DISTAFF, the textiles group, had both 8:30 and 10:30 sessions scheduled this morning, but two of the three papers in the 8:30 session cancelled, so Lauri (the third) got moved into the 10:30 which will potentially slop over (being the last time-slot of the Congress).

Session 514: Dress and Textiles II: Codes, Classification, Camouflage

Sponsor: DISTAFF
Organizer: Robin Netherton
Presider: Gale R. Owen-Crocker

Dressing Up and Dressing Down: The Uses of Livery in the Fourteenth Century - Laurel Ann Wilson, Independent Scholar

Traces the evolution of livery from its origins as a type of "payment in kind" of clothing, in addition to wages, to its modern sense of "a type of highly standardized identifying clothing, a uniform".

Earlier livery allotments were often highly stratified and distinguished by the role and position among the recipients, not only in terms of the quality and amount of cloth, but differentiating colors and what proportion of solid or striped fabric, as well as furs for higher status recipients. The giving of livery was restricted to high status individuals, such that it was considered a transgression for someone not of sufficient rank to distribute it to his followers. The receipt of livery was considered a right, and in some cases the failure to be given livery relieved a person of obligations to the lord.

The wearing of livery displayed the lord's wealth and status, and it was important for recipients to wear it, especially on public occasions, so as not to imply their lord was stingy or poor. But receiving livery also gave status to the recipient, and so the distribution could be used as a tool to require the physical presence of the recipients in order to receive it.

The detailed specifications of exactly what cloth people receive include a curious reference to late additions to a livery roll receiving an allotment of the "secta" [Latin] of a particular occupational class--a term that may possibly refer to the specific color/pattern in which it was to be used to identify that class of recipient.

It is a later development for all recipients of livery in a household to receive clothing with a uniform appearance (though perhaps different quality), where the garments as well as the colors and decorations are identical. This created the "uniform appearance" (in both senses) that is associated with the term "livery" today.

Livery distributions to royal households could include hundreds of individuals. This could easily have had a massive economic influence on cloth/clothing markets, though it's hard to tell whether the market's ability to provide hundreds of identical outfits drove the distribution, or whether the desire to distribute hundreds of identical outfits drove the market to keep up and supply them.

[Cancelled papers: Dressing, Undressing, and Cros-dressing in Early Modern Accounts of the Holy Land - Emily Price; A Man in an Otter Suit: Echoes of Norse Magic in the Nibelungenlied - M. A. Nordtorp-Madson]

Session 542: Dress and Textiles III: Working with Textiles

Sponsor: DISTAFF
Organizer: Robin Netherton
Presider: Robin Netherton

Gender and Textile Production in Thirteenth-Century Paris - Janice M. Archer, Independent Scholar

Survey of gendered aspects of the structured textile industry, which controlled who profited from the trade and who was stuck in low-paying manual jobs. Identifying women's economic contributions via tax records can be difficult in "intact" households, as legal records normally only list male head-of-household. But singlewomen, widows, and occasionally a married woman with a separate business are listed on their own. Women may be grouped with others (adult children, groups of beguines, etc.) for tax purposes, but typically women stand alone in these records. Men's assessments will silently incorporate the productivity of wives and children.

Overall (all textile trades), female tax entries are more skewed toward the lowest tax bracket (but this may be due to the men subsuming other incomes?). Men are 78% of listed taxpayers, women 21%. Wool workers are generally better off than average but the gender distribution is similar. Silk workers show an even greater skewing to higher tax bracket, but still with women lagging. Looking at silk producers (e.g., silk throwers, as opposed to mercers), all men are in the lowest tax bracket, while women have the typical tailed distribution. Numerically, this role was primarily filled by women. Silk mercers show a very different pattern. with men having more of a curve distribution for both men and women, peaking in the middle tax bracket. Hemp and linen workers have a typical tailed distribution but needleworkers are badly skewed to the bottom.

