Viking Clothing

Summarized from An 11th century linen shirt from Viborg by Mytte Fentz: Excavations in the eighties by Viborg Stiftsmuseum established that the town of Viborg, situated in the centre of Jutland, already existed in the Viking age. The site, on the shore of Søndersø, was inhabited from about 1000 until about 1300, when it was submerged in connection with the building of a royal stronghold. Parts of houses, well constructions and fences as well as other archaeological objects found were all in a good state of preservation; also found was a big lump of textile material which was placed in a pit that apparently was a post hole. This pit belongs to ceramic layer I, which is roughly dated to the 11th century. In the damp environment of Søndersø the conditions for preservation were favorable to the organic objects found. Textiles of plant material are usually found only as small fragments, so although the linen shirt is not preserved complete, the find must be considered extraordinary.

My interest in this tunic is becauseThe Viborg shirt is well known for the quilted pattern on front and back, and for the many intricate seams used to assemble it. Looking for a dual layer quilted Viking tunic as a fencing shirt for my husband this pattern stood out. As I would be dealing with double duck cloth instead of pliable linen most of the seams would have to be machine sewn and a big part of the challenge of this project was to figure out how to machine sew while not showing any machine stitches. The hand openings and neck line are hand sewn as the neck opening was used to turn the double layered garment inside out. The quilting pattern is also hand sewn and uses a running stitch.

Tablet woven bands were widely used to embellish various garments and even in some cases worn alone as a headband throughout the Viking Age. Numerous surviving examples have been found at Viking Age Norse archeological sites all throughout Europe including (but not limited to) Scandinavia, the European Mainland, and the British Isles. Considering this, I thought that I should try my hand at learning how to do some basic tablet weaving and have created a thin band of weaving with a basic chevron design. I will use this band (and more in the future as my skills build) to further embellish the period costumes I create and create a more authentic look and feel.

Presented before you is a man’s coat based on textile fragments found in Viking age Haithabu. Haithabu, in Schleswig-Holstein Germany in our modern times, was one of the major ports of trading of this area. The textiles that were found here were from the 10th century, the golden age of Haithabu. The Haithabu garment finds are especially interesting because they show evidence of advanced tailoring techniques, where instead of just combining geometric shapes several of the pieces found have been cut into shapes that closely follow the body.

The klappenrock does not seem to occur in Viking-time imagery and it is duly lacking on the Bayeux tapestry. The Haithabu fragments are the first identifiable remnants of a garment which in pre-Viking times was frequently illustrated. Because of the gap in pictorial evidence within Viking times, and the difference in styles of the caftan in cultural and geographical context, it is not straightforward to extrapolate what style of klappenrock the Haithabu fragments would have made.

During the Viking Age, a number of women’s head adornment accessories were in fashion including scarfs, woven headbands, caps and hoods. In the Norse settlement located at what is now Dublin, Ireland a distinctive hood-styled cap made from a small rectangle folded in half lengthwise and sewn up the back edge was popular. A point at the rear crown of the cap (rather than rounding the rear off to fit to the skull) seems to be unique to Dublin, while similar (rounded) versions have also be found throughout other parts of the British Isles .

Sagas draw our attention to colour in clothes, and coloured clothing is also mentioned in poetry. From sagas and poetry, it would appear that coloured clothing is noteworthy in itself; it is usually blue, but red is more imposing, and most impressive of all is red scarlet. Undyed clothing is also mentioned, often as the dress of slaves, but it can be worn even by kings. White clothing appears to symbolise piety.

To what extent is this picture supported by archaeology? Finds from medieval Greenland suggest that dyed cloth might indeed have been a rarity in the saga age, but interestingly the picture changes slightly when we look back to Viking times. This would appear to point to increasing isolation of the Atlantic settlements in the second millennium. Nonetheless, dyes are best represented on the best cloths of Viking Scandinavia, such as fine tabbies, Birka-type twills and pile woven cloaks.

