Dress of Agnes of Babenberger

The next lady in line is Agnes of Babenberger, with a large brown and green dress.

This picture is from the lovely Eme's compendium

The Gown
It's not possible to see what is underneath the large gown, so your guess is as good as mine. The gown however is quite detailed, made in a brown, patterned fabric with a silky feeling to it. Over the shoulders and at the end of the sleeves, a green patterned silky fabric has been used.

I found this gown to be rather hard to figure out. On Myra Hem's costume page she lists the gown as being a schaube with a flat collar, which I think is a very fitting description. The green part of the gown over Agne's shoulders is thus the collar of the gown. Myra also has an excellent dress diary on the making of a schaube.

The headdress
Agne's head is covered with a large embroidered fabric, where "the beginning" of the fabric (The part that is closest to the front head) has been folded approximately 9 times. Marie Cadieux and Nova Corpora both have construction theories on this type of headdress. A long, thin line of fabric with several stripes of embroidery hangs from the headdress.

The embroidery pattern is a bit hard to see, but the pattern below, to the left, is my suggestion after spending quite a lot of time zooming and adjusting the lightness and contrast of the picture. The crosses look like a cross with a coloured knot around its middle, but if you zoom in, it looks like what I've depicted below. It seems that every second group of filled squares are a pinkish red, and the other half are brown-ish.

   

Accessories
It's a bit hard to see if Agnes is wearing a very wide necklace, or if the brown gown is separated from the green shoulder-part and has a heavily embroidered neck. From the neck there is a long piece of jewellery that reaches her breasts.

Dress of Adelhaid, Gattin Albrechts I

The first lady up is the lovely Adelhaid. The word Gattin means "married woman", so I think we can safely assume that she is the wife of duke Albrechts I of Hapsburg. I just fooled around with the picture of her in Photoshop, and suddenly realised how awesome her dress is, making me want to start this blog. So she is a special lady if you ask me.

This picture is from the lovely Eme's compendium

I'm crazy about this dress, and have seriously considered recreating it. The only things scaring me off is the headpiece and the belt, which would be quite an expensive investment. I guess I'll got to learn to do metalwork.

The kirtle

..or what one might call the dress that is underneath the outer dress. Is it a chemise? I'm not sure. It's not much that you can see of it, but it's there. A brownish kirtle with an embroidered golden neck opening that is supported by a string around the neck. My theory is that the string is there because the cut of the kirtle is very low, and it thus can't be held up by itself. Unfortunately we can't see the rest of the kirtle, so I have no idea how the sleeves look or if the kirtle is close-fitting or loose. 

This kind of string-supported kirtle can be seen in other late medieval paintings, such as this and this portrait by Albrecht Dürer. Bettina from Bettina's Pages created a dress with the same string-attachment to the kirtle, though it seems that the kirtle she uses is rather close-fitting, and thus doesn't need the support of the string.

The dress

The outer dress is a long-sleeved, close-fitting green dress. The fabric looks like its made from silk or velour, but it's only a guess based on the looks of the painting.

The front opening is embroidered with 3 rows of pearls, first a row of large perls, then a row of small ones and finally another row of large pearls. It's laced with a golden string, and some embroidery or jewellery that I can't classify.

 

The dress itself is embroidered with larger golden beads, with alternating red and golden gems inside them. Between the beads a criss-cross pattern is embroidered with golden thread. From each bead hangs a golden tassel (How awesome is that?! I'm crazy about the tassels...). I assume that the embroidery and tassels continue down the dress, even though it's hidden in the painting.

 

The sleeves are long and close-fitting as well. At the end of the sleeve is an embroidered border, encircled by two rows of pearls.

The accessories
Adelhaid wears a large golden belt with what looks like large red gem in the buckle. Swung over the side of the belt is a long red sash, woven or embroidered with gold threads. In the end of the sash is a large golden ornamentation.

 

She wears thin rings on each hand, the left one seems to be with a red stone. And finally she wears a large, heavy necklace. I suspect this lady (or her husband) was rather rich...

An Introduction to the Project

A while ago, I stumbled upon the amazing and beautiful dresses in the Babenberg Family Tree through the blog Eme's Compendium. And since we've settled for a new concept in my medieval reenactement group, which just happens to be medieval nobility, it seemed as the perfect project to delve into.

Q: What is this blog about?
A: This blog is an attempt to "clean" the images of the noble ladies, in order to find out how the different costumes might have been made. Maybe I'll even try to recreate some of them over time.

Q: Are these dresses even period?
A: I have no idea. I'm not an archaeologist. On one side the Babenberg ruled Austria from 976–1248, which is definently not the late middle ages. The family tree however was made in 1489-1492 for the abbey of Klosterneuburg, maybe due to the canonization of Leopold III (Who was a Babenberg) in 1485. So it was certainly painted during the late middle ages. But I am no expert on medieval dresses, noble medieval dresses even less. So I'm going to assume that the painter painted more or less contemporary clothes on the noble ladies, and if anyone disagrees, I'd love to hear their theories.

Q: You want feedback?
A: Lots and lots of it! As I said, I'm no expert, so if you have any information that I don't, please let me know.