Rosalie Gilbert

In July I mentioned the very fabulous and rather sexy blue undies sometimes seen in 15th century art. There was quite a lot of fun commentary when I posted these 15th blue underpants on social media last week. It didn't go unnoticed that the gentleman in the top left hand image was dressed as a woman, breasts askew and displaying his pants with the hair tufting out the top. Historians knew, of course, that this was a story about a lover disguising himself in order the get closer to his lady lover, the Queen, behind her husband's back. He is, as seen, found out and shown to be false.

Many of the comments were directed at the fact that the undies were blue.

The usual colour for body linens in the medieval period is white. An enormous amount of art and literacy supports this, and it is the same for women. And the usual fabric for body linens is, well, linen.

Linen, however, is well known for not holding dye terribly well with repeated washing, so the colour of the underpants was an unusual choice. Woad was the most common source of blue dye but it really isn't a long-reaching dye for clothing.

Amongst the conversations about the colour and the fabric, a reader remarked that a great deal of linen tablecloths in the middle ages have blue designs and stripes and they wash repeatedly with little ill effect. Many of the designs and stripes appear to be a dark blue, which leads me the guess that the linen is not woad-dyed but indigo dyed, which gives a deeper colour and is more fast.

My thought is perhaps these are indigo dyed. None of the images are on working class people, so the more expensive, unnecessary blue might indicate a more luxurious item, not unlike our lingerie today.

So... blue undies for 15th century men. And before you ask, there is absolutely no indication that these were the underpants worn by medieval women.