”27 24 Ronald W. Lightbown, Mediaeval European Jewellery (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1992), 188. 25 Lorraine Daston, “The Glass Flowers,” in Daston, ed., Things that Talk: Object Lessons from Art and Science (New York: Zone Books, 2004), 223–57, at 228. 26 Senemaud, Bibliothèque, 76–88, and David Starkey, ed., The Inventory of King Henry VIII, vol. 1, The Transcript of the Inventory (London: Harvey Miller, 1998). See also Kristen M. Burkholder, “Threads Bared: Dress and Textiles in Late Medieval English Wills,” Medieval Clothing and Textiles 1 (2005): 133–53. 27 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), 221, 223. This volume furnishes the Anglo-Norman text of the original statute. The literature on sumptuary legislation is extensive. A good overview is that of Alan Hunt, Governance of the Consuming Passions: A History of Sumptuary Law (Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1996). See also Claire Sponsler, “Narrating the Social Order: Medieval Clothing Laws,” CLIO 21, no. 3 (Spring 1992): 265–83; Sarah-Grace Heller, “Anxiety, Hierarchy, and Appearance in the Thirteenth-Century Sumptuary Laws and the Roman de la Rose,” French Historical Studies 27, no. 2 (2004): 311–48; Heller, “Limiting Yardage and Changes of Clothes: Sumptuary Legislation in Thirteenth-Century France, Languedoc, and Italy,” in Medieval

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Royal Fashions for Animals The collars’ color, crimson, sometimes also called scarlet or grain, was derived from the labor-intensive dye kermes (in French, cramoisin), made from the egg sacs of a tiny beetle parasitic to the oak tree. Until the importation from the New World of a similar but more vivid dyestuff, the highest quality kermes came from the oaks of Spain, Portugal, Tunis, and Armenia. John Munro describes the process of making kermes: “females [of the beetle] just before laying eggs were gathered in May and June and killed by vinegar and sun dried then crushed and mixed with water to produce the dye.” Munro also comments on the extremely high cost of this material: “Indisputably, in medieval Europe, the most expensive of all dyestuffs used was kermes (grain).” The dye made up about 60 percent of the cost of a typical loom length—about thirty ells or aunes28—of scarlet woolen and was about twenty-nine times more expensive than its nearest color rival, madder. To give an idea of the quantities of beetle egg sacs needed to produce the most vivid scarlet, whether of wool or velvet, it took between seventeen and fifty-five pounds of egg sacs to dye a loom length.29 Thus, even the small piece of velvet making up the lining of King Louis’ greyhound’s collar was an extremely valuable object. It is often hard to recover the exact monetary value and fashionability of objects of material culture from the deep past. However, some documented late medieval costs for such kermes-dyed crimson or scarlet woolen fabric offer enlightening comparisons with those of crimson velvet. In King Henry V of England’s wardrobe accounts of 1438–39, the cheapest scarlet woolen cost ₤14 2s. 6d. sterling a loom length, while the highest priced scarlet woolen was ₤20 10s., for a similar quantity. Roughly speaking, Fabrications: Dress, Textiles, Clothwork, and Other Cultural Imaginings, ed. E. Jane Burns (London: Palgrave, 2004), 121–36; Maria M. Hayward, Rich Apparel: Clothing and the Law in Henry VIII’s England (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2009); Clifford Bell and Evelyn Ruse, “Sumptuary Legislation and English Costume: An Attempt to Assess the Effect of an Act of 1337,” Costume: Journal of the Costume Society 6 (1972): 22–31; Maria G. Muzzarelli, La Legislazione Suntuaria: Secoli XIII–XVI: Emilia–Romagna (Rome: Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali, Direzione generale per gli archivi, 2002); Muzzarelli, “Reconciling the Privilege of a Few with the Common Good: Sumptuary Laws in Medieval and Early Modern Europe,” Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 39, no. 3 (2009): 597–617; Elizabeth Hurlock, “Sumptuary Law,” in Dress, Adornment, and the Social Order, ed. Mary Roach and Joanne Eicher (New York: John Wiley, 1965), 295–301; Diane Owen Hughes, “Regulating Womens’ Fashion,” in Silences of the Middle Ages, ed. C. Klapisch-Zuber, A History of Women in the West 2 (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1992), 136–58; and Ilaria Taddei, “S’habiller Selon l’Âge: Les Lois Somptuaires Florentines à la Fin du Moyen Âge,” in Le Corps et Sa Parure (The Body and Its Adornment), ed. Jean Wirth, Micrologus 15 (Florence: SISMEL, Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2007), 329–51. 28 An aune was the equivalent of the English ell. 29 The best general study of kermes is that of John Munro, “The Medieval Scarlet and the Economics of Sartorial Splendour,” in Cloth and Clothing in Medieval Europe: Essays in Memory of Professor E. M. Carus-Wilson, ed. N. B. Harte and K. G. Ponting, Pasold Studies in Textile History 2 (London: Pasold, 1983), 13–70, especially 16–17, 39. See also Munro, “The Anti-Red Shift—to the Dark Side: Colour Changes in Flemish Luxury Woolens, 1300–1550,” Medieval Clothing and Textiles 3 (2007): 55–95; Florin Curta, “Colour Perception, Dyestuffs, and Colour Terms in Twelfth-Century French Literature,” Medium Aevum 73 (2004): 43–65; and Judith H. Hofenk-De Graaff, “The Chemistry of Red Dyestuffs in Medieval and Early Modern Europe,” in Harte and Ponting, Cloth and Clothing, 71–79.

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John Block Friedman then, a loom length of scarlet woolen had in 1440 the economic value of six thousand pounds of Flemish cheese.30 For comparative purposes, the coronation of Henry’s queen, Catherine of Valois, at Westminster Abbey in February 1421—an excellent illustration of the idea of vivre noblement—set a fashion throughout the realm with a coronation robe embodying a very large quantity of crimson velvet at enormous expense; her robe required more than one hundred meters of crimson velvet to make. To participate, the King’s Beaufort nieces had to emulate the new queen’s fashion. Accordingly, their household expenses record ₤32 6s. 10d. (a huge sum) paid to a London mercer, John Butler, to purchase thirty-two yards of crimson velvet to make two coronation cloaks.31 Both color and fabric, then, were required wearing for those of the royal affinity, and their cloaks made Thomas of Lancaster’s stepdaughters similar, at least for a time, to Queen Catherine in fashion and commodity consumption. Presumably, such fashions pertained as well to royal dogs and their collars of crimson velvet. Thus, the mixture of precious metals, gems, pearls, and textiles in these canine collars is perfectly in keeping with orders in royal accounts for jeweled, crimson-dyed velvet outer body garments in European courts of the period, and the fabric type and color were the most sought-after by nobles and courtiers in Louis’ reign.32 With respect to their collars, then, Philip’s and Louis’ greyhounds looked like favored human members of their entourages. IDENTITY AND CONTROL

That such dog collars were open assertions of noble identity into nature is clear from written and pictorial sources. At Cognac, Charles of Angoulême’s and Louise’s expense accounts in 1454 show a payment to Pierre Devaux for 34 sous, 4d., for eight copper collar escutcheons—probably similar to that on the Leiden greyhound collar in figure 30 Munro, “Medieval Scarlet,” 66. For the mid-sixteenth century, see Lisa Monnas, “‘Plentie and Abundaunce’: Henry VIII’s Valuable Stores of Textiles,” in The Inventory of King Henry VIII, vol. 2, Textiles and Dress, ed. Maria Hayward and Philip Ward (London: Harvey Miller, 2012), 235-294, at 228–29: plain black velvet was twelve shillings a yard, and crimson velvet forty shillings a yard; crimson velvet had roughly doubled in price from 1420. 31 Christopher M. Woolgar, ed., Household Accounts from Medieval England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992–93), 1:660: “Et in denariis solutis Johanni Butiller mercero London’ pro I peccio de … [ve]lvet cremesyn’ continente xxxii virg. Di. Empto de eodem pro ii toggis pro juvenibus dominabus meis Jean (Joan)’ et Margaret erga coronacionem Katerine regine Anglie faciendis precium virg. Xxs. Xxxii li. Vis. xd.” 32 Margaret Scott, “The Role of Dress in the Image of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy,” in Flemish Manuscript Painting in Context: Recent Research, ed. Elizabeth Morrison and Thomas Kren (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007), 43–53; Michele Beaulieu and Jeanne Bayle, Le Costume en Bourgogne de Philippe le Hardi à la Mort de Charles le Téméraire (1364–1477) (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1956); and Margaret 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 Rudy and Barbara Baert (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2007), 121–155.

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Royal Fashions for Animals 4.2—bearing their arms and intended for her hunting greyhounds.33 This suggests Louise de Savoie felt the need to extend her identity into the animal realm, ensuring that the Valois name touched every aspect of nature as her dogs pursued her deer through her woods. This flattering view of a noble identity conveyed into nature and inscribed even on the quarry itself was expressed for King Charles VI of France in his court poet Hardouin de Fontaine-Guérin’s imagined hunt for a royal stag “who had on his neck a gilded collar / Well fashioned and well inscribed / on it written / ‘Of Julius Cesar’s deer I am one.’” When Charles captured this animal it was supposedly 700 years old.34 Fabric dog collars were also depicted in Flemish tapestries, where initials and mottoes were woven in at the time of creation or added for a later owner. For example, the Unicorn Hunt tapestries in the Cloisters in New York, ca. 1495–1500, show throughout the hangings the still unexplained letters AE. Once believed to be the initial and final letters of Anne of Brittany’s first name, they apparently made up the monogram of the person or persons who commissioned all seven of the tapestries. This monogram appears as well embroidered on the collars of hunting dogs in the tapestries (fig. 4.5).35 The unusually wide fabric collars shown on these dogs are clearly not primarily for their neck protection and control. Rather, they seem intended to assert identity and participate in the contemporary fashion for insigniae, color, and pattern in textiles. For example, a collar on a scent hound (fig. 4.6) bears the royal fleur-de-lys. EVIDENCE FROM WRITTEN ACCOUNTS

The evidence, both archival and in the visual arts, for medieval and early modern animal torso garments is fairly considerable but difficult to interpret. Such garments appear for dogs, monkeys, bears, and even a marmot. In some cases, the garments are clearly intended to provide warmth, though identity assertion may play a part. 33 Gay, Glossaire, 1:413: “A maistre pierre devaux la somme de 34 sous, 4 d. pour … 8 escussons de cuivre aux armes de Mgr. et de madame, pour attachier ez colliers des levriers de madame.” 34 Hardouin de Fontaines-Guérin, Le Tresor de Venerie (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. 855, fol. 61): “On vit du temps passe ung cerf prendre / qui avait a son col ung collier dore / Bien lettre et bien laboure / Et avait dessousbz ecrit / ‘Des cerfs Jules Cesar suis.’” A version of this story with an English locale appears in Nicolas Upton’s Libellus de officio militari, a treatise on heraldry. Upton, Humphrey of Gloucester’s herald, wrote, “Stags live to a great age, for some were caught a hundred years after Alexander’s death, which he himself had ringed with signed golden necklaces. And I have often heard tell of a stag that was killed in the forest of Windsor near a certain stone called Besanteston, near Bageshott that wore a golden collar with the legend ‘Julius Cesar quant jeo fu petis / Ceste coler sur mon col ad mys’ (Julius Cesar put this collar around my neck when I was small).” Quoted in Francis Klingender, Animals in Art and Thought to the End of the Middle Ages, ed. Evelyn Antal and John Harthan (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971), 453. 35 On the Unicorn Hunt tapestries, see Adolfo Salvatore Cavallo, Medieval Tapestries in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Metropolitan Museum, 1993), and for an excellent collection of reproductions of the tapestries, see Margaret B. Freeman, The Unicorn Tapestries (New York: Metropolitan Museum, 1976). Dogs are discussed on p. 95, and the heraldic material on the collars on p. 172.

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Figure 4.5: Detail showing monogram on dog collar, from the third tapestry in the Unicorn Hunt tapestry series, Netherlands, 1495 (New York, The Cloisters). Photo: John Block Friedman.

In other cases, such as with visual representations of monkeys, which, as we will see, were problem residents in noble households, the garment symbolizes the continual assertion of human control over the animal’s wildness, as well as providing warmth. With bears, the garment had a heraldic and identity-asserting function but also indicated a similar imposition of human control. And in some cases archival—as opposed to pictorial—evidence for monkey garments as well as a coat for a marmot clearly indicates identity assertion, since the garments in question were velvet mi-parti livery. With these caveats in mind as to the complexity of the issue, we can turn to some of the types of animal garments depicted in art and recorded in expense accounts. Garments ordered by nobles for their pets or for animals they wished to use for identity creation, assertion, and affirmation (as was the case of self-inventors such as Guillaume Jouvenel des Ursins) are often itemized in the expense accounts of the noble households of France and England. These detailed accounts of payments to vendors and members of the retinue in the increasingly centralized royal household of France from the 1340s onward are associated with specific persons, the argentiers, who were masters of the king’s household expenses pertaining to clothing, jewelry, and the 76

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Figure 4.6. Detail showing Talbot with fleur-de-lys collar, from the third tapestry in the Unicorn Hunt tapestry series, Netherlands, 1495 (New York, The Cloisters). Photo: John Block Friedman.

like.36 Interestingly, a member of Simon de Varie’s family was one such argentier. In conjunction with a clerk to keep written records, the argentier dealt with merchants to buy the vast quantities of fabrics and furs consumed by French royal households and given as livery, as well as with the many tailors, goldsmiths, and other artisans who actually made the royal household’s clothing and jeweled objects—for example, Jacques Chefdeville, who fabricated the gold greyhound collar described above. It is to these accounts that we can turn for archival evidence of animal torso garments. As mentioned earlier, some of these garments were intended for warmth, those lined with fur, for example, but a number of textile garments for monkeys and a marmot had as a primary function the expression of membership in a specific noble household and the excitation of fashion envy through the elegance of the fabric and design of the livery. Livery, its giving and wearing, was a distinctively medieval phenomenon and a major component of the vivre noblement ethos; it deserves a moment’s discussion in relation to fashions for animals, since in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth c­ enturies 36 See generally, for the rise of English household accounts, Woolgar, Household Accounts, 1:19, and for France, 1:64.

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John Block Friedman the custom was quickly adapted to putting animals in the livery of their owners, as was the case with horse trappings. In the late medieval and early modern periods, administrative officials, people working in households, soldiers, and even trade guild apprentices were paid a very small salary or none. But they received a variety of clothing—or more usually the raw fabric to make matching tunics and surcoats or have them made—and goods of various kinds, such as food, beer and wine, lodging, and fodder and stable care for horses. Distribution of livery often occurred at such times as Christmas, Easter, and other holidays; usually the type and weight of the fabric or garment was consonant with the season of winter or summer. The value of medieval livery cannot be easily understood in purely monetary terms. By the fifteenth century, livery, especially in its color and pattern of decoration, identified the wearer as a servant of a particular household or member of a particular liveried group, often marked through metal or cloth badges on clothing or particular colors of outer garments divided in a vertical or mi-parti fashion. Careful distinctions of status in the household hierarchy by color, type of fabric, and grade of fur given (squirrel versus lamb, crimson velvet versus scarlet cloth for example) was common from the thirteenth century onward; these differences especially distinguished retainers who worked with their hands from those who used their minds. By the late Middle Ages the wearing of such livery was closely tied to identity assertion and affirmation; as Benjamin Wild notes, “Lords took to clothing their followers in similar colours or styles of dress to impress those outside their households and to emphasise their authority.”37 By the late fourteenth century, livery colors typically replicated in some way the colors of the lord’s own heraldry, and even some animal livery was intended to express the power of the lord and his “civilizing” force over the animal world as well as his continuing and magnificent consumption of commodities.38 The French argenterie accounts, which cover both personal noble use and purchases for livery, are divided from the mid-fourteenth century onward into general categories: draps (raw woolens), joyeaux (jewelry), meubles (furniture), and the like. It is usually from the draps and joyeaux categories—as we saw with the goldsmith Jacques Chefdeville—that we find references to collars for dogs and simians, as well as payments to tailors for garments made for them. Along with the argenterie records appear inventories of royal possessions itemizing in some detail the most mundane things and giving monetary values for them. Thus, it is from the argenterie and its equivalent in the English royal household, the office of Master of the Wardrobe, as well as from death inventories that we can learn much about fashions for animals.

37 See Benjamin Wild, “Livery,” in Owen-Crocker et al., Encyclopedia, 337–38, at 338. 38 On livery generally, see Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 4–5, 20–22; and Christopher M. Woolgar, The Great Household in Late Medieval England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999), 172–73. See Monnas, “Plentie and Abundaunce,” 264–65, regarding fabric at the court of Henry VIII issued in crimson, scarlet, and red for livery for the coronation of Edward VI; the highest officials, such as the chamberlains and Master of the Jewel House, got crimson velvet from Lucca, but all others received “red cloth” or “scarlet.”

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Royal Fashions for Animals Generally, fabrics in French wardrobe accounts, purchased for royal use or intended to be given as livery, largely woolens, were bought by the aune, subdivided into quartiers and for much smaller portions paumes (bits a palm-width in length). The pièce is a fabric measurement for extremely expensive kinds of cloth such as those made of camel hair or tissu woven with silver or gold thread. These smaller measurements typically appear in the expenses for animal garments and accessories.39 Clearly, then, the velvet and tissu dog collars, such as those described in the previous pages, were valuable properties in the transmissible material culture of the upper classes, secular or ecclesiastical, from an early period. This is shown by an inventory of the possessions of Thomas Biton, Bishop of Exeter, who died in 1307 leaving two greyhound collars, fashioned of the costly cloth of silver or tissu (fabric mixing metallic silver thread and silk) as well as materials for six more tissu collars.40 In a 1380 death inventory of King Charles V of France’s goods, gold-belled indoor dog collars, such as that seen on Beatrice de Ros’ dog in the St. William window at York, vie in number and value with ornate fabric hunting-dog collars with heraldic motifs, such as that from Leiden and the one depicted in the Joos van Cleve Adoration of the Magi: “Item a very small collar of indigo blue, ornamented with nail heads, for a puppy, with a fleur-de-lys in gold, with three bells, fastening with a gold buckle, weighing eleven sterling pence.” Or in another case, “a collar for a greyhound that the Duc de Berry has given to the Queen Jeanne de Bourbon, garnished with silver, with swan [his emblem] motifs.”41 Similarly, in the death inventories of King Henry VIII of England appear ornate dog collars in quantities too large to treat here. Some typical examples of commodification and consumption pertaining specifically to dogs identified by breed or asserting identity are: “Item twoo greyhoundes Collers of crimsen velut and cloth of golde lackinge Tirrettes”; “Item twoo Collers with h and k with pendauntes and Buckelles of Silver and guilte”; “Item … twoo Collers of blacke vellut embrawderid with Roses with gilte tyrrettes”; “Item iiij greihoundes Coller of vellut and golde”; and finally “Item a Coller havinge Tirrettes of Silver embrawdered with greyhoundes.”42 In this last entry the greyhound wearer seems to assert and confirm its own identity through its collar. That women valued the greyhound collars once owned by their male relatives as well as those for small lap breeds is suggested by a death inventory of the possessions 39 For cloth measurement at this period, see Guy de Poerck, La Draperie Médiévale en Flandre et en Artois: Technique et Terminologie (Bruges: De Tempel, 1951), and Raymond Van Uytven, “Cloth in Medieval Literature of Western Europe,” in Harte and Ponting, Cloth and Clothing, 151–83. 40 For Biton’s collars and material for making them, see W. H. Hale and H. T. Ellacombe, eds., Account of the Executors of Richard, Bishop of London, 1303, and of the Executors of Thomas, Bishop of Exeter, 1310, Camden Society, n.s. 10 (London: Camden Society, 1874), 2, 7. 41 Jules Labarte, ed., Inventaire du Mobilier de Charles V, Roi de France (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1879): “Item, ung tres petit collier a chienet, sur ung tissu ynde ferré à petiz lys d’or, troys clochettes, mordant et boucle d’or: pesant unze estellins” (p. 297, 2797); “ung collier d’un levrier, que monseigneur de Berry donna à la royne Jehanne de Bourbon, garny d’argent, à cynes” (p. 217, 1899). 42 Starkey, Inventory, 361–62, items 14407, 14410, 14421, 14426, and 14418. See generally Maria Hayward, “Dressed to Rule: Henry VIII’s Wardrobe and His Equipment for Horse, Hawk and Hound,” in Hayward and Ward, Inventory, 67–108, at 102.

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John Block Friedman of Marguerite of Flanders, wife of Duke Philip the Bold, made in 1405. She had three greyhound collars of black and white silk garnished with silver gilt and the arms of the Duke of Brittany. Another greyhound collar had the arms of “Monseigneur de Berry”; another was made of blue velvet with the letter Y garnished with silver gilt.43 Perhaps the most extreme illustration of ornate indoor animal collars as extending identity and making a fashion statement occurs in the 1492 wardrobe expenses of Charles VIII’s queen, Anne of Brittany, whose twenty-four dogs, including nine greyhounds, had a personal servant. The dogs wore matching black velvet collars each with four dangling ermine paws reflecting her Duchy’s coat of arms.44 Moreover, these collars also show Anne’s personal response to a rapidly growing late-fifteenth-century taste for black velvet, reflected in her use of this color and fabric for her pets. By this period in Europe, a deep black had become so stylish a color that black velvet was Genoa’s single biggest export in the sixteenth century, and Lisa Monnas notes “because plain black velvet enjoyed the advantage of displaying wealth without ostentation, it was deemed equally appropriate for a ruler or his smartly liveried servants.”45 John Munro points out that at a lower social level “in the late fifteenth century, blacks … became the leading colour for the woolens that Flemish towns purchased for their aldermen and princely guests,”46 while Henry VIII’s wardrobe accounts show that he had standing orders for black velvet intended as livery for his household retainers and administrators. In manuscript miniatures, for example, dukes Charles the Bold and Philip the Good are often shown wearing outfits entirely of black, with black hose, fitted velvet fur-trimmed pourpoint, and black velvet or beaver hat, as in the famous presentation miniature in Jacques de Guise’s Chroniques de Hainaut, painted probably by Rogier van der Weyden in 1448.47 Much the same practice prevailed in England. There were over 1,000 yards of black velvet among the velvet stocks in King Henry VIII’s wardrobe at his death, and he covered even his chamber pot with black velvet.48 Anne of Brittany,

43 For Marguerite of Flanders’ collars, see Chrétien Dehaisnes, ed., Documents et Extraits Divers Concernant l’Histoire de l’Art dans la Flandre, l’Artois et le Hainaut, avant le XVe Siècle (Lille, France: L. Danel, 1886), 2:887. 44 See Antoine J. V. Le Roux de Lincy, Vie de la Reine Anne de Bretagne (Paris: L. Curmer, 1860–61), 4:57. 45 On the taste for black velvet, see Monnas, Renaissance Velvets, 39. See also Hayward, “Dressed to Rule,” who mentions that black in the Tudor period “looked back to the clothes favored by the fifteenth-century Dukes of Burgundy, while echoing the growing respectability and popularity of black in the male sixteenth-century wardrobe” (69). On black in the Middle Ages and early modern period generally, see Michel Pastoureau, Black: The History of a Color (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009). 46 See Munro, “Medieval Scarlet,” 56 n. 91. 47 On this miniature and the painter, see Otto Pächt, Early Netherlandish Painting from Rogier van der Weyden to Gerard David, trans. David Britt (London: Harvey Miller, 2010), 11–76, especially fig. 44 and pp. 66–67. 48 Monnas, Renaissance Velvets, 40, and Monnas, “Plentie and Abundaunce,” 253: “Even Henry’s close stools … had lids regally covered in velvet, embroidered in gold with suitably regal designs of the king’s arms, roses or fleurs-de-lys, trimmed with silk fringes.”

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Royal Fashions for Animals then, ensured that her twenty-four dogs, being important members of her household, were fashionably garbed in the new color, just as her courtiers were. Even as mundane a pet as the hare could wear this fabric, obviously as a side effect of human fashion for it. The accounts of Charles VII of France show that Queen Marie d’Anjou paid “for a quarter aune of black velvet with [deluxe] triple pile to cover two leather collars that the said lady had had made, to put on the necks of two hares that she had raised for her pleasure.”49 DRESSING THE ANIMAL BODY

We can turn now to the subject of fabric and fur-lined animal torso garments. Typically, fur for human garments was noted in household accounts and death inventories by the animal—ermine, squirrel—and the body area from which it came. White belly fur, called miniver, was considered superior to gris, or grey back fur, though both were the winter fur of the Baltic squirrel, brought to Northern Europe through the traders of the Hanseatic League. Thus, gris was thought suitable for lining the robes of persons of medium rank in a noble household; it was commonly given as livery and accordingly was also the fur for animal garment linings. Though rustics wore such domestic furs as rabbit and cat, imported fur lining and trim was regulated for the middle and upper middle classes by the same sumptuary laws we saw in relation to textiles and dyestuffs, according to the rank of the wearer, as to who could wear it and what kind of fur was fitting to the status of the wearer.50 In illustration of some of these general remarks, for example, King Edward III in 1347 had a robe lined with 249 bellies of “pured” miniver (sheared white squirrel fur), considered a royal fur. And lower down on the social scale, Lady Isabella Morley of England in 1463 bought eleven bellies—the softest, most luxurious part—of miniver to line her own clothing. By contrast, a high-ranking woman in Isabella’s household, Anne Arundel, had as livery a cloak lined with sixty-nine skins of gris.51

49 Alfred Franklin, La Vie Privée d’Autrefois: Arts et Métiers, Modes, Moeurs, Usages des Parisiens du XII au XVIII Siècle d’après des Documents Originaux ou Inédits (Paris: E. Plon, Nourrit et cie, 1897-), 20:6, “pour un quartier de veloux noir a tiers poil, pour faire couvrir deux colliers de cuir que ladicte dame a fait faire, à mettre aux cols de deux levrons qu’elle fait nourrir pour sa plaisance.” On deluxe “triple pile” or warp velvet, see Monnas, “‘Plentie and Abundaunce,’” 255. 50 See here Robert Delort, Le Commerce des Fourrures en Occident à la Fin du Moyen Age (vers 1300– vers 1450) (Rome: École française de Rome, 1978); Delort, L’Histoire de la Fourrure de l’Antiquité à Nos Jours (Lausanne, Switzerland: Edita, 1986); Frédérique Lachaud, “Les Livrées de Textiles et de Fourrures à la Fin du Moyen Age: L’Exemple de la Cour du Roi Édouard Ier Plantagenet (1272– 1307),” in Le Vêtement: Histoire, Archéologie et Symbolique Vestimentaires au Moyen Age, ed. Michel Pastoureau, Cahiers du Léopard d’Or 1 (Paris: Le Léopard d’Or, 1989), 169–180; Elizabeth Ewing, Fur in Dress (London: Batsford, 1981); Elspeth M. Veale, The English Fur Trade in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon, 1966); and for an overview, Maria Hayward, “Fur,” in Owen-Crocker et al., Encyclopedia, 221–22, and Veale, “From Sable to Mink,” in Hayward and Ward, Inventory, 335–43. 51 Woolgar, Great Household, 174–75.

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Figure 4.7: Detail showing hunting dogs in protective jackets, from the Swan and Otter Hunt, Devonshire Hunting Tapestries, 1420 (London, Victoria and Albert Museum). Photo: Courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Plain woolen and fur-lined woolen garments made for human warmth and identity expression were paralleled by torso garments created for dogs and monkeys to serve a similar function. Records of such purchases exist for dogs and for monkeys, and there are visual representations of monkeys in such clothing where it cannot certainly be determined if they were imagined as fur-lined. Two mid-fifteenth-century French royal household expense records allude to tailors’ creation of textile canine torso garments intended primarily to supply warmth. In 1455, Marie de Cleves, the mother of King Louis XII, ordered five such jackets (“habillements”), fabric unspecified, for her greyhounds. The accounts of King Charles VIII—a noted pet owner—also mention the expense during the winter for a quarter-aune of bright green (“gay vert”) woolen to make a warming jacket for a very small lapdog.52 Representations of canine torso garments in medieval art are less specific with regard to commodification and consumption than the references in expense accounts just given. In the Devonshire Hunting tapestries, the Otter and Swan Hunt hanging (ca. 1430) depicts elaborate quilted protective torso jackets on dogs attacking a bear, but these jackets have little identity-asserting character and do not share in the

52 Franklin, Vie Privée, 20:36, 325; Gay, Glossaire, 1:270: “ung quartier de drap vert gay pour faire ung habillement a une petite chienne de la chamber du roi au four de 35 sous l’aune.”

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Royal Fashions for Animals g­ orgeousness and ornament of the clothing worn by the human participants of the hunt (fig. 4.7).53 Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, who as we saw doted on his dogs, in 1438 had Adriaan van der Ee, his secretary and keeper of charters and privileges, compile a list of charters of the Duchy of Brabant. One of the illuminated initials for this manuscript shows in the crenellated enclosure a boar and a greyhound wearing capes with the arms of Brabant/Limburg and Bar (fig. 4.8). Seventeen greyhounds besiege the enclosure; they all wear similar capes bearing the arms of the Duke of Brabant’s various enemies. It is, of course, unlikely that such capes were actually worn by dogs. These symbolic garments differ from the example of the jacket just shown from the Devonshire tapestry, in having a heraldic rather than a utilitarian character. Such armorial capes will also be discussed with respect to bears.54 I have mentioned the vogue for accessories and fashions for the monkey, an animal that has received relatively little attention since the 1950s with Horst W. Janson’s famous study Apes and Ape Lore in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance,55 even though the monkey was the third most popular beast kept in princely menageries.56 While never 53 On the Devonshire Hunting Tapestries in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, see Linda Woolley, Medieval Life and Leisure in the Devonshire Hunting Tapestries (London: V&A Publications, 2002). The detail of the tapestry is published and discussed on 42–43. 54 The initial from Philip’s charter is published and briefly discussed in Maurits Smeyers, Flemish Miniatures from the 8th to the Mid–16th Century (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1999), 295–96, fig. 8. I am most grateful to Jacqueline Leclercq-Marx for examining this initial in situ for me. A dog wearing a jacket is depicted in the miniature of Odysseus blinding the Cyclops in Christine de Pisan’s Épître d’Othea à Hector cited at note 18. 55 H. W. Janson, Apes and Ape Lore in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (London: Warburg Institute, University of London, 1952). 56 See Thierry Buquet, “Les Animaux Exotiques dans les Ménageries Médiévales,” in Fabuleuses Histoires des Bêtes et des Hommes, ed. Jacques Toussaint (Namur, Belgium: Société Archéologique de Namur, 2013), 97–121, at 103. On the interest in naturalia and princely menageries, see Florike Egmond, “Precious Nature: Rare Naturalia as Collector’s Items and Gifts in Early Modern Europe,” in Luxury in the Low Countries: Miscellaneous Reflections on Netherlandish Material Culture, 1500 to the Present, ed. Rengenier Rittersma (Brussels: Pharo Publishing, 2010), 47–65; Paula Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); A. Lugli, Naturalia et Mirabilia: Il Collezionismo Enciclopedico nelle Wunderkammern d’Europa (Paris: Adam Biro, 1993); Mark Meadow, “Merchants and Marvels: Hans Jacob Fugger and the Origins of the Wunderkammer,” in Merchants and Marvels: Commerce, Science, and Art in Early Modern Europe, ed. Pamela Smith and Paula Findlen (New York: Routledge, 2002), 182–200; Almudena Pérez de Tudela and Annemarie Jordan-Gschwend, “Renaissance Menageries: Exotic Animals and Pets at the Hapsburg Courts in Iberia and Central Europe,” in Early Modern Zoology: The Construction of Animals in Science, Literature and the Visual Arts, ed. Karl Enenkel and Paul Smith (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 419–45; François Comte, Vincent Dennys, and Laurent Heulot, La Ménagerie du Roi René, exhibition catalog (Angers: Muséum d’histoire naturelle, 2000); Michel Pastoureau, “Les Ménageries Princières: Du Pouvoir au Savoir? (XIIe–XVIe siècle),” in I Saperi Nelle Corti / Knowledge at the Courts, ed. Clelia Arcelli, Micrologus 16 (Florence: Sismel, Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2008), 3–30; Daniel Lievois and Baudouin Van den Abeele, “Une Ménagerie Princière entre Moyen Age et Renaissance: La Cour des Lions à Gand de 1421 à 1641,” Reinardus 24, no. 1 (2012), 77–107. Still very useful is Jules Guiffrey, “La Ménagerie du Duc Jean de Berry, 1370–1403,” Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires du Centre 23 (1899): 63–84, and Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean duc de Berry, 1401–1416 (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1894).

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Figure 4.8: The Duchy of Brabant and its enemies, symbolized by a boar and greyhounds, all wearing heraldic capes, from the Charter of the Duchy of Brabant, 1420 (Brussels, State Archive). Photo: Courtesy of State Archive, Brussels.

owned as pets to the extent that dogs were, simians were very early kept not only in menageries like those of Jean de Berry and René d’Anjou57 but also in the households of lesser nobles for much the same reasons of amusement and entertainment that jesters 57 King René’s expenses for his menageries were carefully detailed. See Albert Lecoy de la Marche, Extraits des Comptes et Mémoriaux du Roi René pour Servir à l’Histoire des Arts au XVe Siècle, Publiés d’après les Originaux des Archives Nationales (Paris: Picard, 1873), who notes for the residence at Angers a payment in January 1471 to Bertrand Gosmes of 49 livres a year to maintain, among many other animals, two monkeys, male and female (“ung cinge et une cingesse”), 42, item 143.

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Royal Fashions for Animals and fools were part of court life, and in fact were often associated with fools and jesters, as we shall see. Monkeys were also commonly given as gifts by the French nobility. Many depictions of monkeys in manuscript miniatures, panel paintings, and tapestries such as the Lady and Unicorn tapestries in the Musée Cluny show the animals restrained in various ways with collars or waist-chains and blocks of wood called clogs, expenses for which appear in a royal account of 1417: “item for a red leather collar studded and buckled strongly and with a tab of gilded pot metal, with a ball of wood rotating in an iron hoop with a great cord to attach to the neck of the said monkey, 9 sous.”58 Marie de Cleves in 1456 ordered two such iron chains, one for the neck of her fool Belon (apparently a madman) and one for her monkey, while Jean Duc de Berry’s accounts for 1376 show he paid a locksmith to create a similar monkey chain and a clog.59 There was a reason for such restraints. For example, Alexander Neckham, the mid-twelfth-century English natural scientist, testifies at length to the imitative and mischievous behavior of monkeys when kept as pets in castles.60 Apes and monkeys seem to have come to Northern Europe primarily with returning Crusaders and later through contact between Venetian merchants visiting North African ports and Portuguese traders voyaging in the Gambia delta at the behest of Henry the Navigator, or sailing from trading posts in Goa on the Arabian Sea in Western India, where the Portuguese controlled the spice trade. For example, the Venetian trader Alvise da Cada Mosto tells of buying apes from Africans at Banjui in the Gambia River delta in 1454, while he was a passenger on a Portuguese slave-trading ship.61 It was largely by such merchant voyagers that French royal menageries were furnished, and the animals were quite expensive. The household accounts of King Charles V of France in 1380 note 20 francs “paye a Bakert, lequel avoir aporte deux petiz singes,” though without indicating where they came from. In 1394, Venetian galleys brought to Philip the Bold two apes, for which he paid 13 francs; another was purchased by his son in Bruges in 1411, which became a gift to his physician.62 More than the other French monarchs, King René d’Anjou seems to have had a special interest in apes; he kept them himself and also gave them as gifts. He spent 48 58 Jean Chartier, Chronique de Charles VII, Roi de France, ed. Vallet de Viriville (Paris: Jannet, 1858), 3:283: “item pour un collier de cuir rouge ferré et garni de boucles, mordant, et d’un toret de laton douré, avecques une bolle de boys tournant en en sercle de fer avec une grant corde pour pendre au col dudit cinge, 9 sous.” 59 For Marie de Cleves, see Franklin, Vie Privée, 22:36. For Jean de Berry, see Guiffrey, “Ménagerie,” 75. A good assortment of scenes showing monkeys wearing such chains and clogs appears in Janson, Apes and Ape Lore, plates XX–XXII. 60 Alexander Neckham, De Naturis Rerum Libri Duo, ed. Thomas Wright (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), CXXIX, 207–9. 61 See G. R. Crone, ed. and trans., The Voyages of Cadamosto and Other Documents on Western Africa in the Second Half of the Fifteenth Century (London: Hakluyt Society, 1937), 69. See also Aleksander Pluskowski, “What is Exotic? Sources of Animals and Animal Products from the Edges of the Medieval World,” in The Edges of the Medieval World, ed. Gerhard Jaritz and Juhan Kreem (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2009), 113–29. On monkeys, see Buquet, “Animaux Exotiques,” 109–10. 62 For the purchases by Charles V, Philip, and his son, see Franklin, Vie privée, 24:9.

