Fig. 27.—A Lady and a King (temp. Hen. III.). (From Cotton MS. Nero, D. i.)

With the coming of the house of Anjou English dress clears itself of the more fantastic features of an earlier generation. Henry II. brought in the short Angevin mantle and from it had his name of Curtmantle, but it was not a mastering fashion and the long cloak holds its own. Rich stuffs, cloth of gold or silk woven with gold, webs of damask wrought with stripes or rays and figured with patterns are brought in from the ports. Rare furs are eagerly sought. But the simplicity of line is remarkable. The drawings made for Matthew Paris’s lives of the two Offas show people of all ranks clad without a trace of the tailor’s fantasy. Kings and lords, churchmen and men of substance go in long gowns to the feet, the great folk having an orphrey or band of embroidery at the somewhat low-cut neck (fig. 27). Some of the sleeves have wide ends cut off at the mid-forearm, showing the tight sleeve of a shirt or smock below. Fashion, however, tends to lengthen sleeves to a tight wrist, the upper halves being cut wide and loose with the large armholes characteristic of most ancient tailoring. Over this gown is worn an ample cloak fastened at the neck with a brooch or clasp, and sometimes fitted with a hood. The dress of the common folk and of men of rank when actively employed is a tunic which is but the gown shortened to the knee, a short cloak to the knee being worn with it (fig. 28). Belts and girdles are narrow and plain, the thongs without enrichment, showing no beginnings of the rich buckles and heavy bosses of a later fashion. Shoes and low-cut boots are slightly pointed, and hats, caps, hoods and coifs of many types cover the head. The women are like to the men in their long gown, but the head is wrapped in a coverchef hanging over the shoulder and bound with a fillet round the brow. Gloves are common in this age; “scraps of the cloth or the skin,” says a poet, “do not want for a use: of them gloves are made.”

Fig. 28.—Labourers (temp. Hen. III.). (From Cotton MS. Nero, D.i.)
Fig. 29.—A Group of Clerks (early 14th century). (From Royal MS. 19 B. xv.)

At the court of Edward II., son of a king who went simply clad, Piers Gaveston and his like began to set the fashions for a century which to the curious antiquary is a garden of delights. For the history of the 14th-century 14th century. clothing illuminations are supplemented by a number of effigies upon which the carver has wrought out the last details, by monumental brasses, and by contemporary literature and records (fig. 29). Garments take many shapes; sleeves, skirts and head-dresses run through many fashions; while personal ornaments are rich and beautiful to a degree never yet surpassed. With the beginning of the century there is seen a tendency to shorten the long gown, which had been the best wear of a man of good estate, to a more convenient length, although the knees are still well covered. Loose sleeves falling below the elbow leave to view the sleeve of an under-garment, buttoned tightly to the arm. In winter time a man’s gown will have long sleeves that cover the hands when the arms are at length. The full cloak, although still found, is somewhat rare among a people that has, perhaps, learned to wear more clothes and warmer upon the body. Hoods are worn in many fashions, to be cast back upon the shoulders like a monk’s cowl, the part at the back of the head being drawn out into a “liripipe” long enough at times, when the hood is drawn up, to be knotted round the brow turban-fashion (fig. 30). Long hose are drawn up the legs to join the short breech, and the toes of the ankle-shoes are pointed so long that holy men see visions of little devils using them as chariots. The women love trailing gowns. They have under-skirts and loose over-garments, sometimes sleeveless. Their hair at least would not shock those earlier prelates who cursed the long plaits, for it is caught up in a caul or braided at the sides of the head. In the second half of the century men of rank borrow from Germany the fashion of the cote-hardie. In its plainest form this short tunic, covering the fork of the leg, is cut closely to the body and arms (fig. 31). Sometimes the sleeve ends at the elbow and then another streamer is added to the one which falls from the hood, a strip of stuff continuing the elbow-sleeve as low as the coat edge. This strip and the hem of the skirt are often “slittered” with fanciful jags, a fashion which soon draws down the satirist’s anger. Parti-coloured garments were an added offence; a gentleman would have his coat parted down the middle in red and white, with hose of white and red to match. Men and women of rank wear a twisted garland of rich stuff, crown-wise on the head, set with pearls and precious stones, a fashion which is followed on the great helm of the knights, being the “wreath” or “torce” of heraldry. The dames of such as wear the cote-hardie imitate its tightness in the sleeves and bodices of their long gown. A curious fashion which now begins is the sleeveless upper gown whose sides are cut away in curved sweeps from the shoulder to below the waist, the edges of the opening being deeply furred. The strange head-dress with a steeple-horn draped with lawn kerchiefs makes its appearance to shock the moralists. Although it was probably a rare sight in this century, the horn could easily fulfil its mission of drawing notice to all its wearers.

