While in the first half of the seventeenth century the main upper garment for a man was a doublet there are also many references to coats, with the doublet almost disappearing from the records by the 1670s, replaced by the longer, knee length, coat. Throughout the century various varieties of coats are mentioned in wills and probates: riding coats, horseman’s coats, hunting coats and greatcoats. By the end of the seventeenth century there are references to Brandenburghs. The term overcoat does not arrive until the beginning of the nineteenth century. What follows is based on information from over 700 coats found in Stuart period (1603-1714) wills and probate inventories, a further 250 coats from household and wardrobe accounts and similar, which are from gentry level and above, other information from contemporary records is also used. What makes a coat a coat, rather than a doublet, most obviously it has no waist seam. Figure 1 is a c.1630-50 coat in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
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| Figure 1. Coat. c.1630-50. Victoria and Albert Museum |
Civilian Coats
Coats appear in wills and probates throughout the first half of the century, and many men owned both a doublet and a coat. In 1602 the clothing of a Basingstoke yeoman, William Blunden, consisted of one doublet, two coats, two pairs of hose [breeches], two pairs of stockings, two cloaks, one hat, three shirts and four bands, which together were worth £2. (1) In 1621 the long list of mason John Cheetam’s clothes included, two doublets, two coats, and two pair of breeches, his estate was only worth £6 3s 4d, of which one pound was his clothes. (2 pp. 154-6) In 1638 Andrew Burlingham, a Suffolk linen weaver, left in his will, “to James Baxter my doublet, breeches and coat which I now wear, and to his wife Martha a shirt immediately after my burial.” (3 p. 154)
By the 1650s the coat was taking over from the cloak, so that whereas it had often been a doublet, breeches and cloak that formed an outfit, now it was as likely to be a doublet, breeches and coat. In 1657 Giles Moore wrote that he had “ Giv'n my man John … A coate doublet & 2 paire of breeches.” (4 p. 315) In September 1660 Pepys recorded that walked out, “with a black cloth coat, made of my short cloak.” (5 p. 23 Sept 1660) In the 1660s the doublet starts to disappear, there are 500 doublets listed between 1603 and 1669, but only 30 after that date. By the time Gregory King put together his “Annual consumption of apparel” in 1688 the coat was the main garment for most men with one million being produced each year and further 66,000 of what he listed as campaign coats. (6)
Coats could also be mended to extend their life, Timothy Burrell in 1691 paid one shilling to have his footman’s coat and breeches mended. (7 p. 126) In 1670 the rector Giles Moore, “Pay’d Wm. Best for new turning” a coat. (4 p. 126) As fashions changed coats could also be altered. In 1669 when the fashion started for shorter sleeves on coats John Ferrers had his sleeves shortened, he paid for “cuttinge the sleeves of a black cloath coate & vest shorter wth silke & mendinge it in genrall places and putting on a shoulder knot of crape wth silke.” (8 p. 145) These shorter sleeves can be seen in a 1680s coat in the collection at Manchester. (Figure 2)
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Figure 2. Coat c.1685-95. Manchester Art Gallery.
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Of the just over 150 coats in wills and probates that give a fabric, more than 90 state they are of cloth or broadcloth, 12 of stuff [worsted], 9 of serge and 5 of russet, all of these are wool-based fabrics. There are a few coats of mixed fibres, such as camlets, druggets and linsey woolseys. The nearly 100 coats in the richer household accounts, that give a fabric, show a wider range of more expensive fabrics, though several of these coats were for servants. When James Master had a suit and coat made for his footboy, and coat for his groom, he spent £3 on 5 yards of Kentish cloth (12 shillings a yard), for himself he purchased “4 yards of Spanish cloth to make me a sute & coat £5 (25 shillings a yard). (9 p. 252 & 259). The more expensive Spanish cloth was made in England, but used at least in part Spanish wool. (10) While cloth, stuff, serge and camlet are widely used, there are many silk based coats of silk tabbys, taffetas and velvets.
In terms of those coats that mention a colour, in the wills and probates 40% were black, just under 20% grey, and the remainder blue, brown, green, red, sad, tawny, and white. Of the 70 coats in household accounts that mention colour, black and grey are still predominant, but the greys include ash coloured, lead coloured and light grey. Similarly, the browns include bezoar, deer, faun, and hair; while the reds include crimson and scarlet.
