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 all 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.
[Illustration: A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF STEPHEN (1135-1154)
Her dress fits to her figure by lacing at the back. Her long sleeves
are tied up to keep them from trailing upon the ground. Her hair is
fastened at the end into silken cases. She has a wimple in her hands
which she may wind about her head.]
The second was made tight-fitting in the body and bust, all of
one elastic material, and the skirt of loose thin stuff.
The third was a loose tunic reaching half-way between the knees and
feet, showing the camise, and tied about the waist and hips by a long
girdle.
The sleeves of these garments showed as many variations as those of
the men, but with the poor folk they were short and useful, and with
the rich they went to extreme length, and were often knotted to
prevent them from trailing on the ground.
The collar and the borders of the sleeves were enriched with
embroidery in simple designs.
In the case of the loose upper garment the border was also
embroidered.
In winter a cloak of the same shape as was worn by the men was
used--_i.e._, cut exactly semicircular, with embroidered edges.
The shoes of the ladies were fitted to the foot in no extravagant
shape, and were sewn with bands of pearls or embroidery. The poorer
folk went about barefoot.
The hair was a matter of great moment and most carefully treated; it
was parted in the centre and then plaited, sometimes intertwined with
coloured ribbands or twists of thin coloured material; it was added
to in length by artificial hair, and was tied up in a number of ways.
Either it was placed in a tight silk case, like an umbrella case,
which came about half-way up the plait from the bottom, and had little
tassels depending from it, or the hair was added to till it reached
nearly to the feet, and was bound round with ribbands, the ends having
little gold or silver pendants. The hair hung, as a rule, down the
front on either side of the face, or occasionally behind down the
back, as was the case when the wimple was worn.
When the ladies went travelling or out riding they rode astride like
men, and wore the ordinary common-hooded cloak.
Brooches for the tunic and rings for the fingers were common among the
wealthy.
The plait was introduced into the architecture of the time, as is
shown by a Norman moulding at Durham.
Compared with the Saxon ladies, these ladies of Stephen's time were
elegantly attired; compared with the Plantagenet ladies, they were
dressed in the simplest of costumes. No doubt there were, as in all
ages, women who gave all their body and soul to clothes, who wore
sleeves twice the length of anyone else, who had more elaborate
plaits and more highly ornamented shoes; but, taking the period as a
whole, the clothes of both sexes were plainer than in any other period
of English history.
One must remember that when the Normans came into the country the
gentlemen among the Saxons had already borrowed the fashions prevalent
in France, but that the ladies still kept in the main to simple
clothes; indeed, it was the man who strutted to woo clad in all the
fopperies of his time--to win the simple woman who toiled and span to
deck her lord in extravagant embroideries.
[Illustration: {A woman of the time of Stephen}]
The learning of the country was shared by the ladies and the clergy,
and the influence of Osburgha, the mother of Alfred, and Editha, the
wife of Edward the Confessor, was paramount among the noble ladies of
the country.
The energy of the clergy in this reign was more directed to building
and the branches of architecture than to the more studious and
sedentary works of illumination and writing, so that the sources from
which we gather information with regard to the costume in England are
few, and also peculiar, as the drawing of this date was, although
careful, extremely archaic.
Picture the market-town on a market day when the serfs were waiting to
buy at the stalls until the buyers from the abbey and the castle had
had their pick of the fish and the meat. The lady's steward and the
Father-Procurator bought carefully for their establishments, talking
meanwhile of the annual catch of eels for the abbey.
Picture Robese, the mother of Thomas, the son of Gilbert Becket,
weighing the boy Thomas each year on his birthday, and giving his
weight in money, clothes, and provisions to the poor. She was a type
of the devout housewife of her day, and the wife of a wealthy trader.
