Dress and the Individual in Medieveal Scotland, 1200-1600

There has not been any work on dress accessories in Scotland to shed invaluable light on broad chronological trends and choices available in popular medieval fashion. Therefore broader regional or chronological trends are unclear and connections to popular fashions in England and other parts of Europe remain unknown. Furthermore a perspective focusing on the meanings of objects to individuals, has yet to be applied systematically to the archaeology of mediaeval Scotland. Standley (2013) gleaned valuable insights through a case study that embraced part of the Scottish borders, but the variety of meanings attached to dress objects across culturally and linguistically distinct parts of the country have not been explored
This doctoral project will address these two significant gaps in research by combining archaeological and stray finds in order to:
a) deliver the first national exploration of the material culture of medieval Scottish dress;
b) and draw out a richer understanding of the meanings of objects to people across Scotland.