Reconstruction of a 14th Century Leather Hood
Alexander has an SCA A&S projects blog at www.unexpectedmaunche.wordpress.com and an ongoing research project at: www.chaucercompangie.wordpress.com
In the mid 1980’s two scraps of leather with intricate hole patterns were unearthed during an archeological dig in Kalisz, Poland.
It was determined that these pieces were part of the cowl of a mid to late 14th century hood, with embroidered decoration. Very little is known about the actual garment.
I found the idea of a project, taking the very little physical information present and using other existing information from the time period to recreate the item, fascinating and challenging. This was my first time working with either leather, or embroidery.
Really interesting project. It’s great to see how you took very limited information to come up with a finished item. Thanks for sharing this.
I’m always happy to see projects based upon finds in Poland. 🙂
That said, I see it as a good interpretation of the find and always appreciate when an artisan says, “I learned X…next time I’ll do Y”. This is a good project.
Your documentation in a presentation style was brilliant! I love this so much, and liked the lessons learned about pre-punching. The hood looks amazing.
We see lots of cloth hoods, so it’s a real treat to learn about an extant leather one! Thanks for sharing this research. Your discovery about the usefulness of pre-punching the holes will help others, too. Nice work!