Learn to Spin (with a Medieval flare) Class description and Lesson Plan

Name: Learn to Spin (with a Medieval Flare)
Class Fee: $5 to cover materials
Location: North Plains Senior Center, North Plains OR
Time: 1-3pm, Saturday January 31, 2015
Duration: 2 hrs
Limit: 6 students*

Class description: In this class, we will cover the essentials of spinning: tools, technique, and fiber. We will begin with a short lesson on how spinning was done in the Early Medieval period with a focus on Norse spindles and wool. Students will be presented with pictures of medieval spinners to better examine what spinning would have looked like in the Middle Ages, and we will briefly examine pictures of extant spindle whorls and data from three archaeological digs in Scandinavia. A discussion of fibers will follow, then a lesson on how to use a drop spindle with wool roving. The lesson will focus on the use of a bottom-whorl drop spindle and modern spinning techniques with discussion on how modern techniques differ from the medieval techniques. The lesson will conclude with a brief demonstration of spinning using a period spindle and a distaff. Students will take home one bottom-whorl drop spindle, some wool roving, and a printed information pamphlet with resources for further study if desired.

* Children 12 and under must be accompanied by an adult (single fee unless both are taking the class).

Literature Review: Costume 1066-1966 A Complete Guide to English Costume Design and History by John Peacock

Hi folks! I promised that the next literature review would be the latter part of Mairead Dunlevy's Dress in Ireland, but I'm still working my way through it and its later chapters are much denser than I anticipated. So, in lieu of Dress in Ireland's part II, I present a review of an overview-style book.

This is a book that I picked up from my university's library with the hope that it would help me with my thesis. Unfortunately, its time period wound up not matching with the era I was looking at, but I've kept it around for general reference and because getting a huge stack of books back to campus is like, super hard you guys. Anyway, it's due in January and I really should return it then since I'm no longer a student, so I figured I'd flip through it. Let me tell you, I was well rewarded.

Costume 1066-1966 takes the form of a sketchbook with informative notes, which for me was extremely helpful. Recently I read a book on European fashion* that started as far back as the Minoan culture and ended somewhere around the end of the Renaissance, if memory serves me properly. This particular book was chock-friggin-full of information but had very few images. It covered fashion trends down to about the span of a decade on average, with detailed descriptions of each style with references to any "retro" fashions that came back into style. It really was very informative, but it left my head spinning with all the information it presented. I am not a part of the fashion world, so even specialized terminology left me without a good idea of how these styles would have actually looked. A gable headdress? Sure, I know that thing.

The great part about Costume 1066-1966 is that it is almost entirely pictures. It presents styles chronologically and labels them according to the King or Queen at the time. It also presents both men's and women's fashions, with an occasional page dedicated to external clothing, like mantles, that would have obscured the other garments. In later parts of the book, notes are made as to the occasion at which a garment would have been worn. For example, "winter coat" or "ball gown." I also find the notes to be extremely useful. Sometimes in an image it can be difficult to discern the important parts of an image, or even whether a particular feature is correct or just an artistic detail. In this book, important features are highlighted for the reader, such as "side lacing," "embroidered cuffs," and "padded sleeves."

The only gripe I might have is that when the edges on a gown or tunic are supposed to be decorated with a woven band, they seem too wide. I have not yet been able to find any evidence of tablet woven bands that are any wider that 1", and even that is pushing it. Most of the bands I've seen are around 1/4-1/2", while the edges depicted in the book look closer to 1.5"-2". While this is a small detail, it could be quite important when this book is used for its intended purpose: visual reference. It also makes me question somewhat the accuracy of the later sketches, but I don't have enough expertise to make that call.

Overall, I would recommend this book highly as a companion reference, particularly if it is paired with a more detailed, wordy book like the text mentioned above. It provides a great overview of fashions over the course of 900 years, which is no mean feat. I have also found that it is a great book to read once at the beginning of research and revisit often. It's a great book for quickly getting the "feel" of a fashion and for understanding the styles that came before it, to better put it in context.

