Tents, to be linen or not to be linen.

[Crispvs]

I have wondered about Caesar's use of the term 'sub pellibus' for some time now. He could have said something like 'in papillones' but instead chose to use the less descriptive 'sub pellibus' (under skins). As 'skin' (or 'hide' if you prefer) is not the most detailed description one could use of a tent, this suggests that Caesar expected his audience to be familiar already with the term. This indicates that 'sub pellibus' was probably the common idiomatic term, but as such this then potentially separates the term from the item being talked about. Once a term has reached a currency which makes it the accepted shorthand for an activity its descriptive value for someone not familiar with the term is potentially reduced. An obvious correlate would be 'under canvas'. Most modern tents are not made of canvas, but the term remains in use as it became the linguistic shorthand for camping in tents in the days when tents were indeed made of canvas. All the use of the term 'sub pellibus' really tells us therefore, is that at some time prior to Caesar, to the Roman mind, tents *were* made from hide. It may be that at a later stage some tents were made of canvas. Use of a term such as 'sub pellibus' may well shroud from our understanding the exact time when hides ceased to be the universal material of tentage, just as the use of the term 'under canvas' would be potentially misleading for someone unfamiliar with modern tents.
A question we perhaps should be asking is that if substantial portions of leather tents have survived from Valkenburg, Vindolanda and Newstead, how easily might linen canvas survive under the same conditions? If it survives as well as leather then we can be more confident that there were no canvas tents deposited in those contexts. If it survives differently to leather (or does not survive at all) how does that affect our understanding? Has canvas survived on Viking sites which have yielded leather?

Crispvs