^Tmm msmiBEmm CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 189I BY HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE Date Due ^P ^?- g^'-ifeS3fly K>i »9^ IIM OCT JM. nPT 9 - ^ AUO^ 970 T ?7nrp-- 7ft AfB'^ r iWW^WZ" •if ffif Cornell University Library GT730 .C16 V 1 Engish costume bv '''9!J,|,P,]?Jff|9n|,i|JiiMJ''''° olin 3 1924 032 341 434 Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924032341434 ENGLISH COSTUME I.— EARLY ENGLISH ENGLISH COSTUME DION CLAYTON CALTHROP ILLUSTRATED WITH FULL-PAGE PLATES IN COLOUR AND MANY DIAGRAMS IN THE TEXT EACH SECTION PRICE 7S. 6da NET (post FREE 7S. lid.) I. EARLY ENGLISH n. MIDDLE AGES III. TUDOR AND STUART IV. GEORGIAN PvhlisJied hy A. & C. Black . Soho Square . London . W. AGENTS AMERICA . . THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64 & 66 FIFTH AVENUB, NEW VORK CANADA . . THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD. 27 Richmond street, TORONTO IHDIA . . . MACMILLAN & COMPANY, LTD. II Bank Street, BOMBAY 7 NEW CHINA BAZAAR STREET, CALCUTTA A CHILD OF THE TIME OF HENRY I. It is only in quite recent years that there have been quite distinct dresses for 'children, fashions indeed which began with the ideas for the improvement in hygiene. For many centuries children were dressed, with slight modifications, after the manner of their parents, looking like little men and women, until in the end they arrived at the grotesque infants of Hogarth's day, powdered and patched, with little stiff skirted suits and stiff brocade gowns, with little swords and little fans and, no doubt, many pretty airs and graces. One thing I have never seen until the early six- teenth century, and that is girls wearing any of the massive headgear of their parents ; in all other particulars they were the same. ENGLISH COSTUME BY DION CLAYTON CALTHROP I. EARLY ENGLISH LONDON ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 1906 A .^ 1X033 Contents WILLIAM THE FIRST PAGE The Men i The Women 7 WILLIAM THE SECOND The Men lo The Women . . . . . . . . • i S HENRY THE FIRST The Men 21 The Women . . . . . . • • • *5 STEPHEN The Men *9 The Women 37 HENRY THE SECOND The Men 4^ The Women 5' V vi CONTENTS RICHARD THE FIRST PAGE The Men 55 The Women ......... 59 JOHN The Men 62 The Women 65 HENRY THE THIRD The Men .......... 67 The Women ......... 73 The Country Folk (from the Conquest to the Reign of Edward I.) . . . . . . . . .76 List of Illustrations 1. A Child of the Time of Henry I. . 2. A Man of the Time of WilUam I. 3. A Woman of the Time of WUliam I. 4. A Man of the Time of William II. 5. A V/oman of the Time of William II. 6. A Man of the Time of Henry I. . 7. A Woman of the Time of Henry I. 8. A Man of the Time of Stephen 9. A Woman of the Time of Stephen 10. A Man of the Time of Henry II. 11. A Woman of the Time of Henry II. 12. A Man of the Time of Richard I. . 13. A Woman of the Time of Richard I. 14. A Man of the Time of John . 15. A Woman of the Time of John 16. A Man of the Time of Henry III. 17. A Woman of the Time of Henry III. 18. A Peasant of Early England Frontispiece FACING PAGE 1066-1087 . 2 8 10 16 22 26 30 38 46 52 56 60 62 66 68 74 78 1087-1100 1100-1135 1135-1154 1154-1189 1189-1199 1199-1216 1216-1272 vu INTKODUCTION The world, if we choose to see it so, is a compli- cated picture of people dressing and undressing. The history of the world is composed of the chat of a little band of tailors seated cross-legged on their boards ; they gossip across the centuries, feeling, as they should, very busy and important. Someone made the coat of many colours for Joseph, another cut into material for EUjah's mantle. Baldwin, from his stall on the site of the great battle, has only to stretch his neck round to nod to the tailor who made the toga for Julius Csesar ; has only to lean forward to smile to Pasquino, the wittiest of tailors. John Pepys, the tailor, gossips with his neigh- bour who cut that jackanapes coat with silver buttons so proudly worn by Samuel Pepys, his son. Mr. Schweitzer, who cut Beau Brummell's coat, talks to Mr. Meyer, who shaped his panta- ix X INTRODUCTION loons. Our world is full of the sound of scissors, the clipping of which, with the gossiping tongues, drown the grander voices of history. As you win see, I have devoted myself entirely to civil costume — ^that is, the clothes a man or a woman would wear from choice, and not by reason of an appointment to some ecclesiastical post, or to a mUitary calling, or to the Bar, or the Bench. Such clothes are but symbols of their trades and professions, and have been dealt with by persons who specialize in those professions. I have taken the date of the Conquest as my starting-point, and from that date — a very simple period of clothes — ^I have followed the changes of the garments reign by reign, fold by fold, button by button, until we arrive quite smoothly at Beau Brummell, the inventor of modern clothes, the prophet of cleanliness. I have taken considerable pains to trace the influence of one garment upon its successor, to reduce the wardrobe for each reign down to its simplest cuts and folds, so that the reader may follow quite easily the passage of the coat from its birth to its ripe age, and by this means may not INTRODUCTION xi only know the clothes of one time, but the reasons for those garments. Xo the best of my knowledge, such a thing has never been done before ; most works on dress try to include the world from Adam to Charles Dickens, lump a century into a page, and dismiss the ancient Egj^tians in a couple of colour plates. So many young gentlemen have blown away their patrimony on feathers and tobacco that it is necessary for us to confine ourselves to certain gentlemen and ladies in our own country. A knowledge of history is essential to the study of mankind, and a