This post will show you how to make Anglo-Saxon costumes which are perfect to go along with a homeschool Anglo-Saxon unit study. You will use materials, blankets and rugs you have lying about the house. These are pretty much no-sew, although there is a little bit of threading of cord.
If you’re looking to make your own Anglo-Saxon Costumes for your children, scroll halfway down the post to learn how!
Anglo-Saxon Clothing: What Did the Anglo-Saxons Wear?
When we imagine the Anglo-Saxons, it is easy to picture warriors carrying shields, kings feasting in great halls, and farmers working in small villages. But one of the most fascinating ways to explore everyday Anglo-Saxon life is through something much more familiar: their clothes.
What did an Anglo-Saxon child put on in the morning?
Did everyone wear the same thing?
Where did their clothes come from?
How were they made?
And how can we possibly know what people wore more than a thousand years ago when most of their clothing has disappeared?
Check out my post below for ideas for Anglo-Saxon resources:
Anglo-Saxon clothing makes a wonderful homeschool history topic because it connects so many different subjects.
You can investigate history, archaeology, farming, textiles, spinning, weaving, dyeing, trade, art, technology and even chemistry.
Most importantly, studying clothing helps children see the Anglo-Saxons as real people.
They needed warm clothes in winter, so they repaired worn garments.
They spun fibres into thread.
And they fastened cloaks around their shoulders and wore belts and jewellery.
Some people owned beautiful objects that demonstrated wealth and status, while others probably wore much simpler clothing.
Behind every piece of Anglo-Saxon clothing was an enormous amount of work.
Let’s investigate how the Anglo-Saxons dressed and discover what their clothes can tell us about life in early medieval England.
Who Were the Anglo-Saxons?
Before looking at their clothing, it helps to understand who we mean by the Anglo-Saxons.
The term generally refers to the people who lived in much of England between the end of Roman rule in the early fifth century and the Norman Conquest of 1066.
During this long period, England changed enormously.
Groups including Angles, Saxons and Jutes migrated to Britain from areas of continental Europe. Different kingdoms developed, including Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia and Wessex.
Christianity spread.
Kings became increasingly powerful.
Towns and trading centres grew.
Viking attacks and settlement changed communities.
Eventually a kingdom of England emerged.
Check out how to make a huge paper mache map, perfect for an Anglo-Saxon Unit Study
This means there was never one single Anglo-Saxon outfit worn unchanged for six hundred years.
Clothing changed over time.
It could also vary by a person’s wealth, occupation, age, location, and access to different materials.
This is an important point for children to understand.
History is often presented in neat categories, but real life is rarely so simple.
How Do We Know What Anglo-Saxons Wore?
This is one of the most interesting questions to ask before studying Anglo-Saxon clothing.
Very few complete Anglo-Saxon garments survive.
Why?
Because most clothing was made from organic materials such as wool and linen.
These materials normally rot in the ground.
An iron sword, ceramic pot or stone building can survive for centuries under the right conditions. A woollen dress usually cannot.
So archaeologists have to become detectives.
They reconstruct Anglo-Saxon clothing using several different kinds of evidence.
Click here if you’d like to see how we used our paper mache map to learn about the Anglo-Saxons
Archaeological Evidence
Anglo-Saxon graves have provided important evidence about clothing.
Although the fabric itself often disappears, objects worn with clothing may survive.
Archaeologists have discovered items such as:
- brooches
- buckles
- pins
- beads
- clasps
- belt fittings
- jewellery
- spindle whorls
- weaving equipment
Sometimes tiny fragments of textile survive because they have been preserved next to metal objects.
For example, fabric touching a metal brooch or buckle may leave traces that archaeologists can examine.
Even a tiny piece of surviving textile can reveal information about the fibres and weaving techniques used.
Studying Beowulf in a child-friendly way is a great companion study to go along with this post:
Where Objects Are Found Matters
Imagine an archaeologist excavating a grave.
They discover two brooches near the shoulders, beads across the chest and a buckle near the waist.
Those objects do not simply tell us that the person owned jewellery.
Their positions provide clues about how clothing may have been arranged and fastened.
This introduces children to one of the most important ideas in archaeology:
Context matters.
An object by itself can tell us something.
An object together with its exact location, surrounding objects, and archaeological setting can tell us much more.
If you’d like to get a peek at our Anglo-Saxons Unit Study Presentation… so much fun!
Pictures and Manuscripts
Later Anglo-Saxon manuscripts contain pictures of people wearing clothing.
These images can provide useful evidence for garments such as:
- tunics
- cloaks
- dresses
- head coverings
- leggings
- shoes
However, treat pictures carefully.
