Geeske Kruseman - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Geeske Kruseman

EXARC Journal, 2018

Of Erasmus, prince of humanists (1466?-1536), no less than eight portraits from life survive – al... more Of Erasmus, prince of humanists (1466?-1536), no less than eight portraits from life survive – all eight in the exact same bonnet. A recently published investigation of this iconic garment (Kruseman, Sturtewagen and Malcolm-Davies, 2016) involved establishing a 250-year typology of the bonnet from iconographical sources, compiling technological and economic data from archival sources, and systematic experiments addressing numerous, various and fundamental questions, from yarn characteristics in archaeological knitted textiles to the use (or not) of hatter's forms in the finishing of bonnets.

Kostuum, Jaarboek NKV, 2019

Het onderwerp van dit artikel is de HUIK, een eigenaardige mantel, die tussen 1520 en 1640 zo pop... more Het onderwerp van dit artikel is de HUIK, een eigenaardige mantel, die tussen 1520 en 1640 zo populair was bij de Nederlandse huisvrouwen dat makers van kostuumprenten hem afbeeldden als haar kenmerkende kledingstuk. De huik wordt beschreven uit kleermakersoogpunt, met veel aandacht voor materiaal, typologie en de mooie schilderijen en tekeningen die als bron dienen.
This article, in Dutch describes the 'hoyk', which in the 16th C. was a particular type of cloak, or mantle, worn by Dutch housewives (and Dutch refugees abroad, but apparently no one else). Richly illustrated, English summary and picture captions included.

Kostuum, Jaarboek NKV, 2018

Het gebruik van spleten is een van de spectaculaire bijzonderheden van de vroegmoderne kleren, me... more Het gebruik van spleten is een van de spectaculaire bijzonderheden van de vroegmoderne kleren, met als opvallendste de 16de-eeuwse doorsneden kolders en bovencoussen, en de spletenwambuizen van de jaren 1620-1630.
Zulke spleten, die de kleermaker in de structuur van het kledingstuk inbouwt, worden door ons moderne oog niet altijd goed onderscheiden van de vele soorten kerven, kerfjes en pickjes die in dezelfde periode toegepast worden als stofversiering, hetzij in de vlakke stof, hetzij op een pickedil.
Zowel spleten als kerfjes zijn van eind 15de tot midden 17de eeuw steeds opnieuw toegepast, in allerlei kleren voor mannen, vrouwen en kinderen, van bescheiden tot stinkend rijk, van Italië tot Zweden. De variatie is enorm geweest en ze zijn steeds weer in en uit de mode geraakt. Een volledig overzicht van het ‘spletentijdperk’ zou bijna de hele kledinggeschiedenis van de 16de eeuw dekken.
De chronologische inleiding van dit artikel bespreekt daarom alleen wanneer en hoe ze in het kledingbeeld zijn gekomen. Onze hoofdvraag is: wat zijn de verschillende soorten spleten en kerven, en hoe zijn ze van elkaar te onderscheiden? Het gaat om het herkennen, niet om een volledig overzicht van de toepassingen. De voorbeelden komen uit de Nederlandse mannenkleding, voor de samenhang. Om toch een beetje een tijdlijn te geven zet ik de afbeeldingen op chronologische volgorde.

Kostuum, 2016

The black bonnet worn by Desiderius Erasmus, the great Dutch humanist (1466 -1536), in his portra... more The black bonnet worn by Desiderius Erasmus, the great Dutch humanist (1466 -1536), in his portraits by Quentin Massys, Albrecht Dürer and Hans Holbein, appears not just similar, but identical, in all surviving portraits made from life, while varying quite widely in the portraits made from memory or from another portrait.
This iconic bonnet is instantly recognizable, but has never been studied from a technical point of view.
The first part of this article traces Erasmus' bonnet in the extant portraits; the second investigates the typology of men's bonnets before and circa 1500 in contemporary depictions; the third explores descriptions of such bonnets and their making in archival sources; the fourth summarizes the relevant data from archaeology; and the fifth builds on these for experimental work to gain new and fundamental insights in bygone technologies and materials.
The evidence indicates that Erasmus' bonnet was neither sewn from woven fabric, nor shaped from felt, but rather knitted, then fulled and moulded, napped and finished. Typologically, it appears as an interesting intermediate stage between the cup-like shapes seen from the early 14th century, and the disc-shaped bonnets of the 16th century.
Erasmus chose his own favourite from among the varied, but finite, choice of bonnets considered proper for a scholar of his generation, at a time when knitted bonnets had specific variants for men of all ages in nearly all walks of life. Both the prices commanded by such bonnets in inventories, and the fact that surviving bonnets number over one hundred, testify to the (previously underestimated) economic importance of the knitted bonnet, and it special significance for the female workforce.
Further study of the surviving bonnets, and further experimental research, are expected to bring growing mutual benefits as they focus more on exact and thorough scientific data.
The authors hope that the writer of the Praise of Folly would spare a smile for such attention lavished on his bonnet. After all, he was the man who wrote to a friend: '...as soon as I receive the money, I shall first get some Greek authors, and then some clothes'.

