Customer Reviews

Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory (Cambridge Studies in Renaissance Literature and Culture)

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This is definately an academic exercise in social history. For a researcher of the MINDSET of the Renaissance it is invaluable.
A costumer solely looking for color photographs will be disappointed. Information from inventories, wills, and monographs is limited.
For people looking for a sound and expansive biblioography on clothing issues, this book provides one.

It has been said that "the clothing makes the man," and in Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory, Ann Jones and Peter Stallybrass seek to determine the validity of this statement. To examine the impressions that were crucial to the creation and recreation of concepts of status, gender, sexuality, and religion in the Renaissance, and to reconcile the conflicting significance of clothing during the Renaissance - clothing as a physical representation of the wearer, and clothing as a financial investment - the authors examine a number of unusual and original sources, including literary texts, paintings, embroidery and theatrical presentations. Though clothing could be a good way to invest money (the authors point out that many nobles were commodity rich and cash poor) and to maintain power over subordinates (a gift of clothing would serve to bind a servant to the master more firmly than a gift of money), the authors believe that clothing was important during the Renaissance for other reasons. Jones and Stallybrass come to the conclusion that during this period clothing served as a "material memory system"; clothing was the method by which people were reminded who they were and where they belonged in the hierarchy of society. Essentially, the clothing that people chose to wear "fashioned" them into the person that entered in the social realm. Items such as cloaks, armor, and heraldic symbols could indicate ones social situation; the removal of such markers, however, would return the individual to the naked anonymity that Adam and Eve sought to escape.
As Jones and Stallybrass argue, "livery was a form of incorporation...that inscribed obligation and indebtedness upon the body. As cloth exchanged hands, it bound people in networks of obligation" (20). The concept and use of livery, which was defined as "the payment of dependents in food, lodging and clothing" (19), clearly fits with the various methods of gifting that are examined in "The Gift in Sixteen Century France" and "Convents and the Body Politic." All three texts deal with the use of gifts to establish a hierarchy of power and exchange; "Renaissance Clothing" describes another method of exchange - clothing in return for service. When a noble gave clothing to a servant, it was a physical guarantee of the noble's protection, while it bound the receiver of the gift more firmly to the giver than a simple payment in cash ever could.

This book is an excellent resource on early modern culture in England. As some scholars have pointed out, the "Renaissance" in the title is a bit vague; this book is concerned with England and its relationship with clothing. The book is equally valuable for art historians, literary scholars, and theatre work. The various chapters focus on one or two ways in which clothes affected the English cultural scene. I have found this book invaluable as I continue working on a research project that involves representations of individuals in art and society, and the more general topic of visual and textual intersections in English society.

Such a great book. This is an essential text for anyone working on materiality in the renaissance, either in literature or in art.

This lengthy, but well-written book provides splendid examples in support of the authors' theses. Another reviewer has provided a very good summary and I can only add my hearty recommendation.