By My Own Hand

+ Historic Clothing and Textile Research + Artworks + Miscellany + Personal +

Useful books for personas of the 14th century

First, look to your specific timeframe, since you are fortunate enough to have a persona in an era which has lots of surviving contemporary art. Look to art, history and anthropological studies for examples.

_Textiles and Clothing_ (Crowfoot, Elisabeth; Pritchard, Frances and Staniland, Kay) It is comprised entirely of archaeological evidence from London. the larger surviving fragments are mostly representative of the period.

_A Visual History of Costume - the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries_ by Margaret Scott isbn 0-7134-4857-1 Many clear pictures of statues, brasses,and paintings; text clearly organized, but some seems a bit overimaginative. Out of print, but often found in public libraries.

_Medieval Costume in England and France, the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries_ by Mary G. Huston isbn 0-486-29060-3 Many many clear black-and-white redrawings from contemporary artwork, most of which are faithful (from what comparisons to the originals that I have been able to make). Colour redrawings are pretty but much more suspect and likely more reflective of the fashions of Ms. Huston's day than the periods she intended them to reflect. Currently available from Dover Books.

_The History of Underclothes_ G Willet and Phyllis Cunnington isbn 0-486-27124-2 Many pictures of primary sources, some redrawings or reconstructions, good explanations of how the undergarments worked. Available from Dover Books.