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 thoseof 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 placea 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 pinnedinto 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.
Four types of hairstyle and head-dresses for women
The hair was parted in the middle, and rolled over pads by the ears, 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.
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’ wassometimes 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.
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 Irelandcarved 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.
Reigned twenty years: 1307-1327.
Born 1284. Married, 1308, Isabella of France.
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 howhe could present this figure to its best advantage in a body-tight garment which should reach only to his hips?
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.
Two types of cotehardie
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 abouttheir 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.
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.
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 withouthanging 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.
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 intwo 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.
A woman of the time of Edward II.; a cap
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 underthe 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, andvice versâ. 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.
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, andthese 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 hereafteraccounted ‘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.
Reigned fifty years: 1327-1377.
Born 1312. Married, 1328, Philippa of Hainault.
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 laymenfor travelling, soldiers of fortune, women, beggars, minstrels—a motley gang of brightly-clothed people, splashed with the mud and dust of the cavalcade.
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 rightside 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.
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.
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.
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 £30,000 in one year; they talk of the tax, its uses and abuses, and howNorfolk 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.
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 isparti-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.
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, andnow, as they come closer, one can see that their armour is already red with rust.
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 £66 13s. 4d., which sum was heavy for those days, when £6 would buy twenty-four swans. £66 13s. 4d. is about £800 of our money to-day.
‘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.
‘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 veryspirit of Gothic humour, who saw rural England, not only with the eyes of an artist, but with the eyes of a gossiping philosopher.
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.
The drawings in the Loutrell Psalter were completed before the year 1340, and they give us all that wonderful charm, that intimate knowledge, which we enjoy in the ‘Canterbury Pilgrims’ and the ‘Vision of Piers Plowman.’
There seems to be something in road-travelling which levels all humanity; there is no road inEngland which does not throb with history; there is no poem or story written about roads in England which does not in some way move the Englishness in us. Chaucer and Langland make comrades of us as they move along the highway, and with them we meet, on terms of intimacy, all the characters of the fourteenth century. With these illuminators of the Loutrell Psalter and the Bodleian MS. we see actually the stream of English life along a crowded thoroughfare.
In these books we may see drawings of every form of agricultural life and manorial existence: we see the country sports, the bear-baiting, and the cock-fighting; we see the harvesters with straw hats, scythes, and reaping-hooks; we see carters, carriers, and great carriages, all depicted in a manner which we can only compare, in later years, to the broad humour of Hogarth; and, as we turn the priceless pages over, the whole fourteenth-century world passes before our eyes—japers and jugglers; disours and jesters; monk, priest, pilgrim, and pardoner; spendthrift and wench; hermits, good and evil; lords, ladies, and Kings.
I have written of the men and their dress—how they were often—very often—dirty, dusty, andtravel-stained—of the red-rusted armour and the striped and chequered clothes, and now I must write of the women and the manner of their dress.
Of the time, you must remember that it was the time of chivalry, when there was a Round Table of Knights at Windsor, founded in 1345; when the Order of the Garter was founded; when tiltings and all manner of tournaments were at their height; and you listen to the minstrels of King Edward’s household playing upon the trumpet, the cytole, the pipe, the taberet, the clarion, and the fiddle.
St. George, the Primate of Egypt in the fourth century, had now risen to public esteem and notice, so that he became in this time not only the patron saint of chivalry, but the tutelar saint of England.
Boys were taken from the care of the ladies of the household at the age of seven, when they became pages to knights, and were sworn to devote themselves to the graces and favours of some girl. At fourteen the boy became a squire, and at twenty-one, if he were possessed of a rental of £20 a year in land, he made his fast and vigil, and was afterward dubbed knight and given his spurs.
Twelve hair arrangements for women
The noteworthy point about a woman of this reign was her hair. The Queen herself wore an elaborate mode of coiffure for that time; she wore a metal fillet round her head, to which was attached two cases, circular in shape, of gold fretwork, ornamented with precious stones. She wore her hair unplaited, and brought in two parts from theback of her head, and as far as one can see, pushed into the jewelled cases.
Five sleeve types for women
The most general form of hair-dressing was an excess on the mode of the previous reign, a richness of jewel-work, an abundance of gold wire. It was usual to divide the hair into two plaits, and arrange these on either side of the face, holding them in their place by means of a fillet; they might be worn folded straight up by the face, or at an angle, but they were never left hanging; if hair was left loose it was not plaited, but flowing.
The gorget, or throat cloth, was still in general use, and it was attached to the hair by very elaborate-headed pins. Sometimes the hair, dressed with the gorget, was divided into four plaits, two on either side of the face, and fastened horizontally.
The wimple of silk or linen was very generally worn. A caul of gold net came into fashion, but not until the end of the reign. The ladies weregreat upon hunting and hawking, and this must have been a convenient fashion to keep the hair in order. Some wore a white silk or linen cap, so shaped as to include and cover the two side-plaits and combine a gorget and wimple in one. Pointed frontals of pearls were worn across the forehead, and fillets of silk or linen were so tied that long ends hung down the back.
Four women of the time of Edward III.
