A man of the time of William II.
About this time there came to England a Norman, who settled near by the Abbey of Battle—Baldwin the Tailor by name, whom one might call the father of English tailoring.
Baldwin the Tailor sat contentedly cross-legged on his bench and plied his needle and thread, and snipped, and cut, and sewed, watching the birds pick worms and insects from the turf of the battleground.
A MAN OF THE TIME OF WILLIAM II. (1087-1100)
Shows the wide drawers with an embroidered hem. Under them can be seen the long woollen drawers bound with leather thongs.
England is getting a little more settled.
The reign opens picturesquely enough with William Rufus hastening to England with his father’s ring, and ends with the tragedy of the New Forest and a blood-stained tunic.
Clothes begin to play an important part. Rich fur-lined cloaks and gowns trail on the ground, and sweep the daisies so lately pressed by mailed feet and sopped with blood where the Saxons fell.
The Cloak pushed through a Ring.
Times have changed since Baldwin was at the coronation at Westminster on Christmas Day twenty years ago. Flemish weavers and farmers arrive from overseas, and are established by William II. in the North to teach the people pacific arts, causing in time a stream of Flemish merchandise to flow into the country, chiefly of rich fabrics and fine cloths.
The men adopt longer tunics, made after the same pattern as before—split up either side and loose in the sleeve—but in many cases the skirts reach to the ground in heavy folds, and the sleeves hang over the hands by quite a yard.
The necks of these tunics are ornamented as before, with coloured bands or stiff embroidery.
The cuffs have the embroidery both inside and out, so that when the long sleeve is turned back over the hand the embroidery will show.
The fashion in cloaks is still the same—of a semicircular pattern.
The shoes are the same as in the previous reign—that is, of the shape of the foot, except in rare cases of dandyism, when the shoes were made with long, narrow toes, and these, being stuffed with moss or wool, were so stiffened and curled up at the ends that they presented what was supposed to be a delightfully extravagant appearance.
They wore a sort of ankle garter of soft leather or cloth, which came over the top of the boot and just above the ankle.
The hair, beard, and moustaches were worn long and carefully combed—in fact, the length of the beard caused the priests to rail at them under suchterms as ‘filthy goats.’ But they had hardly the right to censorship, since they themselves had to be severely reprimanded by their Bishops for their extravagance in dress.
Many gentlemen, and especially the Welsh, wore long loose trousers as far as the ankle, leaving these garments free from any cross gartering. These were secured about the waist by a girdle of stuff or leather.
Two men of the time of William II.
The ultra-fashionable dress was an elongation of every part of the simple dress of the previous reign. Given these few details, it is easy for anyone who wishes to go further to do so, in which case he must keep to the main outline very carefully; but as to the actual length of sleeve or shoe, or the very measurements of a cloak, they varied with the individual folly of the owner. So a man might have long sleevesand a short tunic, or a tunic which trailed upon the ground, the sleeves of which reached only to the elbow.
I have noticed that it is the general custom of writers upon the dress of this early time to dwell lovingly upon the colours of the various parts of the dress as they were painted in the illuminated manuscripts. This is a foolish waste of time, insomuch as the colours were made the means of displays of pure design on the part of the very early illuminators; and if one were to go upon such evidence as this, by the exactness of such drawings alone, then every Norman had a face the colour of which nearly resembled wet biscuit, and hair picked out in brown lines round each wave and curl.
These woollen clothes—cap, tunic, semicircular cloak, and leg coverings—have all been actually found in the tomb of a Briton of the Bronze Age. So little did the clothes alter in shape, that the early Briton and the late Norman were dressed nearly exactly alike.
When the tomb of William II. was opened in 1868, it was found, as had been suspected, that the grave had been opened and looted of what valuables it might have contained; but there were foundamong the dust which filled the bottom of the tomb fragments of red cloth, of gold cloth, a turquoise, a serpent’s head in ivory, and a wooden spear shaft, perhaps the very spear that William carried on that fatal day in the New Forest.
