English Costume
8: Women's Fashion in the Time of Richard I
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Jone Johnson Lewis
What did the clothing of a Norman woman look like? Here's one author's presentation of a typical noblewoman during the reign of Richard I of England.
Source: Calthrop, Dion Clayton. English Costume: I. Early English. London, 1906. This article is an excerpt from the chapter, "Richard the First." Color plate and line illustrations also from this chapter.
Richard the First
Reigned ten years: 1189-1199.
Born 1157. Married to Berengaria of Navarre.
THE WOMEN
It is difficult to describe an influence in clothes.
It is difficult nowadays to say in millinery where Paris begins and London accepts. The hint of Paris in a gown suggests taste; the whole of Paris in a gown savours of servile imitation.
No well-dressed English- woman should, or does, look French, but she may have a subtle cachet of France if she choose.
The perfection of art is to conceal the means to the end; the perfection of dress is to hide the milliner in the millinery.
The ladies of Richard I.'s time did not wear Oriental clothes, but they had a flavour of Orientalism pervading their dress--rather mascu- line Orientalism than feminine.
The long cloak with the cord that held it over the shoulders; the long, loose gown of fine colours and simple designs; the soft, low, heelless shoes ; the long, unbound hair, or the hair held up and concealed under an untied wimple--these gave a touch of something foreign to the dress.
Away in the country there was little to dress for, and what clothes they had were made in the house. Stuffs; brought home from Cyprus, from Palestine, from Asia Minor, were laboriously conveyed to the house, and there made up into gowns. Local smiths and silver-workers made them buckles and brooches and ornamental studs for their long belts, or clasps for their purses.
A wreck would break up on the shore near by, and the news would arrive, perhaps, that some bales of stuff were washed ashore and were to be sold.
The female anchorites of these days were busy gossips, and from their hermitage or shelter by a bridge on the road would see the world go by, and pick up friends by means of gifts of bandages or purses made by them, despite the fact that this traffic was forbidden to them.
So the lady in the country might get news of her lord abroad, and hear that certain silks and stuffs were on their way home.
The gowns they wore were long, flowing and loose; they were girded about the middle with leathern or silk belts, which drew the gown loosely together. The end of the belt, after being buckled, hung down to about the knee. These gowns were close at the neck, and there fastened by a brooch; the sleeves were wide until they came to the wrist, over which they fitted closely.
The cloaks were ample, and were held on by brooches or laces across the bosom.
The shoes were the shape of the foot, sewn, embroidered, elaborate.
The wimples were pieces of silk or white linen held to the hair in front by pins, and allowed to flow over the head at the back.
There were still remaining at this date women who wore the tight-fitting gown laced at the back, and who tied their chins up in gorgets.
Next page > Woman's Costume in the Time of John
Suggested Reading:
• Eleanor of Aquitaine
• British Women's History
• Fashion History
• Medieval Women
• Index to Etexts on Women's History
• Medieval History
