On Sep 14, 2007, at 1:41 PM, Beth and Bob Matney wrote:
I do not wish to imply that all women in all European cultures in
all times wore some sort of pants under their dresses, but do wish
to point out a few items still existing that no one has mentioned
The leather "bikinis" (late Roman time period) found in London and
on display at the Museum of London.
The "Frauenhose von Dätgen, Kr. Rendsburg." Abb. 184-190 (text
pp78-79) published in
Schlabow, Karl. Textilfunde der Eisenzeit in Norddeutschland.
Gottinger Schriften zur Vor- und Frugeschichte, Bd. 15. Neumunster:
K. Wachholtz, 1976. ISBN: 3529015156 OCLC: 2526391
The late period Italian trouseau in the Met (examined in detail by
one of the list members awhile back).
And this is why I emphasized that my observations on interpreting the
artistic representations covered "medieval" and "pre-16th century".
Note that the roman leather "bikinis" seem likely not to have been
"underpants" in the usual sense of the term, but perhaps a
specialized athletic or theatrical costume. (Compare, for example,
withe the feminine athletes in the 4th c. mosaics at Piazza Armerina
in Sicily who are performing various feats wearing only "bikini"
bottoms and a breastband.)
I don't know whether anyone has done an in-depth analysis of the
gender issues around the Dätgen trousers. I believe the gender
association is based on skeletal morphology, but I haven't dug into
the question of how complete the skeleton was -- e.g., whether the
identification was based on strong evidence like a pelvic girdle or
weak evidence like the statistical distribution of long-bone
lengths. Given that they are similar to roughly contemporary male
"outer" pants , there's the question -- hypothesizing for the sake of
argument that the gender of the wearer has been correctly identified
-- whether this is an example of "feminine underpants" or an example
of overt cross-dressing.
And for the 16th c. items -- this is the period when we do start
getting a variety of strong evidence for the beginnings of feminine
underpant-wearing in Europe.
Heather
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