An artist was not necessarily trying to produce a photographic record of everyday life.
Some manuscript illustrations show biblical or symbolic scenes. Artists may have followed artistic traditions rather than recording precisely what everyone around them wore.
Pictures are therefore evidence, but they need to be compared with other evidence.
Written Evidence
Documents can occasionally provide information about textiles, clothing and valuable garments.
Written sources may mention particular materials, objects or gifts.
However, written records are incomplete and tend to tell us much more about certain sections of society than others.
A wealthy person’s expensive cloak is more likely to appear in a written record than a farm worker’s patched everyday tunic.
Again, historians must combine different kinds of evidence.
What Were Anglo-Saxon Clothes Made From?
The two most important materials used for Anglo-Saxon clothing were:
wool and linen.
These natural fibres came from resources available to Anglo-Saxon communities.
But turning a sheep’s fleece or flax plant into clothing required an extraordinary amount of work.
No modern factories produced rolls of ready-made fabric.
Before somebody could sew a garment, the fibre had to be prepared, spun and woven.
Wool
Wool came from sheep and was extremely important.
Sheep provided a renewable supply of fleece, which could be turned into warm, practical textiles.
But fleece doesn’t come off a sheep looking like a jumper.
It has to go through several stages.
The wool might need to be:
- collected from the sheep
- cleaned
- sorted
- prepared
- spun into yarn
- dyed, depending on the desired result
- woven into cloth
- cut and sewn into clothing
Each stage required time and skill.
This makes a wonderful discussion point for children.
Ask them to look at the clothes they are wearing.
How long would it take to make those clothes if every thread had first been spun by hand?
Suddenly an ordinary Anglo-Saxon tunic seems much more valuable.
Linen
Linen was made from the fibres of the flax plant.
Producing linen involved a complicated series of processes.
Flax had to be grown and harvested before its useful fibres could be separated and prepared.
Those fibres could then be spun into thread and woven.
Linen could be used for lighter garments and items worn close to the skin.
Its production demonstrates something very important about Anglo-Saxon life:
clothing began with agriculture.
If you wanted wool, somebody had to raise sheep.
If you wanted linen, somebody had to grow flax.
Clothing was connected directly to the land.
From Fibre to Fabric
One of the best ways to understand Anglo-Saxon clothing is to stop thinking about the finished garment and follow its journey backwards.
Imagine an Anglo-Saxon woollen cloak.
Before the cloak, there was cloth.
Before there was cloth, there was yarn.
And before there was yarn, there was wool.
Of course, before there was wool, there was a sheep.
Behind that one cloak might therefore be:
sheep → fleece → prepared wool → spun yarn → woven cloth → finished garment
Each stage required knowledge and labour.
This is why textile production deserves to be studied as a technology in its own right.
Spinning Wool
Before wool could be woven, it needed to be spun into yarn.
A common tool was the drop spindle.
The spindle helped twist fibres together to produce thread. A small weight known as a spindle whorl helped the spindle rotate.
Spindle whorls are frequently found archaeologically.
They may look like fairly insignificant little objects, but they represent one of the most important everyday technologies of the period.
Without thread, there could be no woven cloth.
And without cloth, there could be no clothing.
Try Spinning for Yourself
Children can investigate the principle of spinning without needing authentic equipment.
Take some loose wool fibres and gently pull and twist them.
What happens?
Do the fibres begin to hold together?
What happens if you twist too loosely?
What happens if you twist too tightly?
Older children can investigate why twisting fibres increases yarn strength.
This turns an Anglo-Saxon history lesson into a simple materials-science investigation.
Weaving Anglo-Saxon Cloth
Once enough yarn is produced, it can be woven into cloth.
Weaving works by interlacing two sets of threads.
The lengthwise threads are called the warp.
Threads passing across them are called the weft.
The principle is simple enough for a young child to understand:
over, under, over, under.
But producing large quantities of even, useful cloth requires considerable skill.
Different types of looms were used during the Anglo-Saxon period.
One particularly interesting example is the warp-weighted loom.
The warp threads hung vertically, and loom weights kept them under tension.
Archaeologists have discovered loom weights at Anglo-Saxon settlements, providing evidence for textile production.
Make a Simple Cardboard Loom
This is one of the easiest ways to turn your Anglo-Saxon clothing study into a hands-on activity.
Cut notches along opposite ends of a rectangle of strong cardboard.
Stretch yarn between the notches to make the warp.
Then use a second piece of yarn as the weft.
Weave it:
over one warp thread, under the next, over, under, over, under.
