Almost all re-enactment societies talk about historically accuracy (often shortened the HA) and authenticity. But what do they really mean by these words? What is the purpose of historical accuracy in clothing? How strict are societies with their members? What benefit do the societies gain from this drive for accuracy and authenticity and what might they lose by it?

These are questions that are often asked by re-enactors but looking into how to complete an early mediaeval tunic last week got me thinking about this. This week’s blog has fewer photos but a lot of words so find somewhere comfortable to read this one!

What is historical accuracy?

Hand stitched seams, plant dyed fabric, 100% wool or silk or linen, the right style of coat, the right shoe leather, a hat that matches the time period, the right type of woven cloth, etc, etc. All of these things form part of what is called historical accuracy. Some groups insist on all of them to be classed as accurate but some groups only request some of them to be termed accurate. In some re-enactment circles, certain things are more important than others depending on the time period being re-enacted. A Napoleonic soldier is more interested in the cut and tailoring of the uniform than the type of cloth and leather used. For a viking re-enactor the cloth type or colour and leather tanning method is more critical than the shape of the tunic worn. An English Civil War soldier may be more interested in their musket, drum or flag than how their seams were sewn or the exact colour of their breeches.

Accurate today, wrong tomorrow

Many new members to a re-enactment society cannot afford a full set of clothing, weapons, living history kit, etc immediately. Often they borrow kit or make do without, for example going barefoot because shoes are expensive.

Once they have a full set though, that must be it - history cannot possibly change, so once your kit is accurate you only need to change the things that wear out, right? Unfortunately not. What was acceptable in the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s is now seen as laughable by even the least aggressively accurate societies. Partly because standards of accuracy have increased (I can hear cries of PVC buffcoat and nylon sashes!) but also because professional and amateur researchers change what is known about any specific time period. When this happens, a previously acceptable item becomes unacceptable. It is the response to these two aspects that define the nature of a society.

In both photos above, the costumes would be considered to be of a good standard at the time. The one from around 1980 has many of the ordinary soldiers wearing red sashes across their shoulders, bucket top boots made from cowboy and firemen’s boots with leather tops sewn on and large floppy black hats. The more recent photo shows three ordinary soldiers with no sashes, no boots and a range of head wear. The shoes, leatherwork and bandolier (wooden bottles on a leather strap) are all far more common in our regiment today due to improved understanding of what common people wore but also due to changes in re-enactment fashion.

Fashion - then and now

I am afraid it is true that all voluntary re-enactment societies have fashions. One person gets a piece of clothing or equipment that looks nice to our modern (as in current) view of what is attractive and suddenly you see lots of people with them. Often it is based on some research that showed that at least one person is depicted wearing or using it at least once. However, if it fits well with either current fashion outside of re-enactment (look at the shoulder padding in the 1980’s photo and the lack of it in 2017) or with a mindset about what the original “must have looked like”, then it will be taken up by lots of people, even if it is actually not very accurate. There was a fashion in the Sealed Knot for one piece, woolen over-dresses laced over an exposed draw-string shift (blouse) and a skirt. It is a corruption of an earlier Tudor style, that is cheap and easy to make on a sewing machine but it remained popular because it looked the way the purchaser expected to look. Although these are still available from some traders, most women are now buying separate bodices and skirts as would have been more common in the English Civil War period.

This effect can also be seen in the professional costuming world for theatre and film. The director or lead actor has an image in their head and regardless of the view of the costume designer on what was actually worn in the 1520’s or 1780’s, you get vibrant purple silk, leather shoulder pads or love-heart necklines. The director has an image that they want the modern audience to recognise without explanation, so they need to play to the current view of the audience on what is opulent, masculine or feminine.