The EXARC Journal, 2018

Of Erasmus, prince of humanists (1466?-1536) no less than eight portraits from life survive – all... more Of Erasmus, prince of humanists (1466?-1536) no less than eight portraits from life survive – all eight in the exact same bonnet. A full investigation of this iconic garment involved establishing a 250-year typology of the bonnet from iconographical sources, compiling technological and economic data from archival sources – and highly systematic experiments to answer numerous, various and fundamental questions, from determining yarn characteristics in archaeological knitted textiles to the use (or not) of hatter's forms in the finishing of bonnets. This paper presents the experiments relating directly to archaeological evidence which could not be included in the investigation as published in 'Kostuum' 2016.

Kostuum, 2016

This article is now available in English: find 'Erasmus' bonnet' elsewhere on this page. Desid... more This article is now available in English: find 'Erasmus' bonnet' elsewhere on this page.

Desiderius Erasmus, de grote Nederlandse humanist (1466 -1536), draagt in zijn portretten door Quentin Massys, Albrecht Dürer and Hans Holbein een typische zwarte bonnet, of muts. Deze blijkt exact gelijk op alle portretten naar het leven, terwijl allerlei variaties te zien zijn op portretten uit het geheugen of naar een ander schilderij.
Deze iconische muts is wordt onmiddellijk herkend, maar is nooit uit technisch oogpunt bestudeerd.
In het eerste deel van dit artikel bespreken we de portretten zelf, in het tweede de typologie van de muts afgeleid uit tijdeigen afbeeldingen, in het derde de beschrijvingen van bonnetten en van het maakproces in archiefteksten, in het vierde de archeologische vondsten, en in het vijfde de mogelijkheid tot exacte reconstructie, dus tot experimenteel onderzoek dat nieuwe en fundamentele kennis oplevert over verdwenen technieken en materiaalkennis.
De resultaten wijzen uit dat Erasmus' muts gebreid was, op vorm gevold, geruwd en geschoren. Hij was niet uit geweven stof in elkaar genaaid, noch uit vilt gevormd. Qua vorm ligt hij halverwege tussen de 'dop' die vanaf de vroege 14de eeuw voorkomt en de schijfvormige bonnet van de 16de eeuw. De muts van Erasmus was geen uniek, persoonlijk kledingstuk, maar een vast attribuut van zijn klasse (de geleerde) en van zijn generatie (de vorige droeg de dopvorm, de volgende de schijfvorm). De gebreide bonnet had varianten voor de meeste andere klassen en groepen mannen van zijn tijd. De gebreide muts of bonnet had een economisch belang, dat met name voor de vrouwelijke beroepsbevolking tot nu toe schromelijk is onderschat.
Experimenteel onderzoek is een noodzakelijk onderdeel van het bestuderen van archeologische gebreide bonnetten, en is hiervoor waardevoller naarmate het minder gericht is op het produceren van hoofddeksels, en meer op accurate gegevens.
Wij hopen dat de schrijver van de Lof der Zotheid, die in de gekste dingen het leerzame of geestige wist te zien, wel een glimlach over zou hebben voor zo'n lange verhandeling over zijn hoofddeksel. Schreef hij niet goedgemutst aan een vriend: ‘...ut pecuniam acceptero, Graecos primum autores, deinde vestes emam’?

