Re: [h-cost] What periods for these fabrics? (long)
On Saturday 03 December 2005 1:56 am, Heather Rose Jones wrote: [snip] It also strikes me that those descriptions don't rule out the possibility that the linen was used as a lining for the caftan or hanging dress respectively. (I keep forgetting what the current standard English term is for the not-an-apron dress.) You're right, they don't rule out that possibility. Though Hagg's analysis of some of the finds suggest that at least some caftans were lined with silk--a detail I've always found hard to accept in light of the evidence that silk was rare enough to be used for trim. I'm not sure there is a standard English term for the hanging dress. Most SCA types now call it an apron dress, for want of a better term. Some people borrow the modern Scandanavian terms hangerrock (sorry, I can't put in the proper diacritical marks) or traggerock. -- Cathy Raymond [EMAIL PROTECTED] Physics is like sex; sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.--Richard Feynman ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] What periods for these fabrics? (long)
The terms I hear/see most often used for that item of clothing around here are either apron gown or apron dress. Apron gown more commonly. Interesting, isn't it? how some words transfer into English (like naalbinding), and others do not --Maire, off to knit a shawl and listen to the radio, while the snow comes down on the dark streets outside, and the cats sleep on the hearth rug. - Original Message - From: Catherine Olanich Raymond [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Historical Costume [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, December 03, 2005 3:13 PM Subject: Re: [h-cost] What periods for these fabrics? (long) On Saturday 03 December 2005 1:56 am, Heather Rose Jones wrote: [snip] It also strikes me that those descriptions don't rule out the possibility that the linen was used as a lining for the caftan or hanging dress respectively. (I keep forgetting what the current standard English term is for the not-an-apron dress.) You're right, they don't rule out that possibility. Though Hagg's analysis of some of the finds suggest that at least some caftans were lined with silk--a detail I've always found hard to accept in light of the evidence that silk was rare enough to be used for trim. I'm not sure there is a standard English term for the hanging dress. Most SCA types now call it an apron dress, for want of a better term. Some people borrow the modern Scandanavian terms hangerrock (sorry, I can't put in the proper diacritical marks) or traggerock. ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] What periods for these fabrics? (long)
On Saturday 03 December 2005 8:21 pm, Sue Clemenger wrote: The terms I hear/see most often used for that item of clothing around here are either apron gown or apron dress. Apron gown more commonly. I never heard apron gown before, though it makes as much sense as anything else. -- Cathy Raymond [EMAIL PROTECTED] Physics is like sex; sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.--Richard Feynman ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] What periods for these fabrics? (long)
On Fri, 2 Dec 2005, E House wrote: Well, a quick search hasn't found that reference I was thinking of yet (I'm still going to look more, since this is BUGGING me), but did find these references to dyeing linen--that doesn't indicate what that linen was then used FOR, but it's a definite part of the puzzle... Yes, there are certainly plenty of references to linen dyeing and linen garments in the 16th c. The Plictho would be another similar source; Drea has been collecting these for ages (and I'm guessing you picked these up from her site? let's give her credit for her great work in webbing all this material). So it sounds like I can justify most of my linen hues for 16th c.; I don't know if I can justify the deep intensity of the shades I have on hand, or whether they're correct for clothing :-( There are 16th c. inventories and other documentary references to dyed linen garments, but I'm not sure about the colors mentioned -- I haven't done any real study of this period. Your Italian reference is the earliest I've seen for a recipe, which supports what I said earlier about seeing some implications that dyed linen was in greater use in Italy earlier than points north. I once heard a scholar refer to legal restrictions on linen dyers in medieval Germany (something like not being allowed to dump their dyebaths in the local river), but I'd like to get a better citation before I take on faith that this wasn't a misreading of a restriction that mentioned both linen processors and dyers in the same ordinance, since both procedures do nasty things to water supplies. Clearly there's some dyed linen floating around in medieval Western Europe -- e.g. there's a surviving garment with black linen lining, IIRC -- and I want to make very sure no one thinks I'm saying there was no linen dyeing done in this period. But I don't think it's safe to assume from that that the linen was frequently dyed, and that dyed linen was typically used for the visible layers of clothing, which is what my focus was in my earlier post. Some time ago on this list, someone talked at length about evidence that linen in, hmm, 18th c America? -- I'd have to look it up -- being used almost exclusively in white, blue (often striped), and brown, but rarely or never in other colors, based on inventory evidence and surviving garments. So I wonder whether the use of more variously colored linens was something that went in and out over time, or came later to certain geographical regions. --Robin ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] What periods for these fabrics? (long)