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Figure 4.9: Monkey in a tightly fitted jacket, from the Luttrell Psalter, 1325–45 (London, British Library, MS Additional 42130, 207v). Photo: The British Library, by permission.

livres a year with his menagerie keeper Bertrand Gosmes to maintain, among other animals, two monkeys. In January 1478 there is a record of 6 ecus paid to the captain of a caravelle for three apes, bought at the King’s command, of which he gave a portion—probably one—to his nephew Jean.63 It appears, then, that simians, along with other examples of exotic naturalia, were widely collected and often purchased as gifts

63 Lecoy de la Marche, Extraits, 154, item 394 (January 1478): “Au patron de la caravelle pour … troy singes, achatéz du commandement de la roy, dont il en a donné partie a messeigneurs de Calabre … [his nephew, Jean] 6 ecus.” For the general practice of such gifts among the French nobility, see Brigitte Buettner, “Past Presents: New Year’s Gifts at the Valois Courts, ca. 1400,” Art Bulletin 83, no. 4 (Dec. 2001): 598–625.

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Royal Fashions for Animals primarily in the late fourteenth through the mid-sixteenth centuries, participating in the general commodification of gifts of all sorts among rulers and lesser nobles exchanged in the hope of acquiring influence and of showing the magnificence and splendor of gesture involved in vivre noblement. There are several representations of monkeys wearing jackets, but how these garments should be interpreted is uncertain. Probably, the jackets on the monkeys in a bas-de-page illustration in the Smithfield Decretals signify the animals’ imitativeness, since the context is monkeys robbing a sleeping peddler of his goods and trying them on.64 Clothed monkeys in the Luttrell Psalter (London, British Library, MS Additional 42130, folio 207v) and in Thomas of Cantimpre’s De Natura Rerum in a manuscript now in Valenciennes may indicate only the mark of human civility and control placed on the animals, rather than reflecting actual contemporary garments for them.65 Both garments, however, do appear to show fur edging or lining. This is more evident in the Luttrell Psalter, with the jacket’s tightly fitted sleeves and buttoned upper part and its contrasting lining, where gris-colored trim seems to outline the edge (fig. 4.9). Similarly, the cowled garment for the monkey in Thomas of Cantimpré’s miniature also shows a highlight that may indicate fur (fig. 4.10). Of particular interest is the monkey sitting on the shoulder of Will Somer, Henry VIII’s fool, in an anonymous family portrait of the king (fig. 4.11). It dates from 1545. The monkey, picking lice from Somer’s hair, wears a mauve, cowled, short-sleeved garment, apparently for warmth; it is not clear if it is intended as fur-lined.66 It is important to situate these three pictures in relation to the records of clothing intended to keep monkeys warm and to show them as having livery status. For example, Isabeau, wife of King Charles VII of France, in 1417 paid 60 sous to a tailor, Jehan Le Lorrain, to make for her pet monkey a robe lined with gris, a fur whose cost and character was in keeping with similar livery provided to members of the Queen’s retinue.67 It is possible that the monkeys in figures 4.9, 4.10, and 4.11 may indicate something similar in intent. One of King René’s expense records for monkey jackets is fairly detailed. These jackets seem to combine the provision of warmth with the assertion of owner identity. In 1479, his records show expenditures for dressing monkeys that he kept in menageries at his chief residences in Angers and Provence. There is a charge by the tailor Morice 64 This bas-de-page is published and discussed by John Block Friedman, “The Peddler Robbed by Apes Topos: Parchment to Print and Back Again,” Journal of the Early Book Society 11 (2008): 87–120. 65 The Luttrell Psalter was painted between 1325 and 1345; for a facsimile and discussion, see Michelle P. Brown, The World of the Luttrell Psalter (London: British Library, 2006). For discussion and bibliography on Valenciennes, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 320, see John Block Friedman, “‘Monstres qui a ii mamelles bloe’: Illuminator’s Instructions in a MS of Thomas of Cantimpré,” Journal of the Early Book Society 7 (2004): 11–32. 66 The painting, after a lost study of King Henry VIII and his family by Hans Holbein, was formerly in Whitehall Palace, but is now at Hampton Court Palace. See Oliver Millar, The Tudor, Stuart, and Early Georgian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen (London: Phaidon, 1963), cat. no. 43, plate 27, discussed pp. 63–64. 67 Chartier, Chronique de Charles VII, 3:283, “a Jehan Le Lorrain cousturier, pour avoir fait et livré, pour le singe de la royne, une robe fourée de gris … pour tout 60 sous.”

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Figure 4.10: Monkey in a cowled garment, from Thomas of Cantimpré, De Natura Rerum (Valenciennes, Bibliothèque Municipale MS 320, 77v). Photo: Bibliothèque Municipale, Valenciennes, by permission.

for the making of velvet garments for two monkeys that the king sent to François de Bourbon. This called for two palms of kermes-dyed velvet costing 3 florins and two palms of black velvet at 2 florins, very large sums considering the small amount of fabric used.68 That even these monkey suits expressed René’s desire to assert his identity and to participate in contemporary fashion is clear from the fact that crimson and black were the livery colors for the chivalric Order of the Crescent in Provence that René had founded in 1448. This was a neo-Arthurian order of 50 nobles established to compete with the English Order of the Garter. From contemporary records we learn that René, his family, and most of his retinue wore these colors, though probably not all wore velvet. King René’s well-dressed monkeys, then, extended his identity to the household of their new owner.69 68 Lecoy de la Marche, Extraits, 157, item 405 (1479): “A Morice, tailleur, le xii de janvier deux paulmes de velours cramoisy et deux paulmes de velours noir pour faire des robbes aux singes que le roy a envoyez a Monseigneur de Bourbon le paulme de cramoisi et raison de iii fl. de paulme de cramoisi, et ii florins le noir.” 69 On this order, see Michael T. Reynolds, “René of Anjou, King of Sicily, and the Order of the Croissant,” Journal of Medieval History 19, nos. 1–2 (1993): 125–61. Reynolds notes (142) “that an annual feast for this order called for elaborate cloaks and robes to be worn by all members … princes and knights will wear crimson velvet cloaks … the esquires will wear crimson satin cloaks … members will wear black velvet hats …  .” The crimson velvet used in a princely cloak was valued at 110 livres tournois. At least forty of the order’s fifty-five known members were Rene’s lieges (151). On Rene’s

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Figure 4.11: Detail of anonymous family portrait of King Henry VIII, showing Will Somer and a dressed monkey, 1545 (London, Hampton Court Palace). Photo: Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, by permission.

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In addition to the garments for dogs and monkeys already mentioned, it appears that real bears on occasion may have worn heraldic capes, chain mail, and parade dress on the upper body, or at least they are so depicted in art. Bears were popular animals in menageries; both Jean de Berry and Philip the Good kept them, with Jean de Berry apparently regarding his as a pet, as an account of 1467 mentions “le petite ours de Monsieur.”70 I am familiar with two examples, one from Switzerland and one from France, showing bears wearing such garments. In each case, the garments play a role in the assertion and affirmation of identity and antiquity of lineage. The first example is a glass panel depicting the coat of arms of the town of Brugg, in the canton of Aargau, Switzerland, which is located at the confluence of three important rivers, one of which flows through the town. From 1415 it was a subject territory of Berne, whose emblem had been the bear since the thirteenth century. By 1441 the residents of Berne kept bears in a city bear pit and seem to have used them in various civic entertainments, where apparently they may have worn festive garments. The panel (fig. 4.12) is attributed to Jakob Brunner, a Brugg innkeeper and glass painter who was active about 1565 to 1589. It is typical of several Swiss glass panels in the Detroit Institute of Arts collection that show armorial motifs drawn not from aristocratic heraldry but from mercantile sources of wealth, such as shipping and milling; on the shields are devices such as plowshares, vine knives, and objects that pun on a person’s name. Towns such as Brugg, then, are the equivalents of the nobles de robe discussed earlier, where arms and the supporter animals in their shields serve for self-fashioning and propaganda. Indeed, it was considered obligatory for persons of civic stature to place these armorial glass panels in public spaces such as inns, law courts, and municipal buildings. In short, as one student of the Detroit glass panel observes, “German and Swiss panels … demonstrate a bourgeois context of their donors’ heraldic badges, quite removed from that of the hereditary class of nobles.”71 The coat of arms for Brugg was two towers linked by a bridge over the river Aere, the source of its civic wealth and power. The shield with this device can be held by various supporters, human halberdiers for example, or sometimes animals such as lions or bears. During the sixteenth century, under the influence of Berne, these household livery, see Christian de Mérindol, Le Roi René et la Seconde Maison d’Anjou: Emblematique Art Histoire (Paris: Léopard d’Or, 1987), where his livery colors are discussed at 127–30. Crimson and black were worn by all members of the household as well as close and distant relatives. For examples of expenses, see 127–28, 129, and notes 107, 131. 70 See Franklin, Vie privée, 24:9. 71 This panel is Detroit Institute of Arts no. 48 [23.4]. See Virginia Raguin and Helen Jackson Zakin, Stained Glass Before 1700 in the Collections of the Midwest States, Corpus Vitrarum Medii Aevi 8.1 (London: Harvey Miller, 2001), item 48, 1:146, 266–68. The quotation is from p. 146. On bears generally, see Michel Pastoureau, L’Ours, Histoire d’un roi déchu (Paris: Seuil, 2007), and for various representations of them associated with Berne, see Ana Maria Gruia, “Bears on Late Medieval Stove Tiles,” Acta Mvsei Napocensis 48 (2011): 149–64. For the varied significance of dagged garments at this period, see John Block Friedman, “The Iconography of Dagged Clothing and Its Reception by Moralist Writers,” Medieval Clothing and Textiles 9 (2013), 121–38.

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Figure 4.12: Glass panel with arms of the Swiss town of Brugg, with dressed bear supporters, attributed to Jakob Brunner, ca. 1570 (Detroit Institute of Arts, no. 45). Photo: Kristen Figg, with courtesy of the Detroit Institute of Arts.

supporters were in this case bears, which seem to have been intended to tie the town to Berne and its own antiquity and prestige. The two bears each hold a halberd in one paw, with the other on the edge of a shield showing the city arms of Brugg, so labeled right below the shield. The left-hand bear wears a simple dove-colored surcote, perhaps meant to signify chainmail, with black ribbons at the neck and waist; the sleeves and hem are dagged, a stylistic feature in this period often associated with fools, alterity, savageness, and similar characteristics. In contrast, the bear on the right wears an elaborate fitted and multi-buttoned reddish or maroon jerkin that suggests parade dress or livery and the socializing process and control thereby implied. Though the heraldry in which these two bears take part was that of a public entity, such stained-glass panels with their traditional armorial associations of nobility and antiquity, especially in French and Flemish art of the later fifteenth century, played 91

John Block Friedman a specific role in identity assertion and display of consumption for those hoping to be taken as noble. For example, Jennifer Courts calls attention to such panels “that incorporate … arms and/or pseudo-heraldic symbols in the construction of identity” in Flemish painting contemporary with many examples of fashions for animals already noted.72 The second pair of “dressed” bears of interest here are the two that hold the Orsini arms and Jouvenel des Ursins’ arms in a wool and silk tapestry fragment now in the Louvre, probably woven in southern Flanders or France in the later fifteenth century (fig. 4.13). The bears are to be understood as cubs, or “oursins,” to play on Jouvenel des Ursins’ family name; they also appear as caryatids in the background of Jean Fouquet’s portrait of Guillaume Jouvenel des Ursins. The bears in the Louvre tapestry wear not fitted body garments, as in the Brugg shield, but capes more like those with heraldic motifs in the charter of Brabant shown in figure 4.8, and they have long chains attached to their collars. Standing on green flowered islands, they grip trees from which hang shields. The background is of red and white with uprooted flowers; the initial J appears frequently on this background, as well as many representations of the plant called bear’s breech (Acanthus mollis) that was also an emblem of the Jouvenel des Ursins family. For example, it is depicted in the floriated initials—along with the “J”—for a copy of Giovanni della Colonna’s Mare Historiarum, now in Paris (Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 4915), commissioned by Guillaume Jouvenel des Ursins. The animal at the left of the tapestry bears the Orsini arms on its cape; the cape of the bear on the right is very faded but probably showed the Jouvenel des Ursins arms. Between the bears is a tree branch with a heraldic shield of the Orsini family and again, one too faded to be interpreted. Most probably, this tapestry must have hung on the walls of the Hotel des Ursins on the Ile de la Cité.73 Jennifer Courts, who has made a detailed study of this tapestry and the identity-establishing and -asserting concerns of its commissioners, points to its propagandistic character: The descendants of a Troyes cloth dealer, Jean I Jouvenel and his sons waged a textual and visual campaign to redress their mercantile origins … The family’s surviving commissions provid[e] evidence of the Jouvenel des Ursins interest in the display of elite media, as well as their efforts to be acknowledged as noblesse ancienne. The family participated actively in the visual construction of their identity and used material objects to reinforce their legitimacy.74

It seems from the written and visual evidence thus far presented that the practice of dressing animals—even those not ordinarily thought of as pets—in livery torso garments that reflected styles of consumption, propagandizing, and identity construction and assertion among nobles and would-be nobles must have been fairly widespread. 72 Courts, “Weaving Legitimacy,” 156 n. 209. 73 William T. Stearn, “The Tortuous Tale of Bear’s Breech: The Puzzling Bookname for Acanthus mollis,” Garden History 24, no. 1 (Summer 1996): 122–25. 74 Courts, “Weaving Legitimacy,” 141.

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Figure 4.13: Heraldic bears on the tapestry of Guillaume Jouvenel des Ursins, late fifteenth century (Paris, Musée du Louvre). Photo: Musée du Louvre, by permission.

And it was a practice applied to even the most inelegant of animals. For example, the accounts of King Charles VIII of France note that during the winter of 1491 he ordered a “habillement” made from red and fawn-colored velvet, Charles’ livery colors, held on by tapes and reinforced at the seams, for one of his marmots. This garment goes beyond the provision of warmth, which could have been served by one of woolen cloth, or even one lined with fur, as with the monkey mentioned earlier.75 The consumption of expensive fabric, admittedly in a small quantity, in mi-parti livery colors must have expressed Charles VIII’s desire to assert his identity even at the most humble levels of the animal world. And King René’s gifts of monkeys wearing his own livery colors to members of his family indicated that he saw identity as infinitely extensible, shareable, and existing even in the absence of the giver himself. Evidently these animal “accessories” expressed contemporary ideas of fashion and livery, signifying, affirming, and extending René’s and Charles’ identities and currency as fashionable people. From these examples of fashions for a variety of animals, from simple collars to civic festival and heraldic dress, it is, I hope, clear that the pet’s role in the burgeoning material culture of the fourteenth and later centuries was a very important one for identity formation and expression of fashionability among the upper strata of society. As valuable commodities, these accessories and garments heightened and solidified identity, signifying control over uncourtly and instinctual behavior often identified with rustics, fools, madmen, and wild or semi-domesticated animals of the menageries so 75 See Gay, Glossaire Archéologique du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance (Paris: Société Bibliographique, 1928), 2:116: “Ung quartier veloux rouge et ung quartier veloux tanné, pour faire ung habillement, tout par bandes et nervé par les coustures, pour une des marmotes du roy, au feur de 8l. 15s. t. l’aune.”

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John Block Friedman popular among the wealthy in this period. These accessories and garments also played a key role in the practice of vivre noblement, the continuous display and consumption of commodities, literally “making one’s resources visible”76 that was considered vital to the retention of a noble aura both before one’s peers and before those who looked on at such displays with awe and envy.

76 J. Powis, Aristocracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 34.

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A Set of Late-Fifteenth-Century Orphreys Relating to Ludovico Buonvisi, a Lucchese Merchant, and Embroidered in a London Workshop Frances Pritchard

It has often been observed that embroidered vestments from late-fifteenth-century England tend to be monotonous in design and mechanical in execution.1 The orphreys discussed here, which it will be argued date to ca. 1490, nevertheless merit attention for the singularity of their iconography, which points to a Lucchese connection that is further borne out by the heraldry and inscription on one of them. The significance of a family of wealthy Italian merchants, namely the Buonvisi family, commissioning orphreys for a vestment from an embroidery workshop in London will also be considered, especially as the finest embroidery at this period was produced in Flanders, where workshops attracted commissions from clients throughout Europe. The two orphreys in forms known as a pillar and a cross were customarily placed on the front and back of a chasuble. They now embellish a chasuble belonging to Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, which is run by the Society of Jesus.2 Nothing is known of their history until 1827, when the detached orphreys were rescued “in a terrible state of disrepair” by Father R. Norris from an old Jesuit mission house in England.3 Their restoration was undertaken in a workshop run by Brother Houghton, the sacristan at Stonyhurst from the 1820s to 1870s, who had initially trained as a military tailor.4 Much of the embroidery was reworked and the orphreys were remounted on a new

This article is expanded from a paper presented at a 2004 symposium celebrating “The Contribution of Brian Spencer to Our Understanding of the Medieval Period,” which was organized by the Finds Research Group AD 700–1700 and held at the Museum of London. I am grateful to Janet Graffius, curator at Stonyhurst College, for her transcription of Brother Houghton’s manuscript notes; Professor Luca Mola for guiding me to relevant source books; and Lisa Monnas for her advice and encouragement.   1 Donald King, Opus Anglicanum (London: Arts Council, 1963), 7–8.   2 The chasuble was on loan to the Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester, from July 1999 to July 2005, during which time the vestment was examined by the author.   3 Stonyhurst Vestments (Clitheroe, UK: Stonyhurst Magazine, 1957), 11.   4 Maurice Whitehead, ed., Held in Trust: 2008 Years of Sacred Culture: A Catalogue of an Exhibition from the Stonyhurst College Collections, Held at St. Francis Xavier’s Church, Liverpool (Stonyhurst: St. Omers Press, 2008), 50.

Frances Pritchard

Figure 5.1: Front of chasuble with embroidered pillar orphrey. Photo: © Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, England, by permission.

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Figure 5.2: Back of chasuble with embroidered cross orphrey. Photo: © Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, England, by permission.

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Frances Pritchard chasuble (figs. 5.1 and 5.2).5 The orphreys were trimmed with two widths of gold braid similar to that used on the Henry VII chasuble, which was undergoing restoration in the workshop at the same period together with other vestments in the same set.6 The chasuble with the newly mounted orphreys was subsequently displayed along with eleven other vestments from Stonyhurst College in a large exhibition held at South Kensington Museum in June 1862. On this occasion the embroidery was identified as Flemish and dated to the early sixteenth century.7 The iconographic programme of the orphreys will be considered first, followed by a discussion of the embroidery technique and style, placing the work within the context of late-fifteenth-century English embroidery, rather than attributing it to Flanders. Lastly, reference will be made to the business interests in London of the Buonvisi family, who apparently commissioned the embroideries, as a result of which the probable date of the commission can be more precisely determined. ICONOGRAPHY

The layout of the orphreys follows the conventional manner for the fifteenth century. Individual saints are positioned beneath architectural canopies with vaults, crenellations, turrets, and columns with lancet windows, and the figures stand on grassy mounds scattered with clumps of small flowers reminiscent of contemporary millefleurs tapestries. The saints are identified by name in black-letter script on a scroll placed below each figure, with the exception of the one at the bottom of the pillar orphrey, whose name scroll has been removed either as a result of wear and tear or when remounting took place. It is evident from the names that all the saints have Italian associations and have been chosen for special devotional reasons. On the pillar orphrey, stitched to the front of the chasuble, the figure at the bottom would appear to be St. Sebastian (fig. 5.3). Although this martyred soldier was popular in Renaissance Italy and in centres north of the Alps, including Germany, Flanders, and France, as surviving works of art, including embroideries, indicate,8 St. Sebastian attracted little attention or devotion in England at this period, with the exception of   5 Brother Houghton’s manuscript notes, Stonyhurst College archive, transcribed by Mrs. Janet Graffius, curator, Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, in October 2004. The cut of the chasuble, with straight sides at the back and a fiddle-shaped front, reflects a post-medieval style; Pauline Johnstone, High Fashion in the Church (Leeds, UK: Maney Publishing, 2002), 10–11.   6 Lisa Monnas, “The Vestments of Henry VII at Stonyhurst College: Cloth of Gold Woven to Shape,” Bulletin du Centre International d’Étude des Textiles Anciens 65 (1987): 78.  7 Daniel Rock, “Ecclesiastical Vestments, Tissues and Embroideries,” in Catalogue of the Special Exhibition of Works of Art of the Mediæval, Renaissance, and More Recent Periods, on Loan at the South Kensington Museum, June 1862, ed. J. C. Robinson (London: George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode for H.M.S.O., 1862), 257.  8 For example, a cross orphrey embroidered in Germany, ca. 1500, shows St. Sebastian, who is identified by means of a name scroll, wearing plate armour. Christa C. Mayer-Thurman, Raiment for the Lord’s Service: A Thousand Years of Western Vestments (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1975), 145, no. 54.

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Figure 5.3: Detail of pillar orphrey showing St. Sebastian. Photo: © Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, England, by permission.

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Frances Pritchard a short-lived fraternity dedicated to St. Fabian and St. Sebastian that was associated with the church of St. Botolph’s, Aldersgate, London, in the fifteenth century.9 The embroidery shows the saint with his hands behind his back tied to a column under sentence of death with arrows piercing his youthful torso. But is this identification correct? An alternative possibility is St. Edmund, an Anglo-Saxon king who was murdered by Danish invaders in 869 as he refused to give up the Christian faith. He was scourged, tied to a tree, shot with arrows, and beheaded. Pilgrim souvenirs of this royal saint have sometimes been mistaken for St. Sebastian, and the variety of pilgrim badges produced of St. Edmund between the late thirteenth and early sixteenth centuries attest to the importance of his shrine at Bury St. Edmunds as a major centre of pilgrimage in medieval England.10 He is also represented on a number of English copes embroidered in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, where he is shown both undergoing martyrdom and holding arrows emblematic of his death.11 The closest parallel is a scene on the Lateran cope, dated 1340–60 and housed in the Vatican, where St. Edmund is shown bound to a tree with his robed body pierced by arrows.12 Another argument in support of St. Edmund is that there was a chapel dedicated to him in the cathedral at Lucca and this Anglo-Italian connection might have made him a particularly appealing choice.13 However, as the martyr lacks a crown, it is more likely that it is St. Sebastian who is represented, and consequently, it appears to be the only instance of his portrayal in a medieval English embroidery.14 The central figure on the pillar orphrey is St. Paulinus, the first bishop of Lucca, who was ordained by St. Peter and martyred soon afterwards. It is thus another unusual portrayal in English embroidery. Above him is St. Peter, the apostle who was martyred in Rome and who became associated with the papacy. He is shown barefooted and holding the key of heaven in his right hand against a raised diaper-patterned background that forms a contrast with the fretwork patterning used in the other scenes. The Buonvisi, in common with many Italian firms with branches in other countries, undertook business for the papacy from time to time, and thus the placing of St. Peter at the top of the orphrey was undoubtedly carefully considered.   9 Sylvia L. Thrupp, The Merchant Class of Medieval London, rev. ed. (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1962), 37. 10 Brian Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs and Secular Badges, Medieval Finds from Excavations in London 7 (London: Stationery Office, 1998), 181–82. 11 A. G. I. Christie, English Medieval Embroidery (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1938), nos. 58, 78, 85, 89, and 90. 12 Christie, English Medieval Embroidery, 149–52, pl. 102. 13 Sebastian Sutcliffe, “The Cult of St. Sitha in England: An Introduction,” Nottingham Medieval Studies 37 (1993): 85. 14 St. Sebastian has been identified as one of the martyred saints portrayed on the Montiéramey cope, which dates to the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, but it is probable that the vestment was embroidered in France rather than England. He is shown bound to a tree and being shot by an archer at the command of the emperor, Diocletian; Odile Brel-Bordaz, Broderies d’Ornements Liturgiques XIIIe–XIVe siècles (Paris: Nouvelles Editions Latines, 1982), 119–22, 130–35 and fig. 3. The representation of the saint on the Buonvisi orphrey is more likely to be derived from an Italian model.

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Late-Fifteenth-Century Orphreys On the cross orphrey the Lucchese connection is more emphatic. St. Sitha appears at the bottom, with her name spelt in the anglicised form “Sitha” rather than the Italian “Zita.” Zita (d. 1272) was a saintly servant who spent most of her life working for a well-to-do household in Lucca.15 Her incorrupt body lies in the church of San Frediano, Lucca, and in this same church the Buonvisi founded a chapel in the early sixteenth century, as it was in this parish that the Buonvisi had their main family house.16 Apart from Lucca and Palermo, where there is a chapel dedicated to St. Zita, it was only in England that a cult of St. Sitha developed, and more than fifty representations of her are preserved from fifteenth-century England.17 She can be identified by the rosary and bunch of keys that hang from her girdle, for, as the patron saint of servants and housewives, she was known to help find lost items such as mislaid keys. St. Sitha is portrayed on at least two other embroidered orphreys, both now preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum, including one on a chasuble bearing the arms of Henry de Beauchamp, Duke of Warwick, that date it to between 1434 and 1445.18 However, these orphreys, which were produced a few decades earlier than the cross orphrey under discussion here, have St. Sitha less prominently positioned on the front of the vestment and paired with St. Thomas. The identification of a female figure with three loaves on another orphrey as St. Sitha reveals another aspect of her saintliness for, according to an account of her life, when she spent too long in prayer at church in the early morning instead of preparing bread for baking, the loaves miraculously appeared in the kitchen by heavenly agency.19 The next scene upwards shows the Rood of Lucca with the crowned, crucified Christ dressed in a black robe (fig. 5.4). The relic, the so-called “Volto Santo” (Holy Face) named on account of the tradition that the face of the original cedar wood relic was carved by an angel while Nicodemus, the maker and a disciple of Christ, lay asleep, is preserved in the cathedral of San Martino in Lucca, where it attracted a considerable degree of devotion among the local inhabitants as well as from pilgrims, who often stopped in the city on their way to Rome. A similar representation of the rood, with Christ’s figure clothed in a special black festival robe, girdle, shoes, and crown, is depicted in a cycle of miniatures about the legend that was produced in Paris around 1400 (fig. 5.5).20 This devotional book was commissioned by the Rapondi, another influential Lucchese family; Dino Rapondi, who is shown in one miniature praying on 15 Spencer, Pilgrim Souvenirs, 199. 16 Michael Edwin Bratchel, Lucca 1430–1494: The Reconstruction of an Italian City-Republic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 192. 17 Sutcliffe, “Cult of St. Sitha,” 84 and 86. 18 King, Opus Anglicanum, nos. 118 and 121, 50–51. 19 King, Opus Anglicanum, no. 112, 48; Caroline Barron, “Medieval Pilgrim Badges of St Sitha,” in Hidden Histories and Records of Antiquity: Essays on Saxon and Medieval London for John Clark, Curator Emeritus, Museum of London, ed. Jonathan Cotton et al., London and Middlesex Archaeological Society Special Paper 17 (London: London and Middlesex Archaeological Society, 2014), 92. 20 Isa Belli Barsali, “Le miniature della Legende de Saint Voult de Luques in un codice Vaticano appartenuto ai Rapondi,” in Lucca, Il Volto Santo e La Civilità Medioevale, Accademia Lucchese di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti (Lucca: M. Pacini Fazzi, 1984), 122–56; Elisabeth Taburet-Delahaye, ed., Paris 1400: Les arts sous Charles VI (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2004), 154, no. 79.

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Figure 5.4: Detail of cross orphrey showing the Rood of Lucca. Photo: © Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, England, by permission.

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Figure 5.5: Legend of the Holy Face of Lucca, Paris, ca. 1400 (B.A.V., Cod. Pal. Lat. 1988, c. 4v). Dino Rapondi is shown on the left, and the coats of arms for the city of Lucca (lower left) and the Rapondi family (lower right) are also depicted. Photo: © Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, by permission.

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Frances Pritchard the left of the rood, even rose to prominence as an adviser to Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy (1363–1404). It is significant that on the orphreys only the rood is shown without a background of patterned gold; instead, exceptionally, the rood is placed against a coloured ground dappled with golden spots. A similar ground, although red rather than blue, is shown in the illuminated manuscript cycle. Consequently, as the rood is depicted with such accuracy on the orphrey, it would appear that the designer of the embroidery must have been provided with an exemplar to copy. The upper register of the cross orphrey depicts the Annunciation, which in itself is an unusual choice, as the Crucifixion is usually portrayed. Mary, who is dressed in an ermine-lined golden cloak worn over an ermine-trimmed sideless gown instead of the more usual blue robe, poses beside a book that lies open on a lectern. To the right of a lily pot, the Archangel Gabriel holds a scroll inscribed “Ave gracia plena d[omin]us Maria” and goes down on one knee to the Virgin. This Annunciation scene with Gabriel kneeling differs from representations on fourteenth-century English embroideries. However, similar depictions do appear in stained glass and manuscript illuminations21 indicating that different sources were often used for the iconography in English embroidery workshops by the fifteenth century. Flanking the Annunciation are two coats of arms; that on the left is the badge for the city of Lucca, and on the right is the personal badge of the Buonvisi family.22 Below the scene is a shield with a merchant’s device and a scroll inscribed “Orate Ludovico Buonvisi.” Ludovico Buonvisi was the Lucchese merchant in remembrance of whose soul the Mass vestment was presumably commissioned, and his career and especially his residency in London will be discussed below. EMBROIDERY

A study of the technique is hampered by the extensive amount of restoration that was undertaken on the orphreys in the mid-nineteenth century. The original embroidery was worked in coloured silks using thread lacking any appreciable twist as this resulted in a more lustrous surface, but much has been replaced, especially most of the green, black, and blue threads. The metal threads have also met with a similar fate. Split stitch is used for the figurative work, including the garments, inscriptions, and most of the architectural framework. The background patterns are carried out in raised couched work with the silver-gilt filé thread being used double. Stem stitch is used for some outlines, with a plied cord of metal thread being used to edge some features, such as the book held by St. Sitha, the loincloth of St. Sebastian, the inscribed scrolls, and the

21 John Alexander and Paul Binski, eds., The Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England 1200–1400 (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 1987), 447, no. 563; Richard Marks and Paul Williamson, eds., Gothic: Art for England c. 1400–1547 (London: V&A Publications, 2003), 340 and 344, nos. 217 and 223. 22 The Buonvisi coat of arms is “azure, an estoile or with a central bezant saltirewise argent and gûles.” I am grateful to the late Geoff Egan for his help in interpreting the coats of arms.

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Late-Fifteenth-Century Orphreys window frames. This cord appears to be part of the restoration work but probably replaced an earlier metal thread. Similarly, the flowers worked in satin stitch in white and crimson silk appear to have been entirely reworked. This repertoire of stitches conforms to that in common use in England during the second half of the fifteenth century, and there is no attempt to introduce any or nué technique, which was such a striking and innovative feature of embroidery at the Burgundian court during the same period.23 It is primarily for this reason that the embroidery should be identified as English work rather than Flemish. One may speculate that the chasuble to which the orphreys were originally attached would have been made from a costly Italian silk velvet, reflecting the trade in such luxury fabrics, which played an important part in Ludovico Buonvisi’s commercial activities. BUONVISI MERCHANT FAMILY

Finally, who were the Buonvisi family and, in particular, who was Ludovico Buonvisi, and why would orphreys, one of which bears his name, with Lucchese emblems, be produced in a London workshop? To answer these questions, this section draws heavily on the research of Michael E. Bratchel into records of the alien merchant community in London and Lisa Monnas into late medieval Italian silks. The Buonvisi were a powerful family of Lucchese merchants who undertook business in various European centres including Antwerp, London, and Lyon.24 The first member of the family who is recorded in the English custom accounts is Benedetto di Lorenzo Buonvisi, who is named regularly between 1471 and 1473 as an exporter of English cloth and as an importer of silks and alum, the latter commodity then being under papal control.25 Benedetto apparently left London in the summer of 1473 and was replaced by Ludovico, one of his brothers. By the 1480s Ludovico had been resident in London for a sufficient length of time to have a servant of his listed in the London Alien Subsidy Roll for 1483, which indicated that he was living in the ward of Broad Street.26 The following year he received letters of denization, although this may have been more a matter of convenience than a desire to become permanently assimilated into the mercantile community of London. It has been estimated that at this time there were approximately fifty Italians residing in London,27 but this included Genoese, Venetian, and Florentine merchants as well as Lucchese, and numbers fluctuated according to the political turn of events 23 Marie Schuette and Sigrid Müller-Christensen, The Art of Embroidery (London, Thames and Hudson, 1964), xxii. 24 Michael Edwin Bratchel, “Italian Merchant Organization and Business Relationships in Early Tudor London,” Journal of European Economic History 7 (1978): 12–16. 25 Bratchel, Lucca 1430–1494, 191. 26 James L. Bolton, ed., The Alien Communities of London in the Fifteenth Century: The Subsidy Rolls of 1440 and 1483–4 (Stamford, UK: Richard III & Yorkist History Trust in association with Paul Watkins, 1998), 73. 27 Bolton, Alien Communities, 6.

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Frances Pritchard and local tolerance.28 Ludovico supplied the Great Wardrobe with many expensive Italian silks, including large quantities that were used for the coronation of Richard III in July 1483. These fabrics included velvets, damasks with and without gold thread, baldekins, and silk satins.29 The canopies held above King Richard and Queen Anne during the coronation ceremony in Westminster Abbey, for example, were made from red and green baldekin enriched with Lucchese gold thread, sixteen pieces of which had been bought from Ludovico Buonvisi at 50s. per piece.30 Ludovico continued to supply the Great Wardrobe with luxury textiles until 1488, in association with the Florentine merchants Anthony Corsi and Marco Strozzi, and he is last recorded as providing cloth and having it made into palls for the hearses of Edward of Lancaster, son of Henry VI; Edmund Beaufort, so-called fourth Duke of Somerset; and Lord John of Somerset in 1488.31 It is presumed that Ludovico died ca. 1490, after which the Buonvisi firm was represented in London for the next twenty-five years by Ludovico’s nephews Lorenzo and Girolamo, and also Nicolao for a brief period.32 During this time they must have become well known in the city to officials of the royal household, and of particular note is the fact that along with the Florentine merchant Antonio Corsi, who had been Ludovico’s business associate, Lorenzo and Girolamo were responsible for obtaining a huge quantity of specially commissioned vestments for Henry VII made in 1500–2.33 Another Ludovico does appear later in the firm’s history during the reign of Henry VIII, when the sons of Benedetto Buonvisi were put in charge of the London branch.34 This Ludovico, who died in 1550, was therefore another nephew of the earlier Ludovico. However, the date of his death argues against the orphreys being associated with him, as by this time the Protestant, Edward VI, was on the English throne, and in any event he spent most of his life in Lucca working in partnership with his brother, Martino. This Ludovico was a younger brother of the Antonio Buonvisi who was a friend of Thomas More and who is—as a result of a combination of this well-documented friendship, his influence in the spread of humanism into England. and his financial dealings on behalf of Henry VIII—the best-known member of the family.35 In view of the family’s long links with England and especially London, it is not surprising that at least one member commissioned some orphreys to be made in London, where many commercially successful embroidery workshops were based. Ludovico 28 Michael Edwin Bratchel, “Alien Merchant Communities in London 1500–1550” (Ph.D. diss., University of Cambridge, 1975), 29–40. 29 Anne F. Sutton and Peter W. Hammond, eds., The Coronation of Richard III: The Extant Documents (Gloucester, UK: Alan Sutton, 1983), 110–12. 30 Sutton and Hammond, Coronation of Richard III, 193. 31 Ibid., 313. All three aristocrats had died seventeen years earlier at Tewkesbury, two in battle and one executed immediately afterwards. Nevetheless, a special ceremony appears to have been arranged once a Lancastrian returned to the throne, although no further details of the event have been traced. 32 Bratchel, “Italian Merchant Organization,” 13. 33 Lisa Monnas, “New Documents for the Vestments of Henry VII at Stonyhurst College,” The Burlington Magazine 131, no. 1034 (1989): 346–48. 34 Bratchel, “Italian Merchant Organization,” 13–15. 35 Bratchel, “Alien Merchant Communities,” 379–80; Bratchel, “Italian Merchant Organization,” 15–16.

