# Nitpick on Underwear
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-on-underwear/423170
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
**Created:** [October 18, 2007, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-on-underwear/423170 "2007-10-18T15:29:31Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@spinster3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spinster3)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2007, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-on-underwear/423170/1 "2007-10-18T15:29:31Z")
I was reading [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/041217.html](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/041217.html) and was wondering just when Cecil Adams thinks people started wearing linen underclothing? In the apparently linear timeline he presents, it appears that he thinks that linen underclothing came along sometime between the Renaissance and the 18th century. As a matter of fact, linen underclothing was common from the early Middle Ages on. (It was probably common before that, but my research only goes back so far.)
I find Cecil is usually on the nose, but this answer definitely has some problems.
---
### Author:  [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2007, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-on-underwear/423170/2 "2007-10-18T17:16:37Z")
I think the apparent appearance of impropriety you perceive is purely presumptive.
Also, picking a nit from someone else’s underpants — while completely in keeping with the spirit of the article — is just bad form!
---
### Author:  [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2007, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-on-underwear/423170/3 "2007-10-18T19:10:52Z")
[QUOTE=spinster3]
I was reading [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/041217.html](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/041217.html) and was wondering just when Cecil Adams thinks people started wearing linen underclothing? In the apparently linear timeline he presents, it appears that he thinks that linen underclothing came along sometime between the Renaissance and the 18th century. As a matter of fact, linen underclothing was common from the early Middle Ages on. (It was probably common before that, but my research only goes back so far.)
I find Cecil is usually on the nose, but this answer definitely has some problems.
[/QUOTE]
Welcome to the Straight Dope Message Board! Pull up a chair and stick around: as you will already notice from the response given by **SiXSwordS** , things around here can be entertaining. 🙂
I’m not sure why you think Unca Cece was implying the late start to underclothing you attribute to him. From my reading, he simply noted that wearing white linen underclothing helped with hygiene. While he also talks earlier about the plague as having put the kibosh in general on public bathing, I don’t think he is attempting to state that European people in the period from 500 AD to 1300 AD were particularly cleanly. Thus, the wearing of linen underclothing, whenever it started, was a plus.
When, by the way, does yor research show this fashion trend started, and on what do you base your claim? It sounds like interesting research. 🙂
---
### Author:  [@spinster3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spinster3)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2007, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-on-underwear/423170/4 "2007-10-18T20:21:35Z")
Thanks.
Yes, I see y’all have a lot of fun. I don’t have much of a sense of humor myself, but I can see happening.
It seems to me that the two paragraphs describing actual conditions are chronological. He lists Medieval Baths, the Plague, the development of linen underclothing, the 18th century renewed interest in bathing, etc. So, I assume that the information in those two paragraphs was presented pretty much chronologically, Another undated passage, about people drenching themselves in perfumes sounds more like a Renaissance/Enlightenment things than a medieval thing, so that falls neatly into its chronological spot, too. (Frankly, my take on the Middle Ages was that they did stink, compared to us, but that was more because they didn’t have running water than because they weren’t interested in being clean. But this idea comes more from years of studying the Middle Ages than anything I can cite off the top of my head.)
Some basic sources mentioning linen underclothing would be:
Agnes Geijer, 1983.” The textile finds from Birka”, pp 80-99 in _Cloth and Clothing in Medieval Europe; Essays in Memory of Prof. E.M. Carus-Wilson_, ed. N.B. Harte and K.G. Ponting. Pasold studies in Textile History 2. London, Heinemann Educational Books/The Pasold Research Fund Ltd.
Inga Hägg, 1983, ”Viking women’s dress at Birka: A reconstruction by Archaeological methods”. Pp 316-350 in _Cloth and Clothing in Medieval Europe: Essays in Memory of Prof. E.M. Carus-Wilson_, ed. N.B. Harte and K.G. Ponting. Pasold studies in Textile History 2. London, Heinemann Educational Books/The Pasold Research Fund Ltd.
The above are cited in this article [http://www.forest.gen.nz/Medieval/articles/Oseberg/dress/OSEBERG.HTM](http://www.forest.gen.nz/Medieval/articles/Oseberg/dress/OSEBERG.HTM) , which mentions that the Franks, too, use a linen chemise under the rest of their clothes.
