REAL medieval men WORE DRESSES! but could you fight in them? MEDIEVAL MISCONCEPTIONS 

Mom! The guy next door is wearing a dress while playing with his sword and yelling at a camera now.

Honey where's my dress Shad: I'm wearing it right now. Shad's wife: This quarantine is getting to him.

Forgot to mention how comfy they are. Comfy, easy to make and practical.

Can we talk about color too? Medieval media tends to depict everyone wearing dull colors and leather. A lot of brown, grey. The artwork however shows lots of bright colors, at least for the nobility.

We in the wizard community call them robes.

There is one effect on combat that I've experienced while sparing in surcoats and other long garments like this. With the covering of the legs, your opponent can have trouble striking low. It is significantly harder for them to see you pull your leg back when they swing for the legs, which means they just catch cloth instead of you. And on several occasions, their weapon got wrapped up momentarily in the surcoat, allowing me to strike.

For years I've been internally raging every time a character says that skirts/dresses are restrictive in combat. Now I am internally cheering that someone has called bullshit.

Reviving a dead meme here: “It is not a dress alright?...It’s called a Tunic!” - that Pharaoh guy from Night of the Museum 2

Shad’s trend of discussing a particular thing then immediately asking if you can fight with it is absolutely amazing

Funfact: dress in norwegian means suit.

TLDR: Don't wear a pencil skirt into combat. Everything else should be fine.

It's also important to note that those garments shortened considerably over the years, so much so that getting onto a horse might leave nothing to the imagination (a problem which Chaucer complains about in his Canterbury Tales) and which would later result in the Cod Piece. Let's not forget that "high heals" were originally developed by horse riding knights. Trousers, on the other hand, were mostly regional things that developed along side of the tunic based outfits. So not only did real men wear dresses at one point they even wore miniskirts.

You know, this is very similar to heart patterns in the medieval period. Today it’s seen mostly as a ‘feminine’ thing whereas in the medieval period it was seen as a cool pattern... just look at its use on Gothic style armor!... also, that background is still amazing, keep up the good work Shad!!!

Bliaut : Blee-ho / [blijo] Houppelande : Hoop-land / [uplã:d] Surcot : Surko / [syRko] Hope that helps ;)

There anything you can't do? * Fighting with capes * Shooting arrows like a machinegun * Imposible Archery * Debunking katanas * Making mainly dress fighting I won't be impressed if the next video is about combat while wall-running as prince of persia.

Funnily enough, men were also the first to wear high heels and make them fashionable, before women wore or used them

"Men didn't wear dreases... exluding wizards." I love that you added that disclaimer! ... I would like to add that preists and bishops also had dress like vestiments and robes too sometimes. ... Preists having mostly white or earthtones. robes, and mages having bright collors, expecially blue, red, or purple.

Lockdown seems to have turbocharged Shad. Can we have a medieval garment sewing demonstration? Moat making techniques?

We still have men's coats that are quite long. Haven't seen anyone complaining about their unwieldiness, although truth be told, most of us don't have to get on a horse daily

Shad Fact: Shad tried to play the game Billiards, but on his first attempt at a "break" the cue ball ended up some where in the Arctic sea.

It doesn't matter how hard you try, Cloud will always be the most fabulous in a dress.

"We've been through this. It's a HARP, and you KNOW it" "Oh right. That's a harp. And that's a dress." "*ROBE.*"

As a former goth kid and someone who's been in fights both wearing a skirt and pants, I'll pick a skirt to fight in any day over a pair of jeans.

"Dresses are just fashionable!" Although it was quite a funny joke, it's actually true, I can totally imagine my main character from my book wearing one. Also, as I've been searching for historical clothing, I can't wait for your next video! Let the mind molding begin, Shad!

Modern fashion completely ignores men. This is what we want to wear. It's a discrimination

Gambason nope never been seen or heard of especially on this channel

Shad, watching you do high kicks with a sword while wearing a dress has made my day infinitely better, thank you.

Thank you for making this video. Not exactly related to long menswear of the middle ages, but I typically wear dresses that are mid thigh to slightly below the knee in length over leggings, and people randomly assume they would get in the way for some reason. They really don't as long as the skirt flares enough for a full range of leg movement like you said, and as long as the material's sturdy enough you can wear them for all kinds of stuff like running, hiking, working with livestock, gardening, and yardwork. The one drawback I've noticed with longer dresses that go below the knee, is that they can be a bit of pain to crawl around in if you have to crawl on your hands and knees. As a short person with short arms, an object rolls under something large, I usually have to crawl under what ever it is to get it out. If you're wearing something below the knee, even if it's appropriately flared, you still have to try and roll it up out of the way or you'll basically step on it when crawling. You can still crawl and all, it's just annoying.

