The Armour Archive

Im in the beginning process of completely reworking my kits(both hard and soft) to reflect a higher standard of authenticity. My initial research is mainly the good old meathod of stumping through the hundreds of books and reference materials I have laying around the house and then working together a work list of items I need to get cracking on.

Here's my dilemma... Im working toward a 15th century Swiss kit and while I have a lot of resources, Im not sure if I trust what I am seeing from time to time. Im getting ready to work on my shirts, (gods help me hand sewing everything) and I see many, many illuminations that appear to show shirts that are not just white, but many many colours.

If these are not shirts, what am I seeing? They are clearly not overgarments as many times the sleeves are shown protruding from under another layer(or two other layers), but no white is shown at the collar or wrist.

(unfortunatley I cant post links to any of the images cause I plain cant find em online yet... bear with me)

So... help me out. Anyone willing to accept that in the 15th century some shirts were colours other than white? If so, justify your thought. If not, point me in the direction of truth.

One doesn't always see undergarments (especially shirts or smocks) that we can assume were probably there; best example I can think of (in which we see a woman in a smock on one side of an illustration where it doesn't appear at all when she is fully clothed on the other side) is this 15th century illustration from the Decameron, but I'm sure there are many others.

So, the question becomes -- are you sure that the 15th century garment you're seeing is actually a shirt? Could it, perhaps, be a sort of cotehardie/doublet/pourpoint which is worn over an unseen white linen shirt, but under a gown/houppelande/overgarment?

BaronMal

Everything I have ever seen shows white shirts. I am not sure what you are seeing it could be another garment because as Karen points out many people wore layers. To make this point if you look at late 15th c art the only time you see men not wearing something over their doublet they are doing real dirty work such as cement mixing, hauling, plowing, or beheading someone. In cases where I see shirts in these images I have never seen a colored shirt.

If its the swiss stuff with the big checkered skirts on the bottom, you are probably seeing the overlayer of what a lot of peopel call "waffenrock" (even though its a modern term.. war coat).. the shirt itself would most likely ahve been white.. but (being one who has done swiss/german for a while) theres probably two or three layers between the shirt and what you can see there.

Checkers on the skirts are very very swiss.. I dont believe I have ever seen them represented in German.. only Swiss.

Maeryk

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I asked our local Laurel, who I know was very into german/swiss research for a while, and she said she seems to remember yellow being in the shirts somehwere, but cannot pull a cite.

But black or red I would doubt highly.

Maeryk

Im looking at the later half, say 1470ish...

I do honestly get the feeling that Im seeing one of many garments and not the shirt itself in many of the images but Im so tuned to the modern sense of dress that its hard for me to think someone would be shown wearing what amounts to 4 layers while going about their daily lives, but thats exactly why I posted this.

Here is a picture from (I think) 1480's - 1490's, German not Swiss. It shows the soldiers mocking Christ who are slovenly so thier cloths are pulled out and not well kept. The interesting thing about this pic is the guy in front with the yellow doublet. The color has started to leach out on his sholders and sleeves turning them white. The guy right behind him might be wearing a red shirt. ?? Hope this helps.

http://www.grimmarmoury.com/gallery/Renaissance-German-Clothing/mocking

BaronMal wrote:Im looking at the later half, say 1470ish...

I do honestly get the feeling that Im seeing one of many garments and not the shirt itself in many of the images but Im so tuned to the modern sense of dress that its hard for me to think someone would be shown wearing what amounts to 4 layers while going about their daily lives, but thats exactly why I posted this.

Hi Baron Mal,

People wore three layers going about their daily lives, and pretty much did so up into the early 20th century.

In the case of the Swiss, as with other Northern Europeans of the second half (or last third) of the century, it consists of linen shirt, wool doublet, and overgown of some sort (short or long, pleated or not so pleated, depending on locatrion and station and age of the wearer).

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Thanks all...

I have the basics planned out, Im just in fine tuning mode before I begin construction. The reason that Im having an issue with this shirt thing is mostly because Im confused by what Im seeing in the illustrations.

Early in my SCA career I did 1520s Swiss, and as of late have concentrated on 14th cent, now just to drive my wife nuts my energy is going into the 15th. I have a decent basic understanding of the clothing styles, just got confused a bit.

Thanks for the links to St George, they are among many that I use as info links for new folks that come into our Barony =)

Thanks Brent,

I wasn't too sure from what time it was from.

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Peder,

Id love to attend an event. Once I get things rolling I'll contact you for more info.

Since Im self employed, I do a ton of demos for local schools during the school year. I rarely make any references to the SCA since frankly school kids need top be educated, not recruited.

A big part of the reason for my retooling is to be able to bring to these demos the absolute best representation that I can and not the "SCA comfortable" level that has been widly acceptable for most demos. I have always gone out of my way to be as period as possible, but at some point every living history person must make the leap to end point.

I dug out the white linen and cut out 4 shirts to get to sewing at Lilies during down times. Perhaps if Im lucky I'll have a whole new soft kit to show at Pennsic.