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Wynflæd's wardrobe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Gale R. Owen
Gale R. Owen
Affiliation:
The University of Manchester
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Extract

An Old English document, composed probably in the middle of the tenth century and extant in a not very careful, mutilated, eleventh-century copy, London, British Library, Cotton Charter, VIII, 38, lists the bequests of a woman named Wynflæd. The bequests of clothing in this will are particularly interesting. Anglo-Saxon testaments do not itemize elaborate garments as do some English wills of the later Middle Ages; they refer to clothing only rarely, and then sometimes in general terms. Wynflæd's will is unusual in mentioning several different items of clothing and in specifying them more precisely. Descriptive references to non-military clothing are uncommon in Old English texts generally. Although many garment-names are documented, some which occur only in glossaries or translations from Latin may never have been in common use in England and some words are of uncertain meaning. In most cases the sex of the wearer of a named garment and the relative value of the garment are unknown. The garment-names in Wynflæd's will, by contrast, refer to items of clothing which were certainly worn by women at a known date and were valuable enough to be bequeathed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 8 , December 1979 , pp. 195 - 222
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

page 195 note 1 Facsimiles of Ancient Charters in the British Museum, ed. Bond, E. A. (London, 1873–1878) IIIGoogle Scholar, no. 38; Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici, ed. Kemble, Johannis M. (London, 1839–1848) vi, 130–4Google Scholar; Diplomatarium Anglicum Ævi Saxonici, ed. and trans. Thorpe, Benjamin (London, 1865), pp. 533–9Google Scholar; Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. and trans. Whitelock, Dorothy (Cambridge, 1930)Google Scholar, no. III. My quotations are from Professor Whitelock's text and translation unless otherwise stated. Insertions in the manuscript are enclosed in angle brackets and letters supplied by the editor are enclosed in square brackets.

The following abbreviations are used: BAP = Bibliothek der angelsachsischen Prosa; BCS = Cartularium Saxonicum, ed. de Gray Birch, Walter (London, 1885–1899)Google Scholar; BL = British Library; BT = Joseph Boswotth and Toller, T. Northcote, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (Oxford, 1898)Google Scholar; BT Suppl. = Toller, T. Northcote, Supplement to BT with revised and enlarged addenda by Alistair Campbell (Oxford, 1973)Google Scholar; EETS = Early English Text Society; MGH = Monumenta Germaniae Historica; OED = The Oxford English Dictionary, ed. Murray, J. A. H., Bradley, Henry, Craigie, W. A. and Onions, C. T., corr. ed. with suppl. (Oxford, 1933)Google Scholar; PL = Migne, Patrologia Latina; Wills = Anglo-Saxon Wills, ed. Dorothy, Whitelock (Cambridge, 1930)Google Scholar; WW = Anglo-Saxon and Old English Vocabularies, ed. Wright, Thomas and Wülcker, Richard Paul, 2nd ed. (London, 1884)Google Scholar, cited by column and line. Definitions of Latin words are from A Latin Dictionary, ed. Lewis, Charlton T. and Short, Charles, rev. ed. (Oxford, 1958)Google Scholar, unless otherwise stated.

I should like to express my thanks to Professor P. A. M. Clemoes and Dr R. I. Page for many helpful suggestions. I am grateful to Professor H. D. Meritt, Dr Paul Parvis and my colleagues Dr D. G. Scragg and Dr K. Sutherland for references, and to Mr D. R. Bradley for advice on translation from Latin.

page 195 note 2 Power, Eileen, Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 (Cambridge, 1922), pp. 327–9.Google Scholar

page 195 note 3 In a will composed at the end of the tenth century or the beginning of the eleventh a woman named Wulfwaru bequeathed to her elder daughter one woman's outfit (‘anes wifscrudes’) and to her younger daughter all her remaining female clothing (‘ealles þæs wifscrudes þe þer to lafe bið’); see Wills, p. 64, lines 11–13.

page 195 note 4 The will of Æthelgifu, drawn up 980–90, is similarly unusual in including bequests of a piece of jewellery (preon), more than five garments called cyrtel and a head-dress (heafodgewado); see The Will of Æthelgifu, translated and examined by Dorothy Whitelock, with Neil Ker and Lord Rennell, for the Roxburghe Club (Oxford, 1968), p. 13Google Scholar, lines 45 and 47–9.

page 196 note 1 E.g. Athelstan, in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 183, iv; Edgar, in London, BL, Cotton Vespasian A. viii, 2v; and Cnut, in BL, Stowe 944, 6r.

page 196 note 2 The Old English Illustrated Hexateuch, ed. Dodwell, C. R. and Clemoes, Peter, EEMF 18 (Copenhagen, 1974), 66Google Scholar; see also 71–3.

page 196 note 3 Or contemporary fashions observed by the artist. See Mellinkoff, Ruth, ‘The Round, Cap-Shaped Hats Depicted on Jews in BM Cotton Claudius B. iv’, ASE 2 (1973), 155–65.Google Scholar

page 196 note 4 At about the time of the conversion to Christianity, for example, there seems to have been a radical change both in the way garments fastened and in the choice of jewellery; see Sonia Chadwick Hawkes, review of Wilson, D. M., The Anglo-Saxons (London, 1960)Google Scholar, Ant J 41 (1961), 107, and Audrey Meaney, L. and Hawkes, Sonia Chadwick, Two Anglo-Saxon Cemeteries at Winnall, Winchester, Hampshire, Soc. for Med. Archaeology Monograph Ser. 4 (London, 1970), 45–6Google Scholar. The method of fastening a garment with linked pins seems to have appeared in the seventh century and not to have extended beyond the ninth; see Rosemary Cramp, ‘An Anglo-Saxon Pin from Birdoswald’, Trans. of the Cumberland and Westmorland Ant. and Archaeol. Soc. n.s. 64 (1964), 90–3.

page 197 note 1 Finberg, H. P. R., The Early Charters of Wessex (Leicester, 1964), p. 44Google Scholar. In a charter of 966 (BCS III, 449, no. 1186) King Edgar described Winfled as his grandmother and a benefactress of Shaftesbury. Finberg suggests that she may have been the mother of King Edmund's first wife Ælfgifu, who died in 944, was buried at Shaftesbury and was revered there as a saint. Wynflæd's will does not mention any of these alleged royal relatives.

page 197 note 2 Wynflæd's will mentions land granted by King Edward to her mother Byrhtwyynne (14, 29–30). Professor Whitelock suggests (Wills, p. 109) that the mother be identified with Beorhtw[i]ne, sister-in-law of the bishop, who received land at Archet in 939 (BCS 11, 464, no. 744). Two discrepancies weaken the possibility: the charter records a grant by King Athelstan not King Edward – he had succeeded Edward in 925 – and the grant was not made directly to the woman but made to the bishop, who subsequently granted the land to his sister-in-law.

page 197 note 3 Wills, p. 109. A restitution and grant of lands was made in 942 by King Edmund to a religious woman called Wenflede (BCS II, 509–11, no. 775). One of the signatories is ‘Ealhhelm dux’. Possibly the Ealhhelm whose daughter Æthelfæd is a beneficiary under Wynflæd's will (p. 14, line 6) is the same man.