Also with the dust and bones of the dead King some nutshells were discovered, and examination showed that mice had been able to get into the tomb. So, if you please, you may hit upon a pretty moral.
A woman of the time of William II.
And so the lady began to lace....
A moralist, a denouncer of the fair sex, a satirist, would have his fling at this. What thundering epithets and avalanche of words should burst out at such a momentous point in English history!
However, the lady pleased herself.
Not that the lacing was very tight, but it commenced the habit, and the habit begat the harm, and the thing grew until it arrived finally at that buckram, square-built, cardboard-and-tissue figure which titters and totters through the Elizabethan era.
Our male eyes, trained from infancy upwards to avoid gazing into certain shop windows, nevertheless retain a vivid impression of an awesome affair therein, which we understood by hints and signs confined our mothers’ figures in its deadly grip.
That the lady did not lace herself overtight is proved by the many informations we have of her household duties; that she laced tight enough for unkind comment is shown by the fact that some old monk pictured the devil in a neat-laced gown.
It was, at any rate, a distinct departure from the loosely-clothed lady of 1066 towards the neater figure of 1135.
The lacing was more to draw the wrinkles of the close-woven bodice of the gown smooth than to form a false waist and accentuated hips, the beauty of which malformation I must leave to the writers in ladies’ journals and the condemnation to health faddists.
However, the lacing was not the only matter of note. A change was coming over all feminine apparel—a change towards richness, which made itself felt in this reign more in the fabric than in the actual make of the garment.
A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF WILLIAM II. (1087-1100)
This shows the gown, which is laced behind, fitting more closely to the figure. The sleeves are wider above the wrist.
The gown was open at the neck in the usualmanner, was full in the skirt and longer than heretofore, was laced at the back, and was loose in the sleeve.
The sleeve as worn by the men—that is, the over-long sleeve hanging down over the hand—was also worn by the women, and hung down or was turned back, according to the freak of the wearer. Not only this, but a new idea began, which was to cut a hole in the long sleeve where the hand came, and, pushing the hand through, to let the rest of the sleeve droop down. This developed, as we shall see later.
A woman of the time of William II.
Then the cloak, which had before been fastened by a brooch on the shoulder or in the centre of the breast, was now held more tightly over the shoulders by a set of laces or bands which ran round the back from underneath the brooch where they were fastened, thus giving more definition to the shoulders.
You must remember that such fashions as the hole in the sleeve and the laced cloak were not any more universal than is any modern fashion, and thatthe good dame in the country was about a century behind the times with her loose gown and heavy cloak.
There were still the short gowns, which, being tucked in at the waist by the girdle, showed the thick wool chemise below and the unlaced gown, fitting like a jersey.
The large wimple was still worn wrapped about the head, and the hair was still carefully hidden.
A woman of the time of William II.
Shall we imagine that it is night, and that the lady is going to bed? She is in her long white chemise, standing at the window looking down upon the market square of a small town.
The moon picks out every detail of carving on the church, and throws the porch into a dense gloom. Not a soul is about, not a light is to be seen, not a sound is to be heard.
The lady is about to leave the window, when she hears a sound in the street below. She peers down, and sees a man running towards the church; he goes in and out of the shadows. From her open window she can hear his heavy breathing. Now hedarts into the shadow of the porch, and then out of the gloom comes a furious knocking, and a voice crying, ‘Sanctuary!’
The lady at her window knows that cry well. Soon the monks in the belfry will awake and ring the Galilee-bell.
The Galilee-bell tolls, and the knocking ceases.
A few curious citizens look out. A dog barks. Then a door opens and closes with a bang.
There is silence in the square again, but the lady still stands at her window, and she follows the man in her thoughts.
Now he is admitted by the monks, and goes at once to the altar of the patron-saint of the church, where he kneels and asks for a coroner.
