Medieval Clothing and Textiles. Volume 14 [14] 1783273089, 9781783273089

Citation preview

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Contents OLGA MAGOULA

Multicultural Clothing in Sixth-Century Ravenna

ANNE HEDEAGER KRAG

Byzantine and Oriental Silks in Denmark, 800–1200

MONICA L.WRIGHT The Bliaut: An Examination of the Evidence in French Literary Sources JOHN BLOCK FRIEDMAN Eyebrows, Hairlines, and “Hairs Less in Sight”: Female Depilation in Late Medieval Europe MEGAN TIDDEMAN Lexical Exchange with Italian in the Textile and Wool Trades in the Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries KAREN MARGRETHE HØSKULDSSON Hidden in Plain Black: The Secrets of the French Hood

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. Cover image: Portrait of an Unknown Woman, Jean Perréal, ca. 1530 (Paris, Musée du Louvre, no. R. F. 1993-20). Photo: Stéphane Maréchalle. © RMN–Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY.

MEDIEVAL CLOTHING AND TEXTILES

Medieval Clothing and Textiles 14

MEDIEVAL CLOTHING AND TEXTILES

Editors Netherton & Owen-Crocker

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Edited by Robin Netherton and Gale R. Owen-Crocker



Medieval Clothing and Textiles Volume 14

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 Elizabeth Coatsworth      Manchester, England Thomas M. Izbicki Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA Christine Meek Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland Lisa Monnas London, England M. A. Nordtorp-Madson University of St. Thomas, Minnesota, USA Lucia Sinisi University of Bari, Italy Eva Andersson Strand Centre for Textile Research, Copenhagen, Denmark Monica L. Wright University of Louisiana at Lafayette, USA

Medieval Clothing and Textiles Volume 14

edited by

ROBIN NETHERTON and

GALE R. OWEN-CROCKER

THE BOYDELL PRESS

© Contributors 2018 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 2018 The Boydell Press, Woodbridge ISBN 978-1-78327-308-9

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 page vi

Illustrations Tables

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Contributors

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Preface

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1     2    

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Multicultural Clothing in Sixth-Century Ravenna Olga Magoula Byzantine and Oriental Silks in Denmark, 800–1200 Anne Hedeager Krag

3 The Bliaut: An Examination of the Evidence in French Literary    Sources    Monica L. Wright 4  Eyebrows, Hairlines, and “Hairs Less in Sight”: Female Depilation in    Late Medieval Europe   John Block Friedman

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5  Lexical Exchange with Italian in the Textile and Wool Trades in the    Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries    Megan Tiddeman

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6  Hidden in Plain Black: The Secrets of the French Hood    Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson

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Recent Books of Interest

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Contents of Previous Volumes

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Illustrations Silks in Denmark, 800–1200 Fig. 2.1 Two wristbands of silk from Mammen, Denmark Fig. 2.2 Two ornamental bands of silk and gold thread from Mammen, Denmark Fig. 2.3 Canute’s shrine in the Cathedral of Odense Fig. 2.4 The Eagle Silk, Odense Cathedral Fig. 2.5 Detail of the inscription in the Eagle Silk Fig. 2.6 Drawing of the yellow silk pillow at Odense Cathedral Fig. 2.7 Remains of gold-woven silk from a garment belonging to Absalon Fig. 2.8 A drawing of the textile shown in figure 2.8 Depilation in Late Medieval Europe Fig. 4.1 Women with raised hairlines and plucked eyebrows from Poems of Charles d’Orléans, ca. 1483 Fig. 4.2 Detail of figure 4.1 Fig. 4.3 Bathsheba bathing, from Jean Bourdichon’s Hours of Louis XII, 1498–99 Fig. 4.4 Detail of figure 4.3 Fig. 4.5 Portrait of an Unknown Woman, Jean Perréal, ca. 1530 Fig. 4.6 Carving from the Porta Tosa, Milan, ca. 1185 Fig. 4.7 Allegorie der Wahrheit, Peter Flötner, ca. 1540 The French Hood Fig. 6.1 The “blackness” in painted portraits of the French hood Fig. 6.2 “Iconic” French hood, with visible parts labeled Figs. 6.3   –6.10 Line drawings of French hoods and related headdresses Fig. 6.11 The folding of the panel Figs. 6.12   –6.36 Line drawings of French hoods Figs. 6.37   –6.41 Patterns for proposed construction of a French hood vi

42 43 49 50 51 52 59 60

83 84 85 86 88 99 100

142 145 146–149 149 151–171 172–176

Tables Clothing in Sixth-Century Ravenna Table 1.1 Terminology for dress and textiles from a charter of security from the Municipal Acts of Ravenna (564) Table 1.2 Values of clothing and accessories Silks in Denmark, 800–1200 Table 2.1 Surviving silk textiles in Denmark, 800–1200 Lexical Exchange in the Textile Trades Table 5.1 Abbreviations: Languages Table 5.2 Abbreviations: Dictionaries and databases The French Hood Table 6.1 Position of the tips of the oreillette in French and English portraiture over time

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114 115

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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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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. Her published articles have addressed such topics as fourteenth-century sleeve embellishments, the cut of Norman tunics, and medieval Greenlanders’ interpretation of European female fashion. A journalist by training, she also works as a professional editor. GALE R. OWEN-CROCKER (Editor) is Professor Emerita of the University of Manchester. Her recent publications on dress and textiles include Clothing the Past: ­Surviving Garments from Early Medieval to Early Modern Western Europe, with Elizabeth Coatsworth (2018); Making Sense of the Bayeux Tapestry: Readings and Reworkings, with Anna Henderson (2016); articles on “Dress” (2014) and “Textiles” (2012) in Oxford Bibliographies Online: Medieval Studies, both with Elizabeth 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 The Bayeux Tapestry: Collected Papers (2012). JOHN BLOCK FRIEDMAN is a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at Ohio State University, and the author, editor, or associate editor of numerous books and articles. Forthcoming works include the chapter “Hair and Social Class” in A Cultural History of Hair in the Middle Ages, edited by Roberta Milliken, and (with Kristen Figg and Kathrin Giogoli) Book of Wonders of The World: Secrets of Natural History, MS fr. 22971: Studies and Translation of the Facsimile Edition. He is currently working on articles about Chaucer’s Miller’s Tale, fabliaux and imagery from misericords, and the use of Renaissance mercenary clothing as the attire of Christ’s tormentors in a sixteenth-century Polish devotional manuscript. ANNE HEDEAGER KRAG is a senior researcher and archaeologist, working with textiles especially from the Mediterranean area. She serves on the steering committee for Textilnet.dk, a digital dictionary and database of historical concepts for costume and textiles, and as a member of the board of the Danish National Committee for viii

Contributors Byzantine Studies, University of Copenhagen. Her recent publications have addressed early medieval silk from Danish church collections and early medieval textiles from Egypt in Danish museum collections. KAREN MARGRETHE HØSKULDSSON holds a degree in fashion design from ­Kunsthåndværkerskolen in Kolding, Denmark (now Designskolen Kolding) and works as a freelance designer, cutter, tailor, and lecturer. Her research focuses particularly on headwear as a means of dating historical images. She is currently pursuing a project detailing the evolution of European ladies’ headwear from the late fifteenth to the late sixteenth centuries, including regional and class variation, with experimental reconstructions. OLGA MAGOULA researches the archaeology and historical sources of dress, textiles, dress accessories, and metalwork in early medieval Europe, particularly Anglo-Saxon England, Francia, Italy, and the North Sea region. Forthcoming articles examine the social status of smiths around the North Sea from the seventh to the ninth centuries and the archaeological and textual evidence for headwear. She has worked as an archaeologist for the National Institute of Research in Greece, specializing in Venetian and Byzantine objects, and taught medieval history at the University of Ioannina, Greece. MEGAN TIDDEMAN completed her doctorate in historical linguistics in 2017 at Aberystwyth University in Wales and is now a postdoctoral research assistant with the Anglo-Norman Dictionary at that institution. Her research focuses on language contact between medieval Italian dialects and Anglo-Norman and Middle English, especially in trade-related sources. She is currently preparing her first monograph for the British Academy: an edition of the multilingual accounts of an Anglo-Tuscan wool partnership from 1450–51. MONICA L. WRIGHT is the Joseph P. Montiel Associate Professor of French at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Her publications include the book Weaving Narrative: Clothing in Twelfth-Century Romance (2010) and many articles on the use of clothing in medieval French literature. She also wrote a chapter on literary representations of clothing in literature for the “Medieval Age” volume of the six-volume Cultural History of Dress and Fashion (2016).

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Preface Volume 14 spans the fields of textiles, dress, and fashion, including fashions in that most natural of garments, body hair! Evidence for dress in multicultural, sixth-century Ravenna in a Latin charter is newly translated by Olga Magoula, who contextualises the inventory of bequests from a member of the Ravenna urban elite, a class who had seen better times. It reveals an extraordinary mixture of opulence and workaday in a document which lists silk garments alongside slaves and household goods ranging from silver spoons to a broken cauldron. Also concerning Italy, Megan Tiddeman, analyzing both literary and nonliterary textual sources, discusses the vocabulary and loanwords in Anglo-Italian mercantile transactions, mostly from the 1200s to the 1400s, when Italian merchants and bankers were prominent in England. She demonstrates a two-way linguistic traffic, with Italian terms transferring into Anglo-Norman/Middle English, especially with reference to luxury silk fabrics which Italians were importing, and from the languages of England into Italian, particularly relating to English wools which were being exported to Italy. Anne Hedeager Krag examines the incidence of Byzantine and Oriental silks in Denmark, ranging from fragments decorating Viking women’s dress to magnificent silks honouring the remains of saints, with suggestions as to how the precious textiles might have been transmitted. Surviving remains date from about 800 to about 1200. Monica L. Wright tackles the question of whether the mysterious garment called a bliaut in French literature is really shown on the statues decorating the Royal Portal of Notre-Dame de Chartres as has been generally supposed, and produces a decisive answer. Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson re-examines the appearance of the French hood in drawings and portrait medals as well as painted portraits, producing new theories about its construction, a proposed chronological development, and innovative suggestions about the evolution and purpose of the feature known as the bongrace. John Block Friedman discusses evidence from the late twelfth to late fifteenth centuries showing that removal of hair from the forehead, the eyebrows, and the body was a courtly feminine ideal promoted, to a considerable extent, by male gynophobia. He describes methods of depilation and professional practitioners of the art, relating some of their more disastrous treatments as well as their successes for women who wished to give the appearance of higher social class or simply to please their husbands. This year marks the retirement from our editorial board of two members who have been with us since our inception in 2005: Professor John Hines and Ms. Frances x

Preface Pritchard. We thank them both for their service, and we wish Frances well on her retirement from the Whitworth Art Gallery. We welcome Dr. Elizabeth Coatsworth to our board. Three of her articles have appeared in our pages (in volumes 1, 3, and 10) and she has served as one of our anonymous peer reviewers. Formerly Senior Lecturer and later Honorary Fellow at Manchester Metropolitan University, she has published extensively on early medieval metalwork, sculpture, and, of course, textiles. We also welcome Dr. Thomas M. Izbicki, retired Humanities Librarian and interim Associate Librarian at Rutgers University, and a willing peer reviewer and adviser since our founding. He has published extensively on the papacy and medieval canon law, including papers for this journal on regulation of religious dress, sumptuary law, and care of altar linens. Professor Monica Wright, who has also been a member of our editorial board since our inception and who assisted with the preparation of volumes 10 and 11, will take over as lead editor for volume 15 (2019) as founding editors Robin Netherton and Gale R. Owen-Crocker make a phased withdrawal. She will be joined by a new collaborator in 2020. The founding editors will join the editorial board of Medieval Clothing and Textiles, and they will remain General Editors of the affiliated book series Medieval and Renaissance Clothing and Textiles (see further below). As always, we extend gratitude to our board members and the many other scholars who have generously devoted their time and expertise 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 our author guidelines at http://www.distaff.org/MCTguidelines. pdf, and send a 300-word synopsis to [email protected]. Authors of larger studies interested in submitting a monograph or collaborative book manuscript for our subsidia series, Medieval and Renaissance Clothing and Textiles, should apply using the publication proposal form on the website of our 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 ([email protected]) and Gale Owen-Crocker (gale.owencrocker@ ntlworld.com), before making a formal proposal.

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Multicultural Clothing in Sixth-Century Ravenna

Olga Magoula

The collection of the municipal papyri of Ravenna contains nearly a hundred documents and covers the period between 445 and the mid-seventh century. All surviving archival material was incorporated into the municipal records of Ravenna during the Ostrogothic and first Byzantine period (445–ca. 600) and then into the chancery of the Ravenna Archdiocese of the Exarchate (642/3–665/6). The critical edition of fifty-nine of those papyri was published by Jan Olof Tjäder beginning in 1954.1 These are all private documents, such as settlements of inheritances, donations, leases, sales, and wills. In the cases of inheritance settlements, testamentary executors surrendered legacies of land, property, and movable objects to beneficiaries of post-obitum bequests or donation charters sanctioned in front of the municipal curia, the city’s judicial institution. The transactions were authenticated and incorporated into the public record for taxation purposes in the form of the Gesta Municipalia (city document register).2 While these inheritance settlements are, strictly speaking, donation charters, many of them refer to the proving of the will and to its ceremonial character, which are traits

An earlier version of this paper was read in July 2014 at the International Medieval Congress at Leeds, England. I wish to thank Professor Gale R. Owen-Crocker for her assistance in editing and the two anonymous referees for this journal. I wish also to thank Professor Wolfgang Haubrichs and Dr. Richard Dance for assistance in the Germanic linguistic part, and Professor C. J. Wickham and Mr. D. J. Bamford for reading through an earlier version of this paper.    1 Jan Olof Tjäder, Die Nichtliterarischen Lateinischen Papyri Italiens aus der Zeit 445–700, Skrifter utgivna av Svenska institutet i Rom. 4o 19, 3 vols. (Lund, Sweden: Gleerup, 1954–82), with a commentary and the annotated German translation of the fifty-nine papyri.    2 For a general exposition of the functions of the Gesta Municipalia, see Chris Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 165–70, 209–43. For late Roman testamentary procedure, see Nathaniel L. Taylor, “Testamentary Publication and Proof and the Afterlife of Ancient Probate Procedure in Carolingian Septimania,” in Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law, ed. Kenneth Pennington, Stanley Chodorow, and Keith Kendall (Vatican City: Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, 2001), 67–80.

Olga Magoula common to Late Roman legal practice produced within the multicultural, multilingual trade centre of sixth-century Ravenna. All the extant documents testify to a continuation of Roman legal practice of the municipal curia, involving the publication formulae and the probate procedure.3 Very few Italian or other towns around the Mediterranean or north of the Alps offer such solid evidence of post-Classical socio-juridical continuity during the turbulent sixth century.4 During my research for a book-length comparative study on early medieval dress and accessories among large regions of early medieval Europe, I became aware of the diverse lexicological evidence for garments and accessories found in the accounts of testamentary provisions in the Gesta Municipalia of Ravenna. The terms relating to these items came with a specification of their exact monetary value, which can be put together with the semantic and etymological study of the vocabulary.5 In this article the focus will be on the non-gender-specific dress of mid-sixth-century Ravenna, a multiethnic city containing Latins, Greeks, Ostrogoths, and perhaps a few Franks, Avars, and Langobards of various religious faiths and denominations. A lexicographical enquiry into the clothing of this period is possible thanks to the special historical and geographical conditions of Ravenna and its continuous intraregional and maritime trading relationships over and beyond the Po plain, the Byzantine south, and Rome.6 This enquiry is based on the choice of vocabulary, the materials, some of the details, and the comparison of prices. The point of this study is that the clothing terms in this charter, analysed from an etymological point of view and interpreted within their cultural context, may reflect

  3 Tjäder, Papyri, 1:196–97; also see Pasquale Voci, Diritto Ereditario Romano, 2 vols. (Milan: A. Giuffrè, 1956–60), and Max Kaser, Das Rőmische Privatrecht (Munich: Beck, 1971–75), vol. 1.    4 The Roman socio-juridical tradition was represented by the Corpus Iuris Civilis. Paul Krueger et al, eds., Codex Iustinianus, 3 vols. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1872–95); Paul Krueger and Theodor Mommsen, eds., Codex Theodosianus, 2 vols. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1923–26); H. F. Jolowicz and Barry Nicholas, eds., Historical Introduction to the Study of Roman Law, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972). For a discussion of Late Roman legal practice and evidence for its continuation in Italian towns and towns around the Mediterranean, see Nicholas Everett, “Lay Documents and Archives in Early Medieval Spain and Italy, c. 400–700,” in Documentary Culture and the Laity in the Early Middle Ages, ed. Warren C. Brown, Marios Costambeys, Matthew Innes, and Adam J. Kosto (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 63–94.    5 For a call for multidisciplinarity to approach the terminology of dress from various ethnological contexts, see Mark Chambers and Louise Sylvester, “Lexicological Confusion and Medieval Clothing Culture,” in Everyday Objects: Medieval and Early Modern Material Culture and Its Meanings, ed. Tara Hamling and Catherine Richardson (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2010), 71–82.    6 On the archaeology of the Ravenna port and its trade system, see Sauro Gelichi, “Flourishing Places in North-Eastern Italy: Towns and Emporia Between Late Antiquity and the Carolingian Age,” in Post-Roman Towns, Trade, and Settlement in Europe and Byzantium, ed. Joachim Henning (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2007), 1:77–97. On urban development and its interaction with the economic zones of Caesaria and Classe until the crisis of the eighth century, see Enrico Cirelli, “Ravenna: Rise of a Late Antique Capital,” in Debating Urbanism Within and Beyond the Walls A.D. 300–700, ed. Denis Sami and Gavin Speed, Leicester Archaeology Monograph 17 (Leicester, UK: University of Leicester, 2010), 239–63.

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Clothing in Sixth-Century Ravenna the intercultural relationships in Ravenna society. For linguistic comparison, the time frame in the discussion has been expanded beyond the specific window of the late sixth century.7 This allows the evaluation of the meaning of a term at its first occurrence and its semantic shift over time or its disappearance from archival or literary documents as a result of historical or linguistic change. CHARTULA PLENARIAE SECURITATIS, A SETTLING OF PAYMENT CHARTER IN SIXTH-CENTURY RAVENNA: A BRIEF OF THE CASE

The inventory of textile artefacts which is the focus of this discussion belongs to a settlement or donation charter registered in the Gesta Municipalia of Ravenna on July 17, 564.8 It is a meticulously laid-out charter of security (chartula plenariae securitatis), a paid guarantee for the settlement of the will concerning the movable and immovable property of a man called Collictus, a minor landholder, and of his dead freedman Guderit. In this document, the subdeacon Gratianus is Collictus’ executor and takes possession of the property he leaves; then he formally hands it over to the beneficiaries: Collictus’ widow, Germana, and ward, Stefanus. The charter is also known as the Protocol of Gratianus.9 Many of the protocols in donation charters refer to the

   7 The selected document was drawn up twenty-four years after Belisarius occupied Ravenna in 540, and ten years after Narses had been appointed Imperial Governor of the city, in the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Justinian. Four years later, the Langobards, already present in the vicinity of Ravenna, started to move to Italy en masse, and this dominant group soon established their own kingdom. Pauli Historia Langobardorum, ed. Ludwig Bethmann and Georg Waitz, in Scriptores Rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum Saec. VI–IX, Monumenta Germaniae Historica (henceforth abbreviated as MGH) Scriptores rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum (Hanover, Germany: Hahn, 1878), 12–187. An online index to the numerous MGH volumes, organised by series, appears at http://www.dmgh.de.    8 All text references to the donation charter in this article are to Tjäder’s edition, which designates this as papyrus 8 (Papyri, 1:238–46), and will henceforth be cited as papyrus 8 followed by Tjäder’s designations for the papyrus sheet (I–III) and text section. The Appendix to this article reproduces the relevant portion of Tjäder’s transcription using the same numbering system. All donation charters are called securitates as is customary in the Frankish collections of formularies. Papyrus 8 is found in the Marini collection, which uses a different numbering system, and is numbered there as papyrus no. 80; Gaetano Marini, I Papiri Diplomatici, Raccolti et Illustrati (Rome: Stamperia della Sacra Congregazione de Propaganda Fide, 1805). The original, which is kept at the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (MS lat. 4568A), is not completely preserved. Its notable physical characteristics include its grey-­yellowish and in part very evident black ink. Tjäder observes in his commentary that the earlier editors, Jean Mabillon and J. J. Champollion-Figeac, record that at the verso of the first page of the protocol (see note 9, below) it preserved in their time the forged inscription “C. Iulii Caes. Testamentum L. Pisone”; Tjäder, Papyri, 1:235–46 and 427–28; Jean Mabillon, De Re Diplomatica (1681; repr., Paris: Robustel, 1704); J.-J. Champollion-Figeac, Chartes et Manuscrits sur Papyrus (Paris: Bibliothèque Nationale dépt. des MSS, 1835–40).    9 A protocol is the term for the original draft of a public act placed on top of the final document, the first sheet of a papyrus roll (a volume of leaves in which such acts were copied and recorded) and then bound into the original volume, so as to guard against fraud, error, or damage. The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), s.v. “protocol.”

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Olga Magoula payment of a surety by the original executor to the beneficiaries as a token that he will hand over the property, as in this instance.10 The text and an en face translation of the charter are presented in Appendix 1.1. Physically the document consists of three pieces of papyrus, designated I, II, and III in Tjäder’s edition. The last third of papyrus III is damaged and incomplete. The document is written in Later Roman cursive in two different hands. It contains details of the negotiation hearings and a trial (I and the first part of II), and the main charter (the rest of II till the end). It is beyond doubt the most famous of the Ravenna municipal papyri, since it was first published in 1570 and has been re-edited many times since then. This charter is exceptional due to its remarkable size, its good preservation state, its unusual content, and the script style. The settlement registers two groups of clothing terminology together with a great variety of utensils, furniture, and tools. It contains rare words, including many regional terms for clothes and artefacts not recorded in dictionaries. The charter also proves that the late Roman municipal procedures of copying and retrieval in the archives of the city still operated in 564. In the charter, Germana, a widow, seems to have called for legal help to settle the inheritance of herself and her late husband’s protégé Stefanus, who was born on one of his estates. This should have been paid in money, movables, and immovables by the executor, the subdeacon Gratianus. In the charter, Gratianus agrees with the evaluation of furnishings and garments. The movables are handed over to the beneficiaries, with a notation of their sale value, expressed in terms of gold coin and smaller denominations.11 The wardship of the minor Stefanus has now been transferred to Gratianus.12 The specific legal relation of the ward Stefanus to Germana and Gratianus contrasts with their obscure social connections and leaves room for speculation. The possibilities of a previous adoption or of a case of illegitimacy of Stefanus, thus relating him to Collictus, Germana, or Gratianus, cannot be ruled out. However, if Germana were Stefanus’ relative, then this would have been made explicit in the text, according to customary practice in other testaments and donations from Ravenna. Another curious element about the people involved is that the subdeacon Gratianus, a member of the landed urban elite, twice declares his illiteracy and makes the sign of the cross instead of a signature at the bottom of the document.13 The first papyrus sheet, designated part I, contains the procedure of the settlement of a will.14 In part II, Gratianus enumerates a list of goods inherited from Collictus,  10 See “guaranty” and sureties in Krueger and Mommsen, Codex Theodosianus: on claims for inheritances, vol. 1, book 2, chap. 22; on testaments and codicils, vol. 1, book 4, chap. 4; on legitimate inheritances, vol. 1, book 5, chap. 13. Also for the sureties, see Zolowicz and Barry, Study of Roman Law, on law of property, 259–70; and Alan Watson, ed., The Digest of Justinian (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), vol. 4, book 46, sureties and mandators, 200–11.  11 In golden solidi, and in semisses, tremisses, aspria, siliquae, asprio-siliquae, and bronze nummi. See table 1.2 in this study for the value and the weight of these coins and a comparison of value between the garments and textile accessories included in this document.  12 Papyrus 8, I.1, I.6, I.11.  13 Papyrus 8, II.2, III.3.  14 Papyrus 8, I.1ff. The usual practice of a settlement of a will involves a negotiation between the interested parties in front of the curia magistrates or judges who are to publish and prove the settlement; if

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Clothing in Sixth-Century Ravenna and also a second list, goods inherited from a deceased freedman with a Gothic name, Guderit.15 Some cattle are passed down, as well as two slaves: a female called Ranihilda, also a Gothic name, and a male called Proiectus. There are special obligations for the provision of the needs of Ranihilda which remain unspecified. The settlement includes money in various denominations of gold and silver coins, silver objects, scrap iron, and a variety of bronze vessels.16 It also includes portions of the payment of rents from two large urban houses of the domus type in the centre of Ravenna, from small houses of the casa type in the Casa Nova territory, from two fundi (rural estates), and from a village-farm (casale) near Bologna.17 The surviving section of part III describes more property and income from rent; also the judicial procedure and the conditions and assurances paid in silver to the curia by the interested parties.18 The document breaks off just before the part of the customary authentication formula which would incorporate the document in the Gesta. The final legal act of the collective oath process, followed by the signatures of the executor and representative of the testator, the beneficiaries, the witnesses, and the secretary, named as Iohannis, are similarly lost. INHERITED OBJECTS: ETHNICITY, CUSTOM, AND MATERIAL CULTURE

The clothes and other movables and the urban elite properties and estates belong to members of the local elite in Ravenna. These are markers of rank within the same social group. Personal names come with ethnic nuances: Two are Gothic (Guderit, Ranihilda) and at least one is Greek (Stefanus, perhaps Ioannis). Similarly, sometimes the terms for the clothes and accessories derive from languages other than Latin. (Table 1.1 presents these terms along with their likely etymological provenance.)

 15  16  17

 18

the executor does not agree to hand over the surety money to the beneficiaries or if he delays handing over the property to them, this can take the form of a trial; Tjäder, Papyri, 1:196–97. Papyrus 8, II.1ff, II.4. Papyrus 8, II.5, II.8, III.3. The property terminology is important in establishing the social status of the testator. A domus was a large, urban, Late Antique house complex constructed of dressed stone and marble, usually with mosaics. A casa was a smaller domestic building with a simple material framing made of stone. Fundi are the large complex rural estates with a dwelling, registered in the Gesta Municipalia as they were the basis of taxation by the state. Casale refers to a rural landholding with a villa and a rural church including a settlement complex of the villagers; see Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, 470–3, 487–88. For the centrality of the property of Gratianus comprising urban domi, see the map included in Cirelli, “Ravenna,” 254: The house “near Saint Agatha” was at the southeast of the Episcopal Palace area, and a house “past the basilica of Saint Victor” was at the north of the Mint (Moneta Aurea) next to the Padana canal, a tributary of the Po. For the urban network, see Sauro Gelichi, “Ravenna, Ascesa e Declino di una Capitale,” in Sedes Regiae (Anni 400–800), ed. Gisela Ripoll-Lopez and J. M. Gurt (Barcelona: Reial Acadèmia de Bones Lletres, 2000), 107–34, esp. 113 (map). This came from a fundus, portions of the rent of a field, and the portion of the bishop of Messor which comprised a town house in the town of Cornelia, a further portion of gold coins, and a full purse; Papyrus 8, III.1–2.

5

Olga Magoula Table 1.1: Terminology for dress and textiles from a charter of security (chartula plenariae securitatis) from the Municipal Acts of Ravenna (564) Note: The lemmata occur in diverse documents throughout the early medieval period; some have further use in the later medieval period. The unique words (that is, used here only and in no other genre or set of documents) are so indicated. Each lemma, in the form it occurs in the chartula (with variants in the orthography), is followed (in the second column) by the most suitable meaning for its context within the relevant word cluster within the document, and (in the third column) the etymological provenance if registered in dictionaries; otherwise, I give the most plausible hypothesis on the basis of etymological and contextual criteria. The fourth column notes its occurrence in the Latin text. The final column gives the reference to its appearance in papyrus 8, sheet II, as presented in the Appendix to this article, which in turn is based on Jan Olof Tjäder, Die Nichtliterarischen Lateinischen Papyri Italiens aus der Zeit 445–700 (Lund, Sweden: Gleerup, 1954–82), 1:238–46.

Word / word cluster

Meaning

Provenance

Occurrence

Reference

bracas lineas

linen breeches

Gaulish CelticGerman and Latin

Collictus

7

camisia ornata

decorated shirt

Gaulish Celtic and Latin

Guderit

14

camisia tramoserica in cocco et prasino

silk and linen shirt in red and leek-green

Gaulish Celtic and Latin-Greek compound

Collictus

6

Clothing

lena vetere

old long cloak

Late Empire Latin

Guderit

14

sagello vetere

old knee-length traveller’s cloak

Classical Latin

Guderit

14

sareca misticia cum manicas curtas

short-sleeved silk tunic of mixed weave

Late Antique Greek Collictus and Latin

7

sareca vetere tincticia

old dyed silk tunic with sleeves

Late Antique Greek Guderit and Latin

13–14

sarica prasina ornata

decorated leek-green silk tunic with sleeves

Late Antique Greek Collictus and Latin

7

fibula de bracile

buckle for a leather strap belt

Classical Latin

Collictus

6

fibula de usubandilos

garter buckle

Latin and Low Gothic/ Langobardic, unique, as a compound

Collictus

6

Jewellery

6

Clothing in Sixth-Century Ravenna Word / word cluster (cont.)

Meaning

Provenance

Occurrence

Reference

formulae

moulds for metalworking, in a context of silver

Classical Latin, unique

Collictus

6

old tablet-woven braid (note that the word plictile is used later to refer to a woven chair seat in sella ferrea plictile and sella lignea plictile)

Greek and Latin

Collictus

6   (9–10)

scamnile acopicto

bed coverlet with figurative decoration, “raised with the needle”

Late Empire Latin

Collictus

6

scamnile cum agnos

rug or mat with a layer or construction of wickerwork of Vitex agnus-castus (chaste tree) branches, or a covering with figurative decoration of lambs or Agnus Dei lambs.

Latin, unique

Collictus

10

Latin and Greek

Collictus

6

Accessories plicton vetere

Bedclothes

stragula polimita multicoloured interwoven bedcovering

As far as the post-obitum passing down of goods goes, the procedure follows the Roman tradition of handing over personal goods and property from one generation to the next.19 This is the reverse practice from the furnished burial rite enacted in the vicinity by some of the pagan Germanic peoples and to some extent by some Romans.20 Although Germanic customary law did not prescribe that personal property should ac 19 Edward Champlin, “Creditur Vulgo Testamenta Hominum Speculum Esse Morum: Why the Romans Made Wills,” Classical Philology 84, no. 3 (1989): 198–215. The Law of Intestacy imposed a standardised pattern of succession, inheritance, and guardianship on all citizens in Late Republic: “The last judgement at Rome was tempered by a strong sense of civic duty, mixed with honour and self-esteem,” 206.  20 In the same period, ostentatious furnished burials were observed in the vicinity: adjacent Roman and Germanic burials in and around Ravenna, accompanied by local metalwork and with consistent features such as bone combs and weapons; Cinzia Cavallari, Oggetti di Ornamento Personale dall’Emilia Romagna Bizantina: I Contesti di Rinvenimento (Bologna: Ante Quem, 2005), 30–38, 40–70, 113– 87. For the elite Ostrogothic burial known as the “Lady of Domagnano,” and reconstruction of her ­clothing and jewellery, see 110–17. Cavallari elaborates on the more bizantino, the Byzantine style of the Gothic garnet and gold jewellery worn by the woman in this mid-sixth-century burial.

7

Olga Magoula Table 1.2: Values of clothing and accessories Note: Here, the garments, accessories, jewellery, and bedclothes are arranged in word clusters, separately by owner (Collictus or Guderit), along with the value of the items in the denominations given in the document, as follows: Ÿ solidus: the gold coin, 4.5 grams or 24 carats; gold was 14 times the worth of silver in the sixth century Ÿ tremissis: ⅓ of a solidus Ÿ semissis: ½ of a solidus Ÿ siliqua: a small thin silver coin, valued at 1/24 of a solidus and called siliqua aurea; presumably about 2.7 grams of silver. Ÿ nummus: small copper coin, less than 1 gram, valued at 1/7,200 of a solidus Ÿ asprio (asprio-nummus, asprio-siliqua): coarse, incomplete, clipped coin in this time and place; much later, a mixture of silver with a little gold in debased denomination. An uncius (which appears in the document text but not in this table) is 1/12 of a pound. Monetary values from Jan Frederik Niermeyer, C. van de Kieft, and J. W. J. Burgers, eds., Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus: Medieval Latin Dictionary (Leiden: Brill, 2002), and Philip Grierson, Byzantine Coins (London: Methuen, 1982).

Clothing and textiles of Collictus Quantity

Item

Value

1

fibula de bracile

–

1

fibula de usubandilos

–

12

formulae

–

2

stragula polimita

1 solidus and 1 tremissis

1

scamnile acopicto

1 solidus

1

plicton vetere

4 siliquas aureas

1

camisia tramoserica in cocco et prasino

3½ solidi

1

sarica prasina ornata

1 solidus and 1 semissis

1

sareca misticia cum manicas curtas

2 siliquas aureas

?

bracas lineas

1 siliqua aurea

1

scamnile cum agnos

2 siliquas aureas

Clothing of Guderit, a freed man Quantity

Item

Value

1

sareca vetere tincticia

3 siliquas aureas

1

camisia ornata

6 siliquas aureas

1

mappa

1 asprio-siliqua

1

lena vetere

–

1

sagello vetere

–

8

Clothing in Sixth-Century Ravenna company the deceased, in the archaeology of this area such items were recognised as the portion of the dead and not inheritable property.21 The evidence provided by these material finds contrasts with what we can learn from the Roman documents. For example, in this charter we learn details about perishable goods, textiles, and organic materials handed down to the beneficiaries; these are almost never preserved in the archaeology, and in this way we are further informed about the recycling, mending, and reuse of functional artefacts over the generations. The lexicographical enquiry and discussion that follow refer to the terminology for the clothes of the top tier of a frontier society. Details of construction and information on decorative techniques were not within the interests of the municipal secretary, who was concerned only with the minute cataloguing of movables and immovables and their exact value. The analysis will start with a definition and identification of garments, accessories, jewellery, and bedclothes. It will discuss the materials, forms, and styles of real clothes worn by real people, how the items related to one another and if they belonged together, if they were gender-specific, if they were used as outer or inner clothing, and to what purpose, what occasion and season. Ravenna today is famous for its mosaics which depict members of the Byzantine court and ecclesiastics in tunics with clavi decoration.22 I will explore here how the terms for the garments in the charter relate to this iconography and locate them in a specific garment system; and how the archaeology of deposits of valuables in Ravenna might place the items in this charter in an actual socioeconomic setting.23 GARMENTS

Camisia This term indicates a tunic made of linen or silk, worn next to the skin.24 A hypothesis for the origins of this term is that it may be a Gaulish or Germanic word brought into  21 For the later Langobardic tradition and royal regulations, see Claudio Azzara and Stefano Gasparri, eds., Le Leggi dei Longobardi: Storia, Memoria e Diritto di un Popolo Germanico, 2nd ed. (Rome: Viella, 2005). For inheritance laws and the absence of a todtenteil (“dead man’s part”) in barbarian law codes encompassing the cultural milieu of the ethnic incursions into Ravennate territory, see Leges Alamannorum, MGH Leges nationum Germanicarum 5.1, ed. Karolus Lehmann (Hanover, Germany: Hahn, 1888); Theodore John Rivers, trans., Laws of the Alamans and Bavarians (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977); Franz Beyerle, ed., Leges Langobardorum (643–866) (Witzenhausen, Germany: Deutsches-Rechtlicher Instituts Verlag, 1962). The above law codes do not mention any systematic and homogeneous practice relating to furnished burial.  22 For mosaics of Justinians’s court in Sant’Apollinare and San Vitale with decorated tunics, see Giuseppe Bovini, Ravenna (Cologne: Schauberg, 1971), 137, fig. 86; 138, fig. 87; 143, fig. 90. A clavata tunic has parallel coloured stripes on breast and shoulders.  23 Sauro Gelichi and Nicoletta Giordani, eds., Il Tesoro nel Pozzo: Pozzi Deposito e Tesaurizzazioni nell’ Antica Emilia (Modena, Italy: C. Panini, 1994), 81.  24 Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli, Guardaroba Medievale: Vesti e Società dal XIII al XVI Secolo (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2008), 42. The camisia was not an essential garment as it did not protect from the cold, but it was comfortable to wear and hygienic because it was soft and washable. This term often denoted a sleeved cotton or linen tunic, long for women and shorter for men. Cotton tunics were common in

9

Olga Magoula Latin in the third century, and used in the late fourth or fifth century (from Early Germanic *hamißja) probably from the Indo-European root –*kem.25 Originally it had the meaning of a rustic and military summer shirt.26 The term occurs very often in lists of clothes included in early saints’ lives of the sixth century, letters, and annals. In the Life of St. Radegund, from the end of the sixth century, the saint deposits camisas on the altar.27 The term camisia is also found in a papal letter of Gregory the Great of 59728 as well as in Hincmar of Rheims’ Annals of St-Bertin written around 862.29

 25

 26  27

 28  29

Italy in the ninth century; cotton became widely cultivated and used in Muslim Sicily just then. See Carlo Battisti, “Ripercussioni Lessicali del Commercio Orientale nel Periodo Giustinianeo,” in Moneta e Scambi nell’ Alto Medioevo, Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’alto Medioevo 8 (Spoleto, Italy: Presso la Sede del Centro, 1961), 631–34. Cotton was extremely rare in the West in the early Middle Ages and considered the exotic textile par excellence. In the sixth century it is only mentioned by Gregory of Tours in Liber in Gloria Martyrum: “Prope autem Hiericho habentur arbores, quae lanas gignunt. … Et de his enim ferunt ipsi Hiesu Nave solere fieri indumenta” (“Near Jericho there are trees which produce wool … Some say that clothing used to be made from this wool for Joshua the son of Nun”); Liber in Gloria Martyrum, in Gregorii Turonensis Opera 2: Miracula et Opera Minora, MGH Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum 1.2, ed. Bruno Krusch (Hanover, Germany: Hahn, 1885), 49. Translation from Raymond Van Dam, The Glory of the Martyrs (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1988), 37. P. G. W. Glare, ed., Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2012), s.v. “camisia”; Charles Du Fresne Du Cange, Glossarium ad Scriptores Mediae et Infimae Latinitatis, 10 vols. (1883–87; repr., Bologna: Forni, 1981–82), s.v. “camosa,” “camisia.” Alfred Ernout and Antoine Meillet, eds., Dictionnaire Étymologique de la Langue Latine: Histoire des Mots, 4th ed. (Paris: Klincksieck, 1967), s.v. “camisia,” “camisa,” cites it as a foreign word from Gaulish or German. Jerome, Epistolae, in Patrologiae Cursus Completus, ser. Latina, vol. 22, ed. Jacques-Paul Migne (Paris: Garnier Fratres, 1883–89), 614, par. 360, line 11, used it first in Latin: “solent militantes habere lineas, quas camisias vocant, sic aptas membris et adstrictas corporibus.” Egidio Forcellini et al., eds., Lexicon Totius Latinitatis (1864; repr., Padua: Typis seminarii, 1940), s.v. “camisia,” where it is said to have replaced the classical Latin term interula (a long, linen undertunic); Jan Frederik Niermeyer, C. van de Kieft, and J. W. J. Burgers, eds., Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus: Medieval Latin Dictionary (Leiden: Brill, 2002), s.v. “camisia”; Paul Lehmann et al., eds., Mittellateinisches Wőrterbuch bis zum Ausgehenden 13 Jahrhundert (Munich: Beck, 1959-), s.v. “camis(i)a”; Robert Damme, Vocabularius Theutonicus, vol. 1 (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 2011), entry no. H112, s.v. “camisia.” Oxford Latin Dictionary, s.v. “camisia.” Forcellini, Lexicon Totius Latinitatis, cites it as certainly related to contemporary Byzantine Greek καμίσιον; see Antonietta Amati Canta, “Bridal Gifts in Medieval Bari,” Medieval Clothing and Textiles 9 (2013): 10. Fortunatus Venantius, De Vita Sanctae Radegundis Reginae, Liber I, in Fredegarii et Aliorum Chronica: Vitae Sanctorum, MGH Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum 2, ed. Bruno Krusch (Berlin: Weidmann, 1888), p. 369, par. 13: “camisas, manicas, cofias, fibulas, cuncta auro … sancto tradit altario” (“she transferred to the holy altar … linen shirts, gloves/sleeves, headdresses, and brooches, all of them adorned with gold”). Translation based on Joan M. Petersen, Handmaids of the Lord: Contemporary Descriptions of Feminine Asceticism in the First Six Christian Centuries (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1996), 386. Gregorii I Papae Registrum Epistolarum, MGH Epistolae (in Quart) 1, ed. Paul Ewald and Ludo M. Hartmann (Berlin: Weidmann, 1891), p. 474, book 7, letter 27, written around 597. Written in 862: “The slave woman … began to iron a linen garment the sort called in vulgar tongue, a shirt [camisium] …” Hincmar of Rheims, Annals of St-Bertin, trans. Janet Laughland Nelson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991), 101; see Annales Bertiniani, MGH Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi 5, ed. Georg Waitz (Hanover, Germany: Hahn, 1883), 59.

10

Clothing in Sixth-Century Ravenna The first occurrence of camisia in the charter refers to a “camisia tramosirica in cocco et prasino,” a garment made of linen and silk which combines two colours.30 ­Tramoserica is a compound word designating a garment made of two types of material: a composite weave of silk warp and linen weft. Its composite parts comprise the Classical Latin term trames for the warp and sericus derived from the Greek for silk (see below, “Sarica/sareca”). Coccus or coccinus is the Latin for the darkish red dyestuff extracted from a Mediterranean oak parasite;31 red had been the predominant colour ever since the late Empire.32 Prasino is the adaptation in the Latin language of the Greek adjective πράσινος, a light, bright green, derivative of the colour of the leek (πράσσον).33 Green was one of the most fashionable colours throughout the medieval period.34 This cluster of words describes a shirt of blended weave, silk warp with linen weft, red and leek-green, but we cannot tell the length from the text. Such a shirt was worn by men and women seen in mosaic depictions, with decoration showing under the neck opening of the tunic.35 We also cannot tell how the different colours were used, although there is little possibility this camisia was a mottled red-and-green textile. It is doubtful that the coloured garments of officials in the Ravenna mosaics show mottled textiles; the colour effect in these depictions represents what seems to be embroidery

 30 Papyrus 8, II.6. Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. “tramesirica”; Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis, s.v. “tramosericus,” of a fabric “with a silken warp.”  31 The red colour coccus on silk fabric is attested in the letters of Sidonius Apollinaris, letter no. 20 to his friend Domnicius, which includes the entry of Prince Sigismer into Lyon in 470: “flammeus cocco rutilus auro lacteus serico, tum cultui tanto coma rubore cute concolor” (“clad in gleaming scarlet, ruddy gold, and pure white silk, while his fair hair, glowing skin matching with these colours”); Gai Sollii Apollinaris Sidonii Epistulae et Carmina, MGH Auctores antiquissimi 8, ed. Bruno Krusch (Berlin: Weidmann, 1887), book 1, letter 20, pp. 70–71. Translation based on W. B. Anderson, Sidonius Apollinaris, Poems and Letters, 2 vols. (London: Heinemann, 1936), 136. Ernout and Meillet, Dictionnaire, s.v. “coccum,” “coccinus,” “coccineus”; Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. “coccinum”; Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis, s.v. “coccineus,” “coccinum.”  32 See Roland Delmaire, “Le Vêtement, Symbole de Richesse et du Pouvoir, d’aprés les Textes Patristiques et Hagiographiques du Bas-Empire,” in Costume et Société dans l’Antiquité et le Haut Moyen Age, ed. François Chausson and Hervé Inglebert (Paris: Picard, 2003), 85–98, for the imperial and elite undertones of purple and red clothing.  33 Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis, s.v. “prasinus”; Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. “prasinae,” “prasinum,” intense green.  34 Christian de Mérindol, “Signes de Hierarchie Sociale à la Fin du Moyen Âge d’après les Vêtements: Méthodes et Recherches,” in Le Vêtement: Histoire, Archéologie et Symbolique Vestimentaires au Moyen Age, ed. Michel Pastoureau (Paris: Léopard d’ Or, 1989), 181–223, at 202–203; Muzzarelli, Guardaroba Medievale, 115–16 and 181, agrees.  35 A band of red, probably embroidery, is seen under the neck of the outer tunic in the mosaic of the figure of Christ in San Vitale, from the second quarter of the sixth century; Bovini, Ravenna, 124, fig. 80. A dark border on a white undergarment is seen under the overtunic worn by men in everyday clothes in a mosaic in Sant’Apollinare Nuovo; 81, figs. 46, 48. A red border can be seen on the shirts under the tunics worn by Sarah and Abraham in a mosaic from San Vitale, dated to the second quarter of the sixth century; 121, fig. 78. There is a mosaic detail with court officials wearing red and green embroidered tunics, from San Vitale, second half of the sixth century; 143, fig. 90.

11

Olga Magoula or tapestry weaving.36 The red border at the neck of undergarments in these mosaics could be a contrasting collar or a band of embroidery or tapestry.37 A second camisia follows in the next grouping of the clothes of Guderit, with more emphasis on its decoration, described as ornata (see further under “Sarica/sareca,” below).38 Both men and women of high status wore decorated outer and inner garments. Sarica/sareca In this charter, three such garments are mentioned, all made of silk; these are three silk tunics. Sareca was an early medieval Latin term for the most common item of men’s and women’s clothing. It replaced the Latin term of classical tradition: tunica. The Vulgar Latin sarica, an alteration of serica, feminine of the adjective sericus = silken, derives from the Greek σηρικός-ή. Later, in late-eighth-century and early-ninth-century sources, the derivative term saricile was used to denote a fine woollen or linen garment, while camisile was used for the equivalent linen garment.39 The Greek word σηρός = silk > sarica or sarka is recurrent in saints’ lives, where it is explicitly translated in Latin as a silk tunic and as such is found in modern vernacular translations.40 Silk was imported from the East, and expensive coloured silks, coloured purples, and composite weaves most probably reached Ravenna from Constantinople.41 The details of decoration and colour for these garments in this inventory do not exclude the possibility that these could have been woven locally in craft workshops in the port or the Ravenna suburbs of Classe or Caesaria.42

 36 Ibid., 143, fig. 90; also in the mosaic of the figure of St. Vitalis, 127, fig. 81.  37 Ibid., 121, fig. 78; and 143, fig. 91.  38 Papyrus 8, II.14.  39 See Capitulare Aquisgranense (801–13), in Karoli Magni Capitularia, MGH Capitularia regum Francorum I, ed. Alfredus Boretius (Hanover, Germany: Hahn, 1883), p. 172, no. 77, clause 19, “habeant ex partibus nostris lanam et linum, et faciant sarciles et camisiles”; Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis, s.v. “sarica,” “sareca,” ”saricilis,” “camisilis”; Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. “sarica,” “sareca,” “saricilis”; Ernout and Meillet, Dictionnaire, s.v. “sareca,” “sarica,” “sirica”; Robert Auty, ed. Lexikon des Mittelalters, 10 vols. (Munich: LexMA-Verlag, 1977–99), s.v. “sar(e)ca,” “camisilis,” “sar(i)cilis.”  40 For example, in the seventh-century Life of St. Eligius of Noyon, reworked in the ninth century: “lineas vero metallo rutilas orasque sarcarum auro opertas, cuncta quidem vestimenta praetiosissima, nonnula etiam olosirica” (“linens covered with red metal and golden silk tunics hemmed with gold and all of the most precious fabrics including all pure silken ones”); Dado, Vita Eligii Episcopi Noviomagensis, in Passiones Vitaeque Sanctorum Aevi Merovingici 2, MGH Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum 4, ed. Bruno Krusch (Hanover, Germany: Hahn, 1902), p. 678, par. 12. Translation adapted from Jo Ann MacNamara, “Dado of Rouen: Life of St. Eligius of Noyon,” in Thomas F. Head, Medieval Hagiography: An Anthology (New York: Routledge, 2001), 145. Olosirica in this case is an adjective, and it refers to silken clothing [vestimenta] or a tunic. See Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, Greek-English Lexicon, Revised Supplement, ed. P. G. W. Glare and A. A. Thompson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), s.v. “σηρός.”  41 Michael McCormick, Origins of the European Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 511–15, 630, 719–20.  42 See Cirelli, “Ravenna,” 239–63.

12

Clothing in Sixth-Century Ravenna One of them is defined as misticia, a Greek derivative of symmeiktos, a compound word describing an all-silk item made with a mix of colour (which might be produced by weaving with different colours of yarns, or with yarns plied of different colours) or a mix of weaves.43 It also has manicas curtas, “short sleeves.”44 Perhaps the others had long sleeves.45 In all probability, all tunics in the document had sleeves, because long sleeves appear in near-contemporary local depictions worn by the elite and non-manual workers in the vicinity.46 A “sareca misticia cum manicas curtas” might be interpreted as a short-sleeved tunic woven of two different coloured yarns, perhaps plied together. The “sarica prasina ornata” was a decorated, leek-green tunic.47 The form of the decoration is not specified, but contemporary art suggests embroidery or tapestry weaving.48 Conversely, Paul the Deacon, the Langobard historian, writing in the late eighth century, states that the first Langobards wore garments with wide coloured borders, perhaps suggesting tablet weaving.49 The third sareca is described as “vetere tincticia.”50 The term tincticia is of Latin origin and specifies colour decoration.51 We cannot tell here how the colour effect was produced, if it was achieved by way of dyeing, stamping, tapestry, decorative weaving, or a two-coloured plied yarn.52 It is of note that this silk garment is old (vetere), possibly a precious heirloom which retained the colour rather than a shabby item. Dyed silk fades easily when it is old and shabby.

 43 Papyrus 8, II.7. All-silken garments could also be made in the form of a dalmatic; see Forcellini, Lexicon Totius Latinitatis, s.v. “dalmatica”; Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis, s.v. “dalmatica”; Liddell and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon, s.v. “symmeikta”; Isidore of Seville, Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum sive Originum: Libri XX, ed. Wallace Martin Lindsay, vol. 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), book 19, chap. 22:9–10, where the dalmatica is described as the long-sleeved garment adopted by the Roman army, probably originating in the province of Dalmatia; Ernout and Meillet, Dictionnaire, s.v. “dalmatica.” The term occurs only in ecclesiastical contexts as a vestment after the fourth century.  44 Papyrus 8, II.7.  45 For contemporary depictions of such luxurious long-sleeved garments, see Bovini, Ravenna, 137, fig. 86, but compare the procession of female martyrs wearing long tunics or dalmatics with sleeves to the elbow; ibid., 93, fig. 63.  46 Ibid., 143, fig. 90.  47 Papyrus 8, II.7.  48 Bovini, Ravenna, 138, fig. 87. The tunics in the depictions of Justinian’s court in Ravenna are decorated in the style of the clavata tunic (see note 22, above).  49 “Vestimenta vero eis erant laxa et maxime linea, qualia Anglisaxones habere solent, hornata institis latioribus vario colore contextis.” (“Their garments were loose and mostly linen, such as the Anglo-Saxons are wont to wear, ornamented with broad borders woven in various colours.”) Pauli Historia Langobardorum, p. 124, book 4, par. 22. William Dudley Foulke, trans., and Edward Peters, ed., Paul the Deacon: History of the Lombards (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1974), 167. Paul defines the fabric of the garments he heard others had seen on the wall frescoes of the Palace of the Langobard Queen Theodolinda in Monza (north of Milan, built in ca. 600) as linen, because these were reported to have been undyed and creamy-coloured.  50 Papyrus 8, II.14.  51 See Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. “tincta”; Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis, s.v. “tincta.”  52 For stamping, see Fortunatus, De Vita Sanctae Radegundis, p. 367, book 1, par. 6.

13

Olga Magoula Bracae This term, meaning a pair of breeches, is a Celtic loan word into the Germanic languages of the Classical period, infiltrating into Late Latin from the first century.53 Agathias and Isidore of Seville describe close-fitting breeches of wool reaching to the knee, or longer, as worn by late imperial soldiers and by soldiers contemporary to this document. Agathias, in his Greek text, compares those to the bracae (βράκαι) of the adversaries, Franks and Goths, which are made of linen and of leather.54 The Edict on Prices of Diocletian (written in 301) mentions the bracarius, literally the “trouser-maker.”55 “Bracas lineas” in the charter refers to linen breeches,56 which would presumably have been rather loose-fitting: linen fabrics stretch naturally but do not retain a tight cut and fit over wear and tear, which would render them unsuitable for trousers. Since the breeches in our text are not defined as coloured, we suggest these were in the natural linen colour which was traditional dress for the Langobards and Saxons.57 This was a term for a very basic garment: It is found in the contemporary list of essential monastic clothes included in the early, anonymous version of the monastic rule of Benedict of Nursia, the Rule of the Master (ca. 520).58 Lena The term denotes a loose, sleeveless cloak made of thick wool, held by a clasp or brooch under the chin or at the shoulder. The term is a Classical Latin word for the late imperial soldier’s rectangular cloak, an outer garment worn exclusively by men, sometimes in religious rituals.59 The word appears in monastic rules, hagiography,

 53 Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. “bracae,” “bracatus”; Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis, s.v. “bracae”; Ernout and Meillet, Dictionnaire étimologique, s.v. “braca,” “bracae.”  54 Isidore, Etymologiarum, book 19, chap. 22:30 and 21:8; see αναξυρίδαι (tight breeches). The same term is used by Agathias when describing the woollen breeches of the Roman soldiers of Justinian’s army (530–82); Rudolf Keydell, ed., Agathiae Myrinaei Historiarum Libri Quinque (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1967), 2:5.  55 Siegfried Lauffer, ed., Diokletians Preisedikt (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1971), 120–21, part 7, no. 42; 123, part 7, no. 46.  56 Papyrus 8, II.7.  57 See note 49, above.  58 That the bracae is an essential item of clothing is shown when one compares the two Rules. See Rule of the Master, clause 55: “bracae, tunica, cuculla, pallium”; this item is substituted with femoralia in the slightly later version of Benedict of Nursia’s Rule of 530, which reduces the four items to the very basic: “cuculla et tunica … femoralia.” Adalbert de Vogüé, trans., La Règle du Maître, vol. 1, Textes Monastiques d’Occident 15 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1964), pp. 910–11, cap. 55, par. 81, lines 3–5; Benedictus, La Règle de Saint Benoît, trans. Adalbert de Vogüé, vol. 2, Textes Monastiques d’Occident 35 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1972), cap. 55; David H. Farmer, ed., The Rule of Saint Benedict: Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hatton 48 (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1968), cap. 55, 124–26.  59 Forcellini, Lexicon Totius Latinitatis, s.v. “lenna,” “laena”; Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis, s.v. “laena,” “lena”; Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. “laena” (blanket); “linna” (a thick Gaulish cloak); Ernout and Meillet, Dictionnaire, s.v. “laena” (toga duplex originally worn for ritual purposes in Rome).

