A depiction of ionar prior to Durer???

[carraig]

I've recently been pondering upon a bas-relief featuring a galloglach and his attendant holding dogs by their chains.



The attendant seems to wear a long frock (probably a leine), however he's got a jacket on top of it. If You look closely, You'll see that the garment ends somewhere a bit below the waist, say, between waist and mid-thigh (and the vercical line made in the middle of his legs couldn't be a hem, as it extends out of the garment to the sides). It's striped and close fitting, apparently not pleated in the skirts and seems to be secured at the waist, while otherwise being open. Could it be what a Ionar of 1300-1500 looked like?

Some folks think he's just wearing a cotun, however, the stripes on the top and the ones down the bottom part of the garment vary much. And compare the "pleats" of the attendant's garment to the quilted cotun seen on the galloglaich worn under a hauberk - they're also different. So it's most probably a combination of leine & ionar the attendant is wearing.

Any thoughts?

[finnobreanan]

You may be on to something here. If you look at the galloglaigh, he is wearing three layers of garments: leine; cotun; and then chainmail on top. The carving done to represent the leine is done similarly on the attendant/kern, so I don't think it is a cotun. If this is a leine, he is wearing it down almost to the ankles, which it could be worn that way. Note, there is no hint of bagpipe sleeves. His upper garment is indeed tight fitting like an eonar. It's unfortunate that the carving is damaged between his waist and knees.

[the_power]

So, the leine I made for my Gallowglass kit has gores front, back and sides. Turns out that because of the way it's cut, it folds naturally at the gores, which would explain why it's not pleated all the way around. I can't imagine anyone being dumb enough to try put a doublet over an aketon. Any idea what the bar level with the knees is ? I don't think it's low enough to be something he's holding in his hand.

Do you have provenance for the bas relief ? Is it dated ? (we should really be collecting all this stuff...).

John

[carraig]

Unfortunately I don't know the exact dating.
I've seen it in many discussions regarding the Gallowglass in the web however.
It's also on Na Degad site (and I've pasted it from their site, as I couldn't remember the other sites featuring it - hope it won't be considered a violation of any sort). Perhaps Niall or someone else from Na Degad could come up with any provenance information?

[brendan]

2 points on this:
[*]I know that C14 doublets looked exactly like this: Mid thigh length; close sleeves; short stand-up collar. If there were a pile of buttons on the sleeve that would confirm it for me. However, there does appear to be some sort of patterning on the doublet which could be padding of a type?

[*]This is a question more than an answer: Why are we presuming that this is an attendant? Could this be some lordling out hunting with his Gallowglass bodyguard? - I presume that the context (and the apparrent lack of sword) will prove me wrong on my speculation here

Brendan

[brendan]

A response to John's post re: Leine.
The garment you have described sounds to me like a typical Norman period Tunic (Which I suppose 1300 would work with)
At what stage of the Gallowglass timeline are you targetting?

Addendum: I made a kern's jacket lately EXACTLY following the method for making a doublet - including use of Toille etc. I only used half the Sleeve block to give me the "half sleeve" pattern and fitted at the sleeve head as if I was fitting a full fitted sleeve. It worked great.

Brendan

[finnobreanan]

So, the leine I made for my Gallowglass kit has gores front, back and sides. Turns out that because of the way it's cut, it folds naturally at the gores, which would explain why it's not pleated all the way around. I can't imagine anyone being dumb enough to try put a doublet over an aketon. Any idea what the bar level with the knees is ? I don't think it's low enough to be something he's holding in his hand.

Do you have provenance for the bas relief ? Is it dated ? (we should really be collecting all this stuff...).

John

John,

The book "The World of the Gallowglass", edited by Sean Duffy identifies this as a "Detail of a warrior with an axe from a hunting scene on the tomb of Alexander McLoud, St Clements Church, Rodel, Harris, 1528." It is used as an example of how the Gallowglass dressed in David H. Caldwell's lecture, "Having the right kit: West Highlanders Fighting in Ireland." (Rather appropriate title I thought.) The book does not show the attendant/Kern, but only the Gallowglass.

According to Wikepedia (I know, bad research) "St Clement's Church (Scottish Gaelic: Tur Chliamainn, meaning Clement's Tower) is a fifteenth century church in Rodel, [Isle of] Harris, Scotland, built for the Chiefs of the MacLeods of Harris, who lived in Dunvegan Castle in Skye. It is dedicated to Pope Clement I and was a Catholic church before falling into disuse in the eighteenth century. In 1528 Alasdair Crotach Macleod, 8th Chief, prepared for himself a magnificent wall tomb - possibly the finest medieval wall tomb in Scotland."

This makes sence, since the church is located in the Hebrides, which is the origin of the word galloglach, literally translated as a "Warrior from Innes Gall (the Hebrides).

http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/h ... index.html
http://www.scotland-inverness.co.uk/rodel.htm

This would mean that the church was built in the 1400s, but Caldwell dates the sculpture to 1528. Unfortunately, the sculpture does not date to the 1300s or even 1400s, but is from the early 1500s. So much for that theory I guess.

[the_power]

Thanks for that Finn. I have the book at home, it's just a while since I read it (I cycled down to the printers the week before it went on sale, and picked myself up a copy). OK, so while it would have been cool to see a doublet & leine on something from the 1300/1400s, Not This Time, it seems.

At what stage of the Gallowglass timeline are you targetting?

Now, that would be an ecumenical matter. As you know, I'm a big fan of having kit that'll do any period. But I do have a 1300s (peaked sallet) and a 1500s (morion) helm, and the aketon/haubergon is .. timeless. So bar a helmet, it's hard to 'date' a gallowglass. Any recommendations how to do that ? I got the impression that in the 1500s, the Gallowglass were being used more as pikemen, so keep the axe for the 1300s, claymore for 1400s and long spear for 1500s ?

Oh, I don't think that Gallowglass has anything to do with the Hebrides in particular. It's a corruption of 'Gall Óg Laoch' - 'Foreign Young Hero'. 'Gall' seemed to be a very popular word in medieval Irish. It could mean anything from an extended family that you need to travel a distance to see, to people who looked different. The area north of Dublin is still called 'Fingal', because a lot of 'Fair Foreigners' - likely Norweigans - settled there. Where I live is Baldoyle, a corruption of Baile Dúaill, which is itself a corruption of Baile Dubh-Gall, or "Town of the Dark-Foreigners", likely Danes. And yes, it's in County Fingal

John

[Billy]

it's hard to 'date' a gallowglass

They're notorious for standing you up, and even if they do show, they never pay for dinner.


Yuk yuk.

[Freebeard]

as a side note to the main topic
technically speaking its óc laoch (óc pronounced óg), and by this point would be one word, óglach, still meaning the same thing.
but weren't the first "gallóglaigh" sent from a king in Scotland to Ireland as a wedding gift, in the 13th cntury? i might be wrong on this, butit has been a while since i read up on them. people of the Hebrides (Inse Gall - islands of the foreigners - harking back to Norse settlement of the 9th/10th centuries whi possibly mixed in with the irish settlement already there) were called the Gallgoidel (foreign-Irish - possibly a variation of hiberno-norse as we know it, but in the hebrides) for a number of centuries, but i'm not entiely sure if thy were still called this by the 14th centuries, yet the name if the place remained - even in modern times. but this possibly had no effect on the name gall óglach, excpet that they came from not-ireland