Live-Blogging Kalamazoo - Saturday 10:00: Medieval Clothing and Textiles 10 year anniversary session

Session 376 Dress and Textiles I: Celebrating Ten Years of Medieval Clothing and Textiles Sponsor: DISTAFF (Discussion, Interpretation, and Study of Textile Arts, Fabrics, and Fashion)
Organizer: Robin Netherton, DISTAFF
Presider: Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Univ. of Manchester

The Bliaut: What We Can Say (And What We Really Can’t)
Monica L. Wright, Univ. of Louisiana–Lafayette

Both literary scholars and costume historians know a great deal about the "bliaut" (fabric term, garment). MHG only uses the word for the fabric. Medieval French literature is full of references to the bliaut, generally understood as the "most elegant lady's court dress of the age". First appears in early 12th c. Chanson de Roland: a silk garment worn by men which is an outer garment (may be over or under armor). In mid 12th c. we start finding references to the garment worn by women. Later descriptions are more elaborate and specific, as elaborate clothing descriptions become more popular in general. Most elaborate may be in Erec et Enid with 22 lines dedicated to the bliaut. "New bliaut ... tailored for her specifically ... lined with ermine ...jeweled orphreys at wrist and neck" "she put on her bliaut and tightened it ..." Later researchers associated descriptions specifically such as this with the statuary, e.g., at Chartres, but not all literary bliaut descriptions are consistent with this specific model. But the word "bliaut" is not generally frequent in literary clothing and rarely with details this specific. E.g., Marie de France only uses the word 3 times in all. In Béroul's Tristan, Iseult wears a tunic over a silk bliaut; bliaut described as having a train. Le Bel Inconnu: word only appears twice though the text has three elaborate descriptions of female courtly dress -- "cut from green silk ... expensive and well-made and lined with ermine...gold encircled the neck and wrist with hyacinths set into the gold". Given the very common elaborate descriptions, the bliaut appears surprisingly infrequently, especially in comparison with the mantle, and the mantle is often mentioned as covering other garments (chainse, tunic, etc.)

It was a garment word by men and women, as well as a fabric. As a fabric, occurs with other silk fabrics. So probably a silk fabric. As a garment, normally described as silk, but in one case given as cotton and once as a type of linen. Often described as "fitted" or "laced" but sometimes as "gironé" (skirted) (but this word always occurs at the end of a line as a rhyming word and may not be a special emphasis in the description). It is speculation that the fabric name evolved into the garment name as there is no direct evidence for the connection. In terms of construction, we only have the lacing and fitting as clues. And clearly the bliaut was not the only popular fancy court garment. Never any mention of the bliaut as "pleated"; the only garment described as pleated is the chainse and this description only occurs 4-5 times total. The only evidence connecting pleating with the bliaut is the interpretation of sculptural figures as wearing the garment of this name, and the descriptions by Viollet le Duc that first make this association are clearly problematic in other ways (e.g., concluding that the fabric must be knitted).

Bliaut is long, but so is cote
Bliaut is fitted, but so is chainse
Bliaut is belted but so is cote
Bliaut is ornamented at neck and wrist, but so is surcote

She concludes that the identification of the Chartres statues as wearing a garment equivalent to the literary "bliaut" is far from established.

The Semiotics of Clothing: Sumptuary Legislation and Moral and Satirical Diatribes against Fashionable Dress
Louise Sylvester, Univ. of Westminster

Developed out of need to develop a textual corpus to calibrate the meaning of word-choice in documents, e.g., using vernacular words in Latin documents. Using dress and textiles as a topic for developing this type of resource. Wardrobe accounts and petitions to parliament were main sources. Wardrobe accounts primarily inventories of garments, sometimes with descriptions. Petitions often give more meaningful context as to what the clothing was used for and what it meant to the wearers. E.g., complaints about non-delivery of livery. Usefulness of using administrative documents is a glimpse of everyday ordinary live, but there are still cautions as we can rarely, if every, connect actual physical objects with the discourse about those objects which has its own purposes and motivations. Visual images do not directly reflect what was fasionable to wear, but also what was desired and conceived of. Some historians assert that fashion only exists in how people talk about clothing, and not in the actual clothing itself. [Not necessarily the speakers position - she's quoting.]

