Overstocking

I made a hurried attempt to change my thick fur “torbassa” and overstockings for American boots, but was surprised in the very act by the drawing up of my sledge before the house of the Russian priest, where we intended to stop until we could make arrangements for a house of our own.[…]As soon as I could disencumber my feet of my overstockings I alighted from my sledge, amid profound bows and “zdrastvuitias” from the crowd, and received a hearty welcome from the patriarchal priest.

Michael laughed and offered fifty dollars for the sweater, the overstockings and the muffler. Just as the second sleeve was being finished and before Mrs. Andy Ned had started the overstockings or the muffler, Andy Ned went away up to the Black Hat Creek range to look for the five steers that he had turned out there the previous autumn.

Boot hose, made of a thicker material such as linen, popular until the 1680s, were a kind of overstocking worn to protect the thinner stockings.[…]Stirrup hose worn throughout the century, were used as protection when horse riding and were similar to long overstockings without soles, but with a strap beneath to hold them down.

As white understockings, which may easily have been completely hidden, also occur, it is possible that the well-dressed man often wore three pairs of stockings. Roelof de Man — always a standard of elegance in Cape terms — had twelve pairs of white understockings and fourteen pairs of overstockings, including examples in green Naples silk, pearl-coloured English silk, ash-grey wool (sajet), black English silk, red serge, and white linen. While Ensign [Pieter] Evriard runs him a close second with five pairs of white understockings and thirteen pairs of overstockings in a rather similar range of colours and materials.

He [Jeremias van Rensselaer] may have worn understockings to protect the outer pair from sweat and foot odors; in the 1650s, overstockings or ‘canons,’ which were widened and decorated at the top, better fitted the wider boots worn by men at this time. Overstockings replaced the large, colorful, and eye-catching garters (kousebanden) that had previously been very popular, and which protected the expensive stockings from the rough boot.