Jill Frederick & Maren Clegg Hyer 
Textiles, Text, Intertext 
Essays in Honour of Gale R. Owen-Crocker

Essays centred round the representation of weaving, both real and imagined, in the early middle ages.


The triple themes of textile, text, and intertext, three powerful and evocative subjects within both Anglo-Saxon studies and Old English literature itself, run through the essays collected here. Chapters evoke the semantic complexities of textile references and images drawn from the Bayeux Tapestry, examine parallels in word-woven poetics, riddling texts, and interwoven homiletic and historical prose, and identify iconographical textures in medieval art. The volume thus considers the images and creative strategies of textiles, texts, and intertexts, generating a complex and fascinating view of the material culture and metaphorical landscape of the Anglo-Saxon peoples. It is therefore a particularly fitting tribute to Professor Gale R. Owen-Crocker, whose career and lengthy list of scholarly works have centred on her interests in the meaning and cultural importance of textiles, manuscripts and text, and intertextual relationships between text and textile.


MAREN CLEGG HYER is Associate Professor and Graduate Coordinator in the Department of English at Valdosta State University; JILL FREDERICK is Professor of English at Minnesota State University Moorhead.


Contributors: Marilina Cesario, Elizabeth Coatsworth, Martin Foys, Jill Frederick, Joyce Hill, Maren Clegg Hyer, Catherine E. Karkov, Christina Lee, Michael Lewis, Robin Netherton, Carol Neuman de Vegvar, Donald Scragg, Louise Sylvester, Paul Szarmach, Elaine Treharne.

Table of Content

Introduction – Maren Clegg Hyer

A Personal Recollection – Robin Netherton

List of Publications of Gale R. Owen Crocker

The Language of Dress and Textiles in Wills of the Old English Period – Louise Sylvester

Opus what? The Textual History of Medieval Embroidery Terms and Their Relationship to the Surviving Embroideries c. 800-1400 – Elizabeth Coatsworth

Intertextuality in the Bayeux Tapestry: The Form and Function of Dress and Clothing – Michael Lewis

Birds of a Feather: Magpies in the Bayeux Tapestry? – Carol Neuman de Vegvar

Threads and Needles: The Use of Textiles for Medical Purposes – Christina Lee

Text, Textile, Context: Aldhelm and Word-weaving as Metaphor in Old English and Anglo-Latin Literature – Maren Clegg Hyer

The Weft of War in the Exeter Book Riddles – Jill Frederick

Fyrene dracan in the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle – Marilina Cesario

Old English in the Margins – Donald G Scragg

Weaving Words on the Ruthwell Cross – Catherine E. Karkov

Fates of the Apostles and
Tituli – Paul E Szarmach

Weaving and Interweaving: The Textual Traditions of Two of Ælfric’s
Supplementary Homilies – Joyce Hill

Invisible Things in London, British Library, Cotton Vitellius A. xv – Elaine Treharne

Redacting Harold Godwinson: the
Vita Haroldi and William of Malmesbury – Martin Foys

About the author

Robin Netherton is a costume historian specializing in Western European clothing of the Middle Ages and its interpretation by artists and historians.