a question about yellow

Ned Chaney · Post by **Ned Chaney** » Sun Mar 11, 2001 9:41 pm

Is "Yellow" "Or" "Gold" etc a period color for clothing?? Was it possible to make yellow with the dye material they had?

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They call me Ned

Owen · Post by **Owen** » Sun Mar 11, 2001 10:03 pm

Yes.

Yellow could be produced from Weld, as well as several other plant sources. The "big three" in period were Madder, Woad, and Weld; giving red, blue, and yellow. From there, you could make a wide variety of shades. Most yellows would be fairly pale; although you could get some bright ones, really annoying shades had to wait for metallic dyes in the 18th century.

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Owen
"Death is but a doorway-
Here, let me hold that for you"

Rhia · Post by **Rhia** » Sun Mar 11, 2001 10:37 pm

Folks,
I would be EXTREMELY coutious with yellow, especially in courtly circles, and especially in the 13th-14th centuries, up till the first half of the 15th. Yellow in Western Europe was the color of prostitutes and Jews (they were forced to wear this color in various forms), and thus, was NOT used in courtly circles...until some Burgundian youngster decided the yellow is cool, imho just to piss the Duke off

and started to wear it. Then it become fashionable in Burgundy for a while, and that's about it.
Unless, of course, you are talking about a peasant, or a 16th century Spanish queen

(but even then it was her undershirt, which was not meant to be seen).
So please, do not wear yellow for a court ceremony...Gold is a different issue, but that is, being gold, difficult to achieve with modern materials, unless you splurge on something resembling a cloth of gold.

Rhia

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---Soldiers live.And wonder why---

[This message has been edited by Rhia (edited 03-11-2001).]

Vladimir · Post by **Vladimir** » Sun Mar 11, 2001 11:55 pm

too bad. My baronial colors are black and yellow. Therefore (since I am the Baron) I tend to wear a good deal of yellow.

bright stuff too

Ernst · Post by **Ernst** » Mon Mar 12, 2001 7:39 am

Too bad for the Duke of Brabant...
I admit that yellow is more rare in something like the Manesse Codex than blue, red, or green, but to suggest that no noble person would wear it for fear of being thought a prostitute or Jew???????

Thomas Powers · Post by **Thomas Powers** » Mon Mar 12, 2001 9:15 am

May I respectfully bring to your attention the "saffron" leines of the early medieval irish---worn by kings as well as lesser folks.

I cannot speak of the high and later middle ages but in the early middle ages yellow was a common colour in "celtic" areas.

Weld, dyer's broomstraw, actually yellow is one of the most common natural dies!

And natural dyes can give a yellow that would knock your socks off. I once dyed a shirt with osage orange and it came out of the vat looking almost like tint base---we had to tone it down before I would wear it.

Thomas

ULTRAGOTHA · Post by **ULTRAGOTHA** » Mon Mar 12, 2001 9:41 am

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Thomas Powers:
And natural dyes can give a yellow that would knock your socks off.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I must agree with Thomas. I have seen wool and linen dyed yellow with weld, using alum as the mordant. On the wool it is so bright it's just this side of neon.

It's not so bright on the linen. (Vegetable-based textiles don't take many dyes as well as animal-based ones do.)

In northern Europe and England before 1066, there doesn't seem to be any kind of problem wearing yellow. It's difficult to detect the yellow dyes, though. So even when dye analysis HAS been done on textiles (rare), you don't often find yellow. But there are mentions in contemporary documents and in sagas.

- Anarra/Terry

Edric · Post by **Edric** » Mon Mar 12, 2001 9:57 am

Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't the Arm s of the Kings of England have ALOT of Yellow in them? I am looking at the book The Lives of the Kings & Queens of England and I see yellow all over the arms of the Kings of England from The Pre-Norman Kings to Edward III to the Yorks, Tudors, all the way up to present day.