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Late-Fifteenth-Century Orphreys may have died in the city, and the gift of a vestment to the church where he regularly worshipped would have been a typical act of piety by, or on behalf of, someone of his status. Alternatively, the vestment may have been made for a religious confraternity with which the Buonvisi were connected, most probably the chapel dedicated to the Volto Santo established at St. Thomas Acon in Cheapside in the late fourteenth century.36 In a similar way in Paris and Bruges, Lucchese merchants established a chapel dedicated to the Volto Santo in, respectively, the church of the Holy Sepulchre and the Augustinian church.37 Therefore, the orphreys provide tangible evidence of the Italian community residing in London in the late fifteenth century. The iconography demonstrates that Ludovico Buonvisi retained a strong affinity with his native city, Lucca, to the end of his life and that it was possible for his favoured Italian saints to be venerated through the medium of English embroidery. The orphreys also show how embroidery was able to play a significant role in transmitting art from one country to another in the medieval period.

36 Sutcliffe, “Cult of St. Sitha,” 84. 37 Taburet-Delahaye, Paris 1400, 154; Cecil H. Clough, “Three Gigli of Lucca in England During the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries: Diversification in a Family of Mercery Merchants,” in Tant d’Emprises—So Many Undertakings: Essays in Honour of Anne F. Sutton, ed. Livia Visser-Fuchs, The Ricardian 13 (Upminster, UK: Richard III Society, 2003), 122.

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Academical Dress in Late Medieval and Renaissance Scotland Jonathan C. Cooper

Academical dress was worn routinely at the Scottish universities during the late medieval period and the Renaissance, going into decline between the Reformation and the reintroduction of hoods during the nineteenth century.1 We shall examine the use of academical dress by graduates and officials in the three pre-Reformation university institutions in Scotland—St. Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen—from the fifteenth to the mid-sixteenth centuries.2 A discussion of the varying effects of the Reformation on academical dress at each university in the decades following the disruptive events of 1560 will follow. Few known pictorial sources of evidence exist,3 but there are other sources in the form of contemporary statutes, inventories, and university annals. I am grateful for the helpful comments of anonymous reviewers. I am also grateful to Dr. Alan Ross for his help with Latin translation. Any remaining errors are my own. The phrase “academical dress” (rather than “academic dress”) is used throughout because most of the standard works on the topic adopt that usage.    1 For a comprehensive description of the development of medieval academical dress in England (with useful illustrations), see Alex Kerr, “Layer Upon Layer: The Evolution of Cassock, Gown, Habit and Hood as Academic Dress,” Transactions of the Burgon Society 5 (2005): 42–58. New academical dress was introduced at the Scottish universities following the Universities (Scotland) Act 1858, which sought to standardise institutional administration.    2 For an account of student dress in pre-Reformation Scotland, see Jonathan C. Cooper, “The Scarlet Gown: History and Development of Scottish Undergraduate Dress,” Transactions of the Burgon Society 10 (2010): 8–42, at 8–12.    3 An historiated initial in a Scottish manuscript of the fifteenth century shows a scribe at a desk, but detail is insufficient to ascertain whether or not academical dress is depicted; Psalter of the Gallican Version (ends imperfectly), London, British Library, MS Egerton 2899, 30r. Another historiated initial in the same manuscript (7r) shows a man at prayer wearing a hood, flanked by two men with censers wearing sleeveless supertunicae and belts. One of Pinturicchio’s frescoes, which decorates the Piccolomini Library in the Cathedral of Siena, depicts the court of King James I in 1435 and shows a figure in academical dress amongst the courtiers. However, the fresco was painted between 1502 and 1507 to commemorate the life of Pope Pius II, who was papal envoy in Scotland some seventy years previously; Jane Stevenson and Peter Davidson, “Ficino in Aberdeen: The Continuing Problem of the Scottish Renaissance,” Journal of the Northern Renaissance 1 (2009): 64–87, at 76. Although St. Andrews was the only Scottish university in 1435, the academic courtier may have been a graduate of a foreign university, or his dress may represent that worn in the universities known to the artist

Jonathan C. Cooper The earliest European universities were Bologna, constituted as a guild of students ca. 1088, and Paris, constituted as a guild of masters and granted its charter in 1200. Later institutions usually followed one of these constitutional precedents, or a hybrid of the two. Scotland saw three university foundations in the fifteenth century;4 in earlier times, students travelled abroad for education—mostly to Paris and to other universities in France.5 Instruction in the faculties of arts was based on the classical trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) and quadrivium (geometry, arithmetic, music, and astronomy). After graduation, further study in the higher faculties of law (canon and civil), medicine, and theology provided training for legal practitioners, physicians, and the incumbents of many rectories and vicarages; in 1496 all barons and wealthy freeholders were required by law to send their eldest sons to the universities to study the arts and law.6 Students, exclusively male during this period, were usually in minor orders, but not all were destined for the priesthood; they went on to form the administrative elite of the country after graduation, and one marker of their status was academical dress, which differed according to educational progression and was worn both within and outside the universities. Such dress was not monastic in nature but was sober and indicated clerkly status; it was generally similar across western Europe in the medieval period and basically consisted of an undertunic (subtunica), an overtunic (supertunica), and a hood (caputium). Graduates and dignitaries (that is, officeholders in the university, college, or church) added a habit (habitus), either in the form of a cappa7 or a tabard (tabardum), depending upon status.8 Hoods were originally used as practical garments,

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in the early sixteenth century. This fresco is unlikely to be an entirely accurate representation of the Scottish court in the first half of the fifteenth century. Similarly, the stained-glass window in Parliament Hall, Edinburgh, that commemorates the inauguration of the College of Justice by King James V in 1532, indexed by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) as no. SC 488834, depicts a wide variety of official dress but was erected in 1868, so cannot necessarily be taken as accurate. For a general account of the early history of these institutions, see Hastings Rash­dall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, 2nd ed., ed. F. M. Powicke and A. B. Emden, 3 vols. (London: Oxford University Press, 1936), 2:301–24. D. E. R. Watt, “Scottish Student Life Abroad in the Fourteenth Century,” Scottish Historical Review 59 (1980): 3–21, at 3–4. It was rare for Scottish students to travel to Oxford or Cambridge due to the state of war that existed between the kingdoms of Scotland and England during much of the fourteenth century. The Great Western Schism, which saw conflicting allegiances to rival popes in Rome and Avignon, also influenced where students went for study and was a factor in the establishment of the Scottish universities. Parliamentary Register, “Education Act,” King James IV, 13 June 1496: Edinburgh. Members of the learned professions without degrees were also to be found during this period. A type of outer habit or cloak worn on top of the overtunic. It was circular or semicircular in shape when laid flat, with a hole for putting it on over the head. It took four forms: cappa clausa, with one slit at the front for the passage of the arms and a hood; chimere, with two slits and no hood; cappa manicata, a chimere with redundant sleeves; or cappa nigra, with openings at shoulder level. The first three were floor-length, and the last reached to the shins. (With thanks to Dr. Alex Kerr for assistance with this definition.) Kerr, “Layer Upon Layer,” 42–45.

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Academical Dress in Late Medieval and Renaissance Scotland often fur-lined in winter and silk-lined in summer; later they were worn around the shoulders, rather than as a head covering. Academic progression in medieval Scotland was similar to that at other European universities, upon which their respective constitutions were based.9 Candidates for the degree of Bachelor of Arts were admitted to “determine” for the degree after completing a prescribed course of study and a set time in residence. After further study, bachelors who sought the licence would be scrutinised by temptatores (examiners), usually including the dean and various masters. Candidates for the magistracy, seen as a requirement to teach in the faculty, were “incepted” within a few weeks of attaining the licence at a ceremonial “act” during which they would be presented with the master’s birretum (peaked cap) and would ascend the magisterial chair. The temptatores were presented with birreti and gloves by the students being examined and were entertained to feasting as part of the act. Masters were often required to read lectura, that is to deliver lessons, for the university for a period of two years after inception, and fines were regularly levied on those who failed to comply, although these were difficult to enforce.10 In the higher faculties, the degree of doctor was equivalent to that of master in the Faculty of Arts.11 A sumptuary law of King James II dated 1458 applied to clerks and prescribed that “none wear gowns of scarlet or marten fur, except if he is a person constituted in dignity in cathedral or collegiate churches … or great nobles or doctors.”12 The dignitaries of St. Andrews and Glasgow Cathedrals and of St. Salvator’s Collegiate Church, who were often also officeholders in the respective universities, as well as doctors of the higher faculties, were therefore accustomed to wearing such garments during this period.   9 Some such documents were confirmed by papal bull and often drew upon earlier continental institutions, where several of the founders of the universities were educated.  10 Robert Kerr Hannay, The Statutes of the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Theology at the Period of the Reformation, St. Andrews University Publications 7 (St. Andrews, Scotland: W. C. Henderson, 1910), 8, 38–39, 43.  11 Abbreviated degree nomenclature in the Faculty of Arts: BA, LA, MA (bachelor, licentiate, master). In the higher faculties, the following apply (for bachelor, licentiate, doctor, respectively): canon law (decreets)—BDec, LDec, DDec; civil law—BCv, LCv, DCv; medicine—BMed, LMed, DMed; theology—BTh, LTh, DTh; see Isla Woodman, “Education and Episcopacy: The Universities of Scotland in the Fifteenth Century” (Ph.D. thesis, University of St. Andrews, 2010), 240–42.  12 Parliamentary Register, “Sumptuary Law,” King James II, 6 March 1458: Edinburgh; J. P. B., “Gleanings from Old Statute Books—Laws Relating to Dress,” Journal of Jurisprudence 20 (1876): 78–84, at 81. In this period, “scarlet” refers not to the colour but to a type of high-quality sheared wool cloth; John H. Munro, “The Medieval Scarlet and the Economics of Sartorial Splendour,” in Cloth and Clothing in Medieval Europe: Essays in Memory of Professor E. M. Carus-Wilson, ed. N. B. Harte and K. G. Ponting, Pasold Studies in Textile History 2 (London: Heinemann, 1983), 13–70; Munro, “Scarlet,” in Encyclopedia of Dress and Textiles in the British Isles c. 450–1450, ed. G. R. Owen-Crocker, E. Coatsworth, and M. Hayward (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 477–81. King Henry VIII enacted a sumptuary law in 1533 making provision for doctors to wear the colour scarlet in England, confirming established practice from the thirteenth or fourteenth century; Noel Cox, “Tudor Sumptuary Laws and Academical Dress: An Act Against Wearing of Costly Apparel 1509 and An Act for Reformation of Excess in Apparel 1533,” Transactions of the Burgon Society 6 (2006): 15–43, at 36. Similarly, Scottish doctors probably wore scarlet in the early fifteenth century, before legal provision was made.

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Jonathan C. Cooper UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS

Various faculty statutes dating from between the foundation of the university in 1413 and the Reformation exist, but records are incomplete. However, a number of facts about the use of academical dress can be gleaned from surviving statutes. As early as 1416 in the Faculty of Arts, the magisterial act saw the impositio magistralis birreti (placement of masters’ caps) as the central element of the ceremony, and masters reading lectura thereafter were required by oath to wear cappe that were round or pleated (rotunda vel rugata).13 The university seal, thought to have been cast before 1418, shows a regent wearing a supertunica and hood with shoulder cape, but detail is not visible.14 In 1431, Pope Eugenius IV granted a petition to the university which recognised that the requisite insignia for Doctors of Canon Law included a doctoral chair.15 The mace of St. Salvator’s College, which dates from 1461,16 bears three cast metal figures reading from books that have been interpreted as either monks or as theologians in academical dress.17 Close inspection reveals that the figures are wearing birreti and hoods so are likely to represent Doctors of Theology rather than monks, who would likely have bare tonsured heads. Small fines were imposed by the Faculty of Arts on bachelors and licentiates who did not provide their own cappe in 1455, and dispensation was given to a master to wear lay habit outwith the university on payment of a small sum in 1482.18 The hoods used in degree ceremonies are described in sixteenth-century statutes, although it seems likely that these remained constant from the time of the foundation of the university as there is no record of change. In 1525 the determination for the degree of Bachelor of Arts is described: “the examinee, in a cope and furred hood which were hired  13 Hannay, Statutes, 54–55, 8.  14 Matrix of Seal of University of St. Andrews, University of St. Andrews Library, Special Collections, item no. UYUY103; Henry Laing, Descriptive Catalogue of Impressions from Ancient Scottish Seals, Royal, Baronial, Ecclesiastical and Municipal, Embracing a Period from A.D. 1094 to the Commonwealth (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1850), 200–1, no. 1114; Transactions of the Burgon Society 10 (2010): back cover.  15 John Durkan, “The Scottish Universities in the Middle Ages, 1413–1560” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1959), 45.  16 This item, as well as the early-fifteenth-century maces of the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Canon Law, is now held by the Museum of the University of St. Andrews.  17 Alexander J. S. Brook, “An Account of the Maces of the Universities of St. Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Edinburgh, the College of Justice, the City of Edinburgh, &c,” Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 26 (1892): 440–514, at 464; Durkan, “Scottish Universities,” 107; Godfrey Evans, “The Mace of St. Salvator’s College,” in Medieval Art and Architecture in the Diocese of St. Andrews, ed. John Higgitt (London: British Archaeological Association, 1994), 197–212, at 208–9. Evans suggests that the figures are holders of MTh, LTh, and BTh degrees respectively, but this seems unlikely as only doctors (in the higher faculties) wore the birretum; see below, p. 116.  18 Hannay, Statutes, 21 n. William Scheves, archbishop of St. Andrews from 1476 to 1497, received dispensation to wear clothing of his choice, possibly the dress of a medical degree of the University of Louvain, in 1463; Woodman, “Education and Episcopacy,” 145 n. Original text: “et dispensatum fuit cum magistro Willelmo Schyves quod ipse poterat uti vestibus suis ad suum beneplacitum”; Annie I. Dunlop, Acta Facultatis Artium Universitatis Sanctiandree 1413–1588 (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1964), 150.

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Academical Dress in Late Medieval and Renaissance Scotland from the bedellus,19 sat upon the black stone and was questioned on his books”; the degree was confirmed by the dean directly thereafter.20 Bachelors being examined for the licence were instructed to wear red hoods (caputia rubea) in 1556.21 Bachelors in the Faculty of Theology would have already been through a course in the Faculty of Arts, and Doctors of Theology (equivalent to masters in the Faculty of Arts) had the birretum placed upon their heads by the chancellor as part of the degree ceremony.22 It is unclear whether there was a difference between the magisterial birretum of the Faculty of Arts and the doctoral birretum of the higher faculties. University statutes of ca. 1533 titled De regencium habitibus were for the direction of regents in all faculties and prescribed pleated or ordinary cappe: “Conclusum fuit quod nulli reputarent regentes in aliqua facultate nisi legant in hora statuta et in cappa rugata vel ordinaria” (It was decided that none should be considered regents in any faculty, unless they read out the statutes at the appointed time in pleated or ordinary cappe).23 Bishop Kennedy’s original code of statutes for the foundation of St. Salvator’s College in 1450 is now lost, but Provost Hugh Spens’ statutes of 1533 prescribed the use of habits in choir: In primis quod omnes canonici magistri capellani et iuvenes in dicto collegio fundati seu in posterum fundandi, cum in habitu contingat eis intra reaut exire dicti collegii chorum, inclinationes faciant debitas, primo principeli altari, demum prefecto in suo stallo cum habitu.24 (Firstly [it is decided] that all canons, masters, chaplains, and youths founded in the aforementioned college, or to be founded at a later date, when it happens that they enter or exit the choir of the aforementioned college in habits should bow [or genuflect?] first to the principal altar, then to the provost in his stall, who wears a habit.)

Records of the visitation on St. Salvator’s College by the rector, Alexander Sutherland, in 1534 indicate that the hebdomadar (a regent charged with disciplinary and religious duties) was to wear a surplice on certain days, but this is strictly ecclesiastical, rather than academical, dress.25 Archbishop Hamilton’s 1554 regulations for St. Mary’s College were based on those of the earlier foundation. With particular reference to dress, the regulations state that “all founded persons are to be present [in choir]  19 This term refers to a beadle or mace-bearer and is equivalent to bedel or bedell at Oxford and Cambridge respectively. The Latinate form bedellus is still used in the universities of St. Andrews and Glasgow; Sacrist is used in the University of Aberdeen.  20 Hannay, Statutes, 43. The medieval black stones of the universities of St. Andrews and Glasgow are still preserved. Each faculty evidently had its own bedellus; that of the Faculty of Canon Law acted as University bedellus in 1422; Durkan, “Scottish Universities,” 43.  21 Hannay, Statutes, 51. When hoods were reintroduced at St. Andrews in the nineteenth century, the MA hood was lined with red silk.  22 Ibid., 77–78.  23 Durkan, “Scottish Universities,” Appendix, 178.  24 Ibid., Appendix, 98.  25 Original text: “in diebus dominicis, festivis et duplicibus, accendantur duo cerii [sic] cum ceroferariis assistentibus abdomidario pro tempore in superpelliciis honestis ut decet”; ibid., Appendix, 103.

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Jonathan C. Cooper robed in surplices and with the Provost, Licentiate, Bachelor, and Canonist wearing hoods in the manner of the Provost and Canons of St. Salvator’s College.”26 Later in this document, the same officeholders are instructed to wear dress as that of Paris.27 An inventory of St. Salvator’s Collegiate Church and its furnishings titled Registrum Vestimentorum et Jocalium Colegii Sancti Salvatoris, compiled in the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century, lists a number of items of official academical dress as well as a host of ecclesiastical vestments. However, because ordinary choir dress would have been the private property of college members, it is not found in the inventory.28 By means of comparison with contemporary practice elsewhere, the 1443 statutes of All Souls College, Oxford, stipulate that graduate fellows were to wear “furred hoods over their surplices lined with silk according to their degrees,” this being the earliest recorded requirement for the use of degree hoods in choir.29 It is probable that the hoods worn by the members of St. Salvator’s College, and later by those of St. Mary’s College, were those of their degrees. If these hoods were used at St. Salvator’s from the time of its foundation in 1450, then it provides a very early example of the use of academical hoods in choir in Britain.30 The dress of the early provosts of St. Salvator’s College would seem to have been made up of a combination of garments. The incised tombstone of Provost Hugh Spens, who died in 1534, is still preserved in St. Salvator’s Chapel and is significant as it has long been thought to provide the only recorded contemporary detailed depiction of a medieval Scottish academic (fig. 6.1).31 Spens is shown wearing a mantle  26 Ronald G. Cant, The College of St. Salvator: Its Foundation and Development (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1950), 115–16.  27 Royal Commission of Inquiry into the State of the Universities of Scotland, Evidence, Oral and Documentary, Taken and Received by the Commissioners … for Visiting the Universities of Scotland, vol. 3., University of St. Andrews (London: HMSO, 1837), 364. Original text: “Præfectus, Licenciatus, et Bachalaurius, et Canonista, domi et foris, gestent capitia brevia, juxta consuetudinem Parisiensium; insuper studentes theologiæ, ad bachalaureatum usque, et quinque Regentes similiter, Parisiensium more, capitia deferant.” Translation (with thanks to Dr. Alex Kerr): “Provost, licentiate, and bachelor, and canonist, indoors and out, shall wear short hoods according to the custom in Paris. In addition, students of theology, right up to admission as a bachelor, and similarly the five regents, shall carry hoods in the Parisian fashion.”  28 Cant, College of St. Salvator, 121.  29 E. G. C. F. Atchley, “The Hood as an Ornament of the Minister at the Time of His Ministrations in Quire and Elsewhere,” Transactions of the St. Paul’s Ecclesiological Society 4 (1900): 313–28, at 320–21; Nicholas Groves, “The Use of the Academic Hood in Quire,” Transactions of the Burgon Society 8 (2008): 98–105, at 99 n.  30 Cant, College of St. Salvator, 122.  31 Ibid., 89; Alex Kerr, “Hargreaves-Mawdsley’s History of Academical Dress and the Pictorial Evidence for Great Britain and Ireland: Notes and Corrections,” Transactions of the Burgon Society 8 (2008): 106–50, at 141. However, a fifteenth-century bas-relief discovered in Edinburgh depicts a physician wearing a hood (possibly fur-lined) and a supertunica with closed sleeves; the figure seems to be wearing a coif rather than a birretum, so is likely to represent a bachelor or licentiate rather than a doctor; David McRoberts, ed., Essays on the Scottish Reformation 1513–1625 (Glasgow: Burns, 1962), xiii and plate 10 (facing p. 129). There is also a contemporary engraving of John Mair (ca. 1467– 1550), who was born in Scotland and became principal of the University of Glasgow and provost of St. Salvator’s College. However, his degrees were granted by the University of Paris, and the engraving

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Figure 6.1: Detail from the funeral effigy of Hugh Spens (d. 1534), provost of St. Salvator’s College, at St. Salvator’s Chapel, University of St. Andrews. Photo: By permission of the University of St. Andrews.

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Jonathan C. Cooper over a supertunica and a large academic-style hood. He also has a pointed cap and is shown with a chalice and host, the latter being ecclesiastical symbols. It is unclear whether Spens is being depicted in academical, ecclesiastical, or official dress, as he was doctor, priest, and college provost, but it may well be that all three are being portrayed at once.32 The cap is probably the birretum worn by doctors; it is mentioned in statutes of the Faculty of Theology (as noted above) but was evidently also worn in the other higher faculties, as Spens held a legal doctorate.33 In the testament of Peter Chaplain, provost in 1550–51, a “scarlet gown with a doctor’s hood” is listed.34 This indicates that a distinctive doctoral hood was worn as well as the birretum, and it may be that shown being worn by Spens. However, it is unclear as to whether the scarlet gown was that of the academic rank of doctor or that of the office of provost. The sumptuary law of 1458 exempted doctors and collegiate church dignitaries from the ban on wearing the cloth then known as scarlet, but if Peter Chaplain’s gown of a century later were in fact scarlet in colour, it could have indicated either his status as a doctor or as provost.35 The late-fifteenth- to early-sixteenth-century inventory of St. Salvator’s College records an especially embroidered cappa of red velvet for the use of the provost.36 Also recorded in the inventory are items thought to have been left to the college by Bishop Kennedy after his death in 1465: a “rede skarlet cape lynit wyth sylk and furret with ermyn” and “a new other skarlet cape off florence skarlet broune cugnyt lynit wyth sylk and furret wyth menyuer,” only to be used by the provost in “solempnyt actis.”37 These especially fine items furred with ermine and miniver could have been ecclesiastical dress used by the provost during divine service or official academical dress used during university ceremonies. was made whilst he was teaching there, so Scottish academical dress is not depicted; John Mair, In Petri Hyspani Summulas Commentaria (Lyon, 1505), title page, reproduced in McRoberts, Essays, 282. A portrait (ca. 1538) of David Beaton (ca. 1494–1546), cardinal archbishop of St. Andrews and chancellor of the university, is held by Blairs Museum, Aberdeen (accession no. T0208), and may show the form of the doctoral birretum worn in Scotland before the Reformation (although it was painted in Italy ca. 1600). Wall paintings dating from the late fifteenth or early sixteenth century are preserved in the tower of Dunkeld Cathedral and show judicial scenes such as the judgment of Solomon (appropriate since the space was used as a consistory court). Some of the figures are shown in caps, gowns, and furred capes and may be wearing contemporary ecclesiastical and/or legal dress, or perhaps even that of legal graduates; it is difficult to be certain of detail due to the poor state of preservation; see photographs in the cathedral’s entry in the AHRC’s Corpus of Scottish Medieval Parish Churches database at http://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/corpusofscottishchurches/site. php?id=157340.  32 I acknowledge the expert assistance of Dr. Alex Kerr in the interpretation of this slab.  33 Durkan, “Scottish Universities,” 242.  34 Cant, College of St. Salvator, 122 n. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the term “scarlet” referred to the colour rather than the type of the cloth; Bruce Christianson, “Doctors’ Greens,” Transactions of the Burgon Society 6 (2006): 44–48, at 45 n. The fabric would have been of wool, as silk would have been termed as “crimson” rather than “scarlet”; Cox, “Tudor Sumptuary Laws,” 36 n.  35 See also note 12.  36 Cant, College of St. Salvator, 125. Original text: “red cap of vellowis broudyn with nedyll werk for the Prouest” (153).  37 Ibid., 153 n. These robes may have been worn by Kennedy in his capacity as bishop of St. Andrews or as chancellor of the university—or both if the latter office did not have peculiar dress.

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Academical Dress in Late Medieval and Renaissance Scotland The funeral effigy of Alexander Young (d. ca. 1544), principal of St. Leonard’s College and canon regular, may provide us with a further representation of a medieval Scottish academic (fig. 6.2).38 He is depicted wearing a gown-like outer garment with loose, baggy sleeves and a shoulder cape with a roll of fabric at the neck (partly obscured by damage), indicating that he wore a standard medieval academical hood; he also appears to be wearing gauntlet-type gloves.39 Young has been described as being “in the habit of an Augustinian canon.”40 However, comparison with the effigy of a contemporary Scottish Augustinian canon, Bricius MacMhuirich of Oronsay Priory, who is depicted wearing a sleeveless mantle, does not support this.41 As with Provost Spens, Principal Young was a priest, an academic, and a college official. Because his dress is not like that of contemporary ecclesiastics of his rank, it seems more likely that his effigy depicts his academical dress as Licentiate in Sacred Letters42 or possibly his official dress as college principal. During the turbulent times following the assassination of Cardinal David Beaton in 1546, the hoods of the Faculty of Arts were removed to Monimail, a palace of the archbishops of St. Andrews some distance from the city, for safekeeping. The bedellus fetched them back only when order had been restored, indicating that the hoods were valued by the faculty.43 UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW

Dress at the University of Glasgow was modelled on that of the University of ­Bologna, according to its 1451 foundation charter,44 and a statute of the Faculty of Arts of 1452  38 I am grateful to Seamus Hargrave for pointing out the existence of this effigy, which is now hidden beneath a carpet in St. Leonard’s Chapel, St. Andrews. See also a photograph in the church’s entry in the AHRC’s Corpus of Scottish Medieval Parish Churches database at http://arts.st-andrews. ac.uk/corpusofscottishchurches/site.php?id=165303. There is some confusion in the sources about this effigy. It was identified as Emmanuel Young in the mid-nineteenth century, and a crude representation of it was published in Charles J. Lyon, The Ancient Monuments of St. Andrews (Edinburgh: R. Grant, 1847), 5. Later, the standard work on the college identified the effigy as that of Alexander, and not Emmanuel, Young; John Herkless and Robert Kerr Hannay, The College of St. Leonard (Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1905), 216. However, the name Emmanuel continued to be reproduced elsewhere; see Alan Reid, “The Churchyard Memorials of St. Andrews,” Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 45 (1910–11): 488–550, at 491; John Gifford, The Buildings of Scotland: Fife (London: Penguin, 1988), 388; RCAHMS, no. SC 1429384.  39 I acknowledge the expert assistance of Dr. Alex Kerr in the interpretation of this slab.  40 Ronald G. Cant, St. Leonard’s Chapel, St. Andrews (St. Andrews, Scotland: University Court, 1978), 19.  41 RCAHMS, no. SC 536309.  42 Records of St. Salvator’s College, University of St. Andrews Library, Special Collections, UYSS110/ AE/14.  43 Durkan, “Scottish Universities,” 360. The Faculty of Arts purchased a steel bonnet and breastplate for the bedellus ca. 1557, evidently expecting violence in the struggle against “convoking the colleges to faculty acts” (361).  44 Cosmo Innes, Munimenta Alme Universitatis Glasguensis, 3 vols. (Glasgow: Maitland Club, 1854), 2:13, 24.

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Figure 6.2: Rubbing of the funeral effigy of Alexander Young (d. ca. 1544), principal of St. Leonard’s College, at St. Leonard’s Chapel, University of St. Andrews. Photo: By permission of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

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Academical Dress in Late Medieval and Renaissance Scotland states that regents and all masters of the faculty were not to appear at public acts without decent dress.45 Further statutes of the same year note that two masters were ordered to buy cloth with money from the common purse to make a cappa, and that students appearing for examination for the bachelor’s degree were to appear wearing a cappa and a furred hood (cappa et capucio foderato).46 According to records of 1453, those seeking to determine for the degree of Bachelor of Arts were expected to wear seemly dress—those of sufficient means were to have their own, and poorer students were to have one set between three; later, it states that students were to have their own or those of another.47 The executors of Patrick Leitch senior, former chancellor of Glasgow Cathedral, presented the university with a red hood made of scarlet and furred with miniver (caputium rubei coloris de le scarlet fodoratum cum le miniewar) in 1463.48 This hood may have been designated for use by the rector in 1481.49 The entries in the annals for 1463 detail the appointment of a keeper of the faculty robes (custos habituum), the expenditure of monies on dress for the Faculty of Arts and the purchase of robes, specifically “four or six hoods and a master’s cappa with fur stitched on, as is obligatory.”50 It was instituted that fees would be levied for the repair of the faculty robes—those determining for the bachelor’s degree would pay a shilling, and those being examined for the licentiate two shillings. In 1469, further new hoods and fur were ordered for the use of the faculty.51 It seems that the distinction between the furred cappa of the master and that of the bachelor was significant at Glasgow during this period; the change from individual to faculty ownership is also significant. In 1474, three bachelors were received into the university one month before the statutory graduation date, but they did not receive their insignia until the following year.52 This indicates the symbolic importance of dress as a marker of academic status. It appears that bachelors’ hoods were blue and those of higher degree holders were red. In 1479, the new custos habituum received from his predecessor as keeper of the faculty robes five furred hoods, four blue and one red, and a furred cappa.53 This indicates that it was not only the bachelors’ hoods that were furred. In the same

 45 Ibid., 2:36. Original text: “Item statuimus quod Regentes et alii magistri facultatis non intrent actus publicos precipue disputationes promotiones et sermones nisi in habitibus honestis.”  46 Ibid., 2:180, 26.  47 Ibid., 2:182, 183. Original text: “decanum et facultatem conclusum fuit quod si sint aliqui qui voluerint determinare vel generaliter respondere quod tres et tres inter se habeant unum habitum decentem et quilibet potens vel beneficiatus habitum per se. . . . insuper de habitibus prout tangitur in concione precedente fuit pro anno currenti cum omnibus dispensatum si quilibet eorum sive in determinatione sive in responsione haberet honestum habitum proprium vel alienum.”  48 Ibid., 2:199–200. For scarlet as a type of cloth, see note 12.  49 Jonathan C. Cooper, “The Dress of Rectors at the Scottish Universities,” Transactions of the Burgon Society 12 (2012): 46–62, at 51.  50 Innes, Munimenta, 2:200–1. Original text: “quatuor vel sex caputia et unam cappam magisterialem cum suis foderaturis quod faciendum est.”  51 Ibid., 2:210.  52 Ibid., 2:218–19.  53 Durkan, “Scottish Universities,” 438; Original text: “quinque capucia foderata quatuor videlicet blodei coloris et unum rubei coloris et cum hiis habet cappam foderatam.”

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Jonathan C. Cooper year, he was ordered to ascertain what monies were available for the repair of robes; replacement was also necessary, as it seems that robes were not always returned to the faculty after use by their wearers.54 In 1490, the bursar was ordered to purchase “six hoods, sufficiently furred, of the proper cloth in a blodei [sic] colour for the common use of the aforementioned faculty and the students in it.”55 The use of blodei here has been translated as red56 and also as blue.57 However, the latter seems more likely due to the use of blodei alongside rubei in 1479, indicating that it was quite distinct from red. As the blue hoods were more numerous, presumably these were for the use of bachelors; the use of red for licentiates/masters and furred hoods for bachelors is similar to that at St. Andrews (as discussed above). There is no clear record of what mid-fifteenth-century graduates of the Faculty of Arts at Bologna wore, so no inference of what Glasgow set out to emulate can be made. As for headwear, a licentiate taking the MA degree in 1476 is described as receiving the magistrale birretum, and in 1482 the statutes described the impositionem magistralis birreti as symbolic of the degree, just as in the Faculty of Arts at St. Andrews earlier in the fifteenth century.58 John Goldsmith, who served variously as dean of the Faculty of Arts, principal, and rector from 1478 to 1498, made his will in 1507, leaving Alexander Menteith, prior of Restenneth, his gown of russet and a short black gown.59 Alexander Hamilton, senior regent in 1539–47, left his “second-best gown as well as books” to John Hamilton,  54 Innes, Munimenta, 2:229; James Coutts, A History of the University of Glasgow: From its Foundation in 1451 to 1909 (Glasgow: J. MacLehose, 1909), 28–29.  55 Innes, Munimenta, 2:256. Original text: “sex capucia sufficienter foderata de panno sufficiente blodei coloris ad usum communem dicte facultatis et studiencium in eadem.” Blodie would be a more usual spelling. In the same year it is recorded that the cappa, hoods, and mace (cappe capuciorum et virge argentee) of the university were ordered to be reformed (2:106). Because the mace had been completed as recently as 1469 (2:75), it seems likely that its “reform” was repair rather than a making anew, so it would also seem likely that the new hoods ordered would have been in an existing style.  56 Ibid., 2:xliv; Coutts, University of Glasgow, 29.  57 W. N. Hargreaves-Mawdsley, A History of Academical Dress in Europe Until the End of the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963), 140; John Durkan and James Kirk, The University of Glasgow, 1451–1577 (Glasgow: University of Glasgow Press, 1977), 197; Bruce Christianson, “Oxford Blues: The Search for the Origins of the Lay Bachelors’ Hood,” Burgon Society Annual 3 (2003): 24–29, at 27. There is confusion over the translation of blod either as “blood” from the Old English blodig (indicating the colour red) or as “blue” from the medieval Latin blodius; Earl R. Anderson, Folk-Taxonomies in Early English (London: Associated University Presses, 1943), 173; Laura F. Hodges, Chaucer and Clothing: Clerical and Academic Costume in the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2005), 214 n; Lisa Monnas, “Some Medieval Colour Terms for Textiles,” Medieval Clothing and Textiles 10 (2014): 25­–57, at 35.  58 Innes, Munimenta, 2:223, 10. At Glasgow, the birretum was placed upon the heads of new masters by the bedellus, rather than by the chancellor as at St. Andrews (2:31). Hargreaves-Mawdsley (Academical Dress, 140) states that “graduates wore a pileus,” but no evidence for this is presented; for more on the pileus, see note 102.  59 Joseph Bain and Charles Rogers, eds., Liber Protocollorum M. Cuthberti Simonis Notarii Publici et Scribæ Capituli Glasguensis A.D. 1499–1513, 2 vols. (London: Grampian Club, 1875), 2:174. Original text: “unum togam de le russet, et curtam togam de nigro.” Russet was “a popular woollen homespun, usually died [sic] black or reddish brown,” presumably the latter in this case; Margaret H. B. Sanderson, “Clothing Sixteenth-Century Scotland: Crafts, Clothes and Clients,” Review of Scottish Culture 22 (2010): 35–51, at 41.