Looking at the median tax for various wool jobs, the higher paid professions generally show men paying a higher tax than women. The highest taxes were paid by drapers, but male drapers paid much higher taxes than women, as a rule, perhaps due to access to higher status markets.

Example of one family's assessment shows the head of household plus 2 servants, 2 nephews, a son and a daughter, where only the daughter is left unnamed, despite being taxed at the same rate as her brother.

Female fullers and shearers had a median tax higher than men, but in each case this is based on a single individual. She may be part of the household of a named man (though taxed separately) or the widow of a man who had the same profession, and these assessments may reflect and inherited clientele.

As a general rule, the smaller percentage of women in a profession, the higher the tax assessment; the larger the percentage of women, the lower the tax assessment (and therefore the lower the income). But "family matters" -- women have higher incomes when family connections gain them access to elite markets.

"A Verie Good Way to Take Out Spottes": Modern Experimentation with Sixteenth-Century Textile Stain Cleaning Recipies - Cassandra Chambers Wagner, Independent Scholar

Examines "spot-cleaning" techniques, used for stains on outer garments that would not normally be wash completely. Looks at four texts from Germany, England, and France from the mid to later 16th century. This is an experimental history project to test the recipes for efficacy. White pre-washed linen were used as the test fabric, stained with Olive oil, red wine, mustard sauce, green sauce, blood, mud, beeswax (cloth not pre-washed), and oak gall & iron ink.

Sample 1: control, not treated
Sample 2: Water only (30 min pre-soak and water only hand wash)
Sample 3 & 4 modern stain treatments (detergent, Shout spray + detergent)

Samples 5-14 are from historic recipes: soap ball, lye-based cleaners, plant-based cleaners, fullers earth, milk, for the wax only: tallow & hot iron.

5. Soap ball: very poor result.
6. Cold lye (pH 13-14) worked well on stains 1-5 but poorly on mud & ink.
7. Lye + Alum (intended for wool, lower pH): not as good as lye alone
8. Salt, orange, lye: worked similarly to cold lye, but better on the mud
9. Lemon juice: worked on ink very well, but much less well on others.
10. Pea water (from boiling peas): worked well on blood and mud, not so well on others.
11. Strawberry water: not only doesn't remove stains, but dyes the linen pink.
12. Fullers earth: worked well on blood, mud, not so much for others.
13. Cow's milk (intended for wine stains): WOrked well on red wine, not so much on others.
14. Tallow & hot iron (for wax only): Tried with and without tallow, and the tallow does take more wax out.

Put It to the Log: Exploring the Mechanics of a Late Medieval Dyeing Technique - Jennifer Ratcliffe, Independent Scholar

A very general survey of the medieval dye industry and trade, the chemical processes, and lots of pretty pictures of colored cloth and thread. [The problem with survey papers like this is that there's too much detail to include and no real overall conclusions. Sorry!]

I hope to finish up the intake-reviews in two more sessions. This one covers textiles and clothing. The last one will be the “everything else” group. Three of these books aren’t technically Kalamazoo books because I mail-ordered them from David Brown/Oxbow before the ‘Zoo. But I’m counting them here because I would have bought them there if I hadn’t pre-ordered them.

Vedeler, Marianne. 2014. Silk for the Vikings. Oxbow Books, Havertown. ISBN 978-1-78297-215-0

Marianne Vedeler is rapidly joining my short list of “buy anything this person writes.” This is a relatively short and highly focused book covering all aspects of silk textiles found in Viking contexts. The opening chapters discuss a variety of textile finds from several sites, though the presentation does not appear to be exhaustive. The textiles are fragmentary -- in some cases due to preservation issues, but in others because these precious fabrics were cut into narrow strips to use as decoration. The number of illustrations is a bit disappointing -- only 12 color plates of textiles from Viking sites (though there are additional plates of similar textiles from regions that were on the likely trade routes). However these include several that I haven’t seen before, including some close-ups of embroideries. After a brief practical background on silk production and working, the remainder of the book covers the trade, economic, and social context of how these textiles came to the north.

