Hollar's Autumn

Figure 1 - P608

Having done blog posts on Hollar’s Winter and Spring, but not done one on his summer, now that the weather is changing I thought it a good idea to look at his Autumn. There are three Hollar Autumn figures (Pennington, 2002), his full length Autumn of 1644 – P608 (Figure 1), and his two half lengths of 1641 - P612 and P616 (Figures 2 and 3). The P numbers are the numbers given by Pennington to Hollar’s works.  

However much of what they wear is the same style as appears in the Winter and Spring clothing; the laced bodices coming down to a distinct point, the double neckerchief, and the soft hoods. Both the three quarter lengths have the “double” sleeve, that is a full length sleeve with a half length sleeve over it. Randle Holme’s (1688) comment on sleeves was that, “there is as much variety of fashion as days of the year.” This is similar to the style of bodice described and illustrated in Halls (1970) as being in the Museum of London, and dating to 1645-55 It is in pale blue silk and comes down to a point at the front, but does not have the double sleeve. A pattern for it appears in Waugh. (1968)  Another surviving bodice of this period which does have the double sleeve also has a pattern in Waugh. This is a black velvet bodice in the Victoria and Albert Museum, unfortunately there is no image on the museum website.  

Figure 2 - P612

I admit to being a little confused by the apron of the full length figure, she appears to have a bodice with a short peplum or skirt, you can see by the change in direction of the shading lines between the sleeve and the apron. Her apron is worn over this, but appears to follow the line of the stomacher. I don’t think it is worn under it. It is difficult to work out what is happening.

Both the full length out of doors and the three quarter length P616 wear gloves, you can see the wrinkles in the leather. These are long gloves, reaching up as far as the elbow in some cases, and usually relatively undecorated, as in this 41 cm long example from the late 17^th century in the collection of the Glovers’ Company. Gloves were bought in vast quantities by the upper classes, over the course of one year the Marquis of Hertford’s family order 150 pairs of gloves, and these were for use, not associated with marriages or funerals where gloves might be given as gifts. (Morgan, 1945)

Figure 3 - P616

One thing that is interesting is that the full length wears a rectangle of fabric shawl like around her shoulders and tied at the front. This would not have been called a shawl as the word was not in use at this time. The earliest use of the word shawl in English is, according to the OED, in 1662 where Davies translating Adam Olearius’s voyages to Persia speaks of “another rich Skarf which they call Schal, made of a very fine stuff, brought by the Indians into Persia.” The word is originally Persian, and not used in English usage until the eighteenth century. The word scarf would more likely have been used at the time, except that it was used almost exclusively for men; scarves were at this time military or ecclesiastical.  This is not the only example of a rectangle of fabric being worn around the shoulders, presumably for warmth. Another Hollar illustration P1887 shows a very similar figure. As you get later in the century Laroon depicts several poor street traders wearing similar, as in his hot baked wardens, or his London Gazette.

Halls, Z., 1970. Women's Costume 1600-1750. London: HMSO.

Holme, R., 1688. Academie of Armourie. s.l.:s.n.

Morgan, F. C., 1945. Private purse accounts of the Marquis of Hertford, Michaelmas 1641-2. Antiquaries Journal, 25(12-42).

Pennington, R., 2002. A descriptive catalogue of the etched work of Wenceslaus Hollar.. Cambridge: CUP .

Waugh, N., 1968. The cut of women's clothes 1600-1930. London: Faber.

Smock Shift Chemise

Figure 1: Engraving of a portrait of Nell Gwyn

I am fascinated by words and their origins. There are three words that describe what was the main women’s undergarment for over a thousand years – the smock, the chemise and the shift. Smock and chemise are part of that wonderful dichotomy that enriches the English language, and means that we have cattle and sheep in the field, but beef and mutton on the table. Smock is Old English, while chemise comes from the Latin and the French, and both terms appear to have been in use in the early middle ages – let’s say around the time of the Norman Conquest, so in different sections of Morris’s work on 12^th century texts you have references to both, “Hire chemise smal and hwit” and “hire smoc hwit”. (1)  There being fashions in language, just as there are fashions in clothes, chemise more or less disappears in the middle ages.

