Wow, stunning! It’s a little more regal than I would have expected, though, despite the knightly class being part of the aristocracy. This is maybe just one or two steps down from what I’d think of as coronation robes. The ermine mantle, the long drape, and the somewhat intricate embroidery (perhaps not quite as intricate as actual coronation robes) all give me those vibes. That brooch indicates status as a knight of the first class, right?
Unfortunately, I’m not very well-versed on aristocratic badges! Source (which is just wikimedia, mind) says a knight of the Austrian Order of Leopold
Last night I was looking at other contemporary examples of Austrian knight’s robes after seeing this post and found this example for robes of the Order of the Iron Crown of Lombardy (ca. 1815). The source said that the star embroidered on the chest indicated a rank of Knight I, so I inferred that the brooch of seemingly a very similar design would indicate the same. It might just be coincidence, though.
Ah, yes. Eschew bathing and personal cleanliness in favor of perfume and impressive clothing?
Idiots.
Tbf, that was a fairly short-lived fad of the 16th-17th century AD. At this point, cleanliness was back in style!
WHAT-THE-FLIZZLE-FLOOZLE…??
WHAT??
PJ, are you REALLY saying that most periods across Medieval-Ren Euro history (etc) valued bathing and cleanliness, etc…?
I mean, insofar as they didn’t try to avoid it, generally, yes!
In the earlier medieval period, people weren’t super cleanly, but other than the utter lunatic religious fanatics pushing total asceticism from all earthly comforts, including cleanliness (tbf, not a marginal group considering Christianity’s opinions on ‘worldly’ affairs), people generally tried their best to stay clean. Scrape the dirt off yourself after a long day, take a wash in the river every other week, sort of thing!
Into the 15th century AD, there was increasing concern with the urbanization of Renaissance society (since bathing in an urban river is generally… not very cleanly) that bathhouses were becoming dens of DEPRAVITY (and honestly, it was a great place to hook up and for prostitutes to search for clients), and that GOOD HONEST CITIZENS should frequent them LESS! This eventually morphed into a strange idea that, as bathing opens the pores of the skin, it let ‘bad air’ into the body which caused ‘sickness’; whereas if you just kept your pores CLOSED, you would be SAFE and HEALTHY!
This strange ‘theory’ was strongest in the 16th and 17th century AD, but even then was never entirely dominant - it was a concerningly popular fad more than a universal practice.
.jpg){kind=link}