Linen Leg wraps

[Commilito]

As I am going for the 3rd century look, I have a small question.

How did soldiers tie the linen leg wraps? How do I? After looking at many pictures I am still confused. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

[arklore70]

I am not sure myself,

but have you tried the Lost Legion website? I think I saw a few pics of troopers with leg wraps. Course this is bit earlier than your period, but it may help to shine on some light for you.

http://www.thelostlegion.nl/news.html



Cheers!!

Mike

[Robert Vermaat]

I'm not sure you want simple linen, my mate Chariovalda uses pattern-woven strips:

[Mithras]

I simply wind them around then tuck in the free end (which is just what the statue of Valentianian depicts I think), but when you look at the leg wraps shown on the Villa Armerina mosaics, they are intricately wrapped, with ties at top. I don't know how to achieve that, though I've tried.

You can just some some of the elaborate wraps (and ties) here: sights.seindal.dk/img/large/2862.jpg

[FAVENTIANVS]

It is important to wear'em over another pieces of clothes for not to slide down your leg after few minutes...

[Robert Vermaat]

That's why Andreas (Chariovalda) uses the woven stuff, that's a bit stretchy and won't get loose easily. He fastens them with an annular brooch.

[Malleus]

Some things don't seem to change.

www.oryansroughnecks.org/how4.html

Steve P/ Malleus

[Crispvs]

When I was an Anglo-Saxon period re-enactor, we used to wear leg wrappings whose engs were divided into two. When the end of the 'puttee' was reached, the devided ends were passed in opposite directions around the top of the calf and then tied securely to each other. I was never entirely convinced that this was the correct method, as nothing I saw in manuscript illustrations of the period seemed to resemble it. However, the ties at the top of the leg wrappings of the forground figure in the link you posted look quite similar to the effect we used to achieve. To put the putte on we normally used to wind it twice around the ankle, twice around the foot and then continuously up the leg, always overlapping the puttee by a half, before ending as described. I don't know if this is useful in this context or not but I offer it up for comment.

These days, when I am in my fourth century kit, I tightly wrap the puttee twice around the ankle and then continue up the the leg, just as tightly, overlapping by a half. When I reach a point close to the end I pin it with my thumb and pass the end around the leg for a final time before passing it under the untensioned piece immediately above my thumb. I then pull it tight until the pressure is roughly equal with the pressure I feel along the rest of the calf. As the wrappings are woollen and so are my horrendous baby-romper trousers, they hold securely for most of the day and I rarely find myself needing to adjust them. It may help that I have fairly large calves but an thing the result would be similar no matter what size my calves were. A caveat here is that when in fourth century kit I tend to be walking about or standing around talking to people, rather than doing active field displays. Has anyone else tried securing them this way? If so, how good did the method prove?

Crispvs

[Marcus Mummius]

I plan to wear woolen putees with my first century kit in cold weather. As I will only wear kneelenght trousers I am very curious to see if they stay up or not. I'll start experimenting in a few weeks. I'll use some of the handwoven wool I got from Cezar, it seems to me that this wool has a fairly good 'grip'. I'll try all possible methods and if all else fails there is alway the staplegun.

[Crispvs]

You may not need the trousers. I have found (in first century mode) when in my cold weather kit, that simply wrapping the calves in woollen material, thus insulating the part of the body in contact with what is normally the coldest level of air, whilst wearing socks and a cloak seems to prevent much of my heat loss, paricularly if I have the freedom to put my hood up. I wear a tunic which hangs, as it should, to mid calf when unbelted and is what I would consider to be the minimum acceptable width of elbow to elbow. I wear a linen undertunic under this. The layering effect allows for warm air to be trapped close to the body and the extra woollen material around the body when the tunic is hitched up provides a good deal of insulation. Both of these effects are compounded when a cloak is worn. I suspect that if it was really cold I would do what we know the many many Romans were in the habit of doing: I would put a second woollen tunic on over the first. Leaving the legs above the calf bare is not really a problem. Thanks to the tunic really only the knee and a little of the leg above it is exposed.
Back in my alpine hiking days in the New Zealand mountains, I used to often spend a week at a time above the snowline, often moving through knee or even waist deep snow. In this environment we never wore long trousers, which could end up getting saturated with cold water, leading to hypothermia. Instead we wore shorts and gaiters which buttoned and laced up to just below the knee. It was standard practice to wear three pairs of socks and it was vitally important to make sure you were wearing several layers on your torso. A usual arrangement was a long johns top worn under a t-shirt, which was worn under a woollen or fleece jacket. If the weather became bad, the waterproof jackets came out. Warm hats were never far from reach and most of the time some or all of us would be wearing hats. The knees and lower thighs never felt much colder than slightly chilly (unless we stopped for more than a couple of minutes). The key things to staying warm were: insulating the feet and lower legs, wearing several layers on the upper body, wearing a hat, eating properly, and getting sufficient sleep (which could be tricky when sleeping in a snow trench with your boots held to your chest inside your sleeping bag to stop them from freezing in the night. When sleeping it was also vitally important to wear a warm hat. The type with chin ties was particularly good as it would not come off in the night).

Sorry to pull the thread so far off topic.

Crispvs

[aitor iriarte]

I cannot tell it for sure but all late Roman depictions of men (soldiers or not) wearing puttees are always trouserless. In my group, specially in summer, most of my friends have decided to go without trousers and they sport 'fasciae crurales' on those occassions.


Aitor

[Tarbicus]

I cannot tell it for sure but all late Roman depictions of men (soldiers or not) wearing puttees are always trouserless.

Aitor, do you think it may have been a way for men to show less skin, and possibly observe Christian tendencies to avoid temptation of the flesh and show more modesty? Or does the trend of wearing putees go back earlier than that?

Just a thought.

[Carlton Bach]

I cannot tell it for sure but all late Roman depictions of men (soldiers or not) wearing puttees are always trouserless.

Aitor, do you think it may have been a way for men to show less skin, and possibly observe Christian tendencies to avoid temptation of the flesh and show more modesty? Or does the trend of wearing putees go back earlier than that?

Just a thought.

They are significantly earlier than the Christian era, and often shown without trousers. A.T. croom writes that the wrappings are the later style, while first-cewntury fashions went for a single rectangular piece of cloth going round the lower leg and secured at the top and bottom with ties. One such item was found in Sogaards Mose (the o needs a slash through it whch my keaboard doesn't have) in Denmark and may be Roman or sub-Roman. Kept today at Skive Museum. It ios also not always clear whether the wrapping represents a cloth band or garters securing a cloth tube on the outside. That such garters/leggings were worjn without trousers is well documented from the third century (mosaic from cerchell) through the fourth, fifth and sixth (Piazza Armerina, Vienna Genesis) and all the way into the Middle ages (Palermo Cathedral mosaics, Lorenzetti's 'Buon Governo' country scenes)

I would suggest the primary purpose of these leggings is not warmth or modesty, but protection. When we did 'excavation technique 101', we practised profile measuring in a wooded spot full of brambles. It was July and about 30°C at noon Several of us came wearing shorts the first day, none the second.

[aitor iriarte]

Jim,
Volker has answered your question. Protections for the lower legs appear associated with bare-legged men performing outdoor hard tasks (Labourers or soldiers). Brambles account more than modesty for the wearing of such garments...

Aitor

[Tarbicus]

Cheers guys,

It's interesting that there seems to be a certain amount of animosity towards the idea that, e.g, 1st-C soldiers wore putees/leggings. I fully understand their usefulness, and know the problems of wearing shorts in woodland, etc.