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Clothing in Sixth-Century Ravenna narrative sources, and church councils.60 The designation vetere (“old”) suggests this item was an heirloom.61 Sagellus This term, denoting a traveller’s knee-length cloak, is a diminutive of sagum, a word of Celtic, Gaulish origin. Isidore tells us that it was adopted from the Gauls and referred to a small, military-style cloak, worn by men when travelling.62 There is no evidence for the use of any particular type of weave for it, other than it was made with rough, coarse wool. In the late Empire it was woven in a rectangular shape as seen in depictions and in the description of Isidore of Seville in the early seventh century.63 According to Ammianus Marcellinus, it could be large enough to be used as an army signal flag.64 Again, a garment in the charter is described as vetere (“old”).65 JEWELLERY

The jewellery is found in the context of two pounds of silver metalwork including spoons and a basin,66 following gold, and preceding soft furnishings and clothes.67

 60 Benedictus, Règle, cap. 50; also in Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors, eds., Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1896), vol. 2, book 4, chap. 30.5.  61 Papyrus 8, II.14.  62 For Celtic, Gaulish origin, see Forcellini, Lexicon Totius Latinitatis, s.v. “sagum,” which cites Marcus Terentius Varro, On the Latin Language [De Lingua Latina], vol. 1, Books V–VII, trans. Roland Grubb Kent, Loeb Classical Library 333 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938), 156–57, book 5, par. 167; Isidore, Etymologiarum, book 19, chap. 24:12–13; Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis, s.v. “sagum,” “sagellum,” “sarza,” “sargia”; Ernout and Meillet, Dictionnaire, s.v. “sagum” and “sagatus,” meaning “dressed for war, military style.” Serge (“de sargia”), a term in use in the fourteenth century, indicating a mix of woollen and worsted characterised by a particular diagonal weave, probably has linguistic affinities with the sarica/serica of the early Middle Ages but no direct semantic association to sagellus, which was of wool and was used for soft furnishings and cloaks, according to Mark Chambers, “Serge,” 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), 503.  63 Isidore, Etymologiarum, book 19, chap. 24:13; it is described there as “quadratus vel quadruplex” (a square mantle, folded over twice).  64 Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae: “porrecto extentius brachio et summitatibus sagi contortis elatius adesse hostes signo solito demonstrabam” (“I waved my hand and raising the hem of my cloak: By this usual sign I gave notice that the enemy was at hand”). John C. Rolfe, ed. and trans., Ammianus Marcellinus, vol. 2, Loeb Classical Library 315 (London: Heinemann, 1950), 440–42, book 18, chap. 6, par. 13.  65 Papyrus 8, II.14.  66 Papyrus 8, II.5–6; “Item et in speciebus secundum divisionem argenti libras duas, hoc est cocliares numero septem, scotella una, fibula de bracile et de usubandilos, formulas duodecim.” The rest have their own price named, so according to the heading here the group of words of jewellery items that follows will total the price and weight of two pounds of silver.  67 Papyrus 8, II.6–7.

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Olga Magoula Fibula According to the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville, who was writing in 626, fibula meant a buckle when found in the context of clothing for both men and women and only rarely designated a brooch.68 Its association with straps in the charter indicates that here it signifies a buckle.69 The charter specifies “fibula de bracile et de usubandilos” (“buckle for a strap and for hosebands”).70 It is not clear if this means one buckle with alternative functions, or two buckles, one de bracile and another de usubandilos. The term is not gender-specific; it is found later describing a buckle of gilt silver in a female Langobard will drawn up in Pisa in the late eighth century.71 Since a bracile was a leather strap, it is easy to translate the fibula de bracile as the buckle on a leather belt usually worn by men of all social ranks, ethnicities, and occupations in Ravenna.72 Benedict of Nursia, writing in central Italy a century earlier than Isidore (530), included the bracile in the rule that regulated the dress of the monks.73 Tjäder defines fibula de usubandilos as the buckle for hosebands. This is a very rare instance where a garter buckle is specifically mentioned in a charter or in any other genre in early medieval written sources. Garter buckles are mostly associated with high-status women, especially in Francia. Garters worn with buckles were a fashion popular in Merovingian archaeological burial contexts. Although the length of the

 68 See Isidore, Etymologiarum, book 19, chap. 31, De ornamentis capitis feminarum, 17–18, and chap. 33, De cingulis, 4–5. See also Ernout and Meillet, Dictionnaire, s.v. “fibula” (a brooch and a buckle); the development into meaning a belt buckle seems to be later, in the fifth century. Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. “fibula,” “fibulatorium” (a pin to hold together a garment), fibla, later in seventh-century Frankish wills: “fibla aurea gemmata”; Forcellini, Lexicon Totius Latinitatis, s.v. “fibula.”  69 The term is popular in the sources of Late Antiquity and the earlier Middle Ages. For the use of fibula as a marker of imperial public office, civic, and military based on narrative, iconographic, and numismatic sources, see Dominic Janes, “The Golden Clasp of the Late Roman State,” Early Medieval Europe 5, no. 2 (1996): 127–53.  70 Papyrus 8, II.6.  71 Will of the nun Ghittia and her daughters: “et uno solido Beneventano, duo anula aurie(:) uno pari[o … ], [un]o partio de auro, unu baltio cum banda et fibila de argento inaurato, et braci[le . . .] .” (“and a solidus from the duchy of Benevento, and two golden rings, one similar to … one with one part of gold, one belt with a strap ring and a gilt silver buckle, and a strap”). Jan Olof Tjäder, ed., Chartae Latinae Antiquiores, vol. 26, Italy 7 (Zurich: Urs Graf, 1987), 56–58. My translation.  72 Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. “bracile”; Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis, s.v. “bracile,” “brachiale,” “brachale”; Auty, Lexikon des Mittelalters, s.v. “bracile.”  73 “Et ut hoc vitium peculiaris radicitur amputetur, dentur ab abbate omnia quae sunt necessaria: id est, cuculla, tunica, pedules, caligae, bracile, cultellus, graphium, acus, mappula, tabulae, ut omnis auferatur necessitates excusatio” (“And in order that this evil of private ownership may be rooted out utterly, let the abbot provide all things that are necessary: that is, cowl, tunic, stockings, shoes, belt, knife, pen, needle, handkerchief, and tablets; so that all pretext of need may be taken away”); Farmer, Rule of Saint Benedict, cap. 55, 126–27.

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Clothing in Sixth-Century Ravenna tunic is not preserved in such cases, these buckles are usually ornate and so probably intended to be seen; this suggests that the tunics were worn at knee length.74 Formulas The twelve objects described as formulas in the charter seem in the context to be moulds for making metalwork, and probably attest to household production of jewellery.75 ACCESSORIES

Usubandilos This compound noun occurs in the noun phrase associated with the buckle (see “Fibula,” above). Tjäder suggests this means garters for the hose and elaborates that the hose could cover the lower leg or the entire leg.76 Usubandilos is the regional latinised East Germanic (Gothic) compound derivative of (h)osa used as –osis (dative plural) by Paul the Deacon in the late eighth century.77 Its first element represents the original East Germanic (Gothic) form husôn (romanised with the loss of h-, no longer spoken in later Latin).78 Usubandilos is a Gothic word for a dress accessory known from Germanic burial contexts. Paul the Deacon gives the word in a West Germanic form (Langobardic), i.e. the continental equivalent of the Old English hosebend. The term usubandilos is not attested again.79 Concerning the use of this word by Paul the  74 It is only rarely that male garter buckles are found in the archaeology, although leg bindings are very visible in Carolingian manuscript illuminations. See also the silver buckles under the knee of the female “Aregondis ring” royal burial in Saint-Denis, Paris, dated at most a decade and a half later than the charter text (573–79), in Antoinette Rast-Eicher and Patrick Périn, “Die Merowingerzeitlichen Frauenbestattungen aus der Basilika von Saint-Denis: Neue Interdisziplinäre Untersuchungen,” in Weibliche Eliten in der Frühgeschichte, ed. Dieter Quast (Mainz: Verlag des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums, 2011), 67–76. Such buckles occur in the early-to-mid-seventh-century Langobardic burial ground at Collegno, graves 49 and 53 with male burials; Luisella Pejrani Baricco, ed., Presenze Longobarde: Collegno nell’ Alto Medioevo (Turin, Italy: Soprintendenza per i beni archeologici del Piemonte, 2004), 17–97, 56, 60.  75 Papyrus 8, II.6. Forcellini, Lexicon Totius Latinitatis, s.v. “formula” (a small pattern, mould).  76 See commentary in Tjäder, Papyri, 1:433, papyrus 8, II.6. No evidence is given for this statement; however, the breeches seen in contemporary art cover the entire leg and we can see them under tunics; see Bovini, Ravenna, 82, figs. 52, 53.  77 “Postea veri coeperunt osis uti”: Pauli Historia Langobardorum, p. 124, book 4, par. 22. See commentary in Tjäder, Papyri, 1:433, where he recognises usubandilos as a Langobardic word based on the Gothic -osis. As shown above, this is not so: Langobardic is a West Germanic language, Gothic an East Germanic language, which is not directly cognate.  78 I am obliged to Professor Wolfgang Haubrichs and Dr. Richard Dance for reviewing this part. The second part of the cognate –band- (and this is a trait distinctive to Gothic) lacks the –i-mutation of the element *band- which in West Germanic would be bend-. Gothic band-il is like German Bänd-el or Old Norse bendill, a diminutive derivative with the diminutive suffix –il; Friedrich Kluge and Elmar Seebold, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der Deutschen Sprache, 25th ed. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), 427.  79 See commentary in Tjäder, Papyri, 1:433, referring to Pauli Historia Langobardorum, p. 124, book 4, par. 22. See also above, “Fibula,” p. 16.

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Olga Magoula Deacon, Nicoletta Francovich Onesti writes that Paul’s (h)osa is developed from an ancient Germanic word-loan.80 The West Germanic term hosebendas in Aldhelm’s poem De Virginitate, written in 706, was glossed in the tenth-century Anglo-Saxon glossary of this work as periscelidas, the Greek term for thigh bindings used by both men and women.81 Like West Germanic hosebenda, it is a compound from *(h)usôn– and Germanic *banda–.82 Usubandilos shows an early infiltration of Gothic language and culture in Ravenna. It is a cultural element of dress of East and West Germanic peoples worn by elites of both sexes before the Langobard settlement. Plicton This rare word, possibly meaning a tablet-woven braid, derives from the Greek verb πλέκω meaning to interweave, rather than knit as suggested by Tjäder, as knitting was unknown in ancient Greece.83 Tjäder cites lexicographer Pietro Sella for the unreferenced suggestion that this was a hair ornament or an interwoven furnishing item.84 It is suggested that this could have been some kind of interlaced headcovering, such as

 80 Also Isidore’s osa, Italian huosa, Old French huese, Provençal oza; Nicoletta Francovich Onesti, Vestigia Longobarde in Italia (568–774): Lessico e Antroponimia (Rome: Artemide, 1999), 97.  81 See commentary in Tjäder, Papyri, 1:433, papyrus 8, II.6, on Aldhelm, De Virginitate 57, in Aldhelmi Opera, MGH Auctores antiquissimi 15, ed. Rudolf Ehwald (Berlin: Weidmann, 1913), p. 317, par. 5, and its glossary. More than a century later, in Agnellus, Liber Pontificalis Ecclesiae Ravennatis, there is the term pereselidas in a description of women wearing garters around their legs in a procession; “inaures et anulos et dextralia et pereselidas et munilia et olfactoria .  .  .” (earrings and rings and bracelets and chains worn around the knees [anklets] and necklaces and perfumes”); Agnelli Qui et Andreas Liber Pontificalis Ecclesiae Ravennatis, ed. Oswald Holder-Egger, in Scriptores Rerum Langobardicarum, 362–63; translation based on Deborah Mauskopf Deliyiannis, trans., The Book of Pontiffs of the Church of Ravenna (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2004), 252, where she translates pereselidas as “anklets.” However, according to Holder-Egger, the editor of the MGH text, pereselidas can be a form of periscelidas (leggings, stockings), found also in this form in Isidore, Etymologiarum, book 19, chap. 31, De ornamentis capitis feminarum, 19. See also Auty, Lexikon des Mittelalters, s.v. “hose.”  82 English band, German Band; A. L. Lloyd, R. Lühr, Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, vol. 4 (Göttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009), s.v. “Band,” 1162–66. See Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. “osa,” “hosa,” “ossa,” “hougia”: “Germanis Hose, Cambrobritannis Hosen, Gallis Heuse, houseaux, Italis Uosa, üosa [Saxonibus Hosa, Anglis Hose]”; Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis, s.v. “hosae,” “hossae,” “hosis,” “osis.”  83 Knitting was not introduced in northern Italy before the fourteenth century, although knitted cotton existed in southern Italy earlier than this and knitted silk in Spain; see Irena Turnau, History of Knitting Before Mass Production, Institute of the History of Material Culture, Polish Academy of Sciences (Warsaw: Aksent, 1991), 15–23.  84 Commentary in Tjäder, Papyri, 1:433, papyrus 8, II.6; see plicton in Pietro Sella, ed., Glossario Latino Emiliano, Studi e Testi 74 (Vatican City: Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, 1937), 274. Sella (editor of a series of dictionaries of Latin and Italian dialects) had suggested the translation in this volume, which covered the Emilia Romagna territory, of “ornamento dei capelli” as hair ornament, an ethnolinguistic assumption based on the meaning for plicton in the contemporary local dialect.

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Clothing in Sixth-Century Ravenna a hairnet of golden thread, a woven hairband, or, alternatively, a basket or interwoven stool (seat).85 The description vetere identifies the plicton as old, a still useable heirloom.86 Its price, valued at 4 golden siliquas, amounts to the equivalent of two decorated silken tunics. Because of the value of the object, which is found in the context of money, jewellery, bedclothes, and clothing, this might be a gold-brocaded tablet-woven band. Later in the text, the word plictile occurs in the context of two interwoven chair seats; one of them is valued in terms of gold, which indicates a certain worth. BEDCLOTHES

Scamnile This word, which occurs twice in the text, is Latin for a bed coverlet or a rug.87 The first object is described as acopicto (acus– + pictus, “with needle picture”), which suggests a coverlet decorated with needlework.88 This term is found in Caesarius of Arles’ Regula Virginum, a monastic rule for females, which is contemporary to our charter. Caesarius wrote this rule for the nuns of his sister Caesaria who were not allowed clothing decoration “plumaria et acopictura et omne polymitum … numquam in monasterio fiat” (“with embroidery and picture drawing with the needle and using every colour of yarn”).89 The second scamnile is described as cum agnos.90 This means either that the coverlet/rug was woven from a particular plant or decorated with a depiction of lambs. As to the first possibility, cum agnos may refer to the stalks of the medicinal plant Vitex agnus-castus (vitex < Latin verb vieo = to weave), also called chaste tree or monk’s pepper, native to Mediterranean coastal areas such as Ravenna and used in basket weaving as well as to avert evil.91 The scamnile, then, could be an interwoven mat employing the thin stalks of V. agnus-castus rushes. Alternatively, if cum agnos  85 Commentary in Tjäder, Papyri, 1:433, papyrus 8, II.6. Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis, s.v. “plecta” (plait, wickerwork, garland); Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. “plicton.”  86 Papyrus 8, II.6.  87 Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. “scamnile”; Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis, s.v. “scamnile.”  88 Papyrus 8, II.6. Commentary in Tjäder, Papyri, 1:433, papyrus 8, II.6; Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. “acupictus”; Virgil, Aeneid, Books 7–12, trans. H. Rushton Fairclough, ed. George P. Goold, Loeb Classical Library 64 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), 2:290, book 11, par. 775: “Pictas acu tunicas”; Isidore, Etymologiarum, book 19, chap. 22:21: “acupicta vestis, acu textilis vel acu ornata.”  89 Commentary in Tjäder, Papyri, 1:433, papyrus 8, II.6; see Caesarius of Arles, Regula Sanctarum Virginum, ed. Germain Morin (Bonn, Germany: Hanstein, 1933), p. 16, clause 44–45, and p. 19, clause 55 (dating to 522–34). Maria Caritas McCarthy, trans., The Rule for Nuns of St. Caesarius of Arles (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1960), 185–86.  90 Papyrus 8, II.10.  91 Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. “agnus”; Oxford Latin Dictionary, s.v. “Agnus Castus Vitex”; Roberto Chiej, The Macdonald Encyclopedia of Medicinal Plants, trans. Sylvia Mulcahy (London: Macdonald, 1984), s.v. “Agnus Castus Vitex”: All agree this is the sacred plant of Juno, used in wickerwork and basket weaving, also with apotropaic and therapeutic uses.

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Olga Magoula refers to decoration depicting lambs (agnus = “lamb”), this could be a bedspread with a needlework Christian motif, the agnus dei (“Lamb of God”) being a popular way of depicting Christ, already in use by the sixth century.92 Stragula This is plural of the Classical Latin word stragulum, meaning “bedspread” or “light rug.”93 Described as stragula polimita, these items were patterned and/or multicoloured.94 Polimitum is a Greek word, referring to a technique employing several shafts or yarns of different colours and textures to create a multicoloured, multitextured surface. It is found in literary sources and Isidore of Seville, and in Caesarius of Arles as vestes polymite.95 DISCUSSION: ETHNICITY AND CLOTHING: QUESTIONING STEREOTYPES

The challenge of this study is to reconstruct a cross-section of society in Ravenna from a document drafted in somewhat corrupt and ungrammatical Latin with inclusions of regional terms, not usually recorded in dictionaries. The provenance, materials, and forms of dress in mid-sixth-century Ravenna is indicated by rare words in this document. The basic garment terms camisia, bracae, and sagellus are derived from Gaulish and indicate Celtic influence between the first and third centuries, perhaps Celtic ethnicity in Ravenna. The utilitarian terms lena, bracile, fibula, stragula, and scamnile come from Classical Latin; sarica/sareca and plicton for luxury items are derived from Greek, indicating Greek influence or presence. Usubandilos is derived from Gothic (East German) and indicates ethnic Ostrogothic influence in the Ravenna mix. However, there had always been a separate rural, local substratum of material culture in the northern cities around the Po plain and a separate rural Latin identity incorporating

 92 See the agnus dei detail of the central medallion in the presbytery of San Vitale Ravenna; Friedrich W. Deichmann, Ravenna: Hauptstadt des Spätantiken Abendlandes (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1969) 1:283, fig. 225. Also see the agnos lambs in the mosaic of the apse of Sant’Apollinare in Classe; Bovini, Ravenna, 169, fig. 103.  93 Forcellini, Lexicon Totius Latinitatis, s.v. “stragulum”; Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. “stragulum,” “stragula,” rarely as a covering for the monks; Niermeyer, Mediae Latinitatis, s.v. “stragulatus,” “stragulata vestis,” a striped covering in later medieval citations. In Caesarius, Regula Sanctarum Virginum (see note 89, above), the restrictions in colour and embellishments include garments and bedclothes (stragula).  94 Papyrus 8, II.6.  95 Caesarius, Regula Sanctarum Virginum, p. 16, clause 44. Caesarius prescribes the colours and the materials of the nuns’ garments: These should be of wool, with dresses and veils in the natural colours of the fleece; no ornaments other than dark or white crosses are acceptable; no embroidery on the garments or patterned weaves (vestes polymite) are allowed. See also all the examples found in Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. “polymitus.”

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Clothing in Sixth-Century Ravenna local, Celtic, Frankish, Gepid, Herulian, Ostrogothic, and Visigothic elements long before the Langobards set foot in Ravenna.96 The material culture and personal names attested in this document may provide a glimpse of the urban elites making the best of their combined remaining resources. An Ostrogothic royal centre, Byzantine administrative capital, and major war zone during the Gothic Wars, Ravenna had been on the forefront of major cultural change. In 2005, Cinzia Cavallari showed clearly that mixed burial customs were used to construct a lasting mixed material culture idiom.97 Conversely, ethnic names may not always indicate ethnicity and religion, as name choice may have been a conscious social strategy of integration.98 For this reason, it would be highly speculative to ascribe Gothic origins to the slave Ranihilda and Roman origins to the slave Proiectus or to Gratianus, or to describe Germana and Stefanus as Byzantines, Romans, or romanised Ostrogoths. This charter describes some of the details, the weaves, and the age of the garments, but does not include anything about their shape or construction. As with the later private documents of the High Middle Ages, the arrangement of goods according to categories sometimes implies further information, for example that the buckle (or buckles) is silver, the tunic is made of silk, etc.99 The artefacts are all functional and secular, with the possible exception of the scamnile cum agnos. There is a striking absence of objects with religious associations (although in the milieu of Gratianus, a subdeacon), running contrary to the commonly observed practice of handing down religious objects in Merovingian wills from the

 96 Ursula Rothe’s study of Roman provinciality and its relationship with the cultures of the various people the Romans came in contact with, and their dress and accessories, expounds on the pressures for the acquisition and display of new regional identities shared by both; Ursula Rothe, “Dress and Cultural Identity in the Roman Empire,” in Dress and Identity, ed. Mary Harlow (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2012), 59–68, esp. 64. The finds from the archaeology in the wider Ravenna area, such as metalwork and ceramics, from local strata and from possible incomers do not appear strikingly different. See Cavallari, Oggetti di Ornamento, 113–87.  97 Cavallari, Oggetti di Ornamento, 30–38, 40–70, 113–87. However, it has been argued elsewhere that the material idioms of different ethnic groups in Italian territory can provide us with more complex but distinct data: Caterina Giostra, “Goths and Lombards in Italy: The Potential of Archaeology with Respect to Ethnocultural Identification,” Post-Classical Archaeologies 1 (2011): 7–36.  98 Names may have obscured as many elements as revealed. For the naming strategies of Late Roman aristocracies, of romanised Germans in Gaul and Italy, and the role the names of popular military saints played in the Roman-Byzantine army and civil service careers in relation to aristocratic power structures, see Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, 153–258. The same processes of acculturation may have certainly appealed to the individuals of lower status described here.  99 For this notarial practice in the context of the private documents of the Codice Diplomatico Barese during the tenth to fourteenth centuries, see Amati Canta, “Bridal Gifts in Medieval Bari,” 6, where a detailed description of a garment follows the usual notarial procedure of arranging dowry goods according to type.

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Olga Magoula late sixth century.100 There is also an absence of weapons, which is distinct from local burial practice. The dress items do not conform to the dress stereotype as obtained from texts and art of the period, which consists of a long sleek tunic with sewn-in sleeves, a cloak, a cingulum militiae belt, trousers, coloured clavi and orbiculli, and fibulae, that is, bow brooches.101 The information about the clothes in the charter posits questions about those items of the above stereotype which are not included. The weaves and materials of this collection of clothing seem to be emerging from within a society of multifaceted identities. Nonetheless, the chartula plenariae securitatis is a living testimony to what people with a given local identity and status thought worth wearing and preserving. This information brings us closer to what we know today about sixth-century Roman and Byzantine clothing, mixing in the various Germanic, Roman, and Greek cultural components in a single melting pot. There is a contrast between the probably ritualised, stylised clothing of the court and military elite in art and the everyday practice attested in this charter. In the iconography, the ideology distorts what is depicted because people are represented as a pictogram of their social identity: Army officials in the mosaics of San Vitale (546–48) have much the same appearance as late Empire officials in Piazza Armerina.102 The Empire had one court and one administrative centre dictating all rhetoric of power and exchange, and Ravenna remained valuable strategically. The outlook from Ravenna should have been Byzantine, and the court mosaics looked the part. DISCUSSION: SOCIOECONOMIC CONTEXT OF A MULTICULTURAL COSTUME

The decorated silk tunics; small-scale, home-based, probably non-ferrous metalwork production; the silver and the gold; plus old, worn, but reliable utensils reflect the state of survival of the local economy and exchange structures. Ten years after the Gothic Wars (535–54), intraregional craft production and trade in the Italian peninsula was still devastated with the exception of Ravenna. The city produced and imported some

100 See the earliest Merovingian will, the testament of Aredius of Limoges: Testamentum Aredii, Abbatis Attanensis et Pelagiae Matris Eius, in Jean-Marie Pardessus, ed., Diplomata, Chartae, Epistolae, Leges Aliaque Instrumenta ad res Gallo-Francicas Spectantia, vol. 1 (Paris: Ex Typographeo Regio, 1843), no. 180, pp. 136–37. The document dates to 572; Ian Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms (Harlow, UK: Longman, 1994), 206. 101 See note 22 above, clavata tunic; for both clavi and orbiculli (polychrome tapestry roundel decorations worn by both sexes), see Delmaire, “Le vêtement,” 95. 102 Bovini, Ravenna, 143, figs. 90–91: a mosaic detail with court officials wearing red and green tunics, San Vitale, second half of the sixth century. Compare this with the Dominus figure in the Great Hunt scene, Piazza Armerina, Sicily, dated to the early fourth century, in R. J. A. Wilson, Piazza Armerina (London: Granada, 1983), 86, fig. 54.

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Clothing in Sixth-Century Ravenna bulk goods and even imported some silks and luxuries from Constantinople. Certainly, bulk goods and local pottery moved back and forth along the river routes of the Po.103 The frugal normality we find in the archaeology only partly accords with the evidence about the social situation from the charter. Many of the utensils mentioned were old and mended although numerous and valuable;104 some gold, silver, and silk was passed down.105 The material culture from pockets of Gothic rural settlements around Ravenna was very different from what the urban elites of Ravenna had.106 Between these settlements and the cities there was the steady disruptive presence of Frankish and even Saxon mercenaries.107 People in the Emilia-Romagna, around Ravenna, hid their valuables in wells under waterlogged wooden lids, the “pozzi”-deposits recovered by Sauro Gelichi and Nicoletta Giordani in the mid-1990s.108 These included bronze objects, jugs and bowls, well-made and reliable local red-painted pottery, items mostly well-used, abraded, and mended. In this singular private charter as well as in the “pozzi” pits, the material culture of bronze objects, iron tools, ceramics, and leather goods comes to life. In the charter, a surprising one-third of these utilitarian and valuable goods were described as old, broken, smashed, or abraded.109 It is possible to draw a parallel with the old textiles 103 See Enrico Cirelli, “A 6th Century Dump from Classe (Ravenna)” in Natalia Poulou-Papadimitriou, Elini Nodarou, and Vassilis Kilikoglou, eds., LRCW 4: Late Roman Coarse Wares, Cooking Wares and Amphorae in the Mediterranean, British Archaeological Reports International Series 2616 (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2014), 1:963–74. The ceramic finds suggest that long-distance trade was not disrupted during this period; among the finds there were imports from Rome, the Aegean, Thessalonica, and Gaza. Local red painted pottery from Emilia was found in the “pozzi” deposits; see below, note 108. 104 Papyrus 8, II.5–14. 105 Papyrus 8, II.6. 106 A comparison with the archaeology in the vicinity may assist the interpretation of the social situation. See Giostra, “Goths and Lombards in Italy,” 11–12, and Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, 644–55, 728–39. 107 Mercenaries were employed by Romans and Ostrogoths alike. Regarding Alans and Huns on recently discovered sites of East Germanic peoples (provinces of Alessandria, Mantova, Torino, Viterbo, and Pisa), dated in the first half of the sixth century, see Giostra, “Goths and Lombards in Italy,” 9–14. On Alans belonging to the Roman army and settling in northern Italy, see Elena Maria Menotti, “Note Relative alla Necropoli Tardo Antica della ‘Strada Calliera’ a Sacca di Goito [MN],” in Goti nell’ Arco Alpino Orientale, ed. Maurizio Buora and Luca Villa (Udine, Italy: Museo Archeologico, 2006), 53–57. On the Huns, Goths, and Herul mercenaries in the Gothic wars as part of the mobile Byzantine Army, see Keydell, Agathiae Myrinaei, 1:106, book 3, chap. 17, par. 5–7, and 1:139, book 4, chap. 13, par. 7–9. For Lombard, Herul, and Hun mercenaries in the Byzantine Army of Italy, see Procopius, History of the Wars, trans. Henry Bronson Dewing, vol. 3, Books 5–6.15, Loeb Classical Library 107 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1919), 56–57; on recruitment of Germanic mercenaries in Northern Italy, 42–43, 164–65; about Huns in the Byzantine Army of Italy harassing the Ostrogoths, 316–23; also Herul mercenaries active in the same vicinity, 316–21, 402–5. About Herul, Hun, and Goth mercenaries active around Ravenna, see Procopius, History of the Wars, trans. Henry Bronson Dewing, vol. 4, Books 6.16–7.35, Loeb Classical Library 173 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1924), 8–11, 196–201, 238–43. 108 Gelichi and Giordani, eds., Il Tesoro nel Pozzo, 81. As commented by Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, 480 n. 100: “Their contents invoke a faint snap-shot of what was possessed and worth keeping”: exactly what a will or a charter aspires to do in its own way. 109 Tjäder 1:242, papyrus 8, II.6, II.11–14.

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Olga Magoula preserved and willed here, perhaps no longer available on the market.110 It seems that people in Ravenna and the vicinity were still using what they had been able to buy before, alongside the local market which continued steadily to supply good-quality metalwork from the Classe workshops. The complex character of this regional style is expressed in the metalwork and the moulds which suggest small-scale, home-based industrial silversmith production. In the metalwork workshops in Classe, similar moulds were made of pottery and soapstone.111 The mention of a belt and of leggings can help us describe the costume. The buckle could have been riveted on a simple leather strap, very likely worn over the shirt, as the decorative nature of even the smaller buckles implies they were meant to be seen. There are separate words for the hose and for the breeches. It is possible that both were worn at the same time. Breeches in different styles must have been a basic and established item for centuries before this charter was drawn up. The last external part of clothing are two woollen capes, one made of a rough fabric, labelled with a Classical Latin term associated with military and travellers’ cloaks. Their length and width served as protection against the elements and as covering when sleeping rough. When travelling, especially when coming upon a stranger, it was perhaps safer to adopt an impersonal look covering the whole body and hiding identity markers. The plicton can be interpreted as a headband. Nearly a dozen golden braids interwoven on bone tablets have survived from early Langobardic burials, such as the one found and reconstructed at Mombello Momferrato.112 The plicton could be a local Byzantine name for a vitta, the late Roman headband, found a few decades later also among the Langobards. It is possible to claim continuity of practice here although we cannot trace who influenced whom. The plicton is inserted between the contexts of bedclothing and the sequence of the silk tunics, which are not gender-specific. It might have been worn by both men and women. There are three to four changes of clothing, which belonged to two men, adjustable to most kinds of civic ceremony and formal interaction, as well as all weather, in combinations for all seasons. Both internal and external clothing are highly coloured; composite weaves are much appreciated, as also is decoration. There is at least one buckle, and the headband, if it is one, may have been worn by a female. The garments are in matching colours, mainly red and light green. The tunics may have been worn shorter for a man or longer for a woman or, on occasion, have been drawn up for both

110 Alternatively, old or antique-style clothing may have represented irreplaceable values for a sorely tried society. Examples of this may have been the valuable plicton or the coloured, decorated silk tunics and the heavy, old woollen cloaks. 111 See Cavallari, Oggetti di Ornamento, 174, fig. 77. 112 See the example of a golden braid in Giostra, “Goths and Lombards in Italy,” 27, figs. a–c. For the Langobardic and other Italian golden braids from the sixth to the eighth century, see a catalogue of gold braids and one rare example of a hairnet from Arezzo in Pejrani Baricco, Presenze Longobarde, 173 n. 69. Most are from northern Italy from the beginning of the seventh century.

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Clothing in Sixth-Century Ravenna sexes to display the garters. The belt buckle may have been of a culturally distinct shape. There is a great variety of Byzantine- or Gothic-style buckles produced within Ravenna at this period.113 The fact that they were made locally suggests that people could adopt any ethnic style they preferred and could afford. DISCUSSION: AN URBAN ELITE COSTUME

Clothes were a major indicator of change in a society, a physical representation of status and service. Yet, for the greater part of this century in Ravenna, we have only official portraits of the imperial court and saints in the Ravenna churches, sculpted and depicted on walls and on the royal sepulchres.114 These depictions do not help our understanding of clothing as they express the stylised conservatism reserved for the sacred and sacred royalty. This charter conveys new information about useable clothes worn by an ­upper-class urban civilian elite, Roman and Germanic, Catholic and Arian, illiterate or semi-literate. The picture and the form contradict the early Roman-Byzantine ­stereotype described above. The decoration of the tunics, worn over the shirt, apparently does not include clavi, embellishments valuable enough to be removed from worn garments and stitched onto new ones. With all the precautions appropriate to the fact that this is a unique and single document, it is striking that not one of the three tunics, two shirts, or two cloaks is said to bear them even in this Byzantine part of Italy. They are mentioned only in texts within ecclesiastical contexts in this period: in Isidore of Seville to describe the decoration of ecclesiastical vestments, in Gregory the Great’s Dialogues as decoration of the papal shoes.115 Clavi were no longer in fashion in Italy or north of the Alps. There are no military or blatantly barbaric overtones except for the sagellum type of cloak. Although metalwork is present, it is uncommon, unlike the dress styles north of the Alps. The Germanic dress elements of linen breeches and garters seem to fit into the ensemble discreetly in a civic dress idiom we know very little about; the terms to describe it echo the regional dialect terms taking root in everyday language. The term plicton is the first and the earliest known descriptive reference about interlace/tablet weaving in this region. Tablet-weaving technique has only previously

113 See Cavallari, Oggetti di Ornamento, 147–87, for all types of “Gothic” and “Byzantine” brooches and fibulae produced in the metalwork workshops of Ravenna, Classe, and Bologna. 114 Bovini, Ravenna, 127, fig. 81; 129, fig. 82; 131, fig. 83; 137, fig. 86; 138, fig. 87. Clementina Rizzardi and Patrizia Angiolini Martinelli, Il Mausoleo di Galla Placidia a Ravenna (Modena, Italy: C. Panini, 1996). 115 See Isidore, Etymologiarum, book 19, chap. 22:9: “Tunica sacerdotalis candida cum clavis ex purpura”; Ernout and Meillet, Dictionnaire, s.v. “clavus”; Du Cange, Glossarium, s.v. “clavus.” Compare with Aldhelm, in De Virginitate, written in 706: “tonica coccinea sive iacintina, capitium et manicae sericis clavatae,” Aldhelm, De Virginitate, 318.

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Olga Magoula been attested beyond the Alps. The acopicto of figurative decoration by the needle perhaps suggests appliqué work.116 CONCLUSION

This document offers a brief glimpse into the social and material circumstances of its time. We should keep in mind this is a unique source; no other document in the collection offers such a variety of terms describing material culture. On the whole, this reconstruction of the local dress style seems to reflect the actual urban elite costume of Ravenna during the very turbulent years of the sixth century. War can become a strong incentive for both alternative and mainstream types of exchange, material and cultural. Given the details we have, it might be possible to reflect how different this specific expression of personal identity was from the Late Roman dress of the third and the fourth centuries or from early Byzantine dress. In the immediate vicinity, the mixed burial customs suggest that Roman and Germanic elements of ritual in burial deposits are laid side by side; it has been possible to focus on dress items in this charter unrestricted from the ethno-archaeological dress stereotypes of the period. These are remarkable for the role of colour, created by composite weaves, dyes, or embroidery; for the presence of material such as the silks; for the function and distribution of metalwork accessories like the garter buckles usually found in Frankish contexts. There is also a marked absence of religious undertones in the civic procedure and in the artefacts of the charter, which is perhaps understandable in a city populated by Arians, Orthodox, and various types of pagans. I would like to consider if it is possible to see an analogy in the mixture of dress and linguistic idioms. The dress of the residents of Ravenna was diverse and not necessarily culturally distinct. In this way it probably expressed a recognizable culture of its own. The growing corpus of archaeological evidence suggests so. There is a possibility that the expansion in the adoption of the Coptic tunic with its characteristic shape, length, ampleness, and clavi decoration has been overestimated in the politically and economically overstretched sixth-century boundaries and frontiers of the Byzantine world. Probably only an upper tier of the elite followed models that imitated the conservative habits of dress at the Byzantine court. In everyday life and in less rich contexts, in wills and burials, we get a heterogeneous picture of elements of different traditions being used, depending on available resources. The diffusion of clothing elements attested in the charter refers to multicultural, everyday, and non-­ representative social categories such as those of the illiterate free upper-middle-class individuals who drafted the document.

116 Plumaria is the usual term for stitching and embroidery which the contemporary Caesarius of Arles used for this kind of decoration. It is not used here; see “Scamnile,” p. 19, and note 89, above.

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Clothing in Sixth-Century Ravenna

Appendix 1.1 Transcription and Translation of the Protocol of Gratianus Following is a transcription of the chartula plenariae securitatis (charter of security) to settle a will, known as the Protocol of Gratianus, along with a translation. The document (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 4568A), dated July 17, 564, is from the legal compilation of Ravenna known as the Gesta Municipalia. The transcription is by Jan Olof Tjäder. The translation is by the author of this article. The papyrus consists of three sheets, designated here by Roman numerals. The last portion of sheet III is very lacunary and has not been included here, as its contents do not add to our knowledge of the issues discussed in this study. Arabic numerals alongside the Latin text refer to the original lines of the papyrus for sheet I; for sheets II and III, the Arabic numerals reflect Tjäder’s own division of the text into numbered blocks. Parentheses indicate expansion of abbreviations. Square brackets indicate holes in the papyrus: A single ellipsis within the square brackets indicates a small hole, and two ellipses indicate a larger hole. Text that appears within square brackets is the reconstruction of the missing words according to Tjäder’s critical edition, which he based on the formulae used in similar contemporary documents in the same collection. Italics inside square brackets indicate smudged, uncertain, and unintelligible letters.

1

Jan Olof Tjäder, Die Nichtliterarischen Lateinischen Papyri Italiens aus der Zeit 445–700, Skrifter ­utgivna av Svenska institutet i Rom. 4o 19 (Lund, Sweden: Gleerup, 1955), 1:234–46 (papyrus 8).

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Olga Magoula I 1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8 9 10 11 12 13

[Imp(erante) d(omino) n(ostro) Iustiniano p(er)p(etuo) Aug(usto) anno XXXVIII, p(ost) c(onsulatum) Basili anno XXIII, su]b d(ie) XVI Kalend(arum) Augustarum, ind(ictione) XII, Raven nae, [ … … ] q(uon)d(am) Collicti, dixit: „Cuiusmodi chartula plenariae securitatis mihi fecerit Gratianus v(ir) r(everendus), legitimae constitutus tutor Stefani h(onesti) p(ueri), de it, quod ipsius [ … … ] indi. Deinde una mecum principales viros pariter et except(orem) ad memoratum Gratianum v(irum) r(everendum), legitimum constitutum tutorem Stefani h(onesti) p(ueri), dirigi iube [atis, … … scribenda]m dictaverit, et ipse in eadem manu propria signum inpraesserit testesque, ut suscriberent, conrogaverit, vel si mobilia, quae inferius leguntur, si a me [ … … e]am lau(dabilitatis) v(estrae) allegare voluerit, seu quam habeat voluntatem, his actis edicere non moretur.” [ … … r]ecitatum est: „Imp(erante) d(omino) n(ostro) Iustiniano p(er)p(etuo) Aug(usto) anno tricensimo octavo, Rav(ennae), p(ost) c(onsulatum) Basili anno vicensimo tertio, s(ub) d(ie) Iduum Iuliar(um), ind(ictione) duodecima, Ravennae. [ … … ]s vel condicionibus radici[t]us possit esse c[o]nputata; et ideo, dum inter Gratianum v(irum) r(everendum), legitimae constitutum tutorem Stefani inpuveris, et [ … … ] et res gesta documentis asscribi, ut omnes d[e] c[i]tero sopiatur oblivio, et res memoriae sempiternae mandetur, nec probatio, cum necesse fuerit, [ … … legiti]mae constitutum, a te s(u)p(ra)d(ic)ta Germana, cl(arissima) f(emina), omnem tertiam portionem praefato minori conpetentem secundum tenorem testamenti [ … … ] d conservandum nihilom[i]nus percepisse, [et] de omnibus superadnexis capitulis vel de quibuslibet aliis decisam esse omnem causa tionem [ … … ] poterant, deducta inter nobis ad liqu[id]um omnem rationem s(upra)s(criptae) sucessionis te manifestum est omnia persolsisse, et sine alicu [ius … … ] p[ro]mittens neque me nec s(upra)s(criptum) Stefan[u]m ­heredesque nostros ultra adversus te s(upra)s(crip)ta Germana heredesque tuos inquire [re … … ] invictissimi principis R[oma]num gubernantis imperium me ea omnia, quae superius leguntur adscribta, inviolata custodire [ … … ] contigerit aut quolibet arti[ficium] memora[tae] s[ucces]sionis inten

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Clothing in Sixth-Century Ravenna I In the 38th year of our Lord Justinian, the perpetual Augustus, and the 23rd year of the Consul Basilius, on the 17 of July, in the 12th Indict in Ravenna [ … … ] attest that Germana widow of the late Collictus declared the following: “The complete and only charter of settlement of the will which was made to my benefit by the vir reverendus Gratianus, legitimate guardian of the minor puer honestus Stefanus with reference to that which himself [ … … ]. Because of that let him, the said vir reverendus Gratianus, the appointed guardian of his ward Stefanus and the principal magistrates as well as the municipal clerk of this court immediately [ … ] to announce these Acts and the following [ … ] to have dictated what he had said and he, himself with his own hand had made the sign of the cross under the Law and the witnesses with the clerk of this court, to negotiate if these items of movable property below are to revert to myself [ … ]. If your Excellence of the municipal court wishes so and decides to register this or if he so requests” [ … … ] it should be declared: “[ … ] that in the 38th regnal year of our Lord Justinian, the perpetual Augustus, in Ravenna, during the 23rd year of the Consulate of Basilius, on 15th July in the 12th Indict [ … … ] otherwise and the terms and conditions from its roots she will pull out and break away from the settlement. And because of that the settlement on the will that is between them, Gratianus, legitimate guardian of the child still a minor, Stefanus and [ … … ] and the acts that have already been sanctioned and validated here in previous settlement on the articles of property in writing and recorded so that in the future all who forget and their memory expires about them, that the article of property that should become a permanent reminder to be passed down and as proof if they become necessary so that not [ … … ] so, legally be ascribed to you, the aforementioned femina clarissima Germana, the entire third of it according to the contents of the testament referring to the still minor person of Stefanus. Likewise, this is accepted for safekeeping and that with regard to all that is mentioned above, and if somebody else requires to change the legal settlement [ … … ]. And after they have settled the entire account between them over the mentioned property and estate and it has become completely settled, it is obvious that you all would have handed over and without [ … … ]. And I pronounce the promise that neither I any more, the said guardian of Stefanus, or in case that my heirs would be against it, or the said Germana or her heirs, furthermore would add another further enquiry [ … … ] and under the triumphant ruler who governs the Roman Empire, that I for everything written above, that all should be observed and not violated [ … … ]. In case this should happen, that I by trickery through somebody using false memory [ … … ]

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Olga Magoula II 1

tionib[us … ]ecare, vel noviter [a]liquid pe[t]ere aliud, tunc non solum ut periurii reatus incurram secundum leges, verum etiam daturum me promitto, heredesque meos, tibi s(upra)s(crip)tae Germanae heredesque tuis poenae nom(ine) ante litis ingressum auri solidos triginta et sex, suppositis omnibus rebus meis ypoticae titulo, quas haveo habiturusve sum, 2 ma[n]ente nichilominus hanc plenariam securitatem in sua firmitate, ubi ubi et in cuiuslibet iudicio prolata fuerit; quamque plenariae securitatis Iohanni tabellioni civitatis Rav(ennae)scribendum dictavi, in qua pro ignorantia litterarum subter signum feci, auctoritateque robo 3 rata praesentibus testibus optuli suscribendum, quam si gestis municipalibus allegare, ubi ubi aut quando tibi placuerit, non amplius spectata mea professionem, quam praesentibus testibus sum aelocutus, tribuo ex more licentiam, stipulatione et sponsione interposita. Actum Rav(ennae) s(ub) d(ie) et p(ost) c(onsulatum) s(upra)s(crip)ti, ind(ictione) s(upra)s(crip)ta duodecima. 4 Item inserendo breve. Breve de diversas species, quae vinditae sunt de successionem s(upra)s(crip)ti q(uon)d(am) Collicti, seu mercides mancipiorum quam etiam pensionem domus, sed et de cautiones vel de praetio ancillae Ranihildae, seu boves et de res q(uon)d(am) Guderit liberti, 5 quod accepit Gratianus v(ir) r(everendus) in portione s(upra)s(crip)ti Stefani poppili; fieri simul in auro solidos quadraginta et quinque et siliquas viginti tres aureas, nummos aureos sexaginta. Item et in speciebus secundum divisionem argenti libras duas, hoc est cocliares numero septem, 6 scotella una, fibula de bracile et de usubandilos, formulas duodecim, stragula polimita duo valentes solido uno tremisse uno, scamnile acopicto valente solido uno, plicton vetere siliquas quattuor aureas, camisia tramosirica in cocco et prasino valente solidos tres semis, 7 sarica prasina ornata valente solido uno et semisse uno, arca clave clausa valente siliquas duas, sareca misticia cum manicas curtas valente siliquas aureas duas, bracas lineas valentes siliqua aurea una, culcita valente solido medio, conca aerea una, cucumella una, orciolo aereo 8 uno, lucerna cum catenula unixa aerea una, ferro fracto libras duodecim, butte de cito valente tremisse uno, butte minore valente siliquas duas semis aureas, nummos quadraginta, butte granaria valente siliquas aureas duas semis, nummos quadraginta, arca granaria minore 9 ferro legata valente siliquas aureas duas, falce missuria valente siliqua aurea una, cuppo uno, runcilione uno, orcas olearias duas valentes siliqua una semis ­argenteas, armario uno valente siliquas aureas quattuor, socas tortiles duas valentes siliquas aureas sex, sella ferrea

30

Clothing in Sixth-Century Ravenna II of the aforementioned property [ … … ] or if somebody else strives for alterations, then not only myself, I am accused of perjury against the law, but also I have promised, that I and you, and my heirs the aforementioned Germana and her heirs as a guarantee before we enter a legal dispute to hold as surety as I declare with all my present goods or with my future property that I would give 36 gold solidi in which this complete settlement should stay in effect, for whoever else always as well would propose in front of any court of law. And this settlement of security I have dictated to Iohannes, the public clerk of the city of Ravenna and below because of my incapacity to write, the sign of the cross I have made; and the charter to be in accordance to the registered certification of the present personal evidence of the witnesses here, to hand in with their signatures. When you or whoever else at any time wishes so that he makes a registered accusation in the Office of legal records of the city, I will provide him, for himself to wait and see, with the usual customary practice which under surety, the stipulation and pledge of the ratification of the promise, the conditions in the contract with my permission, but excluding to have to give my own statement for further information which in the presence of witnesses I have showed here. This act is negotiated in Ravenna, the day of which and the protoconsulate are at the top of the document, in the aforementioned 12th Indict. In addition, I supplement an inventory. This is about diverse objects which were sold out of his property by the said late Collictus and about the proceeds for the slaves and whatever also is the payment for the house property. In addition, referring to the obligation, care of and price of the slave Ranihilda and about the cattle and the property of the late freed slave Guderit, which were all accepted by the vir reverendus Gratianus as shared with his aforementioned ward Stefanus; these make together: 45 gold solidi and 23 gold siliquae, 60 gold nummi. Similarly and also according to the division of the inherited objects: 2 pounds of silver that is 7 silver spoons, one small basin, one buckle for a belt and one buckle for garters [of the leggings], twelve metalwork moulds, multicoloured woven carpets worth 1 solidus and 1 tremissis, an embroidered bed coverlet valued at 1 solidus, one old interlaced textile/headband worth 4 gold siliquas, a shirt of half silk-half linen fabric (silk warp on linen weft) in scarlet and leek-green valued at 3½ solidi, an ornamented leek-green silk tunic valued at 1 solidus and 1 semissis, a chest closing with key worth 2 siliquas, one tunic of mixed interwoven fabrics, of silk with short sleeves, worth 2 gold siliquas, linen breeches valued at 1 siliqua, one pillow worth ½ solidus, one copper cask, one small cooking pot, a small jug of copper, one copper oil lamp with additional small chain, twelve pounds of scrap iron, one vat for vinegar worth one tremissis, one smaller vat of 2½ gold siliquas value, 40 nummi, a grain vat worth 2½ gold siliquas, 40 nummi, a smaller grain crate bound with iron, worth 2 gold siliquas, one harvesting sickle valued at 1 gold siliqua, one barrel, one pickaxe, two olive oil vats valued at 1½ silver siliquas, one wooden cabinet worth 4 gold siliquas, two rounds of rope valued at 6 gold siliquas, one armchair with iron

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Olga Magoula 10 plictile valente semisse uno, sella lignea plictile valente nummos aureos ­quadraginta, mensa et catino ligneos valentes siliqua aurea una, mortaria ­marmorea dua valentes siliqua aurea una, albiolo ligneo valente nummos aureos quadraginta, sacma valente asprione aureo uno, scamnile cum agnos valente siliquas aureas duas, servo nomine Proiecto. 11 Item notitia de res Guderit q(uon)d(am) liberti, id est arca clave clausa ferro legata valente siliquas aureas duas, alia arcella minore rupta valente siliqua una semis asprionis, tina clusa valente siliqua una asprionis, cocumella cum manica ferrea vetere pensante libra una semis, 12 caccavelo rupto pensante libra una, catena ferrea desuper foco pensante libras duas semis, satario valente siliqua una asprionis, cute olearia valente siliquas duas asprionis, panario rupto uno, capsicio valente nummos octuginta, orciolo testeo valente nummos octuginta, olla 13 testea [ … tea] rupta una, talea valente asprione, albio valente nummos octuginta, rapo valente asprione, modio valente asprione uno, butticella granaria valente siliqua una asprionis, sareca 14 una vetere tincticia valente siliquas aureas tres, camisia ornata valente siliquas aureas sex, mappa valente asprionis siliqua una, lena vetere una, sagello vetere uno. Item notitia, quod accepit s(upra)s(crip)tus Gratianus de domus, quae sunt intra civitate Ravenna, seu praedia rustica, quae sunt in diversis territuriis: ex domo, quae est ad Sancta 15 Agathae Rav(ennae) secundum fidem documenti uncias duas; ex domo, quae est post basilica Sancti Victoris Rav(ennae) secundum fidem donationis uncias quattuor; ex casa qui appelatur Casa Nova Rav(ennati) terr(itorio) secundum fidem donationis uncias quattuor; ex unciis fund(o) 16 Saviliano, quod obvenit per donatione Gunderit, uncias duas; ex casale Petroniano terr(itorio) Bononiense in Tellino secundum fidem documenti uncias duas; ex uncias tres fund(o) Verutiano, quod vendedit Gaudentius in s(upra)s(crip)to terr(itorio) et loco, uncia una; ex uncias tres fundi

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Clothing in Sixth-Century Ravenna bindings and interwoven seat worth 1 semissis, one wooden armchair with a woven seat worth 40 gold nummi, a table and one shallow wooden basin worth 1 gold siliqua, two marble mortars worth 1 gold siliqua, one wooden trough worth 40 gold nummi, one saddle worth 1 gold asprio, one rug of wicker work (or bedcovering with decoration of lambs) valued at 2 gold siliquas, one slave named Proiectus. Similarly, one inventory of the articles of property of the deceased freed man Guderit, that is a chest that closes with key bound with iron fittings on it, the value of 2 gold siliquas, another small chest, broken, valued at one siliqua and ½ asprio, one sealed vat for boiling wine, worth 1 asprio-siliqua, an old pot with iron handle, weight of 1½ pounds, one broken cauldron, weight of 1 pound, one chain made of iron for hanging (pots) over the fire, weight of 2½ pounds, a sowing implement for throwing seed worth 1 asprio-siliqua, one oiled whetstone worth 2 asprio-siliquas, one broken kneading trough, one small chest valued at 80 nummi, one small jug with lid of 80 nummi, one broken lidded large earthenware wine-jar worth one asprio, one dry measure worth 1 asprio, one bathtub worth 80 nummi, one tape measure worth 1 asprio, one grain storage vat worth one asprio, one grain vat worth one asprio-siliqua, one old coloured silk tunic worth 3 gold siliquas, one shirt embellished worth 6 gold siliquas, one length of cloth worth one asprio-siliqua, an old cloak, an old travelling cloak. In the same way one inventory of the goods that are received by the said Gratianus from the houses which are situated within the city of Ravenna, or of those which are in different towns and rural areas and lie over the estates that have been received: from the house near Saint Agatha in Ravenna, in accordance to the testimony of the documents, 2 uncias; from the house past the basilica of Saint Victor in Ravenna according to the testimony of the donation, 4 uncias; from the small house which is called Casa Nova in the territory of Ravenna, according to the testament of the donation, 4 uncias; from the share of uncias of the rural estate of Savilianus which was added through the testament and donation of Gunderit, 2 uncias; from the village-farm and villa of Petronianus which lies in the territory of Bologna, in Tellinum, according to the testament, 2 uncias; from the 3 uncias of the rural estate Verutianus, which Gaudentius sold up in the aforementioned rural territory, field, and the said place, 1 uncius; from the 3 uncias of the aforementioned estate

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Olga Magoula III 1 s(upra)s(crip)ti, quas vendedit Afrio, uncia una; ex uncia una semis fundi s(upra) s(crip)ti, quas vero vendedit Bonosa, semeuncia; ex portiones Urbicii et Staturiani, quos vindederunt Am [ … 2 … ] ad Ponticello et Lupatis s(upra)s(crip)to terr(itorio), nec non ex domo intra civitate Corniliense, quos fundos vendedit Messor epics(opus), uncias quaternas d[… 3 … ] portionem eius siliquas quattuor et punga una tantum. Signum s(upra)s(crip) ti Gratiani v(iri) r(everendi) subdiaconi litteras nescientem. Et alia manu su [ … 4 … ] scribto Stefano poppilo de suscessionem s(upra)s(crip)ti q(uon)d(am) Collicti competere poterunt, rogatus a s(upra)s(crip)to Gratiano v(iro) r(everendo) subdiac(ono) tutore s(upra)s(crip)ti pop[illi … … ].

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Clothing in Sixth-Century Ravenna III which Afrius had sold, one uncius; from the ½ uncias of the said estate which in truth Bonosa had sold, ½ uncias; from the portion of Urbicius and Staturianus, which [ … ] had sold [ … ] near Ponticello and Lupatis in the aforementioned field, and also of the house in the town of Cornelia, where those rural estates had been sold by the bishop of Messor, 4 uncias, [ … ] and his own portion of four siliquae and his entire purse. The sign of the cross of the aforementioned vir reverendus and subdeacon Gratianus, as he is not knowledgeable in letters. And his signature by his own hand: [ … … ]. If the aforementioned ward Stefanus from the estate of the said Collictus, who can take possession of these upon invitation from the aforementioned vir reverendus and subdiaconus, the guardian of the said ward [ … … ].

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Byzantine and Oriental Silks in Denmark, 800–1200 Anne Hedeager Krag

The earliest silk in Denmark appears about AD 800. From the first, it evidently had great importance as a status symbol, marking the elite in both the secular aristocracy and the Church. This article brings together Danish silks up to 1200 for the first time, demonstrating their social importance. The study focuses in large part on the unique royal burial find of the Eagle Silk from Odense and other silks from graves and reliquaries, among them that of Bishop Absalon (d. 1201). The royal shrine belongs to the most important medieval monument of Denmark, and international research regards the finds from Odense to be highlights even in a European context, mostly attributing them to Byzantium. Therefore the Odense silks, along with new analyses of the silks from Sigersted Church, are central to this study. The study includes previously unpublished scientific evidence about the colours. The article also suggests probable ways in which silk reached Denmark in the period 800–1200. Most of the silks in Denmark dating from 800 to 1200 were made in the Mediterranean region and woven as samite. (A full list of the surviving silks appears in table 2.1.)1 Samite weaving had been developed by the Persians of the Sassanid period (226–661). This technique exploited the qualities of the silk in the best possible way. Unlike the Chinese, who wove with a technique where the long vertical threads (the warp) predominated, the Sassanid Persians developed a technique where the weft threads predominated, covering most of the weave without interruption. If the weft A warm thanks to Associate Professor Karsten Fledelius, Copenhagen, and Dr. Anna Muthesius, Professor of Textile Studies (retired), Fellow Commoner, Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, for helping with the discussions of the Byzantine influences in the manuscripts. Grateful thanks also to Dronning Margrethe II’s Arkæologiske Fond for support for studying the earliest silks in Denmark and to Dr. Lise Ræder Knudson, leader of the Conservation Centre Vejle. Portions of this research have appeared earlier in The Eagle Silk and Other Silks in the Shrine of St. Canute in Odense Cathedral (2010) and “Byzantine and Oriental Silks from a Royal Shrine in Denmark AD 1100,” in Textile Society of America Symposium Proceedings, 2016, 179–85.   1 Samite is also called weft-faced compound twill. The name comes from the Latin word samitum, from Greek hexamitum. Agnes Geijer, A History of Textile Art (London: Pasold Research Fund in association with Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1979), 75.

