Pages: 195-205
Miniatures of medieval European manuscripts are considered a valuable pictorial source on the 13th—15th centuries costume history. The particular question of the application of such natural materials as furs, feathers and flowers in a costume is investigated in this article. The author selected and analyzed fragments of miniatures giving an idea of which furs and feathers, how and in what quantities were used by representatives of different classes. A significant number of images of clothes and hats trimmed with fur were revealed, much less — on the use of feathers, and very few and extremely conventional — of flowers. This information is compared with documentary evidence and fragments from the Middle Ages literary works. The author comes to the conclusion that a great number of surviving manuscripts, many of which are currently available in digitized form, make it possible to collect a representative array of images that provide answers to the most frequent questions about the evolution of European costume in the Middle Ages.
Keywords: Western and Central Europe, Middle Ages, manuscript illustrations, pictorial sources, costume history, book illustration
Information about author:
Anna Zhabreva (Saint Petersburg, RussianFederation). Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences. The Russian Academy of Sciences Library. Birzhevaya Liniya St., 1, 199034, Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation.
E-mail: [email protected]