The Role of Women in Plant-based Textile Production during the Viking Diaspora in Scotland and the Irish Sea Region

Evidence for textiles in viking-age Scotland and the adjacent Irish Sea region derives from small fragments usually surviving as mineralised products associated with metal dress fittings and grave goods such as shield bosses and weaving battens, excavated from the furnished graves of both women and men. Since Scottish viking-age textiles were last reviewed over twenty years ago, this paper collates information from antiquarian finds and more recent excavations which employed considerably enhanced techniques for retrieving fragile archaeological textiles. Evidence is presented for the occurrence and role of plant-based textiles derived from flax and hemp including linen in funerary processes as burial garments, shrouds and wrapping other grave goods, such as weapons and tools. Many richly appointed women's graves in viking-age Scotland were accompanied by tool assemblages used in the manufacture and maintenance of textiles. The presence of these tools raises questions about the status of textile production and the roles women played in it.

Making and Trading Dress and Décor in Seventeenth-century Scotland

In seventeenth-century Scotland textiles were made in most districts and marketed widely at home and overseas. Woollens and linens, yarn, cloth, bonnets and stockings, with clear regional specialisations, were manufactured, but they were all of low cost and quality. Comparative advantage came from low rural wages. The wide distribution and character of textile production in the seventeenth century proved of great importance for post-Union success. Among imports the variety and social spread of luxury widened and deepened, though demand was restricted to the upper classes and the middling orders in Edinburgh and other large burghs. The seventeenth century, especially the second half, was a time of widening consumption of exotic articles such as tobacco, sugar and coffee among consumables, Asian silks and cottons (and their imitations) as articles of dress, and wall-hangings and pictures as décor. The social anxiety and economic stress this engendered gave rise to sumptuary laws like that of 1681. These had limited impact, though imports remained sensitive to tariffs. The letters of Andrew Russell, a merchant resident in Rotterdam between 1668 and 1697, demonstrate how this trade was carried out in both directions, and how the market responded to governmental attempts at control.

Status, Magic and Belief: Exploring Identity through Dress Accessories and Other Amulets in Medieval Scotland: A Perthshire Case-study

This paper explores belief and identity as expressed through the material culture of dress. It focuses on supernatural engagements through material culture linked to human and animal bodies and offers a view of the means by which everyday ritual, habit and devotion were embodied and facilitated through dress and other amulets, including contextually re-purposed coins. The evidence is primarily archaeological and derives from medieval Perthshire, a place with wide connections, and so the discussion is presented in the context of Scottish and European practices. The key themes are status, magic and belief, all three of which speak to identity. The practices they elucidate are explored primarily through jewellery and dress fittings, pilgrimage souvenirs, coins and other amulets.

The Origins of Plaid Wearing

This paper reviews documentary and pictorial evidence from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries concerning the wearing of plaids by men. Initially, sixteenth-century sources that specifically use the term ‘plaid’ are examined, in order to build a working definition, and this is then applied to earlier sources in languages other than Gaelic, where the terminology is uncertain. The early sources provide insight regarding the origins of traditions associated with plaid wearing. It is suggested that the origins of Highland military dress lie in the west Highlands and Islands in the mid-sixteenth century with the adoption of tartan plaids by local warriors. The article also draws attention to an apparent long running belief that plaids were derived from ancient Greek or Roman dress.

Mourning Madeleine and Margaret: Dress and Meaning in the Memorials for Two Scottish Queens, 1537 and 1541

While the Scottish royal household participated in the wider development of mourning traditions in the late fifteenth century and employed mourning dress as a political tool from at least the turn of the sixteenth century, surviving evidence is extremely limited. Records for the funerals of Queens Madeleine de Valois ( d. 1537) and Margaret Tudor ( d. 1541) yield the earliest extensive material details for the employment of mourning displays in Scotland. These two funerals both honoured foreign-born queens, they took place only four years apart and they were organised within the same household—yet their use of mourning dress and material display diverged notably. Variations in the design and display of both formal and everyday mourning dress were used to transmit distinct messages and themes, in order to address the particular political circumstances and needs of each death. Comparison between the details of these Scottish funerals and examples from England, France and the Low Countries helps to place Scottish practice within wider traditions and highlights a common emphasis on mourning displays as a central aspect of political discourse and diplomacy at key moments of change and loss.

Who Made the Turreted Brooches of Argyll? Nacken and Elite Silver Craftwork

During the 1500s the distinctive turreted brooches of Lochbuie, Lorn and Ugadale were produced for the Argyll families Maclaine, MacDougall and Mackay. Unusual in style by comparison with other brooches of the time, they are stylistically similar as a group. Around 1730 an inscription was added to the Lochbuie brooch stating that it was made by a ‘Tinker’. This paper examines the style, skills, materials and techniques involved in itinerant silversmithing in order to evaluate the claim that the three brooches were made by ‘Tinkers’, otherwise known as Nacken. Drawing on elements of art historical, ethnographic and archaeological research, the paper challenges existing assumptions about itinerant silversmithing.

‘the most beautifully bound book in the University Library’: The Seventeenth-Century Embroidered Wardlaw Bible in the Special Collections of the University of St Andrews

In 2001 Wardlaw family descendants gifted to the University of St Andrews a pair of embroidered seventeenth-century gauntlet gloves and an embroidered seventeenth-century Geneva Bible bound with The CL. Psalmes of David in Meeter. Family tradition purports that the bible and gloves were given by Charles I to Sir Henry and Lady Wardlaw. Although it is feasible that the gloves were gifted to the first Sir Henry by Charles I, the bible was published after 1640—its 1599 date of imprint is false—and it, therefore, cannot have been given to Sir Henry, who died in 1637. It is also questionable if Charles I would have gifted a Geneva Bible, rather than the King James Version. Following a detailed description of the binding and the conservation it has undergone, the Wardlaw family legend is re-examined through comparing the embroidered binding to others of the seventeenth century, examining the provenance within the bible, and discussing the Geneva version of the bible.

‘richesse in fassone and in fairness’: Marriage, Manhood and Sartorial Splendour for Sixteenth-century Scottish Kings

Marriage was a prominent ‘life-stage’ ritual linked to achievement of the hegemonic manly state in the early modern period: it was associated with self-control and was seen as a stabilising force against the ‘follies of youth’. James IV (1488–1513), James V (1513–1542) and James VI (1567–1625) came to the throne as minors and their weddings provided particularly potent opportunities for shaping their identity both at home and abroad. Clothing was a crucial element of the social dialogue performed by both men and women in late medieval and early modern Europe. Dress, of the royal person and of others, was a mode of display in which all three monarchs invested heavily at the moment of their weddings. By offering a comparative analysis of the investment in sartorial splendour and the use of dress and personal adornment through a gendered lens, this article demonstrates how clothing and adornments were used to make statements about both manhood and royal status by three sixteenth-century Stewart kings attempting to secure their place in the homosocial hierarchy.