The coroner, an aged monk, comes to him and confesses him. He tells his crime, and renounces his rights in the kingdom; and then, in that dark church, he strips to his shirt and offers his clothes to the sacrist for his fee. Ragged, mud-stained clothes, torn cloak, all fall from him in a heap upon the floor of the church.
Now the sacrist gives him a large cloak with a cross upon the shoulder, and, having fed him, gives him into the charge of the under-sheriff, who willnext day pass him from constable to constable towards the coast, where he will be seen on board a ship, and so pass away, an exile for ever.
The night is cold. The lady pulls a curtain across the window, and then, stripping herself of her chemise, she gets into bed.
Reigned thirty-five years: 1100-1135.
Born 1068. Married to Matilda of Scotland, 1100; to Adela of Louvain, 1121.
A man of the time of Henry I.; two types of shoe
The Father of Popular Literature, Gerald of Wales, says: ‘It is better to be dumb than not to be understood. New times require new fashions, and so I have thrown utterly aside the old and dry methods of some authors, and aimed at adopting the fashion of speech which is actually in vogue to-day.’
Vainly, perhaps, I have endeavoured to follow this precept laid down by Father Gerald, trying by slight pictures of the times to make the dry bones live,to make the clothes stir up and puff themselves into the shapes of men.
It is almost a necessity that one who would describe, paint, stage, or understand the costume of this reign should know the state of England at the time.
For there is in this reign a distinction without a difference in clothes; the shapes are almost identical to the shapes and patterns of the previous reigns, but everybody is a little better dressed.
The mantles worn by the few in the time of William the Red are worn now by most of the nobility, fur-lined and very full.
One may see on the sides of the west door of Rochester Cathedral Henry and his first wife, and notice that the mantle he wears is very full; one may see that he wears a supertunic, which is gathered round his waist. This tunic is the usual Norman tunic reaching to the knee, but now it is worn over an under-tunic which reaches to the ground in heavy folds.
One may notice that the King’s hair is long and elegantly twisted into pipes or ringlets, and that it hangs over his shoulders.
A MAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY I. (1100-1135)
His hair is curled in ringlets; he wears a long cloak. The shirt shows at the neck of the tunic. The small design in the corner is from a sanctuary door-knocker.
No longer is the priestly abuse of ‘filthy goat’applicable, for Henry’s beard is neatly trimmed and cut round his face.
These two things are the only practical difference between the two dates—the end of the eleventh century and the beginning of the twelfth.
The under-tunic was made as a perfectly plain gown with tight sleeves ending at the wrist; it hung loose and full upon the figure. Over this was worn the short tunic with wide sleeves ending at the elbow. Both tunics would have broad borders of embroidered work or bands of coloured material. The supertunic would be brooched by one of those circular Norman brooches which was an ornamental circle of open gold-work in which stones and jewels were set. The brooch was fastened by a central pin.
The extravagances of the previous reign were in some measure done away with; even the very long hair was not fashionable in the latter half of this reign, and the ultra-long sleeve was not so usual.
So we may give as a list of clothes for men in this reign:
A white linen shirt.
A long tunic, open at the neck, falling to the ground, with tight sleeves to the wrist.
A short tunic reaching only to the knees, more open at the neck than the long tunic, generally fastened by a brooch.
Tight, well-fitting drawers or loose trousers.
Bandages or garters crossed from the ankle to the knee to confine the loose trousers or ornament the tights.
Boots of soft leather which had an ornamental band at the top.
Socks with an embroidered top.
Shoes of cloth and leather with an embroidered band down the centre and round the top.
Shoes of skin tied with leather thongs.
Caps of skin or cloth of a very plain shape and without a brim.
Belts of leather or cloth or silk.
Semicircular cloaks fastened as previously described, and often lined with fur.
The clothes of every colour, but with little or no pattern; the patterns principally confined to irregular groups of dots.
