Interesting Undergarment find

[groomporter]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2174568/Found-castle-vault-scraps-lace-lingerie-rage-500-years-ago.html

[DonaCatalina]

I know a few laurels who were oh so certain that wearing knickers was only done by lower class women. LOL. This is great.

[Rowan MacD]

  This is waaaay cool.    
I had a Laurel once tell me that just because there is no pattern, garment, or recipe for something dating from the time, it does not mean that it didn't exist in everyday life.  
   Some things were just so mundane that it never occurred to anyone to describe them in writing, particularly when the few folks that could write, had better things to write about on valuable vellum and paper.  She felt that those who were slavish about backing up every thing with historical records, were doomed to leave some essential pieces out.

   I'm happy they finally found some extant garments. .  Bras and panties are not a new idea, and don't look like they have changed much.  
   It made no sense for the women of that time not to wear something over their business ends, particularly under a valuable dress, chemise or petticoat, to protect the garments when they sat down.  Something as common (and common sense) as close fitting underwear would have existed, just not been written about, or described like, for example, an ermine trimmed robe, or cloth of gold gown.
   We do know that women had to wear sanitary cloths during their menses to protect their clothing (those are documented, for no other reason than to prove a queen was fertile) but no clear mention is made how they were kept in place.  Now we know.

  As for extant burial clothes, which I think is where a lot of the current misinformation about 'no underwear' comes from.. undergarments very probably would not have been bothered with when preparing a body for the tomb, unless they were needed fit the burial dress (corsets, stays). They still don't use them very often during mortuary preparations to this day.

   It wouldn't surprise me to find out that men had something similar

[PollyPoPo]

"meekly raising my hand" ... uh, what is a Laurel in this context?

[Rowan MacD]

      It's an SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) title for someone who has done a lot of research on a subject and been awarded a 'Laurel' for it, because somebody else in the SCA was impressed by it. 
    It doesn't mean anything outside of the SCA.

[PollyPoPo]

Thanks, Rowen MacD, for the explanation.

[Dragonlord]

I thought the description of two of the bras found as "shirts with bags" to be quite amusing.

[Serenity]

And is that a princess seam I see in the bra?  Weren't princess seams not supposed to exist back then?   

Love this find.  Now I want a set of linen undies!!

[Rowan MacD]

And is that a princess seam I see in the bra?  Weren't princess seams not supposed to exist back then?   

Love this find.  Now I want a set of linen undies!!

Ditto!  Couldn't you just see a vendor with a table full of these?  Medieval Victoria's Secret, LOL. 

[isabelladangelo]

Not princess seams - princess seams means that it's a specific seam down the front of the entire bodice/dress to create the curved shape.   This looks like two pointed ovals stuck together into a round hole in a bodice like garment - something they did again to an extant in the very early 19th C (except the two pointed ovals weren't stuck together, just on either side of a slit in the top of the stays).   

I'm excited about the find - I've seen the archeological report and I hope an English translation is on the way.   The find was discovered back in 2010 and there has been a lot of buzz about it since then.  I do recall a written report (15th C) from a doctor advising well endowed women to cut pockets into their chemises - which it sounds like may be part of the find as well.   

[GirlChris]

So awesome! My modern sewing hobby is making bras, so this combines everything I like to make in one go!

[Rowan MacD]

  If some of you talented ladies want to take on the project of recreating a set of these, please, please please   post pictures!

  Call it the 'Iron Underwear' Project   .   
   

[DonaCatalina]

I love this comparison shot

http://www.uibk.ac.at/urgeschichte/projekte_forschung/textilien-lengberg/medieval-lingerie-from-lengberg-castle-east-tyrol.html

[Anna Iram]

"Many a woman makes two bags for the breasts with them she roams the streets, so that all the guys look at her, and see what beautiful breasts she has got; But whose breasts are too large, makes tight pouches, so it is not told in the city, that she has such big breasts."

(translation: BeatrixNutz)

Love this poem. Though thinking the term "bags for breasts" could uses some refinement.

Such an awesome find.

*edited for spelling*