[Illustration: A MAN OF THE TIME OF JOHN (1199-1216)]
Under this garment the men wore a flowing gown, the sleeves of which
were so wide that they reached at the base from the shoulder to
the waist, and narrowed off to a tight band at the wrist.
These two garments were held together by a leather belt buckled about
the middle, with the tongue of the belt hanging down.
Broad borders of design edged the gowns at the foot and at the neck,
and heraldic devices were sewn upon the surcoats.
King John himself, the quick, social, humorous man, dressed very
finely. He loved the company of ladies and their love, but in spite of
his love for them, he starved and tortured them, starved and beat
children, was insolent, selfish, and wholly indifferent to the truth.
He laughed aloud during the Mass, but for all that was superstitious
to the degree of hanging relics about his neck; and he was buried in a
monk's cowl, which was strapped under his chin.
Silk was becoming more common in England, and the cultivation of the
silkworm was in some measure gaining hold. In 1213 the Abbot of
Cirencester, Alexander of Neckham, wrote upon the habits of the
silkworm.
Irish cloth of red colour was largely in favour, presumably for cloaks
and hoods.
The general costume of this reign was very much the same as that of
Henry II. and Richard I.--the long loose gown, the heavy cloak, the
long hair cut at the neck, the fashion of beards, the shoes, belts,
hoods, and heavy fur cloaks, all much the same as before, the only
real difference being in the general use of the surcoat and the very
convenient looseness of the sleeves under the arms.
[Illustration: {A man of the time of John; an alternative cuff}]
There is an inclination in writing of a costume one can visualize
mentally to leave out much that might be useful to the student who
knows little or nothing of the period of dress in which one is
writing; so perhaps it will be better to now dress a man completely.
First, long hair and a neatly-trimmed beard; over this a hood and cape
or a circular cap, with a slight projection on the top of it.
Second, a shirt of white, like a modern soft shirt.
Third, tights of cloth or wool.
Fourth, shoes strapped over the instep or tied with thongs, or
fitting at the ankle like a slipper, or boots of soft leather turned
over a little at the top, at the base of the calf of the leg.
[Illustration: {A man of the time of John}]
Fifth, a gown, loosely fitting, buckled at the neck, with sleeves wide
at the top and tight at the wrist, or quite loose and coming to just
below the elbow, or a tunic reaching only to the knees, both gown and
tunic fastened with a belt.
Sixth, a surcoat sometimes, at others a cloak held together by a
brooch, or made for travelling with a hood.
This completes an ordinary wardrobe of the time.
THE WOMEN
As may be seen from the plate, no change in costume took place.
The hair plaited and bound round the head or allowed to flow loose
upon the shoulders.
Over the hair a gorget binding up the neck and chin. Over all a wimple
pinned to the gorget.
A long loose gown with brooch at the neck. Sleeves tight at the
wrist. The whole gown held in at the waist by a belt, with one long
end hanging down.
Shoes made to fit the shape of the foot, and very elaborately
embroidered and sewn.
A long cloak with buckle or lace fastening.
In this reign there were thirty English towns which had carried on a
trade in dyed cloths for fifty years.
[Illustration: A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF JOHN (1199-1216)
One may just see the purse beneath the cloak, where it hangs from
the belt. The cloak itself is of fine diaper-patterned material.]
HENRY THE THIRD
Reigned fifty-six years: 1216-1272.
Born 1207. Married, 1236, to Eleanor of Provence.
THE MEN
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Henry III.}]
Despite the fact that historians allude to the extravagance of this
reign, there is little in the actual form of the costume to bear out
the idea. Extravagant it was in a large way, and costly for one who
would appear well dressed; but the fopperies lay more in the stuffs
than in the cut of the garments worn.
It was an age of draperies.
This age must call up pictures of bewrapped people swathed in heavy
cloaks of cloth of Flanders dyed with the famous Flemish madder dye;
of people in silk cloaks and gowns from Italy; of people in loose
tunics made of English cloth.
This long reign of over fifty years is a transitional period in the
history of clothes, as in its course the draped man developed very
slowly towards the coated man, and the loose-hung clothes very
gradually began to shape themselves to the body.
