The best new research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a range of disciplines and with a special focus on reconstruction. The fourth volume of this landmark series features a special focus on headdress, with papers analysing women's turbans in fifteenth-century French manuscript paintings; the changing meaning of the term cuff; the spread of wimple from England to Southern Italy; and a surviving embroidered linen cap attributed to Saint Birgitta of Sweden. Northern European dress and textiles are further explored in papers on archaeological textiles from medieval towns in Finland, Norway, and Sweden; the construction of gowns excavated at Herjolfsnes, Greenland; and references to scarlet clothing in Icelandic sagas. Other papers focus on linen production in medieval Russia and an enigmatic quilt of Henry VIII's that almost certainly arrived in England as part of the dowry of Catherine of Aragon. Also included are reviews of recent books on clothing and textiles. ROBIN NETHERTON is a professional editor and a researcher/lecturer on the interpretation of medieval European dress; GALE R. OWEN-CROCKER is Professor of Anglo-Saxon Culture at the University of Manchester. Contributors: MARK CHAMBERS, CAMILLA LUISE DAHL, LISA EVANS, JOHN BLOCK FRIEDMAN, LENA HAMMARLUND, HEINI KIRJAVAINEN, ALEXANDRA M. LESTER, ROBIN NETHERTON, GALE R. OWEN-CROCKER, KATHRINE VESTERGARD PEDERSEN, HEIDI M. SHERMAN, LUCIA SINISI, ISIS STURTEWAGEN, MARIANNE VEDELER, ANNA ZANCHI

Studies in Medievalism is the only journal entirely devoted to modern re-creations of the middle ages: a field of central importance not only to scholarship but to the whole contemporary cultural world. The middle ages remain a prize to be fought for and a territory to control. From early modern times rulers and politicians have sought to ground their legitimacy in ancient tradition - which they have often invented or rewritten for their own purposes. This issue of Studies in Medievalism presents a number of such cases, ranging from the rewriting of Mozart, and Merovingian history, for the King of Bavaria, to the anglicization of the medieval WelshMabinogion by the wife of an English ironmaster. Other articles consider the involvement of scholarship with national and professional self-definition, whether in Renaissance Holland or Victorian Britain. And who "discovered" America, Christopher Columbus or Leif Ericsson? This is an issue of vital importance to many 19th-century Americans, but one created and determined entirely by scholarship. Simple commercial motives for exploiting the middle ages are also represented, whether straightforward forgery for sale, or the giant modern industry of tourism. Professor TOM SHIPPEY teaches in the Department of English at the University of St Louis; Dr MARTIN ARNOLD teaches at University College, Scarborough. Contributors: SOPHIE VAN ROMBURGH, ROLF H. BREMMER JR, BETSY BOWDEN, WERNER WUNDERLICH, JUDITH JOHNSTON, GERALDINE BARNES, RICHARD UTZ, JOHN BLOCK FRIEDMAN, STEVE WATSON.

During the Middle Ages, travelers in Africa and Asia reported that "monstrous races" thrived beyond the boundaries of the known world. John B. Friedman offers an introspective look at these races and their interaction with Western art, literature, and philosophy.