Clothing as a Complex Sign in the Literature, Culture and Society of Medieval England (Études Médiévales Anglaises (ÉMA))
Journal website: https://amaes.jimdofree.com/ema-en
In medieval culture, clothes could be construed as particularly complex symbols; symbols that often contradicted each other, depending on which interpreting method one favoured.
In the Christian world, clothes were from the start connected to one emotion in particular – modesty –; they were also the consequence of a desire for knowledge presented as sinful, one which led to the gradual appearance of all the technical skills required for the production of items of clothing that were either woven or made from animal skin or plants. It should then come to no surprise that, when John Ball asked his famous (rhetorical) question: “When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?”, he should have given the task of spinning wool to Eve. In the Middle Ages the skills involved in the production of fabric had become symbols of chastity and humility (Baert, Rudy, 2007). But the first clothes worn by Adam and Eve were not woven; they were made of animal skin, and given to them by God (Genesis 3,21), thus allowing for a completely different interpretation of clothing in the Bible as the manifestation of divine pity (Anne Lécu, 2016).Thus, the leather tunics God clothes the erring couple with in the Garden of Eden constitute a contradictory symbol from the start: they signal the original sin and the shame that overcame Adam and Eve, after they had eaten the forbidden fruit, as well as God’s compassion.
Clothing, whether medieval or modern, is therefore never purely utilitarian, so much so that a veritable “theology of clothing” is at work in the Bible, one that finds an equivalent in the secular, heavily hierarchised world of the Middle Ages, in which one’s standing, rather than one’s virtue, determines one’s fate. Any item of clothing is a visible marker of invisible values, defined by the choice in colours, fabrics, patterns and shapes, but also by the way it may cover a person’s body, or on the contrary reveal what is underneath. It can mediate between the physical and the spiritual planes, and, according to some theologians, even become one with the Christian man or woman, its fabric espousing the form of the faithful on the outside, just like the image of Christ informs them on the inside. (Cras, 2011). However, when opulent, it often serves to reveal the pride (as well as other mortal sins) of the person who is wearing it, thus confronting the prelates of the Catholic Church to a conundrum, as they have to choose between promoting the glory of the Church by every means, including clothing, and saving their souls. Religious garments are symbols of power, hierarchy and order, but as such they contradict the ideal of humility preached by Christ. That the former usually trumped the latter can be seen in the derogatory comments found in most of the religious texts written about hermits and other “fools-for-God”. The spiritual elites of the Middle Ages seem to have been as likely as their secular equivalents to make a show of themselves through their sartorial choices – and as vulnerable as them, if not more so, to satire!
While it is often difficult to assess where any medieval item of clothing that may have come down to us was situated on a spectrum going from the purely practical to the purely ornamental and/or symbolical, and whether it was used to cover someone’s nudity or reveal one’s body ((Koldeweij, 2006 ; Wirth, 2007), the task becomes even more complex when clothes are mentioned or play a decisive role in literature. In medieval romances, either chivalric or courtly, clothes are elements of choice in the deployment of a doxa, or even propaganda (Dimitrova, Goehring, 2015 ; Mérindol, 1989) which equates beauty with virtue in order to legitimate the supremacy of the ruling classes over the ill-dressed, ill-mannered plebs. In such a perspective, richly adorned clothes will reveal a person’s nobility (especially when his or her status is unknown) rather than his or her vanity. Conversely, nudity will not always be erotic; rather it will often be used as a signifier of folly, madness, wretchedness or coarseness, sometimes all at once as is the case with the character of the wild man. Sumptuary laws, which try to limit the access of a rising bourgeoisie to a higher status by preventing its members from imitating the sartorial codes of the aristocracy, are part of the same propaganda.
In literary works, clothes thus convey information that is coded and may at times distract the reader from the explicit message of a particular passage, or distort it, and even contradict it. It may signal hidden allegiances, illicit relationships, ostentatious behaviours. Conversely, the absence or paucity of any sartorial description is usually an ethical as well as an aesthetic choice, as is the case in the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales (Hodges, 2014). In it, Chaucer creates what amounts to a costume rhetoric which, in a manner akin to heraldry, contributes to defining his characters. One may also mention here the particular use made of clothing during Carnival (or other carnivalesque celebrations); the court fool and his peculiar costume (which varies depending on his precise nature of his “folly”) may also come to mind (Tissier, 1988 ; Ueltschi, 2019, Ménard, 1989).
The complexity of the various functions played by clothing means that it should always be examined as the site of contradictions, some of which are particularly revealing of the tensions between its practical use and the way it may become part of the elaborate staging of one’s importance (real or imagined) (Crane 2002). Clothes may be revealing, in more ways than one. They may translate the discrepancy between a person’s sense of dress and what it really says; or between historically accurate clothing and its literary recreation (Burns, 2004). They may subvert expectations or prove controversial, as was the case with the adoption by many medieval women of the headdress called “hennin”, despite vocal opposition by moral authorities (Durantou 2019). They may even challenge order, as transvestites did.
