I stumbled across a magnificent illustrated manuscript from around the year 1500.  It’s exciting because it shows men in their underwear. Wait, that might have sounded a little wrong.What I mean by “exciting” is that it’s hard to find pictures of underwear from the Renaissance period.

The illuminated manuscript was illustrated by the artist Jean Poyer. It’s called The Hours of Henry VIII because King Henry of England may or may not have once owned it. (You can find the full version here, at the Morgan Library.)

But back to the underwear. First of all, women didn’t wear any. They wore a chemise under their dresses and stays, but no drawers. You can see their chemises in the picture–their white sleeves and necklines are their chemises, worn under a bodice and skirt. Men wore chemises, too, and these often doubled as underwear insofar as the man might hike it up and through his legs. But men also sometimes wore braies, a kind of early boxer-type drawers. Here’s Folio IV, “The Reaping.” From a distance It’s hard to tell if these field workers are wearing bunched-up chemises or braies.

I think they might be chemises:

What do you think?

Hours of Henry VIII, in Latin, Illuminated by Jean Poyer France, Tours, ca. 1500 The Pierpont Morgan Library, Gift of the Heineman Foundation, 1977