Some other sources that mention linen underclothing are:
_Dress in Anglo-Saxon England_, by Gale R. Owen-Crocker and
_Women’s costume in French texts of the eleventh and twelfth centuries_ by Eunice Rathbone Goddard
I could go on, but there are some starting sources, dating from the 10th century (900s) and earlier and down at least to the 12th century. I believe a linen layer on the skin was pretty standard in Western Europe from the 10th century (at least) until linen was replaced by cotton as the appropriate material for underclothing.
One of the most famous surviving linen undershirts from the Middle Ages is the Tunic of Saint Louis from the 13th century, which is analyzed here, with at least a few pictures: [Another Look at St. Louis' Shirt](http://heatherrosejones.com/stlouisshirt/index.html)
Spinster3
---
### Author:  [@SlowMindThinking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlowMindThinking)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2007, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-on-underwear/423170/5 "2007-10-18T22:24:33Z")
[QUOTE=spinster3]
Thanks.
It seems to me that the two paragraphs describing actual conditions are chronological. He lists Medieval Baths, the Plague, the development of linen underclothing, the 18th century renewed interest in bathing, etc. So, I assume that the information in those two paragraphs was presented pretty much chronologically, Another undated passage, about people drenching themselves in perfumes sounds more like a Renaissance/Enlightenment things than a medieval thing, so that falls neatly into its chronological spot, too. (Frankly, my take on the Middle Ages was that they did stink, compared to us, but that was more because they didn’t have running water than because they weren’t interested in being clean. But this idea comes more from years of studying the Middle Ages than anything I can cite off the top of my head.)
Spinster3
[/QUOTE]
I agree with your reading. It sounds to me like Cecil is saying public baths existed during the Middle Ages, stopped being used during the Renaissance, and the invention of linens improved personal cleanliness.
On a related note, in the Middle Ages course I took, we were told that baths were banned because they were a common trysting place. I have a vague recollection to a supposed link to the plague, but I don’t recall it being more than an excuse that became accepted fact. IIRC, pretty everybody with access to warm water bathed, until the ban which was at the end of the Middle Ages/start of the Renaissance.
---
### Author:  [@fachverwirrt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fachverwirrt)
#### Post date: [October 18, 2007, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-on-underwear/423170/6 "2007-10-18T22:45:19Z")
[QUOTE=SiXSwordS]
Also, picking a nit from someone else’s underpants — while completely in keeping with the spirit of the article — is just bad form!
[/QUOTE]
If you don’t pick underwear nits, you just end up with underwear lice.
---
### Author:  [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2007, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-on-underwear/423170/7 "2007-10-22T15:30:05Z")
[QUOTE=spinster3]
It seems to me that the two paragraphs describing actual conditions are chronological. ..
..
I believe a linen layer on the skin was pretty standard in Western Europe from the 10th century (at least) until linen was replaced by cotton as the appropriate material for underclothing.
[/QUOTE]
I wrote about four paragraphs of a reply before I realized you were right. Cece makes it sound like things improved from the low point during the Renaissance when people started wearing underclothes.
You pick a mean nit, **spinster3** , I hope you stick around.
I, for one, would welcome a new underpants overlord.
---
### Author:  [@essell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/essell)
#### Post date: [October 22, 2007, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-on-underwear/423170/8 "2007-10-22T20:34:10Z")
[QUOTE=SiXSwordS]
You pick a mean nit, **spinster3** , I hope you stick around.
I, for one, would welcome a new underpants overlord.
[/QUOTE]
Stage one is getting **spinster3** to join us…
What’s the next stage before profit?
---
### Author:  [@SiXSwordS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SiXSwordS)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2007, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nitpick-on-underwear/423170/10 "2007-10-23T16:02:25Z")
[QUOTE=Y o u]
Walt Whitman didn’t wear underwear because it would be just one more thing to wash in the stream where he swam a lot.
[/QUOTE]
> [@](#):
>
> Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves;
> ..
> But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face;
> It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists;
> It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees—dress does not hide him;
> The strong, sweet, supple quality he has, strikes through the cotton and flannel;
>
> [—Walt Whitman](http://www.bartleby.com/142/19.html)
..