The Kerry Stokes Schembart book: festivity, fashion and family in the late medieval Nuremberg Carnival

Abstract

The richly illustrated Kerry Stokes Schembart book represents a very fine example of a genre that recorded the pre-Lenten carnival parades in the city of Nuremberg between 1449 and 1539. It depicts the flamboyant costumes of the Runners who danced their way through the city and the floats ritually destroyed in the city square. It testifies to the significance of carnival in the city's festive life, the use of fashion to display the wealth and status of its leading families, and the emotional investment of those families in ensuring the survival of their pride and honour in such visible form.