The a\u011fr\u0131z is a\u00a0mystery garment worn by very poor male agricultural laborers (all but one of the recorded wearers are escaped slaves) and made of the mystery fabric \u201ca\u011fr\u0131z,\u201d which was probably a variety of felt.<\/p>\n
As igriz (or rarely agriz), it appears in Ottoman-era 16th-century Hungarian customs records.<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> It’s usually written kebe-i igriz<\/em>, Ottoman Turkish “felt (or felt garment) made of igriz.” Pach Zsigmond P\u00e1l, who studied the Hungarian textile trade extensively, believes the root of the word is Latin griseus<\/em>, from pannus griseus<\/em>, “gray cloth.” This was a medieval term for a cheap, undyed cloth made from the wool of differently colored sheep and used for coarse clothing, or as the lining of fine clothing.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span> The phrase was in use in 13th-century Hungary,<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> leaving plenty of time for it to encounter the Ottoman Turks and be exported to Anatolia alongside Hungarian “gray cloth.”<\/p>\n If P\u00e1l’s theory is correct, then the fabric may have changed along with the name. The only examples of pannus griseus<\/em> I could find were from Tyrol,<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span> hundreds of miles to the west and a poor point of comparison. However, this pannus griseus<\/em> was 16th century, contemporary with the Istanbul-area records of slaves wearing a\u011fr\u0131z, and it was clearly a woven fabric, while the Hungarian and Istanbul records describe igriz\/agriz as felt. Possibly the 16th-century Hungarian product was a gray felt made from the wool of differently colored sheep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The a\u011fr\u0131z is a\u00a0mystery garment worn by very poor male agricultural laborers (all but one of the recorded wearers are escaped slaves) and made of the mystery fabric \u201ca\u011fr\u0131z,\u201d which was probably a variety of felt. As igriz (or rarely agriz), it appears in Ottoman-era 16th-century Hungarian customs records. It’s\u2026<\/p>\n