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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
The Mabinogion is the title given to a collection of eleven medieval Welsh tales. These are contained mainly in two manuscripts, The White Book of Rhydderch (Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS Peniarth 4–5), dated ca. 1350, and The Red Book of Hergest (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Jesus College 111), dated sometime between ca. 1382 and 1403, but fragments of individual tales also appear in earlier manuscripts.
The purpose of this article is to investigate the terms used for cloth and clothing in the above-mentioned tales and to discuss the relationships between the garments and their wearers, which the redactors of these tales exploit imaginatively to present the characters and to show their status in society. Since the tales of the Mabinogion are works of fiction rather than fact, the descriptions of cloth and clothing in them are not necessarily accurate descriptions of contemporary fashion, but could have been based on conventional formulae or simply on literary models from other sources. The milieu is aristocratic; therefore these tales describe mostly the dress of the upper echelons of society rather than that of ordinary people.
THE SOURCE MATERIAL
The Mabinogion collection consists of the following tales:
The so-called Four Branches of the Mabinogi, known individually as Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed; Branwen Daughter of Llŷr; Manawydan Son of Llŷr; and Math Son of Mathonwy. These tales, which have a very tenuous connection with one another, have their origin in mythology, and their final redaction is thought to be ca. 1060– 1120.
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