A MAN AND WOMAN OF THE TIME OF EDWARD II. (1307-1327)
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.
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 buttoned to the elbow from the wrist; this sometimes showed one or two buttons 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 versâ. 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.
Upon the head they wore the wimple, the fillet, and about the throat the gorget.