44 The four parts of the Empire (Sclavinia, Germania, Gallia and Roma) paying homage to Otto III.
Throughout its history the Roman state was surrounded by barbarian peoples who lived beyond the borders of its dominion, and sometimes their incursions were dangerous indeed. As early as the second century BCE, a Roman army had been defeated by a people they identified as Teutones or Teutons.
At this period the Teutons were primitive enough. Their principal garment seems to have consisted of a short tunic formed of two pieces of leather sewn together. Later it was made of wool or linen. Under the tunic were worn breeches or baggy trousers, which in Roman eyes was the very mark of the barbarian. Naturally, the Teutons were influenced by their contacts with Rome, and they gradually adopted something resembling Roman costume but made, in general, of coarser materials such as hemp.
By the end of the first century CE, another northern tribe, the Goths (originally of Scandinavian origin), had settled in what was, until 1945, East Prussia, and they, too, threatened the Roman civilization. They sacked Rome under their great leader Alaric in the fifth century. As Ostrogoths they pushed south into central Italy; as Visigoths they pushed westward into Spain and other regions; and as Langobards or Lombards they firmly established themselves in northern Italy. From the descriptions of such Roman historians as Sidonius Apollinaris we know that they wore sleeved tunics of linen, edged with fur, and became gradually Romanized.
New waves of invasion from the east threatened the Teutonic tribes themselves. The Huns came originally from Mongolia; by the middle of the first century CE they had reached Europe, and by the fourth century, under Attila, Rome itself.
In France the Gauls had adopted not only Roman dress and customs but the Latin language. Like the Britons they had (in the upper classes at least) become completely Romanized. But Gaul was successfully invaded by the Franks (i.e. the Teutons) from across the Rhine, and by the fifth century CE the Frankish dynasty of the Merovingians had established itself over the greater part of the country.
We would know much less of the costume of the Merovingian period in France (481–752 CE) if it were not for the fact that the invading Franks who now controlled the country were in the habit of burying their dead, instead of burning their bodies as the Romanized Gauls had done. Buried with the corpses of kings or other distinguished persons were the clothes, arms and accoutrements they had used in life. Excavations in Lorraine and at Le Mans have yielded specimens of fine linen garments which, although fragmentary, show that it was usual to wear a knee-length tunic called a gonelle, embroidered at the edge and caught in at the waist with a belt. In battle the tunic would be made of stout material, or of leather, and covered with metal plaques. The men of this period wore braies or breeches, sometimes ending at the knee and leaving the legs bare, sometimes long and cross-gartered.
Little is known of female costume at this period, since women are poorly represented in the burials. We know, however, from other sources, that they generally wore a long tunic called a stola decorated with embroidered bands. The arms were bare. Brooches kept the garment in place on the shoulders, and the waist was encircled with a leather belt. A kind of scarf, called a palla, was draped over the shoulders.
Fortunately, one quite recent discovery, in the church of Saint-Denis, near Paris, gives more exact information. Fragments of material from the tomb of a Merovingian queen, Arnegonde (550–70 CE), show that she was buried in a chemise of fine linen with a violet silk robe over it. Over this was a long tunic of red silk, open in front and with long wide sleeves. A wide belt, crossed at the back and tied low in front, kept the tunic in place, and attached to the tunic by richly enamelled gold fibulae was a waist-length veil. The closed shoes were of black leather with laces long enough to be crossed over the leg to the height of the garter.
Neither men nor women seem to have worn hats. Both sexes had long hair, men and young girls wearing it loose, and married women binding it into a kind of chignon. The latter covered the head with a veil, either in the form of a turban or long enough to cover the entire body.
When the Merovingians were succeeded by the Carolingians (752–987 CE), conditions in France and in Western Europe generally were rather more settled and luxury increased. Charlemagne became ruler of the Franks, controlling, in 771 CE, territory corresponding roughly to France and Germany; and in 800 CE he was crowned in Rome as Emperor. We have a detailed description of his costume from the hand of his secretary Eginhard, but we must be careful to distinguish between his ordinary dress and the clothes he felt compelled to wear as Roman Emperor. The latter were of extreme magnificence and were plainly derived from the Court dress of Byzantium. This was not only a matter of cut: the actual materials were almost certainly imported from the Near East. Fragments are still preserved of the clothes in which he was buried at Aachen and we have records of the complete garments found when his tomb was opened in the twelfth century.
