Early Welsh

[<lukash>]

I just bought an early welsh army and I am having trouble finding out how they dressed. Did they favor bright colors, drab, stripes, ect...? Any point in the right direction would be appreciated.

[imported_adsarf]

How early is early? I'm not sure there's a lot of evidence before the high middle ages, so you can probably just make it up.

Andrew

[orca]

For the poorer mountain types, think of what undyed wool would be - off-white, tan/khaki, light gray or dark grey, even black. Some would be able to afford cheap dyes - a dull medium blue, rusty red or dull burgundy, dull medium greem, and sometimes a bright yellow. Richer fellows would have more brightly dyed clothes, but they would be 1 per stand max. The mounted troops would be brightly dressed. The PS would probably all be poor.

[David Kuijt]

Orca is on the right track, but the dye situation is not nearly as severe as he implies. Vegetable dyes are cheap and readily available; so are many earth pigments. Go with lots of different earth tones. Greens and reds and yellows and browns are all fine, but make sure that none of them are too bright (good mordants to fix dies are comparatively rare and expensive). Blues are also OK, although a little more difficult. Avoid jewel tones and brilliant (intense) colours except for the command stand -- only the wealthy would be able to afford fabrics dyed that well. Any muddy colours are great.

[Paul A. Hannah]

Confirming the advice DK just offered are the pictures in Osprey's "Scottish & Welsh Wars, 1250-1400" --these tomes are generally acceptable, "one-stop" sources if one has only a casual interest in researching a given period. ISBN 0-85045-542-1.

While most of the color plates focus more on the knights and their snazzy get-ups, some attention is still given to lower-class blokes.

If you don't have an easy source for this book, I'll gladly send you my copy. --It sounds as if you may just be starting out in DBA and this would just be a small "welcome" to the DBA community. smile.gif (Just send me your mailing address off-list to PAHannah@aol.com.)

[ August 01, 2003, 21:22: Message edited by: Paul A. Hannah ]

[Ed Dillon]

Red dye would fade quickly to a scarlet. Yellows would also get dull but could start fairly bright. Greens could actually be a pretty vivid shade of light green from Dyer's Greenweed. Grays, browns, and black would be pretty easily obtained in Wales via plant materials. Blue would come from woad and a medium blue would be pretty colorfast for a year or more (or so I read). I think that orange would be acceptably common, but it would be dull. The Welsh liked to wear the brightest colors that they could get. It seems that checked patterns were common. Cream to light brown makes a good base. Remember that bleached wool was not used all that commonly. Mordants at the time included mussel shells and stale urine, which were cheap in both senses of the word, and alum, which was better and more costly.

Does anybody know if red cabbage dye was being used at this time?

Do the hulls of English walnuts stain/dye like the hulls of black walnuts in the US?

[ August 02, 2003, 00:24: Message edited by: Ed Dillon ]

[<lukash>]

Thanks all, I appreciate it. Paul A. Hannah, I appreciate the offer, but I'll pass...I have so many books now, I'm trying to get rid of some. ;) Mostly old fantasy battle rulebooks. I'm not new to DBA, but I am just starting to actually "play" and trying to drag 2 or 3 people in with me. Thanks again.

[Redwilde]

A quick check with my local source (Roxanne - PhD Celtic studies). Off-hand she doesn't think they had red cabbages.

Checks and stripes are fine. Plaids are possible. Pinks, yellows, and blues are all fine, just not as intense as modern chemical dyes. Undyed wool and linen would be common.

[Ed Dillon]

Originally posted by Redwilde:
A quick check with my local source (Roxanne - PhD Celtic studies). Off-hand she doesn't think they had red cabbages.

Thanks Redwilde, I apprecate it, I had completely forgotten about linen. They would have had some exposure to cotton and silk as well.
Ed

[David Kuijt]

Originally posted by Ed Dillon:

Do the hulls of English walnuts stain/dye like the hulls of black walnuts in the US? Yes. Lots of similar stuff, too -- oak galls, for example, were used to make ink (and therefore were almost certainly used for dye).

[orca]

Did the Welsh use Birch dye? (bright yellow). I know that the Scots, Irish, almost any country where birch are common used this color. I don't know the ditribution of birch trees in ancient wales.

[David Kuijt]

Originally posted by orca:
Did the Welsh use Birch dye? (bright yellow). I know that the Scots, Irish, almost any country where birch are common used this color. I don't know the ditribution of birch trees in ancient wales. You can get yellow dye from grass (cheap) and saffron (expensive) too.

I assume they did, since there is a Welsh word for Birch (Bedw).

[Ed Dillon]

There is a fair amount of documentation stating that Weld (_Reseda_luteola_) was used for yellow. Other things such as onion skins and urine have also been used. A friend of mine told me that the Irish Kerns used urine to dye their tunics yellow and let the smell and their fearsome reputation scare away their foes. I haven't been able to confirm that in the literature...
Ed

[Redwilde]

Checking once again with Doc Rox, urine was standardly used to help shrink wool after it has been woven, during the waulking process. It is not a die though.

Crotal (sp?) a type of lychen was also used to get yellow.

[Ed Dillon]

I am envious of your contacts with "Doc Rox". Lichens were an important source for a variety of dyes, including dark grays and black. I think that some of the Harris tweeds are dyed with lichens, or at least used to be. BTW, thanks for the info.
Ed

[ August 08, 2003, 04:46: Message edited by: Ed Dillon ]