so as to make a cushion on which to pin the gorget. This was the
general fashion.
Now, the earlier form of head-dress gave rise to another fashion. The
band which had been tied round the head to keep the wimple in place
was enlarged and stiffened with more material, and so became a round
linen cap, wider at the top than at the bottom. Sometimes this cap was
hollow-crowned, so that it was possible to bring the wimple under the
chin, fasten it into place with the cap, and allow it to fall over the
top of the cap in folds; sometimes the cap was solidly crowned, and
was pleated; sometimes the cap met the gorget, and no hair showed
between them.
[Illustration: A MAN AND WOMAN OF THE TIME OF EDWARD I. (1272-1307)
The sleeves of the man's overcoat through which he has thrust his
arms are complete sleeves, and could be worn in the ordinary manner
but that they are too long to be convenient; hence the opening.]
What we know as 'the true lovers' knot' was sometimes used as an
ornament sewn on to dresses or gowns.
You may know the effigy of Queen Eleanor in Westminster Abbey, and if
you do, you will see an example of the very plainest dress of the
time. She has a shaped mantle over her shoulders, which she is holding
together by a strap; the long mantle or robe is over a plain,
loosely-pleated gown, which fits only at the shoulders; her hair is
unbound, and she wears a trefoil crown upon her head.
[Illustration: {Two women of the time of Edward I.}]
The changes in England can best be seen by such monuments as Edward
caused to be erected in memory of his beloved wife. The arts of peace
were indeed magnificent, and though the knight was the man of war, he
knew how to choose his servant in the great arts.
Picture such a man as Alexander de Abyngdon, 'le Imaginator,' who with
William de Ireland carved the statues of the Queen for five marks
each--such a man, with his gown hitched up into his belt, his hood
back on his shoulders, watching his statue put into place on the cross
at Charing. He is standing by Roger de Crundale, the architect of that
cross, and he is directing the workmen who are fixing the statue.... A
little apart you may picture Master William Tousell, goldsmith, of
London, a very important person, who is making a metal statue of the
Queen and one of her father-in-law, Henry III., for Westminster Abbey.
At the back men and women in hoods and wimples, in short tunics and
loose gowns. A very brightly-coloured picture, though the dyes of the
dresses be faded by rain and sun--they are the finer colours for that:
Master Tousell, no doubt, in a short tunic for riding, with his loose
coat on him, the heavy hood back, a little cap on his head; the
workmen with their tunics off, a twist of coloured stuff about their
waists, their heads bare.
It is a beautiful love-story this, of fierce Edward, the terror of
Scotland, for Eleanor, whom he 'cherished tenderly,' and 'whom dead we
do not cease to love.'
The same man, who could love so tenderly and well, who found a
fantastic order of chivalry in the Round Table of Kenilworth, could
there swear on the body of a swan the death of Comyn, Regent of
Scotland, and could place the Countess of Buchan, who set the crown
upon the head of Bruce, in a cage outside one of the towers of
Berwick.
Despite the plain cut of the garments of this time, and the absence of
superficial trimmings, it must have been a fine sight to witness one
hundred lords and ladies, all clothed in silk, seated about the Round
Table of Kenilworth.
EDWARD THE SECOND
Reigned twenty years: 1307-1327.
Born 1284. Married, 1308, Isabella of France.
MEN AND WOMEN
Whether the changes in costume that took place in this reign were due
to enterprising tailors, or to an exceptionally hot summer, or to the
fancy of the King, or to the sprightliness of Piers Gaveston, it is
not possible to say. Each theory is arguable, and, no doubt, in some
measure each theory is right, for, although men followed the new mode,
ladies adhered to their earlier fashions.
Take the enterprising tailor--call him an artist. The old loose robe
was easy of cut; it afforded no outlet for his craft; it cut into a
lot of material, was easily made at home--it was, in fact, a baggy
affair that fitted nowhere. Now, is it not possible that some
tailor-artist, working upon the vanity of a lordling who was proud of
his figure, showed how he could present this figure to its best
advantage in a body-tight garment which should reach only to his hips?
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Edward II.}]
Take the hot summer. You may or may not know that a hot summer some
years ago suddenly transformed the City of London from a place of
top-hats and black coats into a place of flannel jackets and hats of
straw, so that it is now possible for a man to arrive at his City
office clad according to the thermometer, without incurring the severe
displeasure of the Fathers of the City.