On the next row, reverse the pattern.
Young children can practise weaving.
Older children can investigate:
- different weaving patterns
- thread tension
- fibre thickness
- how tightly woven fabric affects its properties
- how long it takes to produce a small square
Then ask:
How long might it take to weave enough fabric for an entire cloak?
What Colours Did Anglo-Saxons Wear?
Anglo-Saxon clothing is sometimes imagined as uniformly brown, beige and grey.
Natural undyed fibres certainly provided useful colours, but Anglo-Saxon textiles could also be dyed.
Dyers could get dyes from natural sources.
Plants and other materials could produce a range of colours, although the exact result depended on many factors.
These included:
- the dye material
- the fibre being dyed
- how the fibre was prepared
- the dyeing process
- substances used to help fix the dye
- the concentration of the dye
- repeated dyeing
Plants associated with historical dyeing include woad, madder and weld.
Woad can produce blue.
Madder can produce reddish shades.
Weld can produce yellow.
Other locally available plants could also create different shades.
This means the Anglo-Saxon world was not necessarily a landscape of dull brown clothing.
A Natural Dye Investigation
This can become a wonderful homeschool science experiment.
Rather than attempting historically exact dyeing, children can investigate the general principle of extracting colour from natural materials.
Try safe household or plant materials such as:
- onion skins
- red cabbage
- berries
- turmeric
- tea
Use small samples of fabric or wool and compare the results.
Ask children to predict which material will create the strongest colour.
Then investigate questions such as:
Which colour is darkest?
Does leaving the material in the dye longer make a difference?
Does the same dye look different on different fibres?
What happens after the fabric dries?
Does washing affect the colour?
Older children can research the chemistry of dyes and mordants and compare their experiment with historical textile production.
What Did Anglo-Saxon Men Wear?
Clothing varied across the Anglo-Saxon period, but a man’s basic wardrobe might include:
- a tunic
- trousers
- leggings or leg coverings
- a belt
- a cloak
- shoes
The tunic was especially important.
It was generally worn over the upper body and could be secured or shaped with a belt.
A belt was useful and decorative.
People could hang objects from it, making it a wearable storage system.
Remember, Anglo-Saxon clothing did not have rows of modern zipped pockets.
Anglo-Saxon Trousers and Leg Coverings
Men could wear trousers or leg-covering garments.
Styles varied according to time and context.
Leg bindings or wraps also appear in early medieval clothing.
Rather than thinking of an Anglo-Saxon man as wearing one fixed costume, encourage children to think about clothing as something that varied.
A farmer working outdoors needed practical clothing.
A wealthy noble attending a royal gathering might wear something much more impressive.
And a warrior preparing for battle had different practical requirements again.
Anglo-Saxon Cloaks
A cloak was both practical and visible.
In a cool climate, an outer woollen garment offered warmth and protection.
Cloaks could be fastened with brooches or other fittings.
A cloak also shows how simple shapes can create useful clothing.
Modern clothes often contain many shaped pieces, seams, fastenings and manufactured components.
Early medieval clothing could make effective use of woven pieces of fabric while avoiding unnecessary waste.
That mattered because cloth represented a huge investment of labour.
What Did Anglo-Saxon Women Wear?
Women’s clothing changed over the centuries and varied between communities.
Evidence from early Anglo-Saxon graves has been particularly important for reconstructing women’s dress.
Some women appear to have worn garments fastened at the shoulders with pairs of brooches.
Beads may have been worn between or around these brooches.
Other items might hang from belts.
Later Anglo-Saxon women’s clothing could include long dresses or gowns, cloaks and head coverings.
As Christianity became established and fashions changed, styles also changed.
This is another reason we should be cautious about describing one outfit as “what Anglo-Saxon women wore.”
The Anglo-Saxon period lasted for centuries.
Fashion did not stand still.
Using Dolls to Design Anglo-Saxon Costumes
Firstly, to play about with some ideas, I had the children use scraps of material and cord to dress their dolls. This was a great idea to help them to discover how to make their own Anglo-Saxon costumes:
Anglo-Saxon women wore a long ankle length under-dress. You can see this in the picture above. The girls made a similar underdress using a rectangle of cloth with a slit cut into it as a hole for the head to go through. We stuck the sides together with a hot glue gun (yes, I know, not very, very authentic!).
Over the top of the underdress, women from teen-age onwards wore a long peplos type over-dress. To make this we folded over a piece of material and wrapped it around the doll’s body. We used two safety pins, one each side, to hold the material together at the shoulders. You can see this below with the blue material. We also ripped some blue material and tied it around the waist which pulled the material together to prevent any gaping sides 😉. The Anglo-Saxon women would have hung essential tools and spoons from this belt.
