Medieval Shirts And Blouses

The shirts and the blouses are formal and informal clothes, made of cloth. These clothes cover the chest and they usually have a neck, sleeves and buttons in the frontal part.

The original word for the shirt is “camis” in Arab and “camisia” in latin. The history of the shirt comes from the 1500 a.C. when the Egyptians, men and women, adopted the kalasiris, a rectangular cloth in linen, with an hole for the head.

During the Roman Empire this cloth was called “tunica manicata” – sleeved tunic, as they used to wear it with sleeves. In the Middle Age and until the XIV century, the shirt have been an underwear of white color and its function was to protect the skin from the external more rough clothes. As it was considered an underwear, it doesn’t have buttons to close it and its mission was to wear it before the tunic.

The general use of the shirt in the XIV century, brought more waste of cloth making the productions of paper cheaper. The invention of the printing and the cheaper production of the paper, made the price of the books decrease.

In the Renaissance, the shirt was normally used. The Italian style of the shirts of that age used to have wide sleeves.

After that, the germans brought a new style, making some opening in the cloth, showing the white underwear. This style was typically Swiss. In the XVI century the trends wanted a square shape neckline.

During the French Revolution, to the end of the XVIII century, it has been an important change for the men clothes. It appeared the clean of the lines, typical of the English clothes, bringing the eliminations of the ornaments.