ABSTRACT

Byzantine textiles survive in very great number and variety and are important for our understanding of Byzantine culture and civilisation. The extant textiles yield a great deal more information about the physical nature of Byzantine textile manufacture and usage than do scant existing visual or written sources on the topic.1 Many of the written sources, often official Imperial documents, use technical and trade terminology, which cannot be translated literally, a textile terminology that makes sense only in relation to how the textiles were woven, dyed and tailored.2 On the other hand, the limited visual or documentary sources available, taken in conjunction with the physical evidence of the extant textiles, allow for an understanding of the contexts, situations, attitudes and uses to which textiles were put in Byzantium.