English Costume Part 24

Now the sleeve of the gown was subject to much alteration. It was, as I have described, made very square and full at the elbow, and over this some ladies wore a false sleeve of gold net--you may imagine the length to which net will go, studied with jewels, crossed in many ways, twisted into patterns, sewn on to the sleeve in sloping lines--but, besides this, the sleeve was turned back to form a deep square cuff which was often made of black or coloured velvet, or of fur.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A woman of the time of Henry VIII.; a head-dress}]

In all this I am taking no account of the German fashions, which I must describe separately. Look at the drawings I have made of the German fashion. I find that they leave me dumb--mere man has but a limited vocabulary when the talk comes to clothes--and these dresses that look like silk pumpkins, blistered and puffed and slashed, sewn in ribs, swollen, and altogether so queer, are beyond the furious dashes that my pen makes at truth and millinery. The costumes of the people of this age have grown up in the minds of most artists as being inseparable from the drawings of Holbein and Durer.

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

Surely, I say to myself, most people who will read this will know their Holbein and Durer, between whom there lies a vast difference, but who between them show, the one, the estate of England, and the other, those most German fashions which had so powerful an influence upon our own. Both these men show the profusion of richness, the extravagant follies of the dress of their time, how, to use the words of Pliny: 'We penetrate into the bowels of the earth, digging veins of gold and silver, and ores of bra.s.s and lead; we seek also for gems and certain little pebbles. Driving galleries into the depths, we draw out the bowels of the earth, that the gems we seek may be worn on the finger. How many hands are wasted in order that a single joint may sparkle! If any h.e.l.l there were, it had a.s.suredly ere now been disclosed by the borings of avarice and luxury!'

[Ill.u.s.tration: A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY VIII. (1509-1547)

Notice the wide cuffs covered with gold network, and the rich panel of the under-skirt.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A woman of the time of Henry VIII.; three types of sleeve}]

Or in the writings of Tertullian, called by Sigismund Feyerabendt, citizen and printer of Frankfort, a 'most strict censor who most severely blames women:' 'Come now,' says Tertullian, 'if from the first both the Milesians sheared sheep, and the Chinese spun from the tree, and the Tyrians dyed and the Phrygians embroidered, and the Babylonians inwove; and if pearls shone and rubies flashed, if gold itself, too, came up from the earth with the desire for it; and if now, too, no lying but the mirror's were allowed, Eve, I suppose, would have desired these things on her expulsion from Paradise, and when spiritually dead.'

One sees by the tortured and twisted German fashion that the hair was plaited, and so, in curves and twists, dropped into coa.r.s.e gold-web nets, thrust into web nets with velvet pouches to them, so that the hair stuck out behind in a great k.n.o.b, or at the side in two protuberances; over all a cap like to the man's, but that it was infinitely more feathered and jewelled. Then, again, they wore those hideous barbes or beard-like linen cloths, over the chin, and an infinite variety of caps of linen upon their heads--caps which showed always the form of the head beneath.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A woman of the time of Henry VIII.; three types of hat for women}]

In common with the men, their overcoats and cloaks were voluminous, and needed to be so if those great sleeves had to be stuffed into them; fur collars or silk collars, with facings to match, were rolled over to show little or great expanses of these materials.

Here, to show what dainty creatures were our lady ancestors, to show from what beef and blood and bone we come, I give you (keep your eye meanwhile upon the wonderful dresses) the daily allowance of a Maid of Honour.

Every morning at breakfast one chyne of beef from the kitchen, one chete loaf and one maunchet at the pantry bar, and one gallon of ale at the b.u.t.tery bar.

For dinner a piece of beef, a stroke of roast and a reward from the kitchen. A caste of chete bread from the pantry bar, and a gallon of ale at the b.u.t.tery bar.

Afternoon--should they suffer the pangs of hunger--a maunchet of bread from the pantry bar, and a gallon of ale at the b.u.t.tery bar.

Supper, a messe of pottage, a piece of mutton and a reward from the kitchen. A caste of chete bread from the pantry bar, and a gallon of ale at the b.u.t.tery bar.

After supper--to insure a good night's rest--a chete loaf and a maunchet from the pantry bar, and half a gallon of ale from the seller bar.

Four and a half gallons of ale! I wonder did they drink it all themselves? All this, and down in the mornings in velvets and silks, with faces as fresh as primroses.

It is the fate of all articles of clothing or adornment, naturally tied or twisted, or folded and pinned by the devotees of fashion, to become, after some little time, made up, ready made, into the shapes which had before some of the owner's mood and personality about them.

These hoods worn by the women, these wide sleeves to the gowns, these hanging sleeves to the overcoats, the velvet slip of under-dress, all, in their time, became falsified into ready-made articles. With the hoods you can see for yourselves how they lend themselves by their shape to personal taste; they were made up, all ready sewn; where pins had been used, the folds of velvet at the back were made steadfast, the crimp of the white linen was determined, the angle of the side-flap ruled by some unwritten law of mode. In the end, by a process of evolution, the diamond shape disappeared, and the cap was placed further back on the head, the contour being circular where it had previously been pointed. The velvet hanging-piece remained at the back of the head, but was smaller, in one piece, and was never pinned up, and the entire shape gradually altered towards, and finally into, the well-known Mary Queen of Scots head-dress, with which every reader must be familiar.