Accessories included a simple head-dress, wrapped material for stockings and occasionally glass beads around the neck and/or a brooch.
The doll below shows a cloak fastened at the neck, a head-dress, and a more decorative belt around the waist:
These had been surprisingly easy to make. Would making some full-sized costumes be just as simple?
How to Make Anglo-Saxon Costumes for People
Now we needed to transfer this play-knowledge to attempt to make some full-sized Anglo-Saxon Costumes. In similar fashion, we gathered all the material we owned, wool rugs and wooden spoons and knives to be hung from the costumes.
Lillie’s Costume
Lillie’s was the easiest. I folded a sheet in half, cut a slit for her head to go through. The green linen material was part of an old dress, so it was already sewn down the side seam, a bit like a huge tube. Lillie stepped into the tube and we attached it at the shoulders with two nappy pins. We finished the look off with a piece of material for a belt, and Lillie hung a knife and a wooden spoon from it:
The great thing about Anglo-Saxon clothing is that simple is good. Obviously, you can finish the costume off a bit neater than ours. For example, feel free to hem each garment. For me, I’d rather create something than feel so overwhelmed by getting it perfect, I end up creating nothing. And the children were only using this for their Anglo-Saxon presentation, so it did not need to hold up for very long.
Charlotte’s Costume
For Charlotte’s costume, we used four rectangles of cloth. One large rectangle for the under dress, in white linen, with a hole for the head. We used the second rectangle for the over dress. This we cut a slit for Charlotte’s head. Another third smaller rectangle in ‘wool’ (we used felt which is inexpensive, requires no hemming and looks and feels a little like wool) created a top for extra warmth. Charlotte would be using this for a smaller over-over dress 😁. I cut a ‘too long’ slit longwise for her head. We added a small rectangle of cloth with a slit cut out of the same size as the over dress. I cut out holes in both and used some string to pull the edges together. Lastly, we added a belt which pulled in all the garments at the waist and hung a knife and a spoon from it:
These costumes do not have to be perfect! Have fun, try out different materials, styles and patterns. It just needs to look authentic, it doesn’t need to be authentic…unless of course you want it to be, then, go at it!
Thomas’ Costume
How to make an Anglo-Saxon costume for a boy? Well, we began with an old t-shirt of Gary’s – it was a muted colour and over sized. Thomas found a pair of trousers in the dress up box, which he threw on. Any trousers would do as they are mainly covered up. We gave him a belt, and hung some knives and spoons off it.
He wrapped some bandages around his lower legs…you could use strips of cloth. These gave the wearer extra protection and the bindings could be made higher of lower and cover the feet for extra warmth in the winter.
To finish off, Thomas used the picnic blanket we had in a woven wool which had the perfect pattern for an Anglo-Saxon costume. We used a nappy pin to fasten the rug at the top, around his neck.
Are these Authentic?
Always think of what you would like your children to learn from any activity you do. My own goal for these costumes was that firstly the children learn the types of clothing the Anglo-Saxons wore. And, secondly, I wanted them to create a costume to wear for their Anglo-Saxon presentation! Using what we have on hand, we created these costumes to the best of our ability. We poured over this article and we did our best. Having this kind of attitude towards making dress up means the process stays stress free and enjoyable. Just like homeschool should be ❤️
Anglo-Saxon Brooches
Brooches are among the most visually striking objects associated with Anglo-Saxon clothing.
They had a practical purpose because they could fasten garments.
But they could also be decorative and communicate information about the wearer.
Archaeologists have discovered many different types of Anglo-Saxon brooches.
These include forms commonly described as:
- disc brooches
- saucer brooches
- cruciform brooches
- square-headed brooches
Their designs can be remarkably intricate.
Some contain geometric decoration.
Others feature stylised animals or complex patterns.
A brooch therefore sits at the intersection of:
clothing + technology + art + identity.
Design an Anglo-Saxon Brooch
Give children a large circle or outline of an Anglo-Saxon-style brooch.
Ask them to create a design using:
- symmetry
- repeated patterns
- geometric shapes
- stylised animals
- interlacing lines
Young children can concentrate on pattern and symmetry.
Older children can study real archaeological examples first and identify which features in their own design are based on evidence.
Then ask an important historical question:
Where does reconstruction end and imagination begin?
That is an excellent introduction to historical interpretation.
Beads and Jewellery
Beads have been discovered in many early Anglo-Saxon graves.
