CLOAKS AND THEIR COUSINS
U
nder the general heading of cloaks I intend to write of the various
capelike shoulder-coverings, for both men and women, which were worn in
the two centuries of costume whereof this book treats. Often it is
impossible to determine whether a garment should be classed as a hood
or a cloak, for so many cloaks were made with head-coverings. Both
capuchins and cardinals, garments of popularity for over a century, had
hoods, and were worn as head-gear.
There is shown here a full, long cloak of rich scarlet broadcloth,
which is the oldest cloak I know. It has an interesting and romantic
history. No relic in Salem is more noteworthy than this. It has
survived since witchcraft days; and with right care, care such as it
receives from its present owner, will last a thousand years. It was
worn by Judge Curwen, one of the judges in those dark hours for Salem;
and is still owned by Miss Bessie Curwen, his descendant. It will be
noted that it bears a close resemblance to the Shaker cloaks of to-day,
though the hood is handsomer. This hood also is detached from the cape.
The presiding justice in the Salem witchcraft trials was William
Stoughton, a severe Puritan. In later years Judge Sewall, his
fellow-judge, in an agony of contrition, remorse, self-reproach,
self-abnegation, and exceeding sorrow at those judicial murders, stood
in Boston meeting-house, at a Sabbath service while his pastor read
aloud his confession of his cruel error, his expression of his remorse
therefor. A striking figure is he in our history. No thoughtful person
can regard without emotions of tenderest sympathy and admiration that
benignant white-haired head, with black skullcap, bowed in public
disgrace, which was really his honor. But Judge Stoughton never
expressed, in public or private, remorse or even regret. I doubt if he
ever felt either. He plainly deemed his action right. I wish he could
tell us what he thinks of it now. In his portrait here he wears a
skullcap, as does Judge Sewall in his portrait, and a cloak with a cape
like that of his third associate, Judge Curwen. Judge Sewall had both
cloak and hood. Possibly all judges wore them. Judge Stoughton’s cloak
has a rich collar and a curious clasp.
Scarlet Broadcloth Hooded Cloak. Scarlet Broadcloth Hooded Cloak.
Stubbes of course told of the fashion of cloak-wearing:—
“They have clokes also in nothing discrepant from the rest; of dyverse
and sundry colours, white red tawnie black, green yellow russet purple
violet and an infinyte of other colours. Some of cloth silk velvet
taffetie and such like; some of the Spanish French or Dutch fashion.
Some short, scarcely reaching to the gyrdlestead or waist, some to the
knee, and othersome trayling upon the ground almost like gownes than
clokes. These clokes must be garded laced &; thorouly full, and
sometimes so lined as the inner side standeth almost in as much as the
outside. Some have sleeves, othersome have none. Some have hoodes to
pull over the head, some have none. Some are hanged with points and
tassels of gold silver silk, some without all this. But howsoever it
bee, the day hath bene when one might have bought him two Clokes for
lesse than now he can have one of these Clokes made for. They have such
store of workmanship bestowed upon them.”
It is such descriptions as this that make me regard in admiration this
ancient Puritan. Would that I had the power of his pen! Fashion-plates,
forsooth! The _Journal of the Modes_!—pray, what need have we of any
pictures or any mantua-maker’s words when we can have such a
description as this. Why! the man had a perfect genius for millinery!
Had he lived three centuries later, we might have had Master Stubbes in
full control (openly or secretly, according to his environment) of some
dress-making or tailoring establishment _pour les dames_.
The lining of these cloaks was often very gay in color and costly;
“standing in as much as the outside.” We find a son of Governor
Winthrop writing in 1606:—
“I desire you to bring me a very good camlet cloake lyned with what you
like except blew. It may be purple or red or striped with those or
other colors if so worn suitable and fashionable.... I would make a
hard shift rather than not have the cloak.”
Similar cloaks of scarlet, and of blue lined with scarlet, formed part
of the uniform of soldiers for many years and for many nations. They
were certainly the wear of thrifty comfortable English gentlemen. Did
not John Gilpin wear one on his famous ride?