Over a tunic with sleeves edged with gold he wore a dalmatic, and over this a number of garments, including one of brocade manufactured in Constantinople, figured with elephants in floriated circles of green, blue and gold, and one of cloth-of-gold, brocaded in squares with a ruby in the centre of each. His shoes were of scarlet leather embroidered with gold and set with emeralds. On his head he wore a splendid gold crown set with jewels and enamelled plaques.
Eginhard tells us that his habitual costume was much simpler, consisting of an under-tunic of linen or wool and over it a tunic with a border of coloured silk. Over this again he wore, attached to his left shoulder by means of a brooch, a short semicircular cloak, lined with fur in winter. He had braies or breeches cross-gartered to below the knee, and on his head a round cloth cap with an embroidered border.
In England, Charlemagne’s contemporary, Offa, King of Mercia, and the kings who followed him, seem to have worn quite simple garments. We know, from an illuminated manuscript preserved in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, that King Athelstan wore a short yellow tunic with a narrow gold border, a blue cloak and red hose; and we know from an illuminated grant of lands to the Abbey of Winchester (966 CE) that King Edgar was similarly clad, except that his tunic was shorter and his legs enclosed in narrow bands like puttees.
We have considerable information, again from illuminated manuscripts, about the dress of Anglo-Saxon women. The principal garments were the tunic or kirtle, worn over a smock and put on over the head; the super-tunic or roc, also put on over the head and sometimes hitched up over the girdle to show the garment beneath (it had embroidered borders at neck, hem and sleeves); and the mantle, sometimes as long as the tunic and fastened under the chin. The hair was concealed by a veil or ‘head-rail’, long enough to be crossed over the bosom and hang down to the knees.
44 The four parts of the Empire (Sclavinia, Germania, Gallia and Roma) paying homage to Otto III.
45 The Emperor Otto enthroned, 997–1000. The miniature shows the bright colours worn in the period.
The coming of the Danes made very little difference to costume in England, except that the Danish men wore their hair longer and were much given to the wearing of bracelets, which were regarded as marks of military prowess. The Norman Conquest, however, was quite a different matter, for the descendants of the Norsemen who had established themselves in Normandy were, by this time, completely Frenchified, having even abandoned the language of their forefathers. Edward the Confessor, who ascended the throne in 1042, was himself half Norman, and even Harold, who succeeded him, had spent long periods in France. The monkish chroniclers of the time were already complaining that the English had forgotten their usual simplicity, had trimmed their hair, shortened their tunics and generally adopted French modes.
Nevertheless, there was sufficient difference for the English spies who were sent out before the Battle of Hastings to report that the invading army consisted of nothing but priests, that is, men with short hair, the back of the neck being shaved. It was to celebrate this battle that Queen Matilda and her ladies embroidered the long strip of linen, wrongly called a tapestry, which is still preserved at Bayeux and which serves as an admirable illustration of the costume of the period. We see King Edward in his long tunic receiving messengers in tunics shorter than knee-length, and over them the super-tunic, which was a loose, circular garment put on over the head.[46] Stockings had ornamented tops, visible below the tunic and allowed to wrinkle so that they look very much like the leg-bandages already described. Leg-bandages were also worn, bound either spirally or criss-cross over the stockings.
46 King Edward the Confessor, from the Bayeux tapestry. Late eleventh century.
47 Scene from a play by Terence, derived from a Carolingian manuscript. This bears witness to the comparatively static forms of costume over several centuries.
48 Crusader doing homage, thirteenth century.
Scholars have long been aware of the influence of the Crusades in modifying the costume of Western Europe. It is true that already before the eleventh century there was contact with the Mohammedan world through Sicily and Spain, and the rich stuffs of the Orient had thus found their way to the West, but only in very small quantities and out of reach of all but wealthy kings. When the Normans captured Sicily in 1060, they found a civilization vastly superior to their own in learning and craftsmanship, and a degree of luxury unknown to them before. Many of the craftsmen remained under their new rulers and were eagerly employed by them in weaving and goldsmiths’ work. This patronage continued when Frederick of Hohenstaufen, crowned as Holy Roman Emperor in 1220, established his Court at Palermo. Under his tolerant rule all the arts flourished and he was himself, in his tastes and his garments, more like an Oriental sultan than a Christian king.
49 Chartres Cathedral, Royal Portal, showing the Madonna and Child and childhood of Jesus, c. 1150. The shepherds at lower right wear the short tunics of the common people and leg-coverings made of narrow bands of material.
