Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Introduction
- Abbreviations
- Did Henry II Have a Policy Towards the Earls?
- The Career of Godfrey of Crowcombe: Household Knight of King John and Steward of King Henry III
- Under-Sheriffs, The State and Local Society c.1300–1340: A Preliminary Survey
- Revisiting Norham, May–June 1291
- Treason, Feud and the Growth of State Violence: Edward I and the ‘War of the Earl of Carrick’, 1306–7
- The Commendatio Lamentabilis for Edward I and Plantagenet Kingship
- Historians, Aristocrats and Plantagenet Ireland, 1200–1360
- War and Peace: A Knight's Tale. The Ethics of War in Sir Thomas Gray's Scalacronica
- The King's Secrets: Richard de Bury and the Monarchy of Edward III
- Budgeting at the Medieval Exchequer
- Recent Scholarship on Crusading and Medieval Warfare, 1095–1291: Convergence and Divergence
- The Military Ordinances of Henry V: Texts and Contexts
- Chivalry and English Kingship in the Later Middle Ages
- Cloth of Gold and Gold Thread: Luxury Imports to England in the Fourteenth Century
- Bibliography of the Writings of Michael Prestwich
- Index
- Tabula Gratulatoriad
Cloth of Gold and Gold Thread: Luxury Imports to England in the Fourteenth Century
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Introduction
- Abbreviations
- Did Henry II Have a Policy Towards the Earls?
- The Career of Godfrey of Crowcombe: Household Knight of King John and Steward of King Henry III
- Under-Sheriffs, The State and Local Society c.1300–1340: A Preliminary Survey
- Revisiting Norham, May–June 1291
- Treason, Feud and the Growth of State Violence: Edward I and the ‘War of the Earl of Carrick’, 1306–7
- The Commendatio Lamentabilis for Edward I and Plantagenet Kingship
- Historians, Aristocrats and Plantagenet Ireland, 1200–1360
- War and Peace: A Knight's Tale. The Ethics of War in Sir Thomas Gray's Scalacronica
- The King's Secrets: Richard de Bury and the Monarchy of Edward III
- Budgeting at the Medieval Exchequer
- Recent Scholarship on Crusading and Medieval Warfare, 1095–1291: Convergence and Divergence
- The Military Ordinances of Henry V: Texts and Contexts
- Chivalry and English Kingship in the Later Middle Ages
- Cloth of Gold and Gold Thread: Luxury Imports to England in the Fourteenth Century
- Bibliography of the Writings of Michael Prestwich
- Index
- Tabula Gratulatoriad
Summary
The importance of luxury textiles (both for clothing and furnishing) was at least as great and probably greater in the Middle Ages than it is now, when fashion rather than the quality of textiles often predominates. Clothing was not only a basic necessity for warmth and modesty, but also a medium the quality, softness, brilliance and drape of which could reflect individual taste and attitudes. Deliberate rejection of luxury cloth showed humility and piety, but deliberate adoption of it contributed to the public display of status and of effective power and authority. Subjects and clients admired justness, moderation, and even piety in their rulers and lords, but they also needed to know that these had the means to exercise authority and to protect followers. The size of a retinue, lavish feasting and generous largesse, and with these the display of fine clothing, all demonstrated the wealth which could underpin effective power. The finest cloths demonstrated the separation of rulers and ruled and always graced the greatest occasions of state and church, playing their part in coronations, episcopal enthronements, and triumphal processions.
England's own output of woollen textiles allowed substantial display of wealth through clothing and furnishing. English textiles ranged from simple homespun for the countryman to fine worsteds and well-made heavy fulled broadcloth dyed in a wide range of colours, the best cloth being worthy of being dyed in the most expensive scarlet kermes dye.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- War, Government and Aristocracy in the British Isles, c.1150–1500Essays in Honour of Michael Prestwich, pp. 267 - 286Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2008