Chemical analysis of excavated Scandinavian textiles by Penelope Walton Rogers has confirmed a remarkable predilection for blue clothing among Vikings. Red clothing is limited to high status contexts. 'Red scarlet' refers to a type of luxury cloth that was unknown in the Viking Age; however, the dye that was used to produce it (kermes) has been found on Viking silks. White clothing appears to have been popular not only with the pious but with the ungodly too, though its religious significance was important from the Conversion. The archaeology of dyestuffs reflects a similar pattern to that of dyed clothing.

In the light of this, I argue that blue clothes occur in the sagas simply as best clothes, and the colour does not in itself have any special symbolic meaning when it is worn before a killing. I also consider how red clothes are used as a status marker in sagas and poetry.

As well as a general analysis, I look in more detail at some specific instances of coloured clothes in poetry, such as Atlakviða's 'serki valrauða ' (st. 4), Sigurðarkviða inn skamma's 'valaript vel fáð' (st. 66) and Rígsþula's 'serk bláfáan' (st. 29). I also consider literary and archaeological evidence for coloured clothes in other Viking-age societies, and find that the colour of Viking dress was distinctive, and was recognised as characteristically Scandinavian.

In 1936 during peat cutting in a bog in Skjoldehamn in Northern Norway, a body was found wearing a near complete outfit. It was assumed to date to the 15th to early 16th century based on the style of clothing. In 2009 new analysis of the find used carbon dating and found a date of 1075 ± 20 years instead. DNA analysis in 1999 found no Y chromosome and no Sámi genetic markers but until more modern DNA analysis is done, the possibility of either/or remains.

The person found was about 40-50 years old. Even though most of the large bones including the skull disintegrated during the excavation in 1936 the remaining bones show no signs of wear and tear and no strong muscle attachments. Together with a slim build and a small stature of 5’ the general archaeological consensus is that the remains are too short and slender for a typical Norwegian male, and could very well be female (or possibly Sámi male or female).

This means this could be one of only a few finds of a female of the (late) Viking age wearing a belt; and the only one I know of where the belt itself is present instead of just indicating hardware (like a buckle), making it a very intriguing find indeed!

This paper shows step by step how a replica belt is produced, and includes an English translation of the chapter 4.4 Belt, 6.4.1 Fastening Stitches and 6.4.2. The three looped knot from the Norwegian master thesis Nye tanker om Skjoldehamnfunnet by Dan Halvard of the Institutt for AHKR at the Universitetet i Bergen, Høsten 2009.

Nowadays, experimental archeology and historical reconstruction became one of the most important methods of popularization of archeology. Historical reenactment dealing with everyday life of ancient societies is based primarily on the results of archaeological research, ethnographic, historical and iconographic sources.
It seems that the main and most visible element of recreating the past is costume. Therefore it is important to correctly replicate clothing and all its components, in accordance with scientific knowledge. This thesis is an attempt to capture the most important aspects of the Viking Age clothing in northern Europe, dating from 793 to 1066 AD. It focuses on Scandinavia because of the number of archaeological sources and studies. For proper costume reconstruction it appears to be necessary to create a handbook for reenactors, who often rely on unclear, controversial and unscientific studies – a collection of as much sources as possible introducing fabrics and leather technology.
We can base studying Scandinavian textile and leather clothing from the Viking Age on archaeological remains of fabrics and leathers. Unfortunately, these sources are often only fragmentary that is why we need comparative studies with iconographic sources to be able to elaborate on the subject more thorougly. Figurines and picture stones are the exceptionally useful sources of the type. The iconographic finds help us to reconstruct fashion and location of individual costume elements on the body.
In my thesis I collected textile and iconographic findings from the Viking Age to analyze them for according to the presence of certain costume elements in different regions and periods. The result of the analysis are illustrations confirming a variety of clothes in their occurrence in particular time and place.

An ornamented copper-alloy buckle and matching strap-end were recovered from a Viking Age grave, together with remains of a belt and the linen clothing that it fastened. The metalwork appears to have been re-worked from horse fittings and is likely to have originated in the Irish Sea region.