attempt at retrograde fashion in order to stay “a few steps behind” the Christian
population and thus distinguish themselves.
Christian manuscripts tend to depict such Jews: mostly men appear, and these are
bearded. If they are intended to represent the tormentors of Jesus, or the collective “Jews”
of the New Testament narrative, they wear homespun, peasant-style clothes, breeches,
tunics, occasionally hooded. Their heads are covered by soft-peaked hats or hoods turned
back. Other biblical Jews—prophets and Pharisees—as well as contemporary Jews are
depicted in full-length tunics and cloaks, generally fastened at the shoulder.
Strikingly different is the image we receive from medieval Jewish manuscripts. There,
Jews of both sexes wear tunics, cinched at the waist with belts or accompanied by an
outer coat with tapering sleeves. Women’s hairdress is varied and in some cases quite
fashionable, utilizing hair nets, hats, and chin pieces in much the same way, though with
some time lag, as such elements were popular in England and France. Though married
women are inevitably depicted with hair covered, Jewish manuscripts give the impression
that men went bareheaded most of the time.
The manuscript depictions are confirmed in the biblical and Talmudic commentaries
of Rashi (ca. 1039–1104), which provide details of Jewish dress, as well as some
description of the processes of tailoring, laundering, and perfuming garments. Although
information about clothing is never systematically presented in his commentaries, it is
from his work in particular that one gets a sense of Jewish attitudes toward clothing:
clothes, Rashi tells us, honor the man—they constitute his “glory”—and should be well
cared for, clean, and neat. Rashi describes three layers of clothes: a shiftlike
undergarment, an outer robe with attached hose, and a coat of silk or other material,
closed with cords hanging around the waist. He mentions puttees worn about the legs,
and kneebreeches for men, belted with a string pulled through a hem about the waist, and
presumably worn under the robe. The rounded cloak was known to Rashi, and he
mentions cloaks of various weights to accommodate fluctuations in weather.
Rashi describes women’s fashion more extensively. He discusses many more
hairstyles than can be observed in manuscripts: woolen caps or snoods covered with a
thin scarf, lace headdresses, headbands made of gold interlaced with silk threads, hats
made of the ribs of feathers, and even hairpins are described in detail. He catalogues a
variety of jewlery, from the pins or brooches used to fasten cloaks, to jeweled belts,
perfume flasks, strings of pearls, amulets, and chokers to close the necks of gowns.
Jewelry made by goldsmiths was peddled from door to door and kept in special jewelry
boxes. Women and even young girls had their ears pierced, but girls did not begin to wear
earrings until they were older. Rashi disapproves of “immodest” modes of dress. A
woman who wears garments with slashed sleeves, so that she goes “‘with her armpits
uncovered’ in the manner of the Gentile women in France, whose [bare] flesh can be seen
from their sides” gives her husband grounds for divorce. Here, we can witness both the
inherent conservatism fostered by the prohibition of Leviticus 18 and the stratification of
Jewish society, in which such garments were worn by certain individuals, particularly
those moving in “elite” circles in contact with Christians.
Rashi mentions both soft-laced shoes and harder shoes fastened with a buckle or clasp,
all pulled on by means of a loop at the heel. Some shoes are described as having wooden
soles, which would have to be planed to even them when they started to wear. To others,
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