Introduction

Over the course of history, textiles have played a clear role in society as transmitters of a broad variety of signifiers and as vehicles for the expression of luxury and comfort, especially in royal and courtly contexts. Typical sources of information in research of historical textiles include documentary sources and accessions. In our context, unfortunately, the lack of a well-preserved royal archive makes it very difficult to piece together a detailed picture of court costume in the Crown of Castile in the 1200s and early 1300s as documentary references are fairly scant. However, there is a marvellous quantity of surviving textiles linked to the court.

The accounts of King Sancho IV (r. 1284–1295) are essential sources on Castile during the period covered by this study. Dating from 1292 to 1294, the accounts were studied by Mercedes Garibrois Ballesteros and later by Asunción López Dapena, and set in a royal context by Fernando Gutiérrez Baños, who focused on the King himself. More recently, Teófilo Ruiz examined them in connection with textile consumption in late medieval Castile. Further documentary references can be found both in ecclesiastical inventories of the period and in literary texts.

The – relatively – abundant material evidence of surviving garments comes chiefly from royal entombment related to the period studied here, notably found at the Abbey of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas in Burgos and the Cathedrals of Toledo and Seville. Further examples are the grave-goods of the tombs of members of the royal family in the Church of Santa María la Blanca in Villalcázar de Sirga (Palencia), the Convent of San Pablo (Valladolid) and the Monastery of Santo Domingo de Caleruega (Burgos).

Lastly, salient examples of visual sources (in addition to sculptures and stained-glass windows such as those of the Cathedrals of Burgos and Leon) are the miniatures illuminating several codices of the period, such as the Cantigas de Santa María, the Libro del Axedrez, Dados y Tablas (also known as Libro de los Juegos) and the Libro de la Coronación de los reyes de Castilla y León.