John Oldland, in a paper on the medieval woolen industry in England that he just gave at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, mentions buckram as a type of cheap woolen fabric.
I would be a bit surprised that buckram was wool in the 16thcC, especially given how often it was used to line gowns of an equivalent nature and similar time frame to those extant items lined in linen and silk in Patterns of Fashion. That said if he was doing research of a much earlier period (as indicated by the event he spoke at) I can see how the term would change over time and it would be interesting to track the changes over time and to find out when it came to mean a glue stiffened material only.
Do you have a reference from the 16th century that points to buckram as a fabric stiffened with glue? I'd be very interested.
Queen Mary's wardrobe accounts apparently mentions use of a paste buckram, it's listed in The Tudor Tailor with that reference. I tried searching Drea Leeds searchable version but it only lists buckram for the same item not that it is stiffened with paste. I wrote that it appears to have been specified when it was stiffened with glue as opposed to not, not that it was always a stiffened material. Sorry if that was a little unclear. http://books.google.com/books?id=W0elW6Yvji0C&pg=PA84&dq=past+buckeram http://books.google.com/books?id=ItsuAAAAMAAJ&pg=PR106&dq=Queen+Mary+wardrobe I'm having a hunt through these two, paste board is mentioned in the Revels books as well as fine black buckram. It also lists cotton and linen for lining so I would suppose buckram is a very specific kind of weave/weight/treatment etc. A lot of the buckram mentioned in the revels is bought in pieces too and in another book used for escuncheons while paste board was used for stars for decoration. http://books.google.com/books?id=ATISAAAAIAAJ&q=past+buckeram&dq=past+buckeram&pgis=1 Wow the revels book even specifies 56, 000 spangles used in one revel.... blimey. And now I'm going mad downloading these books to read at leisure over the next week or so when I can't be online too often. Oh one more: http://books.google.com/books?id=3X4Iybgb0BEC&pg=PA192&dq=bokeram Bokeram; Buckram a description of making it is in MS Sloan 73, f. 214 So that might be worthwhile looking up as well. I did a google search for it but couldn't find anything leading directly to it but it is probably in the British Library. Michaela de Bruce http://glittersweet.com _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
