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Durham E-Theses Durham E-Theses Dress, Identity and Visual Display: Self-Fashioning in Middle English Romance STAMATAKI, ALICE,CHRISTINA How to cite: STAMATAKI, ALICE,CHRISTINA (2018) Dress, Identity and Visual Display: Self-Fashioning in Middle English Romance, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/13006/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 DRESS, IDENTITY AND VISUAL DISPLAY: SELF-FASHIONING IN MIDDLE ENGLISH ROMANCE by Alice Christina Stamataki Abstract Clothing ‘speaks’. The act of dressing confers narratives of identity upon the wearer. The elite of late- medieval England understood the significance of dress; they utilised rich materials, strong colours and contemporary fashions to express, visually, statements of identity. These attitudes inform the expansive descriptions of rich dress in Middle English romance, in which a wealth of valuable materials, opulent accoutrements and contemporary fashions appear. Dress functions in romance as a visual representation of identity, providing an avenue through which wider thematic concerns find expression. For the Fair Unknown, the attaining of chivalric dress represents the integration of the individual into the courtly society. In the Middle English Breton lais, dress illustrates the internal fortitude of the Constance figure; it communicates also the transience of chivalric bonds and of kingship. In the northern Gawain romances, arming rituals and rich visual display represent the means through which chivalric communities affirm their identities. Using sociocultural detail, this study explores the significance of dress in Middle English romance, demonstrating that dress in romance suggests publically inner aspects of identity. 1 DRESS, IDENTITY AND VISUAL DISPLAY: SELF-FASHIONING IN MIDDLE ENGLISH ROMANCE Alice Christina Stamataki Doctor of Philosophy Department of English Studies Durham University 2018 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract p. 1 Title Page p. 2 Table of Contents p. 3 List of Abbreviations p. 4 Statement of Copyright p. 5 Acknowledgements p. 6 Introduction Dress, Identity and Visual Display p. 7 Materiality, Gaze Theory and Identity p. 7 Methodology p. 19 Culture and Clothing in Late-Medieval England p. 39 Fashion and Style 1100–1500 p. 40 Colour p. 47 Sumptuary Laws p. 58 Conclusion: Context, Clothing and Literature p. 64 Chapter One The Fair Unknown p. 68 Lybeaus Desconus p. 70 Sir Perceval of Galles p. 93 Ipomadon p. 113 Social and Chivalric Identity in the Fair Unknown Romances p. 143 Chapter Two The Middle English Breton Lais p. 146 Le Bone Florence of Rome and Emaré p. 148 Sir Launfal p. 165 Sir Orfeo p. 185 Changing and Unchanging Identities in the English Breton Lais p. 201 Chapter Three The Northern Gawain Romances p. 205 The Awntyrs off Arthur p. 206 The Knightly Tale of Golagros and Gawain p. 230 The Greene Knight p. 245 Clothing Chivalric Identities in the Northern Gawain Romances p. 257 Conclusion Dress and Identity in Middle English Romance p. 259 Bibliography p. 266 3 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AOA The Awntyrs off Arthur CC The Carl of Carlisle DTRM De Tribus Regibus Mortuis FOR Le Bone Florence of Rome GAG The Knightly Tale of Golagros and Gawain GGK Sir Gawain and the Green Knight JSG The Jeaste of Sir Gawain KC King Arthur and King Cornwall LD Lybeaus Desconus MED The Middle English Dictionary POG Perceval of Galles SO Sir Orfeo SL Sir Launfal SS Summer Sunday ST Sir Thopas TGK The Greene Knight TOG The Trental of Gregory TSG The Turke and Sir Gawain 4 STATEMENT OF COPYRIGHT The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the author’s prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My foremost thanks go to Professor Corinne Saunders, whose insight and wisdom has guided me throughout this project, and to Professor Neil Cartlidge, my secondary supervisor, for his kind interest. Thank you also to Professor Elizabeth Archibald for being a wonderfully encouraging teaching mentor. I am grateful to the organisations that have enabled my scholarly activities and research; many thanks to the Institute for Medieval and Modern Studies and the English Studies Department for their financial support. I am grateful also to the organisers and attendees of the conferences I have taken part in; I would particularly like to thank the organisers and attendees of the second and third ‘Middle Ages in the Modern World’ conferences for their kind interest and helpful advice. I also owe a huge debt of thanks to my earlier teachers, upon whose foundation all of this is built; thank you so much to Christos Tsironis, and to Jim Brettell, the wonderful classicist. Thank you also to Dr Rebecca Pinner and Mr Thomas Rutledge