PASOLD RESEARCH FUND
CONFERENCE 2012
Abstracts
Session 1. Self-Fashioning
Fashioning
Tracey Wedge, University of Southampton, UK
A Wardrobe Dictated by Wind, Sea, Merchants and Masters
Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester (1532/3
(1532/3-1588)
1588) was one of the most powerful men in Elizabethan
England. Dress was a key tool in his arsenal to project the image of magnificence and nobility
requisite of a leading courtier. Leicester’s desire to present him
himself
self as a more suitable consort next to
the sumptuous portraits supplied by the Queen’s European suitors added to this requirement. His
wardrobe was the result of a concordance of circumstance, skill, tradition and innovation. It
comprised mostly of imported
ed materials, and was constructed into garments in the city of London. To
achieve the visual spectacle Leicester desired in his wardrobe meant a reliance on materials
availability and the skills and design acumen of his suppliers. These artificers were a combination
c
of
local and European masters, bringing their own personal skill and background to the end products.
This paper will explore the extent to which Leicester’s supply network dictated what he wore through
business practice, transmission of design iideas
deas and trade. It will also consider evidence for innovation
in Leicester’s wardrobe.
Pia Bengtsson Melin, Upplandsmuseet
Upplandsmuseet, Sweden
Artist or Artisan? Fashioning the Northern Renaissance Self
Self-Portrait
Throughout the Middle Ages, signatures and self
self-portraits were made by the artisans building and
decorating churches and secular buildings. In the fifteenth century, however, major changes can be
observed. Modest images of the face or highly stylized and generalized representations
resentations became full
size or half-size
size depictions with realistic details and natu
naturalistic features.. The picture or sculpture is
often a realistic portrait of a clearly recogniz
recognizable
able contemporary person. This change marks the
artisan’s changing role; the artisan becomes a renaissance artist with an increasing selfself confidence in
every aspect of life. In creating the image of the renaissance artist, clothing had an important
function. The aim of this paper is to discuss how the changes can be noticed in a number of selfself
portraits made by Northern
ern European artisans during a period between 1460 and 1520.
Elisabeth Gernerd, University of Edinburgh, UK
Folding Arches of Silk: Navigating the Eighteenth
Eighteenth-Century Calash
In late eighteenth-century
century Britain, the soaring heights of fashionable women’s hair dictated a need
for an article of headwear to accommodate their mountainous coiffures and ornamentation. The
calash, a folding hood supported by boned arches, was crafted tto
o surpass and encompass hair’s
fluctuating volume and style. Like the jointed, collapsible hood of the popular pleasure carriage it
was named after, the calash offered flexibility and movement to its wearer. The calash’s functional
mobility, operating between
een open and collapsed, calls into question its classification beyond that of
accessory or headwear. Some at the time even considered it a mechanical innovation, connecting the
calash with both a wider range of mobile objects, but also a wider field of trades beyond tailoring and
textiles. Drawing upon a multi-disciplinary analysis of surviving artefacts, textual sources, and graphic
satires, this paper seeks to expose a broad understanding of the calash’s material construction,
function, origins, and relationship with its targeted female wearer. Simultaneously, it aims to unveil
the underlying themes of mobility, technology, and sociability, which underpin what at first glance
appears to be yet another product of fashionable whimsy. Tracing the calash from its inception to its
influence beyond the body, from its material construction to its cultural visualisation, this paper
aspires to develop an overarching understanding of the calash’s cultural, social and historical
significance as a garment that navigated its way across the gendered, technological, and geographical
boundaries of society.
Session 2. Social Attitudes towards Innovation
Annika Windahl Pontén, Uppsala University, Sweden
Habit is our Second Nature: Carl Linnaeus on Luxurious Habits, Morality and Health
This paper aims to present and explain some of the theories and views that Carl Linnaeus expressed
concerning luxury in dress and fashion in his lectures on ‘diet’ during his time as professor at Uppsala
University (1741-78). To this is combined a theoretical approach and a study of the clothes used and
owned by the Linnaeus household. Linnaeus has been described as a part of the 18th-century
critique against luxury, and it has been pointed out that his habits were simple. However, Linnaeus
was not as critical as has been claimed. He argues that habit is like a second nature, and that habits
become addictive and that the changes brought about, if excessive, will literally make a person ill.
Linnaeus describes a relationship between what is natural, habitual and healthy. There is a moral side
of fashion and luxury, but this has more to do with the risk of disguising true character than anything
else. The study of the wardrobe shows that the household dressed in a rich and varied manner. They
had to master a number of social codes, and dressing properly was one of them. By combining a
more theoretical approach and an analysis of practice it is possible to get a fuller and more complex
picture of how Linnaeus presented himself as a leading scientist, and how the household was
positioned as an early-modern semi-public and academic unit.
Jenny Nyberg, Stockholm University, Sweden
From Festive Celebration to Peaceful Sleep. Dynamics Behind Changes in Funerary Costume in
Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Sweden
Focusing on how the dead bodies of nobility were dressed and adorned for burial, this paper
investigates how and why funerary dress changed from the lavish day clothes used in the early and
mid-seventeenth century, via shrouds imitating day clothes, to a particular “burial fashion” in its own
right, of shrouds and shifts borrowing features of night clothes during the eighteenth century. To
understand this development a broad contextualisation is needed, focusing on changing mentalities
and ideals amongst the nobility, new attitudes towards death and the handling of the dead body, as
well as burial law and the material traces of a budding trade in funerary attire. The source material of
excavated graves and their interpretations form part of my ongoing interdisciplinary PhD project in
archaeology which considers attitudes towards death and the relationship between the dead and the
living in early-modern Sweden.
Herman Bengtsson, Upplandsmuseet, Sweden
Contemporary Fashion or Disguised anti-Semitism? Some Remarks on the Use of Male Clothing in
Late Medieval Swedish Mural-Painting
Sweden has a legacy of well-preserved mural-paintings dating from the late fifteenth and early
sixteenth centuries. Although the pictorial programs may be subject to variation, they are usually
dominated by scenes taken from the Bible. Traditionally, these paintings have been interpreted
within a strictly theological context with little regard given to the actual representation of the
characters depicted. In recent studies, however, scholars have become more open to the idea that
late medieval church art is often ambiguous in a way that transcends theological interpretation. A
good example is Samson from the Book of Judges, who appears in many of the churches decorated
by the German born painter Albertus Pictor (died 1509). The Samson character is usually interpreted
as a symbol of Christ in accordance with medieval Bible exegetics, but in most of the wall paintings
his appearance is conspicuously foppish with extravagant clothing and pointed shoes. In Sebastian
Brant’s satirical prose work Narrenschiff (1494) this type of clothing is described as the “Jewish Style”
(der jüdisch sit), and the author claims that it such style was introduced by the Jews in order to
corrupt Christian society. With this in mind, it is interesting to note that even the Old Testament
prophets sometimes appear in fashionable clothing in the mural-paintings of the period. The paper
will discuss these ambiguities with a special focus on the topic of “disguised anti-Semitism”.