It seems that somewhere midway between 1307 and 1327 men suddenly
dropped their long robes, loosely tied at the waist, and appeared in
what looked uncommonly like vests, and went by the name of
'cotehardies.'
It must have been surprising to men who remembered England clothed in
long and decorous robes to see in their stead these gay, debonair,
tight vests of pied cloth or parti-coloured silk.
Piers Gaveston, the gay, the graceless but graceful favourite, clever
at the tournament, warlike and vain, may have instituted this complete
revolution in clothes with the aid of the weak King.
[Illustration: {Two types of cotehardie}]
[Illustration: {Two types of tunic; two types of collar}]
Sufficient, perhaps, to say that, although long robes continued to be
worn, cotehardies were all the fashion.
There was a general tendency to exaggeration. The hood was attacked by
the dandies, and, instead of its modest peak, they caused to be added
a long pipe of the material, which they called a 'liripipe.'
Every quaint thought and invention for tying up this liripipe was
used: they wound it about their heads, and tucked the end into the
coil; they put it about their necks, and left the end dangling; they
rolled it on to the top of their heads.
[Illustration: {Four types of shoe; two types of hat}]
The countryman, not behindhand in quaint ideas, copied the form of a
Bishop's hood, and appeared with his cloth hood divided into two
peaks, one on either side of his head.
[Illustration: {Four types of hood}]
This new cotehardie was cut in several ways. Strictly speaking, it was
a cloth or silk vest, tight to the body, and close over the hips; the
length was determined by the fancy of the wearer. It also had
influence on the long robes still worn, which, although full below the
waist to the feet, now more closely fitted the body and shoulders.
The fashionable sleeves were tight to the elbow, and from there
hanging and narrow, showing a sleeve belonging to an undergarment.
The cloak also varied in shape. The heavy travelling-cloak, with the
hood attached, was of the old pattern, long, shapeless, with or
without hanging sleeves, loose at the neck, or tightly buttoned.
Then there was a hooded cloak, with short sleeves, or with the sleeves
cut right away, a sort of hooded surcoat. Then there were two distinct
forms of cape: one a plain, circular cape, not very deep, which had a
plain, round, narrow collar of fur or cloth, and two or three buttons
at the neck; and there was the round cape, without a collar, but with
turned back lapels of fur. This form of cape is often to be seen.
The boots and shoes were longer at the toes, and were sometimes
buttoned at the sides.
The same form of hats remain, but these were now treated with fur
brims.
Round the waist there was always a belt, generally of plain black
leather; from it depended a triangular pouch, through which a dagger
was sometimes stuck.
[Illustration: A MAN AND WOMAN OF THE TIME OF EDWARD II. (1307-1327)
Notice the great length of liripipe on the man's hood, also his
short tunic of rayed cloth, his hanging sleeve and his under-sleeve.
The woman has her hair dressed in two side-plaits, to which the
gorget or neckcloth is pinned.]
The time of parti-coloured clothes was just beginning, and the
cotehardie was often made from two coloured materials, dividing the
body in two parts by the colour difference; it was the commencement
of the age which ran its course during the next reign, when men were
striped diagonally, vertically, and in angular bars; when one leg was
blue and the other red.
[Illustration: {A woman of the time of Edward II.; a cap}]
[Illustration: {A woman of the time of Edward II.}]
You will note that all work was improving in this reign when you hear
that the King paid the wife of John de Bureford 100 marks for an
embroidered cope, and that a great green hanging was procured for
King's Hall, London, for solemn feasts--a hanging of wool, worked with
figures of kings and beasts. The ladies made little practical change
in their dress, except to wear an excess of clothes against the lack
of draperies indulged in by the men.
It is possible to see three garments, or portions of them, in many
dresses. First, there was a stuff gown, with tight sleeves buttoned to
the elbow from the wrist; this sometimes showed one or two buttons
under the gorget in front, and was fitted, but not tightly, to the
figure. It fell in pleated folds to the feet, and had a long train;
this was worn alone, we may suppose, in summer. Second, there was a
gown to go over this other, which had short, wide sleeves, and was
full in the skirts. One or other of these gowns had a train, but if
the upper gown had a train the under one had not, and _vice versa_.
