Consumption and Gender in the Early seventeenth Century Household: the world of Alice Le Strange- Book review

Consumption and Gender in the Early seventeenth Century Household: the world of Alice Le Strange, by Jane Whittle and Elizabeth Griffiths. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. £60. ISBN 978 0 19 923353 3

I first wrote about this project eighteen months ago before the book was published. I put it on my Christmas list but nobody bought it for me. I have now purchased it for myself and am very happy. I recommend this book for anyone studying the period. Alice Le Strange kept accounts from 1610 (her husband Hamon actually started them in 1606) until 1654, so they cover almost all of the first half of the seventeenth century, and everything involved in the running of a gentry household.  

 The Le Stranges were Norfolk gentry and had lived in the area for 300 years before the accounts covered here start. Hamon Le Strange was, in 1603, one of the men who rode to Scotland to inform James of the death of Elizabeth. He got a knighthood out of it, but he was not a courtier preferring to live in Norfolk and run his estate.

The book analyses the accounts in various different ways, and does not include a complete transcription of the account books.

One chapter in the book covers the acquisition of goods, that is how they bought food, clothing, furnishings etc.,  another covers what the authors call everyday consumables, what they ate, what they drank, what they used to light the house, what items were cleaned with and what medicines were used, which medical people were consulted.

The chapter on material culture covers furniture and furnishings, there is for example a complete account for the cost of furnishing a bedroom in 1628 which runs from 28 shillings for the bedstead itself, to 3s 6d for 4 dozen horn curtain rings, and £53 19s for 83 yards of crimson damask.   The same treatment is given to clothes and household textiles. While Alice’s own clothing allowance of £66 13s 4d a year is not in the accounts, the clothing of the children is, and is often detailed. Particularly interesting was the purchase in 1630 of 29 yards of white calico (cotton) for Nicholas’s shirts.

The chapter on the family life cycle covers such things as how many people (family and servants) were in the household, it ranged from 10 to 30, and what the annual expenditure was, again a wide range from £926 to £2723. The accounts make little mention of the Civil War. The Le Strange’s were royalist, and Sir Hamon was involved in the unsuccessful defence of King’s Lynn in 1643, resulting in a comment in the accounts “Made and spent in suit by the unjust and tyrannical oppression of Mr. Toll and others of his faction in Lynn concerning the siege - £1088”

There is a chapter on elite consumption; this is not normal day to day expenditure but the costs incurred by holding office, travelling, and leisure activities. When Sir Hamon was Sherriff of the county  for example, the bill for feeding the assize judges came to £84 19s 7d. Likewise there are payments to the town waits (musicians), the purchase of hawks for hunting a pastime Sir Hamon was fond of, the purchase of books, musical instruments and a pair of compasses and a quadrant.

The chapter on the employment of labour covers not only what was paid to servants and day labourers, but also the Le Strange’s relationship with specialists. The warrener, for example, was not paid by the Le Stranges, he paid them £8 a year for the right to farm the rabbits. There is a useful section which compares what was paid by the Le Stranges with what was the statutory wage at the time.

Exhibition and Book Review - In Fine Style: The Art of Tudor and Stuart Fashion

In Fine Style: The Art of Tudor and Stuart Fashion, Exhibition at The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace, Friday, 10 May 2013 to Sunday, 06 October 2013. The book of the same title is by Anna Reynolds. London: The Royal Collection Trust, 2013. ISBN 978 1 905686445. 300 pages

 I went to this exhibition last weekend having purchased the book almost as soon as it was published, and the first thing to say to anyone interested in clothes is that the exhibition is almost entirely about the paintings, as the  Telegraph review stated,   “there are just enough (but not too many) actual garments on display.” Sadly for me I thought that there were not enough actual garments, however that reveals my predilections. It is a large exhibition covering several rooms, with stunning paintings and some sumptuous clothing.

The rooms are divided into themes, but start with a chronology of fashion. This section includes some iconic paintings that most people know; Henry VIII looking just like Robert Shaw in Man for All Seasons, Elizabeth as a princess hanging next to her sister Mary Tudor, and later on the triple portrait of Charles I by Van Dyck. To aid those who have little understanding of period costume there are interpretation boards by Michael Parry each representing a decade and with a drawing of a man and a woman with the names given to items of clothing labelled, so for the 1540s they indicate what is an aiget, gable hood, forepart, codpiece, etc.

The portraits are not all of royalty, and they are not all English. The Dutch provide several genre paintings such as Schalcken’s The Game of “Lady Come into the Garden”, a 17^th century equivalent of strip poker! They also provide some absolute classics such as Rembrandt’s Agatha Bas, and Bronzino’s Lady in Green.

