Dress & Decoration of the Middle Ages

by Henry Shaw

Originally written in the 1840s & published in 1858, Shaw's book is an essential work for the study of the life & history of the Middle Ages. His colorful prose enables us to experience the essence of medieval civilization from the point of view of a scholar who had access to a staggering variety of original source material from England & Continental Europe. He presents intimate portraits of the important people -- royal, political, & ecclesiastical -- of the Middle Ages, as well as conveying an understanding of the popular tastes of the common people of the times. Each full-color illustration is reproduced directly from Shaw's original hand-colored plates.

Genres: Art

192 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1998

Reviews

[Julia]

Fine illustrations and interesting medieval history, but not much detail to inform a costumer or designer.

[Ribbqah]

Beautiful renderings. Interesting facts with excellent explanations. Not for the replicator of these clothing prints but wonderful to read about.

[Kathryn Baron]

Drawings.

[Abi]

Here’s the thing, folks, this is a beautiful book. The artwork, realia, and illuminations Shaw chose to feature in his book were chosen well. They’re lovely to look at, and I definitely went back to some of them to spend more time in the details of filigree and patterns and colors. My real hang-up with this book comes with the accompanying text, as well as the organization of all of the content. When a book describes itself as an “essential work for the study of the life & history of the Middle Ages,” you sort of expect that there will be a fair amount of exploration of the artworks featured in the book. However, most of the exploration of the evolution of the dress and decoration, as well as the variety seen between different regions of Europe and between different classes of people, is left to the introduction. When looking at the images themselves, we are sometimes left with only “featured on the left is such-and-such thing by such-and-such artist,” which is not all that helpful except to tell you, “well guess I gotta go look up this interesting looking thing so that I can find out more about it.” ... Read the full review here