Cundrie’s Clothing: Textiles in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s “Parzival”

Elke Brüggen
BCDSS Principal Investigator & Fellow

A celebration is being held in King Arthur’s court, the center of secular power: The young knight Parzival, „bore the mark of an angel without wings“ (Eschenbach Parzival [EP] 308,2[DI1] ), who people have been searching for for a long time, has returned and a big celebration is being held in his honor, with no efforts being spared. As the court society is traveling, King Arthur has a circle made out of a luxurious silk fabric from Acraton (EP 309,18), „brought from far-off heathendom“ (EP 309,19[DI2] ), large enough for all of the honorable knights and ladies to gather around him in a meadow to dine together. The cloth refers to the round table at the center of power in Nantes, which illustrates the fundamental equality of all members of society: „For their courtesy vouchsafed that no-one should claim of honour, facing the host” (EP 309,23- 25[DI3] ). It is above all the noble ladies in the circle who react to Parzival’s arrival: They are captivated by the young man’s beauty: „through their eyes into their hearts he went“ (EP 311,28).

However, an unexpected guest enters in this grand setting, a female creature that „she was not ladylike of appearance“ (EP 312,15 [DI4] [DI5] ), according to the narrator. She has a terrible impact: She dampens the general high spirits (EP 313,6) with her withering assessment of Parzival, who is marveled at and admired by all, accusing him of mercilessness, infidelity and betrayal, arising from a hideous and repulsive inner self. His overwhelming beauty – nothing more than a deceptive illusion that has deceived the noble society of Arthur’s court. She claims Parzival is, in truth, an unworthy person with no right to belong to this elite circle.

This woman’s name is Cundrie (EP 312,26f.) and, with what she has to say, the relaxed and joyful mood in court in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s ‘Parzival’, a Middle High German poem from the early 13th century, is suddenly transformed into pain and grief. Cundrie is so moved by the fate of the ailing Grail King Anfortas, whom Parzival met a short time earlier, that she publicly accuses the young knight of not having helped him, when a compassionate question about the nature and cause of the mighty ruler’s clearly visible physical pain would have sufficed.

While Cundrie abandons all linguistic restraint in her accusation, thereby breaching established etiquette, she is very much in keeping with the conventions of the courtly world with the luxurious clothes she is wearing on the day:

“A bridal cloth from Ghent, bluer even than lapis lazuli, that downpour on joy had donned. It was a well-cut cape, all in the French style. Beneath, next to her person, she wore fine furs. A peacock-feather hat from London, lined with cloth-of-gold – the hat was new, its ribbon not old – hung at her back.” (EP 313,4 – 13 [DI6] ).

Fig. 1: Wienhausen Monastery, donor figure of Countess Palatine Agnes von Landsberg, around 1270 (photo: U. Loeper/Kloster Wienhausen, 2016).

The red coat of the donor figure is not, like the Cundrie figure in the text of Parzival, a traveling cloak that is intended to protect the clothing worn underneath from dust and dirt, but rather a particularly representative element of noble clothing. The shape of the garment seen here is certainly comparable – it shows a cape cut in a semicircle. In the sculpture, the coat is held on the shoulders with the help of a wide and strong band attached to the front edges. Reaching into the coat strap and simultaneously lifting the right side of the coat with the left hand were considered noble gestures that demonstrated skillful use of courtly clothing.

Cundrie’s garments are made from the finest fabrics, the cloak-like travel coat made from what is known as Ghent bridal fabric, a woolen fabric whose exquisite quality is guaranteed by its place of origin, as the Flemish city of Ghent in the Middle Ages was a famous center of cloth production that had become established from the end of the 11th century with the expansion of the textile industry in Flanders (fig. 2 + 3).

Fig. 2: Row of medieval houses in Ghent (photo: Shutterstock, 49849609, license 2024).

Fig. 3: Belfry of Ghent (photo: Shutterstock, 2323212139, license 2024).

Merchants took charge of the supply of raw materials and also ensured sales of the finished products, which took place, for instance, at the trade fairs in Champagne, in the trading towns of Provins, Troyes, Lagny-sur-Marne, and Bar-sur-Aube.

