Renaissance Germany - more than landsknecht

When doing fashion of renaissance Germany people often assume you are doing landsknecht/trossfrau. People say - I want to make landsknecht and pictures of nobility and people of the city showes up. People tend to think that all that is renaissance germany are landsknecht. But there is so much more.  When doing larp and reenactment there are most often no rules, you can wear what every you like. Mix and match. But if you wants to make an outfit that is historically accurate, there is rules to consider. Using a picture from Pinterest is common today. You find something you like and wants to do the same. Of course! But if it is a picture or a painting with a new description to it, it can be hard to know what it represents. What is it that we actually looking at? It might be a bit better to use a woodcut or a painting were the source is known, to know what your inspiration is. If you want your recreated outfit to be as correct as you can make it. So lets talk about that. I will focus on landsknecht compared to the rest of the social classes because that was the topic that got me thinking about this. 

When looking at the different style of clothing to chose from when doing renaissance Germany the sumptuary law is a good way to start. The german society were divided into classes, with different rules for clothing for different classes. Municipal and state governments prescribe people´s clothing through the sumptuary laws, so that their appearance accorded with their class, wealth and function. There were the peasants, the bauern, in german. The burger, the ordinary town dwellers, including the tradespeople. The peasant and the towns people would be the biggest groups, the most common way of life for most people during this era. Next step were the patricians and the merchants, the geshlechter and the kaufleute. And next were the nobility, the adel. When I made my golden egg-project I looked at the sumpuary law to see which social classes that could wear embroideries. That article can be found here and could be interesting for other a little bit more luxuries goods too. 

This is german outfits.

And this.

 

And this.

And this.

And what about the landsknechts?

The landsknechts were mercenaries during the early modern period. The word landsknecht first appeared in the german language around 1470. They served during the reigns of Maximilian I and Charles V in the 16th century. And they came from many social classes, they did not have one of their own. Ordinary soldiers would most likely come from the bauern and burger classes. 

It was normal for a soldier to bring his wife and children on campaign. This resulted in a train of considerable size and disarray. The train was often consisting of more people then the soldiers themself´s. 3000 soldiers could give a commander 4000 women and children extra in the train. We tend to call the women trossfrau, or campfrau, or in swedish bumla, a made up word. The women belonged to the army and  were essential to its military functions. So what did the women do there? What kind of life did they live?

She carried her partners things. In the book Women, armies, and warfare in early modern Europe we can read that the metaphor of the woman being her partner´s "mule" appears in military commentaries. She also took care of his clothing, nursed him, feed him. She was important to his survival in the field. Doing work that was consider female shamed the masculinity of a soldier and therefore such duties were reserved for women, even during campaign. It was a hard life. It was always the risk of injuries or rape. Some of the women had to sell themself´s. According to the book The Landsknechts by Douglas Miller the men and woman of the army were often left to find shelter on their own. Shelter in form of a simple tent or a hut made of branches. This was the normality for the bigger part of the army, except for higher ranked officers and their women. There was also the opportunity to seek shelter in a near by city, in the houses of common people of the city. The lives they lived tend to be glorified in the reenactment of today, but life on campaign was not easy.

There is this saying that landsknechts could wear whatever they liked because they had such hard lives. Maximilian I was the one that should have said this. And this is what you always get when trying to say that everybody cant wear brocade. Yes, I know about these words. But I dont think that just because of these everybody, that grew up controlled by the sumptuary laws, after joining the army started to buy whatever they could get hold on, to put what ever money they got, on jewels and brocade. If the soldiers had the money to, their woman could, but far from everybody had. Rich clothing is also indicative of exalted position within the regiment. The flamboyance of dress was a formal insignia of rank. Not everybody had it.

The slashed clothing became typical for the Landsknecht but the increasingly slashed fashion was considered shocking to the common people of the period. Before it started to inspire also the common fashion...but the slashing itself in landsknecht-clothing was probably inspired by the noblemen in northern Italy during the Italian wars. According to Landsknecht soldier 1486-1560 there are no evidence that it was used to make the clothing easier to move in. 

My thoughts about the outfit for a woman of the tross is that it need to be practical. She is going to cook in a field kitchen, she might sleep outside, she need to carry a lot of stuff. I have made many trossfrau-dresses. The last one is the one I am the most satisfied with. The one that I tried to make as accurate as I could. 

