On Tue, 22 May 2007, michaela de bruce wrote: > > 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 ...
John's paper covered the 15th c. His research on the wool economy is very impressive -- he was John Munro's student and spends a lot of time in primary documents -- and I am inclined to trust his work. However, I don't remember this particular mention in his paper, as it was 20 minutes of very dense detail. (It will eventually be published, probably in an economics journal, though I wish we could get it! We do have another paper by him in the newly published volume of MC&T, though it does not mention buckram.) That said, another paper I'm editing now includes references from the Henry VIII inventory that mention quilts lined with "bockerame," and in discussions with the author we determined that the word clearly went through a number of meanings over several hundred years, given the uses in which it occurs. In the 16th c. it appears to have moved from being a fine fabric to a coarser or heavier one, and may have encompassed both those meanings simultaneously at some point. Most sources we found on 16th c. fabrics suggested it was linen or maybe cotton or maybe both. That doesn't mean the term wasn't used to mean a wool fabric in the 15th! So I think the only safe interpretation of a given reference would have to be closely focused in locale and time period. --Robin _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
