The Shirt off Your Back (part two)

In the seventeenth century, shirts were made of unbleached linen, the fabric varying from coarse canvas to fine weave, and ranged from brown to off white in colour, although unbleached linen could take on a grey or even greenish tinge. The finest shirts could be almost white, the fabric was generally bleached by being left out in the sun, but the white of the 1640s was nowhere as bright as the 21st century brilliant white achieved by modern detergents and their additives that counteract the natural yellowing of fabrics that have been worn for a while. The haymaker on the right shows that it was the fashion to take off your coat and work in your shirt if it was a hot day. Notice the detail on his collar and neck opening.

They were cut square and long, with front and back usually made of a single piece of fabric, gathered into a narrow neckband. Gathers can be simple for a plain shirt or of extremely fine cartridge pleating for a high status one. The image on the left courtesy of Manchester Gallery of Costume is a surviving shirt from our period. It's described in more detail in another post below.

As you can see, they were generally long enough to reach mid thigh or even knee length. This rather saucy image from A Letter To Mr Marriot 1652 (Mr Mariott was a famous lawyer and notorious glutton of the time) shows the length of the shirt because his breeches are around his ankles. The side seams would be left open for about 12 inches to allow the shirt to fit comfortably down the legs when worn under a pair breeches.

The sleeves would also be cut square and gathered to a narrow cuff, which may be secured by ties, small buttons or a t-bar (like a fabric cuff link) if it's posh. The sleeve is then sewn square onto the side of the shirt with gussets under the arms to provide some ease when you put it on over your head. There should also be smaller triangular gussets where the collar meets the shoulder seam, to give extra strength and prevent tearing. Photos of a shirt made by Tricia Webb.

At the front there should be a simple straight hemmed front opening large enough to let you put it on over your head. This opening was secured by a pair of ties, sewn to the collar or passing through a single sewn eyelet on each side at the neck.

 Here is a nice repro pair of posh ties by Gina B

The shirt as such would not have any more than a small standing collar of perhaps an inch and a half wide. To this a falling band may be tacked on. Shirts were not generally made with integral collars in our period. For common soldiers a small band can be used, just large enough to cover the standing collar on the coat. There are no images showing soldiers wearing knotted cloths or tied stocks for our period. A small plain collar seems to have been the fashion for just about everyone.

This is one I made earlier, with a posh vicar's collar attached:

Here are a set of sleeves made up for a copy of a blackwork embroidery shirt in the Warwickshire Museum. Note the construction and the gussets. The picture comes from a blog that tells the story of how it was made. Well worth a look.

Smocks (not shifts)

The basic item of underclothing for a woman in the seventeenth century the smock was a long T-shaped garment, made of linen with sleeves and reached down to below the knees. As with most linen garments of our period, the only surviving examples are of the best quality cloth and are highly embroidered. However, it’s probably safe to assume that the pattern was basically the same for everyone. The purpose was probably the same too, to protect the outergarments that would tend not to be washed as often from body oils and perspiration. Picture left from A Juniper Lecture by John Taylor 1635.

The extant smocks from the first third of the seventeenth century mostly have a standing collar, a single slit neck opening and long full sleeves. Sadly there are none exactly datable to the 1640s, but these examples are a good guide to what was worn.  This one in the V&A, picture from Drea Leed of Elizabethan Costuming is a nice one dated 1630 with a standard pattern and embroidered over the upper body. Much like a man’s shirt, they would be cut from a standard width of linen, anything from 30 to 36 inches wide. There is usually, like this example, a square gusset under the arms, but unlike a shirt there are either long triangular gores inserted in the sides or a looser cut to make the garment fuller and as such easier to walk around in. The V&A example also has a gusset inserted either side of the collar to provide strength.

 A few really high status smocks have lower necklines that are gathered and tightly stitched onto a narrow neck band (not with a drawstring). This clears the neckline for an off the shoulder look, but these are really ornate with acres of fabric requiring such finely detailed needlework that they should be only considered the preserve of someone of serious wealth, not a common serving girl or army follower. All the museum examples have lines of embroidery, very similar to those on surviving men’s shirts which is no surprise really as both garments, in fact anything made of linen, was considered women’s work. This image, from the Bath Museum of Costume, also photographed by Drea shows a woman's smock from 1610, and a man's shirt from the late 1500s. The smock is on the right. Below is a detail of the decoration.

Smocks were worn both day and night,high class people may have had a separate night smock to change into, but it can be safely assumed that most common folk slept in the smock they wore during the day.

Detail from Come Buy A Mousetrap. Pamphlet by Humphrey Crouch 1647

Picture on the right shows a plain (in the sense of undecorated) reproduction smock from Angela of Peggy's Necessities.

Startuppes

Following a discussion that started over a picture from a 1640s publication showing a ballad seller, I asked a few experts their opinion of long shoes or startups that had no ties. Several images have appeared to suggest that this may have been the norm for agricultural workers and as such for any soldiers who may have come from the fields and worn their own shoes.