Third, there was a surcoat like to a man's, not over-long or full,
with the sleeve-holes cut out wide; this went over both or either of
the other gowns.
[Illustration: {Two women of the time of Edward II.; a wimple with
fillet and gorget}]
Upon the head they wore the wimple, the fillet, and about the throat
the gorget.
The arrangement of the wimple and fillet were new, for the hair was
now plaited in two tails, and these brought down straight on either
side of the face; the fillet was bound over the wimple in order to
show the plait, and the gorget met the wimple behind the plait instead
of over it.
The older fashion of hair-dressing remained, and the gorget was pinned
to the wads of hair over the ears, without the covering of the wimple.
Sometimes the fillet was very wide, and placed low on the head over a
wimple tied like a gorget; in this way the two side-plaits showed only
in front and appeared covered at side-face, while the wimple and broad
fillet hid all the top hair of the head.
Very rarely a tall, steeple head-dress was worn over the wimple, with
a hanging veil; but this was not common, and, indeed, it is not a mark
of the time, but belongs more properly to a later date. However, I
have seen such a head-dress drawn at or about this time, so must
include it.
The semicircular mantle was still in use, held over the breast by
means of a silk cord.
It may seem that I describe these garments in too simple a way, and
the rigid antiquarian would have made comment on courtepys, on
gamboised garments, on cloth of Gaunt, or cloth of Dunster.
I may tell you that a gambeson was the quilted tunic worn under
armour, and, for the sake of those whose tastes run into the arid
fields of such research, that you may call it wambasium, gobison,
wambeys, gambiex, gaubeson, or half a dozen other names; but, to my
mind, you will get no further with such knowledge.
Falding is an Irish frieze; cyclas is a gown; courtepy is a short
gown; kirtle--again, if we know too much we cannot be accurate--kirtle
may be a loose gown, or an apron, or a jacket, or a riding-cloak.
The tabard was an embroidered surcoat--that is, a surcoat on which was
displayed the heraldic device of the owner.
Let us close this reign with its mournful end, when Piers Gaveston
feels the teeth of the Black Dog of Warwick, and is beheaded on
Blacklow Hill; when Hugh le Despenser is hanged on a gibbet; when the
Queen lands at Orwell, conspiring against her husband, and the King is
a prisoner at Kenilworth.
Here at Kenilworth the King hears himself deposed.
'Edward, once King of England,' is hereafter accounted 'a private
person, without any manner of royal dignity.'
Here Edward, in a plain black gown, sees the steward of his household,
Sir Thomas Blount, break his staff of office, done only when a King is
dead, and discharge all persons engaged in the royal service.
Parliament decided to take this strong measure in January; in the
following September Edward was murdered in cold blood at Berkeley
Castle.
EDWARD THE THIRD
Reigned fifty years: 1327-1377.
Born 1312. Married, 1328, Philippa of Hainault.
THE MEN
Kings were Kings in those days; they managed England as a nobleman
managed his estates.
Edward I., during the year 1299, changed his abode on an average three
times a fortnight, visiting in one year seventy-five towns and
castles.
Edward II. increased his travelling retinue until, in the fourth year
of the reign of Edward III., the crowd who accompanied that King had
grown to such proportions that he was forced to introduce a law
forbidding knights and soldiers to bring their wives and families with
them.
Edward III., with his gay company, would not be stopped as he rode out
of one of the gates of London to pay toll of a penny a cart and a
farthing a horse, nor would any of his train.
This toll, which included threepence a week on gravel and sand carts
going in or out of the City, was raised to help pay for street
repairs, the streets and roads of that time being in a continual state
of slush, mud, and pits of water.
Let us imagine Edward III. and his retinue passing over Wakefield
Bridge before he reduced his enormous company.
The two priests, William Kaye and William Bull, stand waiting for the
King outside the new Saint Mary's Chapel. First come the guard of
four-and-twenty archers in the King's livery; then a Marshal and his
servants (the other King's Marshal has ridden by some twenty-four
hours ago); then comes the Chancellor and his clerks, and with them a
good horse carrying the Rolls (this was stopped in the fourth year of
Edward's reign); then they see the Chamberlain, who will look to it
that the King's rooms are decent and in order, furnished with benches
and carpets; next comes the Wardrobe Master, who keeps the King's
accounts; and, riding beside the King, the first personal officer of
the kingdom, the Seneschal; after that a gay company of knights and
their ladies, merchants, monks dressed as ordinary laymen for
travelling, soldiers of fortune, women, beggars, minstrels--a motley
gang of brightly-clothed people, splashed with the mud and dust of the
cavalcade.
