Layered clothing is a thing in the late Middle Ages. There's been layers before, obviously, and there are passages in the Nibelungenlied that point towards some of the additional layer garments (like a cloak) being not strictly optional bad-weather garments for someone like a queen, or very high-ranking woman. 

But this is the first image that I have seen which very clearly shows two doublet-type garments worn on top of each other: 

This is a detail from a "Carrying the Cross" scene in the Bode Museum, Berlin, dated to c 1425. You can find the full piece and the corresponding database information here in the Berlin Museums Database.

The man on the far right is clearly wearing long hose or joined hose, and he is also wearing a doublet-like garment with button closure in the front that goes down to very shortly above his knees. Interestingly, the front is unbuttoned up to his belt, and the corners of the garment tucked into the belt. This reveals a shorter doublet-like garment, laced close. The guy to his proper right is wearing comparatively boring ringmail and a breastplate, and something under the ringmail which might have a sleeve that forms soft vertical folds, or the vertical lines might indicate some kind of padding and quilting (the garment from Chartres also has vertical quilting lines down the sleeves).

This is certainly... interesting. Very interesting. If these garment types were layered here, is that a common occurrence? Would something like the Chartres garment have been worn over a second doublet-style garment, then a ringmail? There are rust spots on the lining of the Chartres doublet which point to something metallic having been in contact with it. 

Only a shirt underneath the ringmail is theoretically possible, but might not be the most comfortable arrangement. We do have some few examples of laced-closed doublets that were definitely worn under armour (see for instance this article, and sorry for the paywall). So - how many of the pieces we see on late medieval paintings were worn solo? How many were worn over a second layer of armour, be it textile, metal, or both? 

It also adds some more interesting aspects to the Oswald reconstruction. Though due to time and budget restraints, I don't see a full ensemble of two doublets and the ringmail come about... 

If you should have seen anything similar somewhere, please do let me know! I am still all excited about this discovery and would love to know if there's more...

So if you wanted to know what I've been working on - it was this: 

... which is part of the dagging on the hood for Oswald. I'm not entirely happy with how dark the beeswax turns out on the edges, but I also didn't want to keep it entirely unsecured. Possibly it would be less obvious with a thicker fabric, or with less hot wax, but, well, it's going to stay this way now.

And this, by the way, is the collateral damage to my piece of support wood for making the scalloped edges:

Next step is finishing the face edge, and then putting the main piece and the liripipe together, and testing if it does look like in the image.  

The first thing completely ready for the Oswald figurine are... the shoes. Which is mostly due to the fact that I asked for them straight away, and that agreeing on a type and style and the details did not take as long as searching fabrics and reconstructing patterns for several garments tends to take.

They arrived today, and they are absolutely wonderfully gorgeous. Also, they have a faint and lovely to my nose smell of fresh goat leather. 

Have I mentioned that they are utterly lovely? Though I confess I'm not too much looking forward on getting them onto the figure's feet, as they are a little hard to dress (I found that already with taking off and putting back on his normal modern shoes).  

And before the week ended, I did manage to do the main cutting for the reconstructed hood with the fancy liripipe. It still needs a bit of decision on how many dagges (probably around 12) around the collar part, and putting together, and making the stuffed face opening ring, but the scariest bit for me is always doing the cutting.

After that, if you've messed up, well, you have to deal with it. But before the first cut, there's still the full range of possibilities, from getting it perfectly right to ruining everything... and that never fails to make me hesitate.

Images will follow once the piece is in a shape to be photographed. At least the fabric is very, very bling-y, so it should look quite fancy! 

It's still way too hot here, the Little Cat is better (at least it looks like it to us), and I am getting the hose stuff ready to be sent off. 

Thanks to my lovely model whom you can see in this picture, you can now see how it could have looked when it was new, and still had its feet on, and the thighs were not yet worn through. It was definitely an adventure!

The hose will go to the castle museum in Urach, where it will be mounted so it looks nice as it chills in its own little place in the exhibition. But there will be a piece of the fabric to touch for the visitors, which is always something that I really appreciate.

So... this is done, and I'm looking forward to the weekend (where I will give a sprang workshop in Landshut), and then... the summer break draws near. And other, new adventures.

(Though it would be nice if they were coming with a little less heat outside. Have I mentioned that it's way, way too hot here?) 

After fiddling with the feet (the small bits at the end always take more time than seems fair!) the hose is now finally finished. I'm very happy that it is, and there's nothing that went superduper wrong, but I'm also not over the moon. 

With all the pattern making and pattern taking and pattern transferring, after having cut the very first pattern attempt a little too small, it's now a little too large. Not really bad, but, well, it would sit even nicer if it were a tiny bit tighter.

Fortunately it's not intended to be worn by my most patient model husband, but it will be in a case with a support that fits it right, so I'm trying to not beat myself up over it too much. It also has quite a bit of fold puddling around the ankles, but again, a little tighter would make this less obvious. And since the linen fabric is not very stretchy, and it needs a bit of room for the feet to pass through, well, I think the extra width at the ankle could have been less, but not avoided entirely.

The whole thing could have profited from some nice fitting sessions after cutting and before sewing, but I have to admit skipping these because I was afraid the fabric could unravel too much when fitting. (Also see above, the goal was a reconstruction to sit in a case, not one to fit perfectly.) There's some other bits that I would like to tweak some more, where I'm not entirely happy with how it worked out, and I do wonder if there's a better (read: quicker and less annoyingly fiddly) way to make the foot parts. 

For now, though, I'll be happily done with the thing. There's a few touching samples of the fabric to be seamed, then it will all go off to its new permanent home, and I can prepare for the sprang workshop this weekend!

I've started cutting and sewing for the Alpirsbach project... and it's definitely interesting!

This was a test seam I made before starting on the real one, after cutting the first leg. That was really hard work; fortunately the fabric is much more cooperative being sewn than being cut!