In Spain the gradual conquest of the lands occupied by the Moors resulted in the capture of rich booty: jewellery and fine tissues far more luxurious than the contemporary products of Christian Europe. Then came the Crusades and the reopening of trade with the Near East. But the returning Crusaders brought back with them not only Oriental materials but the clothes themselves, or a knowledge of their cut. Western ladies adopted the Mohammedan veil, or a least a wimple concealing the lower part of the face. On the other hand, they began to mould their gowns to the figure by means of buttons down the side, the upper part of the gown being thus drawn tight over the bust. The sleeves became immensely long and very wide at the wrist, as can be seen in one of the most valuable documents of the period, the Hortus Deliciarum of the Abbess of Landsberg in Alsace, which was produced in about 1175. Another valuable source of information is to be found in the sculptures of the cathedrals which began to be erected in France and Germany in the twelfth century.
Part of the confusion in descriptions of medieval costume is due to the failure to distinguish between hose and breeches. Even such established historians of costume as Hottenroth, Viollet-le-Duc and Racinet have failed to do this, and it was not until quite recent years that the distinction was made plain by writers like Dorothy Hartley and C. Willett Cunnington.
50 Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, from Chartres Cathedral, c. 1145–55. The long, open sleeves should be noted.
51 The Lady Uta, one of the founder-figures in Naumburg Cathedral, c. 1245.
In the eleventh century breeches or braies were ankle-length trousers kept in place by a cord threaded through the top, rather low over the hips. The nobility wore them fitted to the leg, the lower classes loose and rather baggy. They were sometimes worn with leg-bandages bound spirally or in a criss-cross pattern. Hose, or chausses (i.e. stockings), were cut to the shape of the leg out of wool or linen cloth, knitting being practically unknown in England until the reign of Elizabeth I. In the eleventh century they reached to just below the knee, with a patterned top, rather like that of modern golfing stockings. But in the twelfth century they rose to mid-thigh, being made wide enough at the top to be pulled over the braies. Some ended at the ankles, some had a strip like a stirrup under the instep and some were provided with a thin leather sole obviating the use of shoes indoors. They were sometimes striped and brightly coloured. Meanwhile, the breeches were shrinking to become invisible drawers. With labourers at work they became a mere breech-clout.
52 Scene showing peasant costume, c. 1335–40.
The twelfth century showed little essential modification, except that the tunic was more closely fitting and sleeves showed a sudden widening at the wrist. The hood, which originally had formed part of the cloak, became a separate garment in the second half of the century, with a small shoulder-length cape attached to it. There were several forms of hat, ranging from the pointed ‘Phrygian’ cap to something resembling a beret, and to hats with wide brims which were worn over the hood when travelling. Indoors, men sometimes wore the coif of plain linen covering the ears and tied under the chin.
In female dress a new style appeared about 1130, the bodice of the gown, at least for the upper classes, being moulded so as to fit tightly down to the hips, the skirt below that being cut wide and falling in folds to the feet. It was sometimes sufficiently long to form a train. The super-tunic also was more closely fitting and with wider sleeves. The veil was sometimes kept in place by a half-circle or complete circle of gold worn round the forehead. In addition, from the late twelfth century to the early fourteenth century, the barbette was worn. This was a linen band passing under the chin and drawn up over the temples. Worn during the same period was the wimple or gorget. It was made of fine white linen or silk, covered the neck and part of the bosom, and was sometimes tucked into the top of the gown, the ends being then drawn up and pinned to the top of the head under the veil to frame the face.
It was in the second half of the fourteenth century that clothes both for men and for women took on new forms, and something emerges which we can already call ‘fashion’. The old gipon, which was beginning to be called a ‘doublet’, was padded in the front to swell out the chest and was worn much shorter, so short indeed that the moralists of the period denounced it as indecent. It was worn very tight, with buttons down the front and with a belt low over the hips.
The upper classes wore over the gipon a garment known as a cote-hardie. This was the super-tunic of a previous age, but it was now low-necked and tight-fitting and buttoned down the front. The cote-hardie of the lower classes was looser and, having no buttons, was put on over the head. The length of the fashionable cote-hardie gradually diminished and the edge was often dagged – that is, cut in curious patterns. The sleeves were tight to the elbow but then flared out, becoming wide enough to hang down to the knees or even lower. About 1375 the cote-hardie began to have a collar.
