Clothing Question

[Deadeye]

I was wonderin from the lot of ya (Blackjohn, GoF, Foxe, Hawkyns and anyone else) about a few items of clothing for an authentic costume. As we all know, not all pirates in the GAop were English, so what i was ponderin, was: Would they incorperate some aspects of their heritage, so long as they were practical, into their daily dress?

Fer instance, I was wanting to incorperate perhaps a Highland Bonnet or a Glangarry as me headgear. Would a Ghillie shirt be an appropriate choice along with me slops and stockings? Just little things to add some National flavor. What would you all think?

[blackjohn]

I was wonderin from the lot of ya (Blackjohn, GoF, Foxe, Hawkyns and anyone else) about a few items of clothing for an authentic costume. As we all know, not all pirates in the GAop were English, so what i was ponderin, was: Would they incorperate some aspects of their heritage, so long as they were practical, into their daily dress?

Fer instance, I was wanting to incorperate perhaps a Highland Bonnet or a Glangarry as me headgear. Would a Ghillie shirt be an appropriate choice along with me slops and stockings? Just little things to add some National flavor. What would you all think?

Sure. I'm sure pirates of the "Age" would do such things. People are people.

[JoshuaRed]

Yeah no doubt. I KNOW I read somewhere about a Scottish pirate who wore his higland gear. Several pirates were known to carry Scottish mortuary swords instead of cutlasses.

And I'm certain that MANY a pirate would decorate his personal possessions with materials, techniques and styles familar to him. It's just a shame so much belonging to the ordinary seaman is lost forever.

[Deadeye]

And I'm certain that MANY a pirate would decorate his personal possessions with materials, techniques and styles familar to him. It's just a shame so much belonging to the ordinary seaman is lost forever.

Hear Hear! I Plan to Carry a Basket Hilt (not sure if i want to go with the Backsword or Broadsword yet ) And i already have a Highlander shirt. But im still not sure when the Glengarry first came about. Bonnets are inexpensive, and will suit me untill i can afford a slouch hat. Besides, it's always fun to play the Scot who's slightly annoyed and bickering with his Brittish counterparts

[Captain Midnight]

Sure. I think pirates would most definitely have worn a motley conglomeration of outfits from many different places, looted from their prey. If a pirate's shirt or breeches (or whatever) were worn out, certainly he would have no qualms about lifting a new one from a victim...err, donor, no matter the nationality.

[Gentleman of Fortune]

Well....

It seems that I am the designated asshole....

But I am a nice guy... really.

Suppose you are a cattle rancher in New Mexico. You got all the Western Gear from the cowboy boots to the 10 gallon hat.

You move to Maine and become a Lobster fisherman.

Just how long do you think it would be before you ditched the wrangler jeans, boots and hat and adopted appropriate gear for being a fisherman?

Sure you might still keep that Gigantic silver belt buckle and maybe the hat till it blows off into Davy Jones but chances are you would adopt as much clothing to suit the situation. And, once those items from home wore out on your 10 month voyage, its not like you could order a badger sporan from Sears Roebuck.

Now we are not portraying Isle of Wight fishermen that would fish in there local areas and come home on a regular basis.

We are portraying Pirates, the terrorist of their day. They were probably sailors to begin with that may have had stints in the Royal Navy, Merchant navy, Privateers etc.

Sailors had specific clothing to suit their needs and they had clothes available to them for their occupational speciatly.

Now I am sure that Irish, Scottish, French sailors etc may have had specific clothing items or styles of clothing that may have been a little different but it would be hard to acertain what those difference might have been by looking at historical refrences.

Foxe posted something a while back that was a period refrence that said that a particular group of sailors were recognized as English because they were wearing trousers.

I think that we need to be careful when we interpret our Historically Accurate Pirate impressions because it might be easy to get a little carried away.

Personal weapons though, I think would be a different matter. Due to their expensive nature, I am sure that they would be glad to have whatever they had (mortuary sword, hanger, French Dragoon pistol etc).

GoF

[JoshuaRed]

I was referring more to the thought of decorating a cartridge pouch with scottish sayings or motifs...or celtic...or french...or african...what have you. Using initials, a date, etc.

Maybe stitching a little Abanaki beadwork into it....Or perhaps wearing a certain charm or "piece of flair" (to quote Office Space) appropriate to your home country.

Pirates were certainly aware of their unique status in the world, and I know some of them would have taken great delight in expressing personal style & freedom to fully rebel against social conformity, as well as to distance themselves from the R.N. Slop Chest.

[blackjohn]

It seems that I am the designated asshole....

