By Tatjana Vuleta | Independent Researcher Vienna, Austria

Overview

In modern dress history, the caftan is a general term for a medieval coat – an outer garment that is open in the front along its entire length. The word comes from the Persian word for such robes, ḵaftān. It was adopted in Ottoman Turkish and from there into Slavic languages.

Caftan was neither an original garment worn by Slavic tribes nor part of the Middle Byzantine way of civil clothing that Serbia adopted. The fall of Constantinople to the Latins in 1204, and the ethnic migrations encouraged by the Mongol conquests in the 13th century, brought Serbia a significant change in dress. Wearing caftans of different types came into fashion mainly as a result of Eastern influences. They arrived through Byzantium or were adopted directly from the Asian immigrants and mercenaries who settled in Serbia in the 13th and 14th centuries.

As an outer garment entirely exposed to the eye, the caftan was used to show the taste, social rank, wealth, official position, and sometimes the ethnic origins of its owner. It was worn by men, women, and children of all societal strata. For the elite, it was made from luxurious textiles, ornamented with gilded embroidery, lined with expensive fur, and adorned with pearls and precious stones.

There are several types of caftans worn in late medieval Serbia, as detailed below:

1. Kavad

The kavad came to Serbia from Byzantium (Gr. καββάδιον). It was mentioned for the first time in the mid-13th century. The cut was based on the traditional Persian kaba. It was a long, lightly padded, lined coat, parted in the middle of the front. The sleeves were long and tight, as seen on the portrait of the prince in the Đurđevi Stupovi Monastery (1282/83) and the donors of the Kučevište Church (1332–37). It was worn with a metal girdle. Following Asian fashion, during the mid-14th century, the kavad developed a version with short sleeves as depicted on donors of the churches in Pološko (1343–45) and Zemen (ca. 1360). At the same time, the long sleeves received a slit along three-quarters of their length, as recorded on the portraits in Ohrid (St. Pantaleon Church, second quarter of the 14th century and St. Sofia, 1350–60). It was possible to button up such sleeves, as seen on the donor portraits of the Veluće Church (1373–77), but also to wear them entirely or partially open, showing the gown’s sleeves, as exemplified by the donors of the Ramaća Church (ca. 1392). At the end of the 14th century, such sleeves could have lacing instead of buttons as depicted on the donor portraits in the Jošanica Church (1388).

2. Beshmet

The beshmet came to Serbia with Caucasian refugees during the second half of the 13th century. It was cut at the waistline. Its wide bell-shaped skirt allowed easy movement, which made it especially suitable for riding. It was worn as a high-rank court garment in the early 14th century, as seen on King Stefan the First-Crowned (r. 1196–1227) represented in the Mother of God Ljeviška Church in Prizren (1309–13). Beshmets with distinctive ethnic cut and embellishments are worn by Jovan Oliver depicted in the Lesnovo Church (1342 and 1349). That the basic cut of the beshmet was integrated into the clothing of the Serbian nobility as shown by the caftan of the oldest donor in the Jošanica Church (1388) and the older part of the recycled caftan from the mid-15th century preserved in the Church of St. Peter near Novi Pazar.

3. Šuba

The šuba spread among the Slavs from the Altaic-Mongolian coat čuba due to direct contact with the Golden Horde. The Serbian šuba was made of wool, leather, or ticker silk lined with fur. It had overlong hanging sleeves. Its origin and existence in Serbia from the 14th century onward are confirmed by written sources and fresco depictions as in the monasteries of Žiča (1309–16) and Marko (1376/77). The šuba was worn without a belt.

4. Kontuš

This term and the garment came to Serbia with the Turkic-speaking peoples (Tur. kontoş, kontoz, kontayş). It was a caftan of a specific cut recorded in Serbian fresco painting as early as the second decade of the 14th century. One of the noblemen represented in King Milutin’s entourage in Žiča Monastery (1309–16) is clad in such a garment. It had overlong hanging sleeves and was worn with a belt. It could have a lighter textile lining, but for the wealthier people it was lined with fur.

