The cloak
I
have an inexplicable passion for short cloaks. They're not the
commonest or most documentable of garments, though, especially not
for late 14th century women. When it comes to preserved
examples, there's the famous Bocksten Man's cloak,
which is c. mid-14th century, male, and not particularly short. Then
we have the wonderful Cloak of St Brigitta,
which is...patchwork, but not short either.
Various
types of outer clothing, including cloaks, are mentioned in several
medieval Scandinavian wills. The words cappa
and mantel
are used, among other terms, and while mantel
seems to be the more feminine version of the two, both are used by both
men and women, it seems. The wills don't say much about the
construction of the garments that go along with the different terms,
though – whether they are long or short, open or closed... If
you read Scandinavian languages, I recommend Kläderna och människan i medeltidens Sverige och Norge by
Eva Andersson and the papers by Camilla Luise Dahl in
Middelaldercentret's Workpapers vol. 1
for discussions and definitions of various medieval
terms for outer clothing.
There
are numerous cloak-wearing shepherds in various manuscript from all
over the 14th century, all male. From Sweden, we have these two
lovely carved fellows from Martebo Church on Gotland, receiving the
message of the birth of Christ.
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| Shepherds from Martebo Church, Gotland. The second one is playing a
dog-headed bagpipe. Early 14th century. Pix by Vix. |
More
often than not, these cloaks have hoods and look more
like...well, huge hoods. I personally like to call them hoods,
to differentiate them from hood-less cloaks,
but this is my modern preference and it may not have anything to do
with how these garments were defined in medieval times, of course (I
actually tend to call them 'jättehätta',
literally 'big hood' – it sounds a lot funnier in Swedish).
Here's
a rather slim selection of 14th century women wearing some sort of
short cloak-like garment. The first two are Italian, which is perhaps
not the best source when you're reenacting Scandinavia/North
Germany like I do. They seem to have done a lot of things quite differently south of the Alps. The last three images are a bit more
interesting to me, as they are German in provenance. They all come
from an appliqué wall hanging showing episodes from the romance of
Tristan and Isolde. Although not particularly detailed, some of the
ladies do seem to be wearing what might possibly be interpreted as a
short cloak.
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| The
Tristan wall hanging, 1370-1400, Germany. Victoria & Albert
Museum. Pix by Vix. |
I've
found that a good place to look for cloaks is on monumental tombs.
All those weepers and mourners that decorate fancy people's graves
tend to wear more outdoorsy clothing than most. I've no idea why.
Maybe it's something to do with the transitional aspect of death and
burial, funeral processions or the journey of the soul, as cloaks appear to be typical travel clothing (or maybe
that's just my modern schooling struggling to assert itself with
fanciful interpretations...). Maybe they just liked their weepers
bundled up properly; after all, it can get rather chilly hanging
around a tomb waiting for Judgement Day. And so it was that I found
my Favourite Cloak Ever: This weeper from the tomb of Thomas and
Catherine de Beauchamp in St. Mary's Church, Warwick, dated to 1369.
I
just had to make it, nevermind the fact that it's a one-off garment
I've never seen anywhere else - in Albrecht's Bössor we usually
require at least two independent sources as basis for the kit we
make. It's also English, but I decided to
make a prototype anyway of some left-over fabric I had lying around
just to see what it would look like. The fabric was a really nice 2/1
twill, but I only had some rather narrow pieces left so the cloak
ended up being pieced together of triangular gores.
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| Me in my 'Warwick' cloak |
I
liked the model so much that I did a "proper" one, too, in
grey and without the piecing. Both have tablet-woven edges around the
arm-slits and buttons down the front and they are wonderful
bad-weather clothing! Unlike open cloaks, they don't flap open and let out the warmth when you move, and since they're short, they don't
get stuck in the vegetation when you walk in a forest, for example.
