Blue wool cote II: Revenge of the fabric

I've written about the plans I had for constructing my blue wool cote earlier. And just as I had written, I constructed the garment. And it was a good fit, and comfortable. And the wool was flowier than the linen. And the wool was warmer than the linen when it was cold, and not much warmer when it was hot. And I forgot to take any photos of it. From my memory, the only difficulty I had was the seams were a little more difficult to sew than regular seams because I was always working in the middle of the fabric, and because the fabric was so thin.

But alas very quickly my choice of fabric let me down. I had chosen a thin wool suiting, and the fabric manufacturer had decided to make the fabric modern by doing something to stop it fulling (making it machine washable). I don't know if it was  treatment or if they chose worsted wool or something else, but the wool frayed, and refuse to full (felt) even with warm water and soap. And it frayed more, and I was in deathly fear that all my seams would fray out and my dress fall to pieces.  Possibly in embarrassing ways. So with tears in my eyes for all the effort I'd spent constructing the dress, I set about systematically resewing each and every seam on the garment (well maybe not the entirety of all hems). I tried to maintain the effect of the original stitching, by tucking in the edge of the fabric and then sewing both seams together in the same manner as the original seams, but now with no exposed edges.

Here's how the seams looked after resewing::

 This worked well, the seams years later are still not fraying, and I still maintain the original magnificent effect of the white thread on dark blue fabric, but without the fraying. And I only had to resew the entire garment (I'm not bitter :-) ).

I still forgot to take photos of the entire garment at this stage, but I do have some photos of details which have not changed, so let's take a closer look at some of the features of the garment:

neckline detail - this was bound with a piece of straight grain tape made from the same fabric

 gusset detail - see how interesting the white linen on blue dress looks

arm detail - see how the extra length ruches (gathers) up about the wrist

front of centre gore -I decided to play with the gore insertion, gathering the gores into the body pieces slightly. This was inspired by the gathering seen in side seams of 12th C garments and a half remembered reenactor's late period gathered garment. I have little evidence for centre gores at all, let alone gathered in ones, so this was mostly an excuse to explore garment cut than a serious conjecture about how centre gores might be finished (side gores are a different matter).

back of the seam showing the reinforcing piece I sewed on to strengthen the pleating. This piece doesn't really support the garment, but it protects the back of the pleats from rubbing, and the edges of the pleats from fraying. I have only half garbled inspiration for such a construction, but I did need to protect the frayable edges of my fabric.

You might be wondering why I don't have any photos of the garment at this stage- wasn't it finished this time? Alas no, the seams were working great, but there was one problem with resewing the entire garment (other than having to resew it), which was my seam allowances were now much larger than they were before, and consequently the width of my pieces became narrower. What was once a casual comfortable garment was now tight across the chest and upper body. But it wasn't tight like my side laced garments, it was too tight for a loose garment, but not as tight as a tight garment - the worst of both worlds. So more changes were afoot, which I'll write about in the next episode of the saga.

A Chemise for the Austrian Dresses III - Construction underway

Well, everything was going so well with the new chemise. I've started sewing and my seams are much narrower than last time I sewed a chemise.


And my sewing is happening really fast. I'd forgotten how fast I could sew, since my last few projects have all experimented with tricky materials, curving seams, new seam types, or have used new cutting diagrams and a lot of picking.

And then tragedy struck. I'd been carrying my chemise bits in a bag to work and back, sewing on the train. And somewhere the gussets fell out and didn't get picked up again. And I don't have any more of this fabric. Thankfully my sleeves are so long that I can easily shorten them by a gusset length.

Here's the sizes of my pieces now:


And now back to construction. Maybe I can finish it within the week!

A Chemise for the Austrian Dresses II - revised cutting plan

Well my plans have hit their first hitch. I conducted burn and other tests on my suspected linens, and I'm not really sure what the larger piece is, but I'm no longer sure it's linen. The smaller piece though, that at least behaves more like linen, though in my more skeptical moments I'm not sure it's pure linen either.

