First volume in new series dedicated to medieval clothing and textiles, drawing from a range of disciplines and with a special focus on reconstruction and re-enactment. The study of medieval clothing and textiles has aroused great attention in recent years, as part of the growing concern in material culture as a whole; apart from its own intrinsic interest, it has much to reveal about life at thetime. This exciting new series aims to offer all those interested in the subject the fruits of the best research in the area. Interdisciplinary in approach, it will feature work from the fields of social and economic history, history of techniques and technology, art history, archaeology, literary and non-literary texts, and language, while experimental reconstruction of medieval techniques or artifacts will also form a particular focus. The contents of each volume are selected to cover a broad geographical scope, as well as a range of periods from early medieval to the late Middle Ages. The journal also publishes short reviews of new books. Topics in this first volume include Anglo-Saxon embroidery; textiles and textile imagery in the Exeter Book; the tippet; the regulation of clerical dress; and evidence for dress and textiles in late medieval English wills. ROBIN NETHERTON is a costumehistorian. Her research focuses on Western European clothing between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries. GALE R. OWEN-CROCKER is Professor of Anglo-Saxon Culture, University of Manchester. She has a special interest in dress throughout the medieval period - she advises on dress entries to the Toronto Old English Dictionary and has consulted for many museums and television companies.

Text, with English translation in two formats, of all the Old Norse poetry attributed to women - skaldkonur. The rich and compelling corpus of Old Norse poetry is one of the most important and influential areas of medieval European literature. What is less well known, however, is the quantity of the material which can be attributed to women skalds. This book, intended for a broad audience, presents a bilingual edition (Old Norse and English) of this material, from the ninth to the thirteenth century and beyond, with commentary and notes. The poems here reflect the dramatic and often violent nature of the sagas: their subject matter features Viking Age shipboard adventures and shipwrecks; prophecies; curses; declarations of love and of revenge; duels, feuds and battles; encounters with ghosts; marital and family discord; and religious insults, among many other topics. Their authors fall into four main categories: pre-Christian Norwegian and Icelandic skaldkonur of the Viking Age; Icelandic skaldkonur of the Sturlung Age (thirteenth century); additional early skaldkonur from the Islendingasoegur and related material, not as historically verifiable as the first group; and mythical figures cited as reciting verse in the legendary sagas (fornaldarsoegur). Sandra Ballif Straubhaar is Senior Lecturer in Germanic Studies at the University of Texas at Austin.