In preparing and researching for this project, it became evident that this was almost a completely bare subject – if literature on the intersection between disability and textile work does exist, it is very hard to find. Though this limits our ability to contextualize our experiments with other research, we believe that this only makes our research more valuable. Disability history has been long overlooked, as well as women’s history, with which the fiber arts have been closely linked throughout history. Due to the general similarity between chronic pain conditions of the past and present, as well as the relative replicability of Naalbinding, we decided to go forward with this project as a foundation for future research, as a stepping stone to further recognition of the medieval disabled textile worker.
Though no literature exists on our topic specifically, we can draw from associated subjects in an attempt to understand what relationship disability may have had to textiles fabrication, and perhaps more specifically to Naalbinding.
Disability in the New Testament and other Christian apocrypha (Hawk, 2020).
- Jesus’ “Miracles” are able to heal physical disabilities. This act forces a wedge between disability and spiritual purity, introduces a fundamental thematic difference between a disabled existence and proximity to Christ.
- “Disease and deformity were considered to be the punishment for sin,” (Metzler, pg. 13, 2005) in medieval Western and Central Europe.
Medieval Literature
- Literature of the time often relies on disabled characters as metaphors for social ailments, yet rarely paid close attention to the social construction of disability, (Pearman 2011).
Women and Textile Work
- Women worked closely with textiles, in part due to the social interconnection of womanhood and clothing, also likely due to its ability to be done in the home, allowing for women to remain in the domestic space. Over time, textile work has come to symbolize and represent a sense of female power within the confines of a patriarchal society. For example, the word ‘spinster’ originally meant a woman who spun wool, but has since come to signify a single woman, often older, and therefore has evaded social norms, (Higginbottom, 2010).
Due to the limited amount of research previously done on the topic, this literature review serves as a general basis for the social conception of both disability, women, and textile workers of the time; it must be kept in mind that the social perception of these three classes was likely dynamic and varied across medieval Europe both in time and location.
References
Hawk, B. (2020). Miracles in apocryphal infancy narratives (ca. 550–13th c.) Medieval Disability Sourcebook, 138-146. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11hptcd.11
Higginbottom, D. (2010). Producing women: Textile manufacture and economic power on late medieval and early modern stages. Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 41, 183-206. https://doi.org/10.1353/cjm.2010.0040
Metzler, I. (2006). Disability in medieval Europe: Thinking about physical impairment in the high middle ages, c. 1100-c.1400. Taylor & Francis Group, ProQuest Ebook Central. https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/lib/uvic/reader.action?docID=261311&ppg=20
Pearman, T. (2011). Women and disability in medieval literature. Palgrave Macmillan, ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/lib/uvic/reader.action?docID=261311&ppg=20