They could be made from materials including glass and amber.
Jewellery could add colour and decoration to clothing, but it can also provide evidence about technology, wealth and connections between communities.
A tiny bead raises surprisingly large questions.
Where did its raw material come from?
Who made it?
How difficult was it to produce?
Was it locally made?
Was it traded?
Who could afford to own it?
How did it reach the place where archaeologists eventually found it?
One bead can become the beginning of an entire historical investigation.
What Did Anglo-Saxon Children Wear?
Evidence specifically describing children’s everyday clothing is more limited than we might like.
It is reasonable to expect children’s clothing to share many basic features with adult clothing, adapted for size, age, and activity.
Children needed practical garments suited to the climate and everyday life.
But this is also a good place to teach children about historical uncertainty.
We should not invent details just because we want to know them.
Instead ask:
What evidence do we actually have?
What can we reasonably infer?
And what remains uncertain?
Learning to say “we don’t know” is an important part of studying history.
Anglo-Saxon Shoes
Leather could be used to make footwear.
Archaeological finds from suitable conditions have helped researchers understand early medieval shoe construction.
Shoes were made very differently from modern mass-produced footwear.
A shoemaker had to work with leather, cut the required pieces and stitch them together.
Again, an everyday object required specialist knowledge and considerable labour.
Ask children to compare an Anglo-Saxon shoe with a modern trainer.
A modern trainer might contain:
- synthetic fabric
- foam
- rubber
- plastic
- adhesives
- metal eyelets
- manufactured laces
An Anglo-Saxon leather shoe existed in a completely different technological world.
Belts: More Than Something to Hold Up Clothes
Belts were extremely useful.
A belt could help shape or secure clothing, but it could also carry possessions.
Depending on the person and context, items associated with belts might include small tools, pouches or other useful objects.
Belt buckles and fittings can survive archaeologically even when the leather belt itself has disappeared.
This gives us another example of archaeologists reconstructing a missing object from the parts that survived.
Clothing and Social Status
Did a wealthy Anglo-Saxon dress exactly like a poor farmer?
Probably not.
The quality and quantity of clothing and accessories available to a person could reflect wealth and status.
A high-status individual might have access to:
- finer textiles
- decorative borders
- elaborate jewellery
- precious metals
- imported materials
- skilled craftsmanship
But children should be careful not to assume that every archaeological object provides a simple price tag for the person who owned it.
Status in past societies could be expressed in complicated ways.
Burial customs can also affect what archaeologists find.
The possessions placed in a grave are not necessarily a complete inventory of everything that person owned or wore during life.
Clothing and Trade
Anglo-Saxon clothing can lead naturally into a study of trade.
Some raw materials and finished objects could travel considerable distances.
This means clothing can reveal connections between England and a much wider world.
Ask children to choose one item such as:
- an amber bead or a glass bead
- a metal brooch
- a dyed textile
- or a piece of silk
Then investigate its possible journey.
Where did the raw materials originate?
Who transformed them?
How might the object have travelled?
Who sold or exchanged it?
Who eventually wore it?
Instead of seeing Anglo-Saxon England as isolated, children begin to discover networks of people, goods and ideas.
Did the Anglo-Saxons Wear Silk?
Silk was an expensive and prestigious material in early medieval Europe.
It was not an ordinary fabric available to every Anglo-Saxon household.
Its presence in elite contexts demonstrates how far-reaching trade and exchange networks could be.
For older children, tracing silk is a fascinating way to expand an Anglo-Saxon unit beyond England.
Start in England and follow the connections eastwards.
Suddenly a lesson about clothing becomes a lesson about international trade, geography and the medieval world.
Who Made Anglo-Saxon Clothing?
One of the biggest differences between modern and Anglo-Saxon clothing is how much production happened within households and local communities.
Textile production involved many hours of skilled work.
Archaeological evidence such as:
- spindle whorls
- loom weights
- needles
- textile fragments
helps us reconstruct these activities.
Women were strongly associated with textile production in Anglo-Saxon society. However, we should avoid turning this into an overly simple picture in which every person always performed one fixed role.
Textile production was economically important skilled labour.
Without it, communities could not clothe themselves.
How Valuable Was a Piece of Clothing?
Today clothing can be astonishingly cheap.
A factory can produce huge quantities of fabric rapidly.
Machines spin thread.
Industrial looms weave cloth.
Factories cut patterns.
Sewing machines join pieces together.
Global transport systems move clothing around the world.
An Anglo-Saxon garment belonged to a very different economy.
Consider the labour involved in producing a woollen tunic.
Someone had to care for sheep.