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Academical Dress in Late Medieval and Renaissance Scotland who followed as regent.60 These records indicate the worth placed upon garments by medieval Scottish academics, and it is probable that these items were academical due to their everyday use within the universities during this period. UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN

In Bishop William Elphinstone’s charter of 1505,61 it is ordered that Doctors of Canon Law and Doctors of Medicine at King’s College were to dress in the style of those of the University of Paris, but Doctors of Civil Law were to follow the style of the University of Orléans.62 At Paris, Doctors of Canon Law were ordered to wear a sombre cappa and hood by Cardinal d’Estouteville in 1452 but were described as wearing chapes rouges in 1530 (and probably did before this time); Doctors of Medicine wore a light green tight-sleeved supertunica with an opening at the breast along with an orange hood in the early sixteenth century.63 Doctors of Civil Law at Orléans likely wore the chaperon, which was adopted from lay fashion and worn in universities in France from the fifteenth century; it developed from the hood, was worn off the left shoulder and, in the case of a doctor, decorated with three rows of fur.64 It seems more  60 Durkan, “Scottish Universities,” 496.  61 The University of Aberdeen was founded by papal bull in 1495. The college, originally erected as the College of St. Mary in the Nativity in 1497, was re-founded as King’s College in 1505. Further expansion was planned in 1514 but did not come to pass due to Elphinstone’s death in that year; this was finally implemented by Bishop Gavin Dunbar in 1529–31. Woodman, “Education and Episcopacy,” 80 n.  62 Cosmo Innes, Fasti Aberdonenses: Selections from the Records of the University and King’s College of Aberdeen, 1494–1854 (Aberdeen: The Spalding Club, 1854), 58. This is repeated in Dunbar’s refoundation charter of 1529 (87). Elphinstone himself had graduated as an MA of Glasgow and went on to study decreets (canon law) at Paris, where he became the first reader in that discipline, then civil law at Orléans; Woodman, “Education and Episcopacy,” 77. The likely logic behind the inspiration for the dress of doctors of canon and civil law, therefore, becomes apparent. The foundation made provision for principals in theology, decreets, and civil law. As the heads of each of the faculties, they were required to hold the degrees of DTh (or failing that, BTh), DDec, and DCv respectively (79). A royal endowment of King James IV established a chair in medicine in 1497, and teaching in this faculty at Aberdeen was based on that of the University of Paris. In 1506, papal dispensation was given for the university to confer the degree of doctor notwithstanding the lack of existing doctors present in the faculty. This was in recognition of the fact that it was not natural for a bachelor or licentiate to confer a degree he did not himself possess, but special dispensation was sought in order to avoid the expense of bringing doctors from elsewhere to Aberdeen for the conferral of degrees; Roger French, “Medical Teaching in Aberdeen: From the Foundation of the University to the Middle of the Seventeenth Century,” History of Universities 3 (1983): 127–57, at 128–29.  63 Hargreaves-Mawdsley, Academical Dress, 40, 43. For a pictorial representation of a Doctor of Medicine of the University of Paris, ca. 1500, see Le Chappelet de Jhesus et de la Vierge Marie, London, British Library, MS Add. 25693, 15v.  64 Hargreaves-Mawdsley, Academical Dress, 39–40; Yves Mausen, “The Question of Ecclesiastical Influences on French Academic Dress,” Transactions of the Burgon Society 5 (2005): 36–41, at 40. A royal edict of 1679 refers to the revival of old ceremonial at Orléans and describes the dress of doctors who were full professors as a red robe and that of assistant professors as a black gown with a red chaperon; Hargreaves-Mawdsley, Academical Dress, 52. The distinction between ranks is a

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Jonathan C. Cooper likely that Bishop Elphinstone’s intention was to follow the statutes at Paris rather than the observed practice, so Doctors of Canon Law at King’s College probably wore a dark cappa, Doctors of Medicine a green supertunica, and Doctors of Civil Law a red chaperon. Further statutes promulgated in 1505 stipulate the dress of members of the college whilst celebrating divine service, but these garments were ecclesiastical rather than academical in nature.65 Bishop Gavin Dunbar’s 1529 statutes order that “no regent studying theology or law is to go out without a hood and a long corneto [caputio et corneto longo] until he is promoted to bachelor of theology, then he can wear a short hood [caputio brevi].”66 The use of the term corneto here has been translated as liripipe.67 However, it may refer to the cornette, a square form of the chaperon used by men of law in France.68 Both interpretations are problematic. It seems odd to instruct regents to wear a hood and a liripipe when the latter is part of the former.69 Alternatively, considering the chaperon is essentially a hood worn on the shoulder, it would be illogical to wear both, although there are instances where two evolved headdresses have been worn together, such as in the Faculty of Medicine at Montpellier where the double camail and chausse were combined.70 In either case, the statute is significant because it indicates that different shapes of hood were used depending upon degree, with a short hood being distinctive of Bachelors of Theology. Hector Boece, principal of King’s College from 1500 to 1534, went to Paris to take his doctorate in 1526. When he returned to Aberdeen in 1528, the town council offered him a tun of wine or £20 for doctoral bonnets, whichever he preferred.71 Presumably, the bonnets would have been intended for the use of new graduates. In an inventory of the vestments of King’s College Chapel taken in 1542, the ornaments of the Faculty of Arts included “four round cappe with five hoods for them, furred”; “a cappa for a seventeenth-century innovation; Mausen, “French Academic Dress,” 41. However, the use of the colour red is likely to have been long established, and it was probably this, along with the use of the chaperon, that was emulated at King’s College.  65 Innes, Fasti, 60–61, 62. Depending on the calendar, various members of the college were to wear surplices and black furred hoods (superpelliceis et capuciis nigris foderatis) and black cappe of woollen cloth or of serge (cappis nigris de panno laneo vel de ly sarge). They were also ordered to commemorate the life of King James IV annually wearing the habit, black cappa, and proper singulum (habitibus et cappis nigris ut decet singulis).  66 Ibid., 100–1. Ecclesiastical dress is also stipulated in these statutes (93, 95).  67 Francis C. Eeles, King’s College Chapel, Aberdeen: Its Fittings, Ornaments and Ceremonial in the Sixteenth Century (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1956), 116. The corneto has also been defined literally as “with a horn-like appendage”; Atchley, “The Hood,” 316.  68 Hargreaves-Mawdsley, Academical Dress, 39; Mausen, “French Academic Dress,” 40.  69 This could also be interpreted as “hood with a liripipe” (with thanks to Professor Gale Owen-Crocker for pointing this out).  70 Mausen, “French Academic Dress,” 39.  71 Durkan, “Scottish Universities,” 551; John Stuart, ed., Extracts from the Council Register of the Burgh of Aberdeen, 2 vols. (Aberdeen: The Spalding Club, 1844), 1:121. Boece can be seen wearing an embroidered furred gown and skullcap in a portrait painted between 1520 and 1530 (University of Aberdeen Marischal Museum, no. ABDUA:31197), but this is likely to show secular rather than academical dress.

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Academical Dress in Late Medieval and Renaissance Scotland doctor with the hood belonging to it”; “a small black cappa without a hood”; “four epitogia, of which three are of red English cloth and one of ‘Fransche brown,’ with four hoods, namely one of ‘Franshe brown,’ one of red cloth and two of black”; and “twenty-one hoods of bachelors of arts, furred.”72 This inventory shows further evidence of the strong French influence on academical dress in pre-Reformation Aberdeen. The cappa rotunda was worn widely at Paris, Toulouse, and Montpellier as well as at St. Andrews, where it was worn by Masters of Arts; several were held by the Faculty of Arts at King’s College.73 The red epitogia are likely to be the chaperon worn by Doctors of Civil Law—the two terms refer to the same garment at different stages of its evolution and are to some extent interchangeable.74 The function of the epitoge and hood described as “Fransche brown” is unclear but it was probably not used by the rector, whose everyday cappa is described as “Fransche brown” but worn without a hood.75 This evidence for the use of the epitoge/chaperon is probably unique in Scotland and indicates the significance of continental influence on Scottish university ceremonial during this period.76 It can also be noted from the inventory that a doctoral cappa and hood designed to be used together were extant and that King’s College seemed to conform to common contemporary practice in using fur as a distinctive feature of its bachelors’ hoods. During his visitation of King’s College in 1549, Rector Alexander Galloway ordered that all students in theology, that is to say Masters of Arts (for this degree was required for admission to the higher faculties), were to wear a round hood (caputium rotundum) with a round clerical cap (biretis clericalibus rotundis).77 Further, the rector also ordered that the sub-principal should have the “epitogia cappas et caputia magistrorum bacchalorium” reformed.78 This, along with the inventory of 1542, shows that these garments were the property of the college or faculty rather than that of the graduates themselves. Additionally, there is a reference to a “furred hood” (caputio foderato) being used during the examination of those to become masters.79 It was customary for  72 Eeles, King’s College Chapel, 22, 45. “Fransche” refers to the provenance of the cloth; similarly, garments described as “Paris brown” were high-status clothes; Sanderson, “Clothing,” 48.  73 Hargreaves-Mawdsley, Academical Dress, 216. The cappa rotunda may have been a rounded form of the cappa manicata (193).  74 Nicholas Groves, ed., Shaw’s Academical Dress of Great Britain and Ireland, 3rd ed. (London: Burgon Society, 2011), 1:16–17.  75 Innes, Fasti, 571; Eeles, King’s College Chapel, 21. For a detailed account of rectorial dress at medieval King’s College, see Cooper, “Dress of Rectors,” 54.  76 A figure on the mace of St. Salvator’s College, dated 1461, has been interpreted as wearing the epitoge, but close inspection does not support this; Hugh Blackburn, Notes on the Birretum Doctorale seu Magistrale, the Cap Appropriate to Graduates, of which the “Impositio” Symbolised the Conferring of the Degree: From Ancient Examples (n.p., ca. 1870), 3. The chaperon was worn at neither Oxford nor Cambridge. However, the cappa nigra (a short chimere, or form of cappa with two arm slits) was worn by regent Masters of Arts at Oxford in the fifteenth century and was also to be found in the King’s College inventory; Hargreaves-Mawdsley, Academical Dress, 79–80.  77 Innes, Fasti, 260.  78 Ibid., 265. This is likely to have been an order to make new or repair rather than to alter the shape, as has been suggested; Hargreaves-Mawdsley, Academical Dress, 143.  79 Innes, Fasti, 269–70.

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Jonathan C. Cooper degrees to be conferred immediately after the oral disputation which constituted the examination. However, it is unclear whether a bachelor’s hood was worn during the examination, symbolic of the student’s current status, or a master’s hood was awarded once the examination was complete. As the 1542 inventory shows that BA hoods were furred, and as fur was associated with bachelors’ hoods contemporaneously at St. Andrews and Glasgow, the former theory seems more likely.80 REFORMATION

Even in the early agitation which preceded the Reformation proper, the rejection of ecclesiastical dress was a key tenet of the Protestant cause. This is evident in the “casting down” of many churches in Scotland in the 1540s and 1550s, which saw the removal and destruction of church ornamentation, including vestments but also altars, images, and stalls.81 A series of Provincial Councils was summoned by John Hamilton, archbishop of St. Andrews, between 1549 and 1559; the aim was to reform the Scottish Catholic Church and combat heresy.82 Statutes relating to beneficed churchmen and clerks in holy orders passed by the council in 1549 ordered that “according to the ancient custom of the clergy,” they were to wear “only round birettas”; furthermore, they were forbidden to wear “yellow, green, and such kinds of parti-colour,” and were expected to wear “long cassocks reaching down to the ankle.”83 The same council ordered that all prelates and churchmen were “to be exhorted to wear henceforth graver attire than they have been wont to do, which should be of wool, of appropriate colour, rather  80 At Glasgow, the use of fur was not restricted to bachelors (see above, p. 119).  81 The preaching tours of George Wishart are thought to have been influential in inciting many such acts; McRoberts, Essays, 418, 420. Wishart (MA, Louvain) returned to Scotland from exile ca. 1543, after spending some years in England and on the Continent. Whilst in residence at Corpus Christi College (then called Bene’t’s), Cambridge, ca. 1542, he is described “having on him for his habit or clothing never but a mantle or frieze gown to the shoes, a black Millian fustian doublet, and plain black hosen, coarse new canvas for his shirts, and white falling bands and cuffs at his hands;” he also wore “a round French cap of the best.” He was burnt as a heretic at St. Andrews in 1546; Alexander F. Mitchell, The Scottish Reformation: Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1900), 56–78; see also a portrait of 1543 held by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery (accession no. PG 580). Similarly, another early leader of the Reformation, Patrick Hamilton (MA, Paris), “loathed the gown and cowl,” in spite of being Abbot of Fearne, and refused to wear them. He was burned as a heretic at St. Andrews in 1528; Thomas Spencer Baynes and Lewis Campbell, eds., Speculum Universitatis: Alma Mater’s Mirror (Edinburgh: Constable, 1887), 137–38. In 1559–60, the superior of the Trinitarian Monastery at Peebles was forced to change “his white habit for a grey keltour gowne,” and to put on a “how black bonnet,” to symbolise his adoption of the new religion on pain of death; McRoberts, Essays, 434–35. The Dictionary of the Scots Language database (http://www.dsl.ac.uk) defines “kelter” in this era as a thick broadcloth and “how bonet” as “a bonnet with a hollow upper part, in contrast to a flat one.”  82 Alec Ryrie, “Reform Without Frontiers in the Last Years of Catholic Scotland,” The English Historical Review 119 (2004): 27–56, at 27–28. There are parallels to be drawn between the Scottish Provincial Councils and the contemporary continental Counter-Reformation and the Council of Trent.  83 David Patrick, ed., Statutes of the Scottish Church 1225–1559 (Edinburgh: Scottish History Society, 1907), 92.

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Academical Dress in Late Medieval and Renaissance Scotland than of silk, and should itself give an impression of gravity.”84 There is no record that the councils immediately following dealt with dress: The council of 1552 was chiefly concerned with the vernacular catechism, and that of 1556 left no records; that of 1559 reiterated many of the orders of the 1549 council and put in place means for their enforcement.85 However, John Knox described the last Provincial Council (1559) dismissively: “thare was much ado for cappes, schavin crounes, tippettis, long gounes, and such other trifilles.”86 The Provincial Councils were concerned with ecclesiastical rather than academical dress; similarly, the “casting down” of churches was aimed at the destruction of ecclesiastical vestments. However, these accounts are useful as a record of Catholic attitudes toward dress in the years immediately preceding the Reformation, and, as scholars and masters were almost invariably clerks during this period, the effects of the councils’ orders would have been felt in the universities as well as in the dioceses and parishes. Although the adoption of the Protestant Confession of Faith by the Parliament in August 1560 and the first General Assembly of the reformed church in Scotland in December of that year are commonly used to mark the Reformation, its effects were felt at the universities gradually and culminated with the appointment of a Parliamentary commission in 1578 to “visit and consider the foundations and erections of the universities and colleges within this realm; with full power to them to reform such things as sounds to superstition, idolatry, and papistry, and to displace such as are unqualified and not fit to discharge their office in the said universities, and to plant such qualified and worthy persons there as they shall find good and sufficient for the education of the youth and according to the common welfare of this realm.”87 Reformed attitudes toward dress can be gleaned from a letter written by the General Assembly in 1566 and addressed to the English bishops. Although the letter refers to dress in an ecclesiastical rather than academical context, it singles out the use of the surplice, cornered cap (birretum), and tippet for censure. Such garments were worn in the universities, as well as by the clergy. If surp-claithes, cornett cap and tippet, has bein badges of idolaters in the verie act of ther idolatrie, what hes the preacher of Christian libertie and the oppin rebuiker of all superstitioun to doe with the dregges of that Romish beast; ȝea what is he that ought not to feare either to take in his hand or foirheid, the print and marke of that odious beast? Our brethren that in conscience refuses that unprofitable apparrell, does neither damne nor molest ȝou that use sick vaine trifles.88  84 Ibid., 94.  85 Ryrie, “Reform without Frontiers,” 32–33.  86 Ibid., 29. “Schavin crounes” refers to the tonsure. Considering that Knox referred to items of dress as “trifles,” it is somewhat ironic that he has headwear named after him (the John Knox cap), which is now worn as part of doctoral dress at several of the Scottish universities.  87 Parliamentary Register, “Concerning the Visitation of the Universities and Colleges,” King James VI, 15 July 1578: Stirling.  88 Thomas Thomson, ed., Acts and Proceedings of the General Assemblies of the Kirk of Scotland, from the year M.D.LX., 3 vols. (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1839), 1:86. In the same year, John Knox was depicted in a woodcut wearing a gown with sleeves closed at the wrists; this contrasts with the

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Jonathan C. Cooper The repercussions of the Reformation varied widely between institutions, due in large part to the personal religious beliefs of university officials. It was met with little resistance at the University of St. Andrews: All members of St. Leonard’s ­College conformed, all but two Dominicans at St. Mary’s College followed suit, and St. ­Salvator’s College deposed its Catholic provost.89 Statutes of the Faculty of Arts at St. Andrews in 1560 show that “the university determined that all who ought to have graduated in this year should be held as licentiates, as due to the whole disruption of the country and the reformation of religion the old customs [of graduation] were unable to be carried out.”90 This may, in part, have been linked to the apparent flight of William Cranston, the Catholic provost of St. Salvator’s, who went into exile in France in 1559, taking with him the college vestments.91 Conversely, statutes of the Faculty of Theology, revised immediately after the Reformation, order that “all bachelors in scholarly and public acts must use cappis as is the custom,” indicating that pre-­Reformation practice was allowed to continue for some time at least.92 The “old laws” of the Faculty of Arts were revised in 1570, and any that were found to be “superstitious or vain” were rejected.93 It was prescribed that candidates for the degrees of bachelor and master were to be examined in caputiis (in hoods) and were to appear in cappa ordinata (ordinary cappa).94 Masters were further recognised by the impositionem birreti (placement of peaked caps) and bachelors being examined for the licence were to appear in cappis.95 Significantly therefore, the use of the hood was prescribed by statute a decade after the Reformation. dress of English reformer Christopher Goodman, who is shown in the same woodcut wearing an ecclesiastical gown with hanging sleeves; Peter Frarin, An Oration Against the Unlawful Insurrection of the Protestantes of Our Time (Antwerp, 1566). Knox does not wear the eponymous cap but does carry a Bible under his arm. Especially when carried in this way, the Bible developed into a badge of Protestant identity at around this time; Jane Dawson, “Scotland and the Example of Geneva,” Theology in Scotland 16 (2009): 55–73, at 65.  89 Durkan, “Scottish Universities,” 367.  90 Steven John Reid, “Education in Post-Reformation Scotland: Andrew Melville and the University of St. Andrews, 1560–1606” (Ph.D. thesis, University of St. Andrews, 2008), 52. Original text: “Statuit Academia omnes laureandos huius [anni] pro laureatis haberi, quod universa reipublicae perturbatione et religionis reformatione veteres ritus serviri impedirentur”; Dunlop, Acta, 415.  91 Reid, “Education,” 63 n. Original text: “alia vestimentia ad ecclesiam pertinentia.” A list of St. Salvator’s College goods distributed to various members for safekeeping in 1559 includes “tua packetiis of ye best kaipis and vestimentis in minibus prepositi,” indicating that these garments were handed to Cranston. However, the inventory also records “ye hwiddis and cappis apud bidellum,” so the bedellus evidently also held some robes during the turbulence of the Reformation; John Durkan, “St. Salvator’s College, Castle Inventory,” The Innes Review 16, no. 1 (1965): 128–30, at 129. For further discussion of Cranston’s alleged crime, see Mark Dilworth, “William Cranston (c. 1510–1562): A Catholic Protagonist,” The Innes Review 55, no. 1 (2004): 44–51, at 48; Michael J. Protheroe, “William Cranston: sedis apostolicae in regno Scotie protector,” The Innes Review 62, no. 2 (2011): 213–231, at 226.  92 Hannay, Statutes, 127. Original text: “baccalaurii omnes in actibus scholasticis et publicis suis utantur cappis ut moris est, in publicis vicis habitu incedant decenti et composito nihilque omnino per quemquam illorum fiat quod quemquam offendere possit.”  93 Ibid., 2.  94 Ibid., 88, 90, 92; David Murray, Memories of the Old College of Glasgow: Some Chapters in the History of the University (Glasgow: Jackson, Wylie, 1927), 86.  95 Hannay, Statutes, 97, 100.

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Academical Dress in Late Medieval and Renaissance Scotland The magisterial “inception” ceremony became a simple “laureation”; records dated 1571–72 show that new masters continued to be capped with a birretum.96 A Royal Commission appointed to visit the university in 1574 decreed that “from October 1577 none was to be admitted to the ministry unless he had received the degree of Bachelor, and none was to be appointed a bishop who had not taken his doctorate.”97 In 1576, a visitation of the university coordinated by the General Assembly and the Privy Council raised the issue of the propriety of awarding doctorates in theology as such degrees had Catholic associations; it was decided to give over jurisdiction on the matter to the General Assembly.98 The Parliamentary Commission of 1578 failed to meet at St. Andrews, for some unknown reason, and the King and his council were, later that year, supplicated to reform the university.99 Some of the principles of the First Book of Discipline were enacted by a Royal Commission of 1579 which essentially refounded the three colleges within the University of St. Andrews. Andrew Melville arrived as the royally appointed principal of St. Mary’s College in 1580 and was “explicitly commanded not to submit to any formal ceremony of admission.”100 This indicates that the refoundation of 1579 sought to suppress university ceremonial. By 1581, a newly graduated master is recorded receiving the “pilium magistralem et alia insignia et privilegia magisterii” (the magisterial pileus and other insignia and privileges of a master).101 Evidently, the reformers replaced the birretum with the pileus as the appropriate headwear for masters in the Faculty of Arts (and doctors in the higher faculties).102 As no hood is explicitly mentioned as part of the masters’ insignia, its use may have gone into abeyance by this time. A visitation of St. Leonard’s College in 1588 took issue with the “banquetting, reatousnes of clething and libertie” associated with BA examinations and ordered that they be removed.103 The University of Glasgow was moribund on the eve of the Reformation. Student numbers fell dangerously low, with under twenty present in 1549; the records of the Faculty of Arts ceased in 1555 and those of the university in 1558; even the rector’s mace was borne off by the archbishop when he fled to Paris in 1560.104 John Davidson

 96 Dunlop, Acta, cxx–cxxi.  97 James K. Cameron, “The Refoundation of the University in 1579,” University of St. Andrews Alumnus Chronicle 71 (1980): 3–10, at 4.  98 Reid, “Education,” 74.  99 James Maitland Anderson, Handbook to the City and University of St. Andrews (St. Andrews, Scotland: W. C. Henderson, 1911), 60. 100 Cameron, “Refoundation,” 6, 8. 101 Dunlop, Acta, cxxi n. 102 The terminological distinction between the birretum and the pileus elsewhere changed over the centuries; N. F. Robinson, “The Pileus Quadratus: An Enquiry into the Relation of the Priest’s Square Cap to the Common Academical Catercap and to the Judicial Corner-Cap,” Transactions of the St. Paul’s Ecclesiological Society 5 (1901): 1–16. However, it seems that in Scotland in the years following the Reformation, a distinct change in headwear was seen, as is also recorded at Aberdeen (see below, p. 128). The birretum was peaked, and the pileus was likely square in shape. 103 Reid, “Education,” 121. 104 J. D. Mackie, The University of Glasgow 1451–1951 (Glasgow: Jackson, 1954), 55–56. The mace was recovered and returned to the university in 1590.

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Jonathan C. Cooper was made principal soon after the Reformation, and he presided over a time of financial improvement and some constitutional change, although old ecclesiastical links to the college remained strong, and no specific changes to academical dress are evident from records.105 However, Andrew Melville was appointed principal in 1574 and turned the fortunes of the institution around with a new constitution for the governance of the college, the Nova Erectio, in 1577. It was the university rather than the college that awarded degrees and whose constitution governed ceremonial. In a series of new university statutes thought to have been written soon after the Nova Erectio, the magisterial act is described: after benediction, new masters were to be seated with their heads covered.106 There is no mention of hoods being worn as they had been in the fifteenth century, so it may be supposed that their use had fallen into abeyance. However, the assumption of headwear was still seen as symbolic of academic progression. At Aberdeen, King’s College was anomalous in that it remained as a Catholic institution within a now officially Protestant nation, although it did not thrive, with only fifteen or sixteen students recorded in 1562.107 Principal Alexander Anderson and some other members refused to adhere to the reformed Confession of Faith but remained in office despite their nonconformity. The bishop of Aberdeen continued to act as university chancellor, an office held by his successors until as late as 1643, when the first layman was appointed.108 It seems likely, therefore, that the customs of the college, including those of dress, would have continued largely unchanged for some time. It was not until 1569 that the conservative principal, the sub-principal, and a number of regents were deprived of their offices and replaced by Principal Alexander Arbuthnot and other Protestant colleagues.109 Under this new regime, the act of determination was abolished as part of graduation for bachelors, but the capping ceremony and the practice of placing of higher graduands in the magisterial chair were maintained; the ceremony was conducted by the principal in the chancellor’s presence.110 Notes titled Forma impositionis pilei (“the form of the placement of the caps”), almost certainly in Arbuthnot’s hand, survive in the flyleaves of a volume which belonged to the principal and record that the reformed graduation formula for doctors and masters included ceremonial capping with a pileus.111 It is noteworthy that the hood receives no mention in the formula, so it may be surmised that this is when it ceased to be used at Aberdeen. After Arbuthnot’s death in 1583, the conservative, anti-­presbyterian government

105 Ibid., 59–63. 106 Original text: “Post benedictionem tectis capitibus sedento”; Innes, Munimenta, 2:54. It is likely that the cap used to cover the head was the pileus rather than the birretum. 107 John Durkan, “George Hay’s Oration at the Purging of King’s College, Aberdeen in 1569: Commentary,” Northern Scotland 6 (1984–85): 97–112, at 97. 108 Gordon Donaldson, “Aberdeen University and the Reformation,” Northern Scotland 1 (1972–73): 129–42, at 136–37. 109 Ibid., 138–39. 110 John Durkan, “Early Humanism and King’s College,” Aberdeen University Review 48 (1979–80): 259–79, at 273. 111 “An Early Aberdeen Graduation Formula,” Library Bulletin of the University of St. Andrews 7 (1916– 17): 353–56, at 354–55.

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Academical Dress in Late Medieval and Renaissance Scotland blocked an intended new foundation which had been drawn up for the college and favoured adhering to Elphinstone’s original statutes, thus retaining medieval offices; the new foundation was eventually implemented in 1597.112 In spite of this temporary period of conservatism, there is no evidence of the reintroduction of old academical dress. The 1593 foundation charter of Marischal College113 makes explicit reference to the principal investing those qualified with the master’s pileus.114 It is also recorded that students of the fourth class, having completed the philosophy course, were to be invested with the master’s laurels—probably literally, as symbolic of achievement since classical antiquity.115 CONCLUSIONS

Each of the universities considered has a striking feature about its medieval academical dress. At St. Andrews, the pleated cappa seems to have been a distinguishing mark of Masters of Arts from soon after the foundation of the university until about the Reformation.116 At Glasgow in the second half of the fifteenth century, both the master’s furred cappa and the use of fur on masters’ hoods are unusual in a Scottish context.117 At Aberdeen in the first half of the sixteenth century, French influence on dress is especially notable in the use of the epitoge/chaperon by members of the Faculty of Arts. Each of these instances is unique to its institution, as precedents are not known in academical dress elsewhere in Scotland. Although the use of hoods declined in Scotland after the Reformation, they were still prescribed for use at St. Andrews at least until 1570 and probably until the

112 James Kirk, “‘Melvillian’ Reform in the Scottish Universities,” in The Renaissance in Scotland: Studies in Literature, Religion, History, and Culture Offered to John Durkan, ed. A. A. MacDonald, Michael Lynch, and Ian B. Cowan (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 276–300, at 287. 113 The city’s second university was endowed by the fifth Earl Marischal. It was eventually merged with King’s College to become the University of Aberdeen in 1860. 114 Original text: “Post confectum studiorum curriculum pileo Magisterii donabit idoneos”; Peter John Anderson, ed., Fasti Academiae Mariscallanae Aberdonensis: Selections from the Records of the Marischal College and University, MDXCIII–MDCCCLX, 3 vols. (Aberdeen: New Spalding Club, 1889–98), 1:43. 115 Such students would likely already hold the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Original text: “quarti denique absoluto studio Philosophico LAUREA MAGISTERII donentur” (1:47). The Nova Fundatio of King’s College, dated between 1587 and 1593, does not refer to academical dress, other than that to be worn by undergraduate bursars; David Stevenson, King’s College, Aberdeen, 1560–1641: From Protestant Reformation to Covenanting Revolution (Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1990), 159. 116 The MA gown was recorded as rotunda vel rugata (round or pleated) in 1416 and rugata vel ordinaria (pleated or ordinary) in 1533. It has been said that at Glasgow in the fifteenth century, the BA gown was pleated, but no evidence for this assertion is presented; Durkan and Kirk, University of Glasgow, 196. 117 At St. Andrews, the use of fur on academical dress was restricted to the hood and, more specifically, to the bachelor’s hood—masters’ hoods were lined with silk or some other material (see above, pp. 112–13). However, in England and on the Continent, fur was used on masters’ dress.

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Jonathan C. Cooper r­ efoundation of 1579.118 Thereafter, the prominence given to the imposition of the pileus in magisterial and doctoral graduation ceremonies, soon after 1569 at Aberdeen and by 1581 at St. Andrews, indicates that the assumption of academical dress was still a central element of the symbolism of academic progression in Scotland. The explicit use of the pileus rather than the birretum, which had been used in the Scottish universities before the Reformation, shows a break with the old traditions.119 The pileus was likely to have been square, like the pileus quadratus adopted by doctors at the University of Paris in 1520 and at other universities soon thereafter.120 While the Reformation certainly had a significant impact on academical dress at the Scottish universities, not all aspects of medieval practice simply ceased immediately in 1560; rather, the process of change was gradual and varied according to particular local circumstances. Reformation took hold swiftly at St. Andrews, but the hood was prescribed for another two decades, and the effects were felt differently among faculties; at Glasgow, reformation took hold relatively quickly but preexisting ecclesiastical links remained strong; at Aberdeen, King’s College continued to be Catholic for almost a decade but academical dress changed soon thereafter. Even the 1578 Act pertaining to the reformation of the universities refers to a tending toward “papistry” almost two decades after the disestablishment of the Catholic Church in Scotland, indicating that considerable institutional inertia was recognised by the outside world.121

118 At Aberdeen, the new graduation formula may have removed hoods from use soon after 1569; at Glasgow, perhaps this coincided with the Nova Erectio of 1577. 119 For an illustration of the capping ceremony, see William Forbes-Leith, Pre-Reformation Scholars in Scotland in the XVIth Century (Glasgow: James MacLehose, 1915), facing p. 128. Please note that the date and provenance of this image are unknown. 120 Robinson, “The Pileus Quadratus,” 8. An example of this cap dated ca. 1640 is held by the National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh (accession no. H.NC 11). 121 Donaldson, “Aberdeen University,” 142. There were proposals in 1578 to remove the office of canonist at King’s College, reflecting the prohibition on the awarding of degrees in canon law in England in 1535, but this change did not take place, and the discipline continued to be taught in Scotland for some years (141).

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Dressing the Bourgeoisie: Clothing in Probate Records of Danish Townswomen, ca. 1545–1610 Camilla Luise Dahl

In the sixteenth century, the flourishing towns of Malmoe and Elsinore, situated at the Sound (Øresund, the strait separating Denmark from Sweden; fig. 7.1) in the heart of the Dano-Norwegian kingdom, were each home to a diverse group of townspeople ranging from ordinary urban dwellers to wealthy members of the bourgeoisie. Malmoe (Malmø), being the “twin town” to the capital Copenhagen (København) directly across the Sound, was one of the largest and wealthiest towns in sixteenth-century Denmark-Norway, known among other things for its many goldsmiths and merchants and as the site of the royal mint. Elsinore (Helsingør) was the base for the lucrative Sound Toll, which was to be paid by any ship passing through the Sound. Elsinore shared its town market with its neighbouring town Elsingburg (Helsingborg) just across the water.1 Malmoe and Elsinore each housed a royal castle where king and court resided from time to time, but the main portion of the inhabitants were ordinary town dwellers, and a smaller group belonged to the burgher class. It is estimated that A number of the probate records discussed here have previously been transcribed and published with comments by the author, but this is the first examination of the material as a whole. The author extends thanks to Jane Malcolm-Davies and Maj Ringgaard for suggestions and fruitful discussions of Danish versus English sixteenth-century clothing terminology and useful insights on similarities in English probate accounts of the period.    1 The Sound Dues (or the Sound Toll) constituted up to two-thirds of Denmark’s state income in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. All foreign ships passing through the Sound, whether en route to or from Denmark or not, had to stop in Elsinore and pay a toll to the Danish Crown. If a ship refused to stop, cannons in both Elsinore and Elsingburg could open fire and sink it. The toll business was moved to Copenhagen for a short period under Sigbrit Villoms, head of the state treasury in the second quarter of the sixteenth century, but was permanently moved back to Elsinore. Frede P. Jensen, “Øresund i 1500-tallet,” in Øresunds Strategiske Rolle i et Historisk Perspektiv: Föredrag Hållna vid Symposium på Revingehed i Skåne och på Kastellet i København 3–7 juni 1996, ed. Johan Engström and Ole L. Frantzen (Copenhagen: Tøjhusmuseet, 1998), 35–50, at 35ff.; Thomas Riis, Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot: Scottish-Danish Relations c. 1450–1707, 2 vols. (Odense, Denmark: Odense University Press, 1988), vol. 2. Sigbrit Villoms, who was also the head of Norwegian tolls and the Sound Toll, was an unusual minister of finance of the time, as she was not a noble but a woman of the bourgeoisie.

Camilla Luise Dahl

Figure 7.1: Map of the four main towns around the Sound in the sixteenth century. Drawing: Cath D’Alton.

Malmoe had around 5,000 or a few more inhabitants in the late sixteenth century, whereas the capital Copenhagen had about 7,000 in 1588. Elsinore and Elsingburg together roughly had about 2,000 to 2,500.2 These four cities around the Sound formed a rich and thriving centre in the Dano-Norwegian kingdom, and some of the wealthiest families of these towns were connected through marriage and business throughout the early modern period.3 Both Malmoe and Elsinore attracted residents from different parts of Europe as well as Danes and Norwegians from across the kingdom. Due to the Sound Toll business, a large proportion of the inhabitants of Elsinore were foreigners. The majority

  2 Riis, Auld Acquaintance, 2:9–28 (population figures for Elsinore, Malmoe, and Copenhagen); Grethe Jacobsen, Kvinder, Køn og Købstadslovgivning 1400–1600: Lovfaste Mænd og Ærlige Kvinder (Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Bibliotek & Museum Tusculanums Forlag, 1995), 99–100.    3 Malmoe Archive: “Bager: Familjelappar” [collection of notes on Malmoe families by historian Einar Bager].

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Clothing of Danish Townswomen were Germans, Dutchmen, and Scots together with a smaller number of English.4 Malmoe, however, was a far more homogenous town with mainly Danish inhabitants and a relatively large and wealthy bourgeoisie, although a number of mainly German traders and artisans could be found there as well. This paper aims to present rather than fully explore the clothes of townswomen described in probate accounts (and certain related records) from Malmoe and Elsinore over a period of sixty-five years, from 1545 to 1610. This extensive material, being hard to find and difficult to digest, has long been in want of an overall presentation of its contents and possibilities for examination. Hopefully, further studies into this set of data—such as research into a specific group of garments, fabrics, dyes, a social segment, or other selections—will yield more detailed findings in the future. Moreover, other large quantities of textiles appear in the probate inventories aside from clothing, such as household textiles (pillows and cushions, sheets and cases, bedding, tablecloths, towels, and the like), as well as textile tools (such as spindle whorls, wheels, fulling boards, and occasional looms) and equipment for mending or maintaining textiles and clothes (such as frill irons, irons, mangle boards, and smoothing stones). These, however, have not been examined for this study. Due to the overwhelmingly large quantity of items mentioned, which include thousands of garments and accessories all described in more or less detail as individual pieces, focus will be given to an overall presentation of the material. A few items of clothing (such as the short shoulder cape and the kirtle) will serve as examples for more detailed discussion to illustrate the contents of the female wardrobe in this time and place and to allow a closer study of a few pieces. THE PROBATE RECORDS FROM MALMOE AND ELSINORE

A great number of probate records of townswomen from Malmoe and Elsinore survive from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The oldest extant Danish probate records are found in Malmoe, dating from 1503 and forward. Probate records from Elsinore date from 1549. A small number of other Danish towns have probate records dating to the sixteenth century.5 Although these extensive records include valuable information on the dress of regular townspeople in this period, so far this material has not been used to an appreciable extent in Danish dress history. Probate records were written down for the purpose of securing the heirs’ right to inherit what was rightfully theirs. The probate record was a business document in which economic values were assigned to listed items to facilitate division among heirs

  4 Allan Tønnesen, Helsingørs Udenlandske Borgere og Indbyggere ca. 1550–1600, Byhistoriske Skrifter 3 (Copenhagen: Dansk Komité for Byhistorie, 1985), 81–82, 97–142; Riis, Auld Acquaintance, 1:155– 86.    5 These include Randers (from 1526), Kalundborg (from 1541), Odense (from 1556), Ribe (1561), Vordingborg (from 1574), Køge (from 1596), and Nakskov (from 1598). From Norway there are no extant probate records from before the end of the seventeenth century.

