A Short History of Costume & Armour

Two Volumes Bound as One

Francis M. Kelly, Randolph Schwabe, Randolph Schwabe

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780486146126
• Topic: Design
• Subtopic: Fashion Design

This magnificent fashion history is a stylistic panorama that ranges from the Norman conquest to the early 19th century, focusing chiefly on armor, from the Crusades to the 17th century; clothing of the English upper classes, both sexes, 11th to 19th centuries; and accessories, including gloves, belts, corsets, shoes, and headgear. 342 black-and-white illustrations.

A Short History of Costume & Armour

VOLUME I

1066—1485

PREFACE

THE cordial reception accorded to both editions of their Historic Costume has encouraged in authors and publishers alike the hope that the present work too may not lack a welcome. The principle underlying it is essentially the same that governed its predecessor : the primary importance of contemporary art, rightly apprehended, to the proper understanding of the evolution of human clothing in past ages. There is no pretence at anything like an exhaustive treatment of the subject, even within the narrow limits to which the authors have—perhaps arbitrarily—restricted their inquiry. Distinctively liturgical, clerical and professional dress has been consciously ignored. So, too, with what may be called secular ritual : coronation and peers’ robes, orders of knighthood, official insignia, liveries, and the like : things which early tend to become standardized and to be modified only gradually and imperceptibly over long periods of history. Nor has the dress of the peasantry and working-class been dwelt on. The sections on “civilian” dress deal mainly with the fashions of their respective dates ; consequently it is the so-called “upper classes ” and their imitators who furnish most of our examples, for it is their apparel that incessantly changes with and so most intimately reflects their times. To use a current social shibboleth, costume in olden days was distinctly “class conscious.” In the armour section, again, we have heavily stressed the “knightly ” element, for this again best illustrates the evolution of defensive attire from the Crusades to the fifteenth-century masterpieces of the armourer’s craft, and thence to the decay of the art and its virtual disappearance in the seventeenth century. Armour is here discussed exclusively as the working-dress of the warrior ; hence “arade ” and tournament equipment is omitted.

Speaking roughly, the period covered extends from the Crusades at one end to the latter end of the French Revolution at the other. Note how throughout this long stretch of time the pace is set, sartorially, by the male sex, and how at length, chiefly through the commercial expansion of England, a bourgeois tone creeps into men’s fashions in the west ; till by its close the cock-bird, voluntarily stripped of his former fine feathers, is henceforth fitted for an industrial millennium.

Our concern in the following pages is mainly with fashion in England, but we have not scrupled to draw upon Continental sources where these seemed to us aptly to illustrate our point. As pointed out in an earlier work, the general outline of fashionable attire was much the same, and followed the like course of development in Western Europe (England, France, and the Netherlands). Generally speaking, France was the channel through which the modes of the Continent reached this country. At least in courtly circles the introduction of a fashion usually followed its appearance abroad within quite a short period.

The study of costume has heretofore been associated with dry-as-dust fogies on the one hand, on the other with “period” plays, historical genre-painting, and the like. It is more and more being realized that it has a real practical use in helping art experts to check the bona-fides of “old masters” and other alleged examples of ancient work submitted to their critical judgment.

Our thanks are due to the following who have kindly granted us permission to reproduce certain of the subjects illustrated:

The Curator, Barcelona Museum, Plates XXX. and XXXI.; A. Chester Beatty, Esq., Plates 1. and IV.; R. B. Fleming & Co., Plate XXIII._iii; M. Gulbenkian, of Paris, Plate XV._ii, from Boccaccio’s Des Cleres et Noble Femmes ; The Council of the Kent Archæological Society, Plate II._ii, reproduced from Archæologia Cantiana, 1880; Methuen & Co. Ltd., Plate XXVIII_ii, from The Armoury of the Castle of Churburg, by Oswald Graf Trapp ; The Pegasus Press, Paris, Plate XXI._ii ^bis, from Romanesque Sculpture in France, Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, by Paul Deschamps ; Phillips City Studios, Wells, Plate VIII._i; S. Smith, Lincoln, Plates VIII._ii, XXVI._i; Dr. F. Stœdtner, Plate XXII.; F. H. Cripps Day, Esq., Plate XXI. ^bis ; The Curator, R

mer Museum, Hildesheim, Plate XXVII.; The Metropolitan Museum, New York, Plate XXVIII.

We also wish to acknowledge our indebtedness to F. H. Crossley, Esq., and Brian C. Clayton, Esq., for placing at our disposal their very extensive collections of photographs.

Thanks are also due to J. Pierpont Morgan, Esq., and to the authorities of the British Museum, The Victoria and Albert Museum, The National Gallery, to the Librarians of Trinity College, Corpus Christi College, and St. John’s College, Cambridge, for allowing their collections to be drawn upon for illustrations.

In many cases the sources of the subjects have been acknowledged on the plates.

Finally, a debt of gratitude remains to be discharged to Mr. Harry Batsford and Mr. Francis Lucarotti, whose unfailing co-operation has greatly lightened our labours.

F. M. K.
R. S.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

PART I
CIVILIAN

I. “SHIRTS”

II. “SHAPES”

III. HOUPPELANDES, &c.

IV. BURGUNDIAN MODES

PART II
ARMOUR (1485—1650)

INTRODUCTORY

MAIL

(i) “MIXED” ARMOUR (EARLY)

(ii) “MIXED” ARMOUR (LATE)

PRE-GOTHIC “ALWITE” HARNESS

“GOTHIC” ARMOUR

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ICONOGRAPHY

INDEX AND GLOSSARY

PART I. CIVILIAN

INTRODUCTION

“Des divergences dues à l’age, d la fantaisie ou à la position sociale de chacun ont toujours coexisté avec la mode générale de l’époque adoptée par le plus grand nombre.”

HARMAND : Jeanne d’Arc.

THE SOURCES.—The materials for the study of costume in the past are of two kinds : artistic and literary. Both are invaluable to the student who would have a real understanding of his subject, but both are not equally easily assimilated. The concrete illustrations afforded by contemporary art in all its branches, although by no means exempt from pitfalls for the unsophisticated novice, are yet easier of general apprehension than the writings of contemporary authors. This is especially the case with the earlier writers. It must be remembered that to contemporary readers, familiar in their daily life with the objects referred to, a precise definition was unnecessary, and that the writer had no inkling of the difficulties he was sowing in the path of the modern commentator. None the less, the student desirous of making the most of his investigations should not neglect this class of evidence. If many passages remain obscure, he will on the other hand, in not a few instances, find text illuminate illustration—and vice versa.

While it is perhaps not indispensable for the student to have much knowledge of tailoring, he will find a theoretical acquaintance with the principles of “ cut ” and drapery of immense assistance in deciphering the naive productions of the earlier artists. There are several modern costume-books which have devoted considerable attention to such questions. (See BIBLIOGRAPHY.) The solutions they give are generally the result of practical experience. Designers for the stage or film, as well as painters, illustrators, etc., desirous of depicting historical events and personages, can hardly know too much in this way. Indeed, the artist designing an historical cartoon will probably, if conscientious, wish to work from the costumed model, and for this purpose it is advisable for him to be able to have the dresses, etc., correctly made to his orders, and not depend upon theatrical costu...

Table of contents

• DOVER BOOKS ON FASHION
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• A Short History of Costume & Armour - VOLUME I
• A Short History of Costume & Armour - VOLUME II
• INDEX AND GLOSSARY