The transition from tunic and cloak and Oriental draperies is so slow
and so little marked by definite change that to the ordinary observer
the Edwardian cotehardie seems to have sprung from nowhere: man seems
to have, on a sudden, dropped his stately wraps and mantles and
discarded his chrysalis form to appear in tight lines following the
figure--a form infinitely more gay and alluring to the eye than the
ponderous figure that walks through the end of the thirteenth century.
Up to and through the time from the Conquest until the end of Henry
III.'s reign the clothes of England appear--that is, they appear to
me--to be lordly, rich, fine, but never courtier-like and elegant.
[Illustration: A MAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY III. (1216-1272)
Heavy cloak and fulness of dress characteristic of this time.]
If one may take fashion as a person, one may say: Fashion arrived in
1066 in swaddling-clothes, and so remained enveloped in rich cloaks
and flowing draperies until 1240, when the boy began to show a more
active interest in life; this interest grew until, in 1270, it
developed into a distaste for heavy clothes; but the boy knew of no
way as yet in which to rid himself of the trailings of his mother
cloak. Then, in about 1272, he invented a cloak more like a strange,
long tunic, through which he might thrust his arms for freedom; on
this cloak he caused his hood to be fastened, and so made himself
three garments in one, and gave himself greater ease.
Then dawned the fourteenth century--the youth of clothes--and our
fashion boy shot up, dropped his mantles and heaviness, and came out
from thence slim and youthful in a cotehardie.
Of such a time as this it is not easy to say the right and helpful
thing, because, given a flowing gown and a capacious mantle,
imagination does the rest. Cut does not enter into the arena.
Imagine a stage picture of this time: a mass of wonderful, brilliant
colours--a crowd of men in long, loose gowns or surcoats; a crowd of
ladies in long, loose gowns; both men and women hung with cloaks or
mantles of good stuffs and gay colours. A background of humbler
persons in homespun tunics with cloth or frieze hoods over their
heads. Here and there a fop--out of his date, a quarter-century
before his time--in a loose coat with pocket-holes in front and a
buttoned neck to his coat, his shoes very pointed and laced at the
sides, his hair long, curled, and bound by a fillet or encompassed
with a cap with an upturned brim.
[Illustration: {Two men of the time of Henry III.}]
The beginning of the coat was this: the surcoat, which up till now was
split at both sides from the shoulder to the hem, was now sewn up,
leaving only a wide armhole from the base of the ribs to the shoulder.
This surcoat was loose and easy, and was held in at the waist by a
belt. In due time a surcoat appeared which was slightly shaped to the
figure, was split up in front instead of at the sides, and in which
the armholes were smaller and the neck tighter, and fastened by two or
three buttons. In front of this surcoat two pocket-holes showed. This
surcoat was also fastened by a belt at the waist.
In common with the general feeling towards more elaborate clothes, the
shoes grew beyond their normal shape, and now, no longer conforming
to the shape of the foot, they became elongated at the toes, and stuck
out in a sharp point; this point was loose and soft, waiting for a
future day when men should make it still longer and stuff it with tow
and moss.
Of all the shapes of nature, no shape has been so marvellously
maltreated as the human foot. It has suffered as no other portion of
the body has suffered: it has endured exceeding length and exceeding
narrowness; it has been swelled into broad, club-like shapes; it has
been artificially raised from the ground, ended off square, pressed
into tight points, curved under, and finally, as to-day, placed in
hard, shining, tight leather boxes. All this has been done to one of
the most beautiful parts of the human anatomy by the votaries of
fashion, who have in turn been delighted to expose the curves of their
bodies, the round swelling of their hips, the beauties of their nether
limbs, the whiteness of their bosoms, the turn of their elbows and
arms, and the rotundity of their shoulders, but who have, for some
mysterious reasons, been for hundreds of years ashamed of the
nakedness of their feet.
Let me give a wardrobe for a man of this time.
A hood with a cape to it; the peak of the hood made full, but about
half a hand's breadth longer than necessary to the hood; the cape cut
sometimes at the edge into a number of short slits.
A cap of soft stuff to fit the head, with or without an upturned brim.
A fillet of silk or metal for the hair.
A gown made very loose and open at the neck, wide in the body, the
sleeves loose or tight to the wrist. The gown long or short, on the
ground or to the knee, and almost invariably belted at the waist by a
long belt of leather with ornamental studs.