It is likely that most people will find the $40 price tag a bit much for something this specialized (and, to be honest, this brief). The target audience is likely to include specialists in early medieval textile economics, textile archaeology, and Norse costume history.

Hopkins, Heather (ed.). 2013. Ancient Textiles, Modern Science: Re-creating Techniques through Experiment. Oxbow Books, Oxford. ISBN 978-1-84217-664-1

If you follow Katrin Kania’s blog Togs from Bogs then you’ve probably read bits and pieces about the European Textile Forum conferences and the sort of research that gave rise to this publication. This is a collection of papers from academics and other serious scholars who have taken up the challenge of using the re-creation of historic textile techniques to bring understanding to artifacts of the past. The papers include Kania’s extensive spinning experiments; a sort of “engineer’s guide” to possible tablet weaving structures by Sarah Goslee, as well as other reesarchers’ studies of re-creating specific table-woven artifacts; an extensive catalog of Stone Age textile techniques by Anne Reichert; a reconstruction of the Gunnister man’s outfit; and a concluding article by the editory on the Pompeiian dye industry.

As with the Viking silk book, the combination of the slimness of the volume (133pp) and the hefty price tag ($52) puts this out of impulse-buy territory. It is, however, an extremely professional product and several of the very technical papers (such as the one on spinning) go far beyond simply demonstrating the general value of archaeological re-creation in their contributions to an understanding of historic technologies.

Gleba, Margarita & Judit Pásztókai-Szeöke. 2013. Making Textiles in Pre-Roman and Roman Times: People, Places, Identities. Oxbow Books, Oxford. ISBN 978-1-84217-767-9

One of the types of publications that Oxbow is specializing in these days is collections of conference papers on textile topics such as this one. It comes from a workshop entitled “Work and Identity: The agents of textile production and exchange in the Roman period” and includes thirteen papers on both specialized and general topics related to textile production and trade. Both in topics and presentation the collection has a strong “traditional archaeology” feel to it. My favorites included several papers examining evidence (of various types) for the presence of women in textile production, both individual and commercial.

As with the preceding two books, this is meant for a highly specialized audience (or, more likely, for the library trade).

Netherton, Robin & Gale R. Owen-Crocker eds. 2014. Medieval Clothing and Textiles 10. The Boydell Press, Rochester. ISBN 978-1-84383-907-1

Like clockwork, every year at Kalamazoo there’s a new volume of Netherton and Owen-Crocker’s journal Medieval Clothing and Textiles. (This year, there was a cake celebrating the anniversary of the publication.) Articles that caught my eye this time include Maureen C. Miller’s “The Liturgical Vestments of Castel Sant’Elia”, a collection of garments I’d love to have a closer study of (though this article doesn’t include the detail I want); Christine Meek’s “Clothing Distrained for Debt in the Court of Merchants of Lucca in the Late Fourteenth Century” which details a delightful cross-section of everyday garments; and Elizabeth Coatsworth’s biographical study of “Mrs. Christie” -- the woman behind the mammoth pioneering work English Medieval Embroidery.

Miller, Maureen C. 2014. Clothing the Clergy: Virtue and Power in Medieval Europe, c. 800-1200. Cornell University Press, Ithaa. ISBN 978-0-8014-7943-4

Due to my interest in studying the cut and construction of medieval garments, I’ve ended up with a fascination for ecclesiastical vestments as the represent the largest catetory of deliberate survivals and present an intriguingly continuous record of styles (if one that diverged significantly from that of secular garments). This is an extensive study on the purpose and uses of clothing and clothing display in the medieval Christian church. Other topics include the production and donation of vestments. The book is well illustrated, though art is somewhat more prevalent than physical garments. For someone looking for a solid and detailed grounding in medieval vestments, this will be very useful.