for giving me an inspiring introduction to medieval studies. Many thanks to Anna Dow for her friendship and support, and to Richard Smith for his support. Many thanks also to my students, whose enthusiasm and wisdom has encouraged, entertained, and revived me. Finally, to my parents: thank you for everything. This is for you. 6 INTRODUCTION Dress, Identity and Visual Display Materiality, Gaze Theory and Identity This thesis examines the relationship between identity and visual display in late- medieval English romance. It argues that opulent visual display plays an intrinsic role in courtly communities and is integral to the establishing of both public and private chivalric identities. It focuses particularly on the implications of visual display in relation to internal and external representations of identity. It utilises socio-cultural-historical detail to provide a new perspective on the significance of dress in Middle English romance. Middle English romance of the later Middle Ages is situated within a period of rapid cultural and economic development which resulted in a renewed interest in dress and a rapid development in contemporary fashion and styles. It is this mix of characteristics that leads some critics to characterise this period as the ‘birth’ of fashion.1 It is surprising, then, that existing criticism relating to dress in romance has predominantly failed to engage with this wealth of contextual detail that provides such a relevant and precise mode for navigating these textual representations of clothing. This thesis attempts to fill this critical gap. It represents a detailed exploration of the interaction between the elaborately performative late-medieval contextual environment and the detailed and expansive accounts of rich apparel that appear in later medieval romance writings in Middle English. For this reason, it focuses on Middle English romance to more carefully examine these very specific cultural interactions between contextual detail and textual depictions of material 1 Perhaps the clearest support of this characterisation can be seen in Odile Blanc’s essay, ‘From Battlefield to Court: The Invention of Fashion in the Fourteenth Century’, in Encountering Medieval Textiles and Dress: Objects, Texts, Images, ed. by Désirée G. Koslin and Janet Snyder (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2002). Further discussion of other instances of this term, as well as the critical discourse surrounding it, can be found in the Methodology section of the introduction, which also elaborates on the period’s contextual links to the rich dress found in Middle English romance. 7 culture.2 This thesis examines the externalisation of identity present in dress, arguing that dress constitutes an integral aspect of performative visual displays of identity. This thesis’ exploration of dress is arranged around three modern scholarly categories: the Fair Unknown, the Breton lais, and the northern Gawain romances, with representative textual examples carefully selected of each instance.3 Uniting the thesis’ examination of dress, identity and visual display is a focus on the contemporary socio-cultural attitudes informing these topics. As such, it is necessary to first establish the contemporary context surrounding gaze theory. The following sections present an overview of relevant medieval and modern gaze theories. I then provide a detailed account of my own theoretical approach and framework for the study of dress in romance, as well as the texts and specific approach that I utilise in my examination of visuality and dress in Middle English romance. Medieval gaze theories were informed by an awareness of and engagement with the competing classical notions of intromission and extramission. 4 Classical Atomist thinkers envisioned a gazer who takes in (figuratively, and literally) atomic films from the gazed-upon universe. These films—eidola—transmit from the exteriority into the interiority and become— either temporarily or permanently—a part of it. In Ptolemaic and Euclidean extramission theories, radiation instead emits from the gazer into the universe and instigates a refraction that 2 Though the thesis’ primary focus is on Middle English romance, comparative reference is given to source texts (where extant) in order to evoke, briefly, the significance of their adaptations and alterations. Further details are provided in the Methodology section of this introduction. 3 Further details on the topics and texts chosen, as well as a rationale for textual selections made, can be found in the Methodology section of this introduction. 4 For an in-depth account of the development of optical theory from the classical period to the Enlightenment, see: David C.
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