Northern Renaissance

Disney has set many of their princesses in different time periods but obviously the costumes are not so historically accurate - and they shouldn't be. Artistic freedom is important specially when it's about the movies which are base on fairytales and not actual historical happenings. But I really love seeing these princesses in different time periods.

This is Snow White and disney set her story in 16th century Germany. Germany was in the middle of Protestant Reformation in 16th century when Martin Luther started to criticized Catholic Church (he wasn't the first one). Germany or actually Holy Roman Empire was by the time dived to many different states which, I think, where quite autonomic. Every state had it own ruler (elector) and if I understand it correctly one of these electors was chosen to be the emperor of Holy Roman Empire. So they had elective monarchy and not hereditary monarchy, where usually oldest son will be the next king. Sweden had this same system but Gustaf Vasa changed the elective monarchy to hereditary monarchy in 16th century. 

Many german princesses from these states married to the other European countries and some of them became quite famous like Anne of Cleves (fourth wife of Henry VIII of England), Elizabeth "Sisi" of Austria (wife of Franz Joseph of Austria) and Alexandra Feodrovna (Alix of Hesse, wife of Nicholas II of Russia). Snow White was 14 in the film and even if she does sound quite young to marry that wasn't really unusual in 16th century. People didn't live that long and the concept "teenage" wasn't even invented yet. Royals married to their close relatives to keep their "pure blood" and money in family which caused that that many royals suffered from different diseases. Marriages were also important in political reasons and that's why the couples had a little to say about these matters.    

The beauty standards in 16th century were quite close to the description of Snow White: "Lips red as the rose. Hair black as ebony. Skin white as snow". Rosy cheeks and lips and also pale skin where consider beautiful in 16th century because it represented youth. Only the hair doesn't fit in 16th century beauty standards - it's too short (the movie was made in 30s so of course it's short) and too dark. Strawberry blonde hair was considered the most beautiful in 16th century because it made woman look younger and innocent than dark hair. Also a short hair was definitely no unless you were wearing a wig like Elizabeth I in her later years. Then the short hair was just more practical. 

Inspiration by Lucas Cranach's portraits: 
hoocher.com/Lucas_Cranach_the_…
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia…
www.wikiart.org/en/lucas-crana…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Luc… (This is picture is actually a portrait of Anne of Cleves's sister, Sibylle.)