One book covers all four of the manuscripts, but only has partial information on each. That is _The Medieval Health Handbook: Tacuinum Sanitatis_, L. Arano, 1976, 0-8076-0808-4. The other is a seemingly complete translation of the Vienna manuscript, but they have turned the text into little paragraphs of which I am slightly leery, since they do not quite match up to the translation in Arano's book. This is _The Four Seasons of the House of Cerruti_, J Spencer, 1983, by Facts-on-File publications (I can't find an isbn).

So, here, from _The Four Seasons_, we have:

"Woolen Clothes: Clothes are suited to praeparatio aeri, or the adaptation of the climate to life, which is one of the seven things essential to good health. Clothes made of wool, whose nature is warm and dry, are beneficial in the winter to old people, life in the northern regions, cold constitutions, all things that, of the four elements, correspond to water. These clothes, especially those in fine Flemish wool which are to be preferred, draw the inner heat from the body and keep it warm. The advantage of wool can also be a disadvantage: as too much warmth is harmful, wear a thin linen garment under the wool.

Silk Clothes: Silk clothing is very luxurious and grand. It is highly valued and equally highly priced and for this reason it cannot be worn by peasants, but only by noble men and women and esteemed and prominent citizens. In medincina, according to medical science, everything that was said about woolen clothes applied equally to silk ones, for the nature of silk, like that of wool, is hot and dry. Wool, however, is said to be better than silk for covering the head at night.

Linen clothes: Linen clothes are very suitable for the summer, they are light, splendid, and attractive. The women will see to the making of them, working rapidly and wisely with scissors and needle. Linen clothes are useful in keeping the body at moderate temperature and they help to dry out ulcers, but they press on the skin and prevent the exhalation of vapors. For this reason it is wiser to make clothes from cloth that has a mixture of linen and silk, which also looks dazzlingly elegant."

That was from one book's translation of the Vienna manuscript. This is what the other book has for the same manuscript:

"Linen Clothing: Nature: cold and dry in the second degree; Optimum: the light, splendid, beautiful kind; Usefulness: it moderates the heat of the body; Dangers: it presses down on the skin and blocks transpiration; Neutralization of the dangers: by mixing it with silk; Effects: it dries up ulcerations. it is primarily good for hot temperaments, for the young, in Summer, and in Southern regions."

There are some illustrations, which I am going to scan in from the Vienna manuscript, and place at: http://www.mit.edu/~nprive/wool.JPG http://www.mit.edu/~nprive/silk.JPG http://www.mit.edu/~nprive/linen.JPG

-nikki

I'm sold on linen for summer use! Thanks!

Textiles and tailoring

During the 15th century Italy was the European centre of silk production, and its economy benefited greatly from the design and manufacture of magnificent figured silk textiles, velvets and cloth of gold. Truly luxurious dress meant silk, and royal inventories, traveler’s tales and household accounts show its vital importance for making official and ceremonial clothes.

The chief manufacturing regions for silk textiles were Northern Italy, in a band stretching from Genoa to Venice. Although they used only a simple drawloom, Italian weavers produced weaves ranging from plain smooth cloths such as damask, taffeta and shot silk to patterned textiles such as figured and brocaded velvets. Cloths of gold, the most expensive fabrics, combined an intricate pile weave with lavish gold or silver content in the yarn. To exploit the techniques of velvet and brocading fully, it was necessary to use bold designs and treat them as low reliefs by contrasting cut and uncut areas of pile; many of the finest 15th-century velvets are splendidly three-dimensional. Animal motifs, popular in 13th-century silks, were used less and less frequently early in the 15th century and, by 1450, had been supplanted by floral motifs, especially the pomegranate.

In spite of their enormous popularity luxury textiles like these were the exception rather than the rule, and silk never took the place of linen and wool for everyday wear. English wool had few serious rivals for most of the Middle Ages although it was the 15th century before finished cloth was exported. Previously raw wool had been supplied to foreign manufacturers; under Edward III the highest grade of woolen cloth in Europe had been dyed and finished in Florence from English wool which was woven in Flanders.

A number of different specializations were involved in the manufacture of clothing, and their activities were carefully controlled. Tailors were responsible for gowns, hoods and clothes in general but not for hose, which were produced exclusively by hose-makers. Embroidery was also a separate profession. Tailors were permitted only to make clothes to order, not for sale, and had to use new cloth, while the second-hand dealers were forbidden to sell cloth at all. The money paid to tailors was negligible compared to the price of cloth, and they had little influence on fashion.

Summer and winter clothes were distinguished mainly by weight of cloth; silk and linen were worn in warmer weather, wool, often lined with fur, in colder. As always, fur was a symbol of luxury and elegance. Marten, gris, vair and ermine were generally reserved for royal or court dress while beaver, otter, hare and fox were worn by the lesser nobility and middle classes; lambskin, sheepskin and goat were for the common people.

Vair was the belly skin of the northern squirrel and the grey back and white belly, combined to create a shield pattern, was known as menu vair (little fur) or miniver. Thousands of bellies could be expended on lining just one suit. Fur was bought through the Hanseatic League, with its Russian trading posts, or at Bruges, strategically placed between the northern producers and Mediterranean buyers.

From “The Wars of the Roses- From Richard II to the fall of Richard III at Bosworth Field - as seen through the eyes of their contemporaries.”