The smaller piece is 4m long, but it's only 112cm wide, so it's just enough to cut out a chemise. But if I use a trapezoid shape for each piece that is originally a rectangle, I gain only the width of the rectangle added to the circumference of the chemise, while with triangular gores, I gain nearly twice the width of the rectangle, as the rectangle is cut diagonally and the other end added to the circumference.

Now I guess some of this is false economy, since wider skirts over the hips would be really useful to me, but since only the calf section of the chemise will be visible under the dress, and extra width at the hem should help me dance better, and well I just can't fit in the size of trapezoids I want, I'll make a non-shirred chemise now, and aim to make a shirred one later in the year.

How the styles look and hang under the same dress, cut to the same plan except the gores should be a great comparison to see.

So here's my planned layout for the chemise:



And here's the pieces I will require:
And how they fit on my fabric:
I'm quite happy with the efficiency of this. The only portion not used is a scrap in the corner next to a piece that had been cut off. If there hadn't been a piece cut off, I would have used this to make my sleeves longer.

A Chemise for the Austrian Dresses - initial planning

The calf length Austrian dresses have revealed a deficiency in my wardrobe - all my chemises have hems that are well above the ankle, but the style requires a floor length chemise. So it's time to make a new chemise.

First I guess I need to analyse the style. Browsing through my posts on Germanic dress, and particularly Austrian dress, and looked at what was visible of the garment below the dress.
All were white or other pale colours likely to be meant to represent undyed or bleached linen. This could be a layer between the chemise (body layer) and the dress, but to me this seems superfluous - chemises were generally linen because this could be washed and bleached more often, with the chemise absorbing sweat and thus protecting the more expensive dress - why would an intermediate layer recreate these characteristics of the chemise? It could be a fashion that evolved out of visible chemises, making them more elaborate mock chemises, and adding areal chemise underneath, but I'm going to use Occam's razor and assume the visible layer is just a chemise.

So the chemise is visible in two places only - the hemline and the sleeves. The sleeves that are visible are quite tight to the forearm, ending at the wrist. Some are smooth, some wrinkled, and a few have a band of trim at the wrist. The hemlines are floor length or just a whisker above, and fall in many folds. No decoration is visible on the hem of the chemise.

My construction plans

This doesn't give many clues to go by, but if we assume that chemises followed the general lines of other garments of the day, particularly albs (which are a kind of clerical undergarment), then we have a couple of cuts that could be used. There is the version with a square body and gussets or there is the body that is slanted to allow sleeves to make self gussets. I choose the earlier version as I'm more accustomed to it.

Sleeves in this model are a long tube from the end of the gusset down. I'll fit the end to the forearm as I have done for earlier versions. I think I may make a modest wrinkle in the sleeves. A long wrinkly sleeve like on my old court chemise can be a little awkward to get in and out of, but I'd like to have a little wrinkling. So perhaps 1m long - halfway between an unwrinkled sleeve and the extent of wrinkles on my previous court chemise. Initially I'll leave the cuff untrimmed, but I may add trim later, especially to reinforce the stress point of the cuff - but I don't want to delay making the chemise to wait for appropriate trim to be made/acquired.

Several albs use methods of pleating in side gores into the body of the garment which creates sudden flaring at the hip. I think this will probably be needed to create enough fullness of the skirts to create the required number of folds. A couple of these albs use a technique called Italian shirring (I am told) to pleat gores into side seams. this creates a lovely pattern with the very small pleats, which should sit fairly flat. "The art of manipulating fabric" says that Italian shirring (shirred Italian smocking) shirring encourages the fabric to fall in very full folds - which is precisely the look I wish to achieve - the skirts on these Austrian chemises are actually quite tight to the body when you look closely, and the closer the chemise sits, the less fabric I require to make lots of folds. I would like to use Italian shirring to pleat in my gores if i have time to do so. I'm still not sure exactly what shape gores that are Italian shirred should be, but I plan to experiment and find out. I'm guessing a trapezoid.

If the side gores don't provide enough folds in the front, then I will add some front gores as well.

Here's how I envision it looking:



And a cutting plan for that:
I'm not yet sure what hte top width of the trapezoid should be - I need to try some test pleating.

Materials and seams
From what material should the garment be made? That's an easy answer - linen. That's what overwhelmingly all the high class undergarments are made of. I've got some mystery fabric that I think is linen, and I've had such trouble finding assured linen cheap that I'm desperate enough to use the "probably linen" fabric.