knowledge of history is never perfect without a knowledge of the clothes with which to dress it. A man, in a sense, belongs to his clothes ; they are so much a part of him that, to take him seriously, one must know how he walked about, in what habit, with what air. I am compelled to speak strongly of my own work because I beheve in it, and I feel that the series of paintings in these volumes are really a valuable addition to English history. To be modest is often to be excessively vain, and, having made xii INTRODUCTION an exhaustive study of my subject from my own point of view, I do not feel called upon to hide my knowledge under a bushel. Of course, I do not suggest that the ordinary cultured man should acquire the same amount of knowledge as a painter, or a writer of historical subjects, or an actor, but he should understand the clothes of his own people, and be able to visualize any date in which he may be interested. One half of the people who talk glibly of Beau BrummeU have but half an idea when he lived, and no idea that, for example, he wore whiskers. Hamlet they can conjure up, but would have some difficulty in recognising Shakespeare, because most portraits of him are but head and shoulders. Napoleon has stamped himself on men's minds very largely through the medium of a certain form of hat, a lock of hair, and a gray coat. In future years an orchid wiU be remembered as an emblem. I have arranged, as far as it is possible, that each plate shall show the emblem or distinguishing mark of the reign it illustrates, so that the con- tinuity of costume shall be remembered by the arresting notes. INTRODUCTION xiii As the fig-leaf identifies Adam, so may the chap- eron twisted into a cockscomb mark Richard II. As the curled and scented hair of Alcibiades occurs to our mind, so shall Beau Nash manage his clouded cane. Ehzabeth shall be helped to the memory by her Piccadilly ruff; square Henry VIII. by his broad-toed shoes and his little flat cap ; Anne Boleyn by her black satin nightdress ; James be called up as padded trucks ; Maximilian as puffs and slashes ; D'Orsay by the curve of his hat ; Tennyson as a dingy brigand ; Gladstone as a collar ; and even more recent examples, as the Whistlerian lock and the Burns blue suit. And what romantic incidents may we not hang upon our clothes-line ! The cloak of Samuel Pepys (' Dapper Dick,' as he signed himself to a certain lady) sheltering four ladies from the rain ; Sir Walter Raleigh spreading his cloak over the mud to protect the shoes of that great humorist Elizabeth (I never tMnk of her apart from the saying, 'Ginger for pluck ') ; Mary, Queen of Scots, ordering false attires of hair during her captivity — all these scenes clinched into reality by the knowledge of the dress proper to them. xiv INTRODUCTION And what are we doing to help modem history — the picture of our own times — that it may look beautiful in the ages to come? I cannot answer you that. Some chapters of this work have appeared in the Connoisseur, and I have to thankthe editor for his courtesy in allowing me to reproduce them. I must also thank Mr. Pownall for his help in the early stages of my labours. One thing more I must add : I do not wish this book to go forth and be received with that frigid pohteness which usually welcomes a history to the shelves of the bookcase, there to remain unread. The book is intended to be read, and is not wrapped up in grandiose phrases and a great wind about nothing ; I would wish to be thought more friendly than the antiquarian and more truthful than the historian, and so have endeavoured to show, in addition to the body of the clothes, some little of their soul. DION CLAYTON CALTHROP. St. Valentine's Day, 1906. A MAN OF THE TIME OF WILLIAM I. (1066 — 1087) Cloak buckled at the shoulder. Leather thongs crossed on his legs. Shoes of leather. Tunic fitting to his body like a jersey. WILLIAM THE FIRST Reigned twenty-one years : 1066 — 1087. Bom 1027. Married, 1053, Matilda of Flanders. THE MEN Why France should always give the lead in the matter of dress is a nice point in sar- torial morality — a morality which holds that it takes nine tailors to make a man and but one milliner to break him, a code, in fact, with which this book wiU often have to deal. Sartorially, then, we com- mence with the 14th of October, 1066, upon which day, fatal to the fashions of the country, the flag of King Harold, sumptuously woven and VOL. T. 1 2 ENGLISH COSTUME embroidered in gold, bearing the figure of a man fighting, studded with precious stones, was captured. WilUam, of Norse blood and pirate traditions, landed in England, and brought with him blood- shed, devastation, new laws, new customs, and new fashions. Principal among these last was the method of shaving the hair at the back of the head, which fashion speedily died out by reason of the parlous times and the haste of war, besides the utter absurdity of the idea. Fashion, however, has no sense of the ridiculous, and soon replaced the one folly by some other extravagance. William I. found the Saxons very plainly dressed, and he did little to alter the masculine mode. He found the Saxon ladies to be as excellent at embroidery as were their Norman sisters, and in such times the spindle side was content to sit patiently at home weaving while the men were abroad ravaging the country. Wilham was not of the stuff" of dandies. No man could draw his bow ; he helped with his own hands to clear the snowdrift on the march to Chester. Stark and fierce he was, loving the WILLIAM THE FIRST S solitudes of the woods and the sight of hart and hind. When some kind of order was restored in England, many of the Saxons who had fled the country and gone to Constantinople came back, bringing with them the Oriental idea of dress. The Jews came