The fifth volume of this annual series features several articles examining the interaction of medieval romance with textiles and clothing. French Gothic ivory carvings illustrating courtly romances reveal details of fashionable dress; the distinct languages of narrative poetry and Parisian tax records offer contrasting views of medieval embroiderers; and scenes from the Tristan legend provide clues to the original form of the earliest surviving decorative quilt. Other papers look at ecclesiastical attempts to restrict extravagance in secular women's dress, the use of clothing references to signal impending conflict in Icelandic sagas, the development and possible construction of the Tudor-era court headdress called the French hood, and the way Cesare Vecellio drew on both existing artwork and the Venetian image to present historical dress in his sixteenth-century treatise on costume. Also included are reviews of recent books on clothing and textiles.Contents
1 Clothing and Conflict in the Icelandic Family Sagas: Literary Convention and the Discourse of Power
Kate D'Ettore
2 Obscure Lands and Obscured Hands: Fairy Embroidery and the Ambiguous Vocabulary of Medieval Textile Decoration
Sarah-Grace Heller
3 Failed Censures: Ecclesiastical Regulation of Women's Clothing in Late Medieval Italy
Thomas M. Izbicki
4 Cutting a Fine Figure: Costume on French Gothic Ivories
Paula Mae Carns
5 One Quilt or Two? A Reassessment of the Guicciardini Quilts in the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Museo del Bargello
Sarah Randles
6 French Hoods: Development of a Sixteenth-Century Court Fashion
Melanie Schuessler
7 Who Was Cesare Vecellio? Placing Habiti Antichi in Context
Tawny Sherrill
8 Recent Books of Interest
9 Contents of Previous Volumes