This article explores the first chapter of the history of knitting in Europe, and connects it to ... more This article explores the first chapter of the history of knitting in Europe, and connects it to its ‘pre-history’, the related but very much older craft called needlebinding or nalbinding, and also known as looping, knotless netting, or single-needle-knitting.
Since Richard Rutt’s authoritative history of hand knitting (1987), more data on early knitting have been turning up all over Europe, in archaeology, painting and even literature, about 1300 onwards. From the material surveyed here, it appears that all objects claiming to be knitting from before ca.1250 have so far turned out to be either not true knitting, or not reliably dated. The survey also indicates that the earliest knitting seems to have been done in the round; that multicoloured intarsia knitting may predate shaping by increase/decrease; that the decorative possibilities of intarsia, openwork and raised patterns were extensively explored well before 1550, while ribbing for elasticity was not in use at all; and that the elasticity of knitted goods was actively discouraged, up to at least 1600, by knitting extremely tightly, and often fulling the work afterwards as well.
Needlebinding is so basic to fibre crafts that all human societies have discovered it for themselves during their respective Stone Age periods – like twining/cording, braiding and knotting, but unlike spinning and weaving, whose invention was limited by the natural availability of suitable fibres. Needlebinding has been used for much more varied piecework than knitting: from basketry to lace and ropework, via nets, bags, and wildly varied coverings for the head, hands and feet. A short historical survey, limited to Northern Europe, starts in 4200 BC with the oldest find (from Denmark) and ends with a startling nightcap from the Northern Netherlands, made of cotton and dated to the 18th- or even 19th-century, which challenges the assumption that by 1700, knitting had displaced the older craft in all but the most marginal communities.
Current theory holds that knitting was invented in Egypt. The hypothesis was originally put together on the basis of some late Roman socks which were thought to be knitted, and some multicoloured knitted fragments with claimed dates from the 11th to the 15th century. However, all Roman ‘knitting’ has turned out to be needlebinding. As this became known, the Egyptian socks were interpreted instead as the immediate ancestors of true knitting. Examining this notion from a technical point of view, as a practitioner of both crafts, the author finds little or no chance of direct descent by accidental discovery. This leaves the Egyptian origin of knitting hinging on the dating of the medieval knitted pieces, which is neither precise nor secure.
The author therefore advocates treating the origin of knitting as a research question, without preconceptions, and looks forward to what archaeology may contribute to answering it.

This article - in DUTCH - is about the clothing worn about 1610 by Dutchwomen crossdressing for e... more This article - in DUTCH - is about the clothing worn about 1610 by Dutchwomen crossdressing for economic reasons - that is, whose livelihood depended on passing for a man.
A full English translation is in preparation. Meanwhile, as over half our bibliography is (available) in English, the footnotes may worth be consulting. The picture captions are translated in this abstract.
The authors welcome all enquiries, comments and criticism: gees.krus@gmail.com.

Among poor working-class women in the Netherlands, disguise as a man to gain better wages and/or wider job prospects became a known, if uncommon, escape route from poverty in late 16th C, as research by R. Dekker and L. van de Pol has shown.
The present authors, whose main research interest is what the Dutch wore in the 16th-17th C., asked: what were these cross-dressers' garments, as women and as men respectively? How did the garments interact with the body? How might the choice, construction and appearance of the clothing help their disguise?
Since these questions, in our view, demand experimental data, we picked a time (about 1610), a place (the province of Holland) and a person (a working-class woman seeking the better wages of a craftsman) to focus on, and set to work to research, make, and wear her clothes. Our parameters enabled us to exploit the new sources becoming available just then (2009), and circumvent the lacunae in extant costume histories.
We conclude that about 1610, both the appearance and the cut and construction of male and female garments are particularly favourable to the woman who cross-dresses.
Our report is structured around the illustrations. Fig. 1 gives an example of a source picture (Avercamp), Fig. 17 a glossary of garment names. Fig. 2-11 show our reconstructions, Fig. 12-15 illustrate garment construction, and Fig. 16 previews our further research into sailor's clothing.
The authors welcome all enquiries and comments: gees.krus@gmail.com.

Talks by Geeske Kruseman

Lezing, winterdag 2018 van de Nederlandse Kostuumvereniging, 2018

Deze lezing gaat over de HUIK, een eigenaardige mantel die tussen 1520 en 1640 zo populair was bi... more Deze lezing gaat over de HUIK, een eigenaardige mantel die tussen 1520 en 1640 zo populair was bij de Nederlandse huisvrouwen dat kostuumprenten hem afbeeldden als haar kenmerkende kledingstuk: een zware, zwarte ‘lap’ van wollen laken, op het hoofd gedragen, zonder sluiting, vaak voetlang; de grondvorm is een rechthoek, met één strak gerimpelde kant die bovenop het hoofd rust, ergens tussen voorhoofd en kruin: mantel en hoofddeksel in één. Een uitgebreide studie naar het beeldmateriaal, aangevuld met taalkunde, leverde reconstructies van verschillende modellen. De huik blijkt op geen enkele manier af te stammen van de hoofdbekende vrouwenmantels van Spanje en/of de Arabische wereld, en een tegengestelde functie te hebben: de vrouw te pronk stellen, niet haar verbergen. De hele 16e eeuw lang is de huik een universeel kledingstuk van werkende huisvrouwen. Kort na 1600 wordt hij 'ontdekt' als mode accessoire, er ontstaan decoratieve, frivole vormen van, en een generatie later is verdwijnt hij uit het straatbeeld, behoudens begrafenissen en sommige streekdrachten. Daarmee is hij een voorbeeld van een kledingstuk van 'de gewone vrouw' migreert naar 'de betere kringen', wat vaker voorkomt dan de oudere kostuumgeschiedenis heeft waargenomen.

