On Nov 1, 2008, at 3:40 AM, Viv Watkins wrote:
You might be interested in this book - although it covers a much wider period it has a good mediaeval section. I bought myself a copy of "Rayures. une histoire et des tissus rayes" because the illustrations were excellent and struggled through enough of the French to get the basic idea. I was then thrilled to find that a translation had been done "The Devil's Cloth: A History of Stripes and Striped Fabric" - much smaller book, far fewer illustrations and in black and white - I think the complete text but my French is really not good enough to say for sure. The French title is - Rayures: Une histoire des rayures et des tissus rayes by Michel Pastoureau ISBN 2020236664. Publisher Seuil (1995). It is out of print but Amazon has one copy available in the USA at £15.26. The translation is - The Devil's Cloth: A History of Stripes and Striped Fabric (European Perspectives: A Series in Social Thought and Cultural Criticism) ISBN 0231123663 . Columbia University Press (2001). Amazon has plenty of copies starting from £7.99.
Michel Pastoureau is a very entertaining writer, but tends to be a bit.... how shall I say this.... flamboyant? about some of what he says. I have a couple of his books, including _Blue: The History of a Color_ and right at the very beginning it contains some passages that appear to demonstrate that he either is not aware of, or is deliberately ignoring, some of the significant research on the cognitive history of color concepts (or so says the scholar who gave it to me).
____________________________________________________________ O Chris Laning <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> - Davis, California + http://paternoster-row.org - http://paternosters.blogspot.com ____________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
