court of Richard II. for its trailing skirts and its long sleeves,
their slittered edges turned back (fig. 32). A strange fancy at this
time was the hanging of silver bells on the dress. One William
Staunton, in 1409, seeing in a vision at St Patrick’s Purgatory the
fate of earth’s proud ones, is exact to note that in the place of
torment the jags in men’s clothes turn to adders, that women’s
trailing skirts are burnt over their heads, and that those men
whose garments are overset with silver gingles and bells have
burning nails of fire driven through each gingle. As for the
chaplets of gold, of pearls and precious stones, they turn into
nails of iron on which the fiends hammer.
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| Fig. 33.—The Squire. (From the Ellesmere MS. of the Canterbury Tales. | Fig. 34.—An English Squire and his Wife. (From a brass of 1409.) |
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| Fig. 35.—English Dress, c. 1433. (From Harl. MS. 2278.) |
The common habit of a well-clad man in the first half of this century is a loose tunic, lined with fur, or edged with fur at neck, wrist and skirt. At first the sleeves are long and bag-like, like to the Richard II. sleeve but drawn in to the wrist, where early examples are fastened with a button. A shorter tunic is worn below, whose tight sleeves are seen beyond the furred edge of the upper garment, mittens being sometimes attached to them. Over the shoulders the hood is thrown, or, in foul weather, a hood and cloak. The gown is girdled at the waist with a girdle from which hangs the anelace or baselard (fig. 34). Shoes are pointed. Hats and caps are seen in many shapes, but the most remarkable is the developed form of that head-dress which the 14th-century man seems to have achieved by putting his pate into the face-hole of his hood and twisting its liripipe round his brows. In the 15th century the effect is produced with a thick, turban-like roll of stuff from the top of which hung down on one side folds of cloth coming nigh to the shoulder, and on the other the liripipe broadened and lengthened to 4 or 5 ft. of a narrower folded cloth. As the century advances the bagpipe sleeves shrink in size and the tunic skirts are shortened (fig. 35). The old habit of going armed with anelace or baselard dies away in spite of troublous times. In the middle of the century the tunic is often no longer than a modern frock-coat, its sleeves little wider than those of a modern overcoat. Dress, indeed, becomes at this time convenient and attractive to our modern eyes. The last quarter of the century sees a new and important change. The tunic or gown, which was the garment of ceremony answering at once to our dress coats and frock coats, runs down to the feet. An act of 1463 ordered that coats should at least cover the buttocks, but fashion achieved suddenly what law failed to enforce. Men who had polled their hair short allowed it to grow and hang over the shoulders. The belt carries the purse or gipciere more commonly, although weapons are rarely seen, and it is notable that, as the Reformation approaches, the fashion of wearing a large “pair of beads” in the belt becomes a very common one. Last of all, the shoes change their shape. The reign of Edward IV. had seen the pointed toes as iniquitously long as ever the 14th century saw them. Even the long riding boot has the curving point, although otherwise much resembling the jack-boot of the 18th century. But after Bosworth Field the soles broaden, the point shrinks back and then disappears, and the footprint becomes shovel-shaped.
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| Fig. 36.—A Gentleman and his Wife. (From a brass of 1435.) |
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| Fig. 37.—A Gentleman and his Wife. (From a brass of 1508.) |
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| Drawn from a photo by Mansell. Fig. 38.—The Earl of Surrey (late in reign of Henry VIII.). |
Women’s dress in the 15th century often follows the man’s fashion of the furred gown, the skirts being lengthened for all difference. But the close-bodied and close-sleeved gown, with skirts broadening into many folds below the hips, is often seen with the long and plain cloak drawn with a cord at the breast, widows wearing this dress with the barbe, a crimped cloth of linen drawn up under the chin and ears and covering the collar-bone. With the barbe went the kerchief, draping head and shoulders. The bossed cauls of the earlier head-dress, drawn high on either side of the head until face and head-dress took the shape of a heart, are characteristic of the age (fig. 36). In some cases the cauls are drawn out at the sides to the form of a pair of bulls’ horns or of a mitre set sideways. In the time of Edward IV. we have a popular head-dress to which has been given the name of the butterfly. The hair in its caul is pulled backward, and wires set in it allow the ends of a cambric veil to float behind like the wings of a butterfly settled on a flower.
The new England of the 16th century breaks with the past in most of its fashions. Never again does an Englishman return to the piked shoes. High fashion under Henry VIII. is all for broad toes, so broad that the sumptuary laws, from The 16th century.banning long toes, swing about to condemn excess in the new guise. Under Henry VII. the medieval influence is still strong in the body-clothing. A bravely dressed man will go in long hose, cut close to the body, and a short vest under which the shirt is seen at waist and wrist. Over this he will wear the open gown, lined with fur, and cut short as a jacket but having the sleeves hanging below the knee. Such sleeves are commonly slashed open at the sides to allow the forearm to pass through. Shorter false sleeves of this pattern had become popular in the age of Edward IV. Graver men will wear, in place of this short gown, a long one dropping to the broad shoe-toes, the sleeves wide-mouthed (fig. 37). Sometimes it hangs loosely; sometimes it has the girdle with purse and beads. Notaries and scriveners add to the girdle a penner, or pen-case, and a stoppered ink-bottle. Wide hats are found, crowned with huge plumes of feathers, but the characteristic headgear is that made familiar by