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Camilla Luise Dahl and assessment of estate duty. When a person died, his or her home would be sealed and everything of value systematically and carefully registered and taxed. A number of valuers would be appointed by the town to value property and household effects; some of these valuers were women, usually wives of artisans or citizens in their own right, but rarely from the higher bourgeoisie, such as wives of merchants, mayors, and the like. Eventually everything of value would be divided among the heirs at a settlement.6 Sometimes only the registry has survived but no following settlement, or vice versa. Besides the probate records being written down and given to the heirs to keep, a copy of each probate record was kept by the town legal office. It is the town’s copies that are preserved today (fig. 7.2). Probate records were made obligatory for everyone in the Dano-Norwegian kingdom in 1683,7 but even before then, they were required from townspeople.8 The earliest surviving probate records were mainly based on securing underaged children their rightful inheritance, and in 1598 a legal act demanded that probate records had to be drawn up in inheritance settlements whenever there were underage heirs.9 The marital status, trade, and place of residence of the deceased and in most cases additional information on the surviving spouse and children or other heirs were entered in the probate inventory, but its prime purpose was to list and value all movable and immovable items in the home. Exactly what proportion of a town’s inhabitants were subject to probate accounts in the period is unclear. However, extant church records from Elsinore dating back to 1637 and onward show that approximately forty to fifty burials took place a year. The probate record books from the same period show that an average of about thirty-five probate inventories were recorded per annum. Children appear in the burial statistics but did not have probate records made. This means that by the first half of the seventeenth century, almost all adults, from the poorest to the richest, must have had their home and belongings valued and recorded in a probate inventory.10

   6 Jan Kuuse, “The Swedish Probate Inventories as a Source for Research in Economic and Social History,” in Probate Inventories: A New Source for the Historical Study of Wealth, Material Culture, and Agricultural Development, ed. Ad van der Woude and Anton Schuurman, AAG Bijdragen 23 (Utrecht, Netherlands: HES, 1980), 217–227, at 217; Marie Ulväng: Klädekonomi och Klädkultur: Böndernas Kläder i Härjedalen under 1800-talet (Möklinta, Sweden: Gidlunds Förlag, 2012), 36–39; Kristin Mathilde Røgeberg: “Av Saliges Gangklær—en Skifteanalyse: Aker Fogderi og Christiania 1656–1780” (master’s thesis, University of Oslo, 1989), 14–18.   7 Hans H. Fussing, “Skiftevæsnet på Sjællandske Lovs Område og Bobrud og Førlov på Møn i 1600-tallet,” Historisk Tidsskrift 11, no. 3 (1950): 210–34.    8 A number of legal acts regarding probate settlements were issued in the early seventeenth century, but these mostly dealt with cases of underaged heirs, no heirs, or other special cases. Harald Winge, “Lovgivningen om Offentlig Skifte,” in Skiftene som Kilde: En Artikkelsamling, ed. Liv Marthinsen, Skrifter fra NLI 31 (Oslo: Norsk Lokalhistorisk Institutt, 1996), 7–8.    9 Copenhagen, Danish National Archives, Nakskov town bailiff ’s archive, probate record book 1598– 1617.  10 Copenhagen, Danish National Archives, Elsinore town bailiff ’s archive, probate record books for 1635–39, 1639–44, 1644–48; Elsinore, St. Mary’s Parish, church record book for 1637–1732.

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Figure 7.2: Example of a probate record, recording goods of Marine, midwife in Malmoe, dated 1573. Malmoe City Archive, Malmoe town bailiff ’s archive, probate records bundle of 1571–77, no. 123. Photo: Camilla Luise Dahl, courtesy of Malmoe City Archive.

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Figure 7.3: Probate of Else, wife of an alderman in Elsinore, dated Oct. 12, 1591, unusual for Elsinore probates in that it contains a full descriptive list of garments (at the bottom). In the left margin is the statement “Elβis kleder wurderiitt for—L dr” (“Else’s clothes valued at 50 daler”). Danish National Archive, Elsinore town bailiff ’s archive, probate record book of 1583–92, 229r. Photo: Camilla Luise Dahl, courtesy of Danish National Archive.

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Clothing of Danish Townswomen The detailing in the probate records varies. Some include detailed lists of items; others just briefly mention the value of groups of items together. The number of items in each probate account also varies: Some inventories contain a large number of garments, underclothes, jewellery, and accessories, whereas others only mention a single item, such as a smock, a pair of sleeves, or a kirtle. The probate records that contain inventories of valuables all more or less follow the same pattern, first valuing the property (the house and other buildings) then metals (gold, silver, brass, iron, etc.) followed by furniture and various goods, including furnishings, linens, and clothes. The Malmoe probate accounts are generally very detailed; besides listing and describing garments, headwear, stockings, and shoes, the accounts mention dress accessories, such as belts, girdles, purses, garters, loose sleeves, partlets, and ruffs. The probate records from Elsinore, on the other hand, are generally less detailed, often listing just a few main garments; in a large number of them, the garments are only referred to in such statements as “all her garments were given to her children” or “none of her garments were of value” (fig. 7.3). After 1600, there are fewer probate accounts in Malmoe, as fewer documents have survived. In Elsinore, by contrast, the number of probate records is greater, with more and more records after 1600; however, they are still mostly not very detailed. A few people had more than one probate account drawn up; in some cases, the lists of garments are identical, but in others there are differences between the two, as additions were made or some items excluded in the later record.11 In Malmoe, the probate records were written down on sheets of paper, which were gathered into small bundles of tacked and folded sheets. Some of the town copies of the Elsinore probate accounts were bundled in this way, but most were written in probate record books.12 In both towns, a number of probate records were also recorded in the town court books.13 The probate accounts in the town court books are sketchy compared to the regular probate records and include only a few listings of goods. Mostly just the final value of all assets is mentioned; in some cases there are no listings at all, just notations that the inheritance has been settled. A few include items of clothes, a few more a belt or dress ornament such as a brooch. Many of the probate records deal with the belongings of upper-class burghers, such as members of the citizen class and town council; also, a number of artisans of lesser rank appear. The women whose clothes are mentioned include wives, widows, and daughters of town clerks, mayors, aldermen, goldsmiths, and merchants and other wealthy citizens. The middle classes mainly consist of well-to-do wives and widows  11 As it often proves impossible to determine which items are identical, all items of dress mentioned in the inventories (except shop inventories) are included in the tables.  12 After their introduction in this article, all probate record bundles and books are cited using the abbreviations M-PRB (for Malmoe) and E-PRB (for Elsinore) with the bundle or book number and date range. For an index to these collections by period, see the Appendix. For all examples, the year given is that of the probate, which is usually (but not always) the same as the year of the death.  13 These books have varying names in Danish, among them stadsbog (town book), tingbog (legal court book), and rådstuebog (town bailiff office book). For consistency, this article will refer to these as town court books. For an index to the books used in this study by period, see the Appendix.

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Camilla Luise Dahl of various artisans and craftsmen, such as shoemakers, pattenmakers, swordsmiths, bakers, tailors, skinners, furriers, and many more. The lower classes consist of workwomen; undefined townswomen; wives and widows of less prosperous artisans, such as strapmakers and cupmakers, many not being their own master but working for somebody else; and servants. The probate accounts also include wives of a few clergymen and priests. Each class level includes wives, widows, and unmarried girls and women. Some made their own living (mainly widows), the wealthiest as citizens in their own right, as merchants and the like; some, those of lowest income, as servants working in the household of somebody else. Some were poor elderly women living in somebody else’s household or in the town hospital. There are no sharp dividing lines in wealth between different social groups of artisans and craftsmen. Each group has its more prosperous members overlapping with the group above, its least prosperous overlapping with the group below. The wealthiest artisans were those who were masters in their own trade and had obtained citizenship or even achieved membership of the town council. The wealth of women was in most cases directly connected to the status and wealth of husbands and fathers. The wealthiest women left behind extensive wardrobes with many items of clothing consisting of various garments, headwear, and underwear. The garments mentioned in the poorest women’s probate accounts are often limited to just a kirtle and a cloak. In some cases the probate account mentions just a few items of clothing even though the deceased was of higher rank: The garments had probably already been divided among the heirs or been given away according to the will of the deceased.14 Many of the probate records drawn up for men contain a few items of their wife’s clothing and vice versa, usually clothes that had to be divided among the heirs to even out the inheritance portions between the widow and children or other heirs, or leftover garments from a dead previous spouse, garments that had not yet been sold or re-sewn to fit children.15 Of the men’s probate accounts that also include women’s clothing, mostly only a few garments are listed, usually just a good kåbe (cloak/mantle) or a kjortel (kirtle). In a few cases, women’s probate accounts also include children’s clothes, particularly baby clothes when the deceased died in childbirth, but older

 14 It was not uncommon for garments to be given away according to the will of the deceased before death or given to children before a probate settlement; Camilla Luise Dahl, Borgerdragten i 1600-årene i Næstved og Vordingborg, Liv og Levn 24 (Næstved, Denmark: Næstved Museum, 2010), 5–7. This practice is also mentioned in the probates from Malmoe and Elsinore, for instance, in the rich probate of alderman Mads Dall Jyde and his widow Elline, who died in 1595 in Malmoe, which includes a list of goods that the deceased had given her daughter-in-law before her death; M-PRB-11 (1594–95), no. 281.  15 The probate of a Malmoe swordsmith and his wife (1546) mentions that the daughter Pernille had her mother’s kåbe (cloak) resewn into a kirtle, and two smocks were made for her from an old tablecloth of tow linen. M-PRB-1 (1546–57), no. 3a.

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Clothing of Danish Townswomen children’s garments also appear.16 Children’s clothes are mainly registered in the early period and in Malmoe.17 The records also include a large number of inventories of tradespeople, such as merchants, retailers, shopkeepers, and the like. These often include lists of goods available in their shop or stock. These often-large quantities of specific items have, however, not been included in the tables for this paper, which focuses on the private possessions of townspeople. The probate accounts mostly list clothing under two different categories. Woollen clothes (ifareklæder or gangklæder, Scanian and Standard Danish respectively, literally meaning “walking clothes”) refers to all upperwear and outerwear.18 The other category, linen clothes (linklæder), includes all linens, such as underwear, headwear, aprons, and legwear. Underwear appears in fewer probate accounts than uppergarments, but when underwear is included in the probate record, the number of underclothes is larger than the number of uppergarments. How fashionable and up-to-date the garments in the probate records were is hard to interpret. The dress of women who died young or were of high status must presumably have been more fashionable according to the taste of the time than the garments of the poor and elderly, but even high-end burghers might dress more piously and modestly than a less religious person of lower rank.19 The presence of nobility and court may have influenced town fashions; at least a number of merchants and shopkeepers in town served customers of both classes.20 On the other hand, regional styles and specific bourgeois clothing, such as the local dress for church, may have coexisted with more internationally influenced fashions.21 Epitaph paintings, displayed in churches  16 Clothes of little girls and small children of unspecified gender, although definitely worth studying, have not been included in the tables. Young unmarried women have been listed together with married women.  17 Mainly linen clothes—as shirts, upperparts, partlets, and caps—appear, but also more elaborate pieces such as christening clothes and christening caps. A Malmoe probate from 1555 (of the wife of a pattenmaker) mentions children’s smocks, partlets, and linen caps; M-PRB-1 (1546–57), no. 13. The probate of a merchant’s wife (1560) mentions a partlet and two linen sleeves, christening clothes, and two old and two new christening caps; M-PRB-3 (1560–62), no. 53. In the probate of a goldsmith, a costly christening cap decorated with pearls appears in 1586; M-PRB-8 (1582–89), no. 184.  18 Verner Dahlerup, ed., Ordbog over det Danske Sprog: Historisk Ordbog 1700–1950, vol. 9 (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1927), 5. Only the term gangklæder is used in Elsinore, while the Malmoe scribes use both gangklæder and ifareklæder inconsistently.  19 Marieke de Winkel, Fashion and Fancy: Dress and Meaning in Rembrandt’s Paintings (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006), 72–81; Dana Lacy Chapman, “A Study of Costume Through Art: An Analysis of Dutch Women’s Costumes from 1600 to 1650,” Dress 16 (1990): 28–37, at 30–31.  20 Thomas Thennecker (1595), a Londoner who was married to a Dane (Trine, the daughter of an Elsinore alderman), owned a shop in Elsinore specializing in English goods, mainly English stockings and English cloth. From royal and noble accounts of the 1570s and 1580s, it is clear that Thenneker sold his English stockings and cloth not only to the local Elsinore residents or to visiting noblemen at the nearby Kronborg castle, but even to wealthy nobles throughout the kingdom, a French envoy, and the king himself. E-PRB-4 (1592–98), 433v; Tønnesen, Helsingørs Udenlandske Borgere, 105.  21 Camilla Luise Dahl, Klædt i Rigets Borgerdragt: Stand, Status og National Identitet Udtrykt i Borgerskabets Dragt i Reformationstidens Danmark-Norge og Sverige (class handout; Oslo: Norsk

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Camilla Luise Dahl to memorialize the dead, typically show formal church dress (fig. 7.4). The probate accounts suggest clothing worn for multiple occasions—for work, for everyday, for relaxing at home in the evening, for festive occasions, and for church—but in most cases the exact purpose of a garment is not given. SOURCES AND METHODOLOGY

All extant probate accounts from the two towns dating from 1545 to 1610 were examined and transcribed, along with a handful of similar items from other entries in the town court books, as noted below. All items of dress and dress accessories were categorized in one or more tables. In order to compare both differences in dress between the two towns as well as developments over time, the examined probate records were grouped by town and into three periods, following the dates of the probate record bundles or books. For Malmoe the periods are I: 1545–69, II: 1570–89, and III: 1590–1607; for Elsinore, I: 1549–70, II: 1571–92, and III: 1592–1610. For a reference table summarizing these periods and the source documents pertaining to each, see the Appendix.22 Records from period I The records for Malmoe period I (1545–69) include probate accounts from Malmoe Archive, namely probate record bundle 1 (1546–57), bundle 2 (1558–59), bundle 3 (1560–62), bundle 4 (1563–64), and bundle 5 (1566–69). A small number of probate records were also entered in the town court books for 1503–48 and 1549–59. The earliest probate accounts in Malmoe (that is, in the court book) date back to 1503, but only probate records drawn up from 1545 and onward are included in this study. The Malmoe probate record bundles 1 to 5 consist of 119 probate accounts, of which 40 were made for women, 58 for men, and 21 for both husband and wife. Of these, 73 probate accounts include items of women’s clothing. Probate records entered in the town court books include 60 probate records, of which 21 mention women’s clothing. Of these, the town court book for 1503–48 contains only 18 probate records drawn up between 1545 and 1548; of these, only 6 contain items of women’s clothing. The probate accounts from Elsinore period I (1549–70) include one document in probate record bundle 1 (1556–1767) and 21 recorded in the town court books of 1549–56, 1554–55, 1559–60, 1561–65, and 1566–70. These 22 probates include 7 made for women, 8 for men, and 7 for both husband and wife. To supplement the limited probate information for this period, other similar listings of clothes from the same town court books were included in the data set; these listings appeared in records of Institutt for Bunad og Folkedrakt, Norsk Folkemuseum, 2015), available online at http://www. livinghistory.dk/artikler/dahl-borgerdragt.pdf.  22 The Appendix also notes published collections of the probate records involved in this study. However, the original documents were used for compiling the data presented here.

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Figure 7.4: Epitaph of Elsinore alderman and tollmaster David Hansen (d. 1599), his first wife Karen (d. 1589), his second wife Bente (d. 1608), and his children by his first marriage, ca. 1599. Elsinore, St. Olaf ’s Church. Photo: Erik Fjordside / Livinghistory, by permission.

other court settlements (for instance, with clothing items used as payments or deposits) and criminal cases (for instance, thefts). In total, 34 records contain items of women’s clothing. For the period 1566–70, the number of probate records is fewer in the town court books. For later periods, probate accounts entered in the town court book seem rare, possibly because a probate record book had been taken into use in Elsinore by 1571. Records from period II Probate records from Malmoe period II (1570–89) consist of bundle 6 (1571–77), bundle 7 (1578–81), and bundle 8 (1582–89). These contain 104 probate records, of which 36 were drawn up for women, 51 for men, and 17 for both husband and wife; only 64 probate records include items of women’s clothing. This is the smallest group of Malmoe probate records in the survey. There are no probate records from the years 1570 and 1576. The probate records from Elsinore are those in probate record book 2 (1571–82) and book 3 (1583–92). Of the 192 probate records in these two books, 67 were drawn up for women, 96 for men, and 29 for both husband and wife; 67 of these records list one or more items of women’s clothing. A number of legal settlements and probate accounts are also entered in the town court book of 1571–75 and included in the data set; however, these include only 13 references to women’s clothing.

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Camilla Luise Dahl Records from period III In Malmoe, records from period III are in probate record bundle 9 (1590–91), bundle 10 (1592–93), bundle 11 (1594–95), bundle 12 (1597–99), bundle 13 (1600–2), and bundle 14 (1603–7). There are no extant probate records dating from 1596. Of 210 probate records, 61 were drawn up for women, 125 for men, and 24 for both. Of these, 89 mention items of women’s clothing. From Elsinore, the records are collected in probate record book 4 (1592–98), book 5 (1599–1603), and book 6 (1603–10). These three books contain 646 probate records, but only 179 of them mention women’s clothing, and as a number of probate records were drawn up for the same people, some of these garments may have been the same items registered again. Of the 646 probate accounts, 241 deal with the belongings of deceased women, 369 were drawn up for men, and only 36 for both husband and wife. Records with women’s clothing For Malmoe before 1600, at least 80 percent of the women’s probates in any given bundle include one or more items of dress, and in some bundles, all of the women’s probates include dress items. For example, in Malmoe bundles 1 and 2 (1546–59), 85 percent of the probate accounts drawn up for women list items of women’s clothing, and in bundle 3 (1560–62), 100 percent (12 out of 12) of women’s probates include women’s clothing. This proportion decreases slightly after 1600. In Elsinore, the proportion of women’s probates that list clothing is rather lower, and this, too, declines after 1600. In probate book 2 (1571–82), 70 percent of the probate accounts drawn up for women mention clothing, but in probate book 6 (1603–10), only 43 percent list items of clothing. In the other three books, which fall between those dates, about 50 percent to 70 percent of the women’s probates include clothing. In total, for both towns, there are 128 records mentioning women’s clothing for period I, 144 records of women’s clothing from period II, and 268 records of women’s clothing in period III, with each record including anywhere from one item of clothing to over 50 different items of dress. TYPES OF CLOTHES IN THE PROBATE ACCOUNTS

Together the records from Malmoe and Elsinore 1545–1610 mention several thousand items of outerwear, upperwear, footwear, legwear, headwear, neckwear, and underwear. These are categorized and presented in tables 7.1 through 7.11 and will be discussed in the sections that follow. A number of garments overlap categories, for instance types of caps or hoods that could be both headwear and outerwear, linen half-skirts that could be both underwear and aprons, and various kerchiefs and neckerchiefs that could be worn both as neckwear and headwear. Headwear and legwear are also found both among wool and linen clothes. Some terms are used for several very different items. For example, bindeklæde 142

Clothing of Danish Townswomen (binding cloths) appear as breast bindings, neckerchiefs, and headwear. In only some cases is it specified which part of the body the item was used for; in most cases it is not. Many garments are simply listed as “her best clothes,” “her best kirtles,” or “all her daily clothes.” In these cases there must have been a minimum of two pieces and such descriptions have been counted as two items in the tables. However, this is obviously not a very accurate number, as an inventory from 1592 clearly shows: In this, a servant girl from Elsinore had a chest with “all her linen clothing,” which is, as a rare addition, specified as being thirty-eight pieces.23 OUTERWEAR

Outerwear (table 7.1) consisted of various coats and cloaks or mantles as well as items for warmth and weather protection, such as hoods, masks, gloves, mittens, and a muff. Practical hoods for warmth and weather protection appear throughout the period 1545–1610, but the style changed over the years. In the earliest period hoods called kaprønnike (chaperon) are recorded. These disappear entirely from the probate accounts by 1570. The material of which they are made is rarely given.24 In the last period, ca. 1590–1610, practical hoods called agehue and agehætte (outdoor/travelling hoods) appear instead. Facial masks and face shades (strud/skygge) appear randomly throughout the probates.25 Furs that were most likely decorative rather than practical are placed in this category as well. It is not always clear if the pelts mentioned in the inventories were zibellini26 or meant for something else. None of the pelts had heads of precious metals or were adorned with pearls or gems. However, a number of pelts are listed as a single and whole pelt that may have served as a zibellino.27 Mantles There were long and short mantles. A long black mantle or cloak called a kåbe was the traditional garment of Danish townswomen for church or ceremonial occasions

 23 E-PRB-3 (1583–92), 278r.  24 In the probate for the wife of a shoemaker in Malmoe (1560), two caprønnicker are listed under linens. M-PRB-3 (1560–62), no. 43.  25 Karine, wife of a Malmoe priest, had three unspecified strude in 1564; M-PRB-4 (1563–64), no. 72. Anne, a young woman who died in childbirth in 1589, had a black velvet strud or skygge with large fringes; M-PRB-8 (1582–89), no. 203. Anne, a young unmarried woman living in the household of a town clerk, had a skygge of black English cloth with fringes in 1592; E-PRB-3 (1583–92), 272v.  26 See Tawny Sherrill, “Fleas, Fur, and Fashion: Zibellini as Luxury Accessories of the Renaissance,” Medieval Clothing and Textiles 2 (2006), 121–50.  27 Karine, wife of a wealthy apothecary (1600) left “a black otter”; E-PRB-5 (1599–1603), 248v. Ursule, wife of the mayor of Malmoe (1591) had a “Siberian pelt,” possibly sable; M-PRB-9 (1590–91), no. 248.

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Figure 7.5: Detail of epitaph of mayor Peder Pedersen of Køge, ca. 1585, showing his first wife Bodil (d. 1560) and second wife Alhed (d. 1601) and some of their children wearing typical church dress of late-sixteenth-century Denmark: long black mantle, white headwear, and apron. The headwear consists of several layers of white linen (forehead-cloth, headcloth, and binding straps), with a red undercap. Køge, St. Nicolai Church. Photo: Erik Fjordside / Livinghistory, by permission.

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Clothing of Danish Townswomen (fig. 7.5).28 This is the highest-valued garment throughout the documents. All women owned at least one good black kåbe to wear for church, and the wealthiest had more than one. A woman’s best kåbe could apparently last for many years, for some as long as from her wedding day to the day she died; in many probate accounts is it specified that a wife’s best kåbe had been part of her trousseau or dowry.29 Oune, wife of a blacksmith, at the time of her husband’s death in 1580, owned a cloak of English cloth lined and trimmed with brown damask.30 In 1590, at her own death, she owned a kåbe of similar design that must have been the very same. In 1580, it was valued at 48 marks; ten years later it was devalued to only half that amount.31 Other mantles included practical daily cloaks for cold weather, rain, and the like. These are often named agekåbe (“travelling” or “outdoor” kåbe) or hverdagskåbe (“everyday” kåbe).32 The earliest probate accounts list only one or more nonspecific kåbe, suggesting these were used for all occasions, but by the late sixteenth century the probate accounts list a range of different types of kåbe for different purposes. The church kåbe becomes more expensive and appears to have become strictly formal wear. Short mantles known as stakkekåbe and mantell appear from the end of the century. The number of mantles thus increases in the probate accounts in the later period. The mantles of foreign women are often specified as being of foreign type, such as Dutch women wearing Dutch mantles and German women wearing German mantles—these being in the style of their home country, but serving as the counterpart to the Danish church mantle.33 However, by 1600 the Dutch variant of the mantle must have become

 28 In the medieval period the kåbe was a full gown; by the early modern period it had changed into a cloak. After the Reformation (1536), a black kåbe was obligatory formal wear for burghers’ wives for church; cloaks were articulated as the proper church dress for Protestant townswomen, and coloured cloaks for church were forbidden. Camilla Luise Dahl, “Cappa og Kobe: Forvirringen om Dragten ‘kåbe’ i Middelalderen,” in Dahl, Middelalderdragter: Seks Arbejdspapirer 2001–2005, ed. Catharina Oksen, Workpapers—Tekstilforskning på Middelaldercentret 1 (Nykøbing, Denmark: Middelaldercentret, Forsøgscenter for Historisk Teknologi, 2005), 1:39–74; Dahl, Klædt, 4–6  29 Dahl, Klædt, 4–7, 9–12.  30 M-PRB-7 (1578–81), no. 145.  31 M-PRB-9 (1590–91), no. 217.  32 Bendte Hansdatter (1591), wife of priest Jacob Michelsen Lemvig, had an everyday cloak (hverdagskåbe) valued at 16 marks and a costlier kåbe of English cloth valued at 40 marks. M-PRB-9 (1590–91), no. 238.  33 Sibelle Thettisdatter, a Dutch woman who died in Elsinore in 1598, owned a hollandisch wibbhøken, clearly a Danish attempt to name the Dutch wiphoike. Anna Brekers, also in Elsinore, had in 1592 two Dutch cloaks. Maricke Hans Thor Brügges had in 1593 a hollandske kaabe, and Seichen Cornelis had one in 1603. E-PRB-4 (1592–98), 73r, 156r, 288r; E-PRB-6 (1603–10), 22v. Description of the Dutch cloak styles and the hoike can be found in Bianca M. Du Mortier, “Features of Fashion in the Netherlands in the Seventeenth Century,” in Netherlandish Fashion in the Seventeenth Century, ed. Johannes Pietsch and Anna Jolly, Riggisberger Berichte 19 (Riggisberg, Switzerland: Abegg-Stiftung, 2012), 17–39, at 25–26; Eileen Ribeiro, “Dress in Adriaen van de Venne’s Album of 1626,” in Pietsch and Jolly, Netherlandish Fashion, 41–49, at 42–43. Of hoyck and hoike in Dutch inventories, see transcribed inventories in de Winkel, Fashion and Fancy, 333–351.

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Figure 7.6: Detail of epitaph of wealthy Danish burgher Oluf Bager, merchant and alderman of Odense, showing his wife and their children wearing kraver (short shoulder capes), 1576. Odense, St. Hans Church. Photo: Erik Fjordside / Livinghistory, by permission.

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Clothing of Danish Townswomen popular also among non-Dutch women, as a number of Danish women owned Dutch mantles in the first quarter of the sixteenth century.34 Shoulder capes Another type of outerwear mentioned in the probate records is the krave (plural kraver), which was a short shoulder cape commonly seen in portraits of Danish townswomen (fig. 7.6). These short, fitted capes covered the low necks of the dresses of the early sixteenth century, but they may be even older, perhaps developed from medieval caped hoods. The short capes were retained, but to a lesser degree, with the later high-necked gowns of the late sixteenth century.35 In the probate records of Malmoe and Elsinore, the short capes appear primarily in the earliest period and are less common in the latest. From both towns the records from period I mention thirty-one kraver; from period II, only five appear; but from period III, fourteen. Even in period I, when short capes were presumably still fashionable (judging from their frequent depiction in Northern European paintings) they are relatively rare in the material.36 A garment going out of fashion would likely still appear in elderly or more conservative women’s wardrobes, but that cannot be the whole explanation, as the kraver that are mentioned are of rich materials and do not seem old or worn out. Rather, most of them appear in more wealthy women’s wardrobes in the early period but tend to belong to servants and unmarried women in the later period. Requiring just a small amount of fabric, the short capes are not among the priciest items. This may explain the low number of short capes in the inventories compared to representations in images of bourgeois women. An everyday version of cheaper materials would possibly be of too little a value to appear in the inventories. The majority of the short capes mentioned in the probate records are thus those of richer fabrics. The materials listed include velvet, fine English wool, and silk (table 7.2). The colours are mostly not stated, but those that are given span a wide range. Many capes are described as lined with fur. Details of fastenings, such as small buckles or buttons, are given in a few cases. Mette, wife of a Malmoe citizen, had in 1592 a krave of black English cloth with two small silver clasps.37 Johanne, wife of a shoemaker in Malmoe, had in 1560 one of cloth, fur-lined and fur-trimmed, and another unlined of brown

 34 Anne, wife of citizen Johan Pedersen in Elsinore (1594) had a kåbe of fine cloth, an old kåbe, an everyday kåbe, and a Dutch kåbe of English cloth; E-PRB-4 (1592–98), 354r. In a later period beyond the scope of this study, the wife of a brushmaker in Elsinore (1625) had both a Danish and a Dutch kåbe, with the Danish kåbe valued at twice the amount of the Dutch; Elsinore, probate record book for 1621–25, 497v.  35 Troels Troels-Lund, Dagligt Liv i Norden i det Sekstende Aarhundrede, vol. 2, Fjerde Bog: Klædedragt (1915; repr., Copenhagen: Gad, 1968), 347, 365–67.  36 Short capes appear to have been fashionable in Northern Europe in the early part of the sixteenth century. Jutta Zander-Seidel, Textiler Hausrat: Kleidung und Haustextilien in Nürnberg von 1500– 1650 (Münich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1990), 78–79.  37 M-PRB-10 (1592–93), no. 255.

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Figure 7.7: Detail from stone effigy of Cornelius Willumsen, mayor of Malmoe, showing his wife in a doublet and skirt, early seventeenth century. Malmoe, St. Petri Church. Photo: Erik Fjordside / Livinghistory, by permission.

cloth.38 Annike, wife of the royal composer Arnoldus de Fine, owned two short capes of velvet and one of yellow damask.39 Equally fine are three silk kraver mentioned in 1559: one of satin of unspecified colour, one of white satin, and one of red camlet.40

 38 M-PRB-3 (1560–62), no. 43.  39 E-PRB-3 (1583–92), 90r. Annike died in Copenhagen in 1576, but the probate settlement was finalized in their home in Elsinore in 1583.  40 M-PRB-2 (1558–59), no. 34.

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Clothing of Danish Townswomen Two kraver of brown silk damask are mentioned in the probate of a Malmoe burgher’s wife in 1590.41 UPPERWEAR

Upperwear (tables 7.3 and 7.4) includes a number of garments that could be worn alone or in combination. The probates list a wide range of garments that could be combined in various ways. Doublets The doublet or jacket (trøje) is a common item of clothing in women’s probates throughout the period and increases in number after 1590 (fig. 7.7). The colours are predominately black, occasionally brown or blue, and a few other colours, such as red or white. The doublets appear in all qualities, from plain cloth to fine English cloth, silk, and velvet, and could be trimmed with borders or rows of velvet, brocade, or passementerie. A number of doublets are described as lined with fur: miniver, vair, and even ermine for the finest, with lamb and cat for the cheaper ones. Many of the doublets had standing collars, sometimes described as being fur-lined, or had a flat collar with fur on the underside. For example, the wife of a Malmoe burgher (1564) had a black trøje lined with miniver, another of black say with ermine cuffs, three of cloth of unspecified colour, and one of brown say.42 The wife of a wealthy citizen (1590) had a trøje of silk grosgrain lined with miniver and edged with ermine, one of black damask with ermine, a new one of black English cloth with velvet collar, an “oldish” one of black cloth with ermine, and two old ones of black cloth, as well as separate sleeves of black say and red velvet.43 The wife of a Malmoe blacksmith (1590) had a fur-lined trøje of English cloth, edged with ermine and with fringe borders.44 The wife of a poor town-dweller (1603) only had an old trøje of cloth and another of white (undyed?) homemade wadmal (coarse, dense, usually undyed wool fabric).45 In Elsinore, the wife of a member of the town militia (1583) had a black trøje with fringe borders and a fur-lined one of black cloth.46 The wife of a barber (1593) had one of brown silk camlet, and the wife of a citizen (1594) had one of velvet, one of cloth, and one of patterned velvet together with sleeves of silk satin and velvet.47

 41 M-PRB-9 (1590–91), no. 219.  42 M-PRB-4 (1563–64), no. 74. Say was a twill-woven woolen cloth.  43 M-PRB-9 (1590–91), no. 219.  44 M-PRB-9 (1590–91), no. 217.  45 M-PRB-14 (1603–7), no. 374.  46 E-PRB-3 (1583–92), 2r.  47 E-PRB-4 (1592–98), 276v, 354v.

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Figure 7.8: Tombstone of Anne Jørgensdatter, the unmarried daughter of a priest, shown wearing an open gown, possibly a samarie or overkjortel, 1591. Næstved, Zealand, St. Peter’s Church. Photo: Erik Fjordside / Livinghistory, by permission.

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Clothing of Danish Townswomen Loose gowns Also mentioned among the main garments is the samarie, which can best be described as a loose gown (fig. 7.8).48 The term is a loanword from the Italian zimorra. Samaries appear almost exclusively in probates of wealthier townswomen, but a few appear among the middle classes. None of the lower-class probates lists this type of garment. It may have been worn for more elegant occasions or, more practically, as a sort of coat for warmth. It clearly differed from the overkjortel (overkirtle; see below), as it was often of higher value. Only a handful of the probate accounts include both a samarie and an overkjortel; in the rest, the deceased owned either a samarie or an overkjortel—not both. The samaries mentioned are nearly always black; a few are brown, and a single blue one appears in the probate record of a wife of a wealthy citizen in 1568.49 The materials are often given as English cloth, say, and Flemish cloth, but even grosgrain, taffeta, and other silks appear. Sibylle, a wealthy young unmarried woman in Elsinore (1592) owned a samarie of black silk taffeta.50 Anne, wife of an Elsinore citizen (1605), owned one of fine black cloth trimmed and edged with black velvet.51 Barbara, wife of a Malmoe merchant (1592), had both an overkjortel and a samarie: the overkjortel was of violet-brown cloth open at the front, lined and edged with miniver at the front opening, and the samarie was of black English say lined with miniver and edged with otter fur. Her other garments included two underkirtles (underkjortel) without bodices, of black silk grosgrain and black cloth respectively; a silver-coloured (light grey) petticoat (skørt) with eight pairs of silver eyelets and edged with rows of Italian passementerie; a violet-brown skørt with six pairs of silver eyelets, lined with miniver and edged with otter; a doublet of English cloth and embossed velvet; and a bodice of plain velvet.52 Most samaries were lined with fur, usually miniver or vair, but even cat appears. Bendte (1591), wife of a priest and former teacher to the daughters of the astronomer Tycho Brahe, owned a costly samarie of fine say lined with miniver and trimmed with ermine. It was her second most valuable garment after a new mantle of English cloth.53 Ursula, wife of the mayor of Malmoe, who died the same year, owned a samarie of fine grosgrain lined and trimmed with vair.54 Another Bendte, wife of a goldsmith (1594), had two: one of fine say that was unlined and one of silk grosgrain lined with

 48 According to Jane Malcolm-Davies, the equivalent term in English documents of this period was “frock.”  49 M-PRB-5 (1566–69), no. 104.  50 E-PRB-4 (1592–98), 73r.  51 E-PRB-5 (1603–10), 125r.  52 M-PRB-10 (1592–93), no. 277.  53 Wife of Jacob Mikkelsen Lemvig; M-PRB-9 (1590–91), no. 238. Regarding Lemvig, see John Robert Christianson, On Tycho’s Island: Tycho Brahe, Science, and Culture in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 90, 98.  54 M-PRB-9 (1590–91), no. 248.