[Illustration: {Two men of the time of Edward III.}]
Remembering the condition of the day, the rough travelling, the
estates far apart, the dirty inns, one must not imagine this company
spick and span.
The ladies are riding astride, the gentlemen are in civil garments or
half armour.
Let us suppose that it is summer, and but an hour or so after a heavy
shower. The heat is oppressive: the men have slung their hats at their
belts, and have pushed their hoods from their heads; their heavy
cloaks, which they donned hastily against the rain, are off now, and
hanging across their saddles.
These cloaks vary considerably in shape. Here we may see a circular
cloak, split down the right side from the neck, it buttons on the
shoulder. Here is another circular cloak, jagged at the edge; this
buttons at the neck. One man is riding in a cloak, parti-coloured,
which is more like a gown, as it has a hood attached to it, and
reaches down to his feet.
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Edward III.; two types of hood}]
Nearly every man is alike in one respect--clean-shaven, with long hair
to his neck, curled at the ears and on the forehead.
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Edward III.}]
Most men wear the cotehardie, the well-fitting garment buttoned down
the front, and ending over the hips. There is every variety of
cotehardie--the long one, coming nearly to the knees; the short one,
half-way up the thigh. Some are buttoned all the way down the front,
and others only with two or three buttons at the neck.
Round the hips of every man is a leather belt, from which hangs a
pouch or purse.
Some of these purses are beautiful with stitched arabesque designs;
some have silver and enamel clasps; some are plain black cloth or
natural-coloured leather; nearly all, however, are black.
The hoods over the men's heads vary in a number of ways: some are very
full in the cape, which is jagged at the hem; some are close about the
neck and are plain; some have long liripipes falling from the peak of
the hood, and others have a liripipe of medium length.
There are two or three kinds of hat worn, and felt and fur caps of the
usual shape--round, with a rolled-up brim and a little peak on the
top. Some of the hats are tall-crowned, round hats with a close, thick
brim--these have strings through the brim so that the hat may be
strung on the belt when it is not in use; other hats are of the long,
peaked shape, and now and again one may see a feather stuck into them;
a third variety shows the brim of a high-crowned hat, castellated.
Among the knights you will notice the general tendency to
parti-coloured clothes, not only divided completely into halves of two
colours, but striped diagonally, vertically, and horizontally, so
giving a very diverse appearance to the mass of colour.
Here and there a man is riding in his silk surcoat, which is
embroidered with his coat of arms or powdered with his badge.
Here are cloth, velvet, silk, and woollen stuffs, all of fine dyes,
and here is some fine silk cotehardie with patterns upon it gilt in
gold leaf, and there is a magnificent piece of stuff, rich in design,
from the looms of Palermo.
Among the merchants we shall see some more sober colours and quieter
cut of clothes; the archers in front are in leather tunics, and these
quiet colours in front, and the respectable merchants behind, enclose
the brilliant blaze of colour round the King.
Behind all come the peasants, minstrels, mummers, and wandering
troupes of acrobats; here is a bearward in worn leather cloak and
hood, his legs strapped at the ankle, his shoes tied on with thongs;
here is a woman in a hood, open at the neck and short at the back: she
wears a smocked apron; here is a beggar with a hood of black stuff
over his head--a hood with two peaks, one on either side of his head;
and again, here is a minstrel with a patched round cloak, and a mummer
with a two-peaked hood, the peaks stuffed out stiff, with bells
jangling on the points of them.
Again, among this last group, we must notice the old-fashioned loose
tunics, the coif over the head, tied under the chin, wooden-soled
shoes and pouch-gloves.
[Illustration: {Three men of the time of Edward III.}]
There are some Norfolk merchants and some merchants from Flanders
among the crowd, and they talk as best they can in a sort of
French-Latin-English jargon among themselves; they speak of England as
the great wool-producing country, the tax on which produced L30,000 in
one year; they talk of the tax, its uses and abuses, and how Norfolk
was proved the richest county in wool by the tax of 1341.