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Figure 3: Detail from The Departure of Charles II for England, 2 June 1660. Royal Collection. |
Military Coats
The English Civil War armies were issued with coats, though they sometime received cassocks. The coats were not long loose garments. The contracts for the New Model Army specified that coats should be three quarters and a nail long, that is twenty nine and one quarter inches (just over 74 cm.). (11 pp. 53-115) On an average height man that would just about reach the hip. The Victoria and Albert Museum coat (Figure 1) is even shorter, being only twenty four and a half inches in length (62.5 cm), and less than 38 inches (96.5 cm) at the chest. The 1660 depiction of the departure of Charles II from Holland, now at Hampton Court, would appear to show the soldiers wearing hip length cassocks, loose but with hanging sleeves, while their officers, and the drummer, wear the fashionable short doublet with petticoat style breeches. (Figure 3) Longer, knee length, coats appear to have been adopted by the army by the end of the 1660s, as seen in some of Hollar’s Views of Tangier, from his visit in 1669.
Dutch Coats, Loose Coats, Close Coats
There does not appear to be a reference to the term beloved by re-enactors, Dutch coat, though this may mean one has not yet been found. It is probable that re-enactors seeing long, loose coats in seventeenth century Dutch illustrations, have christened them Dutch coats, for example in this detail (Figure 4) from Jan de Bisschop’s View of Scheveningen with the embarkation of Charles II.
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Figure 4: Detail from View of Scheveningen with the embarkation of Charles II for England on 23 May 1660 by Jan de Bisschop. Victoria and Albert Museum. |
What makes these coats different from ordinary coats? It is perhaps that they are loose and long. John Evelyn commented in 1661 that he “would choose the loose riding coat, which is now the mode.” (12) The rector Giles Moore in Sussex in 1663, having purchased “Foure yards & an halfe (wanting one nayle) of a black dutch Serge at 6s 6d the yard,” then paid “Ric: Harland for making Mee a Loose Coate thereof – 4s 6d.” (4 p. 119) Randle Holme in the 1680s describes the riding coat as “a full coat both wide and side with long and wide sleeves to be drawn over other kinds of garments.” He also writes of, “A Stret bodied Coat, this is close to the Body and Arms, and is usually worn without a Doublet, having under it a Waistcote with side or deep skirts almost to the Knees.” (13 p. 96) When in the 1690s Walter Roberts ordered clothes, a distinction was made between “a fashionable riding coat” and “a fashionable close coat.” (14 p. 116) The close coat being cut close to the body. There is a tendency to bracket the loose style of coats with cloaks, as in an ordinance for Charles II’s household which says that, “None shall presume to come into Our Privy Chamber... in cloakes, or great coates, or in bootes, except the officers of Our Guard, or such as shall attend Us, or Our deare Brother when Wee goe abroad to ryde on horseback.” (15 p. 362)
Riding Coats or Horseman’s Coats
The older term appears to be riding coat. In the Treasurer’s accounts for James IV of Scotland there is in 1501 “Ane riding cote to the king.” (16 p. 34) Henry VIII, gave riding coats as gifts on various occasions. In 1517 Henry gave to Lord Suffolk a riding coat of green velvet lined with green sarcenet, accompanying it was a “di Cote”, that is a half coat, presumably a shorter coat. (17 p. 373) Among the clothes belonging to Edward VI was, “one rydinge Coate of purple taphata.” (18 p. 252)
Riding coats were not just for the very rich, but for anyone who rode. In 1611 Richard Perry left, “his apparell viczt: one cloake, one riding coate, one friese jerkin, one pair of breeches, ii dubletts, and a hatt £1” (19 p. 43) Among those who have riding coats listed in their inventories are, a clerk, an innkeeper, a rector, a vicar, a woollen draper, and several yeomen as well as gentlemen. In 1625 John Belton, a yeoman had “iii sheuts [suites] of apparrell, ii cloakes, ii riding coates and his wearing linen £5.” (20 p. 117) When Susan Borchillion’s son John travelled to London from Kent to enter an apprenticeship, he was provided with a riding coat costing 26 shillings. (21 p. 135)
Most riding coats were of wool based fabrics. In 1633 the Howard of Naworth accounts have, “for cloth and bayes bought at Carlile for a riding coat for my Lord £3 5s 9d” (22 p. 291) Samuel Pepys had a riding coat of camlet, which is a mixed fibre cloth. (5 p. 6 March 1662) In the 1675 Book of Rates, camlets appear as unwatered or mohair, watered, and half silk half hair. (23 p. 32) Charles I purchased several riding coats of drap de Berry, a wool based cloth from France, they were almost always grey. (24) Values of these coats seem to run from 10 shillings to about £2. In 1673, a gentleman, James Master, “pa[id] for a rideing coat £1 5s.” (25 p. 148)