But fashions are not restricted to today. Although fashions did not move as quickly in the past, they did move. Wearing an items of clothing that your Grandad wore (less than 50 years ago) would be seen like retro-fashion is now. Colour choices from what was available, the shape of the silhouette (the outline of shoulders, bust, waist and hips) and the use of contrasting colours or fabrics all defined the fashion of the time. This was often driven by the ruling families or the current King and Queen. King Henry VIII had many of his upper garments made with especially wide shoulder structures to emphasis his physical strength, so the fashion of his time was wide at the shoulder. His daughter wanted to emphasise her virginity, so her ladies all copied her dresses with very low wasitlines with a deep flat V over the belly - no chance of pregnancy with that shape! Charles I wanted to show how wealthy he was and his wife wanted to show how fertile she was - so men’s costume becomes flamboyant with colourful clothes made of a rich variety of fabrics, while the women’s clothes have a high waistline and very full skirts often supported on a bum roll to emphasis wide hips and hint at pregnancy even when not pregnant.

What impact does that have on re-enactment authenticity? The first is on some specific societies that portray life over a range of periods, such as Kentwell and Regia Anglorum. The Kentwell House re-enactment in the summer each year is one of the Tudor years but can vary from the mid-1500’s to early 1600’s so our friends who regularly attend this event often end up remaking their kit every year. Regia Anglorum, often referred to as a Viking group, re-enact 1000 years of history around the time that the Vikings were landing in Britain, that is a lot of fashion to cover even at the slower rate of change then. The advice on Regia’s website is to have three or four completely different outfits so that you can take part in any culture at any time period that they may choose to portray!

The second is the question of what did ordinary people wear. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, when re-enactment became popular, it was easy to look at portraits in museums and the stately homes that had recently been opened to the public and see the wealthy fashion from around 1500 onwards. Looking again at the Prince Maurice’s 1980 photo, most of the soldiers in the regiment are dressed like officers, because officers get portraits painted and the portraits survive in wealthy families. Ordinary soldiers would not have had oil paintings done. Even if one of them stretched to a sketch or miniature to leave with a loved one, it was unlikely to have survived as a treasured heirloom in a poor family. The upshot is that it takes much more careful research to find out what ordinary people were wearing - reading thousands of wills or inventories for mentions of clothing being passed on after death, looking at woodcuts in books about political issues or the skills of butchery for example. For earlier periods, the research could be archaeological, such as bog bodies, based on the great sagas or poems of the time as interpreted by linguists or based on new surveys of fashions in stone or metal artwork of the time, which is translated into clothing art work.

This research is published over time and has an impact on what is classed as “authentic” or historically accurate for the time period being re-enacted. If the society in question values authenticity, then it will take heed of the new research and encourage its members to change their costume to suit.

There is one failing which commonly catches out re-enactment societies. One culture will, for some reason, produce more documentary evidence at one time or another than its neighboring cultures. That evidence will be studied because it is available and it is very tempting to then extrapolate that to all cultures for that time period. Not all Norse cultures will have dressed the way one bog body did, but if that is the best evidence to hand, then all of the re-enactment may start to look like that. In the seventeenth century, Holland and the Netherlands had a passion for owning paintings that show ordinary people doing ordinary tasks, however, does that mean all British people of the time looked Dutch? There is more evidence for fashion in England through the Tudor period but what did the Scots and Welsh wear at the same time?

How strict is strict?

Every re-enactment society is different, they have different aims and perform in public in different ways. Some are associated with a specific house or estate - they may portray different time periods but just for that house. Some are pure living history - they show how people in a specific place or time period lived in great detail, with every detail available for one to one discussion with their paying audience. Some only put on “distance” events, for example battle re-enactment or jousting shows.

The level of accuracy needed is different for these types. For distance, the overall look of the thing to the crowd is important along with the silhouette of the individual but the actual detail of an individual is less relevant. You can hide a modern cotton shirt under a correct soldier’s coat and collar on a battle field but it needs to be more correct on a living history encampment. If you are demonstrating making cheese in a dairy, then your kirtle and gown cannot be worn over a modern bra as it will be obvious to even the least informed visitor.

