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  1. #1
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    Range of Tartan and Historical Highland Dress

    So for a while now I've been wondering to what extent did tartan exist in Scotland.
    Most people would tell you it was a Highland thing and the only thing in the Lowlands similar to it is the Border Check. But my question has always been "where is the lowland-highland divide".
    Most people say all of the Geographical Highlands minus the North-Eastern Plains or "Low Lands" which can be grouped with the Lowlands. But I've just found something that could somewhat counter this. And possibly mean that Historical Highland Dress and tartan could be found outside of the Gàidhealtachd seemingly commonly?
    I was just looking at this site: http://digital.nls.uk/slezer/theatrum-scotiae.html on it is a collection of images done by John Slezer in the 17th Century, So in a time where Tartan was worn daily by Highlanders, But by the Lowlanders from what we're usually told, Was never worn and hardly existed. But I'd like you all to go onto the site I gave you and look at some of the bigger cities in the North-Eastern area, Then zoom in on the people in those areas that Mr Slezer made.
    Some of the people wear Breeches and a Maud (Shepherds Plaid) but if you look closer at many others they are clearly wearing Highland clothing with Belted Plaids. I don't think this was just a mistake either, I'm now wondering if tartan (minus border check) actually had a larger range and so did the belted plaid. I also just wanted to show those images as I think they're amazing at how old they are. I mean this is the same time period in which Lowlanders and Highlanders were supposed to despise each others cultures, Yet here you have period images of people walking in "lowland cities" with belted plaids wrapped around them and tartan draped over them and were seemingly treated as a normal thing to see by John himself.

    I could just be entirely wrong and he did decide to illustrate people who came from the Gàidhealtachd in these towns but I don't know. I'm going to start researching this now because it's got me really interested if anyone knows anything about it reply.
    PROUD descendent of the Innes Clan! and a Yorkshireman! Or maybe I'm a.... Yorkshire Clansman?

  2. #2
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    Tartan is as old as weaving. It is just natural when warping a loom to create colored lines. If you cross the warp with the same colors, in the same order, you get a fabric composed of squares. This is the definition of Tartan.

    The Tarim basin mummies of the Chinese silk route were found in fabric woven in Tartan. The Hallstatt salt mines in Germany had remnants of Tartan fabric. The Falkirk Hoard. The list goes on and on.

    So Tartan and Highland Dress are not interchangeable words.

    The wearing of brightly colored fabrics in stripes and patterns was never just a Highland thing. These were, and are today, popular fashion items.

    If you want to know where the "Highland Line" is you have to say what period you are talking about. Take a look at almost any map of Scotland with the areas and their influence and you can see that nothing is static. Each map draws the lines differently. There are very few set boundaries. Of course there are geographical boundaries like valleys surrounded by mountains and the shorelines around islands and lakes but this whole thing is, and was, quite fluid.

    You also have to remember that the use of the word Gàidhealtachd refers to language and not a people in the same way we would refer to culture or nationality. Scots Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, Scots, Lallans, English, just to name a few, were all spoken in various places. Nova Scotia in Canada is today quite commonly thought of as part of the Gàidhealtachd.
    Last edited by Steve Ashton; 5th September 17 at 05:38 PM.
    Steve Ashton
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  4. #3
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    A couple of observations; firstly, these drawings are very late 17th century and so are more c1700 than c1600 and so it's not unreasonable to assume that some Highlanders travelled to some of the Lowland cities on business, not all would have been able to afford standard European (Lowland) dress.

    There are some interesting comments on the construction of the drawings that indicated than we should perhaps not take some of the detail at face value:

    • The angles of some views indicate that he used an optical device known as the 'camera obscura'.


    • Perspectives, particularly of buildings, reveal that he used the cut-and-paste approach to combine views to create some of his final drawings.


    • Several figures and features, such as ships, appear exactly the same in different images. These are this 17th-century equivalent of 'clip art'.


    The last is particularly interesting and hints that some of the characters may have been included to add effect i.e. make the individual image more recognisably Scottish. If that were the case with some of the Highlanders it would be a good indication of the place of Highland Dress in the external view of what was unique about Scotland at the time.

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  6. #4
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    Figheadair and Steve are much more knowledgeable than me but I'd like to add:

    The distance(straight line) from Say Aberdeen (coastal effectively north east lowlands) to Braemar (Highlands) is just 50 miles in a straight line, in those days a fit mans 2 days walk and the highlands extended closer than that.

    Shepherds and Drovers regularly took cattle / sheep from the highlands to market such as the Falkirk Trysts where at it's peak 150,000 cattle, sheep and horses would arrive, that's a lot of man power as well.

    When you need something not made locally, you have to go to the big city to buy it....

    Being despised by lowlanders does not stop the need for the economic connections, as has also been witnessed by other racial groupings around the world. You my be despised, but they still need you.

    The poor have been moving to the cities for centuries, doing menial jobs at first. They couldn't afford to change clothes until they had earnt enough money.
    "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give"
    Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill

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  8. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by Steve Ashton View Post
    Tartan is as old as weaving. It is just natural when warping a loom to create colored lines. If you cross the warp with the same colors, in the same order, you get a fabric composed of squares. This is the definition of Tartan.

