Buy this simple yet authentic Medieval Tunic pattern!
Get our full-size paper pattern for the Kragelund Tunic, a garment found in Denmark and carbon dated from 1045 through 1155. It's the perfect thing for the Battle of Hastings, Clontarf, or any turn-of-the-millenia occasion.
Fits chests 34"-54". All Sizes in one envelope.
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plain or twill weave wool
3 yds at least 60" wide or 4 yards 45" wide
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Below is an excerpt from the historical notes you will receive as part of this pattern:
The Kragelund Tunic
In 1898,a wool garment and a pair of shoes (now lost) were found in a bog called Kragelund Fattigmose south of Viborg, Denmark. The garment turned out to be a tunic or man’s gown. The original record of the find report that the tunic was mid-thigh on the male corpse on which it was found. The tunic was 114 cm long (approximately 45”) giving the corpse’s height as 190 cm or 6’3” tall.
The Kragelund Tunic (D3956) was made from a three shaft frieze, most likely a 2/1 twill weave of wool. The wool was woven from a light greyish brown warp and a white weft. The warp was Z-spun with 12 threads to the cm and the weft was S-spun with 8 threads to the cm.
The tunic has no shoulder seam but is widened at the waist by in insertion of triangular gores or godets. The top points of these gores were rounded, the tops formed into five parallel vertical pleats before being sewn into the tunic slits and seams. The front gore is now tacked together, but appears to have originally been split up the center. All the other gores are really half gores sewn up the center as well, but the center front gore is the only one that definitely appears to have been intentionally split as worn.
The circumference of the tunic at the hem is 250 cm (98.4”). The length as assembled is 114 cm (44.9”). The waist circumference is the same, 114 cm. The sleeves are 63 cm (24.8”) long and the armhole is 75 cm (29.5”) in circumference. The circumference of the neck opening is 82 cm or 32.28”. The front slit (into which the front gore is inserted) is approximately 26” and the back slit is approximately 30” measured from hem up.
A couple details worthy of note appear on the Kragelund tunic. First of all, the neckline is cut vertically, not horizontally as we are used to seeing. Also, the sleeve construction is very complicated. Making use of piecing, the sleeves are assembled from an upper piece of roughly trapezoidal shape and two lower sleeve pieces, one a rectangle and the other a right triangle. The sloping side of the right triangle continues the slope of the trapezoidal upper sleeve piece, adding taper to the rectangular lower sleeve piece to which it is attached. These triangular gussets are visible on the front side of each sleeve.
Carbon dated to 1045-1155, although found in Denmark, the Kragelund Tunic bears close resemblance to other Viking Age grave finds and contemporary manuscripts. As far away as England, people are depicted wearing tunics not unlike this one.
Hald, Margrethe. Ancient Danish Textiles from Bogs and Burials. Tr. Jean Olsen. Copenhagen National Museum of Denmark, 1980.
Nockert, Margareta. Bockstenmannen, Och Hans Dräkt. Halmstad och Varberg: Stiftelsen Hallands länsmuseer, 1985.
Østergård, Else. Woven into the Earth: Textiles from Norse Greenland. 2004: Aarhus University Press, Aarhus, Denmark.
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This information © 2009 Kass McGann and Reconstructing History