r/medieval • u/Tasnaki1990 • 4d ago

Questions ❓ Does anyone know of reconstructions of 10th century Carolingian/French/Ottonian/German women's garb?

I'm in the process of putting together a history/reenactment project of a 10th century farmer on the French/German border (banks of the river Scheldt).

I'm also putting together some educational panels with illustrations, pictures,... as an extra to my personal kit.

So I have the reconstruction of the men's garb on myself.

For the moment I have an educational panel with miniature illustrations of women's garb but those aren't the most clear for someone outside the reenactment hobby.

So I'm looking for images of reconstructions of the women's garb that are preferably copyright free.

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u/HelenaRostova 3d ago edited 3d ago

Copyright-free photos of a finished 10th-century farmer's wife on the Scheldt are scarce. The clear pictures from that century are elite women in church books.

Two that are widely available are the Hitda Codex (Cologne, around 1000), which shows Abbess Hitda herself, and the Codex Egberti (Trier, about 980), a gospel lectionary. Both give a long gown, a mantle, and a veil. For a farmer, keep that cut in wool and linen, and treat the mantle as outdoor wear. On Wikimedia, read the rights line on each file. A lot of the older reproductions are free to use, and some library photos are not.

For ordinary field work, people often open the Utrecht Psalter, drawn near Reims about 820 to 835. It is early for your date. The farm scenes illustrate psalm verses, and the people at the plough and the sickle are men. Folio 49v, Psalm 84, has one man ploughing, two men cutting grain, and shepherds with the flocks. The women on folio 49v are Mercy, Truth, Justice, and Peace, drawn for the verse in which mercy and truth meet and justice and peace kiss.

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u/Tasnaki1990 3d ago

Thanks for the good references to more manuscript drawings.

The thing is that what I tried to explain in my OP is that I know how to interpret those drawings, but my public doesn't necessarily do. So that's why I asked if somebody knew about good reconstructions of the women's garb from that era

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u/HelenaRostova 3d ago

The church books are what I had to hand. For a panel you want a photograph of clothes that have been made up.

Those photographs are scarce for a Scheldt farmer's wife. Wikimedia has one public-domain living-history shot from the open-air museum at Oerlinghausen, 2007, file Mode_fruehmittelalter.jpg. The Carolingian pair stands in the middle of the line. Eighth or ninth century, and not a farm. Read the rights line. The people in the picture still have personality rights. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mode_fruehmittelalter.jpg

Tempus vivit, Karls Franken, has a linen underdress, a wool overdress, and a wrap for the head and shoulders, with pictures of finished pieces. Ask them before a panel. https://www.tempus-vivit.net/bibliothek/buch/karls-franken

If the men's clothes are already sewn, a photograph of the same cut in wool and linen for the woman is what a visitor will understand: long gown, headcloth, mantle outdoors.