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Figure 7.9: Detail of carved stone epitaph of Jacob Hansen Fechtel, mayor in Malmoe (d. 1616), showing his wife, Gedske Willumsdatter, and their daughters, wearing layered outfits, most likely open-fronted overkirtles over kirtles. Malmoe, St. Petri Church. Photo: Erik Fjordside / Livinghistory, by permission.

miniver.55 Most appear to have been long, but many are described as short, especially after 1600. A few “very long” appear as well. Kirtles, skirts, and bodices The main garments of the period 1545–1610 were different types of kirtles (gowns). Skirts/petticoats are rare in the earliest records, appearing in only three cases in the probates from period I, which shows that they were not yet common in the early

 55 M-PRB-11 (1594–95), no. 282.

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Clothing of Danish Townswomen part of the period under study. (Table 7.5 lists the various kirtles, skirts, and bodices discussed in this section.) The Danish records define three types of kirtles: kjortel; underkjortel (underkirtle); and overkjortel (an uppergown, frock, or even a sleeved coat). The term kjortel may at times have been used as a generic term for all three types, which could explain the high number of kirtles mentioned, and the correspondingly low numbers of over- and underkirtles. The garments could be worn in various combinations, and in images it is sometimes unclear exactly what combination is depicted—for instance, a kirtle over an underkirtle, or an overkirtle worn over a kirtle (fig. 7.9). Details of the cut and style of the kirtles are rarely given, but the records do name two main versions: kirtles with joined bodice and skirt, and kirtles made of four parts of cloth at full length with inserted gores for extra width. The latter is often referred to as firestykskjortel (four-pieced kirtle) in the records. Both appear to have been in use in this period, and both are also mentioned in the guild regulations of the Malmoe tailors in 1546. The guild regulation required an apprentice tailor to be able to make a four-pieced woman’s kirtle, a bell-shaped woman’s cloak, and a pair of men’s hose, as well as to be able to use suitable cloth and thread for them. These items were to be presented before the guild alderman. Those who could not meet the standards were required to learn more and do the test again at a later time.56 The kirtles with joined bodices and skirts mentioned in the probates often had bodices and skirts of different materials or colours. This could mean that the upper portion of the kirtle was routinely covered by a doublet or simply not visible under the uppergarment, but this seems to be the case only when the bodice was made of a coarser or less expensive material than the skirt. In most cases, the top part was in fact of a richer material than the skirt. The kirtles with joined bodices and skirts include those mentioned as “kirtles with bodice,” which probably included sleeved and sleeveless variants too. A bodice is sometimes a separate item, not only part of a kirtle. Bodices are occasionally defined as overliv (upperbodice) or simply liv, which probably reflects the range of tops, from sleeved bodices or doublets to half-bodices that only covered the waist. The upperbodices with sleeves were of as many different colours as the kirtles. The doublets (trøje), on the other hand, were almost all black, occasionally blue or brown in the earliest period or red in the later. The cut and construction, however, of the majority of the kirtles is not given. This could mean that this group of unspecified kirtles included both four-piece kirtles and kirtles with joined bodices and skirts, or it could mean that the average kirtle was constructed differently, e.g., with back and front pieces and additional gores, or even of more pieces. This could explain why four-piece kirtles and kirtles with joined bodices appear relatively rarely compared to the large group of nonspecified kirtles. However, it is also possible that the few references to four-piece kirtles mean that this style was

 56 Erik Kroman, Leif Ljungberg, and Einar Bager, eds., Malmø Rådstueprotokol (Stadsbok) 1503–1548 (Copenhagen: Selskabet for udgivelse af kilder til dansk historie, 1965), 282.

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Figure 7.10: Detail of epitaph of alderman Georg Beyer showing his two wives, Maria Freese and Magdalena Rickertsen, and five daughters, 1591. Two of the daughters have kirtles that close with front lacing, barely visible behind their clasped hands and below the hems of their kraver. Flensburg, Germany (formerly South Jutland), St. Marien Church. Photo: Erik Fjordside / Livinghistory, by permission.

already out of fashion at the time and being replaced by other types. It is clear, despite the relatively small number of references, that kirtles with joined bodices were more common in the later part of the period, whereas four-piece kirtles were replaced by other types of garments entirely. The probate of the unnamed wife of an Elsinore town dweller (1590) mentions, for instance, a red kjortel “pieced together of many pieces,” an underkjortel of brown coarse English cloth with ten pairs of silver eyes, and an ­underkjortel of red English cloth with ten pairs of silver eyes.57 In this probate account, the kirtle that was made of many pieces clearly differed from the two underkirtles.

 57 E-PRB-3 (1583–92), 182r.

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Clothing of Danish Townswomen In some cases the skirt part of the kirtles must have been pleated, although the probates do not normally specify such a detail. The evidence is that payments for having kirtles pleated or re-pleated are listed among debts in the probates. Usually the payment was given for “the pleating woman” or “the woman who pleated her kirtles,” suggesting that this particular textile skill was female work. The pleated skirts seem to belong to the fashions of the first part of the century, but they did not disappear altogether. As late as 1592 a probate record from Elsinore for the wife of a glazier mentions a bill of 22 shillings paid to a woman for re-pleating two kirtles.58 A common feature of the later part of the century is the sudden confusion of skørt (petticoat) versus kjortel (kirtle). Both could consist of a skirt part with a sleeveless, front-lacing bodice; sometimes a separate skirt with a short waist piece or none at all; and sometimes a skirt with a sleeved bodice. The kirtle could also be cut in one length from shoulder to skirt hem. Both could be closed with lacings (fig. 7.10), but there are also references to skirts closing with hooks and eyes and kirtles closed with buckles or clasps. Thus either the word kjortel or skørt can mean a full-length garment, a skirt with or without bodice, or a kirtle with or without bodice; it could be sleeved, sleeveless, or have additional full sleeves or half-sleeves. Sometimes the distinction between the two must have been unclear to contemporaries too. One probate inventory lists a garment described as “an old brown petticoat or kirtle.”59 The difference between the petticoat and the kirtle is further confused by the fact that a kirtle, a kirtle without bodice, and a petticoat with bodice might appear in the same probate, meaning that the differences between these items was at least clear to those drawing up the inventory. Possibly it was the cut, style, and fullness of the skirt part of the garment that distinguished a kirtle from a petticoat. The probate account of Beritte, wife of a citizen (1590), lists a silk bodice (livstykke) with fringes, another of black taffeta, an underkirtle (underkjortel) of say with bodice (liv) of silk, a sleeved bodice (livstykke) of say to use for the same kirtle, and a red petticoat of English cloth with bodice (liv) of red camlet lined with green cloth.60 By 1600 the many variations of kirtles and petticoats with or without bodices are being replaced by just skirts, mainly a regular skirt with a waistband and hooks and eyes for fastening. By the end of period III, the kirtle is almost entirely replaced by combinations of petticoat and separate doublet or bodice (fig. 7.11). Only kirtles, petticoats, and underkirtles seem to have been constructed with a joined bodice; none of the overkirtles were described this way. The overkjortel may sometimes have taken the form of a gown, sometimes a coat. It could be open down the front and reveal the kirtle worn underneath it. A probate account mentions an overkjortel lined with silk under the “front-sides.”61 Another from 1580 mentions a brown overkjortel with opslag (turned-out lining or lapel) of blue damask.62 Most of the overkirtles appear to have been lined with fur (fig. 7.10).  58 E-PRB-3 (1583–92), 275v.  59 “j gammell brun skørt eller kiortil”; M-PRB-8 (1582–89), no. 184.  60 E-PRB-3 (1583–92), 163r.  61 M-PRB-10 (1592–93), no. 254.  62 E-PRB-2 (1571–82), 169r.

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Figure 7.11: Detail of epitaph of Lorens Pedersen, alderman in Tønder, showing his four daughters, three married and one unmarried, wearing doublets and skirts, early seventeenth century. The depiction of the daughters is unusual for an epitaph, showing fashionable wear instead of church wear. Tønder Church. Photo: Erik Fjordside / Livinghistory, by permission.

The additional samaries occasionally worn with kirtles as well as petticoat-and-doublet combinations do not seem to resemble the overkirtles, which were worn only with a kirtle. It is possible that the overkjortel was the middle-class counterpart to the upper-class samarie (see above, page 151). In contrast to the samarie, which nearly always appeared in black, gowns called overkjortel in the inventories were of similar colours to the kirtles. The wife of the shoemaker (1560) had an overkjortel described as “parrot green,”63 whereas Johanne Neermands, a wealthy widow (1566), had three: one of red cloth from Mark (that is, Brandenburg in Germany), one of brown cloth, and one of blue say. She also left a number of regular kirtles and underkirtles.64 The colours given for all types of kirtles are black and different hues of red, brown, blue, and green (tables 7.6–7.8). The majority of kirtles in all three periods are black, brown, and red. In the earlier part of the period under study, the taste for more lively colours is clear, the inventories mentioning parrot green, bright blue, and red. By the  63 M-PRB-3 (1560–62), no. 48.  64 M-PRB-5 (1566–69), no. 90.

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Clothing of Danish Townswomen end of the century the fashionable colours are different hues of pink and purple, often under inventive names such as “flesh-coloured,” “face-coloured,” or “liver-coloured,” as well as the common terms for purple: “blue-brown” and “violet-brown.” Colours such as “rat grey” and “ash-coloured” also appear around the same time. Around 1600 the new fashionable colours are “silver-coloured” (light grey) and “lavender.” Documents from period III list more petticoats than kirtles, and although red, black, and brown are still the dominant colours, a higher number of other colours are seen. All three periods include a large number of kirtles and petticoats for which the colour is not given. Women of the lowest classes most often left behind just a single red or brown kirtle; for the poorest, often only one kirtle was worth enough to be mentioned in the probate record. The women of the upper classes had a number of kirtles in different colours. The wealthiest women left large wardrobes with a high number of underkirtles and kirtles that could be combined in various ways. Barbara Rottke, the young wife of a wealthy merchant who died in childbirth in 1560 (presumably not more than a year after the wedding as the probate account included still unpaid bills from the wedding), left behind nine kirtles.65 Mette Jacobsdatter, wife of the Malmoe mayor Peder Knudsen, had ten kirtles in 1564.66 Among the lower classes was Citze Jørgens in 1559, whose probate account mentions only two kirtles—an old brown underkirtle and an old blue kirtle—listed together with an old brown cloak, an old blue doublet, and some old coarse smocks and head-linen.67 The 1567 probate account of Marine, the wife of a shoemaker of lower rank, mentions just a red underkirtle and a brown kirtle.68 Similarly, Birgitte, wife of an Elsinore town dweller (1582), owned a red kirtle and a green kirtle, both of English cloth; a black mantle; and some linen clothing, including two aprons.69 With the growing popularity of skirts, many probates from 1600 and onward contain only skirts and no kirtles, particularly among the wealthiest women. Marine, the wife of the mayor of Maribo who had run off to live in Elsinore with her lover, left behind an impressive wardrobe in 1609. It included nine petticoats: three of black cloth; four red ones, one of them with black borders and one described as crimson with black velvet borders; a blue one with black borders; and a green one with ­passementerie borders.70 These were worn with either bodice or doublet. There were two bodices—a  65 An underkirtle of say lined with miniver, a kirtle of brown English cloth lined with vair, a brown kirtle of English cloth lined with squirrel backs, an underkirtle of black cloth, a kirtle of cloth of Bruges, an underkirtle of brown English cloth, an underkirtle of red English cloth, a red underkirtle, and a green and black kirtle of black English cloth and green Göttingen cloth. The buckles, eyes, and clasps for the kirtles are listed separately. M-PRB-3 (1560–62), no. 47.  66 One of black say lined with bellies, one of brown cloth lined with the same, one of brown say similarly lined, one of red cloth with the same lining, another of brown say lined with the same, one of red cloth unlined, a green kirtle lined with backs, a third kirtle of brown say lined with bellies and with six pairs of metal eyelets, another of black say, and one of blue say unlined. M-PRB-4 (1563–64), no. 67.  67 M-PRB-2 (1558–59), no. 37.  68 M-PRB-5 (1566–69), no. 95.  69 E-PRB-2 (1571–82), 200r.  70 E-PRB-6 (1603–10), 367r.

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Camilla Luise Dahl livstykke of black trip de velour (a structured, patterned velvet) with silver eyelets, and a yellow snørliv71 with silver eyelets—and four doublets (trøje)—three black of silk satin and English cloth, and one red of English baize. Anne Rasmusdatter, an unmarried young woman of wealthy family (1592), had, among a number of valuable garments, a purple skørt without liv with borders of brown velvet and passementerie, another purple skørt with brown bodice (overliv), and a bodice (livstykke) decorated with rows of fringes and velvet.72 Karine, wife of a Malmoe glovemaker (1602), had a “flesh-coloured” skørt, another of “lavender colour,” a brown one, one of “German green colour,” a black one of English cloth, and one of cloth of unspecified colour, together with doublets and bodices of brown and black silk camlet and cloth.73 Leather clothes appear relatively frequently in the Danish probates. Contrary to many other places in Europe, clothes of animal skin were not exclusively the wear of peasants and lower-class townspeople. In fact, even the royal princesses as well as noblewomen at large had various items of clothes made of fine leather.74 Leather clothes were one of the more typical Scandinavian types of wear that remained in use throughout the sixteenth century.75 The fashionable cut of leather kirtles shows that leather clothes were not an outdated simple type of wear but widely worn as an alternative to kirtles made of cloth.76 In the probates, leather kirtles appear among the garments worn by the upper, middle, and lower classes. The wife of merchant Hans Lollicke (1560) had a leather kirtle (skindkjortel) valued at twice as much as a red kirtle with bodice of markeye (cloth from Mark).77 Marine Paltekone (1554), a used clothes retailer, had one new and one old skindkjortel together with a green kjortel, a blue-brown (purple) kjortel, and a red kjortel of English cloth with six pairs of silver eyelets.78 It is however noticeable that skin clothes do not appear in any of the probates of Dutch and Scottish/English women, apparently being less favoured among this group than by their Danish counterparts.

 71 Although the Danish term snørliv can be used to indicate either a bodice (uppergarment) or a pair of stays (undergarment), this yellow snørliv was clearly classed with other bodices as an uppergarment. The distinction between the snørliv and the other bodice types here is unclear.  72 E-PRB-3 (1583–92), 272r.  73 M-PRB-13 (1600–2), no. 367.  74 Troels-Lund, Dagligt Liv, 315.  75 Skin kirtles (skindkjortel) had been worn since the medieval period. Kirtles of animal skin were durable and did not wear out as quickly as kirtles of cloth. For summer wear, the leather kirtles were often lined with cloth, and for winter the hair-side of the leather was left on the inside as a warm fur lining. Ellen Andersen, Danske Bønders Klædedragt (Copenhagen: Carit Andersens Forlag, 1960), 42.  76 The Malmoe skinners were, according to their guild regulation of 1547–48, required to master the making of a good kirtle with joined bodice and skirt, a good four-piece kirtle, and a pair of good gloves with fingers of tanned leather, while the furriers of the same guild were required to line a cloak with bellies, one with backs, and one with small furs. Kroman, Ljungberg, and Bager, Malmø Rådstueprotokol, 259.  77 M-PRB-3 (1560–62), no. 46.  78 M-PRB-1 (1546–57), no. 8.

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Clothing of Danish Townswomen Sleeves Separate sleeves (ærmer) are mentioned throughout the probate accounts. They were not necessarily worn with a sleeveless kirtle, although a high number of the underkirtles are described as sleeveless. They may also have been used as extra sleeves that could be worn on top of a sleeved kirtle. The probate records mention both half-sleeves (halværmer) and full sleeves (ærmer), which must refer to the length of the sleeves, and possibly also to how they were supposed to be worn. The majority of the sleeves that appear are of expensive fabric such as silk, velvet, and damask. This may mean that sleeves were usually of costlier material than the rest of the garments, or it may mean that sleeves of less costly material were of so low a value that they were not mentioned in the probate accounts. The small number of separate sleeves mentioned in the accounts suggests this. Most sleeves appear in the earliest probate accounts, but still only twenty-nine pairs of sleeves are mentioned in Malmoe in period I (1545–69), while the number of kirtles, including under- and overkirtles, is 298 in comparison. In period III, sleeves are mainly mentioned together with a bodice (livstykke). Margrethe and Anne, the daughters of baker Niels Bager (1547), were given various garments at the death of their brother and mother; some had belonged to their mother, others were made for the girls for money taken from their inheritance. Among the garments are listed a red underkjortel and a hazel green kjortel that had been their mother’s, a four-pieced red kjortel made for Anne, and a pair of half-sleeves of yellow damask and a pair of full sleeves of say that belonged to Anne.79 Gundel, the wife of a Malmoe goldsmith (1560), had a pair of black satin sleeves and a pair of red satin.80 Karine, wife of the priest Master Hans Nielsen at St. Peter’s church in Malmoe (1564), had four pairs of sleeves: a pair of half-sleeves of brown damask, full sleeves of green camlet, and a pair of red and a pair of brown satin full sleeves.81 The wife of citizen Hans Willumsen (1564) had three pairs of velvet sleeves.82 The sleeves could have fastenings in form of hooks or buttons. In Elsinore in 1563, the wife of the citizen Peder Nielsen was robbed of several gold and silver items, including a silver girdle and a pair of half-sleeves with eight silver buttons, which she had worn at a wedding in Zealand. The thief who appeared at court in Elsinore admitted to having stolen the goods and given the sleeves and the silver girdle to a prostitute in Scania.83

 79 M-PRB-1 (1546–57), no. 4.  80 M-PRB-3 (1560–62), no. 55.  81 M-PRB-4 (1563–64), no. 72.  82 M-PRB-4 (1563–64), no. 74.  83 Karen Hjorth and Erik Kroman, Helsingør Stadsbog 1554–1555, 1559–1560 og 1561–1565: Rådstueprotokol og Bytingbog (Copenhagen: Selskabet for udgivelse af kilder til dansk historie, 1981), 293–95.

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Camilla Luise Dahl Aprons and foreparts Forklæde (“forecloths,” which could mean both aprons and foreparts) can also be categorized as upperwear, although in the probate documents these were most often listed among linens together with underwear. Aprons were mostly of white linen or—for more practical everyday wear—of coarse tow linen. A few are described as of bleached linen, of cambric, or of other fine linen, decorated with additional embroidery, such as “English work,” “white work,” and “draw work.”84 Aprons especially of brown and blue cloth also appear, although it is often unclear if those were half-skirts, foreparts, or practical aprons for everyday work. A few inventories of upper-class burghers’ wives list fine forklædes of silk, which appear to be half-skirts or foreparts rather than aprons. The white aprons are the most common in depictions of Danish townswomen (as in figs. 7.4, 7.5, and 7.6). LINEN WEAR

Linen clothing mentioned in the probates (table 7.9) included bodywear, such as smocks and shirts, as well as headwear, neckwear (e.g. collars, ruffs, partlets), and occasionally legwear. Children’s linen included diapers, swaddling clothes, and unspecified linen bindings and straps. Other linen objects are more randomly mentioned, for instance breast bindings, pairs of stays or bodices, and the like, or accessories such as handkerchiefs. Many of the probates mention an unspecified number and type of linen goods, with phrasing such as “a bag of linen clothes,” “a chest of linen clothes,” or “all her linen clothing.” The probates of wealthier women list several smocks, lowerparts, and upperparts, whereas the probates of the less well-off mention only a single one or a few of each item. A few are specified as being of coarser material, such as tow linen. Foundation garments Various body shapers must have been worn to achieve the desired look. Pairs of stays and any equivalent of brassieres are hard to find in the material. A bindeliv (binding bodice) might be a pair of stays used as a sort of brassiere, whereas bindeklæde (binding cloth) might indicate a regular means to bind the breasts. A Danish glossary from 1576 describes the terms bindeliv and binde trøie (binding vest) as a garment “women have, or the similar, to bind their breasts with,” which, however, could still mean either.85 The probates frequently mention livstykke, meaning “bodice,” and sometimes snørliv;  84 Mette, wife of a Malmoe citizen (1592) had several aprons of fine and coarse linen, one with English work; M-PRB-10 (1592–93), no. 25. What the “English work” (Engilst søm) signified is unclear, but it also appears as decoration for shirts. For instance, Jørgen Kandestøber, a pewterer of Malmoe (1573), had 13 shirts of various qualities, the most expensive a shirt with English work; M-PRB-6 (1571–77), no. 120.  85 “Binde trøie som quindfolck haffuer eller andit som de binde brystene til med,” Jørgen Larsen, ed., Vocabulorum variorum expositio, Det 16. Århundredes Danske Vokabularier 5 (1576; repr. facsimile, Copenhagen: Reitzel, 1995), 29r.

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Clothing of Danish Townswomen however, as noted earlier, these often appear to have been worn visibly over the kirtle or as part of it, as they are often of finer fabric such as velvet, silk, or fine wool. The distinction between those worn underneath as means of shaping and those worn on top is mostly unclear. The bodices described as being of thick, plain material may as easily be work garments as body shapers, whereas the ones of linen may more likely be pairs of stays. None of the probates mention hip bolsters, probably because such an item would be of too little value to appear regularly. They certainly did exist in the period,86 and they must have in use among women of the bourgeoisie too. A “linen roll” was stolen from a chest of linen clothing from a burgher’s wife in Malmoe in 1581,87 and a later probate, from 1613, mentions a pøllseliff (waist roll) among a burgher’s wife’s garments.88 “Stiffskirts” of coarse linen and heavy linen-wool mixes appear in the probates and may have been worn like crinolines to add extra volume to skirts and kirtles. The half-skirts called vennike (recorded as upperwear) may also have been used for this purpose.89 A few inventories mention a kappe (mantle) worn under a skirt, which may be a hoopskirt with an underlying framework or simply a crinoline of thick, heavy material. The wife of a wealthy merchant in Malmoe (1593) had two skirts, of black and brown English cloth respectively, with a kappe to go underneath.90 The wife of a citizen in Elsinore (1606) left a linen kappe among her skirts and other linen clothing. This was the highest valued item among her linen clothes.91 Smocks and shirts The main undergarment was the smock or shirt. In the earliest records under study, men’s and women’s main undergarments are usually named by the same term, skjorte (shirt). In many probate records drawn up for both men and women, the shirts are simply listed as “the couple’s shirts” rather than listed under the husband and wife  86 For instance, mentioned in the 1597 trousseau inventory of Anne Catherine of Brandenburg (Copenhagen, Danish National Archives, MS no. 9, “Inventarium over klenodier og klæder, som frøken Anna Katrine af Brandenburg Medførte til Danmark,” 1597). A transcription of that manuscript appears in Camilla Luise Dahl, “Inventarium paa Klenodier og Klæder, som Frøken Anna Cathrine af Brandenburg Medførte til Danmark, 1597,” Dragtjournalen 3, no. 5 (2009), 52–67.  87 L. Ljungberg and E. Bager, eds., Malmø Tingbøger 1577–83 og 1588–90 (Copenhagen: Selskabet for Udgivelse af Kilder til Dansk Historie, 1968), 125.  88 Malmoe probate record bundle of 1608–13, no. 448.  89 The term vennike was used for “half-skirt” in later periods in rural dress. Christian Molbech, Dansk Glossarium; eller Ordbog over Forældede Danske Ord af Diplomer, Haandskrifter og Trykte Bøger fra det 13de til det 16de Aarhundrede (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1866), 2:275, defines it as a simple kirtle or skirt of coarse material, worn as an underskirt or as an item of dress often worn by the poor. Andersen (Danske Bønders Klædedragt, 55, 57) describes it as an open skirt, half-skirt, or open-fronted skirt, often of coarser material, worn with an apron; she adds that for some rural women it could even be a fine decorative apron worn in the back instead of the front. Elna Mygdal, Amagerdragter: Vævninger og Syninger (Copenhagen: Det Schønbergske Forlag, 1932), 85–86, defines it as an open-fronted upperskirt.  90 M-PRB-10 (1592–93), no. 265.  91 E-PRB-6 (1603–10), 215r.

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Camilla Luise Dahl respectively.92 A sharper distinction between shirt for the male undergarment and smock (særk) for the female variant begins to appear a little later in the century. By the 1590s, the shirts in women’s probates are being replaced by smocks, and almost all of the shirts after that time are defined as “old” or are men’s shirts given to women. Only in one case are shirts listed as quinde skiortter (women’s shirts), in the probate of a tailor’s widow in Elsinore in 1594.93 The evidence suggests that men’s and women’s main undergarments did not differ much around the middle of the century, possibly consisting of a simple T-shaped sleeved garment without shaping for bust and hips. The fact that the shirts could be unisex can be found in the 1577 probate of the wife of a Malmoe merchant: she owned six shirts, two of which were donated to her husband’s brother, two given to her sister, and two to her son-in-law.94 On the other hand, there must have been a clear distinction between women’s shirts and smocks, as many women owned both. For instance Giertrud, wife of a strapmaker, owned an old shirt and two smocks in 1591.95 However, women’s smocks are also mentioned in earlier periods.96 Possibly this unisex-style undergarment called “shirt” is just a fashion of the sixteenth century and there originally was a difference in construction between women’s smocks and shirts that was left unspecified later on. By the early seventeenth century, the female version of the shirt/smock is consistently called særk, and the term skjorte is used only for male underwear. Smocks appear in sleeved and sleeveless versions. The sleeveless version was worn alone or together with an oplød or oplod (literally “upperpart”), a short shirtlike garment with short or long sleeves. Upperparts were common in Scandinavia and also part of the common rural dress in later periods but seem less common outside of the Germanic area.97 No extant examples from sixteenth- or seventeenth-century Denmark are known to exist, but rural examples from ca. 1700 and onward are common.98 Upperparts are mentioned from the earliest probates and onward, but the smocks and shirts appear more frequently. The upperpart could also be worn with a so-called lowerpart (nederdel) which may not have differed much from the sleeveless smock but may more often have been a simpler style of smock with straps. They are usually of low value in the probate accounts. The difference between lowerpart (nederdel) and skirt (skørt) seems to be that the lowerparts were worn with an upperpart, whereas skirts could be worn with a smock. In this way the lowerpart could have resembled a sleeveless smock or a smock with  92 Shirts that were not specified as belonging to either husband or wife or that belonged to both have been included in the table as women’s shirts.  93 E-PRB-4 (1592–98), 305v.  94 M-PRB-6 (1571–77), no. 130.  95 M-PRB-9 (1590–91), no. 225.  96 For instance, bequeathed in wills of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.  97 Janet Arnold, “Elizabethan and Jacobean Smocks and Shirts,” Waffen- und Kostümkunde 19, no. 2 (1977): 89–110.  98 Andersen, Danske Bønders Klædedragt, 73–75; Erna Lorenzen, Folks Tøj i og Omkring Aarhus ca. 1675–ca. 1850 (Aarhus: Universitetsforlaget, 1975), 27–28.

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Clothing of Danish Townswomen shoulder straps rather than a skirt. One or more skirts could probably be worn at the same time. The skirts appear mainly in the later part of the period under study. In the earliest portion, skirts are rarer. Together a sleeveless smock and an upperpart formed a full smock. Extant examples of later two-pieced smocks (widely used in Denmark in rural parts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) are almost uniformly a sleeved short upperpart with a sleeveless smock, often with shoulder straps. This kind of two-piece smock was practical, as the bodice part needed washing more frequently than the lowerpart and wore out quicker. When fabric is mentioned, the upperparts are of finer linen than the lowerparts, suggesting that at least some of the upperpart was visible, or perhaps just that finer linen is more comfortable. The upperparts are sometimes described in more detail. They could have sleeves or be sleeveless; they could be made with a collar (flat or ruffled) or without one, or have a detachable collar; they could be embroidered, and either fine or coarse. Elsebe, wife of a merchant (1560), had a sleeveless upperpart, a collarless upperpart, one upperpart with two pairs of attachable sleeves, six other upperparts of linen, and two of coarser linen. Together with these, she had three shirts and four smocks.99 Mette Gurris, wife of a citizen, had in 1592 a new upperpart of fine linen, an old one, one that had been repaired, and an unspecified one.100 A widow of Malmoe had in 1593 three old upperparts of coarse tow linen, and two old completely worn-out upperparts of tow linen.101 Lisbeth Poulsdatter, wife of an Elsinore citizen, had eleven upperparts, twelve partlets (halsklæder), and seven collars.102 Cut and construction of the smocks are only occasionally given. In a probate from 1560, a woman had a “childbirth smock” (barnsengs særk) and a “childbirth upperpart” (barnsengs oplod), probably constructed as maternity wear and suitable for breastfeeding.103 Apparently smocks could also be “extra wide” or “double wide,” which appear in a few cases.104 The upperparts that had ruffs were perhaps worn instead of a partlet. Whitework and other embroidery, with gold, silver, and pearls, on smocks and upperparts suggests that both could be worn visibly under the gown. Breeches Surprisingly, a few pairs of breeches also appear in women’s inventories. This item of underwear is usually considered solely masculine. However, in sixteenth-century Denmark, breeches could apparently be worn by women as well.105 They also appear  99 M-PRB-3 (1560–62), no. 53. 100 M-PRB-10 (1592–93), no. 255. 101 M-PRB-10 (1592–93), no. 269. 102 E-PRB-4 (1592–98), 736r. 103 M-PRB-3 (1560–62), no. 47. A childbirth smock is also mentioned in 1552; M-PRB-1 (1546–57), no. 11. 104 E-PRB-5 (1599–1603), 215v. 105 Danish historian Troels Troels-Lund suggests that the female breeches were a consequence of the appearance of hoop skirts in the sixteenth century. The German Lutheran moralist Lucas Osiander,

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Figure 7.12: Detail of epitaph of Elsinore mayor Willum Grå, showing his Scottish-born first wife Joan (d. 1601) and his Danish second wife (name unknown), each wearing the distinct headwear style of her homeland, early seventeenth century. Elsinore, St. Mary’s Church. Photo: Erik Fjordside / Livinghistory, by permission.

among women’s belongings in other Danish and Norwegian towns during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and may not have been as uncommon as usually thought.106 They are generally of very modest value and most often appear in inventories where all goods from the best to the worst are itemized. They appear only a few times in Malmoe and Elsinore, such as in the probates of Malmoe townswoman Beritte Eliases, a linen weaver, who owned a pair of broge (breeches) in 1562,107 and Eline, wife of an who was also widely known in Lutheran Denmark and Norway, noted in 1594 that the new fashions with wide skirts and bolsters made a woman inappropriately dressed, as when she was to sit down or stand near a table, the dress would lift up, exposing everything underneath. Troels-Lund, Dagligt Liv, 363–64; Johann Petr Schmidt, Fastel-Abends-Sammlungen; oder, Geschichtmässige Untersuchung der Fastel- Abends-Gebrauche in Deutschland (Rostock: Universität von Rostock, 1742) 12-13. 106 Anne Nielsdatter, wife of a sacristan in Vordingborg, owned in 1622 two pairs of lærids buxer (“linen trousers”); Copenhagen, Danish National Archives, Vordingborg town bailiff ’s archive, probate accounts 1620–29, probate of Niels Jacobsen Klokker and wife. 107 M-PRB-3 (1560–62), no. 55b.

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Clothing of Danish Townswomen Elsinore town dweller, who had a pair of linen breeches in 1578.108 Breeches were not exclusive to Danish women: Lucia, a Dutch woman and wife of a carpenter, had two pairs of unspecified buxser in 1605.109 Breeches also appear as ready-made items in shop inventories, such as in that of Willum Dassou and wife, who owned a shop in Elsinore in 1599. Their shop had a number of linen wares, such as coarse linen breeches described as lerffuidsboxer, shirt collars, ruffs, and women’s headwear.110 Headwear Headwear, in general, includes various pieces from linen caps to binding straps, as well as hairnets, metal hair ornaments, and hoods and caps of cloth such as velvet, wool, and silk.111 (Such hoods are discussed above, under outerwear, page 143, and appear with other outerwear in table 7.1. Headwear listed as upperwear, not considered as linens, appears in table 7.4.) The common linen headwear worn by townswomen included two main types: linen sets and coloured cap sets. The linen sets were part of the traditional formal burgher’s dress and were worn on Sunday for church. As the epitaphs suggest (figs. 7.5 and 7.12), they consisted of a forehead cloth (linhat, or “linen hat”), a red undercap (hovedklædehue), and a headcloth (hovedklæde), sometimes with an additional binding cloth or strip tied around the headcloth and ending in a knot on top of the head. The coloured sets consisted of white linen inner parts topped by a coloured or black fabric cap. It was the latter that could have additional trimmings of pearls and gold, to be worn for festive occasions. The types of headwear mentioned in the probates are very varied and extensive. Both the linen sets and coloured cap sets appear throughout the century in the probate records, the costlier styles only by high-end citizens, and the common linen sets standard wear for married women. Wealthier women often owned both the traditional Danish white linen sets listed among linen clothes as well as more fashionable caps of fine cloth, velvet, or silk listed among gangklæder (walking clothes) or even costlier ones listed among jewellery.112

108 E-PRB-2 (1571–82), 132r. 109 E-PRB-6 (1603–10), 103r. 110 E-PRB-5 (1599–1603), 97v. 111 Camilla Luise Dahl, Charlotte Rimstad, and Maj Ringgaard, “A Renaissance Woman’s Silk Coif from a Copenhagen Moat,” in Aspects of the Design, Production, and Use of Textiles and Clothing from the Bronze Age to the Early Modern Era: NESAT XII. The North European Symposium for Archaeological Textiles, 21st–24th May 2014 in Hallstatt, Austria, ed. Karina Grömer and Frances Pritchard (Hallstatt: Archaeolingua, 2015), 187–92. 112 Gertrud, widow of a citizen (1567) and Mette, wife of the mayor of Malmoe (1564) had pearl and gold trimmings for caps as well as the traditional white headcloths, forehead cloths, caps, and bindings; M-PRB-5 (1566–69), no. 88; M-PRB-4 (1563–64), no. 67.

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Figure 7.13: Partlet or upperpart with pleats and ruffled collar. Altar table painting, ca. 1550. Zealand, Drøsselbjerg Church. Photo: Erik Fjordside / Livinghistory, by permission.

Neckwear Neckwear includes partlets (halsklæder) and collars (kraver)—sometimes specified as ruff or ruffled collar (ru or rukrave) or straight collar (slet krave)—and the trimmings for them.113 The partlets are among the items that appear decorated the most. Partlets are not mentioned in most probate accounts, but when they are mentioned, they usually appear in high numbers. In total, 1,211½ partlets are mentioned; in 13 probate accounts are listed “some partlets,” and in one account is listed half a partlet. The partlets might have had a collar or ruffled edge; for instance, some partlets are specified as “without ruffle” and some are specified “with collar” (fig. 7.13). The

113 These kraver, made of linen and listed in the probates with other linens, clearly differ from the shoulder-cape type of krave listed as outerwear and made of wool, silk, or velvet (see p. 147).

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Figure 7.14: Ruffled collars of the mid-sixteenth century. Wall painting, ca. 1560. Zealand, Skibinge Church. Photo: Camilla Luise Dahl.

ruffs could also be separate items, but those seem to be rare still in the earliest period. Krave could also refer to the plain high-standing collar often appearing in images of Danish burgher women before 1600. After 1600 the majority of collars were ruffled 167

Camilla Luise Dahl ones. Although the shape of the collar is obvious in images, it is often unclear whether a collar in a visual source is part of a partlet or upperpart or a separate item (figs. 7.14 and 7.15). In the documents, a number of attachable collars are described as “partlet collars” (halsklædekraver), others as “upperpart collars,” and yet others just as separate collars. Both “partlet collars” and “partlets with collars” are listed. Agnethe, wife of a tailor in Elsinore, had some “new partlet collars” in 1594.114 Nille, wife of a well-off Elsinore citizen, had two partlet collars of fine cambric, three partlets of fine cambric, and ten partlets of linen in 1599.115 Margrethe, wife of a town dweller, had nine “collar-partlets” (krave-halsklæder) in 1609.116 The probate of Elsebe Svendsdatter, wife of a wealthy merchant in Malmoe who died in 1560, lists 149 pieces of linen clothing, including seventy-two partlets: these consisted of seven children’s partlets, twenty-four bleached linen partlets, fourteen unspecified partlets, three partlets with gold embroidery, five partlets with whitework or draw work (described as singlet) two of them very fine, another two coarser partlets with whitework, six partlets without collars, two partlets with detachable collars (probably ruffs), another three partlet collars, and six cut but yet unsewn partlets.117 Mette Jacobsdatter, wife of a Malmoe mayor (1564), had two attachable collars (probably ruffs), a pearl-embroidered partlet trimming, and six other trimmings of gold as well as lace trimmings for partlets and upperparts.118 Marine, widow of a citizen (1567), left twenty-eight partlets and one ruff. Another Marine, wife of a Malmoe priest (1583), had six attachable collars besides her upperparts and partlets.119 Mette, the wife of an apothecary (1602), had seventeen collars, four of them plain ones and thirteen with ruffles.120 Her probate inventory did not include partlets but instead eleven kerchiefs or neckerchiefs (tørklæder). Karine, wife of a glovemaker, who died the same year, had four ruffs and four plain collars, six partlets, and a kerchief.121 TRIMMINGS AND DECORATIONS

The sixteenth-century Danish bourgeoisie were a wealthy group, and regulations on their apparel few. A few attempts to regulate through sumptuary legislation were

114 E-PRB-4 (1592–98), 305r. 115 E-PRB-5 (1599–1603), 15r. 116 E-PRB-6 (1603–10), 360r. 117 M-PRB-3 (1560–62), no. 53. 118 M-PRB-4 (1563–64), no. 67. 119 M-PRB-8 (1582–89), no. 174. 120 M-PRB-13 (1600–2), no. 366. 121 M-PRB-13 (1600–2), no. 367.

