No one else has responded to this, so I'll step in and take an uninformed stab -- this is not my geographic area, but it is my time period.
On Tue, 14 Mar 2006, otsisto wrote: > Some within my SCA group is pulling together costumes for early 1400s, > Teutonic Knights and Lithuanians. Thank goodness for Wikipedia: <<The Battle of Grunwald or Battle of Tannenberg took place on July 15, 1410 between the Kingdom of Poland, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and their allies on one side, and the Knights of the Teutonic Order on the other. It was the decisive battle of the Polish-Lithuanian-Teutonic War (1409-1411) and the greatest battle of medieval Europe.>> I had never heard of this "greatest battle." Now I gather you must be doing an event based on it? > <The basic rig that the males are going to need: > > Under tunics > Hosen > Outer tunics > Fighting surcote/cyclas > > > De: Shouldn't there be some underwear? Since she then describes the "undertunic" as being undyed linen, it sounds like she's using that term for the underwear (which would be a white linen shirt/tunic), and "outer tunic" for the main body garment. > And I thought that a surcote and cyclas were two different types of > outer garment. "Surcote" is a general term used for just about any overlayer that goes over the main body garment. "Cyclas" is one of those screwy costume terms that's used in umpteen different ways, but it always seems to mean an overtunic/surcote. > <The under garments should be made of linen that hasn't been dyed. The > outer garments would have been made of wool and have been of sober hues. > The fighting cotes would have been made of wool and be white or gray > depending upon your rank with a black cross again the style of cross is > determined by your rank that you have chosen.> > > De: I have understood that even in this period (1410) that there were > bright colors worn, not just sober even among the lower class. Many period dyes make strong/deep colors, and these would have been preferred. Perhaps there was something specific to the Teutonic knights that required sober hues? The black cross on white surcote seems to have been their "uniform." > <The basic rig that the females are going to need: > > Under dresses > Girl hosen : ) > Outer dress > Aprons > Head coverings > > *Aprons? Aprons were known in Western Europe at this time, for working women; whether they were an essential part of the outfit in Eastern Europe I'll leave to someone who knows this area better. > Did every woman in 1410, in Lithuania and Samogitia wear headgear? Essentially every woman in Western Europe at this time would have been expected to wear a headcovering as a norm (exceptions being queens, young girls, brides, and even those not all the time). I wouldn't be at all surprised if headcoverings were the default for Eastern European women, and they certainly will make the overall look more "period." > <The under garments need to be of linen that hasn't been dyed. The outer > dress needs to be of sober hues and doesn't have any unnecessary adornments. > They also can't be of a temptuous nature : ) > So no side less surcotes I'm afraid. Your basic tunic dress will be fine > here. Since she's calling for an underdress that sounds like a chemise, and an outerdress over that that sounds like a main body garment, a sideless surcote would have been a third layer -- and very unlikely to be worn by any but the very highest classes (e.g. royalty) in 1410 anyway, so that's not an issue. The main dress (worn over the chemise, with or without a third layer over it) would very likely have had some degree of shaping/fitting, esp. set-in-sleeves, rather than being a plain "tunic dress," but the latter would certainly be acceptable for those who are not experienced in sewing in this period. > De: Again, sober hues, Is my understanding of colors in this period wrong? Depends what you call "sober." Certainly the cheapest dyes were blues and browns, but madder red was quite accessible. --Robin _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
