I'm noticing my library is VERY lacking in the area of medieval clothing.

what books do folks recommend for 14th-15th century costume?

where can I find the Dead Norseman stuff?
how about "Cut your Cote". its only about 40 pgs long. is it any good?
where is the Bocksten stuff found?

any help is appreciated...I have one or two, but am hoping to broaden that shelf a bit

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Originally posted by Anne-Marie:

what books do folks recommend for 14th-15th century costume?

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i tend to go for the archaeology stuff myself-

Museum of London's "Medieval finds from excavations at London, 1150-1450", _Textiles and Clothing_ (Crowfoot et al); and _Dress Accessories_ (Egan and Pritchard), which go in and out of print...rumor has it that _Textiles_ is moving into an in-print phase soon...._Textiles_ goes somewhat into cut of clothing, but is quite heavy on weave/fiber, etc.

Archaeology of York V. 17, f. 11, Penelope Rogers, _Textile Production at 16-22 Coppergate_, available thru the Oxbow/David Brown....mostly production methods, not much on the costumes themselves

_Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince_, Newton, Stella Mary. Boydell Press, New Jersey, 1980. 0-85115-125-6, really good if you're into 14th century stuff...not too much on lower-classes, iirc...recently reprinted/possibly revised?

_A History of Hand-Knitting_ Richard Rutt, BT Batsford, Ltd, 1987, 0-7134-5118-1, lots of info on knitting, but OOP

i really haven't found any 'costuming' books per se which i felt to be really even minimally satisfactory...most tend to give sweeping generalizations, include details which i feel are highly suspect, rely heavily on dubious late 19th/early 20th century sources for info, and focus primarily on upper classes, at least for 15th century material anyway.....if anyone has found a book which seems to be really solid and trustworthy, preferably with actual *details* (beyond 'women wore long, full dresses of wool or linen, with silk for the upper classes'), i'd love to hear about it....

how about "Cut your Cote". its only about 40 pgs long. is it any good?
If you want to understand rectangular construction, it's invaluable. It's a mine field though, because along with the period stuff there's a lot of "ethnic / folk" garments from 18-19th centuries. You know how in some circles ethnic= period, so be careful. This might be considered Secret Laurel Information™

where is the Bocksten stuff found?
Margerita Nockert's book. You can probably only get that through inter-library loan too, as it was published 25 years ago.

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Originally posted by Ginevra:
Margerita Nockert's book. You can probably only get that through inter-library loan too, as it was published 25 years ago.

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There has been a reprint of this book recently. I don't think it's made it to the standard distributors (oxbow etc) because it's in Swedish. A friend sent a couple of copies from Finland. I'll keep trying to see where it might be available.

Does the reprint have this English translation?

Hey all! Does anyone own or have referenced a copy of the following book and can offer an opinion?

Tracht, Wehr und Waffen (1350-1450)
(des späten Mittelalters)

By Drobna, Zoroslava & Durdik, Jan

Published 1957 in Czechoslovakia

If so, I have a copy right here on the desk in front of me.

If so, I have a love/hate relationship with the book.

Love:
*Lots of primary resources cited
*covers all the bases
*covers all classes

Hate:
*They're all redraws
*Most have a reference but no dates
*Since they're all redraws, they're all out of context
*They're all redraws
*Most of the documentation can't be verified by looking at the originals
*They're all redraws

But most importantly, did I mention that the entire book is redraws?

I think you get the picture.

I think that's the same book.

That edition (according to AddALL) should have about 73p of german text and 383 of plates?

By redraws, the problem being that Wagner (the illustrator I believe) didn't reference where it was coming from? Or was it just 383 pages of pretty pictures with no organisation or separation?

In other words, a really nice book but not useful from a researching and timeline standpoint?

We have the hardcover English version; I think it was originally published in Czech, then German, then English.

It's also been recently republished, I think in English only. I got ours several years back, it's from the original printing.

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Cheers,

Piponnier, Françoise and Perrine Mane. Dress in the Middle Ages. London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.

