Rant About Poor Scholarship

I’m going to be a bit ranty today. I just saw something on The Daily Mail that really concerns me. Supposedly Hilary Davidson, the fashion curator at the Museum of London, says that the discovery of these two items “totally rewrites” fashion history. To which I say BOLLOCKS!

These items were found in Lengberg Castle in east Tyrol (Austria). They are thought to have been buried c. 1480. I’ve spent 30+ years as a re-enactor studying late 15th century and early 16th century “German” Landsknechts. It’s probably the period I know the most about, and these garments don’t rewrite ANYTHING from where I’m sitting. In fact, they appear to be rather common.

Let’s start with the underpants (please click on the images to enlarge them, I had to make them small to fit them all in). I haven’t the slightest idea how Davidson came to the conclusion that the underwear were for women. Every scrap of evidence I’ve seen supports the opposite conclusion. Here is a detail from The Men’s Bathhouse by Albrecht Dürer, 1498. What are all the MEN wearing? Little undies that tie on the sides. They look suspiciously familiar, don’t they? Not entirely sure how anyone claiming to be a fashion historian with a specialty in the Medieval period could fail to have connected this garment and this image in a heartbeat.

UPDATE: Please see the comment from Nutz below. "Davidson NEVER came to the conclusion that the underpants were for women and I NEVER said so either. I always said that underpants were a male garment in the Middle Ages." So the quote in The Daily Mail is misleading. 

On to the “bra”. Please look closely at this garment. The bottom is frayed. Why? Because there’s something missing. Please look at the side. See all the little eyelet holes? Those are for lacing. What was the MAIN female undergarment of the day? The kirtle (a long, tightly-fitted smock). You can see tons of examples of this garment in the Wenceslaus Bible (dated to the late 14th century). There is NOTHING groundbreaking about finding the top portion of a kirtle. 

I know sensationalism sells, but is it really worth your reputation to make such easily debunked statements? I know I’ve pretty much lost all respect for the Davidson, and I have serious reservations about anything coming out of the Museum of London at this point.  (I'll cut this given that I'm being told Davidson was misquoted). In conclusion, I’ll wait until I hear something from Dr. Jutta Zander-Seidel telling me that SHE thinks these rather common looking garments “totally rewrite” fashion history.

Rant over. Ok, not quite ... Update:

fighting for the pants

More reading for those who just can’t get enough of the topic. Here is Beatrix Nutz’s article for BBC History Magazine, and here is a shorter piece that was posted on the University of Innsbruck website (where it specifically notes that the cache contained men’s clothing, further undercutting the attribution of the underwear as women’s clothing). Given what I’ve seen so far, I stand by my opinion of the find. Is it possible I’ll change my mind? Sure … at least about the “bras” (there are still two I haven’t seen). But not about the underpants. There’s simply no supporting documentation out there for them to be attributed to women, nor is there any reason to pluck them out of a mixed cache of clothing and come to that conclusion. 

UPDATE from Nutz's comment: "As to the “longline bra”: The bottom is NOT frayed. There is a hem at the lower end, even if it is only preserved over a short length. In addition there is NOTHING to indicate that a skirt may have been sewn onto that end thus making it a kirtle. No tiny holes in the fabric where a sewing needle and thread may have passed through.

And the kirtles in the Wenceslaus Bible: They do have narrow shoulder straps like the “longline bra” but I can´t make out anything that even remotely resembles cups. Besides – there´s still the other “bras” from Lengberg that end right below the breasts and are definitely NOT upper parts of dresses."

I don't agree that you can extrapolate from art 100%, so it's not possible to dismiss the tie to the bathing gowns simply because you can't make out cups. But given that Nutz has access to all the "bras", I'll again state that I'm open to having my mind changed on this one. Perhaps the French article will have more and better images? Or perhaps Nutz will post high rez ones somewhere? 

I’d love if they made the dig notes and pictures available. I’d also love to see the final thesis that Nutz is working on, as it’s entirely possible that the article she wrote (and the ensuing coverage in the news) isn’t wholly representational.  I’m attempting to get a hold of the partial notes that a friend had previously reviewed, but the link for them has been removed. More to come, hopefully!

Beating husband w/spindle
while pulling on his pants

Another Update: I found the link to another article in German. The ever lovely GrowlyCub gave it a quick look over since she’s fluent and her report is that all it says is that DNA testing on the underpants was inconclusive in attempting to establish which sex wore them and that all the evidence for women wearing them is confined to art. What it doesn’t mention is that all of said art is allegorical in nature, and you can’t use it to show that women wore underpants any more than you can to show that Landsknecht soldiers wore sandals. (Nutz says in the comments that she agrees with this point, so I clearly misunderstood the articles). The images she’s talking about are all about hen-pecked husbands and adulteresses. They all allude to the woman wearing the man’s garments to assert her authority (the underpants in question) and they frequently show the husband desperately trying to get them back. Here are a couple that aren't in any of the linked articles so far. What needs to be acknowledged is that the power of the image is lost if this was a common woman’s garment. The reason underpants were chosen to symbolize the wife stealing the husband’s power is because the garment was unmistakably seen as masculine during the period.

