Tents, to be linen or not to be linen.

[Orlirva]

So its possible that "sub-pellis" means sleeping under a pelt-blanket not a tent, like the mountian men and 19th C. US Troopers used to often do under 'buffalo robes' in field conditions.

Modern folks often greatly underestimate the cost of woven fabric compared to felt or leather. While machines churn out the stuff now like magic, hand making enough thread/yard for a bolt is a stupendous amount of work followed by another (slightly less) stupendous job to hand weave it. Only the essentially free labor (of, not to put to fine a point on it, women and childern) who's hands were to be kept busy every minute they were not doing some more urgent chore, allowed material to be produced at all and allowed the advancement of civilization. (Thanks Gals

Hi,


I can't find any other informations on tents but just a word about "sub-pellis"

Pellis is the word for skin with hairs not always a tanned one probably.
The sub-pellis appears in Caesar : Bellum gallicum 3.29 ; Bellum civile 3.13 and Tacite : Annales 13.35.

This word is strictly different from Corium, a tanned skin without hair (fur is a sign of barbarism during early empire except exotic and precious ones, not for tents)
Tacite in Annales 4.72 tells about Frisons who have to deliver ox skins for military uses (Coria boum ad usus militares)

Bye