Sewn into their clothing: Sources?

[Mrs. W]

I am trying to find out WHY a particular myth continues to circulate in the general population: "In the Middle Ages, people were sewn into their clothing and only bathed once or twice a year, (whether they needed it or not)."

I heard this from a well-published children's science writer at a convention this past weekend and was appalled. The implication seemed to be that the people unstitched twice a year for a bath, then kept all of their clothing on all of the time for the rest of the year. (I did, very tactfully, ask what the source was for such information. I got the impression that the person didn't have a good source for this particular statement.)

Because I have heard this tripe repeated elsewhere, I would love to know where people are getting this stuff. I have read that some of the Herjolfsnes tunics had the forearm only stitched closed and that there have been one or two European grave finds where part of the gown was stitched on. My problem with these examples is that they are grave finds, and can we be so sure that the living actually used this method, or did they only stitch clothing onto their dead? Perhaps living people used a more expedient method to secure their sleeve ends in Greenland...?

Anyway, is there a good, non-grave find that uses stitching that would have to be re-done at each wearing to secure a garment? And can anyone point to a flawed textbook or other source for the rumor itself?

As if there aren't enough legitimate mysteries to solve in historical research already.

My thanks for any help you can give here.

-Woolery

[Red Simon]

Actually, it's a rather well-documented practise. The sewing-into-clothing, that is. One example comes from the Romance of the Rose (first part, where this is from, is c. 1235 and written for young nobles);

"I got up from bed straightaway, put on my stockings and washed my hands. Then I drew a silver needle from a dainty little needlecase and threaded it. I had a desire to go out of the town to hear the sound of birds who, in that new season, were singing among the trees. I stitched up my sleeves in zigzag lacing and set out, quite alone..."

This is somewhere around the 100th line. Translation by Charles Dahlberg (Princeton, NJ: University Press, 1971).

Marc.

[ULTRAGOTHA]

People certainly were sewn into their clothing in some places. There's a Norse Saga where the wife is pissed off at her husband, so she sews his tunic shut through the skin of his forearms.

But I've never seen anything to show that they stayed in their clothing 6 months of the year.

Maybe two different practices got merged? The sewing into clothing thing (for tightly fitting sleeves) and the not bathing often thing?

Norse seem to have had sweat baths at least once a week. Some Anglo-Saxon priest complains of it--that the good Saxon girls prefered Danes (living in the Danelaw in England) to pious, wholesome, Saxon men because the Danes bathed once a week and smelled better and combed their beards. Makes one wonder what the Saxon men did??!

[kass]

This is just a guess, Mrs. W, but I think the myth of people being sewn into the clothes comes from the lack of closures apparent in most period art. One assumption from this lack is that they closed somewhere we do not see (which leads to assumptions about rear closures where there are none). The other assumption is that people were sewn into their clothing so you wouldn't see a closure.

But the truth is that in cases where a closure is open (like in the famous Madonna and Child portrait of Agnes Sorel), you can see that the closure is rendered invisible by the artist. In reality, you probably could see that there was a closure there.

I have heard a statement that Norse men had their sleeve backseams sewn closed every morning by their wives. But I don't know anything about the Norse and have no idea if this is true or not. Sewing sleeves closed, however, is minor compared to a whole garment.

Because people didn't bathe (i.e. submerge themselves in a bath) often does not mean that they didn't wash. People forget that you can wash without actually sitting in a tub. Many Americans could be accused of not
bathing too because we shower instead.

How's that?

Kass

[Tailoress]

"I got up from bed straightaway, put on my stockings and washed my hands. Then I drew a silver needle from a dainty little needlecase and threaded it. I had a desire to go out of the town to hear the sound of birds who, in that new season, were singing among the trees. I stitched up my sleeves in zigzag lacing and set out, quite alone..."

This is somewhere around the 100th line. Translation by Charles Dahlberg (Princeton, NJ: University Press, 1971).

Marc.

The problem I've always had with this literary example is the mention of stitching up sleeves in "zigzag lacing". I have to wonder if there's a subtlety of meaning in the original French (and in the actual contemporary culture) which simply meant that a lace (not thread) was strung through a bodkin which was then used to guide the lace through lacing holes, already in place. I know this is conjecture, but Guillaume de Lorris (the author of the first part of the Roman de la Rose) makes the whole "sewing" assertion rather ambiguous when he brings in "zigzag lacing".

As pointed out by others, the evidence that does exist appears to mostly refer to lower sleeves. I don't recall seeing much of anything referring to other areas being literally sewn shut on the body. (?)

-Tasha

[Mrs. W]

Tasha wrote:

The problem I've always had with this literary example is the mention of stitching up sleeves in "zigzag lacing". I have to wonder if there's a subtlety of meaning in the original French (and in the actual contemporary culture) which simply meant that a lace (not thread) was strung through a bodkin which was then used to guide the lace through lacing holes, already in place. I know this is conjecture, but Guillaume de Lorris (the author of the first part of the Roman de la Rose) makes the whole "sewing" assertion rather ambiguous when he brings in "zigzag lacing".

I am very glad that I am not the only one who considers this a possibility. Perhaps I am splitting hairs here, but to me, there is a fairly big difference between using a needle as an aiglet to facilitate lacing existing holes and actually stitching your sleeves shut every time you want to wear that particular gown. I, too, am not sure which was being done in this instance.

In either case, as Kass and Tasha have pointed out, sewing the forearm of the sleeves closed (if that is what is happening), is drastically different from sewing every seam shut while the clothing is on your body.

You make a good point, Kass, about the period art not always showing how things were fastened. If scholars or lay-people are jumping to the conclusion that if there are no visible fasteners in the art, they must have sewn the clothing on to themselves, they need to remember the principle of Occam's Razor: that a problem should be stated in its basic and simplest terms. Which is simpler: people spent unknown hours being hand-sewn into their clothes, or the artist didn't bother to paint the fasteners?

I agree that people used bathing methods besides just immersion. In Marc's excerpt (thank-you, Marc!) we have hand-washing. I have seen several illuminations showing servants offering ewers of water, basins and towels to guests before a feast. In one of the Gies' books (packed away! Alas!) they cite records that Bogo de Claire, a cleric, spent more on perfumed oil and scented waters than on alms and paid his laundress to wash his hair.

I believe that there is ample evidence that immersion was used, as well: church records condemning bathhouses, the existence of medicinal hot springs like Bath, etc.

Part of my consternation at statements like the one I mentioned is that they are indefensible, and crumble before any serious research. So how is it that they persist and perpetuate? I can't help but think that there must be some weighty, Victorian tome written by a self-important Oxford alumnus who asserted that Medieval people were basically swine with opposable thumbs. People must be getting this stuff from some source and passing it along the gossip chain until no one can remember just where it started, but everyone agrees that it must be true: everyone says so. I just wish that I knew where it started.

Anyway, thanks so much for all of the good input on this.

-Woolery