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How are we to distinguish between a culture organized around fashion, and one where the desire for novel adornment is latent, intermittent, or prohibited? How do fashion systems organize social hierarchies, individual psychology, creativity, and production? Medieval French culture offers a case study of "systematic fashion", demonstrating desire for novelty, rejection of the old in favor of the new, and criticism of outrageous display. Texts from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries describe how cleverly-cut garments or unique possessions make a character distinctive, and even offer advice on how to look attractive on a budget or gain enough spending money to shop for oneself. Such descriptions suggest fashion's presence, yet accepted notions date the birth of Western fashion to the mid-fourteenth-century revolution in men's clothing styles. A fashion system must have been present prior to this 'revolution' in styles to facilitate such changes, and abundant evidence for the existence of such a system is cogently set out in this study. Ultimately, fashion is a conceptual system expressed by words evaluating a style's ephemeral worth, and changes in visual details are symptomatic, rather than determinative.

SARAH-GRACE HELLER is an associate professor in Medieval French at Ohio State University.

History of civilization --- anno 500-1499 --- France --- Clothing and dress --- Costume --- History --- Histoire --- 391 <44> --- 391 "04/14" --- Kleding. Mode. Sieraden. Volksdracht--Frankrijk --- Kleding. Mode. Sieraden. Volksdracht--Middeleeuwen --- 391 "04/14" Kleding. Mode. Sieraden. Volksdracht--Middeleeuwen --- 391 <44> Kleding. Mode. Sieraden. Volksdracht--Frankrijk --- Apparel --- Clothes --- Clothing --- Clothing and dress, Primitive --- Dress --- Dressing (Clothing) --- Garments --- Beauty, Personal --- Manners and customs --- Fashion --- Undressing --- Attractive. --- Budget. --- Cleverly-cut garments. --- Desire for novelty. --- Fashion system. --- Medieval French texts. --- Novel adornment. --- Organized culture. --- Outrageous display. --- Rejection of the old. --- Spending money.

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Why should a supposedly Biblical relic lay down its literary roots in medieval French literature? This study of the Holy Grail, drawing on the psychoanalytic works of Jacques Lacan and the cultural theory of Slavoj Zizek, argues that the Grail should be read as a symptom of disruption and obscurity rather than fulfilment and revelation. The Holy Grail made its first literary appearance in the work of the twelfth-century French poet, Chrétien de Troyes, and continues to fascinate authors and audiences alike. This study, supported by a theoretical framework based on the psychoanalytic works of Jacques Lacan and the cultural theory of Slavoj Zizek, aims to strip the legend of much of the mythological and folkloric association that it has acquired over the centuries, arguing that the Grail should be read as a symptom of disruption and obscurity rather than fulfilment and revelation. Focusing on two thirteenth-century Arthurian prose romances, 'La Queste del Saint Graal' and 'Perlesvaus', and drawing extensively on the wider field of Old French Grail literature including the works of Chrétien and Robert de Boron, the book examines the personal, social and textual effects produced by encounters with the Grail in order to suggest that the Grail itself is instrumental not only in creating but also in disturbing, the discursive, psychic and cultural bonds that are represented in this complex and captivating literary tradition. BEN RAMM is Research Fellow in French, St. Catharine's College, Cambridge.