ABSTRACT
This chapter evaluates the role of the great wardrobe as a repository of skills and goods. By the late fifteenth century the great wardrobe was established as a fixed institution that was attached to the royal household. Its peripatetic days following the king's household were long gone. In view of the premium placed on the royal wardrobe and the appearance of the household by the Tudor kings, it is not surprising that the cost of royal magnificence was high. The fourteenth-century wardrobe had five key functions: acquiring raw materials, converting the fabric and fur into clothes, storing of raw materials, distributing the completed garments and accounting for the money received and spent by the keeper. The wardrobe had a permanent staff consisting of the keeper, the clerk, the porter and the yeoman tailor, who were all provided with livery. The queen's wardrobe was smaller and much less formally structured than the great wardrobe.
