Medieval Life & Leisure Devonshire Hunti

The four magnificent tapestries in the V & A known as the Devonshire Hunting Tapestries are the only great fifteenth-century hunting tapestries to survive the ravages of time, and they depict a lost chivalric world in rich and fascinating detail. These tapestries, once owned by the Dukes of Devonshire, provide a vivid picture of the hunt in all its forms - falconry, hunting for otter, boar, bear and deer, the robbing of a swan's nest for its eggs - and are packed with rich and entertaining human detail. They also tell us a huge amount about medieval dress: which textiles and patterns were in favour, what style and shape of headdress, of collar, of belt and gown was going in and out of fashion, how clothes were worn and by whom. They are a rich repository of costume and textile history, and Linda Woolley mines them for all they have to tell us about the fashions and customs of the time. All four tapestries are illustrated in full in lavish fold-out pages, and in carefully chosen details; together with an illuminating text they offer us a window onto the vanished world of the Late Middle Ages.