The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England (29 page)

You will note that women do not wear drawers. A simple length of washable linen performs the necessary function on a monthly basis for both queen and poor girl.
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However, Elizabeth’s funeral effigy does sport a pair of fustian drawers, and there are references to ‘six pairs of double linen hose of fine holland cloth’ made for her in 1587.
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But do these relate to royal pairs of drawers or linen hosen with a seam up the back of the leg? Given that respectable ladies never wear skirts shorter than their ankles, perhaps you will forgive a degree of uncertainty on the matter.

Socks.
These are made of linen or wool, but they tend to be worn only by the well-off. Most people cannot afford them – nor can they afford to wash them.

Waistcoats.
The waistcoat goes over the head, is tailored to the waist, and may be sleeveless or have sleeves attached. It is a garment for the wealthy, made of high-quality linen, sometimes padded for warmth and support, and often embroidered. If you do not need to leave your private chambers during the day you may well wear just a waistcoat over your smock and nightgown, perhaps with a gown draped over the top.
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Bodies.
‘A pair of bodies’ is the sort of garment that Lady Ri-Melaine is referring to when she calls for ‘my petticoat bodies’ and ‘my damask quilt bodies with whalebones’. They wrap around you and form the right and left sides of a bodice, normally being laced up at the front. They may be short and done up tightly, like a corset, or may be longer and have a petticoat attached to form an underdress. If serving the purpose of a corset, they are often called a ‘corse’, and if laced up at the back, a ‘vasquine’ or a ‘basquine’ (hence the modern word ‘basque’). Bodies may be stiffened with wood, whalebone or clusters of reed and quilted with a stiffer cloth, such as buckram. In extreme
cases, horn might be used for strength. The queen’s bodies are made of velvet, silk and satin and even perfumed leather.
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Farthingales.
This is a fabric-covered framework, incorporating up to fifty yards of whalebone, which supports a petticoat or gown. As the fashion shifts towards wider and wider skirts, up to four feet across at the hips, light but strong farthingales are required. Male writers joke about them having to be left in the street, as they are too wide for the front doors of houses.

There are two main forms of farthingale: Spanish and French. The Spanish farthingale is already a feature of court life at the start of the reign and spreads quickly through the lower ranks of society in the 1560s. It is shaped like a cone, with wider hoops of whalebone at the bottom and narrower ones at the top. The French farthingale arrives in the 1570s: a cartwheel around the waist and shaped like a drum, with vertical sides. But the style for gowns open at the front, which are less elegant with a French farthingale, means that the Spanish design does not disappear altogether.

Petticoats.
Every self-respecting woman wears a petticoat, whether she be a queen or a countrywoman. It is said in 1585 that Englishwomen dress awkwardly because they wear three petticoats, one over the other.
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One suspects the foreign gentleman responsible for that remark has not looked beneath many Englishwomen’s skirts. William Kempe, Shakespeare’s companion, dances from London to Norwich in 1599 and manages to trip up a couple of pretty country girls along the way: he notes that both of them are wearing only one petticoat. Some petticoats are made of heavy woollen cloth for warmth (flannel or kersey); others are of lighter cloths, such as satin or taffeta (if you can afford them). Inventories show that 87 per cent of petticoats among ordinary women are red, dyed with madder; the remainder are mostly black, white or blue.
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Foreparts.
There are two sorts of forepart: one that covers the front of the petticoat, and one that covers the stomach, often called a ‘stomacher’. Both are ostentatious pieces that cover the undergarments where a doublet or gown is left open for effect. If you are wearing a round gown, the skirts of which are open at the front creating a triangular gap from waist to floor, then you will wear a forepart over
your petticoat. If you are wearing a kirtle, doublet or jacket that is cut low or open at the front, you should wear a stomacher. The queen usually has hers made of white satin and covered in jewels.

Kirtles.
As noted above, you can have a pair of bodies attached to a petticoat as a single garment. A variation on this is to wear a kirtle. Rich women wear kirtles with a gown to cover the laces at the back. In such cases, the embroidery of the kirtle’s front is seen through the front openings of the gown. For less well-off women, a kirtle is another word for an ordinary dress.

