One of my colleagues tossed me a couple of questions that are way out of my area. I reproduce them below, with his permission.
1. He is looking at a quotation from Juan Ruiz' Book of Good love (1340). The passage describes an encounter with the serrana Menga Lloriente, a rustic woman. Ruiz has Menga ask for a "prendero" of "bermejo pano". My colleague thinks this may be some sort of hair ribbon, or possibly fabric. He writes: "It seems to have a restraining function. The word is prendero and the color bermejo and fabric or form pano which does not necessarily denote narrowness." He recognizes that the word "scarlet" could of course be either red silk (such as that used for narrow ware) or a fine wool fabric (which may or may not be red), and wonders if this might indicate a wool band. I think this is unlikely, as scarlet was a heavy broadcloth and not likely to be used for hairbands. (Hoods, maybe.) I am not quite sure why he thinks that scarlet is involved in this quotation (but I don't know the words "berjemo" or "pano" so perhaps one of them is translated as "scarlet"). He also says, though: "The speaker is a herder, a rustic woman and it does not seem as if she could expect as a gift a entire hood as she would probably have used a different word." He points to an image in Anderson's Hispanic Costume (fig. 302): "I have seen what appears to be small ware ribbons on "fancy" serving women from 1490 coming around the head once over the hair and then form a second or double loop coming down over the forehead a bit like what you would see of the frontal loop if you removed an opaque coif." I pass that to you for completeness, but I told him that I would strongly advise against using hairstyles of 1490 to make sense of a quotation from 1340. Even if (as he believes) Spanish style was relatively constant, 150 years is a very broad gap in a period known for extensive fashion changes elsewhere in Europe, and hairstyle is one of the most mutable elements of dress. 2. He also asks, "Have you ever used Talavera? He seems obsessed primarily with royal excess and I wonder how reliable he is on earlier bourgeois costume." He adds, at my request for explanation, that "Talavera was the confessor to Isabel and Archbishop of Grenada. He wrote a famous account of Spanish fashion very detailed and full of criticism of excess." Help on either most gratefully accepted; I will pass responses on to my colleague. Thanks, Robin _________________________________________________________________ Watch “Cause Effect,” a show about real people making a real difference. http://im.live.com/Messenger/IM/MTV/?source=text_watchcause_______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
