Intenet forum for the Iron age and Middle ages

[frualeydis]

The internet forum Historiska Varldar where I spend too much time discussing and reading about aspects of (mainly) material culture in the Iron age and Middle Ages now has a section where you can post questions and discuss in english. The forum is part of the same project at the National Museum of Antiquities which has put up pattern for viking age clothing based on the latest research. there are quite a lot of knowledgeable people active at the forum, especially concerning the nordic countries and archaeology from Sweden. Almost everybody knows english too.

There are yet no discussion topics in the english part of the forum, but maybe one of you will post the first?

Comments

[guyelfkin.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting the link to the Viking patterns... though they don't seem to have a pattern posted for the Bag hose... perhaps I'm missing it.

Teddy

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

The instructions for the baggy pants are here (http://www.historiska.se/histvarld/drakter/monster/dvmpasbyxor.pdf). They are in swedish of course.
I made translations of the crucial terms in a post in Jennifer's LJ.
This is what I said then:
"First: yes, they are 320 cm wide (my husbands viking pants are 300 cm wide and so is Bjorn's even though he's much smaller). You have to use very thin wool, the finds are in thin wool muslin (tabby) and that's what I have used too.
The texts say:
"Lagg motveck har" = box pleat this part
"Linning-ska vara samma..." =Waistband, the same as your waist measurement. My personal comment is that it should be the same as the widest part you have to pull the trousers over + a couple of cm. Some men have wider hips/butt than waist and there is no opening in the trousers, so you have to be able to get them over that area. The excess width will be kept in place by the belt.
"Ett ben-klipp tva delar"= One leg, make two.
A, called "framkil" is the front gore and B, called "Bakkil" is the back gore (you're getting to learn swedish too)
"Nedre linning" is the piece around the knee.
The dotted lines are the seams.
It seems very weird in the crotch area, but I managed to get the trousers together somehow, without gathering any parts except at the waist and the legs. I used up two old sheets in the process however.
The construction is based on the iron age Thorsbjerg pants, which are tight and have feet, but have the same construction in the crotch. The Thorsbjerg pants also had 5, I don't know the word, the things on your jeans that you pull your belt through. These were on the lower half of the inside of the waistband, which was fairly wide. You pull your belt through them and buckled it and then you turned the rest of the waistband, thereby securing the pants.
I suspect everything written about the Thorsbjerg pants is in either danish or german (when it was found that part of northern Germany belonged to Denmark and then it changed by the end of the 19th century), but you might look around for them on the internet."

Eva

[guyelfkin.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

In fact the pucture is pretty self-explanatory so I could probably have managed without most of the translation. The measurement part is especially good to have though.

The ones Tom has were cobbled together by making a very wide trouser pattern so don't have the gores for shaping.

The Thorsbjerg pants also had 5, I don't know the word, the things on your jeans that you pull your belt through.

Belt loops. That surprised me - they seem so modern...{g}
Thanks again

Teddy

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

A pattern (more a schematic drawing) and some info on the Thorsbjerg pants can be found in The development of Costume by Naomi Tarrant. In teh edition I have they're on page 39.

Eva

[mmcnealy.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to think of a good question to post, but am drawing a blank right now, but I will post something.

What's the latest year that the forum covers?

[noxcat.livejournal.com]

I'd love to see an English translation of the women's patterns!!

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

If there's no baby tomorrow I might do it. The translation of the text on viking women's clothing only took five hours or something and that was much more.

Eva

[pinque.livejournal.com]

woohoo!

Yay:) Maggie posts there as well, and I know she finds it interesting. Though i think she had one minor complaint.. but it was a while ago that I was at her house.

And now she's moved! :(

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

I think I know what it was. There was a very heated discussion on handicaps, medications etc on events almost a year ago. It hurt me pretty bad at the time, but it was just a few people an sometimes you just have to accept that some people are idiots and ignore them.

Eva

[pinque.livejournal.com]

That's right... yes. Sad though that people refuse to understand.

It was about the time there was the same sentiment on another list, and we discussed it at one point too.