English Costume Part 16

A brooch she bare upon hir lowe coler, As broad as is the bos of a buckler.

Her shoes were laced on hir legges hye.'

Here also, from the Parson's Tale, is a sermon against the vain clothing of his time, that will serve to show how you may best paint this age, and to what excess of imagination you may run. I have reduced the wording into more modern English:

'As to the first sin, that is in superfluitee of clothing, which that maketh it so dere, to the harm of the people; not only the cost of embroidering, the elaborate endenting or barring, ornamenting with waved lines, paling, winding, or bending, and semblable waste of cloth in vanity; but there is also costly furring in their gowns, so muche pounching of chisels to make holes, so much dagging of shears; forthwith the superfluity in the length of the foresaid gowns, trailing in the dung and the mire, on horse and eek on foot, as well of man as of woman, that all this trailing is verily as in effect wasted, consumed, threadbare, and rotten with dung, rather than it is given to the poor; to great damage of the aforesaid poor folk.

'Upon the other side, to speak of the horrible disordinate scantiness of clothing, as be this cutted sloppes or hainselins (short jackets), that through their shortness do not cover the shameful members of man, to wicked intent.'

After this, the good Parson, rising to a magnificent torrent of wrathful words, makes use of such homely expressions that should move the hearts of his hearers--words which, in our day, are not seemly to our artificial and refined palates.

Further, Chaucer remarks upon the devices of love-knots upon clothes, which he calls 'amorettes'; on trimmed clothes, as being 'apyked'; on nearly all the fads and fas.h.i.+ons of his time.

It is to Chaucer, and such pictures as he presents, that our minds turn when we think vaguely of the Middle Ages, and it is worth our careful study, if we wish to appreciate the times to the full, to read, no matter the hard spelling, the 'Vision of Piers the Plowman,'

by Langland.

I have drawn a few of the Pilgrims, in order to show that they may be reconstructed by reading the chapters on the fourteenth century.

HENRY THE FOURTH

Reigned fourteen years: 1399-1413.

Born 1366. Married, 1380, Mary de Bohun; 1403, Joan of Navarre.

THE MEN AND WOMEN

The reign opens sombrely enough--Richard in prison, and twenty-five suits of cloth of gold left, among other of his b.u.t.terfly raiment, in Haverford Castle.

We are still in the age of the houppelande, the time of cut edges, jagging, big sleeves and trailing gowns. Our fine gentlemen take the air in the long loose gown, or the short edition of the same with the skirts cut from it. They have invented, or the tailor has invented, or necessity has contrived, a new sleeve. It is a bag sleeve, very full and fine, enormous at the elbow, tight at the wrist, where it may fall over the hand in a wide cuff with dagged edges, or it may end in a plain band.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A MAN AND WOMAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY IV. (1399-1413)

Very little change in dress; the man in the loose gown called the houppelande. The woman also in a houppelande.]

Let us take six gentlemen met together to learn the old thirteenth-century part-song, the round ent.i.tled 'Sumer is ic.u.men in.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: {Two men of the time of Henry IV.}]

The first, maybe, is in the high-collared houppelande with the long skirts; his sleeves are of a different colour to his gown, and are fastened to it under cut epaulettes at his shoulders; he wears a baldrick, hung with bells, over his shoulder; his houppelande is split on one side to show his parti-coloured hose beyond his knee; his shoes are long and very pointed; his hair is cut short, and he wears a twisted roll of stuff round his head.

The second is in the latest mode; he wears the voluminous sleeves which end in a plain band at his wrist, and these sleeves are of a different colour to his houppelande, the skirts of which are cut short at the knee, and then are cut into neat dags. This garment is not so full as that of the first gentleman, which is gathered in at the waist by a long-tongued belt, but is b.u.t.toned down the front to the waist and is full in the skirt; also it has no collar. This man wears his hair long and curled at the nape of his neck.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A man of the time of Henry IV.}]

A third of these gentlemen, a big burly man, is in a very short tunic with wide sleeves; his tights are of two colours, his left leg red, his right blue. Over his tunic he wears a quilted waistcoat, the collar and armholes of which are trimmed with fur.

