Enigmatic Beauty

Last week I learned, through a short note from Professor Beatrix Nutz relating to an article of hers that I had just downloaded from Academia.edu, that she has also published an article about a set of textile finds from Lengberg Castle that, though originally thought to be part of a bra-type undergarment, are actually the remains of a headcovering with a section of sprang in it.

The article can be downloaded from Academia.edu here (free account required). It's called "Enigmatic Beauty:  The Decorative Headwear of Lengberg Castle," and Professor Nutz, Rachel Case, and Carol James are listed as authors.  Curiously, similar types of headwear are shown on men as well as women in period art, suggesting that this type of headcovering was a symbol of a particular status.

It's an article well worth reading by anyone with an interest in late medieval clothing, particularly German and Austrian late medieval clothing.

The Red Plaid Underdress--Calendering the Linen (Part 1)

Fabric, dry rubbed, mostly on the left side.

Today's photograph shows the results of my first attempt to "calender" my linen.  Calendering is the technical name for any process used to make a fabric smooth and to give it special properties, such as shininess.

On an industrial scale, calendering is done by running otherwise completed fabric through large rollers, and applying lots of pressure.  I have no idea how much rubbing the Viking women applied to their linen; a certain amount of trial and error will be required here.

The first photograph shows the fabric after it had been rubbed for about a minute with the glass stone; again, click the photograph to see it bigger and with more detail.  The result was a pronounced smoothing of the fabric, but only a faint increase in shininess that doesn't show up very well in the photograph.

At that point, I started looking for more information about the process.  Phiala's String Page states that linen can only be cold pressed (i.e., without heat) so long as it is damp, and I have seen similar comments on other educational sites.  That suggests that damp rubbing appears to be the way to go--particularly given my lack of obvious results from dry rubbing.  But how damp?  Slightly, or just short of dripping?  And for how long?  I suspect that if linen needs to be damp in order to be modified this way, the rubbing probably needs to continue until the linen is dry.

Thank heaven I only have two yards of linen to handle. 

There will be more on this subject after I have had time to experiment with damp rubbing.

EDIT:  To correct my spelling error:  Rubbing fabric to smooth it and give it a nice finish is called "calendering," not "calendaring".  

Red Plaid Underdress: Washing the Linen

Fabric as received.  The coins are to give scale.

These pictures show the changes in appearance of my linen fabric after soaking it for about 4 hours in lukewarm water, washing it in lukewarm water, and letting it hang up overnight to dry.  Click on any of the photographs to see the image larger and with more detail.

The first photograph shows the fabric as I received it in the mail, before any soaking or washing was done; I've added a .5 Euro coin and a US quarter to the photographs to give the viewer a better idea of the scale of the grid of the fabric's design.  The Etsy vendor's page said that the squares of the grid are 3/4ths of an inch on each side, and that looks approximately right though I haven't measured them.  

In person, the fabric looks more orange in tone, and less rose-colored, than it does in the as-received photograph, and the grid threads appear to be yellow in the direction of the warp and light sage green in the direction of the weft.  As my first post about the fabric shows, I thought that both sets of grid threads were white when I placed my order, but the difference between the photographs of the fabric on Etsy and the actual appearance of the cloth is subtle enough that I feel no need to complain to the vendor or abandon the project.

Fabric after soaking, washing and hanging to dry.

The second photograph shows the linen after the soaking, washing, and drip-drying had taken place, but before anything else had been done with it.  Because it was taken during the day, with natural sunlight coming in the window, it shows the true colors of the fabric.

At the point where I had the washed and dried fabric, it occurred to me that I didn't really know anything else about the rubbing process.  Do you rub the fabric when it is dry, or  while it is damp?  Maria's post doesn't answer this question, but I've seen at least one Internet article claiming that you should keep a spray bottle of water or other means to keep the cloth damp as you rub.  I will try both approaches, on different parts of the cloth, and photograph each, before I decide on how to treat the rest of the cloth.  At that point, it will be time for another update on this project.

Slickstone on the Cheap

Whalebone plaque, probably used for
linen smoothing.  Found in 1991
in the Scar boat grave on Sanday, Orkney,
Scotland.  Photo by Orkney Museum
(found on Wikimedia Commons).

