Medieval Sewing Made Easy - Attaching Fabric Buttons

In this episode we present a method of attaching 14th century style fabric buttons to a garment edge, informed by observation of historical sources and years of professional hand sewing experience.

This would be essential to the production of any fitted garments in a 14th century style, such as kirtles, cotehardies, hoods and jupons. Long sequences of fabric buttons on garment openings are characteristic of 14th century fashion.

This technique can also be used in recreating late 13th and early 15th century garments.

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Links and Sources

Extant fragments of buttons:
Museum of London:

-No 38, 1330-40, Textiles and Clothing 1150-1450, pp37, 169 &185;
-No 64, second half of the 14th century, Textiles and Clothing 1150-1450, p166 & Plate 1, also https://www.museumoflondonprints.com/...
-No 216, late 14th century, Textiles and Clothing 1150-1450, p169.

Description of vadmal buttons from the Greenland garments, Woven Into the Earth, Else Ostergard, ISBN 978-8772889351 p102.

Mention of the buttons from Greenland finds, including an image (the only image I’ve been able to find):

Clothing the Past: Surviving Garments from Early Medieval to Early Modern Western Europe.

By Elizabeth Coatsworth, Gale Owen-Crocker, ISBN 978-9004288706, p167.
https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=K...

Marc Carlson’s page again, some garments include buttons:
http://www.personal.utulsa.edu/~marc-...

The Tailoring of the Pourpoint of King Charles VI of France Revealed
By Tasha Kelly

https://www.academia.edu/5610708/The_...
http://cottesimple.com/tag/pourpoint-...

Assemblage of Wool and Silk Textiles from Medieval Waste Layers in Prague, Czech Republic - Helena Březinová and David Kohout

https://www.academia.edu/35702220/Ass...

A post about buttonholes, but still interesting and relevant to the whole issue of buttons and buttonholes – the author advocates using lacing instead of buttons on the front of fitted garments, and I do tend to agree, in the most part. Round buttons are for outer garments (fastening centre fronts), as their bulk will ruin the look of any garment placed over them (in addition to the reasons cited by the author):

https://clothingthepast.wordpress.com...

A source of medieval manuscript images

http://medievalmanuscriptsunlocked.bl...

Sumptuary laws can also give a clue as to how buttons were worn by various classes in the medieval period, as these delightful accounts detail:

https://www.theflorentine.net/2014/11...


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Our channel is intended to discuss the skills needed to reenact, demonstrate and teach. We also discuss the historic context and research behind our findings.

Popula Urbanum is latin for people of the city. We are recreating the burgeoning middle classes in the 14th century.

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