Description
Book SynopsisFor more than one hundred years, from the last decade of the thirteenth century to the late fourteenth, Paris was the only western European town north of the Mediterranean basin to produce luxury silk cloth. What was the nature of the Parisian silk industry? How did it get there? And what do the answers to these questions tell us?
According to Sharon Farmer, the key to the manufacture of silk lies not just with the availability and importation of raw materials but with the importation of labor as well. Farmer demonstrates the essential role that skilled Mediterranean immigrants played in the formation of Paris''s population and in its emergence as a major center of luxury production. She highlights the unique opportunities that silk production offered to women and the rise of women entrepreneurs in Paris to the very pinnacles of their profession. The Silk Industries of Medieval Paris illuminates aspects of intercultural and interreligious interactions that took place in
Trade Review
"This splendid book is a model of history and technical writing. Its author, a highly respected historian and scholar of textile technologies, seeks to verify the long-surmised existence of a silk industry in medieval Paris . . . This book is a masterpiece of historical research and accessible information. It should be read by the medievalist, textile technologist, and museum curator alike." * Technology and Culture *
"Sharon Farmer explains why it is important to study the silk industries of medieval Paris, discussing arguments and ideas that are not only inspiring for aficionados of Parisian silk, but also for social and economic historians of the late Middle Ages." * History *
"In The Silk Industries of Medieval Paris we have, for the first time, a coherent discussion of silk and accessories production that accounts for the unusual presence of female guilds in Paris. Sharon Farmer also reveals the basis of the appearance of luxury fabrics made in Paris in aristocratic and royal account books. This is an invaluable contribution to the history of women, gender, and medieval industry." * Kathryn Reyerson, University of Minnesota *
Table of Contents
A Note on Nomenclature
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter 1. Paris, City of Immigrants
Chapter 2. From Persian Cocoon to Soie de Paris: Trade Networks and Silk Techniques
Chapter 3. Immigrant Mercers and Silk Workers
Chapter 4. Gender, Work, and the Parisian Silk Industry
Chapter 5. Jews, Foreign Lombards, and Parisian Silk Women
Conclusion
Appendices:
1. Mediterranean Immigrants Paying Taxes as "Bourgeois of Paris" or Included on Parisian Guild Lists
2. Mercers in the Parisian Tax Assessments, Arranged by Neighborhood
3. Silk Weavers in the Parisian Tax Assessments
4. Silk Throwsters in the Parisian Tax Assessments
5. Ouvriers/Ouvrières de Soie in the Parisian Tax Assessments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