Session 3. Innovation and Guilds
Cecilia Candréus, Uppsala University, Sweden
Women, Guild and Professionalism in the Trade of Embroidery
This paper addresses the work of female embroiderers in Stockholm c. 1650-1750. Extant documents
reveal a fine line between formal protocol and informal practice where female artisans constitute an
‘invisible’ part of the male dominated craft of embroidery. Between 1650 and 1750 the
embroiderers’ guild in Stockholm peaked in size and influence but then declined. This development is
paralleled by a gradual change in attitude towards female craftsmen. An increased acceptance is
seen both in new guild regulations and in visual art such as engravings depicting women working in
different trades. The craft workshop would often function as a household-based production centre
and give women informal access to professional training within the home. Guild regulations
protected the rights of widowed women by allowing them to continue to run the family workshop.
But to what extent did women take part in the production, and how was their work viewed by the
public? How do we define professionalism and how does it relate to skill and training? I will use guild
records, probate inventories, accounts and extant embroideries to chart the changes in both formal
regulations and informal practice and discuss questions concerning professionalism and the
organization of workshops.
William Farrell, Birkbeck, University of London, UK
People vs Things: The Worshipful Company of Weavers and the Regulation of Technology, Textiles
and Artisans in Eighteenth-century London
This paper compares the efforts of the Worshipful Company of Weavers in London to control the
movement of technology and textiles with its more laissez-faire management of migrant weavers,
over the long eighteenth century. From the introduction of the engine loom in the 1670s, the
Weavers’ Company regulated new technology in the London textile industries. The Company was
involved in stopping weaving tools from leaving England for other European countries, such as Spain.
It was even more effective in lobbying Parliament to have foreign cottons and silks banned from
England in order to protect London producers. The Company also controlled access to French silk
designs seized by customs officers. By contrast, it made no formal attempts to regulate the
movements of textile workers, either in or out of London. It allowed large number of Huguenot and
Irish workers to enter the textile industry. In times of unemployment, many weavers left London,
often signing up for military service; they faced no restrictions on their movement and often reentered the textile trades at a later date. The Company helped organise campaigns against ‘foreign’
textiles but allowed foreign-born weavers to work in London, often ignoring xenophobic campaigns
from journeymen. This paper suggests that that the difference between the regulation of things and
people can be understood in terms of the particular regime of ‘proto-globalization’ in the eighteenth
century, and the differences in importance between technology and the tacit knowledge of artisans.
Joana Isabel Sequeira, University of Porto, Portugal and EHESS Paris, France
No Place for Guilds: Alternative Models of Organisation in Portugal’s Medieval Textile Industry
In Portugal the first craft guilds were established only in the late-fifteenth century and became more
common throughout the sixteenth century. How then did the organisation of labour and production
work before this date? In a rural, domestic and much dispersed textile industry, the commercial
agent (usually the merchant) occupied the leading role in the production system. But he and the
artisans were often under the authority of municipal councils and/or royal and seigniorial
institutions. Bearing this in mind, the purpose of this paper is to answer the following questions: how
did textile workers manage to participate in the decision-making processes in a non-guild system?
What was the role of the merchant and how did the different phases of textile production - from
fiber preparation to weaving - interact with each other? Who was responsible for determining and
controlling the price and quality of products? Considering the constraints imposed on private
initiatives, which strategies were adopted to introduce and promote innovation and change in
production? Were these innovations, and their promoters, responsible for the significant growth of
textile production in the fifteenth century? These questions, and the answers that I expect to give,
will shed some light on the complex interaction of different economic agents and how they managed
to cope with industrial development and innovation in an economy which had no place for guilds.
Session 4. Technology and Innovation
Christer Ahlberger, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Lars G Strömberg, University of Borås, Sweden
Textile Heritage 1400-1800
Textile manufacturing and innovative clusters in Sweden before industrialisation have received little
attention and research is fragmented between different scientific disciplines. One example is the
museological tradition that uses mainly the knowledge of textile materials in order to classify and
exhibit objects. Another is the historical and cultural ‘science’ which uses textiles to confirm already
established results based on written sources. The project aims to bring these scientific traditions
together by using the textile artefacts as a starting point for analyses performed by textile experts
with craft skills. This experience-based knowledge has often been seen as of little importance to
historical science. The results will be tested against the hypothesis that there are two important
breakthroughs in the development of textile technology in Sweden c. 1400 to 1800. The first of these
occur in the fourteenth century, primarily within wool processing and spinning. The second occurs
during the late seventeenth century with developments in flax processing, loom technology and
finishing. The results will serve to pinpoint areas of innovation in Sweden, which in turn prompt
questions concerning the establishment and diffusion of new technology, as well as resistance to
innovation. Cooperation has been established with, among others, the Lödöse Museum, the Royal
Armoury of Stockholm, the Vasa Museum, the National Historical Museum, Stockholm and the
University of Reutlingen, Germany.
Vanessa Habib, Independent Scholar, Edinburgh, UK
Bleaching and Weaving in the Age of the Scottish Enlightenment
Despite near bankruptcy after the failure of the Darien Scheme, Scotland modernised more quickly
than any other European nation during the first half of the 18th century. Although some felt Scottish
identity to be undermined by the Union of 1707, this was also a period of globalisation. Scientists,
writers and thinkers across Europe corresponded with each other, visited each other across national
boundaries and discussed ideas. Scots wished to be seen as a cosmopolitan and enlightened people.
The new sciences of Chemistry and Botany were pivotal in the development of trade and
manufacturing. This paper will consider how the national decision to support the linen trade in
Scotland, which was at first associated with agricultural improvement, anticipated later
industrialisation, particularly in the cotton manufacture. In the 1730s modern bleachfields, with
irrigation systems, drying houses and mill buildings containing boilers for ashing and souring, engines
for beetling the cloth and finally premises for lapping and stamping the linen were established,
turning what had been a medieval craft where linen took from between three to four months to
whiten into a modern manufacture. Expertise was also sought from Holland, where the finest and
most admired linens were woven and bleached. Dutch master weavers experienced in working plain
linen and figured linen damask were encouraged to settle in Edinburgh and Glasgow and take
apprentices, enabling an increasingly urban population to acquire the finest textiles for dress and the
home.