“There was all that he might be
Equipped from head to toe,
His long red cloak well-brushed and neat
He manfully did throw.”
Scarlet was a most popular color for all articles of dress in the early
years of the eighteenth century. Like the good woman in the Book of
Proverbs, both English and American housewife “clothed her household in
scarlet.” Women as well as men wore these scarlet cloaks. It is curious
to learn from Mrs. Gummere that even Quakers wore scarlet. When
Margaret Fell married George Fox, greatest of Quakers, he bought her a
scarlet mantle. And in 1678 he sent her scarlet cloth for another
mantle. There was good reason in the wear of scarlet; it both was warm
and looked warm; and the color was a lasting one. It did not fade like
many of the homemade dyes.
Judge Stoughton. Judge Stoughton.
A very interesting study is that of color in wearing apparel. Beginning
with the few crude dyes of mediaeval days, we could trace the history
of dyeing, and the use and invention of new colors and tints. The names
of these colors are delightful; the older quaint titles seem
wonderfully significant. We read of such tints as billymot, phillymurt,
or philomot (feuille-mort), murry, blemmish, gridolin (gris-de-lin or
flax blossom), puce colour, foulding colour, Kendal green, Lincoln
green, treen-colour, watchet blue, barry, milly, tuly, stammel red,
Bristol red, zaffer-blue, which was either sapphire-blue or
zaffre-blue, and a score of fanciful names whose signification and
identification were lost with the death of the century. Historical
events were commemorated in new hues; we have the political,
diplomatic, and military history of various countries hinted to us.
Great discoveries and inventions give names to colors. The materials
and methods of dyeing, especially domestic dyes, are most interesting.
An allied topic is the significance of colors, the limitation of their
use. For instance, the study of blue would fill a chapter. The dress of
’prentices and serving-men in Elizabeth’s day was always blue blue
cloaks in winter, blue coats in summer. Blue was not precisely a
livery; it was their color, the badge of their condition in life, as
black is now a parson’s. Different articles of dress clung to certain
colors. Green stockings had their time and season of clothing the
sturdy legs of English dames as inevitably as green stalks filled the
fields. Think of the years of domination of the green apron; of the
black hood—it is curious indeed.
In such exhaustive books upon special topics as the _History of the
Twelve Great Livery Companies of London_ we find wonderfully
interesting and significant proof of the power of color; also in many
the restrictive sumptuary laws of the Crown.
It would appear that this long, scarlet cloak never was out of wear for
men and women until the nineteenth century. It was, at times, not the
height of the fashion, but still was worn. Various ancient citizens of
Boston, of Salem, are recalled through letter or traditions as clinging
long to this comfortable cloak. Samuel Adams carried a scarlet cloak
with him when he went to Washington.
I shall tell in a later chapter of my own great-great-grandmother’s
wear of a scarlet cloak until the opening years of the nineteenth
century. During and after the Revolution these cloaks remained in high
favor for women. French officers, writing home to France glowing
accounts of the fair Americans, noted often that the ladies wore
scarlet cloaks, and Madame Riedesel asserted that all gentlewomen in
Canada never left the house save in a scarlet silk or cloth cloak.
“A woman’s long scarlet cloak, almost new with a double cape,” had been
one of the articles feloniously taken from the house of Benjamin
Franklin, printer, in Philadelphia, in 1750. Debby Franklin’s dress, if
we can judge from what was stolen, was a gay revel of color. Among the
articles was one gown having a pattern of “large red roses and other
large yellow flowers with blue in some of the flowers with many green
leaves.”
In the _Life of Jonathan Trumbull_ we read that when a collection was
taken in the Lebanon church for the benefit of the soldiers of the
Continental army, when money, jewels, clothing, and food were gathered
in a great heap near the pulpit, Madam Faith Trumbull rose up, threw
from her shoulders her splendid scarlet cloth cloak, a gift from Count
Rochambeau, advanced to the altar and laid the cloak with other
offerings of patriotism and generosity. It was used, we are told, to
trim the uniforms of the Continental officers and soldiers.