*I'll post the title of the book once I find it in my local library again

Literature Review: Dress in Ireland: a history by Mairead Dunlevy (Part 1 of 2)

This is the second installment in what will be an ongoing series of literature reviews. The first was on H.F. McClintock's Old Irish and Highland Dress, which I tore apart with rather less mercy than others may have done. Since my knowledge on Dress in Ireland tapers off drastically after 900CE, I cannot say as much about the latter portion of the book. I also more or less skipped the second half of the book because it was on fashions from the eighteenth century onward and I wasn't interested, but I am sure that the quality of the book gets better and better as more evidence became available to the author.

I also wrote a small article on a particular detail on the use of linen in the Sixteenth century. You can read that article here.

For anyone who read my thesis (available here), you may have noticed a conspicuous lack of reference to the works of Mairead Dunlevy and H.F. McClintock. This was not an accident! In my research, I noticed that many of the articles available on medieval Irish dress referred to one or both of these resources and even those that didn't refer directly to them used remarkably similar language and made very similar arguments as those that did. It seemed like a lot of the current research referred back to these sources in some way. One of my original goals when writing my thesis was to see what other resources were out there, which is part of the reason why the title includes the phrase "Re-Examining the Evidence." I simply wasn't satisfied with the current body of available knowledge, and particularly the tendency to go back to just a handful of sources. I have already reviewed Old Irish and Highland Dress by H.F. McClintock, but I took the plunge on the recommendation of a friend and bought a copy of Dress in Ireland: a history(1987) by Mairead Dunlevy. While this comes too late to make it into my thesis, I was hoping that the book could give me a better basis for my research and possibly provide me with more artifacts that I could research directly. In the former I was disappointed, but in the latter I was pleasantly surprised.

First off, let me say that Dress in Ireland is full of assertions that are based on art and artifacts, which is fantastic. The first pages of chapter 1 greet you with detailed photographs of artifacts from the first century BCE, found by a farmer in Co. Armagh. In these photographs you can see relevant details such as decoration, weave structure, and what joining techniques were left visible when the artifact was made. There is a shoe that prominently displays repair and sophisticated structure and two horsehair belts with weave structure visible as well as intricate fringes. The artifacts, along with a couple not pictured, are synthesized into a picture of what the wearers may have looked like in these garments. This is great! A+ to Dunlevy on the BCE portion of her book and the presentation of her evidence.

I will also say that this is the most complete collection of knowledge on Irish dress that I have encountered so far. Unfortunately, it has been cited to death and I had heard almost everything before. Had it been the first source I read, it would have given me the essential knowledge base that I craved when I started my research, which began even before I started my thesis. For that, I commend Dunlevy and I wish I had found this book years ago.

It's time for my complaints. Like McClintock, Dunlevy seems to treat the first millennium CE as a relatively static period, and jumps from the first centuries (both BCE and CE) up to the 8th, 9th, and even 10th centuries like it ain't no thang. What about the introduction of Roman culture? She acknowledges the possible influence of the Romans on the Irish and that Roman styles might have been incorporated into Irish dress, but never details what these changes might be and never really acknowledges it after that, even as a style of pants from the later centuries are described as possibly hearkening back to 100 BCE. I agree that it's possible that it was a deliberate revival of the old styles, but I'm more inclined to believe that practical styles of pants in a given region have a somewhat limited range of possible styles (pumpkin pants excluded - there's no accounting for pumpkin pants ;)).

It is also sometimes odd to hear Dunlevy's interpretation of various artifacts. I mentioned the repaired shoe above. Dunlevy believes that it was cut into shape from a single piece of leather. With my experience in sewing and leatherwork, I don't see how this particular shoe could have been constructed from only one piece of leather. I will grant that shoes made from one piece of leather were known in Ireland, and I even used the 10th century Drumacoon bog shoe as a pattern for the shoes that went along with my thesis dress. They're fantastic and I love them, and I absolutely believe one-piece shoes were a thing in Ireland at that time. However, the images provided in the book do not indicate a single-piece shoe. There are clearly seams that indicate that the top of the shoe was cut separate from the sides and sole, then the top was sewn onto the main portion. Maybe there are details that are not visible in the image that prove it was from a single piece of leather, but there's no way to tell from the given evidence. There is a smattering of things in the first few chapters that, similar to the "single piece" leather shoe, just don't make sense, so I take issue with it.

