Costume: Fanciful, Historical and Theatrical

CHAPTER II

IN EARLY MEDIÆVAL TIMES

From the days of the early Britons to the twelfth century is a long jump, but in many countries the growth of new fashions was so slow that to attempt to describe it would mean much wearying repetition and an unnecessary extension of these pages.

For example, the dress worn by the men and women of Italy during the twelfth century was very similar to the old Roman styles, while in Southern Italy the Norman dress found favour as well as the Byzantine. In Sicily Arab costume predominated, and in Northern Italy the German and the Norman fashions shared popularity. Italian women, who all aspired to express their exalted birth by their dress, wore in the house a tunic or stola drawn up under a belt to show the feet, fitting closely to the figure and bearing long or short sleeves, as fancy dictated, and over this a palla, developed into a rectangular piece of cloth, passed under the right armpit with the ends knotted on the left shoulder.

Until the close of the tenth century, costume in England bore more resemblance to that worn in ancient Rome than to any chosen by the Danes. Though the Normans were greatly influenced by the Saracenic and Byzantine fashions prevailing in Southern Europe, an English lady of the twelfth century could scarcely have been distinguished by her attire from a lady of the Lower Empire, or even a modern maid of Athens; and no doubt a contemporary wit of flippant habit would have excused her simplicity by declaring that the study of costume was Greek to her.

A DRESS LACED IN THE FRONT.

A DRESS LACED AT THE BACK.

The prevailing note in dress in the twelfth century was costliness. The king set the fashion of rich apparel, and his example was followed by both clergy and people, though the former exercised their didactic privileges by inveighing against the most popular eccentricities. The women's dress at this period showed a strong tendency to exaggerated length, and the veils and kerchiefs were so long that the fair wearers were forced to knot them to avoid treading on them, while the skirts lay in great folds on the ground. Much significance might be attached to that precious old MS. where the illuminator depicts the devil in a woman's surcoat with a sleeve and skirts tied up in knots! Robes were laced up in front, and the cuffs of the sleeves embroidered or fur-trimmed, and over the long robe or tunic appeared a shorter garment resembling the sur cÔte, which was chequered and spotted, presumably to represent embroidery, and finished with an indented border termed "dagged," in a fashion condemned by Henry II. Norman ladies wore their hair plaited, the braids often incased in silk or bound round with ribbon and finished off with three curls; but towards the end of the twelfth century the hair was frequently held in a network of gold set with stones.

The clergy had much to say on the subject of the long beards which reappeared during the reign of Henry I.; and that one, more forcible than elegant in his denunciations, who described the men of his time as "filthy goats," has for the solecism gone down to posterity with the priest who, preaching such a moving sermon on the subject that king and courtiers wept, took advantage of the impression he had made, drew out a large pair of scissors that he had concealed in his sleeve, and cropped the entire assemblage.

IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY.

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During the latter half of the twelfth century a change for the better came over the spirit of dress, which was now marked by a greater reticence. The extravagant cuff disappeared, and sleeves were worn tight and fastened at the wrist. An effigy of Queen Berengaria, in the Abbey of l'Espan, shows the queen with flowing locks partly covered by a kerchief, surmounted by a gold crown; her robe is held together at the neck by a large circular brooch set with precious stones, her mantle hanging almost to her feet behind, while a small aumÔniÈre is pendent from a beautiful girdle. For just so much detail and no more would I pin my faith to a monumental sculptor as a fashion historian. Green was the favourite colour of the robe in the reign of John, and there is a king's warrant for two green robes for the queen, each to consist of two ells of cloth, while there exists a register showing that a green robe lined with condal cost sixty shillings; so common, in fact, was the wearing of the green that Longchamp, the arrogant Bishop of Ely, when he was forced to fly the kingdom to escape John's rage, disguised himself in a woman's green tunic and Norman mantle and hood of the same colour.

A CORONET.

It was the harvest-time for the embroiderers, or at least it ought to have been, but it is not on record that their services were rewarded with any magnificent generosity. Embroidery was rampant: all state garments were traced with gold, and vivid colours would adorn robes and mantles alike, a favourite design being a series of circles.

A BROOCH.

The pelisse now came into existence; in form it was a close-fitting dress, a prototype of the garment which bears the same title to-day. Fur was a modish trimming, and nine bars of fur are mentioned as a trimming of some special grey pelisse which King John bestowed upon Isabella of AngoulÊme. Obviously the sealskin paletot and the sable cape were not amongst the possibilities of that hour, or His Majesty would not have been let off so cheaply.