Yellow hair was much esteemed, and ladies who were not favoured by Nature, brought saffron to their aid, and by such efforts brought Nature into line with Art.
There was the general custom of wearing the surcoat in imitation of the men, a garment I havedescribed frequently—a slightly-fitting garment without sleeves—you will see how this grew later into a gorgeous affair. These surcoats were sometimes of fine cloth of gold covered with an intricate, delicate pattern in which beasts, birds, and foliage mingled in arabesque. Under this surcoat was a plainer, better-fitting garment, made sometimes of the barred and rayed material so common to the men, or of velvet, cloth, or silk, in plain colours, green and red being then very favourite; ermines and many other furs were used to border these gowns. Sometimes you may see that this gown had sleeves short at the elbow, exposing a different coloured under-sleeve, buttoned from elbow to wrist; at other times—in fact, among all fashionable persons—the curious fashion of the tippet, or long streamer, was worn. I have carefully described this fashion in the previous chapter.
A woman of the time of Edward III.
The plain gown with tight sleeves was most in use, and the skirts of this gown were very voluminous, and had either pockets or holes in the front of them; the holes enabled the wearer to reach the purse hanging from a girdle which encircled thewaist of the under-dress. These gowns were generally buttoned in front, from neck to waist, or they were laced.
They also wore a heavier gown which reached just below the knee, showing the skirts of the under-gown; the heavy gowns were often fur-lined, and had loose wide sleeves to the elbow.
There was at this time a curious fur or cloth cape in use, longer behind than in front—in fact, it varied with the taste of the owner. It was cut in even scallops all round; I say even to show that they were sewn-edged, not jagged and rough-edged. Any pair of these scallops might be longer than any other pair. Ladies wore these capes for hunting, and ornamented the ends with bells.
The shoes of the women were not very exaggerated in length, but, as a rule, fitted well to the foot and came out in a slight point. You may use for this reign shoes buckled across the instep, laced at the side, or buttoned up the front.
For riding and sport the ladies wore the hood, and sometimes a broad round hat over it, or the peaked hat. The countrywoman wore an ill-fitting gown with tight sleeves, an apron, and an open hood.
A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF EDWARD III. (1327-1377)
You will notice that the woman also wears the tippet on her arm. The gorget is high about her neck, and is held up by pins to her plaited hair.
Imagine London in the year of the third great pestilence, 1369. It is October, and the worst ofthe pestilence is over; John Chichester, the Mayor, is riding through the streets about some great affairs; many knights and ladies pass by. It is raining hard after the long drought of the summer, but, despite the rain, many citizens are abroad to see the doings in the City, and one may see the bright parti-coloured clothes of the lords and ladies, and here and there, as a cloak is blown back, a glimpse of rich-patterned cloth of gold.
Perhaps Will Langland—Long Will—a gaunt man of thirty-seven, is brushing past a young man of twenty-nine, Chaucer, going to his work.
Silk dresses and frieze gowns, velvet and homespun, hurry along as the rain falls more heavily, and after a while the street becomes quite deserted. Then nothing but the dreary monotony of the rain falling from the gables will come to the room of the knight’s lady as she lies sick of small-pox. John de Gaddesden, the King’s doctor, has prescribed for her that she must lie clothed in scarlet red in a room of that colour, with bed-hangings of that same colour, and so she must lie, without much comfort, while the raindrops, falling down the wide chimney, drip on the logs in the fire and make them hiss.
Reigned twenty-two years: 1377-1399.
Born 1366. Married, 1381, Anne of Bohemia; 1395, Isabella of France.
The King himself was a leader of fashion; he had by grace of Nature the form, face, and manner which go to make a dandy. The nobles followed the King; the merchants followed the nobles after their kind; the peasants were still clothed in the simplest of garments, having retained the Norman tunic with the sleeves pushed back over the wrist, kept the loose boots and straw gaiters, and showed the improvement in their class by the innovation of gloves made as a thumb with a pouch for the fingers, and pouches for money of cloth and leather hung on a leather belt. This proved the peasant to be a man of some substance by need of his wallet. Everyone wore the chaperon—a cap and cape combined.
We have now arrived at the reign which made such a difference to the labourer and workman—such as the blacksmith and miller—and in consequence altered and improved the character of his clothes. The poll-tax of 1380 brought the labourer into individual notice for the first time, and thus arose the free labourer in England and the first labour pamphlets.
We have two word-pictures of the times of the greatest value, for they show both sides of the coin: the one by the courtly and comfortable Chaucer, the other by Long Will—William Langland, or Piers the Plowman. Picture the two along the Strand—Long Will singing his dirges for hire, and Chaucer, his hand full of parchments, bustling past.
One must remember that, as always, many people dressed out of the fashion; that many men still wore the cotehardie, a well-fitting garment reaching half-way down the thigh, with tight sleeves coming over the hand, decorated with buttons under the sleeve from the elbow to the little finger. This garment had a belt, which was placed round the hips; and this was adorned in many ways: principally it was composed of squarepieces of metal joined together, either of silver, or enamel in copper, or of gold set with precious stones.