Edric

Rhia · Post by **Rhia** » Mon Mar 12, 2001 11:07 am

Folks,
with all due respect; those colors you are referring to are gold in coat of arms, not yellow. Gold is indicated with yellow sometimes,especially in coat of arms, but if you look over the sumptuary laws and color regulations of Western Europe from the 12th c. onwards, yellow _is_ a degraded, negative, no-no color. Otoh, Ireland I do not know much, I admit, but I know from my manuscript studies that the case was no so strict in HUngary, so there definitely were exceptions.
All the scholars I ever talk to in my life were agreeing on this to no excaption. EWhen I menationed them my problem with the particular Hungarian Manuscript I was writing my diss. on, and that there are a LOT of yellow cases in it, partly associated with positive figures, partly with negatives, their reaction was: 'it must represent gold then" But gold in this manuscript was always shown as gold, with real gold leaf applied in all cases. Si that option was out. Therefore, I had to come up with the explanation that in certain territories, where you have no supporting written documentation for the contrary (as we have from the West), the case was not so strict.
See: Francoise PIponnier-Perrine Mane, Dress in the Middle Ages, London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997. pp, 70-71, among many others on the colors and their symbolism in the Middle Ages.
I am sorry for all the folks whose colors contain this color--this is eitjher must mean gold, or you have serous identity problems in the real Middle Ages (or in the early 15th, you make a fashion statement)...

Rhia

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---Soldiers live.And wonder why---

FrauHirsch · Post by **FrauHirsch** » Mon Mar 12, 2001 12:13 pm

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Rhia:
if you look over the sumptuary laws and color regulations of Western Europe from the 12th c. onwards, yellow _is_ a degraded, negative, no-no color.

Rhia
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Rhia, are you looking at mostly England and France? Do you include Spain, Italy, Portugal the Lowlands and Germany? I assume you are excluding all heraldic dress? In Lawner's "Lives of the Courtesans" I think she mentions that sumptiaries for prostitutes change a lot and aren't the same everywhere. This is mostly a later period study however.
A good thing to note is that yellow is VERY easy to overdye...

As side notes, I can without doubt say that yellow was a perfectly fine color for late 15th c - 1600 Germany.

According to the lecture on Turkish textiles I went to last summer, the Islamic culture believed that yellow and gold were "auspicious" colors.

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Julie Adams

Rhia · Post by **Rhia** » Mon Mar 12, 2001 12:27 pm

Julie,

I include the Empire. I studied with an Austrian prof. of medieval material culture, and studied in his reasearch insitute in Krems, Austria hundreds of copies of contemporary material from their enormous database of photos and slides, till my eyes gouged out, 'cuz I wanted to get some support to the idea of "well, maybe yellow was NOT that derogative". But, by all ceertainty the Empire, the Lowlands, Italy,France and England shared this contept of yellow up til the 16th. c.
For Italy, the best article I've found this far is. Diane Owen Hughes, "Sumptuary laws and social relations in renaissance Italy." In: Disputes and Settlements. Laws and Human Relations in the West. Ed. by John Bossy. 69-101. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
For Germany:
Jaritz, Gerhard,(the prof. I was talking about) ed. Adelige Sachkultur des SpÃ¤tmittelalters. (VerÃ¶ffentlichungen des Instituts fÃ¼r Mittelalterliche Realienkunde Ã–sterreichs 5). Wien: Verlag der Ã–sterreichischen Akademie des Wissenschaften, 1982.

idem,"Pictura quasi fictura" Die Rolle des Bildes in der Erforschung von Alltag und Sachkultur des Mittelalters und der frÃ¼hen Neuzeit. Vienna: Verlag der Ã–sterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1996.

idem,"Kleidung und Prestige-Konkurrenz. Unterschiedliche IdentitÃ¤ten in der StÃ¤dtischen Geschellschaft unter Normierungszwangen." Saeculum 44 (1993): 8-32.
and
idem,"Young, Rich and Beautiful. The Visualization of Male Beauty in the Late Middle Ages." In The Man of Many Devices, Who Wandered Full Many Ways. Festchrift in Honor of JÃ¡nos M. Bak, eds. BalÃ¡zs Nagy and Marcell Sebok, 61-77. Budapest: CEU Press, 1999.