Glass linen smoother, unknown date
64 mm wide, 39 mm thick, 242.12 g.
Trustees of the British Museum
(Wikimedia Commons)

Costumers interested in Viking Age Scandinavia are well-aware that the artifacts discovered by archaeologists include "ironing boards"--flat plates of wood or bone used for flattening cloth, and "slickstones"--rounded, flat-bottomed pieces of glass about 3 inches (75 mm) in diameter.  The cloth would be placed on the board, and vigorously rubbed with the slickstone.

According to Maria at In deme jare Cristi, linen that has been properly washed and dried will become not only flat, but will acquiring a pleasing shininess if rubbed with a slickstone in this manner.  (The link includes detailed instructions as to how to wash linen properly.  The process involves presoaking new linen fabric in cool water, washing it in water that is warm at best, and then hanging it up to dry.)

After reading what Maria said about the effectiveness of a slickstone in improving the appearance of linen, I was eager to try the process out.  I have several boards (plain, but usable) that would serve as smoothing boards, but where could I get a slickstone?  I don't have enough money to buy the necessary equipment to work glass!

Then it occurred to me that I do know how to get a glass object of the right shape--they are used in aquariums and as game pieces.  The problem is that the rocks used for these purposes are usually about the size of my thumbnail--much smaller than historical slickstones and too small to easily hold and rub against fabric.  Were larger glass rocks even commercially available? 

My glass rock, seen from above.

My glass rock, seen from the side.

Some Internet searching confirmed that the answer to my question turns out to be "yes!"  I found a company on line called Wholesalers USA, Inc., (https://www.wholesalersusainc.com/) that sells glass stones for various kinds of home decoration and crafts in sizes up to 60 mm.  Moreover, for 50 cents USD they will sell you a single stone as a sample!  I ordered one of the 60 mm (2.36 inch) stones, and it came today--pictures of it appear with this post.  It weighs 83 grams, and as the picture shows, it's a lot flatter than the slickstone finds.  Still, my hands are small, and its not too difficult for me to grab it by the sides and rub things with it.

I can't wait to try my modern slickstone out, but to try it out properly I need to get some new linen and wash it in the proper way first.  When I have tried it out, I will write about what I discover.

EDIT:  I have ordered some linen for my experiment.  It is reddish with a tattersall plaid, or grid of squares, in white.  A similar fabric was found in grave 27/1963 at Hedeby, except the background was white and the grid was blue.  However, each square in the grid of the Hedeby find was 4 mm wide, as compared to the 19mm (about 3/4ths of an inch) in the fabric I bought.  However, my fabric was cheap ($4.99 US per yard) and it was the last 2 yards available from the Etsy vendor I purchased it from.  The checked material at Hedeby is believed to have come from an underdress, so I will use my fabric to make an underdress also.

EDIT: (2/6/2019)  My linen arrived on Monday!  It's beautiful, so beautiful that it's hard to imagine making it more beautiful.  Pursuant to Maria's tutorial, soaking it in the bathtub (so it can lie as flat and unfolded as possible) is next.

EDIT: (2/8/2019)  I think I've found my project for the March Historical Sew Monthly; the underdress that I'm going to make from the linen prepared with my new slickstone!

The Lengberg Finds and Late Medieval Tailoring

A few years ago, I wrote several posts drawing my readers' attention to the work of Beatrix Nutz with various 15th century undergarment finds from Lengberg Castle in East Tyrol.  A few days ago, I found the video that appears to the right of this blog, which shares some original research that is even more startling.  A webpage by the University of Innsbruck briefly describing this project can be seen here. 

The video is a narrated slideshow about the implications of the Lengberg finds for the history of tailoring. The slideshow was created by Professor Nutz and two independent American researchers, Rachel Case, and Marion McNealy, who used their long experience in historical sewing to make reproductions of some of the Lengberg finds to discover how they must have been created.   The result is a fascinating look at some long-forgotten techniques of European tailoring.

Their analysis started with the find that resembles a modern long-line bra: a few other costumers had previously recreated that item, as the links in this sentence show.  Rachel and Marion believed that the "bra" was actually only part of an undergarment which was more of a supportive dress, since the "bra" had a calf-length skirt attached.  They reasoned that, without a skirt, the bra would tend to ride up and be uncomfortable and less supportive.