page 198 note 1 Wills, p. 109.

page 198 note 2 ‘Vestes vestras in uno loco habete sub una custode, vel duabus, vel quot sufficere potuerint ad eas excutiendas, ne a tinea laedantur: et sicut pascimini ex uno cellario, sic induamini ex uno vestiario’ (PL 33, col. 962; ‘Have your clothing in one place under one keeper, or two, or as many as will suffice to shake them so they are not damaged by moths: and just as you receive food at the hands of one cellarer, so you should receive clothing at the hands of one custodian of garments’).

page 198 note 3 André, J. L., ‘Widows and Vowesses’, Arch J 49 (1892), 69–82.Google Scholar

page 198 note 4 Wills, p. 10, line 7. The ring, of course, need not have been a finger-ring. Professor Whitelock translates beah as ‘bracelet’. Few bracelets survive from late Anglo-Saxon times, however, and those that do are not engraved. Hinton has argued that in the tenth and eleventh centuries bracelets were not valued for aesthetic reasons but as pieces of bullion, citing Wynflæd's bequest to her grandson: ‘hio becwið him hyre goldfagan treowena[n] cuppan þæt he ice his beah mid þam golde’ (Wills, p. 12, lines 18–20; ‘she bequeaths to him her gold-adorned wooden cup in order that he may enlarge his armlet with the gold’); see Hinton, David A., ‘Late Anglo-Saxon Metal-Work: an Assessment’, ASE 4 (1975), 177Google Scholar. Finger-rings from the late Anglo-Saxon period are, in contrast, not uncommon, although surviving examples are ninth- rather than tenth-century. Several inscribed finger-rings exist, including one with a gold inscription set against a nielloed ground which reads: ‘Ædred rnec ah Eanred mec agrof’ (‘Ædred owns me, Eanred engraved me’); see Wilson, David M., Anglo-Saxon Ornamental Metalwork 700–1100 in the British Museum (London, 1964), p. 141Google Scholar, no. 30. The verb agrof, used by Eanred to describe his craft, corresponds to Wynflæd's description of her ring as agrafenan.

page 198 note 5 Knowles, David and Hadcock, R. Neville, Medieval Religious Houses: England and Wales (London, 1971), pp. 265 and 267–8.Google Scholar

page 198 note 6 ibid. p. 17.

page 199 note 1 ibid. p. 265.

page 199 note 2 ibid. pp. 267–8.

page 199 note 3 Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, ed. Colgrave, Bertram and Mynors, R. A. B. (Oxford, 1969), p. 396.Google Scholar

page 199 note 4 The Rule of Saint Benedict, trans. Cardinal F. A. Gasquet (London, 1925), pp. 94–6.Google Scholar

page 199 note 5 She is mentioned in the opening of the will, where Wynflæd makes bequests to a church and refectory (cyrcan and beodern, Wills, p. 10, lines 2 and 3) and to the inmates: ‘hyre to saulsceatte ælcon godes þeowe mancos go[ld]es 7 butan þam Ceoldryþe 1 mancus’ (ibid. p. 10, lines 4–5; ‘as a gift for the good of her soul a mancus of gold to every servant of God, and besides that one mancus to Ceolthryth’).

page 199 note 6 ‘hio becwið Æðelflæde hyre dehter …‘ (ibid. p. 10, lines 6–7; ‘she bequeaths to her daughter Æthelflæd …’) and ‘an hio Æþelflæde on ælcum þingum þe þær unbecweden bið’ (ibid. p. 14, lines 22–3; ‘she makes a gift to Æthelflæd of everything which is unbequeathed’).

page 200 note 1 ‘tonica: tunece’, WW 268.1.

page 200 note 2 ‘tunica: tunicae’, ‘The Latin-Old English Glossaries in Plantin-Moretus MS 32 and British Museum MS Additional 32, 246’, ed. Lowell Kindschi (unpubl. Ph.D dissertation, Stanford Univ., 1955), p. 153, line 14. The glossary is most conveniently available in WW's edition of a modem copy, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 71 (WW no. iv). The equivalent entry is WW 151.8, ‘tunica: tunice’. The lemma is from Isidore, who describes long, short and sleeved variations of the tunica; Isidori Hispaleruis Episcopi Etymologiarum sive Originum Libri XX, ed. W. M. Lindsay (Oxford, 1911) 11, lib. xix.22.6–9.

page 200 note 3 BL, Royal 7. C. iv; Defensor's Liber Scintillarum, ed. Rhodes, E. W., EETS o.s. 93 (London, 1889), 143.Google Scholar

page 200 note 4 The Old English Version of the Heptateuch, ed. Crawford, S. J., EETS o.s. 160 (London, 1922), 174Google Scholar (Genesis xxxvii.31 and 33).

page 200 note 5 Hexateuch, ed. Dodwell and Clemoes, pp. 48,49 and 52.

page 200 note 6 The Rule of S. Benet, ed. Logeman, H., EETS o.s. 90 (London, 1888), 91Google Scholar, line 15, and 92, line 9.

page 200 note 7 Die angelsächsischen Prosabearbeitungen der Benedictinerregel, ed. Schröer, Arnold, BAP 2 (Kassel, 1885–1888), 89Google Scholar, line 10, and 91, lines 3–4.

page 200 note 8 The semantic range of this word is indicated by the Latin words it glosses. It glosses colobium (‘an undergarment with short sleeves’ and from the late eighth century ‘tabard, shirt, sleeveless tunic or cloak’; see Latham, R. E., Revised Medieval Latin Word-List (London, 1965), p. 97Google Scholar) in manuscripts of Aldhelm's De Laudibus Virginitatis belonging to the Abingdon group, from the first half of the eleventh century (‘colobium: loþa, dalmatica I uestis, serc’ (The Old English Glosses of MS. Brussels, Royal Library, 1650 (Aldbelm's De Laudibus Virginitatis), ed. Goossens, Louis (Brussels, 1974), p. 384,Google Scholar line 3613) and ‘colobium: loþa, sere, smocc, hemeþe’ in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Digby 146 (Old English Glosses, ed. Napier, Arthur S. (Oxford, 1900), p. 99Google Scholar, line 3725)), and in the Plantin-Moretus/BL glossary (‘colobium: smoc, uel syrc’; Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 71; WW 125.1). It glosses ‘colobium 1 interulum’ (‘an undergarment, shirt’) in Ælfric's Glossary (syric, Ælfrics Grammatik und Glossar, ed. Zupitza, Julius (Berlin, 1880), p. 315Google Scholar, line 3), composed in the last decade of the tenth or the first few years of the eleventh century (see Clemoes, P. A. M., ‘The Chronology of Ælfric's Works’, The Anglo-Saxons: Studies in their History and Culture presented to Bruce Dickins, ed. Clemoes, (London, 1959), p. 244Google Scholar). It glosses ‘suppar, interula’ (supparum ‘a linen garment worn by women’) in the Plantin-Moretus/BL glossary (syrc, Junius 71; WW 187.17). The word could also be used in military contexts, since it glosses armilausia (‘a military upper garment’) in the eighth- or ninth-century glossary in CCCC 144 (serce, The Corpus Glossary, ed. Lindsay, W. M. (Cambridge, 1921), p. 19Google Scholar, line 755) and three times in related word-lists in the tenth-century manuscript BL Cotton Cleopatra A. iii (sere, WW 267.43; serce, 549.35; and sere, 352.12), and since it occurs in several Old English compounds meaning ‘corslet, body-armour’, e.g. in Beowulf licsyrce, beadusercean (Beowulf and Judith, ed. Dobbie, Elliott van Kirk, The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 4 (New York, 1953), 19Google Scholar, line 550, and 85, line 2755), confirming that a sere was a close-fitting garment.