[Ill.u.s.tration {A man of the time of Henry IV.}]

A fourth wears a loose houppelande, one half of which is blue and the other half black; it is b.u.t.toned from throat to foot; the sleeves are wide. His hair is long, and his beard is brushed into two points.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {Four men of the time of Henry IV.; five types of hat; a pouch}]

[Ill.u.s.tration: {Two men of the time of Henry IV.}]

The fifth gentleman wears a houppelande of middle length, with a very high collar b.u.t.toned up the neck, the two top b.u.t.tons being undone; the top of the collar rolls over. He has the epaulette, but instead of showing the very full bag sleeves he shows a little loose sleeve to the elbow, and a tight sleeve from the elbow to the hand, where it forms a cuff. He wears a very new-fas.h.i.+oned cap like a stiff sugar-bag, with the top lopping over.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A man of the time of Henry IV.}]

The sixth and last of this group is wearing an unbound houppelande--that is, he wears no belt. He wears a plain hood which is over his head, and a soft, loose, peaked hat.

'Sumer is ic.u.men in,' the six sing out, and the shepherd, who can hear them from outside, is considering whether he can play the air upon his pipe. He is dressed in a loose tunic, a hood, and a wide-brimmed straw hat; his pipe is stuck in his belt.

Let us suppose that the wives of the six gentlemen are seated listening to the manly voices of their lords.

The first wears a dress of blue, which is laced from the opening to the waist, where the laces are tied in a neat bow and hang down. Her dress is cut fairly low; it has tight sleeves which come over her hands to the knuckles in tight cuffs. There is a wide border, about a foot and a half, of ermine on the skirt of her dress. She wears a mantle over her shoulders. Her hair is enclosed in a stiff square caul of gold wire over cloth of gold.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A woman of the time of Henry IV.}]

The second lady is wearing a houppelande with wide, hanging sleeves all cut at the edge; the cut of this gown is loose, except that it fits across her shoulders; she also wears a caul, from the back of which emerges a linen wimple.

The third lady is in surcoat and cotehardie; the surcoat has a pleated skirt, and the borders of it are edged thickly with fur; it is cut low enough at the sides to show a belt over the hips. The cotehardie, of a different colour to the surcoat, has tight sleeves with b.u.t.tons from elbow to little finger. This lady has her hair cut short at the nape of her neck, and bound about the brows with a golden circlet.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {Three women of the time of Henry IV.}]

A fourth wears a very loose houppelande, encircled about the waist with a broad belt, the tongue of which hangs down and has an ornamented end. This houppelande falls in great folds from the neck to the feet, and is gathered into the neck; it has loose, but not wide, sleeves, falling just below the elbow. The gown is worn over a cotehardie, the sleeves of which show through the other sleeves, and the skirt of which shows when the gown skirt is gathered up.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {Two women of the time of Henry IV.}]

The fifth lady also wears a cotehardie with a skirt to it; she wears over it a circular mantle, b.u.t.toned by three b.u.t.tons on the right shoulder, and split from there to the edge on both sides, showing the dress; the front semicircle of the cloak is held to the waist by a belt so that the back hangs loose. Her hair is in a caul.

The sixth is in a very plain dress, tight-fitting, b.u.t.toned in front, with full skirts. She wears a white linen hood which shows the shape of the caul in which her hair is imprisoned.

So is this queer old round sung, 'Sumer is ic.u.men in.'

Afterwards, perhaps one of these ladies, wis.h.i.+ng to get some spite against one of the gentlemen, will ride away in a heavy riding-cloak, the hood over her head and a peaked hat on that, and she will call upon a witch. The witch will answer the rapping at her humble door, and will come out, dressed in a country dress--just an ill-fitting gown and hood, with some attempt at cla.s.sical ornament on the gown, or a cloak sewn with the sacred initials thrown over her back. These two will bargain awhile for the price of a leaden image to be made in the likeness of the ill-fated gentleman, or, rather, a rough figure, on which his name will be scratched; then the puppet will be cast into the fire and melted while certain evil charms are spoken, and the malicious accident required to befall him will be spoken aloud for the Devil's private ear. Possibly some woman sought a witch near Evesham in the year 1410, and bought certain intentions against a tailor of that place, Badby by name; for this much is certain: that the tailor was burnt for Lollardy ten years after the first victim for Lollard heresy, William Sawtre.

HENRY THE FIFTH

Reigned nine years: 1413-1422.

Born 1388. Married, 1420, Katherine of France.