Fig. 30.—English Ploughmen of the 14th century.
Fig. 31.—Sons and Daughters of Edward III. (From his tomb in Westminster Abbey.)

Of the cote-hardie it might at least be said that it was the symbol of a knightly age in arms, the garment of a man who must have hand and limbs free, and, save for its sleeves, it faithfully copied the coat-armour of the armed knight. The softer days of Richard II. are remarkable for a dress which has also its significance, men of high rank taking to themselves gowns of such fulness that the satirists may be justified who declare that men so clad may be hardly known from women. The close collar of these gowns rises high as the neckcloth of a French incroyable, the upper edge turned slightly over and jagged. The full skirts sweep on the ground, which is touched by the last jags of the vast sleeves, whose openings, wide as a woman’s skirts, are dagged like the edges of vine or oak leaves. “And but if the slevis,” says the satirist, “slide on the erthe, thei wolle be wroth as the wynde.” Sometimes this gown is slit at the sides that the gallant may the better show his coloured hose and tips of shoes that pike out two feet from heel to toe. When not wearing the gown such a lord would have a high-necked coat, shorter even than the cote-hardie, but looser in the skirt, the sleeves ending full and loose with dagged edges turned over at the cuff. Hats are more commonly worn in this century, and in its latter half take many shapes, a notable one being that of a shortened sugar-loaf or thimble with a brim turned up, either all round, or, more frequently, behind or before. The long shoes, as their name of crackowes or poleynes implies, were a fashion which, by repute, came from Poland, a land ruled by the grandfather of Richard’s first queen. When medieval fashions were past, they were remembered as a type of the old time, and a certain French conteur begins a tale of old days, not with jadis, but with “In the time when they wore poleynes.” Even parish priests, whose preaching should “dryve out the daggis and alle the Duche cotis,” went, in this age of fine apparel, gaily clad in gowns of scarlet and green, “shape of the newe,” in “cutted clothes” with “long pikes on her shone.” More than this, they made scandal by ruffling with weapons—“bucklers brode and sweardes long, bandrike with baselardes kene.” The skill of goldsmiths and craftsmen decorates all the appurtenances of the dress of this 14th century. Buttons, which appear in the first Edward’s time as a scandalous ornament on men of low degree, have now become common, and, cunningly wrought, are used as much for queintise as for service. A close row of them will run from wrist to elbow of tight sleeve. A row of buttons goes from the neck of a woman’s gown, and the cote-hardie may be fastened down the front with a dozen and a half of rich buttons. A purse or gipciere hung by a ring to the girdle gives more room for ornament in the silver or brass bar on which the bag depends. Above all the girdle, which—in harness or in silk—rich men wear broad and bossed with jewels across the thigh below the waist, makes work for the jeweller’s craftsman. Such a girdle is for great folk alone; but lesser men, wearing a strap about their waists, will yet have a handsome buckle and a fanciful pendant of metal guarding the loose end of the strap.

Fig. 32.—Henry, Prince of Wales, and Occleve the Poet (c. 1410). (From Arundel MS. 38.)

However fantastic the fashions of this or any other ages, folk of the middling sort will avoid the extremes. From the Knight to the Reve, no man of Chaucer’s company calls to us by the fantasy of his clothing. The Knight himself rides in his fustian gipoun, the grime of his habergeon upon it, although his son’s short gown, the gayest garment at the Tabard, had long and wide sleeves and is embroidered with flowers like any mead. A coat and hood of green mark the Yeoman, who has a silver Christopher brooch for ornament. The Merchant is in motley stuff, his beaver hat from Flanders and his clasped boots taking Chaucer’s eye, as do the anlas and silken gipser which hang at the rich Franklin’s belt. As for the London burgesses, their knife-chapes, girdles and pouches are in clean silver. The Shipman wears his knife in a lanyard about his neck, as his fellows do to this day, and his coat is of coarse falding to the knee. The Wife of Bath has the wimple below her broad hat and rides in a foot mantle about her hips. Poorer men’s dress is on the Reve and the Ploughman, the one in a long surcote of sky-blue and the other in the tabard which we may recognize as that smock-frock which goes down the ages with little change.