Anne Hedeager Krag Table 2.1: Surviving silk textiles in Denmark, 800–1200

Location

Collection

Context

Size

Weave/pattern

Date

Fløjstrup, Jutland

National Museum of Denmark, NM C 9260

Stone-lined inhumation

2 × 1.5 cm

Samite

ca. 800

Odense, Funen

Cathedral of Odense

Reliquary shrine of St. Canute

30 × 40 cm

Samite, yellow with blue birds (peacocks) and crosses

900

Jelling, Jutland

National Museum of Denmark, NM C 19994

Chamber grave in one of the royal mounds

10 × 3.5–4 cm

Tabby

ca. 950

Hvilehøj, Jutland

National Museum of Denmark, NM C 4280

Wagon carriage grave under a barrow

a: 0.8 × 2.4 cm

a: 3/1 twill

after 962

b: 0.4 × 0.6 cm

b: Samite

c: Small fragments in lump of textiles

c: Samite and tabby

National Museum of Denmark, NM C 137 to C 140

Chamber grave

C 137: Two ornamental bands, 7.5 × 20–22 cm C 138: Two wristbands, circumference 23 cm, width 3 cm C 139: Two throat-bands, 16.5 × 2.5 cm C 140: Fragments: a: 34 cm × 4.5 cm

C 137: Tabby

b: 12 × 3.5 cm

b: Samite

Bjerringhøj, Mammen, Jutland

970–71

C 138: Tabby

C 139: Tabby and samite C 140: a: Samite with pattern of red and yellow hearts

Hedeby, Germany (formerly Denmark)

Gottorf Castle, 159/1960

Chamber grave

Very small fragments of silk

Tabby

900–1000

Hedeby, Germany (formerly Denmark)

Gottorf Castle, 1/1963

Chamber grave

Very small fragments of silk

Tabby

900–1000

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Silks in Denmark, 800–1200 Location (cont.)

Collection

Context

Size

Weave/pattern

Date

Hedeby, Germany (formerly Denmark)

Gottorf Castle, 5/1964

Wagon chamber grave

Very small fragments of silk

Silk tabby

900–1000

Hedeby, Germany (formerly Denmark)

Gottorf Castle, 3337/1905

Chamber grave

Mineralized block of mixed textiles

Samite

900–1000

Viborg Søndersø, Jutland

Viborg Museum, 881D142/ BBR/I

Excavation

35 × 2–3 cm

Samite, patternwoven in red and undyed silk

1018

Odense, Funen

Cathedral of Odense (“Eagle Silk”)

Reliquary shrine of St. Canute

110 × 133 cm

Samite, red with a pattern of dark blue eagles in medallions

1050–1100

Odense, Funen

Cathedral of Odense

Reliquary shrine of St. Canute

Underquilt (long pillow), 148 × 35 cm

Yellow silk tabby

1050–1100

Odense, Funen

Cathedral of Odense

Reliquary shrine of St. Canute

Pillow, 65 × 33 cm

Yellow silk tabby

1050–1100

Odense, Funen

Cathedral of Odense

Reliquary shrine of St. Canute

Traces of fabric used as lining for the inside of the shrine

Blue/red thin silk tabby

1050–1100

Odense, Funen

Cathedral of Odense

Reliquary shrine identified with St. Benedict

Underquilt (long pillow), 140 × 20 cm

Yellow silk tabby

1050–1100

Felsted, Jutland

National Museum of Denmark, NM C 346

Relic capsule

Relic bag: 13.8 × 8.5 cm

Samite, small square of medallions, beaded border

1100–1200

Unknown

National Museum of Denmark, NM D 591970

Two relic capsules

a: 16.5 × 7.5 cm

a: Samite, smaller circle with a star inside a larger medallion

1100–1200

b: 4 × 3.5 cm c: 10 × 5 cm

b: Samite, unpatterned, yellow-green and ecru c: Tabby, red without pattern

39

Anne Hedeager Krag Location (cont.)

Collection

Context

Size

Weave/pattern

Date

Sigersted Church, Sigersted

National Museum of Denmark, NM D 12248

Relic capsule

15 × 14 cm and 8 × 3 cm

Samite, small medallion with animal motif surrounded by a beaded border

1100–1200

Sorø Monastery Church, Zealand

Sorø Monastery Church

Grave of Bishop Absalon

Three fragments from garments: Dalmatic: 58 × 31 cm Chasuble: 129 × 29 cm Alb: 60 × 15 cm

Dalmatic: Samite with a border in broken lozenge twill Chasuble: Samite with pattern Alb: Tapestry weave depicting birds and lions on a samite weave

ca. 1200

thread was unspun—that is, made of reeled silk—the lustre of the silk was particularly evident. The cloth was just as smooth on the back, where the pattern appeared in the opposite colours. Silk produced in the Mediterranean in the sixth and seventh centuries was often woven in small patterns, sometimes with small birds, animals, and Christian figures. The samite weaving technique was later taken up by Byzantine silk weavers. The exclusive imperial silk, which had its origins in Byzantine and Sassanid culture, was woven in special workshops, the so-called gynaecea. Byzantine silk production was still active from 800 to 1200. Byzantine silks are known from many European churches, where they were often associated with relics. The motifs were often Oriental and inspired by Sassanid silks. The author uses the Scandinavian terminology of “Viking Age” for the years 800–1050, and “Early Middle Ages” for 1050–1200, a period which, in the vocabulary of some mainland European historians, overlaps the “High Middle Ages.” VIKING AGE SILKS IN DENMARK

The archaeological substance of textiles is primarily organic, with the exception of metal threads, and hence it is only under very special circumstances that their preservation is possible. Therefore the earliest silks in Denmark, which are found in graves, are very small pieces. The oldest silks in Denmark are pre-Christian and early Christian grave finds of the early Viking Age. For example, a small piece of samite was one of several textile fragments found in a stone-lined inhumation grave at Fløjstrup near

40

Silks in Denmark, 800–1200 Randers in Jutland in 1899.2 The body was that of a woman, accompanied by a pair of tortoise (oval) brooches, which have been dated by typology to ca. 800. A garment with shoulder straps, secured by tortoise brooches, was used by women in Scandinavia from ca. 700 to 950.3 Although today this costume is thought of as typical Viking dress, these elaborate metal brooches would certainly not have been worn by every woman and are indicative of status. Contact with continental Europe In the Viking Age, silks came to Denmark from southern Europe. The small, rare textile fragments from the Hvilehøj and Mammen graves in Jutland show traits which bear a relation to continental and Christian aristocratic robes from the end of the tenth century. The burial of a woman in a so-called wagon carriage grave, under a barrow, was excavated in 1880 at Hvilehøj near Randers in Jutland.4 A coin, minted in Cologne for Otto I, German king and Holy Roman Emperor, dates the grave after 962. The coin was worn as a pendant, together with other pendants and beads, in a double row on the chest in the Byzantine manner.5 The political and ecclesiastical influence of the powerful Christian Ottonian Empire is reflected in the contents of this grave, especially in the form of the small coin. Since its publication in 1881, Hvilehøj has been one of the most famous Viking Age burials from Denmark, due to its precious, but unfortunately extremely fragmentary, textiles.6 Four different silk weaves have been detected in the Hvilehøj grave, all very small fragments, including two different samite-woven fragments, one 3/1 twill, and one tabby.7 Colour tests carried out on another textile from the same grave, a wool fragment, show that the textile is coloured scarlet with

  2 National Museum of Denmark, NM C 9260.   3 Margrethe Hald, Ancient Danish Textiles from Bogs and Burials: A Comparative Study of Costume and Iron Age Textiles (Copenhagen: National Museum of Denmark, 1980), 100; Lise Bender Jørgensen, Forhistoriske Textiler i Skandinavien / Prehistoric Scandinavian Textiles, Nordiske Fortidsminder, ser. B, 9 (Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Nordiske Oldskriftselskab, 1986), 221; Inga Hägg, Kvinnodräkten i Birka (Uppsala: Institut för Arkeologi, 1974), 51–82; Anne Hedeager Krag, “Herskersymboler i Dragten fra Danmarks Yngre Jernalder og Vikingetid,” in Dragt og Magt, ed. Anne Hedeager Krag (Copenhagen: Københavns Universitet, Museum Tusculanums Forlag, 2003), 62–77.   4 Conrad Engelhardt, “Jernalderens Gravskikke i Jylland,” Aarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie, 1881, 79–184.  5 Anne Hedeager Krag, “Fränkisch-Byzantinische Trachteinflüsse in Drei Dänischen Grabfunden des 10. Jahrhunderts,” Archäologisches Korrespondenzblatt 29 (1999): 425–44; Anne Hedeager Krag, “Christian Influences and Symbols of Power in Textiles from Viking Age Denmark: Christian Influence from the Continent,” in Ancient Textiles: Production, Craft and Society, ed. Carole Gillis and Marie-Louise B. Nosch (Oxford: Oxbow, 2007) 237–43.   6 National Museum of Denmark, NM C 4280.   7 Unpublished report from conservator Irene Skals, National Museum of Denmark.

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Anne Hedeager Krag

Fig. 2.1: Two wristbands of silk from Mammen (National Museum of Denmark, NM C 138). Photo: Courtesy of the National Museum of Denmark, by permission.

the insect-derived dyestuff kermes.8 Because of its high cost, only high-quality textiles were dyed with kermes. In 1868, a rich male chamber grave was opened by local people in Bjerringhøj, Mammen, near Viborg in Jutland.9 The grave has been dendrochronologically dated to 970–71.10 It contained what are probably the best preserved remnants of silk-decorated garments from any Scandinavian Viking Age grave.11 Among the surviving textiles are two identical padded wristbands of brownish silk, originally probably red (fig. 2.1).12 There were also two ornamental bands of silk and gold thread, best described as pennant-shaped (fig. 2.2).13 Two throat-bands (or “rouleaux”), of silk tabby with two separate narrow rows of padding were sewn to a samite textile.14 There were two further fragments of silk samite.15 One of these shows traces of a pattern of red and yellow hearts on a red background.16 Colour analysis found two different weft threads,

  8 Anne Hedeager Krag, “Symbols of Power in Viking Age Dress in Denmark,” in Endyesthai (To Dress): Historical, Sociological and Methodological Approaches: Conference Proceedings, Athens, 9–11 April 2010, ed. Xenia Politou, special issue, Endymatologika 4 (2012): 19–24.   9 National Museum of Denmark, NM C 136b to C 140. 10 Mette Iversen, ed., Mammen: Grav, Kunst og Samfund i Vikingetid, Jysk Arkæologisk Selskabs Skrifter 28 (Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 1991), 8. 11 Marianne Vedeler, Silk for the Vikings, Ancient Textiles Series 15 (Oxford: Oxbow, 2014), 30. 12 National Museum of Denmark, NM C 138. Hald, Ancient Danish Textiles, 106; Else Østergård, “Textilfragmenterne,” in Iversen, Mammen, 123–38. 13 National Museum of Denmark, NM C 137. Hald, Ancient Danish Textiles, 106; Vedeler, Silk for the Vikings, 40. 14 National Museum of Denmark, NM C 139. 15 National Museum of Denmark, NM C 140. Hald, Ancient Danish Textiles, 110–11. 16 Vedeler, Silk for the Vikings, 37.

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Silks in Denmark, 800–1200

Fig. 2.2: Two ornamental bands of silk and gold thread from Mammen (National Museum of Denmark, NM C 137). Photo: Courtesy of the National Museum of Denmark.

one in red and one in yellow, the red dye almost certainly madder. A silk sewing thread is coloured with lichen purple.17 The individuals buried in these two graves, respectively a woman from Hvilehøj and a man from Mammen, seem to have had close connections with southern Europe and may have been Christian. They bore costly silk robes with glittering metal threads in fine bands. Silk, and textile decorations of gold and silver metal thread, are also features found in liturgical and princely robes in other parts of Europe. The court environment of the Frankish Empire and other royal houses in Europe acquired over 17 Penelope Walton, “Dyes and Wools in Textiles from Mammen (Bjerringhøj), Denmark,” in Iversen, Mammen, 139–43.

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Anne Hedeager Krag time a form of dress which stood apart from that of the local populations: a costume which in itself was inspired by Byzantium and the eastern Mediterranean. By the early ninth century this had evidently been transmitted to Denmark. In 1861 a red tabby silk was found in a grave in a chamber in one of the royal mounds at Jelling in Jutland.18 The grave chamber has been dated by dendrochronology to 958–959.19 The form of the fragment is irregular; all edges are frayed and fragmented. The bright red colour was achieved with lichen purple, a dyestuff possibly from the Mediterranean area.20 A literary source gives information about how silk from continental Europe was given to a Danish king. In 826, the Danish Viking King Harald Klak and his wife were baptized in Mainz at the court of Louis the Pious, king of the Franks and (concurrently with his father, Charlemagne) Holy Roman Emperor. The event was described by the contemporary monk Ermoldus Nigellus in the poem The Baptism of King Harald.21 This text includes a description of the clothing that the Danish king and his wife received as a gift from Louis, celebrating their acceptance of the baptismal ceremony. Harald received from the emperor a purple-coloured tunic decorated with a gold band, a belt, and a gold-embroidered silk cape, with the additional gifts of a sword with belt and support, a crown, armbands, spurs, and gloves. Harald thus received the vestments and symbols of kingship and was duly installed as a Christian monarch of Denmark. Harald’s wife received a gold brocade silk costume; in Old Norse texts, gold brocaded silk is called päll.22 Harald’s wife also wore an elaborate gold veil, belt, and bracelet. It was clear that the baptismal rites were a political event above and beyond their religious symbolism, and that the costly clothing was of Byzantine inspiration.23 As the literary source about Harald Klak tells us, he was the first Scandinavian king to be baptized, but he was driven out of Denmark by the Danes a year later and forced to spend the rest of his life in exile. It is, however, clear that by the middle of the tenth century some, perhaps many, powerful Danes were prepared to tolerate Christianity. Denmark gradually became Christian during the tenth century, with Christianity being declared as the official state religion about 965 by the Danish King Harald Bluetooth. The king built a large church in Jelling and commissioned a monument to his parents displaying a huge image of Christ crucified, on which he proclaimed “King Harald commanded this monument to be made in memory of Gorm his father and in memory of Thyre his mother—that Harald who won the whole of

18 National Museum of Denmark, NM C 19994. The grave is presumed to be that of Gorm the Old (ca. 958–87), King Harald Bluetooth’s father. 19 Knud Krogh and Bodil Leth-Larsen, Hedensk og Kristent: Fundene fra den Kongelige Gravhøj i Jelling, Vikingekongernes Monumenter i Jelling 2 (Herning, Denmark: Kristensen, 2007), 271. 20 Vedeler, Silk for the Vikings, 39, 40; Krogh and Leth-Larsen, Hedensk og Kristent, 271. 21 Hans Olrik, Ermoldus Nigellus’ Digt om Kong Haralds Daab: I Metrisk Oversættelse (Copenhagen: Schønberg, 1886). 22 Hedeager Krag, “Christian Influences,” 241. 23 Hedeager Krag, “Symbols of Power in Viking Age Dress,” 19–24.

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Silks in Denmark, 800–1200 Denmark for himself and Norway and made the Danes Christian.”24 The red tabby silk from Jelling, mentioned above, was found in a grave in a chamber in one of the royal mounds, underscoring the royal connection with precious silk. When Harald Bluetooth was building up Christian Denmark, it was at that time very common that when a king sought to consolidate and establish his power, one way in which he did so was by giving precious gifts to people whose loyalty was crucial to maintain, and they could be associated with that ruler’s dynasty. Twelve small fragments of silk tabby were found in 1960, 1963, and 1964 in four tenth- to eleventh-century chamber graves in the cemetery of Hedeby (also known as Haithabu), now Germany, an important trading town from the eighth to the eleventh centuries. This silk tabby probably was made in the Near East and brought through Italy or perhaps Poland.25 The argument for a Slavic (Polish) importation is that Harald Bluetooth was married to the daughter of Mistivoi, an Obodrite prince, and his son, Swein Forkbeard, was married to a Polish princess.26 In chamber graves no. 159/1960 and no. 1/1963, both presumed to be male graves, and no. 5/1964, a woman’s wagon chamber grave, were found some very small fragments of silk, which had probably been cut and sewn to the garments as decorative bands.27 A similar reuse of strips from worn-out silks occurred at Mammen and in the royal female ship burial at Oseberg, Norway.28 It has also been observed at Viking sites in Sweden and Russia.29 In Hedeby chamber grave 33–37/1905, a woman’s grave excavated in 1905, a mineralized block of mixed textiles included a very small piece of silk samite.30 Contact with Anglo-Saxon England Excavations at Viborg Søndersø in 1981 turned up a samite-woven silk strip, which apparently was pattern-woven in red and undyed silk, bearing similarities to the silk

24 Anne Hedeager Krag, “Christian Influences,” 241; Peter Sawyer, “The Process of Scandinavian Christianization in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries,” in The Christianization of Scandinavia, ed. Birgit Sawyer, Peter Sawyer, and Ian Wood (Alingsås, Sweden: Viktoria, 1987), 68–77, at 68. 25 Inga Hägg, Textilien und Tracht in Haithabu und Schleswig, Die Ausgrabungen in Haithabu 18 (Kiel: Wachholtz-Murmann, 2015), 327. 26 Ibid. 27 Inga Hägg, Die Textilfunde aus der Siedlung und aus den Gräbern von Haithabu: Beschreibung und Gliederung, Berichte über die Ausgrabungen in Haithabu 29 (Neumünster, Germany: Wachholtz, 1991), 208, table 21. 28 Arne Emil Christensen and Margareta Nockert, Osebergfunnet: Uttgit av Kulturhistorisk Museum, Universitetet i Oslo, vol. 4, Tekstilene (Oslo: Kulturhistorisk Museum, Universitetet i Oslo, 2006), 277–343; Vedeler, Silk for the Vikings, 3–19. 29 Vedeler, Silk for the Vikings, 7–8. 30 Hägg, Die Textilfunde, 125.

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Anne Hedeager Krag from the Mammen grave as a sort of trimming on a garment.31 It was found in an archaeological layer dated to 1018.32 The end of the tenth century saw fresh waves of Viking raids against England and the creation of a joint Danish-English kingdom in the years 1013–42. There was a continuous link between Denmark and England, and Viborg was an important episcopal seat and the most important place of power in Jutland in the beginning of the eleventh century. Canute the Great, king of Denmark (1016–35), England (1016–35) and Norway (1028–35), came to be recognized as one of Europe’s great Christian leaders. He created an impressive North Sea Empire, which stretched over England, Denmark, and Norway. He, and other powerful people in his empire, needed wardrobes of silk and other precious fabrics. The silks from Viborg Søndersø are presumably associated with the regular visits of Canute the Great and his people to Viborg, and came via England. These silks most likely originated in Byzantium. The use of silken luxury and its associations of power from Byzantium had been adopted abroad.33 England was regularly importing silks on a commercial basis by the beginning of the eleventh century, as Ælfric testifies; silks were also bought abroad by high-ranking English travellers, such as Theodred, bishop of London, and were received as prestigious gifts.34 Commercial routes and gifts: From Byzantium through Russia The Danish graves from the Viking Age with silk fragments show close connection with Byzantium. In 900–1000, silk fabrics were manufactured there. Further information about the silk industry is to be found in the Book of the Prefect, a collection of provisions regulating the activity of a number of professional guilds in the Empire’s capital, Constantinople. The original text clearly belongs to the early 900s.35 In an imperial decree, the Byzantine Emperor Leo the Wise (d. 912) legalized the sale of clippings and scraps of purple silks, which were otherwise forbidden to be bought and sold because

31 Viborg Museum, 881D142/BBR/I. Margit Petersen, “Tekstiler,” in Viborg Søndersø 1000–1300: Byarkæologiske Undersøgelser, Jysk Arkæologisk Selskabs Skrifter 34, ed. Jesper Hjermind, Mette Iversen, and Hans Krongaard Kristensen (Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 1998), 26– 27. Anne Hedeager Krag, The Eagle Silk and Other Silks in the Shrine of St. Canute in Odense Cathedral (Herning, Denmark: Poul Kristensens, 2010), 64. 32 Pers. comm. from Margit Petersen, March 16, 2015. 33 Anna Muthesius, “Byzantine Silks in Viking Hands,” in Byzantium: Identity, Image, Influence: XIX International Congress of Byzantine Studies, University of Copenhagen, 18–24 August, 1996, ed. Karsten Fledelius (Copenhagen: Danish National Committee for Byzantine Studies: Eventus, 1996), 184–92, at 188. 34 Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Dress in Anglo-Saxon England: Revised and Enlarged Edition (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2004), 298–301. 35 David Jacoby, “The Jews and the Silk Industry of Constantinople,” in his Byzantium, Latin Romania and the Mediterranean (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2001), 1–20, at 3.

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Silks in Denmark, 800–1200 of royal monopoly. This could explain why some of the Vikings were wearing strips of silk, as they could have been imported as scraps.36 Around the first millennium, Constantinople was the largest city in Europe and had strong ties with Scandinavia. The Scandinavians called the city Mikligardr, the “Great City.” Since about 800, the Byzantine emperor’s bodyguards had been the socalled Varangians, an elite corps made up mainly of Scandinavians.37 The most famous Varangian, later to become King Harald Hardrada of Norway (ruled 1046–66), was awarded the middle-level title of protospatharios by the Byzantine emperor during his stay in Constantinople around 1040.38 The Varangians were included in several Icelandic sagas, and evidence comes also from rune stones in Scandinavia. Well-­established travellers’ routes from Scandinavia to Byzantium, and through Russia to the Baltic Sea, are attested by a series of written sources.39 The Chronicle of Past Years from the early twelfth century, known to modern scholars as the Russian Primary Chronicle, is the most important indigenous source for the early history of Russia. It originates from the Laurentian Codex, which is a north Russian compilation of material from different sources prepared in 1377.40 It describes how Slavs and Finnic people in 862 went across the sea to a group called Rus and invited them to become their rulers. Rurik, the eldest of the three brothers who accepted the invitation, reportedly settled in Novgorod and founded the Rurik dynasty, which ruled Russia until 1598. Although the story of Rurik is semi-legendary, the region’s links with Scandinavia are confirmed by archaeological evidence. Excavations have revealed that modern Novgorod was founded in the 950s, and have uncovered many Scandinavian objects.41 From the Rus there were routes to the south, along the river Dnieper to the Black Sea and Constantinople. Byzantine silk was, according to Ibn Fadlan, also brought along the Volga trade routes.42 His description of the funeral of a Viking chief, which he observed in 921–22 in the town of Bulghar along the Volga,

36 Anna Muthesius, “Silk, Power and Diplomacy in Byzantium,” Textile Society of America Proceedings 1992, available at http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/tsaconf/580. I am grateful to Gale R. Owen-­ Crocker for calling my attention to this possibility. 37 Richard Hall, Exploring the World of the Vikings (London: Thames & Hudson, 2007), 98. 38 Michael Bibikov, “Byzantinoscandica,” in Fledelius, Byzantium, 201–11. 39 Karsten Fledelius, “Royal Scandinavian Travellers to Byzantium: The Vision of Byzantium in Danish and Norwegian Historiography of the Early 13th Century—and in the Danish Historical Drama of the Early 19th Century,” in Fledelius, Byzantium, 212–18. 40 Samuel Hazzard Cross and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor, eds. and trans., The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text (Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1953), 4, online at http://www.mgh-bibliothek.de/dokumente/a/a011458.pdf, accessed Sept. 14, 2016. 41 Hall, Exploring, 96–97. 42 Richard Frye, trans., Ibn Fadlan’s Journey to Russia: A Tenth-Century Traveler from Baghdad to the Volga River (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 2005), 67; Vedeler, Silk for the Vikings, 72–75.

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Anne Hedeager Krag contains a reference to Byzantine brocade: “Then they brought a couch, laid it on the ship, and covered it with draperies of Byzantine brocade . . .”43 The Russian Primary Chronicle contains an example of gift-giving from Byzantine emperors to Russian representatives, in an entry for the year 912: The Emperor Leo honored the Russian envoys with gifts of gold, palls, and robes. . . . Thus the emperor dismissed them to their native land with great honor.44

EARLY MEDIEVAL SILKS IN DENMARK: THE ODENSE SILKS

A large red silk with a pattern of eagles and a smaller yellow silk pillow with a motif of birds and crosses are preserved in the crypt of St. Canute, in the Cathedral of Odense. The silks are attributed to the reliquary shrine of King Canute IV. The king was killed, together with his brother Benedict and seventeen of his knights, by Danish rebels in front of the altar of St. Alban’s church in Odense on July 10, 1086. His half-brother Eric I, “the Evergood” (ruled 1095–1103), achieved Canute’s recognition as a saint from Pope Urban II in 1098. In 1100, Canute was canonized by Pope Paschal II,45 and the next year, in 1101, the shrine containing the body of St. Canute was installed at the high altar of Odense Cathedral (fig. 2.3). In addition to the eagle-patterned silk and the pillow with birds and crosses was found an underquilt (sometimes referred to as a long pillow or cushion), 148 by 35 centimetres (58¼ by 13¾ inches), with a cover of monochrome yellow silk. A piece of the yellow silk measuring 65 by 33 centimetres (25⅝ by 13 inches), apparently cut from the underquilt at some point (possibly in the late nineteenth century), has been used for a small inner pillow now placed inside the bird-and-cross pillow.46 The inside of the shrine was lined with thin reddish silk, probably of the type known from the Middle Ages as cendal or sendal, of which only fragments remain. In a second shrine, believed to belong to Canute’s brother Benedict, was found another monochrome underquilt covered in yellow silk, 140 by 20 centimetres (55⅛ by 7⅞ inches). The St. Canute reliquary is unique because of the fairly well preserved state of the remains of the king and the precious silks found in the shrine.47 The Eagle Silk The largest of the silks from Odense, dated 1050–1100, is the so-called Eagle Silk. It is red with a pattern of dark blue eagles, 110 centimetres long and 133 centimetres wide 43 Frye, Ibn Fadlan’s Journey, 67. 44 Cross and Sherbowitz-Wetzor, Russian Primary Chronicle, 68–69. 45 Karsten Kjer Michaelsen, Knud: Konge, Helgen, Myte (Odense: Odense Bys Museer, 2017), 13. 46 Birgitte Bøggild Johannsen et al., eds., Danmarks Kirker, vol. 2, S. Knuds Kirke: Inventar, Gravminder (Copenhagen: Nationalmuseet, 1995), 433–38. This inventory of Odense Cathedral is available online, with image captions in English and a brief English summary, at http://danmarkskirker.natmus. dk/uploads/tx_tcchurchsearch/Odense_0409–1007.pdf. 47 Karsten Fledelius, “Introduction,” in Hedeager Krag, Eagle Silk, 9–11.

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Silks in Denmark, 800–1200

Fig. 2.3: Canute’s shrine in the Cathedral of Odense, with the bird-and-cross patterned pillow under his skull. Photo: Courtesy of Odense City Museums.

(43¼ by 52⅜ inches; fig. 2.4). The cloth has been trimmed,48 and, judging from the symmetry of the pattern, the width must originally have been at least 195 centimetres (76¾ inches), perhaps as much as 230 centimetres (90½ inches)—that is, a very large textile. The silk is woven as samite. The weave is tight, and the Z-spun warp is relatively coarse, alternating in reddish-brown and undyed silk, while the weft is of unspun red and bluish-black silk in various thicknesses. The pattern of the Eagle Silk appears almost black against a dark-red ground. The two shades of silk threads in the warp—uncoloured and brownish-red—give the red 48 Johann Gottfried Burman Becker, Helgenskrinene i Sankt Knuds Kirke i Odense Undersøgte 1833 og 1874 (Copenhagen: Hagerup, 1886); Hedeager Krag, Eagle Silk, 17.

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Anne Hedeager Krag

Fig. 2.4: The Eagle Silk, Odense Cathedral. Photo: Courtesy of the National Museum of Denmark.

ground a changeable nature. The pattern consists of large oval patterned medallions, interconnected in both height and width, a feature also known from Byzantine and Sassanid silk weaves. The so-called recesses, where the frames meet one another in fours, contain small pattern-filled medallions. Inside each large oval medallion is an eagle with its head in profile, with spread, patterned wings and spread tail feathers. In its beak, the eagle carries a jewel in the shape of a crescent ring with a pendant. The large medallions with the recurrent eagle motif are 82 centimetres (32¼ inches) in height and 65 centimetres (25⅝ inches) in width. On the base on which the eagle stands is an inscription, of which there have been various interpretations (fig. 2.5). The silk fabric may have been damaged from cleaning, so the underlying, originally hidden threads have emerged, in turn changing the letters’ contours. Although only a

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Silks in Denmark, 800–1200

Fig. 2.5: Detail of the inscription in the Eagle Silk. Photo: Annemette Bruselius Scharff, by permission.

few of the letters are legible, the Danish classical philologist Carsten Høeg considered them to be based on Greek letterforms.49 The pillow with the bird motif The yellow pillow with the bird motif (fig. 2.6) consists of several pieces sewn together, perhaps reused from an item such as a chasuble. One piece, 30 by 40 centimetres (11¾ by 15¾ inches), covers the front of the pillow and about a third of the back. Strips about 5 centimetres (2 inches) wide, cut without regard to the pattern, cover the rest of the back. The weave is a samite type and has a closer thread density than the Eagle Silk. The warp threads are fine silk, undyed and unspun, so the threads themselves are loose

49 Muthesius, “Byzantine Silks,” 186; Agnes Geijer, “Sidenvävnaderna i Helige Knuts Helgonskrin i Odense Domkyrka,” Aarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie, 1935, 104, 155–68; Poul Jørgen Riis and Thomas Riis, “Knud den Helliges Ørnetæppe i Odense Domkirke: Et Forsøg på Nytolkning,” Kuml: Årbog for Jysk Arkæologisk Selskab, 2004: 259–73.

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Anne Hedeager Krag

Fig. 2.6: Drawing made by Magnus Petersen in 1886 (National Museum of Denmark, NM 1874d) showing the yellow silk pillow at Odense Cathedral. The pillow is no longer in a suitable condition for photography. Photo: Courtesy of the Odense City Museums.

in structure. The silk with the bird motif probably dates to about 900. The pattern has been compared to a group of Sassanid Persian silks that go back to the 700s–900s.50 The pattern consists of crosslike figures that resemble an anchor, with a round termination at the top, two short transverse lines, and a base piece. The crosslike figure is between pairs of opposed birds with long, patterned tails.51 Between each group, at the height of the birds’ heads, is a heart. All figures are light blue with faint golden contours against the yellow ground. The size of the pattern repeat varies from 5.5 to 6.5 centimetres (2⅛ to 2½ inches) in height and 7.7 to 9 centimetres (3 to 3½ inches) in width. Symbols on the Odense silks The eagle motif is ancient. In the iconography of Christian art, the eagle with spread wings is a symbol of the power of the world and is associated with the evangelist 50 Otto von Falke, Kunstgeschichte der Seidenweberei (Berlin: E. Wasmuth, 1913), 98. 51 Burman Becker, “Helgenskrinene,” 53, viewed the birds as doves, while Geijer, “Sidenvävnaderna,” 58, saw the birds as peacocks.

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Silks in Denmark, 800–1200 John. The motif has been used in connection with the representation of the Passion, where the lamb, the lion, and the eagle symbolize Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension.52 The eagle is also a symbol of generosity. Traditions state that the eagle, no matter how hungry, always leaves half of its prey for other birds.53 The legions of the Roman Empire fought under the Eagle Standard. This was the sign of imperium, the power of the military commanders of the Roman Republic that was later adopted by the emperors as one of their main insignia. The eagle motif continued as an imperial symbol in the Byzantine Empire. An extensive legendary association between eagles and emperors can also be traced in Byzantine sources where figures of emperors and their families are offered protection in the shadow of the wings of an eagle.54 In the “Book of Ceremonies” edited by Constantine VII (913–59), examples of eagle motifs on textiles used at the Byzantine court are mentioned.55 There is a recognized group of surviving eagle silks56 which have been identified with panni imperials de Romania ad aquilas magnas, a designation that appears in Latin church inventories from 1295 in Rome.57 Otto von Falke labelled them as “imperial silks” and saw them as evidence of the imperial workshops, the gynaecea, in Constantinople.58 Imperial eagle silks are known from Auxerre, France, and Brixen (Bressanone) in South Tyrol, Italy, both of which were important ecclesiastical centres. An eagle silk from the grave of St. Germain at Auxerre (now in the Church of St. Eusèbe, Auxerre) is one of the finest Byzantine silks in existence. The eagles are freestanding in horizontal rows across the silk in yellow and dark green on a blue-purple ground. Another, now in the Cathedral Treasury at Brixen, can plausibly be identified with a documented casula purpura decorated all over with a large-scale eagle motif, presumably presented as a gift chasuble to Bishop Albuin (975–1006).59 It is patterned with large dark-green eagles, with the details picked out in yellow, on red-purple ground, and with large dark-green rosettes in the intervening spaces. The birds on the yellow pillow are probably peacocks. Perhaps the design showed peacocks placed on each side of a cross or the Tree of Life. In the iconography of Christian art, peacocks are a symbol of immortality and resurrection.60 In early 52 Gertrud Schiller, Iconography of Christian Art, vol. 2, The Passion of Jesus Christ, trans. Janet Seligman (Greenwich, CT: New York Graphic Society, 1972), 136. 53 Frithiof Dahlby, De Heliga Tecknens Hemlighet (Stockholm: Verbum, 1999). 54 Anna Muthesius, “The Byzantine Eagle,”in her Studies in Silk in Byzantium (London: Pindar Press, 2004), 227–36, at 228. 55 Ibid., 235. 56 Anna Muthesius, Byzantine Silk Weaving AD 400 to AD 1200 (Vienna: Fassbaender, 1997), 49. 57 Jens Vellev, “Knud den Hellige og Edel (Adela),” in Danske Kongegrave 1, ed. Karin Kryger (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanums, 2014), 190–205. 58 John Beckwith, “Byzantine Tissues,” in Beckwith, Studies in Byzantine and Medieval Western Art (London: Pindar Press, 1989), 38, citing Otto von Falke, Kunstgeschichte der Seidenweberei (Berlin: Wasmuth, 1913). 59 Muthesius, Byzantine Silk Weaving, 49. 60 Gertrud Schiller, Iconography of Christian Art, vol. 1, Christ’s Incarnation, Childhood, Baptism, Temptation, Transfiguration, Works And Miracles, trans. Janet Seligman (London: Lund Humphries, 1971), 172; Mina Moraitou, “Animal Motifs,” in Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition, 7th–9th Century, ed. Helen C. Evans with Brandie Ratliff (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012), 172.

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Anne Hedeager Krag Christian art, especially from Ravenna, one finds peacocks grouped symmetrically in pairs around a vase, a cross, or a monogram.61 The peacock comes from India, where it still lives in the wild today. The opposing pairs of peacocks with a cross symbol or the Tree of Life between them are considered to have been an Iranian motif, with its origin in the Sassanid period (226–661).62 Motifs with birds were very common in contemporary silk patterns from Central Asia, and the bird motifs from Odense are thought to come from Sogdiana, the northeastern province of the Central Asian area in northern Iran, Turkmenistan, and Kurdistan. The most important city of the province, Samarkand, developed from the 700s onward as a centre of Islamic culture, and at the same time it was an important station on the Silk Road. Most recently, the pillow with the birds has been compared with similar silks from the village of Zandan near Tashkent in Sogdiana, another significant station on the Silk Road and now the capital of Uzbekistan.63 Both the Eagle Silk and the pillow with the bird motif use symbols that can be associated with imperial power and Christianity. Given that in Christian art, peacocks symbolize immortality and the eagle symbolizes power, one can hardly conceive of clearer symbols in connection with the murdered king who was later canonized. This symbolic language would certainly have been known to those who provided the items to be deposited in the royal shrine in Odense. Colour analyses Analyses of the dyes and mordants were requested for both the Eagle Silk and the bird-patterned pillow in 2008. Ten small thread specimens were taken for dye analysis, which was conducted at the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage.64 Dyes were identified in nine of the ten threads.65 In all, six different vegetable dye sources were distinguished: two red, madder (Rubia tinctorum L.) and sappanwood (a redwood species of the genus Caesalpinia); two yellow, weld (Reseda luteola L.) and Persian berry (of the Rhamnus genus); and two blue, woad (Isatis tinctoria L.) and indigo (Indigofera tinctoria L.). The uses of madder and sappanwood/redwood for red and

61 A carved screen from the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna (dated between 493 and 526), shows on its front a vase from which spring two peacocks, facing the monogrammatic cross between them; Guiseppi Bovini, Ravenna Art and History (Ravenna: Longo, 1991), 61. 62 Ernst T. Reimbold, Der Pfau: Mythologie und Symbolik (Munich: Callwey, 1983), 17, 40. 63 Dr. Zvezdana Dode, professor at Stavropol State University, Russia, who has made a comparative study of silk textiles of the Mongolian period in Eurasia, has found an unpublished piece of fabric at the Stavropol Museum that is similar to the Odense bird-silk; email correspondence, Feb. 4, 2012. 64 The samples were analyzed with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled online with a photo diode array detector, according to the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage, ICN SOP 36. With this system, a gradient using water, methanol, and phosphoric acid is used, which is very suitable for natural dyes. 65 Sample numbers A1–A9. Report of analysis by Martin van Bommel and Ineke Joosten, Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage, Oct. 22, 2008.

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Silks in Denmark, 800–1200 yellow colours are well known in Byzantine silks. Remarkable is the Persian berry, which was used in the yellow colour of the pillow. Results of the tests on the Eagle Silk show the red colour was achieved with indigotin (from indigo or woad) and alizarin (from madder), which, combined, produced the red-brown colour. The blue colour in the Eagle Silk was achieved with three dyestuffs: luteolin (from weld), alizarin, and indigotin. Alum may have been used as a mordant for the red colours, although it was not possible to prove this.66 The colour analyses of the yellow bird-patterned silk pillow distinguished six vegetable dyes: two red, madder and sappanwood/redwood; two yellow, weld and Persian berry; and two blue, extracted respectively from the woad and indigo plants. The red colour from sappanwood/redwood and the yellow Persian berry, both used in the yellow silk from the pillow, is interesting, as both the colours originate in Central and Eastern Asia. The roots from redwoods give a red dye which was imported to Europe from the Far East. The earliest known textiles identified as having been dyed with redwood are a group of multicoloured and patterned silk fabrics from Loulan in eastern Turkestan, excavated by Aurel Stein in 1913–16. The silks have been dated to the period from the second century BC to the third century AD.67 The yellow dye of the bird-patterned silk pillow, which was determined by analysis in 2008 to be coloured by both sappanwood/redwood and Persian berries, which gave both red and yellow colours, might originally have had a colour resembling that of saffron. Interestingly, this corroborates the earliest written source to describe the assassination of King Canute in 1086 and his canonization in 1100: the account by the English monk Ælnoth, ca. 1160, who records that at the canonization, saffron-yellow silk was among the gifts.68 Transmission of the Odense silks On the basis of the various interpretations of the Odense Eagle Silk, it can be concluded that it could well have been made in a Byzantine-influenced area outside Constantinople between 1050 and 1100, perhaps in southern Italy. Two possible routes of transmission can be suggested, both involving personal importation by St. Canute’s brother, the Danish King Eric I. In 1098 Eric travelled to Bari in southern Italy, where he convinced Pope Urban II that he should make the Church in Scandinavia independent of the Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen by raising the Diocese of Lund to an

66 Aluminum salts are probably in samples A1, A2, A3, A4, A5, A6, and A9. 67 Judith H. Hofenk de Graaff, The Colourful Past: Origins, Chemistry and Identification of Natural Dyestuffs (London: Archetype, 2004), 142. 68 Erling Albrechtsen, trans., Ælnoths Krønike (Odense, Denmark: Universitetsforlag, 1984), 31. They had knowledge of dyeing with saffron at the time, but it is reasonable to assume that Ælnoth was describing the colour of the silk as it appeared to him, rather than stating a fact about the dyeing technique used.

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Anne Hedeager Krag archdiocese for the whole of Scandinavia.69 Eric may have brought back the silk on this occasion. If so, it may have been a gift from Adèle, widow of King Canute, who in 1091 had remarried to Roger Borsa, duke of Apulia in southern Italy.70 The other possibility is that Eric could have received the silk as a gift from Emperor Alexios I (ruled 1081–1118) when Eric visited Constantinople in 1103.71 In Eiriksdrapa, the memorial poem written in honour of this king by the contemporary Icelandic bard Markus Skeggjason, it is explicitly stated that among other rich gifts, Eric was presented with an imperial garment, allvalds skrudi, “the emperor’s shroud.”72 The yellow pillow has a pattern showing more Oriental than Byzantine design, and colour analyses support the suggestion that it was probably woven in Central Asia, perhaps near Tashkent.73 The Vikings knew this area. In 1932 a hoard dating to the first half of the 900s was found in east Jutland with 237 silver coins, most originating from the Caucasus, Baghdad, Tehran, Bulghar (along the river Volga), Tashkent, Samarkand, and Tayaqan.74 So there were routes farther east, along the river Volga to the trading hub of Bulghar connecting the northern trade with the northern Silk Road in Central Asia and from there to China.75 OTHER EARLY MEDIEVAL SILKS IN DENMARK

There are also some small silk fragments from four lead relic capsules in Denmark, dated to the period of 1100 to 1200, a time in which many churches were built. Relics were enclosed in the church altars according to certain regulations.76 A lead relic capsule from Felsted Church was given to the Danish National Museum in 1809. In the small capsule was a lined silk bag, containing skull bones.77 The relic bag was of samite weave of yellow and golden-coloured silk, with a red silk lining and

69 In 1071, the Norman Robert Guiscard conquered the last remaining Byzantine possession in southern Italy, the city of Bari, by the Strait of Otranto. The Normans were excellent diplomats and they made peace with Emperor Michael VII after the capture of Bari. Bari was an important center where the Pope also stayed frequently. Karsten Fledelius and Øystein Hjort, “Farlige beundrere i vest— Venezia og Normannerne i Syditalien (1000–1200),” 333–57, in Øystein Hjort, Arven Fra Byzans (Aarhus, Denmark: Tidsskriftet Sfinx, 2010), 235. 70 Fledelius, “Introduction,” 10. 71 Riis and Riis, “Knud den Helliges Ørnetæppe,” 259–71. 72 Finnur Jónsson, ed., Den Norsk-Islandske Skjaldedigtning (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, Nordisk Forlag, 1912), 1:451. 73 See note 62, above. 74 Annette Damm, Vikingernes Aros (Højbjerg: Moesgård Museum, 2005), 66. 75 Marianne Vedeler, “Silk Trade to Scandinavia in the Viking Age,” in Textiles and the Medieval Economy: Production, Trade and Consumption of Textiles, 8th–16th Centuries, ed. Angela Ling Huang and Carsten Jahnke, Ancient Textiles Series 26 (Oxford: Oxbow, 2016), 78–85. 76 Else Østergård, “Nogle Mønstrede Silketøjer fra Danske Relikviegemmer,” Hikuin 6 (1980): 83–92, at 83. 77 National Museum of Denmark, NM C 346.

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Silks in Denmark, 800–1200 a green silk cord. The pattern is a small square of medallions, of which only the pearled border—that is, a woven design consisting of a row of small circles—is visible today.78 In addition, two reliquary lead capsules without provenance were found in the store of the Danish National Museum in 1969.79 One capsule contained a piece of silk samite with a pattern of a smaller circle with a star inside a larger medallion. Inside the other capsule was a bundle wrapped with string and unwrapped relics. This bundle was of unpatterned silk samite in two colours, one side yellow-green, the other ecru. This was a special type of samite used in the Middle Ages for items that were to be decorated with embroidery or the application of pattern-woven silk.80 In the same capsule was a fragment of unpatterned red silk in tabby weave. The last of the four examples of relic capsules containing silk is from Sigersted Church near Ringsted.81 Here two pieces of the same silk samite were wrapped around three small bones and deposited in a lead box on the stone altar of the church. They have a motif in a medallion like that of the Eagle Silk. The medallion is smaller on the Sigersted fragments, but finely made with an animal motif surrounded by a pearled border, alternating with smaller circles. The animal figure itself is highly fragmentary, but there are similarities with griffin motifs, particularly on the claws, which stand up against the circle with the pearled pattern. The silks have a reddish-brown ground colour and a pattern of Byzantine character in reddish-brown and blue. The textiles were stylistically dated to the twelfth century. The museum sent two samples of the weft yarns, one brown and one reddish-brown, for laboratory analysis in December 2014. The threads have a similar dye composition. They were first weighted/mordanted with tannin, while the colour was obtained by the use of mordant dyes deriving from three different biological dye sources: redwood, a red alizarin-based dye source, and a yellow luteolin-based dye source. This dye composition suggests an original orange-red shade. Remains of woad dyeing were also found, though this possibly originates from contamination from other threads forming the blue pattern. The more reddish colour of the second sample can be explained by the relative higher ratio of all dye compounds (especially from redwood and luteolin yellow) compared to ellagic acid (tannin). Sample 1 contained 92%–96% tannin versus dyes, whereas sample 2 contained 70%–84% tannin versus dyes.82 The colour analyses show that the Sigersted silk was coloured with typically Byzantine colours, where the red was often a combination of sappanwood/redwood and madder.83 Sappanwood/redwood dyes are otherwise known in Denmark, as we have seen from the yellow pillow in Odense. The colour has also been identified on

78 79 80 81 82

Østergård, “Nogle Mønstrede Silketøjer,” 83–92, at 85. National Museum of Denmark, NM D 59–1970; Østergård, “Nogle Mønstrede Silketøjer,” 87. Østergård, “Nogle Mønstrede Silketøjer,” 86. National Museum of Denmark, NM D 12248. Analysis report file no. 2015.12571, by Ina Vanden Berghe, Head of Textile Research, Laboratories Department, Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, Brussels, March 6, 2015. 83 Muthesius, “Silk Industry: Processes, Looms, Techniques,” in Studies in Silk, 51.

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Anne Hedeager Krag the Hungarian Coronation Mantle, also known as the Mantle of King Stephen, which was made of silk samite.84 BISHOP ABSALON’S GRAVE

The costly silk and relics from Sigersted were probably deposited in that little church because it belonged to the Hvide family, the most influential part of Danish high nobility in the second half of the twelfth century owing to its close connection with the ruling dynasty. The family’s main property was in the island of Zealand. Its most prominent member was Absalon, bishop of Roskilde and later archbishop of Lund, who was also a great fighter in the Baltic Sea region. Absalon fought Vandal pirates with the help of Valdemar the Great, and in 1169 he was with the king when Rügen, parts of Pomerania, and the Vandal capital Arkona were destroyed after an eight-day siege. Absalon was also the founder of Copenhagen, later to be Denmark’s capital, in 1167. The family gravitated around Sorø in western Zealand, with its famous monastery in the Middle Ages and later a famous boarding school which is still in existence.85 The most valuable silk textiles in Denmark from this period are those found in the grave of Bishop Absalon in Sorø Monastery Church.86 Three silk fragments are known, belonging to different types of vestments. One samite silk fragment, with a border in a broken lozenge twill, is from Bishop Absalon’s dalmatic. A piece of silk samite with circles in a pattern belongs to the chasuble. The most interesting piece is of silk with a tapestry weave depicting birds and lions, on a samite weave (figs. 2.7 and 2.8). It most likely was part of the alb. This Absalon silk with a combination of weaves belongs to an Islamic tradition, and is similar to the lining from an alb created in the royal court workshop of Palermo in the year 1181, now at the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna.87 Silk on the embroidered front of the alb is believed to be of Byzantine origin, but there seems to be no doubt that the silk that makes up the lining really was woven in Palermo. There are parallels in other European church and grave treasures, for example, the funeral tunic of Philip of Swabia (d. 1208) in Speyer Cathedral.88 Obviously the Danish Bishop 84 Tibor Kovács, ed., The Coronation Mantle of the Hungarian Kings (Budapest: Hungarian National Museum, 2005), 64. 85 Mouritz Mackeprang, “Kunstkamrets Absaloniske Sager: Et Stykke Museumshistorie,” Aarbøger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie, 1921, 147–66; Else Østergård and Ole Schmidt, “Undersøgelser af Tekstilfragmenter fra Ærkebiskop Absalons Grav i Sorø Kirke,” Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark (1973): 135–44; Fritze Lindahl, “Om Absalons Gravklædning,” Nationalmuseets Arbejdsmark (1973): 145–58. 86 Absalon’s grave was opened in 1536 (by King Christian III), 1827 (by King Frederik VI), and 1947. 87 Available for view online at http://www.khm.at/en/objectdb/detail/100471, accessed Aug. 16, 2017. Latin and Arabic inscriptions on the edge of the broad hem at the bottom tell us that the robe was created under King William II (1153/1166–1189) in Palermo. Rudolf Distelberger and Manfred Leithe-Jasper, The Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna: The Imperial and Ecclesiatical Treasury (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2009), 45. 88 Lindahl, “Om Absalons Gravklædning,” 155.

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Silks in Denmark, 800–1200

Fig. 2.7 (top): A portion of the fragmentary remains of gold-woven silk from a garment belonging to Absalon, most likely the alb. Fig. 2.8 (bottom): A drawing of the textile by A. P. Madsen (National Museum of Denmark, NM 1969:328b). Photos: The National Museum of Denmark, by permission.

Absalon had connections with the ruling classes of central Europe, and he must have appreciated the symbolic value of costly ecclesiastical robes in his position as one of the leading clerics and statesmen in Scandinavia.

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Anne Hedeager Krag CONCLUSIONS

Most of the silks in Denmark dating from 800 to 1200 were made in the Mediterranean region and woven as samite. Expensive silks were highly valued, and they were used in magnificent costumes for the imperial family and the aristocracy. Silks have been found in Viking Age Danish graves in six localities: Fløjstrup, Jelling, Hvilehøj, Mammen, Viborg Søndersø, and Hedeby. Silks came to Denmark during this period as gifts from southern Europe, as described in a ninth-century poem by Ermoldus Nigellus. Silks also came to Denmark through trade. Well-established travellers’ routes between Scandinavia and Byzantium, through Russia to the Baltic Sea, are known from written sources and archaeological finds. There was a clear political interest in the silks, and archaeological sources give the impression of a rather homogenous cultural area based on commerce and political interests at the royal courts of Scandinavia and Kiev. Here, princely robes were modelled on insignia and other prominent dress symbols at the imperial court of Constantine VII (913–59).89 In the tenth century, Scandinavia was in lively commercial contact with the Arab world via the Russian rivers, and this trade included silk. As payment for their goods, Vikings often received Arab silver coins, which give precise dates as well as information about where their trading partners came from. The importance of trade with the East is represented by the large number of these coins found in Scandinavia. In Denmark, many Arab silver coins are known from the tenth century. Some were produced in regions along the Volga River, for example at Bulghar, a trade center where Nordic and Arab merchants met. The Arab Ibn Fadlan, sent in 921 on a mission from the Caliph in Baghdad to the king of the Volga Bulgars, described how a Viking chief was buried in Bulghar, dressed in precious cloth.90 Finally, the silk tabby in the chamber tombs at Hedeby in the tenth century probably was made in the Near East and brought through Italy or perhaps Poland. Secular and ecclesiastical rulers needed valuable textiles in the early phases of establishing the northern European states to confirm their status and power both internally and externally. This is particularly manifested in the two silks from St. Canute’s relic shrine in Odense Cathedral, the Eagle Silk and the pillow with the bird motif, which both contain symbols that can be associated with imperial power and Christianity. The small silk fragments from Viking Age Denmark and the Byzantine and Oriental silks from Odense, Sigersted, and Sorø show that there were important relations between northern and southern Europe around 800–1200.

89 Hägg, Textilien und Tracht, 327. 90 Frye, Ibn Fadlan’s Journey, 67.

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The Bliaut: An Examination of the Evidence in French Literary Sources Monica L. Wright

The term bliaut appeared suddenly in costume history in 1874 with the publication of the third volume of Eugène Viollet-le-Duc’s Dictionnaire Raisonné du Mobilier Français.1 Not only did Viollet-le-Duc use the Old French term that we find in literary works dating from the twelfth through the early thirteenth centuries to discuss the sartorial practices of that age, but he also firmly identified the bliaut as the garment worn by the subjects of the statuary on the Royal Portal of Notre-Dame de Chartres.2 These statues, which are attenuated to fit on the narrow columns of the portal, depict Old Testament figures, both male and female, in elongated proportions. Their attire is depicted as highly ornamented and appears to fall into narrow elaborate pleats, even on garments worn under the outer gown; this pleating is primarily vertical, except for the pleats around some figures’ waists and wrists, where it runs laterally across the body. A year later Jules Quicherat repeated this identification in his Histoire du Costume en France.3 Both Viollet-le-Duc and Quicherat identified the dress seen in other statues and visual sources as bliauts, but it has been the association of the term with the Chartres statues that would become the best known and the most often repeated. Viollet-le-Duc was innovative in that he sought out evidence for garment terms in Old French literary texts contemporary to the period, and Quicherat continued this practice. It is for this reason that the term bliaut emerges in such an abrupt manner in costume history. The term had not, and indeed could not have, made its way into earlier costume histories, simply because very few medieval manuscripts containing An earlier version of this article was presented in May 2014 at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I wish to thank Gale R. Owen-Crocker for her invaluable advice and astute suggestions, and I extend my thanks to the anonymous reader for helpful recommendations for improvement. Robin Netherton has my eternal gratitude for confirming that there was indeed a “bliaut problem” in costume history and for encouraging me to pursue the research that would become this article.   1 Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire Raisonné du Mobilier Français de l’Époque Carlovingienne à la Renaissance, vol. 3 (Paris: Gründ, 1874), 38–61.   2 Ibid., 41–45.   3 Jules Quicherat, Histoire du Costume en France Depuis les Temps les Plus Reculés Jusqu’à la Fin du XVIIIe Siècle (Paris: Hachette, 1875), 162.

