Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/503

ENGLISH.] COST U M E 471 the body, overcoats with tight sleeves, felt hats with more or less wide brims, and closed boots and shoes. The women also wore their dresses closely fitting to the figure, with tight sleeves, low crowned hats, and richly trimmed petticoats. These garments, which differ altogether from those of antiquity, constitute, as it were, the common type from which have arisen the endless varieties of modern male and female dress ; and there is no doubt that fashion thus will continually be moving backwards and forwards from period to period, sometimes returning to its original model, and sometimes departing from it." Before arriving, however, at the useful and generally consistent and becoming dress of the present day, the fashions of both male and female attire had to pass on from the 16th century through a series of changes in every respect no less strange and extravagant, and yet always more or less directly tending in the same direction, than those which the earlier centuries had witnessed and then had carried away with themselves. And even now more than a little remains to be accomplished, before the ordinary costume in general use can be considered to have realized what ought to be its true aim the most perfect attainable applicability, that is, to the condition and the requirements of the wearer, due but not excessive attention at the same time being bestowed upon appropriate effectiveness of appearance. At the commencement of this century in England, there are the royal effigies of Henry VII. and his queen, Elizabeth of York. The king himself is represented as having his person entirely enveloped in a loose fur-lined robe or gown of ample size, reaching from its close fur collar about his neck to his feet, and so adjusted as to disclose but little of the garments worn beneath it. On his head he has the square cap that came into use and was generally worn during his reign. The queen wears a richly adorned angular head-dress (fig. 42), from beneath which her hair falls uncoufined over her shoulders ; and the adjustment of her royal mantle is such as to dis play the upper part of her tunic, which is cut square and does not quite reach to her throat. The countess of Richmond, the mother of Henry VII., in her effigy appears wrapped from head to foot in a loose mantle her tunic having p 42- _ Angular Head-dress, plain and tight sleeves ; and on her Elizabeth Qu | eu of H VII . head she has a plain angular head dress with a plaited wimple, over which the lappets fall. This costume may be regarded to have been designed to denote the widowhood of this four times married lady. Thus it appears that in their costume the effigies of these royal personages exhibit none of the distinctive insignia of royalty, and conse quently they may be accepted as typical of the costume of their era. Neither of Henry VIII. nor of any one of his queens is there any monumental effigy ; but this deficiency is more than com pensated by the portraits painted by Holbein, made familiar to all by engravings ; while other artists have left no less charac teristic pictures representing personages of different ranks and classes who at the same period lived in France and England. Armour, which in the course of this century gradually became less esteemed for purposes of defence, and in a corresponding degree came to be more and more regarded as but little more than a splendid component or accessory of dress, in its form and aspect was closely assimilated to certain garments made of textile materials and in fashion among the armour-wearing classes. Much of curious and suggestive mutual illustration, accordingly, is to be obtained by a comparison between the aspect of a man of rank of this century in his armour, and the same person when in his customary attire. In the time of the first of tho Tudor princes men wore two distinct varieties of dress. The one was a long and loose gown, having wide open sleeves, girt about the waist with a belt or scarf, above which it was open, its broad collar falling back over the shoulders ; thus an under-tunic or vest was displayed, that in its turn allowed the shirt to be visible both at the throat and the wrists ; the hose were tight, and the shoes very broad at the toes. The other form of dress consisted of a short tunic or vest, tight and close-fitting as the hose, worn under an open doublet with long sleeves made throughout very large and loose ; hats, low in the crown and broad in the brim and having plumes of feathers, were either worn on the head over a small and closely-fitting cap or coif, or they were carried hanging from over one of the shoulders down the back. The angular cap represented in the royal effigy -also was constantly worn, and the cap (fig. 41) with the cluster of bows and the long pendant sash continued in use. Under Henry VIII., in men s attire, from midway between the knee and the hip, or