We may contemplate the people of those days in effigy in the tall hieratic figures sculptured under the porches of our most ancient churches. Rows of kings and queens, stiff and stern, set-in beneath the old archwnys, princes and princesses lying on raised stone slabs, old spectres of nulely carved stone, who shall tell us whom these really were, and what was that living and moving world over which they presided ?
They keep their secret,, it is hidden behind the mysterious brows of those sculptured phantoms, standing in the entrances of the buildings which they founded, or lying in the museums to which they have been consigned.
Our cities—trodden by the descendants of those ancestors, graceful French won)en, who crowd around the brilliant shops of the present day in which life is so intense—our own old cities were in existence then, but how often has their aspect changed ! Every vestige of those times has disappeared, their last stones are buried under the foundations of the oldest buildings now standing.
We know almost as little of the Avays of life at that period as we know of village civilization in the dolmen era, and we have to search in the earliest and most ancient poems or romances of chivalry, amid the clash of lance and battle-axe, for a few traces of its social history.
We come to the Middle Ages, when the
Siircoat with Garde-corps.
Byzantine influence of Rome, transplanted to the Bosphorus, at first prevailed in the clothing of both men and women, and was supreme about the time of the earliest Crusade. This was the period of long gowns with very close folds, of double girdles, one worn at tlie waist and one round the hips, and of transparent veils. It was in reality an age of transition. Fashion was groping about, turning backward, and resumino- forgotten forms with certain
Ceremouial head-dress, 1-itli century.
alterations; the Roman costume, modified at first by Byzantium, rearranged and semi-orientalized, was partly restored.
Then suddenly, at the dawn of the thirteenth century, when a new era was emerging from the twilight of ancient barbarism, the new fashions declafcd tliciiisulves, i'raukly aiul plainly.
Tills was tlie actnal biitli of Fnaioli fashion, of costume purely French, like the ogival art in architecture that sprang from our soil, and discarded all that was imitated, or borrowed, in short every reminder of Rome and Byzantium.
The statuary, the stained glass, and the tapestry of the Middle Ages, will now supply us with the very best of documents. Those figures carved in full dress upon their tombs, an actual resuscitation of the noble chatelaines of the period, are extremely remarkable portraits, with all the details of attire, the garments, and the head-dress clearly indicated, and in some instances still bearing traces of painting which give us the colours of the costume.
The stained glass is still more interesting, for it represents all classes of society, from the noble lady to the woman of the people; in memorial windows, in the windows of seigneurial chapels, or the chapels of city corporations, in the great compositions with portraits of the donors beneath the storied windows, the noble dames in rich attire kneeling opposite to the good knights in armour, the ricli 'city madams' opposite to the worthy aldermen or 'notables' their spouses.
Tapestries are not entirely trustworthy as veritable records, for the artist sometimes introduces decorative fancies into his compositions ; nevertheless, we find many figures in them which afford precise indications, corroborate the testimony of the statuary and the glass, and may be added to the innumerable and marvellous illustrations of the manuscripts of the time.
Above the under-dress, the petticoat, or 'cotta,' the women of the eleventh century wore the ' bliaud ' or ' bliaut,' an ornamented robe of fine stuff, held in to the figure by a girdle. The 'bliaud,' which was at first made of merely goffered stuff, was soon enriched with designs atid ornaments in very good style.
Th.e transformations of the 'bliaud ' and the ' cotta ' are endless. The under-dress became the
ROl'.i; F.T lIOUPPHLAXDr- HISTOID l-RS XV^' siHc;[.n.
' cotte hardie,' and the ' bliaud ' was supplanted by the surcoat. This under-dress, which fitted very tightly, was laced in front and at the back, and showed the outlines and shape of the body.
In the full-dress costume a ' garde-corps,' or bodice-front of fur, was added to the surcoat and lent it additional richness. The general form, however, was subject to a number of particular arrangements, cottas and surcoats varied in all manner of ways, following the fashion of the day, the taste of individuals, and the mode in the provinces, or in the small princely or ducal courts, which were isolated by circumstances or situation.
How superb they were, those belles of the Middle Ages, with their long clinginfy gowns, covered with regularly repeated designs of rose-form, and alternate squares of different colours, making a kind of chessboard of the whole body, or flowers and foliage in large groups, frequently woven in gold or silver. These stuffs took grand folds, and draped themselves naturally in statuesque lines; from samples
D .
YESTER-YEAR.
of them which still exist in museums, we may judge of the effect they must have produced when made up into stately trailing gowns.
A noble Châtelaine.
Armorial bearings, which came into existence with the earliest social organizations, with the first heads of clans or warrior-chiefs, but were regulated at a later period, appeared upon the ladies' gowns, which were stamped like their husbands' shields with symmetrically arranged escutcheons.
This custom found favour, the fashion ' took,' as we should now say, and very soon heraldic designs were displayed more fully upon the gowns called ' cottes historiées.'
Let us summon up a vision of these noble dames at Court, or on festive occasions in their castles, in those vast halls now open to all tlie winds that blow, and inhabited only by crows, —always the last dwellers amid feudal ruins— let us fancy them seated at the tables of state, between the lofty fire-places and the musicians' gallery, or else on the platforms or ' eschaffaux ' alongside of the lists stricken for the famous tournaments. There they are, arrayed in robes emblazoned through all their length with the arms of their husbands or their families, displaying, like living standards, every invention of the heraldic art, portraying all the beasts of its menagerie, lions and leopai'ds.
wyvems and griffins, wolves and stags, swans and crows, sirens and dragons, fishes and unicorns, all of them of fantastic aspect, all winged, nailed, clawed, horned, and toothed, issuant, passant, and rampant on glittering fields, gules, vert, and azure.
And the non-heraldic robes, strewn with great curving flowers, or highly-decorative designs, are not less rich or less brilliant.
The shapes of the period, although they seem to be very various, are all on the same principle. The surcoat has no sleeves, it is opened more or less widely at the side from the shoulder to the hip, in order to show the under-dress which is of another colour, but harmonizes with the upper, and is either more or less covered with designs than the surcoat, so that there should not be equality in this ornamentation.
A 'garde-corps' or bodice-front of ermine adorns the upper part of the surcoat ; the fur is cut low on the shoulder to exhibit the bosom, which was very liberally uncovered, especially in full dress. A band of ermine bordered the cut-out portion of the surcoat on the shoulders and hijis.
There was great variety in the shapes of the bodices, both of surcoats and cottas, in shoulder ornaments, and in the methods of baring the neck. Certain modes were immodest ; preachers denounced against the immorality of fashion from the pulpit, and the reciters of the old ' fabliaux,' who are not prudish, made fun of them.