with Eastern merchandise into England, and brought rich-coloured stuffs, and as these spread through the country by slow degrees, there came a gradual change in colour and material, and finer stuffs replaced the old homespun garments. The Jews were at this time very eminent as sUk manufactm-ers and makers of purple cloth. The Britons had been very famous for their dyed woollen stuffs. Boadicea is said to have worn a tunic of chequered stuff, which was in all probabUity rather of the nature of Scotch plaids. The tunics worn by the men of this time were, roughly speaking, of two kinds : those that fitted close to the body, and those that hung loose, being gathered into the waist by a band. The close- fitting tunic was in the form of a knitted jersey, Avith skirts reaching to the knee ; it was open on either side to the hips, and fell from the hips in loose folds. The neck was sht open four or five 1—2 ENGLISH COSTUME inches, and had an edging of embroidery, and the sleeves were wide, and reached just below the elbows. These also had an edging of embroidery, or a band different in colour to the rest of the tunic. The other form of tunic was made exactly in shape like the modern shirt, except that the neck opening was smaller. It was loose and easy, with wide sleeves to th& elbow, and was gathered in at the waist by a band of stuff or leather. The skirts of the tunics were cut square or V-shaped in front and behind. There were also tunics similar in shape to either of those mentioned, except that the skirts were very short, and were tucked into wide, short breeches which reached to the knee, or into the trousers which men wore. Under this tunic was a plain shirt, loosely fitting, the sleeves tight and wrinkled over the wrist, the neck showing above the opening of the tunic. This shirt was generally white, and the opening WILLIAM THE FIRST at the neck was sometimes stitched with coloured or black wool. Upon the legs they wore neat-fitting drawers of wool or cloth, dyed or of natural colour, or loose trousers of the same materials, sometimes worn loose, but more generally bound round just above the knee and at the ankle. They wore woollen socks, and for footgear they wore shoes of skin and leather, and boots of soft leather shaped naturally to the foot and strapped or buckled across the instep. The tops of the boots were sometimes ornamented with coloured bands. The cloak worn was semicircular in shape, with or without a small semicircle cut out at the neck. It was fastened over the right shoulder or in the centre by means of a large round or square brooch, or it was held in place by means of a metal ring or a stuff loop through which the cloak was pushed; or it was tied by two cords sewn on to the right side of the cloak, which cords took a bunch of the stuff into a knot ENGLISH COSTUME and so held it, the ends of the cords having tags of metal or plain ornaments. One may see the very same make and fashion of tunic as the Normans wore under their armour being worn to-day by the Dervishes in Lower Egypt — a coarse wool tunic, well padded, made in the form of tunic and short drawers in one piece, the wide sleeves reaching just below the elbow. The hats and caps of these men were of the most simple form — plain round-topped skull- caps, flat caps close to the head without a brim, and a hat with a peak like the helmet. Hoods, of course, were worn during the winter, made very close to the head, and they were also worn under the helmets. Thus in such a guise may we picture the Norman lord at home, eating his meat with his fingers, his feet in loose skin shoes tied with thongs, his legs in loose trousers bound with crossed garters, his tunic open at the neck showing the white edge of his shirt, his face clean-shaven, and his hair neatly cropped. WILLIAM THE FIRST THE WOMEN Nothing could be plainer or more homely than the dress of a Norman lady. Her loose gown was made with ample skirts reaching well on to the ground, and it was gathered in at the waist by a belt of wool, cloth, silk, or cloth of gold web. The gown fitted easily across the shoulders, but feU from there in loose folds. The neck opening was cut as the man's, about five inches down the front, and the border ornamented with some fine needlework, as also were the borders of the wide sleeves, which came just below the elbows. Often the gown was made short, so that when it was girded up the border of it fell only to the knees, and showed the long chemise below. The girdle was, perhaps, the richest portion of their attire, and was sometimes of sUk diapered with gold thread, but such a girdle would be very costly. More often it would be plain wool, and be tied ENGLISH COSTUME simply round the waist with short ends, which did not show. The chemise was a plain white garment, with tight sleeves which Avrinkled at the wrists ; that is to say, they were really too long for the arm, and so were caught in small folds at the wrist. The gown, opening at the neck in the same way as did the men's tunics, showed the white of the chemise, the opening being held together sometimes by a brooch. Towards the end of the reign the upper part of the gown — that is, from the neck to the waist — ^was worn close and fitted more closely to the figure, but not over-tightly — much as a tight jersey would fit. Over all was a cloak of the semicircular shape, very voluminous — about three feet in diameter — which was brooched in the centre or on the shoulder. On the head, where the hair was closely coiled with a few curls at the forehead, a wimple was worn, which was wound about the head and thrown A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF WILLIAM I. (1066 — 1087) A TWIST of wool holds the gown at the waist. Under the gown the chemise shows. The necl< of the gown is embroidered. WILLIAM