The ladies of Old France--Their fashions during the reign of
King Pepin--Revival of the taste for small waists--Introduction
of "_cottes hardies_"--Monkish satire on the Corset in England
in the year 1043, curious MS. relating to--The small waists
of the thirteenth century--The ancient poem of _Launfal_--The
Lady Triamore, daughter of the King of the Fairies--Curious
entry in the household register of Eleanor, Countess of
Leicester, date 1265--Corsets worn by gentlemen at that
period--The kirtle as worn in England--The penance of Jane
Shore--Dress of Blanche, daughter of Edward III--Dunbar's
_Thistle and Rose_--Admiration for small waists in Scotland in
the olden time--Chaucer's writings--Small waists admired in
his day--The use of the surcoat in England--Reckless hardihood
of a determined tailor--The surcoat worn by Marie d'Anjou of
France--Italian supremacy in matters of dress--The Medici, Este,
and Visconti--Costume of an Italian duchess described--Freaks
of fashion in France and Germany--Long trains--Laws to restrain
the length of skirts--Snake-toed shoes give place to high-heeled
slippers.
Research fails to show us that the ladies of France in their simple
Hersvingian and Carlovingian dresses paid any attention to the
formation of the waist or its display. But during the ninth century
we find the dresses worn extremely tight, and so made as to define
the waist and render it as slim as possible; and although the art of
making the description of corsets worn by the ladies of Rome was no
doubt at that time lost, the revived taste for slender figures led to
the peculiar form of corsage known as _cottes hardies_, which were
much stiffened and worn extremely tight. These took the place of the
quaint, oddly-formed robes we see draping the figures of Childeric's
and Pepin's queens. The "_cottes hardies_" were, moreover, clasped at
the waist by a broad belt, and seem pretty well to have merited their
martial name. Very soon after this period it is probable that a much
more complete description of corset was invented, although we do not
find any marked representation of its form until 1043. A manuscript of
that date at present in the British Museum bears on it the strange
and anomalous figure represented in the annexed illustration. Opinions
vary somewhat as to whether its origin might not have been Italian,
but we see no reason for adopting this view, and consider it as of
decidedly home production. It will be seen that the shoulder, upper
part of the arm, and figure are those of a well-formed female, who
wears an unmistakable corset, tightly laced, and stiffened by two
busks in front, from one of which the lace, with a tag at the end,
depends. The head, wings, tail, feet, and claws are all those of a
demon or fiend. The drapery is worn so long as to render large knots
in it requisite to prevent dragging on the ground. The ring held in
the left claw is of gold, and probably intended to represent a massive
and costly bracelet. Produced, as this MS. appears to have been,
during the reign of Edward the Confessor, there is little doubt that
it was a severe monkish satire on the prevailing fashion, and a most
ungallant warning to the male sex that alabaster shoulders and slender
waists were too often associated with attributes of a rather brimstone
character, and that an inordinate love of long, trailing garments and
ornaments of precious metals were snares and enticements of a sinister
nature. Many of the figures to be found on ancient MSS. after this
period show by their contour that the corset was worn beneath the
drapery, and Strutt, whose work was published in 1796, thus writes
of the customs relating to dress in the period following shortly
after:--"In the thirteenth century, and probably much prior to that
period, a long and slender waist was considered by our ancestors as a
criterion of elegance in the female form. We ought not, therefore, to
wonder if it be proved that the tight lacing and compressing of the
body was practised by the ladies even in early times, and especially
by such of them as were inclined to be corpulent." He then, in order
to show at what an early date of the history of this country a
confirmed taste for small waists existed, quotes from a very ancient
poem, entitled _Launfal_, in which the Lady Triamore, daughter of the
King of the Fairies, and attendant ladies are described. Of two of
the latter it is said--
"Their kirtles were of rede cendel,[1]
I laced smalle, jollyf, and well,
There might none gayer go."
[1] A rich description of silk.
[Illustration: THE FIEND OF FASHION, FROM AN ANCIENT
MANUSCRIPT.]
In the French version of the same poem it is, we read, more fully
expressed. It says, "They were richly habited and very tightly laced."
The Lady Triamore is thus described:--
"The lady was in a purple pall,
With gentill bodye and middle small."
Wharton quotes from an ancient poem, which he believes to date as
far back as 1200, in which a lover, speaking of the object of his
admiration, thus throws down the gauntlet of challenge, and exclaims--
"Middle her she hath mensk small."