Thread? Again linen, for the same reasons, as well as practical one - wool is too weak and will snap, and silk too strong and will often snap the threads in the linen fabric (no the same does not apply to embroidery, where the fabric isn't under stress). I've some lace making thread, in 60/2 size, which has done nicely on previous chemises, and will do nicely on this one.

Finally seams. There is one technique which is used very commonly on linen textiles in the medieval period - the run and fell seam. It is much more common than other techniques, and for good reason - it is tough, easy, requires a smaller seam allowance, and is quick to sew by hand. Why would I want to use anything else?

So I guess it's time to wash and cut some fabric!

Aachen Cathedral Treasury - Part 3: Shrine with nice pictures (tents!)

Following on from my previous posts concerning the Aachen Cathedral Treasury, here is another selected treasure.

Karlschrein
Karlsschrein (Charlemange shrine)- 1200-1215 Aachen , gilded silver and enameled copper.

This is a lovely piece of artistry. I read somewhere that 12th C german metalsmiths were copied by the manuscript artists because they were were considered the superior artists of the time. For a colour pictures of the shrine, a glimpse of colour scheme, search for 'Aachen' at this link, and look for the gold and silver metalwork. (sorry direct links not working) It's only a single colour image of the shrine, but it shows well how the colours are and how a few more details can be seen in colour (eg broaches clasping cloaks) than can be seen in the high resolution black and white photos linked to below. Ithink it might have been all gold originally, but the gilding wore off.

Now to talk about specific aspects of the shrine's artwork and how it relates to concrete objects of the era....

clothing
The clothing depicted on the shrine is mainly same as 1180, possibly with less droopy sleeves, although with so few women depicted, and then mainly only Mary, it is hard to tell with regards to sleeves.. Are silversmiths behind or conservative, or does fashion not feature the sudden changes seen in France at around 1200? I think it may be rather the characters on the shrine - saints are very often dressed conservatively in fashions a little out of date and lacking the excesses of fashion. But it's also possible German fashion doesn't have a big change from late 12th C to 13th C clothing -this would be a lovely project for someone else to follow up.

There are some really lovely depictions of braids on garments, and the ample stones reflect a period practice we mostly only read about, since extant garments generally have had these stolen, and in manuscripts we can't reliably distinguish these from braid with a blobby pattern.

shoes
The material and method used enables us to see a number of features not normally seen - for example crisp lines of applied braid on many of these shoes (almost in the same pattern as the extant shoes of Philip of Swabia of around this time). Manuscripts cannot show the difference between an applied raised braid and a flatter painted on sewn on decoration in this situation, while much sculpture has been weathered, obliterating the crisp lines that make such a distinction possible. The precious and religious nature of this shrine has resulted in excellent preservation.

About half the shoes are in this style with
Many others saints on this shrine have one piece of braid (less high, often wider), running up the vamp of the shoes and far up the calf - these are long boots, and remind me of this pair of hose/buskins.

accesories
The crowns shown match well with the extant crowns of this era (mostly german) that I have seen, especially the fleur-de-lis on top.

armour
There are a couple of nice pictures of armour, including details of Charlemagne putting on (or taking off?) his armour. The lines of where the chainmail stops (especially on the legs) are clearer than on many other pictures I've seen. And nice details of surcoats, haulberks without a concealing surcoat, and haulberks with built in hoods (I think).

tents
There are a lovely picture of tents from a fairly close perspective , and a second depiction with similar tents with an interesting feature I'll discuss at the end. I'm quite excited because tents are relatively rare in artwork of this era, and pictures with this level of detail even more so. They appear to be single bell tents, held up by a central pole and a network of guy ropes. The Central Pole is not visible, but I believe it is implied by the use of a ball and decorative caps on top of the centre of the tent. Charlemangne's tent is topped with the eagle (symbol of German royals), while the other tents are topped with crosses.

The section of tent immediately under the ball appears to be a separate piece from the tent roof below it, as clear seams (including textural differences) show on several tents but is probably still a fabric (cloth or leather) as it falls in a curve with gravity, rather than stiffly. This corresponds with stiffener panels used in recreations.

