Collections

[mmcnealy]

Some people collect little knicknacks, salt and pepper shackers or other such dust collectors..... I collect information.

Sometimes its a compelling obsession, such has I HAVE to know or prove something to someone because I know I'm right and I just need the references to prove it to them. Other times its an odd, quirky sort of searching, I'll come up with a question and just collect odd, random bits of information, trivia, images, references on a particular topic.

Current Quirky Searches include (these are just the active ones)

- How was laundry done in Renaissance Europe, specifically Germany? Are there any images of it? What kind of soap was used? Tools? Drying racks?

We know they did laundry, I just want to know *how* specifically.

- Was linen used as an outer fashion fabric in clothing besides headcoverings? What were the dyes used?

This is the newest research focus, I had this vision this afternoon of writting the definitive research paper on the subject and shutting the "wool and silk only in outer garments" crowd up forever. Its an interesting topic because the clues are in so many different places; clothing inventories, wills, trading and merchant records, extant garments, Books of humors and herbals, just to name a few sources that I've found clues in.

- Images of Sturtzes, those great Nurnberger women's church going headress upon a headress.

-Where did the steuchlien and wulsthaube come from? Italy? From magic mushrooms? Random mutations of fashion?

-What was the daily life of a burgher woman like? What was she doing at 10am in the morning? What did she eat for lunch?

Comments

[sarahbellem.livejournal.com]

Thing I've always wondered about: The resemblence between Germanic women's clothing and Roman women's clothing during the same portion of the 16th century. Was Rome trading heavily with Germany at that time or something?

[mmcnealy.livejournal.com]

Yes, there was a lot of trade happening between Italy and Germany, southern Germany especially, and lots of Italians lived in the German towns too.

Really interesting books that discuss this are:

Magdalena and Balthasar by Steven Ozment.

Its a collection of letters between a Nuremberger husband and wife, the husband is constantly traveling on a loop route between German towns and Italy.

Flesh and Spirit, Private Life in Early Modern Germany, by Steven Ozment

Uses letters and family archives from the time to build a picture around the life cycle stages, birth, childhood, adolesence and transition to adulthood, marriage. One of the sections is on a young man's travels to Italy to learn Italian and the business of trade.

[serenalyons.livejournal.com]

Can I put in my vote for the magic mushroom as the origin? That was too cute, and made me chuckle.

[mirazandar.livejournal.com]

Where did the wulsthaube come from? Italy? From magic mushrooms? Random mutations of fashion?

I am wondering, - how do you put it on. Do you do (or imitate) the type of hairtaping that you see on flemish paintings, or do you use a "headroll"? I know that in Norwegian folk costumes (that were in use during the 18th, 19th and early 20th century), they had both braids and "headrolls", sometimes on top of eachother.

[mmcnealy.livejournal.com]

Although women had long braids during this period, they weren't very thick, this can be seen in bath house scenes and such. Also, there is inventorial evidence that rolls attachted to caps where used for the structure. How and what the rolls were made of and how they were attatched is what I am trying to figure out.

Linen

[kiarapanther.livejournal.com]

In case you hadn't run across it yet (though you probably have) in the inventories in Heralds Italian book (can't remember the title right now, Renaisance Italy 1400-1500 something like that) there is at least one mention of a linen house dress that seemed to me like a regular gamurra in linen for when the lady of the house was not leaving the estate. But I need to reread it.

[ciorstan.livejournal.com]

I doubt the idea of linen outerwear sprang fully formed from the head of Zeus:

http://www.concealedgarments.org/research/case_studies/reigate.html

http://www.reconstructinghistory.com/17thc/doublet.html

http://www.reconstructinghistory.com/17thc/insanity.html

http://www.reconstructinghistory.com/17thc/jacket.html

And in Avril Hart's book (talked about in some of Kass McGann's pages) there is a very informal loose linen jacket from the late 1500s that looks exactly like a 1950s swing jacket...

I suspect more linen garments simply haven't survived the ravages of time; they were either worn to pieces or if buried with the owner, disintegrated quickly.

-Where did the steuchlien and wulsthaube come from? Italy? From magic mushrooms? Random mutations of fashion?

I betchya it was something that evolved from draping a cloth over a braid (or hair-taped roll) wrapped over the back of the head. There is a German portrait from one of the later Medieval Women calendars that shows a red-blonde woman with a huge braid wrapped around the back of her head that would be a good foundation for one of those veils. I can't find an image online, unfortunately.