The latter part of Dress in Ireland was quite enjoyable in my opinion. As one might expect, the prevalence of extant pieces increased as the timeline progressed, giving more and more (aged, of course) examples of what dress actually looked like in a given time period. Occasional details were lost in the actual clothing articles, such as color schemes and what some hems would have looked like, but for the most part those could be filled in with artistic representations of clothing, which were presented alongside the actual clothes to give a more complete image.

I also really enjoyed the excerpts from contemporary literature that stated details like attitudes toward the new fashions from contemporary perspectives and prices of materials and tailoring service along with the occasional inventory of a person's garments. While I was researching my thesis, these were questions that I desperately wished I could answer because they help me figure out a garment's place in society. Did someone have lots of clothing options? Did they rely on a single outfit for their daily needs? Were certain styles seen as practical or frivolous, or modest or indecent? Which materials were produced locally and which had to be imported? Since fashion is affected by all of these factors, it is important to know these contextual details in order to form a more complete idea of how a fashion could have arisen, which groups would have worn it, and what kind of message it would have sent to other members of a culture. With information like this, it was easier for me to grasp how people of various groups, genders, economic backgrounds, and political and religious affiliations were dressing.

In the sixteenth century chapter, I particularly enjoyed the gown found in Shinrone bog and decided to emulate it in linen for An Tir's Twelfth Night 2015. While not entirely accurate (for one, the whole thing was done in a week of evenings on a sewing machine), it was a great chance to explore late Medieval construction and Irish styles.

Complaints aside, this is a great book to get an introduction to what we currently know about Irish dress in the Early Medieval Period. If you are coming straight into learning about dress in Ireland, pick it up ASAP. It's one of the most commonly cited resources for the topic and I guarantee you that it will save you hours of wasted time on the Internet trying to find reliable sources.

Literature Review: Old Irish and Highland Dress by H.F. McClintock

This is the first installment of what will likely be an ongoing series of literature review posts. They will include my notes, impressions, questions, and other musings on books that I read for my research. While they are primarily for my own use, perhaps you will find them useful in hearing about various resources that are available.

Hoo boy, this one will be fun. For anyone who read my thesis (available here), you may have noticed a conspicuous lack of reference to the works of Mairead Dunlevy and H.F. McClintock. This was not an accident! In my research, I noticed that many of the articles available on medieval Irish dress referred to one or both of these resources and even those that didn't refer directly to them used remarkably similar language and made very similar arguments as those that did. It seemed like a lot of the current research referred back to these sources in some way. One of my original goals when writing my thesis was to see what other resources were out there, which is part of the reason why the title includes the phrase "Re-Examining the Evidence." I simply wasn't satisfied with the current body of available knowledge, and particularly the tendency to go back to just a handful of sources. While I ran out of time to examine Dress in Ireland for my thesis, I was able to obtain Old Irish and Highland Dress (1943), the definitive book by H.F. McClintock that discusses Irish dress from the BC era to around the 1700s (if my memory serves me properly). Due to my area of interest and expertise, I primarily reviewed the section on early Irish dress, not the more recent styles.