Woman’s Cloak. From Hogarth. Woman’s Cloak. From Hogarth.
One of the first entries in regard to dress made by Philip Fithian in
1773, when he went to Virginia as a school-teacher, was that “almost
every Lady wears a Red Cloak; and when they ride out they tye a Red
Handkerchief over their Head &; Face; so when I first came to Virginia,
I was distrest whenever I saw a Lady, for I thought she had the
Tooth-Ach!” When the young tutor left his charge a year later, he wrote
a long letter of introduction, instruction, and advice to his
successor; and so much impression had this riding-dress still upon him
that he recounted at length the “Masked Ladies,” as he calls them,
explaining that the whole neck and face was covered, save a narrow slit
for the eyes, as if they had “the Mumps or Tooth-Ach.” It is possible
that the insect torments encountered by the fair riders may have been
the reason for this cloaking and masking. Not only mosquitoes and flies
and fleas were abundant, but Fithian tells of the irritating illness
and high fever of the fairest of his little flock from being bitten
with ticks, “which cover her like a distinct smallpox.”
In seventeenth-century inventories an occasional item is a rocket. I
think no better description of a rocket can be given than that of Celia
Fiennes:—
“You meete all sorts of countrywomen wrapped up in the mantles called
West Country Rockets, a large mantle doubled together, of a sort of
serge, some are linsey-woolsey and a deep fringe or fag at the lower
end; these hang down, some to their feet, some only just below the
waist; in the summer they are all in white garments of this sort, in
the winter they are in red ones.”
This would seem much like a blanket shawl, but the word was also
applied to the scarlet round cloak.
Another much-used name and cloaklike garment was the roquelaure. A very
good contemporary definition may be copied from _A Treatise on the
Modes_, 1715; it says it is “a short abridgement or compendium of a
coat which is dedicated to the Duke of Roquelaure.” It was simply a
shorter cloak than had been worn, and it was hoodless; for the great
curled wigs with heavy locks well over the shoulders made hoods
superfluous; and even impossible, for men’s wear. It was very speedily
taken into favor by women; and soon the advertisements of lost articles
show that it was worn by women universally as by men. In the _Boston
News Letter_, in 1730, a citizen advertises that he has lost his “Blue
Cloak or Roculo with brass buttons.” This was the first of an ingenious
series of misspellings which produced at times a word almost unrelated
to the original French word. Rocklow, rockolet, roquelo, rochelo,
roquello, and even rotkello have I found. Ashton says that scarlet
cloth was the favorite fabric for roquelaures in England; and he deems
the scarlet roclows and rocliers with gold loops and buttons “exceeding
magnifical.” I note in the American advertisements that the lost
roquelaures are of very bright colors; some were of silk, some of
camlet; generally they are simply ‘cloth.’ Many of the American
roquelaures had double capes. I think those handsome, gay cloaks must
have given a very bright, cheerful aspect to the town streets of the
middle of the eighteenth century.
Sir William Pepperell, who was ever a little shaky in his spelling, but
possibly no more so than his neighbors, sent in 1737 from Piscataqua to
one Hooper in England for “A Handsom Rockolet for my daughter of about
15 yrs. old, or what is ye Most Newest Fashion for one of her age to
ware at meeting in ye Winter Season.”
The capuchin was a hooded cloak named from the hooded garment worn by
the Capuchin monks. The date 1752 given by Fairholt as an early date of
its wear is far wrong. Fielding used the word in _Tom Jones_ in 1749;
other English publications, in 1709; and I find it in the _Letters of
Madame de Sévigné_ as early as 1686. The cardinal, worn at the same
date, was originally of scarlet cloth, and I find was generally of some
wool stuff. At one time I felt sure that cardinal was always the name
for the woollen cloak, and capuchin of the silken one; but now I am a
bit uncertain whether this is a rule. Judging from references in
literature and advertisements, the capuchin was a richer garment than
the cardinal. Capuchins were frequently trimmed liberally with lace,
ribbons, and robings; were made of silk with gauze ruffles, or of
figured velvet. One is here shown which is taken from one of Hogarth’s
prints.
