Started redoing old photos that were taken at the start of my Viking Age journey with my current and highly-accurate kit. It's amazing to see the difference in the items worn and carried between the two photos!
The photo on the left is the old photo, taken back in 2015, not long after I had just started studying Viking Age Scandinavian history and culture. It was my first attempt at a Klappenrock, and even though many folks still thought the outfit was cool (even I myself did at the time), comparing to the photo on the left, which was taken this year in the Fall of 2020, one can see how much needed to be improved. Literally nothing worn in the left-hand photo carried over the five-year gap into the current kit, all of which was made by studying original examples of both textiles, as well as leather and weapon goods from the Wikinger Museum Haithabu, as well as works the like of "Textilfunde aus Haithabu" and "Lederfunde aus Haithabu". This goes to show that, while many of us want to believe our first kit on a subject is all we need, there is always room for improvement! If one had confronted me five years ago and told me that nearly everything about the photo on the left was wrong, I would have fought them tooth and nail, but now, looking back, I am willing to admit I knew next to nothing about what I was attempting to portray, and hopefully this admission will be cause for others to look at their outfits and kits and look at improving them, as well! The latter years of the Viking Age saw great leaps in style and fashion. By the time the Normans completed their conquest of England in the late 11th Century, thus bringing what is considered the semi-official end to the Viking Age proper, the fashion of warriors fighting such wars had changed from the traditional forms of their Germanic ancestors to a sleeker, modernized look - and the first resemblance to the famed knights of the High Medieval period.
Seen here is the remnants of the dying breed - a Danish warrior clad in the more traditional garb of his Germanic and Vendel predecessors. While many of the pieces were still considered up-to-date at the time, such as the fitted and stylish Hedeby Type I tunic, and all dated to the 10th Century and recovered from Haithabu, he still wears the Klappenrock, often believed by scholars to be an upper-class garment - and one specifically associated with warrior classes, a fashion which dates back at least to the Migration Period. He wears this in conjunction with fitted diamond twill trousers in a style similar to the much earlier Thorsberg fashion - again, a style mirrored in finds from Haithabu - and a testament to how long some of these styles held onto their existence. Over it all is wears a very heavy fringed diamond twill cloak. We tend to forget that many of these men who were not Vikings regularly traveling abroad were quite conservative in their views, not least of which on fashion, and would have tried to hold onto what they felt familiar with as the status quo until the very end. This would have likely been quite akin to the feelings of the Samurai during the Meiji Restoration in Japan of the 19th Century in that this elite Pagan warrior class had long held in place the established societal rules and laws of their ancestors, only to be fighting tooth and nail to maintain this by the time Christianization had finalized in the mainland of Europe. Or it could have been far less dramatic and many of these men openly welcomed these changes and did not resist them nearly as hard as we tend to romanticize with neo-Pagan viewpoints today. Perhaps we will truly never know. Haithabu, Current-Day Germany ; 10th Century. |
AboutThis part of the site will look at the various aspects of life on Viking Age Danish people. From what they ate, to how they may have fought. Archives
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