At least not as often as a long cloak does. I haven't mustered either
cloak for use with Albrecht's Bössor (we have informally formal
inspections of our clothes and gear in AB, to maintain a mutual
standard and encourage members to research their stuff) and I don't
think I will either, since I personally feel it's slightly off for
our chosen period, at least geographically. I make things like these
because it's fun, because I learn stuff doing it, not necessarily
because I will use them for serious reenactment.
As
I wrote in the previous post, planned events really get me working on
Stuff I Need – I find deadlines incredibly inspiring! For the
medieval pilgrimage I took part in in May this year, I both needed
and wanted some clothing for bad weather that would also measure up
to the standards I have set for my medieval kit. And that would pass
muster for Albrecht's Bössor too, preferably. The usual answer to
dealing with cold and rain when wearing medieval clothing is simple:
just add another layer. And that's all well and good. But if you're
spending a day or two outdoors in constant rain, you will get wet, no
matter how many layers you put on. And although wet wool still keeps
you warm, it only does so to a certain point and eventually the
chill will get to you. It does make a difference if you wring out the
water occasionally – wool can retain a good deal of moisture before
it starts dripping by itself so it needs a bit of help. Wet wool
slowly channels the water towards the lower points of the garment
(that's gravity for you!), which means that if you're wearing something
with sleeves, some of the water will inevitably stick around around
your arms. With a cloak, on the other hand, the water will eventually
end up in the lower edge (where it's easy to wring out) and generally
the wet fabric stays further away from you body than it would with a
fitted garment. So, in short – when it's raining, I want a cloak!
I
settled on making one with an integral hood, the shepherd model. The
evidence of women wearing a garment like this is...well...basically
non-existent, at least in the north European art I've looked at.
Short cloaks and hoods with an extended collar seem to work for both
sexes, though, so I decided to extrapolate a little. If a woman can
wear a hood that reaches half-way down her arms, like the two female
servants from Martebo Church on Gotland do, it's not a huge step to
lengthen the hood 30 cm so it reaches over the hands.
Edit: People have commented that the Martebo servants might not be wearing hoods/cloaks at all (both here and on Facebook) - that it's the dresses hitched up over a belt in combination with wide sleeves that narrow towards the wrists instead. Taking another look at the photos, I think I agree. Considering that the carvings are early 14th century, it fits so much better with contemporary fashion and preserved dresses like those of Elizabeth of Thuringia and St Clare. The reason I saw hoods is the rather sharp divide between the upper and lower part of the dresses and the deep fold by the shoulder: I have inserted gores on one of my hoods that look just like that!
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| Female servants, Martebo Church, Gotland, first half 14th century. Pix by Vix. |
Judging by the terms used in medieval wills, outer clothing seems to be reasonably flexible when it comes to gender. Or at least that's what I'm trying to convince myself... To make my hood a little less like the standard shepherd's hood, I chose to
base it on...wait for it!...a swineherd's hood instead. With buttons down the front. A completely
different kind of animal! ;-)
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| Carving from the choir stalls, Lund Cathedral.1370s. Pic by Vix. |
The
carving comes from the choir stalls of Lund Cathedral. The good thing
about it is that it's probably of German origin, which suits my
kit perfectly. If I'm going to wear a garment that's not particularly
female, I at least want it to be geographically suitable.
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| The shape of the thing, pieced together – Sometimes there's just
enough thread... – Finishing the edges |
The
pattern I opted for was simple enough. I used an existing pattern of
a Herjolfsnes-type hood, did away with the front gore and just added
enough length for it to reach down to my hands. I had to piece my
fabric a little, but other than that, only one long back seam was
needed to put it together. I lined it with a very thin, dark grey
worsted fabric. Since both my fabrics were grey, I decided to
compensate for the lack of fancy colours by putting more effort into
the finishing details. I stitched around all the edges and hems
with tiny red stitches. It looked very nice, but took just about
forever to do, and I quickly abandoned my original idea to make two
rows of stitches (like they have done on some of the Herjolfsnes
clothes). I also decided to use pewter buttons for the front, to save
time (and add fanciness!). On the choir stall carving, it's hard to
tell exactly how the buttons are placed, at least from my photos.