IMC Leeds, 2016

The 16th century Dutch HOYK was a black woman's mantle, open in front, falling from the top of th... more The 16th century Dutch HOYK was a black woman's mantle, open in front, falling from the top of the head to the heels and usually topped by either duckbill or a small hat. In the popular woodcut-illustrated costume books of the time, it figures as their most distinctive garment. This study draws on the wealth of 16th.c. Dutch drawings, paintings and prints of people from all walks of life to trace the hoyk's evolution, then reconstruct it.
Whereas fashion theorists postulate that fashionable garments are first adopted by the upper classes, to slowly percolate down to middling and lower strata, the hoyk seems to do exactly the opposite: it first appears as a very practical housewife's garment, evolves into a middle-class symbol of respectability over three generations or so, to vanish from general use after a few decades' swan-song as a fashion accessory.

Knitting History Forum, 2019

Wearing the Texel stockings was presented by Geeske Kruseman at the Knitting History Forum confer... more Wearing the Texel stockings
was presented by Geeske Kruseman at the Knitting History Forum conference in Leiden on 2 November 2019.
Two volunteers have worn hand-knitted silk stockings, copied from a 17th-century original, with period shoes, and gathered qualitative data on subjective and objective questions, such as how the stockings fitted and felt, how they interacted with the shoe and the foot, how sweaty and/or dirty they got, how they responded to washing, how soon and where they showed signs of wear.
The original is from the 'Palmhoutwrak', a shipwreck off Texel (NL), and the copies were knitted by volunteers in a large-scale project which was presented in other talks at the same conference.
This PDF includes the slides, the talk, plus appendices with the 'Full Wearers' report' and data from the discussion which followed the talk.

Als we in 1600 het Wevershuis konden bezoeken... wie en wat zouden we zien? Wat voor mensen woond... more Als we in 1600 het Wevershuis konden bezoeken... wie en wat zouden we zien? Wat voor mensen woonden er, wat voor werk deden ze, hoe zagen ze eruit? Wat was hun plaats in de Leidse textielnijverheid (waar de halve stad zijn of haar brood mee verdiende)? Wat voor textiel gebruikten ze zelf voor hun kleren, op hun bed, in de keuken? De nieuwste stand van historisch kleermakersonderzoek, verteld door Geeske Kruseman, in museum Het Leids Wevershuis, zondag 12 januari 2020 om 15:00

This talk for the Medieval Dress and Textiles society stems from a startling resemblance between ... more This talk for the Medieval Dress and Textiles society stems from a startling resemblance between two seemingly unrelated garments: the Thorsberg hose (archaeological find, DK, c.250) and the (leather foundation of) the ‘pluderhosen’ of Nils Sture (murdered wearing them, SE, 1567). Across the 1300 years, their cutting patterns turn out to be essentially the same.
Its main point is that both are constructed like (medieval) hose and unlike (modern) breeches or trousers, the fundamental engineering difference being defined as follows:
A hose leg has one centre-back seam only, and two hose legs are joined by an inset piece and two crotch seams; a trouser leg has two side seams (or one side-seam and one side-fold), and two trouser legs are joined directly by a single crotch seam.
Anatomically, the back-seam pattern exploits the (stronger) left-right symmetry of the human body, while the side-seams pattern uses the (weaker) back-front symmetry. Classifying legs-and-hips garments in terms of their essential symmetry in relation to the symmetry of the human body (regardless of when the garment was made, who wore it, or what it was made of) yielded some unexpected results.
The Thorsberg garment, for one, must be re-classified from ‘trousers’ (male) to ‘hose’ (not gendered). And in fact, it fits a woman at least as well as a man.
In medieval legwear, I was startled to find traces of the side-seams construction only in underwear, while the outerwear seems to be exclusively cut on the back-seam pattern – all the way from the earliest evidence to the trunk-hose and pluderhosen of the 1560’s, when breeches cut with side-seams appear. These take over men’s legwear (in the Netherlands at least) by 1590, and all 17th C. fashions appear side-seam based (even the c.1600 trunk-hose revival).
If true, this would mean that Nils Sture's 'pluderhosen' were the last descendants of the Iron Age hose and its medieval descendants (across 1300 years), and that the breeches which displaced them were a novelty of the 1560’s.
That big if is offered not as a fact but as a suspicion in need of more evidence.

