This is the first book to describe the early English woollens' industry and its dominance of the trade in quality cloth across Europe by the mid-sixteenth century, as English trade was transformed from dependence on wool to value-added woollen cloth. It compares English and continental draperies, weighs the advantages of urban and rural production, and examines both quality and coarse cloths. Rural clothiers who made broadcloth to a consistent high quality at relatively low cost, Merchant Adventurers who enjoyed a trade monopoly with the Low Countries, and Antwerp's artisans who finished cloth to customers' needs all eventually combined to make English woollens unbeatable on the continent.

This is the first book to describe the early English woollens' industry and its dominance of the trade in quality cloth across Europe by the mid-sixteenth century, as English trade was transformed from dependence on wool to value-added woollen cloth. It compares English and continental draperies, weighs the advantages of urban and rural production, and examines both quality and coarse cloths. Rural clothiers who made broadcloth to a consistent high quality at relatively low cost, Merchant Adventurers who enjoyed a trade monopoly with the Low Countries, and Antwerp's artisans who finished cloth to customers' needs all eventually combined to make English woollens unbeatable on the continent.

The best new research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a range of disciplines. Topics in this volume range widely throughout the European middle ages. Three contributions concern terminology for dress. Two deal with multicultural medieval Apulia: an examination of clothing terms in surviving marriage contracts from the tenth to the fourteenth century, and a close focus on an illuminated document made for a prestigious wedding. Turning to Scandinavia, there is an analysis of clothing materials from Norway and Sweden according to gender and social distribution. Further papers consider the economic uses of cloth and clothing: wool production and the dress of the Cistercian community at Beaulieu Abbey based on its 1269-1270 account book, and the use of clothing as pledge or payment in medieval Ireland. In addition, there is a consideration of the history of dagged clothing and its negative significance to moralists, and of the painted hangings that were common in homes of all classes in the sixteenth century. ROBIN NETHERTON is a professional editor and a researcher/lecturer on the interpretation of medieval European dress; GALE R. OWEN-CROCKER is Emerita Professor of Anglo-Saxon Culture at the University of Manchester. Contributors: Antonietta Amati, Eva I. Andersson, John Block Friedman, Susan James, John Oldland, Lucia Sinisi, Mark Zumbuhl

The best new research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a range of disciplines. This year's volume focuses largely on the British Isles, with papers on dress terms in the Middle English Pearl; a study of a thirteenth-century royal bride's trousseau, based on unpublished documents concerning King HenryIII's Wardrobe; an investigation into the "open surcoat" referenced in the multilingual texts of late medieval England; and, based on customs accounts, a survey of cloth exports from late medieval London and the merchants who profited from them. Commercial trading of cloth is also the subject of a study of fifteenth-century brokers' books, revealing details of types, designs, and regulation of the famous silks from Lucca, Italy. Another paper focuseson art, reconsidering the incidence of frilled veils in the Low Countries and adopting an innovative means of analysis to question the chronology, geographical diversity, and social context of this style. 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: Benjamin L.Wild, Isis Sturtewagen, Kimberly Jack, Mark Chambers, Eleanor Quinton, John Oldland, Christine Meek

The best new research on medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a range of disciplines and with a special focus on reconstruction. The third volume of this pioneering series explores the manufacture and trade of textiles and their practical, fashionable, and symbolic uses. Papers include in-depth studies and cross-genre scholarship representing such fields associal history, economics, art history, archaeology and literature, as well as the reconstruction of textile-making techniques. They range over England, Flanders, France, Germany, and Spain from the seventh to the sixteenth centuries, and address such topics as soft furnishings, ecclesiastical vestments, the economics of the wool trade, the making and use of narrow wares, symbolic reference to courtly dress in a religious text, and aristocratic children'sclothing. Also included are reviews of recent books on dress and textile topics. ROBIN NETHERTON is a professional editor and a researcher/lecturer on Western European dress, specializing in the depiction and interpretation of clothing by artists and historians. GALE R. OWEN-CROCKER is Professor of Anglo-Saxon Culture at The University of Manchester and author of Dress in Anglo-Saxon England; she is the Director of an ARHC-fundedproject on cloth and clothing terminology in medieval Britain. CONTRIBUTORS: ELIZABETH COATSWORTH, SARAH LARRATT KEEFER, SUSAN LEIBACHER WARD, JOHN H. MUNRO, JOHN OLDLAN, LESLEY K. TWOMEY, ELIZABETH BENNS, LOIS SWALES, HEATHER BLATT, MELANIE SCHUESSLER