Of even greater interest, and research value, were pleated pieces of linen that the team concluded was the underlayer of a dress.  Two such finds are discussed, one believed to have been made for a grown woman and one for a little girl.  The fact that bits of blue wool remain fastened to the right side of the linen tend to support that idea.  Between their review of period artworks showing dresses with similar shaping in the bodice area, analysis of the finds themselves, and their recreations, the three researchers reached some interesting conclusions.

Their first theory, as noted above, was that the "long-line" bra likely had an attached skirt. (I wonder what the costumers who have made non-skirted versions think of this idea.)

Their second theory is that the purpose of the pleated sections of the dress-lining was to shape the gown over the chest.  Though it isn't clear what purpose the pleats served for the little girl's dress, the effect of the pleats over the chest on the woman's dress would be to emphasize (without supporting, because the skirted bra undergarment does that) each breast separately as its own rounded shape--a profile that appears in period art and that Nutz/Case/McNealy call "apple breasts."

This "apple breast" shape was achieved, they believe, by stitching the pleated linen lining to the wool outer fabric by a technique used by modern tailors to create wool suits today.  It's called pad stitching.  The sempstress.com site has a tutorial explaining the technique here.  The lined garment would then be steamed or pressed to further perfect the shape of the gown, which would be worn with a skirted bra-type garment.  Bias-cut sections located in the strap areas are also critical for the correct shape.

Why didn't this tailoring style persist?  In the early 16th century, fashion for women shifted to styles that compressed the breast, and sometimes the waist, to create a more conical shape.  This silhouette was created primarily by an undergarment called "stays" and more recently, the "corset".  Shaping with a corset did not require unusual shaping of the gown, so the pad stitching fell into disuse, and the corset remained the primary women's shaping garment for the next 400 years.

This slideshow is heartily recommended as a great way to absorb the critical details of a key piece of new research from the Lengberg finds.

Fine Fabric In the Bronze Age

Many people who aren't knowledgeable about historical costume assume that clothing in early times, including the Bronze Age, was coarse and heavy and bulky to wear.  

Early Greek and Roman sculpture show that that wasn't true in the Mediterranean--the fine drapery shown in those sculptures could not have been achieved with coarse fabric.  And archaeological finds from early Egyptian tombs show their skill at thin, translucent, fine linen. 

Somehow, it's hard to imagine fine fabrics showing up in northern Europe much before the Middle Ages.  The Hammerum dress, for example, was brightly dyed and well-woven, but rather thick and graceless in appearance, if the recent reconstruction of the dress by Museum Midtjylland is a realistic guide.  But a recent discovery in England, of all places, suggests that fine fabric was not worn solely in southern Europe during the Bronze Age.  The Independent published a news article summarizing the discovery here.

According to the article in The Independent, the site is about 30 miles northwest of Cambridge at a place called Must Farm near Whittlesea, Cambridgeshire, and the finds are approximately 3,000 years old. Over 100 different textile fragments have been found there so far, along with evidence that textile production took place at the site.  The finest specimens found are linen, and appear to have been of sizes that would naturally be used for draped garments, according to the article, which reports:

Some of the yarn is of superfine quality – with some threads being just 100 microns (1/10 of a millimetre) in diameter, while some of the fabrics themselves are so finely woven that they have 28 threads per centimetre, fine even by modern standards. It’s likely that some of the fragments of textile are from items of clothing.

Originally, some of the textiles must have been of very substantial size – because they had been folded, in some cases in up to 10 layers. If made to be worn, these folded fabrics may well have been large garments, potentially, capes, cloaks – or even large drapes, perhaps similar to those known from elsewhere in the ancient (and sometimes modern) worlds – the ancient Greek chiton, the Roman toga and the Indian sari. A drape folded into 10 layers for temporary storage would have served as a substantial garment – potentially up to 3 metres square (i.e. 9 square metre).

There is no evidence that the fabrics found had been dyed, but this is not surprising due to the difficulty of dyeing linen with the vegetable dyes available during the Bronze Age.

There is other evidence that this site was the location of a wealthy village.  Jewelry items, notably glass beads, were also found, and the beads appear to have come from the eastern Mediterranean, probably Syria or Turkey.  Metal tools and articles, such as tweezers and razors, axes and awls, were found, along with wooden buckets and ceramic bowls and containers.  The evidence also indicates that the site was burned less than a year after it was built, and then was depopulated--food and food items found in place indicate that the people didn't just move away but were killed, enslaved, or both.