EXARC Journal, 2018

Of Erasmus, prince of humanists (1466?-1536), no less than eight portraits from life survive – al... more Of Erasmus, prince of humanists (1466?-1536), no less than eight portraits from life survive – all eight in the exact same bonnet. A recently published investigation of this iconic garment (Kruseman, Sturtewagen and Malcolm-Davies, 2016) involved establishing a 250-year typology of the bonnet from iconographical sources, compiling technological and economic data from archival sources, and systematic experiments addressing numerous, various and fundamental questions, from yarn characteristics in archaeological knitted textiles to the use (or not) of hatter's forms in the finishing of bonnets.

Kostuum, Jaarboek NKV, 2019

Het onderwerp van dit artikel is de HUIK, een eigenaardige mantel, die tussen 1520 en 1640 zo pop... more Het onderwerp van dit artikel is de HUIK, een eigenaardige mantel, die tussen 1520 en 1640 zo populair was bij de Nederlandse huisvrouwen dat makers van kostuumprenten hem afbeeldden als haar kenmerkende kledingstuk. De huik wordt beschreven uit kleermakersoogpunt, met veel aandacht voor materiaal, typologie en de mooie schilderijen en tekeningen die als bron dienen.
This article, in Dutch describes the 'hoyk', which in the 16th C. was a particular type of cloak, or mantle, worn by Dutch housewives (and Dutch refugees abroad, but apparently no one else). Richly illustrated, English summary and picture captions included.

Kostuum, Jaarboek NKV, 2018

Het gebruik van spleten is een van de spectaculaire bijzonderheden van de vroegmoderne kleren, me... more Het gebruik van spleten is een van de spectaculaire bijzonderheden van de vroegmoderne kleren, met als opvallendste de 16de-eeuwse doorsneden kolders en bovencoussen, en de spletenwambuizen van de jaren 1620-1630.
Zulke spleten, die de kleermaker in de structuur van het kledingstuk inbouwt, worden door ons moderne oog niet altijd goed onderscheiden van de vele soorten kerven, kerfjes en pickjes die in dezelfde periode toegepast worden als stofversiering, hetzij in de vlakke stof, hetzij op een pickedil.
Zowel spleten als kerfjes zijn van eind 15de tot midden 17de eeuw steeds opnieuw toegepast, in allerlei kleren voor mannen, vrouwen en kinderen, van bescheiden tot stinkend rijk, van Italië tot Zweden. De variatie is enorm geweest en ze zijn steeds weer in en uit de mode geraakt. Een volledig overzicht van het ‘spletentijdperk’ zou bijna de hele kledinggeschiedenis van de 16de eeuw dekken.
De chronologische inleiding van dit artikel bespreekt daarom alleen wanneer en hoe ze in het kledingbeeld zijn gekomen. Onze hoofdvraag is: wat zijn de verschillende soorten spleten en kerven, en hoe zijn ze van elkaar te onderscheiden? Het gaat om het herkennen, niet om een volledig overzicht van de toepassingen. De voorbeelden komen uit de Nederlandse mannenkleding, voor de samenhang. Om toch een beetje een tijdlijn te geven zet ik de afbeeldingen op chronologische volgorde.

Kostuum, 2016

The black bonnet worn by Desiderius Erasmus, the great Dutch humanist (1466 -1536), in his portra... more The black bonnet worn by Desiderius Erasmus, the great Dutch humanist (1466 -1536), in his portraits by Quentin Massys, Albrecht Dürer and Hans Holbein, appears not just similar, but identical, in all surviving portraits made from life, while varying quite widely in the portraits made from memory or from another portrait.
This iconic bonnet is instantly recognizable, but has never been studied from a technical point of view.
The first part of this article traces Erasmus' bonnet in the extant portraits; the second investigates the typology of men's bonnets before and circa 1500 in contemporary depictions; the third explores descriptions of such bonnets and their making in archival sources; the fourth summarizes the relevant data from archaeology; and the fifth builds on these for experimental work to gain new and fundamental insights in bygone technologies and materials.
The evidence indicates that Erasmus' bonnet was neither sewn from woven fabric, nor shaped from felt, but rather knitted, then fulled and moulded, napped and finished. Typologically, it appears as an interesting intermediate stage between the cup-like shapes seen from the early 14th century, and the disc-shaped bonnets of the 16th century.
Erasmus chose his own favourite from among the varied, but finite, choice of bonnets considered proper for a scholar of his generation, at a time when knitted bonnets had specific variants for men of all ages in nearly all walks of life. Both the prices commanded by such bonnets in inventories, and the fact that surviving bonnets number over one hundred, testify to the (previously underestimated) economic importance of the knitted bonnet, and it special significance for the female workforce.
Further study of the surviving bonnets, and further experimental research, are expected to bring growing mutual benefits as they focus more on exact and thorough scientific data.
The authors hope that the writer of the Praise of Folly would spare a smile for such attention lavished on his bonnet. After all, he was the man who wrote to a friend: '...as soon as I receive the money, I shall first get some Greek authors, and then some clothes'.