Pedersen, Kathrine & Marie-Louise B. Nosch (eds). 2009. The Medieval Broadcloth: Changing Trends in Fashions, Manufacturing, and Consumption. Oxbow Books, Oxford. ISBN 978-1-84217-381-7

This is a collection of papers from an interdisciplinary symposium on the subject of "broadcloth" -- the archetypal high-end woolen fabric of the high middle ages. We start with a technical discussion of the physical and procedural differences between different types of wool fabrics, and specifically the consequences to the finished fabric of the difference between a long-staple, "spun in the grease" worsted fabric, and the shorter staple but higher quality "dry spun" woolen yarns used for broadcloth. But these short-staple threads then needed to be re-oiled for the weaving process and then fulled after weaving, not only to removing the oil "dressing" but to felt the fibers together to strengthen the finished cloth (a strengthening unnecessary with long-staple threads). The final part of broadcloth production was to raise a nap on the surface of the fabric. This created the defining look-and-feel of broadcloth with its smooth, rich texture (contrasted with the visual effects of fancy twill patterns common to the earlier woolen weaves).

Because broadcloth became an important focus of international trade, much of the available data on its production, value, and circulation comes from commercial records. Comparative price-lists and production totals for different weaving centers take up a fair chunk of the collection. Similarly, shipping records not only indicate sources and destinations but the amount of cloth shipped and often color and quality as well. Two articles use the technical descriptions of how broadcloth was produced to identify archaeological textile fragments that most likely represent this type of cloth. Another article looks at the visual and linguistic evidence for striped and other multicolored forms of broadcloth which diverge from the prototypical image of a plain solid-color fabric.

The collection concludes with some experimental work in re-creating Laken the broadcloth produced in Leiden, Netherlands, using historic technology. (The illustrative photos show the experimenters in appropriate historic clothing as well, though I don't know that this was the case for the entire reconstruction process.)

This is not a book for the generalist or the casual costume historian. But for those who also geek out on economics and trade, it's a nicely focused group of presentations organized to illustrate a topic central to the medieval textile scene.

Lewis, Michael J., Gale R. Owen-Crocker & Dan Terkla. 2011. The Bayeux Tapestry: New Approaches. Oxbow Books, Oxford. ISBN 978-1-84217-976-5

This is a collection of papers on all manner of BT topics from a conference held in 2008 at the British Museum. Often a collection of this sort is inspired by a new conservation project or a renovated display, but in this case, although past conservation work is covered in some of the papers, the collection was more a case of "Hey, kids, let's put on a conference!"

The topics are various and neither systematic nor comprehensive. This isn't the "Big Book of Everything About the Bayeux Tapestry" but in many ways the ability to focus intensely on very narrow aspects is more valuable. We get both the political context of the tapestry's creation and the modern political uses it has been put to. How it has been displayed and how it has been stored away. Parallel styles of art at its creation and all the many ways the tapestry has been depicted in reproductions. Some of my favorites are focused little thematic gems like the depiction of faces, the depiction of dining scenes, and a case study evaluating the possible "from life" accuracy of the depiction of a particular church door.

The volume includes a black and white reproduction of the entire tapestry, with all the scenes, figures, and motifs labeled with index numbers for convenient common reference. Only about 7 pages have color illustrations and there is no comprehensive color reproduction of the tapestry, but other publications provide that independently and the redundancy would have added significant cost to this already-expensive book.

I got an interesting mini research question in e-mail this week, via my article Another Look at St. Louis' Shirt. The questioner asked, "Is there any way St. Louis' height could be approximated [from the garment], or does the design of the garment give nothing away?" And, as usual, I got sucked into the joy of rolling around in the data for a while and ended up with some interesting analysis but very few clear conclusions. The following includes a whole bunch of data and discussions that I hadn't included in my original answer (including more comparative material and the differences between Burnham's estimate of the garment's dimensions and my own estimates).

ETA: I've added a little more data regarding the relationship of sleeve length to shoulder width.

