 THE
MIDDLE AGES
CLOTHING
Most
people in the Middles Ages wore woolen clothing, with undergarments
made of linen. Brighter colors, better materials, and a longer jacket
length were usually signs of greater wealth. The clothing of the
aristocracy and wealthy merchants tended to be elaborate and changed
according to the dictates of fashion. Towards the end of the Middle
Ages, men of the wealthy classes sported hose and a jacket, often
with pleating or skirting, or a tunic with a surcoat. Women wore
flowing gowns and elaborate headwear, ranging from headdresses shaped
like hearts or butterflies to tall steeple caps and Italian turbans.
Most of the holy orders wore long woolen habits in emulation of
Roman clothing. One could tell the order by the color of the habit:
the Benedictines wore black; the Cistercians, undyed wool or white.
St. Benedict stated that a monk's clothes should be plain but comfortable
and they were allowed to wear linen coifs to keep their heads warm.
The Poor Clare Sisters, an order of Franciscan nuns, had to petition
the Pope in order to be permitted to wear woolen socks.
THE
WOMAN'S DRESS
Women also adopted the bliaut,
as well as another Oriental garment with long wide sleeves, the
Oriental surcoat. The bliaut, made of fine material crimped or pleated,
was long, full, and trailing like the garments of men. A new development
of the period was an early form of the corset that emphasized the
female figure. Throughout the Middle Ages, a woman's ankles were
never exposed to view. Indeed, through most of the period, skirts
fell long on the floor in front, possibly to avert cold and drafts
while sitting in the chilly homes of a time before the invention
of central heating. Skirts were carried in front of the body when
walking. This led to a feminine posture characteristic of the Middle
Ages—a rather stately leaning-back carriage of the body, emphasized
in the later centuries by fantastic, tall headgear and trailing
veils worn over long trains. Until the 1400s, women's garments were
less extravagantly shaped than men's, the clothing being tight-fitting
and full-skirted with tight sleeves. Over the gown a cotehardie
and then the sideless gown was worn. Early in the period the hair
was veiled in a wimple, a cloth draped over the head and around
the neck up to the chin. In cold weather and for state occasions
a very full, three-quarter round or even full circular cloak was
worn. With the abandonment of the wimple an even more fantastic
and elaborate style of headgear developed. At first, width was emphasized,
followed by an emphasis on height, with results that were subsequently
equaled only by the high wigs and deliberately representational
head adornment of the late 1700s. In the 1300s, women's clothing,
like men's clothes, became tighter-fitting and more tailored and,
in the 1400s, more elaborately fitted and padded. New and elaborate
methods of weaving also were developed in the 1400s, and a whole
range of new fabrics and materials became available. This led to
the richness and complexity that emerged with the dress of the Renaissance
period.
What men wore on their legs
has long been a topic of debate. Then, as now, men wore breeches and
hose (trousers and stockings). The relative length of the one compared
to the other has caused the confusion, the hose having become so long
in the High Gothic period as to almost eliminate the breeches. Until
the advent of knitted material, almost unknown in the Middle Ages,
hose were made of wool or linen cut to shape for a relatively tight
fit. At no time could they have presented the smooth appearance, subsequently
achieved by knitted fabrics, shown from pictures of the period. In
the 1100s, the hose reached midthigh and were made to cover the short
breeches or drawers. Earlier, the breeches of the wealthy were cut
narrower and those of laborers fuller, both usually cross-gartered
below the knee. The styles of the early 1100s were marked by their
length, and the overtunic was replaced by an Oriental import known
as the bliaut. Everything, including the sleeves, was long, full,
and trailing. Men's clothing in the remainder of the 1100s and during
the 1200s displayed variations of length, fullness, and decoration
and different names for what were essentially the same garments. A
notable change was that the hood became a separate garment. Later
in the period, the hood—with its pointed end, the liripipe, and
short shoulder cape—became a hat worn by putting the head into
the hole originally intended for the face and wrapping the extended
liripipe around the head in turban fashion. Later still, the hat was
hung over the shoulder by the liripipe as a badge; its ultimate manifestation
became the cockade on the livery hat of the 1800s or the doorman's
hat of the 1900s. Another even more curious derivation of the hood
is the small tab sewn in the back of an English barrister's gown,
an appendage from the time when a client would drop money in the hat
if a case was thought to be going well. In the 1300s the tunic was
narrowed and shortened to a more tailored look and evolved into what
came to be called the doublet. Over the doublet the old overtunic,
now with a collar and called a cotehardie, was still worn. The houppelande,
an outer garment with a long, full body and wide, flaring sleeves,
was worn until the end of the century and survived into the 1400s
and 1500s in the dress of the professional classes and older men.
It survives in the academic and legal gowns and robes of today. The
doublet developed into a fully tailored, frequently padded garment,
which in varying forms survivedasthebasic male outer garment through
the middle of the 1600s. Its modern derivation is the waistcoat or
vest worn with a suit.
SHOES
The medieval shoes were booty like, soft and
graceful, with no heels. The pointy "snout shoes" were typical
in the Late Middle Ages –especially for the rich shoes were prepared
from leather, fur or woollen felt. Shoes were extremely expensive
and therefore the country folk walked bare-footed during the warm
season. Men's and women's shoes in the late sixteenth century were
generally blunt-toed and fat; heeled shoes were not common until the
seventeenth century. Most shoes were made of leather, although highly
fashionalbe shoes for courtly use were sometimes made of fabrics such
as velvet or silk. In the earlier part of the reign shoes generally
slipped onto the foot, but in the latter part they tied or buckled
on.Womens' shoes during Elizabethan times were usually thin-soled
leather lined, by the fortunate, with satin. All of the shoes mentioned
in Elizabeth's wardrobe accounts were lined with satin. They were
for the most part simple, slipper-type shoes, cut low on the top and
round-toed. To protect their shoes from the muck and mud of an average
English street, women wore pattens. These were wooden soles, usually
1/2 to 1 inch thick, hinged at the ball of the foot with leather that
were strapped on over the shoes, rather like sandals.
|