5. Deel

The Mongolian deel was present in Serbia but was not integrated into local fashion. It came to Serbia with Golden Horde mercenaries and was a mark of their service and origin. It can be seen in painted form on the supplicant of the Karan Church (1338/39).

6. Zimarra

That late medieval Serbia was a place for the mingling of different dress styles coming from the East and the West is evident in the presence of the Italian zimarra. During the last quarter of the 14th and the first half of the 15th centuries, the zimarra was part of court dress, as seen on Princess Milica in Veluće Church (1373–77), the preserved caftan of Prince Lazar, and the Branković family of the Esphigmen Charter (1429). The zimarra can also be seen on the donor Milica of the Kalenić Church (1410s or 20s), made of sumptuous Italian velvets. The zimarra worn by women had a train whose length depended on the social position of the lady.

7. Caftan and Dolama

The gradual Ottoman presence in the Balkans from the second half of the 14th century onward directly impacted Serbian clothing. The first preserved example of the Ottoman kaftanlar is the upper garments of the male donors of the Maligrad’s church on Lake Prespa (1368/69). Their short sleeves had oval hanging extensions. The nobles presented in their churches from the second half of the 15th century all wore Ottoman kaftanlar or dolamalar with hanging sleeves and pointed collars. Ottoman caftans were popular in Serbia from the mid-15th until the mid-19th century.

Key Issues and Debates

Medieval dress in Serbia has been considered an important research issue ever since the interest in Serbian medieval history emerged in the second half of the 19th century. It was seen as an important national symbol that would differentiate Serbia from the long-lasting Ottoman rule and connect it again with its medieval cultural and religious roots. The significant number of preserved portraits of church donors from the 13th to the 16th centuries, scarce medieval written sources, and a small number of preserved textiles have been sufficient material to enable thorough research. Nevertheless, a comprehensive and independent study of dress in medieval Serbia has yet to be written.

As a part of the Byzantine political, religious, and cultural oikoumene, medieval Serbia and its culture, including clothing, have been mainly seen through Byzantine lenses. However, unlike church architecture and fresco painting, dress was a product of much more dynamic and less regulated and prescribed processes, not wholly controlled and designed by religious postulates. Therefore, it was a much more daring reflection of the time when the late medieval Byzantine and Serbian cultures were significantly inflected by the global process of cultural exchange and permeation.

As caftans in late medieval Serbia were mostly of Asian inspiration, their research suffered from a lack of interest. They were not even recognized as a separate group of garments until a decade ago. When rarely mentioned, they were considered Byzantine court garments that belonged either to the group of court kabbadia or to the granatza and lapatzas gowns. Their shape, color, ornaments, and textile motifs have been used to prove their owners’ court titles, being constantly squeezed into the known corpus of Byzantine court garments and their court protocols. When their eastern origins were recognized, they were just superficially described without any attempt at analysis or comparative study.

One such example is the extraordinary caftans of Jovan Oliver, one of the most prominent noblemen of King and Emperor Dušan Nemanjić’s court (r. 1331–55), represented in his two portraits in the Lesnovo Church (1342 and 1349). His caftans of the beshmet type have distinctively parted skirts and cloud collars of a particular Central Asian style. Being similar to the Caucasian tribal caftans, especially of the Kubachi region, they reveal the possible origins of Oliver’s family. Both caftans show that such garments’ specific cut and ornamentation could have profound ethnic properties other than Serbian. Nevertheless, these caftans are recognized by modern scholars either as the official court kabbadia of Byzantine sebastokrators and despots that led to the further misinterpretation of the origin of Oliver’s court titles as Byzantine and not Serbian or as a mere product of Oliver’s extravagance.

The other example is the caftan of župan Petar Brajan, supplicant of the Karan church (1338–39). He wears a distinctive Turco-Mongolian deel, parted at the right side, made of Chinese kamkha silk with significant Chino-Mongolian motifs of peony flowers and phoenix birds. Its overlong hanging sleeves are attached to the center of the backside in a Mongolian manner. Yet, this caftan has been defined as a Byzantine court lapatzas made of Italian silk. Brajan’s deel shows that the choice of caftan worn in late medieval Serbia could also be determined by the occupation of its owner. It testifies that he was a Golden Horde mercenary employed in King Milutin’s army. Such a choice of caftan also raises the question of Brajan’s ethnic origin, most probably Cuman. These two examples reveal that not everything worn in Serbia was of a local origin. In fact, most of the material evidence was not Serbian. Yet, a unique mixture of different dress styles and types coming from different corners of the world can be called Serbian.

