[Regia-NA] The fundamental Saxon Tunic

[Steve Etheridge]

>Hi Steve,
>Is there any evidence for ankle length tunics from Scandinavia, (I can't 
>say
>that I've found any) or are we talking strictly Saxon?

Hi, Hazel

Glad you said Scandanavia, because there is enough art stuff from Ireland to 
point to the length of the tunic (leine) being quite long.

Yourself (and Carorlyn, and Guthrum) will know the archeological evidence 
better than I - Is tunic length worked from whole surviving tunics, or just 
fragments?  Checking on
http://www.cs.vassar.edu/~capriest/mensgarb.html
I find a tunic from Birka that had tablet weave strips from shoulder to mid 
calf - which would be pretty long, although not really long enough for knee 
length with full rucks.  A tunic that length comes up to mid thigh when 
rucked.

Looking at the art evidence - well, Gotland has the largest (and earliest) 
corpus, all in stone, without an awful lot of detail.  IIRC, tunic length 
varies from knee to mid calf - A similar variation is shown on the Harley 
Psalter and other AS MS which show rucked tunics.

Someone check my brain on the Oseberg carvings - I seem to remember them as 
knee length as well

>From later, well, you have the mamen Christ, who is wearing a knee length 
tunic (the pattern on it reminds me forcibly of the tunic that Harold 
Godwinson is shown wearing on the BT).  A C11th figure of Sigurd is shown 
with legs all the way up to the crotch (if you understand me!), reminding me 
of one of the Isle of Man crosses - that may represent a tunic tucked in to 
trousers, a split tunic, an artistic convention (he has hip sprials, for 
pity's sake!), or the fact that the tunic was painted on over him (not my 
favorite theory)

So, basically the art evidence tells us (or at least me!) very little.  It 
must be remembered that most of the AS evidence shows us knee length tunics 
with rucks, and that pictures tunics at floor length are comparativly rare.  
Also, I'm struggling to think of pictures of vikings wearing cloaks 
(although I'm sure someome in email land will be able to spot one!).  Note 
that this doesn't mean that they didn't wear cloaks - these have been found.

However, a piece of practical (albeit inadvertent) archeology performed by 
Jane Smithers might give us a clue. While attempting to leave a longship 
wearing a dress, Jane got her feet caught in a fold, and gave herself a 
nasty knock - of the "take her to hospital" type.  I would say that a few of 
those sort of things might convince Scandanavians that long tunics were 
perhaps not so clever on boats, and that knee lenghth/calf length tunics 
were the way to go.

So the simple answer to the question is "there is no direct evidence".  
However, I suspect that for settled vikings full length tunics would have 
been worn.  Let's face it, if you're supressing the local populace, you 
might as well nick their best clothing :-))

Steve

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