Sometimes the buttons seem to be placed two and two together, in
places there might even be three. Or maybe they're spaced evenly, but
the carving's a bit worn. Since I couldn't go to Lund to double check
(or had time to send one of my minions), I decided to place them
evenly, but ran out of both time and buttons. For the pilgrimage, I
made do with just half of the intended number of buttons and added
the rest...well, yesterday, actually.
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| The jättehätta ready for the pilgrimage – With the last of the
buttons added |
Edit 2015-01-10: I found another image of a woman wearing a short cloak: Herodias (mother of Salome) in the Triptych of the Martyrs from Dijon, dated to 1390-91. Being worn by a queen, it's a far fancier garment than the swineherd's hood, but not completely dissimilar to the jättehätta I made!
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| Herodias and Herod, from the Triptych of the Martyrs, Dijon, 1390-91. |
The pilgrimage
So,
what about this pilgrimage then? Here you can read some of the organiser
Frida's thoughts about the project: The medieval pilgrimage reenacted. During four days in May this year, a motley crew of 12 pilgrims, two dogs and four horses walked about 55 km along the medieval pilgrim route between Visby and S:t Olofsholm on the island of Gotland.
Unlike medieval pilgrims, we slept in tents, and brought all our food with us. In medieval times, pilgrims travelled lightly and would have found housing and food along the way – to refuse hospitality to a pilgrim was considered extremely bad manners... In medieval Sweden, there was a law that stated that there should be a hostel or similar place for travelling people to spend the night no more than a day's march apart (a day's march was considered to be about 30-40 km), so pilgrims would have had little trouble finding a place to stay. And sleeping outdoors was of course always an option. Being modern medieval pilgrims, however, we were not particularly used to sleeping rough, and although asking people along the way to let us stay the night would have been the medieval way to do it, sleeping in a modern place would just have felt wrong. So tents it was. The upside of bringing so much stuff with us was the sumpter horses. To have horses around made an already fantastic experience even better. I'm actually afraid of horses, so it felt very good when I, on the very last day of the pilgrimage, even dared to ride for the first time in my life!
For me, despite not being religious in my everyday life, the pilgrimage still ended up being a spiritual experience. I got time to slow down, to think and feel, and I realised a lot of things about myself. It also gave me a different understanding about medieval life and religion and how different things were back then. Walking 50 km in medieval shoes was definitely an interesting experience, both for my boots and my wimpy modern feet... It was a good thing I finished my big hood, too. The weather was quite good most of the time, but it started raining on the very last morning and it continued raining throughout the day. My hood did its job as you can see towards the end of this little film that Johan made about our pilgrimage:
Medieval Pilgrimage 2013!
I promised myself I would finish this post before Christmas...and well, I suppose I have. I haven't written anything about the leather costrel that I also made for the pilgrimage. Or my staff and scrip, which were blessed by the Bishop of Visby during the send-off mass. But this post is long and rambling enough as it is, so I'll just finish off with a few pictures from the road instead...
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| Getting to know the horses |
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| The road goes on... |
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| At Väskinde Church, the old wall still had stones with holes for tying up horses! |
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| Johan and pilgrim dog Boudica taking a nap |
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| The boots that did the walking |
And last, but not least: Boudica helping to model my jättehätta. With a medieval source...
Happy New Year!
References:
Andersson,
Eva. 2006. Kläderna
och människan i medeltidens Sverige och Norge.
Diss. Göteborg: Göteborgs universitet, 2006. [https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/2077/16894/5/gupea_2077_16894_5.pdf]
Dahl,
Camilla Luise. 2005. Workpapers
– tekstilforskning på Middelaldercentret vol. 1. [http://www.middelaldercentret.dk/pdf/workpapersvol1.pdf]