The lack of a greater number of preserved textiles used in late medieval Serbia and often not enough detailed pictorial representations or written descriptions of garments made the research of caftans challenging during the 20th century, especially for scholars who had a lack of tailoring and craft knowledge. The low level of dress history research in Serbia without any serious attempt at its scientific development added to the problem. At the same time, the lack of a detailed study of the dress in Byzantium offered from the tailoring perspective, further limited and still limits the scope of the Serbian dress researchers.

On the other hand, the explosion of new research on Mongol, Chinese, and Central Asian medieval cultures in the first two decades of the 21st century has brought fresh and rich material for research on medieval caftans as garments first connected to the Asian steppe peoples. The preserved caftans offered a much-needed opportunity to study their cut and tailoring features, which offered material for further crucial development of Asian dress tailoring classification and history. That opened up the possibility of researching caftans worn in late medieval Serbia from the point of view of tailoring. Also, the publishing of dictionaries of Central Asian Turkic languages with a detailed etymology offered a resolution to the origins and meanings of the caftan terminology used in Serbia at that time, as preserved in contemporary written sources. That brought a whole set of new valuable results, presented here in short.

Further research into dress in Byzantium and medieval Serbia (or better said in the Balkans and the wider East European context) requires a carefully devised, comprehensive approach of an interdisciplinary team of experts. During the 14th century, Serbia covered a large portion of the Balkan Peninsula. Regional differences in clothing, including caftans, are evident but not yet studied and explained in detail.

Further Reading

Vuleta, Tatjana. “Garments with Hanging Sleeves: A General Review with Taxonomy of Style and Cut.” Patrimonium.MK 13 18 (2020): 411–454.

This is a detailed analysis and systematization of caftans according to the type of cut that includes all types of caftans worn in medieval Serbia).

Mirković, Lazar. “Haljina kneza Lazara.” [The Dress of Prince Lazar] Umetnički pregled 3 (1937): 72–73.

This is the first and only essаy on the preserved caftan of Prince Lazar from the second half of the 14th century. 

Temerinski, Željka, and Aleksandra Nitić. “Rekonstrukcija vlasteoske haljine iz Petrove crkve kod Novog Pazara.” [Reconstruction of the Dress of a Nobleman from St. Perer’s Church near Novi Pazar] Saopštenja 40 (2008): 77–87; includes a summary in English.

An analysis of a preserved caftan from the church of St. Peter near Novi Pazar from the middle of the 15th century.

Vuleta, Tatjana. “Lesnovski kavadi Jovana Olivera.” [Jovan Oliver’s Caftans from Lesnovo] Patrimonium.MK 8 13 (2015): 171–198; includes a summary in English.

This is a detailed stylistic, tailoring, and symbolic analysis of Jovan Oliver’s caftans painted in Lesnovo.

Vuleta, Tatjana. “Stade škripa žutijeh kavada.” [And the Yellow Kabadia Rustled No More] Zbornik Muzeja primenjene umetnosti 7 (2011): 17–30; includes a summary in English.

This is a detailed study of the kavadi worn in medieval Serbia as represented in fresco portraits of church donors.

Vuleta, Tatjana.“Strani elementi u odeždi karanskih ktitora – otisak sveta kao simbol etnosa.” I deo [Foreign Elements of Ktetor Attire in Karan – the Mark of the World as a Symbol of Ethnos.” Part 1] Patrimonium.MK 11 16 (2018): 223–242; includes a summary in English.

This article offers a detailed stylistic and tailoring analysis of Petar Brajan’s caftan painted in the White Church of Karan.

This contribution was sponsored by the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture at Hellenic College Holy Cross.