Fynes Moryson began his account of Germany in the Itinerary with the observation that it experienced ‘farre greater cold then England lying more Northerly’. It does not say much for Moryson's sense of latitude, but the cultural implications were notable. Moryson described the ‘hot stoves’ or saunas used by Germans to counter their cold clime:

Moryson did not at first enjoy the experience, but ‘after I had used them, custome became another nature, for I never injoyed my health in any place better then there’.

The importance of dried and stored fruit in the German diet followed, as did comments about clothing and climate that neatly segued into commodities:

Men of inferior rank tended to wear coarse German cloth. Gentlemen and the better sort enjoyed colourful clothing – they explained to Moryson that ‘the variety of colours shewed the variety of God's workes’. They liked English cloth of green or yellow rather than Italian silks and velvets. It was in the context of sober German apparel that Moryson would have expected his attack on English fashion and general approval of Scottish habits – women who dressed after the German fashion – to be read.