The barons were fortifying their castles, and the duties of their
ladies were homely and domestic. They provided the food for
men-at-arms, the followers, and for their husbands; saw that simples
were ready with bandages against wounds and sickness; looked, no
doubt, to provisions in case of siege; sewed with their maidens in a
vestiary or workroom, and dressed as best they could for their
position. What they must have heard and seen was enough to turn them
from the altar of fashion to works of compassion. Their houses
contained dreadful prisons and dungeons, where men were put upon
rachentegs, and fastened to these beams so that they were unable to
sit, lie, or sleep, but must starve. From their windows in the towers
the ladies could see men dragged, prisoners, up to the castle walls,
through the hall, up the staircase, and cast, perhaps past their very
eyes, from the tower to the moat below. Such times and sights were not
likely to foster proud millinery or dainty ways, despite of which
innate vanity ran to ribbands in the hair, monstrous sleeves, jewelled
shoes, and tight waists. The tiring women were not overworked until a
later period, when the hair would take hours to dress, and the dresses
months to embroider.
In the town about the castle the merchants' wives wore simple homespun
clothes of the same form as their ladies. The serfs wore plain smocks
loose over the camise and tied about the waist, and in the bitter
cold weather skins of sheep and wolves unlined and but roughly
dressed.
[Illustration: Cases for the Hair.]
In 1154 the Treaty of Wallingford brought many of the evils to an end,
and Stephen was officially recognised as King, making Henry his heir.
Before the year was out Stephen died.
I have not touched on ecclesiastical costume because there are so many
excellent and complete works upon such dress, but I may say that it
was above all civil dress most rich and magnificent.
I have given this slight picture of the time in order to show a reason
for the simplicity of the dress, and to show how, enclosed in their
walls, the clergy were increasing in riches and in learning; how,
despite the disorders of war, the internal peace of the towns and
hamlets was growing, with craft gilds and merchant gilds. The lords
and barons fighting their battles knew little of the bond of strength
that was growing up in these primitive labour unions; but the lady in
her bower, in closer touch with the people, receiving visits from
foreign merchants and pedlars with rare goods to sell or barter, saw
how, underlying the miseries of bloodshed and disaster, the land began
to bloom and prosper, to grow out of the rough place it had been into
the fair place of market-town and garden it was to be.
Meanwhile London's thirteen conventual establishments were added to by
another, the Priory of St. Bartholomew, raised by Rahere, the King's
minstrel.
HENRY THE SECOND
Reigned thirty-five years: 1154-1189.
Born 1133. Married, 1152, to Eleanor of Guienne.
THE MEN
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Henry II.}]
The King himself is described as being careless of dress, chatty,
outspoken. His hair was close-cropped, his neck was thick, and his
eyes were prominent; his cheek-bones were high, and his lips coarse.
The costume of this reign was very plain in design, but rich in
stuffs. Gilt spurs were attached to the boots by red leather straps,
gloves were worn with jewels in the backs of them, and the mantles
seem to have been ornamented with designs.
[Illustration: A MAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY II. (1154-1189)
He wears the short cloak, and his long tunic is held by a brooch at
the neck and is girdled by a long-tongued belt. There are gloves on
his hands.]
The time of patterns upon clothes began. The patterns were simple, as
crescents, lozenges, stars.
William de Magna Villa had come back from the Holy Land with a new
fabric, a precious silk called 'imperial,' which was made in a
workshop patronized by the Byzantine Emperors.
The long tunic and the short supertunic were still worn, but these
were not so frequently split up at the side.
High boots reaching to the calf of the leg were in common use.
That part of the hood which fell upon the shoulders was now cut in a
neat pattern round the edge.
Silks, into which gold thread was sewn or woven, made fine clothes,
and cloth cloaks lined with expensive furs, even to the cost of a
thousand pounds of our money, were worn.
The loose trouser was going out altogether, and in its stead the hose
were made to fit more closely to the leg, and were all of gay colours;
they were gartered with gold bands crossed, the ends of which had
tassels, which hung down when the garter was crossed and tied about
the knee.
Henry, despite his own careless appearance, was nicknamed Court
Manteau, or Short Mantle, on account of a short cloak or mantle he is
supposed to have brought into fashion.
The shirts of the men, which showed at the opening of the tunic, were
buttoned with small gold buttons or studs of gold sewn into the linen.
The initial difference in this reign was the more usual occurrence of
patterns in diaper upon the clothes.
The length of a yard was fixed by the length of the King's arm.
With the few exceptions mentioned, the costume is the same as in the
time of Stephen.
