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!