Monica L. Wright literary texts had been edited and published before the 1830s. The term bliaut had fallen into disuse and out of memory for all but etymologists and philologists, and it would be these scholars of old words and old texts who began the process of editing manuscripts for publication. For costume historians to cite literary sources before these editions existed, they would have had to read the texts of manuscripts, none of which were indexed, instead of consulting manuscripts simply to examine the illuminations. The illuminations themselves would have shed no light on garments of the twelfth century because the extant manuscripts of twelfth-century literature date to later centuries and therefore depict later clothing styles. However, the half-century before Viollet-le-Duc and Quicherat completed their costume histories saw the publication of a number of editions of medieval texts dating from the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries that had languished in manuscripts for centuries. Between the two of them, they cited no fewer than twenty distinct newly edited works of literature. Previous authors of costume history had focused on visual sources alone for this period: statuary, tomb effigies, seals, and stained glass windows, along with some manuscript illuminations. These authors used a very limited vestimentary vocabulary and tended to describe sartorial elements according to nineteenth-century costume practices, resorting to generic terms such as tunique (tunic) or simply robe ceinte (belted dress) to indicate the garment in question.4 Violletle-Duc and Quicherat chose to include period-appropriate terminology, but without training in clothing construction technique—Viollet-le-Duc was an architect and Quicherat an archivist and the director of the École des Chartes—they tended to make significant mistakes in their theories concerning garment construction. One of the most egregious errors that Viollet-le-Duc committed was his argument that the bliaut had a band of tricot (knitted fabric) around the wearer’s waist: “C’était évidemment un tissu élastique, comme une sorte de tricot souple comprimant légèrement les formes du corps” [It was apparently an elastic fabric, a kind of flexible knitted fabric lightly compressing the body’s figure].5 There is no evidence to support this claim.6 However, his anachronistic interpretation of the garment’s construction did not dissuade later costume historians from repeating his assertions, and once made, the identification of the bliaut as the ahistoric garment worn by the statues depicting figures of the Old Testament proved remarkably resilient. By the next decade, it had infiltrated glossaries and dictionaries; Victor Gay included a drawing of a statue at Chartres in the entry

  4 See for example: Paul LaCroix and Ferdinand Seré, Le Moyen Âge et la Renaissance, Histoire et Description des Mœurs et Usages, du Commerce et de l’Industrie, des Sciences, des Arts, des Littératures et des Beaux-arts en Europe (Paris: Administration, 1850), and Jules Ferrario, “Le Costume Ancien et Moderne des Français,” in Le Costume Ancien et Moderne ou Histoire du Gouvernement, de la Milice, de la Religion, des Arts, Sciences et Usages de Tous les Peuples Anciens et Modernes, vol. 5, Europe, ed. Robustiano Gironi (Milan: Impr. de l’Éditeur, 1827).  5 Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire, 44. Translations of this and all texts, including medieval, are my own.   6 In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries knitted garments, or indeed garments produced by knotless netting, included only footwear and gloves. See Irena Turnau, History of Knitting Before Mass Production (Warsaw: Institute of the History of Material Culture, Polish Academy of Sciences, 1991).

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The Bliaut in French Literary Sources on the bliaut in his Glossaire Archéologique du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance.7 A half-century later, Eunice Rathbone Goddard briefly spoke to the lack of evidence supporting Viollet-le-Duc’s association of the term bliaut with the Chartres statuary, but she still affirmed that for her “there is no doubt that it is correct.”8 Goddard made this assertion based on details she claimed correspond between textual descriptions of the bliaut in the Old French literature of the eleventh through thirteenth centuries and the appearance of the dress on the statues. I would argue that it is long past time for us to reexamine the claims made by the nineteenth-century commentators to determine what the Old French sources can reliably tell us about the bliaut and what these authors have dramatically overstated. Goddard’s study provides a useful starting point since she catalogued a wealth of literary references, although she drew some unfounded conclusions about them largely based on assertions by Viollet-le-Duc, Quicherat, and Camille Enlart. Enlart, whom Goddard personally thanked in her prefatory acknowledgments, was the author of the Manuel d’Archéologie Française, the third volume of which focuses on costume and relies heavily upon the claims made by Viollet-le-Duc and Quicherat.9 Goddard provided a number of examples in isolation of textual instances where the term bliaut appears, and she gave three main meanings for it: a fabric, a woman’s court gown, and a garment worn by men, particularly in combination with a hauberk.10 She convincingly argued and provided evidence attesting to the meaning of fabric, and she claimed that most likely the fabric term preceded the garment term.11 She based her claim on the fact that in German texts of this period, the word (blialt in Middle High German) was used only to mean a fabric.12 Mainet, a twelfth-century fragmentary chanson de geste,

  7 Victor Gay, Glossaire Archéologique du Moyen Age et de la Renaissance (Paris: Librairie de la Société Bibliographique, 1887).   8 Eunice Rathbone Goddard, Women’s Costume in French Texts of the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1927). The term bliaut appears on pp. 40–59. She makes the claim that Viollet-le-Duc is correct on p. 54.   9 Camille Enlart, Manuel d’Archéologie Française Depuis les Temps Mérovingiens Jusqu’à la Renaissance, vol. 3, Le Costume (Paris: Picard, 1916); he discusses the bliaut on pp. 25–37. Of note, however, is Enlart’s Bibliographie Critique for costume history, pp. xxi–xxix. 10 Goddard, Costume, 54. 11 Jennifer Harris confirms this in “‘Estroit vestu et menu cosu’: Evidence for the Construction of Twelfth-Century Dress,” in Medieval Art: Recent Perspectives: A Memorial Tribute to C. R. Dodwell, ed. Gale R. Owen-Crocker and Timothy Graham (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), 89–103, at 100–1 n. 4. 12 Rosalyn Gardner, going against Goddard’s claim, suggests that the term appears in Old French before it appears in German; Gardner, “A Note on Old French Bliaut,” in Romance Studies Presented to William Morton Dey on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday by His Colleagues and Former Students, ed. Urban T. Holmes, Jr., Alfred G. Engstrom, and Sturgis E. Leavitt (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1950), 63–65.

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Monica L. Wright provides an unequivocal example of the word bliaut used as a fabric term: Qui ne daigne vestir ne paile ne cendé, Mais bliaut ou samis a mailles d’or ouvré13 [who deigns to wear no paile or cendal, but instead bliaut or samite flecked with gold]

It is clear here that the author identifies paile (fine silk),14 cendal, bliaut, and samite as belonging to the same lexical category—fabric—while placing bliaut and samite in a more desirable class within the fine fabric category. This desirability may well be related to fabric weight; cendal is a lighter-weight silk, and although paile is not specified as to type, it would seem that its inclusion here would contrast it with the heavier samite and indeed bliaut. Moreover, the samite here is definitely flecked with gold; the fabric bliaut may indeed be as well. The term bliaut, of course, appears in works of French literature from the twelfth to the early thirteenth century, and it has been understood to mean primarily the most elegant lady’s court dress of the age. Yet the first occurrence of the garment term appears in regard to male dress. This is in the Chanson de Roland, in the Oxford manuscript, which dates most likely to the second quarter of the twelfth century, a later date than earlier attributions but one that today has the widest scholarly consensus.15 Chansons de geste are usually set earlier than their composition; in the case of the Roland, the events took place three hundred years before this version of the story was composed. However, the cultural and material setting portrayed in this chanson de geste conforms entirely to contemporary mores and material culture. There are in fact two instances of the term in the Roland, and both refer to men’s attire. In the first: E li quens Guenes en fut mult anguisables: De sun col getet ses grandes pels de martre E est remés en sun blialt de palie. (lines 280–82) [The count Ganelon is seized by anguish; from his shoulders he throws off his great marten furs and remains in his silk bliaut (blialt).]

13 Mainet: Fragments d’une Chanson de Geste du XIIe Siècle, ed. Gaston Paris (Paris: n.p., 1875), in fragment II.b, lines 67–68. 14 Paile is most often used as a word for fine silk, but we also find it as a general term for a court dress. In La Mort Ayméri, it appears in a list of other court garments: “Bliauz et pailes et chainses gironez” (line 2386); La Mort Ayméri de Narbonne: Chanson de Geste, ed. Joseph Couraye du Parc (1884; repr. New York: Johnson, 1966). 15 Ian Short, ed., “The Oxford Version,” in La Chanson de Roland—The Song of Roland: The French Corpus, ed. Joseph Duggan (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2005), 1:11–338. See Short’s discussion of the dating of the Oxford manuscript, 1:19–20. William W. Kibler has suggested a date of 1130 to me in personal communication.

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The Bliaut in French Literary Sources The second time we encounter the term, Roland is seeking out his fallen companions on the battlefield and comes upon Turpin; he then Sun elme ad or li deslaçat del chef Si li tolit le blanc osberc leger, E sun blialt li ad tut detrenchét, En ses granz plaies les pans li ad butét; Cuntre sun piz puis si l’ad enbracét, Sur l’erbe verte puis l’at süef culchét. (lines 2170–75) [unlaces and removes his golden helmet from his head; he removes his white, light hauberk; he cuts apart his bliaut (blialt) and with the pieces, he binds his deep wounds, then takes him into his arms against his chest, and carefully lays him on the green grass.]

In both these examples, the term appears without any description. Moreover, texts sometimes depict the bliaut worn over the armor, but just as often it is worn under the armor. In the example above from the Roland, Turpin is wearing his bliaut under his hauberk. However, in Béroul’s Tristan, composed in the 1160s, the protagonist wears his hauberk under his bliaut: “Souz son bliaut ot son hauberc” [Under his bliaut, he wore his hauberk].16 In Benoît de Sainte-Maure’s Roman de Troie,17 also composed in the 1160s, we find one instance of the bliaut over the hauberk (“Sors les haubers vestent bliauz,” line 7353) and one of the bliaut worn under the hauberk: Sor bliauz, sor peliçons vairs Lacent heaumes, vestent haubers (lines 11107–8) [They laced up their helmets and put on hauberks over their bliauts, over their pelisses of vair].

The fact that the two different ways of wearing the bliaut-hauberk combination appear in a single text would seem to indicate that both ways were acceptable, and in fact, there is no discernable pattern in either generic type or date of composition that would explain why sometimes the bliaut is worn over and sometimes under a hauberk. In either combination, elaborate pleating and ornamentation seem implausible for wear with a hauberk, throwing further doubt on the premise that the Chartres statues represent what the literature calls a bliaut. The bliaut worn by women enters the French literary corpus at some point between 1140 and 1150, depending on the proposed dating of various manuscripts. Dating from approximately 1141, the Anglo-Norman chronicle of Geoffrey Gaimar, Estoire

16 Béroul, Le Roman de Tristan: Poème du XIIe Siècle, ed. Ernest Muret (Paris: Champion, 1982), line 2772. 17 Benoît de Sainte-Maure, Le Roman de Troie, ed. Léopold Constans (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1904–12).

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Monica L. Wright des Engleis,18 provides a description of the beautiful Elstruet (Ælfthryth) in her finery as she arrives at the king’s court: Une chape out de neire suale Ke li trainat en [mi] la sale. Desuz aveit un mantelet Dedenz de gris, defors d’owet. De altre tel paille ert son blialt. (lines 3887–91) [She wore a cloak (chape)19 of fine black worsted with a long train stretching down the hall. Over this she wore a short mantle (mantelet)20 lined with vair (gris) and trimmed in lambswool (owet). Her bliaut (blialt) was in a matching fine silk.]

As with the male examples, such early references provide little detail about the appearance of the bliaut. By the second half of the twelfth century, however, authors of romance begin to provide lengthy descriptions of clothing and textiles and, as I have argued elsewhere,21 use sartorial imagery for a wealth of narrative functions. Romances tend to represent contemporary society in both cultural practices and material reality. Notably, a bliaut is the centerpiece in one of the most elaborate vestimentary female portraits in the corpus of medieval French literature: the scene in Chrétien de Troyes’s Erec et Enide,22 composed around 1165, in which the protagonist brings his impoverished but noble ladylove to court in a tattered chainse specifically so that Queen Guenevere herself may

18 Thomas Wright, ed., The Anglo-Norman Metrical Chronicle of Geoffrey Gaimar (1850; repr. New York: Franklin, 1967); see also Short’s critical edition and facing translation: Geffrei Gaimar, Estoire des Engleis: History of the English, ed. and trans. Ian Short (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). Short proposes a date of 1141 for ms. R. 19 The chape (cloak) was a hooded garment worn for warmth and protection from the elements. It was worn by all social classes, but the materials used by the lower classes would be coarser than those used by the nobility, who would wear chape of high-quality fabric, such as the one we see here. The chape should not be confused with the mantle, which was an ornately decorated garment worn only by the upper classes specifically to show high social status. Moreover, a mantle would not trail behind the wearer but rather sweep right above the ground, protecting its costly materials, including very often an ermine lining, from the damage that would occur were it to be pulled through the mud. See my discussion on p. 74. 20 The mantelet (short mantle) here is made of the same silk as the bliaut, producing a matching set. Because this particular mantelet was lined with fur, it likely did offer some warmth to the wearer, but its function was not to keep its wearer warm but rather to help her cut a pretty figure and to denote her high social status. 21 Monica L. Wright, Weaving Narrative: Clothing in Twelfth-Century French Romance (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009). See especially chapter 3 for a treatment of descriptions of clothing. 22 Chrétien de Troyes, Erec et Enide, ed. Mario Roques (Paris: Champion, 1966).

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The Bliaut in French Literary Sources refashion Enide in one of her own regal ensembles.23 The portrait contains eighty-five lines of verse, of which Chrétien devotes nineteen lines specifically to the bliaut. The queen leads Enide to her chamber and has someone bring her le fres blïaut et le mantel de la vert porpre croisilliee24 qui por son cors estoit tailliee. Cil cui ele l’ot comandé li a le mantel aporté et le blïaut, qui jusqu’as manches estoit forrez d’ermines blanches. As poinz et a la cheveçaille avoit sanz nule devinaille plus de deus cenz mars d’or batu et pierres de molt grant vertu, yndes et verz, persses et bises, avoit par tot sor l’or assises. Molt estoit riches li blïauz, mes por voir ne valoit noauz li mantiax de rien que je sache. Ancor n’i avoit mise estache,25 car toz estoit fres et noviax et li blïauz et li mantiax. (lines 1570–88) [the new bliaut and the mantle of rich green silk with the croisette pattern which had been tailored for her (the queen) personally. He whom she had ordered, brought her the mantle and the bliaut, which was lined with white ermine even in the sleeves. At the wrists and at the neck there were, without any mystery, more than two hundred marks of beaten gold, and stones of great value, violet and green, deep blue and grey-brown, were everywhere set upon the gold. The bliaut was very costly, but in truth the mantle was, to my knowledge, worth not a bit less. No fastening cords had yet been placed upon it, for both the bliaut and the mantle were still brand new.]

Next Chrétien described the mantle in detail for an additional twenty-two lines (lines

23 Enide enters the narrative dressed “d’une chemise par panz lee, / delïee, blanche et ridee; / un blanc cheinse ot vestu desus, / n’avoit robe ne mains ne plus, / et tant estoit li chainses viez / que as costez estoit perciez; / povre estoit la robe dehors, / mes desoz estoit biax li cors” (lines 403–10) [in a chemise of wide, fine cloth that was white and pleated; she was wearing a white chainse over it; she had a single outfit, no more no less, and so old was the chainse that it was worn through at the elbows; poor was the clothing on the outside, but inside them, the body was beautiful]. 24 For this verse, I am using a different manuscript from the Roques edition, which has “l’autre robe” instead of “la vert porpre.” This is in keeping with the edition prepared by Carleton W. Carroll, Erec and Enide (New York: Garland, 1987). 25 In other manuscripts, we find variants of tassiax instead of estache. In either case, these are the fasteners for the mantle. I have translated them as “fastening cords,” but they would add ornamentation as well as fulfill a practical purpose.

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Monica L. Wright 1589–1610), followed by the queen encouraging Enide to lay aside her old chainse and put on her new bliaut and mantle (lines 1611–20), and finally: Puis vest son blïaut, si s’estraint, d’un orfois molt riche se ceint (lines 1627–28) [Then she put on her bliaut and tightened it, girded herself with a rich band of orphrey].

The bliaut’s description contains quite a bit less detail than that of the mantle, and we learn primarily about the ornamentation of the bliaut and little about its cut or shape. There are, however, a number of assertions that we can make about the bliaut from this passage alone. It is made of silk with a croisette pattern all over.26 It is lined with ermine, has magnificent bands of orphrey27 at the wrist and neck, and is worn belted. Chrétien makes a clear distinction between a bliaut and a chainse. He also shows us how to don a bliaut in three steps. First, one puts on the bliaut itself in one motion, clearly suggestive of a one-piece garment; second, one tightens it, presumably with lacings;28 and third, one girds it with an elaborately decorated belt, in this case made of orphrey. The way Chrétien describes how to put on a bliaut provides counterevidence for Viollet-le-Duc’s proposed construction: a gown with an extra jupe (skirt) attached and worn over the main garment.29 Chrétien’s bliaut is not a garment with an added skirt but rather a single-piece gown, easily donned. As Jennifer Harris attests, the standard cut for apparel in the twelfth century began with a rectangle of cloth and “consisted of a similar back and front, usually in one piece, which was sewn together down the sides.”30 Once the bliaut is on Enide’s body, the lacing and girding occur, followed by the addition of the splendidly adorned mantle. 26 This croisette pattern is not uncommon. For example, in Gerbert de Montreuil’s early-thirteenthcentury Le Roman de la Violette, ed. Douglas Labaree Buffum (Paris: Champion, 1928), we find: “D’un bliaut ynde, croisillié / D’or, a merveilles bien taillié” [in an indigo bliaut with gold croisettes, marvelously fitted (in the sides)], lines 816–17. 27 Orphrey (Old French orfrois or à or batu) is cloth embroidered with gold. It typically appears in literature of this period as ornamental bands at the cuffs and hem of a courtly garment or as a belt. See E. Jane Burns’ discussion of orfrois in Sea of Silk: A Textile Geography of Women’s Work in Medieval French Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 48–51. 28 There are numerous references to lacing elsewhere in the corpus of French literature from the period. For example, in the mid-twelfth-century La Prise d’Orange, ed. Blanche Katz (New York: King’s Crown, 1947), Orable is described thus: “Ele est vestue d’un peliçon hermin, / Et par desoz d’un bliaut de samit, / Estroit a laz par le cors qui bien sist” (lines 683–85) [She was wearing an erminelined peliçon, under which she had on a bliaut of samite, tightly laced to her body]. 29 Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire, 41–44. Goddard reiterates this assertion (Costume, 47–48) as does Janet Ellen Snyder very recently in her Early Gothic Column-Figure Sculpture in France: Appearance, Materials, and Significance (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011), 37–39. 30 Harris, “Evidence,” 91. Harris also affirms that such a cut requires gores to accommodate wider parts of the body; see discussion of gores below, on pp. 75–76. Christine Frieder Waugh attests to the simple construction of the garment and discusses the fitting achieved through lacing and belting, as well, in “‘Well-Cut Through the Body’: Fitted Clothing in Twelfth-Century Europe,” Dress 26 (1999): 3–16. See also Frances Pritchard, “The Uses of Textiles, c. 1000–1500,” in The Cambridge History of Western Textiles, ed. David Jenkins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 373.

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The Bliaut in French Literary Sources Despite claims to the contrary, the bliaut does not appear with great frequency in medieval French literature. When it does appear, it typically is mentioned only twice or three times in that same text. In Chrétien de Troyes’ entire corpus, composed between 1160 and 1191, the term bliaut appears twelve times, and half of those instances occur during the elaborate scene depicting Guenevere’s elaborate restyling of Enide that we just examined.31 In other works that use clothing in unusually rich ways, the term appears infrequently despite the important narrative functions that clothing and textiles perform in those texts. Writing at the same time as Chrétien, Marie de France employs the term bliaut only three times in her Lais and never describes the garment.32 Specifically, Guigemar’s ladylove wears a laced bliaut; the lady in Yonec receives the gift of an expensive bliaut from her lover; and the demoiselles who serve Lanval’s ladylove wear tightly laced silk bliauts.33 It is worth noting that in the oft-cited passage depicting the arrival of Lanval’s fairy ladylove in King Arthur’s court, she is not wearing a bliaut at all, nor does she throughout the lai, but rather a chainse over her chemise.34 This passage has been erroneously cited as evidence to support identifying the garments portrayed on the portals of the cathedral in Chartres as bliauts, and although Marie does dress the lady’s demoiselles in laced bliauts, the lady herself never wears a bliaut.35 Béroul, in Tristan, also provides three short descriptions of the queen Yseut wearing a bliaut, these in addition to the masculine bliauts we examined above. In the first instance, Yseut appears before going to be burned at the stake:

31 In addition to the six times Chrétien mentions the queen’s gift of a bliaut to Enide, when describing the arrival of knights for a tournament, he states that Garras of Cork came with a hundred knights “vestuz de paisle, et de cendax, / mantiax et chauces et blïax” (Erec et Enide, lines 1915–16) [wearing silks and cendals, mantles, chausses, and bliauts]. In Cligés, ed. Alexandre Micha (Paris: Champion, 1982), Alexandre describes Soredamors in a love meditation, lamenting that his love wears “li bliauz et la chemise” (line 848). In Le Chevalier de la Charrete, ed. Mario Roques (Paris: Champion, 1970), Chrétien mentions that the queen is not wearing a bliaut or a cote in a titillating love scene (line 4580). He makes no mention of a bliaut in Le Chevalier au Lion, ed. Mario Roques (Paris: Champion, 1982). In Le Conte du Graal, ed. William Roach (Genève: Droz, 1959), Chrétien describes Blancheflor’s bliaut: “Ses mantiax fu et ses blïaus / D’une porpre noire, estelee / D’or, et n’estoit mie pelee / La penne qui d’ermine fu. / D’un sabelin noir et chenu, / Qui n’estoit trop lons ne trop lez, / Fu li mantiax au col orlez” (lines 1798–1804) [Her mantle and bliaut were made of black silk starred with gold, and the ermine of the lining showed no signs of wear. The mantle was trimmed at the collar with black and gray sable that was cut neither too long or too short]. In the same work, Chrétien has Kay taunt Gauvain by saying that he could defeat Perceval wearing only “un blïaut de soie” instead of armor (line 4390), and later, in the Gauvain section of the story, Chrétien mentions the fabric bliaut: “Les dameiseles de samis / Furent vestues les pluisors; / Blïaus de diverses colors / De dras de soie orent vestus / Les pluisors, toz a or batus” (lines 7248–52) [Several of the damsels were dressed in samite; others in bliauts and silks of various colors, all with orphrey accents]. 32 Marie de France, Les Lais de Marie de France, ed. Jean Rychner (Paris: Champion, 1983). 33 Ibid., Guigemar, line 738; Yonec, line 438; Lanval, line 59. 34 “Ele iert vestue en itel guise / De chainse blanc e de chemise / Que tuit li costé li pareient, / Ki de deus parz lacié esteient” (lines 559–62) [She was dressed in a white chainse and chemise; the two parts were laced so tightly that both her sides were visible]. 35 For a recent example of this erroneous attribution, see Snyder, Early Gothic, 36 and 94 n. 24.

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Monica L. Wright En un bliaut de paile bis Estoit la dame estroit vestue E d’un fil d’or menu cosue (lines 1146–48) [The lady was dressed in a tightly fitted bliaut of dark silk, stitched finely with a gold thread].

Fortunately, Tristan rescues her and spares her this fate, though afterward, they must live in exile for three years. Much later, when she is going to be reconciled with Marc, she has a hermit procure fine clothes for her. In preparation for her to go before Marc, her friend Du col li a osté la chape, Qui ert d’escarlate molt riche. Ele out vestu une tunique Desus un grant bliaut de soie. De son mantel que vos diroie? Ainz l’ermite, qui l’achata, Le riche fuer ne regreta. Riche ert la robe et gent le cors: Les eulz out vers, les cheveus sors. (lines 2880–88) [removed her rich scarlet cape from her neck. She was wearing a tunic over a great silk bliaut. What shall I say of her mantle? The hermit who bought it never regretted the cost. Rich was the outfit and comely the body: Her eyes were green and her hair golden.]

The apparent wearing of a tunic over a bliaut is a peculiar choice, for which I can propose three potential explanations. The first two possibilities are scribal errors; the lamentable condition of the single extant manuscript of Béroul’s text is well attested.36 First, it is possible that “tunique” was not the original word used in verse 2882. It is not a strong rhyme with “riche” of the previous line. I can, however, offer no other word to replace it that would make sense. If “tunique” could instead be the mantle that he later describes, it would clear the matter up, but “mantel” does not rhyme at all with “riche.” This solution would thus indicate that several other scribal errors occurred in this verse and maybe others. The second explanation I propose is that “desus” (over) in verse 2883 was simply a scribal error for the word “desos” (under). In this case, the tunic would be an underdress for the bliaut, which makes more sense. My third possibility is of a narrative nature: Because Yseut is coming out of exile, it is plausible that she would travel with her more humble and coarse garments over her new ones to show Marc her impoverished state and to elicit more sympathy from him. I am more satisfied by a narrative explanation but think a scribal error is just as likely. The third time the term appears in Béroul, Yseut is going to swear the ambiguous oath at Mal Pas:

36 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS fr. 2171.

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The Bliaut in French Literary Sources La roïne out de soie dras: Aporté furent de Baudas, Forré furent de blanc hermine. Mantel, bliaut, tot li traïne (lines 3903–6) [The queen was wearing garments of silk brought from Bagdad and trimmed in white ermine. Her mantle and bliaut both formed a train behind her].

Based on the above examples from Béroul, as well as what we saw in Chrétien’s Erec et Enide, we can make the following assertions: The women’s bliaut is usually made of silk; at least sometimes it is lined with ermine; sometimes it is tightly fitted through lacing; it sometimes has bands of orphrey at the wrists and neck; and sometimes it pools fabric at the wearer’s feet and sweeps the ground. In the last decade of the twelfth century or first decade of the thirteenth, Renaut de Beaujeu in Le Bel Inconnu uses the term only twice.37 This is surprising given that this text provides three distinct lengthy descriptions of female courtly dress, all very splendid. Even more surprising is that in those three elaborate passages, the term bliaut appears only once. Moreover, Renaut focuses more on the mantle than the bliaut, and when he does describe the bliaut, he expends more effort and ink to provide details of its ornamentation than of its form. We find the bliaut in the long passage depicting la Blonde Esmerée, the first of two female characters who will vie for the love of the protagonist. Renaut first describes her mantle: D’une vert porpre estoit vestue; Onques miudre ne fu veüe. Molt estoit riches ses mantials: Deus sebelins ot as tasials; La pene fu bone et fine Et si estoit de blanc ermine; Les ataces qui furent mises Furent faites de maintes guises, Molt par faisoient a proisier, Nes puet on ronpre ne trencier; Ensi les ovra une fee En l’Ille de la Mer Betee. (lines 3279–90) [In green silk was she dressed; no finer fabric was ever seen. The mantle was very costly: it had two sables as tassels; the lining was of white ermine, fine and good. The ties upon it were well made. They were worthy of great admiration, for they could not be broken or cut, having been made by a fairy on an island in the Dead Sea.]38

37 Renaut de Beaujeu, Le Bel Inconnu, Roman d’Aventures, ed. G. Perrie Williams (Paris: Champion, 1929). 38 Sarah-Grace Heller argues that in the literature of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, textiles and textile goods produced by fairies became a trope suggesting that the items came from far away and were made by highly skilled but unknown laborers; in this context, she asserts that such qualifiers enhance rather than diminish the realism of a description. “Obscure Lands and Obscured

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Monica L. Wright He continues by explaining that both garments are cut from the same green silk that he had just asserted was the finest ever seen: De cel drap dont li mantials fu Fu li blials qu’ele ot vestu (lines 3291–92) [The bliaut she wore was made from the same cloth as her mantle].

These two verses make clear that the mantle and the bliaut are a coordinated set, meant to go together and present a unified look. He goes on to describe the bliaut as expensive, well-made, and lined with ermine: Molt estoit ciers et bien ovrés D’un ermine fu tos forrés (lines 3293–94). [It was very expensive and well made, and it was completely lined with ermine].

After providing this small amount of information specifically about the bliaut itself, he turns his attention to its ornamentation: Plus de cinc onces d’or, sans faille Avoit entor le kieveçaille; As puins en ot plus de quatre onces. Par tot avoit asis jagonsses Et autres pieres de vertu, Qui furent deseur l’or batu. (lines 3295–3300) [More than five ounces of gold encircled the neck, and more than four ounces were around the wrists. All over, hyacinths and other stones of value had been set into the orphrey.]

The second time Renaut uses the term bliaut constitutes a mere mention of the garment, such as we saw in the Chanson de Roland. The scene depicts Blanches Mains, the fairy maiden who will compete with la Blonde Esmerée for the affection of the protagonist, briefly indicating what she is wearing: Ele avoit vestu un bliaut Ki tos estoit a or batus. Plus riches dras ne fu veüs; Ovrés estoit et bien et bel (lines 3968–71) [She had donned a bliaut that was made entirely of orphrey. A richer fabric has never been seen; it was well and beautifully fashioned].

Hands: Fairy Embroidery and the Ambiguous Vocabulary of Medieval Textile Decoration,” Medieval Clothing and Textiles 5 (2009): 15–35, at 29–35.

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The Bliaut in French Literary Sources This passage contains a less common use for the term orphrey (here, a or batu); typically, as we have seen above, the terms orfois and a or batu are understood to mean bands of fabric embroidered with gold, but as Burns attests, when applied to a whole garment as Renaut does here, “the term refers to clothing made from cloth of silk and gold.”39 Again, the focus is on the richness and rarity of the material itself, and in this last instance it is quite a fabric indeed. Blanches Mains is a fairy mistress from the Ille d’Or, or the Isle of Gold, and such sartorial extravagance would certainly be within her means and fit her character well. Renaut produces fine and detailed descriptions of clothing, but he has not added much new information about the bliaut in the context of our study. In his early-thirteenth-century Guillaume de Dole, in which textiles play a crucial narrative role and which is replete with sartorial imagery, Jean Renart names the bliaut a mere three times.40 These are all brief mentions of the garment. The first depicts Lienor qui la trace ot sore et blonde sor le blanc bliaut (lines 1201–2) [whose hair was fair and blond on her white bliaut].

The second reference appears in a scene recounting the arrival of the emperor; his three shield-bearers … ert chascuns en un bliaut toz deffublez em pur le cors (lines 2486–87) [each wore a bliaut without a mantle].

Line 2487, which literally translates as “without an over-garment” (toz deffublez) with an idiomatic expression that means “with nothing (else) on the body” (em pur le cors, literally “with only the body”), insists and emphasizes that the men wore no mantle and helps to indicate how strange it is to find a bliaut without an accompanying mantle. In the third instance, Aigline, the love of the count, arrives at a dance si ot vestu un bliaut de cendel qui granz .ii. aunes traïnoit par les prez (lines 5205–6) [and was wearing a bliaut of cendal the train of which trails two ells behind her on the field].

39 Burns, Sea of Silk, 48. It is not clear from this passage if the textile was woven (cloth of gold) or embroidered with gold-wrapped thread. This latter possibility occurs, as Burns notes, later in the thirteenth century in Le Roman de la Rose: “La porpre fu toute orfroisie” [the porpre was completely embroidered with gold]; Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, Le Roman de la Rose, ed. Félix Lecoy, 3 vols. (Paris: Champion, 1965–66, 1970), line 1055. For a discussion of cloth of gold, see Lisa Monnas, “Cloth of Gold,” in Encyclopedia of Medieval Dress and Textiles of the British Isles c. 450– 1450, ed. Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Elizabeth Coatsworth, and Maria Hayward (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 132–33. 40 Jean Renart, Le Roman de la Rose ou de Guillaume de Dole, ed. Félix Lecoy (Paris: Champion, 1966).

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Monica L. Wright In this last reference, we can see that the train of a bliaut may be very long, but we otherwise have no additional information about the garment’s features. In works by authors such as Chrétien de Troyes, Renaut de Beaujeu, and Jean Renart, one might expect many more references to the bliaut than we actually have in light of how important vestimentary imagery is to these authors in particular. In fact, the frequency in which we find the term bliaut is usually limited to two or three instances per work, and when it does appear in Old French texts, it is often alongside the terms cote, surcot, and chainse. Moreover, the bliaut is far from being the most prevalent garment evoked in descriptions of noble courtly attire. That distinction belongs to the mantle, which consistently receives the most attention of any garment in the corpus of Old French literature from the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Indeed, some of the most fascinating scenes that employ vestimentary imagery involve the mantle but not the bliaut, such as Blanches Mains’ elaborately described seduction of Guinglain in Le Bel Inconnu, during which she daringly wears a mantle covering only a chemise (lines 2395–2414).41 The longest description of a single garment occurs at the conclusion of Chrétien’s Erec et Enide when Erec is crowned king. Chrétien dedicates seventy-seven lines to his fabulous coronation mantle made of silk and embroidered by fairies to depict the four liberal arts of the quadrivium (lines 6671–6747). Time and again, the mantle occupies pride of place in these elaborate and elegant descriptions, and it is sometimes paired with garments other than the bliaut. For readers of English, it is unfortunate that in translations of medieval French literature mantel is often misleadingly rendered as “cloak.” This fact has perhaps contributed to both a misunderstanding of the social function and implications of the mantle—to denote high nobility or royalty—as well as a diminished sense of the garment’s prominence in such literary descriptions. I suspect that the ermine lining so common in literary mantles has led translators to treat it as a garment used for warmth, but as Sarah-Grace Heller has demonstrated, ermine has a thin, fine pile that adds little weight and bulk to the garment it lines.42 It provides instead a silky and soft lining that maintains a garment’s flexibility and was therefore ideal for a ceremonial garment to be worn at any time of year. Returning to what the literary evidence allows us to assert about the bliaut, it is clear that it was a garment, worn by men and women, as well as a fabric. When it appears as a fabric, it occurs alongside other fabrics, all of which are some sort of silk, including dras de soie, paile, samite, siglaton, and cendal. It is safe to say that bliaut the fabric was a type of silk as well. When a dress, whether masculine or feminine attire, it is almost always made of some sort of silk: soie, paile, samite, or porpre, for example. There are two instances in the chansons de geste when masculine bliauts are made of 41 I discuss this scene further in Weaving Narrative, 50–53. Chrétien de Troyes provides a similar scene, which may have been the inspiration for Renaut’s scene, in his Chevalier de la Charrete, lines 4578– 82, and which I discuss in Monica L. Wright, “What Was Arthur Wearing? Discrepancies in Dress Descriptions in Twelfth-Century French Romance,” Philological Quarterly 81, no. 3 (2002): 275–88, at 280–81. 42 Sarah-Grace Heller, “Troubadours Pursuing Fur,” paper presented at the 15th Congress of the International Courtly Literature Society, Lexington, KY, July 24–29, 2016.

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The Bliaut in French Literary Sources other fabrics, but in one case, it is also a fine fabric—chainsel (fine linen)—and the knights are in a vicious battle,43 and the other scene depicts knights doing penance wearing bliauts of coton (cotton).44 We regularly see the bliaut described as entaillé (fitted) or lacié (laced), and there are several descriptions of it as gironé (gored). Two passages from La Mort Ayméri de Narbonne, dating from the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, contain the adjective gironé.45 The first depicts a scene of the disarming and undressing of a knight: Il li deslacent la vert elme jemé Et li desceignent lo bon branc aceré, Del dos li traient lo blanc auberc safré, Et lo bliaut de peile gironé: Tot remest nuz jusqu’as braies oster. (lines 1971–75) [They unlaced his green jeweled helmet and ungirded his good steel sword; they removed his white hauberk with orphrey as well as his silk gored bliaut; he was then naked as they removed his braies.]

The second passage shows a knight hatching a plan to disguise himself and his companions in ladies’ clothing. He says: “Totes ces dames ferons desconreer, Lor garnemenz noc convient enprunter, Bliauz et pailes et chainses gironez Que vestirons sor les aubers safrez; De chieres guinples de soie d’otre mer, Estroitement ferons nos chiés bender Que ne reluisent li vert elme jemé … ” (lines 2384–90) [“We will have these ladies take off and loan us the clothing we need: bliauts, silks, and gored chainses. We will put them on over our orphreyed hauberks, and we will put on expensive wimples of Eastern silk that we will fasten tightly to our heads so that our green jeweled helmets do not shine through.”]

The adjective gironé used in passages such as these has led some scholars to assume a separate skirt with a seam at the waist,46 but I am convinced that this assumption is incorrect, primarily because the term gironé derives from the Old High German gêro, meaning a triangular-shaped portion.47 It is etymologically related to the English term 43 Many “bliaut de chainsil” (m. pl. in oblique case) were being destroyed and cut (lines 1967–69); Les Enfances Guillaume: Chanson de Geste du XIIIe Siècle, ed. J. L. Perrier (New York: Columbia University Press, 1933). This work dates to the very end of the twelfth century. 44 “Bliaus ont de coton porfendus lez les cors” (line 2326) [They wore cotton bliauts split down the body (torso)], in the early-thirteenth-century Aye d’Avignon, Chanson de Geste Anonyme, ed. Sam J. Borg (Geneva: Droz, 1967). 45 Couraye du Parc, La Mort Ayméri. 46 Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire, 41–44; Goddard, Costume, 47–48 and 57. 47 Walther von Wartburg, Dictionnaire Étymologique de la Langue Française (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1968), s.v. “giron.” The Old High German gêro itself derives from the term for a spearhead, thus from its triangular shape.

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Monica L. Wright “gore,” and its meaning was carried forward into modern French intact as a triangular piece of fabric.48 Harris affirms that below the waist of the simple twelfth-century garment “[t]he fullness in the skirt was provided for by gores, triangular pieces of cloth which could be inserted at the centre front and back and at each side, depending on the degree of fullness required.”49 The term gironé used in conjunction with the bliaut, as well as other garments of the period, refers to this addition of volume through gores.50 These gores used in combination with lacing through the torso, the bliaut lacié, would provide the fitted silhouette that is attested by the term bliaut entaillé. Ultimately, there is but one bliaut, for the descriptors entaillé, lacié, and gironé focus our attention on either the silhouette (entaillé) or one of the two necessary means (lacié and gironé) used to obtain that silhouette. The use of one term over another might well be a stylistic choice for the writer in question. There remain, however, a number of uncertainties about the bliaut. It is unclear where the term originates.51 Its etymology is unknown, though there is speculation that the word began as a fabric term and was then generalized to mean a garment.52 We also cannot know what it looked like exactly, since textual descriptions of the garment focus on ornamentation: fur lining, orphrey at the cuffs and collar, the train, the belt, etc. The only structural indication we have in the literature is the lacing that gives it a fitted silhouette, but in Chrétien’s portrayal of Enide putting on the bliaut she received from the queen, there is no indication that it was more than a single piece. We most certainly cannot assert that it was the only court dress. We have many examples in the literature of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries depicting other garments worn by important characters in the romances: the cote, the surcot, and the chainse. In at least two notable instances beautiful noblewomen show up in court wearing a chainse. The first case is Enide, and obviously her chainse is inappropriate.53 But we cannot definitively state that it was inappropriate because it is a chainse, because the unworthiness is more plausibly due to the fact that it is old and tattered, with holes in the elbows. Lanval’s lady, who is a fairy, comes to Arthur’s court in a beautiful white 48 Oxford English Dictionary, online ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000–), http://www.oed. com, s.v. “gore”; Le Nouveau Petit Robert de la Langue Française (Paris: Dictionnaires Le Robert, 2008), s.v. “giron.” 49 Harris, “Evidence,” 91. 50 There are extant garments with gores that date from this period. For a thirteenth-century French example with detailed information concerning construction along with images, see Tina Anderlini, “The Shirt Attributed to St. Louis,” Medieval Clothing and Textiles 11 (2015): 49–78. The gored blue silk dalmatic with gold ornament now among the regalia of the Holy Roman Empire in Vienna is a garment of comparable splendor to a bliaut. The dalmatic dates to the first half of the twelfth century and was made in Palermo, Sicily; an image is available at the website of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, at https://www.khm.at/objektdb/detail/100470. 51 Gardner (“A Note,” 63) enumerates three separate etymological dictionaries from the twentieth century that give the origin as unknown, and I will add to that list Wartburg, Dictionnaire Étymologique (1968), s.v. “bliaud.” 52 Goddard, Costume, 46–47. Viollet-le-Duc (Dictionnaire, 39) fails to address etymology at all but asserts, with no supporting evidence, that the garment itself originated in Asia. 53 The description of her attire appears in lines 403–10 (see note 23, above); she arrives in Arthur’s court thus dressed in lines 1511–66.

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The Bliaut in French Literary Sources chainse and dazzles the entire court, proving herself more beautiful than the queen.54 If the chainse were truly a lesser dress by definition, it would be implausible for her to arrive in court dressed in this manner and easily win everyone’s admiration. In any case, most often when authors wish to convey the sumptuousness of a character’s attire, they simply name the opulent fabric without the name of the garment. Even for our two chainses above, the choice of fabric is silk. The emphasis is firmly placed on the material splendor—the gold and precious stones used in the ornamentation, the costliness, the faraway or mystical origins of the fabric—and the overall luxuriousness of the outfit. The term for the dress itself seems far less important to the authors than the materials used to make it. Ultimately, the most damning evidence against the Chartres statuary argument is also the most basic. Viollet-le-Duc, in attempting to match up the statues to descriptions in literature, claimed that the form of the bliaut was fixed around 113055 and that it consisted of a bodice (corselet) and separate skirt, with a panel around the waist made of some sort of knitted fabric (tricot) to account for how the fabric on the figures is depicted in elaborate pleating.56 However, the bliaut never once appears in the literature as pleated. In fact, the only outer garment to be described as ridé (pleated) is the chainse,57 and there are only four, possibly five, instances of un chainse ridé.58 Moreover, many times in the literature of the period bliauts are specifically presented as being constructed of sumptuous, rich, and heavy fabric. The bliaut that Enide receives from the queen has a croisette pattern all over (lines 1570–72); this pattern may be woven into it or embroidered upon it. Blancheflor, Perceval’s ladylove in Le Conte du Graal, wore a bliaut and mantle made in black silk and embellished with

54 Her attire is described in lines 559–62, and once she arrives at Arthur’s court, the fairy lady assures that all may see her magnificence: “Son mantel ad laissié cheeir, / Que mieuz la peüssent veeir” (lines 605–6) [She let her mantle fall so that all could see her]. 55 He fixed this date presumably based on dating of the earliest pleated statuary and not on the term’s appearance in the literature. 56 Viollet-le-Duc, Dictionnaire, 41–44. Hilary Davidson proposes that the horizontal pleats in the torso, which Viollet-le-Duc attempted to explain with knitting, were actually the result of ruching. For this to be the case, she argues that the dress’s side would have “fabric cut deliberately overlong in the torso”; Davidson, “Bliaut,” in Owen-Crocker, Coatsworth, and Hayward, Encyclopedia, 74–75. Davidson’s argument is perhaps useful for understanding the attire depicted on the statue, but the textual evidence for the bliaut does not specifically support it. 57 There are instances where the chemise is described as ridée, but the chemise is not an outer garment. See Chrétien’s Le Chevalier au Lion, line 5414, in addition to Enide’s chemise when Erec first encounters her in Erec et Enide (lines 403–4); see note 23, above. 58 In Guillaume de Dole: “en chainses ridez” (line 197); in Partonopeu de Blois: A French Romance of the Twelfth Century, ed. Joseph Gildea (Villanova, PA: Villanova University Press, 1967): “blans chainsis ridés” (line 8035); in Le Roman des Sept Sages de Rome, ed. Mary B. Speer (Lexington, KY: French Forum, 1989): “La dame ot .i. cainse vestu, / nouviel lavé et ridés fu” (lines 2631–32) [The lady had donned a freshly washed and pleated chainse]; and in Richeut, ed. Philippe Vernay (Bern: Francke, 1988): “O prist ele si bon mantel, / Et cel chainse ridé novel / Qui si träine?” (lines 477–79) [Where did she get such a nice mantle and that new pleated chainse trailing behind her?]. The potential fifth reference is in Erec et Enide, where it is not completely clear if the chainse is pleated, but certainly the chemise is (lines 402–8); see note 23, above.

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Monica L. Wright stars of gold.59 In this case, the embroidery would certainly have been produced with gold-wrapped thread. The lady Orable in La Prise d’Orange wears a bliaut made of samite,60 as does the Saracen lady in Le Roman d’Aquin.61 Samite, though not always embroidered, was usually produced in a heavy weight, and its weight made it a highly suitable ground for embroidery.62 In Le Roman d’Énéas from the mid-twelfth century, Camile is dressed “de fin blialt de balcasin” [in a fine bliaut (blialt) of baudequin].63 These kinds of heavy or heavily embroidered fabrics would seem to preclude fine, tight pleating; their prevalence in the descriptions of bliauts gives us more reason to be skeptical of Viollet-le-Duc’s identification.64 Viollet-le-Duc also drastically inflated the importance of the bliaut to the detriment of other dress vocabulary found in the literature; he provided no entries for the competing terms chainse, cote, or tunique, all of which appear in variation with the bliaut in the literary sources. He simply ignored these other words. In conflating so many lexical items into a single, privileged term, he managed to focus scholarly attention unfairly on that individual term. Moreover, he illustrated his discussion of the bliaut with line drawings of a bewildering array of garments with remarkably different constructions, all decontextualized and without any reference to the time periods the sources depicted. He assumed that sculptors in the twelfth century would depict figures from the Old Testament in contemporary fashion. He might not have been incorrect—the chansons de geste certainly depict their own fashions while recounting events that happened several centuries earlier—but he refused to acknowledge that 59 “Ses mantiax fu et ses blïaus / D’une porpre noire, estelee / D’or … ”; Conte du Graal, lines 1798–1800. 60 “bliaut de samit”; see note 28, above. 61 “ung blïaut de samis”; Le Roman d’Aquin ou la Conqueste de la Bretaigne par le Roy Charlemaigne: Chanson de Geste du XIIe Siècle, ed. Frédéric Joüon des Longrais (Nantes, France: Société des Bibliophiles Bretons, 1880), line 313. Both this work and La Prise d’Orange date to the mid-twelfth century. 62 See the entry for “samite” in the University of Manchester Lexis of Cloth and Clothing Project database, http://lexissearch.arts.manchester.ac.uk. 63 Énéas: Roman de XIIe Siècle, ed. J.-J. Salverda de Grave (Paris: Champion, 1929), line 7639. Baudequin, of which balcasin is a variant, is a textile of mixed silk and golden thread, which could be embroidered or brocaded, originally from Baghdad; see Herbert Schendl and Laura Wright, “CodeSwitching in Early English: Historical Background and Methodological and Theoretical Issues” in Code-Switching in Early English, ed. Schendl and Wright (Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton, 2011), 15–46, at 31. Énéas is a roman d’antiquité recounting a story dating to classical antiquity; as we saw in the chansons de geste, though, the fashion and mores presented in these romans d’antiquité conform to those not of antiquity but of their contemporary society. 64 It is worth noting that what Viollet-le-Duc interprets as pleats might well be an artistic convention to designate the draping of fabric over the body. A certain amount of fullness is necessary in the skirts to allow movement, and to achieve a fitted bodice with the straight cuts used to construct garments, lacing is required. If we look at the garments worn by shepherds, also on the Royal Portal of Chartres, we see the fabric of the torso of their garments gathering in horizontal drapes above the belt and falling into vertical folds below the waist. Under no circumstances could shepherds’ attire be considered bliauts, yet the sculptors used very similar conventions to portray the dress of the lowly shepherds and the royal figures. For an image of the shepherds, see François Boucher, 20,000 Years of Fashion: The History of Costume and Personal Adornment (New York: Harry Abrams, 1967), 181, plate 325.

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The Bliaut in French Literary Sources artistic representation is not necessarily neutral documentation. Most problematically, he seemed not to notice, or more gravely not to care, that the bliaut is never pleated in the literary sources, and for nearly a century and a half, scholars looking at clothing from this period have repeated his identification of the bliaut with the style seen in the Chartres statues. Unfortunately, the evidence does not support this claim. Examining the literary evidence, we find many qualities we can associate with the term bliaut as a garment for court; however, we need to grapple with the fact that most of these qualities are not exclusive to the bliaut. We can say with certainty that it is made of fine fabric, almost always some sort of silk, but so are most garments in this literature. It is long, sometimes pooling around the feet of the wearer and forming a train, but so are chainses and cotes. It is laced, often tightly fitted, but so are the chainse and the cote. It is sometimes but not always fur-lined, but robes, pailes, cotes, and surcots are also often fur-lined. It is worn with a mantle, but so are chainses, cotes, and surcots. It is sometimes belted, but so is the cote. It is embellished with precious decoration, often orphrey, at the collar and cuffs, but this is also true for the surcot. If we look at the evidence and ignore the assertions made by Viollet-le-Duc and those who repeated his identification, we would need much more information to make reliable claims about the bliaut’s appearance. One thing seems clear, though: Based on the literary evidence, the statues at Chartres are not, in fact, wearing bliauts.

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Eyebrows, Hairlines, and “Hairs Less in Sight”: Female Depilation in Late Medieval Europe John Block Friedman

Late medieval and early modern art often depicts aristocratic women with arched plucked eyebrows, and foreheads with strikingly high manipulated hairlines. And when nudes appear, they frequently have no pubic or underarm hair. The artists’ evident concern to show these forms of hair removal reveals the influence of a powerful discourse at work about male-directed and -controlled canons of beauty.1 Variations in what is considered “fashionable” in clothing and appearance have, of course, existed at least since the late fourteenth century. But in this case, the evidence suggests that by the end of the Middle Ages, misogynistic scientific writing had made female body hair a psychic and physical danger to men, and for the woman, even a locus of anxiety about marriage prospects and fertility. With motivations thus ranging from simple vanity to fear of marital rejection, medieval women engaged in a variety of practices revealed by a surprisingly well-documented body of materials, methods, and practitioners to help them achieve their goals. Cosmetic manuals, beginning with the ensemble of Latin texts known as Trotula2 in the late twelfth century and remaining popular through the sixteenth, offered

I am grateful to Linde Brocato, Farrell Brody, Carmen Caballero-Navas, Montserrat Cabré, Luke Demaitre, Kristen Figg, Penny Jolly, Lisa Kiser, Jacqueline Leclercq-Marx, Sherry C. M. Lindquist, Roberta Milliken, Melanie Schuessler-Bond, Claudio da Soller, Tessa Storey, Michael Twomey, and Karen A. Winstead for advice and information in the preparation of this article. All translations are my own, except as noted. I also wish to thank the staff of the Thompson Library, The Ohio State University, for finding me reference materials.    1 On standard ideas of medieval beauty, see Derek S. Brewer, “Class Distinction in Chaucer,” Speculum 43, no. 2 (1968): 290–305, esp. 294, and the same author’s “The Ideal of Feminine Beauty in Medieval Literature, Especially ‘Harley Lyrics,’ Chaucer and Some Elizabethans,” Modern Language Review 50 (1955): 257–69. See also Alice Colby [Hall], The Portrait in Twelfth-Century French Literature: An Example of the Stylistic Originality of Chrétien de Troyes (Geneva: Droz, 1965), 30–69. Most recently, see Claudio da Soller, “The Beautiful Woman in Medieval Iberia: Rhetoric, Cosmetics, and Evolution” (Ph.D. diss., University of Missouri at Columbia, 2005), 99.    2 Trotula was the name given to three texts on women’s medicine and cosmetics composed in Salerno in the later twelfth century. It is possible that an actual female physician, Trota, may have had a hand

John Block Friedman instructions for reducing or removing hair on the face and even the genitalia (armpit hair seemed silently included in these recipes). These precepts seem to lie behind the medieval ideal of female hairlessness—a beauty and hygiene canon that apparently had widespread acceptance and internalization by both aristocratic women and those who wished, cosmetically at least, to appear like them. Such treatments of depilation offer not only a fascinating glimpse into cosmetic practices but also alert us to the existence of a class of professional depilators who traveled to homes, bathhouses, and courts to practice their craft. Though medieval writing about female cosmetics has been examined by Monica Green, Claudio da Soller, and Montserrat Cabré, among others, and the female body has been recently treated in such works of art history as Sherry C. M. Lindquist’s collection The Meanings of Nudity in Medieval Art, the topic of female depilation has not had close attention from cosmetic and fashion historians.3 This is surprising, since instructions for depilation, next to whitening the skin, are the most frequent recipes in the cosmetic manuals, which were almost all written by men though addressed to women, sometimes of high or royal social status.4 in the composition of one of these treatises, but in the Middle Ages all three were believed to have been composed by “Trotula.” The standard edition and discussion is that of Monica H. Green, ed. and trans., The Trotula: A Medieval Compendium of Women’s Medicine (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001).    3 The most important study is Penny H. Jolly, “Pubics and Privates: Body Hair in Late Medieval Art,” in The Meanings of Nudity in Medieval Art, ed. Sherry C. M. Lindquist (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2012), 183–206, esp. 190–93. See also Anne Hollander, Seeing Through Clothes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 136–48, and Karin Lesnick-Oberstein, ed., The Last Taboo: Women and Body Hair (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2006). On later medieval female beauty and body care, see generally Geneviève Dumas, “Le Soin des Cheveux et des Poils: Quelques Pratiques Cosmétiques (XIIIe–XVIe siècles),” in La Chevelure dans la Littérature et l’Art du Moyen Âge, ed. Chantal Connochie-Bourgne, Senefiance 50 (Aix-en-Provence, France: Presses Universitaires de Provence, 2004), 129–42; Anne-Laure Lallouette, “Bains et Soins du Corps dans les Textes Médicaux (XIIe– XIVe siècles),” in Laver, Monder, Blanchir: Discours et Usages de la Toilette dans l’Occident Médiéval, ed. Sophie Albert (Paris: Presses de l’Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2006), 33–49; Jean-Louis Flandrin, “Soins de Beauté et Recueils de Secrets,” Paulino Iradiel, “Cuidar el Cuerpo, Cuidar la Imagen: Los Paradigmas de la Belleza Femenina en la Valencia Bajomedieval,” and José Sánchez Herrero, “Los Cuidados de la Belleza Corporal Femenina en los Confesionales y Tratados de Doctrina Cristiana de los Siglos XIII al XVI,” all in Les Soins de Beauté: Moyen Age, Début des Temps Modernes: Actes du IIIe Colloque International, Grasse (26–28 Avril 1985), ed. Denis Menjot (Nice: Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Université de Nice, 1987), 13–29, 61–86, 275–96 respectively; Laurence Moulinier-Brogi, “Esthétique et Soins du Corps dans les Traités Médicaux Latins à la Fin du Moyen Âge,” Médiévales 46 (2004): 55–72; Carmen Caballero-Navas, “The Care of Women’s Health and Beauty: An Experience Shared by Medieval Jewish and Christian Women,” Journal of Medieval History 34 (2008): 146–63. For a brief but excellent overview of cosmetics, see Montserrat Cabré, “Cosmetics,” in Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia, ed. Margaret C. Schaus (New York: Routledge, 2006), 173–74, as well as her “Keeping Beauty Secrets in Early Modern Iberia,” in Secrets and Knowledge in Medicine and Science, 1500–1800, ed. Elaine Leong and Alisha Rankin (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2011), 167–90.    4 See, for example, Teresa-Maria Vinyoles, Josefina Roma, and Oriol Comas, eds. and trans., Flores del Tesoro de la Belleza: Tratado de Muchas Medicinas o Curiosidades de las Mujeres: Manuscrito no. 68 de la Bib. Un. de Barcelona Folios 151–171 (Palma de Mallorca, Spain: Olañeta, 2001), where the Prologue addresses “muy honorables señores,” 29; and the fourteenth-century Catalan beauty manual

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Fig. 4.1: Court of Love, showing women with raised hairlines and plucked eyebrows. Poems of Charles d’Orléans, ca. 1483 (London, British Library, MS Royal 16.F.II, 1r). Photo: British Library Board.

Once one is aware of this pattern of hair manipulation, it is not difficult to find representative examples in late medieval manuscript miniatures and early modern painting. For example, a miniature from a luxurious manuscript of the poems of Charles d’Orléans, ca. 1483, painted by a Dutch artist working in London, depicts Lady Plaisance (wearing ermine) at a Court of Love (fig. 4.1). Two women in her retinue show the same cosmetic hair treatment (fig. 4.2).5

Trotula by a Master Joan is addressed to a queen “flor de Arago,” cited in Montserrat Cabré, “From a Master to a Laywoman: A Feminine Manual of Self-Help,” Dynamis 20 (2000): 371–93, esp. 375.    5 London, British Library, MS Royal 16 F.II, 1r. See on this manuscript Janet Backhouse, “Charles of Orléans Illuminated,” in Charles d’Orléans in England (1415–1440), ed. Mary-Jo Arn (Cambridge, UK: Brewer, 2000), 157–63, esp. 157–59; Kathleen L. Scott, Tradition and Innovation in Later Medieval English Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2007), 163 n. 223; and Thomas Kren and Scot McKendrick, Illuminating the Renaissance: The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003), no. 119, pp. 394, 398–400, 403.