Someone had to obtain and prepare the fleece.
Fibres had to be spun.
Yarn had to be woven.
Fabric might be dyed.
The garment had to be cut.
Finally, it had to be sewn.
This helps explain why textiles were valuable possessions.
Clothes Were Repaired and Reused
When an object takes many hours to make, throwing it away because of a small tear makes little sense.
Clothing could be:
- repaired
- patched
- altered
- reused
- repurposed
This gives families an interesting opportunity to compare Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards textiles with modern “fast fashion.”
Ask:
How many clothes do we own?
How often do we repair them?
Where were they made?
Who made them?
What happens when we no longer want them?
How different would our behaviour be if every piece of cloth had to be spun and woven by hand?
Clothing as Archaeological Evidence
At this point in your study, challenge children to stop thinking like costume designers and start thinking like archaeologists.
Imagine finding a grave containing:
- two brooches
- forty beads
- a belt buckle
- a small iron knife
- traces of wool beside one brooch
What could you reasonably conclude?
Perhaps the person wore clothing fastened with the brooches.
Or maybe the beads formed a necklace or decorative arrangement.
Possibly a belt was worn.
And maybe wool formed part of the clothing.
But what can’t you know for certain?
The exact colour?
The precise cut of every garment?
Whether the person wore the same outfit every day?
Whether every object found in the grave had been used in ordinary life?
This distinction between evidence and interpretation is one of the most valuable historical skills children can learn.
Early Anglo-Saxon and Later Anglo-Saxon Clothing
The Anglo-Saxon period lasted for roughly six centuries.
To put that into perspective, six hundred years ago from today takes us back to the fifteenth century.
Think how dramatically clothing has changed since then.
We should therefore expect Anglo-Saxon fashion to have changed too.
Early Anglo-Saxon clothing reconstructed from furnished burials can look quite different from clothing shown in later Anglo-Saxon manuscripts.
Migration, trade, Christianity, political change and changing fashions all influenced dress.
Rather than asking:
“What did Anglo-Saxons wear?”
older students might ask:
“How did clothing in Anglo-Saxon England change between the fifth and eleventh centuries?”
That is a much richer historical question.
Anglo-Saxon Clothing and Christianity
Religion also influenced Anglo-Saxon society.
During the early Anglo-Saxon period, communities practised various pre-Christian traditions.
From the late sixth century onwards, Christianity spread through the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms.
This change affected burial practices and the evidence available to archaeologists.
Many early Anglo-Saxon graves contain objects placed with the dead, providing important evidence about dress and personal possessions.
As Christian burial practices became established, furnished burials became less common.
This creates an interesting archaeological problem.
A change in the evidence does not necessarily mean that people suddenly stopped owning objects.
Sometimes it means that people changed what they did with those objects after death.
Reconstructing an Anglo-Saxon Outfit
A brilliant final project is to ask children to reconstruct an Anglo-Saxon outfit.
But give them one important rule:
Every choice must be supported by evidence.
They cannot simply draw something because it “looks medieval.”
Ask them to choose:
- male or female
- approximate century
- age
- social position
- occupation or role
- location if relevant
Then research each part of the outfit.
For every item, record:
Garment:
What is it?
Material:
Wool, linen, leather or something else?
Evidence:
How do we know this type of item existed?
Colour:
What evidence supports this choice?
Fastening:
How is it secured?
Decoration:
Is decoration appropriate for this person’s status?
Certainty:
Are we certain, fairly confident or making an educated reconstruction?
That final category is particularly useful for older students.
Make an Anglo-Saxon Clothing Evidence Board
Divide a large sheet of paper into three columns:
WHAT WE KNOW
Place strong archaeological or documentary evidence here.
WHAT WE THINK
Place reasonable interpretations here.
WHAT WE DON’T KNOW
Place unanswered questions here.
As your study progresses, add notes to each column.
Children quickly discover that history is not simply a collection of facts.
It is an investigation.
Become an Anglo-Saxon Textile Archaeologist
Give children a fictional archaeological discovery:
During an excavation of an Anglo-Saxon settlement, archaeologists discover a spindle whorl, several loom weights, an iron needle, a small pair of shears and fragments of woollen textile.
Ask:
What activity probably happened here?
What evidence supports your conclusion?
Which materials would the inhabitants have needed?
What objects might once have existed but have rotted away?
Could there be another interpretation?
Older children can write a short archaeological report.
Create an Anglo-Saxon Wardrobe
Ask children to design a wardrobe for an imaginary Anglo-Saxon person.
