Medieval Clothing

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Right - help needed. I need some info on medieval clothes, from anywhere between the 6th and the 15th century, and any details about the clothes of anyone from peasant to über royal dude. And I want your underwear dammit!
... alright, I want to hear abou the underwear situation. Some people are claiming that they didn't wear any, but that sounds rather wrong, as I'm sure I've heard of its existance somewhere.

This is for both NaNo and KoSP btw.

 

From what I know, it is correct that as a rule no one wore underwear until the 16th or 17th century. This was true whether peasant or nobility. There was no "nightwear" either, most people simply slept in the nude.

 

Perhaps for the rich type you whould go rent some of the early Black-Adder series, although I forget the exact period they were set in I believe it was fairly close. Clothes for the rich used to be similar to the poor, and then became more and more tasselled and laced. Around the sixth century clothes were pretty simple, the only addition a wealthy man might have would be embroidery or fur. Don't a lot of fantasy books describe people's clothes? -most of this is taken from our own past- Go read some Robert Jordan books, he describes *everything*. I would also recomend doing a google search, you might find what you're looking for pretty quickly. Baldrak (from Black-Adder) might give you an idea on what the poorer classes wore as well. I think it ranged from some breeches or kilt and a smok, to tarpaulin or canvas (similar type of material anyway) rags and a lot of dung.

People burnt it too, as lamps.

All-purpose Dung, the wonder of the mediaeval world.

Edit: I just did a quick search myself fro mediaeval clothing, and came up with ~10,800 sites. Most of these will of course be useless, but the description of the very first one seemed to have what you were looking for. I'll link it here. Not too detailed, but some nice pictures. A good start at least.

Well what do you know! Some people actually wore undergarments, they were linen. The rest of the clothes were mostly wool.

You should probably refine the search with the specific times you are looking for.

 

There was no such underwear as now. Under-dresses (OK, there's no such word, but it's like underskirt) served the purpose or linen loinclothes, just like in the ancient times. Those who wore braies (kind of breeches) didn't really wear anything beneath it. For sleeping, they wore long shirts (knee-long usually, and usually linen). For drawings and more specific info, try some SCA sort of sites, or searching through google.

2E's Paladin Handbook will also come handy

 

Need you ask a Scotsman about underwear?

 

Everyone knows a Scotsmans uptake on underwear

Aikanaro, you need to get out more

Seeming you'd write fantasy worlds for NaNo and KoSP then you can surely invent your own underwear... but that may be dangerous

 

@8people: *In a deep, Guybrush Threepwood voice* Baby, you can uptake my underwear, anytime.
(I've no idea what that means, but it sounds good)

 

I'm a bit confused on how this is directly related to novel writing and/or the Kingdom of SP.

But on the topic, I can say that since a variety of colors weren't around back then, rich people went around wearing jewelry (possibly furs?) as a sign of their wealthiness. There was actually a sort of "fashion police" around making sure commoners/peasants/normal people weren't wearing stuff that they weren't supposed to be wearing.

 

Men wore braes or slops. Women wore chemises that were usually white. Early Middle Ages, the chemise was the same cut as the overdress, by later periods, they were very full gathered garments, and were frequently visible from under slashed sleeves.
There are very few surviving garments from the Middle Ages, so we have to depend on paintings and writings of the era to determine what they wore.
As a 15 year member of the SCA, documenting what types of clothing are period can be a real pain in the rear.

 

So many useless/contradictory posts! Yay!

I, naturally, have searched Google up to about the 5th page getting nothing but costumes, which don't really help at all. This relates to the KoSP because we need to decide what the people of the KoSP generally would wear, and it relates to novel writing because my characters are wearing clothes.

 

Is it only a mediaeval thing? Some people around the world still don't wear underwear.

 

It differs per culture, per source etc. You have contradictory sources, so you have contradictory information. Note that mediaeval era covers about thousand years. Add regional variations, social classes thing (not only jewelry, furs etc, but the whole design was quite different), current fashion etc.

Write what you need to know specifically (approx time, land, social class, wealth, gender) and I'll tell you then, as I'm not really going to write an essay here.

 

Fair enough:

Peasant farmgirl, somewhere between 1100 and 1400 AD, It would be somewhere rather isolated, but I know jack all about about any possible RL equivilants, not much money, but enough to get by without drama.

Also, some Viking information would be good, of male gender and everything else just generally Vikingish

 

http://www.sorcerers.net/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=000547#000000

There are a fair few Viking links here (They will be in Alexander The Great's post).

 

It might be time for Frostys' sword to make an appearence again.

And perhaps a dictionary

What do you think Morningstar was implying

Never fall for a Scots tricks!

 

I never knew that KoSP was so focused on clothing, or that you enjoyed writing novels about medieval clothing, Aikanaro.

But seriously, it sounds like you're focusing way too much on being historically/scientifically correct rather than making a decent (fantasy?) experience. All these oh-so contradictory posts probably mean that you should insert your BGII disk, walk your Fighter/Thief/Mage through Athkatla, and take a decent look at everyone. Easier than sorting through piles of books when it comes to fantasy (presumably).

 

Codpieces. It was a sort of underwear of the time. Those that watched blackadder should remember the episode in Blackadder II where he has to pay 1000 pounds to a bishop or else be murdered? Queenie takes a thousand pounds off him, and his excuse for carrying it was he must have 'left it in his codpiece when he sent it to the launders'.

A codpiece was a sort of jockeystrap that they wore to 'support' themselves so they would go and flash people when the were mounting horses. The tunics etc. of the time were long so the pants werent required to come all the way up, and as a result, men would often inadvertently reveal themselves. Thus the codpiece, they would wear them to push everything that little bit higher.

 

Oaz, you just don't understand, I'm not after too much accuracy, though some would be nice. I'll fill in the gaps with whatever when I come to it assuming no one gives me an answer first, but as I'm not up to the part where clothing (and underwear ) come into play, I might as well see what people know and use that if possible. I won't hold up the story for it.
And as for the KoSP - clothes are just an issue we have to deal with, not the entire focus. Same reasons for asking as above.

And thanks for the vikings linky

 

Damn, this is the second time I've been threatened with the sword.