The EXARC Journal, 2018

Of Erasmus, prince of humanists (1466?-1536) no less than eight portraits from life survive – all... more Of Erasmus, prince of humanists (1466?-1536) no less than eight portraits from life survive – all eight in the exact same bonnet. A full investigation of this iconic garment involved establishing a 250-year typology of the bonnet from iconographical sources, compiling technological and economic data from archival sources – and highly systematic experiments to answer numerous, various and fundamental questions, from determining yarn characteristics in archaeological knitted textiles to the use (or not) of hatter's forms in the finishing of bonnets. This paper presents the experiments relating directly to archaeological evidence which could not be included in the investigation as published in 'Kostuum' 2016.

Kostuum, 2016

This article is now available in English: find 'Erasmus' bonnet' elsewhere on this page. Desid... more This article is now available in English: find 'Erasmus' bonnet' elsewhere on this page.

Desiderius Erasmus, de grote Nederlandse humanist (1466 -1536), draagt in zijn portretten door Quentin Massys, Albrecht Dürer and Hans Holbein een typische zwarte bonnet, of muts. Deze blijkt exact gelijk op alle portretten naar het leven, terwijl allerlei variaties te zien zijn op portretten uit het geheugen of naar een ander schilderij.
Deze iconische muts is wordt onmiddellijk herkend, maar is nooit uit technisch oogpunt bestudeerd.
In het eerste deel van dit artikel bespreken we de portretten zelf, in het tweede de typologie van de muts afgeleid uit tijdeigen afbeeldingen, in het derde de beschrijvingen van bonnetten en van het maakproces in archiefteksten, in het vierde de archeologische vondsten, en in het vijfde de mogelijkheid tot exacte reconstructie, dus tot experimenteel onderzoek dat nieuwe en fundamentele kennis oplevert over verdwenen technieken en materiaalkennis.
De resultaten wijzen uit dat Erasmus' muts gebreid was, op vorm gevold, geruwd en geschoren. Hij was niet uit geweven stof in elkaar genaaid, noch uit vilt gevormd. Qua vorm ligt hij halverwege tussen de 'dop' die vanaf de vroege 14de eeuw voorkomt en de schijfvormige bonnet van de 16de eeuw. De muts van Erasmus was geen uniek, persoonlijk kledingstuk, maar een vast attribuut van zijn klasse (de geleerde) en van zijn generatie (de vorige droeg de dopvorm, de volgende de schijfvorm). De gebreide bonnet had varianten voor de meeste andere klassen en groepen mannen van zijn tijd. De gebreide muts of bonnet had een economisch belang, dat met name voor de vrouwelijke beroepsbevolking tot nu toe schromelijk is onderschat.
Experimenteel onderzoek is een noodzakelijk onderdeel van het bestuderen van archeologische gebreide bonnetten, en is hiervoor waardevoller naarmate het minder gericht is op het produceren van hoofddeksels, en meer op accurate gegevens.
Wij hopen dat de schrijver van de Lof der Zotheid, die in de gekste dingen het leerzame of geestige wist te zien, wel een glimlach over zou hebben voor zo'n lange verhandeling over zijn hoofddeksel. Schreef hij niet goedgemutst aan een vriend: ‘...ut pecuniam acceptero, Graecos primum autores, deinde vestes emam’?

