Early medieval European dress

The most easily recognisable difference between the two groups was in male costume, where the invading peoples generally wore short tunics, with belts, and visible trousers, hose or leggings.

The Romanised populations, and the Church, remained faithful to the longer tunics of Roman formal costume, coming below the knee, and often to the ankles.

By the end of the period, these distinctions had finally disappeared, and Roman dress forms remained mainly as special styles of clothing for the clergy – the vestments that have changed relatively little up to the present day.

[2] Fully dressed burial may have been regarded as a pagan custom, and an impoverished family was probably glad to keep a serviceable set of clothing in use.

Archaeological finds have shown that the elite, especially men, could own superb jewellery, most commonly brooches to fasten their cloak, but also buckles, purses, weapon fittings, necklaces and other forms.

In Anglo-Saxon England, and probably most of Europe, only free people could carry a seax or knife, and both sexes normally wore one at the waist, to use for all purposes including as personal cutlery or self-defence.

The "cappa" or chaperon, a one-piece hood and cape over the shoulders was worn for cold weather, and the Roman straw hat for summer fieldwork presumably spread to the invading peoples, as it was universal by the High Middle Ages.

Shoes, not always worn by the poor, were mostly the simple turnshoe – typically a cowhide sole and softer leather upper, which were sewn together, and then turned inside out.

[citation needed] The biographers of Charlemagne record that he always dressed in the Frankish style, which means that he wore similar if superior versions of the clothes of better-off peasants over much of Europe for the later centuries of the period: He used to wear the national, that is to say, the Frank dress: next to his skin a linen shirt and linen breeches, and above these a tunic fringed with silk; while hose fastened by bands covered his lower limbs, and shoes his feet, and he protected his shoulders and chest in winter by a close-fitting coat of otter or marten skins.....

The biographers also record that he preferred English wool for his riding-cloaks (sagæ), and complained to Offa of Mercia about a trend to make cloaks imported into Frankia impractically short.

A slightly later narrative told of his dissatisfaction with the short cloaks imported from Frisia: "What is the use of these pittaciola: I cannot cover myself up with them in bed, when riding I cannot defend myself against wind and rain, and getting down for Nature's call, the deficiency freezes the thighs".

Wealthy churches or monasteries came during this period to use richly decorated vestments for services, including opus anglicanum embroidery and imported patterned silks.

Various forms of Roman-derived vestment, including the chasuble, cope, pallium, stole, maniple and dalmatic became regularised during the period, and by the end there were complicated prescriptions for who was to wear what, and when.

The same process took place in the Byzantine world over the same period, which again retains early medieval styles in Eastern Orthodox vestments.

Secular (i.e. non-monastic) clergy usually wore a white alb, or loose tunic, tied at the waist with a cord (formally called a cincture), when not conducting services.

Women's clothing in Western Europe went through a transition during the early medieval period as the migrating Germanic tribes adopted Late Roman symbols of authority, including dress.

[13] On all top layers, the neckline, sleeves, and hems might be decorated with embroidery, tablet weaving, or appliqued silks, very richly so for the upper classes.

Fur is described in many classical accounts of the Germanic tribes but has not survived well in archaeological remains, making it difficult to interpret how and where it was used in female clothing.

[14] The pagan Vikings, especially the women, dressed rather differently from most of Europe, with uncovered female hair, and an outer frock made of a single length of cloth, pinned with brooches at both shoulders.