Men's wear during the early modern ages in Hungary

It's a very interesting theme, because the hungarian men's wear had many impressions during the 16- 17 th centuries. Altought we can say about the women outfit that had so many spanish clothes next to the Hungarian types, but men wore a sort of eastern style attire.

The difference between the hungarian and ottoman-turkish customes are the headdresses and the trousers. Both of them wore a kind of coat, came down to the kneel or at the and of the 17th century to the thigh. In Hungary this is called dolmány (dolman in English). Over that they wore a mente, which could be a long sleeved coat, half sleeved type or we know mentes without sleeves. The row materia of these overclothes were varied from linen to silk, it was depending on the social status of the person. I mentioned this becasue in Hungary we mostly have customes from noble social layer. About the others we have to use different type of archives not just clothes from collections or archeological findings. From the 16th century, we have more and more separate dresses from collections, archeological excavations and we have accessories too for example headdresses, shoes, belts. Next to that we have written sources and a wide range of pictures from paintings to printed sheets for example cities or battles. We can easily see, that this survay collects many kind of studies to reconstruct the whole outfit of a men. With the developement of printing and with the geographical discoveries people became curious to the whole new world, not just America or the Indias, but some separate land in Europe, for example the Carpatian Basin. 150 years against the Ottoman Empire, the battles, sieges, and the particular cities, nations together placed Hungary in the centre of attendance. Albums about the nations of Transylvania were painted during the 17th century. These "scrapbooks" contain the different nations, denominations, social layers of Transylvania in the period, sometimes series of the princes of the land. Under the pictures you can find short sentences about the person in English or German languages. We only know 12 albums in the world, but just 2 were published until now. Common properties of the books that every contain more than 25 pictures, besides we know more separate images. There are 2 albums in London ( one published in 1990), 3 in Budapest (one also published in 2009), again 3 in nAgyseben (Sibiu now in Romania) and one in Bologna, Gratz, Debrecen, Bucuresti. The nations are the followings: hungarians, saxons, romanianns, habans (now we call them amish), greeks, armenians, jews, turkish peoples. 

Why only Transylvania were painted in books? It's only the political status of the region. That was a message to western countries in Europe, it's worth to keep this land against the ottomans or Habsburgs because the values of the nations which lived there, and the physical and intellectual virtues which were showed on the sheet of papers. By our research it's also a good kind of archives because the customes of Transylvania preserved the main features in the turn of the 16-17th centuries. 

Stay with the picture sources we know tailor books from the territory of Hungary. Between 1630 and 1848 many books were published from Kassa ( Kosice now in Slovakia), Nagyszeben (Sibiu in Romania), Debrecen or Gyöngyös. These are not too colorful, but help us to reconstruct the details which can't see in the paintings.

During the turn of 16-17th centuries, Spain led the fashion of the royal court of Charles (Habsburg)  king of Spain, and the German Emperor (1500-1558) with  rigid etiquette. That became a following example for the aristocracy. To Hungary, through Italy, Milan, Genoa transported the Spanish fashion, the dark, black and purple velvet with tiny patterns. In 17th century the palette has become more colorful , like the shades of red, the grass-, sea-, ash, oil, hair, fig, lavender , peach flower colours, and poppy-color was also populared . The gold-interwoven, precious silks, lightweight linens, gold laces, fine Dutch and English baizes have all reserved for the aristocracy as luxury goods, fabrics, and for the citizens there were prohibited. In 1696 because of the Turkish destruction, in Levoca  (Lőcse in Hungarian)  the inhabitants of the town were admonished to frugality, and inspectors were ordered to comply the regulation. The luxuriously dressed women were liable to a fine (100 Hungarian forint), the servant-maid were enjioned from the gilded strings of the shoes, corsets and shirts.  They received the most severe punishment, if it had been made against the law, they were deprived the lavishly expensive and inappropriate clothes, maybe exactly in the street.

The tailor accounts of the Esterhazy family  also represented  the privileges of nobility:  the prince and the young bride, and the young nobles wore Italian damask, velvet, or holland and Florentine daize. The household members  stitched colorful dresses from moravian daize, while the "young miller man with big moustache" got one trousers per a year from baize (called the type aba).

In the men's wardrobe we also find the impact of Spanish fashion, the attire, called korcovány, which is a doublet. None has survived in Hungary, but the form was written in 1636 and rewritten in 1717 from tailor's books, and on this basis may also consider the type: a standing neck with detachable sleeves, often seen in portraits. Trousers are fit under the knee, on the hip extended, and there is a coc-piece which was draw to the sample.

However, our nobles wore costumes of Hungaryian types, which took over a Turkish model, although the sources specifically told about  "Hungarian customes", which was not removed by the Western fashions in the 16th century. Over the two shirts wore a dolmány (dolman), something like a long jacket. It has an A shape, the sleeves can be short, but can reach the wrist. The collar  at  the end of the16th and first half of the 17th century  was high, and later became a narrow standing collar. From this period also remained shirts like these as in the parish church in the crypt of Sarospatak. The suits, were discovered there, in good condition: we found red and green daize dolmans, both tapering down on the back , and around 15-20 cm longer than the front side, which is held typical eastern feature by the researchers.

