Costume historians and literary critics have sharpened understandings of dress as it constructs bodies and identities, but none has considered how representations of clothing in medieval literature respond to clerical discourses that sought to regulate contemporary aristocratic fashion. In "Sartorial Strategies: Outfitting Aristocrats and Fashioning Conduct in Late Medieval Literature," Nicole D. Smith establishes that writers of romances redirect the negative depictions of the courtly body found in clerical chronicles and penitential writings into positive images that convey virtue.Smith...
Costume historians and literary critics have sharpened understandings of dress as it constructs bodies and identities, but none has considered how ...