To say the least, I was disappointed. Sure, it presented some evidence and made an argument, but it fell into the trap of looking at the first millennium CE as a relatively static period. A major source of its evidence is a single version of the Tain bo Cuailnge and the garments described therein. While many of the Irish epics were written down circa the 8th century CE, these were by no means new stories. Ireland has an ancient oral tradition and its storytellers have a long memory. Even today one can find renditions of the old epics as recorded from people who learned them from other storytellers, not from books[1]. By McClintock's logic, someone who read a book written in the 20th century that was a collection of Irish epic tales could rightly conclude that people in Ireland in the 20th century were likely wearing something similar to what is described in the tales, assuming no other evidence were available. That is to say, the average Irish person in the 20th century would be wearing a leine, a brat, and a gold or silver brooch among other garments. This is the heart of my objection to McClintock's work: an entire millennium is nothing to be overlooked. While these stories might depict dress in the 8th century, I find it more plausible that they depict the strongly Celtic dress and culture of a much earlier time, i.e. the first century BCE, an era that has produced many more artifacts of metalwork and even clothing that more closely resembles what the Tain describes[2]. This website, while not a spectacular source, gives a good overview of early Celtic clothing, though I would argue against the use of a separate top and skirt in the female peasant's outfit. Notice that the time period given for those styles starts at 600 BCE and ends in 100CE, much earlier than the 8th century CE.

That's about all I can say for Old Irish and Highland Dress. It covers quite a bit more material, but since my focus is on pre-Norman Irish dress, I'm going to leave the bits on later dress up to your own interpretation. I also had the book through interlibrary loan and had to give it back over a year ago, so I don't remember much detail for the parts that weren't directly relevant to my thesis. I will say that I thought McClintock did a better job of documenting his assertions for the later styles, but he tends to reference English sources. It is well-known that there was a tendency by the English to view the Irish as barbaric, so I would take what the English say about Irish dress with a big ol' grain of salt.

If you are interested in doing further research on early Medieval Irish dress, I won't discourage you from reading this book. It is, after all, a staple reference for Irish dress and I would consider it an important book to read. However, I see many flaws in its evidence, methods, and assertions and I would recommend reading it more to understand where many of our current ideas about Irish dress came from, rather than an actual resource to enhance your knowledge of Irish dress itself.

[1] Colum, Padraic. A Treasury of Irish Folklore: the stories, traditions, legends, humor, wisdom, ballads, and songs of the Irish people / edited with an introduction by Padraic Colum. 2nd rev. ed. New York: Bonanza Books : Distributed by Crown Publishers, 1983, c1967.

[2] Vassar's Website with text of the Tain bo Cuailnge

A Summary of Early Embroideries, Part 1: the Anglo-Saxons

This post was originally going to be a quick summary of early embroidery in Northern Europe, but it quickly became clear that I could not possibly write a satisfactory summary in just one post and it lingered as a draft for two weeks as I researched. Finally I decided to split it up into multiple posts so I had a chance of covering even a small portion of the great extant embroideries. This is part 1 of what will be a series of embroidery posts. There's just too much material to cover!

Let's get down to the bare minimum, here: before we had rich golden Opus Anglicanum, before  complex and multi-layered Elizabethan raised embroidery, and before trade with all corners of the world was possible, we had stitches that were simple but effective and the highly skilled people who worked with them. The pieces discussed below are beautiful, complex, and masterful examples of early embroidery worked using only a few basic stitches.

The discussion here is primarily descriptive in nature, but links to sources are included whenever possible. I hate paywalls, so the sources included here were, when this was written, freely accessible online. I highly encourage you to follow the links and explore the websites and books because they all include valuable information not discussed here.

The Maaseik Embroideries

The pieces of the Maaseik Embroideries

The Maaseik Embroideries, despite their name, are of Anglo-Saxon origin and have been dated to the late eighth or ninth century. They use Stem stitch, Split stitch, and Surface Couching with primarily silk thread of red, green, beige, yellow, light blue, and dark blue on a linen ground. In some places they have pearls and other beads along with gold-wrapped thread. The designs closely mirror those used in other contemporary art forms and include roundels, interlace, and animal motifs. They are the earliest known substantial examples of Anglo-Saxon embroidery and thus take the fore when discussing embroidery and art near the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon period. Some scraps of embroidery have been found in seventh century graves, though. These are mostly worked on a wool twill ground, unlike the linen of the Maaseik embroideries, but they are in much worse condition according to this source (cited earlier). They are not named in this source, but I may attempt to find them in the future.

