An article from The Guardian on clothing in the middle ages

[frualeydis]

Medieval hoodies... Sigh. I just hope it's the journalist and not the historian who's behind the misconceptions. But one cannot be sure, a lot of scholars in different fields read in symbols in medieval clothing without knowing how people in general were dressed. Yes, young people wore hoods in the middle ages, yes, Robin Hood (if he existed) did so too, but so did everybody else, so it's not a symbol of juvenile delinquency.
And why should young people especially spend less on their clothes and therefore have shorter clothes?
And linen underpants for girls and cross-gartered hose common in the middle ages?
The icelandic word BTW just means pants with gores and refers to male pants as opposed to female pants which sometimes were worn in Iceland and may have had a split crotch like much later women's drawers (Jochens, Jenny:"Before the Male Gaze:The Absence of the Female Body in Old Norse" in Sex in the Middle Ages edited by Joyce E. Salisbury).

Comments

[marymont.livejournal.com]

That is the most preposterous article I've ever read in a publication meant for widespread dissemination, on any subject.

Good grief.

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

Thank you, I was afraid I had overreacted.
Oh,and about the meme, I'm coming to you, probably tomorrow.

Eva

[isiswardrobe.livejournal.com]

No, I don't think you did at all.

[myladyswardrobe.livejournal.com]

Fully agree with you - what a total load of tripe!

Its as bad as the recent Kylie Corset articles that "proved" that women in the past laced themselves down to 16 inches on average!

And these "professors" call themselves scholars!!!

Grump!