What should I wear?

Clothing is perhaps the most perishable item of all material culture. Even in our modern age clothing is quick to deteriorate – what do you think the odds of your socks surviving to be marveled over a thousand years from now? Without archaeological evidence we have to turn to the sources for information about how people dressed in the eighth century. We are fortunate to have a detailed description of Charlemagne’s everyday clothing, courtesy of his biographer Einhard. Fortunately for us Charles was a man of the people, and so his choices reflect, to some extent, everyday styles.

He wore ancestral, that is, Frankish, clothing. Next to his body, he wore a linen shirt and linen drawers, then a tunic ringed with silk fringe, and stockings. Then he wrapped his lower legs in cloth bands and put shoes on his feet. In winter he covered his chest and shoulders with a jacket ^1.The Dutton translation says vest. made from otter or ermine skins, put on a blue cloak, and always girded himself with a sword, whose hilt and belt were either gold or silver. Sometimes he used a jeweled sword, but only on important feast days or when the envoys of foreign peoples arrived. He rejected foreign clothing, even if very beautiful, and never put up with wearing it except at Rome, when once on the plea of Pope Hadrian, and again on the request of his successor, Leo, he wore a long tunic and chlamys^2.A short mantle fastened at the shoulders, worn by men in the Greek East since ancient times., and shoes made in the Roman fashion. On feast days he walked around wearing clothes woven with gold thread, bejeweled shoes, a cloak fastened with a gold pin, and a golden crown with jewels. The rest of the time, his dress was hardly different from that of the common people.^3.Einhard, Life, ch. 23, p. 41.

Let’s start with the linen that Charles was wearing. “Flax was harvested everywhere and delivered regularly. It was then steeped, washed, beaten, and woven into linen.”^4.Riche, Daily Life, p. 163. Note that Charles’s shirt and underwear are made of linen, because you’d much rather have that against your skin that the other predominant fabric, wool.^5.Cotton was grown in Egypt at this time, but it would take several more centuries before the use of it spread to western Europe. The tunic Einhard mentions was probably wool, in part because wool contains lanolin, “which is oily and repels water. If wool clothing is woven tightly, it is relatively waterproof. Wool also dyes easily, is quite elastic, and insulates very effectively.”^6.Butt, Daily Life, p. 71. The shirt’s “silk fringe” was not an adornment that the common folk would have enjoyed. Silk was a rare and expensive import from the east.

If the shirt wasn’t wool, than the “blue cloak” almost certainly was. Blue was one of the predominant dyes used by the Carolingians, made from the herb woad. Red came from the root of the madder plant, while an even brighter red, called vermilion, came from the mineral crystal cinnabar. While the countryside probably wasn’t ablaze with color, the royal court must have shimmered. Look at this description of Charlemagne’s daughters by the poet Theodulf:

The one is agleam with gems, the other shines with gold and purple,
the one is resplendent with sapphires, the other with rubies.
One has her appearance set off by a brooch, the other by a girdle,
one wears a fine armband, the other a becoming necklace.
A dark-red dress suits one, a dress of yellow the other,
one wears a snow-white bodice, another a bodice of red.^7.Theodolf, Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance, p. 155.

Einhard’s description mentions otter and ermine as winter wear, but other animals were used as well. “Some artisans specialized in the working of hides, and to them were provided the skins of cattle, deer, sheep, or wolves… Fur vests were made from sheepskin, marten, mole, otter, and beaver fur.”^8.Riche, Daily Life, p. 164.

Charlemagne’s finishing accessory was a sword, sometimes jeweled, hung from a belt of gold or silver. This was an echo of the knife that the peasant wore, hung from a belt of rope or leather.^9.Butt, Daily Life, p. 70. Einhard mentions shoes, but provides no detail. There are some shoes in the archaeological record, since they were made of leather and frequently discarded. Shoes were no more than a basket of leather, with straps to tie them on. Left and right shoes wouldn’t appear for many centuries.

Einhard also noted that Charles deigned to wear foreign clothing (except when the pope himself asked him to). But he sometimes allowed it in the family. Late in the eighth century Charles appointed his first son Louis, who was born in 778, as king of Aquitaine. After the young man had spent some time in his kingdom, his father summoned him home. Any father today seeing his son after a year in college would sympathize with Charles when Louis appeared before him. “Like the boys of his own age who were with him he was dressed in the Gascon fashion; that is to say, he wore a circular cloak, a shirt with long, wide sleeves, baggy leggings and spurred boots and carried a throwing spear in his hand. His father delighted in this and had ordered it so.”^10.Astronomer, Life of Louis, ch. 4, in King, p. 169.

While not foreign, monastic dress was distinctive. The Rule of Benedict gives specific instructions on clothing (as well as all other aspects of a monk’s life):

The clothing given to the brothers should be appropriate for the conditions of the place where they live and the local climate, because they will need to wear more in cold areas and less in warm places. It is up to the abbot to take this into consideration. We believe that normally it will be enough for each of the monks to have a tunic and a cowl (a woolen hood in winter, and a thin or old one in the summer) and a scapular for work; on their feet they should wear shoes and socks.^11.Benedict, The Rule, ch. 55, p. 81.

And because it is Benedict, he goes on to add, “The monks should not complain about the colour or thickness of all these items, but be content with what is to be found locally and what can be bought cheaply.” Note that Benedict brings up the question of making or buying.

Monasteries had many workshops to supply the needs of the community. The plan of St. Gall includes a large collective workshop for the abbey’s craftsmen and artisans. Shoemakers had a special room, as did the fullers (those who worked with and finished wool).^12.Price, Plan of St Gall, pp. 52 – 54. Rooms for sewing and weaving are not mentioned, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t exist.

It is possible that a monastery would have preferred to bring in cloth and clothing from outside the walls, as their production was almost exclusively women’s work. “Women took sheared wool, washed and combed it, and spun it into thread that they wove into woolen cloth to make into clothing. Or they soaked and beat flax, combed it into thread, and wove it into linen.”^13.Butt, Daily Life, p. 70.

Charlemagne’s daughters, like all aristocratic women, were taught the finer points of needlework. “He thought that his children ought to be educated, both his sons and his daughters… He ordered that his daughters become adept at working with wool, with both distaff and spindle [Dutton says, “how to spin and weave it], so that they would value work and cultivate every virtue rather than grow lax through leisure.”^14.Einhard, Life, ch. 19, p. 38.

Here’s a video showing a modern practitioner with the “distaff and spindle” in action.

I wish there was more available on something as common to all experience as clothing. The desire to cover and embellish our bodies seems to be common to all times and cultures.^15.It is an interesting exercise to compare the early medieval clothing I’ve outlined with Otzi the Iceman’s outfit, from four thousand years earlier. Clothing is also oddly humbling. Even Charles the Great had to put his hose on one leg at a time.