[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]

[Lafayette C Curtis]

I was actually referring to the non-helmet headgear. Mostly for the women--so far there seems to be a far lower proportion of bareheaded ones among them than in most other "Germanic" groups that I know of. And bareheaded ladies has always been my pet peeve ever since I got an overdose of them in an SCA event.

BTW, I wouldn't blame these groups for dressing the people like royalty because most of the time the sources are only available in sufficient quantity and quality for that class. For Merovingians, though, you may be right since I do recall some illustrations of the dress of peasants and ordinary townsmen from their period, though they're not really all that detailed.

And who knows if they are reenacting the events of a royal court?

As far as hair length goes, I'm in the process of lengthening mine. I mostly do 17th- and 18th-century and my bloody hair isn't long enough yet to pull into a queue. (Argh.)

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Felix Wang]

A lot of gear from this period was tossed in Scandinavian bogs, in places like Illerup Adal in Denmark. There are a number of books on this site and others. Huge numbers of shields, spears, and a lot of swords - some of Roman make. Not a lot of armour, as I recall.

[Hugh Fuller]

Jean Henri, you have such a huge span of time about which you ask that I doubt that any one of us could answer you. I'll attempt a discussion of the Anglo-Saxons of the period of their conquest of Britain, say 450-650 CE.

The men would have been dressed in woolen or linen tunics and trousers, dyed with the vegetable dyes available to them. But do not think that all such dyes were of a subdued appearance. A member of our re-enactment has a shawl that she researched from a grave find in Germany and it is a brilliant Saxon Blue. She maintains that it is accurate in its color and I know that the red of the Roman tunics could be pretty bright. The men's tunics would have been trimmed, if they could afford it, with woven trim in various patterns. Shoes were most likely turnshoes, much like the Native American moccasins, sewn together and then turned the other side out. Headgear is speculative at best. Phrygian caps are popular among American re-enactors based upon documentary evidence of similar appearing caps, but such are from a later period and speculative at best for this period. It only makes sense that they wore something in Northern climes.. Finally, they wore woolen cloaks pinned with various pins such as penannulars or fibulae. I can speak from experience that, when doubled, they are very warm and very water resistant.

Women wore a light woolen or linen shift, a long sleeved tunica with tight sleeves that fastened with clasps and a sort pf long tubular woolen item that pinned together at the shoulders, leaving the arms covered only by the tunica. The pins were not the turtle pins of the later Norse period. Women also wore their hair done up in scarves or veils of linen or wool. They also wore turnshoes and woolen cloaks.

Helmets were mostly spangenhelms, the segmented helmets held together within a frame. But they were not worn by all warriors as it was a metals poor culture and metal armor was an expensive luxury. A mail hauberk was even more of an expensive luxury. The basic defense was a round shield of wooden planks with an iron boss protectong the handgrip. They were frequently bound around the edges with rawhide and covered with leather then painted with a design. Sometimes they might have metal trim items on the face..

The basic weapon was the spear. These were easily made by any village blacksmith and used minimal metal. The warrior also would carry a knife, ususally a seax, of varying size. If he was wealthy, or lucky, enough, he would have a sword. These would be the basic Germanic spatha of the period, a heavy slashing sword that lacked the sophistication of the later Viking Era swords with thei fullers and lighter blades. But swords are very difficult and demanding products and, therefore, costly. They could be afforded only by the wealthier or by the person who could pick one up as loot from a battle. Some of them, such as the sword found in the Sutton Hoo burial, could be quite elaborate and handsome...The blades, at this time, were largely all pattern-welded. Finally, nearly every man had an axe and these turn up regularly in graves and in archaeological sites all over England. But they weren't the double-bitted axes so beloved of fantasy artists. They were single bitted and made of iron with a steel edge forge-welded into it.

Well, that is a more or less basic description of your invasion era Anglo-Saxon.

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Jeroen Zuiderwijk]

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Norlyn C]

I thought i would put in my 2 cents with a nice website devoted to re-enacting the Germanic Alamanni Kit from the 3rd to 6th century or so (when they were conquered by the Franks). The author of this site takes the time to talk about his recreations and construction techniques for them. You can view the website here:

http://www.nordicus.ch/nordicusprojects.html

I find it interesting the details about the Alamanni Bow and the lack of info on the Axe, whereas most sources talk more about this than the Seax (knife).

Well worth the visit. For those unfamiliar with the Alamanni you can get some basic details here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alamanni

I hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Norlyn

[Jean Henri Chandler]

[Felix Kunze]

For information of germanic kit in the time of Caesar and the defeat of Varus at Teutoburg Forest (9 AD) try the german site:
www.chasuari.de.
The written information is in German, but they have a very nice gallery (Galerie) and look quite authentic (also some germanic tribes might have fought bare-chested).
Take a special note to the single edged germanic swords, precedessor of the sax but mostly replaced by roman sword types in the second century AD. The kit also shows heavy celtic influence, which is also clearly recognisable in archaeological finds of the period and gets more and more replaced by roman styles after the roman conquest of Gaul.

To the spears: The description of Tacitus was partly confirmed by bog finds, where spears tipped with bone points were found (mostly javelins).