page 201 note 1 The version of the Rule in the twelfth-century BL Cotton Faustina A. x shows traces of a feminine exemplar, although it has been adapted for monks by the alteration of feminine pronouns to masculine; see Gretsch, Mechthild, ‘Æthelwold's Translation of the Regula Sancti Benedicti and its Latin Exemplar’, ASE 3 (1974), 138–9Google Scholar. It would have been interesting to see what the nuns’ equivalent of tunica was, but in both occurrences the original text has been erased at the relevant point. A later hand has supplied tunica in the first instance and in the second the word curtlas, which is smaller than the available space.

page 201 note 2 The Holy Gospels in Anglo-Saxon, Northumbrian and Old Mercian Versions, ed. Skeat, Walter W. (Cambridge, 1871–1877)Google Scholar, Matthew (v.40) West Saxon p. 50 and Lindisfarne p. 51, Luke (111.11 and vi.29) West Saxon pp. 38 and 66 and Lindisfarne pp. 39 and 67 and John (xxi.7) West Saxon p. 182 and Lindisfarne p. 183.

page 201 note 3 This word is most often used of a garment, usually a cloak. It translates pallium (‘a Greek cloak’) here, and glosses the same Latin word in the interlinear Benedictine Rule gloss (wœfœls, Rule of S. Benet, ed. Logeman, p. 32, line 14) and in a Kentish glossary (wefels, WW 81.44) of the tenth century in BL Cotton Vespasian D. vi (see Ker, N. R., Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957), p. 268Google Scholar). It glosses chlamys (‘cloak’) in Aldhelm manuscripts of the Abingdon group (‘clamide: i. sagum, duplex uestimentum, wæfel, uestem, basincge’ in Brussels 1650 (ed. Goossens, p. 283, line 2080) and ‘clamidem: i. uestem, basincge, wæfel’ in Digby 146 (Napier, , Glosses, p. 57Google Scholar, line 2117)) and theristrum (‘a summer garment’ worn by women) in the Salisbury group (‘theristro: pa:uelse [sic]‘ in Salisbury, Cathedral Library, 38 (Logeman, H., ‘New Aldhelm Glosses’, Anglia 13 (1891) 37Google Scholar, line 271) and wauelse in BL Royal 6. A. vi and Royal 5. E. xi (Napier, , Glosses, p. 163Google Scholar, line 362, and p. 170, line 354)). In an early-eleventh-century manuscript of Abbo of St Germain's poem Bella Parisiacae Urbis ‘linenne wæuels’ glosses anaboladia (anaboladium, ‘a linen mantle or wrap’ (Souter, Alexander, A Glossary of Later Latin to 600 A.D). (Oxford, 1949). P. 14)Google Scholar; Zupitza, Julius, ‘Altenglische Glossen zu Abbos Clericorum decus’, ZDA 31 (1887), 16Google Scholar, line 421). It signifies a garment, but in a more general sense, when, with overbraedels, it glosses opertorium in the eleventh-century interlinear gloss to the Lambeth Psalter, London, Lambeth Palace Library, 427 (Der Lambeth-Psalter, ed. U. Lindelöf, Acta Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae 35.i and 43.iii (1909–14), 1, 160 (ps. ci.27)), and signifies a covering when ‘indumento, under wæfelse’ glosses ‘sub … uelamento’ (Brussels 1650, ed. Goossens, p. 285, line 2114; wafesse in Digby 146 (Napier, Glosses, p. 58, line 2151)). In Ælfric's Grammar it glosses ‘tegimen oððe tegmen’ (‘a covering’; ed. Zupitza, p. 41, line 1) and there are other instances where it does not mean a garment; for example in Ælfric's Catholic Homilies it signifies the cloth with which Christ was blindfolded (The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church: the First Part containing the Sermones Catholici or Homilies of Ælfric, ed. Thorpe, Benjamin (London, 1844–1846) 11, 248, line 13)Google Scholar.

page 201 note 4 Skeat, Gospels, Matthew (v.40) p. 50; ‘Whoever wishes … to take your tunica, give up your cloak to him’.

page 202 note 1 Die Vercelli-Homilien, ed. Förster, Max, BAP 12 (Hamburg, 1932), 33Google Scholar, lines 279 and 280 tunuce and line 282 tunecan.

page 202 note 2 Biblia sacra vulgatae editionis (Rome, 1886)Google Scholar, John xix.23.

page 202 note 3 Bischofs Warferth von Worcester Übersetzung der Dialoge Gregors des Grossen, ed. Hecht, Hans, BAP 5 (Leipzig, 1900), 1, 68,Google Scholar lines 5–7 (‘was going out … often without his kemese and also often without his tunece’).

page 202 note 4 Cemes derives from Latin camisia (‘a linen shirt or night gown’; ‘a long undergarment for men worn next to the skin’; see Souter, Later Latin, p. 36). It was probably an early loan. With OE bam it glosses camisa in a word-list arranged according to alphabetical principles in BL Cotton Cleopatra A. iii (WW 362.18).

page 202 note 5 Sancti Gregorii Papaei, cognomento Magni, Opera Omnia III PL 77, col. 197.

page 202 note 6 King Alfred's Orosius, ed. Sweet, Henry, EETS o.s. 79 (London, 1883), 234Google Scholar, line 23.

page 202 note 7 ibid. p. 106, lines 11–19.

page 202 note 8 Bately, Janet, ‘The Classical Additions in the Old English Orosius’, England before the Conquest: Studies in Primary Sources presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. Peter, Clemoes and Kathleen, Hughes (Cambridge, 1971), p. 239.Google Scholar

page 202 note 9 The Old English Prudentius Glosses at Boulogne-sur-Mer, ed. Meritt, Herbert Dean, Stanford Stud. in Lang, and Lit. 16 (Stanford, California, 1959), 39Google Scholar, line 363, and 40, line 375. The glosses relate to Peristephanon Liber, x, lines 145 and 155.

page 202 note 10 Heptateuch, ed. Crawford, p. 174.

page 202 note 11 See above, p. 196.

page 203 note 1 Heptateuch, ed. Crawford, p. 171 (Genesis xxvii.3).