Sometimes the reference is to a horseman’s coat, for example in 1619 a Yorkshire yeoman, William Benson, owned a horseman’s coat. (26 p. 283) In 1641 William Kemp, in the Plymouth Plantation in what is now Massachusetts, owned three horseman’s coats, which were valued at 16 shillings each. (27) The Baronet Lionel Tollemache’s 1626 household inventory lists “3 redd cloath horsemans coats laced with white lace & lynded with white lynnen cloath.” (28 p. 80)
It maybe because it had an organised militia from 1621, that in the probates of the Plymouth Plantation there are some references to trooper’s coats, rather than riding coats or horseman’s coats. In 1671 John Barnes had three trooper’s coats, two of which were described as old. (29)
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Figure 5 Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden by Matthaeus Merian. 1632. Skokloster Castle |
Great Coats
The term great coat appears sometime in the 1640s. In 1649 a gentleman, James Master, has in his accounts, “for making my sattin waistcoat & my great coat £1 15s.” In a will of 1660 John Kew, a Hampshire haberdasher, leaves to his father “my great coat and cloak” (30) In 1661 a yeoman, Thomas Gray, leaves in his will to “my friend Robert Nash of Digswell my best greate coat,” he also leaves to “my cozen Edward Gray of Haddon my best short coate.” (31 p. 3) In 1664 Marlborough baker John Elliott’s clothes included, three great coats and two close coats. (32 p. 117) It is possible that these great coats were similar in cut to the Polish style coat, worn over his buff coat, by Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden. (Figure 5)
Note that many of these riding coat and great coat references pre date Charles II’s October 1666 “resolution of setting a fashion for clothes.” (5 p. 8 Oct 1666) It was to that resolution that many clothing historians date the replacement of the doublet with the knee length coat, but these looser coats were around well before that date. (14 p. 103) Both Evelyn and Pepys describe Charles’s “new” coats not being loose, with Pepys saying it was “a long cassocke close to the body” (5 p. 15 Oct 1666) and Evelyn that it was “a comely dress, after the Persian mode.” (33 p. 18 Oct 1666) This tight coat, which the French called a justacorps, was already around in London in the 1650s, as Blount commented, “In London many of the Tradesmen have new Dialects...The Taylor is ready to mode you into a..Justacor.” (34) Figure 6 shows a late seventeenth century coat in the tighter justacorps style.
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| Figure 6. Justacorps or close style coat. 1695-1700. Victoria and Albert Museum. |
Brandenburgh
This is another term that tends to be used, probably incorrectly, by re-enactors, who use it as a term for a great coat. The Cunningtons listed Brandenburghs with coats for outerwear. (35 p. 142) However contemporary references seem to indicate it was more for indoor or informal wear. The 1691 Fop Dictionary calls it a morning gown. (36) In the play The Man of Mode Etherege has Dorimants say, “Y'have a very fine Brandenburgh on Sir Fopling,” to which Fopling replies, “We should not alwaies be in a set dress 'tis more En Cavalier to appear now and then in a dissabilleé.” (37 pp. 71-2) The confusion may arise from the term brandenburgs, which from the eighteenth century refers to ornamentation on the front of a coat, similar to that on Gustav Adolphus’s coat in Figure 5. In 1753 there is a reference to “in his regimentals, which are a blue cloth frock with silver brandenburgs.” (38)
How Common were the various types of coats?
Analysis of the over 700 coats left in wills and probate inventories indicates that most coats are just referred to as a coat. There are very few, just four, references to cassocks. There are only three references to buff coats, although there are many survivals, and buff coats have been examined in detail by others. (39) There are three jumps. A “Jacket, or jumpe, or loose Coat,” according to Holme, “extendeth to the Thighs is open or buttoned down before, open or slit up behind half way: the Sleeves reach to the Wrist.” (13 p. 96) In 1659 Dennis Napper, a brickmaker owned “three paire of breeches, two dublettes, two jumpe coates, one longe coate, a hatt, two paire of stockinges and other [of] his apparrell “ (40 p. 122) Among the over 700 coats are 17 riding coats, 13 great coats and 10 horseman’s coats, together forming less than 6% of the coats listed.
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