The roof of the tents appears to have been decorated with patterned fabric. Other tents show a pattern of radiating stripes that could be stripes (more accurately arcs), or could simply be tension lines from the guy ropes.

From the edge of the roof, several guy ropes are seen anchored to the ground. They attach to the roof of the tent via a triangular or y-shaped feature. The spacing between guy ropes is quite small, although guy ropes on the front of hte tent have been omitted. This may be to create a doorway, but more likely is for artistic reasons, to not block the view of the protagonists. (other guy ropes end at the edge of the tent to prevent overlapping other characters).

The walls of the tent descend from somewhere slightly inside of the edge of the roof, and descend fairly vertical until about halfway down, and then flare out to the ground. The way the walls flare is consistent with being pegged out (approx one peg per guy rope, so also at fairly regular intervals). I believe I can see a one of these pegs, but it is simply a tapered blob.

It is not clear if any additional structures such as internal wall poles are present or absent, but if the lines on the roof are stress lines, I would guess not.

A doorway opens from the front of the tent in a gentle curve, but the way this nicely frames the scene inside makes me believe this is likely to be an artistic cutaway, rather than a realistic doorway shape. Then again, it might be both a good artistic cutaway shape and a good door way shape.

On the second picture, one tent is depicted with a strange window in the roof. Maybe this is a skylight? Interestingly, the lines I previously identified as tension lines in the roof run through the "window" in the roof from centre pole to guy ropes. Perhaps this is a way the roof was reinforced?

This reminds me a great deal of the tents used by my sca neighbours.

other items
Also depicted on the reliquary are some nice lamps and pennons, which I've added to my forthcoming next post on the topic.

Austrian Dress - a reality. Itteration 2.

Note: This has been sitting in the drafts folder waiting for me to tidy a few edges on it. Please read it as written about a month ago.

Well I've sewn up all the construction seams on the garment and here's how it looks:
In fact I've worn it to it's first event (with safety pinned hem), and danced in it, so I got a feel for how comfortable it was to move in. Of course then I wore it over a chemise, not my mundane clothes. (please ignore the silly faces, I dislike photos, and haven't the knack of doing poses yet.)

Lessons learnt

fabric stiffness
This fabric is very stiff, much stiffer than anything I've worked with before. (even the pvc, but that's got nothing to do with medieval sewing). But that's good because I expect some of the gold brocades available in period were very stiff, and so this may be more accurate for this style. Maybe. Any readers care to comment?

Skirt width - with two gores was too wide. It was nice to dance in, but sat out quite stiffly, and as you can see in the photo, doesn't much look like the manuscripts.

They might have had flowier fabric, but perhaps they just had narrower skirts - after all it saves fabric that way.

So here two pictures with the skirts pinned in narrower. The first uses only one pair of side gores rather than two. The second uses only half the width of one of those gores.

I think what is portrayed in the manuscripts, while it vary's a bit, falls between these points in general. Except the odd really skinny shirt which does look more like the second photo. At any rate I hate cutting down perfectly good gores, so I'm going to convert the skirts to one gore each side for this weekends bal d'argent (I do want enough width to dance too), and make a final decision about narrower or not later, when I'm ready to put on the hem trim.

skirt length
I estimated skirt length based on the distance above the ground the hems appeared to sit in many illustrations, marked that on an existing garment and cut it that much shorter. And that is about the right length unbelted. But add a belt, flop the dress over the belt a bit, and it's much too high. I've seen one illustration this short, but only one (and I still think that one is a bit strange).

Investigating the manuscripts again, the majority are wearing belts , mostly with the dress flopped over the waist section of he belt, and only dangling ends showing or even just the fold in the dress showing. Look how much shorter the dress is. It's about twice the distance above the ground that I think is an average distance of a hem in this style. So if I had enough fabric to make this floor length, I'd expect the hem to sit where I want it when belted and puffed over the belt. This would be a very practical way of keeping your skirts clean (chemises would be easier to wash), so it's easy to see how this could originate as practical then transfer to fashion.