Gowns.
The gown is the outermost garment, covering the body from shoulder to ankle. You might wear it over a kirtle, in which case it will be open over the breast and over the skirts, allowing the front of the kirtle to be seen. Alternatively you might wear it over a pair of bodies and a forepart-covered petticoat. You may come across ‘loose gowns’, which are like long jackets that hang from the shoulders down to the ground and which are loose around the waist, often without sleeves. You may also encounter ‘train gowns’, with trains that are carried by a maidservant. A ‘French gown’ is similar to a ‘train gown’. A ‘round gown’ is one with a round, wide hem, which creates a wide circle around the wearer’s ankles; it is usually open at the front, allowing the kirtle to be seen.

Gowns normally have sleeves attached. The Spanish style is for each sleeve to be cut with a single long slash from shoulder to wrist, allowing the material to fall open, revealing the sleeve of the kirtle. This is a colourful display, for you will see the outer colour of the gown itself, then the contrasting colour of its lining and then the contrasting colour of the kirtle sleeve. Sometimes the kirtle sleeve will be slashed or ‘pinked’ (have patterns of small holes cut in it) to reveal the sleeve of the smock. The French style is for the lower part of the sleeve to be cut close to the arm, but the upper part to be much larger, so at the shoulders it is about eight to ten inches across and stands proud, like a pair of vertical ‘wings’.

Doublets and jerkins.
The doublet is an outer garment that fastens down the middle and extends low and ends in a point. When worn without sleeves it is termed a jerkin. Both garments may have ‘wings’ (raised shoulder pieces). You might wear a doublet with a matching
petticoat, or an unbuttoned jerkin instead of a loose gown; you might wear it partly undone at the front either to show off your cleavage or a forepart beneath. This is a fashion that women start to adopt soon after 1570 and it provokes the scorn of many Puritans. ‘What are they? Women? Masking in men’s weeds?’ exclaims the poet George Gascoigne in 1574.
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Philip Stubbes is predictably outraged:

the women also have their doublets and jerkins, as men have here, buttoned up the breast, and made with wings, welts and pinions on the shoulder points as men’s apparel is, for all the world, and though this be a kind of attire appropriate only to men, yet they blush not to wear it, as if they could as well change their sex … It is written in the 22 of Deuteronomy that what man so ever weareth women’s apparel is accursed and what woman weareth a man’s apparel is accursed also … These women may not improperly be called
hermaphroditi
, that is monster of both kinds, half women, half men.
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Ruffs and ruffles.
In the middle of the sixteenth century both men and women start showing the collars of their smocks and shirts over the top of their outer garments. This little detail becomes most fashionable, and people start accentuating the line of the shirt with a cord or hem, stiffening it. In the early 1560s they start adding small collars or ‘bands’ to the top of the shirt, and by 1562 the most fashionable women are wearing wavy linen ‘ruff bands’ around their necks. These are made separately from the shirt or smock, to help laundering. Normally they wholly encircle the neck, creating the impression of a head on a plate (as Ben Jonson famously points out).

The fashion for ruffs spreads throughout the whole of Europe: everyone who wishes to look smart wears one from about 1565. At first it is a modest item of dress, a long length of linen set into pleats, each pleat forming a figure-of-eight shape; but it becomes more flamboyant, especially after the method of starching the ruff is invented in the Low Countries. In 1564 a Flemish refugee, Mrs Dinghen van der Plasse, sets herself up as a linen starcher in London, catering for her fellow refugees.
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Soon everyone wants starched ruffs with crisp folds. At the height of the craze, in the 1580s and 1590s, ruffs are made of up to six yards of starched material, with up to 600 pleats in them, extending eight inches or more from the neck. The edge may be trimmed with lace or ‘cutwork’ (a form of decorative lawn). In the
1590s it might also be dyed blue to make the wearer’s face look fashionably pale.
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Very large ruffs are supported on a board, which remains unseen as the cutwork or lace edges project out beyond it. Nothing excites the indignation of Philip Stubbes quite as much as a large ruff of the finest linen:

The women use great ruffs and neckerchiefs of holland, lawn, cambric, and such cloth as the greatest thread shall not be so big as the least hair that is; and lest they should fall down they are smeared and starched in the Devil’s liquor, I mean starch; after that, dried with great diligence, streaked, patted and rubbed very nicely, and applied to their goodly necks and withal underpropped with supportasses … the stately arches of pride.
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Sometimes ‘ruffles’ – matching ruffs around the wrists – are also worn. Ruffs are worn by prosperous country folk: a yeoman’s wife going into town on market day is likely to wear one; and if her children ride with her they too will wear ruffs. Only working folk with no social pretensions never wear a ruff.