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Fig. 4.2: Detail of figure 4.1.

The second of our miniatures (fig. 4.3) shows the bathing Bathsheba in a Book of Hours made in 1498–99 for King Louis XII of France by the preeminent French manuscript painter Jean Bourdichon (1457–1521).6 Bathsheba’s hair and eyebrow treatment is similar to that on the ladies at the Court of Love, here pushed back in time to characterize a Biblical beauty, while an enlargement of the figure (fig. 4.4) reveals

  6 On the Hours of Louis XII, now broken up, see Thomas Kren, “Looking at Louis XII’s Bathsheba,” in A Masterpiece Reconstructed: The Hours of Louis XII, ed. Thomas Kren and Mark Evans (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005), 43–61. The Bathsheba miniature is found at Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, MS 79 (detached leaf).

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Fig. 4.3: Bathsheba bathing. Hours of Louis XII, Jean Bourdichon, 1498–99 (Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, MS 79, detached leaf, recto). Photo: Courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Museum.

how carefully the artist has depicted Bathsheba’s bare genitalia.7 Bourdichon has also rendered Bathsheba’s armpits hairless.8    7 Martha Easton, “Uncovering the Meanings of Nudity in the Belles Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry,” in Lindquist, Meanings of Nudity, 149–81, esp. at 167; Monica Ann Walker-Vadillo, Bathsheba in Late Medieval French Manuscript Illumination: Innocent Object of Desire or Agent of Sin? (Lewiston, NY: Mellen, 2008); and Kren, “Looking at Louis XII’s Bathsheba,” 49–50.    8 Apparently, King Louis XII was very partial to such hairless nudes, as there were at least two others, one of Bathsheba and one of Eve, in books associated with him when he was Duke of Orléans. See the Hours of Louis of Orléans, now in St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia, MS lat. Q.v.I.126, fol.

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Fig. 4.4: Detail of figure 4.3.

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Depilation in Late Medieval Europe This hairline and eyebrow (and presumably body hair) treatment continued in fashion through the 1530s and beyond, as the Lyonnais artist Jean Perréal’s portrait of an unknown young woman indicates (fig. 4.5).9 Perréal has carefully focused the light source on her bulging forehead and high hairline, wishing to show her at the height of fashion. The face here is less idealized than Bathsheba’s, and the subject could have been someone known to the artist.10 A considerable amount of labor by the “artisans of the body” (to use Sandra Cavallo’s term)11 would have been necessary to produce and maintain the high and wide foreheads and the arched eyebrows of the women in the pictures shown, with resulting expense and extreme physical discomfort to the subject. Christa Grössinger, in mentioning the look of these women, speaks of “shaven foreheads,” identifying one of the several cosmetic methods used to achieve this hairline.12 Harsher chemical means were employed as well; these sometimes had unintended consequences. For example, the Catalan physician Arnold of Villanova (1240–1311) gives several recipes for helping women who suffered the aftereffects of chemical depilation: “If, because of the strength of the depilatory, the lady’s face was peeled, burned, roughened, or blistered, she should wash it with a mixture of rooster blood, honey, and camphor.”13 As we shall see, written evidence suggests that the extreme hairlines shown in works of art such as the ones just cited represented actual and widespread cosmetic practice on the part of women of means.14 In addition to the cosmetic recipe collections, particularly Trotula and its expansion by Arnold of Villanova, the sources I have consulted for this study include scholastic medical texts, notably the Chirurgie (1306) of the French physician for King Philip the Fair of France, Henri de Mondeville (1260–1316), and the Secrets of Women of Pseudo-Albertus Magnus, as well as works by social satirists and moralists. By putting this discourse in play with late medieval visual depictions of ideal aristocratic female beauty in which head and pubic hair have

58, discussed and published by Kren, “Looking at Louis XII’s Bathsheba,” 49–51, fig. 2.7, who gives recent bibliography. See also Brigitte Buettner for a view of the late medieval female nude’s development in “Dressing and Undressing Bodies in Late Medieval Images,” in Künstlerischer Austausch / Artistic Exchange: Proceedings of the 28th International Congress of the History of Art, ed. Thomas Gaehtgens (Berlin: Akademie, 1993), 383–92.    9 Paris, Musée du Louvre, no. R. F. 1993–20.  10 On this artist, see Elizabeth Burin, Manuscript Illumination in Lyons, 1473–1530 (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2001), chap. 3, passim.  11 Sandra Cavallo, Artisans of the Body in Early Modern Italy: Identities, Families and Masculinities (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007), 1.  12 Christa Grössinger, Picturing Women in Late Medieval and Renaissance Art (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), 60.  13 I use here the edition of Arnold’s treatise by Montserrat Cabré i Pairet, “La Cura del Cos Femení i la Medicina Medieval de Tradició Llatina: Els Tractas ‘De Ornatu’ i ‘De decorationibus mulierum’ Atribuïts a Arnau de Vilanova, ‘Tròtula’ de Mestre Joan, i ‘Flors del tresor de beutat,’ Atribuït a Manuel Díeç de Calatayud” (Ph.D. diss., University of Barcelona, 1996), 202.  14 Jolly (“Pubics and Privates,” 190) notes that “not only were real women’s foreheads and eyebrows plucked, shaved, or stripped by applying fabric covered in pitch, but evidence exists that at least upper class women practiced pubic depilation.”

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Fig. 4.5: Portrait of an Unknown Woman, Jean Perréal, ca. 1530 (Paris, Musée du Louvre, no. R. F. 1993-20). Photo: Stéphane Maréchalle. © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY.

been manipulated, I hope to offer some historically grounded conclusions about the motives for and practice of late medieval female depilation. 88

Depilation in Late Medieval Europe HAIR AND SOCIAL STATUS

These hair fashions call attention to a continuing and complex association of cosmetic practice and social class across a wide social spectrum. It has long been known that male hair length and social status were closely linked in the late Middle Ages. Since the period of the Merovingian reges criniti, long hair on men was nominally an aristocratic privilege, though not one always exercised. Generally in the late medieval and early modern periods, longer hair on men, at least to the ears and often longer, was associated not so much with kings15 but more with courtiers or would-be courtiers, while hair shaven above the ears marked the rustic. In medieval Europe a person’s social rank was determined by birth and regulated by sumptuary laws16 legislating how people should dress with regard to color, cut, fabric, ornament, hairstyle, and the like, so that someone’s social status could be immediately determined at a distance, and that person not be confused with another of higher or lower status. Accordingly, such class distinctions were so intrinsic to social order that moralists regarded “up-classing” by hair length (and other accepted visual social identifiers) as transgressing the natural order, attacking the very fabric of society. In this regard, servile men were to have short hair through heredity, as with legislation promulgated in Bavaria in 1244 stating that “peasants and their sons should cut

 15 See J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Long-Haired Kings (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1962); Jean Hoyoux, “Reges Criniti: Chevelures, Tonsures et Scalps chez les Merovingiens,” Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 26 (1948): 479–508. See generally Robert Bartlett, “Symbolic Meanings of Hair in the Middle Ages,” The Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., no. 4 (1994): 43–60; John Block Friedman, “Hair and Social Class,” in A Cultural History of Hair in the Middle Ages, ed. Roberta Milliken (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), at press.  16 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 Clare 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 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.

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John Block Friedman their hair to the ears” (my emphasis).17 And apprentices in fifteenth-century London were routinely shorn. A condition for admission to the Mercer’s Guild notes that the apprentice should have class-appropriate dress and hair length and not go about like a gallant.18 Thus, for men, longer hair symbolized higher status, and poets like the Middle High German Neidhart (ca. 1240s)19 and Geoffrey Chaucer wrote satirically of those who favored long hair but transgressed their hereditary class status in doing so.20 Female hair—or more precisely its manipulation or removal—also was apparently associated with social status. While female hair on the head remained long according to St. Paul’s precept (1 Cor. 11:14) that it is a woman’s glory, the reduction of hair on the face and body, as we saw in the pictures just mentioned, marked a similar real or pretended elevation in status. The association of facial hair and social class was made clear in 1306 when Henri de Mondeville, in a sort of prologue to his detailed treatment of female facial and genital depilation, observed that only upper-class women would be interested in (and presumably capable of) purchasing such services: “It is necessary to point out that some ugly blemishes which are lucratively curable can appear on the faces of rich and noble citizens but with which farmers and peasants do not concern themselves much. There are six kinds of such ugly blemishes of which the fifth is hair against nature.”21 Thus, though certainly many factors—social, cultural, and technological—lie in the background of this or any other style in clothing or cosmetic appearance, the link between hair reduction and a perceived elevation in social class should not be discounted. As will become apparent throughout the examples that follow, the distribution of hair on a woman’s body had, by the late Middle Ages, become an important factor in the perception of female social status, not to mention physical perfection (or lack thereof) and even moral value. In turn, extreme hair reduction could be said to be a fashion precipitated by a desire to appear “like” women of a higher social class and to share in their seeming benefits.

 17 See Constitutiones et Acta Publica Imperatorem et Regum 2, ed. Ludwig Weiland, Monumenta Germaniae Historica (Hanover, Germany: Hahn, 1896), Appendix III, no. 427 (Pax Bavarica), 577, no. 71.  18 The passage on apprentices is quoted in Sylvia Thrupp, The Merchant Class of Medieval London 1300– 1500 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1962), 150.  19 Certain of Neidhart’s Winter Songs satirize over-fashionable upstart wealthy peasants. For example, in Winter Song 24, he says, “Listen to how these rustics are dressed. Their clothes are above their place … They wear their hair long—a privilege of good birth …” Neidhart von Reuental, Die Lieder Neidharts, ed. Edmund Wiessner (Tübingen, Germany: Niemeyer, 1984), 121, st. 4.  20 Chaucer uses hair length as an identifier of male social class in the Canterbury Tales, with the aristocratic Squire (in the General Prologue) and Arcite (in the Knight’s Tale) having longer hair and the Miller, Reeve, and Yeoman (in the General Prologue) having short hair.  21 Edouard Nicaise, ed. and trans., La Chirurgie de Maître Henri de Mondeville, Chirurgien de Philippe le Bel, Roi de France: Composée de 1306 à 1320 (Paris: F. Alcan, 1893), 582. On Henri de Mondeville, see Marie-Christine Pouchelle, The Body and Surgery in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 1990) for accounts of earlier scholarship.

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Depilation in Late Medieval Europe ESTABLISHMENT OF THE HAIRLESS BEAUTY IDEAL

There is no difficulty in tracing the historical practice of depilation in ancient art and literature. Indeed, as the classicist David Bain notes, “depilation of the pubic region was part of the toilet of any Greek woman who had pretention to smartness or glamour.”22 Domestic scenes of women plucking or singeing their pubic hair appear as early as the sixth century BC,23 and married women in Aristophanes’s comedies wittily remark on the practice.24 Amy Richlin observes that to the epigrammatist Rufinus (ca. AD 250) “the ideal female genitalia were depilated and polished until they seemed to shine between the thighs,”25 while among the Romans, Ovid, Martial, Juvenal, and Persius remark on the use of tweezers and hot pitch—a precursor of the modern “Brazilian wax”—or pine resin for pubic depilation.26 In medieval literature and art we find many descriptions and artistic depictions of the thin and arched female eyebrows and the hairline high at brows and temples we saw in the examples above. Eventually, the eminently desirable “aristocratic” female facial features achieved by the means outlined in Trotula and later collections became sufficiently familiar and accepted to form part of the male conception of female beauty that was then internalized by young women. We see this in practice in the rhetorical and literary traditions, where male authors created an ideal female appearance that must have influenced visual artists as well as other writers. As early as 1175, Matthew of Vendôme’s Ars Versificatoria offered model exercises for the student to portray through words ideal female charms. Though it is likely that a young man in a monastic school setting might have had no experience of women at all, he would see that Matthew, for instance, established Helen of Troy’s legendary beauty by first describing her hair and brows: “Her golden hair, … / Her dark eyebrows, neatly lined twin arches …”27 giving the force and authority of classical antiquity to such features.  22 David Bain, “Katonáke ton Choiron Apotetilménas (Aristophanes, Ekklesiazousai 724),” Liverpool Classical Monthly 7, no. 1 (Jan. 1982): 7–10; quotation at 8.  23 A red-figure vase, ca. 500 BC (University of Mississippi Museum 77.3.112), shows this being done. See Mireille M. Lee, “Other ‘Ways of Seeing’: Female Viewers of the Knidian Aphrodite,” Helios 42, no. 1 (Spring 2015): 103–22, fig. 10 and 114–15. She notes that the practice of genital depilation quickly spread from prostitutes to married women. See also her Bodies, Dress, and Identity in Ancient Greece (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 79–81. On Greek female depilation, see Martin Kilmer, “Genital Phobia and Depilation,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 102 (Nov. 1982): 104–12.  24 For Aristophanes, see Lysistrata, lines 150–57. Jeffery Henderson, The Maculate Muse: Obscene Language in Attic Comedy (1975; repr., New York, Oxford University Press, 1991), 52, notes “a pink, hairless state could … also be achieved by depilation, a practice especially associated with hetaerae and other female sex-objects (seductive housewives, for example)” in relation to Lysistrata, line 151.  25 Amy Richlin, The Garden of Priapus: Sexuality and Aggression in Roman Humor (1983; repr., New York, Oxford University Press, 1992); quotation at 49.  26 See Ovid, Ars Amatoria, lines 193–94, referring either to hairy legs or the pubis or both; Martial, Epigrams, 2.62, 3.74; use of resin, 12.32. Juvenal, Satires, 2.10–15; Persius, Satires, 4, 39–41. See generally Desmond Morris, The Naked Woman: A Study of the Female Body (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004), 198; Otto Kiefer, Sexual Life in Ancient Rome (London: Kegan Paul, 2000), 165.  27 Aubrey E. Galyon, ed. and trans., Matthew of Vendôme: The Art of Versification (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1980), 43, section 56.

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John Block Friedman Vernacular poets quickly followed suit in developing this beauty canon. The author of the French romance Partonopeus de Blois, ca. 1180, speaks of the perfect eyebrows as “noir et voltis” [black and arched].28 For Juan Ruiz in the Book of Good Love (1330–43) the ideal girl is clearly one with such shaped eyebrows, a feature that lower-class women lacked; his sage advice, then, is “try not to fall in love with a peasant girl … Look for a [beautiful] woman with / Eyebrows well apart, long and arched,” specifying their aristocratic shape and thinness.29 In an effictio or head-to-toe description closely modeled on Matthew’s, Boccaccio in the Teseida (1340–41) adds an additional cosmetic detail, saying of Emilia, a beautiful noblewoman: “Her forehead was ample and wide … Two eyebrows, blacker than anything and fine curved beneath it” (my emphasis).30 Similarly, in the Roman de Thèbes (1150–55), a woman’s attributes of beauty are enumerated including “les fronz aperz et hauz et blans” [the forehead, open, high, and white].31 Indeed, that such cosmetic eyebrow treatments were customary among upper-class women by the later fourteenth century is evident from the fact that Chaucer calls attention to Criseyde’s unusual “natural” eyebrows in Troilus and Criseyde (1381–86); a significant comment, since it is the main distinguishing feature of her physical appearance in the poem.32 By the early fifteenth century, the ideal aristocratic beauty was blonde, with thin, dark, arched eyebrows and a white, wide, high, wrinkle-free, somewhat bulging forehead of the sort shown by Jean Perréal in figure 4.5, called the front bombé, or what one French poem named the grand front,33 a marker of high social class. If she had body hair at all, it was blonde and extremely fine. Though probably only the upper classes would have read or heard the romances where the results of such fashionable manipulation of the hair are described, women of every social stratum could certainly have seen such hair treatment in church statuary and panel painting, especially that adorning altars, where depictions of the Virgin with such eyebrows and forehead were commonplace.  28 Penny Eley et al., eds., Partonopeus de Blois, line 557, HRI Electronic Edition, http://hridigital.shef. ac.uk/partonopeus, accessed June 25, 2016.  29 Juan Ruiz, The Book of Good Love, trans. Elizabeth O. Macdonald (London: Dent, 1999), 112–13.  30 Giovanni Boccaccio, The Book of Theseus: Teseida delle Nozzi d’Emilia, trans. Bernadette Marie McCoy (New York: Medieval Text Association, 1974), 323–24. Alberto Limentani, ed., Teseida delle Nozze d’Emilia, in Vittore Branca, ed., Tutte le Opere di Giovanni Boccaccio (Verona: Arnoldo Mondadori, 1993), 652: “La fronte sua era ampia e spaziosa / e bianca e piana e molto dilicata, / sotto la quale in volta tortuosa, / quasi di mezzo cerchio terminata, / eran due ciglia, più che altra cosa / nerissime e sottil … .”  31 Léopold Constans, ed., Le Roman de Thèbes (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1890), 50, line 963. See also Gonzalo de Berceo, El Libro de Alixandre, ed. Dana Arthur Nelson (Madrid: Gredos, 1979), line 1874a, for a similar description of a woman’s forehead “la fuent aviè muy blanca, alegre e serena.”  32 Troilus and Criseyde, V.813. See Jacqueline Tasioulas, “The Idea of Feminine Beauty in Troilus and Criseyde, or Criseyde’s Eyebrow,” in Traditions and Innovations in the Study of Medieval English Literature: The Influence of Derek Brewer, ed. Charlotte Brewer and Barry Windeatt (Cambridge, UK: D. S. Brewer, 2013), 111–27.  33 See J. M. Angot, ed., La Parnasse Érotique du XVe Siècle: Recueil des Pièces (Geneva: Slatkine, 1978), 7–9 n. 1.

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Depilation in Late Medieval Europe NEGATIVE ASSOCIATIONS OF FEMALE BODY HAIR

In marked contrast to the ideal brows of beautiful women just described, what Alexander Pope’s Rape of the Lock called “hairs less in sight” received universal male condemnation. Penny Jolly observes that in late medieval and early modern art “pubic hair on females … when present carries largely negative associations,”34 and this claim must be extended to medieval scientific and moral writing as well, though it should be somewhat nuanced, as women were blamed both for having hair and for removing it. The association of hairy women with disease as well as lower social class derives ultimately from medieval medical thinking about hair and its connection with the “complexion” in human physiology, that is, “the balance or ratio of qualities, especially hot, cold, moist, and dry, which characterized an individual.”35 Women were thought to be colder and moister in their “complexion,” or mix of humours, compared with men, who are hot and dry by nature (making them physiologically superior to women).36 An explanation appears in the portion of the Trotula ensemble called “Conditions of Women”: [God] created the male and female with … deliberation, laying out in the separate sexes the foundation for the propagation of future offspring. And so that from them might emerge fertile offspring, he endowed their complexions with a certain pleasing conmixtion, constituting the nature of the male hot and dry … He wished by the opposing frigidity and humidity of the woman to rein him in from too much excess, so that the stronger qualities, that is the heat and dryness, should rule the man, who is the stronger and more worthy person, while the weaker ones, that is to say the coldness and humidity, should rule the weaker person, that is the woman.37

This balance of the humours was vital to health and reproduction. As Trotula indicated, the male heat and dryness fostered the production of sperm, and the woman’s cold and moist temperament was ideal for fertility and the carrying to term of a pregnancy. In both sexes, hair served as a means for removing bodily impurities produced by the liver and digestion. As the French physician and professor of medicine Bernard of Gordon (1270–1330) explains in his Lilium Medicinae (1303), “The materials of the hair are humors generated in the liver.”38 But while the man’s greater heat “cooked out” these impurities, the woman’s cold and moist complexion fostered them, so that they built up each month, to be purged with menstruation. In this form, they were  34 Jolly, “Pubics and Privates,” 187.  35 On the humoural thinking expressed here, see Joan Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 171–72, 181–83; quotation at 171.  36 Vern Bullough, “Medieval Medical and Scientific Views of Women,” Viator 4 (1973): 485–501, and Vern Bullough, Brenda Shelton, and Sarah Slavin, The Subordinated Sex: A History of Attitudes Towards Women (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988).  37 Green, Trotula, 1:71, 2:117.  38 A Latin text of Bernard, the edition printed in Paris in 1542 held at the University of Virginia Library, is available online as https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=ucm.5316545825. The quotation comes from particula II.1, 76r–v. On Bernard, see Luke Demaitre, Doctor Bernard of Gordon, Professor and Practitioner (Toronto: Pontifical Institute, 1980).

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John Block Friedman believed to be dangerous both to the woman and to men who came in contact with her menstrual blood and pubic hair. As Jolly points out, “the nasty nature of female body hair … was considered to result from condensation of un-evacuated dangerous body fluids, [and] its removal cleansed the body.”39 Thus, in contrast to the hot, dry man who continuously eliminates poisons through his hair, the cold, moist woman stores them up there. Joan Cadden notes that in medieval medical writing many of the differences perceived between males and females … had to do with hair… . Hair is the product of useful residues of the nutritive and generative processes. These residues, though not in themselves harmful, cause harm if retained within the body… . [W]omen give off their residues through menstruation. Yet, if proper purgation by menstruation does not occur, women may grow little beards.40

Failure, then, of the purgative menstrual flow was, in medieval medical thinking, ultimately tied to the presence of female body hair. Broadly speaking, there were two scientific views of menstruation. One, morally neutral and objective, and seeing menstruation as one bodily process among many, appeared in the Lilium and in the first vernacular medical treatise, the Régime du Corps (ca. 1256), by Aldobrandino of Siena, an Italian physician at the court in Provence.41 In contrast, the other view was folkloric and condemnatory, dating back to the Natural History of the Roman scientist Pliny the Elder, which took the cycle as a sign of womankind’s inferior and corrupt nature42 (which Christian theologians attributed to the consequences of the Fall). It fostered not only the belief that the menstruating woman was dangerous but by implication the idea that all women were so. The belief that women are physiologically dangerous, especially with regard to menstruation and pubic hair, comes down to the later Middle Ages largely through the treatise Secrets of Women, then attributed to the natural scientist Albert the Great (1200–80). Ironically, though Avicenna’s Canon (ca. 1025) takes no moral view of menstruation, Pseudo-Albert presents him as a misogynistic authority, stating “as Avicenna said, the womb of a female is like a sewer situated in the middle of a town where all the waste materials run together and are sent forth.”43 Pseudo-Albert also  39 Jolly, “Pubics and Privates,” 190.  40 Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference, 182–83. See also Danielle Jacquart and Claude Thomasset, Sexuality and Medicine in the Middle Ages, trans. Matthew Adamson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), 71–78.  41 For Aldobrandino, see Louis Landouzy and Roger Pépin, eds., Le Régime du Corps de Maître Aldebrandin de Sienne (1911; repr. Geneva: Slatkine, 1978). See generally Charles Wood, “The Doctor’s Dilemma: Sin, Salvation and the Menstrual Cycle in Medieval Thought,” Speculum 56, no. 4 (Oct. 1981): 710–27; Janice Delaney, Mary Jane Lupton, and Emily Toth, eds., The Curse: A Cultural History of Menstruation (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988); more recently, Monica Green, “Flowers, Poisons, and Men: Menstruation in Medieval Western Europe,” in Menstruation: A Cultural History, ed. Andrew Shail and Gillian Howie (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 51–64.  42 For this crucial chapter, see Pliny, Natural History, vol. 8, ed. and trans. W. H. S. Jones, Loeb Classical Library 418 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), book 28, c. 23, pp. 55–63, esp. 57.  43 Helen Rodnite Lemay, ed. and trans., Women’s Secrets: A Translation of Pseudo-Albertus Magnus’s De

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Depilation in Late Medieval Europe warns that intercourse with a menstruating woman causes leprosy and cancer of the penis.44 The work was widely read and often elaborated on. The Secrets of Women, again fathering this belief on Avicenna, says that “[if you] take the hairs of a menstruating woman and place them under … manure during the winter, then in spring or summer when they are heated by the sun a long stout serpent will be generated.” A scholastic commentator on this passage identifies the hair: “whosoever were to take a hair from the pubis of a woman and mix it with menses and then put it in a dung-heap would at the end of the year find wicked venomous beasts.”45 These passages from Pseudo-Albert and his commentators could be multiplied from similar works of the period, but it is clear that the allegedly scientific association of female hair with serpents and disease would be enough to make it seem dangerous to men. Reflecting these quasi-medical attitudes, hairy women were characterized both in scientific texts and in imaginative literature of the medieval and early modern periods not only as generally dangerous to men, but also as poor bets for marriage because of probable infertility and a potential for domineering behavior. As noted above, the presence of facial and body hair signaled an imbalance in the female complexion which, being caused by an excess of male heat and dryness, was unnatural and hypermasculine in women of childbearing years.46 A corresponding lack of the cold and moisture requisite for conception and parturition would follow.47 Such women could be portents of misfortune as well as infertile, on the authority of Aristotle, who remarks in the Historia Animalium that facial hair on women either indicated menopause or predicted bad luck.48 Though a Spanish Golden Age author, the physician Juan Huarte de San Juan (1529–88) recycles some of these common medieval beliefs about women, hair, marriageability, fertility, and domestic behavior in a treatise called in its Renaissance English version Examination of Men’s Wits. There, Huarte outlines various characteristics of good and bad potential wives. Avoid hairy ones, he says, for they are likely to be trouble all around, while smooth ones are to be desired: “Much haire, and a little shew of a beard” reveal an insufficiency in the cold and moist temperament of the woman. A woman with such a disposition will be “wily, ill conditioned, shrill voiced,

Secretis Mulierum with Commentaries (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), chap. 11, 133–34.  44 Ibid., preface, 60.  45 Lemay, Women’s Secrets, chap. 4a, 99. The additional commentary is cited by Jacquart and Thomasset, Sexuality and Medicine, 76.  46 For example, the thirteenth-century encyclopedist Thomas of Cantimpré remarked that “if a woman has an upper beard, it is a sign of great heat in her.” Helmut Boese, ed., Liber de Natura Rerum von Thomas Cantimpratensis (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1973), book 1, chap. 10, p. 23.  47 Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference, 183.  48 Aristotle, The Works of Aristotle, vol. 4, Historia Animalium, ed. John. A. Smith and William D. Ross, trans. D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson (Oxford: Clarendon, 1910), 518a–b, line 38. On theories of human hairiness generally relative to Aristotle or works believed to be by him, see Bruno Roy, “Pilosité et Horripilation dans les Problèmes d’Aristote d’Evrart de Conty,” in Connochie-Bourgne, La Chevelure, 367–54.

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John Block Friedman spare fleshed, and blacke … coloured, hairie and euill favoured …”49 And the darker the hair, he adds, the more male heat and dryness are present, and she will conceive with difficulty. Huarte’s list of physical and personality traits reflects the less scientifically presented desiderata for a woman given by Juan Ruiz nearly verbatim in the Book of Good Love in the mid-fourteenth century. He writes: “There are three things I dare not reveal to you now, / hidden faults … few women can escape from them … Mind she isn’t hairy or bearded, / Hell would shake at such a she-devil! If she has small, thin hands and a sharp voice, / be sensible, find another.”50 The Spanish proverb behind all this, “dona barbuda, lluny la saluda” [greet a bearded woman from a distance] is quoted by Jaume Roig, whose Mirror (1460), which catalogued the evils of women, warned of male contact with them.51 Profuse female body hair was also long considered an indicator of a perilous degree of sexual fervor. Take, for example, the Occitan poem “Mentre per una Ribiera” [While Along a Bank] of about 1320. In this mock-pastourelle, the knight-narrator meets a pig herder “wild and ugly, / Swarthy, black as pitch.” When she agrees to make love with him and the man sees her hairy genitalia, he runs off.52 Similarly, Gautier le Leu (b. 1210), in his fabliau La Veuve [The Widow] speaks of the Wife’s vagina as a “hairy Goliath” that “gapes too often” for the husband’s ardor and happiness, and leads to his demise.53 Apparently, this hairiness signaled sexual insatiability in a woman’s character, and thus showed her as dangerous to the man, either exhausting him to the point of illness and death, or making him a potential cuckold.54  49 Juan Huarte de San Juan, Examen de Ingenios / The Examination of Mens Wits, trans. Richard Carew (London: Adam Islip, 1594), 277, 280.  50 Ruiz, Book of Good Love, 116–17. See also Sherry Velasco, “Women with Beards in Early Modern Spain,” in Lesnick-Oberstein, Last Taboo, 181–90. Similarly, Matthew of Vendôme, offering a rhetorical model for describing the extremely ugly, hirsute Beroe, mentions, for example, her “bushy brows bristling,” Galyon, Art of Versification, 44, sec. 57. Giovanni Mauro (1490–1536) burlesquing mountain women, the opposites of courtly beauties, spoke of “the dark forests of their eyebrows” as a salient feature; see Guglielmo Gorni, Massimo Danzi, and Silvia Longhi, eds., Poeti del Cinquecento, vol. 1, Poeti Lirici, Burleschi, Satirici e Didascalici (Milan: R. Ricciardi, 2001), 938–40. The poem is discussed by Patrizia Bettella, The Ugly Woman: Transgressive Aesthetic Models in Italian Poetry from the Middle Ages to the Baroque (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005), 192–93.  51 Maria Celeste Delgado-Librero, ed. and trans., The Mirror of Jaume Roig: An Edition and an English Translation of Ms. Vat. Lat. 4806 (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2010), 311, lines 4405–7. On Roig, also see Michael R. Solomon, The Literature of Misogyny in Medieval Spain: The “Archipreste de Talavera” and the “Spill” (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997).  52 “Mentre per una ribiera,” in The Medieval Pastourelle, ed. William D. Paden, Garland Library of Medieval Literature 34–35, ser. A (New York: Garland, 1987), 435 and 437. See also John Block Friedman, Brueghel’s Heavy Dancers: Transgressive Clothing, Class, & Culture in the Late Middle Ages (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2010), 93–94.  53 For a translation of Gautier’s poem, see Alcuin Blamires, ed., Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992), 135–44.  54 The sexual excess signaled by female hairiness additionally, and conversely, posed the threat of male hairlessness. Michael Solomon points out that “authorities clearly identified loss of hair as one of the most common ailments suffered by those who engaged in excessive sexual intercourse. Immoderate coitus was thought to deplete the heat, humidity and bodily fluids (semen) in the brain. Since the-

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Depilation in Late Medieval Europe In the thinking I have outlined, lower-class women were hairier than aristocratic ones and far less sexually controlled.55 Their alleged insatiability posed a hazard to men, yet their low social station made them the natural prey of aristocrats. It should not, then, seem surprising that the male fear of female pubic hair was more openly expressed in regard to lower-class women, making them a subject for humor and class contempt. In Italy, there developed by the early sixteenth century a popular genre of poetry in which an urban and/or upper-class narrator ridicules a peasant woman. One of Niccolò Campani’s poems of about 1500, with the grandiose and ironic title “Capitolo delle Bellezze della Dama” [Chapter of the Beauties of the Lady], describes an encounter between a peasant (who takes Niccolò’s point of view) and a miller’s daughter. The girl has her skirt hoisted up, letting the peasant see her thighs, and he is duly horrified. What follows is the poet’s self-conscious reversal of the conventional ordo effictionis in that he works from the bottom up, not the top down: “She was showing me her two large feet, / That looked like freshly turned-over sods. / And a little higher up / Were two big legs straight, and long as two pilings, / Mottled white and olive, they looked like two firebrands. / And going up a bit … Her buttocks were gleaming up there like a lantern / And they were much hairier than I can tell you— / So think what that other thing must have been like.”56 It is clear that the hairiness of this miller’s daughter, so closely related to her undescribed but presumably frightening genitalia, is intended to stir the male audience’s fear of hirsute rustic women and their inordinate desire for sexual contact which could be injurious to the man.57

orists believed that hair was essentially a form of coagulated vapor, closely related in substance to sweat, they concluded that drying in the cerebral cortex caused by excessive intercourse made men bald”; Solomon, Literature of Misogyny, 72. See also Hugo Mötefindt, “Studien über Geschichte und Verbreitung der Barttracht,” Anthropos 23 (1928): 617–55, esp. 653–54. Bernard of Gordon identifies one kind of baldness as “when hair falls out through excessive sexual intercourse”; Lilium Medicinae, part. II.1, 76r–v; see note 38, above. Aldobrandino of Siena carries this advice to an extreme, observing that to maintain healthy hair, a man “ought to keep from sleeping with a woman”; Landouzy and Pépin, Régime du Corps, part 2, 86. Obviously, this danger to male hair was a class issue as well as a moral one, because if inordinate sexual intercourse caused hair loss, it also caused a concomitant symbolic loss of social class among men.  55 In Old French chansons de geste, peasant women, such as Rigaudin in the thirteenth-century Garin le Loherain, are typically hairy; see Josephine Elvira Vallerie, ed., Garin le Loheren (Ann Arbor, MI: Edwards, 1947), lines 8819–21. On this topic, see generally Herman Braet, “‘A thing most brutish’: The Image of the Rustic in Old French Literature,” in Agriculture in the Middle Ages: Technology, Practice, and Representation, ed. Del Sweeney (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 191–204.  56 Niccolò Compani, “Capitolo delle Bellezze della Dama,” in Gorni, Danzi, and Longhi, Poeti Lirici, 938–40. See also Bettella, Ugly Woman, 192–93, for a discussion of this poetic genre.  57 A similar commentary on the dangerous pubic hair of peasant girls appears in a German poem, “Ain Grasserin durch külen tau” [The Mower], by Oswald von Wolkenstein (1376–1445). It associates female pubic hair with threats to the upper-class male lover when the narrator speaks wittily of an agricultural laborer’s “brown-haired sickle,” which could be damaging by reason of the girl’s proverbial sexual insatiability; see Paden, Medieval Pastourelle, 483. This is Song 76 in Albrecht Classen, trans., The Poems of Oswald von Wolkenstein (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 158–59, who translates the phrase as “her scythe covered with brown hair,” 158.

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However negative the scientific attitudes toward female pubic hair I have just presented might seem, there was a somewhat more nuanced view in folkloric accounts. For at a much less conscious level and for less-thought-out reasons, from prehistory men have depicted the female genitalia as having quasi-magical powers. And this statement holds true for female pubic hair as well, so that it can be at once threatening to men and magically powerful. Historically, the iconography of the vulva in Western art is little separable from ancient apotropaic or averting gestures in folk culture.58 From classical antiquity onward, the frontal sight of the female genitalia was believed to ward off not only general ill fortune, but in the Christian period, the devil and ever-present demons, who were constantly seeking to bring disaster to people, their livestock, their dwellings, and their places of worship.59 One way to avert demons was to frighten them with some force or power greater than their own, and the sight of a woman exposed was widely held to have such power. In classical and late antiquity this averting gesture was called anasyrma (literally “lifting the skirts”).60 In the later Middle Ages probably the main Latin source for the idea was Pliny’s famous chapter on the power and danger of women already mentioned. For example, Pliny notes the apotropaic practice to ward off bothersome insects: “In Cappadocia owing to the plague there of Spanish fly … women walk … through the middle of the fields, with their clothes pulled up above the buttocks.”61 Anasyrma or female genital exhibition with an apotropaic purpose can be documented in a variety of Late Antique texts and figurines associated with the name Baubo, in Greek myth a crone who exposed herself to Demeter. And Baubo was also

 58 See, for example, Catherine Blackledge, The Story of V: A Natural History of Female Sexuality (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004).  59 The best general study of this topic is Ruth Mellinkoff, Averting Demons: The Protective Power of Medieval Visual Motifs and Themes (Los Angeles: Ruth Mellinkoff Publications, 2004), 1:49–55, 123–41. See also Christa Sütterlin, “Universals in Apotropaic Symbolism: A Behavioral and Comparative Approach to Some Medieval Sculptures,” Leonardo 22, no. 1 (1989): 65–74, for apotropaic figures in world art.  60 On anasyrma, see Blackledge, Story of V, 12–15. For a full and more scholarly history, see Ewald Kislinger, “Anasyrma: Notizen zur Geste des Schamweisens,” in Symbole des Alltags, Alltag der Symbole: Festschrift für Harry Kühnel zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Gertrud Blaschitz (Graz, Austria: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1992), 377–94. An instance of Christianized anasyrma occurs in the story of the third-century Byzantine St. Thecla of Iconium in the Apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla, who supposedly made the apotropaic gesture when she was condemned to martyrdom by wild animals, for lifting her skirts, she exposed herself to a savage lion who then lay down and licked her feet, refusing to injure her; see Ambrose of Milan, De Virginibus, ed. Peter Dückers (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2009), book 2, c. 19. In 1552, Rabelais told of a woman of Papfiguière who scared away a devil by showing him her vulva and telling him it was a gash made by the terrible nails of her husband, after her husband is threatened by a clawing match with a young devil; see La Vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel, in François Rabelais, Oeuvres Complètes, ed. Jacques Boulenger (Paris: Nouvelle Revue Française, 1955), book 4, chap. 47, 688.  61 Pliny, Natural History, vol. 8, book 28, c. 23, 57.

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Fig. 4.6: Carving of woman shaving or cutting her pubic hair, originally from the Porta Tosa, Milan, ca. 1185 (Milan, Castello Sforzesco Museum of Ancient Art, no. 528). Photo: John Block Friedman, courtesy Castello Sforzesco Museum of Ancient Art.

reputed to shave her pubic hair, according to Arnobius’s Adversus Nationes, one of the few Latin sources about her.62 Her legend and its later visual appearances c­ ombine

 62 Clement of Alexandria mentions how Baubo exposes herself to Demeter; Exhortations to the Greek,

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Fig. 4.7: Allegorie der Wahrheit, Peter Flötner, ca. 1540 (Nuremberg, Graphische Sammlung). Photo: Courtesy of Graphische Sammlung, Kunstsammlungen der Stadt Nürnberg.

two motifs, genital averting power and depilation; these were to have a complex iconographic fortuna. By the twelfth century, apotropaic exhibitionism in popular culture had merged with a more formal civic iconography intended to prevent bad luck from entering a city. A carving (ca. 1185), from a now-demolished city gate in Milan known as the Tosa gate shows a woman trimming her pubic hair with shears or a razor, bringing her genital power—and thus the protective power of the sculpture—into greater relief (fig.

in Clement of Alexandria, ed. and trans. G. W. Butterworth (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), chap. 2, 43. See Maurice Olender, “Aspects of Baubo: Ancient Texts and Contexts,” in Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World, ed. David Halperin, John Winkler, and Froma Zeitlin (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 83–113. For Arnobius, see Adversus Nationes Libri VII, ed. Concetto Marchesi, Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum Paravianum (Rome: Aug. Taurinorum, 1953), book 5, c. 25, 196.

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Depilation in Late Medieval Europe 4.6);63 a similar carving existed in England until very recent times.64 A single-leaf woodcut often called “Allegory of Truth” made by Peter Flötner, a German sculptor, artist, and designer of playing cards (1485–1546), repeats this iconographic type of anasyrma in a complex satiric allegory of uncertain meaning as the woman trims her pubic hair (fig. 4.7).65 That she wears a slashed and feathered hat of the type associated with the much despised and sexually predatory German mercenaries or landsknechte of Emperor Maximilian I suggests she is a camp follower.66 Although created for iconographic purposes, both of these images offer us a useful visual glimpse into the practice of depilation. DEPILATION CONDEMNED

Literary passages of the sort we have seen above suggest there was strong social pressure on women to remove body hair lest they be seen as mannish, infertile, cantankerous, and sexually aggressive. An example of the way in which women accepted this male gynophobia as a beauty canon, and how these ideas passed from older and more experienced women to those younger and less so, occurs in the Retrato de la Lozana, by Francisco Delicado (1480–1535), one of the most important witnesses for our subject. The Andalusian Lozana, at this point in the story a madam in Rome, is expert in cosmetic matters, especially eyebrow plucking and pubic chemical depilation or shaving, a role that bawds and older women from Ovid’s Vetula onward traditionally played. As she is about to pluck a courtesan’s eyebrows, with expertise she has gained from Jewish depilators resident in Rome, two fairly respectable seamstresses interrupt for cosmetic advice. One, Leonor, asks Lozana to “teach me and my cousin how to shave  63 Milan, Castello Sforzesco Museum of Ancient Art, no. 528. See Andrea Von Hülsen-Esch, “À Propos de la Porta Romana de Milan: Dans Quelle Mesure la Sculpture de l’Italie du Nord Reflète-t-Elle Certains Aspects de l’Histoire Communale?” Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale 35 (1992): 147–54, esp. 152 and n. 46.  64 The lost English example is discussed by Malcolm Jones, The Secret Middle Ages (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), 250–51, and Richard N. Bailey, “Apotropaic Figures in Milan and North-West England,” Folklore 94, no. 1 (1983): 113–17. There may be a vestige of an apotropaic sculpture or sign showing the Tosa trimming gesture in the 1292 name of the Parisian street Rue de Poile-au-Con but later changed to Rue de Pélican; see Jacques Hillairet, Dictionaire Historique des Rues de Paris (Paris: Éditions de Minuit, 1968), 2:709. It is possible that the story of Caterina Sforza lifting her skirt on a rampart may have been a gesture of anasyrma related to those we have mentioned; see Julia Hairston, “Skirting the Issue: Machiavelli’s Caterina Sforza,” Renaissance Quarterly 53, no. 3 (2000): 687–712.  65 Flötner’s woodcut is published by Max Geisberg, The German Single-Leaf Woodcut: 1500–1550 (New York: Hacker, 1974) as no. 782, and by Jolly, “Pubics and Privates,” as fig. 6.4, 191. It is briefly treated by Jones, Secret Middle Ages, 250.  66 For a discussion of landsknechte iconography, see John Block Friedman, ““Dressing Monstrous Men: Landsknechte Clothing in Some Early Modern Danish Church Wall Paintings,” in Holy Monsters, Sacred Grotesques: Monstrosity and Religion in Europe and the United States, ed. Michael Heyes (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2018), at press. See Timothy Husband, The World in Play: Luxury Cards 1430–1540 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015), 103–25, for a discussion of Flötner, whose Upper Knave of Hearts, fig. 138, shows a man wearing a slashed and padded landsknechte doublet. The man crouching may be lighting his candle from her vagina, tying the scene both to the body of largely German anti-mercenary satire and to a legend of Virgil the Magician.

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John Block Friedman off female hair, as that is how our husbands like it.” The language of the original, “los pendejos,” makes it clear where this hair is. Leonor recognizes that the husbands’ attitude is objectifying and gynophobic, and has nothing to do with her social or marital worth, but she accepts it without question. Further, she wishes, somewhat snobbishly, to distinguish herself by such hair removal from those Roman women lower on the social scale “who never shave it,” since again, her husband finds it offensive on them.67 Ironically, though such works would seem to suggest that a woman should remove body hair at all costs to satisfy a variety of male whims, in actual practice such depilation—even if only of the eyebrows and forehead—was criticized by men from several perspectives. Though equally misogynistic, this primarily moral condemnation differs from the quasi-scientific views of writers such as Pseudo-Albert, as it focuses largely on female vanity and fraudulence rather than on physiological threats to the male body and hair. The moralizing art and literature of sexual folly satirizes the practice of female depilation both in action and in aftermath. For example, plucking the genitalia was thought to make the older woman seem falsely young and attractive (an idea as ancient as Horace), and men duly castigated this as foolish behavior. Erasmus notes in his Praise of Folly (1509), as signs of vanity and human foolishness, the fact that under Folly’s influence on the world, older women, still passionate and hoping to seduce beautiful boys they have bought for a great sum, arouse desire by “plucking out the forest of their pubic hair” (“infimae pubis silvam vellere”).68 Clerical and secular moralist perspectives on depilation come from medieval penitential manuals, sermons, conduct books, and imaginative literature, all, of course, of male authorship. The Confessionale Defecerunt Scrutantes (1440) of Antoninus, Archbishop of Florence (1389–1459), was concerned with matching an appropriate penance to each conceivable sin, from venial to mortal. In it, the priest is instructed to ask a woman in the confessional “if from lustfulness or to please men by her appearance she has ever plucked her neck, or eyebrows or beard because this is a mortal sin … unless she does so to counter severe disfigurement or to avoid her husband’s scorn.”69 A somewhat similar view of depilation appears in a sermon by the Valencian Dominican Vincent Ferrer (1350–1419), who lamented, “Is there any lady among us

 67 Francisco Delicado, Portrait of Lozana: The Lusty Andalusian Woman, ed. and trans. Bruno M. Damiani (Potomac, MD: Scripta Humanistica, 1987), sketch 48, 208.  68 For women depilating to appear younger, see Martial, Epigrams, 10.90; Desiderius Erasmus, In Praise of Folly 31, http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/erasmus/moriae.shtml, accessed Dec. 29, 2016.  69 Antoninus of Florence, Confessionale Defecerunt Scrutantes Scrutinio (Delft: Jacob van der Meer, 1482), chap. 21, “De immodestia mulierum,” fol. I.11, https://archive.org/stream/ned-kbnall–00001853–001, accessed Dec. 4, 2016. See Gilberto Aranci, “I ‘confessionali’ di S. Antonino Pierozzi e la Tradizione Catechistica del’ 400,” Vivens Homo 3 (1992): 273–92; Carlo Celso Calzolai, Frate Antonino Pierozzi dei Domenicani, Arcivescovo di Firenze (Rome: Ars Graphica Editorialis Presbyterium, 1961); Thomas Izbicki, “The Origins of the De ornatu mulierum of Antoninus of Florence,” Modern Language Notes 119 (2004):142–61.

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Depilation in Late Medieval Europe who does not wear cosmetics … or use depilatories … ? Oh, they sin greatly who act so vainly, in order to please men.”70 Geoffrey de la Tour Landry, in composing in 1372 a conduct manual called Livre du Chevalier de la Tour Landry for his daughters, was particularly concerned that the girls not ape the fashions of the French court of King Charles V. He tells a monitory tale about a knight who had a vision of his wife’s torment in hell by devils who stuck burning needles into her eyebrows, temples, and forehead, because “she had shaved her eyebrows and her temples, and plucked out her hairs to make herself more beautiful and pleasing to the world.” Geoffrey then warns his daughters, “Do not change your faces nor pluck your eyebrows or foreheads.”71 Apparently, these strictures for the daughters indicated that other girls were doing exactly what the father warned against. While there is, then, no doubt of the common practice of facial depilation among women of middle and higher social station, drawing the ire of clerics, the evidence is less widespread about the rustics or villagers who might wish by these practices to up-class themselves, though Chaucer certainly recognizes the existence of such women in the social commentary of the Canterbury Tales. A detailed satiric treatment of this practice occurs in his Miller’s Tale, which clearly shows John the Carpenter’s young Oxford wife Alison putting into practice some of the ideas about hair removal that we have so far examined. The poet connects Alison with animal hair, expressing her tactile nature through several similes. She is twice compared to a frisky colt.72 We learn that her body is as slender as a weasel and softer to the touch than the wool of a wether, while her purse is made not of fabric but of animal skin.73 As Carolyn Williams well notes, “short of hanging a sign about Alison’s neck, saying ‘Danger: this woman is hairy,’ what more could a conscientious poet do?”74 Signs for her removal of her own hair are much more overt. Alison treats her eyebrows and temples exactly according to the beauty canons outlined and criticized by Geoffrey de la Tour Landry. “Hir filet brood of silk” is “set ful hye” on her forehead, emphasizing the expanse of skin before her hairline begins: “Ful smale ypulled were hire browes two. / And tho were bent and blake as any sloo.”75 The extent of her forehead is commented on elsewhere in the poem: When she goes to church “hir forheed shoon  70 Quoted by Cristina Guardiola-Griffiths, “Medieval Mean Girls: On Sexual Rivalry and the Uses of Cosmetics in La Celestina,” eHumanista 19 (2011): 172–92, at 177.  71 Anatole de Montaiglon, ed., Le Livre du Chevalier de la Tour Landry, pour l’Enseignement de Ses Filles (Nendeln/Liechtenstein: Kraus Reprint, 1972), 109–10. See on this material Susan Udry, “Robert de Blois and Geoffroy de la Tour Landry on Feminine Beauty: Two Late Medieval French Conduct Books for Women,” Essays in Medieval Studies 19 (2002): 90–102, and Valerie Gontero, “‘Cointises et Atours’: La Chevelure dans le Livre du Chevalier de la Tour Landry pour l’Enseignement de Ses Filles,” in Connochie-Bourgne, La Chevelure, 181–94. See generally Frédérique Lachaud, “La Critique du Vêtement et du Soin des Apparences dans Quelques Oeuvres Religieuses, Morales et Politiques XIIe– XIVe Siècles,” in Wirth, Le Corps et Sa Parure, 61–86.  72 Larry D. Benson, ed., The Riverside Chaucer (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987), I.A.3263, 3282.  73 Ibid., I.A.3234, 3249, 3250.  74 Carolyn D. Williams, “‘That Wonderful Phaenomenon’: Female Body Hair and English Literary Tradition,” in Lesnick-Oberstein, Last Taboo, 103–25; quotation at 113.  75 Benson, Riverside Chaucer, I.A.3243, 3245–46.

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John Block Friedman as bright as any day,”76 as with the wide, high, bright forehead prized in the Roman de Thèbes. Thus, Chaucer highlights the character of Alison’s forehead and hairline and the cosmetic treatment and color of her eyebrows, emphasizing the height of her forehead to establish that she is not “low browed,” a specific villainous facial detail, and in so doing signals Alison’s desire to appear of a higher social class. One of the cosmetic recipes in Caterina Sforza’s (1463–1509) Gli Experimenti (unusual in that it is clearly compiled by a woman) has a particular relevance to Chaucer’s Alison, though written a century later than Chaucer’s poem. The rubric for this recipe reads “How to banish the hairs which are on the forehead that are extremely ugly,” and it guarantees the user will have a “beautiful, wide, and high” aristocratic forehead.77 Though chemical methods of depilation for achieving such a look were rather elaborate and seem to have been confined to the medical works and cosmetic recipe collections we shall discuss shortly, the practice in daily life was certainly aided by readily available razors and tweezers.78 As early as the thirteenth century, manual cosmetic techniques for achieving these broad and high foreheads were practiced in the French countryside, as indicated by a verse description of the items offered by the mercer or peddler of sewing and cosmetic supplies in the “Dit du Mercier,” who lists razors and tweezers among his goods.79 Indeed, it is women’s possession and use of personal cosmetic implements of all sorts that seems to have struck some moralists as especially offensive marks of vanity and artifice. For example, Jaume Roig in his Mirror remarks scornfully about contemporary female cosmetic practice: “depilatories, cosmetics, plucking and applying brimstone in the heat of July they find pleasing,”80 while Alfonzo (or Alonzo) Martinez de Toledo (1398–1468) in his Archpriest of Talavera was particularly interested in the mechanics of such allurement—cosmetics, implements, and techniques—revealing considerable knowledge of them and consequently offering us much information about depilatory practices. The author is concerned with showing the artificiality or unnatural character of cosmetics that falsify the woman, making her seem something  76 Ibid., I.A.3310.  77 “A far andar via li peli che sonno nella fronte che è bruttissimo,” Elio Caruso, ed., Ricette d’Amore e di Bellezza di Catrerina Sforza, Signora di Imola e di Forlì (Cesena, Italy: Il Ponte Vecchio, 2009), 38. A selection of twenty-four of Sforza’s recipes appears in Gigi Coulson, ed. and trans., Caterina Sforza’s Gli Experimenti: A Translation (San Bernandino, CA: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016). On Sforza, see Pier Pasolini, ed., Catherine Sforza (London: W. Heinemann, 1898) and Joyce de Vries, Caterina Sforza and the Art of Appearances: Gender, Art and Culture in Early Modern Italy (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2010). 57.  78 Removal through application of hot pitch and pine resin seems to have been more popular, or at least more documented, in Roman antiquity, though it is alluded to in Delicado’s Lozana and the Chirurgie of Henri de Mondeville, to be discussed; see note 26, above.  79 “Si ai tot l’apareillement / Dont feme fait forniement: / Rasoërs, forces, guignoëres / Escuretes et furgoëres, / Et bendeax et crespisëors, / Traïneax, pignes, mirëors …” Philippe Ménard, ed., “Le Dit du Mercier,” in Mélanges de Langue et de Littérature du Moyen Âge et de la Renaissance Offerts à Jean Frappier (Geneva: Droz, 1970), 2:797–818, at 800, lines 99–104. The complete poem is translated into English by John Block Friedman, “Chaucer’s Pardoner, Rutebeuf ’s ‘Dit de l’Herberie,’ The ‘Dit du Mercier,’ and Cultural History,” Viator 38, no. 1 (2007): 289–319; quotation at 316.  80 Delgado-Librero, The Mirror of Jaume Roig, 278, lines 582–89.

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Depilation in Late Medieval Europe she is not. Alfonzo’s narrator eavesdrops on alleged female spitefulness, imagining comments by one well-off woman directed at another for her cosmetic practices, both chemical and manual. The woman notes of her rival: her eyebrows [were] plucked too much, high, arched … her forehead and even her face—the big and the little hairs—all plucked with a depilatory of tar, spirit gum, and oil of chamomile … her face is as polished as a sword because of the water I’ve already talked about.

All of this was achieved with an array of implements: pins, mirrors, make-up boxes, combs, sponges with gum to use as a fixer for laying hair … silver tweezers to pull out some little hair or other if it shows itself, a steel mirror to study her face …81

THE PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF FEMALE DEPILATION

We have so far examined several discourses, some scientific and moralizing, as well as some hidden deep in the cultural imaginary of medieval Europe, that articulate male views of female facial and body hair and the need to remove it. The last question to concern us, then, is how did women go about depilating, especially their genitals, and what sorts of works offered them counsel? Knowing that women carried out genital depilation in the late medieval and early modern periods, it is possible to develop a reasonably good picture of the techniques involved, although some inferences must be drawn from a variety of works describing and criticizing the practice. One thing is clear: Though most medieval women had a wide acquaintance with cosmetic recipes, exchanging these among themselves and often compiling them in household commonplace books, evidence suggests that there had developed by the fourteenth century and perhaps earlier a specific class of women who concentrated this knowledge and used it for profit; who, at least in cities, could be consulted and employed as “operators”; and who in various ways may have passed the information on to younger, newly betrothed women. For urban Italian and Iberian women of more means than Chaucer’s Alison or than the women in the audience for the French mercer’s wares, there were traveling depilators attested to by Giovanni Boccaccio, Miguel de Cervantes, and Francisco Delicado. They seem to have been associated with brothels and courtesans of high status, and to have served as go-betweens for urban matrons and their lovers; accordingly, they lacked respectability. For all that, however, there is a poignant sense of a  81 Eric W. Naylor and Jerry R. Rank, eds. and trans., The Archpriest of Talavera by Alonso Martínez de Toledo: Dealing with the Vices of Wicked Women and the Complexions of Men (Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2013), 112, 109. See also Solomon, Literature of Misogyny, 79, 80–83. On such misogynist chastising of women for cosmetic adornment, see Francisco Javier Pérez Carrasco, “Afeites y Cosméticos en la Edad Media, una Creación del Diablo,” Historia 16 (1995): 85–93.