Choose a character such as:
- farmer
- craftworker
- wealthy noblewoman
- warrior
- merchant
- child
- king
- queen
- monk
- traveller
They need clothing for different situations.
For example:
Everyday work
Cold weather
A feast
A journey
Or a special ceremony
This helps children understand that historical people did not necessarily wear one fixed “costume.”
They had lives.
Calculate the Work Behind a Tunic
Older children can turn textile production into a maths investigation.
Choose a hypothetical amount of fabric needed for a tunic.
Then estimate:
- how much yarn would be needed
- how long spinning might take
- and how long weaving might take
- then work out how much fabric could be produced in a day?
The exact figures will depend on the assumptions used, which is part of the lesson.
Ask students to state their assumptions clearly.
Then compare hand production with modern industrial textile production.
This introduces estimation, rates and the economic concept of labour value.
Grow a Tiny Flax Experiment
If you have suitable growing space, consider adding flax to your study.
Children do not need to produce an entire linen garment!
Instead, grow a small quantity so they can observe the plant that produces linen fibres.
Record:
- germination
- plant height
- leaf shape
- flowering
- changes over time
Then research the traditional stages required to turn flax stems into usable fibres.
This makes the connection between plant and shirt much more tangible.
Anglo-Saxon Fashion Designer Challenge
Give younger children a figure template and ask them to create an Anglo-Saxon outfit.
Before they begin, provide a simple evidence checklist.
Their design must contain:
- one historically appropriate main garment
- a suitable natural textile
- appropriate footwear
- a fastening
- one accessory
- historically plausible colours
They can label every part.
Older children can add citations to archaeological evidence in their research notes and explain where their reconstruction involves uncertainty.
Make an Anglo-Saxon Brooch
Children can create a decorative brooch using card, modelling clay or air-drying clay.
Look at examples of Anglo-Saxon patterns first.
Investigate:
- symmetry
- repeated motifs
- geometric divisions
- animal forms
- borders
Children can then design their own.
For an extra maths challenge, require rotational or reflective symmetry.
The Anglo-Saxon Packing Challenge
Imagine you are an Anglo-Saxon traveller.
You need to leave home for a week.
You can carry only:
- one tunic
- one cloak
- one spare item of clothing
- one belt
- one pair of shoes
- five small possessions
What will you take?
Remember that you must carry everything yourself.
There are no waterproof synthetic jackets, wheeled suitcases or washing machines.
Children must justify every choice.
This is particularly good for younger learners because it encourages historical imagination while remaining grounded in practical problems.
Clothing Detective: Rich or Poor?
Create two imaginary Anglo-Saxon burials.
Burial A
Contains:
- a simple iron buckle
- a small knife
- traces of wool
Burial B
Contains:
- decorative brooches
- numerous beads
- elaborate metal fittings
- traces of fine textile
Ask children to compare them.
What differences can they see?
Might those differences relate to status?
What other explanations could there be?
Can grave goods tell us exactly how wealthy somebody was?
This last question is important.
Archaeology involves interpretation, not simply matching “expensive object = rich person.”
Follow a Thread Through Anglo-Saxon Society
For older students, choose a single woollen thread and trace all the people and activities connected to it.
You might include:
shepherd → sheep → wool preparation → spinner → dyer → weaver → tailor → wearer → repair → reuse
Then add everything required to support those activities:
- pasture
- water
- plants
- tools
- buildings
- fuel
- metalworking
- woodworking
- transport
- trade
One thread suddenly reveals an entire economic system.
Compare Anglo-Saxon Clothing With Roman Clothing
If you studied Roman Britain before beginning the Anglo-Saxons, clothing provides an excellent comparison.
Ask children:
What materials were used in both periods?
Which garments appear different?
How did clothing fasten?
What evidence survives?
How did trade affect clothing?
What happened to textile production after Roman rule ended?
Avoid presenting the change as a simple overnight switch from “Roman clothes” to “Anglo-Saxon clothes.”
Historical change is usually much messier.
Compare Anglo-Saxon and Viking Clothing
This is another fascinating comparison.
Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian communities lived within overlapping early medieval worlds and interacted through trade, migration, warfare and settlement.
Rather than simply asking children to spot visual differences, investigate:
- textile materials
- spinning
- weaving
- brooches
- belts
- shoes
- dyes
- archaeological evidence
Then ask:
Could an archaeologist always identify someone’s cultural identity simply from their clothes?
That question opens a much deeper discussion about identity and archaeology.
An Anglo-Saxon Clothing Timeline
Create a long timeline from approximately AD 400 to 1066.