Partlets.
A partlet is a neckerchief or, to be more precise, a small piece of decorated high-quality cloth (satin, lawn, cyprus or network) covering the upper part of the breast. In the first part of Elizabeth’s reign partlets are designed to resemble the top of the smock where a doublet or pair of bodies is square-cut at the top.

Mantles.
A decorative garment that covers the shoulders, the mantle may just be draped there or alternatively may be tailored to match a round gown or a French gown, and may even have a train.

Veils.
At the aristocratic end of the social spectrum the veil is not used to cover the face, but for the opposite purpose, to show it off by framing the head and surrounding it with jewels. It is therefore pinned to the headdress and gown. Some extravagant veils worn by noblewomen are supported by wires and provide a billowing gauzy backdrop to the lady’s face, projecting out even further than the wide extent of Spanish sleeves and farthingale.
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In more humble contexts a woman going about town might wrap a piece of fine linen around her face to protect it from the sun.

Shoes and boots.
Elizabethan women have a number of different items of footwear to choose from: slippers, pantofles, shoes, pumps, mules, chopins, clogs, boots and buskins. Lady Ri-Melaine tells her maidservant that she will not wear slippers, but velvet pantofles, then changes her mind and asks for pumps, and finally opts for Spanish leather shoes. Slippers you know about: they are made of soft velvet, have no heel or fastening, and are for indoor use only. Expensive ones are lined with satin and taffeta in the upper part, and scarlet covers the inside of the sole. Pantofles are also ‘slippers’ – in the sense that you slip your foot into them. The word is more versatile, however, and can refer to indoor slippers as well as outdoor slip-on shoes. Outdoor pantofles range greatly in form and material, some being made of leather and some of velvet, some with pinking (decorative holes) that make them more pliable. Pumps are made of leather and fit the foot closely, with a thin leather sole and no fastening. ‘Mules’, or ‘chopins’, have a wooden sole two or three inches high, and are effectively leather-or velvet-topped clogs, designed to encase your shoe or foot and support it above the mud of the street.
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These are somewhat unstable; Lady Ri-Melaine is probably referring to these when she says her ‘turn-over shoes’ are too high. Don’t confuse these with ‘turn-shoes’, which are leather shoes stitched inside-out and then soaked to make them pliable and turned the right way round.
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Normal shoes for well-to-do women are made either of velvet or soft leather and have a sole of leather-covered cork, done up with laces or a buckle. If made of leather, they may be pinked. Less wealthy women will have shoes with soft leather uppers and hard leather soles. Shoehorns are commonly used to help put on a tight-fitting leather shoe. The leather itself might be of various kinds and colours: Spanish leather or calves’ leather is soft and the most desirable. Green and red leather are both mentioned by Philip Stubbes, while white leather is used for the shoes and boots of the wealthy (it distinguishes them from working people whose boots get dirty).

One of this reign’s lasting fashion innovations is the high heel. Until the mid-sixteenth century shoes are entirely flat-soled, but from about 1540 the cork sole to the shoe starts to acquire a greater thickness towards the heel. That difference between sole and heel continues to increase; as a result, the soles of most high-quality shoes in Elizabeth’s reign are a distinct wedge-shape, being higher at the back. In the 1580s shoe-makers start experimenting with wooden heels and arches to ladies’ shoes. In 1595, at the age of sixty-two, the queen orders her first pair of ‘high heels’
(as she calls them) and as soon as she gives the innovation her endorsement, it becomes
de rigueur
for ladies up and down the country.
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Elizabeth’s outdoor boots or ‘buskins’, made of soft brown leather, also acquire wooden heels by 1599. The ‘well-heeled’ never look back.