Martin Ciszuk , University of Borås, Sweden
Swedish Eighteenth-Century Silk Weaving - Technology and Design
The Swedish silk industry was reconstructed, after the economic crises following the Nordic wars of
1700-21, with strong economic support from the government between 1739 and 1766. The industry
was largely organised after French models. A deeper analysis, however, reveals local features in
design, technology and organisation. In the last decades of the century there was also a development
in the silk industry towards a defined Swedish market, a direction that continued during the
nineteenth century. This study proceeds by using technical analyses of Swedish silks in three sample
collections as a starting point to examine this development. Two collections from the Swedish
National Archive of 1744 and 1751 are studied together with the collection of Adolph Modéer of
1766 in Nordiska Museet. The results from the technical analyses are compared with official archival
records, Fabriksberättelser, where the production of the textile manufactories was registered in
detail. Four paintings in Nordiska Museet, depicting the working process in a Swedish silk
manufactory around 1770, and other archival notes present information on the looms and machinery
used in the silk industry. Printed French sources on eighteenth-century silk weaving have been used
as comparisons, to explain and discern the distinctive Swedish features. Based on these comparisons
between artefacts, pictorial and archival sources, conclusions can be drawn concerning the fabric
types, prices, design and use of Swedish silks, and the organisation and technological development
that characterised the eighteenth-century Swedish silk industry.
Session 5. Materials and Textiles Innovation: Silk and Cotton
Ben Marsh, University of Stirling, UK
Trials in the Wilderness: Silkworms in the Northern American Colonies, c. 1680-1800
This paper addresses the fitful but earnest attempts made by colonists in the mid-Atlantic and
northeastern parts of British America to transplant to the New World the cultivation of silk. Although
sericulture was a common feature in the propaganda and economic designs for southern colonies, by
the eighteenth century it had also become an object of experimentation in northerly regions,
particularly Pennsylvania and Connecticut. These two colonies, founded respectively by Quakers and
Puritans, did not necessarily lend themselves ideologically or climatically to the pursuit of silk
cultivation. This paper puts together archival findings from – among other locations – the Library
Company of Philadelphia, the Beinecke Library, and the American Antiquarian Society, to construct a
chronology and analysis of these trials. It addresses not only how Quakers and Puritans reconciled
themselves to sericulture, which often involved admiration for the godly labour of the worms, but
also the ways in which they appropriated literature, techniques, assumptions and materials from the
Old World and sought to creatively repackage them. On the one hand they were freed from a
reservoir of expertise within the population, which allowed them latitude to experiment and
innovate. On the other they faced considerable difficulties in adverse environmental conditions. The
patronage of major intellectual figures such as Rev. Ezra Stiles and Benjamin Franklin encouraged
innovation and application of a scientific method, and although production never flourished
commercially, it increased substantially during the Revolutionary era.
John Styles, University of Hertfordshire, UK
What was Cotton Cloth in Early-Modern Europe?
‘Whoever says Industrial Revolution says cotton’, Eric Hobsbawm famously remarked, but the rise of
cotton textiles in the West long pre-dated factory industrialization. The adoption of cotton fabrics
across Western Europe was one of the great textile innovations of the early-modern era. Much of
this cotton cloth came from India, the early-modern global centre for cotton manufacture, but in a
mercantilist age Europeans were often reluctant to rely on distant, overseas suppliers. Yet efforts to
manufacture cotton textiles in European faced an insuperable obstacle – the inability of Europeans to
spin cotton warps. It is well known that the fustians manufactured in early-modern northern Italy,
southern Germany and later northern England were mostly woven with linen warps. However, it is
less commonly realized that almost all the other ‘cotton’ fabrics made in England, France and
elsewhere in Europe in the later 17th and first half of the 18th centuries – checks, stripes, dimities,
cottons, siamoises, etc. – also usually had linen warps. Indeed, their cotton content was often
remarkably small. This paper uses technical analysis of surviving cotton textiles to establish the fibre
composition of the kinds of cotton fabrics made in early-modern Europe. It then asks why Europeans
found it so difficult to spin cotton warps, when Indian cotton spinners appear to have done so
without difficulty. Finally, it considers the implications for two of the iconic inventions of the
Industrial Revolution – Hargreaves’ spinning jenny and Arkwright’s water frame. Whereas the
spinning jenny could only spin weft, the water frame spun cotton warps, enabling pure cotton cloth
to be manufactured in Europe for the first time on a large scale. Arkwright’s invention emerges as the
textile equivalent of the European discovery of the secret of porcelain – a means of making
something much desired in Europe that could previously only be imported from Asia. Historians
usually present the consequences of factory mechanization of textiles in terms of quantity rather
than quality. This paper argues, by contrast, that most important immediate consequence of factory
mechanization was a transformation in quality, amounting to a reconfiguration of what constituted a
European-made cotton textile.
Session 6. Gender and Innovation
Seija Johnson, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
New Materials, New Dresses: Ladies’ Clothing in Kokkola in the 18th century
This paper deals with changes in design, materials, shapes and forms of cloth and clothing in Kokkola
parish, in the neighbouring villages of the town of Kokkola in 1750-1800. Kokkola (Gamlakarleby) was
founded in 1620 by the Swedish king Gustaf II Adolf. In the course of a century this small port town
by the Gulf of Bothnia (with about 200 inhabitants) turned into a flourishing town with an important
port, skilled boat constructors and rich tradesmen. In 1750 Kokkola was famous for its export of
ships, tar, pitch, boards, planks and nails and in 1765 Kokkola became a staple town. It meant that
everything new, not only from Stockholm but also from countries like India and China, reached
Kokkola extremely quickly. Imports of salt and new materials and the introduction of novelties were
as important as the export of tar. With a good distribution network the novelties reached even the
neighbouring villages. My paper presentation will deal with the import of textiles and changes in
design and materials in women’s clothing in Kokkola parish in 1750-1800 when peasant women
transformed from producers to consumers.
Nadia Fernández de Pinedo, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain
Consumption, Women and Luxury in the Capital: Madrid c. 1750
This paper examines consumption in Madrid at the beginning of the eighteenth century using a tax
source that allows us to identify certain aspects related to demand and marketing. Firstly, the
documents used in this work lead us to focus upon the significance of the fiscal source as one of the
most reliable and accessible set of documents for the study of consumption and distribution.