But what about real clothes. There is a section on children, which includes the famous Van Dyck portrait of Charles I’s first three children, next to it you will find a lovely child’s cap and forehead cloth, originally associated with Charles I but the lace is later, c. 1700. The Gallery has borrowed a lot a lace from the Bowes Museum’s Blackborne Collection, there is one particularly stunning 1630s collar of needlelace. One room has three items down the centre. There is a 1650s bodice borrowed from the Museum of London and displayed close to the painting of Charles II dancing at a ball which shows several women wearing similar bodices. An embroidered ladies waistcoat, borrowed from the Fashion Museum Bath, is echoed by portraits of two women wearing embroidered bodices. One portrait of an unknown woman from an Unknown British painter of the 1620s, does not conform to the usual scrolling designs of the actual garment, the other which also of an unknown woman does have a scrolling design. The third garment in this room is a man’s doublet from the 1620s associated with Charles I. Later in a war themed section they have two sets of armour (not actually garments I suppose) and a buff coat, again associated with Charles I though it looks very plain, that has recently been accepted in lieu of inheritance tax.There are also a pair of gloves associated with James I, and pair of green silk stockings belonging to William III, and Henrietta Maria's slippers.

Worth going to, but somehow it did not come up to my expectations. In part this may be due to the fact that I had the book before I went to the exhibition, and the book contains photographs of many original garments that are not in the exhibition, the Verney family garments from Claydon House, the late 17th century manuta from the Met, the white silk bodice from the V&A, among many others. The book is beautifully illustrated and has lots of close ups. Well worth the price.

Sixteenth century survivals in the Dresden Armoury Collection - notes on a lecture by Jutta von Bloh

 Early sixteenth century clothing is not something I know much about. What follows are my notes,   from a paper given at Below the knee:  pattens, shoes and hose - the MEDATS (Medieval Dress and Textile Society) summer meeting at the British Museum, by Jutta von Bloh – Refinements in sixteenth century princely legwear: examples from the court of the Duke of Saxony in the Dresden Armoury. Any mistakes and misinterpretations in these notes are my own. 

Having looked at the Trachtenbuch of Matthaus Schwartz (1496-1574) and the fencing book of Paulus Hector Mair, Jutta focused first two shoes in the Dresden collection, a cow mouth, or horn shoe of c.1520 -40 with virtually no upper, and a riding shoe of leather covered with folded silk satin probably belonging to August of Saxony, and therefore dating to the first half of the sixteenth century. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to locate images of either of them.

Quarter size reproduction on the leather hose that survives in the
Dresden Armoury collections

The clothing inventory of Price Moritz of Saxony for 1553 survives, and includes hose of red leather with upperstocks of red velvet. Jutta’s paper on the inventory was published as Jutta Baumel -Der Kleider-Nachlass des Kurfürsten Moritz von Sachsen das Inventar von 1553 und der Dresdener Rustkammer uberlieferten original. In: Waffen- und Kostumkunde 1993 Heft 1 &2, pp65-106. Prince Moritz  parade costume of c.1545-50 in yellow and black also survives, (front view, view from underneath, rear view, without the robe) and was restored by Abegg Shiftung. The book on the restoration work is Das Prunkkleid des Kurfürsten Moritz von Sachsen (1521-1553) in der Dresdner Rüstkammer.  Dokumentation - Restaurierung – Konservierung, by Bettina Niekamp and Agnieszka Wos Jucker and is available for 85 Swiss Francs plus postage.       

The wedding suit of Duke August of Saxony survives from 1548 when he married Anna, Princess of Denmark. This is silver and cloth of gold and was restored in 1988. ( J Baumel - Die Festlichkeiten zur Hochzeit Herzog Augusts von Sachsen mit Anna von Danemark 1548 - Dresdner Hefte, 1990).  It has goatskin leather hose. Jutta had a quarter size copy of one of these leather hose (see photo), the construction of the foot is interesting in that the seam is under the sole of the foot.

As far as knitted stockings are concerned they are first mentioned in 1548. Forty pairs of silk knitted stockings are mentioned in the inventory. A survival has a leather pad inside the toe, presumably to stop wear.

Below the knee: pattens, shoes and hose - the MEDATS (Medieval Dress and Textile Society) summer meeting at the British Museum.

