Braies are extremely comfortable, although very unlike normal 20th century underwear. I suppose this is because we are just unused to this much material in garments. As an example, I've slept in mine on a number of occasions and woken to find that they had "lagged" by (what felt like!) two or three circuits while I had rolled over during the night.
For knights, the padded waistband is a major bonus when wearing mail hose (chausses) - the separate chausses' belt rests quite neatly on the waistband and this provides reasonable padding to the pelvis and the support necessary for these heavy items.
In the mornings it normally takes me a few minutes to get the drawstring comfortable and to organise all the material around the waistband. The fabric seems to bunch up in some places and not in others, and getting this quantity evenly distributed requires a little care.
In toilet terms - you kind of have to know, don't you? - there's a picture of King Saul in the Maciejowski Bible that shows the King squatting with his braies down around his knees, as David slices off a chunk of his cloak. Quite some balance that King's got, I can tell you. For a stand-up pee, the slit legs are a great bonus and, when worn with hose, it only requires a moment to tuck the braies' leg neatly back into the hose.
While some may think that braies cut to this pattern may look daft to our current way of looking at things, they do recreate the shape that this underwear was, and they are utterly lovely to wear in a light breeze, either hoseless or hose-down after fighting on a hot day!
Braies
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