page 203 note 2 See BT blac and blac. Blac means ‘black’, and blac can mean ‘pale’ but is normally used of the human complexion, not of artifacts. Possibly these near-homonyms were confused in Anglo-Saxon times. Professor Whkelock translates ‘black’ here. In support, note that ‘ane blace hacelan’ translates ‘vestem moeroris’, usual spelling maeroris (‘a garment of penitence’ or ‘of mourning’) in the Old English Orosius (ed. Sweet, p. 234, line 22) and see Ælfric's gloss ‘niger: blac’ (ed. Zupitza, p. 306, line 17).

page 203 note 3 It has been suggested that the description ‘dun-coloured’ signified a garment made of undyed wool; see Whitelock, , Æthelgifu, p. 82.Google Scholar

page 203 note 4 This taste is noticeable throughout the Anglo-Saxon era. Grave-goods from pagan and early Christian cemeteries include gaudy beads and brooches and the more elegant polychrome jewellery with its contrasting garnet and gold. There are also rare finds of dyed textile (for example a braid from St John's cricket field, Cambridge; see Grace M. Crowfoot, ‘Textiles of the Saxon Period in the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology’, Proc. of the Cambridge Ant. Soc. 44 (1951), 28–30). In the eighth century Paulus Diaconus, in a description possibly referring to the Anglo-Saxons, wrote of ‘vestimenta … hornata institis latioribus vario colore contextis’ (‘garments … adorned with rather wide borders woven in variegated colours’, Pauli Historia Langobardorum, ed. Waitz, G., MGH, Script. Rer. Germ. 48 (Hanover, 1878), 155Google Scholar, para. 22). Aldhelm, at the end of the seventh century or in the first decade of the eighth, described women wearing garments of scarlet or violet (‘coccinea sive iacintina’; Aldhelmi Opera, ed. Ehwald, Rudolfus, MGH, Auct. Antiq. 15 (Berlin, 1919), 318Google Scholar, line 2) and Bede, in the first half of the eighth century, mentioned a scarlet dye made from shell-fish (Bede's Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, p. 14). In the tenth century Æthelgifu bequeathed ‘hire rotostan cyrtel’ (‘her brightest cyrtel’) as well as one described as blœwenan (probably ‘blue’) and others which may have been purple (‘godwebbenan cyrtlas’; Whitelock, Æthelgifu, p. 13, lines 45, 47 and 48). The words of the ‘mercator’ in Ælfric's Colloquy show that coloured garments and dyes (‘Purpuram … uarias uestes et pigmenta’) were regularly imported in the late tenth century (Ælfric's Colloquy, ed. Garmonsway, G. N. (London, 1939), p. 33Google Scholar, lines 159–60).

page 203 note 5 ‘Depone vestimenta hujus sæculi, et indue te tunica perpetuitatis’ (PL 17, col. 604; ‘Put aside the garments of this world and dress yourself in the tunica of eternity’).

page 204 note 1 She is bequeathed slaves, stock, bedding and horses, as well as clothing.

page 204 note 2 Cf. ‘Wif moton under brunum hrægle to husle gan’ (‘Women must attend eucharist in a dark garment’), Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, ed. Thorpe, B. (London, 1840) 11, 162Google Scholar (CCCC 190, Conjessionale Ps.-Egberti).

page 204 note 3 Serjeantson, Mary S., A History of Foreign Words in English (London, 1935), pp. 278 and 281Google Scholar. Medieval Latin curtella and kirtella are documented only from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries respectively; see Latham, , Word-List, p. 266.Google Scholar

page 204 note 4 Skeat, Gospels, Matthew (v.40) p. 51, Luke (III .11 and VI.29) pp. 39 and 67 and John (XXI.7) p. 183.

page 204 note 5 At Matthew V.40 ‘et illi qui uult … tunicam tuam tollere remitte et pallium’ (‘and whoever wishes to take your tunica give it him and your cloak too’) is glossed ‘7 ðæm seðe wil … cyrtel I hrægl ðin to niomanne forlet 7 hrægl 1 hæcla 1 bratt’. Hragl is a very common, general garment-term (BT ‘a garment, dress, robe, rail [in night-rail], clothing’). Hacele glosses subucula (in Aldhelm ‘a woman's linen undergarment’; ed. Ehwald, p. 318, line 2) in Aldhelm manuscripts of the Abingdon group (with ham in Brussels 1650 (ed. Goossens, p. 478, line 5195) and Digby 146 (Napier, , Glosses, p. 134Google Scholar, line 5316)) and in BL Cotton Cleopatra A.iii (WW 513.36) but otherwise signifies a cloak. It translates pallium in the continuous text version of the Benedictine Rule, where it is distinguished from tunece (‘he læt þa hacelan to þæm, þe hine tunecan benæmde’ (‘he gave up the hacele to him who deprived him of his tunece’); ed. Schröer, p. 28, lines 5–6), and sagum in the Old English Orosius (ed. Sweet, p. 234, line 22). It glosses lacerna (‘a cloak worn by the Romans in cold or wet weather’) in several glossaries (‘hæcile vel Ioða’ in the Corpus Glossary (ed. Lindsay, p. 102, line 15), ‘hacele, oððe lotha’ in Cleopatra A. iii (WW 439.2) and ‘hacele geflenod, uel gecorded’ in the Plantin-Moretus/BL glossary (Junius 71; WW 187.14) and paludamentum (‘a military cloak’) in the Corpus Glossary (‘paludamentum: genus vestimenti bellici: haecile’; ed. Lindsay, p. 129, line 7). In the Plantin-Moretus/BL glossary it glosses clamis (‘hacele uel fotsid sciccel’; Kluge, F., ‘Angelsächsische Glossen’, Anglia 8 (1885), 451Google Scholar, and ed. Kindschi, p. 159, line 1) and in Cleopatra A. iii it glosses clamidem (‘hacelan, oððe lachen, oððe Ioðan’; WW 377.22–3) and ependiten (ependytes, ‘outer garment’; WW 397.39). Bratt was probably a Celtic loan-word (see Campbell, A., Old English Grammar (Oxford, 1959), p. 220Google Scholar) and does not occur elsewhere in Old English, although it survived in Middle English as a humble garment-word (see The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, ed. Robinson, F. N., 2nd ed. (London, 1957), p. 217Google Scholar, line 881). Cognates include Gaelic brat, ‘a mantle’ (see BT bratt).

page 204 note 6 Junius 71; WW 107.26.

page 204 note 7 ‘A long and wide upper garment of the Roman ladies, held together by brooches, a robe, a mantle.’ Other meanings include ‘an undergarment, a man's garment’ and ‘a shroud’; see Souter, , Later Latin, p. 283.Google Scholar

page 205 note 1 Et., ed. Lindsay, xix.25.2 (‘Apalla is a square cloak, a feminine garment, hanging right down to the feet, to which jewels are attached in a row’); see ‘Glossaries’, ed. Kindschi, p. 48, line 10.

page 205 note 2 Old English Homilies, ed. Morris, Richard, EETS o.s. 29, 34 and 53 (London, 1868–1873) 11, 139Google Scholar, lines 16–17.

page 205 note 3 Chaucer, ed. Robinson, pp. 313, line 235, and 572, line 778.

