Different layers of the everyday german dress

A couple of days ago I got a lot of old pictures from a friend, Linda at Handcrafted history, taken last year and the year before that. Some of them show the outfit that is so far my favorite one, just because I feel like me in it, like Im wearing my regular clothing. And the pictures are taken to show all the layers, except for the shirt. So I thought I should put some of them here on my blog to show you. They are all taken at Doublewars in Nordmark last year.

Kirtle/Unterrock 

The kirtle, or the unterrock in german, was part of everyday clothing for all classes of society during the 16th century. It could be partly visible with a decorative hemline under a gown or used with a jacket and an apron. The decorative trimmings were regulated by sumptuary laws. 

 

 Mine is made from the Tailor´s book of Enns published in Drei Schnittbucher. Its made like this. I made it with sleeves but they were taken away during a very warm banquet in mars 2019. The kirtle has a cut- on bodies with the bodice cut in one with the skirt, and shifted side back seam. The dress is made in a thin wool twill. It has red velvet trimmings around the neckline.

Gown/Rock

Among the numerous variations the gown, or Rock in german, the one-piece woman´s dress, was the overall most frequent used. (During the 16th century this started to change, with the loose skirt and jacket.) The deep and wide cut on the shoulder neckline was regulated in the sumptuary laws. Therefore, if your neckline was to low, you needed to wear a high-necked hemden/shirt or a gollar. The trimmings was for decoration and according to class. The sumptuary law regulated with detailed gradations the material and width of allowed trims for the different classes. If you wore a trim to wide you could get a vanity penaltie. Nurnberg regislation stated in 1536 that trimmings of expensive fabric could be used on the upper body - at the neckline and on the sleeveends. The most common material for the gown, for all social classes, was different kinds of wool and wool blends.

In this picture Im wearing my gown/rock on top of my kirtle. Its made in red twill with a black twill trimming. The neckline is quite low so Im wearing a linen undergollar with embroideries, made like this.  The embroideries comes from a painting from 1530 of Katharina von Bora, the wife of Martin Luther. And also a black apron in thin black wool, a very common colour for aprons during this time. The gown and kirtle are not made to be used together. Therefore the kirtle got a bit more fancy trimmings in velvet. It should might have been the other way around. The sleeves are a bit long, but it is made to be able to put my hands in there when Im cold. 

Steuchlein

The most common headwear for woman during this period is the wulsthaube with a veil, and later on a haube. The complete headdress consisted of an under coif/cap (Unterhaube) and a veil, which was likely known as the Steuchlein, and it is the most frequently mentioned headdress in the clothing inventories through all the social classes in 16th century Germany. In the first years of the 16^th century the wulst is large in size. The fashionable development of the headwear later saw a reduction in size.

Mine is quite small and is therefore not from the first decade, rather from 1520-30. The embroidery is from German Renaissance Patterns for Embroidery, a facsimile copy of Nicolas Bassée´s New Modelbuch of 1568. The embroidery is also the same as on the sleeve of the daughter of Jakob Meyer in the painting The Darmstadt Madonna from 1526-28.

Schaube/cloak

This garment were common for women during the early 16th century. It was not reserved for the upper classes, it depended on the materials used. They were often furlined and which kind of fur you were allowed to use was regulated. There were also unlined ones, for summer. According to Textiler hausrat wool became common as lining from the second decade of the century. In the end of the century yellow wool was apparently the predominate lining material. 

 

My schaube is made from a patterns presented in Drei Schnittbucher, "Brides little schaube". The front collar and back yoke is cut gestalt creating a lovely high and warm collar. Its made of wool and lined with mink, a bit to fancy for me, I know. It has decorative buttons on each side of the openings in the sideseams. 

And yes, I do wear another steuchlein in this picture, but I wanted to show you the back of the schaube and I didnt have a picture of that from the same occasion. But here you see the back yoke and the pleats in the back that occure when you fold the backpiece to the smaller yoke.

Literature:

Textilier hausrat

Drei Schnittbucher

German Renaissance Patterns for Embroidery

Foto: Linda Öhman and Malin From

Help with translation: Anna Malmborg