53 The elaborate clothes of a knight and his lady, c. 1335–40.
A characteristic garment from about 1380 to 1450 was the houppelande, later to be known as the ‘gown’. It fitted the shoulders and was loose below, with a belt at the waist. Its length varied, being longest for ceremonial occasions. The sleeves were extremely wide and sometimes so long as to reach to the ground. It had a high upright collar, sometimes reaching to the ears, and its edge was dagged into fantastic shapes. Chaucer, in The Parson’s Tale, blames ‘so much pouncing of chisel to make holes, so much dagging of shears, with the superfluity in length of the aforesaid gowns, trailing in the dung and in the mire, on horse and eke on foot, as well of man as of woman’.
Women, in general, were less extravagantly clad than men, so far as the shape of their garments was concerned. The main item of their dress was the kirtle or gown, close-fitting down to the waist and then flaring out in a full skirt hanging in folds. The sleeves were so tight-fitting that they had to be buttoned over the lower area and were sufficiently long to extend over half the hand. Over the gown was worn the cote-hardie, similar to that worn by men. The sleeves had long streamers or tippets which sometimes trailed on the ground. From the middle of the fourteenth century it was fashionable to wear the sideless surcoat, a curious garment with large openings at the sides. The front formed a kind of stiffened stomacher known as a ‘plackard’.
The effect was of tight lacing – one of the most potent weapons of fashion through the ages – which now, for the first time, began to be exploited. Another innovation, with an even greater erotic appeal, was décolletage, the cutting away of the top of the robe to reveal part of the bosom. Yet another was the abandonment of the veil, which henceforward was worn only by nuns and widows. Instead there began a long series of headdresses, growing ever more elaborate and fantastic until the end of the fifteenth century.
We can watch this development in tomb sculptures, and in particular in the memorial tablet known as a ‘brass’.[54–9] This was a sheet of brass cut out in the shape of a figure and engraved with details of the costume of the deceased, and let in to the pavement of a church. Curiously enough such memorials are to be found only in England and in certain parts of Flanders. They are a most valuable source of documentation, since it is easy to take rubbings from them, and such rubbings might almost be called the fashion plates of the later Middle Ages. Above all, they have the inestimable advantage of being dated.
54–6 Brass-rubbings from sepulchral monuments, dated (left to right) 1375, 1391 and 1430.
Already, towards the end of the thirteenth century, the crespine had made its appearance, worn with the barbette and the fillet. This was a kind of hairnet, and was a somewhat startling innovation, since previous ages had considered visible female hair to be immoral. The next stage was to wear the crespine by itself, the alternative being vertical plaits on each side of the face. These are very characteristic of the last quarter of the fourteenth century. At the same period the veil reappeared, but in a new form. This was the goffered veil or ‘nebula’ headdress, made of a half-circle of linen framing the face. Sometimes it was composed of several layers and resembled the ruff of the second half of the sixteenth century, except that, of course, it was worn not round the neck but round the face. The fillet also took on a new shape, forming two hollow ornamental pillars through which the hair was drawn. The effect, in contrast to that of the rounded ‘nebula’ headdress, was extremely square, the face being, as it were, enclosed in a frame.
57–9 Rubbings dated (left to right) 1437, c. 1480 and c. 1501. The lady’s headdress shows a growing elaboration in the late fifteenth century.
Towards the end of the fourteenth century appeared also the ‘cushion’ headdress, which was a kind of padded roll worn over a hairnet. The hair was coiled above each ear in small knobs known as ‘templers’.[61] For the first third of the fifteenth century the effect was one of breadth. Sometimes this was pushed to an extreme, the width of the two templers combined being twice that of the face.
60 The Portrait of Giovanni Arnolfini and his Wife, Jan van Eyck, 1434.
61 Christine de Pisan presenting her book of poems to Isabel of Bavaria, Queen of France. French, early fifteenth century. The ladies’ headdresses are of two kinds: à cornes, and with the veil raised from the face by means of pins.
62, 63 Engravings by Israel van Meckenem showing Italian fashion c. 1470 (LEFT) and North European c. 1495 (RIGHT). Note particularly the difference in female headdress and male shoe.
The horned headdress which came in about 1410 had a wire structure like the horns of a cow on which was draped the veil. This was followed by the heart-shaped headdress, the name itself being a sufficient description. Both of these styles were attempts to use the veil as a decorative attraction, the opposite of its original purpose. To this extent the denunciations of contemporary moralists may seem justified.
