Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince: A Study of the Years 1340-1365

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Boydell & Brewer, 1999 - 151 pages
A close study of clothes worn by aristocratic families and their households at the time of the Black Prince - and of Chaucer - showing Europe-wide influences.

1340 to 1363 were years remarkable for dramatic developments in fashion and for extravagant spending on costume, foreshadowing the later luxury of Richard II's court. Stella Mary Newton broke new ground with this detailed study, which discusses fourteenth-century costume in detail. She draws on surviving accounts from the Royal courts, the evidence of chronicles and poetry (often from unpublished manuscripts), and representations in painting, sculpture andmanuscript illumination. Her exploration of aspects of chivalry, particularly the choice of mottoes and devices worn at tournaments, and of the exchange of gifts of clothing between reigning monarchs, offers new insights into thesocial history of the times, and she has much to say that is relevant to the study of illuminated manuscripts of the fourteenth century.
STELLA MARY NEWTON's lifelong interest in costume has been the mainspring of her work, from early days as a stage and costume designer (including designing the costumes for the first production of T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral) to her later work at the National Gallery advising on the implications ofcostume for the purpose of dating, and at the Courtauld Institute where she set up the department for the study of the history of dress.

From inside the book

Contents

What they said about it
6
The Great Wardrobe and the Round Table
14
English and French Royal Clothing in the Early 1340s
21
Court Dress after Crécy
29
Tournaments and Orders of Chivalry
41
Fashions after Poitiers
53
Livery and the Dress of the Poor
65
Actors Minstrels and Fools
76
National Traits and Deviations in the Dress of the Period
86
Fashion in Works of Art
102
Postscript 110
125
Extracts from Some Sumptuary Regulations 134065
131
Bibliography
140
Index
145
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