The informed opinion is that perhaps there were a number of this kind of shoe around but that it was not the norm as to wear something like this just for walking (rather than riding) would quickly prove very uncomfortable, and as such would not be at all practical for farm work or soldiery.

In fact the discussion threw up this quote from a poem published before our period but none the less informative:

‘A payre of startuppes had he on his feet,that laced were to the small of the legge,

Homely they were and mete,and in there soles fulle many a woden pegge’

From The Debate Between Pride and Lowliness, published in 1577.

This guy from Thirty and Two Extremes of These Times, published in 1647 appears to have fastenings on his boots and a nice coat over what looks like a doublet, though why the illustrator has drawn his left hand the wrong way round, I have no idea!

Knitted Hats in Copenhagen

Usually known for:

a. The Little Mermaid
b. the Tuborg Brewery
c. The Tivoli Garden,

Copenhagen is also home to a rather special museum, the Danish Nationalmuseet. In one of the galleries there is a selection of 17th century knitwear. The sign indicated that these items came from a excavations in Copenhagen in 1900. Two items from this collection have caught my eye. They seem to be almost untouched examples of 17th century brimmed monmouth caps, the only example of which was originally thought to be in a museum in Russia and to have belonged to Peter the Great. Have a look and see what you think. It is thought that these hats were exported to Europe from 17th century England, so they just might be contemporary for 1640s Civil War England. There's much more in the case, including gloves and mittens, but I'm hoping to hear from the museum first before I add any pictures. Big thanks to Kate for letting me use her pictures.

Here's a description from Poul Grinder Hansen who works in the museum:
The hat in question is on display in our renaissance exhibition together with a number of similar hats, gloves and stockings, all of them finds from the old moats which once encircled Copenhagen.  I know of nine such hats from Copenhagen, five of which are in the National Museum. They are described like this in an exhibitions catalogue from 1988 “Christian IV and Europe”, cat. 848: The hats are of high quality knitting techniques. Knit from above in one piece with the brim, which is double knit and cast off at the edge. Originally the hats have been fulled so that they resembled felt, and perhaps they were dyed.

Sally Pointer makes reproductions and sells the patterns for making these hats on her website.

Could the ballad seller on the right be wearing one of these hats? Who knows? It's certainly possible.

Shirt in the Manchester City Galleries of Costume

There aren't many shirts left in existence from our period, let alone relatively basic ones, but this is an exception. It's kept in the Galleries of Costume in Manchester. Not sure how it survived, but reading the description the owner who brought it to the museum didn't know what they had! Stuart Peachey has published a pattern based on this shirt in his book "Common Soldier's Clothing of the Civil Wars". It shows how a shirt could be cut from a standard 10 foot length of linen.

This is the description from the Museum:

"Long full shirt in white linen. Cut in a T-shape: 2 large panels with side seams; separate sleeves set into the body and forming small underarm gussets. Sleeves and body drawn into bands at cuffs and neck with very fine, close smocking. Very fine French knot embroidery worked along upper shoulder seams. Openings at cf, side vents and cuffs, all edged with narrow bobbin lace (distressed). End of each opening marked by a knot-motif in plaited applique braid. Other seams very finely double over-stitched. Falling-collar attached at neck of fine Flemish (or Northern European) bobbin lace (4 inches deep) with shallow scallops at edge and a close formal geometric design. Embroidery is of a higher quality than the lace, and body of shirt almost certainly earlier, perhaps mid 16th century, with later lace collar added.

Purchased at auction in 1995 with 50% aid from V&A/MLA purchase fund. The vendor brought a pair of stays to be valued for sale, and this shirt was used as wrapping or a cover which is how it had survived."

Thanks to the Manchester City Galleries for permission to reproduce this image.

Cloaks, Coats, Cassocks Etc.

On the face of it, a soldier’s coat is exactly that, a coat or overgarment. However in many pictures it is obvious that another layer was used. Although 17^th century folk were a hardy bunch and extra layers may have been looked on as a luxury item, this was a rather cold time to be in England and the summers of the early 1640s were particularly wet ones too. Picture on the right portrait of Jan Six by Rembrandt.

The civilian answer to this was the cloak, cut out of a circle or part of circle of wool. The simplest form was just that. An example came to light in an excavation at Dungiven Bog  in Ireland, amongst other early 17^th century clothes found is a semi circle of wool cloth designed to be worn over the shoulders. This reproduction was made by Gilly Morley.

A more upmarket cloak had a square collar that could stand up when the cloak was fastened and lay flat down the back when worn open. Engravings of crowds from this period show that this type of cloak was a very common garment in the city during the winter.

Many soldiers, particularly those impressed from the towns and cities, would probably have one of these cloaks. They were practical and could act as a blanket  at night. It is thought that tents were not used on campaign and something to cover yourself up with if you hadn’t found shelter would be a sensible thing to own. Maybe blankets were worn as cloaks too, though after a few months in the field it would be difficult to tell whether it had started out as a cloak or a blanket. These pictures, the one on the left by Hollar, and the other, below of a French army besieging a town in Flanders from the 1650s show this clearly.