Sumptuary laws reflect, not necessarily reality, but fears and anxieties about dress. Various types of text reflecting these concerns were included in the study:
* accounts of the Royal Wardrobe
* petitions to king, council and Parliament
* wills
* inventories
* moral and satirical works condemning contemporary fashions
* sumptuary laws
* epic and romance

The paper now turns to some sample cases, especially from satirical and moral works, and sumptuary laws. Critique of perceived desire for "novelty", especially by "cutting and slashing" of clothing or the constant wearing of new/different garments (esp. for women). Extravagance is also a concern, especially as it blurs distinctions of rank -- clothing should be in proportion to one's rank and station. Excessively long garments (sleeves and trains) come in for criticism, not only for the excess fabric usage but for blurring gender distinctions where long garments are considered to interfere with manly activities. Similarly, very short garments are criticized for revealing the buttocks or genitals (or at least their region of the body). Gender critiques address excess and deceit.

Sumptuary laws -- Earliest (English) address decorative slashing and trimming. Similar concerns appear in sumptury law and satire, e.g., the blurring of rank distinctions: cost of fabric, types of fabric, length of garments, "decency" of garments.

Conclusion: both satirical/moral literature and sumptuary law address anxieties about the distinctions of key categories (e.g., rank, gender) slightly less on moral issues (e.g., decency, excess luxury at the expense of more needful things, clothing as deception).

“A notre seignur le rey . . . pur vesture pur lour cotes”: Evidence for Cloth and Clothing in the Medieval Petitions
Mark Campbell Chambers, Durham Univ.

This will be a brief survey of the petitions and their contents (so this may be a bit telegraphic). Specific focus on the contents of the petitions mentioned in the previous paper. Texts tend to be Anglo-Norman/French legalese. Lookign for interpretive information about the petitioners and their concerns as well as about the recording clerks. 347 files (bundles) with 17,000 individual petitions; the "Ancient Petitions" (Special Collections SC8). Earliest from Henry III but mostly came into prominence in Edward II, as king became more accessible to petition from ordinary subjects. Manuscripts have all been digitized, but difficult to access/locate due to how they're indexed. Generally classed as "private" (only affects petitioner) and "public" (asking for general law change, often also enrolled in parliamentary records). Early petitions are essentially transcripts of oral procedings, hence the use of French rather than Latin. Only later was there a shift to Middle English (15th c.). But can't assume the language of the document matches that of the oral presentation. Categories: individual requests regarding specific items; group requests regarding business/trade isues (e.g., Petition from silkwomen and throwsters of London (1463-5) asking for trade restrictions on imported "cheap" silk (except those from Genoa)); but also some requests addressing social practices (e.g., petition seeking to limit badges and liveries that promote factions and disunity ca. 1400).

Examples:
Petition on behalf of children in the King's wardship ca. 1275-1300, complaining that the wards are not getting their food and clothing allotments.
Robert de Montfort ca. 1322 - requesting reinstatement of his annual livery (which may have been cancelled due to rebellion?) specifically fur for his open and closed surcotes and for his hood.
Roger de Berners & William de Marny ca. 1322 - had raised soldiers for the king and bought clothing and armor for the soldiers but had not been reimbursed for it by the counties of origin.
Thomas & Margaret de Beauchamp ca. 139409 - want a promised grant of household goods, including bedding (English vocabulary in the middle of a French petition).
Alice Ball ca. 1403 - Agnes Ball petitions for leniency for thefts of clothing from Alice. (Case occurs both in French in the petitions and in Latin in the Patent Rolls, providing interesting equivalences.)

