Eva's journal

An example of gothic/german hand writing from 1603.



The first words are fiolenn bruun (purple, the modern colour, not royal purple), then two mystery words, which (probably) is the material, followed by kiortil (gown).

 Do I wish that I could go to this seminar? yes indeed I do. But it's in Madrid. Next week.

Apart from that progress is actually happening with my article in English about swedish sumptuary laws and the foreign in the 16th and 17th centuries. Hopefully I will get photos of lots of probates from Stockholm in two weeks and until then I'm workign on other parts of the study/article.

I am currently working on an article for an anthology; about Swedish sumptuary laws from the Middle Ages and up to the last one 1830 (or something like that). It is actually quite fun. I've felt for a long time that I never do anything that hasn't been done before in this project, but now I feel that I am. Of course they have been studied before, but generally either as sources for how people dressed or  in a national economic context. I'm interested in what they say about the relations between clothes, gender and class. I also cover the whole period, which I don't think anyone has done before. 
The article does not in any way deal with all these topics exhaustively, I draw up some broader lines and then I concentrate on two separate "case studies": Women's sexual moral in sumptuary laws and the intersection between gender and class in 18th century sumptuary laws. I actually think that I will be able to finish it and that it will be quite interesting when finished.

The other fun thing I'm referring to is looking through probate inventories from 1694, which I did on Tuesday. There is NO way I could do a comprehensive survey of clothing in those, there is just so much, but I'm going to have a look at sample years for at least the 17th century. First I have to write a little more on the article and then make a large sheet with little boxes saying things like "red glazed wool dress" so that I can go through the material in an organized way.

There was a book sale at the conference, people had donated their old books, and I ended up with quite a few hard-to-get gems.


The book is swedish is rearely found used for under 1000 SEK (usually more like 1500 SEK), which is approximately 150 dollars/ 98 pounds. I paid 2 pounds for it. The Mairead Dunleavy book was 10 pounds, which is still a bargain, I've never seen it for sale for under 100 dollars. Then there's the Hunnisett book which I only had photocopies of . The last book is by Cecil Beaton and how coulf that not be a great book?

ETA: And do you know who the previous owner of the Dunleavy book was? Aileen Ribeiro.

The Ashmolean museum has a fine collection of printed cotton textiles from the 13th centuries onward. These are the 16th century ones, which unfortunately are fewer than the ones from the previous centuries. The are all found in Egypt.

When I was at the hospital last week they noticed that I have high blood pressure. This really shouldn't come as a surprise, though I've always had low blood pressure before. But now I weigh too much, I have a very stressful job, with a lot of pressure to produce and prove myself so that I can get a new project when this one is finished etc, my dad died unexpectedly and then, of course, I have Valeria's depression to deal with. Just to increase the stress a little we also have the triennial nation historian's conference here in Göteborg (as I mentioned in my last post I think) Thursday to Sunday and I of course haven't finished my presentation. Today was the first day back at work after two weeks of rehabilitation training and the first four hours was spent dealing with urgent stuff regarding three articles I have written and which are going ot be published soon-ish. Then I could go on with preparing my presentation. Due to my sick absence I haven't done the research I am supposed to talk about, but I can point to a few areas which may be fruitful for further research I hope.

And the week after that we have the swedish pagan conference, in which I am responsible for the communication with participants and registration. It isn't that much work, but it does add to a stress that just didn't need to get any worse. I don't foresee and improvement on the blood pressure front.

I'm currently writing a paper (3 pages) on clothing in sumptuary laws in Sweden from the late middle ages up to 1820 (the last one), from a gender perspective for a conference in the beginning of May (paper due the 15th of March). I haven't actually done all the research and analysis I'm supposed to talk about, but I've done most of it and i really need to finish this today so that I can start working on my article on changing body ideals around 1500, which also is due the 15th of March.
Though I have a hard time finishing this paper I have a good feeling about the whole thing and it may well turn into an article later.

As a medieval historian you rarely handle the original documents, so now when I'm studying later periods I really like reading 17th century resolutions in a collection printed in 1766. And it's cool that they just stand there in our library for everyone to use. Paper definitely was of a much higher quality then.

I am, however, not impressed by the person who's underlined sentences with a pencil.

One always reads that the slits it the side of 18th century gowns were for the woman to reach her pockets which were hanging from the waist, unde rthe skirt. Well, I'm now reading "My amorous adventures", memories by a swedish nobleman from the 18th century and I see that they could have other uses too.

ETA: And I don't know if can stand 300 pages of porn just to find the clothing details.

I want a purple(violet) gown with bands of red cloth of gold like Katarina Jagellonica had in 1563.

ETA: Or a (probably loose) gown from brown silk damask with black velvet trimming and green silk at the edges, like one of her ladies in waiting had.