Figure 1 - Piece of sprang relaxed

What follows are my notes on what was said for four of the six papers given at the study day. I will write longer notes on the other two papers given; Jutta von Bloh – Refinements in sixteenth century princely legwear: examples from the court of the Duke of Saxony in the Dresden Armoury, and  Lesley O’Connell Edwards – “A Child of 20 yer that knytt gret hose by whom cometh their chiefe lyvinge”: archival and archaeological evidence for hand-knitted hose in Elizabethan England, as they fit better with the period covered by this blog. The notes are my personal interpretation, and depend on how fast I could write and how well I could keep up and understand. Any mistakes and misinterpretations are my own. 

Dagmar Drinkler, Bayerischen Nationalmuseum, Munich – The Reconstruction of tight-fitting textiles in Sprang Technique

Figure 2 Piece of sprang stretched



Dagmar’s thesis was she had been looking at tight garments and especially the highly patterned hose, for example as in the gondoliers in a 1494 painting by Vittorio Carpaccio, and wondering how they were made. She had been experimenting with sprang to see if it were possible to reproduce patterns that appear in medieval illustrations, in order to create a stretch fabric that would produce tight fitting hose. The same piece of sprang, woven in a pattern that copies some of those used in the medieval period is shown in figure 1 relaxed, and in figure 2 stretched to show how much elasticity there is in the fabric. Dagmar recommended Pater Collingwood's The techniques of sprang, 1999, and Carol James Sprang unsprung, 2011.

 

Timothy Dawson, Independent scholar – Trousers to Trousers in less than a Thousand Years

Tim took us through from the closed hose of the Thorsberg trousers in the 2^nd century AD to the closed hose of Ferdinand II of Aragon (d. 1516) via all the two separate leg styles of the Middle Ages. We looked at and discussed the hose of Clement II (d.1047), the hose of St Desiderius (12^th C), Hose of Henry III of Germany (c.1056), the hose of Rodrigo Ximenez de Rodo (d. 1247), by this point in time Tim said that point at the rear of the hose where starting to creep up towards the back. Many of the examples Tim used can be seem on this pinterest page on medieval hose. Question of bias or straight cut, and belts and attachments were addressed.

 

June Swann, formerly of the Northampton Museum – Fourteenth and Fifteenth century poulaines?

June said she added the question mark to the title having recently looked at some surviving complete poulaines. Poulaine is old French for Polish and the style of shoe is also referred to as a Krakow or pike, they are shoes with very long toes, this one was not shown by June but is in the Met Museum. June showed an image from the 1371 tomb of Kasimir the Great as an example of the early style.  The toes on poulaine curve outward, and Pope Urban V (pope 1362-1370) criticized priests for wearing them. The first reference to the word poulaine in England is 1388 and relates to armour, it is a hundred years later but armoured poulaine appear with the c.1485 parade armour of the future Maximilian I. June pointed out that early, 14^th century poulaine laced on the inside of the foot, and later 15^th century shoe laced on the outside. The cuff turns down all the way around. June had recently examined some surviving poulaine in collections in London, Nuremburg and Antwerp, all of which had entered the collections in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Having examined them she has some worries regarding them, and suggested people stick to known excavated examples. She did not use this example but here are some in situ photographs of poulaine being excavated in London. June also asked if anyone had actually seen a contemporary illustration of the toes of poulaine being tied up, as she had been unable to find any such illustration.

 

 Aimee Payton, Ashmolean Museum – Shoes in the community: engaging the public with medieval footwear

Aimee talked about connecting with the public and getting them the write the descriptions to some medieval shoes being put on display as part of an outreach project. The difficulties of getting the descriptions within a 120 word limit were examined.

Pins in the Early Modern Period

Close up of the head of a 16th century gold pin in the
Portable Antiquities Database

The word pin, as in the Oxford English Dictionary definition  “A small, thin, rigid piece of metal with a sharp point at one end and a flattened or rounded head at the other, used to hold objects in place or together, esp. pieces of fabric while they are fitted or sewn,” dates back to Anglo-Saxon times. Research which was done on Anglo-Saxon dress pins by Ross (1991) identified no less than 83 different types with lots of different functions.

The making of pins continued into the medieval period with pinners guilds being set up in major cities such as London and York, and by the time these guilds were formed pins were so important that the 1348 trousseau of Princess Joan included some 12,000 pins. The pinners of London were not recognised as a guild until 1356, but Megson (2009) states that as early as 1278 there was a Walter le Pinnere living in Smithfield; while the ordinances for the pinners’ apprentices in  York were laid down at the “time of the Great Pestilence”, that is about 1349. (Longman, 1911)

What constituted a pin was set out by the 1544 “Acte for the true making of pynnes”, which stated, “oonelie suche as shalbe double headed and have the heads soudered faste to the shanke of the pynne well smothered, the shanke well shaven the pointe well and round fyled cauted and sharped,” could be considered true pins. It also set the price for pins at no more than 6 shillings 8 pence a thousand. (34 & 35 Henry 8 c. 6). The act obvious did not go down well as it was repealed almost straight away (37 Henry 8. c. 13).

