What is that Tudor thing that falls out of women's knickers?

[FinallyRelief]

Ok a while back there was this thread about what bleurgh things people have learned on Mumsnet and I've lost the name of it - but people/ladies of Tudor times - I think? They didn't wash so like would deposit things - mousekins? Moshekins?

It's disturbed me then and now I can't remember the name!!

This YouTube channel shows clothing from various historical periods including descriptions if what each item is, why it was worn, and demonstrations of how to put it on. She also has a couple of videos acting out how to go to the toilet in them.

www.youtube.com/c/priorattire

And for what it's worth groom of the stool was a desirable position! When powerand land comes from the king (and access to him is controlled) you want to be as close to him as possible and you don't get much closer than the person who helped him go to the loo...

@AJTommo

I thought they were called 'pew mice' because they'd drop out when women got up & down to pray?? I'm going to Google it now ....

@AJTommo are you thinking of “sooterkins”? Small mouse-size creatures that some women were thought to give birth to

@ladycarlotta I think when you say scraps and patched/pieced together you mean careful the use of off cuts (cabbage) to utilize as much of expensive fabrics as possible possible to add details to less expensive items than the original garment the fabric was for and are referring to the fact patterns were more complex and consistent of more pieces due to the fact that historical hand or early machine woven fabric was simple not as wide as mass mechanical produced fabric today.
It's also worth remembering that as far as existing examples of historical clothing go they are always going to be the finest and most expensive examples because historical production methods from growing/rearing what ever fibre is required to spinning to weaving to drafting to cutting to sewing all simply cannot produce garments at the rate of modern production methods so even taking in to account a lower population clothing has to comparatively more expensive an therefore people had to repair until rags at which point it was sold in to the paper industry so only those who could afford the best of the best could also afford to not get every bit of wear and value from their clothes.

@JasperRising I was more addressing the PP's argument that the rich didn't take care of their clothes and routinely discarded them after not much wear. Of course most people kept most of their clothes for a long time, but I was arguing if they did get rid there would be others who'd make use of them.

As per my background, I did an art/material culture type undergraduate degree, ended up in a smallish museum that happened to have a big textile and clothing collection, and after quite a few years of working more and more specifically with dress history did an MA in it. Now I write about it and do talks, workshops etc on women's history/material culture more broadly. I never thought I was that clothesy a person but for me it's the personal/social history insights that individual garments yield.

@feesh various ways, including indeed squatting or with help, but a bit later there was such a thing as a bordaloue, which is like a gravy boat you stick under your skirts.

Well I wish I hadn't opened this thread!

@ladycarlotta I wasn't very clear but I did understand that point you were making and agree with it.

Your background/work sounds fascinating! I have an incidental interest in clothing and other material culture but nowhere near your level of knowledge about textiles, piecing in etc so it's very interesting to read.

@JasperRising haha, sorry I misread you! It's a field I really love and I'm so glad I stumbled into it. Wills and probate and inventories are such a fascinating things to research too - similar insights, I think, into the actual way life was lived, and window into domestic/private life which can otherwise be lost.

@Mannersstillcostnothing I mean things like gores which have seams rather than being cut on the fold, and sleeves and panels pieced together. The clothes I'm talking about are quality, museum-standard pieces as well as rare lower-class surivals (I think there's evidence of this at Herjolfsnes, which was an isolated settlement but people dressed well), and they reflect the use of recycled, repurposed fabric that was eked out as much as possible.

You're right, the widths were often narrower - but whereas rough linen or wool cloth might be easier to come by, relatively speaking (although still requiring labour and resources), things like silks were produced in very small runs, or as bespoke designs, so once it was gone it was gone. In that case even very high-class garments were careful to make the most of the fabric.

Dress history is part of my job and my academic background

Yes, and it's a part of mine too, though I am sure smaller than yours.

Cloth rags were cheap. They couldn't not be - or you wouldn't have a paper industry.

I grant you that brand new clothes were expensive, and so were good quality second (third, fourth) hand clothes. But, that has been the case for the vast majority of history. It is only in the present day that cloth has become so appallingly cheap that we can all afford cheap, disposable fashion. That is really an anomaly. It does not mean that, because cloth was not so cheap (income for income) if you were a Tudor peasant as it would be if you were buying your smalls in Primark today, that cloth was not cheap in Tudor England.

I don't think we are really disagreeing about the history, but I think we are disagreeing about what it means. I am arguing that clothing probably did smell a bit, and that's not in proportion to the price of clothing - it's just intrinsic to the fact that people wore things that were hard to clean. I am talking about people who could have afforded huge, fancy wardrobes, but still couldn't make their fancy gowns smell pristine after a few wears (and I doubt anyone cared). It seems to me that you are arguing that clothing was still expensive for people further down the social scale, who couldn't afford the many changes of linen you mention. I agree with that. But I'm also bemused as to why that's relevant, since you were talking about people who could afford lots of changes of linen?

I mean ... you don't seriously imagine most Tudor women had multiple changes of linen to protect 'silk, velvet, or wool outers'?

That must have been the preserve of the few.

Many ordinary people would still have been weaving their own homespun - or contracting it out to someone within the very local area. Their clothes would absolutely have been worn to rags (which is to say, they'd likely have done what people did until very recently, and patched and repatched and repurposed). And then the rags would have gone to some other use. Probably not paper, as paper mills were not common in Tudor England. But they would not have been sold at great price. You cannot compare what an aristocrat does with their cloths, to what a peasant does with theirs.

I personally doubt that most people smelled awful. I expect most people who couldn't afford better would swim in the river and strip wash. But they certainly didn't smell great because they had linen to protect their silks.

Rather aptly for this discussion I have just been reading Ruth Goodman How to be a Tudor and she has tried out Tudor levels of bathing/clothes changing whilst filming. Apparently with peasant levels of linen changes, there was a slight smell but it was concealed by the stronger smell of woodsmoke. A colleague did modern bathing levels but no linen changes and smelt worse. When she did a full high status regular linen change and bathing regime there was no noticeable body odour. In both cases her skin improved. She does say that natural fibre clothes over the linen is important. I wonder whether assumptions about smells in Tudor England remember to account for the use of wool fibre etc over polyester etc which holds smells more.

She also quotes some accounts for laundry costs paid for the Duke of Buckingham and two of his servants. The Duke was changing used 16 shirts in 7 weeks and 2 serving men used 11 shirts in 8 weeks.

One of the issues, though, is that if we're talking about ordinary people rather than dukes, we're also talking about people who're doing fairly hard physical labour (because most work just was more physical). Natural fibres are brilliant because they wick sweat away, but they would also encounter quite a lot of sweat. I suspect if you 'went Tudor' for a week or so (a friend of mine does this for Kentwell) it would be quite ok, maybe even quite pleasant. But I think rapidly, as your clothes dried with sweat on them and you wore them again, you would have issues.

I just think we have become much more sensitive to smells, too. Even if you think about really recent history, before the smoking ban, I never noticed how stale some pubs smelt. Now we all do!

Hello! Sorry I went AWOL for a few days! Glad the mousekins are not real!