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Figure 7.15: Large collars of the early seventeenth century. Detail of epitaph of Frederik Leyel, son of Scotsman Alexander Lyle, clerk of the customs house and mayor of Elsinore, showing his three wives and a daughter, 1606. Elsinore, St. Olaf ’s Church. Photo: Erik Fjordside / Livinghistory, by permission.

made, but even those were not overly restrictive, allowing at least headwear of silk, some gold, and pearls, though not excessive amounts of precious stones and the like.122 Trimmings were often listed separately in the probate inventories by weight (e.g. in ounces of gold) or by type, e.g. lad—a generic term used for all sorts of trimmings for headwear, outer garments, underwear, etc. (For this article, they are enumerated along with the relevant garments, especially in tables 7.3, 7.4, and 7.9.) Lad can best be described as a piece of decoration that could be sewn onto a garment or otherwise used as a border or trimming to embellish the neck opening, hemline, cuffs, or front of a garment.123 Lad appears as defined by its material (e.g. pearl lad, gold lad), or by its placement (e.g. neck lad, head lad, cuff lad), or by the type of garment it was meant for

122 Benito Scocozza, “Christian 4.s Silkeæventyr,” in Mark og Menneske: Studier i Danmarks Historie 1500–1800, ed. Claus Bjørn og Benedicte Fonnesbech-Wulff (Ebeltoft, Denmark: Skipperhoved, 2000), 141–54. 123 Aagot Noss, Lad og krone: Fra Jente til Brur, Instituttet for Sammenlignende Kulturforskning 83 (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1991), 13.

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Figure 7.16: Altar panel painting showing Marine, wife of mayor of Malmoe David Petersen (d. 1617), wearing traditional church clothes trimmed with velvet borders, early seventeenth century. Malmoe, St. Petri Church. Photo: Erik Fjordside / Livinghistory, by permission.

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Clothing of Danish Townswomen (e.g. kirtle lad, partlet lad, shirt lad, cap lad). Trimmings also included clasps, hooks and eyes, buttons, and eyelets of metal, worn both for practical and decorative purposes. As kirtles were replaced by skirts, the kirtle trimmings disappeared from the inventories. Skirts were no less embellished, often decorated with rows of wide or narrow bands of velvet or brocade (figs. 7.11 and 7.16).124 They could also have fastenings of gold or gilded silver, including hooks and eyes, eyelets for lacing, and small clasps. Pearl- and jewel-studded caps were at the height of fashion in the sixteenth century, and throughout the century were the status symbol and formal wear of noblewomen as a class in depictions, as armour was for noblemen.125 Among the nobility, pearl caps could cost astronomical amounts. In the early seventeenth century, the Danish Lady Sophie Brahe owned two precious pearl caps valued at 850 rigsdaler for them both, which was more than the expenses of running her entire estate for a year.126 Anne Catherine of Brandenburg brought with her caps worth a stunning amount of money as part of her trousseau when marrying Dano-Norwegian king Christian IV in 1597; the trousseau mentions pearl- and jewel-studded caps worth a total of 7,333 daler.127 By comparison, the so-called coronation tax of 1596, an extra tax placed on Danish subjects for the coronation of Christian IV, yielded (or rather, was expected to yield) 2,750 daler in the capital Copenhagen and 1,250 daler in Malmoe; the queen’s caps cost more than the four main cities of Denmark, including the capital, were to pay (a total of 6,500 daler) in coronation tax.128 In 1576, sumptuary legislation had been passed prohibiting noble maidens from getting more than two precious pearl caps for their wedding—such restrictions did not, of course, affect a queen consort.129 Obviously the pearl trimmings and ornaments mentioned in the probates of bourgeois women were far more modest.130 Depictions of bourgeois women wearing pearl caps are rare; exceptions may be the epitaph of the wife of an alderman from 124 For instance, Dynie, wife of an Elsinore citizen (1602), had a red skirt with two rows of bands on the bottom, a black one with two velvet borders, and a brown and a blue skirt apparently without borders. E-PRB-5 (1599–1603), 443r. 125 Camilla Luise Dahl, “Huffer till Theris Hoffueder: Sen-renæssancens Kvindehuer, ca. 1560–1630,” Dragtjournalen 2, no. 3 (2008): 21–52, at 39–46; Camilla Luise Dahl, “Epitaph with Depiction of a Pearl-Studded Cap, Denmark, 1582,” in Fashioning the Early Modern online archive, http://www. fashioningtheearlymodern.ac.uk/object-in-focus/pearl-studded-cap. 126 Henning Paulsen, Sophie Brahes Regnskabsbog 1627–40 (Viborg, Denmark: Jysk selskab for Historie, Sprog og Litteratur, 1955), 106. In her portrait in the epitaph for her and her husband Holger Rosenkrantz from ca. 1640, Lady Sophie is depicted wearing a cap of black velvet decorated with pearls arranged in circles and enamelwork. Image available at Dragter på Epitafier og Gravsten i Danmark [Clothing on Epitaphs and Tombstones in Denmark] Web site, ed. Erik Fjordside, Camilla Luise Dahl, and Dorothy Jones, http://www.livinghistory.dk (accessed Oct. 31, 2015). 127 Dahl, “Inventarium.” 128 V. A. Secher, Corpus Constitutionum Daniæ: Forordninger, Recesser og Andre Kongelige Breve, Danmarks Lovgivning Vedkommende 1558–1660, 6 vols. (Copenhagen: R. Klein, 1887–1918), 3:729– 31. Riis, Auld Acquaintance, 2:17–19. 129 Secher, Corpus Constitutionum Daniæ, 2:40. 130 Charine, married to a wealthy Elsinore citizen who died in 1571, had a cap trimming set with pearls; E-PRB-2 (1571–82), 9r. Anne, wife of mayor Jacob Pedersen in Malmoe, had five cap trimmings with gold and pearls in 1586; M-PRB-8 (1582–89), no. 184.

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Camilla Luise Dahl

Figure 7.17: Anne, wife of an alderman in Ronneby, Blekinge, from her family’s epitaph, dated 1587. Ronneby, Holy Cross Church, in Blekinge (formerly eastern Denmark, now southern Sweden). Photo: Camilla Luise Dahl / Livinghistory.

172

Clothing of Danish Townswomen

Figure 7.18: Naïve painting of a wealthy couple, 1583. Elsingburg, St. Mary’s Church. Photo: Erik Fjordside / Livinghistory, by permission.

1587 showing her wearing a pearl-studded cap or hairnet (fig. 7.17) and a painting of a wealthy couple in Elsinore from 1583 (fig. 7.18).131 Some of the trimmings found in the probate inventories are, however, of very high value, and not surprisingly the costly trimmings are found in inventories of the wealthiest townswomen. In some cases it is not specified whether the trimmings were meant to adorn headwear or clothes. Mette Jacobsdatter, wife of a Malmoe mayor (1564), had four sets of gilded silver kirtle ornaments, two borders with silver and some gilded silver pieces, a set of black borders adorned with silver for daily wear, two pearl edges for caps (one large and one small), six small gold trimmings and borders for unspecified use, a pearl-embroidered trimming for a partlet, and pearl and coral necklaces. The two pearl edges may have been worn with the two velvet caps mentioned immediately after in the probate.132

131 According to tradition, the latter painting is believed to be a portrait of county sheriff Thale Thott and her husband. She was sheriff of Åhus county in Skåne and resided in Elsinburg. She belonged to family of wealth and political influence; her mother had previously been county sheriff in Jutland, and her younger sister Lene Thott was appointed county sheriff of Bornholm the same year as Thale was appointed in Åhus. However, the painting shows a common religious motif of the rich and the poor and is perhaps just a genre painting showing an unspecific rich and well-dressed couple in fashions also influencing the wealthy bourgeoisie in town. 132 M-PRB-4 (1563–64), no. 67.

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Camilla Luise Dahl Else, wife of a merchant (1564), had a pearl cap trimming, a kirtle trimming that had been her mother’s, and an unspecified trimming with gilded silver,133 and Gertrud, wife of a citizen (1567), had a kirtle trimming, a partlet trimming, three pearl trimmings, and one gold trimming—the four latter mentioned among the headwear and probably used for that purpose. She also left three pearl headbands belonging to her daughters; these often appear to belong to daughters of the upper-class burghers.134 Neckwear and other items of linen could be adorned in various ways, although the majority of the partlets and upperparts seem to have been plain. At least in the probate accounts of the wealthiest, there are some partlets and upperparts decorated in one way or another. Some are described as being embroidered or worked with gold, pearls, or both, and in a few more cases materials for the purpose are listed separately.135 Decorations otherwise range from the more modest whitework to coloured silk, gold and silver, and costly pearls. The partlets and upperparts are occasionally described as having buttons or little clasps of gold or silver. Anne, wife of goldsmith and mayor of Malmoe Jacob Pedersen, had several partlets in 1586, old and new smocks, and an upperpart embroidered in silk and with gold.136 The latter was probably worn visibly, without an additional partlet. Underwear lad appears as a simple white lad or finer pearl or gold neck lad, cuff lad, or shirt lad. Underwear lad were also sold by the ell in local shops, such as in that of Else, widow of a hatmaker (1594), who had white shirt lad for 6 shillings the ell, which must have been borders;137 or Ebling Kræmmer, a merchant in Malmoe, who sold ruff lad and gold lad in his shop in 1607.138 The wealthy Malmoe widow Gertrud Biisterfeld had, listed among her linens in 1567, a partlet lad, a shirt lad, three pearl lad, and a gold lad for unspecified use.139 More pearl lad were listed among her upper garments. Barbara, wife of a town clerk, left behind a shirt lad with pearls, a shirt lad with gold, an unspecified shirt lad, two lad “for the wrist,” and a pair of garters with gold.140 By period III, the embroidery and work in gold and pearls for linen clothing had almost entirely disappeared from the inventories. Instead, a higher number of detachable ruffs appear, a fashion which apparently replaced other sorts of trimmings in burgher women’s dress. As an exception, the wife of a wealthy Malmoe citizen had in 1590 gold buttons for her linen clothing, nine partlets both coarse and fine, five neckerchiefs with lace, one neckerchief embroidered in gold, and one plain.141

133 M-PRB-4 (1563–64), no. 73. 134 M-PRB-5 (1566–69), no. 88. 135 For instance, an ounce of gold to work the linen mentioned in a Malmoe probate of a goldsmith’s wife in 1560. M-PRB-3 (1560–62), no. 55. 136 “J silckesyd oplød med guld paa”; M-PRB-8 (1582–89), no. 184. 137 M-PRB-11 (1594–95), no. 279. 138 M-PRB-14 (1603–7), no. 408. 139 M-PRB-5 (1566–69), no. 88. 140 M-PRB-1 (1546–57), no. 2. 141 M-PRB-9 (1590–91), no. 219.

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Clothing of Danish Townswomen LEGWEAR AND FOOTWEAR

Legwear (table 7.10) included hosiery, such as stockings, socks, and hose, all of cloth, and also knitted stockings. The majority of knitted stockings appear in the last period. The earliest mention of knitted stockings in the data set is in the probate account of Margrethe, wife of a Malmoe slippermaker, in 1583.142 These were a pair of red knitted wool stockings. They were valued together with some red yarn, perhaps suggesting they may even have been made at home and that the slippermaker couple also knitted stockings for sale. Knitted goods are otherwise still rare in the sixteenth century, but appear to be more common after 1600 all over the Dano-Norwegian kingdom.143 Footwear consisted of various shoes of leather, fabric, or wood, and included clogs and pattens, slippers, and regular shoes. The professions of artisans in town give a good indication of the various types of footwear worn in Malmoe in the period. The probate records mention pattenmakers (pattens being wooden soles with straps, worn over finer shoes to protect them from mud and soil), clogmakers, slippermakers, shoemakers, and cobblers (who repaired shoes). These artisans come in all types with regard to income and status, from well-to-do shoemakers with citizenship to poor workers. The wealthiest among them seem to have been the slippermakers, the poorest the clogmakers and cobblers. Clogs are not mentioned in any probate accounts, and only the evidence of many professional clogmakers in town shows that clogs were widely worn. Shoes are rarely mentioned in the probate accounts. Apparently shoes were not very durable and needed regular replacement or repair. Shoes are sometimes mentioned among the goods of the lower classes, probably because even the shoes counted as a valuable in the poorer homes, but shoes also appear among the valuables of unmarried women, a group whose only belongings were usually their clothes. Anne Ibsdatter in Malmoe, an unmarried girl serving a merchant’s wife (1560), was not of lower class but one of the many wealthy burghers’ daughters who served in betters’ homes to learn how to run a household. Anne left four pairs of slippers and a pair of shoes, together valued quite high at 6 marks 4 shillings.144 Shoes are also listed as payment for services for maids in a household.145 Materials, when noted, are leather or suede. Shoe buckles of gold and gilded silver are sometimes listed separately.146 Slippers were often of fine leather, velvet, or brocade, suggesting they were for indoor use. Slippers were also available for purchase as ready-made items in the retailers’ shops. Marine Forbes had a dozen pairs of slippers in her shop in Malmoe in 1569. These were obviously cheaper than the above-mentioned Anne Ibsdatter’s

142 M-PRB-8 (1582–89), no. 175. 143 Maj Ringgaard, “To Par Strixstrømper oc en Nattrøie Naccarat: Filtede og Strikkede Tekstiler fra Omkring 1700” (Ph.D. diss., Copenhagen University, 2010), 84–88, 111–18. 144 M-PRB-3 (1560–62), no. 45. 145 For instance, the maids in the household of a strapmaker in Malmoe in 1571 who had received shoes, aprons, a smock, and partlets as part of their salary. M-PRB-6 (1571–77), no. 119. 146 Lutze, wife of a boatman in Elsinore, had a pair of gilded shoe buckles in 1600. E-PRB-5 (1599– 1603), 157v.

175

Camilla Luise Dahl slippers, for the twelve pairs were valued at just 7 marks for them all.147 The quality and type of slippers are rarely given, but they clearly came in all qualities and price ranges. Beritte, the wealthy unmarried daughter of a merchant, had in 1593 a pair of slippers that cost 2 marks 4 shillings, another pair for just 4 shillings, and a pair of shoes for 1 mark. For neither of them are materials given, but the pair of slippers that cost more than a pair of shoes must have been of fine quality.148 Inger, wife of a potter in Elsinore, had a pair of velvet slippers valued at 1 mark in 1592, and Mette, wife of a citizen in Elsinore, had a pair of slippers of trip de velour in 1600 valued at 1½ marks, which was also quite high.149 ACCESSORIES

Accessories (table 7.11) were mainly belts (girdles) and purses of various kinds. The purses mentioned in the probate accounts are often simply listed as “purses,” but in the shop inventories we find a more varied assortment of belt purses and “neck purses” to be worn hanging from a string or band around the neck.150 Pictorial sources sometimes show a purse hanging from a girdle, usually on a long chain or a string. The most common material for the purses in the probate records is velvet, and a few were of leather or silk, but many are unspecified. However, only a small number of purses are mentioned. The probate records also mention rings or hoops to attach purse, keys, or even, a couple of times, thimbles.151 Records also mention kniffscheder (knife sheaths) of leather with metal mounts and rings to attach those to the belts or girdles. Girdles were an important, and often the most expensive, part of fashionable women’s dress in the sixteenth century.152 The girdles in the probate accounts are usually valued by weight. The quality varied from relatively cheap leather and textile girdles to elaborate metal ones (fig. 7.10). Leather and textile girdles could be decorated with mounts and fittings (fig. 7.6), whereas the most lavish girdles were constructed by attaching metal plates to velvet or threading them together with a leather string. Fine girdles with mounts of gilded silver appear mainly in the sixteenth century. By the end of that century these girdles decrease in number, and by the 1600s that type of girdle was clearly no longer as fashionable. 147 M-PRB-5 (1566–69), no. 107. The full shop inventory of Marine Forbes can be found in Camilla Luise Dahl, “En Kræmmerkones Varelager i Malmø år 1569,” Elbogen: Malmö Kulturhistoriska Förenings årsskrift 79 (2011): 87–104. 148 M-PRB-10 (1592–93), no. 277. 149 E-PRB-3 (1583–92), 286r; E-PRB-5 (1599–1603), 246r. 150 Shop owner Marine, widow of a Scotsman, George Forbes, in Malmoe (1569), had men’s and women’s purses; Hans Stærk, owner of a petty shop (1595) had neck purses. M-PRB-5 (1566–69), no. 107; M-PRB-11 (1594–95), no. 287. 151 A young unmarried woman in Elsinore (1592) had a chain belt with a thimble hanging from it, and a married townswoman who died in Elsinore the same year had a chain belt with a knife sheath, keys, and a thimble. E-PRB-4 (1592–98), 73r, 84r. 152 Troels Troels-Lund, Dagligt Liv, 134–35.

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Clothing of Danish Townswomen Malmoe, which was famed for its many goldsmiths who attracted customers from both sides of the Sound, lists elaborate girdles.153 Likewise, probate inventories of Malmoe goldsmiths include long lists of richly ornamented girdles.154 Sometimes the girdles are described in some detail, at other times they are registered only by their value.155 In general the girdles registered in the probate inventories of ordinary people are less detailed than the ones registered in inventories of merchants and goldsmiths.156 More practical belts called kiltebælte were narrow belts worn in order to tuck up the skirt part of a gown around the waist to prevent it from being in the way. The procedure was known as “to kilt” the dress in Danish.157 Another term, lomebelte (“pocket belt”), suggests a belt with one or two practical pockets, probably to be worn underneath the dress.158 Dress accessories also include a wide range of dress ornaments, trimmings, buttons, buckles and clasps, and other dress jewellery. These have, however, not been included in the tables, as their listings in the probate accounts are complicated, sometimes registered unspecified by weight under gold and silver and sometimes as specified pieces. Sometimes they are listed individually in the probate accounts, and at other times with the garment with which they were to be worn.

153 The wife of a Malmoe goldsmith had in 1577 a belt of velvet with gilded silver studs valued at the astonishing amount of 192 marks and other gold and silver for 1,116½ marks, including her garment trimmings; M-PRB-6 (1571–77), no. 127. In comparison, the wife of a Malmoe alderman had a silver belt valued at just 17 marks in 1578; M-PRB-7 (1578–81), no. 131. 154 For instance, M-PRB-7 (1578–81), nos. 139 and 143; M-PRB-8 (1582–89), no. 184. 155 The wife of a town bailiff (1556) had a gilded-silver belt adorned with square cast pieces large and small; Einar Bager, ed., Malmø Stadsbog 1549–1559: Rådstuerettens, Bytingets og Toldbodrettens Protokol (Copenhagen: Selskabet for Udgivelse af Kilder til Dansk Historie, 1972), 342. A probate from 1560 (of the wife of a merchant) mentions a belt made of red velvet with 20 jewelled pieces and a small hoop for a purse; M-PRB-3 (1560–62), no. 46. A probate from 1581 (of a mayor’s wife) mentions a narrow belt of gilded silver and another wider gilded belt, the latter valued at twice the amount of the narrow belt; M-PRB-7 (1578–81), no. 150. In Elsinore, the wife of a town bailiff (1588) had two small belts of gilded silver on blue velvet, a gilded silver belt decorated in an old fashion, and three gilded silver belts; E-PRB-3 (1583–92), 113v. 156 The goldsmith inventories mention panserbælte (belts made as “plate armour”), lænkebælte (“chainbelts”), spændebælte (“belts with mounts”), and belts with various shaped clasps, mounts, studs, and fittings. Merchant inventories mention woven and braided belts, leather belts, and cheap letter belts, which might have been woven or tablet-woven. A few manuals survive for weaving braids with letters; see Noémi Speiser and Joy Boutrup, European Loop Braiding: Investigations and Results, part 2, Instructions for Letter Braids in 17th Century Manuscripts (Leicester: Jennie Parry, 2009), 2–64. 157 Andersen, Danske Bønders Klædedragt, 56, 60. There is some uncertainty about the origin of the word “kilt.” The verb “to kilt” may originally have been a Danish loanword in Scotland, but in sixteenth-century Denmark the word may have reappeared as a Scottish loanword. In a DanishLatin glossary from 1626, “kilting” is translated as “sinus, lacinia.” Poul Jensen Colding, Dictionarium Herlovianum (Copenhagen: Salomonis Sartorii, 1626), s.v. “kilting”; whereas “kiltebaand” is translated “succingulum, cingulum,” ibid. In a 1594 glossary, the Latin word “cingulum” is translated “kiltebaand”; Mads Pors, De Nomenclaturis Romanis, ed. Jørgen Larsen (Copenhagen: Reitzel, 1995), 41. 158 A gilded lomebelte valued at 30 marks. M-PRB-4 (1563–64), no. 67.

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Camilla Luise Dahl FINAL REMARKS

Several thousand items of dress appear in the probate inventories from Malmoe and Elsinore, giving a rare insight of the wear of Scandinavian townspeople of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Outerwear, upperwear, underwear, headwear, and foot- and legwear can be found, representing dress for work, festive occasions, church, and home. The probate accounts give information on the clothing of different social classes and yield evidence of changing fashions in colours, styles, and even cut and construction. Although each single group of garments has not been fully examined here, even from this general study, it is clear that the kirtle evolved from a dress pieced from long panels to one with joined skirt and bodice, and from that to a skirt with a joined bodice, until it was finally replaced by skirt-and-doublet or skirt-and-bodice combinations. The more unisex-style shirts and smocks of the earlier period disappeared and were replaced by sleeveless smocks and upperparts; later, more linen skirts were added. This documentary evidence therefore demonstrates in detail how both upperwear and underwear for women changed dramatically over the sixty-five-year period covered by the probate accounts.

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Clothing of Danish Townswomen Tables 7.1–7.11: Clothing items from probate records of Malmoe and Elsinore, 1545–1610 Notes: Garments are categorized by type and analyzed by city and period. Period I represents records from Malmoe, 1545–69, and Elsinore, 1549–70; period II represents Malmoe, 1570–89, and Elsinore, 1571–92; period III represents Malmoe, 1590–1607, and Elsinore, 1592–1610. For details on the dates and sources, see Appendix 7.1. The designation “some [items]” in a record must indicate at least two items, and so has been counted as such in the tables. Table 7.1: Outerwear in Malmoe (M) and Elsinore (E), periods I–III

Item of dress

M-I

E-I

M-II

M-III

E-III

142

10 (1 as “some”)

81

109

187

Stakkekåbe/mantell (mantelet/ short cloak)

—

—

1

—

6

22

Agekåbe (travelling/outdoor cloak)

—

—

—

—

3

12

2

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

11

3

1

1

5

2

8

Kåbespænde/kåberinge (mantle clasps and eyes), counted in pairs

12

—

—

1

2

1

Krave (shoulder cape)

24

7

2

3

7

7

Hætte, agehue/agehætte (outdoor/travelling cap/hood)

—

—

—

2

7

3

22 (1 as “some”)

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

—

5

10

6

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

1

1

1

—

Kåbe (mantle/cloak)

Trøjekåbe (“jacket cloak”: short coat/cloak?) Dutch cloak Other (rain cloaks, everyday cloaks, over-the-head cloaks)

Kaprønnike/nønnike/hætte (­chaperon/open hood) Hæklæde/hviklæde/overkast/ ageklæde (uppercloth/overcloth/ protection cloth) Hættestrud/strud (“liripipe”: wind/weather shade, mask) Skygge (“shade”: sunshade, mask) Zibellini and furs

E-II    66 (2 as “some”)

4

—

5

3

5

4

Muff

—

—

—

—

1

—

Gloves and mittens

—

—

—

—

2

7

215

18

94

81

150

272

Total

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Camilla Luise Dahl

Table 7.2: Details specified for short capes (krave) in Malmoe (M) and Elsinore (E), periods I–III

Material English cloth, say, etc.

M-I

E-I

M-II

E-II

M-III

E-III

5

3

—

—

2

1

Other wool cloth

—

—

—

—

1

1

Velvet

—

2

1

—

—

2

Damask

2

1

—

—

2

2

Other silk (satin, taffeta, camlet)

6

—

—

—

—

—

Other materials or trimmings ­mentioned

4

—

—

2

—

—

Not given

7

1

1

1

2

1

24

7

2

3

7

7

M-I

E-I

M-II

E-II

Black

4

2

1

—

Brown

1

1

—

Purple

1

—

—

Total

Colours

Red Yellow White

M-III

E-III

2

  2

—

2

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

—

1

—

—

—

—

—

Not given

16

3

1

3

3

5

Total

24

7

2

3

7

7

180

Clothing of Danish Townswomen Table 7.3: Upperwear garments and related decorations in Malmoe (M) and Elsinore (E), periods I–III

Item of dress Underkjortel (underkirtle) Kjortel (kirtle) Overkjortel (overkirtle/overgown) Kofte (open tunic/coat) Samarie (loose gown/frock) Skørt (skirt/petticoat) “Kirtle or petticoat” Vennike (half-skirt), cloth Forklæde (apron/forepart), linen

Forklæde (apron/forepart), cloth/ silk or coloured fabric Vombe (doublet/jacket) Trøje (doublet/jacket) Overliv (upperbodice/sleeved bodice) Liv (bodice, short bodice, waist)

M-I

E-I

M-II

E-II

M-III

E-III

65

—

36

31

15

21

219

27

102

72

88

140

14

—

7

16

6

5

1

—

—

1

1

2

18

—

11

9

19

74

3

—

12

25

102

272

—

—

1

—

—

1

2

—

—

—

—

201 (1 as “some”)

5 96 (1 as (2 as “some”) “some”)

2

—

1

— 40 (1 as “some”) 1

126 286 (1 as (3 as “some”) “some”) 2

20

2

—

3

—

3

—

56

2

46

14

87

177

2

—

—

—

5

3

1

—

1

2

3

3

—

—

5

12

26

67

1

—

—

—

—

4

Uldenskjorte/nattrøje (vest/ waistcoat)

—

—

3

—

1

2

Ærmer (sleeves), counted in pairs

24

—

1

2

4

7

5

3

1

—

2

1

8 (4 as “some”)

6 (3 as “some”)

12 (6 as “some”)

Livstykke (bodice) Brystdug (vest/waistcoat)

Halværmer (half-sleeves), ­counted in pairs Gangklæder/ifareklæder/klæder (unspecified upper- or outergarments), usually given as “some” or “a pair of ” Kjortellad/guldbort/sølvbort (kirtle trimming/decoration, gold and silver)

16 (4 as some”)

3

1

1

—

—

19½ (1 as half a ­border)

—

7

4

5 (1 as “some”)

3

Unspecified gold and silver for garments

18 (9 as “some”)

—

2

3

—

—

Total

679½

52

346

241

501

1100

Other borders and trimmings (velvet and silk borders)

10

12 10 (4 as (5 as “some”) “some”)

Camilla Luise Dahl Table 7.4: Headwear listed with outerwear/upperwear in Malmoe (M) and Elsinore (E), periods I–III

Item of headwear Hue/lue (cap, uppercap), of cloth, silk, velvet Bonnet/bonete (cap/uppercap)

M-I 17

E-I     3 (1 as “some”)

M-II

E-II

M-III

E-III

9

7

19

34

2

1

—

—

—

—

Myse/mutze (cap), of linen or cloth

—

—

7

9

2

38

Bræmmehue (fur-trimmed cap)

—

—

—

2

4

5

1

—

1

—

—

—

Trådhue (“thread cap,” hairnet) Other (unspecified cap)

—

—

2

2

8

10

Guldlad/sølvlad/huelad (cap or forehead trimming/­ decoration of gold or silver)

16

—

4

—

—

—

Fløjlslad/huelad (cap or forehead trimming of velvet)

6

—

—

—

—

—

Huelad/lad/hovedlad/forlæg (cap or forehead trimming/­ decoration of unspecified material)

3

—

6

—

2

—

Perlelad/perleforlæg/­ perlehuelad (cap or forehead trimming of pearls)

22

—

7

1

3

2

Hue-perler/guld (other ­unspecified cap trimmings of gold and pearls)

1

—

—

—

1

1

—

—

—

—

1

—

2

3

2

—

—

2

Krans (garland)

—

—

1

2

—

—

Vindelsnor/underbinding (“­underbinding,” forehead band/hairband of gold or silver for unmarried girls)

27

2

1

4

15

—

Flettelad/flettebaand (braided forehead trimming/hairband for unmarried girls)

2

—

—

—

Fløjlsbændel (“velvet strip/ band,” hairband, forehead piece or possible wind/­ weather shade)

4

1

—

—

1

—

Other

—

—

—

—

—

2

Total

   103

10

40

27

58

94

Hårbort/bånd (hairband) Bindike (head ornament/hairband for unmarried girls)

2 (1 as “some”)

Clothing of Danish Townswomen Table 7.5: Types of kirtles, skirts, and bodices described in Malmoe (M) and Elsinore (E), periods I–III

Item of dress Kjortel—all plain or unspecified kirtles, including ­overkirtles and underkirtles

M-I 286 (1 as “some”)

E-I

M-II

E-II

M-III

E-III

27

135

111

84

157

Firestykskjortel (four-piece kirtle)

4

—

5

—

—

—

Kjortel med liv/overliv (kirtle with bodice)

7

—

5

6

19

8

—

—

—

1

6

1

Kjortel uden liv (kirtle without bodice) Other construction

1

—

—

1

—

—

Skørt (skirt/petticoat, plain or unspecified)

3

—

10

20

95

251

Skørt med liv (skirt/petticoat with bodice)

—

—

2

4

2

19

Skørt uden liv (skirt/petticoat without bodice)

—

—

—

1

5

—

“Kirtle or petticoat”

—

—

1

—

—

1

Overliv (upperbodice, sleeved bodice)

2

—

—

—

5

3

Liv (bodice, short bodice, waist)

1

—

1

2

3

3

Livstykke (bodice)

—

—

5

11

24

62

Livstykke sleeved or with additional sleeves

—

—

—

1

2

5

Trøje/vombe (doublet)

58

2

49

14

90

177

183

184 —

2 (black + green; blue + multi-­ coloured)

—

3 (red + blue; red + brown; red + black)

—

 4

65

More than one colour (­bodice and skirt in alternating colours)

Leather/skin

Not given

Total

0

—

—

221

 42 (2 as “some”)

 12

  1

  4

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—   1

 2

Lavender/lilac

—

—

Multicoloured, marbled and mottled

—

Violet/purple

 25

 43

White

—

Yellow/orange

—

—

—

—

Blue

 19

 40

Grey

14

Brown

—

—

 32

M

—

13

Green

—

E

27

14

 0

—

—

15 (1 as “some”)

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

E

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

 2

 5

 1

 3

 3

M

—

—

 1

—

—

—

—

—

 3

—

 6

 1

E

Overkjortel

 1

Kjortel

Pink/light red

18

 1

Red

10

Black

M

Underkjortel

 3

 2

—

—

—

—

 1

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

M

Skørt

Table 7.6: Details specified for kirtles, skirts, and bodices in Malmoe (M) and Elsinore (E), period I

 0

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

E

 3

1

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

 1

—

—

 1

M

 0

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

E

Liv, overliv, livstykke

29

15

—

—

—

 1

—

—

—

—

 1

 2

 3

 2

 2

 3

M

 3

 2

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

 1

E

Ærmer, halværmer

185

36

Total

—

—

 3

—

—

More than one colour ­(bodice and skirt in alternating colours)

Leather

—

—

Multicoloured, marbled and mottled

Not given

—

—

White

—

31

 4

—

—

—

Pink/light red

Grey

—

—

—

—

—

—

 2

 4

Blue

Yellow/orange

Violet/purple

10

 3

 8

Green

Brown

Lavender/lilac

 1

12

 5

 9

 6

Black

E

Red

M

Underkjortel

  102

13

10

 1 (brown + blue)

—

 1

—

 1

—

 2

—

10

24

 7

22

11

M

Kjortel

72

20

 7

 1

—

—

—

 5

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

 3

—

 3

—

M

 1

—

 2

—

—

—

 1

 5

14

 1

16

 7

E

16

 4

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

 7

—

 2

 3

E

Overkjortel

13

 4

—

 1 (brown + black)

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

 3

—

 5

—

M

25

 3

—

 6

 2

—

14

12

—

—

—  1 (red + green)

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

 2

E

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

 3

 1

M

—

—

—

 1

—

 2

—

 2

 4

—

 6

 6

E

Liv, overliv, livstykke

—

Skørt

Table 7.7: Details specified for kirtles, skirts, and bodices in Malmoe (M) and Elsinore (E), period II

 2

 1

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

 1

—

—

—

—

—

M

 2

 2

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

E

Ærmer, halværmer

186



—

—

—

 1 (pink + red)

Grey

White

Multicoloured, marbled, or mottled

More than one colour (­bodice and skirt in alternating colours)

15

—

Pink/light red

Total

—

Lavender/lilac

—

—

Violet/purple

Not given

—

—

Yellow/orange

—

2 (black + yellow; green + red)

—

—

Blue

Leather

—

—

 4

Brown

21

2

—

—

—

 1

 1

—

 3

 4

—

88

10

8

—

—

 1

—

 3

—

 6

22

 1

25

—

 8

 4

Green

10

Red

 2

M

 6

E

E

140

 27

 6

—

—

 5

—

—

—

—

  1 (brown + blue)

 16

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

 2

—

 2

 1

E

—

—

—

—

—

 1

—

—

 3

—

 2

—

M

Overkjortel

  1

—

  1

—

—

—

—

  5

 29

  3

 41

 16

Kjortel

Black

M

Underkjortel

102

 30

  1

—

—

—

  5

  6

  2

  3

—

  6

 18

  1

  9

 21

M

—

—

  5

  1

  4

  8

—

 19

 44

  2

 61

 56

E

270

 66

 1

  3 (blue + green; brown + blue; brown + red)

Skørt

Table 7.8: Details specified for kirtles, skirts, and bodices in Malmoe (M) and Elsinore (E), period III

34

25

73

60

—

 1 (striped)

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

 1

—

 2

—

 3

 6

E

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

 1

 3

—

 1

 4

M

Liv, overliv, livstykke

 6

 2

 8

 4

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

 1

 1

—

 1

 1

E

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

 3

 1

M

Ærmer, halværmer

Clothing of Danish Townswomen Table 7.9: Underwear and linen clothing in Malmoe (M) and Elsinore (E), periods I–III

        Underwear

 M-I

 E-I

 M-II

 E-II

 M-III

E-III

Særk (smock)

 159½ (1 as half a smock)

    4

  65 (3 as “some”)

  19

 103

 183½ (3 as “some,” 1 as half a smock)

Skjorte (shirt)

  52

    1

  22

   4

   7

  13

Oplod (upperpart)

  57

—

  26

  23

 107 (1 as “some”)

 164 (3 as “some”)

Nederdel (lowerpart)

   9

—

  11

   9

  27

  29

Skørt (skirt/petticoat)

  35

—

  38

  11

  51

  65

Vennike, linen (half-skirt/stiffskirt, possibly crinoline)

   4

—

   1

—

—

   1

Kappe (“mantle”: stiffskirt, possibly crinoline)

—

—

—

—

   2

   2

Other stiffskirts

—

—

   2

   4

   3

   2

Broge/underbukser/ lærredsbukser (breeches, linen trousers)

   2

—

   1

   1

—

   3

Bindeliv, liv,* livstykke,* pattebrog (binding bodices, stays)

   3

—

—

   2

   4

   3

Sleeves, linen

   3

—

   1

—

—

   2

Unspecified linen clothes

    4    7 (2 as (3 as “some”) “some”)

Underwear and neckwear trimmings: lace, gold, pearls, insertions

  39 (2 as “some”)

Total

 370½

  22 (11 as “some”)

  13   58 (6 as (10 as “some”) “some”)

  28 (14 as “some”)

—

   2

   1

   4 (1 as “some”)

   3 (1 as “some”)

    9

 191

 132

  321

  498½

*For liv and livstykke, only those of linen or those listed among undergarments are included.