page 205 note 4 The Vision of William concerning Piers the Plowman, ed. Skeat, Walter W., EETS o.s. 28, 38, 54, 67 and 81 (London, 1867–1885) 11, 61Google Scholar, lines 79–80.

page 205 note 5 ‘a bear-skin or otter-skin kyrtel’, ed. Sweet, p. 18, line 21.

page 205 note 6 ‘Buy yourselves purple cyrtlas’, Homilies, ed. Thorpe 1, 64, line 13.

page 205 note 7 Whitelock, , Æthelgifu, p. 13Google Scholar, lines 45, 47 and 48.

page 205 note 8 Wills, p. 86, line 2.

page 205 note 9 The garments mentioned by Ohthere are of skin; Wulfgyth's ‘wellene kertel’ could have been sheepskin.

page 205 note 10 Wynflæd bequeaths a cyrtel of linen. Wulfgyth's kertel could have been woven from woollen thread. Æthelgifu's dyed garments are likely to have been woven.

page 206 note 1 BT twi-lic; Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, ed. Holthausen, F. (Heidelberg, 1934), p. 357.Google Scholar

page 206 note 2 ‘hio becwiþ him twa mydrecan 7 þæraninnan an bedreaf eal þæt to anum bedde gebyreð’ (Wills, p. 12, lines 21–3; ‘she bequeaths to him two chests and in them a set of bed-clothing, all that belongs to one bed’); ‘hio becwið Æðelf[læde] … linnenweb’ (ibid. p. 14, lines 6–8; ‘she bequeaths to Æthelflæd … some linen cloth’); and ‘Eadgyfe twa mydrecan 7 þæranin[n]an hyre be <t= sþe bedwahrift 7 linnenne ruwan 7 eal þæt bedref þe þærto gebyreð’ (ibid. p. 14, lines 8–10; ‘to Eadgifu two chests and in them her best bed-curtain and a linen covering and all the bed-clothing which goes with it’).

page 206 note 3 Corpus Glossariorwn Latinorum, ed. Goetz, Georgius (Leipzig, 1888–1923) 11, 570Google Scholar, line 10, n. The glossary was on leaves belonging to Ferdinand Deycks; see Ker, , Catalogue, pp. 483–4.Google Scholar

page 206 note 4 Thorax, ‘a defence, armour, or covering for the breast, a breastplate, corslet, cuirass; a doublet, stomacher’. Einhard mentions a fur thorax; Einbardi Vita Karoli Magni, ed. Waitz, G., rev. O. Holder-Egger, MGH, Script. Rer. Germ. 25, 6th ed. (Hanover and Leipzig, 1911), 28Google Scholar, lines 1–2; see below, p. 207, n. 3.

page 206 note 5 Ed. Lindsay, p. 177, line 196.

page 206 note 6 The spacing of letters between and within words is erratic in the manuscript as a whole, but the gap between twili and brocenan is noticeably wide – wider for example than that between brocenan and cyrtel. There is a gap after the e in brocenan and a brown stain large enough to occupy the space of a letter with a descender, although not a þ or an r; perhaps an error has been corrected by erasure.

page 206 note 7 Erfurt, Stadtbücherei, Amplonianus F.42 (‘biplex, duplex: tuili’; The Oldest English Texts, ed. Sweet, Henry, EETS o.s. 83 (London, 1885), 109Google Scholar, line 1151).

page 206 note 8 Leiden, Rijksuniversiteit, Vossianus Lat. 4˚ 69 (‘simplex: aenli, bilex: tili’; ibid. p. 115, lines 156 and 157).

page 207 note 1 Diplomatarium, p. 538.

page 207 note 2 BT twilic-brocen.

page 207 note 3 Ed. Waits, rev. Holder-Egger, 28, lines 1–2 (‘in the winter he covered his shoulders and chest with a thorax made of otter and marten skins’); cf. above, p. 206, n. 4.

page 207 note 4 Felix's Life of Saint Gutblac, ed. Colgrave, Bertram (Cambridge, 1956), p. 94.Google Scholar

page 207 note 5 Die Briefe des Heiligen Bonifatius und Lullus, ed. Tangl, Michael, MGH, Epist. Sel. 1 (Berlin, 1916), 251Google Scholar, lines 14–15.

page 207 note 6 Jellema, Dirk, ‘Frisian Trade in the Dark Ages’, Speculum 30 (1955), 31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 207 note 7 Domesday Book, ed. Farley, A. (London, 1783) 1Google Scholar, 262v, and Round, J. H., Feudal England (London, 1909), p. 467.Google Scholar

page 207 note 8 Ælfrics Grammatik und Glossar, ed. Zupitza, p. 315, n. to line 5. See discussion rocc, below.

page 207 note 9 In the bilingual Rule of Chrodegang, in a manuscript of the third quarter of the eleventh century, CCCC 191, OE fell is used of a skin garment worn by priests, which reached down to the feet. It translates Latin pelle (‘a leather garment’); see The Old English Version of the Enlarged Rule of Chrodegang, ed. Napier, Arthur S., EETS o.s. 150 (London, 1916), 64Google Scholar, lines 6 and 33.

page 207 note 10 The word glosses gunna in the Corpus Glossary (ed. Lindsay, p. 87, line 185). Gunna (‘a leather garment’; see Souter, , Later Latin, p. 166Google Scholar) was used by Anglo-Saxon writers of a garment worn by men in holy orders, and once, at least, of an otter-skin garment (Briefe, ed. Tangl, pp. 247, lines 21–2, and 251, lines 14–15). Hedene is among glosses to ‘magistri … melote’ (melote ‘a sheepskin garment (with the wool on)’) in the Abingdon group of Aldhelm manuscripts (‘ueste, mantile, þurh larewlicū basincge 1 hedene 1 sicilse’ in Brussels 1650 (ed. Goossens, p. 244, line 1493) and ‘þurh larewlicum basincge, hedene, scicelse’ in Digby 146 (Napier, , Glosses, p. 39Google Scholar, line 1471)). It is cognate with Icelandic beðinn (‘fur coat’; see Holthausen, Wōrterbuch, p. 153).

page 207 note 11 Pylce glosses pellicia (‘a leather garment, wool on the pelt’ see Latham, , Word-List, p. 338Google Scholar) in Ælfric's Glossary (ed. Zupitza, p. 315, line 3). In an Old English homily of the first half of the eleventh century Adam and Eve are said to have received pylcan made of skins (‘mid þam deadum fellum’; MacLean, George Edwin, ‘Ælfric's Version of Alcuini Interrogationes Sigeuulfi in Genesin. The A.S. and Latin Texts’, Anglia 7 (1884), 30Google Scholar, lines 283–5 and nn.). The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 1075 [1074], MS D, records that King Malcolm of Scotland and his sister gave marten-skin garments (‘on merðerne pyleceon’; Two of the Saxon Chronicles Parallel, ed. Plummer, Charles and Earle, John, rev. ed. (Oxford, 1952) 1, 209Google Scholar). Cf. OED ‘pilch’ 1. ‘… a skin … leathern or coarse woollen outer garment’.

