What They Wore: Clothing in the 7th Century

When you think of people in Britain in the Dark Ages, or, as I would prefer to call it, the Early Middle Ages, how do you picture their clothing?

You might picture a peasant in bare feet wearing rough-hewn sackcloth and a fraying rope tied around his waist, or, you might think of a king, dressed in rich, fur-lined robes and a golden crown upon his head.

That’s pretty much how I pictured the people of the times when I first starting doing the research into my book, at any rate. And this was one of the first things I looked at, because it’s awfully hard to get a picture in your mind of the people of the day without some sense of what they wear, after all.

And once again, I found my suppositions challenged as I looked at the historical evidence.

Once again, information is scanty, but perhaps a little more exists than you might think. First of all, there are some artwork  from this time that helps to flesh out our understanding of clothing styles. In the illuminated manuscripts you get pictures of people, who are wearing what we assume would be the typical dress of the day. There are also tapestries such as the Bayeux Tapestry which commemorates the victory of William the Conqueror in 1066, which, although a few hundred years after the 7th century, still gives us some ideas as to clothing.

We also have grave goods. There are very few items of actual clothing recovered from graves. Due to its nature cloth does not survive burial, unless it is in anaerobic conditions (waterlogged but without oxygen) which does not occur very often. And of course there are many pagan Saxon burials which were cremations. However, in some burials there impressions left behind on items of jewellery or in the earth that gives us an idea of the cloth that had been laying there, such as if you pressed a piece of clothing into the dirt and saw the impression of the pattern of weave left behind.

There are also items of jewellery and other objects found in graves that give hints as to clothing. For example, women are found with two brooches at each shoulder, often with a string of beads between them. These were the clasps that held up the tunic she was buried in. You will also find knives and other items such as leather pouches at the waist, indicating that they wore these things on a belt.

The standard items of clothing in the Anglo-Saxon areas of Britain* in the 7th century for men were undershirts, long tunics over top, some type of trousers (sometimes with leggings underneath), a belt, and a cloak. Shoes or boots would be made out of leather. In some areas the fashion was for strips of leather or cloth to wind around the leg, binding the cloth of the trousers close to the leg. Hats, or hoods (separate from the cloak), gloves, and mittens would also be worn as weather dictated. For women it was much the same, except that the tunic would be a dress, and it’s unclear whether or not they were wore underwear (a tad chilly in winter, especially in the North, one would think!).

The clothing was likely more colourful than you might think. There were various ways to dye cloth, using oak bark, plants, vegetables and the like, producing blues, greens, and yellows, and even some red and purple.

Linen was a common fabric, as was wool. Silk would have been very expensive, as it would only have been available through trade, coming from China. Only for the very wealthy!

People would also likely use fur on their garments such as the lining of a cloak, to keep them warm in the winter.

In the ancient world there was a type of needlework which was a precursor to knitting and crocheting called nålbinding, which was basically knitting with one needle, using short strips of yarn. If you want to see a video demonstration you can find one here. This creates a fabric that is similar to a knitted one, and in fact is very difficult to distinguish from knitted fabrics. Socks, leggings, mittens, and other garments needing a circular shape could have been made this way. This ancient needleworking method (nålbound socks have been found from the Coptic Christians in Egypt from the 4th century AD, and nålbound fabrics from Peru from 300 BC) was still being used in parts of northern Europe until the 1950s! There is some debate as to whether the Anglo-Saxons practiced this technique. There has only been one nåilbound sock found in in Britain (the Coppergate sock), dating from the 10th century, and it was likely an import. But, with the deterioration of fabric and the scarcity of finds from this age, we can’t say for certain that they didn’t use this technique for making garments.

Surprisingly enough, both rich and poor dressed alike most of the time. But when you think about it, the same is true today, right? The difference would come in the quality of the material used for their clothing. The more affluent would have finer woven linen undershirts and woollen shirts and cloaks that were of better quality than the average coerl ‘s rougher and itchier garments. Because all of the clothing was handmade, it was patched and reused until it was unable to be repaired any longer. Clothing, especially the more expensive and luxurious items of the nobility, would have been either handed down to one’s children or given to the church for use by the church leaders for special occasions.

Speaking of the monks, priests, Abbots, and other church officials, you may as well get rid of the picture of the monk in a brown robe, tied at the waist with a rope. That kind of costume did not come until much later in the medieval period. The monks and church officials would dress simply, but in much the same fashion as everyone else, except that during church services they would have special vestments such as the alb (long white tunic with long sleeves, belted at the waist), chasuble (semi-circular cape of wool, embroidered along the edges) and stole (long strip of embroidered silk or linen, worn around the shoulders).

The wealthier people would have some luxury items of clothing, heavily decorated with embroidery and made out of the finest fabrics and even decorated with gemstones, but they didn’t wear these all the time, just for special occasions. Again, which is just like us, today. We don’t wear our fanciest outfits for everyday wear, either.

If you were not wealthy and couldn’t afford a tailor to make you clothing, you would either have to make it yourself (generally women’s work, along with the repair of said items) or bought or traded for at a market. Or you could have it handed down to you from a deceased relative.

However you obtained it, you would not have as much of it as the average person does today, that’s for sure!

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*Clothing styles differed slightly from the south to the north, and the British Celtic people had slightly different dress from the Anglo-Saxons.

Featured image is from the BBC and shows a typical Anglo-Saxon house with a family gathered outside, wearing the clothing of the day. Hmm…one of these days I’m going to have to do a post on architecture….