Medieval Costume Patterns

The social status often dictated the kind of clothing worn during the Medieval period. Here’s a look at some of the common Medieval costume patterns.
Comments on article "Medieval Costume Patterns"
Name Views and CommentsDate
Ani this was very interesting keep it up^^ 5/7/2009
Selkie Inaccurate, oversimplified, and misleading. The dates are mixed up, the colour and material information is simply wrong, the shawl information is wrong, external corsets is wrong - this entire article needs to be redone, this time with research. 3/21/2009
Ashley It was a helpful web site, but to make it even better it needs like a time line of the centuries. 2/23/2009
Keri "External corsets" were NEVER part of medieval dress because corsets were not even invented until the 1500's (the Renaissance) and they were NEVER worn outside the clothing. I think you are mistaking the decorated panels in Tudor and Elizabethan dresses for corsets.

Surcoats were originally worn by men, not by women. It is generally accepted that men started wearing surcoats during the Crusades to keep the sun from roasting them in all of that armor. They quickly became very useful in Europe to identify the wearer through heraldry. Women began wearing surcoats after the men brought them back from the middle east (just as, at other points in time, women's clothing has mimicked uniforms), although only women's surcoats evolved into the sideless surcoat.

"Tight waistcoats with breeches?" Not in the middle ages! Not even close to the middle ages! What you are describing is 18th century clothing, as there was no such thing as a waistcoat in the middle ages or the Renaissance (maybe you are confusing it with a doublet?). Breeches didn't appear until the Elizabethan period. For the entirety of the middle ages, up until sometime in the 1400's, men were wearing dress-like garments which came to somewhere below their privates and above their calves, with nothing but separate hosen underneath. It wasn't until the 15th century that they figured out how to make hosen one piece, which eventually allowed them to evolve into pants or breeches.

I think where you use the term "shawl" you mean cloak, as I have never seen a medieval person wearing what we would today call a shawl, but they all wore cloaks out of doors.

And is there a reason why you have a picture of a woman wearing 18th century clothing attached to an article which is supposed to be about medieval clothing (approximately 6th-15th centuries)?		 12/10/2008
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