Scarlet (cloth)

Illustration of social classes, italy, c. 1400. It would be characteristic that the king (right of centre) and bishop (left of centre) were dressed in scarlet.

Scarlet was a type of fine and expensive woollen cloth common in Medieval Europe. In the assessment of John Munro, 'the medieval scarlet was therefore a very high-priced, luxury, woollen broadcloth, invariably woven from the finest English wools, and always dyed with kermes, even if mixed with woad, and other dyestuffs. There is no evidence for the use of the term scarlet for any other textile, even though other textiles, especially silks, were also dyed with kermes.'^[1]

^ John Munro, “Scarlet”, in Encyclopaedia of Medieval Dress and Textiles of the British Isles c. 450-1450, ed. by Gale Owen-Crocker, Elizabeth Coatsworth and Maria Hayward (Leiden: Brill, 2012).

[auto-1] John Munro, “Scarlet”, in Encyclopaedia of Medieval Dress and Textiles of the British Isles c. 450-1450, ed. by Gale Owen-Crocker, Elizabeth Coatsworth and Maria Hayward (Leiden: Brill, 2012).

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