page 208 note 1 Hreðan glosses melote three times in glossaries in Cleopatra A. iii (WW 445.26, 492.12 and 503.17), but Meritt has argued that it is a metathesized form of heroðan (‘a goatskin’); see Herbert Dean Meritt, Some of the Hardest Glosses in Old English (Stanford, Calif., 1968), p. 22.Google Scholar

page 208 note 2 The Icelandic cognate loði is used in the Elder Edda of the shaggy, pile-woven mantle; see Gudjónsson, E. E., ‘On Ancient and Medieval Pile Weaving, with Special Reference to a Recent Find in Iceland’, Árbók bins Islenzka Fornleifafélags (1962), p. 68.Google Scholar

page 208 note 3 Ed. Zupitza, p. 315, n. to line 5 (‘a garment made of skins, a sheepskin’).

page 208 note 4 Junius 71; WW 152.1.

page 208 note 5 Et., ed. Lindsay, xix.24.19–20.

page 208 note 6 I am grateful to the Belle Vue Zoological Gardens, Manchester, for information about badgerskins.

page 208 note 7 Campbell, , Grammar, p. 312.Google Scholar

page 208 note 8 ‘heo næfre linenum hræglum brucan wolde ac wyllenum’ (Kōnig Alfreds Übersetzung von Bedas Kirchengeschichte, ed. Schipper, Jacob, BAP 4 (Leipzig, 1899), 443Google Scholar, lines 2516–8; ‘she would never wear linen garments, but only woollen’).

page 208 note 9 See Whitelock, Dorothy, ‘The Old English Bede’, Proc. of the Brit. Acad. 48 (1962), 57 and 77.Google Scholar

page 208 note 10 A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, ed. Hall, John R. Clark, 4th ed. with suppl. by Meritt, Herbert D. (Cambridge, 1970)Google Scholar, under brucan cites ‘brocen cyrtel’, ‘a coat which has been worn’. The quotation is attributed to Ælfric, but this is apparently an error. Professor Meritt has suggested to me that the entry derives from Wynflæd's will.

page 209 note 1 Wills, pp. 12, line 22, and 14, lines 8, 21 and 22.

page 211 note 1 ‘Broken diamond twill was a favourite with the Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians for the best quality of fine woollen cloth; from English sites there are also some linen examples.’ Broken diamond twills have been found at two unusually rich English sites, Broomfield, Essex, and Sutton Hoo, Suffolk; see Elisabeth Crowfoot, App. I Hilda Davidson, R. Ellis and Webster, Leslie, ‘The Anglo-Saxon Burial at Coombe (Woodnesborough), Kent’, MA 11 (1967), 37.Google Scholar

page 211 note 2 ‘Nunquam lineis sed solum laneis uestimentis uti uoluerit’, Bede's Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, p. 392; see above, p. 208, n. 8.

page 211 note 3 Diplomatarium, p. 538.

page 211 note 4 Wills, p. 113, n. to line 16.

page 212 note 1 Campbell, , Grammar, pp. 200–1.Google Scholar

page 212 note 2 mentles, King Alfred's West-Saxon Version of Gregory's Pastoral Care, ed. Sweet, Henry, EETS o.s. 45 and 50 (London, 1871), 1, 196Google Scholar, line 21; chlamydis, PL 77, col. 55.

page 212 note 3 BL Stowe 2; Psalterium Davidis Latino-Saxonicum Vetus, ed. Spelmanno, Johanne (London, 1640)Google Scholar, ps. cviii.28.

page 212 note 4 Et., ed. Lindsay, xix.22.24 (‘A colobium is [so] called because it is long and sleeveless’).

page 212 note 5 The Harley Latin-Old English Glossary, ed. Oliphant, Robert T., JL Series Practica 20 (The Hague, 1966), 96Google Scholar, line 1582 (omitting et).

page 212 note 6 See Latham, , Word-List, p. 97.Google Scholar

page 212 note 7 Ham, BT ‘a covering, garment, shirt’, glosses colobium in the Corpus Glossary (hom, ed. Lindsay, p. 41, line 514) and in a related glossary in Cleopatra A. iii (hom, W 276.9) and glosses camis[i]a in the Corpus Glossary (baam, ed. Lindsay, p. 32, line 109) and in Cleopatra A. iii (‘camisa: ham, cemes’, WW 362.18). In Aldhelm manuscripts it glosses subucula (‘ham, hacele’ in Brussels 1650 (ed. Goossens, p. 478, line 5195) and Digby 146 (Napier, , Glosses, p. 134Google Scholar, line 5316) and in BL Royal 5. E. xi (Napier, Glosses, p. 170, line 372)). Smoc(c), BT ‘a smock, shift’, glosses colobium in Digby 146 of Aldhelm (‘loþa, sere, smocc, hemeþe’ (Napier, , Glosses, p. 99Google Scholar, line 3725)). It is cognate with Icelandic smokkr (‘a smock’; see Holthausen, , Wörterbuch, p. 303).Google Scholar

page 213 note 1 Wills, p. 64, line 11. And on Æthelgifu's will, see above, p. 195, n. 4.

page 213 note 2 Usually ‘a bracelet’ but documented from c. 1200 meaning ‘pin, brooch’; see Latham, Word-List, p. 448. I am not sure what Ælfric understood it to mean and the context only gives a general indication; see below, next n.

page 213 note 3 ‘anulus: hring, armilla: beah, diadema: kynehelm, capitium: hæt, monile: myne oððe swurbeah, spinther: dale oððe preon, fibula: oferfeng, uitta: snod, inauris: earpreon’ (ed. Zupitza, p. 303, lines 14–17).

page 213 note 4 Junius 71; WW 152.37.

page 213 note 5 See BT preon; Holthausen, , Wörterbuch, p. 249.Google Scholar

page 213 note 6 Wilson, , Metalwork, pl. xxxvi, no. 92, and p. 7.Google Scholar

page 213 note 7 ibid. p. 52.

page 213 note 8 Hinton (‘Late Metal-Work’, pp. 171–80) demonstrates that gold had been debased and had become rare and that silver was hardly being used for secular ornaments in the tenth and eleventh centuries. He suggests that it was being used for church plate.

page 213 note 9 Wilson, Metaltvork, pl. xv, no. 10.

page 213 note 10 ibid. pls. xxxi, and xxxii, no. 83.

page 213 note 11 R. I. Page, App. Wilson, A, Metaltvork, pp. 86–8Google Scholar (‘Ædvwen owns me, may the Lord own her. May the Lord curse the man who takes me from her, unless she give me of her own free will‘).

page 214 note 1 Prudentius, trans. H. J. Thomson, Loeh Classical Lib. (London, 1949–1953) 1, 292Google Scholar, line 187.

page 214 note 2 This cannot be offered as direct evidence of Anglo-Saxon costume, since the drawing was based ultimately on a continental model (see Woodruff, Helen, The Illustrated Manuscripts of Prudentius (Cambridge, Mass., 1930), pp. 4–5 and 19–21Google Scholar), but it supports my speculation about the way a hooded cloak could be fastened.

page 214 note 3 BT binde.