    The Tarim basin mummies of the Chinese silk route were found in fabric woven in Tartan. The Hallstatt salt mines in Germany had remnants of Tartan fabric. The Falkirk Hoard. The list goes on and on.

    So Tartan and Highland Dress are not interchangeable words.

    The wearing of brightly colored fabrics in stripes and patterns was never just a Highland thing. These were, and are today, popular fashion items.

    If you want to know where the "Highland Line" is you have to say what period you are talking about. Take a look at almost any map of Scotland with the areas and their influence and you can see that nothing is static. Each map draws the lines differently. There are very few set boundaries. Of course there are geographical boundaries like valleys surrounded by mountains and the shorelines around islands and lakes but this whole thing is, and was, quite fluid.

    You also have to remember that the use of the word Gàidhealtachd refers to language and not a people in the same way we would refer to culture or nationality. Scots Gaelic, Irish Gaelic, Scots, Lallans, English, just to name a few, were all spoken in various places. Nova Scotia in Canada is today quite commonly thought of as part of the Gàidhealtachd.

    I know tartan and Highland dress are not interchangeable words but here on this post they are, You know what I mean anyway. What I'm saying is with these images is it not odd that someone decided to put Highlanders in Lowland cities? Surely he would have chosen people who looked like Lowlanders to show off what the local people as well as the buildings looked like. Although to be fair after further looking a couple people I passed as wearing belted plaids actually have just their maud blanket past their knees and are wearing socks. But a couple people still look like bare legs + belted plaid. I still like the images though as they show us what Lowlanders wore in the period which is slightly different to that of England (Hodden Grey, Blue Bonnets, Mauds.)

    I do apologise though, I'm not good at writing things in a way that makes sense lol.

    Just want to also say my reason for being interested in this so much is because I want to disprove stereotypes and misconceptions about Scotland from around the 1500's to the 1700's because currently if you attempt to do any basic research you're gonna get 80% truth with %20 being wrong, This seems to be because when people write things like blogs or something about Scottish history they fail to validate their sources and often source sources that themselves have no sources. What I'm trying to do is find period books, accounts, Anything to try and prove what Scotland was truly like in the early modern era. (I've seen countless people try disprove Highland stereotypes all the while whilst stereotyping Lowlanders! it annoys me so much)

    One of the common stereotypes is: "Highlanders and Lowlanders were complete opposites who hated each other", Which through much of my own research is false. This post is just something I thought I'd do to help prove the cultures were not enemies, They were brother cultures in that they tolerated each other, Intermarried with each other, Were friends with each other etc etc. Of course I could be wrong and they could have hated each other but the more research I do, It seemingly proves that your average Gael and your average Lowlander (as long as they spoke a common language of course) wouldn't have viewed each other with all these stereotypes and hate. I know many people did feel that way certainly, But I don't think it was a universal thing and probably came from stereotyping the upper class of the Southern Lowlands as representatives for all Lowlanders.
    PROUD descendent of the Innes Clan! and a Yorkshireman! Or maybe I'm a.... Yorkshire Clansman?

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  10. #6
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    Intermarrying will always happen you only have to look at what happened in Northern Ireland to see that. One of my own Great uncles a Glaswegian Orangeman changed "sides" to marry a catholic girl. It caused huge family problems at the time.
    Love Knows no boundaries

    When living in the Hebridies and Inverness, in the 1970s there were still many highlanders who referred to lowland scots as Sassanachs.
    Reading books of the clearances the thugs used to enforce the clearences were often hired from Glasgow / mainland lowlands but the highlanders referred to them as Sassanach / the English.

    This quote from WIKI (because it's easy to copy) In 1598, King James VI authorised some "Gentleman Adventurers" from Fife to civilise the "most barbarous Isle of Lewis". (I've also read it in more learned books) shows the thoughts at the time.

    Where you get the two groupings of people living together, they will (generally) learn to get on with each other. But for most of Time the majority Highlanders were in the highlands and the lowlanders in lowlands. They, the majority of the population, never met each other, and only heard "tales" from those who did travel.

    Sadly I think you are chasing an objective that's not there..
    Last edited by The Q; 7th September 17 at 02:08 AM.
    "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give"
    Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill

  11. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by The Q View Post
    Intermarrying will always happen you only have to look at what happened in Northern Ireland to see that. One of my own Great uncles a Glaswegian Orangeman changed "sides" to marry a catholic girl. It caused huge family problems at the time.
    Love Knows no boundaries

    When living in the Hebridies and Inverness, in the 1970s there were still many highlanders who referred to lowland scots as Sassanachs.
    Reading books of the clearances the thugs used to enforce the clearences were often hired from Glasgow / mainland lowlands but the highlanders referred to them as Sassanach / the English.

    This quote from WIKI (because it's easy to copy) In 1598, King James VI authorised some "Gentleman Adventurers" from Fife to civilise the "most barbarous Isle of Lewis". (I've also read it in more learned books) shows the thoughts at the time.