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John Block Friedman social world created and bonds formed between such women and their customers, somewhat akin to that in the chatty beauty parlors of the 1960s, where marital and other domestic matters were discussed. In Boccaccio’s Il Corbaccio (1355), someone seeks to dissuade a middle-aged man from marrying a widow by cataloguing her alleged vices, for example, frequenting depilators: Her utmost desire and favorite pastime … [was to consort with] certain old biddies, of whom there are a great many around our city, who go about peeling other women, plucking their eyelashes and brows, shaving their cheeks with thin glass … and removing little whiskers; nor was there ever a time when two or three were not found in close consultation with her … because in addition to their profession (under whose title they boldly visit other people’s wives and houses) they are excellent madams and go-betweens …82

Somewhat similar is the account of these women in Cervantes’s Don Quixote, though more moralizing: Although there are women in Candaya who go from house to house to remove body hair and tweeze eyebrows, and prepare lotions and cosmetics for women, we, the duennas of my lady, never wanted to admit them because most of them smell of being go-betweens …83

Though these passages do not specifically address genital depilation, Cervantes’ phrase “body hair” (“quitar el vello”) and the connection of both writers’ depilators with bawds and illicit sexual contact, would suggest this was one of their activities. The role of these women—and occasionally men—was made very clear, however, in Delicado’s Lozana. When we meet Lozana, as mentioned earlier, she is living in a Jewish neighborhood in Rome with a young servant and lover named Rampin. Since she plies the trade of beautician-depilator, women come to her quarters for her services, and she herself often goes to the homes of wealthy courtesans. It is clear from various exchanges between Lozana and others that facial and body hair, from eyebrows and forehead to genitals, is considered crude, detrimental both to the trade of street prostitution and to the higher courtesans of Rome, and its removal important for marital success. Early in the narrative the hereditary nature of this trade is outlined and its connection with marriage and Jewish depilators established:  82 Giovanni Boccaccio, The Corbaccio, ed. and trans. Anthony K. Cassell (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975), 42. Giovanni Boccaccio, L’Ameto; Lettere; Il Corbaccio, ed. Nicola Bruscoli (Bari: Gius. Laterza & Figli, 1940), 228: “Erano sommo suo desiderio e recreazione grandissima certe femminette, delle quali per la nostra cittá sono assai, che fanno gli scorticatoi alle femmine, e pelando le ciglia e le fronti e col vetro sottigliando le gote e del collo assottigliando la buccia e certi peluzzi levandone …” Since Cassell’s study, the fundamental work is now Robert Hollander, Boccaccio’s Last Fiction: Il Corbaccio (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988).  83 Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, trans. Edith Grossman (New York: Ecco, 2003), part 2, chap. 40, 714. Eduardo Urbina, ed., Electronic Variorum Edition of the Quixote, http://www.csdl.tamu. edu:8080/veri/index-en.html, accessed May 1, 2017: “Que, puesto que hay en Candaya mujeres que andan de casa en casa a quitar el vello y a pulir las cejas y hacer otros menjurjes tocantes a mujeres, nosotras las dueñas de mi señora por jamás quisimos admitirlas, porque las más oliscan a terceras …”

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Depilation in Late Medieval Europe At that time there was in Pozo Blanco [north-central Andalusia, Lozana’s home] a woman from Naples who had a son and two daughters. They made their living concocting facial preparations with powders, rouges, and creams, plucking eyebrows and beautifying betrothed women, while they prepared … astringents for female parts. They performed their trade flawlessly, and what they didn’t know, some Jewish women, who practiced the same profession, taught them.84

The passage makes clear the extent of the trade and that the son was also involved, perhaps as a preparer of chemical and botanical products and as a carrier of supplies, as well as a barker for the beauticians. Lozana says that she herself learned her trade in the “Levant,” further associating depilation with Jews and Muslims.85 One feature of the Lozana dialogues explains the paucity of recipes for eyebrows in cosmetic manuals because it seems that women like Lozana specifically addressed eyebrow shaping, and that where such services were available, women did not routinely do their own. In a conversation with another woman in the beauty trade this becomes clear: AUNT. Come see my house … do you want me to pluck your eyebrows? … Wait here. I’ll bring a plucker that I have. It won’t leave a single hair standing. The Jews swear by it. LOZANA. And how do they make these treatments of theirs? AUNT. How? Why with turpentine, pitch from Greece, fresh calcium and wax. LOZANA. Take care, for my face is swelling from the plucker’s bite … . You need a sharp edge of glass that skims off the hairs.86

Lozana also manufactures the chemical products she uses, and Rampin fetches ingredients and carries the finished products to the houses of clients. After she and Rampin set up housekeeping in the Jewish quarter, she sends Rampin on an errand: Four ducats remain to improve my lot; take them and buy corrosive sublimate [mercury chloride] for me to work into a treatment. Many women in this province prepare it, but none do it correctly, as I do. For I follow the recipe of Cordova and dry it in the sun and mix it with spit … . I wish they could see how stable mine is, how fireproof, and how well the marketplace will receive it.87

Some of the more charming and Don Quixote-like features of Lozana are the authorial intrusions, where the “author” engages directly with his characters and hears this anecdote about one of Lozana’s less successful treatments. Rampin speaks to Delicado, his creator:

 84 Delicado, Portrait of Lozana, sketch 5, 17–18.  85 See generally Carmen Caballero-Navas, “Medicine Among Medieval Jews: The Science, the Art, and the Practice,” in Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures, ed. Gad Freudenthal (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 319–42.  86 Delicado, Portrait of Lozana, sketch 14, 58.  87 Ibid., sketch 15, 60–61.

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John Block Friedman I came to invite you to our house. You’ll see more than ten whores, some who pluck their eyebrows and others who shave their private parts. And since Mistress Lozana has never driven her own illness [syphilis] away, her plucker is full of lime [lye] instead of hair remover. By mistake we burned off all the hair from the private parts of a lady from Bologna, but we put butter on it and made her believe she was right in style.88

Lozana is a comic and intentionally scurrilous and satiric work, but it demonstrates an apparently accurate knowledge of the Roman demimonde. And most of what it says on depilation accords with straightforward recipe collections, which often have a strong sexual component seen from the woman’s perspective, as in the several recipes against impotence in Sforza’s Gli Experimenti. For example, the Hebrew version of Trotula called The Book of Women’s Love, written in Catalonia or Provence in the late thirteenth century and popular in Spain in the fifteenth, ties closely to depilation (facial and presumably also genital) the wife’s desire to keep, and make sexually satisfying, the husband’s attentions. After several aphrodisiac recipes under the rubric “A good beverage to warm [him] up and add potency,” immediately come more recipes under this rubric: “And now we are going to speak about matters relating to [women] … To remove hair and prevent it from ever growing again.” Some of these are specifically tied to contemporary Jewish and Arab cosmetic practice: Another remedy according to the custom of the women of the Ishmaelites: Take some herons, cut off their heads and put these together with the skin, the blood and the feathers in a glass alembic, and put clean water in [this] glass vessel; when necessary, take some wool, soak it in this water, and wash with it the place from which you want to remove the hair three or four times a day up to four days. This will remove [the hair] with its very root and it will never grow again; it has been tried and tested several times.89

Our best source for the detailed practice of depilation is Henri de Mondeville’s Chirurgie. And as he practiced in France, his work expands to a broader geographic range the largely Iberian evidence presented thus far. Though he devotes considerable time to depilation in his treatise, he acknowledges that he disapproves of it on the grounds of vanity and irreverence: “As this embellishment is against God and justice and is most often not for a treatment of sickness but made to deceive and defraud, I will pass over it rapidly as this subject does not please me.”90 Whatever Mondeville’s feelings about depilation, he launches into the topic with a series of subsections. Perhaps the most important portion of the chapter is that in  88 Ibid., sketch 17, 71–72.  89 This text has been discussed, translated, and published by Carmen Caballero-Navas, The Book of Women’s Love and Jewish Medieval Medical Literature on Women: Sefer Ahavat Nashim (London: Kegan Paul, 2004); quotation at 118, 120. I am most grateful to Dr. Caballero-Navas for calling this treatise to my attention. On the increasingly sexual component of recipe collections, see Meredith K. Ray, “Impotence and Corruption: Sexual Function and Dysfunction in Early Modern Italian Books of Secrets,” in Cuckoldry, Impotence and Adultery in Europe (15th–17th Century), ed. Sara F. Matthews-Grieco (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2014), 125–46; Emmanuela Renzetti and Rodolfo Taini, “Le Cure dell’Amore: Desiderio e Passione in Alcuni Libri di Segreti,” Sanità Scienza e Storia 2 (1986): 33–86.  90 Nicaise, Chirurgie, 587–88.

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Depilation in Late Medieval Europe which he explains why women choose to depilate, suggesting that they have accepted and internalized the gynophobic discourse already outlined. In the only truly cultural comment on depilation in his Chirurgie, he observes: Certain women give themselves over to exterior care of the genitalia in order to appear more agreeable to men, which they do in three major ways: preventing from puberty the growth of hair, removing those hairs already there, and finally preventing regrowth after extraction. The first is managed by the application of bat’s blood and this method has been proven in my own practice. The second method [involves] cutting with scissors or a razor, pulling out with tweezers or with the fingers coated with pitch or resin to prevent the hairs slipping from the grip. This goes best at the baths. The last method involves a very distinguished depilatory recently invented and tested, which gets rid of the roots admirably, has no or little pain, no odor and leaves no spots. It has not been described by any author nor is it in any practicum. It keeps a long time and can be applied several times. After one wipes it off the place remains white. It is only by this medicine or others like it that one can prevent the regeneration of hair.91

Unfortunately, Mondeville does not go further into the composition of this marvelous product. Nor is it clear if he means this substance when he speaks of applying his favorite depilatory, a paste made from a recipe taken from Avicenna’s Canon. Whatever the case, the test for its readiness is to stick a feather in the paste—when the barbules fall off, the depilatory is ready to use.92 This test is identical to one for a similar potion in Trotula and suggests close intertextual relations with that cosmetic work. Most of Mondeville’s chapter not given to the manufacture of various chemical depilatories discusses the process in the public baths when the woman’s pores are open, noting how long a potion should stay on the skin—the time it takes to recite twice the Penitential Psalm Miserere mei, Deus—and then the pulling out of the hairs from the place. Later, one bathes the area with lukewarm water and various ointments to diminish the heat of the chemicals and to render the skin “smooth, clear, and beautiful.”93   The alchemist practitioner side to Mondeville’s discussion, in which he denigrates all of his competition as fraudulent,94 does show up in his comments on a class of depilators who work in baths—presumably these are female—caring for clients wealthy enough to have personal servants: One goes to the baths and then applies over the whole body a depilatory which removes hair, whose manufacture requires a true mastery of the art, great expense and labor, and for the women the profit is little or none. … Moreover, depilation is not completely without danger because if one cooks it longer than needful, if one leaves it on too long, or if one applies it too hot or too thickly, it burns and excoriates all the skin. Then the

 91 Ibid.  92 Ibid., 586.  93 Ibid.  94 For such alchemists’ trade topoi, see John Block Friedman, “The Merda Philosophorum: An English Problem,” in Tributes to Kathleen L. Scott: English Medieval Manuscripts: Readers, Makers and Illuminators, ed. Marlene V. Hennessy (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2009), 83–100.

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John Block Friedman woman keeping her depilation a secret must excuse herself to her husband or her lover, saying that the chambermaid had given her too hot a bath.95

All of this is very time-consuming: “a whole day does not suffice for the care of the body”; however, “the prudent depilator artist through vaunting the perfection of the results and praising his work can make a great profit because the more laborious a procedure is, the more women judge it useful.”96 As with Mondeville’s work, right from the beginning of Trotula’s De Ornatu Mulierum there is clear evidence for associating the practice of genital depilation with elegance: “in order that a woman might become very soft and smooth and without hairs from her head down” [“sine pilis a capite inferius”]. And the first recipe ties the depilation to high social status: “an ointment for noble women which removes hairs” [“pro nobilibus”]. Moreover, it quickly becomes evident that this recipe for the noble woman was for pubic hair: “when the woman has anointed herself all over with this depilatory, let her sit in a very hot steam bath … when she has stayed there a little while, try to pull out the hairs from the pubic area,” for which Trotula uses the very concrete late Latin word pectine.97 In sum, Trotula ties pubic depilation to high social class and offers a detailed and specific recipe for such hair removal, one that in later cosmetic manuals passing under Trotula’s name or influence will merely promise the removal of hair far less concretely “from where it should not be.”98 A PERSISTENT PRACTICE

From these examples, medical, moralizing, clerical, and literary, we can infer that the practice of depilation was widespread in the late Middle Ages and that it was believed to add to a woman’s elegance no matter what her social class, as is suggested, for example, by the only theoretical statement in Arnold of Villanova’s reworking of Trotula’s De Ornatu Mulierum. He notes that “depilation and whitening are vital to women either by necessity or because they consider it suitable to have clear, shining, and beautiful faces.”99 It is apparent from this work and similar manuals that “beauty” is the aesthetic equivalent to both lightening the skin and rendering it hairless. As all of these documents and commentaries suggest, many factors were involved in the diffusion of cultural attitudes that went into making hair manipulation such  95 Nicaise, Chirurgie, 586.  96 Ibid., 586–87.  97 See Green, Trotula, 167–69. On Trotula’s pectine, the hair of the pubis, see James Noel Adams, The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982), 76: “pectin, literally ‘comb’ came to mean pubic hair.”  98 For example, Arnold of Villanova says “alio modo sic fit mirabiliter quia removet pilos ab omnibus locis”; quoted in Cabré i Pairet, “La Cura,” 186. In the Catalan Trotula of Master Joan, the author promises to show how to remove unwanted hair from “wherever it might be,” quoted in Cabré, “From a Master to a Laywoman,” 387.  99 “Depilatio et clarificatio dominabus multum sunt necessaria et secundum rationem convenit eas tenere faciem claram, fulgentem et pulchram …” Quoted in Cabré i Pairet, “La Cura,” 199.

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Depilation in Late Medieval Europe an important part of late medieval cosmetic practice.100 And since the literary and artistic codification of beauty canons favoring these hairline and eyebrow treatments occurred at roughly the same time as the scientific and practical applications of them, it is hard to disentangle the complex attitudes behind them. Certainly, the fact that female beauty canons for the hairline and eyebrows were widely diffused through the romances fashionable at the court of Marie de Champagne (1145–98) and at the trading fairs in Northeastern France would make the blonde and relatively hairless women of that court models for ideal female beauty in other regions of Europe where these characteristics were not the physical norm. But at the same time, while simple imitation of a courtly standard disseminated widely through literature, travel accounts, and artistic representation may account for some interest in depilation, it is probable that the far less overt pressures of male gynophobic discourse contributed to the association of hair removal with female elegance and higher social status, as well as with marriageability and fertility among women of the middle and upper-middle classes. It becomes evident from the 1170s onward in the new genres of female cosmetic manuals and of courtly romance—and, to some degree, in realistic manuscript miniatures—that depilation of all types was becoming established as a fashion for attaining ideal courtly female beauty and “performing” aristocratic status for the beholder, and that it continued to be practiced uninterruptedly through the early modern period, and—as scholars on the aesthetics of hairlessness have shown—even into the eighteenth century.101

100 For example, Penny Jolly (“Pubics and Privates,” 190) looks to the East for the Western fashion of depilation, suggesting inferentially that women depilated at the behest of returning Crusaders with some hearsay experience of harems who had noted that Muslim women plucked body hair. Thus Muslim exoticism may have contributed to the fashion for depilation. 101 Female depilation also excited aesthetic interest in the Neoclassical period. See Johannes Endres et al., “Diderot, Hogarth, and the Aesthetics of Depilation,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 38, no. 1 (Fall 2004): 17–38.

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Lexical Exchange with Italian in the Textile and Wool Trades in the Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries Megan Tiddeman It is well known that Italians—especially the Tuscans and Venetians—played a pivotal role in the English textile and wool trades of the later Middle Ages. They dominated the luxury cloth market, importing silks and brocades from both their home cities and their extensive trading empires, and they were principal buyers and exporters of medieval England’s most precious commodity: high-quality, raw wool. Records of this commercial activity have long attracted economic historians, with administrative documents from the busy port of Southampton—a key destination for Italian carracks and galleys—amongst the first to be edited, including the Anglo-Norman port books1 and the Middle English stewards’ books.2 More recently, Adrian Bell, Chris Brooks, and Paul R. Dryburgh have edited allowances and wool contracts drawn up between the Crown and Italian merchant societies in the late 1200s and 1300s,3 and Helen Bradley has published (in English translation) details of goods bought and sold by Italians in London, Southampton, and Hull in The Views of the Hosts of Alien I extend my grateful thanks to both Lisa Monnas and Hero Granger-Taylor for their advice on textile terminology in this article. I would also like to thank Helen Bradley for her help in tracking down citations containing passelarge lambskins and answering my questions on the Views of the Hosts of Alien Merchants and Datini material. All the words discussed in the glossary here were taken from a much larger glossary of 140 words which I collated as part of my doctoral thesis (examined December 2016) on medieval ­Anglo-Italian contact.   1 Paul Studer, The Port Books of Southampton or (Anglo-French) Accounts of Robert Florys, Water-­ Bailiff and Receiver of Petty-Customs, A.D. 1427–1430 (Southampton, UK: Southampton Record Society, 1913); Brian Foster, The Local Port Book of Southampton for 1435–36 (Southampton, UK: University Press, 1963).    2 Alwyn Ruddock, “The Method of Handling the Cargoes of Mediaeval Merchant Galleys,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 19, no. 57 (Nov. 1942): 140–48; Anne Thick, “The Fifteenth-­ Century Stewards’ Books of Southampton” (Ph.D. diss., King Alfred’s College, University of Southampton, 1995).    3 Adrian R. Bell, Chris Brooks, and Paul R. Dryburgh, Advance Contracts for the Sale of Wool, c. 1200– c. 1327 (Kew, UK: List and Index Society, 2006); Adrian R. Bell, Chris Brooks, and Tony K. Moore, Accounts of the English Crown with Italian Merchant Societies, 1272–1345 (Kew, UK: List and Index Society, 2009).

Megan Tiddeman Table 5.1: Abbreviations: Languages Ar.

Arabic

AN

Anglo-Norman

BML

British Medieval Latin

CF

Continental French

Gr.

Greek

It.

Italian

ME

Middle English

OE

Old English

OF

Old French

Pers.

Persian

Ven.

Venetian

Merchants, 1440–44.4 A key study by the cloth historian Lisa Monnas looked into the various silk types purchased by the royal household and reproduced sections of the Great Wardrobe inventories from 1325 to 1462.5 Similarly, a long-term project called The Lexis of Cloth and Clothing in Britain c. 700–1450 (LCC)6 has culminated in an online database of vocabulary from sources including the Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND), Middle English Dictionary (MED), and Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources (DMLBS),7 along with a related (yet separately funded) “multilingual sourcebook” of textile vocabulary in documents including wills, accounts, petitions, and rolls of livery.8 A large number of the sought-after, expensive fabrics in these records were imported from, and often woven in, Lucca, Florence, and Venice. However, as the late David Trotter first highlighted in 2011,9 language contact between Italian dialects and Anglo-Norman (AN) is an area that has yet to be fully investigated, even though the first Italian loanword (AN fangot, “bundle of cloth” < It.

  4 Helen Bradley, The Views of the Hosts of Alien Merchants, 1440–1444 (London: Boydell, 2012).    5 Lisa Monnas, “Silk Cloths Purchased for the Great Wardrobe of the Kings of England, 1325–1462,” Textile History 20, no. 2 (1989): 283–308.    6 The project (2006–12) was directed by Prof. Gale R. Owen-Crocker at the University of Manchester, http://lexisproject.arts.manchester.ac.uk.    7 A full list of abbreviations used in this article is given in tables 5.1 and 5.2.    8 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).    9 David Trotter, “Italian Merchants in London and Paris: Evidence of Language Contact in the Gallerani Accounts, 1305–08,” in Le Changement Linguistique en Français: Études en Hommage au Professeur R. Anthony Lodge, ed. Timothy Pooley and Dominique Lagorgette (Chambéry, France: Presses de l’Université de Savoie, 2011), 209–26; Trotter, “Death, Taxes and Property: Some Code-Switching Evidence from Dover, Southampton and York,” in Code-Switching in Early English, ed. Herbert Schendl and Laura Wright (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), 155–89, at 170–82.

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Lexical Exchange in the Textile Trades Table 5.2: Abbreviations: Dictionaries and databases AD

Archivio Datini: Corpus Lemmatizzato del Carteggio Datini, http://aspweb. ovi.cnr.it.

AND1

William Rothwell et al., eds., Anglo-Norman Dictionary, 1st ed. (London: Modern Humanities Research Association, 1977–92).

AND2

Anglo-Norman Dictionary, online (2nd) ed., http://www.anglo-norman.net.

DC

Charles Du Fresne Du Cange et al., eds, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (Niort, France: L. Favre, 1883–87).

DEAF

Kurt Baldinger et al., eds., Dictionnaire Étymologique de l’Ancien Français (Laval, Quebec: Presses de l’Université de Laval, 1971–), http://www.deafpage.de.

DEI

Carlo Battisti and Giovanni Alessio, Dizionario Etimologico Italiano (Florence: Barbèra, 1950–57).

DMF

Dictionnaire du Moyen Français, online ed. (Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 2007), http://www.atilf.fr/dmf.

DMLBS

Ronald Edward Latham, David Howlett et al., eds., Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975–2013).

FEW

Walther von Wartburg et al., eds., Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch: Eine Darstellung des Galloromanischen Sprachschatzes (Basel: Zbinden, 1922–).

GDF, GDC

Frédéric Godefroy, ed., Dictionnaire de l’Ancienne Langue Française et de Tous Ses Dialectes du IXe au XVe Siècle (Paris: Vieweg, 1881–1902), part 1, vols. 1–7; Godefroy Complément, vols. 8–10.

LCC

Lexis of Cloth and Clothing Project, http://lexisproject.arts.manchester.ac.uk.

LEI

Max Pfister, Wolfgang Schweickard et al., eds., Lessico Etimologico Italiano (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1979–).

MED

Middle English Dictionary, online ed. (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1952–2002), http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/med.

OED2

Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).

OED3

Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd (online) ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000-;) http://www.oed.com.

OVI

Opera del Vocabolario Italiano: Corpus OVI dell’Italiano Antico (Rome: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, 1998–), http://gattoweb.ovi.cnr.it.

TLF

Paul Imbs et al., eds., Le Trésor de la Langue Française (Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1971–89), http://atilf.atilf.fr/tlf. htm.

TLIO

Tesoro della Lingua Italiana delle Origini (Rome: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, 1997–), http://tlio.ovi.cnr.it/TLIO.

VSES

Alberto Varvaro, ed., Vocabolario Storico-Etimologico del Siciliano (Strasbourg: Editions de Linguistique et de Philologie, 2014).

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Megan Tiddeman fangotto) was identified over a century ago in a Southampton port book.10 Traditionally, loanword studies overlook insular French and assume a near-total dominance of Continental French (CF) as the conduit for Italianisms into England before 1500 and, indeed, direct borrowings from Italian into Middle English (ME) are very much a rarity in the corpora of the MED11 and the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).12 Conversely, many loanwords in medieval Italian material written in London have been identified as anglismi or generic gallicismi without considering potential AN etyma at all.13 The semantic fields of textiles and wool provide a particularly rich selection of terminology which offers evidence of borrowing both from and into Italian on English soil for over two hundred years. As these commodities were imported and exported, so were the words used to describe them, and the lexis of visiting and resident Italian merchants mingled with local languages of commerce. By reviewing mercantile sources in the AND, as well as others not yet included in the major historical dictionaries (in the United Kingdom and in Italy), we find that the textile and wool trades linked English and Italian communities together not just economically, but also linguistically. This paper presents thirty-five loanwords which underline this interaction, principally with Italian influence on high-end fabric names used in England, and “English” influence (be it AN or ME) on wool-related terms in Italian records. ANGLO-ITALIAN CONTACT: PROBLEMS IN IDENTIFYING ETYMA

Textile references can be so ubiquitous in medieval texts that it can be difficult to pin down their origins. The use of satin and cotton (both of ultimate Arabic origin) is so widespread in the mercantile records of England and France (not to mention the rest of Europe) that it is almost impossible to quantify the role that Italian zetano or cotone played in their propagation, even though Italians monopolised the medieval markets for both fabric types.14 The borrowings discussed below have been chosen as they are particularly convincing examples of likely early contact between the languages of England and the Italian peninsula. However, in some cases (e.g. the silks attaby, racamas, taffata, and nak, or the colour name cramoisé), it is difficult to tell based on  10 Studer, Port Books, 50.  11 See Klaus Dietz, “Die Frühen Italienischen Lehnwörter des Englischen,” Anglia 123 (2005): 573–631.  12 See Laura Pinnavaia, The Italian Borrowings in the Oxford English Dictionary: A Lexicographical, Linguistic and Cultural Analysis (Rome: Bulzoni, 2001), 152–55, 274–312; Philip Durkin, Borrowed Words: A History of Loanwords in English (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 369–70.  13 See Emilio Re, “Archivi Inglesi e Storia Italiana,” Archivio Storico Italiano 71 (1913): 249–82, at 275–78, and, much more recently, Roberta Cella’s studies of Italian merchant language use in medieval England: Cella, “Anglismi e Francesismi nel Registro della Filiale di Londra di una Compagnia Mercantile Senese (1305–1308),” in Identità e Diversità nella Lingua e nella Letteratura Italiana: Atti del XVIII Congresso dell’A.I.S.L.L.I., ed. Serge Vanvolsem (Florence: Cesati, 2007), 1:189–204; Cella, “Prestiti nei Testi Mercantili Toscani Redatti di là Dalle Alpi: Saggio di Glossario Fino al 1350,” La Lingua Italiana: Storia, Strutture, Testi 6 (2010): 57–99.  14 See the discussion of pan-European commercial lexis in Schendl and Wright, Code-Switching in Early English, 31.

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Lexical Exchange in the Textile Trades attestation dates whether an Italianism entered the commercial terminology of France or England first. Whilst some cloth names of Italian origin undoubtedly passed into AN from France, it would be illogical to suggest that all French-Italian interaction stopped at the Channel and that all Italian borrowings in AN relied solely on the agency of CF. The realities and complexities of the flow of trade and its lexis must have meant that this was only one of a range of routes of transmission. Such routes—or rather, networks—of language contact included not just the medieval dialects of Italian and French but also ME and British Medieval Latin (BML). We need to accept the highly intricate nature of the borrowing process and the number of factors involved, and find a balance that considers both AN’s autonomy and its close relationship (or “state of osmosis”15) with CF. Equally, we should be wary of oversimplifying the movement of vocabulary and accept that each extant citation has its own unique history, depending on the individual circumstances and interactions of the writer: A silk type may be directly from Italian in one source, via CF in another, or maybe even from the original Arabic in a third. Yet overall, it seems reasonable to assume that in many cases, borrowing of textile lexis happened independently (simultaneously or at different points in time) in insular and continental varieties of French. In summary, when considering potential textile loanwords, we can strengthen the case for direct contact with Italian by focusing on the following three points: l

l

l

the overwhelming historical evidence (outlined below) of an Italian presence in English commercial circles from the 1200s to the 1400s, in the form of or in connection with Crown bankers, English wool buyers and cloth exporters, suppliers to the Royal Wardrobe, London guilds and livery companies, or importers of luxury goods into English ports; instances of Italian-derived textile lexis found in English texts which are different from those found in France, suggesting an independent transmission route: AN baldekin vs. CF baudequin (< It. baldekino),16 AN bokeram vs. CF bouquerant (< It. bucherame), AN damask vs. CF damas (< It. damasco), AN orchel vs. CF orseille (< It. oricello); instances of loanwords which are (so far) unique to insular French and are absent from medieval CF records: the raw silk talany, the terms measane and velvetate, the colours celestrin and yndigo, the cotton demit, and fangot (“bundle of cloth”).

Crucially, we can also show that language contact occurred in both directions and that Italian absorbed as well as transmitted lexis in England. As we shall see below, there are numerous examples of AN and ME loanwords in medieval Italian texts written in London and Southampton, e.g. the wool type coglietta (< AN coillette) or profession names linked to textiles, such as aberdaciere (< ME habderdasher). These are much easier to identify with confidence and represent the borrowings of a minority linguistic  15 Ian Short, Manual of Anglo-Norman (London: Anglo-Norman Text Society, 2007), 25.  16 Baldekin is a rare example of a term of which the transmission from Arabic into AN via Italian is mentioned in an academic study; Schendl and Wright, Code-Switching, 31.

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Megan Tiddeman community, interacting with the three languages of commerce in medieval England. Given the amount of lexical overlap in the semantic field of trade and commerce, it is, at times, hard to designate an etymon for a loanword in Italian as either AN or ME: e.g. follere, “fuller of cloth,” first attested in Florentine in 1448–51, could have been influenced by AN fouleur or ME fuller (or, indeed, both). Yet whatever the exact transmission route involved, the status of such borrowings as distinct to the wool and cloth vocabularies of England remains unequivocal. The potential role of CF in the etymologies below is also much less problematic with insular Gallicisms the natural focus as probable etyma. In the two cases where a widely recorded continental ­equivalent exists (charisea, “Kersey cloth,” and stanforte, “Stamford cloth”), the CF variant itself comes ultimately from ME. EXAMPLES OF LOANWORDS BORROWED FROM ITALIAN INTO ANGLO-­NORMAN AND MIDDLE ENGLISH

Following the Crusades, the republics of Venice and Genoa had both become powerful maritime states which established various rival colonies around the eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and the Levant: Trading posts in Caffa and Tana (now Azov) in the Crimea were the doorways to China and India, and the flow of silks from the Middle East was controlled via fondachi (depots) in Cairo, Cyprus, Antioch, and Constantinople.17 This Italian shipping empire was late medieval England’s only connection to a huge array of international commodities, and England continued to exhibit a “quasicolonial” dependence on alien control of overseas trade until well into the 1400s.18 The first Genoese vessel was recorded in England in 1281, with the Venetians following in 1314.19 The Florentines, whose commercial activity in London was first documented as early as 1223,20 used other Italian or Catalan ships for their voluminous trade in and out of England until 1411, when they gained control over the port of Porto Pisano and set up their own state fleet.21 Despite some commentators’ moral reservations,22 Northern Italians revolutionised commerce in the English capital with their unrivalled range of exotic goods: sugar,  17 See Felicitas Schmieder, “Italian Merchants,” in Trade, Travel, and Exploration in the Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. John Block Friedman and Kristen Mossler Figg (London: Routledge, 2013), 396–97; Maria Fusaro, Political Economies of Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean: The Decline of Venice and the Rise of England, 1450–1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 64–88.  18 Scott L. Waugh, England in the Reign of Edward III (New York: Cambridge Medieval Textbooks, 1991), 73.  19 Alwyn Ruddock, Italian Merchants and Shipping in Southampton, 1270–1600 (Southampton, UK: Southampton University College, 1951), 20–22, 51–52.  20 Cella, “Anglismi e Francesismi,” 191.  21 Ruddock, Italian Merchants and Shipping, 57–58, 62; Michael Mallett, The Florentine Galleys in the Fifteenth Century (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), 3–20; Richard Goldthwaite, The Economy of Renaissance Florence (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2009), 48.  22 The Libelle of Englyshe Polycye (ca. 1436) condemned the Venetians and Florentines for the frivolous nifles and trifles which they brought into England; Ruddock, Italian Merchants and Shipping, 140.

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Lexical Exchange in the Textile Trades spices, fruits, wines, jewellery, and, of course, cloth. The livelihoods of many local mercers, drapers, grocers, haberdashers, silkwomen, and other workers in the “luxury crafts” depended on the galley visits, and local merchants would form partnerships to do business with the Italians.23 Increasingly, from the 1300s onwards, silk types of Middle and Far Eastern origin were manufactured in Italy itself, especially in Lucca and Venice. The complexity of the silk industries in these cities, including the dyeing and weaving processes and the guild regulations which controlled them, are detailed in studies by Donald and Monique King24 and Luca Molà.25 The latter’s glossary highlights the range of suppliers to the Venetian market, listing no fewer than forty types of raw silk (e.g. ablaca, belladonna, decara, mamodea, talani, tracazi, vallona) imported into the republic from Persia, Albania, Syria, Cyprus, Spain, Greece, and Palestine as well as from other Italian cities.26 The loanwords presented below give insight into the huge variety of the Italian textile market in medieval England: linens originally from Bukhara (bokeram), plain and patterned silks originally from Baghdad (attaby, baldekin) or the Mongol Empire (nak), oriental-type silks copied on Tuscan looms (damask, racamas, taffata), and raw silk from the Caspian Sea (talany). In most cases, we see the dialects of medieval Italy acting as a conduit for the transfer of “exotic” lexemes (such as Arabic attābīja or Persian talış) into England’s mercantile lexis. Furthermore, the cotton cloth demit (apparently derived from Italian dimito) reminds us of Italy’s place at the centre of the burgeoning cotton industry in the Mediterranean from ca. 1150 to ca. 1500. The Genoese and Venetians exploited their advanced maritime networks to import raw material efficiently into their own centres of manufacture, where it was handwoven into a relatively cheap and widely available fabric.27 Historians have also confirmed the existence of a valuable export market for the distinctive grey fur of the Calabrian squirrel (calaber), popular as a garment trimming and featuring in English records from 1307 until the 1880s.28

 23 Note that this dependency was, at times, bitterly resented in English commercial circles; Bradley, Views of the Hosts, xlii, xlviii–xlix.  24 Donald King and Monique King, “Silk Weaves of Lucca in 1376,” in Opera Textilia Variorum Temporum: To Honour Agnes Geijer on Her Ninetieth Birthday, ed. Inger Estham and Margareta Nockert (Stockholm: Statens Historiska Museum, 1988), 67–76.  25 Luca Molà, The Silk Industry of Renaissance Venice (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2000).  26 Ibid., 403–8.  27 See Maureen Mazzaoui, The Italian Cotton Industry in the Later Middle Ages, 1100–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). On dimito specifically, the author notes: “There were a large number of fabrics with characteristics that are not clearly defined in the documents. The purpereta and the dimity or dimeto were made in Genoa. The latter was widely used for linings” (167). ­Dimit(t)o is also attested in Venetian mercantile letters from the 1550s, where their editor glosses the fabric as “étoffe de coton ou de chanvre spécialement employée pour doubler des vêtements”; Ugo Tucci, Lettres d’un Marchand Vénitien, Andrea Berengo (1553–1556) (Paris: SEVPEN, 1957), 352.  28 Annamaria Nada Patrone, “Pelli e Pellami,” in Uomo e Ambiente nel Mezzogiorno Normanno-Svevo: Atti delle Ottave Giornate Normanno-Sveve, Bari, 20–23 Ottobre 1987, ed. Giosuè Musca (Bari: Dedalo, 1989), 165–201, at 167. See also the entry for the fur calabar in William S. Beck, The Draper’s Dictionary: A Manual of Textile Fabrics, Their History and Applications (London: Warehousemen &

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Megan Tiddeman Dyes and cloth colour names feature heavily in the glossary. In the case of orchel, we can directly trace the introduction of the red-violet dyestuff into England around 1300 to a particular Florentine family: the Oricellari, who had taken the name of the lucrative product they had discovered in the Greek islands and the Levant. Tuscan merchants (including the prolific Datini company) continued to monopolize the orchil trade in London for around two hundred years.29 Similarly, prior to the 1500s, the Venetians and Genoese dominated the market for the rare indigo dye, the preferred colorant for blue silks in Italy, where it was also mixed with crimson to create a much sought-after hue known as paonazzo (“peacock”).30 The form indigo is not currently attested in the AND and does not appear in CF or English until the mid-sixteenth century.31 Up until this point, the term used for the fabric colour in medieval French and ME was inde/ynde from the same ultimate Latin root indicus (“of India”).32 Whilst the dye name indica is recorded as early as the ninth century in BML,33 it seems very likely that the atypical form of the adjective yndigo (qualifying satin in an AN account of Venetian imports in 1440) was directly influenced by the Venetian indigo/endego. Cramoisé (crimson) coloured silks and velvets were dyed with kermes (grain), an expensive dye extracted from crushed Mediterranean beetles.34 Once again, the Italians specialised in the import of the dyestuff itself into England, and the production of the most luxurious red fabrics in medieval Europe, “keenly sought after by popes and emperors, by cardinals and kings, by the ecclesiastical and the political élite alike.”35 The Arabic quirmiz was borrowed into Italian as chermisi/crèmisi and then transferred into French (both insular and continental), where it quickly came to mean the cloth itself as well as being an adjective of colour. We also find evidence of the Italian fabric colour celestrino (“sky-blue”), the tone of which could vary from city to city: A Florentine document of 1419–28 describes “cilestrino per Roma” and Drapers’ Journal Office, 1882), 324.  29 Annette Kok, “A Short History of the Orchil Dyes,” The Lichenologist 3 (1966): 248–72, at 252–54. See also Elisabeth Crowfoot, Frances Pritchard, and Kay Staniland, Textiles and Clothing c.1150–c.1450, 2nd ed. (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2001), 115.  30 Lisa Monnas, “Some Medieval Colour Terms for Textiles,” Medieval Clothing and Textiles 10 (2014): 49. See also AND2, s.v. “pounace,” and MED, s.v. “pounas.”  31 See TLF, s.v. “indigo”; FEW 4:645a, s.v. “indicum”; OED2, s.v. “indigo.”  32 See AND2, s.v. “inde1”; TLF/DEAF/GDF/DMF, s.v. “inde”; MED, s.v. “inde2”; OED/LCC, s.v. “inde.”  33 See DMLBS, s.v. “indicus” (1327a). The first adjectival use of the colour appears ca. 1220: “dalmatice iij brodate, quarum due sunt de serico indico et unum de serico rubeo.”  34 Note that recent scholarship has suggested that there may have been some confusion in the Middle Ages in distinguishing kermes from other cochineal (or “red-dye giving”) insects, as Monnas summarises in “Colour Terms,” 46: “Paradoxically, Dominique Cardon [Le Monde des Teintures Naturelles, 2003] has concluded that “grain” used for woollen scarlet was extracted from the insect Kermes vermilio and she has persuasively argued that the chermisi used for silk was created with a different group of insects of the porphyrophora species, typically Polish cochineal (Porphyrophora polonica) and Armenian cochineal (Porphyrophora hamelii).”  35 Rosalia Bonito Fanelli, “The Pomegranate Motif in Italian Renaissance Silks: A Semiological Interpretation of Pattern and Colour,” in La Seta in Europa, Sec. XIII–XX: Atti della Ventiquattresima Settimana di Studi, 4–9 Maggio 1992, ed. Simonetta Cavaciocchi (Florence: Le Monnier, 1992), 521.

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Lexical Exchange in the Textile Trades “cilestrino al modo nostro,” and cloth samples of this name sent by Datini merchants in 1402–03 are, in fact, dark blue.36 It is not surprising to find that celestrin entered English fabric lexis in the early 1400s, appearing in the AN- and ME-matrix accounts of the Worshipful Company of Grocers; the livery company sponsored a “select band of Italian entrepreneurs” and was even partly managed for a time by Italians in London who trained English apprentices.37 Three final loanwords offer further convincing examples of Italian textile terminology appearing in English records. The Italian name for a “bundle of cloth,” fangotto, was borrowed as early as 1294 in a BML King’s Roll recording Lucchese imports, as well as in AN, ME, and BML accounts and port books in the 1420s and 1440s (see fangot). Meanwhile, AN records of imports by Venetian merchants in 1440–42—as given to their English hosts, Thomas Walsingham, John Welles, and Sir William Estfield—contain clear adaptations of Venetian silk lexis. Firstly, we find measane (“medium-quality”) silks, derived from (drappi) mezzani, the most widely produced of five official silk grades formally defined in law by the Venetian Senate.38 Secondly, there are three attestations of (satin) velvetate, a borrowing of zettano vellutato, an Italian voided satin velvet with a pattern of velvet pile contrasted by its satin background.39 This is very probably the same kind of velvet (here in the blue colour known as alessandrino) referred to in the Parliament Rolls, ca. 1420: “xx. ulne .ii. i quarter de velvet sur satyn alexandre” (see AND1, s.v. “ulne”). Finally, it is worth noting that the meaning of borrowed Italianisms could shift considerably over time. In a typical example of semantic “narrowing,”40 seventeenth-century English drapers used fangot as a specific measurement of one to three hundredweight of raw silk, rather than a generic “bundle” of cloth.41 Another interesting case is the linen bokeram, whose nature in English records had changed considerably by the end of the fourteenth century. The fine oriental cloth described in the Romance of Horn by Thomas,42 ca. 1170, had become a coarse, stiff cotton or linen used by the Merchant Taylors for making banners by the 1420s and is listed alongside canvas and fustian in 1436.43 Stella Mary Newton also refers to fanciful headpieces and

 36 Monnas, “Colour Terms,” 28–29. A photograph of these cloth samples (Lettera 1173 con campione di tessuto, Bacellona-Firenze, ca. 1402) can be viewed on the homepage of the Datini Archive, Archivio di Stato di Prato, Fondo Datini, http://datini.archiviodistato.prato.it.  37 Bradley, Views of the Hosts, xxi.  38 Molà, Silk Industry, 103.  39 Donald King, “Types of Silk Cloth Used in England 1200–1500,” in Cavaciocchi, La Seta in Europa, 464; Lisa Monnas, Renaissance Velvets (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 2012), 16.  40 See Philip Durkin, The Oxford Guide to Etymology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 237.  41 See OED2, s.v. “fangot.”  42 “Sin soelent aporter pailes e bukeran,” AND2, s.v. “bokeram.”  43 “Item pur iij verges et dimj de bokerham pur baners,” AND2, s.v. “bokeram”; “Fustiane, and canvase, Carde, bokeram, of olde tyme thus it wase,” OED2, s.v. “buckram, n.2.”

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Megan Tiddeman masks—presumably short-lived, disposable items—specially made for the Christmas revels in 1348 at Edward III’s court using leather, linen, and bokeram.44 GLOSSARY OF LOANWORDS BORROWED FROM ITALIAN INTO ANGLO-­NORMAN AND MIDDLE ENGLISH

Sources in both glossary sections of this article include those currently found in the major historical corpora, as well as key evidence from other material. These “new” citations are given in the loanword summaries here, along with headwords (in bold type) to refer the reader to any relevant dictionary or database entries. Additional citations are quoted occasionally from these established sources, particularly to illustrate early examples and interesting variations. Potential Italianisms can be found in a wide range of nonliterary material from late medieval England. These include accounts of London livery companies (such as the Grocers) and local administration (such as the Southampton port books). Royal and government records feature heavily: the Rotuli Parliamentorum; the Statutes of the Realm; the Great Wardrobe accounts, rolls of purchase, and other Exchequer (E) documents, especially those in Bradley’s Views of the Hosts of Alien Merchants, 1440–44. The Italian loanwords given below are taken from three “Views” in particular, all of which record the import and export activity of Venetian merchants in London in 1440–41.45 Various other sources (all quoted in AND) offer useful examples of high-end cloths imported by Italians, such as the inventory of the young Queen Isabella’s trousseau (1307–08), lists of goods seized from the Duke of Gloucester (1397) or those belonging to the Duke of Bedford (ca. 1435), and the accounts of Durham Abbey (1338 and 1439–40).46 Further vernacular lexemes—such as the cloth-of-gold nak in a Christchurch inventory of 1315—can be found hidden away in less well-known texts.47  44 Great Wardrobe Accounts, E 101/390/5, memb. 11, see Stella Mary Newton, Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince: A Study of the Years 1340–1365 (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 1980), 77. Henceforth in this article, all document shelfmarks beginning with E refer to Records of the Exchequer, National Archives of the UK. The same general semantic shift occurred in France: The chanson de geste Les Enfances Vivien, from ca. 1275–1300, describes people as “Tuit sont vestu de merveille boquerant,” but by the 1430s, bougeran refers (as it still does today) to a cheaper, coarser linen, used for lining garments; FEW 19:36a, s.v. “buhara”; TLF/DMF, s.v. “bougran.” See also Mazzaoui, Italian Cotton Industry, 198–99, for a useful summary of Arabic-origin cottons in Italian and French.  45 See views 16 (E 101/128/30, ret. 6), 43 (E 101/128/31, ret. 53), and 48 (E 101/128/30, ret. 1) in Bradley, Views of the Hosts, 34–42, 89–92, 103–117. Her transcription of the original AN material is available online through the University of London’s Institute of Historical Research under the title “Transcriptions of the ‘Views of Hosts’” at http://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/102/1/Transcriptions.pdf. For a fuller introduction to this text as a source of Italianisms, see Megan Tiddeman, “Early Anglo-Italian Contact: New Loanword Evidence from Two Mercantile Sources, 1440–1451,” in Merchants of Innovation: The Languages of Traders, ed. Esther-Miriam Wagner, Bettina Beinhoff, and Ben Outhwaite (De Gruyter, 2017), 217–34.  46 The AND sigla are Isabella Inventory, Gloucester Inventory, Bedford Inventories, and Durham, respectively.  47 J. Wickham Legg and W. H. St. John Hope, Inventories of Christchurch Canterbury with Historical

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Lexical Exchange in the Textile Trades Of course, luxury fabrics feature not just in commercial and bureaucratic material, but also in literature, and indeed, such multilevel frequency underlines a lexeme’s use in wider medieval society. It is not surprising to find references to the Persian linen bokeram in the AN Romance of Horn (ca. 1170), to the squirrel fur calabre in the ME Piers Plowman (1362), or to taffata silk in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (ca. 1405). 1. attaby (n.): A plain silk of tabby weave, originally from the Attabiya area of Baghdad but later made in Italy and either pure or mixed with a weft of waste silk and flax; (< CF atabis) < It. attabì/actabi < Ar. attābīja (“Attabiya”). Italy: DC attabi (Latin, Rome, 1295), OVI actabi (1376), DEI (3691b) tabì. England: attaby (E 361/5/5r, 1390–92).48 attaby plan’, attaby mottele, attaby op[er] at’ cu[m] auro (E 361/5/7r, 1394–98).49 MED attabi (1393), AND2 attaby (1397), OED2 tabby, LCC tabby. France: att. from ca. 1275; DEAF tabis, FEW 19:12b, 210a attabi, DMF atabis, GDF atabis, GDC acabit. Note also variant forms of the cloth name: DMF zatabis, GDF zatabiz (1380); DMF tabis, GDF tabis (1370–1409). 2. baldekin (n.): A patterned silk of lampas weave brocaded with gold or silver thread, originally from Baghdad but then produced in Italy (especially in Lucca) from the 1300s; < It. baldacchino < It. Baldacco/a < Ar. bagdadi (“Bagdad”). Italy: TLIO baldacchino (ca. 1290), OVI baldac(c)hino, baldac(c)hini, DEI (412b) baldacchino. England: Baldekyns de Luk (E 361/41/4r, 1360–61).50 draps baldekyns dore de Luk (E 101/128/30 ret. 6, 1440).51 DMLBS (177b) baldekinus (1218), AND2 baldekin (ca. 1370), LCC baldachin.52 France: one att. of med. Latin baldekinus (1197), one att. of baldekin (ca. 1200); FEW 19:18b Bagdad. All other examples of the cloth name use a vocalised form; GDF baudequin, DEAF baudequin, DMF baudequin, first att. ca. 1200. 3. bokeram (n.): A fine linen fabric originally from Bukhara in modern-day Uzbekistan, which appears to become coarser and cheaper by the fourteenth century in England; < It. bucharame < Pers. Buhara (“Bukhara”). Italy: DEI (624a) bucherame1 (Latin, Asti, 1199), TLIO bucherame (1266), OVI bucharame, bucherami, bucharani, bocaran. England: AND2 bokeram: Sin [= from distant land] soelent aporter pailes e bukeran (Horn 3330, ca. 1170), j. pece de bocrel, j cote d’arme de bocram (Cardiff Records and Topographical Introductions and Illustrative Documents (Westminster, UK: Archibald Constable, 1902).  48 Monnas, “Silk Cloths,” 298.  49 Ibid.  50 Ibid., 295.  51 Bradley, “Transcriptions,” 21.  52 Note that we have no ME-matrix citations containing the baldekin spelling form and so no concrete evidence that it passed into ME; all twenty examples in MED and OED2 under “baudekin” contain variations of the (originally) CF-based baudekin (e.g. bawdekyn, baudkyn, bawdakyn, baudekines, etc.). We have to wait until 1598 to find unequivocally Italian baldakines in an English text; see OED2, s.v. “baldachin, n.1.”

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Megan Tiddeman 58, 1315–20), MED bokeram (1222), DMLBS (222c) bukaramus (1315), OED2 buckram, LCC buckram. France: att. from 1190 (as bourgherant) to present day (as bougran); FEW 19:36a buhara, DEAF boquerant, DMF bougran, GDC bougran. 4. calaber (n.): Grey squirrel fur (originally) from Calabria in southern Italy; a garment or trimming made of this fur; < It. Calabria.53 Italy: OVI Calabria (1231–50). England: AND2 calaber: 6 aumuces de dos de calaber forrés de vair, pour trois chapes de cuer (Isabella Inventory 519, 1307–08), OED2 calaber/calabar (1362), MED Calabre, DMLBS (240a) Calaber (1435), LCC calabar. France: one att. from 1379; FEW 2–1:51b Calabria, DMF calabre. 5. celestrin (adj.): (Fabric) of a sky-blue colour; < It. cilestrino < Lat. caelestinum (“heavenly”). Italy: LEI caelistinum (9:591): panni celestrini (Latin, Rome, 1287), TLIO celestino (1294), OVI cilestrino, cilestrini, celestrino, AD cilest(r)ino. England: AND2 celestrin: drap de colour celestryn (Grocers 90, 1401), MED celestin (1435–36), OED2 celestine/celstine (1483), LCC celestien.54 France: no record of the colour relating to cloth apart from undated Occitan celestina (“drap bleu de ciel”); FEW 2–1:34b caelestis. 6. cramoisé (adj., n.): Of crimson or deep red colour; crimson-coloured silk; (< CF cramoisi) < Ven./It. crèmisi < Ar. qirmiz (“kermes: the scarlet grain beetle”). Italy: TLIO crèmisi (1318), OVI carmissì, carmesì, chermisi, DEI (1150a) crèmisi. England: AND2 cramoisé: pour une autre robe de velvel gramsi (Isabella Inventory 520, 1307–08), une tunique et dalmatique de cramoysee (Bedford Inventories B42, 1389–1435), OED2 cramoisy/cramesy (1423). France: at least fifteen att. from 1298 (in Italianising text, Marco Polo’s Devisement du Monde); FEW 19:95b quirmiz, TLF cramoisi, DMF cramoisi, GDC cramoisi, DEAF cramoisy. 7. damask (n.): A figured silk, either monochrome or polychrome, originally produced in Damascus but then later in Italy in the 1300s; < It. damasco < It. Damasco55 < Lat. Damascus. Italy: DEI (1206b) damasco (Latin, Rome, 1355), TLIO damasco (1362–65), OVI domasc(h)o. England: Pann’ adaur’ de damasco (E 361/4/17r, 1370–71).56 Item j couple damaske  53 For the history of this toponym in Italian, see Wolfgang Schweickard, ed., Deonomasticon Italicum, vol. 1, Derivati da Nomi Geografici (A-E) (Tübingen, Germany: De Gruyter, 2002), 320–23.  54 Direct Latin influence from caelestinus is, of course, probable in the extant continental examples of this “heavenly” colour, but LCC and MED, for example, seem to have overlooked potential Italian influence in vernacular, cloth-specific texts in England (such as the Grocers’ material).  55 For the full history of this city name in the Italian language, see Schweickard, Deonomasticon Italicum, 1:630–41.  56 Monnas, “Silk Cloths,” 296. It is hard to pinpoint exactly when the lexeme stops being a place-name and becomes a fabric-specific adjective or noun. However, over time, the progression is clear: In the

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Lexical Exchange in the Textile Trades dargent, Item j couple damaske cremeson dore (E 101/128/30 ret. 6, 1440).57 AND2 damaske (1390–1412), OED2 damask (ca. 1430), MED damask, DMLBS (555a) Damascus (1338), LCC damask. France: the form damas is attested from the fourteenth century onwards; one att. of damasque in 1352; FEW 3:9a, Damascus, DEAF damas, GDC damas, DMF damas/damasque, TLF damas. 8. demit (n.): Dimity, a coarse cotton or flannel cloth, often used for linings; < Ven. dimito (< Lat. dimitum) < Gr. dimitos (“tabby cloth with high warp concentration”). Italy: invoiar in qual casa, o dimito o botana (Venetian merchant’s letters, 1556).58 DEI (1307a) dimito (Venice, 1454). England: DMLBS (670a) dimitum: pro xxviij peciis de dimett’ (AcWardr. p. 57, 1330), MED demit: A vestment of white demyt for lenten and vigils (Invent. Cumberworth in Peacock EChurch Furniture, 1440), OED2 dimity. France: Ø 9. fangot (n.): A bundle of cloth, wrapped up for transport; < It. fangotto < OF fagot (“bundle of sticks”) < Lat. ? *facus.59 Italy: jo faghotto di peze di ciabelotti mandati a Lione (Medici MS 537, f. 6r, 1503).60 TLIO fagotto (1348–50), OVI fag(h)otto, DEI fangotto (1594). England: DMLBS (896b) fagotus: fagottos pannorum suporum de Luda [Luka] (KRMem 68m. 82 d., 1294), AND2 fagot: liij bales xxi fangot, contenu vij c x draps ij verges (Port Books 50, 1427–30), MED fangot (1428), OED2 fangot (1673). France: Ø 10. measane (adj.): Medium-quality (silk) for both Italian and foreign markets; < It./ Ven. mezzani < Lat. medius / Gr. mesos (“middle”). Italy: drappi mezzani (Archivio di Stato di Venezia, ST, reg. 4 f.44v, 1457). England: xvj papires de soy de divers colours fyne & measane (E 101/128/31 ret. 53, 1440).61 Item viij papers misane, Item j couple damaske dargent (E 101/128/30 ret. 6, 1440).62 France: Ø 11. nak (n.): A patterned cloth of gold, probably of lampas weave, originally produced Wardrobe Accounts, we see a convenient evolution from pann’ adaur’ de damasco in 1370–71 to pann’ serici damask in 1394–98, to simply damask/damasc (without suspension marks) from 1431. Likewise, in the AND2 entry, we move from un ruban de damaske in 1397 to i couple de damask noier in 1423.  57 Bradley, “Transcriptions,” 21.  58 Tucci, Lettres, 248.  59 Italian fa(n)gotto (itself borrowed from OF) developed a new semantic niche, meaning a bundle of cloth, rather than firewood. This specialised usage is found only in Italy and England, not in France. The ultimate etymon of OF fagot is far from clear. For a detailed and most up-to-date discussion of the various theories, see DEAF, s.v. “fagot.”  60 Florence Edler, Glossary of Medieval Terms of Business: Italian Series, 1200–1600 (Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1934), 114.  61 Bradley, “Transcriptions,” 139.  62 Ibid., 21.

