Today I'm thrilled to invite Carol McGrath to my blog. If you're interested in the history of fashion, you're in for a real treat.
The Lost Queen
1191 and the Third Crusade is underway . . .
It is 1191 and King Richard the Lionheart is
on crusade to pitch battle against Saladin and liberate the city of Jerusalem
and her lands. His mother, the formidable Eleanor of Aquitaine and his promised
bride, Princess Berengaria of Navarre, make a perilous journey over the Alps in
midwinter. They are to rendezvous with Richard in the Sicilian port of Messina.
There are hazards along the way - vicious
assassins, marauding pirates, violent storms and a shipwreck. Berengaria is as
feisty as her foes and, surviving it all, she and Richard marry in Cyprus.
England needs an heir. But first, Richard and his Queen must return home . . .
The Lost Queen is a thrilling medieval story of high adventure,
survival, friendship and the enduring love of a Queen for her King.
Acclaim for Carol McGrath's ROSE trilogy:
'Powerful, gripping and beautifully told' KATE
FURNIVALL on The Silken Rose
'A tour de force of gripping writing, rich
historical detail and complex, fascinating characters' NICOLA CORNICK on The
Stone Rose
'A beautifully narrated novel' K J MAITLAND
on The Damask Rose
Purchase
Link - https://tinyurl.com/5n8ab2xv
Author Bio – Following a first degree in English
and History, Carol McGrath completed an MA in Creative Writing from The Seamus
Heaney Centre, Queens University Belfast, followed by an MPhil in English from
University of London. The Handfasted Wife,
first in a trilogy about the royal women of 1066 was shortlisted for the RoNAS
in 2014. The Swan-Daughter and The Betrothed Sister complete this
highly acclaimed trilogy. Mistress
Cromwell, a best-selling historical novel about Elizabeth Cromwell, wife of
Henry VIII’s statesman, Thomas Cromwell, was republished by Headline in 2020. The Silken Rose, first in a medieval
She-Wolf Queens Trilogy, featuring Ailenor of Provence, saw publication in
April 2020. This was followed by The
Damask Rose. The Stone Rose was
published April 2022. Carol is writing Historical non-fiction as well as
fiction. Sex and Sexuality in Tudor
England was published in February 2022. The
Stolen Crown 2023 and The Lost Queen
will be published 18th July 2024. Carol lives in Oxfordshire,
England and in Greece.
Find Carol on her website:
Follow her on amazon @CarolMcGrath
https://twitter.com/carolmcgrath
https://www.pinterest.co.uk/carol0275/the-handfasted-wife/
https://scribbling-inthemargins.blogspot.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/carol-mcgrath-906723a/
https://www.facebook.com/CarolMcGrathAuthor1/
And now Carol is talking about all things historical fashion-related. It's an absolutely fascinating topic.
Fashion, fabrics and the Crusades
Crusaders brought home new fabrics and costumes from
Outremer (the Holy Land) which inspired nobles dwelling in the west to desire
similarly rich detailed clothing with complex tailoring and equivalent fine
workmanship. This created a demand for eastern fabrics in Europe. Because
clothing is perishable, it is difficult to know in great detail how the
residents of Outremer dressed. Our information comes from textile and garment
fragments, contemporary artistic depictions and literary descriptions. The
styles were likely modifications of fashion set in Europe were made to
accommodate weather and other conditions in the Holy Land.
An English lady in 1190 would wear a headdress, often
hat-like and a veil, a waist belt and a woolen, silk or linen gown with a
slight train. Noble women and men often wore embroidered leather gloves. Male
tunics of the era were patterned with high collars and wide borders at the hem
and they wore a long hip belt. Boots were short. Cloaks might be fur-lined and
gowns patterned. Mantles were generally fastened at the front. Men favoured
long hair and pointed beards.
Pilgrims traditionally wore wide-brimmed hats of straw,
circular capes with hoods, two-tier tunics and footless hose. A Crusader wore a
complete body suit of chain mail under a sleeveless body suit with heraldic
decoration, sword and belt. The surcoat was a cloth garment worn over armour.
Fighting in the sun wearing metal armour would have been an agony. We can see
men in manuscripts, sculpture and seals.
Women are depicted less frequently in Art relating to the
Crusades. They are shown in Western conventional garb when they were. They did
not go about completely veiled as did Muslim women. We know this because Muslim
sources decry the lack of modesty displayed by Crusading women. European women
most likely did wear veils over their faces when outside in order to protect
their skin from the sun. They may have worn wide-brimmed hats to caste a
protective shadow over their faces. They had clothing made in lighter fabrics.
Many fabrics of Outremer were sheer, translucent or semi-transparent. Whilst
their clothing was in European style these fabrics could have made European
women appear provocative. If they were made from brocade, as during winter,
their garments could be transformed into so something more luxurious and
extravagant. Generally women adapted their conventional western styles to the
climate of the Holy Land wearing looser garments and lighter fabrics.
Fabrics favoured in Outremer included silk, cotton, linen,
felt wool and cloth woven from goat hair. These included a large number of
hybrid fabrics composed of a warp of one kind of yarn and weft of another such
as silk and wool, linen or cotton. Some of the finest cloth known to the
medieval world originated in the Near East. For example, Egyptian cotton, linen
and silk from Damascus were exported through parts of the Levant. Tyre was
famous for white-silk and Beirut exported silk and cotton fabrics. Cotton was
grown around Acre, Tiberias and Ramla. As for dyes, Crusader States were famous
for saffron, turmeric and indigo. Mussels found only off the coast of Tyre
provided a rich purple dye. These dyes were used widely and generously in
Outremer creating much brighter colours than in the West. Block printing,
embroidery, weaving with different colour threads were means of producing
patterns for clothing decoration exported from Crusader States.
The vivid colours and fine fabrics must have made the
inhabitants of Outremer appear exotic to visitors from the West. There was a
proclivity for bathing and the use of sweet scents and perfumes and every day
dress that in the West was saved for special occasions. I have aimed to include
this sense of female life in Outremer into The Lost Queen. Berengaria and
Richard wore fabulous wedding garments described in detail in contemporary
source writings and again the clothing the women sourced in Jaffa.
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