Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/499

Rh ENGLISH.] COSTUME 467 Longespee, in Salisbury Cathedral, maybe accepted as a sufficiently accurate illustration of the military uniform of the first Edward after the Conquest, who also may be assumed to have been attired, when his mail had been laid aside, much after the fashion of his father. It is well known that in his day princes and nobles arrayed themselves in flowing robes, worn over comparatively closely fitting tunics or doublets, these garments being made of silk damasks and satins of brilliant colours, with adornments of goldsmiths work and furs, in the use of which they were freely followed by the knights and the wealthy classes as well as by the ladies of their era. Not content with the triangular adjustment of the wimple, towards the close of this century the ladies adopted the strange and unsightly gorget to cover their throats, thus still more closely adapting the aspect of their own head-gear and its accessories to the mail coifs and the helms of their martial lords. The beautiful effigy of Eleanor of Castile, which rests upon a massive plate of bronze gilt and dia pered with the armorial castles and lions of Castile and Leon, is remarkable as well for the dignified simplicity of the costume as for the sweet expression of the countenance. Secured by a narrow band which she holds in her left hand, the queen s long and ample mantle for the most part envelops her person, disclosing only the upper part of her wide-sleeved tunic and the close-fitting sleeves of the dress worn beneath it ; she wears neither wimple nor cover- chef, but allows her luxuriant hair to fall in rich waves from be neath her diadem upon her shoulders, Century XIV. The royal attire represented in the two halves of this century in the effigies of Edward II. and Edward III. is a tunic (the under-tunic not being visible) descending to the feet and having tight sleeves; a dalmatic, open in front to midway between the knees and the waist, of the same length ; and a long flowing mantle, secured across the breast by a broad band of rich workman ship. The dalmatic of the father, who is crowned and in his ungloved hands holds a sceptre and an orb, has full sleeves reaching only to the elbows, but prolonged in broad lappets of moderate length, while that of the son has its sleeves tight and but little shorter than those of his tunic. In both cases the mantle, covering the shoulders but not drawn across the chest or covering any part of the front of the person, falls at the back of the wearer. The boots of Edward III., richly embroidered, are acutely pointed at the toes, but not of extravagant length ; the aged monarch is bare headed, with long flowing hair and beard ; his two sceptres have been broken away. One of the crowned statuettes upon the monu ment of her younger son, John of Eltham, duke of Cornwall, apparently represents Isabelle of France, queen of Edward II., in a tunic and mantle, having her throat and head enveloped in a com bination of a wimple with a gorget, after a fashion equally strange and unbecoming, but which, nevertheless, in her time was preva lent. This queen, who delighted in splendid extravagance, is re corded to have habitually worn, richly embroidered and adorned with jewels, dresses of cloth of gold or silver, with others of velvet of various colours and of shot taffeta, and with others also of green cloth of Douay and of rose satin. The inventories of wardrobes and jewellery that still exist show, in a significant manner peculiar to themselves, the extent, variety, and unbounded extravagance of the costumes of both sexes, with their costly accessories and orna ments. In strong contrast to the tales thus told, the costume of the effigy of Queen Philippa is simply a gown or tunic, quite tight to the figure and laced down the front ; the sleeves tight, traversed from the shoulder onwards by a close-set row of small buttons, and prolonged from the wrists so as partly to cover the hands ; and the skirt being very full and falling in rich folds over the feet. A narrow girdle encircles the royal person, adjusted, not as in earlier times somewhat tightly around the waist, but loosely and about the hips, precisely as the military belt had begun to be worn by the other sex. Over this tunic, the only other garment visible, a mantle, falls from the shoulders down the back. The queen s hair, confined within a reticulated covering of goldsmith s work beneath her diadem, is bound by a circlet and made to project prominently on each side of the face. At the close of the century, the effigies of Richard II. and Anne of Bohemia show the same costume to be re peated in the case of both royal personages, the whole being covered with the royal heraldic badges ; and the queen s hair falls uncon- fined and naturally