One Shirt, Two Shirt

After 10+ years, it was time to make some new shirts for my husband. I used an old one to pattern from, but they are all in quite sad condition.  In the past, I've always followed the wonderful shirt pattern by Grace Gamble (GG), which is based on an extant boys shirt from c. 1535-50.  But, in the years since my last run of shirts, Patterns of Fashion 4 (PoF4) was published, providing intimate details of a number of extant shirts.

I wanted to refine one of the new shirts so that it more closely resembled the other shirts in PoF4.  After reviewing PoF4, I realized that the shirt pattern in The Tudor Tailor (TT) did a great job of incorporating the most common elements and providing a size reference which made it easier to scale.  So this is the pattern I ultimately followed.  The one exception was that I cut the body pieces less full that most of the extant examples.  This was due to the size of the linen fabric I was working from.  In fact, one of the shirts has extra wide "pirate" cuffs to compensate for the sleeves being too short.😒

Here are the various measurements for comparison.  All numbers are inches.
Body
Original TT: 38 (H) x 36 (W)
Scaled up TT: 43 x 42
Shirt 1 cutting: 37.5 x 30

Prior GG shirt: 36 x 28.5
Shirt 2 cutting: 36 x 30

Sleeve
Original TT: 20 (W) x 23 (L)
Scaled up TT: 22 x 25
Shirt 1 cutting: 22 x 23

Prior GG shirt: 17.5 x 27.5
Shirt 2 cutting: 18 x 30

Shirts are basically a collection of various sized rectangles.  In the Gamble pattern, and the boys shirt, the underarm gussets are cut out from the body piece.  Most of the other extant shirts have a separate piece inserted as an underarm gusset.  This is a simple enough change, and other than moving the placement of the shoulder seam and shortening the length of the sleeve, it was a minimal impact.  Personally, I find it easier to sew/construct with the external gusset.

Sketch showing the different underarm gusset types.

The other subtle change I made was to follow the more common neckline.  Most of the extant shirts are cut almost straight or with only a slight dip for the neck front.  The result was a neck that sat much higher and was uncomfortable.

The straight neck creates a fold or sits much higher

After a fitting, my husband felt the neck was too uncomfortable for him to wear, so I rounded out the neck opening similar to the Gamble pattern.  As a result, the neck line now sits much more naturally on the neck.

The left shows the original neck line and the right shows it after rounding to better fit the neck

The shirt neck now fits the natural neck

I'm a bit perplexed by the neck and why this happened.  Did I interpret the extant shirts incorrectly?  Did they wear uncomfortable shirts?  Did the lack of gathers/fullness of the body change the way the neck fit?

The second shirt was made, by request, following the Gamble pattern.  I'm curious to see what the feedback is after each shirt gets worn a bit.