Sunday, June 03, 2012

Question from Karen - 'Middling height'

Hi. Love the site and find it very informative so hopefully someone here can help with this question.

Whenever you read historical descriptions of people from the era from their contemporaries, you get things like "he/she was of middling height" or he was "above middle height". There is a portrait of Edward VI that hangs in Hampton Court and it is said that it shows him at his full "above middle height".

My question: what is meant by this? What is/was middle height? I have tried to look it up on the web but cannot get an answer. Thanks to all.

3 comments:

Mary R said...

The average man in Tudor times stood about 5'6" or 5'7". I'd presume that would be what was meant by "middling height".

Mary R said...

I meant to say that the average man in Tudor times stood about five foot six or five foot seven!

Tudorrose said...

yyThe term "Middling height" means that he/she was of medium height. So not too tall nor too short.