Inside and Out: What Did Religious Men Wear Under Their Habits?

Abstract

It is not clear what medieval religious men wore under their habits. The Rule of Saint Benedict does not include undergarments as part of daily clothing. The presence or absence of monastic underwear diverged across the medieval centuries, leading to considerable inconsistency of practice according to geography and climate, local customs, and the rigorousness with which an individual community or order observed the Rule. Scanning an eclectic array of sources ranging from religious rules to autobiographical and anecdotal evidence, this article explores the usage and meaning of underwear for religious men in Western Europe from the fifth through thirteenth centuries. Wearing underpants is an issue that reveals complicated and conflicted notions of piety, modesty, and masculinity among medieval religious men.