A Capuchin. From Hogarth. A Capuchin. From Hogarth.
This notice is from the _Boston Evening Post_ of January 13, 1772:—
“Taken from Concert Hall on Thursday Evening a handsom Crimson Satin
Capuchin trimmed with a rich white Blond Lace with a narrow Blond Lace
on the upper edge Lined with White Sarsnet.”
In 1752 capuchins and cardinals were much worn, especially purple ones.
The _Connoisseur_ says all colors were neglected for purple. “In purple
we glowed from hat to shoe. In such request were ribbons and silks of
that famous color that neither milliner mercer nor dyer could meet the
demand.”
The names “cardinal” and “capuchin” had been derived from monkish wear,
and the cape, called a pelerine, had an allied derivation; it is said
to be derived from _pèlerin_—meaning a pilgrim. It was a small cape
with longer ends hanging in front; and was invented as a light, easily
adjustable covering for the ladies’ necks, which had been left so
widely and coldly bare by the low-cut French bodices. It is said that
the garment was invented in France in 1671. I do not find the word in
use in America till 1730. Then mantua-makers advertised that they would
make them. Various materials were used, from soft silk and thin cloth
to rich velvet; but silk pelerines were more common.
In 1743, in the _Boston News Letter_, Henrietta Maria East advertised
that “Ladies may have their Pellerines made” at her mantua-making shop.
In 1749 “pellerines” were advertised for sale in the _Boston Gazette_
and a black velvet “pellerine” was lost.
In the quotation heading this chapter, manteel, pelerine, and neckatee
precede the capuchin; but in fact the capuchin is as old as the
pelerine. Beyond the fact that all mantua-makers made neckatees, and
that they were a small cape, this garment cannot be described. It
required much less stuff than either capuchin or cardinal. The
“manteel” was, of course, as old as the cloak. Elijah “took his mantle
and wrapped it together, and smote the waters.” In the Middle Ages the
mantle was a great piece of cloth in any cloaklike shape, of which the
upper corners were fastened at the neck. Often one of the front edges
was thrown over one shoulder. In the varied forms of spelling and
wearing, as manto, manteau, mantoon, mantelet, and mantilla the
foundation is the same. We have noted the richness and elegance of
Madam Symonds’s mantua. We could not forget the word and its
signification while we have so important a use of it in mantua-maker.
Lady Caroline Montagu. Lady Caroline Montagu.
Dauphiness was the name of a certain style of mantle, which was most
popular about 1750. Harriot Paine had “Dauphiness Mantles” for sale in
Boston in 1755. A rude drawing in an old letter indicates that the
“Dauphiness” had a deep point at the back, and was cut up high at the
arm-hole. It was of thin silk, and was trimmed all around the lower
edge with a deep, full frill of the silk, which at the arm-hole fell
over the arm like a short sleeve.
Many were the names of those pretty little cloaks and capes which were
worn with the sacque-shaped gowns. The duchess was one; we revived the
name for a similar mantle in 1870. The pelisse was in France the cloak
with arm-holes, shown, here, upon one of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s engaging
children. The pelisse in America sometimes had sleeves, I am sure; and
was hardly a cloak. It is difficult to classify some forms which seem
almost jackets. A general distinction may be made not to include
sleeved garments with the cloaks; but several of the manteaus had
loose, large, flowing sleeves, and some like Madam Symonds’s had
detached sleeves. It is also difficult to know whether some of the
negligees were cloaks or sacque-like gowns. And there is the other
extreme; some of the smaller, circular neck-coverings like the
van-dykes are not cloaks. They are scarcely capes; they are merely
collars; but there are still others which are a bit bigger and are
certainly capes. And are there not also capes, like the neckatee, which
may be termed cloaks? Material, too, is bewildering; a light gauze
thing of ribbons and furbelows like the Unella is not really a cloak,
yet it takes a cloaklike form. There are no cut and dried rules as to
size, form, or weight of these cloaks, capes, collars, and hoods, so I
have formed my own classes and assignments.