However, each society is different in another way. How aggressively do they want to police the improvements to authenticity discussed above? The stated aim of my own society, The Sealed Knot, is to provide education and entertainment for audiences about the battles of the civil war and how people lived. They use encouragement and peer pressure at the local level to drive change. There is no list of rules on what must and must not be worn but the best-practice recommendations change over time and the “loan kit” for new members improves over time. There is also limited policing of what is on offer by traders for members to buy, which slows down the general drift towards “more accurate” since traders continue to sell what “looks right to the customer” rather than what has been found to be more accurate. In the living history encampments for the The Sealed Knot there are more distinct rules - modern equipment (bottles, etc) must be hidden after the gates open to the public, no mixing modern clothes and civil war clothes during the public times and so on. However, the specifics of authenticity between this style or that style are still by word of mouth and peer pressure.

Compare this to Regia Anglorum. They operate most of the time in close contact, living history mode. One of their stated aims is to use up-to-date research to produce a highly educational experience for their audience on what life was really like, not just for combat situations but for normal life. Regia produce a centrally managed list of expected standards of authenticity for each time period and culture that they cover. They list specific colours that can be used, types of fabric weave, shapes of shoe, and so on. To maintain this aim of accurate depiction, each year as new information come to light through research, the society produces updates to their authenticity guide giving items and styles that are “to be encouraged”, “to be reduced” or “now unacceptable and must be removed”. This gives a much faster rate of change than the peer pressure method and a more uniform impression of how people dressed in the period.

What are the benefits and the problems?

Why would a society strive for historical accuracy, even if the audience cannot tell the difference, for example well hand stitched clothing? It makes talking to an audience in close contact much easier. A society that strives for accuracy has members who know about their kit - they can talk about the culture or production methods or use of their clothing and equipment. This attracts more people to come to their shows if they do living history shows. If a society allows its members to buy whatever looks right and does not discuss among themselves what was really worn or used then they have limited information they can pass on to the audience when on show. In addition, an interested and well informed member may be more likely to stay in the society, rather than go and play rugby on a weekend. Some societies sell their services more professionally based on the accuracy of their clothing and equipment, such as for films and professional displays. And then there are always those who love the one-upmanship of “do you have a source to show they used green dye at the time? [nose in the air]”

However, there are drawbacks to aggressive policing of accuracy - new members will find it expensive to go from no kit to full display equipment before they are first allowed to appear in public. In all societies there is usually some spare kit that can be loaned but this rarely extends to personal items, such as shoes or underwear. The more expensive the full outfit is, the longer an individual will depend on such loan kit and more of the newbies will need it. The most extreme version of this is Napoleonic re-enactment. The uniform is VERY strictly applied and the clothing is very expensive to buy, so normally the regiment buys all the uniforms and issues them to the member on loan. The member pays a much higher membership fee to cover this practice, which is in effect a hire purchase of their costume and weapons.

An expensive entry cost for a hobby, such as handwoven fabric, only natural dyes, or ever changing rules, forms a big barrier to attracting young members. Without younger new members, the society age profile gets older and older, so all societies need to match their aspirations on authenticity for all their membership with the need to bring in young people, who may not be very wealthy or have disposable income. This is particularly true where the rules deny participation to someone without a fully compliant outfit and weapons/tools, beware turning participants off who have not quite got the rules right yet but are trying.

Finally, there is a subtle drawback that can appear. All societies have an image or idea that they wish to portray. For example, at Kentwell they have a Gentry class in the house, a militia troop and working class people in the grounds. If the three groups are restricted to the types of natural dyes and fabrics that are thought to have been available at the time, then to the modern audience’s eye the distinction between the classes would not be as obvious as it would have been to someone of the time. So there is a choice - use modern colour choices and force the distinction or risk giving the impression to our modern colour-saturated eye that the past was colourless and bland when it was not seen as that at the time.

The opinions given here are, of course, mine and not everyone may agree with me. I have always seen re-enacting as a hobby with a purpose not a full time job and as such I like the journey of self-education in a collaborative environment. When I come up against the societies with a strict and strong central view of themselves that excludes anything they see as incorrect or unauthentic then I rebel. If I have mis-represented any society I apologise and will be happy to learn more and correct my view.

Next week I will be reviewing one of the books in my small library of costume making books.