Under her coat, Cundrie wears a silk dress, and the lining of her brand new hat decorated with a trim, which was imported from London, is also made from silk. The narrator uses the expressions “pfelle” (EP 313,9) and “blîalt” (EP 309,11) for the silk here and thus distinguishes between different silk fabrics, whereby the term “blîalt” presumably refers to a silk interwoven with gold threads. Such fabrics were valuable objects from the long-distance trade of Oriental luxury goods, in which Italian traders, especially those from the cities of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, played an important role, as they had been granted extensive trade, tax, and customs freedom in the Byzantine Empire back in the 11th and 12th centuries. The first Italian places of business were already established in Constantinople, Antioch, and Jerusalem in the 11th century, and an extensive network of trading centers could then be established along the coasts of the Mediterranean in the following two centuries. In the 13th century, many trading centers were also established inland, i.e., in Africa, Asia and in what is now the Southern Federal District of Russia.

Fig. 4: Silk fabric depicting a lion hunt on a blue background, Byzantium or Syria, first half of the 9th century, Church of St. Ursula, Cologne (photo: © Historisches Archiv der Stadt Köln im Rheinischen Bildarchiv, rba c003819).

Cundrie also demonstrates her fashion expertise with further details. The shape of her coat thus follows the French cut, indicating a crucial feature of the aristocratic culture of clothing of the time, an orientation towards models of refined and trend-setting fashion from France. The woolen fabric of her coat shows a blue that outrivals the blue of the valuable and highly prized lapis lazuli in its intensity. It is thus in keeping with a well-documented contemporary preference for fabrics in rich, bright colors. Her hat with its precious silk lining is also adorned on the outside with peacock feathers. This refers to the shimmery, cobalt blue, violet, bronze, and golden green tail feathers of the male animals, which end in what is known as an “eye” or “mirror”; they were specifically used to adorn headgear (fig. 5).

The fashion-conscious Cundrie is an educated, indeed a learned woman, who not only speaks several languages, Latin, Arabic, and French, but is also well versed in dialectics, geometry, and astronomy. She was therefore obviously trained in the septem artes liberales, the seven liberal arts (fig. 6).

Fig. 5: Peacock hats are attested as an accessory in both women’s and men’s fashion. On this miniature from the Great Heidelberg Songs Manuscript, also called Codex Manesse, the minstrel Ulrich von Gutenburg is depicted with a peacock hat. Große Heidelberger Liederhandschrift [Codex Manesse] – Zürich, c. 1300 to c. 1340 (Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 848, fol. 73r.; DOI: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.2222#0141)

Fig. 6: Philosophy in the midst of the Seven Liberal Arts (septem artes liberals): Herrad von Landsberg, around 1180 (composé de 12 feuillets, l’album porte le titre “Herrad von Landsberg, Aebtissin zu Hohenburg, oder St. Odilien, im Elsass, im zwölften Jahrhundert und ihr Werk: Hortus deliciarum. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Wissenschaften, Literatur, Kunst, Kleidung, Waffen und Sitten des Mittelalters”; DOI: https://www.bacm.creditmutuel.fr/fr/hortus.html). The female figures, representing the septem artes liberales, are dressed in the latest fashion. They wear dresses with tight-fitting tops that emphasize the body shapes and wide-swinging skirts and hanging sleeves as special decoration.

However, as soon as Cundrie’s body comes into play, there is a glaring dissonance from her cultivated appearance, as she in no way corresponds to the current ideal of beauty: her hair in a long braid, which is black and hard „as a pig’s back-hair“ (EP 313,20 [DI7] ), the hair on her brows long and towering, her nose like that of a dog, teeth like the tusks of a boar, ears like a bear, her whole face covered in dense hair, her hands with skin like an ape, her fingers with black nails, shaped like a lion’s claws. The narrator’s animal comparisons mark Cundrie as the epitome of ugliness. Only much later in the text are the abnormalities revealed to be congenital deformities, which occur in both Cundrie and her brother, aptly named Malcreatiure. As an explanation, the author draws on a widespread myth: The siblings come from Queen Secundille’s kingdom of Tribalibot on the Ganges, in present-day India, and they are descendants of Adam’s daughters, who ignored their father’s ban on eating certain herbs and plants during pregnancy – eating these bad foods caused them to give birth to deformed children (EP 517,28 – 519,1). Once, so it is said, these strange siblings were sent by Secundille as “kleinoete” (EP 519,21), as special treasures, as human gifts to King Anfortas, the great ruler of the Grail. Cundrie remained close to him, but Malcreatiure was given away once again: the Grail King intended him as a gift for his beloved, Lady Orgeluse de Logroys.

Fig. 7: Hubs of the textile trade in the High Middle Ages (map: BCDH 2024, made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com).

Cundrie’s Clothing: Textiles in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s “Parzival”

Elke BrüggenBCDSS Principal Investigator & Fellow

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Elke Brüggen
BCDSS Principal Investigator & Fellow