To date, the scholarship on early-medieval textiles in England (500-1100) has tended to focus on the linguistic and grammatical aspects of contemporary written accounts, at the expense of the social and visual elements of these sources and the materials themselves. This thesis addresses the issues within the scholarship relating to both ecclesiastical and secular materials, by reconsidering the early accounts preserved in influential continental sources. Doing so reveals the context within which the English recording, perception and representation of elaborate textiles flourished. This is demonstrated by a detailed assessment of Anglo-Saxon accounts of textiles in secular poems and legal documents as well as ecclesiastical texts, epistles, biblical commentaries and homilies, before consideration of the extant textiles themselves. By assessing the texts first, this thesis neither seeks to minimise the importance of the textiles as objects of material culture in their own right, nor to categorize them as secondary to written sources. Rather, this approach allows us to compare the textual and the material to identify the type of objects that were being recorded. This in turn, reveals similarities and differences in the manner of their recording and the possible connotations. Not all textiles were documented or included in narratives, especially everyday items from lower strata of society. These omissions can be useful when considering the attitude to and use of those textiles, vis-a-vis the more elite examples.
As is demonstrated in the study, it is problematic and even counterproductive to consider the texts and textiles as wholly unrelated objects. Undoubtedly, the textiles themselves, if preserved in pristine condition, would provide the best material indication of their appearance, but in the absence of this, the complementary written evidence provides insight into this depleted corpus of work. The texts do, however, have their own limitations in that they do not record everyday secular textiles. This makes the study of archaeological deposits crucial, as it allows us to approach a more comprehensive picture of the range of textiles being used across different social contexts in Anglo-Saxon England. Through this close analysis of text and textile, it is argued that throughout the early-medieval period, choices about wearing, displaying and using textile (whether secular or ecclesiastical) were governed by questions of status and appropriate appearance, and by awareness of the impact of personal and public display.