Live-Blogging Kalamazoo - Textiles in Anglo-Saxon wills, Cross-dressing knights, and Sampler-poems

Saturday 3:00

Session 431 Dress and Textiles II: Identity and Self-Expression
Sponsor: DISTAFF (Discussion, Interpretation, and Study of Textile Arts, Fabrics, and Fashion)
Organizer: Robin Netherton, DISTAFF Presider: Robin Netherton

Familial Identity in Curated Spaces: The Use of Textiles from Anglo-Saxon Wills
Katherine Weikert, Univ. of Winchester

Difficulties in visualizing AS living spaces; too often just excavation diagrams or reconstructed buildings. Adding in material culture gives a better picture, but still doesn't give understanding of interactions and transactions involving the objects/spaces. Look at elite textiles in the AS world to create environment/impression on inhabitants/guests within those domestic spaces. Wall hangings, seat covers, bed clothing including curtains are most commonly mentioned in wills. Significance of combinations of objects, possibly including related sets of objects creating a deliberately "curated" visual/experiential space.

E.g., groupings from different wills showing sets of textiles:

2 wall-hangings, bed curtain, linens, bed-clothing;

Eldest son: wall-hanging and bed-clothes
Second son: wall-hangings for hall and chamber, table cloth and other cloths
Bath Abbey: bed-clothing with wall-hangings, curtain and other cloths

Kinsman: two wall-hangings and two seat covers
Sister: wall-hanging, seat cover, "strichraegl"

Grandson: three wall-hangings, two seat covers
Kinswoman: wall-hanging, seat cover, other cloths
Maternal niece: wall-hangings and seat covers
Kinswoman's daughter:...(slide changed, there were more details)

Actual nature of these objects have only a few clues (e.g., 2 wall-hanging type objects surviving) though we can get extrapolation from things like the Oseberg tapestries or from literary descriptions of domestic furnishings. Late 11th c. poem describing furnishings with both contemporary and classical motifs depicted. Types of information: the nature of the objects (as seen above), the location within the space where these objects are placed, and the materials/motifs (when available). When we have both extensive textiles mentioned in a will and an archaeological understanding of the buildings inhabited by the owner, we can draw up theories as to where those known textiles might have been used. (Example given of Faccombe Netherton, Hampshire ca. 960, home of a Wynflaed whose will is one of the groups above.) The settlement has three significant buildings and the large number of textiles listed in the will would provide an extensive public display within that space. What "message" do these wall-hangings and furnishings convey to the viewers? Family heritage, piety, calendar motifs - generally presteige, control over environment/people. (Further speculation on how likely motifs might have related to the family identidy and connections of Wynflaed, including her daughter Aelfgifu of Shaftesbury, and her grandsons Kings Eadwig and Edgar.)

Cross-Dressing Knights in Medieval Literature
Debbie Kerkhof, Univ. Utrecht

Look at two German 13th century tales "Fraudienst" and "Der Bort". Given how similar male and female clothing is during this era, what does it mean to "cross-dress"? How is it indicated and what does it mean? Very minor differences can be key gender signifiers, and headwear was always important. 12-13th c. is big era for cross-dressing motifs.

Fraudienst - Man (Ulrich) cross-dressing for the purpose of wooing a lady by jousting as a woman. He procured "skirts", "shirts", false braids wound with pearls, and velvet cloaks. He also attempts to behave as a woman is thought to behave and this is viewed as a postive thing. (This is from a rhyming translation so I'd hesitate to take the "skirts" and "shirts" literally.) Emphasis on length of garments, length of braids, use of pearls in headdress. Veiled face so that only the eyes are visible. What was the purpose of the cross-dressing? Evidently it was an open masquerade that everyone was aware of, and was intended to bring him honor, but no mention is made in the paper of the context of why he chose to do it.

Der Bort - Wife is approached by a knight who wants to sleep with her, offering her rich objects in return which she wants to obtain for her husband. Her husband rejects her after that and abandons her and she vows to follow him in disguise and trick him into sleeping with her (as a man) for gain, in order to prove he's no better than he should be. In her travels, she approaches an innkeeper (as a woman) claiming to be a male knight in disguise (for protection) who now needs to "return" to male dress, which she asks the innkeeper to procure for her. The titular belt is one of the objects she obtained from the adultrous knight and is a very rich object. She appears in rich male clothing and armor. (And then the paper ends without covering the outcome of the masquerade.)