The word _mensk_ or _maint_ being used instead of very or much. Some
differences of opinion have existed among writers as to the origin
of the word _corset_. Some are of opinion that the French words
_corps_, the body, and _serrer_ (to tightly inclose or incase), led
to the adoption of the term. Madame La Sante gives it as her opinion,
however, that it is more probably a corruption of the single word
_corps_, which was formerly written _cors_, and may be taken as a
diminutive form of it. Another view of the matter has been that
the name of a rich material called _corse_, which was at one time
extensively used in the manufacture of corsets, may have been thus
corrupted. This is scarcely probable, as the word corset was in use
at too early a period to admit of that origin. Perhaps as early an
instance of the use of the term corset as any in existence may be
found as a portion of an entry in the household register of Eleanor,
Countess of Leicester, which bears the date May 24, 1265:--
"Item: Pro ix ulnis radii. Pariensis pro robas æstivas corsetto et
clochia pro eodem."[2]
[2] Item: For nine ells, Paris measure, for summer robes, corsets, and
cloaks for the same.
The persons for whom these garments were made were Richard, King
of the Normans, and Edward, his son, whose death occurred in the
year 1308. So that corsets were, even in those early days, used by
gentlemen as well as ladies.
The term kirtle, so often referred to, may not clearly convey to the
mind of the modern reader the nature of the garment indicated by it,
and therefore it may not be amiss to give Strutt's description of it.
He says, "The kirtle, or, as it was anciently written '_kertel_,' is
a part of the dress used by the men and the women, but especially by
the latter. It was sometimes a habit of state, and worn by persons of
high rank." The garment sometimes called a "_surcol_" Chaucer renders
_kirtle_, and we have no reason to dispute his authority. Kirtles are
very frequently mentioned in old romances. They are said to have been
of different textures and of different colours, but especially of
green; and sometimes they were laced closely to the body, and probably
answered the purpose of the bodice or stays--_vide Launfal_, before
referred to:--
"Their kirtles were of rede cendel,
I laced smalle, jollyf, and well."
To appear in a kirtle only seems to have been a mark of servitude.
Thus the lady of Sir Ladore, when he feasted the king, by way of
courtesy waited at the table--
"The lady was gentyll and small,
In kirtle alone she served in hall."
We are further informed that at the close of the fifteenth century
it was used as a habit of penance, and we read that Jane Shore, when
performing penance, walked barefoot, a lighted taper in her hand,
and having only her kirtle upon her back. John Gower, however, who
wrote at about the same period as Chaucer, thus describes a company
of ladies. They were, says he, "clothed all alike, in kirtles with
rich capes or mantles, parti-coloured, white, and blue, embroidered
all over with various devices." Their bodies are described as being
long and small, and they had crowns of gold upon their heads, as
though each of them had been a queen. We find that the tight-laced
young ladies of the court of the Lady Triamore "had mantles of
green-coloured velvet, handsomely bordered with gold, and lined with
rich furs. Their heads were neatly attired in kerchiefs, and were
ornamented with cut work and richly-striped wires of gold, and upon
their kerchiefs they had each of them a pretty coronal, embellished
with sixty gems or more;" and of their pretty mistress it is said in
the same poem, that her cheeks were as red as the rose when it first
blossoms. Her hair shone upon her head like golden wire, falling
beneath a crown of gold richly ornamented with precious stones. Her
vesture was purple, and her mantle, lined with white ermine, was also
elegantly furred with the same. The Princess Blanche, the daughter
of Edward III., the subject of the annexed illustration, appears to
have copied closely the dress above described, and, like the maids of
honour of the Lady Triamore herself, she is not only richly habited
but thoroughly well-laced as well. Thus we see, in the year 1361, the
full influence of the corset on the costume of that period. There is
another poem, said to be more ancient than even _Launfal_, which, no
doubt, served to give a tone and direction to the fashions of times
following after. Here we find a beautiful lady described as wearing a
splendid girdle of beaten gold, embellished with rubies and emeralds,
about her _middle small_.
[Illustration: THE PRINCESS BLANCHE, DAUGHTER OF EDWARD III.]
Gower, too, when describing a lover who is in the act of admiring his
mistress, thus writes:--
"He seeth hir shape forthwith, all
Hir bodye round, hir middle small."
That the taste for slender figures was not confined to England will
be shown by the following quotation from Dunbar's _Thistle and Rose_.
When the belles of Scotland grouped together are described he tells us
that
"Their middles were as small as wands."
A great number of ancient writings descriptive of female beauty go
clearly to prove that both slenderness and length of waist were
held in the highest esteem and considered indispensable elements of
elegance, and there can be no question that such being the case no
pains were spared to acquire the coveted grace a very small, long,
and round waist conferred on its possessor. The lower classes were
not slow in imitating their superiors, and the practice of tight
lacing prevailed throughout every grade of society. This was the case
even as far back as Chaucer's day, about 1340. He, in describing the
carpenter's wife, speaks of her as a handsome, well-made young female,
and informs us that "her body was genteel" (or elegant) and "small as
a weasel," and immediately afterwards that she was
"Long as a maste, and upright as a bolt."