Here I tried to make something simple, a dress for a common frau of the tross, with a partner being a simple soldier, without rank. The yellow is cheap to dye, so is the red. The sleeves are tight and half of it can be taken off if needed, for cooking or washing up. 

Hats on women are not so common as you may think in the woodcuts and paintings. I have one, but I dont use it that much nowadays. Feathers are not common either, small ones around a tellerbarett or just one in a smaller hat exists, but having a bunch as I do here is not common at all. But it looks sooo good though... You always cover your hair with a steuchlein. 

The apron is made of unbleached linen, a cheaper kind than the bleached white. The socks are also undyed. 

This dress is made with a certain dress from a painting in mind. Its painted in 1501 by Hans Burchmeier - Triumph of Maximilian I. Her dress is light pink, also a cheap dye.

Nowadays I mostly do city dwellers, a common person living in a city in southern Germany. 

Im having a small embroidery on my stechlein. I also has a white apron, with drawn threadwork and a pleats at the waist, quite easy to make but decorative. Im also wearing a undergollar. Gollars made by linen are not mentioned in the sumptuary law but so is gollars made by finer materials like cloth of gold, cloth of silver and velvet. So what material your gollar has makes a big difference in your social status. The version of 1506 said that all women from the patriciate to the middle classes were allowed a gollar made from "Atlas, Damask or silk" (Textiler Hausrat). So I assume that the bauern, the peasants, are not. The deep and wide cut on the shoulder neckline was also regulated in the sumptuary laws. Therefore, if your neckline was to low, you needed to wear a high-necked hemden/shirt or a gollar not to get a vanity penalty. Remember that when you are going to create a persona with credibility, use a gollar or a high necked shirt, or both. 

I do wear two dresses in the picture above, a kirtle and a gown, even if its hard to see. They are both red. The kirtle, the unterrock in german, has a different shade to it and can be seen close to the basket, I have them up in my belt to make it easier to walk.

The undergollar I wear here is made of linen with a small blackwork embroidery. I also wear a black apron in wool. According to the ordinance from 1530 the wives of Burgers: traders and townspeople could wear collars decorated with silk. Even though embroideries made of more expensive materials were forbidden. But there where allowed veils with borders, but not wider than two fingers.

Here I suddenly got a bit wealthier... I got a mink shaublein as an outerlayer. Mink was restricted to the upper classes of society. That makes this an outfit fit for maybe a wealthy merchants wife. Even dough Im using the same dress as in the last picture. Replace some garments can change an outfit from one class to another.

The same dress is used in a try of an outfit for nobility. Its mostly the embroidered steuchlein that makes it nobility. The dress could might work but maybe not in public, more for a everyday use at home. I need to make a more fancy dress to make this outfit historically accurate.

The veil is made by silk instead of linen and Im wearing a necklace. The plan is to make a dress out of the brocade fabric in the background...

 

Patricians were allowed silk clothing. They could have camlet gowns guarded with four ells of velvet or silk at the most, and velvet and silk doublets, with the exception of crimson. Belts up too a worth of thirty golden and caps made of silk was also allowed. So, silk embroidered caps were absolutely used. The nobility were allowed to wear silk, both in headwear and all other garments. Four silk gowns that could be worn openly, of both velvet, damask and other silks. Decorated with pearls, silver and gold. Golden coifs if also mentioned. So here we should find our big, over the top, embroideries with a lot of silk in different colors, and also silver and gold.

Here Im wearing silver spangles and a lace in silk together with embroideries in blackwork. Items that was hardly restricted by law, only used by patricians and nobility.

 

So, what is the difference? What makes the difference between an outfit for a commoner verses a patrician? A trossfrau and nobility?

The ground garment is the dress, mostly a kirtle and a gown, two layers (unterrock and rock in german). All classes wore this. Together with a chemise (a hemd in german). And they all had aprons and stechleins. The difference lay in the money and the law. Even if you had the money too buy expensive fabrics you could be restrained from doing so by the sumptuary laws. German imperial ordinances relating to sumptuary laws dates from 1495, 1497, 1498, 1500, 1518, 1521, 1530, 1548 and 1577. It remained unchanged until the end of the Holy Roman Empire, 231 years later. Obviously it lost some importance after the 16th century. 

 

So, I hope that after this, people stop using the term landsknecht for everything that is German. I could probably write a lot more about this, showing more examples... But next time anyone wants to try German fashion for the first time I hope this might help.