Calling Graham Sumner

Crispvs

Recently I have been trying to popularize authentic cold weather kit for use on cold days in the R.M.R.S. Lately I have been experimenting with woollen leg wrappings and have been very pleased with the results. The insulation factor was good and overall I found I was warmer and tired less quickly than some other members of the group who were not wearing leg wrappings and period socks. I found also that as long as the strings passed around the leg at the top of the calf and at the ankle at least twice before being tied off, the wrappings stayed secure for the entire day. Because on this occasion the wrappings were largely experimental I used garden twine (made, I think, of sisal) for the strings. What I need to know now is what the strings on the surviving originals are made of so that I can test an accurate reconstruction. If Graham Sumner (or anyone else who knows) is reading this can you offer any advice?

 
Graham Sumner

Some seven years ago at Kirby Hall, I tore the calf muscle in my right leg and it still causes me problems today. It was probably caused by a long period of standing around and then suddenly having to move. I was unable to walk on it for three months.

Since then I have been a great believer that veteran Roman soldiers would have worn leg protectors, To stop muscles getting cold if nothing else. There are plenty of pictures of hunters throughout the Roman period wearing either leg bindings (puttees) or leg wrappings.

Late Roman monuments like the Arch of Constantine also show them quite clearly. However it is a mystery to me why they are not shown worn by soldiers during the early empire.

There is a pair of leg wrappings which survive from Denmark. There is no doubt as to what they are as the original owners leg is still in one of them! They look identical to those shown on Roman sculptures and mosaics

The strings themselves appear to be part of the actual wrapping itself.

Leggings for late Romans

 
FAVENTIANVS

Those are mine:

 
Theodosius the Great

Does anyone know how wide leg wrappings should be for late Romans ?

 
Gaius Septimus Lucianus

I find that about 3 - 3 1/2" wide is pretty good. If you tear the linen and then pull off the excess threads you shouldn't have too much of a problem with the edges unraveling. Better yet, tear them out of a worsted wool that has been fulled (washed in hoit water and then dried in a hot dryer) and they will hardly unravel a bit. If you use thin, fulled worsted they are very comfortable and not overly hot, even in the summer.

 
Carlton Bach

wool cloth can be made remarkably thin and light, and was, in the ancient world. If the leg wrappings were designed mainly to give warmth (rather than, say, protection from the undergrowth) I would assume fairly thin wool. It has the added advantage of not shifting so easily. Wearing a cotton toga is always something of a disaster because the cloth doesn't 'cling' like wool.

That said, if it's protection you're after, go for slightly stronger linen. Wool gets very bulky before it gets to have any appreciable protective value - I get stung by thorns and twigs even through my paenula.

1st Century AD leg wrappings 

 
derek forrest

Last winter I had to a solo event on the wall. It was windy and snow/raining and took place in a heated Marquee. I had to wait outside for half an hour. I wore feminalia ;socks ;caligae and leg wrappings with a paenula on the top. I was warm and dry. The addition of the boots found at Vindolanda all the time would have made a perfect combination.It all was in stark contrast to what was in store inside; a bunch of builders and architects in costume roman gear.

Crispvs

These days when the weather turns cold I wear socks cut from woolen fabric and made to one of the patterns from Matt Amt's site and leg wrappings made from pieces cut from a blanket measuring one foot by a foot and a half. I have attached two long strings to one of the narrow ends of each which are wound around the upper calf and ankle once the wrapping has been wrapped around the leg. I find that the addition of these items, along with my paenula can keep me warm in quite cold conditions. The other evening two of us were helping out at a nativity re-enactment, taking the census prior the nativity play iself. While we were there ice formed on cars standing nearby but both of us were wearing paenulae, socks and leg wrappings and neither of us felt cold apart from on our finger tips. Neither of us was wearing femenalia. I don't have a good photo but I can be seen in the centre of a photo at the bottom of the 'Events' section of the RMRS website www.romanarmy.net ...

 Regarding the need for trousers, in past I have spent a good deal of time above the snowline in the mountains in New Zealand and have spent hours at a time trudging through knee deep snow wearing shorts, boots and snow gaiters (which cover the same portion of the leg as leg wrappings do). I can say from this experience that as long as you are warmly dressed on the torso and arms and wear a hat, the legs will not suffer severly from the cold as long as the lower leg is covered and the person is used to the conditions...

Skins seem like a reasonable assumption but to the best of my knowledge no evidence for their use as leg wrappings has yet been found. Shame really, but anyway I find no problem with woollen cloth.

 
Anonymous

I've found in my time reenacting World War I that legwraps (called puttees in the 20th century) do a good job at keeping my legs warm as well as keeping dirt out of my boots. However, when in comes to protecting from undergrowth and in our case barbed wire they tend to be a hinderance rather than a help. They get stuck easily in undergrowth and a large thorn will get through them without much trouble.

Winter clothing in the 2nd Century

 
Graham Sumner

Before going 'native' adopting long sleeved tunics, trousers and the like remember it is possible to remain Roman and wear under-tunics, under-cloaks and even over-cloaks. On the other hand you could try a cloak made from bark! All of these items are recorded on the Vindolanda writing tablets, details of which can be found via the Vindolanda website.

Leg bindings (of the type we would call today Puttees) are mentioned by Galen, imperial physician to Marcus Aurelius as being worn by soldiers. So they too would be suitable for a second century winter impression.

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?

 
Vortigern Studies

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... 

Vortigern Studies

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.  

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...

...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.  

aitor irarte

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.

Carlton Bach 

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 irarte

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