Secondly, the demand in Madrid will be examined in detail, with emphasis on social class and some
of its peculiarities. The paper will focus on the preference of consumers -by social classes- for
particular commodities that were linked with long-distance colonial-trade, such as sugar, cocoa or
the luxury items such as porcelain, silk and linen fabrics, Flanders lace, and shoes. The source allows
us to distinguish the demand for all types of products, especially luxury ones, by social class and
gender. The consumption of those who lived in the capital can be analyzed through the demand of
those within or outside of the nobility and those that belonged to the upper classes such as marquis
and marquises and count and countesses. The final section explores the implications of these findings
and questions the existence of a national and international market for manufactured goods and
luxuries. It finally addresses the role played by women in one of the most important Western
European capital cities during the mid-eighteenth century.
Gillian Crosby, Nottingham Trent University, UK
The Folly of Our Women: Female Roles in the Clandestine Chintz Trade in France, 1686-1759
The clothing trade in the early modern period was the livelihood of many women - seamstresses,
embroiderers, second-hand clothing sellers and pedlars of novelties – so, naturally, they were
involved in the vogue for printed calicoes which swept through Europe in the seventeenth century,
when gaily coloured, light cottons were introduced from Asia. In France, the trade was considered a
threat to the textile industries, and although the government prohibited the printing and importing
of printed fabrics in 1686, it struggled for seventy years to enforce the ban. Women could have the
prohibited fabrics stripped from their backs, while dealing in chintz invited fines and confiscation,
and involvement in smuggling could result in exile, or even death. This paper will examine the
essential role of women in the underground market as the principal retailers, at considerable
personal risk, of the clandestine goods. The dichotomy of being the intermediaries supplying the
ladies of the nobility (who continually flouted the laws), while unable to wear the garments
themselves, will be discussed. Using examples from contemporary prosecutions, the paper will
propose that women were excessively persecuted, suffering public humiliation and hardship due to
the widely held belief that the detrimental trade, and its negative impact on the economy, was the
direct result of women’s ‘foolish folly’ for the fashion. The paper will develop the hypothesis that
women not only had their personal freedom limited by the severe sumptuary restrictions, but that
they suffered disproportionately for their part in the trade.
Francesco Vianelo, University of Padua, Italy
Common People Silk: Silk Goods in Low-status women Dowries in Sixteenth to Eighteenth-Century
Mainland Venice
Silk was the main export from early modern Italy and its production grew steadily from the fifteenth
to the nineteenth centuries. As the output of silk threading and throwing increased, so too did the
volume of silk waste and second-rate silk available for the production of cheap fabrics, such as
shawls, handkerchiefs and haberdashery. However, the spreading of these goods did not follow
closely the trend of silk production: almost absent from probate inventories of lower class people in
the late sixteenth century, they became fairly common in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth
century. This paper aims to investigate the timing and modes of the appropriation of silk waste
fabrics by lower-class women in the Venice dominions between the late sixteenth and the early
eighteenth century. Dowry inventories are more common and richer in detail than probate
inventories and they allow the singling out of goods belonging to a specific group of individuals.
Using dowry inventories it will be possible to compare changes in second-rate silk consumption
between urban, agrarian and proto-industrial contexts during the early modern period.
Session 7. Shaping the New
Elisa Tosi Brandi, University of Bologna, Italy
Tailoring in the Middle Ages and the Skills to Shaping the Body
Since the Middle Ages, tailors have managed to find ways to shape male and female bodies. Firstly,
by increasing the cloth with a gherone (a piece of tissue of triangular shape), then by looking for a
method to overlap cloths. From the fourteenth century, Europe witnessed the emergence of a new
clothing system based on short dresses and tight fitting garments, which affected the male wardrobe
and the female wardrobe in part. The techniques invented and developed by medieval tailors were
surprising and included new methods of cutting. Unfortunately, written sources do not state exactly
the cutting methods applied, and the statutes of guilds and the cities and the inventories of shops
are of little help. Only from the sixteenth century do we begin to see useful sources, with designs cut
(“Il libro del sarto”). Eventually the first book appears, written by the tailor Juan de Alcega
(“Geometria pratica y traca”). Some material sources of the fifteenth century, however, allow us to
understand the cutting methods invented by tailors in the Middle Ages to meet the demands of an
increasingly descerning clientele. This paper uses written and material sources from medieval Italy to
show that tailors already possessed technical knowledge, as suggested in the past by scholars such as
Janet Arnold.
Pernilla Rasmussen, Lund University, Sweden
Tradition and Development in Cutting and Construction Methods for Women’s Fashionable Dress,
c. 1750-1830
This paper focuses on methods for cutting and constructing women’s fashionable dress during the
late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. I argue for the existence of two different traditions
for the organisation of the tailoring trade corresponding with two different traditions for the
manufacture of female fashionable clothes in Europe during this period. Differing conditions for the
craft’s organisation were significant for manufacturing techniques and the possibilities for technical
development. This had particular consequences in the field of female fashion. It seems that the
French and English seamstresses’ manufacturing techniques involved simpler methods of both
cutting and sewing, whereas the guild tailors in Sweden, belonging by tradition to the German artisan
sphere, showed vigorous development in both processes during the eighteenth century. With
handbooks on tailoring and preserved garments as main sources, the paper identifies different
cutting methods available during the period and shows that cutting systems for female clothing
developed in parallel with systems for men’s clothing in the German area. Systems built on
proportion and grading are highlighted as the oldest theory used for women’s clothing and prove to
be well known among Swedish tailors. The different working-methods left traces in the costumes
that can be studied. The paper gives examples of how tailors and seamstresses interpreted the ruling
fashions in the light of the different competences of their trades. It highlights the mutual influence
between manufacturing techniques, organisation within the fashionable trades and changes in
fashion.
Hilary Doda, Dalhousie University, Canada
“Saide Monstrous Hose”: Compliance, Transgression and English Sumptuary Legislation
Sumptuary law in early modern England has been thought of as something of a ‘dead letter,’
legislation put into place for political reasons that neither demanded nor received any followthrough. Material studies show that this is not the case. Rather than directly oppose the legislation,
the English middling classes and lower gentry, particularly, subverted the intentions of the Acts of
Apparel through innovations in dress that carried the same message as those forbidden symbols of
wealth and elite status. In examining some wording patterns in the Henrician and previous Acts of
Apparel alongside material evidence from archaeological sites, wills and inventories, patterns
emerge. These suggest not only a strong desire amongst the English populace to engage in the coded
discussions possible through the symbol systems of clothing and fashion, but a pull towards
exploration of new forms and new symbolic coding which undermined the original legal intent. The
issue of enforcement has long been the key to understanding not only the impact of the sumptuary
laws but the purpose and intent behind them. The evidence suggests that English sumptuary law was
an important form of legislation that filled an openly discussed social need. The progressive
iterations of sumptuary law were refinements reacting to open loopholes and shifting extremes of
fashion. Borderline transgressions pushed the limits, and in the end the outward appearance of
compliance masked a potent form of social and structural conversation.