And to think that in the year in which Henry died Nizami visited the grave of Omar Al Khayyám in the Hira Cemetery at Nishapur!
A CHILD OF THE TIME OF HENRY I.
It is only in quite recent years that there have been quite distinct dresses for children, fashions indeed which began with the ideas for the improvement in hygiene. For many centuries children were dressed, with slight modifications, after the manner of their parents, looking like little men and women, until in the end they arrived at the grotesque infants of Hogarth’s day, powdered and patched, with little stiff skirted suits and stiff brocade gowns, with little swords and little fans and, no doubt, many pretty airs and graces.
One thing I have never seen until the early sixteenth century, and that is girls wearing any of the massive head-gear of their parents; in all other particulars they were the same.
A woman of the time of Henry I.
The greatest change in the appearance of the women was in the arrangement of the hair.
After a hundred years or more of headcloths and hidden hair suddenly appears a head of hair. Until now a lady might have been bald for all the notice she took of her hair; now she must needs borrow hair to add to her own, so that her plaits shall be thick and long.
It is easy to see how this came about. The hair, for convenience, had always been plaited in two plaits and coiled round the head, where it lay concealed by the wimple. One day some fine lady decides to discard her close and uncomfortable head-covering. She lets her plaits hang over her shoulders, and so appears in public. Contempt of other ladies who have fine heads of hair for the thinness of her plaits; competition in thick and long hair; anger of ladies whose hair is not thickand long; enormous demand for artificial hair; failure of the supply to meet the ever-increasing demand; invention of silken cases filled with a substitute for hair, these cases attached to the end of the plaits to elongate them—in this manner do many fashions arrive and flourish, until such time as the common people find means of copying them, and then my lady wonders how she could ever have worn such a common affair.
The gowns of these ladies remained much the same, except that the loose gown, without any show of the figure, was in great favour; this gown was confined by a long girdle.
The girdle was a long rope of silk or wool, which was placed simply round the waist and loosely knotted; or it was wound round above the waist once, crossed behind, and then knotted in front, and the ends allowed to hang down. The ends of the girdle had tassels and knots depending from them.
The silk cases into which the hair was placed were often made of silk of variegated colours, and these cases had metal ends or tassels.
The girdles sometimes were broad bands of silk diapered with gold thread, of which manufacture specimens remain to us.
A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY I. (1100-1135)
This shows the pendant sleeve with an embroidered hem. The long plaits of hair ended with metal, or silk, tags. At the neck and wrists the white chemise shows.
The sleeves of the gowns had now altered in shape, and had acquired a sort of pendulent cuff, which hung down about two hands’ breadth from the wrist. The border was, as usual, richly ornamented.
A woman of the time of Henry I.
Then we have a new invention, the pelisse. It is a loose silk coat, which is brooched at the waist, or buttoned into a silk loop. The sleeves are long—that is, they gradually increase in size from the underarm to the wrist, and sometimes are knotted at the ends, and so are unlike the other gown sleeves, which grow suddenly long near to the wrist.
This pelisse reaches to the knees, and is well open in front. The idea was evidently brought back from the East after the knights arrived back from the First Crusade, as it is in shape exactly like the coats worn by Persian ladies.
We may conceive a nice picture of Countess Constance, the wife of Hugh Lufus, Earl ofChester, as she appeared in her dairy fresh from milking the cows, which were her pride. No doubt she did help to milk them; and in her long under-gown, with her plaits once more confined in the folds of her wimple, she made cheeses—such good cheeses that Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, rejoiced in a present of some of them.
What a change it must have been to Matilda, free of the veil that she hated, from the Black Nuns of Romsey, and the taunts and blows of her aunt Christina, to become the wife of King Henry, and to disport herself in fine garments and long plaited hair—Matilda the very royal, the daughter of a King, the sister to three Kings, the wife of a King, the mother of an Empress!
