Clothing. Textiles and garments, where the quality of the cloth was almost always specified, was more often given to women than to men.41 Eva Andersson studied textiles in testaments, and it can be shown that relatives and friends of the higher nobility received expensive textiles, such as silk, scarlet cloth, and expensive imported wool, but servants and people at lower social levels were provided with cheaper textiles such as home-made wool and linen.42 These vertical gifts could be of a low value. Even shoes are mentioned, and they were quite cheap. In 1343 a cleric gave shoes to his ploughman, besides linen garments.43 All these features can be found in the European studies. Women gave and received more textiles, and servants got gifts of simpler clothing. There are even single examples of shoes as bequests.44 Closely related to clothing are beds and bedclothes, and women got most of these.45 And we find the same pattern in other countries.46 Books. Testamentary gifts of books have an importance for intellectual history since the titles usually are mentioned, but this is not the place to take on such vast a subject, so I shall concentrate on who gave what to whom. Already in 1956 Gottfrid Carlsson made extensive use of testaments when he wrote about medieval book collections, mainly owned by clerics, in Denmark and Sweden. Twenty years later, Per Ingesman discussed a 41 Blixt 2022, p. 18. 42 Andersson 2006, pp. 238–239. 43 SDHK4866; Myrdal 2014, p. 230. In another testament from 1278, a nobleman gave clothing and shoes to the poor: SDHK1840. 44 Baur 1989, pp. 222–223; Beattie 2019, p. 46; Epstein 1984, p. 125–127; Burkholder 2005, p.135. 45 Blixt 2022, p. 22; on beds as women’s inheritance according to regional laws, see Korpiola and Trolle Önnerfors 2018, p. 46. 46 Loengard 2008, p. 172. testaments as a source for everyday life•janken myrdal 377 figure5:Lars i Börje’s last will and testament dated 26 March 1343. Among all the bequests we find linen garments and shoes donated to the plowman Anders (Jtem Andree bubulco lineas vestes et calcios). sdhk4866, Original on parchment, national archives, Stockholm.
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