When Gratian’s Decretum took its final shape in the mid-twelfth century, one of its three major parts, the Tractatus de consecratione ecclesiae, focused on sacramental law. De consecratione, added in the second recension, reflects the theological climate of the time, when theologians defined seven sacraments: baptism, confirmation, penance, the Eucharist, holy orders, matrimony, and extreme unction. Previously, the sacraments had occupied only a modest place in the canon law, with exceptions like the Decretum of Burchard of Worms and the collections ascribed to Ivo of Chartres. De consecratione was divided into five distinctions, focused on churches, the Eucharist, and baptism. The text exposed students to the concept of the Real Presence of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine, reflecting the theologies of the previous century and the Gregorian Reform’s critique of simony, buying and selling spiritual gifts.

In her book Medieval People, Eileen Power offered a reflection on medieval nuns’ lives based on the Canterbury Tales. Among the faults and foibles the poet attributed to Madame Eglantine, the prioress, were her fashionable wimple, a well-made cloak, a coral rosary, and, most famously, a golden broch on which was inscribed Amor vincit omnia. Power drew on late medieval visitation records to show briefly how nuns, usually members of noble or gentry families, sometimes adopted fashions found in the world. Since many had entered the religious life to save their parents the cost of a marital dowry, some almost certainly felt entitled to their creature comforts, including their clothing. Although Power's examples of fashions worn by nuns were drawn from episcopal visitations, her study was neither deep nor systematic. Consequently, there is room for a more detailed study of the norms English and northern French prelates expected to apply to professed sisters and their religious superiors in a society that identified dress with status and women with moral weakness. Equally, there is a need to examine the actual patterns of complaint revealed by episcopal visitations to determine whether the foibles of Madame Eglantine often represent the problems the bishops identified or which were brought to their attention by the nuns themselves. An issue also worth raising is the effect of poverty or maladministration on the lives and dress of nuns, since their communities often were less well-endowed than those of male religious. In many cases, nuns can be found not just flouting discipline but fashioning their own patterns of dress and ornament when the eyes of the authorities were not on them.

The universal canon law, as we shall see, gave very limited attention to nuns from the twelfth century onward; and the local bishops enacted statutes affecting women religious only on occasion. However, professed sisters were treated as bound by legal norms crafted for observance by monks. To these were added ideas of due modesty and a suspicion that women, even nuns, were easily led astray by vanity or sexual desire. Thus, both the general canons and local statutes tried to prohibit excessive contact of nuns with any men, including clerics and servants, even in a monastic parlor in the presence of trusted sisters. Nor were lay kin to be trusted implicitly, whether coming to the monastery or visited at home.

A glimpse inside the sacristy of the church of Salle in 1368 makes immediately clear how much cloth a medieval parish of relatively modest size needed. Salle, in the archdeaconry of Norwich, had the full range of textiles, which are listed in an inventory compiled late in the reign of Edward III (ca. 1380). There were several sets of priestly vestments, one described as “decorated with gilded beasts,” as well as surplices and a choir cope. Items for the celebration of the Mass at the main altar included seven altar cloths, three towels, and six corporals for use with the consecrated elements. Other cloths present at the church in Salle included two altar frontals, a hanging for the lectern, two funeral palls, and three ceremonial banners. Other sets of vestments, including two copes of red silk, were listed according to the name of their donor, and an embroidered bench cover with two cushions was added later. A cathedral, like Saint Paul’s, London, had many more clergy serving altars and chantries. These priests needed much more fabric, including vestments, altar cloths, frontals, and corporals for the proper celebration of the Mass. Some of these were made with expensive materials like samite, and they frequently were heavily decorated. In addition, the bishops of London had miters, gloves, and other items made of cloth. All of this fits with an increased use of fine fabric in “a shared clerical culture,” including the assignment of differing vestments, blessed and sometimes given at ordination, to denote the hierarchy of minor and major orders among the clergy.

After a survey of the evidence regarding the regulation of altar cloths gleaned from medieval canon law, this essay will consider the challenges churches faced in acquiring and maintaining linens employed at the altar. A particular concern was the proximity of certain cloths to the Eucharistic elements, especially as the Real Presence of Christ in the sacrament was given a stronger emphasis from the eleventh century onward. Proximity to the sacred required that these linens be of fine quality, kept clean, repaired well, and, if stained with the consecrated wine, burned or kept locked away, a practice contrary to the usual efforts made in the Middle Ages to retain and reuse cloth.