Making the Bible a Fashion Accessory in Seventeenth-Century England: Materiality, Market, and the Present-Tense Protestantism of Embroidered Book Covers
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Meredith Hanna Noorda
Abstract
Embellished textiles were popular covers for early-to-mid seventeenth-century English books, with wool-stitched canvases or silk embroideries fitted to sewn and boarded volumes. These small books, primarily texts used for worship or devotional study – like the Bible and psalm books – became components of Protestant appearance as they were carried or depicted in portraiture. Scholarship on these items, in book history and in studies of English needlework of this period, has noted how they could function as fashion accessories, pronouncing piety as they ornamented the body. This article critically considers how fashion was manifest in the context of Protestant worship in this period. It argues that the trend for religious books with embroidered covers shows a usage of materials and motifs in similar ways to fashionable clothing, but with an understanding of their theological and devotional usefulness in signifying contemporary time.
© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Religious Women and Liturgy in a Fifteenth-Century Portuguese Codex: Gendering the Reception and Profession Ceremonies in the Dominican Convents
- Memory and the Cloister: Mapping the Architecture of Observant Franciscan Identity in Brescia, 1422–1610
- La Babilonyke Meretrice Romaine: Roots and Character of Guillaume Postel’s Anti-Papalism
- Translating Women’s Silence: Erasmus’ Translation and Paraphrase of 1Corinthians 14:34–35
- Maritime Networks: Priests, Mariners, and Their Landing Places in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England
- “The Precious Gifts of Faith, Repentance, and the Feare of God”: Court Confessions and Emotions in Old and New England Witch Trials (ca. 1560–1692)
- Pascal’s Wafer: The Concept of Piety in Blaise Pascal’s Theological Anthropology
- Dossier: Text, Textile, and Theology 1
- Making the Bible a Fashion Accessory in Seventeenth-Century England: Materiality, Market, and the Present-Tense Protestantism of Embroidered Book Covers
- “And I Shall Give to Thee the Crown of Life”: The Utstein Antependium and the Visual Religious Culture in Early Modern Norway (ca. 1680–1700)
- Les ornements liturgiques des Carmes dans les anciens Pays-Bas du XVIIe siècle: un outil au service de leurs thèses
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Religious Women and Liturgy in a Fifteenth-Century Portuguese Codex: Gendering the Reception and Profession Ceremonies in the Dominican Convents
- Memory and the Cloister: Mapping the Architecture of Observant Franciscan Identity in Brescia, 1422–1610
- La Babilonyke Meretrice Romaine: Roots and Character of Guillaume Postel’s Anti-Papalism
- Translating Women’s Silence: Erasmus’ Translation and Paraphrase of 1Corinthians 14:34–35
- Maritime Networks: Priests, Mariners, and Their Landing Places in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England
- “The Precious Gifts of Faith, Repentance, and the Feare of God”: Court Confessions and Emotions in Old and New England Witch Trials (ca. 1560–1692)
- Pascal’s Wafer: The Concept of Piety in Blaise Pascal’s Theological Anthropology
- Dossier: Text, Textile, and Theology 1
- Making the Bible a Fashion Accessory in Seventeenth-Century England: Materiality, Market, and the Present-Tense Protestantism of Embroidered Book Covers
- “And I Shall Give to Thee the Crown of Life”: The Utstein Antependium and the Visual Religious Culture in Early Modern Norway (ca. 1680–1700)
- Les ornements liturgiques des Carmes dans les anciens Pays-Bas du XVIIe siècle: un outil au service de leurs thèses
