Publisher's description:
Historical dress and textiles, always a topic of popular interest, has in recent years become an academic subject in its own right, transcending traditional genre boundaries. This annual journal includes in-depth studies from a variety of disciplines as well as cross-genre scholarship, representing such fields as social history, economics, history of techniques and technology, art history, archaeology, literature, and language. The contents cover a broad geographical scope and a range of periods from the early Middle Ages to the Renaissance.
Papers in this latest volume discuss clothing descriptions in an early Irish poem in relation to archaeological finds; the Latin inscription embroidered on the Bayeux Tapestry; clothmaking in twelfth-century French romances; medieval Paris as an international textile market; the cost of sartorial excess in England as attested by sumptuary laws and satire; textile cleaning techniques at a German convent in the fifteenth century; the use of jewelled animal pelts as fashion accessories in the Renaissance; and the social significance of the embroidered jacket in early modern England. Also included are reviews of recent books on dress and textile topics.

The quality of papers is notably high and will be of interest to others beyond medieval historians of textiles and dress. [It] will engage anyone interested in the study of textiles and dress of western medieval Europe; additionally scholars of economic history, social history, literature and art history will find articles of interest. THE MEDIEVAL REVIEW
A book for the truly serious historical costume researcher. RENAISSANCE MAGAZINE
These articles document what a useful undertaking this specialized and yet wide-ranging journal is. HISTORY

Contents:
1  Dress and Accessories in the Early Irish Tale "The Wooing of Becfhola"
2  The Embroidered Word: Text in the Bayeux Tapestry
3  "De Fil d'Or et de Soie": Making Textiles in Twelfth-Century French Romances
4  Biffes, Tiretaines, and Aumonières: The Role of Paris in the International Textile Markets of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth CenturiesFourteenth Centuries
5  "Clothing Themselves in Acres": Apparel and Impoverishment in Medieval and Early Modern England
6  "Ye Shall Have It Clene": Textile Cleaning Techniques in Renaissance Europe
7  Fleas, Fur, and Fashion: Zibellini as Luxury Accessories of the Renaissance
8  The Matron Goes to the Masque: The Dual Identity of the English Embroidered Jacket