Take care,
Rhia

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---Soldiers live.And wonder why---

FrauHirsch · Post by **FrauHirsch** » Mon Mar 12, 2001 1:08 pm

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Rhia:
Julie,

I include the Empire. I studied with an Austrian prof. of medieval material culture, and studied in his reasearch insitute in Krems, Austria hundreds of copies of contemporary material from their enormous database of photos and slides, till my eyes gouged out, 'cuz I wanted to get some support to the idea of "well, maybe yellow was NOT that derogative". But, by all ceertainty the Empire, the Lowlands, Italy,France and England shared this contept of yellow up til the 16th. c.

Take care,
Rhia

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks Rhia!! I appreciate the references very much. My specialty is really late 15th c/early 16th c, so when I do get asked about earlier periods, I really like to be able to back up statements.

Thank you so much.

Julie

Edric · Post by **Edric** » Mon Mar 12, 2001 3:01 pm

Well in that case, my colors are red and gold

Edric

Rhia · Post by **Rhia** » Mon Mar 12, 2001 3:51 pm

Edric,
and in that case, you will look really cool.

Rhia

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---Soldiers live.And wonder why---

Norman · Post by **Norman** » Mon Mar 12, 2001 4:19 pm

Just a note --
In England there were no Jews from 1290 to about 1650 (they were all kicked out and stayed away until Cromwell invited them back in).

I would therefore bet that there's no sumptuary law for Jews in England between those dates.

...
YOu could also get in trouble at a Chinese court though - for the opposite reason --
Yellow was the imperial color and not to be used by any other than the emperor.

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Norman J. Finkelshteyn
Armour of the Silk Road - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/3505
The Silk Road Designs Armoury - http://www.enteract.com/~silkroad
Jewish Warriors - http://www.geocities.com/jewishwarriors
The Red Kaganate - http://www.geocities.com/kaganate
silkroad@spam.operamail.com (remove "spam" from e-mail to make it work)

Rhia · Post by **Rhia** » Mon Mar 12, 2001 4:58 pm

Norm,
but you bet they got prostitutes

Also, there is aplenty from Germany from the same period.

But thanks for the info--another reason to look inot the sources more carefully. Otoh, one of my favorite rants just came back with a vengeance--who cared for England before the 16th century? Occassionally the French...Sorry, I know this is not the place and thread for this, so I stop.

Take care,
Rhia

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---Soldiers live.And wonder why---

Ned Chaney · Post by **Ned Chaney** » Mon Mar 12, 2001 5:57 pm

OK...I guess I get a blue hood to go with my new cotehardie then.

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They call me Ned

Rhia · Post by **Rhia** » Mon Mar 12, 2001 7:08 pm

::rhia swoons::
Ahh...the tasteful yet noble display of colors...
Please, don't forget the fringes on the edge of the hood,and the discreet gold appliqued decorative ribbon about a third inch from its edge as it hugs your shoulders gently...

sorry, am I a costume historian or what?
Rhia

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---Soldiers live.And wonder why---

Ernst · Post by **Ernst** » Mon Mar 12, 2001 10:04 pm

I disagree.

I pulled one book from my shelf; "The Illuminated Page Ten centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library", Janet Backhouse, University of Toronto Press, 1997, ISBN 0-8020-4346-1.
To wit:

pp.48-9: Ottobeuren Collectar, Yates Thompson MS 2, f.62b, Swabian, later 12th cetury. Two of the Magi are wearing yellow tunics. Cloth of gold? They are kings, after all. Odd that the decorative initial beow them is gold leaf, while their tunics are yellow.

p.85: Oscott Psalter, Additional MS 50000, ff13b, English, perhaps Oxford, c.1265-70. The apostle wears a yellow tunic beneath a red cloak with green lining. So the apostle is Jewish, but there were no Jews in England at this time, if Norman is correct.

pp90-91: Psalter, Additional MS 60629, f.87b. Bamberg, late 13th century. The sleeping Jacob wear a yellow tunic with gold neck band (similar to Mannesse Codex figures), beneath a red cloak with white lining. Yes, Jacob was Jewish also.

p.104: Apocalypse, Additional MS 17333, f.11. Northern French, beginning of the 14th century. A figure in a boat at sea wears a yellow tunic and white hood. I suppose it could be a Jew or prostitute since an angel is blowing a trumpet of God's wrath down upon the individual.