Proposals in the various areas of study briefly delineated above (as well as others that might have been overlooked for brevity’s sake) will be welcome. We will also accept proposals in the field of medievalism, as one might examine the craze for all things medieval at the end of the 19th century as part of the Arts and Crafts movement that was ethical and political as well as esthetical, and aimed at denouncing some aspects of the Industrial Revolution while enjoying the technical advances it offered. Does the resurgence of medieval clothing in the 19th century express rebellion against conservatism (and capitalism) as opposed to previous times, during which clothes (and customs, for instance chivalric ones) evoking a long gone era were generally used to uphold order rather than subvert it ?
Proposals should be sent to Tatjana Silec (tatjana.silec@sorbonne-universite.fr) and Martine Yvernault (martine.yvernault@unilim.fr) before 15 December 2020. The accepted contributions should be sent before 15 February 2021.
Bibliography
Alexandre-Bidon, D. La Dent et le corail ou la Parure prophylactique de l’enfance à la fin du Moyen Age. Nice, Université de Nice, 1987.
Baert, B., Rudy, K.M. Weaving, Veiling, and Dressing. Textiles and their Metaphors in the Late Middle Ages. Turnhout, Brepols, 2007.
Burns, E. (éd.). Medieval Fabrications : Dress, Textiles, Clothwork, and Other Cultural Imaginings. New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
Certeau, M. de. L’invention du quotidien. I. Arts de faire. Paris, Gallimard, 1990.
Chambers, M.C., Owen-Crocker, G.R., Sylvester L.M. Medieval Dress and Textiles in Britain : A Multilingual Sourcebook. Cambridge, Boydell & Brewer, 2014.
Crane, S. The Performance of Self. Ritual, Clothing, and Identity During the Hundred Years War. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002.
Cras, A. La Symbolique du vêtement dans la Bible. Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 2011.
Dimitrova, K. & Goehring M, (éds.). Dressing the Part. Textiles as Propaganda in the Middle Ages. Turnhout, Brepols, 2015.
Durantou, A. Grandes cornes et hauts atours. Le hennin et la mode au Moyen Âge. Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, Grand Palais, 2019.
Harte, N.B., Ponting, K.G. Cloth and Clothing in Medieval Europe. Londres, Heinemann Educational Books, 1983.
Hodges, L.F. Chaucer and Array. Patterns of Costume and Fabric Rhetoric in The Canterbury Tales, Troilus and Criseyde and Other Works. Cambridge, D.S. Brewer, 2014.
Klapisch-Zuber, C. (dir.) Histoire des femmes en Occident. II. Le Moyen Âge. Paris, Perrin, 2002.
Koldeweij, A.M. Foi et bonne fortune. Parure et dévotion en Flandre médiévale. Tr. Dice Vertalingen. Arnhem, Terra, 2006.
L’art en broderie au Moyen Âge – Autour des collections du musée de Cluny – Catalogue d’exposition. Paris, Réunion des musées nationaux, Grand Palais, 2019.
Leyser, H. Medieval Women : A Social History of Women in England 450-1500. Londres, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1995.
Lindquist, S. C.M. (éd.) The Meaning of Nudity in Medieval Art. Farnham, Ashgate, 2012.
Ménard, P. Les emblèmes de la folie dans la littérature et dans l’art (XIIe-XIIIe ss.). Caen, Centre de Publication de l’Université de Caen, 1989.
Mérindol, C. de. Signes de hiérarchie sociale à la fin du Moyen Âge d’après les vêtements. Paris, le Léopard d’Or, 1989.
Newton, S. M. Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince: a Study of the Years 1340-1365.Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 1980.
Rajade, A.« Fonction des ‘grosses perles de ceinture’, éléments de parure ou objets fonctionnels ». Revue archéologique de Picardie 1-2(1), 77-86.
Régnier-Bohler, D. « Le corps mis à nu. Perception et valeur symbolique de la nudité dans les récits du Moyen Âge ». Europe, n° 654 (Le Moyen Âge maintenant), octobre 1983, 31-62.
Ueltschi, K. Clochettes, sonnestes et campenelles : la parure de carnaval. Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2019.
Pastoureau, M. Figures de l’héraldique. Paris, Gallimard, 1996.
___________. Figures et couleurs. Paris, Le Léopard d’Or. 1986.
___________. Jésus chez le teinturier: couleurs et teintures dans l’Occident médiéval. Paris, Le Léopard d’or, 1997.
___________. L’étoffe du diable: une histoire des rayures et des tissus rayés. Paris, Seuil, 1991.
Tissier, A. Le rôle du costume dans les farces médiévales. Actes du Vème Colloque international de la Société internationale pour l’étude du théâtre médieval (Perpignan, juillet 1986). Stuttgart, Akademischer Verlag, 1988.
Toussain-Samat, M. Histoire technique et morale du vêtement. Paris, Bordas, 1990.
Wirth, J. (éd.) Le corps et sa parure. Micrologus n°15. Tavarnuzze, Sismel- Ed. Del Galluzo, 2007.