English Costume Part 11

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 in two 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A woman of the time of Edward II.; a cap}]

[Ill.u.s.tration: {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 b.u.t.toned to the elbow from the wrist; this sometimes showed one or two b.u.t.tons under the 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, and _vice versa_.

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {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, and these 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 ap.r.o.n, 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 hereafter accounted '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.

EDWARD THE THIRD

Reigned fifty years: 1327-1377.

Born 1312. Married, 1328, Philippa of Hainault.

THE MEN

Kings were Kings in those days; they managed England as a n.o.bleman 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 pa.s.sing 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 laymen for travelling, soldiers of fortune, women, beggars, minstrels--a motley gang of brightly-clothed people, splashed with the mud and dust of the cavalcade.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {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 right side from the neck, it b.u.t.tons on the shoulder. Here is another circular cloak, jagged at the edge; this b.u.t.tons 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A man of the time of Edward III.}]

Most men wear the cotehardie, the well-fitting garment b.u.t.toned 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 b.u.t.toned all the way down the front, and others only with two or three b.u.t.tons 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 st.i.tched 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.