From my experience in the SCA, another advantage of wearing a dress/tunic/whatever is that they wear out much more slowly than pants do. Your movement puts a lot of stress on a pair of pants and very little on a dress/tunic/whatever.

One could easily argue that these would actually be beneficial in fights The legs are fully obscured by them and without the leg split you cannot see, at a glance, the opponents leg movements with the same level of certainty

its not a dress..... its a kilt..... an abnormally long kilt....

This is what to consider in science-fiction: Culture, such as fashion, will change.

Shouldn't even be a question for anyone who has practiced aikido, kendo, or some other martial art while wearing a hakama.

I think the term “Tunic” is sort of similar to how we use the term “Coat” or “jacket” today. There are dozens & dozens of types of Coats & jackets, But we still use the same term for all of them.

Quick notes on hoop skirts from the amateur dress historian! "Hoop skirt" is actually a somewhat broad term. There are many different kinds, and they come from different periods. The earliest hoop skirt that I know of is the farthingale. Farthingales came into fashion during the Italian Renaissance, and it's basically a normal skirt with 3-4 hoops of some light and flexible material (cane, baleen, etc.,) sewn into the bottom half. This causes the over skirts to stand out in a sort of cone shape. Variations of the same idea are scene all the way up the the 18th century, where it sort of dissapeared. But hoop skirts had not breathed their last. The crinoline was invented in the late 1850's. It was more of a dome shape, and its hoops were made of thin spring steel. These were suspended by this fabric strips called "tapes", making a light and flexible skirt support that collapsed like an accordion when it was taken off. Hoops are not as unwieldy as most people seem to thing them, but they probably would very difficult to fight effectively in. Happy watching everybody!

The Virgin Shirt VS The Chad Male Dress

We need to create a petition to bring back medieval costumes into fashion.

Isnt the idea of a dress derived from 'dress' as in clothes in general. We all still get dressed and undressed regardless of who you are classwise. The only reason a dress is understood to be a female garment is because I suppose it went out fashion as pants became more popular with males. The word dress in old english is 'put straight', im guessing because its going to be a fairly straight stitch compared to a complex pant design as you said.

I love having loose moving clothing in combat. It obfuscates my body from my opponent :D

For anyone who still has doubts about wearing them in combat, consider this. I live in Pennsylvania Dutch country. Amish ladies will perform all sorts of strenuous, physical labor, every day, in an ankle length dress.

This is very interesting. I’m writing a book set in the 1100s and after tons of research I realized none of my characters were wearing what I thought they were wearing 😂

You're a wizard harry! NO! I'M JUST YOUR AVARAGE MEDIVAL PERIOD MAN!

I tried to use the sword in several types of "dresses" and "skirts" and it is usually the modern stuff that gets in your way... But even the medieval versions had their limitations when it came to length... add a few centimeters and try to walk the stairs... You will "enjoy" youself very much. Broad or not. The same thing is with fighting in an uneven terrain. You can easily step on the back side. So, just a few comments from a woman :-D

When I first started wearing my casual kilt, I thought: "Bifurcated leggings are the biggest mistake against comfort in human history!"

Technically they're more like robes but yeah. In fact, you can see similar garments today. Many more traditional Catholic priests, and most bishops, will wear a robe-like garment called a cassock.

I remember reading somewhere that the length of one's clothing was also a sign of one's wealth and prestige, because mostly only the nobility and clergy could afford enough fabric for really long garments. Not sure how accurate that is though so feel free to correct me!

Now i can crossdress without my parents throwing me out...