Reigned nineteen years: 1135-1154.
Born 1094. Married, 1124, to Matilda of Boulogne.
A man of the time of Stephen
When one regards the mass of material in existence showing costume of the tenth and eleventh centuries, it appears curious that so little fabric remains of this particular period.
The few pieces of fabric in existence are so worn and bare that they tell little, whereas pieces of earlier date of English or Norman material are perfect, although thin and delicate.
There are few illuminated manuscripts of the twelfth century, or of the first half of it, and to thefew there are all previous historians of costume have gone, so that one is left without choice but to go also to these same books. The possibilities, however, of the manuscripts referred to have not been exhausted, and too much attention has been paid to the queer drawing of the illuminators; so that where they utilized to the full the artistic license, others have sought to pin it down as accurate delineation of the costume of the time. In this I have left out all the supereccentric costumes, fearing that such existed merely in the imagination of the artist, and I have applied myself to the more ordinary and understandable. As there are such excellent works on armour, I have not touched at all upon the subject, so that we are left but the few simple garments that men wore when they put off their armour, or that the peasant and the merchant habitually wore.
Ladies occupied their leisure in embroidery and other fine sewing, in consequence of which the borders of tunics, of cloaks, the edgings of sleeves, and bands upon the shoes, were elegantly patterned. The more important the man, the finer his shoes.
A MAN OF THE TIME OF STEPHEN (1135-1154)
He is wearing a cloak with hood attached; it is of skin, the smooth leather inside. He has an ankle gaiter covering the top of his shoes. On the arm over which the cloak hangs can be seen the white sleeve of the shirt.
As will be seen from the drawings, the man wore his hair long, smoothly parted in the centre,with a lock drawn down the parting from the back of his head. As a rule, the hair curled back naturally, and hung on the shoulders, but sometimes the older fashion of the past reign remained, and the hair was carefully curled in locks and tied with coloured ribbon.
Besides the hood as covering for the head, men wore one or other of the simple caps shown, made of cloth or of fur, or of cloth fur-lined.
A man of the time of Stephen; two types of shoe; a boot
Two types of tunic; two types of cloak; four types of sleeve showing cuff variations
Next to his skin the man of every class wore a shirt of the pattern shown—the selfsame shirt that we wear to day, excepting that the sleeves were made very long and tight-fitting, and were pushed back over the wrist, giving those wrinkles which we notice on all the Bayeux tapestry sleeves, and which we see for many centuries in drawings of the undergarment. The shape has always remained the same; the modesof fastening the shirt differ very slightly—so little, in fact, that a shirt of the fourth century which still remains in existence shows the same button and loop that we notice of the shirts of the twelfth century. The richer man had his shirt embroidered round the neck and sometimes at the cuffs. Over this garment the man wore his tunic—of wool, or cloth, or (rarely) of silk; the drawing explains the exact making of it. The tunic, as will be seen, was embroidered at the neck, the cuffs, and round the border. One drawing shows the most usual of these tunics, while the other drawings will explain the variations from it—either a tight sleeve made long and rolled back, a sleeve made very wide at the cuff and allowed tohang, or a sleeve made so that it fell some way over the hand. It was embroidered inside and out at the cuff, and was turned back to allow free use of the hand.
Over the tunic was worn the cloak, a very simple garment, being a piece of cloth cut in the shape of a semicircle, embroidered on the border or not, according to the purse and position of the owner. Sometimes a piece was cut out to fit the neck.
Another form of cloak was worn with a hood. This was generally used for travelling, or worn by such people as shepherds. It was made for the richer folk of fine cloth, fur-lined, or entirely of fur, and for the poorer people of skin or wool.
The cloak was fastened by a brooch, and was pinned in the centre or on either shoulder, most generally on the right; or it was pushed through a ring sewn on to the right side of the neck of the cloak.
The brooches were practically the same as those worn in the earlier reigns, or were occasionally of a pure Roman design.
