Medieval Society and Influences

OR THE BITS WE KNOW: OR THINK WE KNOW: OR

SUSPECT

A Difficulty is that Medieval Dress Often Does not Match Dates of Paintings“Baptism of Christ”

1) Fresco 1482 Sistine Chapel

2) Fresco (Salimbeni) 1416

Loose over garments open under the arms worn by 15th Century Florence aristocrats.

Styles of paintings were copied which led to dress of subjects changing.

BRUEGEL 1525-1569

MEDIEVAL CLOTHING No access to loads of

clothes (particularly at bottom end)

Peasants did not have coats, woolen hats and mittens and harder than us.

Washing of clothes not common

Deodorant wood smoke from fires.

Anti moths etc hanging over urinals.

Presume huge 2Nd Hand clothes trade

MEDIEVAL WORKING CLASSStuttgart Psalter 820-830

MASS OF THE POPULATION

Evidence scarce. What there is shows that

dress did not change for 500 years. Tunics and hose.

Probably bare feet or rough leather shoes

Gown and hooded mantle worn by both sexes

Only item of working dress in constant use was the Apron

Working Clothes King Wenceslas Bible

1400: Blacksmith (Apron) 1405: Sewing Apron 1490: Miners-Hoods and

leather breeches

MEDIEVAL UNDERWEAR: Did they wear them? Braies: Not

‘Victoria’s Secret’ – for warmth.

‘Bikini Girl’ - Does not show up

on inventories or wills.

Clothed burial considered ‘pagan’

RULING CLASSES Linen shirts and

doublets developed to go under armour

By 14th Century male and female clothing diverges. Evidence of high fashion in clothes. Also sources of information more numerous. Shorter doublets for men. Buttons appear.

Geography of Styles At the end of the 14th

century with increasing merchant wealth clothing styles (Fashion) started to diverge across Europe.

Climate and types of available fabric started to influence dress styles.

1) Florence 1365. Close ‘empire style ‘ bodices flared to the ground. Wide necklines and tight sleeves.

Germanic Lands 1340 looser with ruching and dagged edges. Hoods and veil.

My Very Best Picture

Billy

3 POINTS OF INFLUENCE ON CHANGE IN FASHION AND DRESS

ROLE OF WOMEN ROLE OF CHURCH

BLACK DEATH

WOMEN IN MEDIEVAL SOCIETY‘EVE TEASING’

Eve was the villainess , the cause of original sin and of man's Fall. God created her from Adam's rib, she was tempted by the serpent, and tempted Adam to sexual sin. Thus Everywoman dwelt in the shadow of the fallen Eve, sentenced to the pain of childbirth and the labor of motherhood. The stereotype of woman as Eve was that she was weak, foolish, sensual, and not to be trusted. Women were scapegoats for the physical impulses that warred perpetually with the spiritual in men, a conflict sometimes depicted as an allegory of marriage. Self-disgust and revulsion against women are typically mingled .“ Christian teaching held the potential for an immense respect for women and specifically female functions elevated to their highest degree in life of the Virgin Mary., "Alone of all her sex/ She pleased the Lord,"

St THOMAS AQUINAS (1225-1274) On the Generation of Women. (A Knotty Problem for the Church)

A Woman is an occasioned male: an incomplete man.

Females come from weak defective semen but are a work of God for a purpose.

In Spite of their lower function the female sexual organs will remain at the resurrection. (Even in the bodies of risen saints)

Women are weak, and imperfect but are created by God.

BUT THEY ARE STILL GUILTY Huge lack of references to

women in early documents due to low status. Women are a problem. But because of this probably their involvement in society is under-rated.

Women were largely pawns for marriage or breeding.

Women carried Eve’s guilt (Accepted as thus) thrown out of paradise because of female vanity. Eve covered her head in penance after the fall.

Wives outsiders in the family; not related by blood.

CLOTHES TO SUIT AGES OF LIFE VIRGIN MARY (ANJOU) 1419-

1427 Young women and girls, apart

from religious images, hardly ever appear in pictures.

Virgin Mary depicted in the clothes of the time.

Principle function of women was maternity.

Women’s clothes cut very loose to accommodate pregnancy, usually split down both sides.

Front of the garment fastened with adjustable lacing to alter shape of gown.

Lacing usually extended to allow easy breast feeding.

Green and red colours popular to represent fertility.