Having a voice of dissention hereabouts is a good thing.

However, two words...

Press Gang!

(Though I suspect press gangs were no where near as active in post-war era.)

[Fox]

Besides, it's always fun to play the Scot who's slightly annoyed and bickering with his Brittish counterparts

ENGLISH! If you're going to portray a Scot then it's probably best that you know the Scots are British. The people from mainland Britain who aren't Scots or Welsh are ENGLISH. Sounds petty, but if you came from Britain (or your character came from Britain) you'd appreciate the difference. It's like describing Mexicans or Canadians as "American" - technically true since they come from the American continent, but actually incorrect usage. (consider me the designated asshole reserve)

On clothing I would agree with most of what has been said above. I think GoF is definitely correct in his assertion that in most cases any national clothing would probably give way to practical sailor's gear within a short space of time. Consider the sea as a sailor's homeland. Also bear in mind that expressing nationalism through clothing is very much a 19th century fad. If you were a Scottish seaman then you might well wear a blue bonnet because you already had it, because it was practical, warm, windproof and easy to stuff in a pocket if necessary, but you probably wouldn't wear it to show your Scottish origin.

On the other hand if you want to portray a seaman of a particular nation and want some obvious items to do that, then thinking about hard wearing items, or items that get little wear would probably work well. A bonnet, for example, would probably last forever, and is a sensible hat. A scottish basket hilt (Armour Class do some good ones BTW) would certainly be long lasting, but swords don't often crop up in inventories of seamen's gear and I can't imagine it being a practical shipboard weapon - may I suggest a highland dirk? Very Scottish, very hard-wearing and very practical at sea.

[Sir Eric]

This conversation makes me currious to ask a further question along these lines. My question will be in the form of a hypothetical situation...

Two pirate crews, one entirely consisting of French nationals and the other entirly English, happen to be searching for water on the same tiny island. By some miracle, they happen to find a little freshwater lake at the same instant.

Without saying a word to each other, (and assuming no shots ring out...)would they be able to tell where the other crew had come from just by looking at each other?

[blackjohn]

What year is it?

[Pirate Petee]

1985 sorry.

[blackjohn]

In that case, sure.

Aren't the French sailors always wearing red tuques?!?!

Actually, I was asking because there seems to be a difference in facial hair trends. In the last quarter of the 17thC, the French seem to have a fondness for moustaches that the English do not share.

Also, later era pirates might be able to tell each other apart from equipment - muskets and such.

As far as clothes go, I don't know. It's difficult to find a good sampling of images of any sailors, let alone getting a large enough sample to look for trends that might point to national differences.

What say you, Master Foxe?

[Gentleman of Fortune]

My conjecture would be that it would be hard to tell…

Except for the passage that Foxe posted about English seamen were recognized because of their trousers (I can’t remember the date on that though), I would say sailors were sailors.

Also,

JoshRed ( Hey man! Good to see you posting!!! How is life down in Florida?) posted a passage about Royal Navy sailors accidentally shooting one of their own guys because the pirates were indistinguishable from the Navy Sailors.

Of course, this reinforces what we already knew of Sailors being sailors wearing sailor stuff.

Foxe comments “that expressing nationalism through clothing is very much a 19th century fad” and I say that as modern people, (especially modern Americans) we focus a lot on individualism. For the modern American, we try to set ourselves out apart from everyone else and value that as a trait.

I am curious to know if that was a prevalent thing in the GAoP. Our modern interpretation of what pirates were I think is in great conflict with what they really were.

Basically, pirates were outlaws, criminals, TERRORIST on the high seas. With our hind sight we glamorize them as some sort of floating free spirit, love your neighbor kind of non-conformist, but I believe that they were out of luck/work/ and poor sailors trying to make some money.

Maybe this should be a separate thread but, by cracky, every time I hear of somebody adding to their pirate kit because they want to individualize it, it makes my toes curl.

It makes my toes curl because there are so many people with individualized kits that, what was COMMON during the GAoP has become the rarity for Pirate Living History.

Kind of like the looser Goth kids thinking they are being individual, by ALL wearing the same black outfit with the same died black hair. When I was a teacher I would tell my students, “You want to be individual? You want to be a non-conformist??? Then come to school in a three piece suit with dress shoes or prom dress and Make straight A’s… you will be the only one in the school!”

