Museum of London - Celts, Romans, Middle Ages and Suffragettes. Featuring modesty mindsets in Ancient Rome.

Another museum and history post! During my last Summer London trip I visited The Museum of London. I didn't have a lot of time as I was going to the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the Buckingham Palace later, so I focused on my favourite parts - Ancient times (Pre-Roman and Roman London) and the Middle Ages, as well as the pieces they had from the Suffrage period. So here goes a pic spam! (click on pics or open in new tab for a bigger size):

• Pre-Roman London:
  

Bronze shield (1200-900 BC), Pottery (1500-1000 BC), Metalwork (1500-1000 BC)

 -Caption about the bronze shield (1200-900 BC): "Beaten metal shields may have made their owners look important, but they would have had little practical use in battle. Sturdy leather or wooden shields would have been used instead."

Bronze sword (1150 BC).

  -Caption about the bronze sword (1150 BC): "Long, leaf-shaped slashing swords gradually replaced slender thrusting rapiers. This could indicate a move away from individual combat to mêlée fighting and the rise of a specialist warrior elite. When first recovered in 1835, this sword had a wooden or bone grip that disintegrated once handled by the finders."

Replicas of the Battersea shield (300-100 BC) and the Waterloo Bridge horned helmet (150-50 BC)

  -Caption about the Waterloo Bridge helmet (150-50 BC): "This object was dredged from the river Thames at Waterloo Bridge in the 1860s. It is made from pieces of sheet bronze joined together with bronze rivets. The horns represent ferocity and were designed to enhance aggression, although the helmet is unlikely to have been worn in battle. It was probably a special religious offering. The original is in the British Museum."

 -Caption about the Battersea shield (300-100 BC): "The Battersea shield is actually the metal cover that attached to the front of a wooden shield. It is made from sections of sheet bronze, held together with bronze rivets. The decoration is contained within three roundels and includes 27 studs of opaque red enamel. Analysis of the chemical composition of the enamel suggests that the shield was made no later than the 2nd Century BC. The original is in the British Museum."

• Roman London - Featuring an inter-post discussion of modesty mindsets in Ancient Rome:
  

 I took a pic of this as another example of the blatant sexist double standards when it comes to patriarchal modesty mindsets in female fashion vs male fashion (this issue is also discussed here and here regarding Ancient Greece). As is the case in many other cultures with a patriarchal base, clothing for Roman women was intended to show that they were 'chaste' and 'modest' (ideas that are in themselves extremely misogynistic). It included a tunic, stola (overtunic, a symbol of married status, for married women) and palla (mantle) (when going outside), and the latter could be used to at least partially cover their hair/heads in public, as we can see in a series of examples in both visual depictions and classic citations. Meanwhile, men, married or otherwise, didn't have to dress 'modestly', cover their heads or disguise their bodies with multiple long layers (another example of double standards in Roman fashion, for example, is that men could show their legs in short tunics while women had to wear at least one ankle-to-nearly-floor length tunic).

     

  "At the time of her marriage, the Roman woman donned the stola, a long, sleeveless tunic, frequently if not always suspended at the shoulders from short straps, which was worn on top of another tunic. (...) The stola was a symbol of marriage, and by the late Republic all women married according to Roman law were entitled to wear it. Not all did, of course, since it was not a particularly fashionable or flattering garment, but wearing the stola was a way for a woman to publicly proclaim her respectability and adherence to tradition. (...) Respectable women also wore a long cloak, called a palla, over their tunic and stola when they went outside. This was rectangular in shape and was typically draped over the left shoulder, under the right arm and back across the body, carried by the left arm or thrown back again over the left shoulder. The palla could also be pulled up to cover the head" (Source)