over her shoulders. Other effigies of ladies of different ranks, notably a fine one of Lady Stapleton at Ingham in Norfolk, give similar examples of the costume worn by the two queens. Established in use early in the century, the display of heraldic insignia blazoned upon articles of dress rose into the highest favour and popularity during the brilliant reign of Edward III., and they also were lavishly adopted in the luxurious times of his grandson. Indeed, with the progress of this century, medieval costume both attained to its highest splendour, and also exhibited much of its extreme extravagance. It became the fashion, for example, for both sexes to wear hanging from their sleeves long lappets, sometimes prolongations of the actual sleeves, and at other times mere strips, and their hoods were prolonged in points to corre spond with them. Dresses, some very long, others very short, having their edges cut and jagged in a most bizarre manner, often were worn partycoloured, the colours in many cases having been chosen expressly with a view to produce the most vivid contrast ; boots and shoes had their pointed toes made twice or even thrice the length of the wearer s foot ; and head-gear, exhibiting no little diversity of fantastic forms, was universally prevalent. The fashions of England corresponded with those of F rance, though apparently they were not carried here quite to the same excess that they were on the Continent. The singular aim of each sex, not only to emu late the other in the sumptuous style and profuse adornment of their dress, but also to imitate the form and fashion of each other s attire, obtained in both countries. The consistent adjustment of the knightly surcoats and jupons over armour, enhancing its effect while partly covering it, suggested to the ladies to adopt kirtles or cotes-hardi, that from being merely sleeveless became sideless also. This form of garment, so well adapted for the display of what was worn under it, assumed several varieties of treatment. Sometimes it was little more than the front and back of a jacket, as in fig. 26 ; and at other times it became a complete dress, with the exception of sides and sleeves, in which case it was either made to fit closely about the person both before and behind, and then was continued to form a loose and flowing skirt of ample proportions and great length, or with a similar skirt the upper part of the dress also hung loosely about the figure, as in fig. 27. In the next century this same dress Fio. 26. Part of Statue of Jean de Bourbon, from St Denis, 1379. Fro. 27. From MS., 1430. (After Viollet-le-Duc.) at times was worn cut off at the knees, so as to leave the lower part of the under-tunic visible as well as its sides and sleeves. This dress constantly was richly guarded and sometimes lined with costly furs, and it generally was also adorned down the front with a continuous series of massive studs or other goldsmiths work. It appears also to have been a never-failing usage in connection with this fashion of a sideless kirtle to display the girdle of the under- tunic, which rested loosely on the hips, as it passed under the side- less garment both before and beliind. Found to have been in use, in the form at first of a long and flowing sleeveless robe or gown, early in the 1 4th century, this sideless kirtle or cote-hardi continued to enjoy unabated favour for not much less than two centuries. It appears, certainly not later than 1320, in effigies at Bedale, Selby, and Staindrop the Selby lady having the flowing skirt of her sideless dress blazoned with armorial insignia ; in her effigy at Oxford, Lady Montacute is represented in this dress, 1354 ; and it is repeated in the effigies of Lady Beauchamp, at Worcester, 1384 ; of Queen Joanna of Navarre, at Canterbury, 1407 ; of Lady Harcourt, at Stanton Harcourt, 1471 ; and of the Duchess of Suffolk, at Ewelme, 1474: the two ladies last named, whose husbands were E.G., wear the garter of the order, the former as an armlet and the latter as a bracelet. Still later, 1500, in her beautiful effigy in Westminster Abbey, Elizabeth Arundel, wife of Sir Giles Daubeney, E.G., treasurer to Henry VII., is represented in this same sideless over-tunic which reaches only about to the knees, so displaying the lower part of the long and flowing under-tunic as well as its sides and sleeves. M. Yiollet-le- Duc has shown the sideless kirtle to have been no less fashionable and no less capable to maintain its position in France, than we possess abundant evidence to prove it to have been in England. The same fashion also prevailed at the same period in other parts of Europe. At Worcester a closely wimpled effigy illustrates in a remarkable manner the usage, at the commencement of the century, to attach small enamelled shields of arms in profusion upon the