This volume contains six articles of roughly equal length. The first by Sean Manning, “Linen Armour in the Frankish Countries: The Twelfth Century,” pp. 1-40, promises to be one of an ongoing series of analyses on linen armor. Manning shows that in the twelfth century quilted linen armor might be the top layer or the bottom layer for a fully dressed warrior and might protect him from a variety of weapons. It carried a variety of names like gambison or jupel. Most include cotton fabric or cotton stuffing in some way. The evidence for such armor becomes particularly strong for 1160-1200, the end point for this article.
The second article, pp. 41-72, by Michael Peter, “Serial Production and Individualisation in Late Medieval Silk Weaving,” considers how standard loom set-ups could be adapted for special projects including those with figures and crucifixion scenes, like the late thirteenth century Italian silk altar hanging from Regensburg. These included threading in added warp or picking up additional weft threads of different quality, for instance threads wrapped in gold foil, or having a tailor join pieces end to end.
The third article, by Valeria Di Clemente, “The Trousseau of Isabella Bruce, Queen of Norway,” pp. 73-98, includes a transcription and translation of the surviving document drawn up in 1293 in Bergen. Much used by historians, here it is examined for its description of the physical items that were sent with Isabella Bruce at the time of her travel to marry Eirikr II of Norway. In addition to Isabella’s four sets of garments, there were three bedding sets, regalia, silver tableware and other utensils, and three chests for storing various items.
A fourth article, pp. 99-127, by Darrelyn Gunzburg, is “Make and Create: The craftswomen in the Salone frescoes of the Palazzo della Ragione, Padua,” and the placement of those depictions within the Salone. What is striking here is that these are not the usual women (the Virgin, Saint Anne, for instance), but ordinary women exercising their personal skills, like knitting, spinning, and making cord.
The fifth article, by John Block Friedman, pp. 129-163, “Combs, Mirrors, and Other Female Beauty Bling in the Later Middle Ages,” discusses the aforesaid combs and mirrors as well as moralizing on them and other attempts to enhance female charms. Friedman sees many of the items under discussion as “commodities,” items of long- or short-distance trade and peddling. Also of particular interest is the topic of sumptuary laws, which were often used to establish status. Figure 5:4 on page 142 is the ivory mirror case cover showing a lover’s gift of a comb, found today in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.
The final article, by Melanie Schuessler-Bond, pp. 165-89, traces “The Dividing Lines of Social Status in Sixteenth-Century Scottish Fashion,” drawing on the expenses of James Hamilton, earl of Arran and regent for Mary, Queen of Scots between 1543 and 1554. Much of this article consists of bar-graphs showing price per ell in shillings for such items as wool and silk gowns. This work is based on an earlier publication by the author entitled Dressing the Scottish Court (Boydell, 2019).
These are the main articles. There are also several reviews worth noting under “Recent Books of Interest,” among which is a review on pp. 193 and 194, by Jean Kveberg, of The Valkyries’ Loom: The Archaeology of Cloth Production and Female Power in the North Atlantic by Michele Hayeur Smith (Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2020), and one on pp. 195 and 196 by Carsten Janke of two books: Woven into the Urban Fabric, Cloth Manufacture and Economic Development in the Flemish West-Quarter (1300-1600), by Jim van der Meulen (Brepols, 2022), and The Fabric of the City: A Social History of Cloth Manufacture in Medieval Ypres (Turnhout: Brepols, 2022), by Peter Stabel.
The volume also includes an author index for volumes 1-17, on pp. 197-203.