187

Camilla Luise Dahl Neckwear

 M-I

E-I

M-II

    4 (2 as “some”)

 134 (6 as “some”)   16

Halsklæde/halsdug (partlet)

 439½ (1 as “some”)

Krave/rukrave (collar, ruff)

  10

—

Hagedug (chin cloth/breast cloth)

E-II

M-III

E-III

  58

 271

 305 (4 as “some”)

   7

  45

  98 (3 as “some”)

  33

—

—

—

—

Tørklæde (kerchief)

—

—

   5

—

  18

  37 (3 as “some”)

Other kerchiefs/neckerchiefs

—

—

  13

   2

   9

  39 (1 as “some”)

    4

 168

  67

 343

 479

M-III

E-III

  21 (1 as “some”)

  22 (1 as “some”)    4

Total

 482½

Headwear Hovedklæde (headcloth)

Hueklæde (cap cloth) Linhue (linen coif/white cap)

 M-I

E-I

 178

    5 (1 as “some”)

  35

  15

—

   3

—

  44

   6

—

   8

   2

 151   16 (1 as “some”)

 144

—

M-II

E-II

—

—

—

Hat/hattelin/linhat (“hat”: ­forehead cloth)

 225

    1

  77 (1 as “some”)

Lin (narrow forehead cloth/ edge)

   2

    1

—

—

  55

  32

Korsklæde (forehead cloth/cross cloth)

   7

—

   3

   3

  11

   2

Høllike (simple one-piece linen cap)

  13

—

—

   2

—

—

  11

   6

  34 (2 as “some”)

  19

—

   5 (1 as “some”)

   5

  17 Hovedklædehue/hueklædehue, underhue (cap worn under headcloth, undercap) Hovedsæt/sæt (set of headlinens and cap)

    3 (1 as “some”)

—

—

—

Nathat/nathue (nightcap)

  11

—

  18

   1

Other linen for the head

   3 (1 as “some”)

—

   7 (1 as “some”)

   8    2 (4 as (1 as “some”) “some”)

Total

  456

  160

  45

   10

188

   6

  343

   6    8 (3 as “some”)   244

Clothing of Danish Townswomen Other linen clothing for head, body, or neck

M-I

E-I

M-II

E-II

M-III

E-III

Bindeklæde/bindeklud (­unspecified binding cloth, chest cloth, headwear binding, or kerchief)

  14

—

    3

   1

    1

—

Snippeklæde/snippeklude/ hovedsnip (triangular piece of linen worn as headwear and neckwear)

  22

—

    1

   1

—

—

Knudeklæde/knytteklæde/knytteklude/bindeklude (tie/binding cloth/strips, possibly headwear only)

  51 (1 as “some”)

—

    5

—

—

—

Other

—

—

—

—

    1

   6

Total

  87

    0

    9

   2

    2

   6

189

Camilla Luise Dahl Table 7.10: Legwear and footwear in Malmoe (M) and Elsinore (E), periods I–III

Pairs of items

M-I

E-I

—

—

Stockings and hose of cloth

   1

Socks, stockings and hose of linen

   6

Socks, stockings and hose of leather

Knitted stockings

M-II

E-II

M-III

E-III

   1

—

   1

   5

   1

—

   1

   3

   3

—

   4

—

   2

   3

   2

—

—

   2

   1

—

Stockings, unspecified

   2

—

   2

   3

   4

   3

Hose, unspecified

  15

—

   4

   1

   3

   2

Socks, unspecified

—

—

—

—

—

  20

Garters and garter trimmings

   5

—

—

—

   8

—

Clogs and pattens

   2

—

—

—

—

—

Shoes

   4 (1 as “some”)

—

   8

—

  17

   2

Slippers

   4

   5

  22

   2

   6

   3

Shoe buckles

   3

—

—

—

   1

   1

Total

  44

   6

  41

   9

  46

  42

190

Clothing of Danish Townswomen Table 7.11: Belts/girdles and purses in Malmoe (M) and Elsinore (E), periods I–III

Belts/girdles

M-I

E-I

M-II

E-II

M-III

E-III

Girdles of or with gilded silver

  21

—

  14

  15

   7

   8

Girdles of or with silver

  10

   6

   3

   3

  10

   6

Lænkebælte (“chain girdles”)

—

—

   1

   2

   9

  12

Bogstavbælte (girdles decorated with letters)

—

—

—

   1

—

—

Girdles of velvet

—

—

   1

   2

—

—

Girdles of velvet and gold/ gilded silver

   8

—

   3

   4

   7

   2

Girdles of velvet and silver

   1

—

   1

—

   1

   1

—

—

—

—

   3

—

Girdles of leather and silver Girdles of leather

—

—

—

—

   2

—

   3

—

—

—

—

—

—

—

   1

—

—

—

Kiltebælte (girdles to tuck up a dress)

   4

—

   1

—

   1

   3

Unspecified girdles/other

   7

—

   1

   1

—

   2

Total

  54

   6

  26

  28

  40

  34

Girdles of other fabric Woven and braided girdles

Purses

M-I

E-I

M-II

E-II

M-III

E-III

Purses of velvet

   7

—

   1

   3

   5

   3

Purses of silk

   2

—

—

—

   1

—

Purses of cloth

—

   3

—

—

—

—

Purses of leather

—

—

—

—

—

   2

Other/unspecified

   8

   1

   5

—

   2

   2

Total

  17

   4

   6

   3

   8

   7

191

Appendix 7.1 Sources for Probate Records from Malmoe and Elsinore

The following table lists the sources used for this analysis for each study period. All of the Malmoe records cited here are housed at the Malmoe City Archive; the Elsinore records are at the National Archive in Copenhagen. The book and bundle numbers given here are assigned by the author for the purposes of this study; the archives have their own filing systems. Note: PRB = probate records bundle (or, in the case of Elsinore periods II and III, probate records book). Location and period (no. of records)

Source

Modern publication, if any

M-PRB-3 (1560–62)

Einar Bager, ed., Malmø Skifter, vol. 1: Bofortegnelser 1546–1559 (Copenhagen: ­Selskabet for Udgivelse af ­Kilder til Dansk Historie, 1977) —

M-PRB-4 (1563–64)

—

M-PRB-5 (1566–69)

—

Malmoe I: 1545–69

M-PRB-1 (1546–57)

(94 records with women’s clothing)

M-PRB-2 (1558–59)

town court book 1503–48 Erik Kroman, Leif Ljungberg, and Einar Bager, eds., Malmø Rådstueprotokol (Stadsbok) 1503–1548 (Copenhagen: Selskabet for Udgivelse af Kilder til Dansk Historie, 1965) town court book 1549–59 Einar Bager, ed., Malmø Stadsbog 1549–1559: Rådstuerettens, Bytingets og Toldbodrettens Protokol (Copenhagen: Selskabet for Udgivelse af Kilder til Dansk Historie, 1972)

192

Clothing of Danish Townswomen Location and period (no. of records)

Source

Modern publication, if any

Elsinore I: 1549–70

E-PRB-1 (1556–1767)

(34 records with ­ women’s clothing)

town court book 1549–56 Erik Kroman, ed., Helsingør Stadsbog 1549–1556: Rådstueprotokol og Bytingbog (Copenhagen: Selskabet for Udgivelse af Kilder til Dansk Historie, 1971)

—

town court book 1554–55 Karen Hjorth and Erik Kroman, Helsingør Stadsbog 1554–1555, 1559–1560 og town court book 1559–60 1561–1565: Rådstueprotokol og Bytingbog town court book 1561–65 (Copenhagen: Selskabet for Udgivelse af Kilder til Dansk historie, 1981) town court book 1566–70

—

Malmoe II: 1570–89

M-PRB-6 (1571–77)

—

(64 records with women’s clothing)

M-PRB-7 (1578–81)

—

M-PRB-8 (1582–89)

—

E-PRB-2 (1571–82)

Michael Dupont, ed., Helsingør Skifteprotokol 1571–1582 (Copenhagen: Selskabet for Udgivelse af Kilder til Dansk Historie, 2014)

E-PRB-3 (1583–92)

—

town court book 1571–75

—

Elsinore II: 1571–92 (80 records with women’s clothing)

Malmoe III: 1590–1607

M-PRB-9 (1590–91)

—

(89 records with women’s clothing)

M-PRB-10 (1592–93)

—

M-PRB-11 (1594–95)

—

M-PRB-12 (1597–99)

—

M-PRB-13 (1600–2)

—

M-PRB-14 (1603–7)

—

Elsinore III: 1592–1610

E-PRB-4 (1592–98)

(179 records with ­women’s clothing)

E-PRB-5 (1599–1603)

—

E-PRB-6 (1603–10)

—

193

Recent Books of Interest

Archaeological Footwear: Development of Shoe Patterns and Styles from Prehistory till the 1600’s, by Marquita Volken ([Zwolle, Netherlands]: SPA Uitgevers, 2014). ISBN: 978-9089321176. 407 pages, 289 illustrations (some in color). Thousands of items of ancient and medieval footwear survive, the majority of them recovered from peat bogs or waterlogged urban sites. They are usually stained black, crumpled, and sometimes fragmented after the disintegration of their vegetable-fibre stitching. Hence they are not very photogenic objects. There have been different approaches to drawing them (“still life,” schematic, reconstruction) and different methods of categorising them, but none universally adopted. The innovation presented in this book is to prioritise cutting patterns as a basis for typology and chronology. The same cutting patterns appear in shoes from the prehistoric to the early modern period because they relate to the inherent qualities of leather—determined by the arrangement of collagen fibres in the animal skin—and the anatomy of the human foot. Volken categorises the cutting patterns according to the capital letter they most resemble (O, U, M, W, T, B, Y, W, J, V, I, DD, Q, L, Z), with subgroups, encompassing footwear with integral soles, separate soles, and hybrids. Each style is also named from the oldest published example (e.g., Coppergate Q). Beautifully presented drawings arranged as “style and chronology diagrams” make possible at-a-glance comparisons of similar shapes, fastenings, and decoration. The chronological catalogue illustrates each type by drawings of both the complete (left) shoe and its cutting pattern, cross-references it to the relevant style and chronology diagram, describes its characteristics, and lists published examples. The book is generously illustrated with other drawings (of, for example, fastenings, stitching, shoe/ boot heights, and seam decoration) and black-and-white photographs. (The few colour plates are mostly of modern reconstructions.) There is a useful glossary. This is a complex volume, and it is not always easy to find and identify a specific item. However, in searching for Volken’s categorisation of a particular shoe, the reader gains awareness of detail, becoming attuned to niceties such as a bifurcated flap fastening, a square-cut top, or decorative cutouts. The author’s drawings are a delight, her chronological and geographical coverage a tour de force. Every serious costume historian needs this book. — Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Editor

Recent Books of Interest Le Costume Medieval au XIIIe Siècle (1180–1320), by Tina Anderlini (Bayeux, France: Heimdal, 2014). ISBN: 978-2840483618. 240 pages, hundreds of color illustrations. Thirteenth-century dress is deceptively simple. Statues, paintings, and manuscript images show long, ample silhouettes in red, green, and blue monochrome—when colors are extant at all. The fashionable elements were the details, often difficult to discern: the borders, the belt, the headdress. Anticipating a mixed audience of both academics (with endnotes and a comprehensive bibliography) and serious historical reenactors (with 11 full pages devoted to reconstructed patterns and cutting layouts), this fullcolor volume seeks to revise some of the stereotypes and false first impressions of this period of urban growth and prosperity in the European textile industries. While garment cuts may appear sacklike to modern eyes, study of extant garments—notably those of St. Claire of Assisi and St. Louis—reveals complex details of tailoring, stitching, and embroidery not readily perceptible to the casual observer of images. Anderlini’s background is in art history, and this manifests in some of what the book does best, for instance, visual typologies of stitches, clasps, undergarments, armor, crowns, circlets, tourets, and other headgear, which should have appeal even for readers with minimal French. She is scrupulously revisionist, pointing out misimpressions due to nineteenth-century modifications to statuary, for instance. Her own photographs constitute the majority of illustrations, and this is a significant contribution: She has captured many costume details that would go unnoticed in stock museum photos, which generally try to represent an artwork as a whole. Rather than approaching costume head to toe for women and men, à la Quicherat, Enlart, or Houston, the volume presents about thirty chapters centered on the extant evidence. The first quarter treats materials (including a section vaunting unappreciated nettle fibers—the book does employ a certain liberality in the use of exclamation points), with a chapter on commerce by Marie de Rasse. Studies of accessories make up a third of the chapters. There are also chapters devoted to fashion, colors, armor (with articles on foot soldiers by Catherine Lagier and equipment by Georges Bernage), children’s dress, and the unique styles of Spain. While there is a certain French focus, evidence comes from Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, Italy, Spain, and even Russian reconstructions of Byzantine dress. An index would have made it handier as a reference volume. Individual chapters do gloss many useful and obscure terms. In short, this is a worthy synthesis for interpreting thirteenth-century costume. — Sarah-Grace Heller, Ohio State University The Cruciform Brooch and Anglo-Saxon England, by Toby F. Martin, Anglo-Saxon Studies 25 (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2015). ISBN 978-1843839934. 338 pages, 100 illustrations (5 in color). The cruciform brooch is not an emblem of Christianity. Indeed, it goes out of use in England several decades before Augustine’s mission of 597. It gained its name from the three knobs at the top and sides of the headplate. It is (judging from cemetery archaeology) a female dress accessory, and in England is characteristic of the areas most 196

Recent Books of Interest archaeologists call “Anglian,” with some distinctive examples in Kent. It also appeared in Scandinavia and northwest areas of mainland Europe during the fifth century. The author bases his study on the 2,075 surviving Anglo-Saxon cruciform brooches he has been able to identify. These are listed by type and location in two appendices. (The URL for a companion electronic dataset hosted by the Archaeological Data Service is given at p. 10, note 19; however, I was not able to access this in August 2015 nor in June 2016.) He categorises them into four groups with subgroups, plus a Kentish series, based on close analysis of knobs, headplates, bows, catchplates, and feet, providing correspondence analysis, distribution map, and drawings of examples for each subgroup. However, the conviction that “cruciform brooches were more to do with prestige and identity than keeping the clothes on” (p. 131) is the driving force of this book. The author discusses patronage and gift exchange, and notes the high incidence of repaired brooches, their reuse as pendants and strap ends, and even customisation (with the engraving of runes). Metal composition and methods of manufacture are considered, as well as the potential significance of both geometric and figural ornament. The climax of the book, though, is the examination of the brooches as dress fasteners and the conclusions about their role in the society of southeast England in the late fifth and sixth centuries. Martin notes that cruciform brooch graves are proportionately few in any Anglo-Saxon cemetery. Originally used in pairs to fasten peplos-type dresses, cruciform brooches of the more decorative kind were, argues the author, cloak fasteners (the possibility that they, or some of them, fastened the peplos to the undergarment is not considered); and the cloak with its brooch was a high-status innovation of the last decade of the fifth century, when the distribution of the brooch became geographically restricted “to East Anglia, the Eastern Midlands, Lincolnshire and parts of the north-east” (p. 234) and a marker of “Anglian identity” (p. 204). Tabulating sex and age distribution, the author argues that cruciform brooches were worn only by women over age eighteen, and predominantly by women aged twenty-six to forty, with a bias towards the more mature. Even more exclusive were the highly decorated and gilded versions which appeared in the second quarter of the sixth century, only to disappear along with other traditional female dress accessories in the later sixth century. Martin sees in the cruciform brooch evidence of a privileged class manifested by the costume of its mature women, distinctly Germanic as opposed to Romano-British, though its wearers may not all have been ethnically Anglian. — Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Editor Dressing the Part: Textiles as Propaganda in the Middle Ages, edited by Kate Dimitrova and Margaret Goehring (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2014). ISBN 978-2503536767. 213 pages, 98 illustrations (32 in color). This beautifully produced book features eleven chapters which consider how textiles were used in the “display of power” (p. 7) in the period from the eleventh to the fifteenth century. The geographical range of the book spans northern Europe to Spain, Italy, the Byzantine Empire, and West Asia. The chapters in Part I, “Textiles in Context,” deal with actual textiles: royal mantles, liturgical vestments, epitaphioi, grave 197

Recent Books of Interest clothes, and other textiles associated with commemoration and burial. Part II focuses on “The Represented Textile as Sign.” The authors in this section concentrate on the representation of clothing and textiles, including those on episcopal tomb effigies in thirteenth-century England; in the court art of Charles IV, king of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor; in a mid-fifteenth-century group portrait for a family chapel in Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris; and in the illustrations in the Great Mongol Shahnama (“Book of Kings,” ca. 1335). One small drawback of Dressing the Part is that it lacks an index. On the plus side, the illustrations in the book are all of high quality, something which is too often not the case in publications which deal with visual material. In a perfect world, some images would have been reproduced in a larger format. However, it is clear that great efforts have been made to ensure that relevant details are illustrated, such as those from the Ascoli Piceno cope. The cope measures approximately 164 by 340 centimetres and is reproduced at less than 5 percent of its actual size (chapter 5, fig. 1), but this is augmented by two stunning details (chapter 5, figs. 2 and 3) allowing the stitching to be seen. The same quality of illustration is present throughout the book. In both parts of the book, the contributors wrestle with questions relating to how textiles were used. As the editors point out in their introduction, whilst it is important to continue to explore issues relating to dating and workshop practice, textiles and clothing were also items which were used in particular circumstances and which lent significance to, as well as drawing meaning from, those contexts. The chapters form part of an increasing literature on textiles and clothing which seeks to explore meaning in relation to “the body and space . . . experience, identity, politics, and ritual” (p. 7), and the contributors push forward the boundaries of textile history whilst not losing sight of technique and style. — Cordelia Warr, University of Manchester Spanish Fashion at the Courts of Early Modern Europe, edited by José Luis Colomer and Amalia Descalzo (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica, 2014). ISBN 9788415245445. 844 pages in 2 volumes, 405 color illustrations. This two-volume set seeks to give the reader a full understanding of clothing and material culture in early modern Spain, including its political connections as well as its social implications in both upper and lower classes. Its nearly 30 chapters, written by different scholars, are densely packed with information and well worth the read. Volume I begins with menswear in the Habsburg Period and follows with womenswear. The first two chapters shower us with the vocabulary of clothing and definitions of specific clothing types, their uses, and, in some small measure, perceptions and popularity of individual styles. The descriptions, taken from historical texts, are troves of valuable tidbits. The following chapter discusses in great detail the reasons behind the prevalence of “Spanish black” and the journey that brought the color such wide acclaim, including enlightening information about dyes and methods to create the deeply coveted “raven’s wing black.” The volume goes on to discuss the tremendously varied occupation of tailoring and the different job posts within the court, including how individuals were paid, how often they changed posts, and what other trades were 198

Recent Books of Interest intimately linked with the process of making clothing for the court. The research also encompasses the storage, maintenance, and rhythm of the use of clothing, and even how clothing appears to have influenced such matters as the design and construction of storage chests and beds. Volume I also looks at the ups and downs of the textile trade and gives concise information about different fibers, their uses, and seasonal preferences, as well as laws governing their manufacture and use. The final chapters are devoted to the meaning of dress and the various coded stylings of clothing and accessories. There is a brief foray into monastic styles, mostly in relation to mourning. Of particular interest is the chapter on methods for researching Spanish dress and material culture. In short, Volume I contains more high-quality information about Spanish clothing in a single volume than one could hope for, making the reader feel much more connected to the period, in part because of the similarities to our own modern interactions with personal attire. Volume II broadens this understanding by giving a more detailed sociopolitical context to Spanish dress and how it spread throughout Europe. Focusing on specific monarchs, their fashion influences, and the way they were perceived helps the reader to understand better how these people became fashion icons and influencers in their day. Nation by nation and court by court, this volume demonstrates how style changed because of individuals, as well as how and why those changes either persisted or vanished from the fashion stage. The final chapters explore the perception of Spanish fashion in other countries. This invaluable resource belongs in the hands of everyone who has an interest in Spanish fashion and its cultural influences on Europe as a whole. Even for the individual who is just starting a journey into the complex world of Spain, this brilliant compilation can be mind-opening to the depth of interconnectedness of fashion, perception, legislation, craftsmen, culture, and social standing. — Mathew Gnagy, Parsons University of Fashion Design Take this Ring: Medieval and Renaissance Rings from the Griffin Collection, Sandra Hindman with Scott Miller (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2015). 978-0991517251. 236 pages, 200 color illustrations. The Griffin Collection is a fine assemblage of finger-rings belonging to an anonymous owner. Sixty are catalogued and illustrated, some being Roman or Hellenistic rather than medieval or later. Each is illustrated in a colour photograph, several appearing more than once as they also feature, usually enlarged, in the introductory text. Because many pages are used for single photographs or short quotations, with fewer than 350 words on nearly all the others, new insights or thought-provoking interpretations cannot be developed. Diana Scarisbrick presents an interesting introduction about the collectors from whom some of the rings have descended, and her “brief history of rings” is adequate allowing for its brevity, as is Hindman’s text of four chapters—on manufacture, selling, wearing, and memory. The last of those is the best, especially pages 154–59, which reflect on rings’ identities with their owners and how they become part of the body through constant contact; this could have led 199

Recent Books of Interest on to consideration of objects’ agency and materiality, but work by Roberta Gilchrist and others is not cited. The relationship between rings and costume is touched on; a glove might be slashed to allow a ring to show and, if a signet, to be used without taking the glove off. The hues of their stones and their appearance against dyes could have been considered, though there are good, if generally familiar, images from medieval manuscripts that show rings in context. Their visibility, particularly if inscribed inside their hoop, is sensitively considered (no. 30’s “Cans de Partir” is closer to “Without being [i.e. never to be] parted” than to “All my love is for you alone,” however). All the rings are gold, with silver and base metal getting mentioned only on page 66, where it is assumed that they merely emulated the finer metal; some achieved expressions of their own, however, such as those with miniature cast heads. That gold rings went no lower socially than to “patricians and burghers” (p. 149) is challenged in England by the large numbers reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, implying that better-off peasants could aspire to ownership, despite and perhaps because of sumptuary laws, at least in some parts of the country. Discussion of such matters is precluded by the paucity of information about Griffin Collection find-spots. “Provenance” denotes a ring’s passage through dealers and collections, except for nine from a Spanish convent. Otherwise, only for no. 40 is a proper provenance stated. How many of the “unpublished” rings are undeclared recent discoveries made in countries with legislation about reporting? Even if some are surface finds and not from archaeological contexts, how many have been smuggled out of countries that seek to forbid such loss of their heritage? Encouragement of criminality by the art market is deplorable. — David A. Hinton, University of Southampton Textiles and the Medieval Economy: Production, Trade, and Consumption of Textiles, 8th–16th Centuries, edited by Angela Ling Huang and Carsten Jahnke, Ancient Textiles 16 (Oxford: Oxbow, 2015). ISBN 978-1782976479. 252 pages, 32 illustrations (11 in color). That this remarkable collection of fourteen papers on medieval textiles, initially presented at Copenhagen in April 2012, was organised and sponsored in Denmark is the first of many pleasant surprises and probably the reason for the book’s originality and importance. There are no essays on the well-travelled late-medieval woollens industry in either the Low Countries or England. The focus is on the variety of cloths, geographic extent, and flourishing interregional trade of both cheap and luxury textiles crisscrossing medieval Europe. There are papers concerning cloth from Iceland, Scandinavia, Hanseatic towns, Anglo-Saxon England, Poland, Denmark, Florence, Russia, and Frankfurt, all of which underscore how important the trade in textiles was. In medieval Iceland, cloth production was more important than fish. Even in England’s darkest age, when the country was essentially cut off from the Continent, there was some trade in textiles. We are impressed by both the range and extent of the trade in the eighth century and how it expanded and became more specialised as centuries unfolded. 200

Recent Books of Interest The next refreshing surprise is that the conference was a meeting of minds between archaeologists, who dominate the early papers, and economic historians, who have at hand the more plentiful records of later centuries; and among those interested in cloth construction, patterns of trade, and distribution and consumption. We appreciate, for instance, that some high-quality cloth was made in Scandinavia and Poland where the “highly efficient, modern, foot-operated treadle loom was in operation from the end of the eleventh century.” We learn that silk travelled from the Levant and Italy to Scandinavia and Iceland from the Viking Age, that Hanse towns were trading their own woollen cloth as well as linen, and that the quality and variety of those linens was constantly changing. Silk, linen, fustian, worsteds, and luxury woollens are all featured, showing us the variety and complexity of medieval textiles. Both archaeological and documentary evidence shows that “everyday goods like flax and linen were much more important in everyday life than the more spectacular goods, such as fur and gold.” We are reminded that there was substantial trade in cheap linens and woollens, even though much of the historical evidence has tended to highlight luxury woollen cloth, and that the patterns of trade were complex. These are papers of very high scholarship and originality that give us a broader perspective on medieval textiles in terms of regions and cloths, and that have been written by both Ph.D. students with new enthusiasms as well as by researchers with fifty years of experience yet with undiluted energy. To mention only three, there are important studies from Gale Owen-Crocker on English imports at the turn of the first millennium, from Stuart Jenks on the changes in distribution patterns at the end of the period, and from John Munro on fourteenth-century Florentine woollens—one of his last before his death in 2013. The editors suggest that this compilation should stimulate historians to look at medieval textiles with new eyes. They are right. — John Oldland, Bishop’s University

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Contents of Previous Volumes

Vol. 1 (2005)

Elizabeth Coatsworth Stitches in Time: Establishing a History of Anglo-­Saxon  Embroidery Maren Clegg Hyer Textiles and Textile Imagery in the Exeter Book Gale R. Owen-Crocker Pomp, Piety, and Keeping the Woman in Her Place: The   Dress of Cnut and Ælfgifu-Emma Sandra Ballif Straubhaar Wrapped in a Blue Mantle: Fashions for Icelandic  Slayers? John Muendel The Orientation of Strikers in Medieval Fulling Mills:   The Role of the “French” Gualchiera Susan M. Carroll-Clark Bad Habits: Clothing and Textile References in the   Register of Eudes Rigaud, Archbishop of Rouen Thomas M. Izbicki Forbidden Colors in the Regulation of Clerical Dress   from the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) to the Time   of Nicholas of Cusa (d. 1464) Robin Netherton The Tippet: Accessory after the Fact? Kristen M. Burkholder Threads Bared: Dress and Textiles in Late Medieval   English Wills Carla Tilghman Giovanna Cenami’s Veil: A Neglected Detail Vol. 2 (2006)

Niamh Whitfield Dress and Accessories in the Early Irish Tale “The   Wooing Of Becfhola” Gale R. Owen-Crocker The Embroidered Word: Text in the Bayeux Tapestry Monica L. Wright “De Fil d’Or et de Soie”: Making Textiles in Twelfth   Century French Romance Sharon Farmer Biffes, Tiretaines, and Aumonières: The Role of Paris in   the International Textile Markets of the Thirteenth   and Fourteenth Centuries Margaret Rose Jaster “Clothing Themselves in Acres”: Apparel and ­   Impoverishment in Medieval and Early Modern ­  England

Contents of Previous Volumes Drea Leed “Ye Shall Have It Cleane”: Textile Cleaning Techniques   in Renaissance Europe Tawny Sherrill Fleas, Fur, and Fashion: Zibellini as Luxury Accessories   of the Renaissance Danielle Nunn-Weinberg The Matron Goes to the Masque: The Dual Identity of   the English Embroidered Jacket Vol. 3 (2007)

Elizabeth Coatsworth Cushioning Medieval Life: Domestic Textiles in Anglo   Saxon England Sarah Larratt Keefer A Matter of Style: Clerical Vestments in the Anglo   Saxon Church Susan Leibacher Ward Saints in Split Stitch: Representations of Saints in Opus  Anglicanum Vestments John H. Munro The Anti-Red Shift—To the Dark Side: Colour Changes   in Flemish Luxury Woollens, 1300–1550 John Oldland The Finishing of English Woollens, 1300–1550 Lesley K. Twomey Poverty and Richly Decorated Garments: A   Re-Evaluation of Their Significance in the Vita Christi   of Isabel de Villena Elizabeth Benns “Set on Yowre Hondys”: Fifteenth-Century Instructions   for Fingerloop Braiding Lois Swales and Tiny Textiles Hidden In Books: Toward a Categorization Heather Blatt   of Multiple-Strand Bookmarkers Melanie Schuessler “She Hath Over Grown All that Ever She Hath”:   Children’s Clothing in the Lisle Letters, 1533–40 Vol. 4 (2008)

Heidi M. Sherman From Flax to Linen in the Medieval Rus Lands Anna Zanchi “Melius Abundare Quam Deficere”: Scarlet Clothing in   Laxdæla Saga and Njáls Saga Lucia Sinisi The Wandering Wimple Mark Chambers and From Head to Hand to Arm: The Lexicological History Gale R. Owen-Crocker   of “Cuff ” Lena Hammarlund, Visual Textiles: A Study of Appearance and Visual Heini Kirjavainen,   Impression in Archaeological Textiles Kathrine Vestergård Pedersen, and Marianne Vedeler

Contents of Previous Volumes Camilla Luise Dahl and The Cap of St. Birgitta Isis Sturtewagen Robin Netherton The View from Herjolfsnes: Greenland’s Translation of   the European Fitted Fashion John Block Friedman The Art of the Exotic: Robinet Testard’s Turbans and   Turban-like Coiffure Lisa Evans “The Same Counterpoincte Beinge Olde and Worene”:   The Mystery of Henry VIII’s Green Quilt Vol. 5 (2009)

Kate D’Ettore Clothing and Conflict in the Icelandic Family Sagas:   Literary Convention and the Discourse of Power Sarah-Grace Heller Obscure Lands and Obscured Hands: Fairy Embroidery   and the Ambiguous Vocabulary of Medieval Textile  Decoration Thomas M. Izbicki Failed Censures: Ecclesiastical Regulation of Women’s   Clothing in Late Medieval Italy Paula Mae Carns Cutting a Fine Figure: Costume on French Gothic  Ivories Sarah Randles One Quilt or Two? A Reassessment of the Guicciardini  Quilts Melanie Schuessler French Hoods: Development of a Sixteenth-Century   Court Fashion Tawny Sherrill Who Was Cesare Vecellio? Placing Habiti Antichi in  Context Vol. 6 (2010)

Hilary Davidson and Archaeological Dress and Textiles in Latvia from the Ieva Pīgozne   Seventh to Thirteenth Centuries: Research, Results,   and Reconstructions Valerie L. Garver Weaving Words in Silk: Women and Inscribed Bands in   the Carolingian World Christine Sciacca Stitches, Sutures, and Seams: “Embroidered” Parchment   Repairs in Medieval Manuscripts Sarah L. Higley Dressing Up the Nuns: The Lingua Ignota and Hildegard   of Bingen’s Clothing William Sayers Flax and Linen in Walter of Bibbesworth’s Thirteenth   Century French Treatise for English Housewives Roger A. Ladd The London Mercers’ Company, London Textual   Culture, and John Gower’s Mirour de l’Omme

Contents of Previous Volumes Kate Kelsey Staples Fripperers and the Used Clothing Trade in Late   Medieval London Charlotte A. Stanford Donations from the Body for the Soul: Apparel,   Devotion, and Status in Late Medieval Strasbourg Vol. 7 (2011)

Benjamin L. Wild The Empress’s New Clothes: A Rotulus Pannorum of   Isabella, Sister of King Henry III, Bride of Emperor   Frederick II Isis Sturtewagen Unveiling Social Fashion Patterns: A Case Study of   Frilled Veils in the Low Countries (1200–1500) Kimberly Jack What Is the Pearl-Maiden Wearing, and Why? Mark Chambers “Hys surcote was ouert”: The “Open Surcoat” in Late   Medieval British Texts Eleanor Quinton London Merchants’ Cloth Exports, 1350–1500 and John Oldland Christine Meek Laboreria Sete: Design and Production of Lucchese Silks   in the Late Fourteenth and Early Fifteenth Centuries Vol. 8 (2012)

Brigitte Haas-Gebhard The Unterhaching Grave Finds: Richly Dressed Burials and Britt Nowak-Böck   from Sixth-Century Bavaria Chrystel Brandenburgh Old Finds Rediscovered: Two Early Medieval ­   Headdresses from the National Museum of   Antiquities, Leiden, the Netherlands Maren Clegg Hyer Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Imagined and Reimagined   Textiles in Anglo-Saxon England Louise Sylvester Mining for Gold: Investigating a Semantic Classification   in the Lexis of Cloth and Clothing Project Patricia Williams Dress and Dignity in the Mabinogion Kathryn Marie Talarico Dressing for Success: How the Heroine’s Clothing   (Un)Makes the Man in Jean Renart’s Roman de la Rose Lisa Evans Anomaly or Sole Survivor? The Impruneta Cushion and   Early Italian “Patchwork” Vol. 9 (2013)

Antonietta Amati Canta Bridal Gifts in Medieval Bari Lucia Sinisi The Marriage of the Year (1028)

Contents of Previous Volumes Mark Zumbuhl Clothing as Currency in Pre-Norman Ireland? John Oldland Cistercian Clothing and Its Production at Beaulieu ­   Abbey, 1269–70 Eva I. Andersson Clothing and Textile Materials in Medieval Sweden and   Norway John Block Friedman The Iconography of Dagged Clothing and Its Reception   by Moralist Writers Susan E. James Domestic Painted Cloths in Sixteenth-Century England:   Imagery, Placement, and Ownership Vol. 10 (2014)

Christopher J. Monk Behind the Curtains, Under the Covers, Inside the Tent:   Textile Items and Narrative Strategies in Anglo-Saxon   Old Testament Art Lisa Monnas Some Medieval Colour Terms for Textiles Rebecca Woodward Wefts and Worms: The Spread of Sericulture Wendelken   and Silk Weaving in the West before 1300 Maureen C. Miller The Liturgical Vestments of Castel Sant’Elia: Their   Historical Significance and Current Condition Christine Meek Clothing Distrained for Debt in the Court of Merchants   of Lucca in the Late Fourteenth Century Valija Evalds Sacred or Profane? The Horned Headdresses of St.   Frideswide’s Priory Michelle L. Beer “Translating” a Queen: Material Culture and the   Creation of Margaret Tudor as Queen of Scots Elizabeth Coatsworth “A formidable undertaking”: Mrs. A. G. I. Christie and   English Medieval Embroidery Vol. 11 (2015)

Ingvild Øye Production, Quality, and Social Status in Viking Age   Dress: Three Cases from Western Norway Karen Nicholson The Effect of Spindle Whorl Design on Wool Thread   Production: A Practical Experiment Based on   Examples from Eighth-Century Denmark Tina Anderlini The Shirt Attributed to St. Louis Sarah-Grace Heller Angevin-Sicilian Sumptuary Statutes of the 1290s:   Fashion in the Thirteenth-Century Mediterranean Cordelia Warr The Devil on My Tail: Clothing and Visual Culture in   the Camposanto Last Judgment

Contents of Previous Volumes Emily J. Rozier “Transposing þe shapus þat God first mad them of ”:   Manipulated Masculinity in the Galaunt Tradition Susan Powell Textiles and Dress in the Household Papers of Lady   Margaret Beaufort (1443–1509), Mother of King   Henry VII Anna Riehl Bertolet “Like two artificial gods”: Needlework and Female   Bonding in A Midsummer Night’s Dream

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Contents GRZEGORZ PAC The Attire of the Virgin Mary and Female Rulers in Iconographical Sources of the Ninth to Eleventh Centuries: Analogues, Interpretations, Misinterpretations MEGAN CAVELL Sails,Veils, and Tents: The Segl and Tabernacle of Old English Christ III and Exodus THOMAS M. IZBICKI Linteamenta altaria: The Care of Altar Linens in the Medieval Church JOHN BLOCK FRIEDMAN Coats, Collars, and Capes: Royal Fashions for Animals in the Early Modern Period FRANCES PRITCHARD A Set of Late-Fifteenth-Century Orphreys Relating to Ludovico Buonvisi, a Lucchese Merchant, and Embroidered in a London Workshop JONATHAN C. COOPER Academical Dress in Late Medieval and Renaissance Scotland CAMILLA LUISE DAHL Dressing the Bourgeoisie: Clothing in Probate Records of Danish Townswomen, ca. 1545–1610

ROBIN NETHERTON is a professional editor and a researcher/lecturer on the interpretation of medieval European dress. GALE R. OWEN-CROCKER is Professor Emerita, The University of Manchester.

an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge IP12 3DF (GB) and 668 Mt Hope Ave, Rochester NY 14620-2731 (US) www.boydellandbrewer.com

Editors Netherton & Owen-Crocker

Cover image: Detail of Balthazar with greyhound in heraldic collar, from Adoration of the Magi triptych, by Joos van der Beke van Cleve, 1525 (Detroit Institute of Arts, no. 45.420). Photo: Kristen Figg, with courtesy of the Detroit Institute of Arts.

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Edited by Robin Netherton and Gale R. Owen-Crocker