Notwithstanding the strict way in which the waist was laced during the
thirteenth century, the talents of the ingenious were directed to the
construction of some article of dress which should reduce the figure
to still more slender proportions, and the following remarks by Strutt
show that tight lacing was much on the increase from the thirteenth to
the fourteenth centuries. He says--
"A small waist was decidedly, as we have seen before, one criterion of
a beautiful form, and, generally speaking, its length was currently
regulated by a just idea of elegance, and especially in the thirteenth
century. In the fourteenth the women seem to have contracted a
vitiated taste, and not being content with their form as God hath
made it, introduced the corset or bodice--a stiff and unnatural
disguisement even in its origin."
[Illustration: LADY OF RANK OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.]
How far this newly-introduced form of the corset became a
"disguisement" will be best judged of by a glance at the foregoing
illustration, which represents a lady in the dress worn just at
the close of the thirteenth century. The term _surcoat_ was given
to this new introduction. This in many instances was worn over the
dress somewhat after the manner of the body of a riding-habit, being
attached to the skirt, which spreads into a long trailing train. An
old author, speaking of these articles of dress, thus writes:--
"There came to me two women wearing _surcoats_, longer than they were
tall by about a yard, so that they were obliged to carry their trains
upon their arms to prevent their trailing upon the ground, and they
had sleeves to these surcoats reaching to the elbows."
The trains of these dresses at length reached such formidable
dimensions that Charles V. of France became so enraged as to cause an
edict to be issued hurling threats of excommunication at the heads of
all those who dared to wear a dress which terminated "like the tail of
a serpent."
Notwithstanding this tremendously alarming threat, a tailor was found
fully equal to the occasion, who, in spite of the terrors inspired
by candle, bell, and book, set to work (lion-hearted man that he
was) and made a magnificent surcoat for Madame du Gatinais, which
not only trailed far behind on the ground, but actually "took _five
yards of Brussels net for sleeves, which also trailed_." History, or
even tradition, fails to inform us what dreadful fate overtook this
desperate tailor after the performance of a feat so recklessly daring;
but we can scarcely fancy that his end could have been of the kind
common to tailors of less audacious depravity.
The bodies of these surcoats were very much stiffened, and so made
as to admit of being laced with extreme tightness. They were often
very richly ornamented with furs and costly needlework. As fashion
changed, dresses were made with open fronts, so as to be worn over
the surcoat without altogether concealing it. A portrait of Marie
d'Anjou, Queen of France, shows this arrangement of costume. The
waist appears very tightly laced, and the body of the surcoat much
resembles the modern bodice, but is made by stiffening and cut to
perform the part of a very strong and efficient corset. Until the
termination of the fourteenth century very little change appears to
have been made either in costume or the treatment of the figure,
but at the commencement of the fifteenth century, when such noble
families as the Medici, Este, and Visconti established fashions and
styles of costume for themselves, each house vied with the other in
the splendour of their apparel. The great masters of the period, by
painting ideal compositions, also gave a marked tone to the increasing
taste for dress. The costume of an Italian duchess, whose portrait
is to be seen in the Academy at Pisa, has been thus described:--"The
headdress is a gold coronet, the chemisette is finely interwoven with
gold, the under-dress is black, the square bodice being bordered with
white beads, the over-dress is gold brocade, the sides are open, and
fastened together again with gold _agrafes_; the loose sleeves, like
the chemisette, are of golden tissue, fastened to the shoulders with
_agrafes_. The under-sleeves, which are of peculiar construction,
and are visible, are crimson velvet, and reach to the centre of the
hand. They are cut out at the wrists, and white puffings of the same
material as the chemisette protrude through the openings." In both
France and Germany a great many strange freaks of fashion appear to
have been practised about this time. The tight, harlequin-like dress
was adopted by the gentlemen, whilst the long trains again stirred
the ire of royalty. We find Albert of Saxony issuing the following
laws:--"No wives or daughters of knights are to wear dresses exceeding
one yard and a-half in length, no spangles in their caps, nor high
frills round their throats." During the reign of the Dauphin in France
many changes in dress were effected. The length of the sleeves was
much curtailed, and the preposterously long toes of the shoes reduced
to a convenient standard. The ladies appear to have for some time
resisted the innovation, but one Poulaine, an ingenious Parisian
shoemaker, happening to devise a very attractive shoe with a heel
fitted to it, the ladies hailed joyfully the new favourite, and the
old snake-toed shoe passed away. Still, it was no uncommon thing to
see some fop of the period with one shoe white and the other black, or
one boot and one shoe.
[Illustration: LADY OF THE COURT OF QUEEN CATHERINE DE
MEDICI.]
[Illustration: FULL COURT DRESS AS WORN IN FRANCE, 1515.]
[Illustration]