FURS.—TIPPETS AND SCARFS.
To the Editor.
Dear sir,—Dr. Whitaker, in his “History of Craven,” makes several extracts from the Compotus of Bolton in Craven, a folio of a thousand pages, kept by the monastery; which book begins in 1290 and ends in 1325. On one item, “In fururâ de Buget, vs.,” the doctor has the following note, which may be interesting to others besides the lovers of the delightful science of heraldry.
“In Fururâ de Buget. In the middle ages, fur of different species formed an elegant and comfortable appendage, not only to professional habits, but to the ordinary dress of both sexes, from the sovereign to the private gentleman. Beneath the latter rank, none but the coarsest kinds were ever in use, which they certainly wore; for Chaucer, who intended to clothe his personification of Avarice in the garb of Poverty, allows her, notwithstanding, ‘a burnette cote, furred with no meniveere, but with a furre rough of lambe skynnes, hevy and blacke.’ (Rom. Ros.) The different sorts enumerated in the Compotus are, the buget, or budge, gris, de ventre leporino, the white fur of the hare’s belly, and de pellibus agninis, or lambs’ skins. The last of these, which still forms the lining of the hoods of the bachelors of arts at Cambridge, was anciently worn both by bishops and noblemen. For the first, see Mr. Warton’s note on ‘Comus,’ edit. i. p. 146; and the inventory of the wardrope of the second earl of Cumberland in that volume. With respect to budge, or buget, it is understood by Mr. Warton (note on Comus, line 709) to be fur in general; but this interpretation is negatived by the terms of the present article, fururâ de buget. Whatever budge may have been, it is unknown to Du Cange, who has, with immense labour and erudition, collected every thing known on the subject in the middle ages. It was certainly scarce and expensive, being used for the lining of the prior’s (Bolton) hood alone. After all, I suspect it to have been the skin of the Lithuanian weasel.[323] Even as late as Dr. Caiius’s time, the hoods of the regent masters of arts of Cambridge were lined ‘pelle arminâ seu Lituana candidâ.’ Lituan is sometimes used by the old writers on heraldry as synonymous with ermine. If I am right in my conjecture, therefore, budge so nearly resembled ermine, that either skin might be used indifferently as a badge of the same academical rank. And this accounts for Milton’s epithet ‘budge,’ as applied to doctors, whose congregation robes at Cambridge are still faced with ermine. Gris, I think, was the skin of the grey, or badger.[324] The sleeves of Chaucer’s monk, ‘a fayre prelate,’ who was gayly and expensively habited, were ‘purfited with gris:’ and in the head of a bishop in painted glass, I have a fine specimen of this fur in the form of a tippet about the neck.
“It seems that, in the middle ages, ecclesiastics were apt to luxuriate in the use of beautiful and costly furs: ‘Ovium itaque et agnorum despiciuntur exuviæ; ermelini, gibelini (sables) martores exquiruntur et vulpes.’ This vanity was checked by an English sumptuary law—‘Statutum est ne quis escarleto, in Anglorum gente, sabelino, vario, vel grisèo uteretur,’ Brompton, Anno 1188. Again, in two MSS. quoted by Du Cange, to whom I am also indebted for the foregoing passage, the expensive furs are enumerated thus,
‘Vairs et gris, et ermines, et sables de rosie:’
and again,
‘Sables, ermines, et vair, et gris.’
Vair was the skin of the Mus Ponticus, a kind of weasel, the same animal with the ermine, but in a different state, i. e. killed in summer when the belly was white and the back brown, whence it obtained the name of ‘Varia.’ The ancient mineveere was ‘minuta varia,’ or fur composed of these diminutive skins; and Drayton was learned and accurate when he gave his well-dressed shepherd ‘mittons[325] of bauson’s skin;’ that is, of gris, and a hood of mineveere. With respect to sables, I have only to add, that from their grave and sober elegance, they were retained as tippets in the habits of bishops and other dignitaries in England to the time of queen Elizabeth, when they gave place to a similar ornament of silk, the origin of the present scarf, which continued to be called a tippet till the reign of Charles II. See Baxter’s life, where we find that puritan, when sworn in king’s chaplain, refusing to wear the tippet.”
I am, &c.
T. Q. M.