LL-L "Attire" 2005.05.29 (02) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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From: "Mark Dreyer" <mrdreyer at lantic.net>
Subject: LL-L "Music" 2005.05.28 (04) [E]

Dear Heather & Ron,

Subject: Traditions

> You find the "skirt" of the Greek _ephzones_ in various permutations
> throughout the Balkans, usually with pants worn underneath.  If there is
> any Celtic link is questionable, though not impossible.

I b'lieve there is a link between the dress of the westernmost points of the
Western Roman Empire & the Eastern Roman Empire. It relates style of the
upper class of society, the 'Honestiores' whose formal dress was related to
their duties as soldiers & officers. The more conservative elements in the
extremities of the empire preserved what was lost & forgotten in the centre.

The basic garment was a pleated skirt of heavy linen, stretching down to the
knees, & was supposed to help protect you from the armour you wore over it.
This became the Ephzone's shirt in Greece & the leine croich of the Irish,
who though they were never conquered, they did pick up the culture (only
they dyed  it yellow with safflower). Samples of this garment can be seen
peeping out from under the hauberk on the Burke effigy from Glinsk, in Co.
Galway, & more clearly represented on a Highland grave slab in Islay.

Over this one wore a jacket  or jack in various styles, dagged to allow
movement of the body (as the Scots still do), with tie-on or tie-back
sleeves. It was preferably thick felted wool, to help the hauberk bear or
resist blunt trauma. It became a jacket or jack, seamlessly evolved into the
outer garment still worn all over Europe today.

A related item of felt was designed to protect the skull under the helmet.
It looked exactly like a tarboush because it was a tarboush, as it survives
to this day in the middle East. The one significant point about this 'coif'
was a huge pompom on top, to help bear the steel helmet away from the skull.
In the Near East & middle-East this need passed away & it faded to a
vestigal tassle. In Scotland it remained a pompom, only smaller, & for to
give better cover to the face & head  the crown was broadened out to make a
Scots bonnet, or tammy (Tam o'Shanter).

Against the edge of the armour, about the hips & the neck one wore a clout
of finer & stronger material, silk if you could get it. This became the
cummerbund & the cravat, stock or tie. Incidentally, we call it a cravat
from Louis XIV's Croatian Guard, who reinforced the Ancient style by
bringing it back to Western Europe.

One affectation I can't relate to practicality is the pompom that an Ephzone
wears on his far from dainty footwear. A practicality that we should rather
call a necessity the Ephzone probably never felt so keenly for was the
plaid, which the Scot belted around himself. The lower part of this,
pleated, became the philabeg, or 'kilt' a very recent innovation. Another
thing the Scots had to contend with that the Ephzones did not, was extreme
damp, and they pierced the leather of their footwear, to let the water out
(brogues).

In other matters the dress of the Honestiore borrowed heavily from the
Germans, who were from the Middle-Empire onwards the largest element in the
Roman Legions. The Ephzones & the Scots both wore hose (trews in Scots), an
inheritance from them.

Apart from the singularly brighter colour-scheme, the traditional dress of
the 'Royal Company of Archers' was not remotely unlike that of the Ephzone,
or for that matter the style of their own kind of some centuries before, the
gallowglasses. They themselves held their dress to be in the 'Ancient Roman
Style', until some semi-literate academic persuaded them (against the fact)
that Romans only, always, & ever wore tunics & togas. Idiot! So they went
over to modern dress.

Some people; you Know!

Never mind,
All yrs,
Mark

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From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Attire

Thank you so much, Mark, for explaining this so clearly and -- certainly
by the looks of it -- so eruditely.  It makes a lot of sense to me now
that I think about it in this light.

The subject of attire has not been explored terribly much on this list.  I
feel its value ought not be underestimated in the area of material culture
contacts.  I wonder if this bears out in a more restricted Lowlands
context.  My hunch is that it cannot be discussed in isolation.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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