Medieval Clothing - Writers Forum

Klaudi · 03-15-2008, 01:30 PM

I'm writing a novel based on a late medieval setting, and I need to know how did they dressed during that time. I'm particulaly looking for clothing other than tunics, but telling me how the aristocrats, clergy, and middle-class dressed would be best.

The Backward OX · 03-15-2008, 08:29 PM

Google it.

Oh, yes, and as a sop to Non Serviam, who claims I'm anti-social by suggesting Google -make sure you include the cod-piece.

Faustling · 03-15-2008, 08:57 PM

Library it.

While googling stuff can useful I've personally always preferred looking through books when it comes to this kind of research. Maybe I'm just a little bit old-fashioned like that.

Of course, if your economy is better then mine, you could also bookstore it.

Non Serviam · 03-15-2008, 09:07 PM

Tunics were Dark Age. By the mediaeval period we're into doublets and hose for noble males. The noblewomen wore gowns with panelling and long, trailing sleeves and those hats that look like someone's dropped an ice cream on their heads. The sleeves sometimes got so long the women had to tie knots in them when they wanted to use their hands for anything more strenuous than the occasional languid gesture.

The clergy wore robes and mitres, the cloistered orders wore habits (and if they were nuns, according to one tract, some very expensive silk underwear... you can get an idea of the price of silk by the fact that it was imported to the UK from China along the Silk Road. If you wanted to buy a piece of silk, the merchant stretched it out in front of you and you covered it with silver coins such that no cloth showed, and that was the price. The clergy were seriously rich.)

Dyes could be ludicrously expensive too, so you could tell a lot about someone's social status from the colours they wore. Most plants produce a yellow dye, though some make brown or green, so yellow, brown and green were the colours worn by peasants. Blue was harder--you can get a sort of turquoise colour from woad, but a proper rich blue required indigo that was imported from India at enormous expense. A rich red needed cochineal, also imported, and the very most expensive colour was purple made from a mixture of the two.

That royal purple colour you see Queen Elizabeth wearing on state occasions needed crushed sea shells ground up and mixed with the cochineal and indigo. It cost even more than the silk.

Later, when more dyes were discovered and better mordants became available, the Kings and Queens tried to stop commoners wearing expensive colours. They passed a series of laws called the Sumptuary Laws to say who was allowed to wear what. Those persisted for a lot of the middle ages, so the combination of colour and style could tell you quite a lot about the wearer's social status.

Olly Buckle · 03-16-2008, 04:05 AM

Cochineal is from a new world insect, a bit too late for the time period. Romans created purple from some sort of marine creature, not sure which but, again, very hard to come by.

The Backward OX · 03-16-2008, 04:49 AM

So are you saying Non got it wrong? That would never do. (Non getting it wrong, that is)
Maybe you were thinking of chocolate.

Olly Buckle · 03-16-2008, 05:28 AM

Not wrong Ox, never wrong. Only a little confused in his time scale. Medieval is usually reckoned as 1000-1400 AD . Columbus sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred and ninety two. I wondered about indigo as well, Ansen capturing Spanish ships off the west coast of S. America in the 1740's was dumping indigo and only keeping the gold and silver, mind you a lot of their trade went across the Pacific to America before coming to Europe, the Manila galleon was one of Ansen's targets.

Non Serviam · 03-16-2008, 06:39 AM

I'm sorry, Olly, but I'm afraid cochineal also comes from Poland and other places in central Europe.

Polish cochineal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Olly Buckle · 03-16-2008, 08:29 AM

Don't apologise, you are right, I was wrong, you set me off looking, it was a carnivorous sea snail's slime that was the ancient source for indigo (not purple) which was replaced by plant sources, several of which are South American (which would be why Ansen was capturing it).

Stalker · 03-24-2008, 02:15 PM

I know I didn't start the thread or anything, but I do want to thank the contributors. I myself have found this very enlightening.