Yes! That was from Drea's site. By the way, I'm not saying that colored linen should be used for outer layers of outer garments (but I do, because I can look at a picture of fire and get over-heated) but rather that colored linen can be reasonably documented as a _part_ of an outer garment. A few more notes, some of which rely on translations by Katherine Barich: There's also at least one extant blue linen lining, Queen Margareta's dress if I remember aright. Yep, here it is: Blue hip-length linen torso lining dated to early 15th century: Drottning Margaretas gyllen kjortel i Uppsala Domkyrka (The Golden Gown of Queen Margareta in Uppsala Cathedral). Geijer, Agners, Anne Marie Franzen, Margareta Nockert. Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademien 1994 (1st print 1985). and also: Black, waxed full linen lining of a Burgundian man's coat (mid 15thc), Textile Conservation. Flury-Lemberg, Mechthild. Schriften Der Abegg-Stiftung, Bern, 1988. pp. 156-157. The 'Textiler Hausrat' by Jutta Zander-Seidel has inventories that reference (colored?) linens used in garments (sorry, my notes on this one aren't clear enough for me to understand them). TH certainly includes a reference to a black linen lining in 16thC Nuremberg, and the book includes a ton of excellent fabric terminology stuff, such as: 'Gugler' is a term for a type of linen used in clothing that could be sold either unfinished or dyed. A linen version of taffeta was available in 1582, as seen in a 1582 inventory of a newcastle merchant: viii yards lennen taffety 12/. Damasks and velvets intended to imitate more expensive fabrics were also made with linen, and therefore would have almost certainly been dyed. TH (or possibly 'Das Nuernberger Kunstbuch,' below--unclear notes again) also has recipes for dyeing linen red, green, yellow, and brown. 'Das Nuernberger Kunstbuch,' 2nd half of 15th C, has another recipe for dyed linen, but I don't have a word for word translation of it--the key phrase at the end of the recipe is vnd du mach leines oder wulleins also verben which, not word for word, means this is how you dye linen or wool. The Vision of Piers Plowman, passus 1 (B-text, written c 1376), mentions linen clothing: 1.003: A lovely lady of leere in lynnen yclothed but of course there could be symbolic reasons for that one. According to someone who's read them (not me) the Rules of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem specify a habit of black linen for Hospitaller nuns in Jerusalem in the 12thC. From natural dyers in general: Linen takes tannin-based dyes well, but not ones that require another mordant. So, colors achievable with tannin-based dyes, such as yellows, browns, and almost-blacks, would all be reasonable colors. I once heard a scholar refer to legal restrictions on linen dyers in medieval Germany (something like not being allowed to dump their dyebaths in the local river), but I'd like to get a better citation before I take on faith that this wasn't a misreading of a restriction that mentioned both linen processors and dyers in the same ordinance, since both procedures do nasty things to water supplies. Textiler Hausrat would be a good place to check for this, if you can find a helpful translator. -E House ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] What periods for these fabrics? (long)
On Friday 02 December 2005 3:55 pm, Robin Netherton wrote: [snip] Clearly there's some dyed linen floating around in medieval Western Europe -- e.g. there's a surviving garment with black linen lining, IIRC -- and I want to make very sure no one thinks I'm saying there was no linen dyeing done in this period. But I don't think it's safe to assume from that that the linen was frequently dyed, and that dyed linen was typically used for the visible layers of clothing, which is what my focus was in my earlier post. I know of no examples of linen outerwear from the later Middle Ages. However, in an essay published in Cloth and Clothing in Medieval Europe Inga Hagg published the results of a stratographic analysis of grave finds at Birka, which indicated that some of the linen fragments found did not come from a shift (i.e. underwear) but from a caftan or mantle--an outer garment. In a different essay (of which I've read reports but do not have a copy) she has posited that some of the outerwear layer linen fragments belonged to the so-called apron dress. To my knowledge, however, the Birka linen fragments have not been exposed to the sort of analysis that would enable a determination of whether they had been dyed or not. -- Cathy Raymond [EMAIL PROTECTED] Physics is like sex; sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.--Richard Feynman ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] What periods for these fabrics? (long)
Of course Linen is not as durable in an extant situation as is wool. Ron Carnegie I know of no examples of linen outerwear from the later Middle Ages. However, in an essay published in Cloth and Clothing in Medieval Europe Inga Hagg published the results of a stratographic analysis of grave finds at Birka, which indicated that some of the linen fragments found did not come from a shift (i.e. underwear) but from a caftan or mantle--an outer garment. In a different essay (of which I've read reports but do not have a copy) she has posited that some of the outerwear layer linen fragments belonged to the so-called apron dress. To my knowledge, however, the Birka linen fragments have not been exposed to the sort of analysis that would enable a determination of whether they had been dyed or not. -- Cathy Raymond [EMAIL PROTECTED] Physics is like sex; sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.--Richard Feynman ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
Re: [h-cost] What periods for these fabrics? (long)
On Dec 2, 2005, at 9:40 PM, Catherine Olanich Raymond wrote: On Friday 02 December 2005 3:55 pm, Robin Netherton wrote: [snip] Clearly there's some dyed linen floating around in medieval Western Europe -- e.g. there's a surviving garment with black linen lining, IIRC -- and I want to make very sure no one thinks I'm saying there was no linen dyeing done in this period. But I don't think it's safe to assume from that that the linen was frequently dyed, and that dyed linen was typically used for the visible layers of clothing, which is what my focus was in my earlier post. I know of no examples of linen outerwear from the later Middle Ages. However, in an essay published in Cloth and Clothing in Medieval Europe Inga Hagg published the results of a stratographic analysis of grave finds at Birka, which indicated that some of the linen fragments found did not come from a shift (i.e. underwear) but from a caftan or mantle--an outer garment. In a different essay (of which I've read reports but do not have a copy) she has posited that some of the outerwear layer linen fragments belonged to the so-called apron dress. To my knowledge, however, the Birka linen fragments have not been exposed to the sort of analysis that would enable a determination of whether they had been dyed or not. It also strikes me that those descriptions don't rule out the possibility that the linen was used as a lining for the caftan or hanging dress respectively. (I keep forgetting what the current standard English term is for the not-an-apron dress.) Heather -- Heather Rose Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.heatherrosejones.com LJ:hrj ___ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
