Buttoning hoods have recently become a staple in 14th Century living history, especially where more well-to-do representations are concerned. Looking at any work of 1300's art will show a plethora of styles and fashions of these hoods to choose from, which can often make the task of deciding on a specific pattern daunting. For this particular rendition, we opted to copy a style seen in one of the illustrations of the Speculum Humanae from 1360's Germany. In the work, the man wearing the hood has what appears to be a fitted hood of red and multi-color striped wool. Aside from the stripes, the minute features of his hood are lacking, however, given the style of fashion in which it drapes over his shoulders and neck, it is easy to speculate that this was one of the famed hoods which features buttons down the front and some form of ties or securing mechanisms under the arms.
For our reproduction, we went with a very fine red-striped herringbone wool which appears to pretty aptly copy that seen in the art. Due to its thinness, however, woad blue-dyed wool was also used as a lining - a technique which is still speculative within the reenactment community today, though necessary in this case for the hood to maintain stability and durability. It was sewn entirely using red linen thread and all seams were running back-stitched and then double-folded and whip-stitched for treatments. A matching striped liripipe tail was added to the back, as per the original work. An assortment of buttons was added down the front to secure the hood in a more fitted manner, and the side which bears the buttonholes also was reinforced using silk thread which was tablet-woven directly into the fabric's hemmed edge - a fashion seen on many extant buttoning garment edges, evidently to add durability to the garment and prevent ripping. Finally, finger-woven tubular braids were added to the four armpit corners so as to be tied under the arms and secure the hood in place. This technique is also conjectural, however, since no surviving examples, both in artwork nor extant garments, are present to base this on, we simply have to assume some form of narrow ware was used for this task. Overall, a hood of this style would be correct and representative for any middle or upper-class German male of means for the middle of the 14th Century. Due to the complexity and materials involved in its construction, it should be left out of any lower-class impressions, however. Below is the reconstructed garment, along with the original work upon which it was based.
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For a long period of time, buttoning and fitted hoods were considered garments that fell into the realm of female Medieval clothing, however, as time has progressed the evidence for their wear by men has grown exponentially, especially in working and utility contexts. This particular hood is based off that seen in one of the works within the Speculum Humanae from 1360's Germany, and was worn by a man.
Though his hood lacks any features which denote it as actually bearing buttons, the fitted style in which it was painted makes it clear that the garment likely did bear some form of fasteners to achieve the fitted silhouette seen. The hood has a square bottom in the front, rounded shoulders which fit over the arms in a tailored manner, and a long liripipe, which he has tied around the crown of his head. My reproduction is made from a similarly striped wool, however, due to the thinness of it, the hood also bears a lining of a thin blue tabby-woven wool, as well. The body is fitted around the chest, shoulders, and neck area (though the pattern could be tweaked a little in the future to make it more fitted in the latter region), and this is all made possible by a series of buttons which span from the lower hem to up under the chin. The edge bearing the buttonholes has also been reinforced with woven-in tablet-woven silk trim - a feature not depicted in the original work, but seen on many surviving extant examples of buttoning garments. The shoulders are made to be fitted via a pair of gores inserted into the lower sides to open them up and make them form to the curve of the shoulder area. This is then aided with a series of finger-woven tubular ties made from woad-dyed blue wool yarn. These were looped through the fabric of the hood itself and then braided until they were the proper length. These tie underneath the arms to hold the hood in place. Note, this is a conjectural approach, and while we have no evidence of exactly how these hoods were made to be fitted underneath the arms, ties or narrowares of some form were likely the most probably used for this task. "You talk lots about God,
Freedom comes from the call, But that's not what this b*tch wants, Not what I want at all..." Germany ; 1360's While it is common to want to try and formulate our own versions of Medieval outfits, often with mixed results, sometimes if we attempt to copy a piece directly, we see a lot of features come to light that we wouldn't have known otherwise. This is one of the joys of reconstructive archaeology and gives us great insight into how these people moved about in the world they inhabited.
Here is an attempted recreation of a specific scene from the "Speculum Humanae" from 1360's Germany. The scene depicts two men cutting the coat and beard off another man - likely intended to be something biblical in nature - and I opted to recreate the left-hand man's fashion. He wears a fitted, striped hood, with the liripipe wrapped and tied around his head. His Cote is a fitted and buttoned model with what appears to be buttons not only down the front, but the sleeves, as well, and embroidery along the bottom hem. The features of his belt and whether he has a girdle purse are unknown, so we filled in the blanks on those and added a fancy French import belt and copied a girdle purse from another depiction within the same work. He carries an Oakeshott Type XIV sword on his belt, which though predominantly a late 13th and early 14th Century style, likely did carry over in use later in the century. The sheath to the utility knife he is using to cut the attacked's coat hem is thrust through the loops of the girdle purse. Finally, he wears yellow, highly-fitted wool separate-leg Hosen, likely with linen Braies underneath. In the art, the man appears to be wearing cutwork-style black leather shoes, however, these have been determined as likely only being worn as court fashion, and were not thought to have been durable enough for every day wear, so we opted to go with fully-enclosed shoes, made with calf-skin uppers, thicker cow leather lowers, and close via a latchet strap. Overall, the representation seems to have been a success, as it is impossible to almost identically recreate a piece of artwork in its entirety. Certain features did not translate nearly as well to real life - such as the way the tying of the liripipe around the head caused the buttoned hood to pucker and gape open around the face, or the fact that the Cote bunches and wrinkles heavily when in the same position of cutting as the subject in the art. With those critiques noted, however, it is likely that were this event really happening, these small features would have mattered not, and this would have likely been a more realistic interpretation than the pristine fashion in a stylized attempt to reflect what the author saw around him. |
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