The customs rate book for 1550 gives “Pynnes the dossen thousande ii.s.”  (Edwards, 1970). A later chapman’s inventory of 1588 gives, “3000 of pyns 1s 9d.” (Spufford, 1984).  Robert Careles who was Queen Elizabeth’s pinner provided her with vast quantities throughout her reign, a 1563 warrant relating to him shows 16,000 great farthingale pins at 6 shillings the thousand, 20,000 middle farthingale pins at 4 shillings the thousand, 20,000 great velvet pins at 2 shillings 8 pence the thousand and 58,000 small velvet and head pins at 20 pence the thousand. (Arnold, 1988) Harrison (1577) reckoned the value of pins made in England to be £60,000 a year. Interestingly by this point in time the idea of a pin being something of small worth had already entered the language. The Oxford English Dictionary gives, “In fayth, thi felowship set I not at a pyn.” from 1500, “neuer a pinsworthe of pleasure.” from 1562 and “yet he is not worth a pin” from 1577.

Pins that survive from archaeological contexts are normally copper alloy (archaeologist speak for brass). Caple (1991) stated that they formed 99% of those found on high medieval and post medieval sites, and yet Megson (2009) comments that Osmund iron, the basic for a hard steel wire, was being imported into England by the fifteenth century. It may be simply that, because iron rusts, they are underrepresented in the finds, for example one record in the database of the Portable Antiquities Scheme says “cast biconvex head from a pin; ferrous corrosion indicates the loss of an iron or steel shank.” While the bulk of the finds in PAS are copper alloy there are also lead-alloy, silver, silver-gilt and gold pins (Portable Antiquities Scheme), and obviously pins could have highly decorated heads. Massinger’s play the City Madam (1640) speaks of “A silver pin headed with a pearl worth three-pence,” another example of this decorated type is pin is a 16th century gold pin recorded in PAS, the head having flowers made with turquoise. a close up of the head is above.

Caple(1991) has commented on the apparent decline in the length of pins over time, with pins before 1500 having a mean length of over 40mm, pins between 1500 and 1630 having a mean length of 29-35mm and pins between 1630 and 1730 being 25-30mm. To put this in context a standard dress pin purchased today is about 25mm and the longer dress pins, the type with coloured heads, are around 35mm. Pincushions are another subject completely and worth of a separate post.

Bibliography

Arnold, J. ed. 1988. Queen Elizabeth's wardrobe unlock'd. Leeds : Maney, 1988.

Caple, C. 1991. The detection and definition of an industry: the English medieval and post medieval pin industry. Archaeological Journal. 1991, Vol. 148. 241-55

Edwards, J. and Nevinson, J. L. 1970. The rates of the London Custom House in 1550. Costume. 1970, Vol. 4. 3-12

Harrison, William. 1577. Description of England. 1577.

Longman, E and Lock, S. 1911. Pins and pincuhions. London : Longman, 1911.

Megson, Barbara, ed. 2009. The pinners' and wiresellers' book 1462-1511. London : London Record Society, 2009.

Portable Antiquities Scheme. Database. Portable Antiquities Scheme. [Online] British Museum. [Cited: 20 June 2013.] http://finds.org.uk/database.

Ross, Seamus. 1991. Dress Pins from Anglo-Saxon England: Their Production and Typo-chronological Development. s.l. : Oxford University (unpublished PhD thesis), 1991.

Spufford, M. 1984. The great reclothing of rural England: petty chapmen and their wares in the seventeenth century. London : Hambledon Press, 1984.

Muckinder or muckender

Katherine Seymour, Countess of Hertford, with her son Edward, c.1563

Muckinder is a wonderful word for what was basically a cloth to clean children’s faces and hands. Recent costume historians have described it variously, it appears in several of Cunnington’s works (1965), (1970), and (1972), as well as in Anne Buck’s work on children’s clothes (1996) and most recently in the Tudor Child. (Huggett, 2013) According to the online Oxford English Dictionary it appears from around 1420 as a mokedour or mokedore, when it seems to indicate simply a handkerchief. The spelling had changed by the early sixteenth century when it becomes more closely associated with children, as in, “mockendar for chyldre.” (Palsgrave, J., Lesclarcissement, 1530)  

In  Peter Erondell’s The French Garden (St. Clare Byrne, 1949) there is a dialogue in the form of a mother speaking to the nurse of a still partially swaddled child. It goes through undressing and dressing the child. After his biggin (cap), band (collar), petticoat, coat, sleeves, and bib are put on the nurse is enjoined, “Let him have his gathered apron with strings, and hang a muckinder to it.”

