On Wed, 20 Jun 2007, Beth and Bob Matney wrote: > Scott, Margaret. Medieval Dress & Fashion. ... > > An interesting tidbit is the derivation of "scarlet" as "shorn cloth" > (ie. a fulled and shorn woolen cloth) on pg 19.
John Munro summarized the thinking on this point in the article he wrote in this year's volume of MC&T. He gives a pretty good argument that although this theory has been around for a century or so and is still widely accepted, the hard evidence from the period doesn't support it -- many woolens were fulled and sheared, not just scarlets, and there was nothing different or more expensive about the shearing process used for scarlets. He has offered his own theory, first published in his landmark article on "The Medieval Scarlet" in 1983 and reprinted elsewhere, that links the name to the kermes dyestuff, which is indeed the differentiating characteristic between these cloths and others (and accounts for a huge proportion of the price difference). Scott certainly would have had no trouble finding other sources that repeat the older theory, but it's a shame she didn't pursue the matter by reading the more current (and well-known) work by Munro. --Robin _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