I do feel justified in using the shorter length dress though - there is at least one example that clearly is unbelted and has a dress that is shorter than the chemise and, annother that is less clear, but suggests no belt. And that was with just a quick check - I'm sure I'd find more in just the examples I've posted to this blog.

Sleeves
I'm not happy with the sleeves. Firstly the bicep seam sits a bit far down the bicep. The photo below shows how the sleeves look hitched up at the shoulder a bit, so the bicep sleeve sits higher up. Compare with the above photos. Actually I can't see the difference in the photos really, so I guess that makes me a perfectionist. No surprises there, but I'll shorten that upper sleeve panel when i get a chance.

The lower sleeves are also being a problem. I think the flare at the top of the sleeve is not working in such a stiff fabric. I experimented with halving the width of the flare, and I like the effect better in this stiff fabric(See photo with narrowest skirt). Maybe I'll play with belled sleeves again next time I use silk or fine wool.


postscript - after bal d'argent:
wear testing
Well the skirt width worked ok. The flared sleeves were occasionally awkward during the English country dances, but then flared sleeves always are - that's what happens when you wear clothing from 400 years earlier than the dances. The dress looked good, I felt more prettified up. I didn't get time to work on the sleeves, so I still have to do that.

Also decoration - others might not be able to see how the dress looks far too plain still without all it's trim, but I can. Compare with this picture, which is one of my main inspirations for decoration locations. It might be time to start sewing on some decoration now that I know the body panels aren't changing, even if the sleeves still need work. At least that is handsewing work - it might get done a lot earlier than macine sewing work with me, because I can just work on it for 10 minutes.

Austrian Dress - a reality. Iteration 1

Note: This has been sitting in the drafts folder waiting for me to tidy a few edges on it. Please read it as written about a 5 weeks ago.

It's time to stop musing over what could be and start sewing. My old court dresses are falling apart, and I've had fabric waiting for me for a couple of years now I think. (12th Night Coldstream I won it at). A lovely purple cotton with yellow flower motif at regular intervals. Not bad for a first draft, and purple is my favourite colour, one I regret is rather difficult to obtain cheap fabric for garb in. The fabric is only cm by cm, rather smaller than I usually use for a dress, but it should be enough for the tighter shorter Austrian styles I've been looking at.

I'm going to machine sew this garment because:

• it's cotton, not some particularly authentic fabric
• it's very stiff and not easy to pierce
• I want this finished for the bal d'Argent, which is real soon now.
  

Cutting plan
After much musing, I produced a layout and cutting plan for my fabric:

The slant of the sleeves is exaggerated a bit here, and my sense of proportion isn't perfect, but the layout is more about making my cutting ideas easily apparent than a realistic representation, where smaller angles may be missed. Where distances haven't been marked on the cutting plan, assume symmetry of distances and angles. The gore width was based on what I could fit from the fabric. I haven't reproduced how to fit this on the fabric as no-one else will have the same size piece of fabric as me anyway. Just for future interest though, my fabric was 136x227cm, and I had about enough for 4 pouches spare (probably would have had less if not for overmeasuring a piece, then correcting.)



Sleeve head - I wanted to try some ideas from many of the albs I've seen - using slanted body panel pieces where the sleeves meet instead of gussets to give freedom of movement.

Having cut out my shapes (and discovered I cut the lower sleeves wrong - the above is the corrected version), I wanted to check how it would work. I machine basted (tacked) together upper sleeves and body piece.

I basted down each side from the top of the shoulder, and by this method the slant of the sleeves (which changes direction at the shoulder) wasn't too hard to sew neatly. Then I basted the sleeves closed with nice straight lines.

I tried this on, and thought it left too much bulk around the underarm. So I then turned the garment inside out and pinned on my body (then basted) a curving section out on the front of the vertical seam attaching sleeve to body panel. I didn't do the same on the back, to allow more room to move my arms.

Below is a comparison of the modified (left) and unmodified (right) sleeve heads. Yes, the difference is rather slight, but the modified sleeve feels less bulky too.




I like the more fitted version better, so that's what I'll use on the final product. There should be a little less bulk when I finish all the seams and trim the excess fabric and sewn the seams down flat.

Bicep
I also narrowed the width at the bicep - I want this relatively tight.

