GREEK FIGURE.
From Hope's "Costume of the Ancients."
The dress of the Byzantine women, at the time of the dismemberment of the Roman Empire in 395, was still the loose or semi-loose tunic, with sleeves added, elaborately ornamented in the rich diapered patterns peculiar to that period and nation, and confined at the waist by a girdle. This costume, with variations, obtained until the Norman Conquest, when costume began to be more complex. The long loose gown is variously described in documents of the period by the names of the tunic, the gunna or gown, and the kirtle. There was a short tunic, with sleeves reaching only to the elbows, and there was a long tunic, with tight sleeves, worn underneath. The kirtle, such as we are familiarised with in the dress of a later period, had not come into being. As a matter of fact, the term "kirtle" is indiscriminately used in the description of various garments. Tyrwhitt describes it as "a tunic or waistcoat."
In the "Romaunt of the Rose" the "damoselles right young" are arrayed—
"In kirtles and noon other wede,"
evidently here intended for a long gown or tunic.
The dress of the twenty young squires chosen by Guy of Warwick is thus described:—
"Kyrtyls they had oon of sylke
Also whyte, as any mylke.
Of gode sylke and of purpull palle
Mantels above they caste all.
Hosys they had uppon, but no schone;
Barefote they were everychone."
Both Strutt and some other writers on the subject of costume appear to be puzzled by the colouring of the earlier illuminators, principally, however, with respect to the colour of the hair and beard, but also in regard to the various details of costume. They remark the curious circumstance of the hair and beard being painted blue. "In representations of old men this might be considered only to indicate grey hair; but even the flowing locks of Eve are painted blue in one MS., and the heads of youth and age exhibit the same cerulean tint." Strutt argues from this that some art of tinting or dyeing was practised. A writer who quotes Strutt says: "The hair being painted sometimes green and orange is in favour of this argument, but such instances are very rare, and may have arisen from the idleness of the illuminator, who daubed it, perhaps, with the nearest colour at hand." This, however, was not in the least so. The explanation is, as any educated artist knows (artists are not all educated), that with the old illuminator the decoration of the page was his first consideration—rightly so; and the colour of the hair and beard, together with the precise tint of the gown, would incline to either blue, red, or yellow, accordingly as the exigencies of the general colour scheme demanded. This fact should always be kept in mind in considering the colour of any illuminated MS.
This colouring is amusingly parodied by Mr. Punch in his book of British costumes (1860). He gives a fragment of a love song, "commonly believed to have been written by King Vortigern, who was inveigled into marriage with the daughter of old Hengist":—
"Rowena is my ladye-love,
Her robe itte is a gunna;
Shee wears blewe haire her ears above,
O is shee notte a stunna!"