Book Review: Portrait Gallery of the Golden Age.

Portrait Gallery of the Golden Age. M Hell et al. Amsterdam: Museumshop Hermitage, 2014. ISBN 978 90 78653523. (English language version) €19.95

I suppose everyone has heard of the Nightwatch, but Rembrandt’s masterpiece is only one of a series of group portraits that were unique to the Netherlands. This book is a result of a collaborative exhibition of such portraits organised at the Hermitage Museum in Amsterdam in 2014. 

These portraits were mainly done for the civic guards and charitable institutions of various Dutch cities. The earliest civic guard group in the book is the 1529 painting by Dirck Jacobsz of the seventeen man squad of harquebusiers’ militia, two side panels were added in 1559 portraying a further fourteen men. The book charts and rise, function and ultimate decline of the group portrait. The most recent painting in the book is the 1705 Regents of the Oudezijds Huiszittenhuis, though a few commission continued to be made as late as the nineteenth century. The book ends with an Epilogue containing photographs of some current boards.

There is a chapter on the city in the Dutch “Golden Age”, defined for this as 1588-1700. There are illustrations of paintings of Amsterdam and Haarlem, often containing a vast amount of detail, for example the 1656 painting of Dam Square with the new town hall under construction, there is also a painting of the destruction of the old town hall by fire in 1652. In the painting of the new town hall you can see details of all levels of society; to the bottom right are foreign merchants in long flowing robes, a man in a bright red cloak draws the eye to the centre of the painting, and behind him is a wheelbarrow pushing member of the working class. 

There is a chapter on the prosperous burgher families that controlled the Republic. The book discusses how marriage, money, and appointments to various boards of governors or civic guards created a route to the top for such men. This is followed by a chapter on law and order and the heyday of the civic guard piece, by this point in time often painted while the group appear to be in the middle of a banquet. The book moves on to discuss the importance of trade to the Republic, illustrated both with paintings of various markets, such as the vegetable market at Leiden, and with group paintings of guildsmen and surgeons.

The work of the burgher families in supporting a range of charities is shown through various group portraits of the regents and regentesses of orphanages and almshouses. When men and women are depicted together the women are seated separately and off to one side. Where the women appear on their own they have their account books in front of them. 

This is a fascinating little book (128 pages), sumptuously illustrated and well priced at €19.95. it can be mined for a wealth of costume details.

Early Modern Knitting at the Clothworkers’ Centre for the Study and Conservation of Textiles and Fashion

On Friday I visited, The Clothworkers' Centre for the Study and Conservation of Textiles and Fashion, with a group from the Knitting History Forum. The Clothworkers’ Centre is the Victoria and Albert Museum’s storage facility in London, and any group can make an appointment to see material in store. There were about eight of us and some of us had made suggestions as to what knitted items we would like to see, ranging from the 16^th century to the 20^th century. We saw five items that I was particularly interested in. Because of copyright restrictions I can’t post the photographs that I took, but I have made links to the museums records, and to the right is a photograph looking across one of the tables that had been laid out for us, with the early 17th century jacket and the mid 17th century boothose. I recommend anyone, or group, with an interest in a particular area of clothing or fashion to make an appointment to see things that are in store, they are incredibly helpful. All the details are on the website. The items we saw included:

From the 16^th century, the Triple layer cap No 1562&A-1901. I’ve seen lots of these knitted caps, but I don’t think I’ve seen one with three layers before, and the colour is a beautiful rich brown. The museum says it was found in a house in Worship Street, London. Worship Street runs from City Road east towards Spitalfields. If it was found then I assume it was not excavated. The Museum of London has a considerable collection of these types of cap mostly excavated. 

From the early 17^th century an Italian silk knitted jacket  473-1893. The museum dates this to 1600-20, while Sandy Black in her book (2012) dates it to 1625-1650. It is very fine knitted in blue silk, blue silk covered with silver and yellow silk covered with silver. It is sized for a small person, under the armpits it is only about 78 cm (31 inches) round, at the bottom it is about 102 cm (40 inches). In length it is about 65 cm ( 25.5 inches). The bottom edging is a basket weave created by knitting alternate blocks of stocking stitch and reverse stocking stitch. Up the front of the jacket there is a linen strip containing the buttonholes for the 42 buttons.The turnback cuffs are kept in place with a stitch.