Mark important developments such as:
- end of Roman rule in Britain
- early Anglo-Saxon settlement
- conversion to Christianity
- development of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms
- Viking raids
- Scandinavian settlement
- formation of the kingdom of England
- Norman Conquest
Then add clothing evidence to the timeline.
Instead of treating fashion separately from history, children can see how clothing existed within a changing political and cultural world.
Questions for Younger Children
For children roughly aged 5–8, keep the investigation concrete.
Ask:
What were Anglo-Saxon clothes made from?
Where does wool come from?
Where does linen come from?
How is thread made?
How is cloth made?
Why would a cloak be useful?
How could you fasten clothing without a zip?
Why might you repair a torn tunic instead of throwing it away?
What would you wear on a cold Anglo-Saxon morning?
Hands-on spinning, weaving, and brooch-designing work particularly well with this age group.
Questions for Middle Years
Children around 9–12 can begin investigating evidence.
Ask:
How do archaeologists know what Anglo-Saxons wore?
Why does fabric rarely survive?
Why are brooches useful evidence?
What can grave goods tell us?
What can’t they tell us?
How did Anglo-Saxons produce woollen cloth?
How could clothing show wealth?
Where did dyes come from?
How did trade influence fashion?
Questions for Older Students
Teenagers can investigate the subject in much greater depth.
Possible questions include:
How reliable are grave goods as evidence for Anglo-Saxon dress?
How did clothing change between early and late Anglo-Saxon England?
What can textile production tell us about women’s economic contribution to Anglo-Saxon society?
How did international trade affect elite Anglo-Saxon clothing?
How does the spread of Christianity affect the archaeological evidence for dress?
And how confidently can archaeologists reconstruct clothing from incomplete evidence?
Does clothing reveal identity, or do modern historians sometimes read too much into material culture?
These questions move the study from simply learning facts to analysing historical evidence.
Create an Anglo-Saxon Clothing Museum
A lovely way to finish your study is to turn one room or table into an Anglo-Saxon Clothing Museum.
Children can create exhibits including:
- a model spindle
- spindle whorl
- mini loom
- woven textile sample
- dyed wool samples
- reconstructed brooch
- bead necklace
- clothing drawings
- Anglo-Saxon shoe model
- fabric samples
- archaeological evidence cards
Each exhibit should have a museum label explaining:
What is it?
What was it used for?
And what was it made from?
How do we know?
Older children can add:
How certain are historians about this interpretation?
Invite another family member to visit the museum and have the children act as curators.
Teaching someone else is one of the best ways to discover whether you really understand a subject.
What Anglo-Saxon Clothing Can Teach Us
Anglo-Saxon clothing is about much more than deciding whether somebody wore a tunic or a dress.
A single garment connects us to:
Farming
Sheep produced wool and fields produced flax.
Science
Fibres behave differently depending on how they are prepared, twisted, woven and dyed.
Technology
Spindles and looms transformed raw fibres into textiles.
Art
Brooches, beads and woven patterns allowed people to create beautiful objects.
Trade
Materials and luxury goods could travel across long distances.
Economics
Textile production required enormous amounts of labour.
Social history
Clothing could communicate wealth, status and identity.
Archaeology
Most garments have vanished, forcing us to reconstruct them from incomplete evidence.
That makes Anglo-Saxon clothing a particularly rich subject for a homeschool unit study.
Check out my whole Anglo-Saxon Unit Study
Final Thoughts about How to make Anglo-Saxon Costumes
The most valuable lesson children can take from studying Anglo-Saxon clothing is how much work once lay behind an ordinary object.
Today we can buy a shirt without thinking about where the thread came from.
For an Anglo-Saxon family, clothing began with the natural world.
A sheep grew fleece.
Flax grew in a field.
Fibres were gathered and prepared.
Someone spun them, wove them and then cut the cloth.
Someone stitched it.
And someone else wore it.
Then, when it tore, somebody probably repaired it.
Studying this process transforms clothing from a simple list of historical costumes into a window onto Anglo-Saxon life.
Children begin to see farmers, shepherds, spinners, weavers, dyers, leatherworkers, metalworkers, merchants and wearers all connected through the clothes people used every day.
And the most interesting part of all is that many of those clothes have disappeared.
We are left with fragments.
A brooch or a buckle.
A spindle whorl, loom weight or a few fibres preserved against corroded metal.
From those fragments, archaeologists attempt to reconstruct the lives of people who lived more than a thousand years ago.
That gives us a wonderful question with which to finish an Anglo-Saxon clothing study:
If your clothes disappeared and archaeologists found only the objects that survived, what could they discover about you?
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