    Where you get the two groupings of people living together, they will (generally) learn to get on with each other. But for most of Time the majority Highlanders were in the highlands and the lowlanders in lowlands. They, the majority of the population, never met each other, and only heard "tales" from those who did travel.

    Sadly I think you are chasing an objective that's not there..

    Well that's one of the reasons I wanted to look into it more because I was researching possible relatives (Inneses of Benwall) and they lived between what was generally seen as a Highland area, And the city of Aberdeen, Probably marrying with people from both sides too.

    I know the people to the Western Isles and stuff probably did dislike the Lowlanders a bit more considering they were far way from them and their only information on them probably came from the Churches and rumors, But go to the eastern Highlands to places like Huntly and find the Gordon's and such, These people seemed to get along DECENTLY with their Lowland Neighbours to the North and West. Seems to have been quite a lot of interaction between the two too.
    PROUD descendent of the Innes Clan! and a Yorkshireman! Or maybe I'm a.... Yorkshire Clansman?

  12. #8
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    One thing that we should always be aware of, is judging others, or others from another time or place, by our own concepts or the standards of today.

    In the time prior to the 1800's it was not common for people to be as mobile as we are today. Many people were never further from their place of birth than a day's horse ride. Or about 20 miles. Travelers were often merchants, tinkers, entertainers etc. who lived a nomadic life.

    Farmers took their produce to the nearest village where it was purchased by other locals. Marriages were among people who had grown up knowing each other all their lives.

    The Highlands were rugged and very sparsely populated. There were very few roads other than horse and wagon tracks. Boats on the Lochs could, and did, travel further and faster than by land. I have seen figures which state that while the total population of Scotland at the time of Culloden was 1.2 million, that the population of the Highlands was less than 60,000 total souls. Or about one average American small town.

    Joining the military was considered a great adventure. You may get to see something outside of your own valley. And you had stories that would wow the people back home for the rest of your entire life about the strange and exotic people and places you saw. The people you may or may not have come home to were still living hand to mouth just like when you left.

    We also need to understand this whole thing about weaving of fabrics, not just Tartan. Most of the wool in the UK was shipped to 'the low countries' where it was processed, spun and woven. It was then shipped back to the UK as cloth. This was actually cheaper than relying on local weaving which could not produce much more than for local use. It was not until the Industrial Revolution that power came to the world enabling powered looms and mass production.
    My wife is a weaver and spinner. I have just watched her spend three entire days cleaning and spinning just one fleece. 1/4 of enough for a modern kilt. Women back when did not have the ability to spend an entire day behind a spinning wheel. They spun, in the evenings, all winter to have enough yarn for it to be woven into cloth for their own family by a travelling weaver. These guys would travel around with their loom in the back of a wagon and go from village to village in the summer weaving the yarn that the women had spent an entire winter spinning.

    History is a fascinating subject. Historians are always trying to warn against the common error of thinking that times past were much like our own.
    Steve Ashton
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    Skype (webcam enabled) thewizardofbc
    I wear the kilt because:
    Swish + Swagger = Swoon.

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  14. #9
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    A little bit of humor to all of this. My Grandfather, Roman Catholic, born and raised from St. Andrews, (Marydale) Antigonish, Nova Scotia, direct descendent of the MacDonald (MacBride), Clanranald, Highlanders, originally from Knoydart, Inverness-shire, all were committed Jacobites, captured around 1786, imprisoned at Ft. Williams, expelled from Scotland in 1790, shipped over to new world on the Brigantine, NORA.

    So obviously my Grandfather was brought up with the stories of the trials, hardships and suffering of our family through history. They were farmers and miners in Nova Scotia, very hard life. Grandfather migrated to US in 1909, with his wife Mary Elizabeth Chisholm, settling in Lynn, Massachusetts.

    Knowing this, My Mother, (who was French Canadian) would ask "Pa" what he would like to have for lunch. EVERYTIME, he would say this, "Rita, soup would be fine, but don't give me that "Campbell" crap."

    He would not eat Campbell Soup......NEVER....
    Last edited by CollinMacD; 15th September 17 at 07:25 AM.
    Allan Collin MacDonald III
    Grandfather - Clan Donald, MacDonald (Clanranald) /MacBride, Antigonish, NS, 1791
    Grandmother - Clan Chisholm of Strathglass, West River, Antigonish, 1803
    Scottish Roots: Knoidart, Inverness, Scotland, then to Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada.

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  16. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by CollinMacD View Post
    A little bit of humor to all of this. My Grandfather, Roman Catholic, born and raised from St. Andrews, (Marydale) Antigonish, Nova Scotia, direct descendent of the MacDonald (MacBride), Clanranald, Highlanders, originally from Knoydart, Inverness-shire, all were committed Jacobites, captured around 1786, imprisoned at Ft. Williams, expelled from Scotland in 1790, shipped over to new world on the Brigantine, NORA.
    Your forebear may have been arrested and imprisoned in the latter half of the 1780s but he wouldn't have been for being a Jacobite. TheJacobite threat was well and truly over by that date which is one of the reasons that the Act of Repeal was able to be passed in 1782. It's more likely that he left Scotland for economic reasons at that date.

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