Jaques wrote:Thinking about the difficult future painting of the figures in the 1/72 scale, any suggestion or reference for painting the ancient color pattern of the great medieval kilt before the tartan pattern?
Hi Jaques.
I think basing your figures on the film is absolutely fine and the figures look great; I'm looking forward to seeing more of this. You can do whatever you want with your figures because the film is not historically accurate. Wallace was not a Highlander and his army was not a highland army. There may have been some highlanders in his army but they would not have looked like the characters in the film. Which, I think , means you have a free rein.
As to the colour and pattern of kilt Medievel Highlanders would have worn, well they wouldn't have worn kilts but the tunics they probably did wear are usually described as being saffron coloured.
Some information on the development of Highland dress from J. Dunbar Telfer's "History of Highland Dress" and "The costume of Scotland".
Medievel accounts of Highlanders have them dressed in the Irish fashion. Short tunic (Leine) or long shirt (Sark in Scotland) and a mantle or cloak (Brat). Bare legged and barefoot except in extreme conditions such as snow where deerskin (in some places possibly sealskin) might be wrapped around the feet and tied about the ankles, worn hair side out.
In early Irish writing the leine is described as being "gel" (bright) but later medievel accounts record them as being saffron coloured (though perhaps not all dyed with actual saffron).
Leines and sarks are often described as being pleated though this could perhaps sometimes refer to quilting of protective garments.
The brat is generally described as being shaggy and perhaps fringed.
First written reference: Magnus Berfaet's Saga 1093, says that on return frrom an expedition to the West King Magnus and many of his followers adopted the costume of the Western lands, going barelegged and having short tunics (kyrtlu) and upper garments (yfir hafnir).
Guibert of Nogent's 1104-1112 History of the First Crusade mentions the scots soldiers in their shaggy cloaks and also contains what might be the first ever description of sporrans.
John Major's (No! not THAT one) 1521 "History of Greater Britain" describes the Scots thus: "From the middle of the leg to the foot they have no covering for the leg, clothing themselves with a mantle instead of an upper garment and a shirt dyed with saffron... In time of war they cover their whole body with a shirt of mail of iron rings , and fight in that. The common people of the Highland Scots rush into battle having their body clothed with a linen garment manifoldly sewed and painted or daubed with pitch, with a covering of deerskin". The manifoldly sewed is often interpreted as evidence of pleating but being a war garment it might well refer to quilting of a padded protective garment.
There is some thought that there were two types of dress at the time; short jacket and trews (truibhas) of the original inhabitants, and the lein and brats of the conquering Gaels. this is supported by the fact that all of the figures in trews depicted in "The Book of Kells" appear to be lower class people, I wonder if the original inhabitants were more colourful like the Ancient Britons as described by Caeser?
Some pictures
Schotische Hooglander by Lucas de Heere in the library of Ghent University.
R.R. McIans Victorian era paintings are considered to be quite fanciful but these ones might give some idea of what Medievel Highlanders looked like.
Ferguson:
MacArthur:
MacDonald. Lord of the Isles:
The first mention of Tartan is a 1538 record of a costume made for King James V which calls for:
"variant cullorit velvit to be 'ane Heland Coit"
"Heland tertane to be hoiss" [trews]
"Holland claith to be syde Heland Sarkis" [long shirts].
But here the "tertane" might to refer to a type of cloth imported from France rather than a distinctive Highland pattern.
George Buchanan in "Rerum Scoticarum Historia", 1581 says the Scots delighted in variegated colours especially stripes with favourite colours being blue and purple. And dark brown for camoflage when hunting in the heather; but that "their ancestors wore plaids of many colours, and numbers still retain this custom".
First definite mention of belted plaids is in 1594 when Scots mercenaries fighting in Ireland are described by the Irish as being distinguished by their "mottled cloaks of many colours with a fringe to their shins and calves, their belts were over their loins outside their cloaks".
John Taylor's 1618 account of the local Gentry on a hunt on the Braes of Mar describes: "shooes of but one sole apiece; stockings (which they call short hose) made of warm stuffe of veriagated colours, which they call Tartane; as for breeches, many of them, nor their forefathers, never wore any, but a jerkin of the same stuff that their hoise is of, their garters being bands or wreaths of hay or straw, with a plead about their shoulders , which is a mantle of divers colours, much finer and lighter stuffe than their hose, with blue flat caps on their heads. a handkerchief knit with two knots about their neck; and thus they are attyred".
Between the early meeting of the Gaels and the Picts and the Britons, and the first accounts of the familiar highland dress in the early C17, I think there must have been a lot of mixing and blending and cultural exchange. Also the very nature of weaving means that when you start to weave different colours together, tartan patterns is what your going to get. I suspect tartans appeared quite early we just don't have documentary evidence of it.
I know the wisdom of the hive mind tells us there were no clan tartans but I agree with Donald; I think many of the tartans we know today, or something like them, have been around for a long time, In many cases associated with specific areas, which are themselves closely linked to specific clans.