The parti-coloured dress worn by Aurelius, similar to the Squire’s in the frontispiece, was common in Edward III.’s reign, and was peculiarly obnoxious to the satirists of the day. The cote-hardie or close-fitting tunic sometimes matched in colour one of the legs, sometimes was divided into halves of opposing colours; the shoes were very rich and of contrary hues also.
The ladies’ gowns were long and of very rich materials, the arms bound with gold, and further adorned by fantastic streamers or tippets. Chess was the fashionable pastime of old and young. The pieces in this picture are from some ivory Icelandic chessmen of the twelfth century.
Behind is the lawn where Dorigen’s meinie, or pages and household attendants, are amusing themselves with dancing and ball-playing among the enclosed flower-beds peculiar to the mediæval pleasure-garden.
The coat of arms repeated upon Aurelius’ dress is that attributed to Chaucer. The instrument, on which he doubtless accompanied his mournful love-songs, is a form of cittern. The carved design upon the settle or seat is Anglo-Saxon; the fleur de lys on the curtain of the tent beside them was a common ornament.
I have not been able to discover at what precise date ‘shot’ materials came into use. There are many singular terms applied to the colours of dress throughout the middle ages, such as pourpre-gris, ecarlate-blanche, &c. In the ‘Fabliau de Gautier d’Aupais’ there is mention of ‘un vert mantel porprine’ (a mantle of green crimson). In my own mind I am persuaded that these terms, explicable easily in no other way, refer to shot materials. Mediæval miniatures and pictures also bear out this theory, dresses being depicted of certain colours shaded with certain others in strong contrast. The commonest is blue or red shaded with gold. There have been many conjectures with regard to the above terms. M. le Grand supposes that rare dyes, being chiefly used to dye rich cloths, gave at last their names to those cloths, irrespective of colour. The Saturday Review once accused the old masters of “sporting with pigments prismatically” when they used red as the shadow of green, &c., oblivious of the fact that if the early masters had a fault it was adhering too blindly to nature in their works. It is clear that in Quentin Matsys’ day (fifteenth century) shot materials were quite common, for there is scarcely one of his pictures without a study of the kind. In his ‘Dead Christ’ at Antwerp several unmistakable examples occur; in his ‘Virgin’ at Amsterdam is introduced a curtain of green and brown shot. This being so, we have no reasonable ground for believing that shot silks, though not yet common, were unknown a century earlier.
I have therefore given two marked examples of similar silks, in the robes of Griselda and Dorigen, both wealthy enough to import such fabrics if in existence at all.
VIII.—THE RIOTER.
The ordinary cheap wine used in the middle ages was often carried in ‘bottles’ or pitchers of this form.
A longish gown was the dress of the commoner people in the fourteenth century. The Rioter is intended to represent a man of decent position, but not noble, who has come to the end of his tether, in a pecuniary sense, and whose slovenly hose and young but debauched and cruel face indicate with what facility he has been degraded by his elder companions.
PORTRAIT OF CHAUCER.