The second half of the century saw a number of new varieties. Instead of being broad, headdresses tended to be high, sometimes extremely so.[62] The sausage-shaped roll of padded material forming a narrow U over the forehead, known in a primitive form to the previous generation, was now much elongated and tilted backward. The same happened to the ‘turban’ headdress and the ‘chimney-pot’ headdress.[63] (These are not contemporary names but attempts by modern scholars at descriptive labels.) The latter had a veil attached to the top.
The hennin or ‘steeple’ headdress was much worn in France. In England it took the shape of a truncated cone and was therefore not very different from the ‘chimney-pot’ headdress. A better name, perhaps, would be ‘flower-pot’. Most spectacular of all was the ‘butterfly’ headdress. This was a wire structure attached to a small cap or caul in which the hair was enclosed. It rose high above the head and supported a diaphanous veil in the shape of a butterfly’s wings. It was a very popular fashion up to about 1485.
Men’s clothes in the second half of the fifteenth century showed a number of developments. The main garment was still the doublet, but it could be worn extremely short, so short as to demand the use of a codpiece at times. It began to develop a high stand-up collar. The cote-hardie was replaced by the jacket or jerkin, increasingly tight-fitting, and the shoulders were padded to increase the apparent width of the body. The sleeves were generally full and sometimes detachable.
The houppelande was now called the ‘gown’ and was worn by older men, doctors, magistrates and the like. It fell in vertical pleats to the ankles and was fastened down the front with hooks and eyes. It was worn with or without a belt, and the sleeves were usually very full. When they hung low down they were known as ‘surplice sleeves’. It was usual to line the gown, sometimes with fur.
There was considerable variety in male headgear. Until about 1380 the hood with long liripipe had been almost universally worn.[64] Then someone had the bright idea of sticking his head into the opening where his face should have been, winding the hood, with its dagged edge, round the head in the form of a turban and tying it in place with the liripipe.[68] Philip the Good is shown wearing a headdress of this type.
A development from this was the chaperon, which consisted of a circular padded roll to which was attached a gorget consisting of folds of material cut in decorative shapes. The effect was rather similar to that of the turban already described, but it was, so to speak, ‘ready-made’, required no arranging and could be put on and off without difficulty. It had a strange history. It was sometimes worn on the shoulder instead of the head, and in this position shrank and became a badge of livery. In its final term it became the cockade on the nineteenth-century coachman’s hat.
During the fifteenth century hats were increasingly worn, and assumed many different shapes. Some had flat crowns and narrow brims, some were very tall and had no brims. Crowns tapered or ballooned out. Something resembling the Turkish fez (and frequently red in colour) can be seen in contemporary paintings. Some hats were not unlike the modern bowler, some were adorned with plumes. Towards the end of the century a flat cap was worn, with a turned-up brim adorned with a single jewelled ornament.
64 Wedding of Boccaccio Adimari, Giovanni di ser Giovanni Guidi, c. 1470. Probably from a cassone or dower-chest. The liripipe hood has developed into a hat (above right), now part of official dress.
Until the 1480s men’s shoes were markedly pointed, sometimes fantastically so. This tendency had been seen as early as 1360 and was regarded with disfavour by the ecclesiastical and civil authorities. King Edward III even enacted a sumptuary law which laid down that ‘no Knight under the estate of a lord, esquire or gentleman, nor any other person, shall wear any shoes or boots having spikes or points exceeding the length of two inches, under the forfeiture of forty pence’. This, like all sumptuary laws, was completely ineffective, for in the following reign, the ‘spikes or points’ sometimes reached the length of eighteen inches or more. Such shoes were known as crackowes, or poulaines, the terms being corruptions, respectively, of Cracow and Poland.[69] Poland was then part of the Kingdom of Bohemia, and the names are explained by the fact that King Richard II married Anne of Bohemia and the gentlemen who came in her suite to England wore shoes with extremely pointed toes. The extreme fashion lasted until about 1410, and pointed shoes of some kind until the advent of the Tudors. The revolution in fashion this implied is dealt with in the next chapter.
65 Duchess of Urbino, Piero della Francesca (after 1473).
66 Portrait of a woman, Master of the Nativity of Costello, 1450s.
67 Margaret of Denmark, Queen of Scotland, ascribed to Hugo van der Goes, 1476. It is thought that the eyebrows and hair on the forehead were shaved in imitation of classical sculpture.
68 Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, receiving a copy of the Chroniques de Hainaut. Flemish, 1448.
69 Extreme form of the poulaine or crackowe, from the Chronique d’Angleterre. Flemish, fifteenth century.