In contrast with some of the scraps as well as the Bayeux Tapestry and the Chemise of St. Bathilde (Frankish), the Maaseik Embroideries leave none of the linen ground uncovered by the fine silk embroidery. I think it is safe to say that this was an exception, not the rule, since so many embroideries that are roughly contemporary with these allow some of the ground to show through.

The Stole of St. Cuthbert

The Stole of St. Cuthbert was discovered in St. Cuthbert's own grave when it was opened in 1827 and has been on display in the library of the Durham Cathedral ever since. It "is decorated with standing figures of Old Testament prophets, twelve of which survive, busts of St. James and St Thomas the apostles at each end, and the symbol of Agnus Dei in the middle" (The Tablet Archive). The embroidery features acanthus leaves as well as pairs of animals, both on the body of the stole and on the woven braid border.

St. Cuthbert's Stole
Showing Image of Daniel
Images from Oberlin's Saints and Relics in Medieval Art class

St. Cuthbert's Maniple
Showing Image of Sixtus II 
Images from Oberlin's Saints and Relics in Medieval Art class

Important to note is that the stole does not appear to be from St. Cuthbert's own era (7th century CE), despite it having been buried in his grave. Two Latin inscriptions reference Athelflaed and Bishop Frithstan, who both lived much later than St. Cuthbert. Athelflaed lived after the time of Alfred the Great and died in 916, while Bishop Frithstan was Bishop of Winchester between 909 and 931, which places the making of the stole between the beginning of Frithstan's time as bishop in 909 and Athelflaed's death in 916, since the inscription states that she was the one who had it made. St. Cuthbert died over two hundred years earlier, in 687. The Tablet Archive proposes that the stole was buried with Cuthbert in 1104. King Athelstan had brought a number of gifts with him to Winchester in 934, among which were recorded a stole and a maniple (a maniple was found along with the stole in St. Cuthbert's grave). St. Cuthbert's body was moved to a new cathedral in 1104, which would have given the Durham monks an opportunity to bury him with new relics.

The Tablet Archive states that the embroidery itself was carried out on a silk ground that has now mostly disintegrated, and the thread was also silk. The silk thread is also worse for wear, but my guess is that the gold used on the ground helped to preserve it, since metal tends to help preserve nearby fibers. The stitches used for it are quite familiar: stem, split, and couching. I would love to know what kind of couching, but there is no further explanation. The outlines are done in stem stitch except where gold was used, and shapes were filled in with split stitch. The background is entirely filled with gold thread, but the stitch used was unspecified. I'm guessing that, like the filled-in shapes, the background was done in stem stitch.

Editorial note: I personally find it difficult to believe that the stole and maniple given to the church by King Athelstan in 934 were the same stole and maniple that were buried with St. Cuthbert. I'm sure that the goods donated by Athelstan were of high quality and the time frame is close, but we're talking about a single stole and a single maniple that may not have even been donated together. In the span of centuries, would the monks of Durham not have received other gifts of vestments? It is my impression that vestments were common donations. All we know is that it was probably made in the early 900s, that St. Cuthbert died in 687, and that the stole and maniple were discovered in the grave in 1827. I agree that moving St. Cuthbert's body would be an opportunity to bury him with more relics, but that's also speculation. I will need to do research on the people involved to see whether there is reason to believe that the stole and maniple found with St. Cuthbert were the same ones donated by King Athelstan. Perhaps he and Athelflaed were related or married? That's a topic for another post.

In the next embroidery post I will be summarizing Norse embroideries, including the embroideries from Mammen and Oseberg. Thanks for reading!

The Start of New Research

After finishing my thesis and taking a breather, I'm going to revisit my original research and try to fill in some missing information. I have taken notes on items available for viewing on the Irish National History Museum's website. Of particular interest are the Ardagh Chalice and the Tara Brooch (no surprises there) but further reading on the website brought to my attention the Shrine of Stowe Missal and the Killaloe Brooch.

