Encountering Medieval Textiles and Dress: Objects, Texts, Images

Review
"An outstanding series of essays by historians, art historians, and literary specialists on a wide variety of topics in medieval textiles, from manufacture and use, to style, fashion, iconography, and the many shades of social meaning." --William W. Clark, Queens College and the Graduate Center, CUNY

"This volume demonstrates the wide variety of excellent new work now being done on dress and costume history. The papers are rich in content and cover a wide variety of periods and subject matter." --Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University



Review
"An outstanding series of essays by historians, art historians, and literary specialists on a wide variety of topics in medieval textiles, from manufacture and use, to style, fashion, iconography, and the many shades of social meaning." --William W. Clark, Queens College and the Graduate Center, CUNY

"This volume demonstrates the wide variety of excellent new work now being done on dress and costume history. The papers are rich in content and cover a wide variety of periods and subject matter." --Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University



Book Description
This broad-reaching collection of essays constitutes a thorough introduction to the fields and methodologies concerned with studies of textiles and dress of the Middle Ages. New themes and critical viewpoints from many disciplines are brought to bear on the medieval material in the areas of archaeology, art and architecture, economics, law, history, literature, religion, and textile technology. The contributors address surviving objects and artifacts and interpret representations in texts and images. The articles extend in time from the fifth to the sixteenth centuries, and cover Europe from Scandinavia, England, and Ireland in the north, to Italy and the Mediterranean basin in the south. Emphasis is placed on the significant role of trade and cultural exchanges as they impact appearance and its constituent materials.



About the Author
Désirée G. Koslin teaches dress and textile courses in the graduate department of Museum Studies: Costume and Textile at SUNY’s Fashion Institute of Technology.

Janet E. Snyder teaches the history of art and architecture in the Division of Art of the College of Creative Arts at West Virginia University.



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Scholars of history, archaeology, literature, and textiles range widely in time, place, medium, and social class as they consider not just how people dressed in the Middle Ages, but also the representation of how they dressed, both then and in subsequent centuries. Many of the 14 essays were presented at sessions of the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo since 1995. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR


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