Hose in the Middle Ages and Renaissance

This page includes chausses, hosen, stockings, socks, and related styles of legwear for men, women, and infants. The emphasis is on those illustrations which clearly demonstrate some aspect of their construction or attachment, as well as extant examples. For websites on how to make hose in many of these styles, see these links.

• Gideon is called, Boaz encounters Ruth, Boaz's barley, Ruth compromises Boaz, Samuel anoints Saul, the Philistines hang Saul's body from the walls of Beth-shan, and warriors of Jabesh-Gilead take down Saul's body in the Maciejowski Bible, c. 1250
• Hose of the Archbishop of Bayonne, silk brocade, 14th century
• The Romance of Alexander (Bodl. 264), 1338-1344: Good detail of the attachment of men's hose in fol. 90v
• A fiddling fool, Voeux du paon (Morgan Library G.24, fol. 32r), c. 1350
• Hose of Rudolf II, c. 1365
• Boy punished by his teacher, Omne Bonum (British Library MS Royal 6 E. VI, fol. 214), c. 1360-1375
• February in the Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, c. 1412-1416
• Silk clothing, Tacuinum Sanitatis (BNF Nouvelle acquisition latine 1673, fol. 95), c. 1390-1400; several other illustrations, especially of peasants at work, also show separate hose
• Men remove their shoes and hose from a fresco in the great hall of the Castello di Manta, c. 1411
• Study of a Young Man with his Hands tied behind his back by Antonio Pisanello, c. 1435?
• Hanging men in St. George and the Princess of Trebizond (right side) by Antonio Pisanello, 1436-1438 (also here)
• Two boys harvesting fruits from a tree in a northern Italian herbal (British Library, Sloane 4016, fol. 30), c. 1440
• Right panel of the St. John Altarpiece by Rogier van der Weyden, 1455-1460
• The prisoner in St. Leonhard Rescuing a Prisoner from the Church of St. Leonhard in Bad Aussee, c. 1455-1465
• Knit sock, c. 1540-1560
• Boy's stockings, hand-knit and embroidered with gold and silver threads, c. 1600-1620

• Vomiting, Tacuinum Sanitatis (BNF Nouvelle acquisition latine 1673, fol. 89), 15th century
• Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew in the Speculum historiale (BNF Fr. 50, fol. 338v), 15th century
• Detail from Ecce Homo by Friedrich Herlin, 1468
• Dagobert visits the construction site at Saint-Denis, Les Grandes Chroniques de France (BNF Fr. 2609, fol. 60v), 1471
• Envy (The Seven Deadly Sins) by Hieronymus Bosch, c. 1480
• The Last Rest of Christ, c. 1480-1490
• Detail from St. Nicholas saving three from execution from the St. Nicholas altarpiece at the Church of St. George at Spisska Sobota, Slovakia
• A misericord of an acrobat from Kerk Sint-Catharina in Hoogstraten, 15th century
• Boys putting up a tent for Leopold the Mild, from the Family Tree of Bamberg by Hans Part, c. 1489-1492
• Mining illustration by Robinet Testard, late 15th century; similar illustration at Gold mining, The Book of Simple Medicines (BNF Fr. 12322, fol. 121v), c. 1520-1530
• The harvest in July, in the Augsburger Monatsbilder, 1520s
• Fol. 10v in the Hennessy Book of Hours, c. 1530-1540

• Silk stocking, 14th century
• Fols. 10r, 42r, 113v, Voeux du paon (Morgan Library G.24), c. 1350
• February in the Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, c. 1412-1416
• Nicostrate is deceived by his wife in the Decameron (BNF Fr. 239, fol. 204), 15th century
• The burial-stockings of Eleanora di Toledo, 1562

• An infant's knitted sock, 16th century. Use the Museum of London Picture Library and search for keyword infant.
• Conrad, aged 1 to 3 years, Schwartz Trachtenbuch, 1561