The creation of the major medieval textile museum in Spain: A history of the discovery, study and initial exhibition of the collection (1942−1949)

ABSTRACT This article traces the history of the collection of medieval textiles from the abbey church of Las Huelgas in Burgos (Spain), including its discovery, study and initial display. The collection consists of more than 200 medieval textile grave goods from members of the royal family of Castile recovered between 1942 and 1944. After a detailed account of its discovery and the conditioning factors surrounding the occasions when the tombs were opened for scientific purposes, it goes on to describe how the collection was studied by the famous historian Gómez-Moreno. It also examines the establishment of the museum of medieval textiles that opened in the abbey in 1949, providing information about its unpublished project dating from 1944. The repercussions of the discovery of this collection and the creation of the museum were both national, leading to the opening of further tombs, and international, to studies on textiles.