It's not just about it being easier, it's also about it being a lot more cost efficient, you can pass down dresses much easier than pants, and they're much easier to resew. One of the reasons we don't have a lot of historical dresses pr. say is because they were very usually just resewn into new ones. Pants and more "specified" pieces of clothing, so a bit harder to resew. EDIT: Also feel like it's important to correct some of the things you say about hoop-skirts. They're not made out of a wooden frame, they're made out of whale-teeth, which is Extremely flexible. (what we call boning) sure it gives a larger frame area, but it isn't hard to move in. The thing that would really say something about how great it would be in combat would be the length, that and if it got stuck in something. I know one of the pictures you're using is from Priorattire, and she actually made a video about her moving about in the big bell crinolines, which is a step up from just panniers or pocket hoops. She also talks about the corset etc. which have been getting a bad rep, interesting watch for sure :>

Night at the Museum 2: "Why are you wearing a dress?" "This isn't a dress, it's a tunic, it was in fashion 3000 years ago"

No joke now I want such a ,,dress" xDD

Imagine if these dressing styles became a thing again

THANK YOU! I'm so sick of fantasy or historical fiction women complaining that their skirts restrict their movements. I've climbed mountains, kicked open doors, and done all sort of things in a skirt with out any inconvenience. True the modern pencil skirt does not allow this. But peasant, basic pleated, or princess seamed skirts, ankle length or shorter, in no way encumber a person's movements.

That dress looks comfy as hell tho

makes me think of fantasy robes edit: also the japanese hakama, worn by samurai

I've worn a yukata in Japan on more than one occasion, and that's technically a dress as well but the ones I wore were obviously cut for men. And I really liked wearing them! In general, I appreciate long clothes (worst part about summer is that I can't wear my coat). That "dresses" fell out of fashion for men is something I consider a damn shame. I mean, you look really good in that surcoat! But if you were to wear a dress cut for a woman, well... it'd probably look comical.

We're men, we're men in dresses. We roam around the forest looking for messes.

Shad, you don't know how long I've waited for a more detailed video on clothing in Shadiversity. Thank you!

For the past 8 years or so I really began delving into my Slavic/Baltic heritage and part of that I started researching the clothing of my ancestors. The people of Eastern Europe were slower to adopt the fashion of Central/Western Europe so by the time the Renaissance started in the bulk of Europe the majority of Slavs and Balts were still using the remnants of medieval Europe. Clothing such as embroidered undershirts, zupans, kontuszes and delia's were still fairly prevalent in the 16th, 17th and 18 centuries. Of course it goes without saying that the nobles were quicker to pick up the fashion trends, especially those of the royal court.

The Japanese used the flaring on their kimono pants to mask footwork, so it actually aids combat in a duel setting.

Though those dresses/tunics are a liability when floor vents are involved!

This is very interesting!

These videos are very much enlightening regarding the medieval period. It's always a delight to watch them. Never learned so much about the period before, cheers.

1:39 *Back in the days, when "Vault-Tec" was called "Keep-Tec"^^*

A benefit that might be gained from wearing a sircoat in combat is the fact it obscures targets below the waist, making attacks intended to trip an opponent less likely to succeed.

I actually have experience skirmishing in something similar to what you're wearing! It wasn't quite as voluminous, but at no point in daily activities did it feel in any way restrictive. BUT THEN during combat, it didn't hamper me most of the time, however, almost every time I tried to retreat out of range by stepping backwards, my heel would catch on the back hem and trip me. The garment didn't reach the ground; it would just catch on my foot as I lifted it and put it back down, and although I never got hit in spite of it, it could have cost me my life on the battlefield. Just a personal anecdote.

As someone who comes more from the realm of unarmed combat, a dress like that does impose certain differences in how one would fight, but it is still quite possibe to fight wearing one. Kicks would be slightly different, as there is a slighly higher chance of tangling your feet in the fabric than wearing pants, though I don't think it would change too drastically. The biggest issue I can think of would be stances. In unarmed fighting, many styles take advantage of lower stances than you normally see in armed combat, and a garment as long as the one Shad is wearing would probably drag the ground in some of those stances, increasing the chances of tripping. Also, when your garment drags the ground, your opponent could possibly step on it to limit your mobility, rather than grab it. None of this says that you can't fight while wearing this kind of clothing, just that you'd have to fight differently. I guess this is why you almost never see this kind of garment being worn by fighters that use these kinds of techniques (though these fighting styles normally don't come out of the European tradition, but are more often found in South- and East-Asian fighting arts). Wrestling and other grappling arts, however? Yes, this would be highly inconvenient, given how often one would use their legs to grapple an opponent in most of those fighting styles. TL;DR: This kind of garment wouldn't affect most known HEMA styles (almost as if they were developed assuming this was just what people wore) or a lot of armed combat styles in general, but other combat styles could be more affected; A.K.A., don't wear a dress to a wrestling match.