This article explores the first chapter of the history of knitting in Europe, and connects it to ... more This article explores the first chapter of the history of knitting in Europe, and connects it to its ‘pre-history’, the related but very much older craft called needlebinding or nalbinding, and also known as looping, knotless netting, or single-needle-knitting.
Since Richard Rutt’s authoritative history of hand knitting (1987), more data on early knitting have been turning up all over Europe, in archaeology, painting and even literature, about 1300 onwards. From the material surveyed here, it appears that all objects claiming to be knitting from before ca.1250 have so far turned out to be either not true knitting, or not reliably dated. The survey also indicates that the earliest knitting seems to have been done in the round; that multicoloured intarsia knitting may predate shaping by increase/decrease; that the decorative possibilities of intarsia, openwork and raised patterns were extensively explored well before 1550, while ribbing for elasticity was not in use at all; and that the elasticity of knitted goods was actively discouraged, up to at least 1600, by knitting extremely tightly, and often fulling the work afterwards as well.
Needlebinding is so basic to fibre crafts that all human societies have discovered it for themselves during their respective Stone Age periods – like twining/cording, braiding and knotting, but unlike spinning and weaving, whose invention was limited by the natural availability of suitable fibres. Needlebinding has been used for much more varied piecework than knitting: from basketry to lace and ropework, via nets, bags, and wildly varied coverings for the head, hands and feet. A short historical survey, limited to Northern Europe, starts in 4200 BC with the oldest find (from Denmark) and ends with a startling nightcap from the Northern Netherlands, made of cotton and dated to the 18th- or even 19th-century, which challenges the assumption that by 1700, knitting had displaced the older craft in all but the most marginal communities.
Current theory holds that knitting was invented in Egypt. The hypothesis was originally put together on the basis of some late Roman socks which were thought to be knitted, and some multicoloured knitted fragments with claimed dates from the 11th to the 15th century. However, all Roman ‘knitting’ has turned out to be needlebinding. As this became known, the Egyptian socks were interpreted instead as the immediate ancestors of true knitting. Examining this notion from a technical point of view, as a practitioner of both crafts, the author finds little or no chance of direct descent by accidental discovery. This leaves the Egyptian origin of knitting hinging on the dating of the medieval knitted pieces, which is neither precise nor secure.
The author therefore advocates treating the origin of knitting as a research question, without preconceptions, and looks forward to what archaeology may contribute to answering it.

This article - in DUTCH - is about the clothing worn about 1610 by Dutchwomen crossdressing for e... more This article - in DUTCH - is about the clothing worn about 1610 by Dutchwomen crossdressing for economic reasons - that is, whose livelihood depended on passing for a man.
A full English translation is in preparation. Meanwhile, as over half our bibliography is (available) in English, the footnotes may worth be consulting. The picture captions are translated in this abstract.
The authors welcome all enquiries, comments and criticism: gees.krus@gmail.com.

Among poor working-class women in the Netherlands, disguise as a man to gain better wages and/or wider job prospects became a known, if uncommon, escape route from poverty in late 16th C, as research by R. Dekker and L. van de Pol has shown.
The present authors, whose main research interest is what the Dutch wore in the 16th-17th C., asked: what were these cross-dressers' garments, as women and as men respectively? How did the garments interact with the body? How might the choice, construction and appearance of the clothing help their disguise?
Since these questions, in our view, demand experimental data, we picked a time (about 1610), a place (the province of Holland) and a person (a working-class woman seeking the better wages of a craftsman) to focus on, and set to work to research, make, and wear her clothes. Our parameters enabled us to exploit the new sources becoming available just then (2009), and circumvent the lacunae in extant costume histories.
We conclude that about 1610, both the appearance and the cut and construction of male and female garments are particularly favourable to the woman who cross-dresses.
Our report is structured around the illustrations. Fig. 1 gives an example of a source picture (Avercamp), Fig. 17 a glossary of garment names. Fig. 2-11 show our reconstructions, Fig. 12-15 illustrate garment construction, and Fig. 16 previews our further research into sailor's clothing.
The authors welcome all enquiries and comments: gees.krus@gmail.com.

Lezing, winterdag 2018 van de Nederlandse Kostuumvereniging, 2018

Deze lezing gaat over de HUIK, een eigenaardige mantel die tussen 1520 en 1640 zo populair was bi... more Deze lezing gaat over de HUIK, een eigenaardige mantel die tussen 1520 en 1640 zo populair was bij de Nederlandse huisvrouwen dat kostuumprenten hem afbeeldden als haar kenmerkende kledingstuk: een zware, zwarte ‘lap’ van wollen laken, op het hoofd gedragen, zonder sluiting, vaak voetlang; de grondvorm is een rechthoek, met één strak gerimpelde kant die bovenop het hoofd rust, ergens tussen voorhoofd en kruin: mantel en hoofddeksel in één. Een uitgebreide studie naar het beeldmateriaal, aangevuld met taalkunde, leverde reconstructies van verschillende modellen. De huik blijkt op geen enkele manier af te stammen van de hoofdbekende vrouwenmantels van Spanje en/of de Arabische wereld, en een tegengestelde functie te hebben: de vrouw te pronk stellen, niet haar verbergen. De hele 16e eeuw lang is de huik een universeel kledingstuk van werkende huisvrouwen. Kort na 1600 wordt hij 'ontdekt' als mode accessoire, er ontstaan decoratieve, frivole vormen van, en een generatie later is verdwijnt hij uit het straatbeeld, behoudens begrafenissen en sommige streekdrachten. Daarmee is hij een voorbeeld van een kledingstuk van 'de gewone vrouw' migreert naar 'de betere kringen', wat vaker voorkomt dan de oudere kostuumgeschiedenis heeft waargenomen.

