Burgundian Costume Being a study of women’s formal dress of Northern Europe, especially Burgundy and Flanders, in the later half of the 15th century. Here we see the ideal Burgundian couple in By Lady Lyonnete Vibert (Marie Vibbert) their courtly garden from Pavilion Books’ A Medi- eval Flower Garden, page 53. Their source: Giraudon/ Biblioteque de l’Arsenal, Paris MS 5072 f. 71 v. “When I first joined the SCA,” my friend Li said to me more bad conjecture than actual evidence. This is not recently, “one of the first things they told me was ‘pointy to say that good resources do not exist. This paper, princess caps didn’t really exist’.” I can understand the if anything, is a condensation of the greater works of motivation of her early, erroneous tutor. From Star Trek talented and dedicated costume and art historians, to to The Wizard of Id, any time a ‘‘medieval” woman is por- whom I owe a huge debt. trayed without an effort for authenticity she wears the tall pointed cap, usually with a short veil pinned to the tip. Little girls don them at renaissance fairs, com- plete with pink stars and flowers flowing like a fountain from their tips and elastic chinstraps to hold them on. The fashionable dress of the later 15th Century has become iconographic with our modern idea of medi- evalism. Such popular portrayal, largely inauthentic, has linked it with the reenactor’s idea of bad medievalism. It is easy to see why this style has maintained such a pres- ence in public consciousness: it is an enigmatic, singular style that captures attention and was depicted in paint- A particularly awful example of what sloppy researchers have made of Burgundian ings and drawings past its time of popularity. Illus- costume. This is from Fashion in History by Marybelle Bigelow, c. 1970. The author trations from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries professes with authority that not only did women stuff their stomachs with horsehair (an idea perhaps developed from a modern esthetic of slenderness that could not that hoped to recall the glory of the tournament age rationalize the somewhat prominent stomach of these dresses without exaggeration- take their images not from the early sources, but their after all, aren’t we all really shaped like Barbie?- and a vague memory of references to men of the time period stuffing thier doublets.) but also that the cone-shaped 15th century copies, and so the contemporary dress of headdress developed before the end of the 14th Century -it did not- and “was often the late middle ages becomes the iconographic dress of more than ten feet long.” with ribbons and scraps of veiling, even flags, adorning the tip. Clearly, 20th century costume historians can be just as guilty of misinterpreting Arthurian legend and the chivalric epic. Thus a long this style as their 18th and 19th century predecesors. tradition of tertiary depiction of Burundian costume began, clouding and obfuscating the record to this day. 1 Development My desire to research this subject grew out of a desire to In her work “Dress and Fashions c.1470”, Anne Sutton wear a big, pointy hat and my subsequent surprise that quotes an unknown Burgundian chronicler who found the documentation available for this garment was sparse. the changes in fashion around him worthy of mention. The 18th and 19th century books on costume, famous for He writes, “In this year [1467] ladies and young gentle- their sometimes laughably inaccurate drawings, seemed women … put aside the trains they wore on their gowns, to take their largest leaps of fancy in the depiction of and instead they wore … borders on their gowns of Burgundy and France of the 15th Century, proposing grey, lettice and marten, of velvet and other fabrics, as bag-stuffed stomachs, iron counterweights hanging from wide and as valuable as they could afford…. And they the front of hats, and the now classic veil pined only wore headdresses … in the shape of a round bonnet at the tip. At every turn of my early research, I found which narrowed above, some to a height of half an ell or three quarters and some lower….”2 It could be easily an effort to make to believe, as this chronicler did, that fashion suddenly a more fitted and abruptly changed in the mid-15th Century. However, garment. Also, with the benefit of hindsight and pictorial evidence we almost noncha- can see that in fact the astounding styles of the late lantly, the collar 1400’s were the direct, logical descendents of the clothes began to open worn before them. up to show the lacings under- Let’s go back a bit. The 14th Century ended with the neath. cotehardie, a tightly fitted gown, still prevalent but being augmented with a loose over-gown or robe, especially Allow me to on older figures. (One can almost see the thought borrow a device process: “Honey, I ain’t putting something that tight on used by Robin at my age!”) These loose gowns became more and more Netherton in her ubiquitous and elaborate and thus the houppelande was talks on the A fashionable lady of around 1420. Note the cum- born. These were sumptuous, heavy gowns, fur-lined development of bersome sumptuousness of her gown. and very warm, indicative perhaps of a shift in the the V-necked climate. By 1420 these gowns had reached the height gown.3 To illustrate the gradual change in fashion, she of their opulence with trailing sleeves and large, turned- provided a series of funerary brasses, placed side by side. back collars to show off their fur. Making trains and Drawn in a similar style and sized to be the same, you sleeves any longer than this extreme was impractical: can watch the slow progression of the collar as it opens already courtly ladies appear to be drowning in puddles wider and becomes more of a line of trim than a true of fabric in some depictions. It was time for fashion lapel. The sleeves also tighten, and will get even tighter to move in a new direction. Whether consciously moti- as the style reaches its ending years. The fur cuffs widen vated by practicallity, or a desire to not be doing the and then, in the last brass, are turned back. The belt has same old thing their parents had done, the fashionable become wider and an emphasis on a slender waist has ladies of the Fifteenth Century began to modify clearly been adopted. The first brass is clearly a houppe- what they wore. The sleeve became enclosed into lande, the last clearly Burgundian, and yet all four gowns cuffs and the voluminous folds were cut down in are similar to those next to them and any one could not be picked out as representing a dramatic stylistic change. Likewise, at the end of the 15th Cen- tury the transition from this “Bur- gundian” style to the “Tudor” style is also a slow, steady progression, so that we lose first the belt, then the v-neck, then the cap, and so by 1500 have a gown that would not be lumped together with the gowns of 1460 to 1490, though it is their direct descendent, just as they are descended from what came before them, and ultimately, your blue jeans and t-shirts have descended from all All brasses, and the Houppelande at the top of the page, are from Margret Scott’s A Visual History of Costume. In order, from pages 67,77,84,101, and 105 that came since. While a romantic notion, why does it matter that these dresses were the direct result of what came before them? Knowing where the style came from gives us clues as to its construction. The V-neck, filled in with a smooth piece of contrasting fabric, might be seen as an applique ornamentation, but is in fact the opening of the gown, having drawn out from the original slit opening in the front of the houppelande. Fashion moves toward extremes, and as the V-neck became wider and wider, discretion led to the insertion of a piece to cover the lacing of the underdress. But that is a story for later A cutaway of the Burgundian Costume, showing layers. For the sake of clarity, I will refer to the under dress as the kirtle, the over dress as the robe, and the smock or on. undershirt as the chemise. Drawing by Milesent Vibert (Grace Vibbert). wearing underneath it all. The Underclothes One such glimpse can be found in birth scenes, such Two details from as The Birth of the Virgin <insert rest of info>. We are The Birth of given an look into an intimate and wholly female event. theVirgin <insert info> showing One of the attendants has removed the over-sleeve of glimpses of the her kirtle to wash her hand, showing us the rumpled chemise. chemise sleeve. It’s not much of a glimpse, but we can tell that the chemise sleeve is loose, and does not have a gathered cuff. The neckline and sleeves of St. Anne’s chemise are exposed over her coverlet as well. Her neckline is scooped, and there is pleating in the center front. It looks like there is just enough shoulder on the chemise to hold it on, but the new mother is depicted It is my opinion that the Burgundian Costume is a with very narrow, sloping shoulders so it’s hard to be layered costume, and cannot be properly recreated with- sure. Her sleeves are long and tube-like, ending just shy out the proper under layers.