This was an early publication of the Society for Creative Anachronism, which requires participants in its events to wear an attempt at medieval clothing. It was intended to teach new members the basics of European medieval clothing across a series of periods 'Byzantines and barbarians" for the early middle ages, then 12th and 13th centuries, "the wonderful fourteenth century," the fifteenth century, early Tudor and a note on Italian renaissance, as well as an article on the effect of population pressure on clothing ("sex and the single surcoat") and some very small cutting diagrams. Nowadays this book has been superseded in the SCA by many more detailed studies, and even in its own day it was very basic, but it served its purpose at the time. I slightly knew the author, a lady from Cleveland. ( )