SEX REARS ITS HEAD Agnes Sorrell as

the Madonna. Mistress of Charles VII of France

Breasts were for feeding babies.

IT WAS EVERYWHERE A Society of child

death, no social security and a knowledge of what sex was for.

So allure was very important.

A society that lived close to animals and close to each other in their dwellings.

ESTABLISHED CHURCH World ordered by God so attempts to change were

sinful. Born to your station in life. Priests etc could normally read which gave power. Eve sinned and so needed clothes. Huge problem with

sex appeal as women had sin.

Church was a Centre of Political Power

1200-1500 over 20 Vatican authorised ‘world coming to an end’.

Age of fear, witchcraft, plague, sudden death, the Devil and demons, plunging populations etc.

PRINCES OF THE CHURCH From about the 6th

century clerical dress became more ornate. Today’s high church wear dates from around the 12th century.

Highest quality of materials and decoration. Church of Rome considered it possessed the sole road to heaven.

Robes were to glorify God.

RENUNCIATION Around 1200 rise of

mendicant orders preaching poverty and abstinence.

Absorbed by the main church and tolerated to a point.

NOTE Martin Luther was an Augustine Monk

MONASTIC ATTIRE DEFINED THE PERSON AND THE POWER Detached from the world.

Tonsures and shaving. Cardinal sin was to seek admiration in dress. Poverty Chastity and obedience. Cowl represented a child’s hood as innocence. Loose fitting wool attire with rope belt. Light colours (Cistertion) exultation, innocence, gory. Dark colours contempt for worldly things.

Negation of sex. Clothes of the time until 13th

century. Shifts of horsehair under gowns Nuns habits a rejection of

harlotry and the devil’s work.

HUGE IMPACT OF DISEASE

LADY REBECCA ROLPH Constant sweep of

Plague until 17th Century.

Gravesend (As it says) thought to be safe as a port of departure for the New World from London plagues

Spread of Medieval Disease Explanations of the plague

were not sought in the human sphere but in God's wrath and the configuration of planets. A chronicler called it "a divine plague from which no doctor could possibly liberate the stricken." Man's only contribution had been his sins. Priests in insisted that immoral living and indecent clothing fashions were responsible

SUPERSTITION AND TRYING TO MAKE SENSE

LOMBARD STREET FROM 12th CENTURY Italian City States made

wealthy by being at the centre of trade routes.

Crusades had brought a demand for ‘oriental luxuries’

Climate of 12th century warmer than now.

Threatening the established rule of Church and aristocracy with their wealth

Financing the English Wool Trade.

Lending to Popes. (M’edici)

FASHIONS NOTED ACROSS EUROPE SHAKESPEARE

RICHARD III

“Report of fashions in Proud Italy; whose manners still our tardy apish nation limps after in base imitation.

Feminine Fashion Not important to

chroniclers. Clothes became more

flowing and exaggerated. Hennins became high

fashion and the work of the devil. Covered the head in Eve’s penance but became a work of vanity.

Dresses now showing breasts

Clothing of upper class women moved away from any pretence of work.

SO: GOD’S WRATH WAS ALL THE FAULT OF WOMEN’S VANITY AND MEN IN TIGHTS

Extravagant revealing clothes.

Colours and stripes of the devil

Effeminacy in action Also of course low

necklines and headdresses in women’s dress (But they are always to blame)

“All Witch-craft comes from carnal lust which in women is insatiable”J Springer & H Kraemer 15th Cent.

HOWEVER, IF THAT WAS TRUE WHAT ABOUT PRIESTS WITH PLAGUE?

Jacabus Omne 160-80 (Monks with plague blessed by Priest)

Many disillusioned Christians failed to understand how a loving god they had worshiped had failed to protect them from the terrors of the Plague, nor could they readily forgive the priests who had fled and failed to administer last rites to dying Christians.

FOR THE SURVIVORS LIFE CHANGED 1390 Merchant woman-Venice 1400

Feudalism broken in much of Europe.

Huge Labour shortage and rise in wages and mobility

Women now accepted in many guild and trades

Huge loss of power and moral influence of the Church.

Flowering of fashion and secular influence

Styles in Clothes of the sexes started to move apart.

Rise of non functional conspicuous consumption.

Women Weaving

15th Poulains-15th Hennin

15th Hennin bourgeois- 15th Venice

Women and Men Move Apart

And the Devil can take the Hind-Most