(30-03-2020, 12:42 AM)Koen G wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It would be interesting if such sleeves were indicative of station. They are certainly much rarer than all types of baggy sleeves. But I think they are mostly indicative of wealth.
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Both in real life and in manuscript illustrations, the more cloth, usually the more status, the more layers, usually more status, longer tunic or dress hems, usually more status, and the more decorations on the cloth (like dagging, lace, woven patterns, etc.), the more status. There are sometimes exceptions but, in general, these were the conventions.
I spent quite a bit of time looking at the cloths and remnants of clothing on museum sites. They had extraordinarily good weavers in the Middle Ages. The silk brocades were much more advanced than I had expected for the time. This kind of detail is not usually expressed in illustrations, however. Sometimes it's suggested, but rarely drawn.
One of the things I learned about specific sleeve types (like baggy sleeves) is they do tend to select a distinctive sleeve type for whoever is the "hero" or focal point of a story. So in Roman de la Rose, the baggy-sleeved guy is a specific guy. In others, the long dagged-sleeve guy is a specific guy so the reader can see at a glance what is happening in the drawing. Plus the "our hero" convention does seem to change from decade to decade as fashions change.