Encountering Medieval Textiles and Dress: Objects, Texts, Images [Hardcover]

Desiree G. Koslin (Editor), Janet Snyder (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 30, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0312293771 | ISBN-13: 978-0312293772

This broad-reaching collection of essays constitutes a thorough introduction to the fields and methodologies concerned with studies of textiles and dress of the Middle Ages. New themes and critical viewpoints from many disciplines are brought to bear on the medieval material in the areas of archaeology, art and architecture, economics, law, history, literature, religion, and textile technology. The contributors address surviving objects and artifacts and interpret representations in texts and images. The articles extend in time from the fifth to the sixteenth centuries, and cover Europe from Scandinavia, England, and Ireland in the north, to Italy and the Mediterranean basin in the south. Emphasis is placed on the significant role of trade and cultural exchanges as they impact appearance and its constituent materials.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An outstanding series of essays by historians, art historians, and literary specialists on a wide variety of topics in medieval textiles, from manufacture and use, to style, fashion, iconography, and the many shades of social meaning." --William W. Clark, Queens College and the Graduate Center, CUNY

"This volume demonstrates the wide variety of excellent new work now being done on dress and costume history. The papers are rich in content and cover a wide variety of periods and subject matter." --Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
"The volume is a valuable addition to the both the library of a general reader and a costume historian. For the general reader the books provides ready access to information ranging over a six-hundred year period. For the costume historian there is a wealth of detailed information to add breadth and depth to one's knowledge, with an additional resource of information in the form of copious endnotes and bibliographic references."--Sandra L. Rosenbau, Dress

About the Author

Désirée G. Koslin teaches dress and textile courses in the graduate department of Museum Studies: Costume and Textile at SUNY’s Fashion Institute of Technology.

Janet E. Snyder teaches the history of art and architecture in the Division of Art of the College of Creative Arts at West Virginia University.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (November 30, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312293771
• ISBN-13: 978-0312293772
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,716,034 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars cohesive & encompassing view of medieval textiles, July 21, 2003

By 

Nancy M. Mckenna (N. Illinois United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Encountering Medieval Textiles and Dress: Objects, Texts, Images (Hardcover)

As is the case with many books compiled from excellent work created by diverse authors, this book could warrant a review of each chapter. The book covers the fifth through the sixteenth centuries, from Ireland to Italy and the Mediterranean, and is compiled into three sections based on date(s) covered by the articles.

This tome discusses the distinctions of levels of society as delineated by clothing, the development of the textile industry, and the use of textile analogies in period literature. It examines textile depictions found on monuments, in sculpture, in paintings, and on manuscripts. But in its fourteen chapters this volume manages to convey a cohesive and encompassing view of textiles in the medieval period. It offers the reader not only interesting facts, but the authors' excellent work convincingly connects the dots so as to give clothing a life of its own in the context of the times.

Chapters such as Dressing the Part, From Content to Form and Marie de France's Bisclavret deliver both sides of the coin: we are what we wear as well as wearing what we are entitled due to class structure. Without clothes, Bisclaveret is a wolf, un-recognizable; with clothes he is a nobleman, although Gloria Thomas Gilmore discusses the balance of both sides of the coin. Does form follow function, or is function a result of the form?

In Christ as a Windblown Sleeve, Margarita Yanson explores the changing costumes within Gottried von Strassburg's Tristan where changes in clothing mark the complexity of the main character, Tristan. Simularly, in As Proud as a Dog in a Doublet, Linda Anderson sees costume as an integral part of the play. On the other hand, The Margaret Fitzgerald Tomb Effegy comments on the strong nationalism in the dress of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, when adherance to national norms was seen as akin to patriotic act, and changing one's dress could be seen as treason and situates the effegy within the context of the time.

The chapters written by the editors are pivotal and act to anchor the rest of the book. Snyder's work discusses not only the sculpural forms in the column-figures and document seals in great detail, but in discussing the dress pictured from England to Germany it provides both an overview and excellent detail. Inserted between two chapters that draw from literary sources, the sharp images of the columns offer the mind a break as the detail is made visible to the eye as well as to the mind. Désirée Koslin's chapter touches on materials, dyes, weaving, finishing and meaning of cloth and clothing. Even through its title the final chapter is an overview and a case study. In many ways, it rounds out and sums up the book in a very satisfactory manner.

From art and legal manuscripts to archeological evidence and period documents the authors describe dress and its importance in great detail. The rich description plus the illustrations paint a lucid image of the clothing of the time in detail suitable for recreating the costumes discussed, while the discussion of the meaning of such explores timeless issues regarding the role of clothing and cloth in society and the lives of individuals. Black and white images throughout illustrate the chapters, and a seven page glossary makes terms that may be unfamiliar to some understandable without reaching for the dictionary, and a comprehensive index makes revisiting bits of information a breeze. Although this book is aimed at the student of the medieval period, and specifically at someone interested in the dress of the period, those interested in philosophy and dress in general can see parallels throughout the ages making this a book of value. Reading this book has made me think about dress more closely, not only in a historical context, but also while people-watching, and in movies such as the Matrix trilogy where dress has layers of meaning.