Hi,

At 16:26 11/29/01 +0000, Marisca wrote:
>You're right, I forgot about the side-lacings. I have seen them on
>some occassions. How common were those bliauts? Was it an everyman's
>thing or reserved for the rich?

The basic garment is seen on both men and women of all classes. Check out twelth
century illuminations for pictures of builders, farmers, soldiers etc. in
Bliauts, the folds are quite recognizable once you know what to look for (two
big folds falling inwards from the hips to the hem, and half-circles across the
stomach (OR an almost pleated look at the waist, most likely from gathered inset
gores), quite tightfitting in the torso, occasional bunching at the hips). Lower
class men wear them to about knee length, kings and the like can also wear them
long: down to the floor and beyond. The really, *really* wide-below-the-elbow
sleeves are only seen on noblewomen and the occasional nobleman.

Actually, I've seen *one* picture of around 1300 of maidens harvesting hay where
one of them had those long sleeves tied behind her back. It's a really late
occurnce of the bliaut and all the other girls are wearing more 13th c. tunics,
so maybe it was a hand-me-down? Either that or an idealized picture of farm life
with different types of clothes depicted.

I wish I could point you to all the actual pictures for this, but when I was
researching all this I wasn't as organised as I should have been. Or at least as
I now wish I'd been. :)

Groeten,

Gerbrich
mka
Sarah