Tiina Kuokkanen, University of Oulu, Finland
Clothing According to the Sumptuary Laws? Dress Accessories in Early Modern Oulu
In this paper I will examine how sumptuary laws impacted on the dress of men and women in the
early modern town of Oulu. In early-modern Sweden clothing was regulated through sumptuary
laws, which were especially strict in the mid-eighteenth century. The kind of clothing considered
decent was dependent on social class. Dressing against the law was also quite common amongst
lower classes. Models of dress and fabrics were especially under strict control, but people could also
express themselves via accessories. In this presentation the focus is on addressing small dressrelated items such as buttons and buckles. Following the methods of historical archaeology, my
sources consist of both archaeological assemblages and written sources. The archaeological material
examined is excavated from the Pikisaari site, which is dated from the seventeenth to nineteenth
centuries. It is a small island near the city centre and a contemporary industrial area of Oulu. The
assemblage includes approximately 150 artefacts. My historical sources consist of the probate
inventories of Oulu inhabitants from 1722 to 1776. In a Finnish context this approach to historical
archaeology is quite new. The aim of this paper is also to show what kind of new information the
synthesis of archaeological and historical sources can produce about early-modern clothing.
Session 8. Between New and Old
Patricia Te Arapo Wallace, University of Canterbury, New Zealand
The Rise and Demise of the Kahu Kuri – the Indigenous Maori Dog-Skin Cloak
Prior to European contact, New Zealand was a land without the usual textile resources of the
Western world; no linen or cotton, no sheep or goats, or similar quadrupeds. The eastern Polynesian
ancestors of the Māori people had been accustomed to wearing bark cloth and plaiting coconut and
pandanus leaves in their tropical homelands. Now they had to find alternative materials to meet
their clothing needs in New Zealand’s cooler, temperate climate. Fibre from the indigenous
Phormium tenax became a prime resource that could be supplemented with bird, seal or kurī skins
(skins of the Polynesian dog) that were used in diverse ways. In 1769, when British and French
expeditions first arrived in New Zealand, their members quickly recognised that the kahu kurī or dogskin cloak they saw worn by various tribal chiefs was a highly prestigious Māori garment.
Fortunately, they were successful in trading some, because traditional practice of that time did not
customarily retain such items. But while some scholars have perceived ‘fashion’ to be non-existent
in indigenous cultures, ethnic styles of dress are not static. This paper will show how graphic and
archaeological evidence, combined with oral tradition, establishes that even before the explorers
arrived the kahu kurī had already undergone a variety of innovative changes in design, materials and
form, that necessitated differing technologies. The changes would continue. Within 100 years of their
coming, by the mid-nineteenth century the kurī was gone.
Daria Radchenko, Independent Scholar, Moscow, Russia
Dressing the Army: Imported Cloths for Moscow Streltsy in the Seventeenth Century
The paper analyses the supply of one of the key Russian infantry forces in the seventeenth century –
the Moscow Streltsy regiments – with cloth for uniform production. Throughout the century the
Streltsy performed both military and court functions, and their loyalty to the throne was carefully
maintained through relatively high payment, a number of privileges and “natural” support with food
and cloth. The purchase of imported cloths for uniform production, clothes for special occasions and
awards required a significant annual budget, and developing a balance between quality and costs
was a constant issue. The paper shows the order of purchase and distribution of the cloth and
analyses the types of cloth which were found appropriate for Streltsy, from English (e.g. nastrofil) to
Central European cloths (amburskie sukna, lyatschina, karmazin, etc). The findings on their quality,
price and route to market based on customs documents, trade instructions, etc, allow us to define a
number of Russian textile terms and give detailed characteristics to the corresponding textiles both
as material objects and signs of prestige in seventeenth-century Russia.
Bjørn Sverre Hol Haugen, Hedmark County Museum, Norway
Practices of Dress among 18th Century Norwegian Farmers
Many Norwegian museums have in their collections an eye-catching variation of clothes from
eighteenth-century rural areas. Among homespun woollen and imported silks, a huge amount of
bright, shiny and colourful cloths made with worsted attract our attention. During the second part of
the eighteenth century, these woollen textiles became extraordinarily popular among rich Norwegian
farmers. At the same time, they became unfashionable in England. Imported as fabrics and made
into fashionable cuts, British textiles “fashioned” Norwegian farmers. In my ongoing PhD research,
these worsted fabrics are used as primary source material. They are found in clothes in Norwegian
Museum collections and as small textile pieces in several English sample books. Using these material
remains, I examine dress practices in Norwegian rural areas in the last decades of the eighteenth
century. This paper therefore considers ‘practices’ of clothing. More specifically, I focus on how
corsets, stays and waistcoats ’make’ bodies. According to Merlau-Ponty (1962) and newer theories
on materialization (Asdal, Brenna and Moser, 2001; Kragelund and Otto, 2005; Damsholt, Simonsen
and Mordhorst 2009), perceptual consciousness is not just a matter of thought about the world, but
also bodily presence and bodily orientation in relation to it. To this phenomenological approach, I
add the materiality of clothing and clothes as extensions of the material body. I investigate what
clothing actually does to bodies and vice versa. I show how clothes support, display and protect in a
material sense, as well as how they are entangled with people’s consciousness. In this cultural
encounter of specialized British textile production and Norwegian dress practices, I argue that
textiles exert agency. My aim is to reveal how this entanglement of materiality and mind is
advantageous in understanding dress practices in early modern Norway.
Session 9. Innovation, Technology and Mechanisation
Tracey Griffiths, University of Melbourne, Australia
Colour Trends in Sixteenth-Century Venice
This paper, focusing on colour as an aspect of clothing consumption, derives from doctoral
research that I am currently undertaking on the uses and meanings of colours in renaissance
Venetian clothing. The primary evidence for the paper comes from a collection of household
inventories held in the Venetian state archives. These documents, drawn up by notaries, provide
itemised lists of garments, generally noting colours and fabrics, and sometimes also details such as
stripes or embroidery. Spanning the sixteenth century, these inventories differ from many of the
sources available for histories of clothing in this period, in that they cover a broad social range,
including households headed by widows, manual labourers, artisans, physicians and
ducal
secretaries, as well as patricians. Additionally, they document everyday wear as well as outfits
reserved for special occasions. On the basis of these records, the paper will explore the colours worn
by sixteenth century Venetians, and how these changed over the course of the century. It aims
especially to develop an understanding of dynamics behind these changes by examining a range of
potential influences, such as technical innovations in dyeing, access to new dyestuffs,
changing colour fashions, the costs of dyeing in different colours and shades, and the
association of certain colours with particular social groups or emotional states.