The people of England little thought to hear artillery used in a field
of battle so soon as 1346, when on August 26 it was used for the first
time, nor did they realize the horrors that were to come in 1349, when
the Great Plague was to sweep over England and kill half the
population.
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Edward III.}]
There is one man in this crowd who has been marked by everybody. He is
a courtier, dressed in the height of fashion. His cotehardie fits him
very well: the sleeves are tight from elbow to wrist, as are the
sleeves of most of his fellows--some, however, still wear the hanging
sleeve and show an under-sleeve--and his sleeve is buttoned from wrist
to elbow. He wears the newest fashion upon his arm, the tippet, a
piece of silk which is made like a detachable cuff with a long
streamer hanging from it; his cotehardie is of medium length, jagged
at the bottom, and it is of the finest Sicilian silk, figured with a
fine pattern; round his hips he wears a jewelled belt. His hood is
parti-coloured and jagged at the edge and round his face, and his
liripipe is very long. His tights are parti-coloured, and his shoes,
buttoned up the front, are long-toed and are made of red-and-white
chequered leather. By him rides a knight, also in the height of
fashion, but less noticeable: he has his cotehardie skirt split up in
front and turned back; he has not any buttons on his sleeves, and his
belt about his waist holds a large square pouch; his shoes are a
little above his ankles, and are buckled over the instep. His hair is
shorter than is usual, and it is not curled.
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Edward III.; three types of
head-gear}]
As we observe these knights, a party of armed knights come riding down
the road towards the cavalcade; they have come to greet the King.
These men have ridden through the rain, and now, as they come closer,
one can see that their armour is already red with rust.
[Illustration: {A hat}]
So the picture should remain on your mind, as I have imagined it for
you: the knights in armour and surcoats covered with their heraldic
device; the archers; the gay crowd of knights in parti-coloured
clothes; the King, in his cotehardie of plain black velvet and his
black beaver hat, just as he looked after Calais in later years; the
merchants; the servants in parti-coloured liveries of their masters'
colours; the tattered crowd behind; and, with the aid of the drawings,
you should be able to visualize the picture.
Meanwhile Edward will arrive at his destination, and to soothe him
before sleep, he will read out of the book of romances, illustrated by
Isabella, the nun of Aumbresbury, for which he had paid L66 13s. 4d.,
which sum was heavy for those days, when L6 would buy twenty-four
swans. L66 13s. 4d. is about L800 of our money to-day.
THE WOMEN
'I looked on my left half as the lady taught me,
And was aware of a woman worthily clothed,
Trimmed with fur, the finest on earth,
Crowned with a crown, the King had none better.
Handsomely her fingers were fretted with gold wire,
And thereon red rubies, as red as any hot coal,
And diamonds of dearest price, and double manner of sapphires,
Orientals and green beryls....
Her robe was full rich, of red scarlet fast dyed,
With bands of red gold and of rich stones;
Her array ravished me, such richness saw I never.'
_Piers the Plowman._
There are two manuscripts in existence the illuminations in which give
the most wonderfully pictorial idea of this time; they are the
manuscript marked MS. Bodl., Misc. 264, in the Bodleian Library at
Oxford, and the Loutrell Psalter in the British Museum.
The Loutrell Psalter is, indeed, one of the most notable books in the
world; it is an example of illumination at the height of that art; it
has for illustrator a person, not only of a high order of
intelligence, but a person possessed of the very spirit of Gothic
humour, who saw rural England, not only with the eyes of an artist,
but with the eyes of a gossiping philosopher.
[Illustration: A MAN OF THE TIME OF EDWARD III. (1327-1377)
Round his arms you will see the curious tippet, the jagged ends of
which hang down; these are the remains of the pendant sleeves. His
shoes are buttoned in front.]
Both this book and the book in the Bodleian Library were illustrated
by persons who were charged to the brim with the spirit of their age;
they were Chaucerian in their gay good-humour and in their quaint
observation, and they have that moral knowledge and outspoken manner
which characterize William Langland, whose 'Piers the Plowman' I have
quoted above.
With Chaucer, Langland, and these illuminators we have a complete
exhibition of English life of these times. The pulse of rural England
is felt by them in a most remarkable way; the religion, language,
thought, politics, the whole trend of rural, provincial, and Court
life may be gathered from their books.