MEDIEVAL DRAMA LINKS a personal selection by Sydney Higgins

shows additions since 1 August 1998.

signifies an URL or other information corrected 1 August 1998.

MEDIEVAL COSTUMES

a. General

A Beginner's Guide to Medieval Costume

An excellent introduction that deals alphabetically with items of medieval clothing from 'baldric' to 'wimples' and decorations from 'braid' to 'parti-coloured clothing'. Written by Andrew Craze for the Cardiff Arthurian Society. The second part of the article, How to Make Medieval Costume, is equally helpful (although, at the moment, lacking the illustrations that are mentioned in the text).

French Medieval Costumes

A useful collection of enlargeable thumbnail illustrations of costumes (with a brief text in French). Separate pages deal with: a. Women's Hairstyles (Les coiffures féminines); b. Men's Hairstyles (Les coiffures masculines); and c. Accessories (Les accessoires).

The History of Costume

Some 500 plates illustrating costume from antiquity till the middle of the nineteenth century, first published in Munich between 1861 and 1880. The site was created by L. Otis Sweezey.

An interesting introductory article, written - in English - by Jennyn Takaisin of Finland.

Richard Wymark's Homepage provides a mass of information, illustrations and patterns.

A detailed and comprehensive account compiled by I. Marc Carlson.

The now 'traditional' method of 'ageing' cloth is clearly explained.

Costume for a 12th Century Lady

A fascinating article by Timothy J. Mitchell in which he describes (with illustrations) the costume of the Virgin Mary in a 12th-century whalebone panel from the northwest of Spain that is in London's Victoria and Albert Museum.

From Gunnas to Houppelands - Medieval English Dresses

A simple introduction, with bibliography, to the changes that took place in the style of women's dresses from 460-1460, written by Affreca McNaven.

Sharon M. Krossa has written two excellent introductory articles, that contain brief bibliographies and form part of a collection of her articles on Medieval Scotland. Also included is Leine Pattern, a simple description - amusingly written - of how to make a leine, a type of smock common in sixteenth-century Ireland and possibly Highland Scotland.

Making Simple Medieval Pants for Men

Easy-to-understand instructions with a pattern written by a medieval re-enactor who glories in the name of 'Duchess Leah Kasmira of Natterhelm'.

Basic T-Tunic

Another useful article written by 'Duchess Leah Kasmira of Natterhelm'.

Tunic Making Guide

A pattern for making a simple medieval-type tunic. (Presented by M. D. Horrill, a re-enactor from Loughborough, UK.)

Why was armor made?

A fascinating, illustrated article. (Part of the excellent material produced for the exhibition 'Imperial Austria: Treasures of Art, Arms and Armor from the State of Styria', presented in 1995-96 by the Musée de la civilisation in Quebec, Canada.)

Jason Grimes presents a blow-by-blow account of how to make realistic metal helmets.

Making Chain Mail

Michel Desjardins has produced a comprehensive, illustrated list of Mail Patterns.

Coloured photographs, with a brief introduction, of body armour, shields, gauntlets, helmets, and horse armour. (Produced by Highland Park Elementary School)

Coloured photographs of medieval armour made by Wade Allen.

Arms and Armour - Glossary of Terms

A comprehensive and most useful glossary. (Associated with the glossary is an illustration that, if you click one of the parts, you are sent to the appropriate entry. There is also a modern English version of 'How a man shall be armed for his ease when he shall fight on foot', a document originally written c.1450.)

An useful and easily understood glossary, arranged in alphabetical order (with a separate page for each letter - apart from 'X') with numerous cross-references.

a. Medieval Drama Manuscripts

York Doomsday Project

A multimedia project on the York Mystery Plays, produced by Meg Twycross and Pamela King of Lancaster University, funded by the British Academy in association with the British Library. As it is full of graphics including illustrations from manuscripts, it loads rather slowly.

Jess D. Hurlbut of Brigham Young University presents a collection of digital images from important medieval manuscripts, including the fourteenth-century French play 'Mystere dou jour dou judgement' (Bibliothèque Municipale de Besançon) and 'Life, Death and Miracles of St. Jerome' (French manuscript c. 1495-1515 in the Brigham Young University Special Collections).

A Hundred Highlights from the Koninklijke Bibliotheek (Netherlands)

An impressive collection of mainly medieval illustrations.

Much illustrated material from this vast collection of medieval and Renaissance MSS.

A superb collection (from the 8th to the 15th century) from many European countries - presented by Columbia University Libraries.

This easily-accessible and fascinating electronic archive of Chrétien de Troyes's 'Le Chevalier de la Charrette' has been developed by the Department of Romance Languages at Princeton University.

Illustrations from this famous Book of Hours from the Louvre WWW exhibition.

Medieval Glossary

Prepared by Nicolas Pioch of the WebMuseum, Paris, this is a useful intoductory explanation (with illustrations) of such terms as Book of Hours, genre, illuminated manuscripts, miniature, parchment and woodcut.

A user-friendly selection presented by Claude Coibion et Carmélia Opsomer.

Monarchs and Monasteries: Knowledge and Power in Medieval France

From the outstanding series 'Creating French Culture' (Library of Congress), this is a must useful collection of medieval illustrated manuscripts with informative notes.

Some 1,000 illustrations from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

Treasures from the Bibliothèque Nationale de France 

A magnificient collection of illustrated manuscripts from an exhibition of the Library of Congress, with very useful, detailed information. Highly recommended. (Another part of the superb series 'Creating French Culture'.)

Christus Rex et Redemptor Mundi

An astonishing collection of images from the Vatican, including, for example, 325 of the Sistine Chapel and 596 of the Vatican Museum!

Frescoes in the Upper Church of San Francesco, Assisi

Enlargeable thumbnail photographs, from the Web Gallery of Art, of four of these important frescoes, depicting incidents in the life of Saint Francis, that were painted by Giotto between 1279 and 1300.

A WebMuseum, Paris, site, prepared by Nicolas Pioch with a simple introduction, short biographies of painters and many interesting illustrations.

An interesting collection of illustrations (with text in French).

Large and useful selection, from Malaspina Art Data Base, arranged by artists that include Jean Fouquet, Gentile da Fabriano, Pietro Lorenzetti and Hildegard von Bingen.

An excellent selection of 130 enlargeable thumbnail illustrations of many types of sculpture, often showing specific details. (Brief text in Italian and English.)

San Matteo National Museum, Pisa

An English text with superb illustrations. They are divided into six sections: Paintings of the XII and XIII centuries; Paintings of the XIV century; Paintings of the XIV century; Medieval ships; Sculpture of the XIV century; and Sculpture of the XV century.

Articles in French about the astonishing medieval art treasures in Limoges, with cross-reference to a large number of splendid illuminations on this site presented by the French Ministère de la Culture.