pp112-113: Lutrell Psalter, Additional MS 42130, f.207b. Lincoln, c.1325-35. A well known marginalia of a cook with a big knife chopping up chickens. The cook wears yellow hose, and the servant picking up the two serving platters wears a yellow tunic. Well paid kitchen help to afford cloth of gold, perhaps?! Or Jewsh prostitutes in the noble kitchen of Lord Lutrell? Weren't the Jews expelled from England before this?

pp.121: Helie de Borron: 'Meliadus'. Add. MS 12228, f.215b. Naples, c.1352 Three of the squires at this tournament wear yellow hosen, red tunics, and green hoods. Almost looks like noble livery.

p161: Petrus de Aureolis: 'Compendium super Bibliam'. Royal MS 8 G. iii, f.2. English before 1422. A noble with yellow houppeland (sorry if I'm not using the correct term. I am not a fabric or clothing scholar.) over green tunic.

These are just a few examples of yellow clothing found by consulting one book. I recall several miniatures of medieval Jewery, and they sometimes wear red tunics with yellow Tablets of the Law and that characteristic pointy straw hat. I'm also sure I can find regulations requiring prostitutes to wear red with white gloves. In brief, I believe that your assertions that yellow was taboo are incorrect. Yellow was clearly not as common as red, blue, or green, but it may have been more expensive also. That yellow represents cloth of gold on kitchen help or squires seems, bluntly, absurd.

Rhia · Post by **Rhia** » Tue Mar 13, 2001 9:18 am

HI there,
the exapmles you cited clearly show that, as most of those persons represented are _not_ notble personnages, yellow was not a color you wore in the court--and that was the original context we were talking about if I recall it right. Again, you cited only one type of source, miniatures, and those are subject to many, many circumstances--who commissioned, which era, which country what are the pictures represent, etc. You need to compare these illustrations to written and if available, archeological or other material sources from the same era and area in order to get reliable answer to any question concerning medieval everyday life.
I have several examples to quote proving just the contrary from Germany, Bohemia, and medieval Hungary (nowadays Slovakia)... and most of your examples, as I stated in the beginning of this, show figures whom they tried to identify with the help of the colors, as Jews, or lower status personnages (as your kitchen helpers).
The only example where a noble is wearing yellow (the Bible commentary)is exactly from the period where (see my earlier post) some very fashionable minority of noblemen started to show off with wearing yellow.But again, I do not know from the citation, who the noble is...as it's a Bible commentary, the yellow might signify a negative person...
General rule of thumb...if you see yellow, look for the context in the text or the story. I have noble dressed folks in wallpaintings from medieval churches, for example. Perfect jaques, buttoned all the way down, buttoned sleeves, padded chest, latest fashion. Only problem is, they are worn by guys who are with Pilate when condemning Christ! (Sliace,church of St. Simon and Juda, nowadays Slovakia, second half of 14th century)

Take care,
Rhia

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---Soldiers live.And wonder why---

Ned Chaney · Post by **Ned Chaney** » Tue Mar 13, 2001 9:54 am

[img]http://www.members.home.net/nolead/swatch.jpg[/img]
This is a swatch of the material I'm making the cotehardie out of. Since there is some gold in it I thought yellow for a hood would be nice. I'm thinking blue now, but maybe even red as there are red dots in the pattern as well. But then, maybe I'm totally off base trying to match colors at all. What do you think?

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They call me Ned

Rhia · Post by **Rhia** » Tue Mar 13, 2001 11:14 am

Great looking fabric...the pattern is a bit Renaissance for me, but say,late 14th c Italy, and I shut up.

Deep blue hood/cape or a burgundy would go gorgeously... (silk, anyone?)
Yellow

by any rate would have just killed the beauty of the fabric anyway. Is it a poly/woollen blend? Are you getting the tippets for your cotehardie too? I could envision some fur trimming for that...

Take care,
Rhia

Ernst · Post by **Ernst** » Tue Mar 13, 2001 11:39 am

Admittedly more manuscript examples follow:
http://www.tempora-nostra.de/manesse/img/013.jpg

Yellow surcoat with escutheons, an admitted heraldic use by Count Freddie.
http://www.tempora-nostra.de/manesse/img/017.jpg

Lord Godfried's lady wears yellow (or is it orange?) contrasting with her gold trim.
http://www.tempora-nostra.de/manesse/img/034.jpg

Lord Henry's cloak (or is that really a vair-lined bedspread?)

