Clothing the Past: Surviving Garments from Early Medieval to Early Modern Western Europe

Clothing the Past: Surviving Garments from Early Medieval to Early Modern Western Europe

Author: Elizabeth Coatsworth

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2018-02-12

Total Pages: 469

ISBN-13: 9004352163

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An astonishing number of medieval garments survive, more-or-less complete. Here the authors present 100 items, ranging from homely to princely. The book’s wide-ranging introduction discusses the circumstances in which garments have survived to the present; sets and collections; constructional and decorative techniques; iconography; inscriptions on garments; style and fashion. Detailed descriptions and discussions explain technique and ornament, investigate alleged associations with famous people (many of them spurious) and demonstrate, even when there are no known associations, how a garment may reveal its own biography: a story that can include repair, remaking, recycling; burial, resurrection and veneration; accidental loss or deliberate deposition. The authors both have many publications in the field of medieval studies, including previous collaborations on medieval textiles such as Medieval Textiles of the British Isles AD 450-1100: an Annotated Bibliography (2007), the Encyclopedia of Medieval Dress and Textiles of the British Isles (2012) and online bibliographies.


Embroiderers

Embroiderers

Author: Kay Staniland

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 1991-01-01

Total Pages: 80

ISBN-13: 9780802069153

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Examines the work of medieval embroiderers, including vestments, altar cloths, clothes, and wall-hangings, and discusses their techniques, how they acquired their skills, and embroiderers' guilds


English Medieval Embroidery

English Medieval Embroidery

Author: Clare Browne

Publisher:

Published: 2021-08-10

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9780300259988

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An introduction to the design, production and use of luxury embroideries in medieval England (c. 1200-1530) In medieval Europe, embroidered textiles were indispensable symbols of wealth and power. Owing to their quality, complexity and magnificence, English embroideries enjoyed international demand and can be traced in Continental sources as opus anglicanum (English work). Essays by leading experts explore the embroideries' artistic and social context, while catalogue entries examine individual masterpieces. Medieval embroiderers lived in a tightly knit community in London, and many were women who can be identified by name. Comparisons between their work and contemporary painting challenge modern assumptions about the hierarchy of artistic media. Contributors consider an outstanding range of examples, highlighting their craftsmanship and exploring the world in which they were created.


Threads of Life

Threads of Life

Author: Clare Hunter

Publisher: Abrams

Published: 2019-10-15

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 168335771X

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This globe-spanning history of sewing and embroidery, culture and protest, is “an astonishing feat . . . richly textured and moving” (The Sunday Times, UK). In 1970s Argentina, mothers marched in headscarves embroidered with the names of their “disappeared” children. In Tudor, England, when Mary, Queen of Scots, was under house arrest, her needlework carried her messages to the outside world. From the political propaganda of the Bayeux Tapestry, World War I soldiers coping with PTSD, and the maps sewn by schoolgirls in the New World, to the AIDS quilt, Hmong story clothes, and pink pussyhats, women and men have used the language of sewing to make their voices heard, even in the most desperate of circumstances. Threads of Life is a chronicle of identity, memory, power, and politics told through the stories of needlework. Clare Hunter, master of the craft, threads her own narrative as she takes us over centuries and across continents—from medieval France to contemporary Mexico and the United States, and from a POW camp in Singapore to a family attic in Scotland—to celebrate the universal beauty and power of sewing.


Charted Peasant Designs from Saxon Transylvania

Charted Peasant Designs from Saxon Transylvania

Author: Emil Sigerus

Publisher: Courier Corporation

Published: 1977-01-01

Total Pages: 62

ISBN-13: 0486234258

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A century ago, a folk art enthusiast collected these ornate, highly stylized designs from among a now-dispersed community of ethnic Germans residing in Transylvania. Nearly 200 designs include birds, flowers, mythical creatures, and other motifs in styles ranging from simple to complex and in themes from medieval to modern. Easily adapted to other crafts projects.


The Lost Art of the Anglo-Saxon World

The Lost Art of the Anglo-Saxon World

Author: Alexandra Lester-Makin

Publisher: Oxbow Books

Published: 2019-11-01

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1789251478

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This latest title in the highly successful Ancient Textiles series is the first substantial monograph-length historiography of early medieval embroideries and their context within the British Isles. The book brings together and analyses for the first time all 43 embroideries believed to have been made in the British Isles and Ireland in the early medieval period. New research carried out on those embroideries that are accessible today, involving the collection of technical data, stitch analysis, observations of condition and wear-marks and microscopic photography supplements a survey of existing published and archival sources. The research has been used to write, for the first time, the ‘story’ of embroidery, including what we can learn of its producers, their techniques, and the material functions and metaphorical meanings of embroidery within early medieval Anglo-Saxon society. The author presents embroideries as evidence for the evolution of embroidery production in Anglo-Saxon society, from a community-based activity based on the extended family, to organized workshops in urban settings employing standardized skill levels and as evidence of changing material use: from small amounts of fibers produced locally for specific projects to large batches brought in from a distance and stored until needed. She demonstrate that embroideries were not simply used decoratively but to incorporate and enact different meanings within different parts of society: for example, the newly arrived Germanic settlers of the fifth century used embroidery to maintain links with their homelands and to create tribal ties and obligations. As such, the results inform discussion of embroidery contexts, use and deposition, and the significance of this form of material culture within society as well as an evaluation of the status of embroiderers within early medieval society. The results contribute significantly to our understanding of production systems in Anglo-Saxon England and Ireland.