Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Uploaded

A fascination with her costume, and the dress of her era, has remained through the 18th century, Victorian times, and to this very day. Many books have been written about it, including the comprehensive and detailed masterwork by Janet Arnold, Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd.

This book was based, in part, upon the extensive analysis of Queen Elizabeth's wardrobe accounts, specifically upon the manuscript MS Egerton 2806 held by the British Library. Unfortunately, though Arnold had transcribed the manuscript for her own use, it has never been published...until now.

Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Uploaded holds the transcribed contents of MS Egerton 2806: The complete record of what Queen Elizabeth's tailors made, altered and bought between the years 1568 and 1588. I have spent the last several years transcribing the manuscript from microfilm, proofing it, and building a web database application that I have loaded it into, to facilitate searching and browsing.

After much consideration, I have decided to make the manuscript freely available online to other researchers, rather than publishing it in hardbound form. My hope is to encourage and help others, across a wide range of disciplines, who are doing research on the dress and material culture of this area by making the text of these warrants available in easily searchable and browsable form.

Areas of the site are still being improved. The glossary is being expanded and fleshed out. Synonym searching, which makes it easier to search the whimsically spelled accounts of 400 years ago, is being improved. In addition I am currently working on transcribing additional wardrobe accounts from 1588-1603, which I plan to add as they are finished.