As will be seen in the small diagrams of men wearing the clothes of the day, the tunic, the shirt,and the cloak were worn according to the season, and many drawings in the MSS. of the date show men wearing the shirt alone.
On their legs men wore trousers of leather for riding, bound round with leather thongs, and trousers of wool also, bound with coloured straps of wool or cloth.
A man of the time of Stephen; an alternative hat for a man
Stockings of wool were worn, and cloth stockings also, and socks. There was a sock without a foot, jewelled or embroidered round the top, which was worn over the stocking and over the top of the boot in the manner of ankle gaiters.
The country man wore twists of straw round his calf and ankle.
For the feet there were several varieties of boots and shoes made of leather and stout cloth, now and again with wooden soles. As has been said before, the important people rejoiced in elegant footgearof all colours. All the shoes buttoned with one button above the outside ankle. The boots were sometimes tall, reaching to the bottom of the calf of the leg, and were rolled over, showing a coloured lining. Sometimes they were loose and wrinkled over the ankle. They were both, boot and shoe, made to fit the foot; for in this reign nearly all the extravagances of the previous reign had died out, and it is rare to find drawings or mention of long shoes stuffed with tow or wool.
During the reign of Stephen the nation was too occupied in wars and battles to indulge in excessive finery, and few arts flourished, although useful improvements occurred in the crafts.
There is in the British Museum a fine enamelled plate of this date which is a representation of Henry of Blois, Stephen’s brother, who was the Bishop of Winchester. Part of the inscription, translated by Mr. Franks, says that ‘Art is above gold and gems,’ and that ‘Henry, while living, gives gifts of brass to God.’
Champlevé enamel was very finely made in the twelfth century, and many beautiful examples remain, notably a plaque which was placed on the column at the foot of which Geoffrey Plantagenetwas buried. It is a portrait of him, and shows the Byzantine influence still over the French style.
This may appear to be rather apart from costume, but it leads one to suppose that the ornaments of the time may have been frequently executed in enamel or in brass—such ornaments as rings and brooches.
It is hard to say anything definite about the colours of the dresses at this time. All that we can say is that the poorer classes were clothed principally in self-coloured garments, and that the dyes used for the clothes of the nobles were of very brilliant hues. But a street scene would be more occupied by the colour of armour. One would have seen a knight and men-at-arms—the knight in his plain armour and the men in leather and steel; a few merchants in coloured cloaks, and the common crowd in brownish-yellow clothes with occasional bands of colour encircling their waists.
The more simply the people are represented, the more truthful will be the picture or presentation. Few pictures of this exact time are painted, and few stories are written about it, but this will giveall the information necessary to produce any picture or stage-play, or to illustrate any story.
The garments are perfectly easy to cut out and make. In order to prove this I have had them made from the bare outlines given here, without any trouble.
A woman of the time of Stephen
Though many parts of England were at this time being harassed by wars, still the domestic element grew and flourished.
The homes of the English from being bare and rude began to know the delights of embroidery and weaving. The workroom of the ladies was the most civilized part of the castle, and the effect of the Norman invasion of foreign fashions was beginning to be felt.
As the knights were away to their fighting, so were the knights’ ladies engaged in sewing sleeve embroideries, placing of pearls upon shoes, makingsilk cases for their hair, and otherwise stitching, cutting, and contriving against the return of their lords.
A woman of the time of Stephen
It is recorded that Matilda escaped from Oxford by a postern in a white dress, and no doubt her women sympathizers made much of white for dresses.
The ladies wore a simple undergarment of thin material called a sherte 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.
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 bodyand 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 wasadded 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 lengthof 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.
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 moredirected 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 andsickness; 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, andin the bitter cold weather skins of sheep and wolves unlined and but roughly dressed.
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 sellor 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.
Reigned thirty-five years: 1154-1189.
Born 1133. Married, 1152, to Eleanor of Guienne.