Worn items are a crucial part of non-verbal social interaction that
simultaneously exhibits communal, cultural, and political structures and individual
preferences. This thesis examines the role of fictional costume and colour in
constructing identities within two fourteenth-century Arthurian verse narratives:
Froissart’s Middle French Meliador and the anonymous Middle English Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight. To emphasise the imaginative value of material cultures and
discuss the potential reception of fictional objects, the argument draws on
illuminations from nine manuscripts of prose Arthurian stories.
Particularly stressing the role of colour in garments, the first chapter
examines the issues of analysing literary costume, reviews the provenances of the
texts and illuminations, and establishes the relevant historical background concerning
fashion, symbolism, and materials of construction (such as fabric, dyes, and
decorations). This is followed by two chapters on men’s items. First, the use of
courtly clothes and colour-related epithets in manipulating perception and deceiving
internal and external audiences is explored. Second, the symbolic value of arms and
armour in tournament society is evaluated alongside the tensions between war and
armed games that such tools reveal. Chapter four expands on the preceding chapters
by discussing the application of heraldry as a malleable identifier. Chapter five
considers how ladies’ garments, bodies, and character are coalesced and separated
through adoption or rejection of literary techniques, thereby creating conflict
between noblewomen as social commodities and as persons with narrative agency.
The final chapter analyses the employment of wearable items as gifts and
commodities and how such objects can alter interpersonal relationships.
Colour and costume are a means by which narratives can explore, accept, or
reject literary topoi. Their myriad functions allow the active manipulation of identity,
relationships, and internal and external audiences. By focusing on the pluralities and
ambiguities of meaning connected to colour and costume, this thesis explores how
these materials mediate between conflicting connotations to create new meanings
within the narratives
