Hollywood has no concept of what 5th century Romans looked like. If Iām watching a movie about the final days of the Western Roman Empire, I should be seeing zero togas. Itās like if you made a movie about the Trump administration, you wouldnāt have people dressed like the founding fathers. Thatās how wrong it is.
This is what 5th century Romans looked like:
I think the problem is that pop culture has this theme park version of history that treats time periods like distinct worlds with no fluidity between them. In Roman Times, people dressed like this vs Medieval Times when people dressed like that. But that is obviously not how time works. The end of the Western Roman Empire led directly into and overlapped with the Middle Ages, and the aesthetics we associate with medieval Europe were already long established.
On a related note, the ābarbariansā didnāt dress like you think they did either. Less of this:
More of this:
(Art by Angus McBride)
Again, the end of the Western Roman Empire was the beginning of medieval Europe, and it already looked like it.
The notable exception was the Franks, who apparently really did dress like that:
There really is an exception to everything, and itās usually the French.
Vikings/Norse in media ā¦
What they really looked likeā¦
The woman in the āwhat Old Norse people really looked likeā -section of the last addition is dressed in an Iron Age Latvian dress. Old Norse women didnāt use the chiton style dress many Baltic and Baltic Finnic people used, they used whatās called apron dress. Hereās couple of reenactors dressed in Old Norse style apron dresses. (I donāt think these are like reconstructed by professional historians but they are pretty accurate to museum reconstructions. Except for the hair of course.)
For comparison hereās another reconstruction of Iron Age Latvian dress and one of Iron Age Finnish dress.
Shapewise the dress is basically the same as antique Greek chiton, but from thick wool and a long sleeved dress under it to make it suitable for colder climate. Iron Age lasted well into Middle Ages in Baltic Sea area, and these dresses are based on finds from the time that Middle Ages was happening in most of Europe. The Finnish dress is dated to 11th century which was High Middle Ages in rest of Europe. I think this highlights the point how much the Antique period and Middle Ages flowed into each other.
I have to note that the dress in the right side of the second picture of the original post is not very accurate depiction of a Medieval dress. Generally I would always caution against trusting these very modern illustrations of historical clothing. Early medieval dress varied greatly geographically. For example the Old Norse apron dress is early Medieval dress. The unifying features were that the garments were loose and often tied with girdles, not fitted like in the illustration.
Hereās a reconstruction of a 7th century Saxon dress and an illustration of Anglo-Saxon dress from 10th century.
First fitted medieval dress was 12th century bliaut in French influenced area, which wasnāt smoothly fitting still as tailoring wouldnāt come along till the 14th century. Hereās couple of depictions of bliaut. And bliaut was used by both men and women as was the tailored kirtles of Late Medieval period. So if a woman is depicted in a fitted gown, then the men would be too.
Loose gowns were still used elsewhere, when bliaut was used by french so I guess the French are again the exception.
The point of the original post still stands and I think the way early medieval dress really looked like makes it even stronger. The pop cultureās idea of the fitted medieval dress comes really fully in Late Medieval period and itās early version at the end of the High Medieval period. Before that the Medieval dress is very similar to the Late Roman dress, loose simple tunic shapes with a girdle.
1600s: most witch-hunts ended in this century. no witches were burned in North America; they were hanged or in one case pressed to death
1700s: the American Revolution. Marie Antoinette. the French Revolution. the crazy King George. most pirate movies
1800-1830: Jane Austen! Pride and Prejudice! those dresses where the waist is right under one’s boobs and men have a crapton of facial hair inside high collars
1830-1900: Victorian. Les Miserables is at the beginning, the Civil War is in the middle, and Dracula is at the end
1900-1920: Edwardian. Titanic, World War I, the Samantha books from American Girl, Art Nouveau
1920s: Great Gatsby. Jazz Age. Flappers and all that. most people get this right but IT IS NOT VICTORIAN. STUFF FROM THIS ERA IS NOT VICTORIAN. DO NOT CALL IT VICTORIAN OR LIST IT ON EBAY AS VICTORIAN. THAT HAPPENS SURPRISINGLY OFTEN GIVEN HOW STAGGERING THE VISUAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ERAS IS. also not 100 years ago yet, glamour.com “100 years of X” videos. you’re lazy, glamour.com. you’re lazy and I demand my late Edwardian styles
I just saw people referencing witch burning and Marie Antoinette on a post about something happening in 1878. 1878. when there were like trains and flush toilets and early plastic and stuff. if you guys learn nothing else about history, you should at least have vague mental images for each era
“Les Miserables is at the beginning, the Civil War is in the middle, and Dracula is at the end” sounds like the longest weirdest worst movie I’d pay to see in theatres five times.
rose tyler hated her shitty job, wore £1 mascara, charity shop sweatpants, boxed hair bleach, couldn’t keep her room clean, hated rich people, was called a slag by the queen, constantly chat shit about her mum, slapped a guy that made her mum cry, astonished herself when she could do maths, 19 year old runaway, and the most beautiful woman on my tv 2005 - 2006
I’m sorry friends, but “just google it” is no longer viable advice. What are we even telling people to do anymore, go try to google useful info and the first three pages are just ads for products that might be the exact opposite of what the person is trying to find but The Algorithm thinks the words are related enough? And if it’s not ads it’s just sponsored websites filled with listicles, just pages and pages of “TOP FIFTEEN [thing you googled] IMAGINED AS DISNEY PRINCESSES” like… what are we even doing anymore, google? I can no longer use you as shorthand for people doing real and actual helpful research on their own.
– https://search.marginalia.nu/ Search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and promotes websites that aren’t usually at the top of the list.
– https://www.worldcat.org/ Search engine for items in libraries (books, but also maps, articles, sound recordings, theses, etc.)
– https://scholar.google.com/ Search engine for scientific papers, reviews, etc. It’s still google, but a lot better than the normal search engine counterpart.
– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_search_engines A list of search engines sorted by subject, area, and more. If you’re searching on a specific area, it might be worth checking if there is one focused on that area.
Also, P.S.: Please stop using Google, and start using more privacy focused search engines, like DuckDuckGo or SearchX (opensource; personally haven’t used it yet, but it looks promising for privacy-focused users)
Studies show that approaching youth with a bystander-intervention model is actually a lot more effective for reducing sexual assault, and it is also more enthusiastically received than programs that bill themselves as anti-rape.
We can tell youth that they are basically “rapists waiting to happen” (anti-rape initiative), or we can tell them that we know they would intervene if they saw harm happening to someone and we want to help empower them to do that (bystander intervention). The kids jump in with both feet for the latter! It was amazing to see children (and young boys in particular) excited to do this work and engage their creativity with it. Also, studies show that not only do they go on to intervene, but they also do not go on to sexually assault people themselves. Bystander intervention also takes the onus off the person being targeted to deter rape and empowers the collective to do something about it. It answers the question in the room when giggling boys are carrying an unconscious young woman up the stairs at a house party, and people are not sure how to respond and are waiting for “someone” to say or do something.
Richard M. Wright, “Rehearsing Consent Culture: Revolutionary Playtime” in the anthology Ask: Building Consent Cultureedited by Kitty Stryker
This is also, btw, how the US drastically reduced drunk driving in the US. Telling people they shouldn’t drive when intoxicated made absolutely zero difference. A slogan-and-ad-campaign for “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk!” changed drinking culture. Going after the bystanders is quite often the most effective thing to do in any social change.
