Medievalist gets excited about old and not very clean underwear - news at eleven!

[ossamenta]

Thanks to fabulous Katrin Kania of Togs from bogs, I have seen pictures of extant medieval underpants! Medieval underwear has been a particular interest of mine for several years now. I gave a lecture on it at the Medieval Week in Visby in 2004, but haven't had time to pursue it much since.

Underwear are interesting because they are so seldom seen. Basically the only people in medieval illustrations that have visible underwear are working farmers, people in bed/childbirth and people being executed (saints, criminals, people who supported the losing side etc). There are also some topsy-turvy illustrations of women wearing the man's underpants, which often have been taken as proof for women wearing panties in the Middle Ages. This is a particular controversy. Since underwear is so seldom seen - and what we see on women are long shifts/chemises - we don't know what or if they wore any. Indeed, the early 19th century satirical illustration (can't recall the name, nor find a link - it's the one of people falling down a staircase, used for the Penguin classics edition of Vanity Fair It's Exhibition stare case) is rather clear on the absence of panties. The common objection, particularly among re-enactors, is that they must have worn something when they were menstruating. A counterpoint is that women in 18th C rural Scania did not wear anything under their shifts, but let the blood soak into their shifts and their hosen, as noted by Carl Linnaeus in his Scanian travels in 1749.

I will stop myself from going on about this, since I'm working from memory and as I said above, it's been a few years since I knew the details and the sources by heart. Perhaps there will be a future blog post.

Anyway, these extant underpants were found together with lots of stuff (playing cards, shoes, coins, glass, bits of clothes, iron and copper objects, you name it) in the fillings of one vaulted ceiling at Schloss Lengberg in Austria. The finds are dated to the 15th century. There is a nice photo in an article on the finds (pdf, in German). It's not possible to tell whether they may have belonged to a man or a woman, but they look just like men's underpants in contemporary illustrations.

And the (other) really exciting thing? At this year's NESAT (North European Symposium for Archaeological Textiles), Beatrix Nutz will give a talk on the 15th C bras that were found in the Lengberg assemblage. How awesome is that? Bras are also very rare in illustrations - the only thing I've seen have been suggestions of breastbinding - and merely to know that there are extant ones, now that sends good shivers down my spine in excitement. Can it be May soon?

Comments

[holyschist]

I don't think we know that much, but unless the smock can somehow be tucked between the legs, I still think it would be in the wrong place to absorb anything during walking--and at least by the 16th century, when we have more surviving smocks and shirts, you could do this with men's shirts, but not women's smocks. (You also get lower halves of smocks made from coarser linen, and ruffles made from finer linen--but these seem to be to save money by making the hidden parts out of cheaper material; and that could be going on with the Latvian shirts as well, depending on what the author is basing their interpretation on).

I don't know--I guess it's possible that with poor nutrition and more pregnancy and breastfeeding, medieval women had super-light periods most of the time (and when they weren't they stayed in bed), but I'm still skeptical.

[pearl]

I *think* the Latvian author is basing it on only women's shirts having the coarser half, while men's shirts are solid body panels. But double-checking the Latvian instead of the English summary requires a lot more brainpower than I have right now, sorry.

I don't think we know that much, but unless the smock can somehow be tucked between the legs, I still think it would be in the wrong place to absorb anything during walking--and at least by the 16th century, when we have more surviving smocks and shirts, you could do this with men's shirts, but not women's smocks.

I think that is what I was trying to ask, if the smock could have been tucked between the legs somehow. But if women's smocks were fuller (with side gores, right?) then it's a bit bulky. Thanks. :)

[holyschist]

That's a leap from that difference to "for hygiene," especially if that difference is why they think some shirts are women's shirts...anyway, I know less Latvian than you and I'm just being difficult.

For the 16th century, yeah, I don't think it's practical to tuck the smock between the legs--and it wouldn't stay anyway without being tucked into drawers (we have a few examples of women's drawers from the 16th century, but they do not seem to have been widespread, and they weren't closely fitted to the body). Medieval smocks for either sex...we have a lot less information. But if a woman is wearing a smock with a gown on top of it, I don't know what would keep the smock tucked up between her legs.

Re: pads for incontinence--perhaps any use for menstruation wasn't mentioned because it wasn't something people discussed, or a medical matter?