At the risk of beating this further to death and annoying Prof. Stokes and list
members who would prefer to talk about . . . well, whatever, both Bevington's
textbook and the introduction to the Early English Text Society edition of the
Norwich Creation, which I was finally able to lay my hands on this weekend, both
make clear that these are "over hosen OF apis skinns." The editor of the play,
however, says nothing more about it, giving the impression that he knows
something we don't, but probably hiding his ignorance of what ape skins are.
And since Lawrence Clopper has convincingly argued that these hose must be part
of the angel's costume (as the editor also says) and Andrzej Dabrowska makes a
good case that angels were depicted as merely winged humans, I'm assuming that
these hose were either tawed skin or skin-like cloth (and that they would be
visible to the audience). This leaves open the question of why it was called
"ape skin" and why this apparent technical term understood by the grocers seems
not to be attested anywhere else. I don't know about fantasy names for cloth,
but it's an interesting thought. "Fustian" seems to me to be something
different, at least according to OED2, "conjecturally derived from Fostat, the
name of a suburb of Cairo where cloth was manufactured."
Alan B. (for Beater of dead horses)
-----Original Message-----
From: Dr Margaret Mary Raftery [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, February 21, 2000 3:27 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: "Apis skinns" yet again
Is it remotely possible that the "apis skinns", whatever their
composition, were intended to be made into wings, rather than
undergarments (since "hose" is apparently mentioned separately)?
Very tentatively,
Margaret
Andrzej Dabrowska wrote :
A quick look into the "Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie"
(s.v. Engel)
has taught me the following:
Angels were not made in birds' likeness; they are never depicted
as
bird-like, but more and more as humans of the time of depiction.
The first
flying angel is noticed in the 4th c., through the centuries two
main
species show up: the winged (including flying heads) and the
wingless.
Although there is a picture of an angel as a winged athlete, as
a rule you
don't see much of their uncovered body except their extremities.
Why should
their undergarment be of much sophistication, then?
> or "apis skinns" simply means something else.
Maybe a sort of textile with a special texture, they use to be
called
phantasy-names like fustian or the like?
Dr Margaret Mary Raftery
English Department, U.O.F.S.,
P.O. Box 339, Bloemfontein, 9300, South Africa.
+ 27 51 4012336 / 2275
