Shannon Miller (3)

This is a well-researched, extensively footnoted survey of the very narrow topic of the title, plus the areas it touches, such as painting and embroidery. The only thing I might add to the title is "European," though she does mention other areas of the world in passing. The flags in question were usually, though not always, heraldic.

The author discusses the guilds related to cloth painting and staining throughout Europe and records of Royal patronage. Because of the nature of the surviving records, this booklet discusses historical painters, as well as those specifically working on cloth. There is even a short section on women as painters in general, and as flag painters specifically.

Then the author discusses historical production techniques and materials, and refutes the idea that the resist method of silk painting is documentable to flag production in the European late Middle Ages. The section following that is on flag display, storage, and maintenance. Finally, the author documents a recreation of a medieval painted flag.

There are also several appendices, with a chronology of painted flag creation, a list of extant painted flags, a list of primary sources for painting techniques, a list of primary sources for flag regulations, a list of the materials used in her reproduction, and finally the bibliography and footnotes.

I found the booklet to be a font of information, meticulously documented, and useful to anyone seeking to produce a painted flag in the tradition of those created in the European Middle Ages.… (mehr)