This artistic concept from the museum is a more blatant example where the woman is shown with pretty much all her head and body wrapped up and covered with the palla, in stark contrast to the man who's bare headed and wearing a short tunic and arms bare to the elbow :S, but elaborate hairstyles became very trendy in Ancient Rome, so in other cases the hair - especially curled front pompadours or part of the intricately braided styles, would be partially seen when wearing the palla as well (a style that, apart from the modesty implications, is something that I consider quite aesthetic on its own), and we also have more than one depiction of Roman women with their hair fully uncovered. According to some studies on the matter, the extent of compulsory veiling in public in Roman times is sometimes disputed (regarding both frequency of wear and social classes), but there is more than one classic author commenting on the respectability of women covering their heads with a palla (For ex. - "Sulpicius Gallus, consul in 166BC, (...) apparently divorced his wife for going outside with her head uncovered (capite aperto foris). His reason for this was that she had exposed to everyone what only his eyes should see" Source), and there is a considerable number of depictions in statuary and paintings of women with their heads partially or fully covered, similarly to the use of the himation in Ancient Greece, so I think it was far from a solitary incident :S, and most probably a frequent symbol of married status - as it is in numerous cultures - denoting the usual patriarchal messages of 'virtue', 'modesty' and 'respectability'. Various sources seem to share this opinion - This source , for example, states that "it was considered distasteful for Roman women to be unveiled in public (Macmullen 1980)", and follows with -

 "Despite the sometimes scorching weather, Roman women could be caught wearing copious layers of wool and linen the vast majority of the time. The basic garment for women and men alike was the tunic, which could then be topped off with a peplos, stola, and palla. (...) Married women dressed in a style that showed that they were chaste and modest. They hid their faces and bodies from men when outside the house using many layers and a palla over their heads. The most identifiable clothing item for a married woman was her stola which she wore over her tunic. (...) Girls’ clothes were much simpler than those of married women. They did not have to wear an extra dress over their tunic, instead a simple peplos would do, if anything. There was no need to cover their faces, so a palla could be worn more like a shawl." (Source)

Green ancient Roman tunic and palla by DanielleFiore

"[Women] let their hair grow long (...), but respectable women were expected to contain their hair and cover it when they were out in public. Prostitutes, on the other hand, wore their hair loose as a sign of their occupation and did not cover their heads. Young girls could wear their hair loose until a certain age. Female slaves were expected to grow their hair long until it could be cut off to make wigs for Roman women."
 (Source: The Encyclopedia of Hair: A Cultural History)

The Wikipedia article on Roman hairstyles also talks about veiling and the use of the palla as a (partial or total) headcovering. As we can see, Classic authors such as Seneca the Elder give the usual patriarchal justification when it comes to gendered modesty mindsets  - That head/body coverings help protect women from male harassment (we of course know this is not true) and are intended to also protect their 'virtue', 'sexual modesty' and 'respectability' (yay).

"Due to its erotic association, hair was often linked with Roman ideas of female modesty and honour. We know that veils were important in this case, as they protected (or encouraged according to Seneca the Elder) against solicitations by men.^[7] The palla was the mark of a married, respectable woman. It was a piece of cloth wrapped around the body with one end over the shoulder. There is significant evidence for the palla being draped over the back of the head as a veil.^[8]

The palla supposedly signified the dignity and sexual modesty of a married woman, but due to its encumbering nature as a veil, there has been much debate whether it was only worn in public by the aristocracy, or if at all by working women of lower classes.^[9]"

"Over the stola, citizen-women often wore the palla, a sort of rectangular shawl up to 11 feet long, and five wide. It could be worn as a coat, or draped over the left shoulder, under the right arm, and then over the left arm. Outdoors and in public, a chaste matron's hair was bound up in woolen bands (fillets, or vitae) in a high-piled style known as tutulus. Her face was concealed from the public, male gaze with a veil; her palla could also serve as a hooded cloak.^[14][15] (...) Outside the confines of their homes, matrons were expected to wear veils; a matron who appeared without a veil was held to have repudiated her marriage.^[17]" (Source)

  While I personally actually find the style of long tunics and a mantle partially covering the head to be quite aesthetic (and I like to do casual priestess-inspired reenactments inspired by this kind of fashion, as seen below xD), I still always like to point out the patriarchal origins and intent of this kind of female fashion (which can be found in many cultures), and the double standards regarding modesty mindsets when it comes to comparing it with male fashions.