The front is framed by cord, and you can locked them with lace buttons and strings. These characteristics of the 16th century custome  are often visible in depictions, which in the next century were disappeared. On a dolman there can be an overcoat, I mentiod before, which is the mente.  Two well preserved expensive pieces were kept in the Museum of Applied Art from this period, both in the Esterházy treasury remained. In Sarospatak also found one in the crypt, which is published by Mária Ember. Thus, we know the familiar characteristics: mentes are longer than the dolmans, but they were sewn from similar textiles as the dolmans and  the winter pieces are cottoned with sable, fox, marten fur. The sleeves of the mente we can find all the possibilities of variations, include: sleeveless version, but with the Turkish elbow-length sleeves, and we meet wrist strengthed. They were worn in different time periods, celebrations (holiday, weekday, winter, summer, etc). The most beautiful style is the sleeve which reach the bottom of the custome, and wore them on the lower arm with a thick folding , or left a hole at the top of the sleeves and you  freely transferred the arm form the dolman. That solution is allowed to show the contrasting colored dolman sleeves. Both type of coat follow the customization of the existing method garments for example  in 1679 from the tailor's book of Sopron which was written in German language. Both coat-type closed with enameled buckles or buttons. The rings of buttons were placed to the holes in the textile and leather strings were pulled through the rings on the dolman-cut edge and fixed the buttons. The leather is elastic and durabil which made it suitable for fixing the steel buttons. Most of the dolmans and mentes were decorated by colorful silk, and locked with enormous, egg-shape buttons. 

Around the dolman waist is fixed with belt which was made of silk or used a lot of collected thin cord. The length of the belt was about two and a half or three meters. The third type is a belt with a special technique, often imported from the Ottoman lands, which called net-belt.  In addition, there is the so-called pártaöv as well, which is also a kind of belt. Párta in Hungarian means primary the strap of the virgin girls on their head, but this word with the expression belt means a kind of belt. This is not a female head wearing of veils, but has also been used in the early Middle Ages, bringing down the dress. In the 16th century, the only change is around the hips was started to wear them, instead of the waist. There is evidences of using in both sexes, and neither the gender depended the ornamentation. So men can also wore a robust, artistic steelbelts (large number are located in the Hungarian National Museum).


They wore tight trousers. It is made of baize, silk, too, and on the hip they were loose than western trousers. János Kemény in his diary mentioned that, while the Hungarians wore pants underneath, the Germans wore narrow trousers and long shirts, so it is very tortured for him the trousers without pants during a riding.  The stem of  trousers were hidden in a knee-length boots or colorful ankle boots called deli csizma. The portraits and written sources show that in 17th century for men there was a popular method to wear yellow or red leather or textile kapca (like socks). And with them often step into leather slippers with iron heels. The contemporary men also wore lightweight leather or textile shoes. The latter also called cipellős. Miklós Bethlen wrote complainingly in the 17.th century that during a tour in England one night in the forest there was raining and his horse has fallen down. He just wore a light cipellős with stockings so he was barely able to walk in the moud and grass.

They wore hats with fur on their heads, adorned with precious stones, when a person could afford these expensive goods. The hat was worn by both old and young, and could have been flat, or broad-brimmed as well. Made of baize, felt, velvet, and  the fur decoration which already mentioned. The dresses were previously presented were the overclothes and under these the men and women wore "undies", white underwear. The pants, also mentioned above, one of them. At the bottom was wearing a 16th century shirt. We have a piece from the beginning of this century in the exibition of the Hungarian National Museum. Josef Höllrigl a  historian carried it from Mariazell (Austria), which is a  pilgrimage place. He connected it to King Louis II  and this was substantiated , therefore, Höllrigl has already been right in 1929 about the origins of the shirt. This is a tailored shirt in the waist, with ankle pieces.  It's embroidered with gold strings and there are some overlaid decorates on the front of the splittings and cuffs. This piece is a western-type shirt, because the Hungarian shirts are shorter, with straight sewn on the shoulders, and have baggy sleeves. Loose, embroidered cuffs protruded from the young men's short sleeves of dolmans. Some of this period is preserved in museums. Only these garments are remianed to us in which we can admire the techniques of the period: they are colorful, richly decorated with gold, silver, pearls, embroidered with coral, covered with lace. Béla Radvánszky collected aristocratic legacies from which we state there were two type of shirts: a light, fine material one (since there is direct contact with the skin), but it was cheaper, and there were a more decorated one. The latter is also called the "chain-mail", páncéling. But this is not a martial cloth, just a decorated overshirt. 
The Eastern men's custome is not only caused concern in the foreign people, but the historians of the 20th century often have contradictory opinions. The question is when converted the eastern effects to the Hungarian costume. Elemér Varjú and after his survay many researchers considered that this type of outfit was established during the Hungarian occupation, but others believed that the  Hungarians kept the main features of the clothes from the time of the Hungarian Conquest, so that means during several hundred years. And, indeed, as mentioned above, we have seen in the contemporary archives, customes called "Hungarian-fitting clothes". The topic raises many questions, and there are some to which we could not give precise answers. Folklorists said that some elements were found before the invasion, but 16th century Turkish influence was strong in any case. Turkish liked the colorful materials such as silk, and in the embroidery we also took over certain motifs such as tulips, carnations, and some compositions. But both eastern and western influences developed the the design of clothing. Each forms of tailoring slowly transformed, and some archaic forms survived until the 20th century in the Hungarian folklore. 
We have some evidences for the existence of a Hungarian type outfit: in Buda, the Hungarian tailors in 1492, in an archive, mentiond first this type, or in the inventory of the treasury of Jean duc de Berry from abroad (1401-1416), there was a collar with fur but it was made "á la facon de Hongrie", which is equal to: made the Hungarian way. The forms can not be accurately determined, but their existence is clearly evidenced by the list of those words. 
Or King Matthias sent a Hungarian-fitting dress to the Sforza family which we can read in the sources. But we do not know reconstruct this "Hungarian-fashioned" custome until this day due to lack of images and archaeological findings. However the 15th century contemporary archives referred to this as a specialty. In the other hand in the 16th century, there is an opportunity to make a reconstruction. With the findings and the continuous processing of resources, we hope in the near future to recontruct an approximately complete picture of the fashion of the early modern Hungary,  which united specific cultures.

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