Embroidery craziness begun

As you may recall I got enthusiastic about patterned 13th century clothes a month ago. One of my absolute favourites was this image:

End of the 13th century 

France Lausanne, Bibliothèque Cantonale et Universitaire 

U 964 - Biblia Porta fol. 240r

While it is likely that most of the striped garments of the 13th century had woven stripes I thought that maybe, just maybe, when there was just one stripe, or a few, but placed at uneven intervals, as on the man's tunic, they might be embroidered. Or applied from another fabric, but I'm going with the embroidery theory here ;) Since her stripe has the same background colour as the rest of the gown.

So, I have started the embrodiery. In chain stitch, which isn't typical of the period, but my split stitch doesn't produce half as nice results.

There will two double stripes like this, maybe 10-12 cm apart, and then something inside that, haven't made up my mind yet. But fleur-de-lys are always nice. Like Edward the Confessor. Whose tunic surely is made from patterned silk.

Edward the Confessor, from "Life of Edward the Confessor" 

13th century manuscript at Cambridge University Library

I am also justifying the embroidery with the fact that embroidery on wool was rather common for interior decoration. Imitiating the patterns of brocaded silks in a cheaper technique is at least palusible, especially since we know that brocades were imitated in other ways, such as printing. Though probably mostly for interior decaration purposes, since the paint would have made the fabric stiff. The preserved printed fabrics are either on linen or silk (or printed cottons from India, but I'm talking about European production here), I have not seen printed wool fabrics mentioned before the 18th cnetury, but I would love if anyone of you have found it somewhere earlier - it really isn't my area of expertise.

Also, since we know of embroidered bands at the hem, it wouldn't be so far fetched to make one a bit higher up.

But, as as said before, most were undoubtly woven, in the first link above you find several preserved examples, and there are also lots of documents from medieval Flanders dealing with the production of striped cloth.

A new pink veil

I wanted a pink veil already when I last time got immersed in the fashions of the period 1250-1325. Here's one from the Grosse Heidelberger Liederhandschrift.

I actually thought that I had made one, but apparently not. So today I bought some pink silk, cut and started hemming; while listening to Harry Potter on audio book. And here it is.

It is an oval shape, to give the nice wavy folds you see on so many images in the Grosse Heidelberger Liederhandschrift. Like this one, where you also find the same combination of veil and gold garland as I'm wearing.

Buying shiny stuff

Finding fitting and jewellery for the 13th and early 14th century isn't as easy as if you're looking for later 14th, or 15th century stuff. There are two reasons for this: one is that there appear to be more finds from this period, or at least more that are dated to those periods. Also, dating tend to be just "14th century", which isn't much use if you're looking for the first 25 years of that century. The other reason is that since there are so many more re-enactors doing late 14t and 15th cnetury there is a much bigger market for it.

Frustratingly a lot of manufacturers also tend to just give the dating as "medieval", and even when they have dating it is usually not possible to do a search by century.

But then you have the web site of Armour&Castings in the Ukraine where you can search by century, and which has a lot of things from my period that I have never seen reproduced before.

Today, which was a seriously lousy day, a package from the arrived and made my day much better. It contained a buckle, some belt ornaments and this lovely brooch:

The funny thing is that I only found the original a month ago or so, here it is: Walter's Art Museum. It's from the 13th century and the letters form a prayer, namely  "AGLA: Atha Gebri Leilan Adonai" ("Thou art mighty forever, O Lord"), I am of course totally ignoring this and pretend that the A is for Aleydis, the name that I use in the Society for Creative Anachronism :)

Anyway, I found it (on Pinterest of course), and exclaimed on facebook: "I want this!" And, two weeks later I found Armour&Castings while trawling the internet, and they had it. I've never seen it anywhere else.

And today it came! So yay!

And when I have money again I am so getting this belt mount.  And lots of other stuff.

Par vestimentorum de moreto - a set of 13th century clothes in murrey wool

So, I dragged hubby out to take some photos of me in my murrey set of clothes, so now they have their own page.

If you want to read more about matching sets of clothes, I wrote about it here and here.

Waiting for bezants

Bezants, that is metal ornaments attached to clothing (or other stuff)  were popular in the Middle Ages and the 13th and early 14th centuries are no exception. Ever since reading about clothes decorated all over with bezants or spangles in the High Middle Ages, ten years ago or so, I've wanted to made a gown with metal ornaments all over.

Well, someday it would happen. This is the gown waiting to be decorated (and lined, after all the bezants are in place). It's from fairly thick wool and has, as you can see wide 7/8 sleeves, showing that I will wear a cotte with tight sleeves under it.

Since I don't have the money to custom order anything, nor the skill or equipment to make my own bezants I ordered these charms to use.

The heraldic arms that I use in the SCA have white cinquefoils on a green background so I thought that it would be fitting. Since they only have one loop to sew through they will move when I do. This was probably not the most common in period, since all preserved examples that I have seen which are still attached to fabric are attached firmly at several points. There are however many examples of leaves, and other shapes hanging loosely from bezants, and from clasps and pins, so I feel that fluttering floweres aren't that far away from period practice.