This resulted in a more rapidly curving profile rather more like those on the Alb of St Benhard of Utterecht (note the subtle slant of the sleeve inset), and a little like those of the famous blue dalmatic of Roger II. (The fabric is rucking up a little and not making a graceful curve because I haven't trimmed all the seams inside yet.)

Now, only one easy way to test the dress - wear it.

Admont Bible

Admont bible, Salzberg early 12th C, (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Wien. Cod. ser. nov. 2701 and 2 pages in École Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris. PC 22788)

The Admont Bible was produced in Salzburg, Austria, c1140's or maybe earlier (it's a topic of debate). Most of the book ended up in Hungary by the mid 13th C (it was bought back by Austria in 1937), except two leaves which ended up in France.

There is a lovely website with pictures of the manuscript and a history of it. Also on that site are links to a 14th C (Hungarian Angevin is 14th C !) and 15th C manuscript.

Dodwell finds it one of the best productions of the thriving world leading Romanesque Salzburg manuscript school. He says it's highly byzantine influenced, which I find quite clear to see in some of the women's hairstyles, decorative motifs, draperies, and more subtle details.


Women in this manuscript
This manuscript is not the best source material as are biblical figures, but the women certainly appear to be wearing fashionable clothes, not old fashioned ones. The answered question is how much is reality and how much fantasy?


f11 Boaz and Ruth. Ruth's sacrifice

• Ruth is a down on her luck noble, depicted as faithful to her family, and doing the right thing, not a slut like Salome. In the first picture, Ruth is begging from and later courting a noble relative. In the second she works in the fields to feed herself and her mother in law.
• The two pictures show differences in dress that may correspond to that change in activity.
• In the First picture her dress has trim at neck and hemline, in the second none is apparent.
• The first dress is shorter (although not the mid calf I expected) to display her long chemise underneath, and keep the precious trim off the floor. The second chemise may or may not be quite short - we can't see under her dress.
• The first chemise is trimmed at the wrists, the second is not.
• The first dress has wide flared sleeves, the second has loose sleeves that stop at her elbow - out of her way.
• All of these seem practical changes to a dress for doing work.
  
• The hairstyle in the first picture is more elaborate (possibly a byzantine style?) whereas in the second picture her plaits are enclosed in a covering and she wears a hat. While covering the hair while working is practical, I am not convinced that this style is more practical or quicker than the first style. A nice veil would be better, but maybe this would clash with her status as an available widow, and object of romance.
  

f12 Hannah and Peninnah,

• Hannah, the favoured wife of Elkhanah, can't get pregnant, while the second wife Peninnah can.

• Both Hannah (I'm assuming she's the childless one) and Peninnah wear similarly cut dresses and veils. The dresses are floor length, probably moderately loose in the body, and have flared sleeves.
  
• Hannah's dress is from a patterned fabric, perhaps this displays her favoured status. (patterned fabrics are likely to cost more)
  
• Both dresses are trimmed at the cuffs and hem. Hannah's dress has more decoration depicted on her trim.
• The cuffs of Hannah's chemise or whitish layer underneath is trimmed, Peninnah's in not visible. No wrinkle effect is depicted on these tight sleeves.
  
• Both women wear similar veils. Interestingly both are coloured veils, whereas white veils are more common.
• No belt is visible.
  

f12 Hannah's sacrifice.

• Elkhanah didn't mind that Hannah was childless, and still gave Hannah a larger portion of the sacrifice.
• Hannah's dress is cut similarly to the last picture.
• A small white blob is visible at the bottom of her maunche. Looking backwards, I think it might be visible on both women in the last picture too. I think this is what I've seen earlier, and thought might be a sleeve lining.
  

f12 Eli and Hannah

• Hannah pleads with a priest to give her a son. (and it works, and all ends happily)
• Hannah wears a red dress, with bell shaped sleeves - these seem to flare above the arm as well as below.
• The dress is decorated at the v-shaped neck and has a couple of subtle lines of decoration above the hem
• The dress appears to have been belted in tight at the waist with a wide yellow fabric band. (A corsolet?!)
• A chemise is visible at the wrists with decorated cuffs, but interestingly I can't see it at her neck despite the lower v-neck of the dress.
• Her hair is parted in the middle and plaited, probably in a single plait.
  

f18 The story of Hoshea

• Hosea was a prophet who married a prostitute supposedly on god's orders. She probably cheats on him, he divorces her, then he can't stay away and buys her back from a lover or client.
• The second picture depicts Hosea's inconstant wife in bed. She wears a cute beanie cap, and in the full picture I can just see pale yellow shirts to her ankles.
  