page 214 note 4 Kluge, F., ‘Zur Geschichte der Zeichensprache. Angelsächsische Indicia Monasterialia’, Inter nationale Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft 2 (1885), 129Google Scholar, para. 127 (‘The sign for any unconsecrated woman is that you [indicate] with your forefingers your forehead from one ear to the other in the sign of a binde’).

page 214 note 5 There is no reason to connect this tenth- and eleventh-century fillet with the gold-brocaded head-bands worn by sixth-century Anglo-Saxon women, as attested by gold fragments found in graves. These were a short-lived luxury fashion, limited to a very few, wealthy owners and restricted to Kent and two sites in areas influenced by Kent's culture; see Elisabeth Crowfoot and Hawkes, Sonia Chadwick, ‘Early Anglo-Saxon Gold Braids’, MA 11 (1967), 42–86Google Scholar. Nor is Wynflæd's fillet to be identified with the type of gold band bequeathed in three slightly later wills, which was valued for its gold content (cf. above, p. 198, n. 4): ‘healfne bænd gyldenne’ (Wills, p. 26, line 26; ‘half a gold band’ (Whitelock translates ‘head-band’)), ‘anes bendes on twentigum mancussum goldes’ (Wills, p. 64, lines 20–1; ‘a band of twenty mancuses of gold’) and ‘ceorfe man of hire bende witsige V mancessas’ (Whitelock, , Æthelgifu, p. 13Google Scholar, line 46; ‘five mancuses are to be cut from her band for Witsige’ (Whitelock translates ‘head-band’)).

page 215 note 1 Kluge, ’Indicia’, p. 129, para. 126.

page 215 note 2 The execution of these pictures was interrupted during the fifth, and final, stage of illumination: the inking-in of the drapery folds is incomplete; see Hexateuch, ed. Dodwell and Clemoes, p. 63. The head-band appears for the first time in the depictions of the daughters of Reuel, inhabitants of Midian, where Moses was in exile (76r–76v and 78v); but it is unlikely that the artist was using the head-band as a device to indicate ‘foreign’ costume, for it appears later in the manuscript worn by Israelite women (90v and 92r–92v) and Miriam (116v).

page 215 note 3 Diplomatarium, p. 538.

page 215 note 4 Serjeantson, , Foreign Words, p. 278.Google Scholar

page 215 note 5 Kluge, ‘Glossen’, p. 450.

page 215 note 6 Documented from the thirteenth century; see Latham, , Word-List, p. 95.Google Scholar

page 216 note 1 Tacitus does not mention any head-dress normally worn by German women. Pins for securing the hair or head-dress have often been found at the skulls of female Anglo-Saxon skeletons of the pagan period, but they occur only in a minority of graves, being proportionately fewer than brooches and buckles. Viking women are depicted bare-headed in art.

page 216 note 2 Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 577, iv; see Otto Pächt and Alexander, J. J. G., Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Oxford, 1966–1973) 111Google Scholar, no. 33, pl. 111.

page 216 note 3 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Cod. lat. 323; see Beckwith, John, Ivory Carvings in Early Medieval England (London, 1972)Google Scholar, no. 24. The dates given for ivory carvings in this article are those suggested by Beckwith.

page 216 note 4 London, Victoria and Albert Museum, no. A 5–193 5; see ibid. no. 40, pl. 75.

page 216 note 5 Munich, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, no. MA 164; see ibid. no. 9, pl. 24.

page 217 note 1 Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale, Fonds Lat. 8824, 31:; see The Paris Psalter, ed. Colgrave, Bertram et al. , EEMF 8 (Copenhagen, 1958Google Scholar). Professor Wormald has suggested that this illustration had no direct source but was the artist's invention; see ibid. pp. 14–15. Wormald assumed that both figures in the drawing are male, but nothing in the text (ps. iv.7) demands it. The left-hand figure is bearded and wears the short tunic more typical of secular male figures in drawings of this period, but the right-hand figure (the one with the hat), having no beard and wearing an anklelength garment, is likely to be female. Admittedly men appear in similar long garments (2v, 3r and 5r) as well as in tunics (4r), but all are bare-headed. A woman (6r) wears the usual feminine head-dress, consisting of a voluminous hood, and a long garment.

page 217 note 2 Goldschmidt, Adolph, German Illumination (Florence, 1928) 1Google Scholar, pl. 62.

page 217 note 3 Fyson, D. R., ‘Some Late Anglian Sculpture’, Archaeologia Aeliana 4th ser. 38 (1960), 151Google Scholar, fig. 5.

page 217 note 4 Copenhagen, Nationalmuseet, no. 9087; see Beckwith, Ivories, no. 43, pls. 82–4.

page 217 note 5 The Monasterialia Indicia implies that kings’ wives wore a distinctive form of head-dress: ‘Cyninges wifes tacen is þæt þu strece onbutan heofod, and sete syððan þine hand bufon þin heofod’ (Kluge, ‘Indicia’, p. 128, para. 119; ‘The sign of the king's wife is that you extend [your hand] about your head, and afterwards set your hand above your head’). If the gesture were indicating a crown, the instruction might have said so, as in the description of the sign for the king: ‘Ðæs cyninges tacen is, þæt þu wende þine hand adune, and befoh þin heofod ufeweard eallum fingrum on cynehelmes tacne’ (Kluge, ‘Indicia’, p. 128, para. 118; ‘The king's sign is, that you turn your hand downward, and encircle the upper part of your head with all your fingers in the sign of a crown’).

page 217 note 6 The word glosses conopeo (conopeum, ‘a net of fine gauze’; in this context, Holofernes's bed-curtain (Aldhelmi Opera, ed. Ehwald, p. 317, line 13)) in glossed Aldhelm manuscripts of the Abingdon group (with Brussels 1650 (ed. Goossens, p. 476, line 5157) and rif in Digby 146 (Napier, , Glosses, p. 133Google Scholar, line 5276)). Uelum (‘the veil of the temple’) is glossed rif in Oxford, Bodleian Library, Auct. D. 5. 3 (Meritt, Herbert Dean, Old English Glosses (New York and London, 1945), p. 53Google Scholar, line 38).

page 217 note 7 In the Corpus Glossary the word glosses laena (‘a lined upper garment, cloak’) and palla (rift, ed. Lindsay, pp. 104, line 80, and 132, line 126). In Cleopatra A. iii it glosses sagum (‘hwitel oþþe ryft’, WW 268.2). It glosses cicla (cyclas, ‘state robe, with border, worn by women’) in the Harleian glossary (‘orel, ryft’, ed. Oliphant, p. 78, line 1013). It translates pallium in Farmon's tenth-century Mercian gloss to the Rushworth Gospels (hryft, Skeat, Matthew (v.40), p. 51) and in the Mercian gloss to the Vespasian Psalter, BL Cotton Vespasian A. i (Anglo-Saxon and Early English Psalter, ed. Stevenson, J., Surtees Soc. 16 and 19 (London, 1843–1847), 11, 14Google Scholar (ps ciii.6)) and in the Paris Psalter (The Paris Psalter and the Metres of Boethius, ed. Krapp, George Philip, ASPR 5 (London and New York, 1933), 76Google Scholar (ps. ciii.7)). In the Harleian glossary rift glosses ‘biuligo, niger uelamen’ (biuligoæ velamen, ‘a cover, covering, clothing, robe, garment, veil’); ed. Oliphant, p. 32, line 289.

