Six - Imaginary Textiles

Summary

The visions of Gertrude of Helfta have been said to exhibit ‘[v]irtually all the vestments that are deployed in the various forms of monastic liturgies’.¹ In one of Gertrude’s visions, on Easter Monday, the transforming image of a dress charts a dizzying superimposition of liturgical celebration and textile culture. The imagery derives from a phenomenological spectrum which evokes knowledge of medieval handicraft and visual traditions. Imaginary textiles build upon a material culture in which devotion and craftmanship go hand in hand.² Exegetical notions of textiles such as Birgitta of Sweden’s understanding of Scripture as clothing – ‘Law is like clothing’³ – come into play when considering visionary textiles. Descriptions of women’s clothing offer us the possibility to understand the self-image of medieval religious women.⁴ In the study of textile images in the botte, various aspects of textile imagery – visibility, performativity, craftsmanship, and imperfection necessitating transformation – come together, underlining the intricate interlacing of material and devotional cultures. Mapping between historical textiles, medieval allegories such as Alan of Lille’s twelfth-century prosimetrum De planctu naturae, and Gertrude’s Easter Monday vision, I show how in the botte material aspects and immaterial concepts merge into a powerful narrative about vision and salvation, and how the botte exploits vernacular language to the advantage of a mystically orientated textile culture.