Opinion on Border Reivers as clans etc

[Skoosh]

@ Elwyn, as to the average weaver of the 15/1600's not having the time, skills or technology to create subtle patterns. The Glasgow Incorporation of Weavers, founded 1514, required the apprentices to learn the use of the four different looms of the trade & produced an assortment of cloths including plaidings in stripes, checks & cross-stripes. Linnen weaving was a distinct craft &  made in different types but joined to the guild by 1600.  Lynchie-winchie, with the warp in wool & the weft of linnen was also made. This would be the same in every Scottish town with a weavers guild. Bad-workmanship was punished by expulsion from the trade & town & letters sent to Edinburgh & Co warning them against the offender. No doubt country homespun lacked this sophistication but the weavers textiles were on sale throughout the country & exported!

Skoosh. 

[Elwyn Soutter]

@ Elwyn, as to the average weaver of the 15/1600's not having the time, skills or technology to create subtle patterns. The Glasgow Incorporation of Weavers, founded 1514, required the apprentices to learn the use of the four different looms of the trade & produced an assortment of cloths including plaidings in stripes, checks & cross-stripes. Linnen weaving was a distinct craft &  made in different types but joined to the guild by 1600.  Lynchie-winchie, with the warp in wool & the weft of linnen was also made. This would be the same in every Scottish town with a weavers guild. Bad-workmanship was punished by expulsion from the trade & town & letters sent to Edinburgh & Co warning them against the offender. No doubt country homespun lacked this sophistication but the weavers textiles were on sale throughout the country & exported!

Skoosh.

Fair comment.

[Mojo47]

Hi all,

Still a lot of great information coming. I have ordered copies of the two reiver books recommended earlier.
Next question. When the average reiver was at home, safe in his own territory, what did they wear?
Presumably, they weren’t always dressed in steel bonnets etc. would they have worn mauds?

Mojo

[Skoosh]

Only if Maud wasn't away to the dancing Mojo!  You're confusing Border Shepherds with Border Reivers. Another author you might include in this is the novelist James Hogg the Ettrick Shepherd. "Confessions of a Justified Sinner!" He wrote both in Scots & English. "Tales & Sketches" very good.

 Maud = a shepherds plaid with one end sewn into a pocket for carrying a lamb, a flask & his piece! 

https://www.jameshogg.stir.ac.uk/james-hogg/

Bests,
Skoosh.

[Mojo47]

Hi Skoosh,

I’ll have to add that book to my future reading list.I’ve already got a small pile building up at home!
As for the question.I don’t really have a clue what the reivers would wear and was just guessing. What do you think the average reiver would wear when he’s at home sat by the fire(with or without Maud!)

Mojo

[Elwyn Soutter]

According to Watson, page 103:

“Patten, when he accompanied Somerset’s expedition against the Scots, took particular notice of similarity in dress of Scottish lairds to that of their followers. Lairds and barons, he remarked, wore not only the same jacks, covered with white leather, as their men, but the same white leather or fustian doublets, and usually white hose.”

The Duke of Somerset invaded the Borders in 1547.

Fustian = thick, hard-wearing twilled cloth with a short nap, usually dyed in dark colours

[Mojo47]

Hi Elwyn,

The contemporary account is great!
Would they have worn this clothing all the time or only when out riding?
I have read that many of these families also had coats of arms.Some registered, some not.Would these have been used to identify individuals (as is the norm), or to identify an entire family??

Mojo

[Elwyn Soutter]

Mojo,

I really don’t know whether that was typical clothing or not. I only reported what Watson says.  The average Reiver clearly wasn't very wealthy (that’s why he went reiving) so how many changes of clothing would he have? Probably not too many. Watson lists about 50 research sources. You could try some of them to see if there are contemporary accounts of what folk wore. And the other books mentioned in this thread might likewise contain information.

One of the problems of history is that we hear what the leaders did, said or wore, but the average foot soldier doesn’t get studied to the same extent. There’s mention of what  Sir George Heron left in his will in 1575: “a damask gown, a velvet jerkin, a pair of velvet breeches and a satin doublet.” (No kilt, you’ll notice). But there’s not a lot of detail about the average reiver’s clothing in Watson’s book though I think we can be pretty clear that none wore a kilt. However that hasn’t stopped tartan manufacturers inventing a wide range of tartans and kilts supposedly linked to Border names.  They are all just based on fantasy, in my opinion.

Coats of arms also probably fall into the nonsense trap.  There’s certainly no mention of them in Watson’s book. The Borders in the 1400s through to the early 1600s were lawless. The church couldn’t function and Ministers were harried out of the area. Couples got together by handfasting, because there was no church to marry in.  That was the social world prevailing at the time. Would anyone bother with a coat of arms? Who would have any interest in such a thing? A coat of arms suggests law abiding behaviours that would not have been recognised by the average person in that region at the time. (But again that’s just my opinion).

My (limited) understanding of coats of arms is that they are not issued to a family but to an individual. But I really don’t know that much about them. Just it’s my opinion that the average reiver wouldn’t have one any more than the average labourer or mill worker would. Nor would they be remotely interested in one, I would have thought. But maybe someone reading this can add some information?

TV & films create false history at times.  I was on the Hebridean Island of Islay last year and spoke to a weaver whose company provided kilts used in Braveheart. The film company had asked him to provide some suitably stimulating tartans for the actors to wear. He had pointed out that they didn’t have any tartans in the 1300s. He was asked to come up with some anyway. And obviously it was in his commercial interest to do so. Now half the planet believes that was typical dress at that time.

Elwyn

[Ruskie]

I was going to suggest you try searching for some contemporary illustrations of fashions of the time, however “artistic license” might have been used to some extent.

I stumbled across this which may be of interest (I did not read it, only glanced at the couple of illustrations):
https://albanach.org/early-history-of-the-kilt-e0c5b0101b5

You will find loads of information and illustrations via google searches using a combination of search terms. Pinterest is showing a number of illustrations so it might be worth wading through to see if any are relevant or contemporary.