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Megan Tiddeman in China and the Mongol Empire; (< CF nac) < It. nacchi < Ar. nahh / Pers. nach (“carpet”). Italy: TLIO nacchi (ca. 1335–43), OVI nacchi. England: Item Casula de albo panno de Tharse de nak palliat cum aurifrigio de diversis armis (Canterbury Inventory, 1315).63 pann’ ad aur’ de Nak (E 361/3/48r, 1350–51).64 MED nak (1350–51), LCC nak. France: nac, nacque att. from 1298 (in Italianising text, Marco Polo’s Devisement du Monde); FEW 19:137a nahh, DEAF naque, GDF naque/nac1, DMF naque/nac. 12. orchel (n.): A violet dye extracted from lichens (especially Roccella tinctoria), introduced to London at the turn of the fourteenth century by Florentine traders, the Oricellari; < It. oricello < ?65 Italy: TLIO oricello (1277–82), OVI oricello, oricella, oricelle. England: AND2 orchel: le Roy ad ordeigné [. . .] qe null tinctour, n’autre persone, tiencte ou cause estre tinctez deinz cest dit roialme d’Engleterre puis le dit fest ascun drap lanuez oveqz orchell ou cork appellez jarecorke66 (Stats ii 487, 1483), OED2 orchil (1483), LCC orchil. France: the first four att. date from the 1490s (oursolle, orsolle, orsaille, arssels); note also that orseille is 1460–61 in a French text from Flanders; FEW 21:164a mousse, DMF orseille/orsolle, GDF orseille/orsolle, GDC orseille, TLF orseille. 13. racamas (n.): A lampas silk, with a continuous pattern weft of gold (or silver) thread; (< CF racamaz) < It. raccamare / Sicilian raccamári < Ar. raqama (“to embroider”). Italy: VSES raccamári: racamatus (Latin, Puglia, 1266), pannum vocatum barbanum raccamiatum ad sitam et aurum (Latin, Palermo, 1306), OVI racamato (ca. 1275–1300). England: Pann’ adaur’ voc’ racamatz (E 361/3/48r, 1349–51).67 xxxvij. draps d’or de Lukes appellez ragomas de divers sortz (Gloucester Inventory 297, 1397).68 troys Copes, deux Ridelles, quatres Draps d’Or ragmas (Foedera vol. 4, p. 42, 1403).69  63 Legg and Hope, Inventories, 77.  64 Monnas, “Silk Cloths,” 295.  65 As outlined in OED3, s.v. “orchil,” the origin of the dye name is uncertain, and it is not clear whether the Mozarabic urjāla/urjālla represents the ultimate etymon or is itself a borrowing from Romance. TLF, s.v. “orseille,” suggests that the CF variant orsolle was directly borrowed from the Catalan orxella in the fifteenth century.  66 Jarecork was “a crimson dye made in the Highlands of Scotland, known locally as corcur or korkir”; Kok, “Orchil Dyes,” 254.  67 Monnas, “Silk Cloths,” 295.  68 Viscount Dillon and W. H. St. John Hope, “Inventory of the Goods and Chattels Belonging to Thomas, Duke of Gloucester, and Seized in his Castle at Pleshy, Co. Essex, 21 Richard II (1397): With their Values, as Shown in the Escheator’s Account,” Archaeological Journal 54 (1897), 275–308, at 297. Note that whilst other citations in this article from the Gloucester inventory are found in AND entries, this one is not.  69 Thomas Rymer and Robert Sanderson, Fœdera, Conventiones, Litterae, et Cujuscunque Generis Acta Publica Inter Reges Angliae Et Alios Quosvis Imperatores, Reges, Pontifices, Principes, Vel ­Communitates, vol. 4 (The Hague: Neaulme, 1737–45), 42.

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Lexical Exchange in the Textile Trades AND2 frunt: En primes, ung Vestiment entier de noier ragamas d’or (Rot. Parl. iv 227, 1423), OED3 ragmas (1480), DMLBS (2645a) racamas (1401), LCC racamas. France: eight att. from 1364–1611; FEW 19:145a raqama, DMF racamaz, GDF racamaz/racquemas (1397). 14. (satin) velvetate (adj.): Like velvet; silken fabric with a short, dense pile; < It. (zetano) vellutato < Lat. velutatus (“velvet”). Italy: 1 peza di zetani veluttato (Datini silk inventory, 1408).70 seta pelo broccati, pelo per velluti, pelo per zetani vellutati (Florentine Silk Guild treatise, ca. 1450).71 England: j pece satyne russet velvetate [. . .] j pece satyne noir velvetate [. . .] j pece satyne cremesyne velvetate (E 101/128/31 ret. 53, 1440).72 France: Ø 15. taffata (n.): A cheaper, plain, tabby-weave silk, widely copied and purchased in the 1300s and 1400s in Europe but originating in the Middle East; (< CF taffetas) < It. taffetta < Turco-Pers. tafta (“woven”). Italy: OVI taffetta (1332–36), taffità, taffectà, tafet(t)tà, AD taffet(t)à, DEI taffettà. England: taffat (E 101/380/14, 1325).73 [xxx] peces taffata a xxs la pece (E 101/128/30 ret.1, 1441–42).74 AND1 taffata (1341), AND2 ciel1: un lit de blanc satyn [. . .] c’est assaver tester, coverlit et entier cele et iij curtyns de taffata batuz (Gloucester Inventory 289, 1397), MED taffata (1355), OED2 taffeta/taffety, DMLBS (3361c) taffata, LCC taffata. France: taffetas 1314; taphetaz 1317; FEW 19:179b tafta, DEAF taffetas, GDC taffetas, DMF taffetas, TLF taffetas. 16. talany (n., adj.): Raw silk used as weft thread and imported from the Talesh region, in modern-day Iran; < It. talani < Pers. talış (“Talesh”). Italy: talani lb 4 s. 10 (in) lb 5 s. (Datini silk pricelist, 1393).75 lleze bene bs. 1½, tallani bs. 1¼ (silk pricelist in Alexandria, 1419).76 OVI talani (ca. 1335–43). England: Item vj bales rawe silke videlicet j bale de purpea j de talanye (E 101/128/30 ret. 6, 1440).77 Item l libres weyght rawe silke talanye [. . .] Item v far[de]llez rawe silke talany (E 101/128/30 ret. 7, 1440–41).78 France: Ø

 70 Federigo Melis, Documenti per la Storia Economica dei Secoli XIII–XVI (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1972), 290. Unusually, the writer of this inventory also drew pictures of the patterns on each kind of silk alongside the list of fabrics; a facsimile is given on p. 291.  71 Girolamo Gargiolli, L’arte della Seta in Firenze: Trattato del Secolo XV (Florence: G. Barbèra, 1868), 19.  72 Bradley, “Transcriptions,” 139.  73 Monnas, “Silk Cloths,” 302.  74 Bradley, “Transcriptions,” 9.  75 Melis, Documenti per la Storia, 302.  76 Ibid., 320.  77 Bradley, “Transcriptions,” 21.  78 Ibid., 27.

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Megan Tiddeman 17. yndigo (adj.): Of a deep blue-purple colour (dyed with the extract of plants from the Indigofera family); < Ven. indego/endego < Lat. indicum < Lat. indicus (“of India”). Italy: DEI (2003b) indigo indego (Venice, 1246), TLIO indaco (1275), OVI endego (Venice, 1310–30). England: Item a John Olney le xxvij iour dApril v peces satyns yndigo vjli xiijs iiijd (E 101/128/30 ret. 6, 1440).79 OED2 indigo: endego to dye silke (R. Eden tr. Peter Martyr of Angleria Decades of Newe Worlde f. 238, 1555), DMLBS (1327a) indicus. France: indico 1544; TLF indigo. EXAMPLES OF LOANWORDS BORROWED FROM ANGLO-NORMAN AND ­MIDDLE ENGLISH INTO ITALIAN

The great Florentine clothmaking guild known as the Arte della Lana was one of the largest buyers of English wool in Europe and relied in the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries on soft English wool to produce its internationally renowned, high-quality fabrics. Tuscan merchants got a vital foothold in the English wool market in the 1270s through their role as papal bankers and tax collectors; this brought them into initial contact with the great monastic orders of the day, lending money and being repaid in the finest raw wool for export. In their study of 203 advance wool contracts and eleven wool schedules from ca. 1200 to ca. 1330, Bell, Brooks, and Dryburgh clearly demonstrate the dominance of Italians as wool buyers over any other nationality, including the Flemish and the English themselves: 157 contracts were drawn up in favour of northern Italian societies with the Crown bankers, the Ricciardi of Lucca, and the Frescobaldi of Florence, accounting for half the total wool contracted, for a total of £20,000 spent on around four thousand sacks.80 Tuscan wool buyers sent their representatives to nearly every monastic order in England as well as to a large number of aristocratic estates, offering huge payments to secure the best wool crops years in advance. The Yorkshire monasteries, in particular, were renowned for top-graded and professionally prepared wool, and there was intense competition among rival compagnie, vying to pin these monasteries down to long-term partnerships. It is not surprising, therefore, that half of the “English” loanwords in medieval Italian presented in the glossary below are directly linked to the English wool industry. They include designators of wool quality (moiana, “medium grade”; locchi, “lowest grade”), specific wool types (coglietta, “from many producers”; storo, “from a single estate”), extra-large sheepskins (passalarghe), and the verb impaccare, used to describe the packing of wool into bales. We also find units of measurements: the older chiovo

 79 Ibid., 22.  80 Adrian R. Bell, Chris Brooks, and Paul R. Dryburgh, The English Wool Market (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 18–20, 116.

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Lexical Exchange in the Textile Trades (“seven or eight pounds of wool”) and pocca (“182 pounds of wool”) and, from the mid-fifteenth century, toddo (“twenty-eight pounds of wool”). In addition, the AN- and BML-matrix wool contracts and schedules submitted to the Crown by Italians in the 1290s provide new examples of wool terminology in England that are either absent from or rarely recorded in the major dictionaries. It is easy to imagine a route of lexis transfer via these “working documents,” which would have been read by the Italian merchant societies involved (even if they were written by English scribes on their behalf).81 Based on such evidence in these sources, we can now suggest etyma for some wool-related loanwords in Italian, and we can see clear adoption of the English grading system used throughout this type of material (bone, moiene, loks, coillette) in Tuscan sources (buona, moiana, locchi, coglietta). Compare the first extract, from Exchequer wool schedules of 1294 (made on behalf of the ­Frescobaldi), and the second, from Francesco Balducci Pegolotti’s guide to English wool, ca. 1335–43 (emphasis mine in both cases): Veraiement sire nous avons laines de Coillette vers le North mes nous ne pooms saver combien tant ke nostre compaignon qui est vers le North soit revenue [. . .] Si nous coste chescun sac de la bone leine xx m. et chescun sac de moiene leine et de lokes triés xv mars82 [Truly Sire, we have “collect” wool in the North but we cannot know how much until our associate who is in the North is returned. . . . So each sack of good wool costs us 20 marks and each sack of middling and of selected locks, 15 marks] Inghilterra per lane di magione e per lane cogliette [. . .] sì ne fanno 3 ragioni, cioè la miglore che si dice buona, e mezzana che si dice moiana, e la meno buona che si dice locchi83 [England for stock wool and “collect” wool . . . they make three grades of them, namely the best which is called good, middling which is called moiana, and the least good which is called locchi]

By around the 1350s, the Italian monopoly over the wool trade was diminishing rapidly as English merchants increased their share of the market. Historians generally accept that the burden of royal taxation on raw wool export instigated the growth of an English woollen cloth industry which blossomed from the early fifteenth century as the wool export market waned.84 By the 1440s, the total volume of English cloth shipped abroad had overtaken that of the raw material, even though we still find evidence of lucrative Anglo-Tuscan wool deals well into the fifteenth century,

 81 See David Trotter, “Il Sount Aliens: Marchands Étrangers et Contact Linguistique en Angleterre au Moyen Âge,” in Lexikon, Varietät, Philologie: Romanistische Studien: Günter Holtus zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Anja Overbeck, Wolfgang Schweickard, and Harald Völker (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), 307–15.  82 E 101/126/7 m.14, m.21, in Bell, Brooks, and Dryburgh, Advance Contracts, 184, 200; translation mine.  83 Allan Evans, ed., La Practica della Mercatura (Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1936), 258; translation mine.  84 See, for example, Edmund Fryde, Studies in Medieval Trade and Finance (London: Hambledon, 1983), V.19, and Bell, Brooks, and Dryburgh, English Wool Market, 9, 13.

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Megan Tiddeman such as the Cantelowe-Salviati partnership.85 Italians would also continue to play a key role in the rapidly growing English cloth industry, which was entirely reliant on G ­ enoese-controlled imports of the chemical dye-fixer alum, as well as the dyes themselves (madder, brazilwood, woad, and kermes/grain). The city of Salisbury, for example, home to some of the finest Cotswold wool crops, evolved into a major dyeing centre thanks to the Italian influx of colorants at Southampton, and in Romsey, the Genoese directly employed large numbers of local craftsman to dye and finish cloths bought in England or Flanders.86 Furthermore, English cloth producers were able to penetrate new markets only through the unrivalled shipping networks of the Genoese and the Venetians, exporting fabrics to North Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Levant, where they were in high demand. As Bradley notes in her introduction to the Views of the Hosts of Alien Merchants, 1440–44: The primary focus of the Venetian interest in London was cloth. They bought both broadcloth and straits, including bastards, kerseys, worsted, russet and musterdevillers [.  .  .] The Westerns, Guildfords, Ludlows, Southamptons, Readings, Cotswolds and Northamptons, as well as Essex and Suffolk straits, sold to aliens in the Views were mostly bought from London wholesalers.87

Woollen cloth types feature strongly in the loanword glossary below, where we find the Italianised names for cloths produced either in England (charisea, “cloth from Kersey”; contisgualdo, “cloth from the Cotswolds”; stanforte, “cloth from Stamford”), in Ireland (faldengo, “falding, cloak”), or in Flanders (blacchallere, “black-a-lyre cloth”). Whilst the two latter borrowings are rare, appearing in single sources (from 1305 and 1448–51, respectively), the metonymic fabrics, derived from English toponyms, are much more widespread, appearing in accounts kept by various Italian companies both in London and back home in Italy. Estanforts are found in CF sources, too, and the name “stanford” was transferred to imitation woollen fabrics produced in northern France and Flanders; hence we find references in the 1200s not only to stanforti de englletera but to stanforti de sent’homer,

 85 This involved the shipment of 466 pokes (over 40 tons) of wool from Southampton to Pisa in 1450– 51, an enterprise which would earn the business partners, William Cantelowe of London and Jacob Salviati of Florence, over 20,000 florins in profit. I am currently preparing an edition of these accounts (Archivio Salviati, ser. 1, no. 339) for the British Academy’s Records of Social and Economic History series. See also George Holmes, “Anglo-Florentine Trade in 1451,” English Historical Review 108 (1993): 371–86.  86 Fryde, Medieval Trade, XV.343–363. See also Anthony R. Bridbury, Medieval English Clothmaking: An Economic Survey (London: Heinemann Educational, 1981), 76.  87 Bradley, Views of the Hosts, xlii. Out of the sixteen Venetians documented, fifteen gleaned the vast majority of their profit from shipping cloth out of England. Sadly, this source contains hardly any data relating to the Genoese, as most of these merchants boycotted the English Crown’s hosting rules at the time. However, other Exchequer records testify as to the extent of their export of fine English cloths to southern Europe and beyond: Genoese shipments from early 1460 totalled a huge £26,000, with one merchant (Antonio Doria) exporting a single consignment of mixed woollens (such as straits and kerseys) worth over £3,000; see Fryde, Medieval Trade, XV.355.

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Lexical Exchange in the Textile Trades stanforte d’arazo, or stanford de ypro.88 Similarly, by the time we find charisea in Italian records, “kersey” had already been borrowed into both AN and CF. It is, of course, possible that charisea derived from the commercial lexis of France rather than England, but it is worth nothing that the loanword is first attested from before 1422 in Florentine accounts written in London, alongside other borrowed names for English fabric and wool types. Overall, in both these cases, the ultimate Old English origins of these borrowings are undisputed and it seems logical to assume that (some) Italian merchants encountered this “English” commodity name either through AN, BML, or, indeed, ME itself. At the very least, we can argue that the assertion that Old Italian stanforte and charizea were derived uniquely from CF is somewhat misleading.89 The remaining four loanwords highlight two very different kinds of social environment in which language contact could occur between Italian merchants and locals. Firstly, liverea (“livery”) refers to the distinctive uniform worn by staff in the royal English household and is found on two Tuscan annotations added to AN indentures (one dated June 1326) between the Chamberlain, Hugh le Despenser, and the future Crown bankers, the Peruzzi company. The Florentines note on these demands for payment that money is due to ser Gioanni de Vumondusvale, or John de Wymondeswolde, the King’s Wardrober.90 They record that two considerable amounts had been spent on cloth for “la livrea di messer Ugo,” although such extravagance would ultimately be short-lived, as Despenser was executed by Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer just five months later. Secondly, we find three new loanwords borrowed by Florentines moving in slightly less elevated English circles: The profession names aberdaciere (“haberdasher”), follere (“fuller”), and schiniere (“skinner”) all appear in the London accounts of the Salviati from the mid-1400s. GLOSSARY OF LOANWORDS BORROWED FROM ANGLO-NORMAN AND ­MIDDLE ENGLISH INTO ITALIAN

As in the previous glossary section, the summaries here provide references to the major historical corpora (with headwords indicated in bold type), as well as “new” citations from other material. Examples are taken from the small group of extant Italian sources written in London and Southampton in the later Middle Ages: the Gallerani

 88 On the diminutive form stanfortini in Pegolotti’s merchant handbook, Evans (Practica della Mercatura, 426) concludes: “Most likely, therefore, the name originated in England, perhaps not so much in the town of manufacture as the Fairs through which the stuff passed into general trade [. . .]; it would soon have been copied on the continent and the name, used as an indication of quality (like Pirpignani [cloths originally from Perpignan]), would by popular etymology be related to the materials employed in manufacture. In any case, it was a cloth of high quality and value, much sought for the costume of court and aristocracy.”  89 FEW 17:212b, s.v. “Stamford”; 16:314a, s.v. “kersey.”  90 Re, “Archivi Inglesi,” 267.

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Megan Tiddeman accounts (1304–08),91 Peruzzi marginalia on Exchequer indentures (1326),92 the Villani account fragment (1422–24),93 the Albizzi diary (1429–30),94 and the Salviati Libro Grande Rosso (1448–51).95 From the Italian peninsula itself, we also find loanwords used in various accounts and inventories (the earliest being from ca. 1233) detailing trade of English wool and cloths. Another rich source of borrowings from England is Pegolotti’s famous merchant handbook, La Practica della Mercatura (ca. 1335–43); the author had lived in London for three years, from 1317 to 1320, where he ran the Bardi company office and dealt directly, at times, with Edward II.96 1. aberdaciere (n.): Haberdasher: a dealer in various small items, including dress articles, especially hats; < ME haberdasher < ?97 Italian texts in England: Giovanni Huit aberdaciere de’ dare a dì 9 di settembre 1449 lb. una s.8 d.8 di st. per lui a Giovanni Huit (Salviati accounts, 1448–51).98 Italy: Ø England: MED haberdasher (1280), OED2 haberdasher (1311–12), AND2 haberdasher (1379–83), DMLBS (1121a) haberdassarius (fifteenth c.), LCC haberdasher. France: Ø 2. blacchallere (n.): A black cloth from the city of Lier in Flanders; < ME black-a-lyre < [ME black (< OE blacc)] + [Lier]. Italian texts in England: per pezze 13 di panni larghi e tre mostavellieri99 e blacchalleri e l’altro rossetto (Salviati accounts, 1448–51).100

 91 The London accounts of the Gallerani of Siena represent the oldest full text written in the Italian vernacular on British soil. See Cella, “Anglismi e Francesismi,” as well as Trotter, “Italian Merchants in London,” and Megan Tiddeman, “Mercantile Multilingualism: Two Examples of Anglo-Norman and Italian Contact in the Fourteenth Century,” in Present and Future Research in Anglo-Norman: Aberystwyth Colloquium, July 2011, ed. David Trotter (The Anglo-Norman On-line Hub, 2012), 94–97.  92 Re, “Archivi Inglesi,” 262–78. For further examples of similar marginalia from 1339–45, see Tiddeman, “Mercantile Multilingualism,” 92–94.  93 This incomplete section of Florentine accounts was discovered half-hidden under painted crests at the London College of Arms; Francesco Guidi Bruscoli, “Un Frammento Inedito di un Libro di Conti di Domenico Villani e Compagni di Londra, 1422–24,” Storia Economica 13, no. 3 (2010): 375–409.  94 See Mallett, Florentine Galleys, 205–80. The Florentine galley captain Luca di Maso degli Albizzi spent the winter of 1429–30 in the port of Southampton, where he was hosted by a wealthy local ship-owner, William Soper, and his wife, Agnes.  95 This extensive account book, the Libro Grande Rosso Segnato A of the London Salviati, was transcribed for a unpublished tesi di laurea in the 1960s; Maura Cavallaro, “La Compagnia di Jacopo di Alamanno Salviati di Londra negli Anni 1448–51” (undergraduate diss., Università di Pisa, 1969). For an introduction to this text, see Tiddeman, “Early Anglo-Italian Contact,” 226–27.  96 Evans, Practica della Mercatura, xvii–xx.  97 Rather surprisingly, the origin of the terms haberdasher/haberdashery remains unclear; see DEAF, s.v. “habredache.”  98 Cavallaro, “Compagnia,” 284.  99 Mostavellieri cloth originally came from the Norman abbey of Montivilliers; Wolfgang Schweickard, ed., Deonomasticon Italicum, vol. 3, Derivati da Nomi Geografici (M-Q) (Tübingen, Germany: De Gruyter, 2009), 341–42. 100 Cavallaro, “Compagnia,” 2267.

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Lexical Exchange in the Textile Trades Italy: Ø England: AND2 lyre1: Un surkote de noire de lyre single (Royal Witch 99, 1419), MED Lire4: a gowne of blak of lyre furred with cristigrey (Will Braybroke in Ess. AST 5 304, 1429), OED3 black-a-lyre, OED2 lyre2, LCC blak of Lire, DMLBS (1623a) lira2. France: one att. of draps de liere noirs from 1420; DMF Lierre. 3. charisea (n.): A thick woollen cloth made from remnants, usually ribbed, and originally from Kersey in Suffolk; (< AN karsey, carsey / CF carise) < ME kersey < OE Caersige. Italian texts in England: è per panno e charisea gli chomprò detto detto [sic] Domencicho (Villani fragment, 1422).101 per panni 25 larghi, 26 chonsgualdi, 11 charisee, 239 stretti e spese 30 di loesti102 (Salviati accounts, 1448–51).103 Italy: DEI carisea (770a): carisea (Latin, Parma, fourteenth c.), carixea (Venetian, fifteenth c.). England: MED kersey (1262), OED2 kersey, AND2 kersey (1415), DMLBS (290c) carsea, LCC kersey. France: carise, carisy, carizez att. in the 1450s; FEW 16:314a kersey, DMF cariset, GDF carise, GDC carisel. 4. chiovo (n.):104 An English unit of weight for wool, equalling seven or eight pounds; < AN clou/clove < Lat. clavus (“nail”). Italian texts in England: per saccha trenta e chiovi quarantaquattro di lana di più sorte a marchi tredici di st. e chiovi 32 di locchi a s. 1 per chiovo (Salviati accounts, 1448–51).105 Italy: TLIO chiodo2: Sacca 1 di lana al peso di Londra d’Inghilterra, ch’è chiovi 52 in Londra fae in Vinegia libbre 330 grosse (Pegolotti’s merchant handbook, ca. 1335–43), OVI chiovo, chiovi. England: in custuma xlix saccorum xx clavorum lane proprie mercatorum Friscobaldorum Nigrorum de Florencia (Frescobaldi receipts, E 101/126/9, 1294–95).106 Item devont avoir pur aprest de j marc a chescun sac de leyne de xxxiij sacs xxij clofs qils passerent par le port de Loundres (Bardi/Peruzzi allowances, E 101/127/36, 1339–45).107 AND2 clou2 (1327), OED2 clove3, DMLBS (358a) clavus. France: Ø 101 Guidi Bruscoli, Frammento Inedito, 398. 102 Loesti are probably “westerns” or high-quality broadcloths from Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, and Somerset which the Venetians exported from England to as far as the Levant; see Bradley, Views of the Hosts, 312. 103 Cavallaro, “Compagnia,” 2283. 104 At the very least, the lexis of English wool (clove, clou, clavus) could be said to have influenced the adaptation of Italian chiodo or “nail” (under which TLIO classifies chiovo), forms which all ultimately derive from the same Latin root, clavum. In this case, it could be argued that this is not strictly a lexical borrowing but a semantic calque. 105 Cavallaro, “Compagnia,” 230. 106 Bell, Brooks, and Moore, Accounts of the English Crown, 94. 107 Ibid., 270.

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Megan Tiddeman 5. coglietta (n.): A mixture of good wool collected from producers surrounding an estate; < AN coillette < Lat. collecta (“collection”). Italian texts in England: per chosto e spesse di sacha L q. ij co vj di lana chontisgualda chonpratta per loro da diverse persone e fattone poche Lxx ly xLiij di story e xxvij chogliette (Villani fragment, 1422).108 Italy: TLIO coglietta: ad Achorso tingitore per noi el quale mise in una biancha di chollietta che ssi fecie chardenale (Siennese accounts, 1277–82), OVI coglietta, cogliette, cogletta, chollietta. England: Veraiement sire nous avons laines de Coillette vers le North mes nous ne pooms saver combien tant ke nostre compaignon qui est vers le North soit revenue (English wool purchases, Frescobaldi Bianchi of Florence, E 101/126/7 m.14, 1294).109 Ceste est laine de coillette de la compaignie de Cercle blanc [. . .] De plus de laine de Coillette ne savom nous rien dire por ceo ke nos Compaignons sunt hors per le pais (English wool purchases, Cerchi Bianchi of Florence, E 101/126/7 m.20, 1294).110 DMLBS (381c) colligere: duos saccos lane de collecta monasterii nostrii (Cl 93 m.18d, 1275). France: Ø 6. contisgualdo (n., adj.): (Broadcloth) made from high-quality Cotswold wool; < ME coteswold < OE Codesuualt. Italian texts in England: mandamo a Vinegia per le ghallee, cioè furono sacha xvj q. iij di Chontisgualda (Villani fragment, 1422).111 (panni): Loesti, 12½; bastardi, 32 in 34, segondo le sorte; Gilforti 6½ in 7, Santone, 7, Sex s.11 in 13, Chostiqualdi, 20 in 24 (Letter from London to Venice, 1441).112 e panni 2 chontisghualdi a 1b.2 la pezza (Salviati accounts, 1448–51).113 Italy: Item, in balla una de Codesgualdo, dozine. . ., albi, largi, per s.45 in 60 per canna; alee 12 per canne 5 (Anon. Genoese invoice, 1400).114 panni Cotisualde, panni Consualdi (Venetian State Papers, 1456).115 AD contisgualdi: Marcia lb. 42 in 43, Contisgualdi 40, Indisea 38 a danari (Datini company letter, 1399).

108 Guidi Bruscoli, Frammento Inedito, 404. 109 Bell, Brooks, and Dryburgh, Advance Contracts, 184. 110 Ibid., 200. 111 Guidi Bruscoli, Frammento Inedito, 396. 112 Melis, Documenti per la Storia, 188. This citation also gives some other examples of English toponyms that have been borrowed as metonymic cloth names in Italian: from Guildford, Southampton, and Essex. 113 Cavallaro, “Compagnia,” 2118. 114 Melis, Documenti per la Storia, 294. 115 Rawdon Lubbock Brown, Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts, Relating to English Affairs Existing in the Archives and Collections of Venice, and in Other Libraries of Northern Italy (London: Longman, 1864), 13, 134.

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Lexical Exchange in the Textile Trades England: Item de Thomas Brampton de Burford le xv iour dAuste xxvij sakkez wolle de Coteswold pur ijC xxli xs (E 101/128/30 ret. 4, 1441).116 OED2 Cotswold. France: Ø117 7. faldengo (n.): A cloak or cloth from Ireland made of coarse woollen fabric; < ME falding < Middle Irish fallaing (“cloak”). Italian texts in England: TLIO faldengo: Furo per una sargia, per uno materaço, per uno faldengho d’Irlanda (Gallerani accounts, 1305). Italy: Ø England: MED falding (1285), AND2 faldyng (ca. 1330–60), OED2 falding (1387), DMLBS (898c) faldinga (899c) fallinga, LCC falding. France: Ø 8. follere (n.): Fuller: a worker who beats and treads cloth to thicken and clean it; (< ME fullere/follere) < AN fuller/foleur (< OE fullere) < Lat. fullō (“a fuller”). Italian texts in England: per panne 20 larghi di piu cholori che ffuron netti a ­paghamento vergha 608, chomprati da Arri Bris, follere (Salviati accounts, 1448–51).118 Italy: Ø England: AND2 fuller1 (ca. 1275), MED fullere (ca. 1300), OED2 fuller1, DMLBS (1025c) fullo. France: only one example of fouleur used in this way (1265) with foulon (1160) being the commonly used form; FEW 3:844b fullare, TLF fouleur, GDC fouleur.119 9. impaccare (v.): To pack wool into sacks ready for sale or export; < AN enpacker < ME pakken < ME pak < ? Middle Dutch pac (“bundle/package”).120 Italian texts in England: dì 31 di lulglio per d.4½ l’alla per impacchare lane / saccha 57 di lana chomprate in paese da diverse persone e diversi pregi e tempi e impacchate in dette poche (Salviati accounts, 1448–51).121 116 Bradley, “Transcriptions,” 58. 117 Undoubtedly, imported Cotswolds cloths must exist in CF records. However, as place-names are rarely used as headwords in the major dictionaries, metonymic fabrics can be difficult to track down. 118 Cavallaro, “Compagnia,” 1516. 119 See also TLF, s.v. “foulon”; DMF, s.v. “foulon”; GDC, s.v. “foulon”; a variant mirrored in Italy by follone, attested from 1263 (see TLIO, s.v. “follone”). More examples of CF fouleur can be found but are reserved for “celui qui foule le raisin” (i.e., a grape trampler), not a fuller of cloth; DMF, s.v. “fouleur.” For further discussion of the divergent forms of fuller in AN and CF, see Lisa Jefferson and William Rothwell, “Society and Lexis: A Study of the Anglo-French Vocabulary in the Fifteenth-Century Accounts of the Merchant Taylors’ Company,” Zeitschrift für Französische Sprache und Literatur 107, no. 3 (1997): 273–301, at 289. 120 The noun “pack” is very probably Germanic in origin and is first attested in England as the surname Pakbyndere in 1191. However, it is not clear from extant records whether ME borrowed the term from Middle Dutch or vice versa. See OED3, s.v. “pack, n.1,” and Durkin, Oxford Guide to Etymology, 170. 121 Cavallaro, “Compagnia,” 1938, 2347. Note that the Salviati accounts and those of their fellow Florentines in London, the Villani, both record payments to nostro impacchatore, the man in charge of wool-packing. In addition, the Salviati attests its own Italianised version of the noun enpackure or “wool-packing”—impacchatura—which is not found elsewhere in the TLIO/OVI corpora; see AND2, s.v. “enpackure”; AND1, s.v. “pakkure.”

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Megan Tiddeman Italy: TLIO impaccare: per inpacchare 8 scarp[igliera] e costuma al Damo e per 5 schure (Florentine record of English wool purchase, 1336–39). England: les sarpellers a mesme la leine enpaker nous unt couste cest an, iij li. ij s. vj d. (English wool purchases, Frescobaldi of Florence, E 101/126/7 m.14, 1294).122 AND2 enpacker, AND1 pakker2, MED pakken, OED3 pack1, DMLBS (1237c) impaccare. France: only two CF examples of the verb (1340, 1575) recorded; other examples given are from AN sources; FEW 16:613a pak, GDF empaquer, DMF empaquer. 10. liverea (n.): Livery garment: a distinctive dress or uniform provided for a royal employee; < AN liveré < AN livrerer < Lat. liberare (“to deliver, hand over”). Italian texts in England: OVI liverea: Riconoscenza che ne fa ser Gioanni de Vumondusvale di l. LXXXX s. XVIII, d. III che pagammo a Giovanni Poltinai per XXX panni che achattò per la liverea di messer Ugo (E 101/127/19 m.6, Annotation on AN indenture between Peruzzi and Hugh le Despenser, 1326). Italy: OVI livrea: e par che stea con la balia d’Enea; e l’altro ha tua livrea e a minuzzi (Florentine poem, ca. 1350).123 England: AND2 liveré (ca. 1305), MED livere3 (att. ?1380), OED3 livery (1399), DMLBS (1599b) liberatura (1430). France: att. in the clothing sense from ca. 1290 onwards; FEW 5:301b liberare, TLF livrée, DMF livrée1, GDC livrée1. 11. locchi (n.pl.): The lowest quality and cheapest grade of English wool, from the legs and stomach of the sheep (< AN lokes) < ME lockes < OE loc (“piece or tuft of hair/wool”). Italian texts in England: per la metà ¼ parte a uno saccho centi 11 di locchi usciti di dette pocche (Salviati accounts, 1448–51).124 TLIO locchi: sette saccha uno quarto di locchi per sette marchi il sacco (Gallerani accounts, 1305). Italy: TLIO locchi: e mezzana che si dice moiana, e la meno buona che si dice locchi (Pegolotti’s merchant handbook, 1335–43). England:125 sexaginta ey duos saccos lane de collecta momasterrii nostril sine clack’126 et lok’ (Contract between Fountains Abbey and Florentine merchants, 122 Bell, Brooks, and Dryburgh, Advance Contracts, 200. 123 The Gallicism livrea is also found in a Florentine poem by Franco Sacchetti from the mid-fourteenth century. Arguably, in this literary source, we are dealing with a CF loanword that entered the author’s lexis via an entirely separate route of transmission. The sense as used in Sachetti’s poem, along with minuzzi (“crumbs of bread”), seems to be the more general, earlier one of “provision of food and clothing to a dependent” (e.g. AND2, s.v. “liveré2,” under “allowance, ration,” 1150–1200) rather than the lavish uniforms referred to in the Peruzzi annotations. 124 Cavallaro, “Compagnia,” 2357. 125 Trotter (“Italian Merchants in London,” 215) expressed surprise that the technical term locks did not feature in more AN documentation: “the word did not surface in a study of Ancient Petitions (many of which referred to the wool trade) carried out by Natasha Romanova within the AND in 2007/08.” However, the new citations given in this glossary are found in the Exchequer Miscellanea (National Archives of the UK, E 101), now fully transcribed in Bell, Brooks, and Dryburgh, Advance Contracts, and not in the Ancient Petitions (National Archives of the UK, SC 8). 126 “Clack” referred to dirty or soiled wool; see MED, s.v. “clak(ke1.”

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Lexical Exchange in the Textile Trades C54/93, m.3d, 1275).127 Si nous coste le sac de la bone leine xix m. et le sac de la moiene et des lokes xv m. (English wool purchases by the Frescobaldi of Florence, E 101/126/7 m.21, 1294).128 DMLBS (1630a) locca (1232), AND2 loc1 (1284), MED lok (1382), OED2 lock1. France: loc, locque att. from 1274, principally in Picardy/Flanders; FEW 16:475a locke, DEAF loc2. 12. moiana (n., adj.): (Wool) of medium quality; < AN moiene < Lat. mediānus (“middle”). Italian texts in England: TLIO moiano: cio ffu tre sacca meço di buona per diciotto mar. il sacco, e diciessette sacca meço di moiana per nove mar. il sacco (Gallerani accounts, 1305). Italy: TLIO moiana: Buona lana si è la migliore quando si briscia. Moiana lana si è la mezzana ragione della lana quando si briscia (Pegolotti’s merchant handbook, ca. 1335–43). England: Antan avoient il de bone leine iiij sacs et vij peres. De moiene iiij sakes et xv peres et de lokes tries xviij peres (English wool purchases, Ponche of Florence, E 101/126/7 m.14, 1294).129 Si nous coste chescun sac de la bone leine xx m. et chescun sac de moiene leine et de lokes [. . .] (English wool purchases, Frescobaldi of Florence, E 101/126/7m.21, 1294).130 DMLBS (1741c) medianus: lanam mediam (KR AcCust 73, 1296). MED wol: ij sarplers of mydell woll (Stonor 2.1, 1475–76). France: Ø131 13. passalarghe (adj., n.): Large-sized (lambskins/sheepskins); < AN passelarge < [AN passer (“to pass, surpass”)] + [AN large (“wide, broad”)]. Italian texts in England: E, a dì 15 di giungno 1b.una s.9 di st. faccamo buoni a Pinello da Sanducci per chostuma e altre spese asengnano avere fatte a balle 4 di passalarghe (Salviati accounts, 1448–51).132 Italy: Ø England: passelarges alias dictarum Sherlyng ac medyesan (E 159/205 m.10, 1428–29).133 pelles agninas, pelles lanatas, passelarges, et alla coria tam fresca quam

Bell, Brooks, and Dryburgh, Advance Contracts, 16. Ibid., 200. Ibid., 182. Ibid., 200. There are no wool-related citations of moyen in the major CF dictionaries. Note, however, a single example of the adj. moiene (“de seconde qualité”) referring to wool in a Flemish account book, ca. 1300; Cella, “Prestiti nei Testi Mercantili,” 82. 132 Cavallaro, “Compagnia,” 2137. 133 George Holmes, “Florentine Merchants in England, 1346–1436,” Economic History Review, 13, no. 2 (Dec. 1960): 193–208, at 205. 127 128 129 130 131

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Megan Tiddeman tannata (License granted to John Taverner of Hull for his carrack, the Grace Dieu, 1449).134 AND1 passelarge (1429). France: Ø 14. pocca (n.): Poke: an English unit of measurement used for wool, equalling half a sack or 182 pounds; < AN poke < ? OE pohha / Old Northumbrian pocca (“bag”).135 Italian texts in England: scharpigliere ij e pocha j di lana di Staforte e di Marza (Villani fragment, 1422).136 et pesarono 390 poche di lana di nostro caricho (Albizzi ship’s diary, 1430).137 e piu altre spese fatte sino chariche in nave a pocche 104 di lana (Salviati accounts, 1448–51).138 TLIO pocca: sessanta e sette saccha due ­pocche di lana che compramo da loro, di quella della Bruiera e d’Ecli e di Villitona139 (Gallerani account, 1305). Italy: TLIO pocca: una pocca [[di lana]] d’undici pietre (Letter sent from Florence to London, 1291). England: DMLBS (2328a) poke (Cl 475, 1242), AND1 poke (ca. 1300), MED poke (ca. 1300), OED3 poke1. France: OF puche (“sack,” ca. 1180), Picard poke (1275), Norman pouque (1326); FEW 16:638a, 641a *pokka, DEAF poche1, DMF poche1, GDC poche, TLF poche.140 15. schiniere (n.): Skinner: a person who prepares or deals in skins, hides, and furs; < ME skinner < [ME skin (< OE schynn)] + [–er]. Italian texts in England: Ghulglielmo prelato di Sirisestri, de’ dare a dì 24 di marzo 1450 lb.venti di st. paghamo per lui a Giovanni Ruggeri, schiniere (Salviati accounts, 1448–51).141 Italy: Ø England: OED3 skinner (1255 in BML), MED skinner(e (att. ?1325). France: Ø

134 Robert Southey and Robert Bell, The British Admirals: With an Introductory View of the Naval History of England, vol. 2 (London: Longman, 1883), 95. 135 The origins of the term poke are unclear; see OED3, s.v. “poke1”; Durkin, Oxford Guide to Etymology, 62–68. 136 Guidi Bruscoli, Frammento Inedito, 397. 137 Mallett, Florentine Galleys, 256. 138 Cavallaro, “Compagnia,” 2138. 139 Here we can see typically Italianised English place-names—Bruiera (“Temple Bruer”), Ecli (“Eagle”), and Villitona (“Willougton”), all holdings of the Knights Templar in Lincolnshire. 140 The specific use of poke (and its diminutive, AND1, s.v. “pocket”) as units of measurement for wool appear unique to English commercial lexis. It is possible of course that Italian pocca derived from CF poche, but given its wool-related context and the fact that pocca is only attested in texts linked to England, AN poke seems by far the most convincing candidate. See also Tiddeman, Mercantile Multilingualism, 96. 141 Cavallaro, “Compagnia,” 2165.

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Lexical Exchange in the Textile Trades 16. stanforte (n.): A high-quality woollen cloth, originally from Stamford in Lincolnshire; < ME stanford < OE [stan (“stone”)] + [ford (“ford”)]. Italian texts in England: Ø Italy: de pecia integra Stanforte tincto de omni colore (Venetian State Papers, 1265).142 OVI stanforte: p(er) nove bra. di stanforte verdello (Siennese accounts, ca. 1233–43), stanfortini: Peze VIIIJ stanfortini meskolati: (Pisan accounts, 1278–79). England: MED Stanford (1268), AND1 [estanford],143 LCC Stanford, DMLBS (2646c) radiare: vendunt pannos . . . scarleticos, radiatos et stanfordios (Garl. Dict. 128, 1230). France: estamfort, estanfort att. in several thirteenth-century texts, estamfolt att. once ca. 1447; FEW 17:212b Stamford, GDF estanfort, DMF estanfort, DEAF estanfort. 17. storo (n.):144 Stock wool, i.e., wool from a single estate; (< AN (e)stor) < BML stauro (“livestock on an estate”). Italian texts in England: lana chontisgualda chonpratta per loro da diverse persone e fattone poche Lxx ly xLiij di story e xxvij chogliette (Villani fragment, 1422).145 Italy: pokes viij de lana de Cotiswolde fine, vocata storo (Archivio Salviati, Pisa, Serie 1:339, f.5v, 1450).146 England: duodecim saccis bone lane et pacabilis, precii iiijxx xvj marcarum, de proprio stauro suo vel de adeo bona lana (Contract between Tickford Priory and the Ricciardi of Lucca, E 368/64 r.41, 1293).147 Onquore devom nous aver de la taillerie de Wauerl’ de coillete. . .iiij sacs et de la leine del Estor le tailor sicom nous quidoms (English wool purchases, Frescobaldi of Florence, E 101/126/7 m.21, 1294).148 France: Ø 18. toddo (n.): Tod: a measurement of wool used in England, usually twenty-eight pounds; < ME tod < ? Middle Low German todde (“bundle, pack, small load”). Italian texts in England: sono per saccha 7 toddi 4½ di che ci li rende ½ saccha di rifuxo e toddi 4½ si rabatta per esser le lane sale (Salviati accounts, 1448–51).149 Italy: Ø

142 Brown, Calendar, 2. 143 Note that despite the gloss in this AND1 entry (“a type of expensive cloth from Stamford”), estaunfordeis does not represent a noun here to designate the cloth but an adjectival form. 144 As mentioned above, the wool-related material transcribed by Bell, Brooks, and Dryburgh provides new AN/BML examples of AN/BML etyma for the term for “stock wool” in Italian which are currently absent from the major dictionaries; see AND2, s.v. “estor1”; MED, s.v. “store1”; OED2, s.v. “store”; DMLBS (3190a), s.v. “stauro.” The Tuscan equivalent was lana di magione, a term used in Pegolotti’s merchant handbook when describing grades of English wool, ca. 1335–43; Evans, Practica della Mercatura, 258, 421. 145 Guidi Bruscoli, Frammento Inedito, 404. 146 Note that these wool accounts were written by an Englishman working in Tuscany. 147 Bell, Brooks, and Dryburgh, Advance Contracts, 111. 148 Ibid., 202. 149 Cavallaro, “Compagnia,” 1929.

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Megan Tiddeman England: AND2 pere2: pur vendre .xx. sackes, .iii. toddes [. . .] .xx. kerseys d’Abyndoun (Man Lang ANTS 76.7, 1415), MED tod(de) (1467), OED2 tod2, DMLBS (3447b) todda. France: Ø

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Hidden in Plain Black: The Secrets of the French Hood Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson

A desire to establish a timeline for fashion details in sixteenth-century England led this author into a close study of portraits from that period. Accurate dating of portraits can be a difficult task. The portraits rarely include a specific year as an inscription. Some portraits have an inscription of the sitter’s name1 and perhaps an age as well, and personal records can sometimes provide the dates of occasions when the sitter would have been likely to have a portrait painted. Some portraits carry the name of the artist, so the time frame can be narrowed down to the period when this artist was active. Sometimes, however, a portrait depicts an unidentified sitter painted by an unidentified artist, or different dates are suggested for the same painting by different sources. In order to compensate for this, the author set out to build a reasonably reliable timeline by comparing only headdress and hairstyle, as these two fashion elements are more easily changed overnight than a whole dress. This comparison led straight into the minute study of the French hood and its many variants over time and location and resulted in a set of theories regarding the construction of the French hood, the timeline of the French hood, and the evolution and purpose of the feature known as the bongrace. Other attempts to reconstruct a French hood have been published in recent years by Ninya Mikhaila and Jane Malcolm-Davies in The Tudor Tailor2 and Sarah Lorraine

The author would like to thank Gale Owen-Crocker, Robin Netherton, and the anonymous referees for their most helpful and inspirational feedback, and Johnny Stenspil Jensen, without whom the tutorial video relating to this article would have never been created.   1 An incorrect inscription has occasionally been added to a portrait at a later date in order to contribute to a family tradition or for the purpose of adding value to the painting. J. Stephan Edwards, “A New Portrait of Mary Rogers, Lady Harington,” British Art Journal 12, no. 2 (Autumn 2011): 54–57, available at the author’s website, Some Grey Matter, www.somegreymatter.com/haringtonportrait. htm (accessed Feb. 25, 2016).   2 Ninya Mikhaila and Jane Malcolm-Davies, The Tudor Tailor: Reconstructing Sixteenth-Century Dress (London: Batsford, 2006), 149–55.

Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson

Fig. 6.1: The “blackness” in painted portraits hides the secret of the French hood’s construction and styling. (For more detailed renditions of these images, see figures 6.5–6.9.) All drawings accompanying this article are by Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson.

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The French Hood in “Reconstructing the French Hood,”3 but the results do not to this author look much like the iconic headdress associated with the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Jane Grey (for nine days), Mary I, and Elizabeth I. The research material used for this study includes not only paintings and drawings of the English headdresses but also depictions of the hoods worn in France. A major difference between finished paintings and preparatory drawings is color. In a painting, the artist would portray the colors of the goldsmith’s work, set in two curved lines on either side of a crescent shape (usually either white or red), and he would define the visible parts of the oreillette (the coif covering the ears; see detailed discussion below), but the rest of the French hood is black and frequently set on a very dark background. Therefore, in paintings it is difficult to see what is hiding in this black area (figs. 6.1 and 6.2). Drawings, however, might or might not include indications of the colors, but the lines are not absorbed by black paint and present firsthand evidence of all parts, their folds, and the fabric used. Surviving drawings by Jean Clouet, François Clouet, and Corneille de Lyon have provided the author with the key to a new theory on the construction of the French hood and how it worked. Other very helpful testimonies to the construction of the French hood are provided by portrait medals, particularly one from ca. 1555 of Queen Mary I in profile4 and another from 1562 with a portrait of Elizabeth Brooke, Lady Parr, Marchioness of Northampton, also in profile (fig. 6.20).5 An important reference work is Melanie Schuessler’s article on the French hood.6 Schuessler discusses the vocabulary connected to the different parts of the French hood, deduced from documentary sources, but not definitely established.7 This author does not, however, agree with Schuessler’s interpretation of the French hood as consisting of only one item, involving pasteboard to create the iconic crescent shape framed by pearls, gold, and gemstones.8 In addition, the timeline theory presented at the end of this article provides more detail beyond the commonly recognized distinction between hoods with round tops and hoods with flat tops, where the latter are found in portraits from around the 1550s and hoods with round tops are found in either earlier or later portraits.

  3 Sarah Lorraine, “Reconstructing the French Hood,” July 2009, available at the author’s website, Mode Historique, www.modehistorique.com/research/ReconstructingTheFrenchHood_06–2009.pdf (accessed Feb. 25, 2016).   4 Jacopo da Trezzo, medal of Queen Mary Tudor as wife of King Philip II, ca. 1555 (Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, no. 59.620), viewable at http://art.thewalters.org/detail/6565/medal-of-queenmary-tudor-as-wife-of-king-philip-ii (accessed Feb. 25, 2016).  5 Stephen van Herwijck, medal of Elizabeth Brooke, Lady Parr, 1562, viewable at Wikimedia Commons, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elizabeth_brooke_Parr.jpg (accessed Oct. 3, 2016).   6 Melanie Schuessler, “French Hoods: Development of a Sixteenth Century-Court Fashion,” Medieval Clothing and Textiles 5 (2009): 129–60.   7 Ibid, 144–55.   8 Ibid, 157–60.

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Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson THE ICONIC FRENCH HOOD: ITS ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY

One of the most characteristic features of a French hood is no doubt a white or red crescent on top of the head, framed by two rows of goldsmith’s work, of which one ends in the shape of a ram’s horns at the cheeks (or at some other level between the chin and the top of the eyebrows). Directly in front of the framed crescent is an edge of pleated fabric. To the sides and the back of the head is “something” black. Modern reconstructions of the French hood often interpret the framed crescent as a steep tiara edged with golden beads, pearls, and gemstones with a black veil attached to it at the back.9 In sixteenth-century portraits, however, the crescent shape sits at a low angle, never adding more than an extra quarter of height to the vertical measurement of the sitter’s head, measured from the chin to the crown. The iconic French hood is more than just a hood. The theory of construction presented here regards it to be built up from three separate items. Starting from within, the first item is a basic white or black linen inner coif, which is tight fitting and is strapped under the chin with the fastening put out of sight. The purpose of this coif is to give a very good support for the next two items and most likely to protect the more expensive fabrics from contact with the hair, but it should not be displayed. Its presence is only given away by a narrow strap going under the chin. As the inner coif is so well hidden, its construction remains open to speculation. (For the author’s ideas on construction, see Appendix 6.1.) The decorative aspects begin with the second item, the oreillette, which, in this author’s terminology, is another coif, which covers the ears and the inner coif.10 (Fig. 6.2 indicates the placement of the oreillette and other visible parts of the headdress.) The brim of the oreillette is supported by interlining to give a smooth basis for the silk satin surface in white, red, or black, and a soft bag for the hair finishes the oreillette at the back. The anatomy of the pre-1525 version of the oreillette is presented quite well in a portrait of the young princess Madeleine de France (fig. 6.3).11 Tightly fitted to the head, it is strapped under the chin. After ca. 1525 the oreillette is pinned, behind the brim, to the inner coif at the top of the head and at both sides to keep it in place, and from a point just above the ears, the ends of the brim are detached from the bag, permitting them to be shaped into “ram’s horns.” A millinery wire runs close to the edge of the brim, curving it away from the head and styling the “ram’s horns” to the taste of the latest fashion. The back edges of the ends of the brim are pinned to the straps of the inner coif, bringing the tips of the “ram’s horns” close to the face. This could put the inner coif

  9 Mikhaila and Malcolm-Davies, Tudor Tailor, 149. 10 The word “oreillette” is interpreted by Schuessler as the entire bright area between the two billiments, an area which she finds to be only one piece; Schuessler, “French Hoods,” 153, 158–59. 11 Jean Clouet, portrait of Madeleine de France (later inscribed with the misidentification Charlotte de France), ca. 1522 (private collection, UK), viewable at the Weiss Gallery website, www.weissgallery. com (accessed Oct. 1, 2016).

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Fig. 6.2: At top: “Iconic” French hood worn by Diane de Poitiers, after a drawing by Jean Clouet (later incorrectly inscribed Anne de Pisseleu), ca. 1520 (Musée Condé, Chantilly, France, no. MN 273). Below: The visible parts of the headdress, labeled.

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Fig. 6.3 (left): Princess Madeleine de France, after a painting by Jean Clouet (later incorrectly inscribed Charlotte de France), ca. 1522 (private collection, United Kingdom; viewable at http:// www.weissgallery.com). Fig. 6.4 (right): An English lady wearing an oreillette under a hat, as opposed to a French hood, after a drawing by Hans Holbein the Younger, author’s suggested date ca. 1535 (dated to ca. 1532–43 at Royal Collection, London, no. RCIN 912190).

on display (as it is in figure 6.4, where an oreillette is worn under a hat as opposed to under a black hood), if the front edge had not been sealed off with an accordion-pleated ribbon of cloth of gold or silver, the creppin.12 The creppin forms a gentle crossing from the oreillette to the hair. The first arrangement of pearls or goldsmith’s beads, the lower billiment, is found just behind the creppin.13 Not only does this frame the face beautifully, but it also hides any trace of the wiring at the edge of the brim. Until about 1560, the tips going toward the face end in a pointed shape which is—if often rounded—related to an angle of either 45 degrees (clear in figs. 6.2 and 6.6)14 or half of that (clear in fig. 6.5). At this point, the basic shape of the oreillette’s brim changes again, and a wider angle of 90 degrees (clear in fig. 6.34) is introduced pointing to the temple, while the edge of the brim at center front forms first a bay (fig. 6.33) and later a point going toward the forehead (fig. 6.34). The hair is, until the late 1560s, parted in the middle, and at first kept very close to the head in both England and France (figs. 6.2, 6.3, 6.4, 6.5, 6.10, 6.13, and 6.16). From 12 Schuessler (French Hoods, 154–55) lists other possible interpretations of the word “creppin,” such as a partlet or a caul, but in this article the term will refer only to the pleated fabric along the front edge of the oreillette. 13 A few French portraits present an oreillette without the lower billiment; see figs. 6.12 and 6.31. 14 See the pattern in Appendix 6.1, fig. 6.38.

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Fig. 6.5 (left): An unidentified English lady, after a drawing by Hans Holbein the Younger, author’s suggested date ca. 1533–37 (dated to ca. 1532–43 at Royal Collection, London, no. RCIN 912218). Fig. 6.6 (right): An English lady formerly identified as Catherine Howard, now thought to be Elizabeth Seymour, Baroness Cromwell, after a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger, ca. 1540 (Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio, no. 1926.57).

the late 1520s, the French fashion is to wave and curl the hair in front of the hood (figs. 6.9 and 6.23), while the English fashion from the late 1530s slowly develops a puffed hairstyle riding on top of the “ram’s horns” (figs. 6.6, 6.7, 6.8, 6.14, 6.15, 6.17, 6.18, 6.19, 6.22, and 6.32) before turning to curls (figs. 6.26 and 6.35) and “wired hair” (fig. 6.27). The third item is the black hood on the top, consisting of a rectangular panel in a bias cut, a bag at the back, and a fall, which is reminiscent of the medieval woman’s veil.15 The rear side of the panel is stitched to the bag from top to eye level. When unfolded, the panel covers the oreillette and most of the hair, leaving only black velvet or wool visible (fig. 6.10); but the panel has a facing of satin16 in either white, red or black—either matching or differing from the choice of color for the oreillette.

15 See the patterns in Appendix 6.1, figs. 6.39–6.41. 16 Exceptions occur in the late 1570s, where the facing is made of white velvet. An example from 1579 by an unknown artist (formerly attributed to John Bettes the Younger) is a portrait of Frances, Lady Brydges (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, no. B1973.1.3), viewable at http://collections. britishart.yale.edu/vufind/Record/1665432 (accessed Oct. 3, 2016).

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Fig. 6.7 (left): An unidentified English lady, after a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger, ca. 1540 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, no. 49.7.30). Fig. 6.8 (right): An unidentified English lady, after a painting by an unidentified Flemish artist, author’s suggested date ca. 1552 (dated to 1540–50 at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, no. 69.282).

Fig. 6.9: A French example, worn by Jossine de Pisseleu, Dame de Lénoncourt, Comtesse de Vignory, after a drawing by François Clouet, ca. 1543 (Musée Condé, Chantilly, France, no. MN 279).

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Fig. 6.10 (top): The panel unfolded and laid out forward, as worn by Madeleine de Crussol, Dame de Mitte de Miolans, after a drawing from the studio of Clouet (Musée Condé, Chantilly, France, no. MN 186). The author speculates that this portrait is connected to the lady’s widowhood in 1529. Fig. 6.11 (below): Folding of the panel. A: The black hood, with the panel unfolded and laid out forward, is pinned to the oreillette. The arrow indicates the next movement. B: The panel is folded back, revealing its satin facing while hiding the upper billiment. The arrow indicates the next movement. C: The edge of the panel is folded forward, bringing the upper billiment back into view. The arrow indicates the next movement. D: The edge of the panel is pulled forward at the sides of the head and pinned to the oreillette. These pins will hide under the upper billiment.

