09-16-2003, 02:15 PM
Salve Anaten,<br>
<br>
        Just a few quick responses (bad schedule today and I can track down better sources in a few days): This is a Frequently Asked Question that I often get. There hasn't been much written about it lately, but I have a few ideas:<br>
<br>
1. From a decades old British documentary series "Connections" by James Burke, I believe, regarding the invention and development of buttons, hooks and other clothing fasteners in Europe: clothing in the early Medieval period was not much different from Late Empire and Migration era clothing. Loose tunics and hanging, wrapping robes. But the High Middle Ages clothes were tight fitted, layered, and covered the head, neck, and everything. Vide: manuscript illuminations of the Twelth and early Thirteenth Centuries and then the 1500s. Burke proposes a mini-Ice Age, investigated and evidenced on the show and companion book using polar ice layers and ancient tree rings for support. According to him, things got suddenly colder around 1325-1350, which led to the development of tight fitting clothing and fewer baths, high necklines on women and warm headgear, etc. Supposition: things may have been just warmer enough in southern Europe in classical times that Romans may not have needed much more than extra tunics and hooded cloaks. This of course excludes Alpine snow and wet cold climates like Britannia, the Carpathian Alps, or really long cold campaigns like Trajan's against the Dacians as depicted on the column.<br>
<br>
2. At least in the Republic and early Empire, males were considered effeminate for wearing long sleeves or panting the legs like Celts, Gauls, or those effeminate Parthians and Bythinians. Roman "virtus" may have made it unwise for any male with political aspirations to even deign to recognize the discomfort. For my own experience as long as the torso is well wrapped to cut out the wind chill, the legs don't really feel the cold. Now, admittedly, I'm male and I have not tried this in Minnesota or Canada in winter yet, and if I ever do I suspect that any sensible Roman would have put on layers of pants and tight fitting Germanic sleeved shirts and warm furry barbarian hats and gloves the way we still do.<br>
<br>
3. But imagine a Mediterranean just a few degrees warmer than now. When one reads Martial and Juvenal and encounters all the references to miserably sweating in a toga, it might have made the Baths even more pleasurable and necessary.<br>
<br>
That's all I have time for now. More later. Any comments or counter-arguments, anyone?<br>
<br>
Wade Heaton<br>
Lucius Cornelius Libo<br>
Wheaton@selu,edu<br>
www.togaman.com <p></p><i></i>
<br>
        Just a few quick responses (bad schedule today and I can track down better sources in a few days): This is a Frequently Asked Question that I often get. There hasn't been much written about it lately, but I have a few ideas:<br>
<br>
1. From a decades old British documentary series "Connections" by James Burke, I believe, regarding the invention and development of buttons, hooks and other clothing fasteners in Europe: clothing in the early Medieval period was not much different from Late Empire and Migration era clothing. Loose tunics and hanging, wrapping robes. But the High Middle Ages clothes were tight fitted, layered, and covered the head, neck, and everything. Vide: manuscript illuminations of the Twelth and early Thirteenth Centuries and then the 1500s. Burke proposes a mini-Ice Age, investigated and evidenced on the show and companion book using polar ice layers and ancient tree rings for support. According to him, things got suddenly colder around 1325-1350, which led to the development of tight fitting clothing and fewer baths, high necklines on women and warm headgear, etc. Supposition: things may have been just warmer enough in southern Europe in classical times that Romans may not have needed much more than extra tunics and hooded cloaks. This of course excludes Alpine snow and wet cold climates like Britannia, the Carpathian Alps, or really long cold campaigns like Trajan's against the Dacians as depicted on the column.<br>
<br>
2. At least in the Republic and early Empire, males were considered effeminate for wearing long sleeves or panting the legs like Celts, Gauls, or those effeminate Parthians and Bythinians. Roman "virtus" may have made it unwise for any male with political aspirations to even deign to recognize the discomfort. For my own experience as long as the torso is well wrapped to cut out the wind chill, the legs don't really feel the cold. Now, admittedly, I'm male and I have not tried this in Minnesota or Canada in winter yet, and if I ever do I suspect that any sensible Roman would have put on layers of pants and tight fitting Germanic sleeved shirts and warm furry barbarian hats and gloves the way we still do.<br>
<br>
3. But imagine a Mediterranean just a few degrees warmer than now. When one reads Martial and Juvenal and encounters all the references to miserably sweating in a toga, it might have made the Baths even more pleasurable and necessary.<br>
<br>
That's all I have time for now. More later. Any comments or counter-arguments, anyone?<br>
<br>
Wade Heaton<br>
Lucius Cornelius Libo<br>
Wheaton@selu,edu<br>
www.togaman.com <p></p><i></i>