Ruth Gilbert, Independent Scholar, Marsden, UK
The Development of Hand-knitting Technology in Britain in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth
Centuries: Evidence from Surviving Garments
The change in what was produced by hand knitters in the early-modern period has been largely
overshadowed the extraordinary machine made by William Lee, but is almost more impressive. A
technology is defined as a set of tools, materials and techniques used by a person, and is therefore a
cultural construct. One as ‘simple’ as that of hand knitting implies a great degree of understanding
and skill among practitioners, and their choice of action will depend on their circumstances. New
knitting knowledge, shown by increasing technical sophistication, was presumably disseminated in
response to a demand for fashionable garments, but without the formal guild organisation found in
mainland Europe, how was that spread achieved? There is documentary evidence for knitting during
the early modern period in Britain, but not for the way knitting was done. The only way of knowing
how garments were made, demonstrating what the knitters knew how to do, is to study those that
have survived. One problem facing this research is the tendency to assign a date or place of origin to
artefacts on the basis of their technique without corroborating evidence, which produces selfreinforcing feedback loops without factual foundation. A knitted garment can be read as instructions
for its own replication, and there is even an ‘origin myth’ from the late sixteenth century that
embodies this idea. However, it is important that the knitters are credited with creativity as well as
technical skill.
Laurel Ann Wilson, Fordham University, USA
Men Weave with their Feet: The Impact of the Foot-powered Loom on Medieval Society
The eleventh-century appearance of the horizontal pedal loom was a crucial technological innovation
in Western society. Increasing productivity threefold as well as enabling the production of sturdier
cloth in longer lengths, the new technology triggered the growth of proto-industrial cloth production,
the so-called grande industrie of the Middle Ages. The relationship of the grande industrie to the
Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages and the resulting effects of commercialization on
European society have been thoroughly investigated by scholars such as Richard Britnell and John H.
Munro. But the advent of the new looms had many other repercussions, equally significant but less
obvious, which have largely been ignored. For example, earlier looms were simple constructions with
no moving parts; far more skill was required to build a horizontal loom, along with many more parts
and accessories such as reels, swifts, bobbin winders, warping boards, raddles, reeds, harnesses and
heddles, suspended beaters, ratchet brakes. The grande industrie thus involved more than just
weaving and finishing: an entire complex of new crafts, tools, and skills emerged to service the new
weaving technology, influencing changes in guild proliferation, social organization, gender relations,
and class structure. Further, many of the new implements, such as swifts and reeds, became
instruments of standardization, ensuring that goods could be repeatedly produced to a controlled
standard set by a municipality or guild. Standardization is needed for widespread commercialization,
and it played a large part in the development of a fashion system, and yet this pivotal change in
technology has been all but ignored by historians. I hope conferences such as this one can begin to
change that.
Session 10. Global Markets and Global Consumers
Beverly Lemire, University of Alberta, Canada
English Mariners, Plebeian Consumerism and New Worlds of Fashion in an Era of Global Trade, c.
1600-1800
Between 1600 and 1800, European ships carried key commodities from Asia, Africa and the Americas
as part of widening global commerce. As merchant fleets grew, so too did the numbers of seamen.
Some went to sea out of custom; others like Edward Barlow had “no great mind to country work,”
liking instead tales of “travels and of strange things in other countries.” Barlow (1642-1706) sought
his fortune as a mariner. The lives of deep-sea sailors were typified by recurring dangers and distinct
nautical skills, as well as routine cross-cultural engagements and a unique sagacity that came with
long-distance travel. Marcus Rediker named the 18th-century seaman a “Man of the World.”
Rediker, like most historians of this group, examined conditions of work. But, mariners’ wider cultural
influences deserve close study. These men enjoyed distinctive access to foreign commodities, which
mariners bought, traded and gifted as fortune allowed, intermediaries in networks of interpersonal
consumption and style that criss-crossed the globe. Equally significant were the modes of clothing
they crafted that set them apart from all “landsmen” or other plebeian groups, contributing to a new
material lexicon of male dress. Ballads and broadsides, wills and journals reveal mariners’ unique
importance as agents of plebeian male fashions. Using English case studies, this paper contributes
new analyses of mariners’ catalyst roles in the evolution of male consumer practice, influences that
penetrated through early modern Europe and beyond.
Hanna Hodacs, University of Warwick, UK
Colours in Abundance and Bundles: The Sale of Chinese Silk Textiles at the Scandinavian East India
Company’s Auctions
In this paper I discuss Chinese silk textiles (e.g. Damask, Taffeta and Paduasoy) for sale at the
Scandinavian East India Company’s auctions (from the 1730s and onwards). I will primarily discuss
the textiles imported by the Danish and Swedish companies but I will also include some comparisons
with the other European companies' assortments. I will particularly focus on the descriptions and
references to colours in some of the remaining sales catalogues: what can we learn from the names
of colours used? Did names/references vary between different companies? Did the differentiation of
colours increase over time, or did some colours disappear while others were added? I will also
discuss the compilation of colours in different lots/bundles of textile for sale: what was the relation
between the variations of colours in a lot for sale and the price it achieved? One overall ambition of
the paper is to illuminate the role of the Scandinavian companies in providing consumers at home
and in other European countries with silk textiles: can an approach focusing on colours help
understand the European market for Chinese silk and the existence of national variations? The paper
is a result of research conducted within the ERC project 'Europe’s Asian Centuries: Trading Eurasia
1600-1830', based at the University of Warwick.
Session 11. Markets, Actors, and the State
Lili-Annè Aldman, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Markets for New Textiles in Seventeenth and Eighteenth-Century Sweden
Before 1600, the range of fabrics available on the Swedish market was small. During the seventeenth
century and then again in the eighteenth, the textile import businesses saw two customer-driven
booms, both lasting several decades. Not only did the Swedish customers buy far more fabric than
before, they also wanted more variety in what they bought. Most of all they wanted new textiles
such as the ”new draperies”. It did not matter if the fabrics were cotton, linen or woollen - quality
mattered just as much as price. People went to court over these matters, and people were killed over
them. So who were these new customers? What fabrics were they asking for and were there any
differences in demand between regions in Sweden? Why hadn't they been buying these fabrics
before? In this paper I will discuss these questions and explain why import bans were adopted in
Sweden, and why these bans mattered so little during the seventeenth century. This paper also
discusses how these new fabrics reached customers mostly living in rural areas. Using import data,
court documents, letters, accounts and proceedings from local institutions I try to paint a picture of
the ‘textile events’ of the 1600s and 1700s.