IMC Leeds, 2016

The 16th century Dutch HOYK was a black woman's mantle, open in front, falling from the top of th... more The 16th century Dutch HOYK was a black woman's mantle, open in front, falling from the top of the head to the heels and usually topped by either duckbill or a small hat. In the popular woodcut-illustrated costume books of the time, it figures as their most distinctive garment. This study draws on the wealth of 16th.c. Dutch drawings, paintings and prints of people from all walks of life to trace the hoyk's evolution, then reconstruct it.
Whereas fashion theorists postulate that fashionable garments are first adopted by the upper classes, to slowly percolate down to middling and lower strata, the hoyk seems to do exactly the opposite: it first appears as a very practical housewife's garment, evolves into a middle-class symbol of respectability over three generations or so, to vanish from general use after a few decades' swan-song as a fashion accessory.

Knitting History Forum, 2019

Wearing the Texel stockings was presented by Geeske Kruseman at the Knitting History Forum confer... more Wearing the Texel stockings
was presented by Geeske Kruseman at the Knitting History Forum conference in Leiden on 2 November 2019.
Two volunteers have worn hand-knitted silk stockings, copied from a 17th-century original, with period shoes, and gathered qualitative data on subjective and objective questions, such as how the stockings fitted and felt, how they interacted with the shoe and the foot, how sweaty and/or dirty they got, how they responded to washing, how soon and where they showed signs of wear.
The original is from the 'Palmhoutwrak', a shipwreck off Texel (NL), and the copies were knitted by volunteers in a large-scale project which was presented in other talks at the same conference.
This PDF includes the slides, the talk, plus appendices with the 'Full Wearers' report' and data from the discussion which followed the talk.

Als we in 1600 het Wevershuis konden bezoeken... wie en wat zouden we zien? Wat voor mensen woond... more Als we in 1600 het Wevershuis konden bezoeken... wie en wat zouden we zien? Wat voor mensen woonden er, wat voor werk deden ze, hoe zagen ze eruit? Wat was hun plaats in de Leidse textielnijverheid (waar de halve stad zijn of haar brood mee verdiende)? Wat voor textiel gebruikten ze zelf voor hun kleren, op hun bed, in de keuken? De nieuwste stand van historisch kleermakersonderzoek, verteld door Geeske Kruseman, in museum Het Leids Wevershuis, zondag 12 januari 2020 om 15:00

This talk for the Medieval Dress and Textiles society stems from a startling resemblance between ... more This talk for the Medieval Dress and Textiles society stems from a startling resemblance between two seemingly unrelated garments: the Thorsberg hose (archaeological find, DK, c.250) and the (leather foundation of) the ‘pluderhosen’ of Nils Sture (murdered wearing them, SE, 1567). Across the 1300 years, their cutting patterns turn out to be essentially the same.
Its main point is that both are constructed like (medieval) hose and unlike (modern) breeches or trousers, the fundamental engineering difference being defined as follows:
A hose leg has one centre-back seam only, and two hose legs are joined by an inset piece and two crotch seams; a trouser leg has two side seams (or one side-seam and one side-fold), and two trouser legs are joined directly by a single crotch seam.
Anatomically, the back-seam pattern exploits the (stronger) left-right symmetry of the human body, while the side-seams pattern uses the (weaker) back-front symmetry. Classifying legs-and-hips garments in terms of their essential symmetry in relation to the symmetry of the human body (regardless of when the garment was made, who wore it, or what it was made of) yielded some unexpected results.
The Thorsberg garment, for one, must be re-classified from ‘trousers’ (male) to ‘hose’ (not gendered). And in fact, it fits a woman at least as well as a man.
In medieval legwear, I was startled to find traces of the side-seams construction only in underwear, while the outerwear seems to be exclusively cut on the back-seam pattern – all the way from the earliest evidence to the trunk-hose and pluderhosen of the 1560’s, when breeches cut with side-seams appear. These take over men’s legwear (in the Netherlands at least) by 1590, and all 17th C. fashions appear side-seam based (even the c.1600 trunk-hose revival).
If true, this would mean that Nils Sture's 'pluderhosen' were the last descendants of the Iron Age hose and its medieval descendants (across 1300 years), and that the breeches which displaced them were a novelty of the 1560’s.
That big if is offered not as a fact but as a suspicion in need of more evidence.