As you and I both know, actual surviving artifacts are so rare that they are never conclusive. For example, can I say that the gambesons depicted in the Maciejowski Bible never existed because we don't have any that survived? No. This leaves us literary sources, which only take the time to describe special garments, usually, and manuscript illumination or other paintings. Since many Romanesque and Gothic era paintings deal with Biblical subjects, you may have an easy out with yellow = Jew. But Jews wore colors other than yellow:

"The Plantagenet Chronicles", Elizabeth Hallam, ed.Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1986, ISBN 1-55584-018-3, p202. Illustation from Flores Historianum, 14th century. British Library, MS Cotton Nero D.ii, f.183v. Of the three Jews being persecuted one wears dark blue, one yellow, and one red. The Tablets of the Law are clearly visible on two of these figures breasts (the ones wearing blue and yellow). The Jew clothed in red wears ablue hood, the one in yellow has white, and the one in blue has red.

Perhaps yellow was less common in the 13th and 14th centuries for the same reasons it is less common today. Most people don't like yellow. (And for what it's worth, my arms have yellow, but my hoods and hosen are usually red, with red or gray wool tunics.) This is still a far cry from saying that wearing yellow by a noble was shameful, as the previously cited examples hopefully show.

Rhia · Post by **Rhia** » Tue Mar 13, 2001 3:39 pm

I really don't want to pick on you, but yellow did not even exist as a heraldic color. In heraldry, it's a metal representative, and the metal it represents is gold. So wherever in period you see yellow, it represents gold in _heraldry_. Now -you know how costly gold film was, so if you need gold for a whole cloak, you either use orangeish yellow (as in the Manasse Codex you cited your examples from ) or submit your invoices to your employer and wait for his approval.

All in all, my point still is: in the light of combined pictorial and written sources, and reviewing the considerable literature existing in Late Medieval costume history about Western Europe, yellow was NOT a preferred color when one went to a tournament or attended a court event.
Rhia

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---Soldiers live.And wonder why---

Norman · Post by **Norman** » Tue Mar 13, 2001 3:58 pm

Rhia,
"...Otoh, one of my favorite rants just came back with a vengeance--who cared for England before the 16th century? Occassionally the French"

FYI - The French did their best to murder the Jewish population in the 13th century and a final expulsion was promulgated in the early 14th (round about the same time they fried up the Templars) -- so that would be within 30 or so years of the English expulsion.
I don't know if it was ever recinded prior to the revolution.
The current Jewish population in France seems to be mostly African -- but this may be Hitler's fault. Certainly Napoleon had a Jewish population that he involved in his politics.
Before expulsion, I think the french Jews were mostly identified by the funny hat.

The folks big on Jewish sumptuary laws in the Middle ages were the various "Germanic" states (which would indeed be inline with your research), but it was my impression that they went the route of the badge -- usually a yellow circle ...the predecessor to Hitler's yellow star.
...and there's the situation where Jews were forced to wear masks.
...
All in all, I don't remember reading about full clothing colors in a European context until the Jews themselves start making sumptuary laws -- where it tends to be black (a show of modesty by that point in time - like the Puritans)
In Islam there was a colored turban (I think it was Blue) but I believe it was usually not really enforced.

------------------
Norman J. Finkelshteyn
Armour of the Silk Road - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Olympus/3505
The Silk Road Designs Armoury - http://www.enteract.com/~silkroad
Jewish Warriors - http://www.geocities.com/jewishwarriors
The Red Kaganate - http://www.geocities.com/kaganate
silkroad@spam.operamail.com (remove "spam" from e-mail to make it work)

Rhia · Post by **Rhia** » Tue Mar 13, 2001 3:58 pm

Stupid chick of mine, I almost forgot...most of the time in manuscripts they indicate fine leather with yellow/orange too. Took me almost three months while writing my diss. to realize that in the manuscript I based the whole thing on the jupons of the armored knights were yellow or orange when they wanted to represent finer leather than the usual brown...and that after comparing the stuff with a couple of written records and inventories. Duh!