THE FIRST 9 over the shoulder, not allowing the hair to show. These wimples were sometimes very broad, and were almost hke a mantle, so that they fell over the shoulders below the breast. Tied round the wimple they sometimes had a snood, or band of silk. The shoes were like those worn by the men. These ladies were all housewives, cooking, pre- paring simples, doing embroidery, and weaving. They were their own milliners and dressmakers, and generally made their husbands' clothes, although some garments might be made by the town tailors ; but, as a rule, they weaved, cut, sewed, and fitted for their famiHes, and then, after the garments were finished to satisfaction, they would begin upon strips of embroidery to decorate them. In such occupation we may picture them, and imagine them sitting by the windows with their ladies, busily sewing, looking up from their work to see hedged fields in lambing-time, while shepherds in rough sheepskin clothes drove the sheep into a neat enclosure, and saw to it that they lay on warm straw against the cold February night. VOL. I. WILLIAM THE SECOND Reigned thirteen years : 1087 — 1100. Bom c. 1060. THE MEN About this time there came to England a Norman, who settled near by the Abbey of Battle — Baldwin the Tailor by name, whom one might call the father of English tailoring. Baldwin the Tailor sat contentedly cross-legged on his bench and plied his needle and thread, and snip- ped, and cut, and sewed, watching the birds pick worms and insects from the turf of the battle- ground. 10 A MAN OF THE TIME OF WILLIAM II. (1087 — 1 100) Shows the wide drawers with an embroidered hem. Under them can be seen the long woollen drawers bound with leather thongs. WILLIAM THE SECOND 11 England is getting a little more settled. The reign opens picturesquely enough with William Rufus hastening to England with his father's ring, and ends with the tragedy of the New Forest and a blood-stained tunic. Clothes begin to play an important part. Rich fur-lined cloaks and gowns trail on the ground, and sweep the daisies so lately pressed by mailed feet and sopped with blood where the Saxons feU. Times have changed since Baldwin was at the coronation at West- minster on Christmas Day twenty years ago. Flemish weavers and farmers arrive from overseas, and are estab- hshed by William II. in the North to teach the people pacific arts, '^^ ^loak pushed through a Eing. causing in time astream of Flemish merchandise to flow into the country, chiefly of rich fabrics and fine cloths. 2—2 12 ENGLISH COSTUME The men adopt longer tunics, made after the same pattern as before — spUt up either side and loose in the sleeve — but in many cases the skirts reach to the ground in heavy folds, and the sleeves hang over the hands by quite a yard. The necks of these tunics are ornamented as before, with coloured bands or stiff embroidery. The cuffs have the embroidery both inside and out, so that when the long sleeve is turned back over the hand the embroidery will show. The fashion in cloaks is stiU the same — of a semicircular pattern. The shoes are the same as in the previous reign — that is, of the shape of the foot, except in rare cases of dandyism, when the shoes were made with long, narrow toes, and these, being stuffed with moss or wool, were so stiffened and curled up at the ends that they presented what was supposed to be a deUghtfuUy extravagant appearance. They wore a sort of ankle garter of soft leather or cloth, which came over the top of the boot and just above the ankle. The hair, beard, and moustaches were worn long and carefully combed — in fact, the length of the beard caused the priests to rail at them under such WILLIAM THE SECOND 13 terms as ' filthy goats.' But they had hardly the right to censorship, since they themselves had to be severely reprimanded by their Bishops for their extravagance in dress. Many gentlemen, and especially the Welsh, wore long loose trousers as far as the ankle, leaving these garments free from any cross gartering. These were secured about the waist by a girdle of stuft or leather. The ultra - fashion- able dress was an elongation of every part of the simple dress of the previous reign. Given these few details, it is easy for anyone who wishes to go further to do so, in which case he must keep to the main out- line very carefuUy ; but as to the actual length of sleeve or shoe, or the very measurements of a cloak, they varied with the individual foUy of the owner. So a man might have long sleeves 14 ENGLISH COSTUME and a short tunic, or a tunic which trailed upon the ground, the sleeves of which reached only to the elbow. I have noticed that it is the general custom of writers upon the dress of this early time to dwell lovingly upon the colours of the various parts of the dress as they were painted in the illuminated manuscripts. This is a foolish waste of time, inso- much as the colours were made the means of displays of pure design on the part of the very early illuminators ; and if one were to go upon such evidence as this, by the exactness of such drawings alone, then every Norman had a face the colour of which nearly resembled wet biscuit, and hair picked out in brown lines round each wave and curl. These woollen clothes — -cap, tunic, semicircular cloak, and leg coverings — have all been actually found in the tomb of a Briton of the Bronze Age, So little did the ^clothes alter in shape, that the early Briton and the late Norman were dressed nearly exactly alike. When the tomb of WilUam II. was opened in 1868, it was found, as had been suspected, that the grave had been opened and looted of what valuables it might have contained; but there were found WILLIAM THE SECOND 15 among the dust which filled the bottom of the tomb fragments of red cloth, of gold cloth, a turquoise, a