[Halfwest]

In defense of the plucked eyebrows... if the metalworking skills of Middle Earth denziens was such that they could make those intricate little swirly things on the belt buckles, certainly TWEEZERS would be merely projects for metalworkers' apprentices.

The same goes for ancient civilizations. If you can make gold beads, you can make tweezers.

...although why you would WANT to is another matter entirely.

[Jackies3617]

Well first off (hopefully I won't forget everything I want to say) Julius Caeser had all the hair on his body plucked while he was in Africa - great against body lice. Rich women in hot countries were plucked or waxed.

Women in cold countries kept their hair because it was cold without!!!

Periods: Women were mostly pregnant or nursing. I don't think they had too many periods. Even into the fourties and fifties of last century, women regularly shooed the men out of the kitchen and boiled the rags they used as sanitary pads. They were held in place by a special belt. I guess our ancestresses did the same thing. Women who lived close to the sea figured out that natural sponges are great!

In many tribes, women who menstruated were kept segregated from men in special little huts. I can imagine that wealthier women in Europe kept to their rooms, were 'inconvenienced'. Certainly they were not permitted to enter the church.

I agree that my elves do not have periods. Too messy for etherel beings. lol!

Underwear - not that much around in the middle ages, although I agree that men probably needed support. Corsets kept women's boobs in place. Don't forget about the chastity belts for women whose husbands went away to war. Now those things looked bloody uncomfortable.

Another interesting point for Rob Although there were very horrible forms of torture in Europe, a man's genitals were never touched unless he was suspected of treason.......

Talk about the boys holding together.

[Isabeau]

Drat! And I thought I'd escaped underwear discussions by coming here!

In my fics, I figure eyebrows can be plucked, there isn't shaving of body hair, Elves don't have body hair. I touched upon the menstruation thing only briefly once. Underwear is problematical--the men don't have to have it, but Heth has underdrawers. I like to think that Gondor has some basic sort of plumbing, but I think it's personal preference.

It's true most medieval women didn't wear underwear. One of the few things I liked in TTT--catch Eowyn running back into Meduseld to meet Eomer when he brings Theodred home. She's got her skirts hiked up and you can see she has stockings gartered below the knee, bare thighs above. The inference is no underwear. Very nice, and very correct.

[Roisin]

Does anyone know where I could find a good book on costumes of the "Dark Ages" and the medieval period, with good illustrations?

I've seen a few on amazon, but a lot of them seem to get bad reviews.

Roisin

[Viv]