Farmers clothes in the 16th century

 I have gotten quite a few questions about what a farmer would have worn in Sweden in the 16th century, so I thought it would be best to try and collect links to helpful sites. This is no way a comprehensive guide, but I hope it can help those who are curious.

In 2020 the blogger Marlein made a post about recreating a pattern for Swedish peasant trousers. Her blog is here but unfortunately she seems to have removed that post. 

First of all there are a couple of depictions of Swedish farmers from the 16th and 17th century.

An italian ambassador - Lorenzo Magalotti - travelled through Sweden in the 17th century and drew pictures of the inhabitants, and this is one of his drawings of Swedish farmers.

Of note here are the long trousers, not the fashionable shorter breeches of the time.

This goes well with this very well researched article about "husur" - which is a kind of wide trousers worn by farmers in the Siljan region, and already in the 17th century there are complaints that the peasants are giving up their husur and start following fashion by using breeches instead. The "husur" survived, barely, into the late 19th century and has been taken up by people reconstructing folk costumes of the region. Then made as a summer garment in linen.

In 1502 the German mercenary Paul Dolnstein was part of the Swedish-Danish wars and he drew the image above of a Swedish farmer-soldier up against a landsknecht. Once again the wide trousers are setting him apart from the fashionable landsknecht in his tight fitting hose.

This is a drawing, that is supposed to be a copy of an older drawing, but the provenience is doubtful, it shows the rebel leader Nils Dacke in the 1540s.

In church art from the 15th century it's also possible to find quite a few examples of wide baggy trousers, this is is an image by Albertus Pictor.

So with that in mind I have made two sets of farmers/peasant trousers. They are made from a pattern that was originally made by Marlein. This was the first pair.

They were worn by my friend Björn in 2023, together with a 15th century doublet that he borrowed and a simple shirt that was slightly gathered at the neck.

I have made a similar pair for my husband as well, but apparently I don't have any good images of him

Here is at a winter event, when he was coming down with a cold so I had just piled as much wool garments on him as possible, before he went home to bed.

Still the pattern for the trousers is pretty simple. It would be possible to use a modern pattern for wide, baggy pants. They do have a shaped crouch seam, but the important thing is that they go up to the natural waist, which is quite higher up than modern trousers. For these trousers I simply use a draw string to keep them up.

As for the upper body. For the 16th century look I would go with a baggy jacket/doublet, but make sure that it has a waist seam and skirt, but no shoulder rolls or wings since that comes in use later and is more a 17th century thing.

A good thing with being a farmer is that since fabric and clothes were so expensive, they were rarely well fitted. If something is too small, or too big, that is correct. People wore worn out garments, old clothes with bad fit or simply hand me downs until there was nothing left of them.

Post season clothes care

 Many people wonder why I go home a day early from Medieval week in Visby. The reason is pretty easy. Medieval week is my last week of holiday and travel time with both ferry and then driving home it takes a whole day. Then when I come home I need to take care of the clothes and equipment, and that takes a full day. I need to do it immediately, because after a week of working in the camp kitchen they stink of smoke.

Medieval week is the last big event of the reenactment season, some times smaller events pop up, that also means that I want to give the clothes some proper cleaning before packing them away for what can be several months until the next time we use them.

I live in a small apartment without a bathtub and without access to a balcony or garden so this is what I do with my historical clothes.

The first thing I did when we came home was to take out all the things of linen and cotton, so our shifts/shirts and kitchen textiles. I rubbed in some Galltvål on special stains and on the cuffs and collars where they linen had turned grey/yellowish. Galltvål is a brand but the kind of soap is also called "gall soap or bile soap" in English. Before going to bed I switched water, but didn't rinse the clothes, and this time I didn't rubb in extra soap, I just put some in the water.

As is common in Sweden our apartment has access to a washing room and I had made sure to book it before going to Visby. The linen and cottons were both put in a washing machine with regular washing powder and 60 degrees wash cycles.

For the wool I put the sweatiest pieces, that is our hoses, David's short hose and my underkirtle in the machine with a gentle wool washing liquid and on a wool cycle. I put the red pieces in a separate machine together with some paper that soaks up the extra dye that they are still shedding a lot of.

 Then I went into our common garder and occupied the patio. I put the white linen pieces in the sun, and on the grass, to get some extra bleaching. The wool was hung up to either dry, or in the case of our hats, gollars, double and overkirtle just air out the smoke. The non-white linen was simply hung over furniture and the like.

It was quite a windy day so I had to catch pieces that flew away from time to time, but it also made everything dry and fresh in a fairly short amount of time. When hanging the clohtes up it was also easy to spot holes and seams that had come undone. All those pieces go into my mending/fixing pile that I can take up in the coming months when I don't have anything else to do.

Then the clothes are all packed away in plastic boxes in my storage in the attic. I have never had problems with moths or the like but I am sure to put plenty of cedar wood pieces in the boxes to ward of any unwelcome guests.