19th Century "Smalls"

Underwear, that is. Smalls, short for “small clothes,” in the 19th century underwent a change as drastic as conquering the West and building bridges and cities. Of course, these changes reflected the changing status of women and - most certainly - their location: Eastern and Southern ladies wore gowns from Paris, laced-up corsets, and petticoats so bouffant getting through doorways or perching on settees could be problematic. Women walking across the country with a covered wagon had no time for such fripperies.

Even so, a German writer in 1865 noted peasant girls working in fields in crinolines, and one Arnold Bennett captured the hazards in a scene from “Old Wives’ Tale: Two young girls unpack their mother’s new crinoline, and Sophia tries it on. “Her mother’s newly delivered crinoline ballooned about her in all its fantastic richness and expensiveness.... Then Sophia fell, in stepping backwards; the pyramid was overbalanced, great distended rings of silk trembled and swayed gigantically on the floor, and Sophia’s small feet lay like the feet of a doll on the rim of the largest circle, which curved and arched above them like a cavern’s mouth.”

Layers of petticoats meant more washing, so women going West dispensed with all but one layer. The camisole top was de riguer, as was the tight-laced corset, though I cannot imagine how one survived in dust and 100 degree heat trussed up like a turkey. But in town populations, “ladyness”was judged in terms of whalebone and lacings.

One English woman, not tightly laced until she was married, tells in the “Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine” (1868), how she started doing so because her husband was “so particularly fond of a small waist.” Her waist was 23 inches, but she ordered a 14-inch pair of stays and “managed the first day to lace my waist in to eighteen inches.” She slept in it all night and got her maid to tighten it once inch each day until her waist was 14 inches. “For the first few days the pain was very great . . . ”

An interesting footnote to this story is the experiment by Doris Langley Moore, a leading [historical] costume expert, who searched for the 18 inch waist in fashion museums. She measured 1000 women’s costumes from the Victorian period and failed to find any less than 20.5 inches around!

Dr. William Barrylord in his book “The Corset and the Crinoline” cautioned that lacing shoved the organs around, weakened stomach support muscles and induced much “temporary”suffering.

What began in the 1860s as loose, oversized chemises with wide necklines, drawstrings, and wide sleeves, (often in wool for warmth), were worn over large-sized drawers, called knickers, open in the back and tied at the waist with a drawstring.

By the 1880s, corsets became longer and petticoats were “bustled” with twill stiffened with whalebone or stiffly starched ruffles at the back. Quilted petticoats were worn for warmth, many made of red flannel. Later, the “princess” petticoat appeared, combining a camisole or bodice with a petticoat. Corsets were now available in yellow, apricot, and deep blue and were more decorative, often made of satin and lace. “Suspenders” kept up one’s stockings, and these were often attached to a waist belt or even the corset itself.




The camisole was not an effective bust-enhancer, so the French developed pink rubber “poitrines” and women adopted bust pads, celluloid and rubber bust shapes, and “lemon bosoms.” The bustline was a rounded bolster, with no division or “cleavage.” The heavily boned “bust bodice” was the beginning of our modern brassiere.

Invention of the “combination,” combining chemise and drawers in linen, cotton, or even merino flannel, corresponded with the growth in women’s emancipation (Marriage and Divorce Act of 1857 (Scotland); Married Women’s Property Acts of 1881(England) but at first such social progress did not affect women’s undergarments. Tight-lacing, bustles, voluminous petticoats, constricting underwear, and skirts that trailed on the ground coexisted for years with women seeking freedom for higher education and the right to vote. For decades women looked outwardly the same, following established conventions of fashion - slimness, well-developed bustline, small waist, large hips. But underneath . . .

The underwear revolution began mid-19th century with a health craze: women were advised to stop lacing themselves into tight corsets, wear wool undergarments next to the skin, wear only one petticoat, and adopt loose bloomers. Interestingly, in the skirt-and-shirtwaist era, women’s blouses imitated men’s shirts, with high collar and tie. This look was standard until the introduction of oversized sleeves - the “Gibson girl” look. The “walking dress” of the 1880s had become a tailor-made, worn with knickers closed at the back and “sanitary underclothing,” (wool “combinations” next to the skin). Waists were still sharply defined.

By the 20th century, underwear was coming into its own, resulting in 21st century wisps of lace and rayon “thongs” and bikini briefs with matching, wildly colored, minuscule bra-tops. What next?

Source: Elizabeth Ewing, Fashion in Underwear, From Babylon to Bikini Briefs, Dover, 1971.