Rhia

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---Soldiers live.And wonder why---

Rhia · Post by **Rhia** » Tue Mar 13, 2001 4:59 pm

Norm,
that's a good info...as always, situation varied from country to country I believe, but I am the first to admit that I am not knowing much on medieval Jewish history.
On colors, most of the sumptuary laws of Italy and Germany have good and detailed color, cut and material regulations from the end of the 13th century for the towns, mostly to keep the nobles' privileges intact, and to keep the merchants' money in the husbands' purses instead of their women's body, as I believe Diane Owen-Hughes put it in her article I cited above in a post. If you look at testaments and wills from germany, Italy and I have a good comparative material from Hungary too, from some merchant towns' archives, nobility vastly prefers red clothing, second comes green, then blue--unless you're in the Lowlands where blue for some weird reason was the color of adulterous women. Don't even ask me why, as blue in Medieval symbolism, is usually the color of the Virgin.

Take care,
Rhia

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---Soldiers live.And wonder why---

[This message has been edited by Rhia (edited 03-13-2001).]

Ernst · Post by **Ernst** » Tue Mar 13, 2001 5:18 pm

Rhia,

I am certainly not trying to start a flame war with you, but I do disagree. Your argument seems to keep moving on it's foundation. First you assert that yellow would not be worn at court, since the color was assigned to Jews and prostitutes and had a very negative connotation. I believe I have provided examples of non-Jewish, reputable German Herren und Frauen wearing gelb (yellow) in the 13th - 14th century. I have cited examples of non-nobles who are apparently not Jewish or prostitutes wearing yellow, in one case probably at the provision of their lord. I ave given examples of Jews wearing red and blue in the same period. You have observed in your studies that this was not strictly the case in Hungary. Now you suggest that these examples represent cloth of gold, or leather garments. I believe you will have a harder time documenting leather clothing than you will yellow fabric in the 14th century.

Earlier, you alluded to certain literary sources which give specific eferences to yellow being a "no-no" in court. I would be glad to see a quote. I would certainly have been glad to provide the pictorial information if I had a scanner.

It seems to me that the experts you have talked to may be incorrect. You have observed contrary evidence to what they taught, and now, "had to come up with the explanation that in certain territories...the case was not so strict." May I go a step further, and suggest that the case was only so strict in those teritories whch you can document it as having been so? As I have already stated, I am not a fabric expert, but my studies of armor has shown that the experts sometimes get it wrong, often for decades at a time.

Ned Chaney · Post by **Ned Chaney** » Tue Mar 13, 2001 5:23 pm

Didn't mean to spark such a debate....just wanted some advice.

But It's all been very interesting information everybody has been putting up. Thanx for refraining from flames. I'm enjoying the interplay, and the info is very good resource stuff.

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They call me Ned

Rhia · Post by **Rhia** » Wed Mar 14, 2001 10:30 am

Edward,
sorry to monopolize your topic, and digress--we agree that this is a great discussion and at the same time it brought up some very good points to digress for, so to say.

Ernst,
I am glad this came up as we seemed to touch a point where academia is really firm. And there are points where I am also firm, as, plainly, I am an academic. I have an MA of medieval and Roman archeology, an MA of medieval studies, and a PHD in medieval studies. I am unfortunately without most of my primary sources as I was recently relocating from Europe and most of my notes and photocopies are still back in HUngary waiting to be shipped--hence my examples tend to be a bit second-hand from secondary literature. PLus my English is not my native language, so I have problems getting my thoughts into English order...

Hungarian tends to ramble.
I tended to disagree with everyone who said yellow was regarded as a no-color for arictocrats, until i was _told_ that it is hopeless as it's simply the general consensus among scholar based upon the available proofs. Then I was doing some really extensive research in pictorial collections, museums and a like, in the West and in HUngary too, and reviewed the literature on sumptuary laws, seen testaments, preaching literature, inventories of royal wardrobes, etc. I am aware of all the pictorial evidence you cited, and I still say that none of those guys apart from the Manasse Codex were aristocrats...and that the Manasse,being strongly heraldic, is a kind of exception which tends to strenghten the rule. On armor, we are absolutely agree: Victorian scholarship did a lot of bad things to medieval arms and armor studies, only recently being started to be repaired by a few...I am also of that scholarly breed (rare as white crows I was told) who does not sit in ivory towers and excludes the "general public" and the "dilettante" armchair researcher from discussions. There are a couple of those around in the arms and armor front in Europe (first David Edge at the Wallace Collection should be mentioned, who does NOT have a PhD