A surcoat split from shoulder to hem, or sewn up except for a wide
armhole.
A coat shaped very slightly to the figure, having pocket-holes in
front, small armholes, and a buttoned neck.
A great oblong-shaped piece of stuff for a cloak, or a heavy, round
cloak with an attached hood.
Tights of cloth or sewn silk--that is, pieces of silk cut and sewn to
the shape of the leg.
Shoes with long points--about 2 inches beyond the toes--fastened by a
strap in front, or laced at the sides, or made to pull on and fit at
the ankle, the last sometimes with a V-shaped piece cut away on
either side.
There was a tendency to beads, and a universal custom of long hair.
In all such clothes as are mentioned above every rich stuff of cloth,
silk, wool, and frieze may be used, and fur linings and fur hats are
constant, as also are furred edges to garments.
There was a slight increase of heraldic ornament, and a certain amount
of foreign diaper patterning on the clothes.
THE WOMEN
Now the lady must needs begin to repair the ravages of time and touch
the cheek that no longer knows the bloom of youth with--rouge.
This in itself shows the change in the age. Since the Britons--poor,
simple souls--had sought to embellish Nature by staining themselves
blue with woad and yellow with ochre, no paint had touched the faces
of the fashionable until this reign. Perhaps discreet historians had
left that fact veiled, holding the secrets of the lady's toilet too
sacred for the black of print; but now the murder came out. The fact
in itself is part of the psychology of clothes. Paint the face, and
you have a hint towards the condition of fashion.
Again, as in the case of the men, no determined cut shows which will
point to this age as one of such and such a garment or such an
innovation, but--and this I would leave to your imagination--there was
a distinction that was not great enough to be a difference.
The gowns were loose and flowing, and were gathered in at the waist by
a girdle, or, rather, a belt, the tongue of which hung down in front;
but as the end of the reign approached, the gowns were shaped a little
more to the figure.
A lady might possess such clothes as these: the gowns I have mentioned
above, the sleeves of which were tight all the way from the shoulder
to the wrist, or were loose and cut short just below the elbow,
showing the tight sleeves of the under-gown.
Shoes very elaborately embroidered and pointed at the toes.
A rich cloak made oblong in shape and very ample in cut.
A shaped mantle with strings to hold it together over the shoulders.
[Illustration: A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY III. (1216-1272)
This will show how very slight were the changes in woman's dress; a
plain cloak, a plain gown, and a wimple over the head.]
For the head a wimple made of white linen or perhaps of silk; this
she would put above her head, leaving the neck bare.
A long belt for her waist, and, if she were a great lady, a pair of
gloves to wear or stick into her belt.
THE COUNTRY FOLK
From the Conquest to the reign of Edward I.
[Illustration: {A countryman}]
Until the present day the countryman has dressed in a manner most
fitted to his surroundings; now the billycock hat, a devil-derived
offspring from a Greek source, the Sunday suit of shiny black with
purple trousers, the satin tie of Cambridge blue, and the stiff shirt,
have almost robbed the peasant of his poetical appearance.
Civilization seems to have arrived at our villages with a pocketful of
petty religious differences, a bagful of public-houses, a bundle of
penny and halfpenny papers full of stories to show the fascination of
crime and--these Sunday clothes.
The week's workdays still show a sense of the picturesque in
corduroys and jerseys or blue shirts, but the landscape is blotted
with men wearing out old Sunday clothes, so that the painter of rural
scenes with rural characters must either lie or go abroad.
As for the countrywoman, she, I am thankful to say, still retains a
sense of duty and beauty, and, except on Sunday, remains more or less
respectably clad. Chivalry prevents one from saying more.
[Illustration: {A countryman}]
In the old days--from the Conquest until the end of the thirteenth
century--the peasant was dressed in perfect clothes.
The villages were self-providing; they grew by then wool and hemp for
the spindles. From this was made yarn for materials to be made up into
coats and shirts. The homespun frieze that the peasant wore upon his
back was hung by the nobleman upon his walls. The village bootmaker
made, besides skin sandals to be tied with thongs upon the feet,
leather trousers and belts.
The mole-catcher provided skin for hats. Hoods of a plain shape were
made from the hides of sheep or wolves, the wool or hair being left on
the hood. Cloaks lined with sheepskin served to keep away the winter
cold.