Stitching Poems and the Limits of Imagination
Anna Riehl Bertolet, Auburn Univ.

Poem ca. 1603 preserved in the British Library, has a woman describing how she would make an embroidery to show man's falseness.

Come give me needle stitch cloth silke and chaire
That I may sitt and sigh and sow and singe,
For perfect collours to describe the aire
A subtile persinge changinge constant thinge.
No false stitch will I make my hart is true,
Plaine stitche my sampler is for to complaine
How men have tongues of hony, harts of rue,
True tongues and harts are one, Men makes them twain.
Giue me black silk that sable suites my hart
And yet some white though white words do deceive
No greene at all for youth and I must part,
Purple and blew, fast love and faith to weave.
Mayden no more sleepless ile got to bedd
Take all away, the work works in my hedd.

Is this taken from an actual sampler? Could it have been intended to be stitched on a sampler? Is the attributed context likely?

Surviving samplers of the intended era are primarily just patterns, text when present is typically the name of the worker and the date it was made. The earliest known with more extensive text is from the late 17th c. and are typically didactic verses, though at least one more original verse is known from this era. So based on known samplers, this text does not fit with likely embroideries. So what about the nature of the verse? We have a poem/verse talking about embroidered text from around the right date where the topic is Queen Elizabeth's death, though likely it was written later as a political critique of King James. This disconnect doesn't provide direct support, then for the alleged date of the above poem, and the poetic reference to a sampler with poetic verses may simply be a literary motif. But there are previous embroideries with significant amounts of text/inscriptions (e.g., historic material like the Bayeaux embroidery, altar cloths). Other literary references to extended embroidered text as in the play "The Fair Maid of the Exchange" which mentions a handkerchief embroidered with a quatrain. But all these are different textile genres than the sampler referenced in the above poem. Samplers were a highly gendered object and the poem seems to be using it as a gendered symbolic displacement of the poem-persona's sorrow/anger. The poem doesn't actually describe the hypothetical sampler at all except in the discussion of color-symbolism. The symbolism of black and white is presented tautalogically and therefore either assumed to be known to the hearer or left open for ambiguous interpretation. (Is black for mourning or anger or depression?) Whereas the meanings are given explicitly for green (youth), purple (fast love), and blue (faith). But although the sampler is presented as a displacement activity for her unhappiness, the close of the poem suggests that the work instead symbolizes/becomes a continued re-hashing of the triggering experience. The formal and fixed structure of the sonnet parallel the formulaic and fixed style of a sampler.

Live-blogging Kalamazoo: Sat 3:30 - Latin Homoerotics

Session 481 Latin Homoerotics in the Central Middle Ages (ca. 950–1250)
Sponsor: Mediaevalia: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Medieval Studies Worldwide Organizer: Tina Chronopoulos, Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies,
Binghamton Univ. Presider: Tina Chronopoulos

Female Homoeroticism in Hrotsvit of Gandersheim and Elizabeth of Schönau
Colleen Butler, Centre for Medieval Studies, Univ. of Toronto

Looking at when we can identify historic contexts as homoerotic and on what basis. 10th c. Hrotsvit, 12th c. Elizabeth. Took different approaches to their writings (Hrotsvit more classical and learned, Elizabeth more visionary and mystic) but both focused on virginity and the image of bride of Christ. Virginity was not the absense of erotic desire but an identity based on channeling erotic desire to God. This identity subverts compulsory heterosexuality and binary sex/gender. By removing themselves from the heterosexual marriage economy, nuns step outside male control and create the potential -- within a homosocial environment -- for homosexual desire. When two women exist in a parallel erotic relationship to the male Christ, there is the potential for the male figure to be backgrounded, leaving an erotically charged female-female relationship. [I'm leaving out a great deal of theoretical background and terminology because I can't keep up with it.] Hrotsvit's writings include significant material covering the "bride of Christ" motif in sexually charged language. Despite the superficial heterosexual framing ("bride of Christ"), the envisioning of a multiplicity of simultaneous brides further destabilizes the heterosexual model by bringing in a sort of polygamy but where the physicality is all female, that is, the emphasis is not on the one-to-one relationship to Christ, but on becoming part of an all-female community (of "brides of Christ"). Classical texts on the BoC motif that focused on the one-to-one aspect are rewritten to emphasize the community aspects.