It is curious to note what scraps of pleasant gossip come to us from
these early times: St. Thomas a Becket dining off a pheasant the day
before his martyrdom; the angry King calling to his knights, 'How a
fellow that hath eaten my bread, a beggar that first came to my Court
on a lame horse, dares to insult his King and the Royal Family, and
tread upon my whole kingdom, and not one of the cowards I nourish at
my table, not one will deliver me of this turbulent priest!'--the
veins no doubt swelling on his bull-like neck, the prominent eyes
bloodshot with temper, the result of that angry speech, to end in the
King's public penance before the martyr's tomb.
Picture the scene at Canterbury on August 23, 1179, when Louis VII.,
King of France, dressed in the manner and habit of a pilgrim, came to
the shrine and offered there his cup of gold and a royal precious
stone, and vowed a gift of a hundred hogsheads of wine as a yearly
rental to the convent.
A common sight in London streets at this time was a tin medal of St.
Thomas hung about the necks of the pilgrims.
And here I cannot help but give another picture. Henry II., passing
through Wales on his way to Ireland in 1172, hears the exploits of
King Arthur which are sung to him by the Welsh bards. In this song the
bards mention the place of King Arthur's burial, at Glastonbury Abbey
in the churchyard. When Henry comes back from Ireland he visits the
Abbot of Glastonbury, and repeats to him the story of King Arthur's
tomb.
One can picture the search: the King talking eagerly to the Abbot; the
monks or lay-brothers digging in the place indicated by the words of
the song; the knights in armour, their mantles wrapped about them,
standing by.
Then, as the monks search 7 feet below the surface, a spade rings
upon stone. Picture the interest, the excitement of these
antiquarians. It is a broad stone which is uncovered, and upon it is a
thin leaden plate in the form of a corpse, bearing the inscription:
'HIC JACET SEPULTUS INCLYTUS REX ARTURIUS IN INSULA
AVALONIA.'
They draw up this great stone, and with greedy eyes read the
inscription. The monks continue to dig. Presently, at the depth of 16
feet, they find the trunk of a tree, and in its hollowed shape lie
Arthur and his Queen--Arthur and Guinevere, two names which to us now
are part of England, part of ourselves, as much as our patron St.
George.
Here they lie upon the turf, and all the party gaze on their remains.
The skull of Arthur is covered with wounds; his bones are enormous.
The Queen's body is in a good state of preservation, and her hair is
neatly plaited, and is of the colour of gold. Suddenly she falls to
dust.
They bury them again with great care. So lay our national hero since
he died at the Battle of Camlan in Cornwall in the year 542, and
after death was conveyed by sea to Glastonbury, and all traces of his
burial-place lost except in the songs of the people until such day as
Henry found him and his Queen.
THE WOMEN
[Illustration: {A woman of the time of Henry II.; a circular pin}]
About this time came the fashion of the chin-band, and again the glory
of the hair was hidden under the wimple.
To dress a lady's hair for this time the hair must be brushed out, and
then divided into two parts: these are to be plaited, and then brought
round the crown of the head and fastened in front above the forehead.
The front pieces of hair are to be neatly pushed back from the
forehead, to show a high brow. Now a cloth of linen is taken, folded
under the chin, and brought over the top of the head, and there
pinned. Then another thin band of linen is placed round the head and
fastened neatly at the back; and over all a piece of fine linen is
draped, and so arranged that it shall just cover the forehead-band and
fall on to the shoulders. This last piece of linen is fastened to the
chin-band and the forehead-strap by pins.
[Illustration: {Four steps to dress a woman's hair}]
This fashion gave rise in later times to a linen cap; the
forehead-strap was increased in height and stiffened so that it rose
slightly above the crown of the head, and the wimple, instead of
hanging over it, was sewn down inside it, and fell over the top of the
cap. Later the cap was sewn in pleats.
The gown of this time was quite loose, with a deep band round the neck
and round the hem of the skirts, which were very full. So far as one
can tell, it was put on over the head, having no other opening but at
the neck, and was held at the waist by an ornamental girdle.
The chemise showed above the neck of the gown, which was fastened by
the usual round brooch.
[Illustration: A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY II. (1154-1189)
There is a chin-band to be seen passing under the wimple; this band
is pinned to hold it round the head.]
