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Accessories
Anklets
Buttons
Earrings
Headdress
Clothing
Overview
Shoes
Links
Media
Fiber
Weave
Felt
Cut
Construction
Color
Ornamentation
Sources
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Overview
"These Magyars are a handsome people and of good appearance and their clothes are of silk brocade and their weapons are of silver and are encrusted with pearls."
-Ibn Rusta "The Book of Precious Jewels" c. 930
"...And whatever he has in the way of sable and ermine and grey squirrel and stoat and the belly of the fox... and brocade, he collects all of these skins together...
-Gardìzi "The Chronicle of the Persian Abu Sa'id 'Ab al-Hajj" c. 1050-2
Fiber
The Magyars of the ninth and tenth centuries had access to a variety of materials from which to fashion their clothing. Silk, linen, hemp, wool, wool felt, fur and leather were all available through trade or their own efforts of animal husbandry and plant cultivation.
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a silk worm cocoon |
In the ninth century, the Magyars were alternately allied or bitterly opposed to the Khazar Empire, who in turn were allied with Byzantium. The Khazar Empire anchored the silk road in the West and developed into a great trading center. Byzantium had acquired knowledge of sericulture (or silk production) by the sixth century and often exploited this valuable commodity for political gain. It can be speculated that silk was obtained by the Magyars from these two routes as payment in times of peace and as the spoils of war when the relationships were more contentious.
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flax |
Noted archaeologist, Gyula László, says that the dichotomy of the Magyars being either nomadic or agriculturalist must be disregarded as there is ample evidence that they were both. Hence it may be supposed that they produced both wool and plant fiber materials. In the excavation of the Árpádian-era village of Felgyo, evidence was found that the inhabitants kept cattle, sheep and goats as well as other domesticated animals. Flax and hemp seeds were discovered during the course of the excavation leading to the supposition that these fibers were grown specifically to weave into linen clothing.
Though only 5 percent of the bones recovered in the village were from game animals, we have Gardìzi's listing of animal furs as part of a bride-price as evidence that furs played an important role in the lives of the ancient Hungarians.
Weave
The complexity of the weave of a Magyar garment would depend upon whether they had produced the material themselves or had acquired it through trade or tribute. I do not believe that Magyar weavers were producing the complex silk brocades mentioned by Ibn Rusta.
Both vertical looms, such as the warp-weighted loom of the Greeks, Romans and Scandinavians, and horizontal looms, such as the two-bar loom of the Egyptians and Palestinians and the ground loom of nomadic cultures, had been in use for thousands of years by the time of the Conquest. I'm unaware of any looms being recovered in conquest-era grave finds, so it's difficult to know exactly which of these primitive loom types they would have used.
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A two-bar horizontal loom © Eric Broudy "The Book of Looms" |
Personally, I lean toward the Magyars weaving narrower width fabric on a two-bar or horizontal loom rather than wide width warp-weighted looms. Two-bar looms (of which a horizontal loom is one type) are more easily transportable than their larger cousins. And while clay spindle whorls have been found in female graves, to the best of my knowledge, warp weights, either clay or stone, have not been found there or in excavations of conquest era village sites.
Unidentified textile fragment © Hungarian National Museum |
Tabby or plain weave is the most basic of weaves and most certainly would have been used. Gyula László mentions that occasionally bits of canvas impregnated with greenish copper rust such as the textile fragment at left have been recovered. These fragments were composed of either flax or hemp. By canvas, I believe he is referring to a coarsely woven material, heavy and utilitarian.
The other simple weave is twill weave, which produces a diagonal pattern. Twill weave fragments have been recovered in Neolithic and Bronze age burial sites so it is possible that twill and some of it's variants like herringbone and diamond twill were also produced by Magyar weavers. |
Lastly, we have the fascinating quote from Ibn Rusta, an Arabic writer of the 9th century where in he refers to the Hungarian people as wearing silk brocade. Brocade is defined as 'a heavy fabric interwoven with a rich, raised design'. Byzantium was certainly producing rich, complex silk pieces for the nobility and ecclesiastical classes by this time. China, via the Silk Road, was exporting silk with monochromatic damasks or multicolored patterns. Bird and animal motifs as well as flower and geometric designs are typical of this time period.
Felt
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a felt jurta |
Arguably, felt is the material that has had the greatest impact on the lives of the nomadic peoples of Eurasia. They used it for warmth, shelter and protection. They made clothes, blankets, shoes, hair accessories, religious objects, horse trappings and rugs. The interior and exterior walls of their homes were covered with felt.
Felt is a type of non-woven fabric. The properties of wool is such that when you apply moisture and friction the fibers tightly interlock creating a durable yet pliable material. Felt is primarily made of sheeps wool, though sometimes goat and camel hair is also used.
In "The Art of the Felt-Maker", M.E. Burkett asserts that ancient Hungarians are believed to have introduced felt-making to Europe. The Hungarian word for an earlier version of the szur coat is similar to the Turkish word for the same item and the word for felt, "nemez" is similar to the Iranian word for felt, "nemed".
Cut
 In "The Magyars, Their Life and Civilisation", Gyula László uses ethnographical data to suggest that the clothing of the early Magyars was constructed of rectangles cut from narrow widths of loom woven fabric. This forms the basis of my ideas into the cut of Magyar clothing.
Rectangular construction of garments is an extremely conservative method of utilizing loom woven fabric with very little waste. As the name suggests, rectangles are put together, sometimes with triangular gores for fullness, to construct a garment. This method creates more seams, and therefore more work, but it utilizes nearly every scrap of the fabric that the weaver had worked so hard to produce.
In "Cut my Cote", the Dorothy Burnham theorizes that the cut of clothing developed along two basic lines - cut based on animal skins and cut based on loom-woven cloth. Further, the memory of the origin of the cutting technique carries on in the garment, even when the material used differs. So, for instance, clothing that was originally made from animals skins would continue to be cut in the same manner even after loom-woven cloth became available to the culture.
Burnham also believes that the width of the woven cloth available strongly influences the cut of garments in the culture. Where the looms widths are wide, as in Greece and Rome, the garments are wide and flowing. Where the loom widths are narrower, the garments fit closer to the body.
Construction
Coming soon!
Color
Coming soon!
Ornamentation
Coming soon!
Sources
I consulted numerous websites in the process of writing this article. The ones I found most informative are referenced in the text. The books I found most helpful in writing this section are Broudy, "The Book of Looms", Harris, "5000 Years of Textiles", Gyula, "The Magyars, Their Life and Civilisation" and Burnham, "Cut my Cote". You can find a complete bibliography here.
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