• The second figure holding the child might be a midwife or just Hosea's wife on a more formal occasion?
  
• A fairly simple dress, full length, gently flared sleeves from the elbow.
• Who said pink wasn't period? Well actually this doesn't prove anything - the artist might just have the colour on his palette, but the colours used do generally seem to be plausible.
• I wonder how she gets such wonderful folds in her veil in the first picture?
• Has that white bit peaking from the bottom of the sleeve again.
• The headwear provides a contrast between the lady in bed and the lady nursing. The veil appears to be headwear for a mature lady, while a prostitute wears young fashion of a cap.
  

f24 The affliction of Job

• God permits Satan to test Job's faith by afflicting him with bad stuff, like the boils pictured. 3 male friends and his wife try to get him to give up on God, but he refuses.
  
• The lady in red is mostly likely Job's wife, who refutes god and dies. I'm not sure who the second lady is - she doesn't seem to fit the story.
• Both ladies wear loose dresses with flared sleeves. The lady in pinks' sleeves are a more traditional shape, with trim. I think the lady in red's sleeves are supposed to be the same, just badly drawn.
• The lady in pink's sleeve has the white blob at the bottom again.
• White chemises show at the sleeves of both garments.
• Both wear veils. the y have a similar drape about the head, showing some of the neck, but the lady in red's veil has a loose end over her shoulder. This may represent a (partially undone) veil in which ends are crossed over the neck and flipped behind the head. the lady in pink's veil shows strong fold lines in opposing directions at the neck. the loose end looks a lot to me like the shape made by tapered fabric, rather than square, for example the corner of a half circle.
  

f26 Bride and groom (not illustrated)

• It's very hard to see this picture, but the bride must be the one dressed in pink.
• The garment has flared sleeves, with some decoration at cuff and collar.
• There are also two vertical lines. They could be plaits, but i think she is wearing a veil. I think they look more like two lines of decoration, along side seams or just inside of them.
  

Costume accessories - men's hats
Hats from folio 9 & folio 10




Also in the manuscript are a number of interesting men's hats. I'm used to phygian caps and beanie caps, these caps are a slight variation in exact shape. But what caught my notice especially is the vertical stripes on the hats. Hats can easily be made by naalbinding or sprang, and I've been speculating (along with others) if 12th C hats in these styles might be made so. So far there's been no evidence.

Could these vertical lines be an indication? Maybe, but another hat from the same manuscript is in a diamond pattern, which could still be sprang, but a very different representation of it, so maybe we are just seeing a decorative finish by the artist.

Hat from folio 14

Two sparsely illustrated 12th C manuscripts from Regensburg

Nothing exciting today, mostly just crossing these manuscripts off the list.

Ambrosius, Hexaemeron,
(München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. lat. 14399).
Prüfening (Regensburg), around 1165 and 1170,

The Manuscript was made under Abbot Gossuin (1131/3-65), and although we have photos of it, the manuscript is now lost . Dodwell says this has 7 full page pictures of creation largely borrowed from the Admont Bible. He says Regensburg/Prüfening coppied Salzberg artwork (which in turn ws copying byzantine) a lot, but created thier own sub style. There is not much of costuming interest in this manuscript - figures of christ are too traditional to show contempory clothing.

• [1v] Angel in part byzantine part Austrian dress
• [2], [2v], [15], [40v], [75], [175v] Decorated Initials (no people)
• [14v], [21v], [40], [52], [74v], [95] Figures of Christ illustrating points "der ruhetag"
• [181v] Decorated initial with male figure. Nothing special.