From the mid 17^th century a pair of knitted woollen boot hose, T.63 & A-1910. These were knitted in two ply wool from the top down. In required casting on 375 stitches. The decoration of the boot hose top includes bands of cream wool alternating with bands of dark blue wool. The cream bands also have diamond patterns worked in purl stitch. After about 30cm the width of the boot hose top is brought down to leg size with rapid decreasing. Then at the top of the leg there is a roughly 10cm deep band of what looks like 4k, 5 purl rib.  At the ankle some of the blue decoration is knitted and some is embroidered. The foot is about 25-26cm (10 inches) long. Sandy Black has the gauge as 11 stitches and 21 rows to 2.5cm.

From the second half of the 17^th century we had a cotton baby jacket  T.30-1932. This looks like you could go out and buy it from a baby shop today. Several of these early knitted baby jackets survive and there is a table of survivals with references in Ruth Gilbert’s article (2012)  on a similar garment. There are decorative panels in knit and purl stitch along the bottom, either side of the centre front, at the centre back, along the length of the sleeves, and around the armholes.

From the early 18^th century we had a Dutch petticoat T.177-1926, hand knitted in 2 ply wool. So, first cast on 2650 stitches, I would think that is enough to put anyone off. The finished garment is 312cm (10 feet 5 inches) round, and 77.5cm (10 inches) deep.  It is knitted at 88 stitches to 10 cm (4 inches). (Rutt, 1987) The petticoat is covered in motifs, the group stood around it pointing out obvious peacocks, camels, lions, monkeys, horses, toucans, and several less identifiable animals. 

Black, S., 2012. Knitting: fashion, industry, craft. London: V&A Publishing.

Gilbert, R., 2012. A knitted cotton jacket in the collection of the Knitting and Crochet Guild of Great Britain. Textile History, 43(1), pp. 90-106.

Rutt, R., 1987. A history of handknitting.. London: Batsford.

Kersey and the Colours of Kersey

Woollen yarn dyed with woad.

What are kersies

Kersey is a twill woven wool fabric. Kerridge (1985) describes them in his book as “warp back cloths woven in twill order,” it is more complex than that, and I would go to Kerridge for a technical description if you are interested.

Kersey comes in several types, the 1552 Act divides them into ordinary, sorting, Devonshire (called dozens), and check kersies. Despite the name, Kersey is a town in Suffolk, kersies were made in various places. The Devonshire dozens were one type, and another statue refers to kersies made in York and Lancashire, but a large number were also made around Newbury in Berkshire by, among other people, John Winchcombe (c1487-1557) who was the Jack of Newbury of Thomas Deloney’s work. (1912) David Peacock’s PhD thesis on the Winchcombe family is available via Ethos. (Peacock, 2003)

One (standard) broadcloth was reckoned to be equal to three kerseys, this is less a matter of quality than of size. Throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries both broadcloth and kersey were regulated by a series of Statutes. The Statute of 1465 set broadcloth as 2 yards wide and 24 yards long, while kersey was a yard and a nail (a nail is one sixteenth of a yard -2¼ inches) by 18 yards. However by the beginning of the seventeenth century some kerseys had shrunk to 1 yard by 16 yards, so three kerseys were 48 square yards of cloth, the same size as one broadcloth. That is for a standard broadcloth, long broadcloths were 28 to 31 yards in length. (Oldland, 2014)

How common is kersey

It is difficult to ascertain how common kersies were. They first appear in the mid 13^th century, and by the 18^th century Defoe wrote of Yorkshire kersey that one dealer traded for “£60,000 a year in kerseys only, to Holland and Hamburg.” (Defoe, 1748) In export terms in the first half of the sixteenth century, before the effects of the start of the Eighty Years’ War and the expansion of the new draperies, broadcloth and kersey appear to have formed 90% to 95% of cloth exports, with kersey being between 20% and 30% of this. (Hentschell, 2008)

