There is a pretty spiffy kind of bag called a market wallet or simply wallet and it's quite useful. It's sort of like a saddlebag, except you carry it over your shoulder or over a stick - I've never actually seen one on an animal in my scanty store of 12th C images although it would make sense to use it in such a way.
Wallets are also are one of the simplest sewing projects you'll ever find. This page give a description of an 18th C original, and if you can't work out how to construct it from that, this page describes how to make your own.
Karen Larsdatter has an excellent links page on market wallets with images of wallets in artwork from the 13th to 16th Centuries, I'm not going to relink all her excellent work, instead I'm going to focus on a few examples from her list that give some additional clues to how these may have been used and their construction.
- Unlike the 12th C examples I have found (where so few women of ordinary rank are shown in artwork at all) this image and this one show women using them
- I've had trouble getting my wallet to stay on my stick, this image possibly offers a solution, by tying the wallet to the stick.
- As far as I've seen, wallets are pretty much only used by ordinary people, apparently even poorest beggars can even afford them. In fact this 15th C depiction show "fortune and poverty" embodied with poverty using a wallet. I wonder if this is mostly a 15thC development for beggars to have a bag of possessions at all rather than nothing but the clothes they stand in and their begging bowl. The 12th C depictions of market wallet bearers seem to be ordinary travellers of modest wealth rather than the poor.
- Several wallets show openings, this one a slit down the centre parallel to the sides, this a wider opening running in the same direction, and finally this example has a slit running in this direction but lower on the bag ie nearer the ends - is this a mistake or a deliberate modification? These all tally with the 18th C extant item, but not the opening slit direction on the how to make your own instructions above. This site features about 5 examples of wallets all with slits in the same direction as these, suggesting a strong preference for slits along the length of the wallet.
I've found several examples of these wallets displayed in 12th C artwork, so we know they date from this period, even though I'm aware of no extant ones. Where the slits are visible, they all seem to run along the length of the bag.
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| The Copenhagen Psalter (Thott 143 2º) England, 1175-1200 f12r "The flight into Egypt" |
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| Zillis, St Martin. Painted ceiling, detail panel "The flight into Egypt" c1140-60 |
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| Stuttgart Passionale I (Stuttgart Cod bib 2°57) f253 "Life of Saint Maximus" |
This I've shown you before (yes another depiction of the flight into Egypt).
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| Periscope book of St Erentrud, Nonberg Abbey, Salzburg around 1140 (München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. lat. 15903) f14 "The flight into Egypt" |
And a new one today courtesy of the wonders of pintrest:
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| Psalter, North England, 12th C (Bodleian Library, Ms Douce,293) fol 10 "The flight into Egypt" |
So, you have historical context and some tips about construction, go play with a wallet today. They are a most useful carrying device.
8 comments:
Your 12th c. Morgan Library image is broken (the link heads to a page with an error message saying "The resource you are looking for has moved.").
I really like your posts; wish they came more often!
Now that I think about it more, the form of the medieval wallet reminds me of a Victorian type of purse called a miser's purse. Unlike the wallet they were quite small and often ornamented with beadwork, and they had a metal ring or two around the section with the slit in it to secure it.
You can find pictures of some very ornamental miser's purses here. This article gives a bit more background about them, as well as more photographs of different styles of miser's purse. Finally, this article by Laura L. Camerlengo of the Philadelphia Museum of Art includes a video showing how this type of purse works and has a significant bibliography.
Enjoy!
Although the period art shows wallets draped over a staff, I'd bet that the reality is that the wallet was tied around the bag at the midsection; this would serve the same purpose as the rings on a miser's purse (i.e., closing/tightening the slit opening when you wanted to carry the bag instead of getting to its contents.
I suspect the slit running lengthways would make more intuitive sense, because items in either end of the sack could also work to pull the fabric downwards, and hence keep the slit closed. A slit running perpendicular to the sacks might run the risk of having the slit gape open, and increase the risk of items falling out?
I think the broken link should be http://corsair.themorgan.org/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=278224 I'll fix that, sorry.
As pearl said, a lengthwise slit just basically self closes as long as anything a little heavy is in the bag. I don't think it needs a closing ring at all. I suspect the bags are so very long partially so the slit section is empty and can close (much longer than the misers pouches in proportion to width). Also there are plenty of pictures of such bags at rest and no sign of a ring. The bags seem to be nearly as common over a shoulder as over a staff, and when over a shoulder they sit better if nothing stops them from laying flat. Over a staff with a fork, they naturally bunch up and close. I think the ring/tie is superfluous, as long as the slit is lengthwise they work really well without it - make one up and give it a try!
Oh, and I wish I could post more often too, but my health decrees otherwise, and I need to save my energy for daily living tasks.
For a big bag like a medieval wallet, I wouldn't expect that you'd need a closing ring either. But Victorian miser purses were meant to handle coins. I can see where people would prefer having a ring to keep the contents down on one end or the other, away from the slit.
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