Textiles and Fashion History
The Triumverate described on my Books for Starting Out in Costuming pages:
Patterns of Fashion, Janet Arnold
The Medieval Tailor's Assistant, Sarah Thursfield
The Tudor Tailor. Ninya Mikhaila
Everyday Dress 1650 - 1900. Elizabeth Ewing
B.T. Batsford, London. 1984.ISBN 0 7134 3778 2
Great chapter on dyeing and laundering. Encourages us to think beyond the garments in the formal portraits and graves, to the items worn until worn out.
Findings the Material Culture of Needlework and Sewing. Mary C. Baudry. Yale University Press, New Haven and London. 2006. ISBN 10-0-300-11093-6
A great look at the 'small finds' from the middle ages to the industrial revolution, and on the manufacture of these goods: pins, needles etc.
A History of Costume. Karl Kohler. Dover Publications. 1963. 0-486-21030-8
The History of Underclothes. C. Willett and Phillis Cunnington. Dover Publications. 1992. 0-486-27124-2
History
The Description of England: The Classic Comtemporary Account of Tudor Social Life. William Harrison. The Folger Shakespeare Libray and Dover Publications. 1994. ISBN 0-486-28275-9.
Structures of Everyday Life: Civilization and Capitalism 15th-18th Century The Limits of The Possible. Vol 1. Ferdinand Braudel. Harper and Row. 1981 0-06-014845-4
Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters who Ruled Europe. Nancy Goldstone. 2007. Penguin. 978-0-14-311325-6
The English Housewife Containing the Inward and Outward Virtues which our to be in a a complete woman.... Gervase Markham. McGill-Queens Press. Editor Michael R.Best. 2003. 0-7735-1103-2
Absolutely essential. Also a great source for the language for the tasks- which have mostly become extinct as well.
The Witch Hunt: History of a Persecution. Nigel Cawthorne. Chartwell Books Inc. 2004. 0-7858-1858-8
A History of the Wife. Marilyn Yalom. Perennial. 2002 0-06-0193156-6
Marvelous overview of the shift from marriage as a religious duty to an arena for personal fulfillment. A very easy and interesting read.
Medieval Women: A Social History of Women in England 450-1500. Henrietta Leyser. Phoenix Press. 2002 1-84212-621-0
I found Part Three most useful, with its look at Sex, Marriage, Motherhood, Work, and Widowhood. Great descriptions of the laundering process as a method of social control through gossip containment.
Life in Medieval Times. Marjorie Rowling. Perigee Books. 1968. SBN 399-50258-0.
A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance, A Portrait of an Age. William Manchester. Little, Brown and Co.(Canada) 1992. 0-316-54556-2
A Distant Mirror The Calamitous 14th Century. Barbara W. Tuchman. Balantine Books. 1978. 0-345-30145-5
Women in the Middle Ages. Frances and Joseph Gies. Barnes and Noble. 1978. 0-06-464037-X Particularly useful for people who don't have a Christian theological background, going through the models of Eve and Mary, and their echoes through the lives of seven medieval and renaissance women.
Aristotle's Children. How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages. Richard E. Rubenstein. Harcourt.
Food and Cookery
For Maids Who Brew and Bake: Rare and Excellent Recipies from 17th Century Newfoundland. Sheilah Roberts. Flanker Press. 2003. 1-894463-46-3