To protect their legs from thorns the men wore bandages of twisted
straw wrapped round their trousers, or leather thongs cross-gartered
to the knee.
The fleece of the sheep was woven in the summer into clothes of wool
for the winter. Gloves were made, at the beginning of the thirteenth
century, of wool and soft leather; these were shaped like the modern
baby's glove, a pouch for the hand and fingers and a place for the
thumb.
A coarse shirt was worn, over which a tunic, very loosely made, was
placed, and belted at the waist. The tunic hardly varied in shape from
the Conquest to the time of Elizabeth, being but a sack-like garment
with wide sleeves reaching a little below the elbow. The hood was
ample and the cloak wide.
The women wore gowns of a like material to the men--loose gowns which
reached to the ankles and gave scope for easy movement. They wore
their hair tied up in a wimple of coarse linen.
[Illustration: A PEASANT OF EARLY ENGLAND
(WILLIAM I.-HENRY III.)
His hood is made from sheepskin, the wool outside, the hem trimmed
into points. His legs are bound up with garters of plaited straw.
His shoes are of the roughest make of coarse leather. He has the
shepherd's horn slung over his shoulder.]
The people of the North were more ruggedly clothed than the
Southerners, and until the monks founded the sheep-farming industry in
Yorkshire the people of those parts had no doubt to depend for their
supply of wool upon the more cultivated peoples.
[Illustration: {Two countrymen}]
Picture these people, then, in very simple natural wool-coloured
dresses going about their ordinary country life, attending their bees,
their pigs, sheep, and cattle, eating their kele soup, made of
colewort and other herbs.
See them ragged and hungry, being fed by Remigius, Bishop of Lincoln,
after all the misery caused by the Conquest; or despairing during the
Great Frost of 1205, which began on St. Hilary's Day, January 11, and
lasted until March 22, and was so severe that the land was like iron,
and could not be dug or tilled.
When better days arrived, and farming was taken more seriously by the
great lords, when Grosseteste, the Bishop of Lincoln, wrote his book
on farming and estate management for Margaret, the Dowager-Countess
of Lincoln, then clothes and stuffs manufactured in the towns became
cheaper and more easy to obtain, and the very rough skin clothes and
undressed hides began to vanish from among the clothes of the country,
and the rough gartered trouser gave way before cloth cut to fit the
leg.
On lord and peasant alike the sun of this early age sets, and with the
sunset comes the warning bell--the _couvre-feu_--so, on their beds of
straw-covered floors, let them sleep....
EDWARD THE FIRST
Reigned thirty-five years: 1272-1307.
Born 1239. Married, 1254, Eleanor of Castile; 1299,
Margaret of France.
MEN AND WOMEN
Until the performance of the Sherborne Pageant, I had never had the
opportunity of seeing a mass of people, under proper, open-air
conditions, dressed in the peasant costume of Early England.
For once traditional stage notions of costume were cast aside, and an
attempt was made, which was perfectly successful, to dress people in
the colours of their time.
The mass of simple colours--bright reds, blues, and greens--was a
perfect expression of the date, giving, as nothing else could give, an
appearance of an illuminated book come to life.
One might imagine that such a primary-coloured crowd would have
appeared un-English, and too Oriental or Italian; but with the
background of trees and stone walls, the English summer sky distressed
with clouds, the moving cloud shadows and the velvet grass, these
fierce hard colours looked distinctly English, undoubtedly of their
date, and gave the spirit of the ages, from a clothes point of view,
as no other colours could have done. In doing this they attested to
the historical truth of the play.
It seemed natural to see an English crowd one blazing jewel-work of
colour, and, by the excellent taste and knowledge of the designer, the
jewel-like hardness of colour was consistently kept.
It was interesting to see the difference made to this crowd by the
advent of a number of monks in uniform black or brown, and to see the
setting in which these jewel-like peasants shone--the play of
brilliant hues amid the more sombre browns and blacks, the shifting of
the blues and reds, the strong notes of emerald green--all, like the
symmetrical accidents of the kaleidoscope, settling into their places
in perfect harmony.
The entire scene bore the impress of the spirit of historical truth,
and it is by such pageants that we can imagine coloured pictures of an
England of the past.