I intend to place them in groups of three. While I'm sure that the popularity of this grouping of dots in manuscripts from the period more reflects a pretty way to make patterns than actual garments depcited, the fact that it was so common ought to also reflect a period sense of what was pretty.

However, since they are on their way to me from China just now I can't do more than sew the gown and its cream thin wool lining, which I have done, and collect period images of bezants.

So, here are some:

Finds from London 1300-1500. Note the hanging leaves.

Museum of London

From Bildindex.de, that somewhat hard to navigate treasure trove, there are several images to be found.

A cloak for a statue of Mary in the Halberstadt Dom, 14th century

Bezants with loosely hanging leaves, same garment

Quite a few five-petaled flowers there too:

13th-early 14th century hair options (for women)

One of the things that I really like about the 13th-early 14th century are the many varied ways to wear you hair - and headwear. Contrary to popular ideas hair was not always totally cover4d, not even on married women. I've written some about it on the page about my 13th century outfit with a Barbie pink gardecorps, but I thought that it would be nice with a blog post which focuses on this and show some more period examples.

Unmarried women
I'll start with (presumably) unmarried women, who are often seen with their hair hanging or, much more rarely, braided.

Braid with gold ribbons and a circlet from the end of the 13th century, ow maybe her hair is just wrapped in ribbons and not braided. In any case it's not hanging loosely.

 Lausanne, Bibliothèque Cantonale et Universitaire U 964 - Biblia Porta fol. 178r

On of the young women ion this awesome French 13th century image of the Devil tempting both sexes to have fun  same-sex sexuality, also has a single braid or possibly unbraided hair wrapped in ribbons.

Wavy/slightly curly hair was popular. Here with a circlet. ca 1300.

Codex Manesse/Grosse Heidelberger Liederhandschrift

Here we see mother and daugher, showing the difference between a married woman with her chin strap and fillet and the daughter with a circlet in gold, tied with red ribbons.

Codex Manesse/Grosse Heidelberger Liederhandschrift

Loose hair and circlets in France c 1250.

The Maciejowski Bible

It is of course hard to be sure about the marital status of all these women, but this woman wearing a hairnet is also probably unmarried, like her friends, since she's wearing only a circlet with her hairnet. It appears that the white wavy fillet and chin strap was a thing for married women.

And don't be fooled by all the women with white fillets and/or veils being courted by knights - adoring a married woman was a thing in Courtly Culture. (A book tip: Courtly Culture by Joachim Bumke, a German historian. It is really,really good.)

This image show the death of Nabal and what I presume is his wife and daughter, indicating that the white cap today mostly referred to as the St. Birgitta cap, was worn also by unmarried women. You also see that already in France c. 1250 married women wore a chin strap and fillet with loose hair under it.

But, really, "everyone" already knows that unmarried women wore their hair uncovered in the Middle ages. The most interesting thing may be the image of the woman at the top with her hair braided in one single braid. This is not a style that we generally associate with the 13th and early 14th century, and one that I will get back to now that I turn to the married women.

Married women

I promised myself that this post wouldn't be about veils, so I will try to refrain from showing images just because I like the veils, filelts or chin straps. there has to be some hair too.

We have already seen that a white fillet, often with a wavy or decorated edge (I write more about that here) was worn by many women together with either a chin band/barbette, or maybe a Birgitta cap under it; the image above could for instance show a cap insted of a strip of linen. On the other hand there are written sources telling about long strips of linen, called gebende, wound many times around the head (Bumke 2000 p 152) and the image may well show this instead.

This is a lovely detail shot of Markgrafin Uta from the Naumburg cathedral, showing her wide gebende decorated with gold, but also some of her wavy hair at the temples.

Photo from Wikimedia commons

A much less well-known figure from the same cathedral is countess Gerburg von Brehna. She's not as pretty, but she has a braid!

So, like Uta she has a crown with a pill box cap, a gebende  wrapped around her head, and wavy hair showing at the temples, but, since we can see her from the side we also see that she has a single braid hainging down her back.

Furthermore, if you look at my favourite of the Naumberg ladies: the happily smiling Reglindis you see that she also probably has a hanging braid.

Image from wikimedia commons

Oh, what I would give for a side view of Uta's head :)

Narrower chinstraps were worn with a fillet and hanging hair as you have seen in the example of the motehr and daughter from the Grosse Heidelberger Liederhandschrift above. The Weingartner Liederhandschrift, which is contemporary to it, but much less fancy seem to favour a slightly...sloppy approach to the white linen fillet.

Image from wikimedia commons

You also find many examples of hanging hair under a veil in the Grosse Heidelberger Liederhandschrift.

With veil and a circlet on top of it.

And another one:

And one with a pink veil draped over what appears to be a gold coloured band of some kind.

No chinstraps as you can see on these images, but veils indicating married status anyway.

Hair nets came in many colours, and were frequently worn with chinstrap and white fillet.

Two examples from the Murthly Hours, a French mansucript fro the 1280s, show a green and a blue net respectively. And we also see that while prossibly shaped it is defintiely not a cap the woman with the green hairnet is wearing, which makes it less likely that it's a cap in the image of Nabal's death from the Maciejowski bible, since it looks just the same, except that we can't see the top of her head.