A PLAIN WIMPLE.

But to the enthusiastic chronicler of fashion there was one fact of King John's reign which was pre-eminently worthy and admirable. This was the introduction of the wimple, of all attributes to feminine beauty surely the most becoming ever conceived or accomplished! It was made either in silk or linen, a covering for the neck, chin, and forehead at once disguiseful and provocative, coquettish and demure. At times the wimple was little more than an elaborated veil or kerchief, but in its most alluring form it was a separate article worn under the veil, as in a nun's dress of to-day, which, in fact, in all but colour, bears a striking resemblance to the thirteenth-century dress. Indeed Chaucer distinguishes the two when he says—

Wering a vaile insted of wimple,

As nonnes don in ther abbey.

The wimple was wrapped round the head and chin, and ladies of wealth bound it on the forehead by a golden or jewelled fillet, while their poorer sisters used plain silk. Silken wimples were forbidden to the nuns, who were then as now devoted to white linen. It is not unlikely that the wimple originated with the fashion of wearing the coverchief about the neck, and it was towards the end of the twelfth century that the coverchief underwent transformation, growing smaller and being tied under the chin like a modern cap or bonnet.

Boots and shoes formed an important portion of dress in the twelfth century, and here again the interfering cleric played his favourite rÔle of denunciator. The monks, who were denied their wear, abused with vigour the peak-toed boots and shoes, which indeed reached a point exquisitely ridiculous when a courtier could choose to stuff the points of his shoes with tow, so that they might curl up like ram's horns. Dispassionately, I recognise as much wit as wisdom in the notion.

A SHOE.

Women wore short boots as well as shoes, but the dresses were so long that only the tips of the toes could be seen, and they were content to embroider these in gold with fanciful or circular devices.

Gloves, jewelled at the back, were chosen by the richer classes, and coarsely-made warm gloves without fingers received a mild patronage from the poor. But women wore gloves very rarely; they were not amongst the trifles which attracted feminine attention, though there was much general love for variety, and a vast amount of money, care, and thought was bestowed on personal adornment.

DAGGED COSTUME IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY.

In the early part of the thirteenth century many beautiful fabrics put in an appearance. Velvet, and silk interwoven with gold, and cloth with many colours were fashionable, while it became a very popular practice to ornament hems of garments by cutting them into indented tabs or leaves, a fashion to which I have referred previously as "dagged," the contemporary expression. How pretty the dagged costume may be is easily realised by glancing at the picture on page 16, which shows it entirely made in cloth, crowned by a white linen turban with a band of linen under the chin.

The turban adorned many a fair and dark head, the Spanish women wearing it exclusively, drawing their inspiration for this, and for their trailing robes and funnel-shaped sleeves, from the Arab fashions.

Frenchwomen asserted themselves as pioneers with the closely-fitting garment that allowed the lines of the figure to be seen, a legitimate ancestress to our princess gown. Sleeves established their right to exist in more than one form, some being wide at the top, others narrow, close-fitting, and fastened at the wrists, and others again narrow at the top and to the middle of the forearm, where they widened and fell almost to the ground.

The cuirass dress was often slightly open at the neck in order to show the under-garment, and a long girdle embroidered in gold was passed round the waist, crossed behind and brought round again to the front a little lower down, where it was tied so that the ends fell loosely. In the twelfth century this style of gown was frequently draped on the hips and worn without the embroidered bodice or the girdle, and a favoured long robe was open from top to bottom and fastened with buttons. Mantles were semicircular in cut and held in divers ways, and their borders were adorned with rectangular metal plaques, each pierced with five holes, a double cord being passed through these holes and fastened behind.

A CLASPED AND JEWELLED GIRDLE.

An affection for jewels, rings and collars of pearls, diadems and clasps, was common to all the nobles of all the nations, while caps, wimples, and veils crowned the fair with grace, and permitted some diversity of expression.

A CLOAK-FASTENER.

In the twelfth century the English historian declares that in France fashion danced the gayest tunes and was uproarious in her demand for extravagance, and, if French chroniclers are to be believed, moderation marked the footsteps of the native mondaine, whose shoes were comparatively low and bore small points. But I doubt not that, then as now, each woman was a profit to her own country, and did her duty to commerce by prodigality with unswerving enthusiasm.

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