Huggett and Mikhaila (2013) analysing images of children suggest that boys had muckinders more commonly than girls, probably because the girls continued to wear aprons. Boys ceased to wear aprons by about the age of about three, but still needed something to clean their face and hands. “One must wipe his mouth with a Muckinder.” (Middleton, 1607)

An early depiction of one of these cloths hanging from a boy’s belt appears in the 1504 St Paul’s altarpiece at Augsburg. This is by Hans Holbein the Elder, and the bottom right hand corner of the left portion of the triptych shows two boys, believed to be Holbien’s sons, one of whom clearly has a muckinder hanging from his belt.

A later example shown above right is seen in Katherine Seymour, Countess of Hertford, the younger sister of Lady Jane Grey, with her son Edward. As Edward was born in 1561 the painting is dated to c.1563. The muckinder is again hung from his waist and is of white linen with a border across the bottom, and some form of edging which is difficult to see. The decoration is most likely blackwork, compare it to this handkerchief of 1600-1620 in the Glasgow Museums collection, but woven towels of this period also have borders, as in this example in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Muckinders continue to be worn in this way until the mid seventeenth century. There is a portrait of William, Lord Petrie at the age of 6, with a lace edged muckinder hanging from his waist, unfortunately I cannot find an online image of it, but in appears, in black and white, in Buck (1996)

Buck, A. 1996. Clothes and the child. Carlton : Ruth Bean, 1996.

Cunnington, C. W. and P. 1970. Handbook of English Costume in the 16th century. London : Faber, 1970.

—. 1972. Handbook of English costume in the seventeenth century. 3rd ed. London : Faber, 1972.

Cunnington, P and Buck, A. 1965. Children's costume in England 1300-1900. London : Black, 1965.

Huggett, J. and Mikhaila, N. 2013. The Tudor Child. Lightwater : Fat Goose, 2013.

Middleton, Thomas. 1607. A trick to catch the old one. 1607.

St. Clare Byrne, M. ed. 1949. The Elizabethan Home Discovered in Two Dialogues by Claudius Hollyband and Peter Erondell. . London : Methuen, 1949.

The Calais Museum of Lace and Fashion



Late 16th century lace

I spent last weekend in France and made a visit to the excellent Calais museum on the history of lace, the Cite Internationale de la Dentelle et de la Mode de Calais. Calais is to French lace what Nottingham is to English lace, the place that saw the mechanisation of lace-making; in fact many of the machines in the Calais museum were made in Nottingham.



1630s lace

The museum is extremely well laid out and easy to follow, even if you don’t speak French very well, just remember dentelle a fuseaux is bobbin lace, and dentelle a l’aiguille is needle lace, most labels are in both languages. The museum starts with two short videos, side by side, of the two techniques. The creation of a small leaf motif in needle lace is shown from start to finish, as is the creation of a narrow piece of bobbin lace.

Mid 17th century

There is some beautiful reticella work, and examples of 16^th and 17^th century bobbin and needle made laces. One thing I particularly liked was the way in which they placed an image of someone wearing lace with original  lace of a similar design, as in the examples I show here.

The museum concentrates on the history of lace in France, so there is much Alencon, Argentan, Chantilly, etc., but there are also Flemish and Italian laces in the collection.

Late 17th century

 

18th century

Later on, when you get into the 18^th century, the museum has original garments to add to the display of lace, and by the time you reach the mechanisation of lace in the 19^th century they are putting together lace, clothing and illustrations from paintings, fashion magazines and photographs. The Calais lace industry supposedly started after the Napoleonic Wars, when in 1816 a Nottingham lace maker, Robert Webster, supposedly smuggled a lace machine into France.

The twentieth century gallery contains a collection of both underwear, and garments that include lace in their design. The couturiers represented include Paquin, Paco Rabane, Yves St. Laurent, and many others.



Display of bits of the lace making machines

The way in which the machinery that produced the machine made lace is also well displayed, as can be seen in the photo. Upstairs there is a whole floor of machines five of which are in working order, and they use them to demonstrate two or three times a day. The museum is in an old lace warehouse, though you would never know it to look at the outside, which is thoroughly modern.


Finally a very Joseph Wright of Derby style photo of left to right, Ann, Garth, myself and Graham, examining a case of 17th century lace.