Detail from fol 6 recto

This is a gorgeous manuscript, which can be seen in its entirety at the web site of the national Library of Scotland. Lots of inspiration for illumination there.

Another be-netted, fillet wearing...snake. From MS K26 at St.John's College, Cambridge.

And a Norwegian early 14th century example, showing decorated hairnet, chin strap and fillet.

So, hairnets are definitely an option, for married as well as for unmarried women - there are also quite a few of them preserved.

This one is from the church of St. Truiden in Belgium, dated to the 13th century (link to museum site):

And the same goes for this one, from the cathedral of St. Paul (link to museum site).

As you see, they are first knotted and then embroidered.

I'm ending this post with an image from the Rheims Missal 1285-1297, showing maybe a "Birgitta cap" with a fillet with wavy or dagged edge and a gebende. And wavy hair at the temples.

Clothing in Isabella de Bruce's trosseau from 1293

As I wrote in my previous post there are several examples of coordinated otufits, or sets of clothing in the 1293 list of the trosseau of Isabella de Bruce, bride to be of the king of Norway. There's also lots of bedding, cups, candlesticks, pieces of cloth of gold, furniture, chests and two small crowns to be found in the document.

 Here my main interest is, however, the clothing and we find:

* “Videlicet vna roba de scarleto Bruneto tunica. supertunicale sine [manic]is [mante]llum capucium et capa.

* Item alia Roba de blueto. tunica. duo supertunicalia scilicet vnum clausum, aliud apertum. mantellum clausum et capucium . . . .

* Item alia Roba de scarleto murreto. tunica. duo supertunicalia, vnum clausum aliud apertum, capucium et capa furrata. 

* Item alia Roba de albo camelino. tunica. supertunicale sine manicis, campucium et capa furrata et mantellum, et est ista Roba furrata sindone forti.

Et omnes alie Robe de minuto vario, excepto mantello de blueto quod est furratum de grosso vario.”

 That is:

* A set of clothes (roba) of brown scarlet consisting of a cotte/kirtle, a sleeveless surcoat, hood and cloak (capa). As you can see the word mantellum is not complete, and it is doubtable if this is the correct interpretation, since it would be somewhat strange with two types of cloak in the set. Maybe the “-llum” is instead some kind of attribute of the hood.

* Another set of clothes (roba) made of blue (most likely a woollen cloth), consisting of a cotte/kirtle and two surcoats, one closed, one open. Here we must again speculate, but it probably means that one of them is open like a coat while the other one is put on over the head, and a lined hood and cloak.

* Another set of clothes (roba) made of murrey scarlet again consisting of a cotte/kirtle and two surcoats, one closed, one open, and a lined hood and cloak.

* Another set of clothes made from white cameline. What cameline was have been debated; Stella Mary Newton claims in Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince, a very good costume history book from 1980 – highly recommended – that it is a wool fabric of the same colour as the camel's fur, which would be reddish brown. But that doesn't seem to be the case here, since the cameline is white, though “white” could in the Middle Ages also mean “undyed”, in which case we're back to the reddish brown. Oxford English Dictionary says that it is a fabric either made of, or purported to be made of, camel's hair; and possibly the same fabric as camlet. In any case both were costly fabrics.        Not only the main fabric, but also the lining was exotic in this outfit, because it was lined with sindon fortis, and while fortis means strong, the word sindon originates in the Babylonian words sindhu and the ancient Greek sindon, both words for cotton,and connected to the geographical name India (Crill, Rosemary (ed.), The fabric of India, V&A Publishing, London, 2015, p 140). However, the Oxford English Dictionary defines it as very fine and even woven linen. Since what characterized cottons and what made them so desireable in both Asia, Africa and Europe where the fine thread and even weave (as well as the colourfast dyes, but that's mostly a later story), so it is not unreasonable that the prestigeous name of sindon was transferred to a fine linen weave.
    So it appears that this suit or set of clothes, which consisted of a kirtle/cotte, a sleeveless surcoat, a cloak and a hood, were of a lighter wool or wool blend fabric with a cotton or linen lining – as summer suit, that is!

 Apart from the cameline clothes lined in cotton or linen all these garments were lined with miniver (minuto vario), except the blue cloak, which was lined with gris, or vario grosso. Miniver is, as you probably know the bellies of the winter coat of the arctic squirrel: white with a rim of grey around it – the pattern that we see stylized as fur in heraldry, and in medieval art, such as the lining of the cloak in the13th century illumination below. Gris, or vario grosso, is the grey backs of the same animal.

More stylized vair on Edward the Confessor's cloak. Cambridge University Library. Lots of grey (blue) backs here.

Miniver lined surcoat, very little grey.

From a manuscript from the 1280. it is supposed to be from a manuscript of the Somme le Roi (Royal collections of Virtues and Vices) at the British library, but I can't find it there. The date seems to be right, judging from the style though.

 So this was the inspiration when I made my suit of murrey wool, consisting of a cotte/kirtle, a sleeveless surcoat, a surcoat with sleeves, a hood and cloak (capa). Which still needs to be photographed properly.