CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by University of Birmingham Research Archive, E-theses Repository USAGE AND MEANING OF EARLY MEDIEVAL TEXTILES. A STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF VESTIMENTARY SYSTEMS IN FRANCIA AND ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND by OLGA MAGOULA A Thesis submitted to The University of Birmingham For the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Medieval History School of Historical Studies The University of Birmingham October 2008 1 Abstract This thesis puts under examination the linguistic and non-verbal elements of early medieval clothing on the basis of semiotic systems that pertain to the use and function of early medieval textiles in Francia and Anglo-Saxon England. An attempt is made here to address the possibilities in the research of the diverse messaging systems which reflect social roles and identities communicated visually through dress and dress accessories. In the course of this examination the relationship of early medieval people with dress and their concepts about their bodies is explored. While seeking to establish the most important elements in the structure of early medieval dress, we will also try to explore and deploy the methodologies of corporeal semantics, the criteria of visibility of the vestimentary display and the elements that make up the key focus of the apparel. The empirical evidence is drawn from both Merovingian and Carolingian Frankish and Anglo-Saxon contexts and comprises both texts of diverse genres which set the framework of a historical narrative for the subject in the light of comparative historical analysis. This framework is set against, is compared and challenged by the archaeology from early medieval burial sites and relics. My aims are, first the establishment of a common semiotic plane of interaction and comparison between two types of source material, the historical sources and the archaeology. In order to accomplish this, the disparities between the quality and quantity of textual and artefactual evidence and their inherent limitations are also researched and evaluated. My second aim is to find out ways to extract information about textile and metalwork artefacts from the written sources and organise it so that it will be possible to visualise and understand the structure and the role of dress in early medieval societies in reference to the construction of social and personal identities. This is an interdisciplinary task and the interpretative tools suggested here and the theory of verbal and non-verbal meaning of textiles could also be used as suggestions for further research directions of other types of linguistic and artefactual expression. Moreover, this task - to the point that the above issues and aims are resolved - could form the premise upon which a new system of artefact evaluation of the finds pertaining to dress from early medieval burials, a key feature of early medieval archaeology, could be exploited. 2 Acknowledgements I want to thank all academic teachers, all my teachers- and the list is very long- and my colleagues for all forms of enthousiastic contribution, and especially the librarians always lending a most needed hand across different countries and institutions, in the Sackler and the Bodleian, the British Library, the archaeological library of École Normale Supérieur, and the library of the University of Birmingham. My supervisor Chris Wickham for all the support, encouragement, new historical perspectives and stimulating ideas. My special thanks to the AHRC and to the School of Historical Studies of the University of Birmingham who made this study possible. To Gale Owen Crocker at the University of Manchester who has read and facilitated discussions of my writings at Leeds and Kalamazoo and greatly contributed to my understanding of Anglo- Saxon textiles, Cecile Treffort at the University of Poitiers for the correspondence and great inspiration in reference to early medieval Frankish archaeological material, to Iris Tzahili who, long ago, taught me the intricacies of the craft of weaving at the University of Crete. To my friend Maria Tiraski for sisterly care, faith and sharing her music with me. To friend and sister Maria Magoula for giving me lessons in human resilience and the search of truth in aesthetics. To all my dance teachers for teaching me self-discipline, and the fascination of making measured statements in time and space. Finally to all these people from the past, I undertook to study and try to comprehend, who proved to have always been there for me, always surprising and guiding me with their words and things and doings and who made this thesis and the long period of my study pleasurable and meaningful. I would like to add here a brief note on the translation of passages of the documentary sources in this work. I have used the most widely acknowledged and broadly used translations of early medieval latin texts and cited them in the reference notes. Nevertheless, at times for reasons inherent in the nature of this study I had to focus on the interpetation, re-interpretation or on a choice of more descriptive terms 3 related to artefacts and their function. In this case, although I agree with the linguistic treatment of the rest of the text, I had to adapt it, especially when the artefact or the particular situation did not appear in the translation; in case there is fault with it, it is nobody else’s but my own. In a few cases, where no translation was available, I ventured to translate texts and poems. I declare here that I own the responsibility for any mistranslation of text in its entirety as also in the case of a partial adaptation. 