If you care about early material culture, including clothing, in Europe, keep an eye out for information about Must Farm--there is a lot of material to analyze that may completely change our view of the cultural history of northern Europe.

Why Knowledge of Historical Clothing Matters

While searching the Internet for articles on textiles and archaeology, I found a very interesting article on LiveScience.com from late 2011.

The article claims that a clothing detail discovered via archaeological textile remains answered, at least in general terms, the question of who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls (a number of early manuscripts, some of which are copies of portions of the Bible.  

According to the article, it turns out that approximately 200 textile fragments were also found in the Qumran caves in Israel, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found.   Study of the fragments indicates that at least some of the fragments were originally part of items of clothing.

All of the fragments were plain, undecorated, undyed (and in some cases bleached) linen.  That is unusual because, during the era to which the finds are dated (between the 3rd century BCE and 70 CE) most clothing in what is now Israel was made from wool, not linen, and similar textile finds from the same region and period were often dyed in bright colors or otherwise decorated.

The archaeological team believes that the proximity of so much linen near the scrolls themselves indicate that the scrolls were produced by the Essenes, an order of monks who lived near the caves. Literary evidence indicates that the Essenes believed in cleanliness, dressed in white, and preferred to keep their skin dry, all of which suggest that they wore linen.

Unsurprisingly, some scholars disagree with this theory about where the linen fragments came from. However, whether the Essene origin of the linen, and the scrolls, is correct, the research indicates that clothing evidence is important.  Evidence of what was historically worn by a people is important, not simply to show how people lived in the past, but to confirm or refute evidence as to what people lived in a certain place, or did certain things--such as writing the Dead Sea Scrolls.   It is part of the physical evidence that allows us check and confirm our understanding of history.

Still More on the Lengberg Linen

Dürer , Self-Portrait (Wikimedia Commons)

Yes, I am going to write once more about the 15th century linen finds in Lengberg Castle.  For those of you who are tired of my posts about 600-year-old linen, I apologize.  But every article I read about the Lengburg linen gives me with new and fascinating information to think about.  It's nearly impossible to overstate how much those finds have to tell us about the undergarments of that period, and increasing our knowledge of the underwear of that period will have an impact on our deductions about underwear earlier in the Middle Ages.

Professor Nutz published a long, information-dense article in Issue No. 54 of  Archaeological Textiles Review; the full citation of which is as follows:

Nutz, Beatrix and Stadler, Harold. "How to Pleat a Shirt in the 15th Century."  Archaeological Textiles Review, No. 54, pp. 79-91 (2012).

It would not be possible for me to summarize the article without simply repeating what the authors said, but here's some critical details that will be of interest to those hoping to learn how to improve the authenticity of their 15th century underwear.

Nutz and Stadler's article focuses on the number of shirt/neckline finds at Lengberg. The ones discussed feature full shirts/shifts with round necklines.  The fullness has been pleated into many small even pleats which have been secured by a neckband, and sometimes also with additional stitching.   The sleeves were also full, and were pleated in ways similar to the neckbands.  The self portrait of Albrecht Dürer which is reproduced above, is dated 1493 and shows a similar type of shirt; the same portrait is reproduced in Nutz and Stadler's article.

Graphic by B. Nutz (p. 82)

Nutz and Stadler identified three different types of neckline pleats:  "rounded and either folded to one side (Type 1) or straight (Type 2)".  Type 1s may be folded either to the left or right--the researchers found both types.  Type 2s, so far as I can tell from the diagrams, are folded like a fan and caught with stitches, a little like very fine cartridge pleating.  

Graphic by B. Nutz (p. 83)

The authors also identify a Type 3 pleat, but it was found on only one garment.  I am having trouble distinguishing it from Type 2; the main difference appears to be that it involves significantly finer linen and finer pleats than the Type 2 garments but is of a similar shape; the authors call them "closely spaced, pointed, straight pleats that use a lot of fabric" (p. 79).  I have reproduced Professor Nutz's graphics from the article depicting the different pleat types in an attempt to clarify these descriptions.