So with pirates its, you want to be a unique pirate, stand out as an individual? Then wear:

Shrunck Grey Kersey Jackett, lined with Red Cotton, with fifteen Brass Buttons, and two Pockets of Linnen, the Button Holes stich’d with Gold Colour Thread,

a Strip’d Ticken Waist Coat with Strip’d Ticken Breeches

a Shirt of blew and white chequer’d Linnen and Drawers of blew and white chequer’d Linnen

a Leather Capps faced with Red Cotton, and lined with Black Linnen

Grey Woollen Stockings with Double Sold Shoes, round Toes.

Now this was probably one of the most common outfits during the GAoP, yet no one is doing it.

GoF

[Fox]

On the whole seamen were seamen when it came to fashion, and there was no equivalent of the Scottish plaid for telling them apart. I think if you were talking about individual French and English seamen then you'd have a hard job defining their nationality with any certainty, but with a crew, or a large part of a crew you might be able to have a decent stab at it (I'm always ready for a stab at a Frenchman, but that's another story).

If you saw one guy wearing a sash it probably wouldn't mean very much, but I think that the wearing of waist sashes (except as a sign of military or naval rank) was more fashionable amongst the French than anyone else, so if a good proportion of a group were wearing sashes there'd be a good chance they were French.

Similarly, as has been pointed out, long trousers seemed to be a peculiarly English fashion*. One other thing, and don't read too much into this, but I've never seen a picture of a French seaman in slops - always breeches. It might be that I just haven't seen the right pictures, but if the ones I've seen are taken as representative then closed knee breeches seem to have been preferred over open slops by the frogs.

One other thing which was definitely fashionable amongst the English seamen, but which I've not seen evidence of anyone else doing, is the wearing of a cocked hat with a point at the back instead of the front.

So, as individuals you probably couldn't tell an English seaman from a French seaman with any certainty, but given a large enough group of men in breeches and sashes with large moustaches you could make a safe bet they didn't eat roast beef and mustard like real men.

GoF, I broke the uniform rules at school by wearing a red pin striped waistcoat with a gold watch chain under my black blazer with red piping and black trousers. We were meant to wear a grey or black jumper. One of the teachers complained that I was breaking the rules so they changed to rules for me 'cos I looked so smart. I'm also working on making outfits the 1670s, 1706 and 1717 ASC specs...

*Without looking it up I'm 95% certain that the trouser comment was made by William Betagh who kept a journal of Shelvocke's cruise circa 1718. If it wasn't him then it was Woodes Rogers in 1711ish.

[blackjohn]

Foxe, it is always such a pleasure to read your posts!

[Sir Eric]

Agreed Foxe... informative and insightful as always. Thanks!

[JoshuaRed]

JoshRed ( Hey man! Good to see you posting!!! How is life down in Florida?) posted a passage about Royal Navy sailors accidentally shooting one of their own guys because the pirates were indistinguishable from the Navy Sailors.

Florida is good! And hurricane season is almost over. Lots of good Cuban cigars down here too.

Greg, that incident actually occurred during Blackbeard's fight with Maynard. Very telling incident!

[Deadeye]

. Sounds petty, but if you came from Britain (or your character came from Britain) you'd appreciate the difference.

Agreed

On the whole seamen were seamen when it came to fashion, and there was no equivalent of the Scottish plaid for telling them apart.

*Ahem* My Turn... Thats a TARTAN. NOT a plaid. Theres a difference, slight as it may be, but the difference should be appreciates...

[Fox]

*Ahem* My Turn... Thats a TARTAN. NOT a plaid. Theres a difference, slight as it may be, but the difference should be appreciates...

Nope, I was referring to the large blanket type garment belted round the waist and thrown over the shoulder into what most poeple would call a kilt. That's called a plaid.

[blackjohn]

So with pirates its, you want to be a unique pirate, stand out as an individual? Then wear:

Shrunck Grey Kersey Jackett, lined with Red Cotton, with fifteen Brass Buttons, and two Pockets of Linnen, the Button Holes stich’d with Gold Colour Thread,

a Strip’d Ticken Waist Coat with Strip’d Ticken Breeches

a Shirt of blew and white chequer’d Linnen and Drawers of blew and white chequer’d Linnen

a Leather Capps faced with Red Cotton, and lined with Black Linnen

Grey Woollen Stockings with Double Sold Shoes, round Toes.

Now this was probably one of the most common outfits during the GAoP, yet no one is doing it.

Yes, you'd stand out as an individual alright!!! As an RN sailor, and I'd probably shoot you by mistake!

I still have a hard time accepting the Royal Navy slops contract as the pattern for pirate clothing. I don't believe the Royal Navy was as all persvasive as that. Ymmv.