yet knows much more of arms and armor I must say that Dr David Nicolle PhD will ever do (sorry, this is kinda personal). Concerning costumes, it's simply a dead end. There are not much of costume researcher in the medieval field around, and they are kind a secluded...I had a hard time to find supervisors for my topic who were willing to talk to me at all, despite the fact that I was a normal PhD student enrolled in an academic program. Academia, imho, if it stays in the way it is now, faces some severe danger of alienating its future basis of students especially in medieval studies. But I have great plans to change that a bit at least.
For literature, the following works helped my research on colors enormously, and they quote a lot of the primary sources I am unable to get to right now:

Blanc, Odile. "Historiographie du vetement: un bilan." In Le vetement. Histoire, archÃ©ologie et symbolique vestimentaires au Moyen Ã‚ge. (Cahiers du LÃ©opard d'Or 1.) Paris: LÃ©opard d'Or, 1989. 9-21.
idem, Parades et parures. L'invention du corps de mode a la fin du Moyen Ã‚ge. Paris: Gallimard, 1997.

Bulst, M. Neithard. "Les ordonnances sompuaires en Allemagne. Expression de l'ordre sociale urbain (XIVÃ¨-XVÃ¨ siÃ¨cles)." AcadÃ©mie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Comptes rendus des seances de l'annÃ©e 1993 juillet-octobre. 771-83.
idem,"Kleidung als sozialer Konfliktstoff. Probleme kleidergesetzlicher Normierung im sozialen geflÃ¼ge." Saeculum 44 (1993): 32-46.

Douet d'Arcq, Louis-Claude. Comptes de l'argenterie des rois de France de XIVe siecle. Paris: Renouard, 1851.

Eisenbart, Liselotte C. Kleiderordnungen der deutschen StÃ¤dte zwischen 1350 und 1700. GÃ¶ttingen: Bausteine zur Geschichtwissenschaft, 1962.

Gay, Victor. and Stein, Henri. Glossaire archÃ©ologique du moyen Ã¢ge et de la renaissance. 2 vols. Paris, n.p., 1887-1928.

Hughes, Diane Owen. "Sumptuary laws and social relations in renaissance Italy." In: Disputes and Settlements. Laws and Human Relations in the West. Ed. by John Bossy. 69-101. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.

Jaritz, Gerhard. "Kleidung und Prestige-Konkurrenz. Unterschiedliche IdentitÃ¤ten in der StÃ¤dtischen Geschellschaft unter Normierungszwangen." Saeculum 44 (1993): 8-32.

________."Young, Rich and Beautiful. The Visualization of Male Beauty in the Late Middle Ages." In The Man of Many Devices, Who Wandered Full Many Ways. Festchrift in Honor of JÃ¡nos M. Bak, eds. BalÃ¡zs Nagy and Marcell Sebok, 61-77. Budapest: CEU Press, 1999.

KÃ¼hnel, Harry. ed. BildwÃ¶rterbuch der Kleidung und RÃ¼stung. Stuttgart: KrÃ¶ner, 1992.

Madou, Mireille. Le costume civil. (Typologie de sources du moyen age occidental 47.) Turnhout: Brepols, 1986.

Page, Agnes. Vetir le Prince. Tissus et couleurs Ã la Cour de Savoie (1427-1447). Lausanne: Cahiers lausannois d'histoire mediÃ©vale, 1993.

Pastoreau, Michel. Figures et Couleurs. Etudes sur la symbolique et la sensibilitÃ© mÃ©diÃ©vale. Paris: Le LÃ©opard d'Or, 1986.
idem.Couleurs, images, symboles. Ã‰tudes d'histoire et d'anthropologie. Paris: Le LÃ©opard d'Or, 1989.

Piponnier, FranÃ§oise and Perrine Mane. Se vÃªtir au Moyen Ã‚ge. Paris: Adam Biro, 1995.
and its English edition:
Piponnier, FranÃ§oise and Perrine Mane. Dress in the Middle Ages. London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.