The sleeves were well fitting, rather loose at the elbow, and
fell shaped over the wrist, where there was a deep border of
embroidery. It is quite possible that the cuffs and hem may have been
made of fur.
The shoes were, as usual to the last two reigns, rather blunt at the
toe, and generally fitting without buckle, button, or strap round the
ankle, where they were rolled back.
Above the waist the tied girdle was still worn, but this was being
supplanted by a broad belt of silk or ornamented leather, which
fastened by means of a buckle. The tongue of the belt was made very
long, and when buckled hung down below the knee.
The cloaks, from the light way in which they are held, appear to have
been made of silk or some such fine material as fine cloth. They are
held on to the shoulders by a running band of stuff or a silk cord,
the ends of which pass through two fasteners sewn on to the cloak, and
these are knotted or have some projecting ornament which prevents the
cord from slipping out of the fastener.
In this way one sees the cloak hanging from the shoulders behind, and
the cord stretched tight across the breast, or the cord knotted in a
second place, and so bringing the cloak more over the shoulders.
The effigy of the Queen at Fontevraud shows her dress covered with
diagonal bars of gold, in the triangles of which there are gold
crescents placed from point to point, and no doubt other ladies of her
time had their emblems or badges embroidered into their gowns.
RICHARD THE FIRST
Reigned ten years: 1189-1199.
Born 1157. Married, 1191, to Berengaria of Navarre.
THE MEN
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Richard I.; a hood; a shoe}]
The King had but little influence over dress in his time, seeing that
he left England as soon as he was made King, and only came back for
two months in 1194 to raise money and to be crowned again.
The general costume was then as plain as it had ever been, with long
tunics and broad belts fastened by a big buckle.
The difference in costume between this short reign and that of Henry
II. is almost imperceptible; if any difference may be noted, it is in
the tinge of Orientalism in the garments.
There is more of the long and flowing robe, more of the capacious
mantle, the wider sleeve.
No doubt the many who came from the Crusades made a good deal of
difference to English homes, and actual dresses and tunics from the
East, of gorgeous colours and Eastern designs, were, one must suppose,
to be seen in England.
Cloth of gold and cloth of gold and silks--that is, warf of silk and
weft of gold--were much prized, and were called by various names from
the Persian, as 'ciclatoun,' 'siglaton.'
Such stuff, when of great thickness and value--so thick that six
threads of silk or hemp were in the warf--was called 'samite.'
Later, when the cloth of gold was more in use, and the name had
changed from 'ciclatoun' to 'bundekin,' and from that to 'tissue,' to
keep such fine cloth from fraying or tarnishing, they put very thin
sheets of paper away between the folds of the garments; so to this day
we call such paper tissue-paper.
Leaf-gold was used sometimes over silk to give pattern and richness to
it.
[Illustration: A MAN OF THE TIME OF RICHARD I. (1189-1199)]
A curious survival of this time, which has a connection with costume,
was the case of Abraham Thornton in 1818. Abraham Thornton was accused
of having drowned Mary Ashford, but he was acquitted by the jury. This
acquittal did not satisfy popular feeling, and the brother of Mary
Ashford appealed. Now Thornton was well advised as to his next
proceeding, and, following the still existent law of this early time
of which I write, he went to Westminster Hall, where he threw down, as
a gage of battle, an antique gauntlet without fingers or thumb, of
white tanned skin ornamented with silk fringes and sewn work, crossed
by a narrow band of leather, the fastenings of leather tags and
thongs.
This done, he declared himself ready to defend himself in a fight, and
so to uphold his innocence, saying that he was within his rights, and
that no judge could compel him to come before a jury.
This was held to be good and within the law, so Abraham Thornton won
his case, as the brother refused to pick up the gauntlet. The scandal
of this procedure caused the abolishment of the trial by battle, which
had remained in the country's laws from the time of Henry II. until
1819.
It was a time of foreign war and improvement in military armour and
arms. Richard I. favoured the cross-bow, and brought it into general
use in England to be used in conjunction with the old 4-foot bow and
the great bow 6 feet long with the cloth-yard arrow--a bow which could
send a shaft through a 4-inch door.