Since this project will focus solely on artifacts from Early Medieval Ireland, it is part of my goal to look deeper into the artifacts we have, rather than relying heavily on extrapolation as I did in my previous work. Since I'm not in a time crunch and not in the middle of a full-time college schedule, response time is much less important than it was with my thesis. That means I can (gasp!) talk to people! And experts! whaaaaaaat? So anyway, I also found out that in the Irish Antiquities division of the museum is a (hopefully) lovely person by the name of Dr. Andy Halpin, who has expertise in the archaeology of Medieval Ireland and probably access to artifacts not on display. I hope he can help me by identifying objects that I couldn't find in my research but would provide valuable information for this narrow field of Early Medieval Irish dress. Maybe he even has access to photos of the objects that I can use in my research!

The Shrine of Stowe Missal and the Book Within It

The Shrine and the book of Stowe Missal look to be quite valuable to my research. Research suggests it was made sometime between 1026 and 1033, it could provide valuable insight into aspects of Irish culture that survived past the time when Ireland became largely Christian. For example, one of the scribes signed his name in Ogham script, which to my knowledge was the writing used by the Druids. I would link to that particular page, but I wouldn't recognize Ogham from the Irish Latin script if you shoved it in my face. Maybe someday, but not today. If you want to check it out for yourself, the entire script and the shrine have been photographed in high definition and are available on the Irish Script on Screen webpage, here, under Collections->Royal Irish Academy->MS d ii 3 and is labeled "The Stowe Missal & bookshrine." The whole Irish Script on Screen project looks fantastic and I think I'll be spending a lot more time there.

The shrine itself may be useful for garment research. There are human figures on five of the six outer sides and among them there may even be two women! These will merit further study for sure. The style of garments they wear indicates that they are carved in possibly contemporary fashion of the 11th century CE (i.e. when the shrine was made), but it could give hints to where the fashion had been in prior centuries.

The Killaloe Brooch

It looks as though the Killaloe brooch will be helpful, but in a much different manner than the Stowe Missal Book Shrine. Initial searching for more information on the brooch rendered very little, so I may have to rely just on what the museum has to say about it. The best information I've found thus far is available from the Irish National History Museum here and it includes place, time, and style as well as a beautiful photo. As for its use in my research, it may provide a better idea of the kinds of motifs that were common in worn art of the time. More importantly, it is a brooch in the style of the Tara brooch that is much plainer and made of silver, not gold. The design work is beautiful, but not nearly as fine as the designs found on the Tara brooch. To me, this implies that it would have been closer to an everyday brooch for someone wealthy, or possibly a fancy brooch for someone of middling wealth, such as a free farmer.

Well, that wraps it up for this post. I hope you enjoyed reading! I'll certainly be coming back here as I revisit the research I've done.

Re-Examining the Evidence: Irish Women's Dress between 750 and 900 CE

Link to View and Download

The early years of Irish Christianity is commonly known as an Irish Golden Age, when literacy and art flourished under the new monastic system established in Ireland and Northern England/Scotland. This paper presents evidence toward a better understanding of what Irish women wore during the time after Christianity was established in Ireland and before the island saw war between the Irish native population and the Scandinavian settlers, a period roughly defined as 750 through 900 CE for the purpose of research scope. Study has revealed very little direct evidence of dress in Ireland during this time, so evidence is based primarily on study of Anglo-Saxon and Viking Age Scandinavian dress during the same period. To better understand how outside influences may have appeared in Irish dress, elements of social interaction and fashion theory are also applied to construct a reasonable estimation of Irish dress in the defined period. I look forward to any archaeological discoveries that may be made in the future that will prove or refute my position, and I will continue to search for such evidence.

This paper and its accompanying garment examples were made in fulfillment of the Oregon State University Honors College undergraduate thesis requirement and forms the framework of my knowledge of Early Medieval Irish culture and dress.