Having said that they are produced in such amounts, they don’t appear very often in probate inventories, but as Margaret Spufford (1984) said of probate inventories, they conceal “quicksands of very considerable magnitude.” It may be that people compiling the inventories could not tell the difference between broadcloth and kersey once the fabric had been cut up and made into garments, but beyond that garments are rarely mentioned in inventories. An analysis of some Oxfordshire inventories, which are fairly typical, shows that 85% either don’t mention clothes at all or just say wearing apparel without specifying. Of the 15% that do list clothes, only one third mention a fabric.

References to kersies in common literature often refer to kersey being used for hose, and hose is a very movable term in the sixteenth century. In the OED we have from 1543–4, “For iij quarters of yallow carssey for hose”, from 1596, “Blacke karsie stockings” and from 1607, “The Stockings that his clownish Legges did fit, Were Kersie to the calfe, and t'other knit.” It was William Harrison (1577) in his famous Description of England who declared of the Englishman that “ Neither was it merriere with England than when he was knowne abroad by his own clothes, and contented himself at home with his fine carsie hosen.”

The colours of kersey

This section is based mostly on an article by David Peacock (2006) which examined Gresham’s Day Book for 1546-1552, this listed goods ordered for export to Antwerp. Kersies produced by Thomas Dolman of Newbury shows that the bulk of the cloths ordered between 1547 and 1550 were blue (20.6%), watchet, a light blue (46.8%) and azure 17.6%, so that in total 85% were in shades of blue. The picture above is one I have had for at least six years, but unfortunately I have no idea where it came from, it shows the range of blues that can be gained by dying with woad. The other 15% of colours include 13% red and 2% green. Thomas Dolman’s 1575 will shows him owing “one other howse in Cheapstreate...beinge a Dyhowse and also six oadefattes (woad vats) two flotefattes, one furnace of copper and another of brass.” The only producer in the Day Book going beyond these colours is William Bennett, who between 1548 and 1550 produced 1,647 kersies for Gresham, however the breakdown is very similar, 35% watchet, 24% blue, 3.6% plunked (a sort of grey-blue), and 2.4% azure. Beyond the blues we have 7% red, 3% green, and a tiny amount (3 kersies) in violet.

If we compare this colour range with that obtained from analysis of English wills, we get a very different grouping. This may well be because these are cloths for export, because they are specifically kersey, and because this does not include the large numbers of cloths which weren’t dyed and are described as sheep colour or white. There is also the problem of black, natural or dyed, which appears to be one of the most popular colours listed in wills. Research on Essex wills reveals the main colours to be black, white, blue or red, with blue being mentioned mainly for men’s coats, breeches and stockings, while red appears to have been used mainly for women’s petticoats. (Mikhaila and Malcolm-Davies, 2006) Peachey (2014) makes the same association of red with women’s petticoats and blue with men’s coats.

References

Defoe, D., 1748. A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain. 4th ed. London: Birt.

Deloney, T., 1912. The works of Thomas Deloney; edited by Francis Oscar Mann.. [Online]
Available at: http://archive.org/stream/workseditedfrome00delouoft/workseditedfrome00delouoft_djvu.txt

Harrison, W., 1577. Description of England. s.l.:s.n.

Hentschell, R., 2008. Culture of Cloth in Early Modern England: Textual Constructions of a National Identity. London: Ashgate.

Kerridge, E., 1985. Textile manufactures in early modern England. Manchester: Manchester University Press..

Mikhaila, N. and Malcolm-Davies, J., 2006. The Tudor tailor. London: Batsford.

Oldland, J., 2014. Wool and cloth production in late medieval and early Tudor England. Economic History Review, 67 (1), pp. 25-47.

Peachey, S., 2014. Clothes of the common people in Elizabethan and early Stuart England. Bristol: Stuart Press.