serpent's head in ivory, and a wooden spear shaft, perhaps the very spear that William carried on that fatal day in the New Forest. Also with the dust and bones of the dead King some nutshells were discovered, and examination showed that mice had been able to get into the tomb. So, if you please, you may hit upon a pretty moral. THE WOMEN And so the lady began to lace. . . . A moralist, a denouncer of the fair sex, a satirist, would have his fling at this. What thundering epithets and avalanche of words should burst out at such a momentous point in English history ! However, the lady pleased herself. Not that the lacing was very tight, but it commenced the habit, and the habit begat the harm, and the thing grew until it arrived finally at that buckram, square-built, cardboard-and-tissue figure which titters and totters through the EUzabethan era. 16 ENGLISH COSTUME Our male eyes, trained from infancy upwards to avoid gazing into certain shop windows, nevertheless retain a vivid impression of an awesome aflair therein, which we understood by hints and signs confined our mothers' figures in its deadly grip. That the lady did not lace herself overtight is proved by the many informations we have of her household duties ; that she laced tight enough for unkind comment is shown by the fact that some old monk pictured the devil in a neat-laced gown. It was, at any rate, a distinct departure from the loosely-clothed lady of 1066 towards the neater figure of 1135. The lacing was more to draw the wrinkles of the close-woven bodice of the gown smooth than to form a false waist and accentuated hips, the beauty of which malformation I must leave to the writers in ladies' journals and the condemnation to health faddists. However, the lacing was not the only matter of note. A change was coming over aU feminine apparel — a change towards richness, which made itself felt in this reign more in the fabric than in the actual make of the garment. The gown was open at the neck in the usual A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF WILLIAM II. (1087— I loo) This shows the gown, which is laced behind, fitting more closely to the figure. The sleeves are wider above the wrist. WILLIAM THE SECOND 17 manner, was fiill in the skirt and longer than heretofore, was laced at the back, and was loose in the sleeve. The sleeve as worn by the men — that is, the over- long sleeve hanging down over the hand — ^was also worn by the women, and hung down or was turned back, according to the freak of the wearer. Not only this, but a new idea began, which was to cut a hole in the long sleeve where the hand came, and, pushing the hand through, to let the rest of the sleeve droop down. This developed, as we shall see later. Then the cloak, which had before been fastened by a brooch on the shoulder or in the centre of the breast, was now held more tightly over the shoulders by a set of laces or bands which ran round the back from underneath the brooch where they were fastened, thus giving more definition to the shoulders. You must remember that such fashions as the hole in the sleeve and the laced cloak were not any more universal than is any modern fashion, and that VOL. I. 3 18 ENGLISH COSTUME the good dame in the country was about a century behind the times with her loose gown and heavy cloak. There were still the short gowns, which, being tucked in at the waist by the girdle, showed the thick wool chemise below and the unlaced gown, fitting Uke a jersey. The large wimple was stiU worn wrapped about the head, and the hair was still carefully hidden. Shall we imagine that it is night, and that the lady is going to bed ? She is in her long white chemise, standing at the window looking down upon the market square of a smaU town. The moon picks out every detail of carving on the church, and throws the porch into a dense gloom. Not a soul is about, not a light is to be seen, not a sound is to be heard. The lady is about to leave the window, when she hears a sound in the street below. She peers down, and sees a man running towards the church ; he goes in and out of the shadows. From her open window she can hear his heavy breathing. Now he WILLIAM THE SECOND 19 darts into the shadow of the porch, and then out of the gloom comes a furious knocking, and a voice crying, ' Sanctuary !' The lady at her window knows that cry well. Soon the monks in the belfry wiU awake and ring the Galilee-beU. The GaUlee-beU toUs, and the knocking ceases. A few curious citizens look out. A dog barks. Then a door opens and closes with a bang. There is silence in the square again, but the lady stiU stands at her window, and she foUows the man in her thoughts. Now he is admitted by the monks, and goes at once to the altar of the patron-saint of the church, where he kneels and asks for a coroner. The coroner, an aged monk, comes to him and confesses him. He tells his crime, and renounces his rights in the kingdom ; and then, in that dark church, he strips to his shirt and offers his clothes to the sacrist for his fee. Ragged, mud-stained clothes, torn cloak, aU fall from him in a heap upon the floor of the church. Now the sacrist gives him a large cloak with a cross upon the shoulder, and, having fed him, gives him into the charge of the under-sheriff, who will 3—2 20 ENGLISH COSTUME next day pass him from constable to constable towards the coast, where he will be seen on board a ship, and so pass away, an exile for ever. The night is cold. The lady puUs a curtain across the window, and then, stripping herself of her chemise, she gets into bed. HENRY THE FIRST Reigned thirty-five years : 1100 — 1135. Bom 1068. Married to Matilda of Scotland, 1100 ; to Adela of Louvain, 1121, THE MEN The Father of Popular Litera- ture, Gerald of Wales, says : ' It is better to be dumb