4 VOLUME I : CONTENTS Acknowledgements 3 Table of Contents 5 Abbreviations 10 CHAPTER ONE: Introduction: A brief guide to a long textile project. 13 1.1 Socially relevant features of textile production in early medieval written sources. 17 1.2 A vestimentary system: an attempt at a unitary theory of meaning of textile artefacts in the historical and archaeological sources of the early middle ages. 20 1.3 Of the subject matter and of the source material, of persons, of language and of things. 27 1.4 Previous studies: The historiography of historical and archaeological research of vestimentary systems within the field of early medieval studies. 31 1.5 Research models and legacies: the genealogy of the methodological approach of this thesis. 35 1.6 Early medieval archaeology and its inherent problems. 37 1.7 A question of Genre: historiography and other written sources employed in comparative historical analysis. 47 1.8 The aims of this thesis: symbolic values, cultural categories; consumers and their social roles. Key issues to be addressed. 50 CHAPTER TWO A. Methodological aspects of research on vestimentary systems: a theory of meaning of early medieval dress: Verbal and non verbal semiosis in the representations of textiles in early medieval historical sources and the archaeology. 2. 1 Organising representations of textiles: Syntagms and Systems. 56 5 2. 2 Towards a Taxonomy of Vestimentary Systems: the problem of the shifts in the meaning of textiles. Symbolic values. 61 2. 3 Meaning of Vestimentary Systems and production and consumption patterns of textiles. 65 2. 4 Paradigms of systems. 69 B. Pars pro toto: Two words extracted from a garment system. An exemplification of womens’ headwear: Linguistic, historical and archaeological perspectives 73 2. 5 Textual evidence of headwear and the material record. 82 2. 6 A brief study on the semantics of distinction based on the material evidence of Frankish women’s headwear in life and in death. 102 2.7 The history of vitta and velum on a time-line. 120 C. Conclusion 135 CHAPTER THREE: The multiple usage of the structural elements in early medieval Dress: Belts and girdles 139 A. 3.1 Introduction: Historical reconstructions of clothing systems and the structural elements of dress. 141 3. 2 A few case studies of extant surviving garments with exceptional cut and emphasis on the waistline. 146 3. 3 A brief critique of stylistic criteria and hierarchies of artefact values. 157 B. The lexis of the structural elements of dress. 3. 4 A Lexicographical taxonomy of social roles in reference to the functions of the belt in the texts. 168 6 3. 5 Historical sources: Was there ever a standardisation of values and an objectification of these values in belts and girdles? Examination of artefacts from testaments. 223 C. Problems and challenges of the archaeological material. 3. 6 A note on archaeological method in reference to burial archaeology and dress accessories: metalwork and textile finds. 233 3. 7 Archaeological evidence for the structural elements of dress in burials and corporeal semantics. 241 D. The archaeology of the structural elements of dress. Ratio of belts and status and gender; textiles and local production, belts that were not worn, liminality. 3. 8 Ratio of belts and their morphology and functions related to distinctions of gender, status, age. 245 3. 9 Regional features of belts and of associated fabrics and dress. 275 3. 10 Phylacteries, liminality and deviance. 297 E. Conclusion. The structural element of dress in the written sources and the archaeology. Changes of form and of meaning in clothing systems and a stylistic messaging system revisited. 307 CONCLUSION: Usage and Meaning of Early Medieval Textiles. A structural analysis of vestimentary systems in Francia and Anglo-Saxon England. 317 VOLUME II: APPENDICES, FIGURES, BIBLIOGRAPHY Table of Contents 3 7 Appendix I: Gold foil strips or braids associated with textiles in early medieval funerary contexts. 12 1. Gold foil strips or braids associated with textiles in frankish funerary contexts. 12 2. Gold foil strips or braids associated with textiles in visigothic funerary contexts. 27 3. Gold foil strips or braids associated with textiles in alamannic, thuringian, bavarian funerary contexts.