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IMC 2009: Sessions

Session 726: Copes and Cloaks

Tuesday 14 July 2009, 14.15-15.45

Sponsor:DISTAFF: Discussion, Interpretation & Study of Textile Arts, Fabrics & Fashions
Organiser:Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Department of English & American Studies, University of Manchester
Moderator/Chair:Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Department of English & American Studies, University of Manchester
Paper 726-aHaving the Last Laugh: The Fabliau of the Red Cloak in Ivory
(Language: English)
Paula Carns, Spanish, Italian & Portuguese Languages & Literatures, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Index terms: Art History - Sculpture, Language and Literature - French or Occitan
Paper 726-bJoseph's Coat of Many Descriptions: Description of Joseph's Tunic in Medieval Britain
(Language: English)
Stuart Nels Rutten, Department of English & American Studies, University of Manchester
Index terms: Language and Literature - French or Occitan, Language and Literature - Latin, Language and Literature - Old English
Paper 726-cWandering Copes: The Exchange of Religious Vestments between England and Italy in the Middle Ages
(Language: English)
Lucia Sinisi, Dipartimento di Studi Anglo-germanici & dell'Europa Orientale, Universita degli Studi di Bari
Index terms: Archives and Sources, Art History - Decorative Arts, Ecclesiastical History
Abstract

The session examines medieval cloaks, fictional, and actual. The first examines a set of 14th-century ivory writing tablets and argues that the four scenes depict the fabliau of The Red Cloak. The second examines the vocabulary describing the biblical Joseph's garment. Gifts passing between England and medieval Apulia in southern Italy, in some cases still surviving, are the subject of the third paper and the fourth discussed the 'shaggy cloak' which was for a long time a part of Irish costume.