Never before has an overview study been conducted into clothing in the early medieval Netherlands. Chrystel Brandenburgh recently obtained her PhD on this subject and made some remarkable discoveries about the clothing behavior of our ancestors.
Women wear finer fabrics than men. This doesn't sound very strange to us in the 21 e century ears. But as far as the early Middle Ages are concerned, this conclusion from the study is new. Clothing and other textiles from this period in the Netherlands had never before been compared on a large scale.
Chrystel Brandenburgh, a city archaeologist in Leiden, looked for her PhD at textile finds in the Netherlands between the years 400 and 1000. As she herself says, it is really like comparing apples with oranges:she looked at both leftovers of luxury textiles from the burial fields of Central and South. -The Netherlands as fragments of everyday clothing from younger settlements in the north of the Netherlands. To get a good overview, all data has been included. This research therefore shows the geographical, religious and gender differences in early medieval clothing for the first time.
Twill
“The settlements in present-day Friesland and Groningen had a different textile tradition than the southern Netherlands. Mothers passed on knowledge and skills about weaving fabrics and the different patterns to their daughters, which is reflected in the location of the archaeological finds,” says Brandenburgh. “In the north, for example, the weave type twill, a kind of herringbone pattern, appears to be popular.”
In the early Middle Ages, today's Netherlands lay on the border between Germanic tribes in the north and the Franks in the south. The fact that it was a border area can be seen from the various clothing models that have been found in our country. The garments and types of fabrics from the north appear to be similar to those worn by the people of Scandinavia, England and northern Germany. So a lot of twill here too.
Scarves
Grave fields have been found in the center and south of the Netherlands with more luxurious remains of textiles in other patterns. These turned out to be more like clothes worn in the Merovingian Empire. Brandenburgh also sees differences between men and women here. "On the basis of bones and grave goods, it can be seen whether a man or a woman was buried and therefore also any differences in their clothing." Women wore longer clothes, other accessories such as brooches, different belt buckles and headscarves. This included very luxurious headscarves, made of silk and decorated with gold thread.
Medieval people colored the fabrics with natural material, which has unfortunately been lost. "So we don't know if men wore different colors than women," she says. “But we now know that women wore a different type of fabric and a finer fabric than the men. I am convinced that this distinction has been made consciously. We can only guess why. This requires more in-depth research.”
New hat
Brandenburgh had to pioneer a lot during her research because there is little expertise on this subject in the Netherlands. Fortunately, they have moved on abroad and were able to make comparisons with, for example, Norwegian textile finds and the clothing of bog bodies from Germany that is still present. For the Dutch data she has made a true voyage of discovery along Dutch archaeological deposits. “I even found archaeological finds still in the packaging from the time of the excavation, a hundred years ago!”
The archaeologist has examined and analyzed all the remains of textiles himself. More than a thousand pieces of textile ended up under her microscope, mainly for technical aspects:how the textile was spun and woven and whether it was wool or linen fibres, for example. In addition, she has used the descriptions of excavated textiles that have been lost. “In the past, conservators treated textiles differently than they do now:they simply brushed off pieces that were stuck to metal.”
The textile finds from this period are all fragmentary. The medieval man reused the precious textiles until it was completely used up and ended up as a rag. Except for a few hats, no complete garments have survived. “I found fragments of a hat in a box that no one knew what was actually inside. The total number of recovered headgear now stands at six.”
Changing traditions
Brandenburgh believes that the most important part of her research is that she has been able to reconstruct which fabrics people wore and which types of fabrics were made during this period. There appears to be an enormous difference in the type of site:burial fields contain more luxurious ceremonial textiles, in contrast to the settlements. The burial fields of Maastricht represented another beautiful discovery. This city already converted to Christianity in the early Middle Ages and this transition phase is clearly visible in the use of textiles.
“In a pagan grave people were buried fully clothed, while in a Christian grave no pomp and circumstance was necessary:the deceased were given a sober grave dress or shroud. In Maastricht graves you see a combination of these two traditions. The dead still received their daily accessories, such as weapons and belts, but the clothing was of a simple fabric and there is no longer any difference between the grave dresses of men and women.”
Clothes normally say something about the social position of the wearer, but in this case it is difficult. Do simpler woven fabrics from the north mean they were poorer or less fashionable there than their southern neighbors? “No, that's too short-sighted,” according to Brandenburgh. “We have never found burial grounds in the north. And in this largely pagan period you were buried in your best clothes anyway. Grave remains could say more about the degree of prosperity than the remnants of everyday clothing that we now have. Hopefully a rich and complete grave will be excavated soon, then we will know more.” That this need not be a vain hope is apparent from the many archaeological finds that are still being made.
Early Middle Ages clothing summary PhD research