Marguerite Martin, University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne, France
Negotiating Quality in the Dyeing Industry: Dyers, French State and Blue Textiles during the
Eighteenth Century
Although the history of clothing has yielded a large number of studies, the history of the dyeing
industry has received less attention in the past. This paper provides some reflections on how the
French state tried to foster innovation and control quality in the dyeing industry, by studying the case
of indigo and woad dyed textiles (especially woollen and silk cloth). In this paper I would like to point
out that quality was always negotiated between the state, dyers, dyers’ guilds and colonial planters.
The Bureau du Commerce, the Inspection des manufactures and the Académie des sciences tried to
improve the quality of blue dyestuffs used in the dyeing industry, mainly by supervising production in
the colonies and developing chemical research to purify indigo. In order to improve dyeing
techniques, the state called for innovation in dyeing processes with or without indigo and tried to
diffuse the new techniques amongst dyers and manufacturers. The cloth industry (especially the
woollen industry) was controlled by Colbert’s regulations governing the quality of the products
(which has often been analyzed as discouraging change and innovation). Such rules were also set in
the dyeing industry, separating the bon and the petit teint, depending on the quality of dyestuffs &
the stability of the colour that was created. The quality of the dyes was thus also controlled a
posteriori as part of an attempt to control the quality of cloth.
Anna Brismark, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Pia Lundqvist, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Jewish Manufacturers in Gothenburg and their Renewal of Textile Production
The 1830s have been singled out as the decade in which the Swedish consumer goods market really
started to expand. At this time, major cotton textile production was established in Gothenburg and
the rest of western Sweden. A small group of immigrant Jewish producers played an important role
in this development. Their production of textiles, especially calicoes, was a starting point for the
cotton industry. Through co-operation with Swedish peddlers, Jewish merchants succeeded in
spreading their goods to customers all over the country. In our paper, we will present some of the
results of our current project entitled ‘Jewish web of textiles and trade’, which aims to investigate
the Jewish minority in Gothenburg in the early nineteenth century, focusing on its role in textile
production and trade. We discuss how the Jewish entrepreneurs adapted their production to
consumer demand, with examples from two calico printing companies that were highly successful in
the 1820s (Reis & Magnusson and Pineus), and a weaving mill (Fürstenberg), which produced modern
cotton and wool fabrics from the 1830s. The impact that the Jewish group had on the growth of the
consumer goods market is consistent with international research, but this has not received much
attention in the Swedish context. It is, however, evident that Jews were involved in the industries
that were prominent in the process of economic modernization in Sweden during the first half of the
nineteenth century.
Session 12. Product and Process Innovation
Andrea Caracausi, University of Padua, Italy
Small Innovation, Big Transformation: Italian Ribbons between Global and Local Markets
During the early-modern period innovation in most sectors was conceived mainly as product
innovation, even when new production processes were involved. The central role of the demand side
implied also a strict connection between technological and fashion changes, the first being marked as
much as affecting the second. In this perspective, the complementarities between importsubstituting imitation, and process and product innovation becomes clearer. Moreover, the
application of innovative products and items required adaptations as well as radical transformations,
including product designs, knowledge transmission, organization of production, and, last but not
least, branding strategies. This paper aims to understand the contribution of normally forgotten
segments in early modern clothes and clothing production: ribbon manufacturing. Since the late
Renaissance, trimmings and ribbons became fashionable garments in both clothing and home
interiors. Beyond their apparent simplicity, they included a fantastical variety of patterns and
products that reflected highly marked segmentation for ‘luxury’ and non-luxury consumers as well as
gendered products. Moreover these items were commercialized both through local and longdistance trade, being exchanged with non-European products (sugar, pepper and silk). They became
global products able to connect different parts of the world. While Italian cities reached a position of
leadership between sixteenth and early seventeenth century, the ‘long’ eighteenth century opened
the competition to other European manufactures, affecting manufacturing strategies and innovative
processes. This paper will show continuity and changes in Italian ribbon manufacturing during the
early modern period, mainly in opposition to the growing European competition in the local and
global markets. In the first part I will investigate demand and product changes, as well as the
evolution of consumption patterns and the creation of “ready-made” fashions and trading marks. In
the second part I will consider the organization of production and labour composition, showing the
complexities of these forms that included both guild and non-guild based institutions. The third and
fourth part will discuss product and process innovation, analyzing the role of guilds or States in
blocking or favouring these processes. Finally, I will consider the implication of the relation between
technological innovation and local contexts in a broader, comparative perspective.
Kirstie Buckland, The Knitting History Forum, UK
‘A Sign of Some Degree’, The Mystery of Capping
Caps and cappers played significant roles in poems, proverbs and pageants from the 13th century
until 16th century legislation tried to protect the manufacture. The decline of the ‘craft, trade or
science’ which had formerly employed 8,000 people in London – “twice as many in the land beside” threatened to increase poverty and crime. Enforcing the wearing of woollen caps was intended to
keep the country’s knitters in work and out of trouble. Numerous capping statutes controlled prices
and quality; the use of ‘cloth yarn’ was a ‘deceitful practice’. In many cities cappers’ guilds were
sufficiently prosperous to contribute to the Corpus Christi pageants – they later endowed
manufactories and became prosperous burgesses, aldermen, and mayors. Most surviving woollen
caps are knitted, fulled, raised and shorn; some show traces of their dyes. Many museum specimens
came from an early 20th century London excavation, but others are found in small provincial border
towns, in Scotland, Ireland or shipwrecks such as Henry VIII’s warship, the ‘Mary Rose’. Fifteen
distinct callings are listed in their manufacture, and a 1422 ‘capknytter’ provides an early reference
to knitting in Britain. They amalgamated with cardmakers, wiredrawers and pinners; were forbidden
to use ‘web yarn’ or to make ‘any caps of any cloth not knit’. They struggled to survive as fashions
changed in the late 16th century, and were protected by government intervention under Queen
Elizabeth.
Lena Dahrén, Uppsala University, Sweden
Pricked Patterns as Innovation in the Development and Production of Bobbin-Made Edgings for
Accessories of Clothing in the Early Modern Period
Important innovations for development and change within textile and clothing production quickly
make us think of the spinning wheel, the Jacquard loom and the sewing machine. This paper would
like to draw the attention to something much less obvious - the “invention” of a printed or drawn
pattern or ‘pricking’ as the basis for bobbin-made borders and edgings. I believe this was an
important factor in the development of such work as an accessory to costume in early modern
fashionable dress. In this paper I argue that the significance of this innovation is shown by the
changes in form and complexity of bobbin-made edgings. My argument is supported by the study of
pictures as well as surviving borders and edgings made of gold and silver. As there are almost no
surviving early tools for bobbin-made work, the sources for this study are the early pattern books
Nüw Modelbuch (Zurich, 1561) and Le Pompe, (Venice, 1557 1557 and 1559) and paintings or
engravings made before 1620. My evaluation of these is based on personal knowledge and
experience in the use of the free-hand lace technique that is preserved on “the outskirts of Europe”,
for example, in the county of Dalarna in central Sweden where the old traditions have been passed
down through the centuries from generation to generation.