By the middle of the 17th century people are still speaking of their smocks, but this is being replaced by that upstart word shift. Now shift comes from the idea of movement in the original use of the word, and by the late 16th, early 17th century people were using it in the way that we nowadays would speak of a change of clothes, so that for example of someone getting soaked on board ship it is said “He that had five or six shifts of apparel had scarce one dried thread to his back” (2) A hundred years later the shift has become a woman’s undergarment. By this time shift had also taken on the meaning of the women’s changing room in Restoration theatres. Pepys writes of visiting the theatre where the actress Elizabeth Knepp took him “up into the tireing-rooms: and to the women’s shift, where Nell [Gwyn] was dressing herself”. (3) A print of Lely’s painting of Nell in a smock/shift is at Fig 1. 

By the late 17^th century the term shift was in common use, with the 1696 work “The Merchant’s Wharehouse laid Open; or The Plain Dealing Linnen-Draper” declaring yard wide holland to be “the bredth for shifts for a moderate-size body, but for a Lusty woman it is too narrow.” In 1712 Addison used the word shift in his example of the rags make paper circle, writing, “The finest pieces of Holland [a cloth often used for shifts], when torn to tatters, assume a whiteness more beautiful than their first, and often return in the shape of letters to their native country. A lady’s shift may be metamorphosed into a billet-doux, and come into her possession a second time. ” (4) The smock continued in occasional use, the London Tradesman in 1747 is quoted as saying that holland, cambric and other fine fabric is provided to be made into, “smocks, aprons, tippets, hankerchiefs...” (5)

Moving into the late 18th century early 19th century, chemise makes its reappearance as a term, with the fashion for the chemise gown. In the 1780s the fashion for the chemise gown is definitely for an outer garment. The Ipswich Journal of April 1786 describes, “The chemise has two collars and is made of a pale lilac India lutestring (a type of taffeta)...the breast knot with which the chemise is tied and the shoes are of the same colour.” (6) 

By the middle of the 19^th century it was referring to an undergarment. In his 1850 autobiography Leigh Hunt writes that shift, “that harmless expression has been set aside in favour of the French word chemise.” (7) As with the smock/shift change over the divisions are not that hard and fast. The word smock is still around, in the Ingoldsby Legends published in the 1840s someone is described as saying, “You may sell my chemise, (Mrs. P. was too well—bred to mention her smock)”

1. Morris, Richard. Old English homilies of the twelfth century · EETS 53, 1873. London : Early English Texts Society, 1873.

2. Beste, George. A true discourse of the late voyages of discouerie... London : Henry Bynnyman, 1578.

3. Pepys, Samuel. Diary. [Online] 5th October 1667. [Cited: 26th August 2014.] http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1667/10/05/.

4. Addison, Joseph. The Spectator. 1712, Vol. No. 367.

5. Tobin, Shelley. Inside out: a brief history of underwear. London : National Trust, 2000.

6. Cunnington, C. W. and P. Handbook of English costume in the Eighteenth century. 2nd . London : Faber, 1972.

7. Hunt, Leigh. The autobiography of Leigh Hunt . London : Smith, Elder, 1850.

A farmer's wife - 1540s

From Heywood's Spider & the Flie. 1556

John (or possibly his brother Anthony (1470-1538)) Fitzherbert's Book of Husbandry, first published 1523, is a classic in the history of English farming literature. It goes well beyond just farming, and below is the book's description of the work of a farmer's wife, from a 1548 edition. I have modernised spellings, and split it into paragraphs, as the original is one long paragraph. 

"And when thou art up and ready, then first sweep thy house, dress up thy dishboard, and set all good things in order within thy house: milk thy cow, suckle thy calves, sye (strain) up thy milks, take up thy children, array them, provide for thy husband’s breakfast, dinner, supper, and for thy children and servants, and take thy part with them. 

And to order corn and malt to the mill, and to bake and brew withal when need is. And mette (take) it to the mill, and fro the mill, and see that thou have thy measure against the desired toll, or else the miller dealeth not truely with thee, or else thy corn is not dry as it should be.