I remember seeing something about how women who fight have said the issue with large ball gowns is usually the sleeves, not the skirts which restrict their movements.

..........And dance whenever able

the times when I've been in plays and things that might be gonsidered "period pieces" I've thoroghly enjoyed dressing in long flowing clothes. Bring back male dresses!

“A lot of times you could just not wear any thing underneath” *scottish music intensifies*

We still use dress in all other context generically. you get dressed, you put on a dress shirt or dress uniform. etc. you put on your "best dress" (best clothes)

Unisex dresses, kirtle especially, needs to make comeback, and not just for dress ups either, but full time use.

I imagine when we meet ETs, the most common outfit in the universe is a robe/surcoat/dress simply due to practicality.

Shad in a dress. We didn’t know it, but we needed this.

For LARP I like wearing my goblin war-skirt. One of the combat benefits is that it makes it harder for my opponent to tract my footwork.

Kendo uniforms are a good example of dress-like clothing being used in combat and not getting in the way

THOU HAST A CASTLE????!!!

I wish modern fashion focused on these again.

I love how you never stop. You're relentless. I love your energy. Thank you, good sir. You are a treasure.

I'm so using this video in my argument to make my husband wear more historically authentic clothing to the Sherwood Forest Faire next year.

Aye, but we called them kilts. Wore one at my wedding, no sword though.

This question of "fighting dresses" makes me think of the hakama worn in eastern Asian cultures. These are the very wide bottom garments that are trousers, with two separate legs, but are so wide that they appear to be a long, pleated skirt. These were worn by Samurai men, and are still worn today in Japanese martial arts like Kendo, Aikido and Judo. They allow for both the freedom of movemen and leg protection of trousers, but the wide, flowing material is also said to help obscure the fighter's leg and foot movements during combat. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakama

Hell yes! I wear monk's robes whenever I go LARPing, and I'm as fast and agile as anybody. It never gets in the way. A long sleeveless gambeson on top and longsword in hand, and I'm a whirling dealer of fake death. I'm also practicing Montante drills in order to get better. Plus, the access to air really helps me keep cool, even in summer.

Yes, yes, YES! As a professional skirt/dress wearer (I wear them every single day, and have since I was a child) I can confirm that they are NOT detrimental to one's mobility - I will grant that it does depend on cut and type of material, of course. But with enough width, and a material that doesn't fly in your face at the slightest puff of wind or cling to your legs, you can do anything in a full length skirt/dress. I have ran, swam, gymmed, skated, gone skiing, played horse (on both two and four legs), ridden actual horses and done a bunch of other activities in skirts - none of them had splits either. And yes, skirts keep the heat in very well. Thank you! It's so refreshing to hear someone not used to dresses state that they are perfectly fine to move around in. I'm so tired of the old, "How can you move, you're wearing a dress!" argument. I write characters who wear skirts/dresses everyday and ride horses and fight and whatnot, specifically because of this misconception.

Damn just imagined Jorge making a wooden armed codpiece. Let me show you it's features.

Pronunciation for clothing names. Bliaut = BLOO-we-aye-AUGH-tzchx Houppelande = iouee-OeO-plflouee-Lauoeougee-ndeirei I’m honestly disappointed you didn’t know this.

5:36 "Bliaut" I can feel my inner slav fighting to get out.

The thing I always find hilarious in fantasy (and also steampunk) art is: dress-like garments are considered a no-no for combat, but corsets are totally fine.

Love the title thank you for your hard work keep it up shad, #respectthedress

At the risk of sounding gay, I wish men could wear dresses or kilts without being weird in the public eye. Imagine how comfortable it would feel.

Another great video that helps me understand Medieval times! Thanks Shad!

The new castle continues to look baller as hell.

8:01 Shad: Dresses are fashionable New fashion collection for summer and autumn 2020, presented by Shad Brooks

KID: Mom, someone took our curtains and made it into his robes MOM: Oh, my!

the flowing material while sword-fighting is just very aesthetically pleasing regardless of gender of the wearer

One of the combat benefits of the Japanese Hakama was that its large dress-like legs could conceal movements of the wearer.

English is weird. You can drink a drink and dress in a dress and plant corns of corn to get more corns of corn.

Now i can wear my purple dress and feel like a manly queehh... king, KING!

Joerg just made an instant legolas without screws or springs! I think you would like to watch that, it's seriously beautiful

I didn't even know this was a point of discussion. Who doesn't know this already?