Take care,

Rhia

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---Soldiers live.And wonder why---

Ernst · Post by **Ernst** » Wed Mar 14, 2001 12:01 pm

I'm certainly impressed with your credentials, and thankful for your continuing citations of more precise sources. (I also have some reservations with some of Dr. Nicolle's presumptions, as Norman also does, jdging from his comments from his site.)

I think we disagree in degree. I agree that yellow was not favored, as red, blue, and even green are more frequently depicted. I still don't think that yellow was frowned upon to the degree you hae indicated. As I suggested, even today, a trip to the local gathering place will show fewpeople clad in yellow. This means that yellow is not favored, but not that it is dis-favored. I hope that your more advanced language skills allow you to grasp the distinction I am tring to make.

Again, thanks for the discussion and source listings. I look forward to your future participation here.

Regards,

Ernst

Gaston · Post by **Gaston** » Wed Mar 14, 2001 12:19 pm

Please forgive the slight deviation, but this seems a good opportunity to seek an answer to an old question of mine - are there any modern fabrics that are reasonable substitutes for "cloth of gold"?

I know little of fabrics, so it would help greatly if you can couch your answer in layman's terms - saying it's "between a voille and a charmeuse" will explain it to many folks, but will just leave me even more puzzled.

Any other observations on the material are most welcome, as well.

[This message has been edited by Gaston (edited 03-14-2001).]

Rhia · Post by **Rhia** » Wed Mar 14, 2001 2:36 pm

Gaston,
I never actually tried to find an actual substitute--that is a good question. Strictly speaking cloth of gold would be woven/embroidered with real gold thread...now you just cannot get that anymore in modern fabrics. I would risk a good brocade from any Asian source that don't look too Asian, if you know what I mean...they used a LOT of that in the Western European Middle Ages; in fact, one of the coronation garments of the Holy Roman Emperors was made of imprted Chinese silk brocade (you can get its picture on the Net I just have to dig up the link somewhere, and a lot of the draps d'Outremer references in contemporary inventories referred to fabrics coming through Byzantium originally from Persia and China.
So it still would not be the real thing, but maybe closer than most. Upholstery fabric is normally too thick and the patterns are mostly resemblances of those from the 17th century, if at all...
But I think there are some others out there with more actual experience in American fabric stores than I have. I would love to find something that is resembling period fabrics other than plain silk and fine linen. Modern brocades are just way too synthetic for my taste...maybe a good silk brocade, but I don't want to pay twenty bucks for a yard of fabric...
::sigh::

Rhia

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---Soldiers live.And wonder why---

FrauHirsch · Post by **FrauHirsch** » Wed Mar 14, 2001 3:03 pm

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Gaston:
Please forgive the slight deviation, but this seems a good opportunity to seek an answer to an old question of mine - are there any modern fabrics that are reasonable substitutes for "cloth of gold"?

[This message has been edited by Gaston (edited 03-14-2001).]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

For small details, I have found a silk fabric interwoven with real metal to work fairly well. Usually I use in in small dose overlayed onto a gold color cloth as it is too sheer by itself. It is not as rich or as tightly woven a fabric as real cloth of gold though and it is not of true precious metal, so it can tarnish. Unfortunately the real stuff is just a class unto itself. None of the modern metallic lamee's really do it justice. Unfortunately many cool period fabrics are just not available. Many of the heavy tightly woven silk satins are not made. Many of the textured velvets and brocades are not available and some of the patterns that are correct are made in fabrics that are too synthetic to be good substitutes. :-(

There are certain fabrics that go in and out of style. I often buy up decent replica brocades when I see them and just put them in storage because they may not be made again for 20 yrs or more. Sometimes if I find a decent fabric that is too lightweight, I'll back it with an inner lining to give it a more period "body".

I am just jazzed that I recently scored bigtime in the LA Garment district on a goldenrod colored ogival patterned heavy damask for a future 16th c Ottoman coat and a gold and burgundy late 15th c big patterned damask that I don't yet have a specific plan for. Good fabrics beyond wool and linen are often very hard to find.

Julie Adams