(Vavavooom!) 600-year-old bra and underwear discovered in an Austrian castle

IO9 ^ | Jul 18, 2012 | Annalee Newitz

[DogByte6RER]

600-year-old bra and underwear discovered in an Austrian castle

Contemporary bras are more comfortable, modified versions of corsets — or so it was believed, until a 2007 discovery changed the way we see women's underwear. Working with a team of her colleagues, archaeologist Beatrix Nutz recently publicized her discovery of several linen bras and some underwear in a medieval castle.

Nutz has presented academic papers about her discovery, and even analyzed the underwear for DNA (see picture). But the public didn't hear about the medieval bras until a BBC history program showed pictures of them. Nutz and colleagues also found a pair of men's underwear (pictured below) — apparently medieval women wore no panties.

What this means is that women were wearing bras long before the invention of corsets. So corsets have been revealed as the uncomfortable, restrictive version of bras. Does that mean the middle ages were actually a more liberal time than the corset-obsessed eighteenth and nineteenth centuries?

[jughandle]

Don’t think they shaved legs back then either.

[csvset]

Austria? Probably something like this.

[TalBlack]

We have so many advantages over our ancestors—

Newsday (LI NY)did a story on the actual medical/physical condition of our founding fathers and their level of common daily discomfort. It was shocking how much pain these people suffered even as they were founding our country.

[PoloSec]

“Das nennt man die Wunderbar Wunderbra, Ja!”

“Ja...she haf der kleinen sitzen und der grossen titzen.”

Stopenzie Floppin!

[Taffini]

People keep talking how stressful life is now...I say look back in time and I doubt that anyone would want to go back to the days when clothes were washed and wrung by hand in a wooden tub, we had no flushing toilets or modern sewer systems, no modern dental equipment, no deodorant, no cars, no planes, no paved roads, no antibiotics, no modern “lady” products, no sewing machines, no air conditioning, no right and left shoes, and on and on. We don’t know what stress is compared to those who came before us.

[Dr. Sivana]

I hope you realize that people bathed very infrequently back then

I hope you realize that that is a myth.

http://www.gallowglass.org/jadwiga/herbs/baths.html

Like the nonsensical idea that spices were used to disguise the taste of rotten meat, the idea that bathing was forbidden and/or wiped out between the fall of Rome and the Enlightenment has been touted by many gullible writers, including Smithsonian magazine.

However, even the Smithsonian in the person of Jay Stuller has to admit that "Gregory the Great, the first monk to become pope, allowed Sunday baths and even commended them, so long as they didn't become a 'time-wasting luxury' . . . medieval nobility routinely washed their hands before and after meals. Etiquette guides of the age insisted that teeth, face and hands be cleaned each morning.

Shallow basins and water jugs for washing hair were found in most manor houses, as was the occasional communal tub..."

"In the first volume of Janssen's History of the German People there are many details concerning the popular use of baths in Germany during the Middle Ages.

Men bathed several times each day; some spent the whole day in or about their favorite springs. From the 20th of May to the 9th of June, 1511, Lucas Rem bathed one hundred and twenty-seven times, as we may see by his diary" (p. 291-292).

[Dr. Sivana]

Women of child-bearing age were starving and/or pregnant their entire lives up until very recently in human history. They usually died well before the age of 40 and often during one of their many pregnancies. Periods were the exception in a female’s life rather than the norm.

That is a gross generalization that does not apply to much of Europe. At very least you recognize that there were convents filled with non-pregnant, fertile women. I know of no Christian society that tolerated the killing of women for being barren or living past child-bearing years. The Christian rules regarding fasting would make no sense in a starving society. You should read more about medieval Europe.

[mikrofon]

Apparently for utility these were all nursing bras...

[Monkey Face]

Free, I told you not to pass that photo around! LOL!

‘Face

[wildbill]

Sound this out:

Be a trix Nutz.

[martin_fierro]

No.

You are not getting a Mangled Genitals Ping.

Go to your room.

[SunkenCiv]

Tough room. ;’) :’D

[varyouga]

I consider 2000 years very recent in human history. Even 10,000 years is quite recent. Modern humans can directly match their genomes to DNA that is 50,000 years old but it is believed that our species existed 200,000 years ago.

For the great majority of our history, we had ‘society’ that was barely above the level of apes. The climate that humans and apes thrive in (warm and moist) ensured very few remains were left for us to study.

[Dr. Sivana]

Much of what you stated here is open to debate and questions. In any event, we were discussing this in the context of a 600 year old bra, not a 6,000 year old bra.

[LexBaird]

I think you should read more historical accounts, and less theoretical deconstructionist “women’s studies” screeds.

[varyouga]

“I think you should read more historical accounts, and less theoretical deconstructionist “women’s studies” screeds.”

The great majority of human history has no written historical accounts and very few physical remains. How many events in 50-200,000 years of human history have been accurately reported, recorded and can be accepted as unbiased fact today? Maybe 0.01% (one 10,000th) so of course most information about that time period is theoretical.

However, when looking at our overall physiology, sex differences, psychology and instincts it becomes obvious how brutal most of our history was. Early history is ingrained in who we are and our minds/bodies ARE the historical account. Civilization is a thin and very recent veneer that frequently shows cracks, even in our otherwise highly modern world.

BTW, I'm not a woman and have no connection at all to “women's studies”. I simply have have a deep interest in understanding our early history and have traveled a great deal all around the world to better do so.

[Dr. Sivana]

most information about that time period is theoretical.

Agreed, but you stated your theoretical conclusions without qualification or condition in your original post.

[brytlea]

I’m sorry, I didn’t explain my point in my first post. What I meant was they found a few bras and not much else. How do we know this was the norm. Maybe there was lots of other underwear, maybe not. The problem with this sort of *science* is it extrapolates much from very little. That’s all I’m saying.

[arderkrag]

Ah, I see your point. I agree, it does take some leaps of reasoning.

[brytlea]

We just need a time machine. :)