On Sat, 3 Dec 2005, otsisto wrote: > I am glad that I asked why not. Though the issue wavers off the beaten > path I have come to understand why you and some others do not use dyed > linen for outerwear.
> My perspective is that linen degrades faster then wool and therefore > is one of the reasons that extent garments made of linen have not been > found yet in the Medieval Western Europe. You also have the garments > used until rags and then sometimes became paper. I wouldn't base the assumption just on the archaeological evidence, for exactly that reason -- not nearly enough scope of survivals to generalize about most things, not just this point. But the documentary evidence -- wills, inventories, sales records, domestic manuals, sumptuary laws, guild regulations, shipping records, letters, literature, poetry, chronicles, legal cases -- paint a pretty clear picture of what fibers are being made, sold, and used, and for what purposes. I place a lot of faith in these! There's loads of linen mentioned in these documents, but it generally appears in household and industrial uses, as well as very specific clothing uses such as underwear, caps, aprons, eccesiastical garments. References to fashionable/everyday clothing are overwhelmingly to wool, wool, wool (for all classes) and some silk (for the wealthy), and occasional blends that might have been part linen or cotton in cases, but otherwise wool or silk. --Robin _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