Schneider, Jane. "Peacocks and Penguins: Political Economy of Clothing and Colors in Europe." The American Ethnologist vol. 5 (1978:3): 413-77.

Evans, Joan. Dress in Medieval France. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952.

Breward, Christopher. The Culture of Fashion. Manchester, New York: Manchester University Press, 1995.

Regarding the Wagner-Drobna-Durdik book--I may add that it's invaluable in a regard that this is almost the only one book where you can find costume info from East Central Europe in English with reasonably drawn images. I was able to track down some of the originals, and it's pretty reliable (unless it copies Viollet-le-Duc or an early 20th c. Hungarian costume book.) However, in the Czexh original it concentrated almost exclusively on the Hussite period, and provided background info for that.

All in all--I certainly hope that I may add some of my thoughts and insights to the really high quality research activity here. I'll post more book data and observation should interest arise.

Take care,
Anna

Thanks for the post! I'm very interested in the relation of clothing color to social class, so this sounds like something I need to read- is it an article in a journal? Where might I find a copy?

Take care,

Anna

welcome Anna!

thanks for the insights...its funny, we were JUST talking about some of those books last night, and bemoaning the lack of footnotes or citation info in the French one and how if ONLY we had someone who knew the field to tell us that the research was fairly good, we'd feel so much better .

we were also bemoaning the lack of info on eastern Europe except for some outlier info, and again, without source citation for corroberation, its rather touchy going.

thanks, Anna! I'll pass along the word!

Re: Piponnier book--apart from Odile Blanc, Francoise Piponnier and Perrine Mane ARE the leading costume historians of the Late Middle Ages in Europe at present (Stella Mary Newton being retired, moved to the US and scarcely being alive[she's over 80 now as I heard]--we never managed to contact her with my supervisors)--so even if this book does not have footnotes, it has an extensive bibliography which is up-t-date and useful. Also I believe the French version had the footnotes, but am not 100% sure. (Sa Vetir du Moyen Age)...
My dissertation was about a Hungarian illuminated codex from around 1360, so believe me, I understand the need for reliable info on ANY costumes in Western Europe. I am currently negotiating with publishers for getting it out to the public...hopefully someone takes the bait. If I may be of any help with any related questions, I am here...also there are ideas I need to extend the scope of my knowledge, so I am eager to learn too.

Take care,
Anna

and a fine name it is, too

thanks for the insight about the {Piponnier book! I saw it in the Louvre in Paris in a bunch of languages. I leafed through the French version, but then was distracted by the books on medieval town planning and medieval furniture. I've seen the English version since, here at home, but alas, no footnotes. I'll see if I can get a copy through amazon.co.fr....I dont remember it costing much, and one can cross reference it with the English edition ones friends have...

May I pass your contact info along? there's an SCA gal locally who's deciding it would be very cool to do more period stuff (hooray!) and has decided 14th century Polish is her bag. I'd love to make her journey a little less assiduous by pointing her at some good reference material (especially for food and costume) so she doesnt get discouraged and end up doing the generic SCA medieval thing.

can I pass your info along to her? and thanks for the pointers on the pipponier book...

Take care,
Anna

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--Soldiers live. And wonder why--

yes, the Cluny is still wonderful...I spent a very happy 8 hours there by myself (having ditched the party I was travelling with ) crawling under furniture, sticking my nose to woodwork and poring over wafer irons. I then went back ANOTHER day with some friends and we got a private tour.

they've started some gardens out in the courtyard on the back that will be stunning in a couple years, and that wonderful French juxtaposition of the 15th century building and modern water sculpture was very cool .

Anna

Don't forget to give your Polish friend the heads-up on the Polish cookbook "Food and Drink in Medieval Poland" by Maria Dembinska

See my review here http://www.wolfeargent.com/ubb/Forum17/HTML/000017.html

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Originally posted by Ginevra:
Heya AM-

Don't forget to give your Polish friend the heads-up on the Polish cookbook "Food and Drink in Medieval Poland" by Maria Dembinska

See my review here http://www.wolfeargent.com/ubb/Forum17/HTML/000017.html

Gwen

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great minds obviously think alike...she had her copy long before you or I did!