The authors found four different techniques for sewing a band over the pleats, which they have labeled Types A, B, C, and D.  Type B was the most commonly found method; in it, the binding strip is placed right side against the pleated edge, sewn onto the pleats, and folded over the pleated edge.  Then the other edge is folded inward and sewn onto the pleats on the other side with whip stitching.  The other methods, though different in some details, still result in a band with a neat edge on both sides covering the raw edges of the pleats.

Interestingly, the bands were not the only means used to fix the pleats at wrist and neckline.  According to Nutz and Stadler all of the pleated samples had stem stitching about 0.5 to 2.5 cm below the band.  It is unclear from the surviving scraps whether this stitching was done before or after the bands were stitched in place or even whether the stem stitching showed on outside of the shirts/shifts when they were worn.  The stem stitching often was done in irregular rows, so the authors suggest they were not meant to be seen.  Analysis also shows, interestingly enough, that the sewing on this linen was done with a doubled thread, not a single thread.

As I've noted before, ATN is planning to make its issues available for free download after a few years, so this article will eventually be generally available.  For those who, like me, could not wait, Issue No. 54 can be bought for 20 Euros on the ATN website.  If you participate in 15th century European reenactment, it may be a worthwhile investment, just to examine Nutz and Stadler's article for yourself to learn whether your shift/shirt making techniques match what they found at Lengberg.
  

Finally, Professor Nutz also recently published a page discussing children's underwear found at Lengberg; that page may be found here.  This page includes two images that Nutz contributed to Jane Huggett and Ninya Mikaila's recent book, The Tudor Child. Both are torso garments, one sized for a very small infant, the other for a young girl, and both fasten with lacing. The article speculates about the purpose of the laced torso garment for a newborn.  The other garment appears to be the lining of a young girl's dress. If you cannot afford The Tudor Child at present, it may be worth checking out the photographs on the page--they suggest that structured garments could have been part of the wardrobe of some 15th century children.

The Oldest Textile Find

The arts of making plant fibers into thread and then weaving the thread into cloth are very old. How old?

According to this article in Current World Archaeology, archaeologists found "numerous short lengths" of spun flax thread in the soil inside a cave in the Republic of Georgia. These threads are estimated to be over 34,000 years old.

According to the article, some of the threads found in the Georgian cave are twisted in a manner that suggests that they had been used for sewing, while still other threads had been dyed, though the article does not specify how this fact was determined by the archaeologists or what dyestuffs might have been used. But the discovering archaeologists believe that these threads may be evidence for cloth manufacture, not simply a collection of threads that were used to fasten materials together.   Possibly the making of cloth goes back even longer than was previously thought.

Another recent Current World Archaeology article discusses other recent costume-related finds, including the world's oldest shoe and the world's oldest jewelry. I commend it to your attention as well.

P.S. Science Magazine has published a short article by the archaeologists who were responsible for the thread find. Their article may be read on line or downloaded in PDF form by following the link on this page. Doing so is free, but Science Magazine's website requires non-subscribers to register for a free account first.  If you register, and follow the link to the article, you will find comments by other scientists disputing the archaeologists' identification of the fibers they found as flax.  Nothing is said in these comments about the archaeologists' other suggestions as to the potential use of these fibers.

Sewing the Period Way--Some Observations

Tonight, I started working on my savanion. Now, I'm not only using my bronze needle, but I'm using linen thread (80/3, in case you were wondering) to sew it. This is the very first time I've sewn with linen thread.

I've been waxing each sewing thread by running it across my beeswax bar a few times, then running the thread between my fingers once or twice before I thread it into my needle. I'm doing this because I've been told that linen thread tends to be rough, and to be difficult to draw through the cloth (even if it's linen cloth) unless you wax it first.

I expected that the beeswaxing ritual would be an annoyance, and would do little good. Again, to my surprise, the technique works rather well and isn't that much of a distraction. The waxing also has the advantage of stiffening the thread just enough to make it much easier to thread it into the eye of the needle.

In addition, I've noticed that getting the thread off of one of my floss bobbins is turning out to be no more trouble than unwinding thread from a modern spool, and the deep notches on the bobbins keep the remaining thread from unraveling itself from the bobbin much better than the shallower notches on many modern spools do.

The moral of this story is, in my opinion, that the period way really is practical, if you understand it well enough to do it right.