than not to be understood. New- times require new fashions, and so I have thrown utterly aside the old and dry methods of some authors, and aimed at adopting the fashion of speech which is actually in vogue to-day.' Vainly, perhaps, I have en- deavoured to follow this pre- cept laid down by Father Gerald, trying by shght pictures of the times to make the dry bones live, 21 22 ENGLISH COSTUME to make the clothes stir up and puff themselves into the shapes of men. It is almost a necessity that one who would describe, paint, stage, or understand the costume of this reign should know the state of England at the time. For there is in this reign a distinction without a difference in clothes ; the shapes are almost identical to the shapes and patterns of the previous reigns, but everybody is a Kttle better dressed. The mantles worn by the few in the time of William the Red are worn now by most of the nobihty, fur-lined and very full. One may see on the sides of the west door of Rochester Cathedral Henry and his first wife, and notice that the mantle he wears is very full ; one may see that he wears a supertunic, which is gathered round his waist. This tunic is the usual Norman tunic reaching to the knee, but now it is worn over an undertunic which reaches to the ground in heavy folds. One may notice that the King's hair is long and elegantly twisted into pipes or ringlets, and that it hangs over his shoulders. No longer is the priestly abuse of ' filthy goat ' A MAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY I. (iioo— 1135) His hair is curled in ringlets ; he wears a long cloak. The shirt shows at the neck of the tunic. The small design in the corner is from a sanctuary door- knocker. HENRY THE FIRST 23 applicable, for Henry's beard is neatly trimmed and cut round his face. These two things are the only practical difference between the two dates — ^the end of the eleventh century and the beginning of the twelfth. The undertunic was made as a perfectly plain gown with tight sleeves ending at the wrist ; it hung loose and full upon the figure. Over this was worn the short tunic with wide sleeves ending at the elbow. Both tunics would have broad borders of embroidered work or bands of coloured material. The supertunic would be brooched by one of those circular Norman brooches which was an ornamental circle of open gold work in which stones and jewels were set. The brooch was fastened by a central pin. The extravagances of the previous reign were in some measure done away with ; even the very long hair was not fashionable in the latter half of this reign, and the ultra-long sleeve was not so usual. So we may give as a list of clothes for men in this reign : A white linen shirt, A long tunic, open at the neck, falling to the ground, with tight sleeves to the wrist. 24 ENGLISH COSTUME A short tunic reaching only to the knees, more open at the neck than the long tunic, generally fastened by a brooch. Tight, well-fitting drawers or loose trousers. Bandages or garters crossed from the ankle to the knee to confine the loose trousers or ornament the tights. Boots of soft leather which had an ornamental band at the top. Socks with an embroidered top. Shoes of cloth and leather with an embroidered band down the centre and round the top. Shoes of skin tied with leather thongs. Caps of skin or cloth of a very plain shape and without a brim. Belts of leather or cloth or silk. Semicircular cloaks fastened as previously de- scribed, and often lined with fur. The clothes of every colour, but with little or no pattern; the patterns principally confined to irregular groups of dots. And to think that in the year in which Henry died Nizami visited the grave of Omar Al Khajn^ram in the Hira Cemetery at Nishapur ! HENRY THE FIRST 25 THE WOMEN The greatest change in the appearance of the women was in the arrangement of the hair. After a hundred years or more of headcloths and hidden hair suddenly appears a head of hair. Until now a lady might have been bald for all the notice she took of her hair; now she must needs borrow hair to add to her own, so that her plaits shall be thick and long. It is easy to see how this came about. The hair, for convenience, had always been plaited in two plaits and coiled round the head, where it lay con- cealed by the wimple. One day some fine lady decides to discard her close and uncomfortable head-covering. She lets her plaits hang over her shoulders, and so appears in pubhc. Contempt of other ladies who have fine heads of hair for the thinness of her plaits ; competition in thick and long hair ; anger of ladies whose hair is not thick VOL. I. 4 26 ENGLISH COSTUME and long ; enormous demand for artificial hair ; failure of the supply to meet the ever-increasing demand; invention of silken cases filled with a substitute for hair, these cases attached to the end of the plaits to elongate them — in this manner do many fashions arrive and flourish, until such time as the common people find means of copying them, and then my lady wonders how she could ever have worn such a common affair. The gowns of these ladies remained much the same, except that the loose gown, without any show of the figure, was in great favour ; this gown was confined by a long girdle. The girdle was a long rope of silk or wool, which was placed simply round the waist and loosely knotted ; or it was wound round above the waist once, crossed behind, and then knotted in front, and the ends allowed to hang down. The ends of the girdle had tassels and knots depending from them. The silk cases into which the hair was placed were often made of silk of variegated colours, and these cases had metal ends or tassels. The girdles sometimes were broad bands of silk diapered with gold thread, of which manufacture specimens remain to