Elizabeth takes this framing further in a vision where she sees Christ appearing as a woman. Evidently her advisors suggested that she want to rethink this vision and she answers with a following vision where she questions St. John on this matter, who confirms the correct reading (to her) of her original vision. Her writings in general feature struggles with erotic temptation and the conteis suggestive. Elizabeth's visions focus primarily on the Virgin with great emotional intensity and the preceding is one of the few featuring Christ.

Loving Men Then and Now: Reading Juvenal in the Twelfth-Century Classroom
Emily Blakelock, Centre for Medieval Studies, Univ. of Toronto

Juvenal (2nd century) comments regularly on the immorality of men's same-sex desire, especially as a part of corrupt urban culture, but 12th c. commentaries on Juvenal reveal more regarding 12th c. attitudes. 12th c. teaching styles involved a close line-by-line reading and explanation of the texts. These commentaries were part of developing a curriculum of ethics and the use of Juvenal's works allowed discussion of his topics in an approved context that could then be applied to contemporary life. There is a regular theme of the hypocriticality of philosophers who teach against sodomy but practice it in secret. This is particularly associated in the commentary with urban schools which are seen as hotbeds of vice, where young men are considered particularly vulnerable to being corrupted by older, experienced men. But the use of Juvenal and these commentaries to warn and instruct students against these activities also gives them ideas (and a vocabulary to use) that then show up in poetry in more positive contexts. [The rest covers a detailed exploration of some of these poems, which turn the condemnatory attitudes of Juvenal into something more sympathetic.]

Toward a History of the Reception of Homosexuality in Commentaries: The Case of the Scholia in Ibin
Pierluigi Gatti, Columbia Univ.

Focuses on schools and their texts as a locus of creating and communicating an understanding of sexuality in the Middle Ages. Commentaries as "cultural filter" for understanding the texts. Primary texts here: Virgil and Cicero. Cicero uses the accusation of effeminacy and passive homosexuality as an attack on his enemies in order to gain rhetorical advantage in public. While Cicero's language may be allusive the commentaries provide a more explicit and unambiguous explanation of the acts/nature in question, but also explicitly discuss Cicero's rhetorical purpose in making the claims. Vergil's topics cover only male homosexuality [I may have missed a reference to Cicero discussing female?] but while Vergil's language may be equivocal in casting judgment on his topics, the commentaries frame the subjects clearly negatively. [I'm having a bit of trouble following the paper due to accent and the fact that the handout has only the Latin texts, which takes me a little attention to work through.] Something something about understanding Vergil's subjects as being characteristically Greek, i.e., sexually suspect. We now come to an assertion that -- rather than being didactic literature aimed at students for practical instruction, these commentaries are part of an intellectual discussion within the closed learned community. [I'm afraid I rather zoned out on this one.]

Because so many of my readers are textile geeks, the third DISTAFF session, which I skipped in favor of the above, was:

Session 486 Dress and Textiles III: Analyzing Artifacts
Sponsor: DISTAFF (Discussion, Interpretation, and Study of Textile Arts, Fabrics, and Fashion)
Organizer: Robin Netherton, DISTAFF
Presider: Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Univ. of Manchester

Yet Another Look at the Bayeux Tapestry: Some Thoughts from a Spinner’s and Weaver’s Perspective
Sarah Delinger, Independent Scholar

The Lübeck Wappenrock: Distinctive Style in Fifteenth-Century German Fabric Armor
Jessica Finley, Independent Scholar

Coping with Connoisseurship: Issues in Attribution and Purpose Raised by an Indo-Portuguese “Vestment” in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Lisa Evans, Independent Scholar