[Fox]

Let's crunch some numbers. In 1703 when Queen Anne came to the throne the Royal Navy had 43,397 men on the books, and at least 38,871 actually at sea. For the next decade the number of men on the books never fell below 41,406, and reached a high in 1711(?*) of 49,860. The number of men aboard ships for the same period was at its lowest in 1704 when 38,873 men served and was at its peak in 1706 when 44,819 men served at sea.

In 1713, the year of the infamous Treaty of Utrecht, 21,636 men were on the books and 19,725 were at sea. The following year 13,098 men were on the books and 12,062 were at sea. Between then and 1725 the number of men on the books never rose above 21,188, and only twice exceeded 16,000. In the same period the records for men at sea are sketchy, but the maximum number of men recorded was 12, 576. In 1725 only 6,298 men were in the Navy, of whom 6,001 were at sea.

What does this mean? It means that the Treaty which heralded the heyday of the golden age of piracy left approximately 25,000 Royal Navy seamen out of work. If 10%# of them turned to piracy either immediately or indirectly (ie. joined a merchant ship then went on to piracy) that's still 2,500 ex-RN pirates - around half the estimated number of pirates operating at any given time during the GAoP. An analysis by David Cordingly estimates that 98% of pirates active in the Caribbean between 1715 and 1725 were originally from countries whose mariners would have contributed to the RN's numbers.

No, the ASC specs are not a blue print for pirate costumes, but folks trying to recreate pirates of the 1715-1720 period should certainly give them careful consideration. IMHO that is...

Now I feel like this --->

*the original sources ascribe that figure to 1714, but it is probably a clerical error and Prof. NAM Rodger speculates that the figure belongs in 1711. In either case, it is still the highest number of men borne between 1688 and 1746

#an arbitrary figure that I picked out the air, but which doesn't seem excessive

[blackjohn]

Ha! I was hoping you were going to do that number crunching, because I didn't really want to feel like

-->

On second thought... I still feel that way, especially since I have figures here in front of me for "expected wear-out time" for coat, vest, shirt, socks, etc. for Peter the Great's army. Coats and vests were expected to wear out in 3 years, shirts and socks in 1 year.

Foxe, do you have figures for the French, Dutch and/or Spanish navies during the same period?

[MadMike]

GOF wrote-

"Shrunck Grey Kersey Jackett, lined with Red Cotton, with fifteen Brass Buttons, and two Pockets of Linnen, the Button Holes stich’d with Gold Colour Thread,

a Strip’d Ticken Waist Coat with Strip’d Ticken Breeches

a Shirt of blew and white chequer’d Linnen and Drawers of blew and white chequer’d Linnen

a Leather Capps faced with Red Cotton, and lined with Black Linnen

Grey Woollen Stockings with Double Sold Shoes, round Toes."

Michael the Tailor was offering some of these items, but sadly passed away. I e-mailed his wife, she is working on getting the business back going again.

One period notation I recently read stated that a pirate crew was decked out in white shirts.

Thanks for bringing up the list again, GoF, looks like I have more sewing projects ahead!

Yours, &c.

Mike

[Gentleman of Fortune]

I guess this helps to prove my point...

On second thought... I still feel that way, especially since I have figures here in front of me for "expected wear-out time" for coat, vest, shirt, socks, etc. for Peter the Great's army. Coats and vests were expected to wear out in 3 years, shirts and socks in 1 year.

The thing is we know what kinds of clothing were available to sailors. Those in the slops contracts were, apparently, not just available on ships but in sea towns where Royal Navy sailors frequented.

I think a lot of people get caught up in the thinking that "because I am a pirate , I am now going to wear anything I want to wear". I am not sure that Pirates would wear anything that would mark them as pirates.

"look at those two guys over there... they must be pirates because they are dressing like pirates dress".

The slops contract does provide a blue print for what a sailor COULD look like. A lot of things that "re-enactors" wear for GAoP is speculation (Bucket boots, sashes, earings, headscarves) and can be debated, but a re-enactor that outfits himself according to the ASC has a documentable kit.

At the same time, I would imagine that even if you don't wear the stuff mentioned in the slops contract, Sailors/Pirates would be wearing similar things.

For example, you might not have a Grey Kersey wool Jacket, but you might have a blue wool jacket. You might not have to have Red Shagg breeches, instead maybe Brown Shagg breeches.

My point before was that, my guess is that clothing on or similar to the ASC was probably the most common type of clothing worn. Yet, its probably not represented as such by the re-enacting community.

I of course, am not without sin in this category, but like Foxe, I am trying to at least have one seaman's kit that comes as close as I can.

GoF