us. A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY I. (iioo— 1135) This shows the pendant sleeve with an embroidered hem. The long plaits of hair ended with metal, or silk, tags. At the neck and wrists the white chemise shows. HENRY THE FIRST 27 The sleeves of the gowns had now altered in shape, and had acquired a sort of pendulent cuflf, which hung down about two hands' breadth from the wrist. The border was, as usual, richly orna- mented. Then we have a new invention, the pelisse. It is a loose sUk coat, which is brooched at the waist, or buttoned into a silk loop. The sleeves are long — ^that is, they gradually increase in size from the underarm to the wrist, and sometimes are knotted at the ends, and so are unhke the other gown sleeves, which grow suddenly long near to the wrist. This pelisse reaches to the knees, and is well open in front. The idea was evidently brought back from the East after the knights arrived back from the First Crusade, as it is in shape exactly Uke the coats worn by Persian ladies. We may conceive a nice picture of Countess Constance, the wife of Hugh Lufus, Earl of 4—2 28 ENGLISH COSTUME Chester, as she appeared in her dairy fresh from milking the cows, which were her pride. No doubt she did help to milk them ; and in her long under- gown, with her plaits once more confined in the folds of her wimple, she made cheeses — such good cheeses that Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, rejoiced in a present of some of them. What a change it must have been to Matilda, free of the veil that she hated, from the Black Nuns of Romsey, and the taunts and blows of her aunt Christina, to become the wife of King Henry, and to disport herself in fine garments and long plaited hair — Matilda the very royal, the daughter of a King, the sister to three Kings, the wife of a King, the mother of an Empress ! STEPHEN Reigned nineteen years : 1135 — 1154. Born 1094. Married, 1124, to Matilda of Boulogne. THE MEN When one regards the mass of material in exist- ence showing costume of the tenth and eleventh cen- turies, it appears curious that so little fabric remains of this particular period. The few pieces of fabric in existence are so worn and bare that they tell little^ whereas pieces of earlier date of English or Norman material are perfect, although thin and delicate. There are few illuminated manuscripts of the twelfth century, or of the first half of it, and to the 29 30 ENGLISH COSTUME few there are all previous historians of costume have gone, so that one is left without choice but to go also to these same books. The possibilities, however, of the manuscripts referred to have not been exhausted, and too much attention has been paid to the queer drawing of the illuminators ; so that where they utihzed to the full the artistic hcense, others have sought to pin it down as accurate delineation of the costume of the time. In this I have left out all the supereccentric costumes, fearing that such existed merely in the imagination of the artist, and I have apphed my- seK to the more ordinary and understandable. As there are such excellent works on armour, I have not touched at aU upon the subject, so that we are left but the few simple garments that men wore when they put oiF their armour, or that the peasant and the merchant habitually wore. Ladies occupied their leisure in embroidery and other fine sewing, in consequence of which the borders of tunics, of cloaks, the edgings of sleeves, and bands upon the shoes, were elegantly patterned. The more important the man, the finer his shoes. As will be seen from the drawings, the man wore his hair long, smoothly parted in the centre. A MAN OF THE TIME OF STEPHEN (1135—1154) He is wearing a cloalc with hood attached ; it is of skin, the smooth leather inside. He has an ankle gaiter covering the top of his shoes. On the arm over which the cloak hangs can be seen the white sleeve of the shirt. STEPHEN 31 with a lock drawn down the parting from the back of his head. As a rule, the hair curled back natur- ally, and hung on the shoulders, but sometimes the older fashion of the past reign remained, and the hair was carefully curled in locks and tied with coloured ribbon. Besides the hood as covering for the head, men wore one or other of the simple caps shown, made of cloth or of fur, or of cloth fur- Uned. Next to his skin the man of every class wore a shirt of the pattern shown — the selfsame shirt that we wear to-day, excepting that the sleeves were made very long and tight-fitting, and were pushed back over the wrist, giving those wrinkles which we notice on all the Bayeux tapestry sleeves, and which we see for many centuries in drawings of the undergarment. The shape has always remained the same ; the modes 32 ENGLISH COSTUME of fastening the shirt differ very slightly — so little, in fact, that a shirt of the fourth century which still remains in existence shows the same button and loop that we notice of the shirts of the twelfth century. The richer man had his shirt embroidered round the neck and sometimes at the cuffs. Over this garment the man wore his tunic — of wool, or cloth, or (rarely) of silk; the drawing explains the exact making of it. The tunic, as wiU be seen, was embroidered at the neck, the cuffs, and round the border. One draw- ing shows the most usual of these tunics, while the other drawings will explain the variations from it — either a tight sleeve made long and rolled back, a sleeve made very wide at the cufiF and allowed to STEPHEN 33 hang, or a sleeve made so that it fell some way over the hand. It was embroidered inside and out at the cufF, and was turned back to allow free use of the hand. Over the tunic was worn the cloak, a very simple garment, being a piece of cloth cut in the shape of a semicircle, embroidered on the