A Brief History of Uniforms
I decided it would be a good idea for today's post to write down the subject matter of the talk I gave during the Muster event last weekend. There is a lot of misinformation out there concerning the use of uniforms, especially that of when the custom began. Since the group of us that were gathered were all reenactors with varying degrees of experience, I thought it would be a good subject matter during down time between more rigorous activities.
Many people think that the concept of an entire army all wearing uniforms was practiced by ancient cultures. That misunderstanding is easy to conceive though. All the various Greek city states had their own armorers, each who worked their crafts in their own unique styles. This would give a passive observer the impression that the armies were wearing something akin to a uniform. What they would be wearing would be similar. The same would go for the clothing styles. To an outsider from a different culture they would think that "all those Greeks dress alike."
The Romans came the closest among the ancients to wearing something like a uniform. All the soldiers were issued a shirt with their armor, but again, the shirts would be locally made in the region where the Legio was being raised, and so would the armor. This is why there are so many different styles of helmets. However, each Roman soldier was issued the same things, and the same pieces of armor. After the fall of the Romans, the idea was shelved for the next 1000+ years.
The earliest things after that which could be misconstrued as a uniform would be the tartans of Scotland. Most people think that each clan had its own particular pattern of plaid dating back many centuries. That is not so. The people dyed their yarns with whatever regional dyes that were available to them. The concept of a special plaid for each clan didn't occur in history until the time of Queen Victoria. Regional availability of dye stuffs would give an outsider that impression though.
The Isle f Lewis had an abundance of crocuses, so saffron was readily available to them . Therefore the MacLeods living there had the "Loud MacLeod," but unlike today, in various patterns. If you saw a bunch of men assembled for battle all wearing mostly greens and blues, you knew they came from the southern Highlands and the Grampians, because woad and other dye sources were abundant there. And if you saw a bunch of red you knew they must be from the western Lowlands.
Another case for misunderstanding would come from looking at late Medieval armies. By this time many of the regiments in an army were raised personally by wealthy individuals, who used their own coffers to outfit their men. With the advents of handgonnes and the increased use of crossbows and longbows soldiers needed much more armor. Again, all the armor would be locally produced and would all look similar. The tunics underneath, however would be whatever color the man already owned. Besides this, each knight had his own heraldry (during the Crusades the difference between styles of dress between the armies of the West and the Muslims was so great that it almost looked like uniforms).
In contrast to this, from the fall of Rome to the 12th Century if your unit didn't stay with the main body of your army you stood in real danger of being killed by friendly fire. One would be hard pressed to tell the difference between a band of Viking warriors and an Anglo-Saxon fyrd, until you got close enough to hear them speak, or maybe saw the occasional "goggle" helmet of the Vikings. The Norman armies you could tell, however, because of their weird, "foreign" look. A hundred years after the Norman conquest, during the civil wars between Stephen and Queen Maude battles would have been a very confusing affair.
During the period of the Thirty Years War, the English Civil Wars, and the French Fronde, the practice of individuals raising their own regiments was full scale. It became the practice then to provide their troops not only with weapons, but with issues of cloth (usually wool), so the men could have their coats and breeches made from it. It was up to each individual soldier to find a tailor or someone to sew these up. Therefore in any particular regiment you would see slight variations in the cuts and even whether or not they had the shoulder epaulets. There would also be great variation in the buttons.
They would all be the same color though. We could say that they "accidentally" had uniforms. When raising the regiment, the noble would try to order all the cloth he needed from a single source. Sometimes the particular color he wanted wouldn't be available at the time, so he would order the color that was available in massive quantities. As early as the Wars of William of Orange, mercenaries were issued the cheapest cloth available, which was hodden grey kersey (hodden grey is not dyed at all, but is the natural color from grey, black, and white sheep all mixed together). During this time the practice of enclosures was being instituted in Scotland, leaving many poor farmers ousted from their ancestral homesteads. Consequently this provided a large pool of poverty stricken men from which to recruit. From that time, it became common for Scottish mercenary units to be dressed in hodden grey. When Johan Spence came to the Highlands to recruit for Gustavus Adolphus, he saw the deplorable living conditions of the Scottish people. He stated in a letter to his king, that they were so poor "they wore their blankets wrapped around themselves for clothing." He called on the Swedish king's compassion and asked that they could be issued twice the normal amount of cloth as other regiments, so they could have enough cloth for either an extra suit of clothing, or have the extra made into a "cassoque."
During the English Civil Wars the Trayned Bands of London, and Lloyd's Regiments (both the "Blew Regiment" and the "White") were quite instrumental in obtaining Cromwell the victory. They all wore red as their primary color, as did also some of the Covenanter regiments. Among the Royalists the King's Lifeguard wore a madder red, and the Queen's Lifeguard wore a reddish almost magenta hue. After his victory Cromwell established what he called the New Model Army. This became England's first official national uniform style. Everyone wore the same style red coat with wide cuffs in either white, yellow, or blue. These uniforms were modeled after The Trayned bands, and Lloyd's Regiments.
According to the book, "The Thin Red Line" this began England's use of red uniforms until the time of WWI (even then many regiments still had a stripe of red piping down the side of each pantleg).
The use of cookie cutter uniforms spread all throughout Europe at about the same time. By the 18th Century what constitutes a uniform came to also include a soldier's packs and even what he carried in them, and how they were to be worn. For instance they had a powder charge magazine that was worn on the right, held in place by a buttoned epaulet oftentimes along with a horn of priming powder. Over the left shoulder was a leather haversack for food rations and a white canvass pack sack for an extra shirt, a bowl and an eating implement (mess tents were not yet in use). In the pack sack soldiers were also required to carry shoe polish, and Prussian units had to also carry mustache wax, In addition they were required to carry a sewing kit. Many people today wrongly call the white canvass pack sack a haversack.
Across their waist they wore a belt to which was attached a holder for the bayonet (Prussian and Hessian units were also issued sabres - even for enlisted men). In addition all men were issued a canteen, and some units were issued collapsible canvass water buckets. In time the "uniform" also included a blanket and a piece of canvass for a tent.
Prussian 15th Regiment, 1st and 3rd Battalions - The King's Lifeguard
For further reading on this subject, information for this post came mostly from various Osprey Books, The Thin Red Line, and the section on Plaids comes from the Clann Manual from Colonel Gaffney's Regiment of Shotte and Pike. If you write them, they would be glad to sell you a copy.
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