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Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson The panel can be folded backward and then forward again, flexing like the letter Z. Figure 6.11 shows how the folding works in the style shown in figure 6.8.17 In step A, the panel sits unfolded, forming what will be the bottom line of a Z, pinned to the oreillette on top and at the sides of the head. In step B, the panel is flipped backward, with the fold placed closely behind the lower billiment. This provides the diagonal stroke of the Z and shows the satin facing. In step C, another fold brings the edge of the panel forward again—creating the top line of the Z—and once more reveals the upper billiment. In step D, the sides of the panel are brought forward and pinned to the oreillette behind the lower billiment. The panel’s interlining is cut on the bias and shaped, and the same cut of the panel can be styled to make a low round top (figs. 6.2 and 6.9), a higher round top up to a quarter of the vertical measurement of the head from chin to crown (figs. 6.6 and 6.7), a flat top (figs. 6.8, 6.14, and 6.32), and any variant in between.18 The result is dependent on the shaping and styling of the panel. In France from the 1540s, the panel would be cut both shorter and narrower than the contemporary English panels. Once the center part of the panel is pinned to the oreillette, the hanging ends (which fall freely at the sides of the head from about eye level) can be pinned edgeon-edge to the fall (as in fig. 6.7); they can be pinned edge-on-edge to the bag (the effect is clear in figs. 6.6, 6.8, and 6.17); or they can be pulled backward and pinned closer to the center of the bag (the effect is clear in figs. 6.5, 6.13, 6.19, 6.20, and 6.32). The bag is a great influence on the black silhouette of the French hood. While testing the Z-folding theory and comparing the results to different portraits, the author discovered how big an impact the shape of the bag would have on the drop of the fall, and on the black silhouette as a whole. A bowl-shaped bag would push the fall backward only a little (fig. 6.20). A cone-shaped bag open at the end like a windbag could create an angled silhouette at the side of the fall at approximately eye level (figs. 6.5 and 6.16). A funnel-shaped bag would give a horizontal line across the lining of the fall showing the difference between the velvet of the bag and the satin of the lining (figs. 6.9, 6.17, 6.18, and 6.23). Late in the evolution of the French hood, the bag turned into the rigid shape of a short cylindrical pillbox hat (fig. 6.25). This version of the bag causes the fall to do a sharp turn if it is worn hanging down the lady’s back as opposed to being flipped over her head (figs. 6.26 and 6.27). The bag would be made of wool or velvet like the outside of the panel.

17 In the author’s reconstruction (see Appendix 6.1), the panel has an interlining of linen and buckram, and the styling of the folds is prepared while the hood is in the making. The upper billiment is then mounted, leaving only the pinning to do when dressing. In figure 6.11, the Z-folding theory is demonstrated with the upper billiment attached from the start and without the preshaped interlining, for clarification of the folding technique. 18 In the late 1570s, the edge of the panel might have a pointed center in front of the upper billiment on top of the head. An example is found in a miniature of an unknown lady by Nicholas Hilliard, 1576 (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, no. P.27–1977), viewable at http://collections.vam.ac.uk/ item/O81990 (accessed Feb. 2, 2018).

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The French Hood The last part of the black hood—the fall—is of wool or velvet to match the panel and the bag and lined with black satin.19 When the three parts of the black hood are assembled into one item, the fall is put between the bag and the panel. In the early days, the two layers of the fall are cut identically and both gathered into pleats at the top, where the fall is stitched to the bag and the panel. This gives a soft and slightly wavy drop to the fall (clear in figs. 6.5, 6.10, and 6.13). Later the fall is fairly narrow and rigid, and while the lining is a flat piece of satin, the wool or velvet is arranged in a vertical and symmetrical pleating top to bottom, giving the impression of folds in a wider veil (clear in figs. 6.20 and 6.25). The pleating eventually disappears by the period in which the fall is worn flipped over the head (figs. 6.26 and 6.27). THE ADDITIONAL ITEMS: THE BONGRACE AND THE CORNET

A bongrace is best described as “something” black which could be interpreted as a shade going on top of the French hood. The first version of the bongrace covers at least most of the jewelry of the oreillette if not all of it, and sometimes the bongrace

Fig. 6.12 (left): Marguerite d’Angoulême, queen of Navarre, after a drawing by François Clouet, dated by the museum to ca. 1540 (Musée Condé, Chantilly, France, no. MN 44). The author speculates that it dates from her widowhood in 1525. Fig. 6.13 (right): Elizabeth Stoner, after a drawing by Hans Holbein the Younger (dated to ca. 1532–43 at Royal Collection, London, no. RCIN 912211). The author speculates that it relates to her widowhood in 1528. 19 An exception is the engraving in Elizabeth Brooke’s medal (fig. 6.20) portraying an ornamented pattern suggestive of a damask weave—indicated by dotted lines—on the lining of the fall.

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Fig. 6.14 (left): Katherine Willoughby de Eresby, Lady Brandon, duchess of Suffolk, after a painting by an unknown artist, inscribed 1548 (collection of Baroness Willoughby de Eresby; viewable at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Catherine_Willoughby_1548.jpg). Fig. 6.15 (right): Mary Neville Fiennes, Baroness Dacre by her first marriage, after a painting by Hans Eworth, author’s suggested date 1553 (dated to 1555–58 at National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, no. 3337).

is worn with no billiment showing. If this plain, undecorated extra layer of headwear was meant to provide efficient protection for the lady’s fair complexion,20 the top of the bongrace would have to reach a point farther out in front of the face than seen in any French hood portraits known to this author. Instead, the bongraces in portraits painted prior to the mid-1550s reach far forward at the sides of the sitter’s face, as if trying to block the woman’s side view, like blinkers. Based on these observations, the author suggests that the bongrace should be approached from a sociological point of view rather than from a practical one. It is generally accepted that portraits were more likely to be painted for “dynastic purposes”21 in order to commemorate important events in the sitter’s life, such as a marriage proposal, a marriage, the birth of an heir, a widowhood, an upgrade in title, or an occasion on which the sitter was called upon to carry out an honorable task—all very much like entries in a modern curriculum vitae. A portrait showing the sitter wearing a bongrace “with blinkers”—or a bongrace pushing the hair forward at the sides of the face to create the effect of “blinkers”—might indicate such an occasion 20 Schuessler, “French Hoods,” 145–46. 21 Tarnya Cooper, Citizen Portrait: Portrait Painting and the Urban Elite of Tudor and Jacobean England and Wales (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 11.

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Fig. 6.16 (left): Margaret Wyatt, Lady Lee, after a painting by Hans Holbein the Younger (dated to the early 1540s at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, no. 14.40.637). Fig. 6.17 (right): Katherine Willoughby de Eresby, Lady Brandon, duchess of Suffolk, after a miniature painting inscribed “H Holben fecit,” author’s suggested date 1539 (collection of Baroness Willoughby de Eresby; viewable at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Catherine_ Willoughby,_portrait_miniature.jpg).

of a sad kind. A bongrace “without blinkers” might indicate that the portrait was painted during the period from the mid-1550s to the mid-1560s, when a bongrace was quite fashionable. In the author’s research material, the bongrace only appears accompanied by extra layers of clothing added to or integrated into the lady’s dress. The clothes are black, or at least dark, and often include animal fur. Very little jewelry is on display in these portraits. The extra layers could be interpreted as simply outdoor wear or as a proof that winters were cold in the sixteenth century. It is, however, unlikely that a lady would—without a reason—want to hide or indeed remove jewelry from her hood and garments to have her portrait painted. The author’s theory is that a bongrace, in the version “with blinkers,” is related to mourning of some degree, and the version “without blinkers,” appearing in the mid-1550s, should be regarded as part of a fashionable trend of melancholy, modesty, piety, and memento mori.22 A woman in mourning or depression is more likely to be cold and feel the need to wear excessive layers of clothing.23 By adding layers of unfitted, undecorated garments (as opposed to 22 María Isabel Romero Ruiz, “The Ritual of the Early Modern Death, 1550–1650,” Analecta Malacitana (AnMal electrónica) 17 (June 2005): section 3.6, “The Vanities,” www.anmal.uma.es/numero17/ Romero.htm (accessed Oct. 1, 2016). 23 J. C. Flugel, The Psychology of Clothes (New York: International Universities Press, 1969), 78–81.

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Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson showing off as much of her desirable body as possible within the limits of decency) and by dressing down on jewelry as well, the sitter makes herself less physically attractive, indicating her distress.24 The bongrace with the effect of “blinkers” appears in two different contexts: either with the upper billiment attached to the panel of the hood (figs. 6.16, 6.17, 6.18, and 6.22) or with no upper billiment (figs. 6.12, 6.13, 6.14, 6.15, and 6.23), and this difference could indicate the context of the lady’s mourning. Prior to 1560, an all-black French hood extended with a bongrace and stripped of its upper billiment is, in the author’s opinion, a sign of dynastic mourning. The easiest way to turn the French hood all black and form the shape of a bongrace is to unfold the panel (fig. 6.10), but if the panel is Z-folded, the blackness can be obtained by using black satin for the facing of the panel (figs. 6.12, 6.13, and 6.14) or having the bongrace cover both the oreillette and the entire panel (fig. 6.15). The author speculates that dynastic mourning should be interpreted as either recent widowhood (figs. 6.12 and 6.13) or the loss of a son who would have held the title of his late father (figs. 6.14 and 6.15). A drawing of Marguerite d’Angoulême, queen of Navarre, is in the author’s interpretation presenting her as a widow (fig. 6.12).25 She lost her first husband in 1525 and she was widowed again in 1555.26 She wears a bongrace “with blinkers” on top of her completely undecorated French hood. Her oreillette could well be of the earliest kind going round the back of the neck, and its tips are at the upper end of chin level.27 Based on this, the author speculates that this portrait dates from her first widowhood in 1525, whereas the museum gives the date of ca. 1540. If a bongrace after ca. 1525 allows a view to the ends of the oreillette, the ram’shorn shape seems to end in a surprisingly vertical position (figs. 6.16 and 6.18). The author has been able to recreate this verticality by tilting the oreillette further forward at the top, causing the oreillette to “rotate” around the pinning at the sides, leaving the tips of the “ram’s horns” at a lower position than they would otherwise hold.28 The tilting gives an opportunity for pinning the bongrace to the oreillette center front. In England, Elizabeth Stoner sat for a portrait drawing inscribed “Lady Hobbie”— an inscription thought to have been added in the eighteenth century—also wearing a bongrace “with blinkers” and no upper billiment (fig. 6.13).29 She was widowed twice

24 Romero Ruiz, “Ritual,” section 3.5, “Mourning.” 25 François Clouet, drawing of Marguerite d’Orléans, then d’Angoulême, queen of Navarre (dated to ca. 1540 at Musée Condé, Chantilly, France, no. MN 44), viewable via the search function at the museum’s website, http://www.musee-conde.fr. 26 Kimberly Fabbri, “Marguerite, Queen of Navarre,” MMV Prof. Pavlac’s Women’s History Site, Dec. 18, 2005, http://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/margueritN.html (accessed Oct. 2, 2016). 27 See “The Timeline,” starting on p. 165 of this article. 28 Ibid. 29 Hans Holbein the Younger, drawing of Elizabeth, Lady Hoby (Royal Collection, London, no. RCIN 912211), viewable at www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/912211/elizabeth-lady-hoby-c-1500-1560 (accessed Oct. 11, 2016).

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The French Hood before marrying Sir Philip Hoby around 1540.30 Her first husband, Sir Walter Compton, died in 1528; her second, Sir Walter Walshe, in 1538.31 The tips of her tilted oreillette showing under the bongrace are reaching a level just below her lips. If the oreillette were put back in a normal position, they would have reached no lower than the middle of her mouth. This causes the author to connect this portrait to her widowhood in 1528,32 whereas the Royal Collection dates the drawing to ca. 1532–43. Katherine (or Catherine) Willoughby d’Eresby, Lady Brandon, duchess of Suffolk, lost both of her sons to the sweating sickness in 1551.33 Her husband, Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, had died in 1545,34 and subsequently the title passed on to his elder son. Her portrait (fig. 6.14)35 holds a (later added?) inscription of 1548 and a Latin text saying that she was later to be the wife of Richard Bertie, whom she married in 1553.36 The duchess is, however, dressed according to the author’s definition of dynastic mourning: black and warm clothes, no jewelry, a bongrace and no billiment showing on her Z-folded French hood with a flat top. The author speculates that this portrait was painted while she was in mourning for the end of the line of Brandon, dukes of Suffolk, a line which died out with her two sons even though she herself would still be referred to as the Duchess of Suffolk after her new marriage to a man without a title. No part of the oreillette is visible under her flat-topped bongrace to assist a dating. The dating of a portrait of Mary Neville Fiennes, baroness Dacre by her first marriage, varies from one source to another within the time frame given by the National Gallery of Canada: 1555–58 (fig. 6.15).37 Her bongrace covers her French hood completely except for the fall, and it forces her hair forward to form “blinkers.” The author suggests a dating to late 1553 when Mary Neville was mourning the death of her son, Thomas Fiennes, who died in August 1553.38 When her husband was executed in 1541, the family was stripped of his title, and she struggled trying to regain the title Baron Dacre for her elder son. His death would have given her reason to commemorate her grief in a portrait which holds a picture of her first husband in the background—indicating that her grief is somehow connected to him. She might also

30 David Nash Ford, “Sir Philip Hoby,” Tudorplace.com, www.tudorplace.com.ar/Bios/PhillipHoby.htm (accessed Oct. 2, 2016). 31 Barbara J. Harris, English Aristocratic Women, 1450–1550, Marriage and Family, Property and Careers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 176. 32 See table 6.1. 33 Cecilie Goff, A Woman of the Tudor Age (London: John Murray, 1930), 193. 34 Ibid, 157. 35 Unknown artist, portrait of Katherine Willoughby, inscribed 1548 (collection of Baroness Willoughby de Eresby, Grimsthorpe Castle, Bourne, UK), viewable at http://commons.wikimedia. org/wiki/File:Catherine_Willoughby_1548.jpg (accessed Nov. 27, 2017). 36 Goff, Woman of the Tudor Age, 215. 37 Hans Eworth, portrait of Mary Neville, Lady Dacre (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario, no. 3337), viewable via the search function at the gallery’s website, www.gallery.ca. 38 Karen Hearn, ed., Dynasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 1530–1630 [exhibition catalog] (London: Tate Publishing, 1995), 68–69.

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Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson have been widowed again that year as she remarried twice, but there is no record of when her second and third husbands died. A widow might enter a new marriage,39 and the widow’s black hood in correlation with all-black dress (apart from a glimpse of a white collar of a linen partlet and perhaps some fur) and extra layers of clothes—for modesty rather than display40—tell the tale of the lady’s current distress and status, perhaps with the implication of her availability for a new marriage in the near future.41 A number of rather primitive portraits of women wearing all-black French hoods with rigid horizontal tops, hairstyles very much like Katherine Willoughby’s (fig. 6.14), and fur-trimmed “night gowns” have surfaced over the years. Some of these portraits are so much alike in composition that art historians are inclined to think they might all be portraying the same lady—preferably Lady Jane Grey;42 but if there were a market for widow’s portraits as “vanities,”43 this author finds it most likely that a painter’s workshop would have a stock of portraits ready to be finished by adding the right color of hair and other details to personalize the portrait—just as engravers would have a stock of funeral brasses available.44 The social significance of displaying one’s mourning as a widow is found in the case of Lady Mary Grey, a younger sister of Lady Jane Grey, who in 1567 secretly married Thomas Keyes. For a courtier and a woman in line of succession to the throne, marriage without permission from the queen was not tolerated. Thomas Keyes was imprisoned, and Lady Mary was, as a prisoner of state, confined to the custody of first her step-grandmother, Katherine Willoughby, duchess of Suffolk, and later Sir Thomas Gresham. When Thomas Keyes, whom she had not seen for four years, died in 1571, Sir Thomas Gresham consulted William Cecil, baron Burghley, secretary of state, on whether or not Lady Mary Grey should be permitted to wear mourning.45 The bongrace “with blinkers” also appears accompanied by both billiments in a context where the satin facing of the Z-folded panel is not necessarily black (figs. 6.16, 6.17, 6.18, and 6.22). These portraits might show a bit of jewelry on the dress as well. The author holds the theory that this combination is meant to show a professional grief: the grief of a chief mourner. The funeral of anybody with the right to a coat of arms would in England46 be an official matter, and the heralds of court would appoint the chief mourners. The chief mourner would be of high rank, but no higher rank than the deceased, and preferably someone with a personal relation to the deceased.47 39 Goff, Woman of the Tudor Age, 23. 40 One purpose of fashionable clothes is to enhance the wearer’s sexual attractiveness; Flugel, Psychology of Clothes, 26. Hiding the body in excessive layers of clothes could be a way to obtain the opposite effect. 41 Romero Ruiz, “Ritual,” section 3.5, “Mourning.” 42 Examples are found in J. Stephan Edwards, A Queen of a New Invention: Portraits of Lady Jane Grey Dudley, England’s “Nine Days Queen” (Palm Springs, CA: Old John Publishing, 2015), 88–97. 43 Romero Ruiz, “Ritual,” section 3.6, “The Vanities.” 44 Malcolm Norris, Monumental Brasses: The Craft (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1978), 89. 45 Goff, Woman of the Tudor Age, 255–59. 46 No reference to a similar custom in any other country has been found during the research for this article. 47 Romero Ruiz, “Ritual,” section 3.3, “Royal and Heraldic Funerals.”

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The French Hood It would have been an honor—and an expensive one—to be appointed,48 and consequently something to commemorate in a portrait. Of all the chief mourners of the Tudor era, only a few names have been recorded for posterity. Margaret Wyatt, Lady Lee, was a lady-in-waiting and a friend to Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, and she was appointed as chief mourner to the former queen after Anne’s execution in 1536.49 This author speculates that Lady Lee had her portrait painted to commemorate the occasion (fig. 6.16).50 Wearing a bongrace on top of her fully ornamented French hood, and wearing merely golden aiglets for jewelry on her dress, she has replaced the traditional brooch with a red rose on her chest. In Italian Renaissance painting, the red rose would have been a symbol of sorrow and martyrdom—among other things51—which would fit beautifully if Lady Lee were the person who sent a secret message to the Spanish Ambassador, Chapuys, describing how Anne Boleyn until the very end had sworn to her innocence.52 The tilted oreillette’s tips are in this portrait at the level of the center of her mouth, which works well with 1536 as a date, and her hairstyle does not contradict this.53 Widowhood could not be the reason for Lady Lee to wear a bongrace, as her husband outlived her by six years.54 Katherine Willoughby d’Eresby (b. 1519), mentioned above, acted as chief mourner to her guardian’s wife, Mary Rose Tudor, Lady Brandon, duchess of Suffolk and dowager queen of France, in 1533. A miniature portrait presents her dressed in a French hood with billiments and a bongrace on top covering the oreillette (fig. 6.17).55 She looks too old to be only fourteen, so it would be farfetched to connect this portrait to the funeral of the Dowager Queen Mary. It is possible, however, that she would also have been appointed chief mourner to her mother, Maria de Salinas, baroness Willoughby d’Eresby. There is no record of Baroness Willoughby’s funeral and consequently no record of her chief mourner, but she is reported to have died in 1539.56 The miniature 48 Ibid. 49 “Margaret Lee (lady-in-waiting),” Wikipedia, last modified July 22, 2017, http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Margaret_Lee_(lady-in-waiting) (accessed Feb. 3, 2018), under “Life.” 50 Workshop of Hans Holbein the Younger, Lady Lee (Margaret Wyatt) (dated to the early 1540s at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, no. 14.40.637), viewable at www.metmuseum.org/ collection/the-collection-online/search/436665 (accessed Oct. 2, 2016). 51 Mirella Levi d’Ancona, The Garden of the Renaissance: Botanical Symbolism in Italian Painting (Florence: Leo S. Olschki Editore, 1977), 330–31. 52 Letter from Ambassador Chapuys to Charles V, May 19, 1536, in Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, vol. 10, January–June 1536, ed. James Gairdner (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1887), 371–391, no. 908, available at British History Online, www.british-history. ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol10/pp371–391 (accessed October 2, 2016). 53 See table 6.1. 54 “Margaret Lee (lady-in-waiting)”; M. K. Dale, “Lee, Sir Anthony (1510/11–49), of Quarrendon, Bucks.,” in The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1509–1558, ed. S. T. Bindoff (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 1982), available at The History of Parliament, www.historyofparliamentonline.org/ volume/1509–1558/member/lee-sir-anthony–151011–49 (accessed Oct. 2, 2016). 55 Hans Holbein the Younger, watercolor miniature of Katherine Willoughby, duchess of Suffolk (collection of Baroness Willoughby de Eresby), viewable at Wikimedia Commons, http://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Catherine_Willoughby,_portrait_miniature.jpg (accessed Oct. 3, 2016). 56 Lara Eakins, “Maria de Salinas,” Who’s Who in Tudor History, http://tudorhistory.org/people/salinas (accessed Feb. 25, 2016).

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Fig. 6.18 (left): An unidentified lady, after an undated painting attributed to William Scrots (auctioned in 2011, current location unknown; viewable at http://www.christies.com under Sold Lot no. 5521210). Fig. 6.19 (right): Queen Mary I, after a painting by Antonio Moro (or Antonis Mor), 1554 (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, no. P02108).

is inscribed “H Holben fecit,” and if the miniature were signed by Holbein himself, it would have been done no later than 1543, when he died. The oreillette is completely covered by the bongrace, limiting a dating by the tilted oreillette. As the tips do not go below the ends of her bongrace, their lowest possible level would be even with the tip of her nose, which makes 1539 a likely date.57 This is also consistent with her slightly puffed hairstyle, and Katherine Willoughby, now herself Lady Brandon, duchess of Suffolk, could very well be twenty-one years old in this portrait. A portrait of an unidentified sitter wearing a bongrace on top of a French hood with billiments was sold by auction at Christie’s in London on Dec. 7, 2011 (fig. 6.18).58 With assistance from the Victoria and Albert Museum, the auction house dated the portrait to the second half of the 1550s based on the modest costume and the similarities to a portrait of Mary Neville Fiennes (fig. 6.15). This author speculates, however, that it could have been painted more than a decade earlier and could be portraying a lady in her chief mourner’s costume. The panel of her French hood is styled to a round shape, whereas it would most likely have been styled to a wide, flat top very much like figures 6.15 and 6.22 had it actually been painted in the late 1550s. The bongrace, too, would 57 See table 6.1. 58 William Scrots (attr.), portrait of a lady, sold at auction Dec. 7, 2011, by Christie’s, viewable at http:// www.christies.com under Sold Lot no. 5521210 (accessed Feb. 25, 2016).

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The French Hood

Fig. 6.20 (left): Elizabeth Brooke, Lady Parr, Marchioness of Northampton, after a portrait medal from 1562 (viewable at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elizabeth_brooke_ Parr.jpg). Fig. 6.21 (right): Alice Brandon, Mrs. Hilliard, after a miniature by Nicholas Hilliard, 1578 (Victoria & Albert Museum, London, no. P.2-1942).

have been styled with a flatter top like the ones in figures 6.15 and 6.22. Furthermore, the vertical tips of the lady’s tilted oreillette are at the level of the top part of her upper lip. If sitting in a normal position, they would reach just below her cheekbones. This indicates a date no later than ca. 1540.59 If anything should point to a later date for this portrait, it would be the lady’s puffed hairstyle, which has been arranged a bit higher at the sides than expected for ca. 1540. The excessive and somewhat oversized layers of clothes and the animal’s fur warming the back of her neck are hiding the shape of her body more efficiently than the late-1550s fashion would do. All this, plus the rather simple gold chain around her neck as the only jewelry on her dress, indicates that this could be another portrait to commemorate a lady’s honorable appointment to act as a chief mourner. Queen Mary I, after her marriage in 1554, was only portrayed wearing a bongrace as an integrated part of her French hood (fig. 6.19).60 The ends of her bongrace are tucked into the top fold of the Z-folded panel of her black hood. The front of her bongrace is not reaching far enough forward to create “blinkers” as earlier described. Triangles have been cut away at the rear to make it sit tightly on the folded panel while at the same time covering the oreillette and making room for her “puffed” hair. The 59 See table 6.1. 60 Antonio Moro, portrait of Mary Tudor, queen of England, 1554 (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, no. P02108), viewable at www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/obras-de-arte?searchObras=p02108 (accessed Feb. 25, 2016).

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Fig. 6.22 (left): An English lady, possibly Margaret Douglas, Lady Stuart, countess of Lennox, after an undated painting attributed to William Scrots (auctioned in 2010, current location unknown; viewable at http://www.sothebys.com). Fig. 6.23 (right): Diane de Poitiers, after a portrait drawing by François Clouet and his workshop, dated by the museum to ca. 1555 (Musée Condé, Chantilly, France, no. MN 203).

author regards this bongrace as part of the dawn of a melancholic trend in fashion and art lasting from the 1550s to the 1560s. In this light the integrated bongrace can be interpreted as a “vanity”: an item holding a depressing memento mori symbolism.61 The fashionable bongrace had, by the early 1560s, shrunk in width to a panel approximately 5 centimeters (2 inches) wide, with a forward point on top of the head. In 1562, Elizabeth Brooke, Lady Parr, marchioness of Northampton, was portrayed in profile on a medal wearing such a pointed bongrace on top of her French hood (fig. 6.20). This medal was created to commemorate her miraculous recovery from a severe illness.62 The pointed bongrace is quite common in fashionable portraits from about 1562 to 1580, worn both with and without an upper billiment. Alice Brandon was, in 1578, the year when she gave birth to her first son, portrayed by her husband,

61 Romero Ruiz, “Ritual,” section 3.6, “The Vanities.” 62 Kathy Lynn Emerson, “Elizabeth Brooke (June 12, 1526–April 2, 1565),” A Who’s Who of Tudor Women, www.tudorwomen.com/?page_id=646 (accessed Feb. 3, 2018).

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The French Hood

Fig. 6.24 (left): Elizabeth Littleton or Margaret Copley—both wives of John Gage, Esq.— after a brass effigy by Gerard Johnson of Southwark (West Firle, Sussex). Fig. 6.25 (right): A French hood with a pillbox-shaped bag and a cornet, after a stone effigy in St. Catherine’s Church, Montacute, Somerset. The monument is inscribed “Bridget Phelips 1508,” although no such person is recorded in the family history. Many details in this effigy are so similar to those of another one in the same church that they must be contemporary and have been created in the very early 1590s.

Nicholas Hilliard, in a miniature (fig. 6.21).63 She, too, wears a narrow, pointed bongrace and no billiment. A bongrace worn as a fashionable addition to the French hood raises the question of how a lady’s headwear would display her mourning. The author finds the answer in a full-figure portrait in which the sitter is portrayed wearing not only a fashionable velvet bongrace, but an additional bongrace of black satin (fig. 6.22).64 The artist has portrayed the shine of the fabric in so much detail that velvet and satin can be distinguished even though everything is black. The lady is portrayed wearing very little jewelry, and the traditional brooch closing the partlet has been replaced by a gold-embroidered 63 Jorge H. Castelli, “Brandon Family,” Tudorplace.com, www.tudorplace.com.ar/BRANDON.htm (accessed Feb. 25, 2016), under “Alice Brandon.” 64 William Scrots (attr.), portrait of a lady, offered at auction Dec. 9, 2010, by Sotheby’s, viewable at www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2010/old-master-british-paintings-day-sale-l10037/ lot.256.html (accessed Oct. 3, 2016).

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Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson button. Her headdress is a very wide French hood with billiments and a reasonably flat top holding a faint echo of the angled gable hood. As mentioned earlier, the velvet bongrace had become an integrated part of Queen Mary I’s French hoods by 1554, and most likely a similar integration would be in demand with her ladies at court. In the author’s interpretation, this would relate to the modesty of a pious married woman in the early days of a general, fashionable melancholy. As in the portrait of Queen Mary I (fig. 6.19), her velvet bongrace does not reach sufficiently far forward to act as “blinkers,” but the satin bongrace on top pushes the puffed hair forward at eye level, creating the effect. From the crown to the level of her eyebrows, the satin bongrace has been tucked into the top fold of the panel, and below this point it has been brought back out and its ends pulled forward. A faint line of highlight (indicated by a dotted line in fig. 6.22) is caught in the satin surface of the top bongrace, giving away the rear of the velvet bongrace underneath and thus explaining the layering, which has been successfully recreated by the author. The author speculates that this portrait shows Margaret Douglas, Lady Stuart, countess of Lennox, as chief mourner to Queen Mary I in 1558.65 This speculation, however, can be challenged, firstly on the grounds that the painting was, at a Sotheby’s auction in 2010, dated to about 1546 and attributed to William Scrots, who was active only until 1553.66 There is, however, support to be found for the author’s dating of the portrait in a paper by Hope Walker, who suggests ca. 1557 as the date and Hans Eworth as the artist.67 Hans Eworth was active in England in 1558.68 A second challenge is that, based on what has been mentioned earlier about how the lady’s body would be hidden behind multiple layers for ritual mourning, there is a problem as the sitter is portrayed wearing a fitted gown which is—apart from its wrinkling—very much in style with the dress of Princess Elizabeth in her portrait from about 154669 with a partlet added as the only piece of excess clothing. The dress must be the main reason for dating this portrait to about 1546; but when the fashion—due to a melancholy trend—is to wear a “night gown,” a wrinkled hourglass-shaped court dress could be suitably unfashionable for mourning clothes. A third challenge is presented by the hairstyle. By the early 1550s, the “puffs” to the sides of the face had climbed to form a triangle with a horizontal line at the top

65 Jorge H. Castelli, “Margaret Douglas (C. Lennox),” Tudorplace.com, www.tudorplace.com.ar/Bios/ MargaretDouglas.htm (accessed Feb. 25, 2016). 66 See auction listing, note 64, above. 67 Hope Walker, “On the Portrait of an Unknown Lady in the Collection of Canon Timothy Russ,” Hans Eworth: The Complete Catalogue Raisonné, last modified May 19, 2010, available at Hans Eworth & The London Stranger Painters, www.hanseworth.com/HESawstonRussWalkerMay2010. pdf (accessed Oct. 1, 2016). 68 “Hans Eworth,” Wikipedia, last modified June 14, 2017, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Eworth (accessed Feb. 3, 2018), under “Career.” 69 William Scrots (attr.), “Elizabeth I when a Princess,” ca. 1546 (Windsor Castle, Windsor, UK, no. RCIN 404444), viewable at www.royalcollection.org.uk/collection/404444/elizabeth-i-when-aprincess (accessed Oct. 1, 2016).

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The French Hood

Fig. 6.26 (left): An unidentified lady, age 26, after a painting by John Bettes the Younger, 1585 (current location unknown; viewable at http://www.thehousedirectory.com/blog/ BADA_Antiques_Fair_2014). Fig. 6.27 (right): An unidentified English lady, after a miniature perhaps by Nicolas Hilliard, ca. 1595 (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, no. 3898).

of the lady’s forehead (figs. 6.8, 6.14, 6.15, and 6.19). The altitude of the lady’s “puffs” in figure 6.22 is closer to the fashion of the mid-1540s—just like her dress. If, however, the “puffs” had been placed higher, they would not be able to compensate for the absence of “blinkers” in the bongrace itself. The satin bongrace is pinned to the oreillette at the sides of her face, but as the “ram’s horns” are covered, a dating by table 6.1 is open to speculation. English ladies were not the only ones to be portrayed with extra layers added on top of their bongrace. A French version involving an unfolded black hood as a top layer is displayed in a portrait drawing of Diane de Poitiers (fig. 6.23).70 The author speculates that this drawing shows the lady in mourning for her lover, King Henry II, who died in 1559. The combination of surviving correspondence between the engraver Gerard Johnson of Southwark and his client, John Gage, and the funeral effigy Johnson produced gives a definition of a “cornet” as a further development of the bongrace (fig.

70 François Clouet and his workshop, drawing of Diane de Poitiers, dated by the museum to ca. 1555 (Musée Condé, Chantilly, France, no. MN 203), viewable via the search function at the museum’s website, http://www.musee-conde.fr.

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Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson 6.24).71 It is now a crescent shape waving its way from the cheekbones to the top of the head. A seam at the top reveals that it would be of velvet cut on the bias. Only by cutting it in two pieces would the tailor be able to make the pile go toward the top of the head on both sides of the face and thus bring out the same color depth right and left. The cornet would not hold its position on its own, and the author speculates that the metal frame in the Museum of London,72 defined as a headdress frame, common from the 1520s, is actually a damaged cornet frame going across the top of the black hood’s panel behind the lady’s ears before making a sharp turn on either side toward her cheekbones. Figure 6.25 shows part of an ornamentation which the author interprets as a decorative cover for such a frame right behind the cornet. A more elaborate version of the cornet is displayed in figure 6.26, where the front is heavily decorated with lace of fine metal wire. During the 1580s and 1590s, the fall of the black hood would frequently be flipped over the top of the head, forming a kind of shade (figs. 6.26 and 6.27). When arranged like this, the fall would be referred to as a bongrace.73 Table 6.1: Position of the tips of the oreillette in French and English portraiture over time (approximate span in years) Level of “ram’s horn” tips of the oreillette

French portraits

English portraits

The chin

1514–1522

—

Just below the mouth

1522–1525

—

Mid-mouth

1528–1534

1528–1533

Between mouth and nose

1534–1540

1533–1537

Below the cheekbones

1538–1550

1537–1540

The cheekbones

1550–1565

1540–1554

The eyes

—

1554–1558

The eyebrows

—

1557–1559

Above the eyebrows

—

1557–1565

The eyebrows

—

1562–1567

The eyes

1575

1567–1572

The cheekbones

—

1572–1579

Disappearing behind the hair

—

1579+

71 Gerard Johnson of Southwark, brass effigy of John Gage, Esq., and his two wives, ca. 1590 (St. Peter’s Church, West Firle, Sussex, England); Norris, Monumental Brasses, 93 and fig. 74. 72 Museum of London, no. A27910, viewable at http://collections.museumoflondon.org.uk/online/ object/117854.html (accessed Feb. 25, 2016). A better preserved example is found in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (Rotterdam, Netherlands, no. F 9286 [KN&V]), viewable at http://collectie. boijmans.nl/en/object/56557 (accessed Oct. 3, 2016). 73 Janet Arnold, Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d (Leeds, UK: Maney, 1988), 203.

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The French Hood THE TIMELINE

No fashion comes out of the blue. Somewhere, something has provided an inspiration. The ancestors of the French hood are to be found in different parts of what is now France and Belgium. The first coifs with an ornamented and pleated front edge are found toward the end of the fifteenth century (figs. 6.28 and 6.29), as is an ornamented and turned-back edge on a hybrid between a veil and a hood (fig. 6.28) and a rectangular brim stitched to a veil, gathered at the top (fig. 6.29) or a long “windbag” (fig. 6.30), but the combination of items that creates the iconic French hood would not come together until the beginning of the sixteenth century. The first genuine French hood with its full anatomy appeared in French portraits about 1514, and in portrait drawings from ca. 1520 the panel of the black hood holds the Z-folding. The fashion seems to have reached the English court about 1528. Until then, the gable-shaped hood had been practically unchallenged in England. The gable hood reappeared in English court fashion for a short time while Jane Seymour was queen of England (1536–37). In both France (ca. 1555) and England (1560s) a small pillbox hat worn at the back of the head developed as an alternative to the French hood, but while the French

Fig. 6.28 (left): An unidentified young woman, after an undated painting by Jean Perréal, active 1483–1530 (Musée du Louvre, Paris, no. R. F. 1993-20); see also fig. 4.5 and cover of this volume. Fig. 6.29 (right): Marguerite d’Angoulême, after a portrait medal from before 1500 (viewable at www.altesses.eu/princes_max.php?image=0112c5fcfb).

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Fig. 6.30 (left): Margaret of Austria, Fille de France, after a painting by Jean Hey, ca. 1490 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, no. 1975.1.130). Fig. 6.31 (right): Renée de France, duchess of Ferrara, after an undated painting by Corneille de Lyon (auctioned in 2007, current location unknown; viewable at http://www.christies.com under Sold Lot no. 5017415). The author speculates that this portrait dates to ca. 1538, when Renée married Ercole II, duke of Ferrara.

courtiers started to lose interest in the French hood in the late 1550s, the English nobles had room for a further evolution of both fashions side by side. As late as around 1600, English ladies were portrayed with the iconic fall inventively arranged on top of the hood (figs. 6.26 and 6.27). The fashion of wearing the fall this way was probably born from necessity, as a fall hanging down the back is not too compatible with a very wide and stiffened ruff, known as a millstone collar (fig. 6.26). The oreillette’s changes in cut and styling over the decades work as the author’s primary guide for establishing a timeline (table 6.1) as the tips of the “ram’s horns” changed their shape and position. In French drawings from ca. 1520, the brim of the oreillette is shaped very much like a headband with ear warmers (fig. 6.3) and its tips are located at chin level (fig. 6.2). From there they started climbing. When the English courtiers adopted the fashion of the French hood in the late 1520s, the tips had climbed to the level of mid-mouth (fig. 6.31), and the brim was no longer going round the back of the neck. This new cut opened a door toward new possibilities for shaping the brim. It could be stretched, and from eye level it could be styled in a crescent shape on either side of the head. At the ends of the crescent, the tips kept climbing synchronously in France and England for the next twenty years, up to a point below the cheekbones, which was reached around 1538. While the French seemed to 166

The French Hood

Fig. 6.32 (left): An unidentified lady, after a painting by Hans Eworth (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, no. PD.1-1963). The sitter has previously been identified as both Mary I and Lady Jane Grey, and there is some dispute to the dating. The author suggests ca. 1557. Fig. 6.33 (right): Margaret Audley, Lady Dudley, duchess of Norfolk, after a painting by Hans Eworth, 1562 (Audley End House, Essex; viewable at http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/ visit/places/audley-end-house-and-gardens/history/collection).

favor this altitude for another decade, the English moved the tips up to the cheekbone after only a couple of years and kept them there for a decade while they changed the styling of the black velvet hood from a round shape to a flat top. In France the “ram’s horns” reached the cheekbones around 1550, but here the black hood was constantly kept styled in a round shape. In England, the tips of the oreillette had not stopped climbing. Between ca. 1552 and ca. 1557, painted portraits of young ladies show the tips going from cheekbone level to above the eyebrows (figs. 6.32, 6.33, and 6.34), while contemporary funeral effigies rarely portray tips that high. Once the tips had reached a level above the eyebrows, the oreillette changed in cut to meet the wide and flat styling of the panel of the black hood and make a sharp turn above the ears (fig. 6.32). The pleated creppin shrank in width as the front edge of the oreillette came closer to the skull, and eventually the creppin disappeared completely as the center front of the oreillette formed first a bay (fig. 6.33) and then a point going toward the forehead (fig. 6.34). While the tips of the

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Fig. 6.34 (left): Mary Browne, Lady Wriothesley, countess of Southampton, after a painting by an unknown artist, 1565 (Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire; viewable at http://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mary_(Browne)_Wriothesley_Countess_of_Southampton.jpg). Fig. 6.35 (right): Mary Hill, Mrs. MacWilliam, still known as Lady Cheke from her first marriage, after a painting by the Master of the Countess of Warwick, 1567 (current location unknown; viewable at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mary_Hill_Mrs_ Mackwilliam_1567.jpg).

oreillette were still at their highest level, the panel went back to a round shape (figs. 6.33 and 6.34). From the mid-1560s, the tips of the oreillette started descending again, going slowly back down to the cheekbones, but this time they were pulled further back away from the face. Eventually they disappeared behind the hair (fig. 6.27). The French hood had been styled differently over the decades, and the English would at times style it differently from the French. As mentioned earlier, the panel of the black hood is extremely flexible when it comes to styling, so the choice of style could be regarded as a result of a combination of necessity and local taste at a specific time in history. For instance, the French gave up the French hood when their collars climbed high enough on the neck to collide with the hood—even though they first

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The French Hood tried to cut the panel a bit shorter. This challenge was met with a different approach in England, where the hanging ends of the panel—due to the pinning—climbed along with the tips of the oreillette, forming the flat top of the hood (figs. 6.8, 6.14, 6.15, 6.19, 6.22, and 6.32). Two different—if neighboring—cultures can provide different solutions to the same problem.

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Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson

Appendix 6.1 The Reconstruction

The author’s theories on the cut and tailoring of a French hood are based on minute studies of mainly portrait paintings and drawings as well as on the following assumptions: that waste of fabric should be avoided; that valuable fabric was reserved for parts visible to an audience; and that contemporary storage techniques, in which all textiles would preferably be stored flat in a coffer, also applied to French hoods (until the introduction of the pillbox-shaped bag). Finally, the construction technique was developed through experimental trial and error. A reconstruction of a headdress in the style of figure 6.6 was done from the patterns in figures 6.37 to 6.41, and the result is displayed in a tutorial video,1 in which the author presents the tailoring techniques used to make this reconstruction. The inner coif never shows directly in French hood portraits—apart from the strap under the chin—and subsequently there is no proof that the author’s reconstruction is an exact replica of the ones worn in England around 1540. In fact, one referee of this article found the inner coif of this reconstruction to look very odd, but as opposed to the author’s experiments with other forms, this one serves its purpose of supporting the oreillette and the black hood without displaying any more than its straps when they emerge beneath the “ram’s horns.” The author finds additional support for this reconstruction in a portrait of Marie d’Assigny from about 1525 (fig. 6.36). Her creppin is sufficiently transparent to reveal a slight change in color underneath it (indicated by a dotted line in fig. 6.36),2 which the author interprets as the front edge of a black inner coif sitting on top of the lady’s dark brown hair. The materials used in the reconstruction (with approximate measurements) are as follows:

1 Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson, “French Hood Tutorial” [video], posted by Johnny Stenspil Jensen, Nov. 14, 2017, http://youtube.com/watch?v=DIPjroLf5dg. 2 Jean Clouet, portrait of Madame de Canaples (Marie d’Assigny), ca. 1525 (Scottish National G ­ allery, Edinburgh, no. NG 1930), viewable at www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/4764/madame-decanaples-marie-dassigny-1502–58-ng-1930 (accessed Feb. 3, 2018); and drawing (Musée Condé, Chantilly, France, no. MN 262), viewable via the search function at the museum’s website, http:// www.musee-conde.fr.

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The French Hood

Fig. 6.36: Marie d’Assigny, Madame de Canaples, after a painting by Jean Clouet, ca. 1525 (National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, no. NG 1930). The details of the bag and the fall are after a drawing of Marie by Clouet, quite possibly a study for that painting, ca. 1525 (Musée Condé, Chantilly, France, no. MN 262).

l l l l l l l l l l l l

white linen, 50 centimeters (20 inches) linen interlining, 50 centimeters (20 inches) buckram, 37 centimeters (15 inches) bias tape, 110 centimeters (44 inches) millinery wire, 50 centimeters (20 inches) black velvet, 50 centimeters (20 inches) white silk satin, 50 centimeters (20 inches) black silk satin, 50 centimeters (20 inches) cloth-of-gold ribbon, 70 centimeters (28 inches) small flat-bottom beads large flat-bottom beads thread to match the fabric.

The patterns are made for a head circumference of 56 centimeters (22 inches). For a summary of construction steps, see page 177, following the pattern diagrams.

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Fig. 6.37: Pattern for the inner coif.

Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson

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Fig. 6.38: Pattern for the oreillette.

The French Hood

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Figs. 6.39 (above) and 6.40 (opposite): Pattern for the panel of the black hood.

Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson

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The French Hood

175

Karen Margrethe Høskuldsson

Fig. 6.41: Pattern for the fall and bag of the black hood.

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The French Hood The inner coif (fig. 6.37) Add 1 centimeter (½ inch) of seam allowance to all parts. Insert the finished straps into the end seams of the brim (at markings J and K), and join the two parts of the bag from marking F to H via marking I with a French seam. Join the finished brim and bag by the headband, matching the markings. The oreillette (fig. 6.38) Add 1 centimeter (½ inch) of seam allowance to all parts except those cut in buckram or linen interlining. Gather the bag and the headband as described in figure 6.37. Join the buckram and linen interlining with an invisible variant of a pad stitch, and then stretch and gather them into the shape shown at the bottom of the diagram. Finish the brim with bias tape, millinery wire, silk satin, and linen lining, then sew it to the headband, matching markings A, B, and E. Gather the beads on a string and apply to the brim. Finish the creppin and apply to the front of the brim. The panel of the black hood (figs. 6.39 and 6.40) Add 1 centimeter (½ inch) of seam allowance to all parts except those cut in buckram or linen interlining. Join the buckram and linen interlining with an invisible variant of a pad stitch, and then fold and stretch them into the shape shown in fig. 6.40, and apply a bias tape edging. Join the velvet parts between the markings A and CB, and sew both the velvet and silk satin parts to the interlining. Join the finished panel to the bag and the fall, matching the markings G, CB, and H. Gather the beads on a string and apply to the panel. The fall and bag of the black hood (fig. 6.41) Add 1 centimeter (½ inch) of seam allowance to all parts. Sew the two parts of the bag together from marking CB to J via K in both velvet and linen. Sew the two layers of the fall together along the edges of three sides, leaving only the top end untouched. Fold up the pleats and place the fall on the velvet bag, matching markings CB. Apply the panel between the markings G and F, then add the linen lining to the bag.

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Recent Books of Interest

Inventories of Textiles—Textiles in Inventories, edited by Thomas Ertl and Barbara Karl (Göttingen: V&R Unipress / Vienna University Press, 2017). ISBN 978-3847103929. 245 pages, 35 illustrations (24 in color). Inventories are often included as a source in studies of historical textiles, but their use is rarely examined in its own right. In the eleven articles in this collection, authors from different academic backgrounds address various aspects and different types of inventories. In the introductory chapter, editors Thomas Ertl and Barbara Karl discuss the concept of inventories throughout history and the wide range of sources defined as inventories, from simple lists to more official administrative records. They consider the difficulties in reconstructing a material reality from abstract written language and the challenges of deciphering an unstable use of descriptive terms for items and textiles that no longer exist or are no longer understood. Two papers focus on clerical inventories. Christiane Elster examines two papal inventories (1295 and 1311), one written on the occasion of the election of Pope Boniface VII and the other for the transfer of his belongings to Avignon years after his death. Thomas Ertl describes the inventories of a German cleric, the Bishop of Freising, dating to the early fourteenth century. Four essays deal with royal accounts. Sarah-Grace Heller reveals fashion via the splendour of royal expenditure in the account lists of Countess Mahaut d’Artois, ca. 1307–10. Lisa Monnas analyses furnishings and clothing in the inventories of Henry V (r. 1413–22). Annemarie Stauffer examines a 1473 purchase list from the court of Charles the Bold, and Richard Stapleford looks at household goods in a 1492 inventory of the estate of Lorenzo de’ Medici. The last four essays deal with Renaissance and early modern inventories. Hedda Rieindl-Kiel looks into fabrics as gifts by the Ottomans, while Chiara Buss studies the textiles in an unusual sample book from 1628. The remaining two essays have a more methodological approach: Burkhard Pöttler explores Austrian probate inventories of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, while John Jordan and Gabi Schopf use inventories from early modern Switzerland to identify the meanings of words for textiles in written sources. For those interested in inventories and the challenges in using them as a reliable source, this is a must-have resource. But even if the reader just wants to swoon over

Recent Books of Interest the elaborate textiles and clothing worn by members of the clergy and court, there is plenty of exciting new research to be found here. — Camilla Luise Dahl, Archives of the Island of Bornholm, Rønne, Denmark Tudor Fashion, by Eleri Lynn (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017). ISBN 978-0300228274. 208 pages, 131 illustrations (125 in color). Tudor Fashion gives a good overview of its topics, which include a summary of styles popular during the Tudor reigns (1485–1603), ways in which royals and courtiers employed clothing to achieve their social and political goals, the use of liveries, practices related to grooming and laundry, the operation of the Great Wardrobe, and the survival of extant clothing items. Wide-ranging and lavishly illustrated, this book seems to be designed for readers seeking an introduction to this area of clothing history. The first two chapters, “The Tudor Wardrobe” and “Power and Meaning: Royal Dress,” constitute half the book, and the remaining four seem brief in comparison. Even chapters 1 and 2, however, only outline their very broad topics with a smattering of examples, and the many images of recreated garments as well as Tudor-era paintings and extant pieces leave less room for text. The final chapter, exploring the question of why so few items that can be solidly linked to the Tudor family remain today and presenting two short case studies of possible survivals, contains the most original and interesting research in the book. Although seemingly geared more toward an audience with a casual interest in the topic, Tudor Fashion does appeal to scholars by supplying numerous citations, drawing heavily on works by Janet Arnold and Maria Hayward but also not infrequently on manuscripts or published transcriptions of sixteenth-century texts. Conversely, some citations point toward sources of dubious merit and many others to biographies. Readers concerned with the accuracy of the details presented are advised to follow up on the citations so they may judge the credibility of the source in each case. The numerous images illuminate the subject matter but sometimes also obscure it, as there are several instances in which the text describing the image does not match what the image shows and others in which the image or text may be misleading, especially to a reader unfamiliar with this topic. Those seeking an overview of Tudor clothing and associated topics will find this book quite useful as an introduction, and it may lead them to more comprehensive sources. Due to its scope, it is simplified in places and tends to ignore some issues that are complicated or in dispute, making it less valuable to readers familiar with the field, but even they are likely to find some juicy new tidbits of information. — Melanie Schuessler Bond, Eastern Michigan University Beds and Chambers in Late Medieval England: Readings, Representations and Realities, by Hollie L. S. Morgan (York, UK: York Medieval Press in association with Boydell Press, 2017). ISBN: 978-1903153710. 254 pages, 19 illustrations (13 in color). This original book examines the cultural and symbolic nature of the bed and the chamber—not just the bedchamber but other confined rooms which imitated or shared 180

Recent Books of Interest features with the bedchamber, such as chantries. Beginning and ending with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where the protagonist is trapped in bed and bedroom by a lady intent on seduction, it draws on documentary texts such as wills and inventories, as well as a range of romances; on art; and on spatial theory. Chapters follow the order of precepts in a popular Middle English poem: “Fyrst Arysse Erly” deals with the ideal and actual bedchamber, its position in the house, its furnishings, and the lexis and anatomy of beds and bedding, illustrated with word cloud diagrams and an annotated fifteenth-century illustration. “Serve Thy God Deuly” reveals the normality of praying in bed and the use of the bedchamber for religious reading and devotional practice. Interaction between bedchamber and religion is underlined by the practice of bequeathing bedding to the Church (where coverlets might be reused as altar cloths), by the similarity in appearance of chantry chapels to chambers, and by the custom of hanging fine bedding on the outside of houses during the Corpus Christi procession in York. “Do Thy Warke Wyssely / [. . .] and Awnswer the Pepll Curtesly” notes that the bed is a place for free conversation, particularly between husband and wife, and the chamber a location for advice. The king’s chamber was especially significant; precious items, such as the seal, might be kept there. “Goo to Thy Bed Myrely / And Lye Therin Jocundly” explains that the chamber was the site not only for love play between husband and wife, but also for other play: music, games, and, especially, books. Conversely, people sought out their chamber at times of grief. “Plesse and Loffe Thy Wyffe Dewly / And Basse Hyr Onys or Tewys Myrely” asserts that the marital bed was the only legitimate place for sex, that violation of the bed or the chamber was interpreted as adultery (however innocent of sexual infidelity a woman might be), and that a sealed chamber expressed virginity. A final chapter, “The Invisible Woman,” notes the association of the chamber with woman, women’s ownership of beds and bedding, and the role of the chamber as a place of confinement and empowerment. The birthing chamber, an entirely female realm, can, in literature, be a site of deception. The book is not without its slips: Gawain is given a lace (a belt), not “a piece of lace” (p. 2); the lady is not “in Gawain’s bed” (p. 81) but pins him in it. Nevertheless, it is essential reading for anyone interested in medieval furnishings (particularly chapter 1), and it demonstrates exciting subtleties about medieval romances mentioning beds and chambers. —Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Editor The Chasuble of Thomas Becket: A Biography, edited by Avinoam Shalem (Munich: Hirmer Publishers, 2017). ISBN: 978-3777425191. 304 pages, 274 illustrations (158 in color) plus 2 loose inserts. “Biography” is the up-and-coming approach for discussing textile objects. The object in this case is the twelfth-century chasuble of St. Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury (1118–70), preserved in the Fermo Cathedral Museum in Italy. ­Avinoam Shalem explains in his introduction that the essays in this collection take two ­approaches to the chasuble’s life: a “mental route” that creates the “narrative”

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Recent Books of Interest supporting the saintly relic, and a “physical route” that traces the transformation and reshaping of an Islamic Andalusian textile into a Christian relic-chasuble. Reflecting the first of these approaches, experts address the chasuble in its ecclesiastical, sociocultural, economic, and art historical context. According to the earliest Cathedral archival transcripts (1296), the vestment was donated to Fermo by Bishop Presbitero (1184–1204). Germano Liberati and Ursula Nilgen both discuss this donation. Similar Andalusian Umayyad textiles transformed into Christian relics are studied in Miriam Ali-de-Unzaga’s essay on the Collegiate Church textile in Oña, Burgos, Spain, and Ariane Dor’s analysis of the shroud in Autun Cathedral, France. David Jacoby documents the luxurious Andalusian silks in international commerce. Other essays deal with the physical history of the chasuble, which now consists of numerous fragments set in a semicircular shape (160 centimeters high by 540 centimeters in circumference). A blue-and-white silk weft-faced compound twill ground fabric is embroidered with thirty-four large roundels encircling such motifs as birds, griffins, and falconers. The embroidery technique is surface-couched gold thread fixed by colored silk threads. Márta Járó provides a state-of-the-art technical analysis of the gold thread. Modern interest in the chasuble was revived in 1959 when David Storm Rice first published a translation of the gold-embroidered Arabic inscription, interpreted as “made in the year 510 in Mariyya” (AD 1116 in Almeria). One of Shalem’s essays examines this and the subsequent rereadings of the script. Sigrid Müller-Christensen first analyzed the chasuble directly, and her documentation (1958–60) is stored in the Bavarian National Museum archives in Munich. Birgitt Borkopp-Restle’s essay points out the importance of this work for later developments in textile research methods. The book also provides photographs and written documentation from the chasuble’s 1959 restoration. Regula Schorta, who directed the most recent restoration and reconstruction in 2016 at the Abegg-Stiftung Foundation in Switzerland, discusses the hypothetical reconstruction of the original Hispano-Arabic textile (which may have been a royal caliphal tent) and the presumed original bell-shaped Christian vestment. Visually splendid presentation and methodically precise documentation enhance this publication, which is also to be recommended for the high-definition digitization of the earlier photographs. — Rosalia Bonito Fanelli, Florence, Italy

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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 Vol. 12 (2016)

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 Vol. 13 (2017)

Gale R. Owen-Crocker The Significance of Dress in the Bayeux Tapestry Mark Chambers How Long Is a Launce? Units of Measure for Cloth in   Late Medieval Britain Ana Grinberg Robes, Turbans, and Beards: “Ethnic Passing” in   ­Decameron 10.9 Christine Meek Calciamentum: Footwear in Late Medieval Lucca Jane Bridgeman “Bene in ordene et bene ornata”: Eleonora d’Aragona’s   Description of Her Suite of Rooms in a Roman Palace   of the Late Fifteenth Century Jessica Finley The Lübeck Wappenröcke: Distinctive Style in ­   Fifteenth-Century German Fabric Armor

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Contents OLGA MAGOULA

Multicultural Clothing in Sixth-Century Ravenna

ANNE HEDEAGER KRAG

Byzantine and Oriental Silks in Denmark, 800–1200

MONICA L.WRIGHT The Bliaut: An Examination of the Evidence in French Literary Sources JOHN BLOCK FRIEDMAN Eyebrows, Hairlines, and “Hairs Less in Sight”: Female Depilation in Late Medieval Europe MEGAN TIDDEMAN Lexical Exchange with Italian in the Textile and Wool Trades in the Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries KAREN MARGRETHE HØSKULDSSON Hidden in Plain Black: The Secrets of the French Hood

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. Cover image: Portrait of an Unknown Woman, Jean Perréal, ca. 1530 (Paris, Musée du Louvre, no. R. F. 1993-20). Photo: Stéphane Maréchalle. © RMN–Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY.

MEDIEVAL CLOTHING AND TEXTILES

Medieval Clothing and Textiles 14

MEDIEVAL CLOTHING AND TEXTILES

Editors Netherton & Owen-Crocker

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Edited by Robin Netherton and Gale R. Owen-Crocker