In researching, I
cannot find any illustrations of the ring belt, it seems buckles are what was worn during the 12th
Century (and for that matter most of the
other centuries)… And yet, the people I see
who are re-enacting the 12th Century all (or most, there is no such thing as ALL or EVERY, because sure as heck there
are exceptions) wear the ring belt…
Were ring belts ever worn during this
time period and if so by whom?
~ Gomez Addams
Message #906, March 14, 2003
Here are my two cents
worth:
I believe that the ring belt is mostly an
SCA/Fantasy thing. I think most examples
of ring belts are from
earlier periods, but I doubt they were very
common during the 12th century.
One common type was the “swallow-tail” (for lack of a better term for it) belt which was worn by men. Most
examples I have seen are about 2 inches wide and
the end is split and then laced and
knotted through two small holes made in
the other end. I know of a specific
picture illustrating this perfectly and
when I can find it, I’ll post it here.
The other type of belt most commonly worn was
type like modern belts. Like the ones
shown here:
http://www.quietpress.com/later.html
(I highly reccomend Sir Raymonds work to anyone,
by the way….)
Women probably wore the buckled type mostly.
I also believe women wore woven/knotted belts of
linen
and maybe silk for the very wealthy. (You
commonly see examples of these belts
whenever you are looking at a woman
wearing a bliaut)
Hope that wasnt too confusing…
Pax
~ Melisent / Kim McGuire
Message #907, March 14, 2003
I pulled out my Museum of London Dress Accessories 1150-1450 by Geoff Egan and Frances Pritchard today so I could make some sensible input on the question of circular buckles. I recommend checking this book out through ILL if your local library doesn’t have it available (I presume it’s available somewhere on ILL) to use as a reference to answer questions like these. I don’t recommend buying it unless you’re planning on recreating the accessories with metalwork. I found it a lot more difficult to read and understand than the other two MOL books I bought.
Anyway, there’s a chapter on buckles, and another one on girdles, to mention just a few of the goodies. Unfortunately, everything they were able to find was pretty much from the 14th and 15th centuries, leaving them to surmise what had gone before. Quite frankly, I’m trying to figure out why they bothered to put 1150 in the title because I think it’d be more appropriate to say 1350-1450.
Without an extended search of the text, the best I can say is that circular buckles did not appear on the scene until the middle of the 13th century. I say this because they have a chart of the alloys the buckles were made of on page 11 that shows chronological trends. They do not show large circular (belt) or small circular (shoe) buckles starting until “Ceramic Phase 9” which they state is ca.1270 to 1350.
The buckle they show for 1150 to 1270 is what they call an ornate oval and is extremely hard to describe. There is what they call an offset bar on the right, and two knopes (horns) on the left, and the bar on the left is squiggly rather than straight.
The first sentence in the chapter on girdles reads, “Girdles and various other types of belt were made from leather or were woven (usually by manipulating a pack of tablets) from threads of silk, linen or worsted.” It then proceeds to talk about sumptuary laws of the mid 14th century, the Girdler’s Guild from the same period, decorations on the girdle, etc. Really, it is very informative, too much so for me but perhaps not for someone more avid about their research than I am. It also contains the caveat: “As with other dress accessories described in this survey, most come from deposits dating to the 14th and early 15th centuries, and thus their development from 1150 to 1300 can only be illustrated in part from the archaeological record.”
Late on in the chapter it also talks about adding mounts on the tablet woven bands just as one would add them to a leather girdle, and states that “Beads and gemstones could also be added, as on the spectacular tablet-woven girdle from the tomb of Don Fernando de la Cerda . . .” (crown prince of Castile, d. 1275 according to a preceding paragraph). This section on Tablet-woven girdles also indicates that the girdles that tend to imitate “expensive fabrics such as velvet, satin and satin damask” were from the early 15th century deposits, and the ones from the 14th century more commonly had “coloured stripes and twill effects.” Again, however, they mention that none of their examples are earlier than “ceramic phase 9”.
They mention one girdle from the 14th century that I find interesting: “. . .one 8.5 mm wide woven in two colours of silk thread to form alternating bands of pink and green, or yellow, running widthways.” Pink is period!! 😉
Hope this helped in some small way.
~ Rachael / Nina Lisa Tomlinson
Message #909, March 16, 2003
What I find
interesting, is that in England especially, most illustrations of 12th C women in period
artworks (manuscripts, stained glass, tapestry, mosaic etc.) appear to be wearing unbelted bliauts. Where looser dresses
are worn, the presence of a belt can be inferred
(and sometimes seen) by the overlap of
fabric at the waist and sometimes a dangling cord with tasseled end (e.g. Terance’s comedies and many German
manuscripts). The tighter bodied dresses
– while French artwork more often than not shows something that probably is a belt (be it single or doubled), many
English works show a tight body with no
indication of a belt over the dress. (the queen
from the Winchester bible wearing a single girdle slung over the hips is the notable exception I can think of)
I find this a most interesting contrast to what
most costume books say about our period.
~ Teffania Tukerton / Tiffany Brown
Message #912, March 16, 2003