Women have ALWAYS been better dressed than men: Medieval females preferred clothes cut from better quality cloth

  • Archaeologist studied scraps of cloth from clothes worn from 400-1,000 AD
  • Women were buried in robes made from linen, men wore garments of twill
  • Fabric used varies in different areas of the Netherlands, study shows

By SARAH GRIFFITHS FOR MAILONLINE

Published: | Updated:

It is said clothes make the man, but in medieval times women were much better dressed than their male counterparts.

Women often wore better quality clothes than men in the Middle Ages, an archaeologist has discovered.

She studied scraps of cloth from between 400 and 1,000 AD from clothes worn by women and men, to reveal that while females were buried in robes made of linen, males wore garments of lesser twill.

Women often wore better quality clothes than men in the Middle Ages, an archaeologist claims. A stock images of actors wearing medieval-style clothes at a knight's tournament in Germany is shown

Women often wore better quality clothes than men in the Middle Ages, an archaeologist claims. A stock images of actors wearing medieval-style clothes at a knight's tournament in Germany is shown

Chrystel Brandenburgh of the University of Leiden, scoured museums and archives for textile remnants from burial grounds and settlements spread over the Netherlands.

She found many regional variations in textile use in her study.

For example, women in Rhenen and Wijchen in the east of the Netherlands, were mostly buried in linen cloth, whereas she found twill cloth in the graves of men in the region.

Twill is a fabric so woven as to have a surface of diagonal parallel ridges. 

In Lent-Lentseveld, on the other hand, she found no traces of linen in women's graves, but linen was found in the graves of men and children.

Ms Brandenburgh came across scraps of fabric that had been completely overlooked when bones were excavated. 

Chrystel Brandenburgh of the University of Leiden, scoured museums and archives for textile remnants from burial grounds and settlements spread over the Netherlands. An example is pictured

Chrystel Brandenburgh of the University of Leiden, scoured museums and archives for textile remnants from burial grounds and settlements spread over the Netherlands. An example is pictured

While Ms Brandenburgh could not discern the shapes of medieval clothes (illustrated) from the scraps of cloth she studied, she managed to find traces showing cloth was richly coloured in red and brown
While Ms Brandenburgh could not discern the shapes of medieval clothes (illustrated) from the scraps of cloth she studied, she managed to find traces showing cloth was richly coloured in red and brown

While Ms Brandenburgh could not discern the shapes of medieval clothes (illustrated) from the scraps of cloth she studied, she managed to find traces showing cloth was richly coloured in red and brown, for example

MEDIEVAL FASHION FEATURES 

In the late Middle Ages, in the 14th century, shoes and hats were all the rage, according to a book by Margaret Scott called Fashion in the Middle Ages, via Medievalists.

Fashionable Middle Aged people in Italy wore 'socks and sandals' in around 1400. These were actually stockings with leather soles.

Doctors and academics wore scarlet or violet in Paris to help them stand out from the crowd.

The length of medieval fashionable tunics rose and fell like hemlines today.

In the Late Middle Ages, tunics were extremely short, but only nobility were allowed to show off their buttocks beneath tights.

Peasants updated outfits with accessories, instead of splashing out on the latest clothes, which were often painstaking to make. 

For instance, the way a person wore their belt could help update their look.

Servants sometimes had to wear livery to show whom they served. Tunics made of two halves of different colours called 'mi parti'.

'In the collection at the Museum of Antiquity, for example, I found two pieces of clothing that people didn't even realise existed,' she said.

She had to work from minute samples of material, most of which had already disintergrated so that all that is left is the impression left by the cloth in the worn layer on metal accessories like clasps and pins.

'You have to imagine that people were put into their graves completely clothed,' she explained.

'In many cases, they were buried with all kinds of gifts that were also wrapped in cloth, and then sometimes there was even another cloth on top of that.

'Of all that material, you might find just a couple of remnants of about a square centimetre.'

From analysing the tiny scraps of material, Ms Brandenburgh said people buried in the graves were often laid to rest in several several layers of clothes.

'But I generally have to hazard a guess at the shape and cut of the garments: there isn't enough information available to be certain.'

Traditionally, women are shown wearing aprons and voluminous sleeves.

By experimenting on the samples, Ms Brandenburgh found she was able to determine the colour some garments would have been.

For example, she found some garments were red and brown in colour.

Whereas women in Rhenen and Wijchen were mostly buried in linen cloth, the same fabric was found in the graves of men and children in women in Lentseveld (all marked on the map)

Whereas women in Rhenen and Wijchen were mostly buried in linen cloth, the same fabric was found in the graves of men and children in women in Lentseveld (all marked on the map)

Furthermore, the red colour found in clothes from burial mounds in the northern Netherlands came from the common madder plant and the dark brown colour came from other sources.

'I discovered, for example, that a brown hat was made of brown wool that had been dyed even darker,' she said.

'I was able to see this because there was some decorative stitching on the hat that hadn't been dyed.'

The colour and quality of clothes helps shed light on daily life at the time.

'It's [clothing is ] functional, but it also expresses the identity or position of the wearer,' Ms Brandenburgh said.

'I have concentrated only on the textile remnants found because so little research has been done in this field, but there is more information to be gained from the other contents of the grave, which can add to our knowledge,' she added.  

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