border or not, according to the purse and position of the owner. Sometimes a piece was cut out to fit the neck. Another form of cloak was worn with a hood. This was generally used for travelling, or worn by such people as shepherds. It was made for the richer folk of fine cloth, fur-hned, or entirely of fur, and for the poorer people of skin or wool. The cloak was fastened by a brooch, and was pinned in the centre or on either shoulder, most generally on the right ; or it was pushed through a ring sewn on to the right side of the neck of the cloak. The brooches were practically the same as those worn in the earlier reigns, or were occasionally of a pure Roman design. As will be seen in the small diagrams of men wearing the clothes of the day, the tunic, the shirt, VOL. I. 5 34 ENGLISH COSTUME and the cloak were worn according to the season, and many drawings in the MSS. of the date show men wearing the shirt alone. On their legs men wore trousers of leather for riding, bound round with leather thongs, and trousers of wool also, bound with coloured straps of wool or cloth. Stockings of wool were worn, and cloth stockings also, and socks. There was a sock without a foot, jewelled or em- broidered round the top, which was worn over the stocking and over the top of the boot in the manner of ankle gaiters. The country man wore twists of straw round his calf and ankle. For the feet there were several varieties of boots and shoes made of leather and stout cloth, now and again with wooden soles. As has been said before, the important people rejoiced in elegant footgear STEPHEN 35 of all colours. All the shoes buttoned with one button above the outside ankle. The boots were sometimes tall, reaching to the bottom of the calf of the leg, and were rolled over, showing a coloured lining. Sometimes they were loose and wrinkled over the ankle. They were both, boot and shoe, made to fit the foot ; for in this reign nearly all the extravagances of the previous reign had died out, and it is rare to find drawings or mention of long shoes stuffed with tow or wool. During the reign of Stephen the nation was too occupied in wars and battles to indulge in excessive finery, and few arts flourished, although useful improvements occurred in the crafts. There is in the British Museum a fine enamelled plate of this date which is a representation of Henry of Blois, Stephen's brother, who was the Bishop of Winchester. Part of the inscription, translated by Mr. Franks, says that ' Art is above gold and gems,' and that ' Henry, while living, gives gifts of brass to God.' Champlev^ enamel was very finely made in the twelfth century, and many beautiful examples re- main, notably a plaque which was placed on the column at the foot of which Geof&ey Plantagenet 5—2 36 ENGLISH COSTUME was buried. It is a portrait of him, and shows the Byzantine influence still over the French style. This may appear to be rather apart from costume, but it leads one to suppose that the ornaments of the time may have been frequently executed in enamel or in brass — such ornaments as rings and brooches. It is hard to say anything definite about the colours of the dresses at this time. All that we can say is that the poorer classes were clothed prin- cipally in self-coloured garments, and that the dyes used for the clothes of the nobles were of very brilliant hues. But a street scene would be more occupied by the colour of armour. One would have seen a knight an* men-at-arms — the knight in his plain armour and the men in leather and steel ; a few merchants in coloured cloaks, and the common crowd in brownish-yellow clothes with occasional bands of colour encircling their waists. The more simply the people are represented, the more truthful will be the picture or presentation. Few pictures of this exact time are painted, and few stories are written about it, but this will give STEPHEN 37 all the information necessary to produce any picture or stage-play, or to illustrate any story. The garments are perfectly easy to cut out and make. In order to prove this I have had them made from the bare outlines given here, without any trouble. THE WOMEN Though many parts of Eng- land were at this time being harassed by wars, still the domestic element grew and flourished. The homes of the English from being bare and rude began to know the delights of em- broidery and weaving. The workroom of the ladies was the most civilized part of the castle, and the effect of the Norman invasion of foreign fashions was beginning to be felt. As the knights were away to their fighting, so were the knights' ladies engaged in sewing sleeve embroideries, placing of pearls upon shoes, making 38 ENGLISH COSTUME silk cases for their hair, and otherAvise stitching, cutting, and contriving against the return of their lords. It is recorded that Matilda escaped from Oxford by a postern in a white dress, and no doubt her women sympathizers made much of white for dresses. The ladies wore a simple undergarment of thin material called a sherte or camise ; this was bordered with some slight embroidery, and had tightish long sleeves pushed back over the wrist. The garment fell well on to the ground. This camise was worn by aU classes. The upper garment was one of three kinds : made from the neck to below the breast, including the sleeves of soft material ; from the breast to the hips it was made of some elastic material, as knitted wool or thin cloth, stiffened by criss-cross bands of cloth, and was fitted to the figure and laced up the back ; the lower part was made of the same material as the sleeves and bust. The second was made tight-fitting in the body A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF STEPHEN (1133—1154) Her dress fits to her figure by lacing at the back. Her long sleeves are tied up to I