Alianor de Ravenglas’ Web Depository

This garment is meant to reproduce the split-front tunics that are ubiquitous in 13th century illustrations.

Maciejowski Bible. [1]

Life of Edward the Confessor. [2]

Murthly Hours, folio 4r and 18v. [3]

The garment is constructed of brown/black linen/cotton blend with a white linen lining. I lined each piece of the tunic prior to assembling it, using a lining/seam treatment similar to one found on the Viborg Shirt. This treatment is quite similar to picture 3 in Mytte Fentz’s description of the garment. [4]

Stitching in the lining… you can just see the previous stitch against the brown fabric between my fingers.

The seaming technique… it’s just a whip-stitch through all four layers of fabric. Each stitch is very small – about three threads from the edge, and four or five threads apart. They have to be this small to keep them from showing through when the garment is right side out.

Join point of the sleeve and the gussett. I had to double-stitch this, because the first time my stitches were too big and all showed through to the right side. That’s why I’m making them so much smaller now.

This is the second time I’ve worked with a seam treatment from the Viborg shirt; the first was in my green and yellow cyclas. I find that these techniques require far more set-up time than the average hand-sewing does. On the other hand, they leave far less room for error than does bag-lining, and I don’t know that the time required is any greater than flat-lining and then going back to finish the raw edges of the seams.

Since I created the lined rectangular body panels without accounting for a neckline, I did a diamond-shaped neckline by simply leaving the shoulder and center front and back seams open. I then folded the leftover corners in and stitched them down; I stabilized the neckline itself with a running stitch around the entire thing.

All told, the garment is very functional and looks very much like the illustrations. I don’t have any good pictures of it actually ON Matatias yet, so you’ll have to live with one of it on the dress form.

I had the opportunity to discuss the garment with Alexander and Ranvaigr at Aethelmearc 10 Year celebration and they said that these garments are definitely the most functional 13th century clothes for equestrian activities.

Sources Cited
[1] The Maciejowski Bible.
[2] Paris, Matthew. (~1250) The Life of Edward the Confessor. Cambridge University MS Ee 3.59.
[3] (~1280) The Murthly Hours.
[4] Fentz, Mytte. An 11th century linen shirt from Viborg. Maggie Mulvaney, trans.