from the knee itself, downwards to the wide and easy shoes, all was tight, while about the upper part of the lower l>mbs and the body all was loose, capacious, and broad, the entire costume at the same time being distinguished by decided stiffness and formality. At the line of junction between the tight and the loose portions oi the dress, the trunk hose, at the time in question universally worn, were gathered in closely either at the middle of the thigh or at the knee, and then they were widely puffed out as they rose to meet the jerkin or jacket, which was open in front and reached only to the hips. These jerkins sometimes were closed at the throat, when a small falling white collar or band was worn ; or the jerkin was spread open to display a sleeveless vest, and an embroidered shirt having large sleeves and small ruffles at the wrists. The doublets, or coats, worn over the other garments were very short and very full, an especial object being to give to the figure, and particularly about the shoulders, the appearance of as much breadth and square ness as possible. A cloak, as short as the doublet, was suspended from the shoulders, rather for display than for use ; the head- covering was a round cap, low and fiat, adorned with a jewel and a single small waving feather; and, attached to the belt, with a gypciere or purse, a dagger was carried horizontally in front of the wearer. The sword, when worn, was a rapier. It was at this period a peculiar and universally prevalent fashion, varying in degrees of eccentricity and extravagance, to slash the garments, so as either simply to show glimpses of some under-dress, or to have some different material of another colour drawn out in puffs through the slashes. This slashing and puffing was extended even to the broad shoes, the tight hose alone being exempted. Besides being frequently slashed and striped, the trunk hose were habitually made with a succession of alternate gatherings-in and puffings-out. All this display, made regardless of true taste and solely in order to accomplish as much of display as possible, naturally was attended with a prevalent indulgence in the use of rich and costly fabrics and splendid decorations. Of King Henry himself it is recorded, at his famous meeting with Francis I. in 1540, that he was apparelled in "a garment of cloth-of-silver damask, ribbed with cloth-of-gold, as thick as might be ; the garment was large and plaited very thick, of such shape and make as was marvellous to behold." The French king was attired in a splendour quite equal to that of his royal English guest ; and the nobles and courtiers of both countries took care to emulate their sovereigns in their attire, and in wearing several gorgeous costumes, all of them in the same style of fashion, every day. The costume of Henry II. of France, represented in the woodcut, fig. 43, from the original portrait by Clonet, is a charac teristic example of the fashion prevalent in the middle of the 16th century, and it also shows how close was tho resemblance between the fashions of male dress at that time in France and Eng land. The costume of the middle and the humbler classes at this era, as naturally would be ex pected, bore a decided general resemblance to the more elaborate and costly attire of the dignified and wealthy of their contempo raries. They wore the same short close jerkin, the short doublet often with lappet sleeves, the short cloak, the flat round cap plainly made from simple mate rials, and the tight leggings and broad shoes with the puffed upper hose. Or, instead of the short cloak, they wore a long gown, furred, and with hanging sleeves, sometimes pierced midway for the arms to pass through ; a coif tied under the chin also was commonly worn, under the flat cap. The doublets of the men of the Elizabethan portion of this cen tury, which were made long-breasted and padded so as to fit the body tightly, were carried down in front to a prolonged peak, and so they closely resembled both the stomachers of the ladies and the breastplates of the military. The fashion of these grotesque doublets, apparently originally Venetian, travelled to England by way of France. The hose, if of the English " trunk " type, were puffed out immediately from the middle of the thigh, where they met the tight leggings or stockings that were carried up beneath them, as in fig. 44 ; but the French and Venetian hose, also in. fashion in England, swelled out gradually from the knee, and the stockings sometimes were drawn over them. These dresses constantly were puffed and slashed, padded and banded throughout, one long slash being carried down the entire length of each sleeve of the doublet. The contemporary portrait of the French king, Henry III., about 1575, from which the woodcut (fig. 45) has been drawn, shows very distinctly the tapering French hose and the long PU5<1 doublet, with the treatment of those garments characteristic oJ

FIG. 43. Henry II. of France.