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

It has often occurred to me while writing this book that the absolute history of one such head-dress would be of more help than these isolated remarks, which have to be dropped only to be taken up in another reign, but I have felt that, after all, the arrangement is best as it stands, because we can follow, if we are willing, the complete wardrobe of one reign into the next, without mixing the two up. It is difficult to keep two interests running together, but I myself have felt, when reading other works on the subject, that the way in which the various articles of clothing are mixed up is more disturbing than useful.

The wide sleeve to the gown, once part and parcel of the gown, was at last made separate from it--as a cuff more than a sleeve naturally widening--and in the next reign, among the most fashionable, left out altogether. The upper part of the dress, once cut low and square to show the under-dress, or a vest of other stuff, was now made, towards the end of the reign, with a false top of other stuff, so replacing the under-dress.

Lacing was carried to extremes, so that the body was pinched into the hard roll-like appearance always identified with this time; on the other hand, many, wiser women I should say, were this the place for morals, preferred to lace loose, and show, beneath the lacing, the colour of the under-dress.

Many were the varieties of girdle and belt, from plain silk sashes with ta.s.selled ends to rich jewelled chain girdles ending in heavy ornaments.

For detail one can do no better than go to Holbein, the master of detail, and to-day, when photographs of pictures are so cheap, and lives of painters, copiously ill.u.s.trated, are so easily attainable at low prices, it is the finest education, not only in painting, but in Tudor atmosphere and in matters of dress, to go straightway and study the master--that master who touched, without intention, on the moral of his age when he painted a miniature of the Blessed Thomas More on the back of a playing card.

EDWARD THE SIXTH

Reigned six years: 1547-1553.

Born, 1537.

THE MEN AND WOMEN

[Ill.u.s.tration: {A man of the time of Edward VI.; a type of hat}]

Here we have a reign which, from its very shortness, can hardly be expected to yield us much in the way of change, yet it shows, by very slight movements, that form of growth which preludes the great changes to come.

I think I may call a halt here, and proceed to tell you why this volume is commenced with Henry VII., called the Tudor and Stuart volume, and ends with the Cromwells. It is because, between these reigns, the tunic achieves maturity, becomes a doublet, and dies, practically just in the middle of the reign of Charles II. of pungent memory. The peculiar garment, or rather, this garment peculiar to a certain time, runs through its various degrees of cut. It is, at first, a loose body garment with skirts; the skirts become arranged in precise folds, the folds on the skirt are shortened, the shorter they become the tighter becomes the coat; then we run through with this coat in its periods of puffings, slashings, this, that, and the other sleeve, all coats retaining the small piece of skirt or basque, and so to the straight, severe Cromwellian jerkin with the piece of skirt cut into tabs, until the volume ends, and hey presto! there marches into history a Persian business--a frock coat, straight, trim, quite a near cousin to our own garment of afternoon ceremony.

For a sign of the times it may be mentioned that a boy threw his cap at the Host just at the time of the Elevation.

To Queen Elizabeth has been given the palm for the wearing of the first silk stockings in England, but it is known that Sir Thomas Gresham gave a pair of silk stockings to Edward VI.

We now see a more general appearance in the streets of the flat cap upon the heads of citizens. The hood, that eminently practical head-gear, took long to die, and, when at last it went out of fashion, except among the labouring cla.s.ses, there came in the cap that now remains to us in the cap of the Beefeaters at the Tower of London.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {Two men of the time of Edward VI.}]

It is the time of jerkin or jacket, doublet or coat, and hose--generally worn with trunks, which were puffed, short knickerbockers.

The flat cap, afterwards the statute cap as ordered by Elizabeth, became, as I say, the ordinary head-wear, though some, no doubt, kept hoods upon their heavy travelling cloaks. This cap, which some of the Bluecoat Boys still wear, was enforced upon the people by Elizabeth for the encouragement of the English trade of cappers. 'One cap of wool, knit, thicked, and dressed in England,' was to be worn by all over six years of age, except such persons as had 'twenty marks by year in lands, and their heirs, and such as have borne office of worship.'

Edward, according to the portraits, always wore a flat cap, the base of the crown ornamented with bands of jewels.

The Bluecoat Boys, and long may they have the sense to keep to their dress, show us exactly the ordinary dress of the citizen, except that the modern knickerbocker has taken the place of the trunks. Also, the long skirts of these blue coats were, in Edward's time, the mark of the grave man, others wore these same skirts cut to the knee.

That peculiar fashion of the previous reign--the enormously broad-shouldered appearance--still held in this reign to some extent, though the collars of the jerkins, or, as one may more easily know them, overcoats or jackets, open garments, were not so wide, and allowed more of the puffed shoulder of the sleeve to show. Indeed, the collar became quite small, as in the Windsor Holbein painting of Edward, and the puff in the shoulders not so rotund.

The doublet of this reign shows no change, but the collar of the shirt begins to show signs of the ruff of later years. It is no larger, but is generally left untied with the ornamental strings hanging.

Antiquarian research has, as it often does, muddled us as to the meaning of the word 'partlet.' Fairholt, who is very good in many ways, puts down in his glossary, 'Partlet: A gorget for women.' Then he goes on to say that a partlet may be goodness knows what else.

Minshein says they are 'part of a man's attire, as the loose collar of a doublet, to be set on or taken off by itself, without the bodies, as the picadillies now a daies, or as mens' bands, or womens'

neckerchiefs, which are in some, or at least have been within memorie, called partlets.'

Sir F. Madden says: 'The partlet evidently appears to have been the corset or habit-shirt worn at that period, and which so commonly occurs in the portraits of the time, generally made of velvet and ornamented with precious stones.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: A MAN AND WOMAN OF THE TIME OF EDWARD VI. (1547-1553)