Medieval Manuscript Dress

We've all seen the designer dresses and skirts with a 'library shelf' theme, but this is the real thing: a medieval dress lined with fragments of parchment manuscripts. During a talk last week in London, Dr. Henrike Lähnemann discussed her research on the topic, which began in 2011 when textile conservators found recycled manuscript scraps sewn into the hems of patchwork dresses at the Cistercian convent of Wienhausen in Northern Germany. (Read more about it on the Bodleian blog.) If only the nuns who made them had Etsy!  

Image from: Charlotte Klack-Eitzen, Wiebke Haase and Tanja Wei?graf, Heilige Röcke. Kleider für Skulpturen in Kloster Wienhausen, Regensburg 2013.