> Message: 8 > Date: Sat, 3 May 2008 10:40:51 -0700 > From: Cynthia J Ley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [h-cost] Italian Ren gowns and purses/pouches > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Content-Type: text/plain > > Hi all! Got a question I was hoping you good folks could help me with. > How did Italian Ren women carry their pouches if not in hand? Did they > wear a belt of some sort? Carry it under the gown, accessible through a > dress slit? > > Any advice greatly appreciated! :-) > > much thanks, > Arlys, clueless in An Tir > > My pet theory is that noblewomen didn't wear pouches at all, not the way we seem to want to in the SCA. They didn't do their own shopping for the most part, and they didn't go anywhere without people to carry stuff for them, so why would they need them? They didn't have spare change/car keys/mobile phones etc that they needed to keep close to their persons.
Similarly, if you were of a class where you might be going to the markets etc you'd probably have a basket with you, so you could just put your purse in that. There are very few instances where women are depicted wearing purses or pouches (they're a bit more common on men), apart from the 13th century, where we're usually told that this are almonieres (or some variant spelling), used for dispensing alms. This is not very handy, of course, if you do want somewhere to carry your car keys around. In which case I'm also rather fond of the 'worn under the gown, accessible through a pocket slit' approach. There is a certain amount of evidence for this, although not really Italian Renn. evidence. Claire/Angharad _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
