Medieval Clothing and Textiles continues to showcase a selection of new research from a range of disciplines. This volume presents material which ranges in date from the fifth to the beginning of the seventeenth century. The geographical span extends from Scotland through to present-day Germany, France, and Italy. Authors use literary and archival material, visual sources including illuminated manuscripts and panel paintings, and—of course—archaeological evidence.

The opening essay, by Alexandra Lester-Makin, explores the sensory relationships people of early medieval Britain and Ireland had with textiles. It investigates how early medieval perceptions and culture(s) affected the ways in which people understood different fabrics and used them. To do so, the paper uses sensory archaeology as a vehicle for unlocking sensory interactions between human and fabric and in order to learn more about early medieval society's understanding of its world(s). Firstly, it introduces the available textiles from the period and outlines how they have been studied to date. It then explores the early medieval sensorium. Finally, a discussion of several case studies demonstrates how this fresh scholarly approach can give nuanced insights into our understanding of textile perception and use in Britain and Ireland between 450 and 1100.

Tania Kolarik examines the thirteenth-century green-and-white marble intarsia motifs on the facades of the Cathedral of San Martino and the church of San Michele in Foro in Lucca. She focuses on their likely inspiration by the textiles designed, made, traded, and worn within the city. Kolarik argues that the unified building campaign of the two facades functioned to assert the power of the bishop and cathedral canons within the old city center, organized around the cathedral, and the new city center at San Michele and the adjoining municipal palace.