Isidori Hispalensis - Etymologiarum libri 9,
München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. lat. 13031
Prüfening (Regensburg), before 1165, (probably 1160-5)

Annother manuscript Regensberg style. This one is still extant, I think. Again, little costuming detail, this tiem with the exception of a monk's costume. Since this manuscript was written by monks, we can expect heir self depiction to be knowledgeable, and likely accurate.

• [1v] Men in Clothing in the Regensberg style - shirts/albs visible below tunics, much trim. Except the man lysing down, who is the monk author having his soul judged.
  
• [46], [80] Decorated Initials (no people)
  
• [102v] ancestry chart - lots of small torso sections only. Can see some female hairstyles on zoom.
  

Regensburg Manuscript - Vitae et passiones apostolorum

"Vitae et passiones apostolorum" (München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Cod. lat. 13074.)
Prüfening (Regensburg), 1170/1180.

A more heavily illustrated manuscript, with quite a few women illustrated, but no calf length tunics and no patterned fabrics.

Women in the manuscript:
I haven't included picture captions, as bildindex was unusually uninformative. (captions such as "Minature from Matthew")

[28], [66v], [90], [140], [100v],
Plain dress with flared sleeves, veil (or loose hair), some with rucked up chemise sleeves. The veils are probably wrap around ones - see how the 2nd image has a clear line across the shoulder where a wrap would cross itself, and the others have similar pattern of folds.



[66], [66v], [82v], As above, but with beanie caps. The beanie caps are worn over the same veils as above or just over the hair (2nd lady, first image). Most have bands of trim around the edge. Some of them are a plain circle, others vee upwards on the forehead. Several here appear to be worn jauntily, slightly off centre on the head, but they could be ones with a vee where i can't see the second side clearly. The one's that don't vee remind me of Jewish skullcaps.





[90v] Veil is loosely draped - doesn't cover front of neck. Rest of dress same as others. This could be a man (i've seen such head drapes on people with beards), but I don't think so.


[100v] Dress same as others, but she is wearing a turban. It's hard to tell with the smudge mark, but I think she is wearing the same wrap veil as the others (you can even see a dangling end behind her shoulder), and then the turban on top of that. It could be a pre-wrapped turban. Or it might be a different variety of hat I've not seen before, but I'm pretty sure I can see bands of wrapping. Her face appears to be contorted (big nose, fat face, scowl?) which may be a racial stereotype, or may just be me reading too much into a smudge mark. I should note my reasons for assuming this is a female - floor length dress and long maunches, features I haven't seen on guys before (ankle length, or longer with a slit, and only short maunches I have seen).


Image summary of remaining pages and rest of featured pages:

• [15v], [27v], [28], [55], [55v], [66], [81v], [82], [82v], [83], [90], [90v], [101], [120], [120v], [139v], [140] Men in tunics shorter than shirts, many bands of trim.
  
• [15v], [55], [55v], [82] stereotyped Jewish hat.
• [120v] guy in a beanie hat. With a knob on top.
  
• [15v] scalloped shaped belt like the ones I saw a few posts ago in a Salzberg manuscript.
  
• [15v], [90] tassels on trim. I've seen these in the same salzberg manuscript too - look at the picture next to hoods - I didn't comment on it.
  
• [66v] archer with bow & quiver. (Haven't seen a 12th C quiver before!)
  
• [83], [90v], [120v] barrel bath. I've seen plenty of barrel baths before, but these ones are consistantly taller and more conical, and have integral feet. These look more purpose built (by a cooper) to me than functional as a barrel.
  
• [90v] stone carvers. Cute.
  
• [16], [?],[?] decorated initial (no people)
• [100v] sailing boat, harp being played

I find this manuscript a little strange in it's fashion sense. About half the men are still wearing the fashion of the prüfening miscellany - tunics with shirts showing underneath and many bands of decoration. But none of the women wear the female version of this fashion - all have floor length dresses, and none even have a band of decorated trim on the end of their sleeves. Some have what looks like a plain coloured band, but no decoration. Perhaps the artist didn't have enough time to do such elaborations (but calf length doesn't take time) or perhaps this vain fashion was not considered appropriate for saintly women (but none wear halos, and other manuscripts show Mary with a calf length tunic). Or maybe this shows a diversion over time (this manuscript is slightly later than the others so far) from byzantine fashion?