page 218 note 1 Homilies, ed. Thorpe 11, 478, lines 5–6.

page 218 note 2 St Jerome writes of Marcella, a widow who once had an elaborate coiffure and head-dress, replacing this with a veil on devoting herself to Christ (PL 22, col. 464, para. 4). She was one of the associates of Marcellina, sister of St Ambrose, bishop of Milan, herself a consecrated virgin (PL 16, col. 231).

page 218 note 3 Kluge, ‘Indicia’, p. 129, para. 122 (‘The sign of nuns is that you set your two forefingers on your head in front, and afterwards move them down along your cheeks in indication of the holy veil’).

page 218 note 4 Ed. Schipper, p. 442, lines 2500–3 (‘she received the holy veil and the office of God's servant there from the aforesaid Bishop Wilfrid’).

page 218 note 5 Homilies, ed. Thorpe 11, 476, lines 31–2 (‘the bride of the Heavenly King, and sanctified with holy veil’).

page 218 note 6 An Old English Martyrology, ed. Herzfeld, George, EETS o.s. 116 (London, 1900), 102Google Scholar, lines 8–9 (‘then she took the veil in the convent which is called Coldingham’).

page 218 note 7 ibid. p. 206, lines 23–4 (‘St Hild was thirty-three years in secular life and thirty-three years a nun’).

page 218 note 8 Leechdoms, Wortcunningand Starcraft of Early England, ed. Cockayne, Oswald, Rolls Ser. 35 (London, 1864–1866), 111, 430Google Scholar, lines 24–6 (‘St Seaxburg and St Eormenhild took the veil in the convent which is called Milton in Kent’).

page 219 note 1 haligryfte in Brussels 1650 (ed. Goossens, p. 474, line 5123), halirefte in Digby 146 (Napier, Glosses, p. 133, line 5243) and haligreftein BL Royal 6. B. vii (ibid. p. 147, line 441).

page 219 note 2 See above, p. 201, n. 3.

page 219 note 3 Aldbelmi Opera, ed. Ehwald.p. 316, line 23.

page 219 note 4 Ed. Zupitza, p. 299, lines 13–14 (‘honourable widow or nun’).

page 219 note 5 She distinguishes (Æthclgifu, p. 34) between the cloistered nun, OE myncen, and the woman living outside a nunnery under religious vows, OE nunne.

page 219 note 6 Professor Whitelock assumes (ibid.) that these are women of Wynflæd's household mentioned earlier in the text, the Wulfflæd who is freed (Wills, p. 10, lines 28–9) and the Æthelgifu who is a seamstress (ibid. pp. 10, line 30, – 11, line 1).

page 220 note 1 In the late Old English prose Hexateuch it renders stolas (stola, ‘a long upper garment’); Heptateuch, ed. Crawford, p. 198 (Genesis xiv.22, not Ælfric's work). In the Plantin-Moretus/BL glossary it glosses ‘uestis, clamis’ (Junius 71; WW 124.27) and in the Abingdon group of Aldhelm manuscripts it glosses melote (‘ueste, scrude’ in Brussels 1650 (ed. Goossens, p. 380, line 3561) and scrude in Digby 146 (Napier, , Glosses, p. 97Google Scholar, line 3670)).

page 220 note 2 It glosses uestitum in Ælfric's Colloquy (ed. Garmonsway, p. 26, line 89) and habitus (‘appearance, dress’) in the Plantin-Moretus/BL glossary (scruud, Junius 71; WW 151.6).

page 220 note 3 BL Stowe Charters, no. 31; see Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. Robertson, A. J. (Cambridge, 1939), p. 100Google Scholar, line 24, and p. 345.

page 220 note 4 ibid. p. 254, line 14 (‘money for clothes’). The eleventh-century manuscript consists of a leaf which has been cut in two; one portion is in the possession of W. A. Cragg of Threekingham House, Lines., the other is Cambridge, Queens' College (Home) 74 (see Ker, , Catalogue, no. 80, pp. 126–7Google Scholar).

page 220 note 5 Robertson, , Charters, p. 254Google Scholar, lines 24–5.

page 220 note 6 ibid. p. 170, line 23. The manuscript is apparently not extant.

page 220 note 7 E.g. St Augustine of Hippo: ‘Non sit notabilis habitus vester; nee affectetis vestibus placere, sed moribus’ (PL 33, col. 961, para. 10; ‘Do not let your clothing be noticeable; and do not seek to piease by your clothing but by your behaviour’).

page 220 note 8 See above, p. 218, n. 2. Bingham, Joseph (Origines Ecclesiasticae, ed. Pitman, John Rogers (London, 1840) 11, 327–8Google Scholar) cites Roman laws forbidding mimics and lewd women to wear in public such habit as worn by virgins consecrated to God. He takes this to imply that virgins wore a distinctive habit.

page 220 note 9 Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents relating to Great Britain and Ireland, ed. Haddan, Arthur West and Stubbs, William (Oxford, 1869–1878) 111, 369.Google Scholar

page 220 note 10 Bide's Ecclesiastical History, ed. Colgravc and Mynors, pp. 424 and 426.

page 221 note 1 Aldhelmi Opera, ed. Ehwald, p. 318, lines 1–5.

page 221 note 2 Power, , Nunneries, pp. 585–7.Google Scholar

page 221 note 3 Two Lives of Saint Cutbbert, ed. Colgrave, Bertram (Cambridge, 1940), p. 212.Google Scholar

page 221 note 4 ‘Communis omnium vita, communis victus, habitus consimilis erat, qui tamen mediocris, nee nimium scilicet cultus nee admodum vilis, neque ex integro laneus erat’ (Agii Vita tt Obitus Hatbumodae, ed. Pertz, G. H., MGH, Script. 4 (Hanover, 1841), 168Google Scholar, para. 5; ‘All shared one pattern of life and one form of nourishment and the apparel of all was the same, and it was however of the middle sort, that is neither excessively adorned nor especially inferior, nor was it all of wool’).

page 221 note 5 Power, , Nunneries, pp. 327–9.Google Scholar

page 222 note 1 Wills, p. 10, line 30 (‘a woman-weaver and a seamstress’).

page 222 note 2 The isolated quartets of the women were protected by firm doors and surrounded by a thick hedge; see Guérard, M., ‘Explication du Capitulaire De Villis’, Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, Mémoires 21 (1857), 1, 250–2.Google Scholar

page 222 note 3 ibid. pp. 243–4 and Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. Liebermann, F. (Halle, 1903–1916) 1, 455Google Scholar [15, 1].

page 222 note 4 Nothing in Wynflæd's will specifically suggests this, but a passage in the Rectitudines Singularum Personarum implies that it was usual; it is apparent that an oxherd's clothing was provided by his social superior, although financial provision might be made for the man to take on some of this responsibility himself (see Liebermann, , Gesetze I, 450Google Scholar [12]).