A c. 1300 cotte in murrey wool

Made in 2004





One of the periods I like best and have most clothes from is the late 13th/early 14th century. There are many reasons for my liking it best: the documentation situation is good when it comes to art, with both the Manesse Codex and the Konstanz-Weingartner Liederhandschrift as well as a lot of English manuscripts. There is also some really nice Norwegian art from this time. It is also a period where there is a lot of information on clothing in preserved Swedish and Norwegian documents.
It is also a historically interesting period, the end of the high middle ages and politically interesting in Sweden and Norway. And it's before the Plague.  But most of all I think it's beautiful and graceful and looks good on both men and women.

 The cotte is made from murrey coloured thin wool. Just like my red cotte it's cut after some of the cottes from Herjolfsnes to give a seam on the side-front that is left open to make it possible to nurse. In the right photo you can see how it works since Maja decided something was so interesting that she had to stop eating and look at it.

The dress has cloth buttons made after the description in Textiles and Clothing. Medieval finds from excavations in London. Cloth buttons aren't documented for this period, because the finds are from the last part of the 14th century, but since we know that buttons were used and cloth buttons are a really simple idea I thought that I could use them. If I had gone for 100 % docuementable I would have used metal or glass buttons.


I'm not too happy with them, I make better buttons now.

 My headwear is simple. First I make my hair into two braided buns over my ears. Then I put on a hairnet on top of that. This hairnet is made from half-bleached linen thread. Then I put the "chinband" (I don't know the english word) under my chin and pin it together on top of my head. The veil is semi-circular and pinned to the band.



 This type of headwear is seen in some pictures from the period, even if it's more common to have a chinband and fillet and either loose hair or a hairnet. Both with a veil on top of the fillet as I wear it with the red cotte or without a veil. You also see just a hairnet and a circlet.

I have also made more garments in this wool, to much a full set of clothes, as was very common in the Middle Ages. I now have a sleeveless surcoat, a surcoat with 7/8 lebgth, wider sleeves, a semicircular cloak and  a hood from the same farbic,. Unfortunately I only have a photo of the hood and the cloak right now, though not worn together.




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