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For centuries before that first journey to the east, clothing for men and women in western Europe had remained unchanging. The concept of fashion - changing styles of clothing - simply did not exist. Clothing was purely functional.
There was a general style of costume, through which the nobility could establish its pre - eminence simply by using more elaboration and decoration.
Saxon women, for example, used three basic garments. An undergarment (chemise); a floor length kirtle or gown, and a super tunic, long and loose, but sometimes tied up to knee length by means of a sash. Supplementing this as need be was a large square cloak fastened at the throat.
Wool and possibly linen were the unvarying ingredients, decorated with very fine needlework in colours or gold and silver thread.
All women concealed their hair beneath a heavy head cloth, usually wrapped around the throat as well: bare tresses could only be displayed by young girls.
With the turmoil resulting from the First Crusade, combined with the influx of new ideas and new materials, there was a simultaneous loosening up of patterns of dress. Thus, costume became the most visible sign of a massive change in European culture.
By the 1130's, clothing was more individualized and more elaborate.
Silk, which had previously been used only on the most formal occasions, was made more readily available. As well, fabrics such as gauzes, damasks and cotton were available. But perhaps most importantly, for the first time since the Dark Ages, women's physiques were being revealed and enhanced through their clothing. A simple form of body corsetry was now worn over the torso, placing greater emphasis on the woman's upper body. This was a sleeveless quilted waistcoat with back lacing, or alternatively a wide body belt tightly laced at the back or on the sides.2
As well as the much softer, more clinging and more delicate fabrics, decoration was enhanced by cunningly tailored sleeves, which hung to the floor or were knotted up in a way as to create a rippling effect. Men's clothing was similar bright, sensual and elaborate.
And for the first time in centuries, a woman's hair appeared as part of her normal costume. A variety of styles were adopted in a fashion move that might be seen as radical as the flapper's dress of the 1920's, or topless bathing in the 1970's. The hair might now be centre parted and either arranged in two plaits hanging in front, or else it was divided in strands interlaced with ribbons. As well, the side hair only might be plaited, the rest hanging freely down the wearer's back. In some extreme cases, silk tubes or metal cylinders might be joined on the end of the plaits so that they reached the floor, and it was not uncommon to use wigs to add to the illusion of mass and length.3
Similarly, men's hair was plaited and combed and oiled in elaborate styles, bringing down the wrath of clerics in particular, who raised the eternal cry of the decline of civilization, as represented by the overly sexual and effeminate costumes of the era.
Women's hair as a fashion item disappeared from view once the turmoil of the early years of the century had subsided. By the mid twelfth century, hair was concealed under a variety of covering, including the barbette, which is supposed to have been introduced by Eleanor of Aquitaine after her return from Jerusalem. This was a band of linen circling the face and pinned at the top of the head. Royal and noble ladies were the first to employ this fashion, wearing it with a small veil or a crown.
By the thirteenth century, it was part of the costume of women of many different ranks.
Many other fashions were also adopted, variations on the theme, including coiled hair worn under transparent nets, the fillet, which was a wide or thin band around the head, or full cloth worn similarly to the barbette.4
At the end of the twelfth century, major fashions had been established which were to become universal for the next three hundred years.
These included dagged edges, first seen in Switzerland and Germany, parti- colouring in Spain, and the surcoat in Scandinavia and France. The tabard - adapted from the Islamic burnous - had first been worn to protect crusading knights, shielding armour against the sun, but by the end of the twelfth century had been adapted for civilian use as a loose, rectangular tunic hanging in front and behind over the bliaud.
Eastern textiles were being manufactured in France, Flanders and Italy, including velvet and silk. The northern cities where textiles were being manufactured - Bruges, London, Antwerp and the Hanseatic western cities - were displacing previously dominant areas in Eastern Europe.5
Germany made fustian, a cotton material woven with linen, and England manufactured good quality wool. A version of this was called scarlet, derived from the Persian sawalat. The cloth was most often made in a brilliant red hue, and so the word scarlet became a reference to colour rather than a material.6
Thus, fashion was itself the spur to the massive commercial and industrial development of northern and western Europe, and this fashion was made possible by the opening up of trade routes and the changes in womens' consciousness brought about by the Crusades.
It would be, therefore, all but impossible to estimate the cumulative influence of all of this on the development of western civilization in the centuries to come. Fashion was caused by trade, and led to further trade, which led to a demand for more mercantile activity, which spurred expansion of military and economic interests, which led to further collisions between cultures, and so on.
And the demand was not simply for cloth. All the accessories accompanying fashionable costume were introduced into the matrix.
Crusaders returned from the wars in the thirteenth century with examples of decorative work in the form of fabric buttons, delicate footwear, purses and bags, girdles, gloves and handerchiefs, which were then imitated. Venice and Genoa had established themselves as the entrepot for luxury goods, and it was there that the nobles first wore perfumed gloves and handkerchiefs. These latter were so rare that a wealthy noble would only have one. Fans also appeared from the East, made of ostrich and peacock or painted silk set in handles of jewels and gold or ivory.7
So elaborate had many of the costumes become by the fourteenth century that sumptuary laws attempted to limit peoples' costumes with extreme penalties.
Indeed, the more puritanical elders of Europe, particularly the clergy, had from the
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