In the Middle Ages, very much more than today, dress was an identifier of occupation, status, wealth, gender and ethnicity. The textiles in circulation ranged from the opulence of gold racamaz of Lucca and cloth of gold baldekyn d’outremer, through to russet (a grey or brown woollen cloth) and the more utilitarian worsted (smooth wool cloth distinguished commercially from the more expensive woollens). Discussions of dress and textiles in the medieval period took place in a variety of spheres of activity, and it is therefore from a wide range of text types that information is to be obtained about the nature and sources of cloth, the desirability of particular garments and accessories and contemporary thinking about dress. Fashion is revealed by inference in the attempts to restrict the use of particular textiles, furs and ornaments to certain categories of people by means of sumptuary legislation. Fashion is also indicated, again by inference, and negatively, in the many diatribes inveighing against its various manifestations.

The discourses surrounding dress and textiles were constructed by the literate classes, clerical, aristocratic and mercantile, but were of concern across all the social scales. The seven chapters here contain extracts from wills; accounts of the Royal Wardrobe; inventories; moral and satirical works condemning contemporary fashions; sumptuary laws; petitions; an Old English epic; and insular romances. We have included wills dating back to the Anglo-Saxon period which are written in Old English, with the occasional Latin abstract. The Old English will of Æthelgifu (I.4a), a wealthy secular woman, makes several gifts of clothing: ‘selle mon beornwynne minne blæwenan cyrtel is neaþene unrenod J hire betstan heafodgewædo J selle man lufetat J ælgifu godwife. hire .iii. godwebbenan cyrtlas. J wulfgife selle mon oðera hire dunnan cyrtla’ (my blue gown which is untrimmed at the bottom and her best head-dresses are to be given to Beornwynn. And her three purple gowns are to be given to Lufetat and Ælgifu and Godwif, and Wulfgif is to be given some of her other, dun-coloured gowns). This will, in particular, offers us a unique insight into the dress of an eleventh-century woman and her ideas about what might be appropriate for other women to wear.