Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to look at another small but very important body of evidence for Middle Byzantine secular dress: the surviving textile fragments. Surprisingly little of our evidence for secular dress of the Middle Byzantine period consists of textiles. Few textiles survive due to the fragile nature of cloth, let alone entire garments, of which there are none from the period studied here. Not only is cloth fragile but also important textile storehouses, such as the imperial treasury, were pillaged over the years. Much of the dispersal of the imperial collection in particular took place during the looting by the Crusaders at the beginning of the thirteenth century.1 Jean de Villehardouin describes the stealing of the expected gold, silver, and gems in his account of the Crusades but also lists “satin and silk,” in addition to furs, mentioned before, as being removed from Constantinople’s imperial storage.2 Finally, the Byzantines themselves are partly to blame for the lack of surviving garments. Clothing was worn again and again, passed down to family members, or given to the local church or monastery until worn out. Ecclesiastical vestments, some of which do survive from the Middle Byzantine period, are an exception.3 Ecclesiastical garments were worn only for certain liturgical occasions and stored away so the wear and tear on these items was considerably less than for secular clothing.4
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
M.R.B. Shaw, trans., Chronicle of then Crusades: Joinville and Villehardouin (New York: Dorset Press, 1985), p. 92.
On ecclesiastical dress see: Bayerisches National Museum, Sakrale Gewander des Mittelhalters (Munich: Bayerisches National Museum, 1955);
Karel C. Innemee, Ecclesiastical Dress in the Medieval Near East (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992),
and Warren Woodfin, Late Byzantine Liturgical Vestments and the Iconography of Sacerdotal Power (Doctoral thesis, Art History Department, University of Illinois, urbuna-Champagne, 2002).
Diane Lee Carroll, Looms and Textiles of the Copts: First Millennium Egyptian Textiles in the Carl Austin Rietz Collection of the California Academy of Sciences, Vol. 11 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1988), p. 38, especially figure 12a.
See, e.g., Cat. nos. 149–50 in Helen C. Evans and William D. Wixom, eds., The Glory of Byzantium (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997).
Jennifer Harris, ed., Textiles 5,000 Years (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1993) p. 19–20.
P. Magdalino and R. Nelson, “The Emperor in the Byzantine art of the Twelfth Century,” Byzantine Forschungen 8 (1982): 177–78. The authors note that John Kamateros’ speech follows Gregory Nazianzenus’ closely; however, the taste for such clothing must have existed in the twelfth century or the oration would not have made sense.
Recent exhibitions include garments from Byzantine Egypt. Annemarie Stauffer, Textiles of Late Antiquity (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Arts, 1995),
Eunice Dauterman Maguire, Weavings from Roman, Byzantine and Islamic Egypt: The Rich Life and the Dance (Champaign: Krannert Art Museum, 1999). Some collections with significant pieces from Byzantine Egypt are: The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, The Textile Museum, Washington, DC, Musée Historique des Tissus, Lyon, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Abegg Stiftung, Berne, to name a few.
Marielle Martiniani-Reber, Parure d’une princesse Byzantine: tissues archéologiques de Sainte-Sophie de Mistra (Geneva: Musées d’art et d’histoire, 2000).
Elizabeth Crowfoot, “The Clothing of a Fourteenth-Century Nubian Bishop,” in Studies in Textile History, ed. V. Gervers (Toronto: Royal Ontario Museum, 1977).
Anna A. Ierusalimskaja and Birgitt Borkopp, Von China Nach Byzanz (Munich: Herausgegeben vom Buyerischen National museum und der Staatlichen Ermitage, 1996).
Despoina Evgenidou et al., The City of My stras, trans. D. Hardy (Athens: Hellenic Ministry of Culture, 2001), cat. nos. 1–4.
Sarah-Grace Heller argues that French Crusade literature demonstrates a desire by Westerners for figurative textiles in Sarah-Grace Heller, “Fashion in French Crusade Literature: Desiring Infidel Textiles,” in Encountering Medieval Textiles and Dress, ed. D. Koslin and J.E. Snyder (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), pp. 103–119.
Copyright information
© 2005 Jennifer L. Ball
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ball, J.L. (2005). An Examination of the Textile Evidence. In: Byzantine Dress. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-05779-2_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-05779-2_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-73366-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-05779-2
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)