Roman priestess casual reenactment - I by ArwendeLuhtiene

And to finish this impromptu section on Ancient Roman modesty mindsets for women xD, I quote an excerpt from this study referenced above, which I found to be really interesting and exhaustive, and really focuses on the modesty mindset behind the clothing:

"The basic dress of all Roman women was essentially made up of some form of tunic and mantle. (...) Wealthy and upper class women wore tunics that came to the ground and showed very little of the foot. (...) A married woman (matrona) could wear a garment over the tunic known as the stola. This resembled a pinafore with shoulder straps and reached to the ground, again belted under the bust (...) It (...) embodied all the virtues of the ideal wife: modesty, chastity, faithfulness and honourable behaviour (...) The length of the stola and the fact it was worn over another garment effectively hid the body from view as Horace and other writers complained (‘...in a matrona one can only see her face, for unless she be a Catia, her long robe conceals all else’ – Catia was a notorious adulteress who showed off her lovely legs by wearing a short tunic). (...) 

 Over the tunic (and stola if appropriate) a woman would wear a mantle, a wrap that could cover the head if required and wrap the body for both warmth and hide it for modesty. For a matrona this mantle was the palla. (...) The palla further wrapped the body and kept it hidden from view re-enforcing notions of modesty and submissiveness (...) Moreover it could also be pulled up and used as a veil to cover the head, and if required also pulled across the face (...) 

 An upper class Roman woman then was ideally swathed in relatively long, loose drapery which wrapped around, rather than clung to the body. (...) Wearing the tunic, stola and palla the Roman matron would have had relatively restricted movement. Hands and arms would have been needed to keep material in place and physical movement constrained by the length and relative bulkiness of the layers. (...) similarly such dress also meant that when in public women needed to concentrate literally on ‘holding themselves together’. When outside domestic confines then, the respectable female body was physically covered and metaphorically wrapped in a series of social codes expressed in her dress and her movement." 

(Source: Dressing to Please Themselves: Clothing Choices for Roman Women, by Mary Harlow).

Speaking of hair, in the museum (we're back to the Museum of London pic spam here xD) there was also a whole section devoted to Ancient Roman female hairstyling, make-up and dressing, which as a long-haired historical-long-hair enthusiast, is totally my jam :D xD  

 "Hair was seen as much as an indication of wealth and social status as it was of taste and fashion. But unlike modern-day hairstyles, comfort and naturalism for the Romans took a back-seat to hairstyles that displayed the wearer's wealth to a maximum. In other words, having a complex and unnatural hairstyle would be preferred to a simple one, because it would illustrate the wealth of the wearer in being able to afford to take the time to style their hair. For women to have a fashionable hairstyle showed they were part of the elegant Roman culture." (Source)

"Hairnets and pins were in common usage (...). Poorer women would have used wooden pins, while the aristocracy used gold, ivory, crystal, silver or painted bone. The pins were decorated with carvings of the gods, or beads and pendants" (Source)

• Medieval London:
  

Brooch decorated with gold and garnets, mid 7th Century, from the Saxon town of Lundenwic, discovered in the grave of a woman during an excavation in Covent Garden

• Suffrage in London: I ended my swift museum tour with the section on Women's Suffrage and the Suffragists and Suffragettes, one of my favourite historical feminist topics - As my shoping haul later proved xD

  

"The Votes for Women campaign brought women to the forefront of public and political life. Mass demonstrations in the heart of the capital raised the profile of female suffrage organizations. But direct action, including window-smashing and arson, also brought violence and confrontation to the streets. The militant Suffragettes, led by Emmeline Pankhurst, regarded the fight for the vote as 'guerrilla warfare'. More than 1000 were imprisoned for their commitment to the cause."

  

  

There was a lot of Suffrage merch at the shop, so obviously I got out with a haul, aka a canvas bag, book, Suffragette dolly and mug :D xD