Again, we could observe the effect of the light-reflecting armour,
cold, shimmering steel, coming in a play of colour against the
background of peasants, and thereby one could note the exact
appearance of an ordinary English day of such a date as this of which
I now write, the end of the thirteenth century.
The mournful procession bearing the body of Queen Eleanor of Castile,
resting at Waltham, would show a picture in the same colours as the
early part of the Sherborne Pageant.
Colour in England changed very little from the Conquest to the end of
the reign of Edward I.; the predominant steel and leather, the gay,
simple colours of the crowds, the groups of one colour, as of monks
and men-at-arms, gave an effect of constantly changing but ever
uniform colours and designs of colour, exactly, as I said before, like
the shifting patterns of the kaleidoscope.
It was not until the reign of Edward II. that the effect of colour
changed and became pied, and later, with the advent of stamped
velvets, heavily designed brocades, and the shining of satins, we get
that general effect best recalled to us by memories of Italian
pictures; we get, as it were, a varnish of golden-brown over the crude
beauties of the earlier times.
It is intensely important to a knowledge of costume to remember the
larger changes in the aspect of crowds from the colour point of view.
A knowledge of history--by which I do not mean a parrot-like
acquirement of dates and Acts of Parliament, but an insight into
history as a living thing--is largely transmitted to us by pictures;
and, as pictures practically begin for us with the Tudors, we must
judge of coloured England from illuminated books. In these you will go
from white, green, red, and purple, to such colours as I have just
described: more vivid blues, reds, and greens, varied with brown,
black, and the colour of steel, into the chequered pages of pied
people and striped dresses, into rich-coloured people, people in
black; and as you close the book and arrive at the wall-picture, back
to the rich-coloured people again.
[Illustration: {Three men of the time of Edward I.}]
The men of this time, it must be remembered, were more adapted to the
arts of war than to those of peace; and the knight who was up betimes
and into his armour, and to bed early, was not a man of so much
leisure that he could stroll about in gay clothes of an inconvenient
make. His principal care was to relieve himself of his steel burden
and get into a loose gown, belted at the waist, over which, if the
weather was inclement, he would wear a loose coat. This coat was made
with a hood attached to it, very loose and easy about the neck and
very wide about the body; its length was a matter of choice, but it
was usual to wear it not much below the knees. The sleeves were also
wide and long, having at a convenient place a hole cut, through which
the arms could be placed.
The men wore their hair long and brushed out about the ears--long,
that is, to the nape of the neck. They also were most commonly
bearded, with or without a moustache.
Upon their heads they wore soft, small hats, with a slight projection
at the top, the brim of the hat turned up, and scooped away in front.
Fillets of metal were worn about the hair with some gold-work upon
them to represent flowers; or they wore, now and again, real chaplets
of flowers.
There was an increase of heraldic ornament in this age, and the
surcoats were often covered with a large device.
These surcoats, as in the previous reign, were split from shoulder to
bottom hem, or were sewn up below the waist; for these, thin silk,
thick silk (called samite), and sendal, or thick stuff, was used, as
also for the gowns.
The shoes were peaked, and had long toes, but nothing extravagant, and
they were laced on the outside of the foot. The boots came in a peak
up to the knee.
The peasant was still very Norman in appearance, hooded, cloaked,
with ill-fitting tights and clumsy shoes; his dress was often of
bright colours on festivals, as was the gown and head-handkerchief of
his wife.
Thus you see that, for ordinary purposes, a man dressed in some gown
which was long, loose, and comfortable, the sleeves of it generally
tight for freedom, so that they did not hang about his arm, and his
shoes, hat, cloak, everything, was as soft and free as he could get
them.
The woman also followed in the lines of comfort: her under-gown was
full and slack at the waist, the sleeves were tight, and were made to
unbutton from wrist to elbow; they stopped short at the wrist with a
cuff.
Her upper gown had short, wide sleeves, was fastened at the back, and
was cut but roughly to the figure. The train of this gown was very
long.
They sought for comfort in every particular but one: for though I
think the gorget very becoming, I think that it must have been most
distressing to wear. This gorget was a piece of white linen wrapped
about the throat, and pinned into its place; the ends were brought up
to meet a wad of hair over the ears and there fastened, in this way
half framing the face.
[Illustration: {Four types of hairstyle and head-dresses for women}]