For some time this military movement, together with the influence of
the East, kept England from any advance or great change in costume;
indeed, the Orientalism reached a pitch in the age of Henry III.
which, so far as costume is concerned, may be called the Age of
Draperies.
To recall such a time in pictures, one must then see visions of
loose-tuniced men, with heavy cloaks; of men in short tunics with
sleeves tight or loose at the wrists; of hoods with capes to them, the
cape-edge sometimes cut in a round design; of soft leather boots and
shoes, the boots reaching to the calf of the leg. To see in the
streets bright Oriental colours and cloaks edged with broad bands of
pattern; to see hooded heads and bared heads on which the hair was
long; to see many long-bearded men; to see old men leaning on
tan-handled sticks; the sailor in a cap or coif tied under his chin;
the builder, stonemason, and skilled workman in the same coif; to see,
as a whole, a brilliant shifting colour scheme in which armour gleamed
and leather tunics supplied a dull, fine background. Among these one
might see, at a town, by the shore, a thief of a sailor being carried
through the streets with his head shaven, tarred and feathered.
THE WOMEN
[Illustration: {A woman of the time of Richard I.; a pouch}]
It is difficult to describe an influence in clothes.
It is difficult nowadays to say in millinery where Paris begins and
London accepts. The hint of Paris in a gown suggests taste; the whole
of Paris in a gown savours of servile imitation.
No well-dressed Englishwoman should, or does, look French, but she may
have a subtle cachet of France if she choose.
The perfection of art is to conceal the means to the end; the
perfection of dress is to hide the milliner in the millinery.
The ladies of Richard I.'s time did not wear Oriental clothes, but
they had a flavour of Orientalism pervading their dress--rather
masculine Orientalism than feminine.
The long cloak with the cord that held it over the shoulders; the
long, loose gown of fine colours and simple designs; the soft, low,
heelless shoes; the long, unbound hair, or the hair held up and
concealed under an untied wimple--these gave a touch of something
foreign to the dress.
Away in the country there was little to dress for, and what clothes
they had were made in the house. Stuffs brought home from Cyprus, from
Palestine, from Asia Minor, were laboriously conveyed to the house,
and there made up into gowns. Local smiths and silver-workers made
them buckles and brooches and ornamental studs for their long belts,
or clasps for their purses.
A wreck would break up on the shore near by, and the news would
arrive, perhaps, that some bales of stuff were washed ashore and were
to be sold.
[Illustration: A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF RICHARD I. (1189-1199)
Her very full cloak is kept in place by the cord which passes
through loops. A large buckle holds the neck of the gown well
together. The gown is ornamented with a simple diaper pattern; the
hem and neck are deeply embroidered.]
The female anchorites of these days were busy gossips, and from their
hermitage or shelter by a bridge on the road would see the world
go by, and pick up friends by means of gifts of bandages or purses
made by them, despite the fact that this traffic was forbidden to
them.
So the lady in the country might get news of her lord abroad, and hear
that certain silks and stuffs were on their way home.
The gowns they wore were long, flowing and loose; they were girded
about the middle with leathern or silk belts, which drew the gown
loosely together. The end of the belt, after being buckled, hung down
to about the knee. These gowns were close at the neck, and there
fastened by a brooch; the sleeves were wide until they came to the
wrist, over which they fitted closely.
The cloaks were ample, and were held on by brooches or laces across
the bosom.
The shoes were the shape of the foot, sewn, embroidered, elaborate.
The wimples were pieces of silk or white linen held to the hair in
front by pins, and allowed to flow over the head at the back.
There were still remaining at this date women who wore the
tight-fitting gown laced at the back, and who tied their chins up in
gorgets.
JOHN
Reigned seventeen years: 1199-1216.
Born 1167. Married, in 1189, to Hadwisa, of Gloucester,
whom he divorced; married, in 1200, to Isabella of
Angouleme.
THE MEN
There was a garment in this reign which was the keynote of costume at
the time, and this was the surcoat. It had been worn over the armour
for some time, but in this reign it began to be an initial part of
dress.
Take a piece of stuff about 9 or 10 yards in length and about 22
inches wide; cut a hole in the centre of this wide enough to admit of
a man's head passing through, and you have a surcoat.