Philip Sykas, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK & Pasold
Damasking by Hot Rolls: The Impressed Worsteds of the Eighteenth Century
The proposed paper falls under the topic of “product and process innovation in the production of
cloth.” It presents the invention (or re-invention) of impressed worsteds in England during the
1690s. These fabrics, known as harateen and cheney, found use as hard-wearing furnishings,
especially bed-hangings, curtains, and directly upholstered chair covers. The paper first traces the
technical processes involved in their production. This was an invention that required bringing
together knowledge and skills in brass and iron working, coal mining, engraving and worsted
weaving. Details of the technique are known through an attempt at piracy in the early eighteenth
century, and the eventual migration of the technique to northern France in mid-century where it was
documented in the Encyclopédie Méthodique. Evidence is then presented from an exploration of
household inventories and study of surviving examples. This informs us about the use, importance,
and appearance of these textiles in British and North American interiors. The decline in fashion for
worsteds at the end of the eighteenth century left these fabrics subject to recycling and to the
depredation of moths. They have had a poor survival rate and are presently little known compared
with other early modern textiles. Yet they represent a key industrial milestone as the first instance of
continuous roller printing. This presentation will present current knowledge of surviving examples
and it is hoped this may elicit further identifications, especially outside Britain, that will add to our
understanding of both production and markets.
Session 13. Dress and Social Hierarchies
Cecilia Aneer, Uppsala University, Sweden
The King’s Lining Makes the Servant’s Shirt: A Hierarchy of Materials and their Uses at the Swedish
Royal Court c. 1600-1640
The records from the production of clothing at the Swedish royal court during the late Vasa dynasty
list more than fifty different kinds of fabrics used for garments. These silks, woollens, linens and
mixed cloths can be traced through a series of documents from the point they are entered in the
court records until they are handed out to be made up into garments. Through systematic
comparisons of data from accounts, warrants, bills and inventories, it is possible to chart each
material’s specific area of use and how this changed over time. Some materials used for the most
prominent garments of fashionable dress of the sixteenth century, by the seventeenth century were
used for undergarments, or fell completely out of fashion. The fabrics used for dress can be
organised according to economic value, as is often the case in the inventories from the period, but
they also seem to have held a fashionable and social hierarchy that was not always related to their
prices. This can be seen where they were used in the garments and how this differed according to
the rank of the wearer. This paper will discuss specific areas of use for different qualities of fabrics
and how these differed over time. It will also examine how some materials were used in one way in
the royal garments and another in the clothing for servants and other staff at the court.
Corinne Thepaut-Cabasset, V&A, UK
Dressing the Elite. New Fashion Networks Throughout Europe at the End of the Seventeenth
Century
Louis XIV’s period was a sparkling age for fashion consumption in Paris. Encouraged by the minister
Colbert, an economic strategy evolved as innovation and creation developed in royal manufactures.
The early modern period can be considered from many aspects as the opening of a new economic
and international frame for fashionable goods. The aim of this paper is to present new patterns of
consumption in early modern fashion, through the connection of the merchants and political
networks. Foreign agents and ambassadors posted in Paris were purchasing new garments,
accessories and other various luxury goods for their various princes. They ordered complete sets of
garments and shipped them abroad. This research is based on analysis of state archives in Paris,
Munich and Stockholm related to politics and fashion (i.e. diplomats’ letters and personal papers - as
receipts and invoices - and political correspondence). The merchant and the political agent are key
persons for fashion merchandising and industry making; they played an authentic role in developing
new ways for the trade and dissemination of fashion goods. This paper will examine the different
business strategies and the creative processes for the development of new products by merchants. It
will also study the dynamics of the political network of foreign agents as elite fashion consumers, and
how they contributed to disseminate French taste and fashion throughout Europe, extending the
territory of trade for the Parisian merchants. Finally it will highlight this network as a new space of
sociability for highly ranked persons, and the creation of a flourishing business.
Eva Deak, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary
Transylvanian Noblemen Buying Cloths in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century
“I bought so many nice things, maybe you will beat me for it” - wrote Mihály Teleki, a Transylvanian
nobleman to his wife, Judit Veér, while he was on a diplomatic mission in Prešov (Eperjes) in 1669.
Purchasing quality textiles and other materials for clothing – such as fur or precious stones – was not
only a question of money in the Principality of Transylvania in the early modern period. Luxury goods
were scarce: they were imported or bought from abroad. Aristocratic men travelled more often than
women - for Diets, diplomatic missions or military campaigns, and they readily used these
opportunities for shopping. Aristocrats only occasionally bought ready-to-wear clothes; their
garments were custom-tailored in most cases. Making elegant clothes for members of the nobility
was a long process in which the future owner was usually involved. The actual involvement of a
person in the process of dressmaking depended not only on socially accepted gender roles but also
on their individual interest. Prince Michael Apafi (1661-90), however, was criticized because he “did
not have any inclination to take care of horses, weapons, costumes and economics.” My paper
examines the attitude of aristocratic men and women towards buying clothes and the preparation of
this clothing. The most important sources are personal documents: letters, memoirs or diaries
written by Transylvanian aristocrats – members of the Apor, Bethlen and Teleki families - in this
period.
Eva Andersson, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Clothing consumption in 16th and 17th Century Stockholm
Probates and divisions of inheritance are among the few sources available regarding clothing
consumption in early-modern Sweden. They are especially relevant because they show consumption
in the social strata that are usually absent in Swedish sources. The probates thus cover a social
spectrum from very rich burghers and nobility down to manual workers in workshops. While not all
of the probates list clothing, many do, and a variety of domestic and imported materials can be
found. The probates include both men and women, but while the material is too small for a
quantitative study of gender differences, this paper discusses the amount and value of the clothing
and which materials and colours were worn by either sex. Another source for the clothing
consumption of the middle and lower classes in this period is the magistrate records of Stockholm.
The results from the survey will also be related to Swedish sumptuary laws of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. It is impossible to state if the sumptuary laws were adhered to, but a
tentative conclusion on whether the forbidden luxury materials were in more widespread use or if
the legislators were acting more on a perceived than an actual “problem”, may be drawn. This is
especially important for the sumptuary laws of 1664, where separate versions were issued for three
of the four estates.