So here's a somewhat stream-of-consciousness presentation of how I sit down to analyze a question of this type.

( Read more... )

Session 130: Dress and Textiles II: Inside and outside the Church

Mary’s Pregnancy as Birth Amulet: Evidence from Early Byzantine Textiles (Andrea K. Olsen, Johns Hopkins Univ.)

Specifically this is on textiles depicting Mary’s pregnancy. Paper opens with a quote from Proclus of Constantinople metaphorically comparing Mary to the loom on which God wove Jesus (heavily paraphrased). Examples presented of a ring and a medallion with images of Chirst and/or Mary blessing a married couple. 4th c. commentary on people wearing clothing depicting scenes from the Gospels believing this to be “pleasing to God”. Examples of Egyptian tapestry-woven decorated tunics with NT scenes. Similarly the Byzantine silk-embroidered probably tunic decorations with Annunciation and birth of Jesus scenes. Main focus of paper is a group of draw-loom textiles with roundels showing the Visitation. The overall argument is that: A) these are secular (or at least privately-owned) textiles; B) that the repetition of Visitation motifs on them indicates an intent to “intensify” a magical effect; C) and that it makes sense to see these as pregnancy charms. (me: I think there’s a lot of circular reasoning involved here. That is, the overall concept makes sense, but I’m hesitant to move from “makes sense” to “has been demonstrated”.)

Anglo-Saxon Textile Workshops, Religious and Secular: The Textual Evidence (Maren Clegg Hyer, Valdosta State Univ.)

Spinning equipment tends to be distributed through living spaces, but weaving equipment often centered in special “weaving huts”, sometimes found in clusters. Mentions of slaves specializing in textile production. OEng glosses on Latin terms for textile workshops (e.g., “weaving-house”) although these could be translations of foreign concepts. References, e.g., in Carolingian France to English textile exports (suggesting a higher level of production than individual households). References to lay communities supplying textiles for monastic communities in an organized fashion. Evidence even stronger for embroidery workshops. The simple scope of the work (and some known time-frames for production, as for the Bayeaux embroidery) require multi-person production, possibly even multiple separate workshops (given the separate panels involved). Extensive evidence for ecclesiastical embroidery workshops, less continuous evidence for workshops producing hangings for secular buildings. Admonition of nuns not to waste their time in decorating their clothing with vain needlework.

The Early Fifteenth-Century O’Dea Miter and Crosier, and Other Treasures of Irish Artistry from Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick (Elizabeth Wincott Heckett, Univ. College Cork)

Miter has jeweled metal bands (silver gilt plates hinged together) attached to a leather backing, forming the main decorative bands (i.e., those often manifested as woven trim) with a “base fabric” (i.e., showing in the triangular panels between the bands) with foliage designs worked in river pearls. (It isn’t clear exactly how they’re attached – the “base fabric” is a thin gold foil over some base, but she wasn’t able to examine it closely enough to work out mechanisms.) But the current design in which the pearls are worked is not the original. The hanging bands were also re-done relatively recently, in the 18th c based on some manuscript pages used as internal stiffening. There’s an 18th c. drawing showing the original – or at least an earlier – arrangement of the pearl motifs. The earlier pattern is a relatively simple stem with paired leaves while the current one is an almost art-nouveau-ish swirl of stems and leaves and has at least a couple clearly trefoil (shamrock?) designs. Comparative examples of 14-16th c. pearled miters are presented from across Western Europe.

Other 15th c. treasures at the cathedral include the only misericords surviving in Ireland. Two are shown depicting prosperous burghers of Limerick, wearing houpelande and chaperon. Also early 17th c. marble tomb effigy, 12th c. floral-decorated coffin lid.

General Discussion

The topic was thrown out for practical discussion: what are the practical issues with multiple people working on a single embroidered piece? (I guess it turned out to be a question for contemplation -- no open discussion ensued.)