The Curious Frau

Early Modern German Clothing

Diary of A Schaube or Husecke

October, 2004

A Schaube (another word for it is Husecke) is an overcoat of sorts, usually depicted as fur lined and worn by respectable persons looking snug and warm in portraits. Since it is typically worn by men in portraiture, its not usually thought of as a woman's garment, yet women did wear them and they appear quite frequently in wills of the time in all classes in Nuremberg.

I decided to make one in the winter of 2003, and bought the fur for it. Unfortunately, life intervened and it has been sitting in a box waiting for me to have time. Finally, I've been able to find time to make it.

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A German Horse Barding circa 1537

Made for Kingdom of the West, A&S Competition 2005

Introduction

In June of 2005 my local SCA group was challenged by another local group to compete in the 8 category team competition in the annual arts and sciences event. One of the competitions was for horse barding. That's all the direction we had to go on.

I decided to stick with what I know, 16th century German. Before I chose a design to recreate, I first conducted an art survey of all four volumes of The German Single-Leaf Woodcut: 1500-1550 as well as several other art books in my possession, resulting in 100+ separate instances of horse barding.

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The Orange and Black Dress from Augsburg

Summer of 2003

After wearing the Enn's dress to two events where the temperature was around 100 degrees, I decided that I really needed something cooler if I was going to go to anything during the summer time. This turned out to be a wise decision as we had one of the warmest summers on record for Seattle in 2003 and I had lots of chances to wear this new very cool linen dress.

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Deciphering Juan de Alcega: f59a - Kirtle and low cut bodice of silk

Spring 2003

Juan de Alcega's Tailor's Book of Patterns from 1589 can be confusing and hard to understand, the text provided by the translators doesn't help in understanding how the pieces go together, how to draft the patterns, adjust them to your size and measurements or any of the things that would make using this gem of a book easier. However, Alcega himself gives us the clues we need to be able to use his wonderful patterns and layouts over 400 years latter.

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A Schlappe in the Military or Landsknecht style

Spring 2007

Background

The Schlappe is a type of Barett from the southern Germanic lands in the time of 16th century. The name of the cap, Schlappe, is derived from the Middle High German word "slappe" and means a "bag shaped headcovering with flaps" (Zander-Seidel, p.129-137). The ear flaps and the back neck piece are the distinguishing characteristic between the Schlappe and the Barett

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Knitted Man’s Hat from the Ship "Gagiana"

Lost at Sea, October 14th, 1583

Updated

Knitting pattern for this project can be found here: Recreating the Gagiana Barett - Knitting Pattern For a Barrett or Flat Cap

Fall 2003

On October 14th, 1583, the merchant ship "Gagiana", while carrying a load of goods from Venice to the East, hit a reef and sank off the Adriatic coast, near the island of Gnalic and what is now known as Croatia. The wreck lay undisturbed for more than 350 years, until it was rediscovered and the remains of the cargo were recovered by divers in 1967-1968.

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