Common working men also had a basic long loose fitting coat, bit like an old fashioned mackintosh, commonly described as a gaberdine or just called a coat. This picture of a huntsman by Dutch artist Joachin van Sandrart

Also worn by more affluent civilians and higher ranking soldiers was a larger more complex coat, known as a cassock. There were many variants and several different names and spellings. It seems to have developed from an overdoublet and was in our period generally thigh length with large sleeves and turnback cuffs often displaying a facing material of contrasting colour.  This recent example was made by Barbara Robinson.

A popular item with reenactors, although it doesn’t appear very often in illustrations is a cassock with sides and sleeves that can be open or buttoned up, giving a garment that can be worn in several styles, cloak, coat or coat with hanging sleeves. It doesn’t appear in any documents, although there is a reference to coats being made for the Earl of Essex’s guards that specify 180 buttons per coat, which was probably for this type of coat.  Nice example here in a detail from a painting by Hendrik Pot.

Sleeved cloaks were also worn, a kind of cross between a coat and a cassock that were worn in a casual ‘off the shoulder’ fashion with the sleeves being no more than decoration. This rather rakish individual appears in several Roxborough ballads.


As Tony Barton wrote in 'True Relation': You might attempt reconstruction of any of these garments, depending on your chosen role. A pressed labourer would not possess a buttoned cassock, but he might have a simple overcoat of grey with a few cloth buttons. An old buttoned jerkin might be appropriate for a veteran soldier; a bourjeois would wear a cloak, sleeved or not, the officers have free choice-gold-laced sleeved cloaks, buttoned cassocks, or whatever. 
If you want to look really low life, take an old grey army blanket, tow it behind the car for a few miles, bury it in the garden until the spring, dig it up and wear it. You'll look lovely.

Aprons (any strings attached?)

Women of almost every degree in society wore an apron indoors and outdoors. It was a simple functional garment that was sufficiently common to become proverbial: ‘tied to her apron strings’ for example. It protected the more expensive, less easily washed and dried, petticote (or skirt) and also provided a quick, always available cloth on which to wipe your hands. Photo on the right by John Beardsworth.

Status in society seems to have had no bearing on whether you wore one, except in the quality of the aprons worn. Inventories and wills from relatively lowly households suggest that most women had one or more of probably three grades of apron, suited to the task and situation: old ones for messy jobs,  (scrub the floor, pick up hot pots, gather eggs etc.), a newer one for normal wear (going to market, meeting the neighbours), and a ‘Holy day’ apron which could have been quite elaborately decorated – the ‘Sunday best’.

The apron was normally linen, wool does not seem to have been used. Linen is easy to wash and dry, whereas wool is not, especially in cold, wet weather. Mary Champian (picture left) will find it much easier to get the blood out of her apron than her petticote. A greasy apron is a potential deathtrap around open fires, so frequent washing was important. For the same reason the speed with which the apron can be torn off if it starts to smoulder/burn is important, so complicated fixings are probably not authentic. Simple apron strings tied behind the back, or even just a couple of brass pins to the petticote could be used (but remember you may need to remove it quickly).

The apron itself should be a linen rectangle wide and long enough to cover most of the front of the petticote. It should be hemmed on all sides, and is easier to clean and press if it will lie as a flat rectangle, so one with permanent gathers at the top is likely to have been considered a nuisance. The apron will lie better if the strings are attached an inch or so in from the edge rather than directly to the corners. It is possible that some of the ‘gathered’ aprons seen particularly in Dutch paintings (see right) reflect an apron-string passing through the upper hem rather like a curtain on a cord. Remember that more material than was absolutely needed served no useful purpose, but pushed up the cost.

Linen in the seventeenth century could be bleached white with exposure to the sun but would never become as white as that achieved using modern detergents. It’s much safer to pick an off white shade, especially if you intend to portray a common person.

Holy day aprons were probably normally decorated in some way appropriate to your social station. Simple applied decoration inside the edge is possible; in other cases a grid pattern of horizontal and vertical ribbons or tapes (or perhaps even something woven into the fabric); drawn thread work may also have been used. This was for special occasions so the apron was carefully preserved and protected. It is unlikely that such aprons would have been used around a soldier's camp except for church service or a wedding.

So to summarise:

All women wore aprons as part of normal everyday daytime clothing.

Wealthier women wore an apron, although theirs were of finer quality.

They probably had more than one apron.

The simplest apron is a flat rectangle of linen, plainly hemmed, covering the front of your petticoats but not wrapping round the sides, and reaching from the waist to just above the hem of the petticoat.

Decoration can be added according to your station in life (fancy stitching, drawn thread work, hem-stitching, etc.).

Finer materials and decoration would be for women of higher status gathering at the waist would use more fabric and therefore cost more, so would be another indication of wealth