Introduction

As with the accounts extracted in the previous chapter, rolls of inventories, livery and other forms of medieval business writing provide an excellent source for the detailed naming of medieval clothing and textiles. Often the intent in such record-keeping is not just to keep an accurate record of who possessed or who received what, but to provide a precise description of the item or garment in question.

The three extracts which open the chapter are all drawn from the very detailed inventories of the medieval cathedral of St Paul in London, dating from the middle and later part of the thirteenth century and from the beginning of the fifteenth. The descriptive detail they provide of vestments, altar cloths, cathedral plate and so forth is exceptionally descriptive for the text type, and gives us a very vivid account of the cloth and clothing in the cathedral’s possession at the times of the inventories.

These are followed by a collection of extracts taken from the middle of a roll of liveries of Edward III for 1347–9. The extracts are noteworthy because they contain various items of dress and accoutrements for royal tournaments and celebrations, including some of the first references to the uniforms of the Order of the Garter, as well as costumes for ludi (pageants, entertainments) celebrated at Christmas.

Extracts from the inventories Three inventories of St Paul’s Cathedral

Inventories compiled in 1245, 1295 and 1402 list the treasures, including metalwork, books, vestments and soft furnishings, belonging to St Paul’s Cathedral, London. They testify to the vast quantities, the richness of fabric and the gold and jewelled ornament of the textiles owned by the cathedral. The first two inventories coincide with a period of expansion of the Norman cathedral (‘old St Paul’s’), the fourth to be built on the site, which was, by its completion in 1314, one of the largest in Europe, with a 400-foot spire and a magnificent rose window. In the 1530s King Henry VIII would begin confiscating church wealth and dissolving monasteries. About the same time more austere approaches to worship were advocated as a result of the Protestant Reformation, rendering outdated the medieval Church’s relics in their magnificent shrines, opulent furnishings and sumptuous vestments.