ANGLO-SAXON RETAINER.
This parti-colouring presented many variations. The legs were either plain, dark and light alternately, of various colours, black and red, black and yellow; or a variation of one colour, red, yellow, or grey, as the case may be; or one leg was striped in various ways; or the parti-colouring would assume various forms, as a zig-zag on the thigh, or calf, or both; in fact, the leg was regarded as a field for the dress designer to exercise his ingenuity in the matter of contrast, upon the principle of what is known in ornament as counterchange.
In Field's play of "A Woman is a Weathercock," 1612, one of the characters exclaims, "Indeed, there's reason there should be some difference in my legs, for one cost me twenty pounds more than the other."
At the beginning of the sixteenth century a new development appears, which began as an upper garment reaching only to the knees, also at this period called hose, upper stocks, and "trawses," which were puffed, slashed, and embroidered in various ways; this was the precursor of the breeches, or trunk-hose, which by the end of the century had developed to such enormous proportions.
Numerous examples of the "slashed" period will be found in the drawings by Holbein and Durer, and the engravings by Hans Burgkmair. The "slashings," which may be regarded as ornament in relief, presented as many variations as did the flat ornament of the earlier period on the plain surface of the leg. The garment was either slashed downwards, horizontally, or diagonally, and occasionally slashed to such an extent that it appeared merely as a system of ribbons. Variety of colour was arrived at either by the under-garment, stocking, or hose being of a different hue to the upper; or by a system of puffing, in which another or third colour was introduced. The puffing was also of a different material, either of silk or other light material, while the upper or slashing was of cloth or velvet.
It was an exceedingly rich, ornate, and fantastic period; the jerkin, or body garment, together with the sleeves, were also cut and slashed on the same principle as the lower garment, or vice versâ, the slashings on the body usually appearing diagonally on either side. In two female portraits, however, by Holbein at Basle, the slashings appear perpendicularly underneath the breast, the sleeve being slashed on the same principle.
The greatest richness of slashing always appears in the sleeve, a common form being to slash the sleeve in ribbons, which hang loose from the shoulder to the elbow. In the instances of several of the foot soldiers in Hans Burgkmair's "Triumphs of Maximilian," the outer sleeve is simply cut to ribbons, which stream loosely from the shoulder; and it seems, indeed, a little curious that at present, when all sorts of devices are employed for the purpose of producing variety, that some fashion of this sort has not been adopted for women. It represents, however, the most extreme development of the slash; it would be impossible to carry the principle farther.
We now arrive at the period of the enormous trunk-hose, temp. Elizabeth and James I., of which an example of their highest development appears in the illustration of "Knightly Pastimes—Hawking, 1575," and in which the middle of the body appears inflated like a balloon, the "bombasting" of the breeches being carried to its utmost limit. Their gipcieres are well in evidence in each instance. This article of costume was, no doubt, originally a game bag, but was afterwards generally used as a pocket or pouch—