Thou must make butter and cheese when thou maist, serve thy swine both morning and evening, give thy poleyn(?) meat in the morning, and when time of the year cometh, thy must take heed how thy hens, ducks and geese do lay, and gather up their eggs, and when they wax broody, set then there as no beasts, swine, nor other vermin hurt them. And thou must know that all whole footed fowls will sit a month, and all cloven footed fowls will sit but three weeks, except a peahen, and great fowls as cranes, and bustards, and such other. And when they have bought forth their birds, so see, that they be kept from the gleyd (?), crows, fullymartens, and other vermin.

And in the beginning of March, or a little afore, is time for a wife to make her garden, and to get as many good seeds and herbs as she can, specially such as be good for the pot, and to eat: and as oft as need shall require, it must be weeded, for else the weeds will overgrow the herbs. And also in March is time to sow flax and hemp, for I have heard old housewives say, that better is March hurds (?) than April flax, the reason appeareth: but how it should be sown, weeded, pulled, reaped, watered, washed, dried, beaten, breaked, tawed, heckled, spun, wound, warped and woven, it needeth not for me to show, for they be wise enough, and thereof may they make sheets, boardcloths, towels, shirts, smocks and such other necessaries, and therefore let thy distaff be always ready for a pastime, that thou be not idle. And undoubted a woman can not get her living honestly with spinning on the distaff, but it stoppeth a cap and must needs be had. The boles of flax when they be ripiled of, mus be riddled from the weeds, and made dry with the sun, to get out the seeds. How be it that one manner of linseed, called loken seed, will not open by the sun, and therefore when they be dry, they must be sore bruised and broken, the wives know how, and then winnowed and kept dry, till their time come again.

...

It is convenient for a husband to have sheep of him own for many causes, and then may his wife have part of the wool, to make her husband and herself some clothes. And at the least way, she may have the locks of the sheep. either to make clothes or blankets and covelets or both, and if she have no wool of her own, she may take wool to spin of cloth makers, and by that mean she may have a convenient living, and many times do other works.

It is a wife’s occupation to know all many of corns, to make malt, to wash and wring, to make hay, shear corn, and in time of need to help her husband to fill the muck wain or dung cart, drive the plough, to load hay, corn and such other. And to go or ride to the market, to sell butter, cheese, milk, eggs, chickens, capons, hens, pigs, geese and all manner of corns. And also to buy all manner of necessary things belonging to household, and to make a true reckoning and account to her husband, what she hath received, and what she hath paid. And if the husband go to the market, to buy or sell, as they oft do, he then to show his wife in like manner. For if one of them should use to deceive the other, he deceiveth himself, and he is not like to thrive. And therefore they must be true either to other."

The old laundry at Killerton

Figure 1

 This is not early modern but a nineteenth, stretching into early twentieth century laundry. It is a reminder that before electricity laundry techniques had changed little for centuries. The notes in the laundry indicate that on Mondays the laundry was collected, sorted, and entered into a laundry book. So they had a record of what had been laundered.

Figure 1: There is a wash copper heated from below, you can see were the coals were put in underneath to heat the water. To the right is a dolly tub with a dolly stick in it. Before the use of galvanised steel these tubs were made of wood. Garments were pounded using the dolly stick.

Figure 2

 Figure 2: This, according to the half vanished label, is a washing machine. A hand powered agitator would have fitted into the slot that can be seen at the back, and you can also see a drain tap at the bottom.

Figure 3

 Figure 3: Alternatively items could be washed in a sink using a washboard. Killerton sinks are distinctly up market as they have hot as well as cold taps.

Figure 4

Figure 4: After washing items could be mangled to get out the excess water. I have early memories of my mother and grandmother using one of these in the late 1950s, just before we purchased an electric washing machine with an integral mangle mounted on the top, so you could take the washing straight out of the water and put it through the mangle. 

Figure 5

Figure 5: Killerton being a grand house washing could be dried indoors in bad weather, in a drying cupboard. The drying racks pull in and out on runners, and the bottom of the cupboard has heated pipes to aid the drying.

Figure 6

Figure 6: Less up market families dried items on clothes horses in front of a fire.

 Figure 7: After drying comes ironing, and here is a selection of the flat and box irons, and a goffering iron on display at Killerton.

Figure 7

Several other stately homes have similar laundries which are on display to the public, for example Kingston Lacy in Dorset, Llanerchaeron in Ceredigion and Berrington Hall in Herefordshire