Peacock, D., 2003. The Wincombe family and the woollen industry in sixteenth century Newbury. PhD thesis. [Online]
Available at: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.402908
[Accessed 12 Dec 2014].

Peacock, D., 2006. Dyeing Winchcombe kersies and other kersey cloth in sixteenth century Newbury. Textile History, 37(2), pp. 187-202.

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

Social structure and occupations: 1608 and 1688

Many within the various groups who do ECW re-enactment use Gregory King’s 1688 estimate of the population and wealth of England and Wales to provide a plan of the social structure of society in the mid 17th century. I have recently been working on a 1608 census type document, a muster roll for the County of Gloucestershire, for a talk on Gloucestershire occupations that I am going to give later in the spring. I thought it would be interesting to try to see how the two compare, one forty years before 1648 and one forty years after. So what are these two data sets?

Gregory King's estimate of population and wealth, England and Wales, 1688

Gregory King (1648-1712) is often regarded as the first great English statistician, a subject known at the time as “political arithmetic”. He was Lancaster Herald and heavily involved in the tax system, his major work  ‘Natural and political observations upon the state and condition of England, 1696’ attempted to estimate a range of information including population size, household size, age distribution, tax revenues, and wealth. It has been commented that it “betrays a number of common assumptions of the propertied”, in particular in having only five categories for the poorer half of society. (Hoppit, 2011) For a further discussion of the accuracy of King’s work have a look at G. S. Holmes. (1977)

Gloucestershire 1608

For 1608 all able-bodied men “fit for his Majestie’s service in the warrs”, and between the ages of 20 and 60 “within the City of Gloucester and the Inshire of the same” were listed. Bristol was not included as it was a county in its own right. The list contains the names of 19,402 men, and 135 women who although they could not serve themselves could provide arms. Of these men 109 were unable in body, and 17,046 gave an occupation or status. There are defects to the listing, as mentioned above over 2000 don’t give an occupation, and as John Smyth, steward to Lord Berkeley for whom the list was compiled, remarked of one place “many made default in this hundred and appeareth not”. The under reporting does not appear to be large. The listing, with over 150 occupations, is far, far more detailed than King’s breakdown which only has 26 divisions, of which only five deal with the bottom half the population. It is often difficult to try and fit some of the occupations into King’s subdivisions. (Tawney, 1934)

King’s top five subdivisions

Number of families	Ranks, Degrees, Titles, and Qualifications	Heads per family	Number of persons	Yearly income per family
160	Temporal Lords	40	6,400	2,800
26	Spiritual Lords	20	520	1,300
800	Baronets	16	12,800	880
600	Knights	13	7,800	650
3,000	Esquires	10	30,000	450
12,000	Gentlemen	8	96,000	280

The 1608 census doesn’t list anyone that fits the first three categories. Henry, Lord Berkeley, died in 1613 and since he inherited the title in 1553 was probably over the age limit. Henry Parry the Bishop of Gloucester probably didn’t actually reside in the county as he was only bishop from 1607-10. The 1608 list has 430 men (presumed heads of households), who are gentlemen, esquires or knights, and a further 27 men declare themselves to be sons or brother of the same.  

King’s “educated” classes

King has six groupings which I have somewhat unceremoniously lumped together as below.

Number of families	Ranks, Degrees, Titles, and Qualifications	Heads per family	Number of persons	Yearly income per family
5,000	Persons in Offices	8	40,000	240
5,000	Persons in Offices	6	30,000	120
10,000	Persons in the Law	7	70,000	140
2,000	Clergymen	6	12,000	60
8,000	Clergymen	5	40,000	45
16,000	Persons in Sciences and Liberal Arts	5	80,000	60

In the 1608 list there are only 62 people who fit these groupings. Among them are surgeons, schoolmasters, barristers, scriveners, musicians, mayors, chamberlains, constables, and clergymen.

King has these 12 top ranks of society as forming 4.5% of the population, while in the 1608 list they are only 3%, this is because of...

The problem of indoor servants

There is a problem with indoor servants because King includes them with their employer. So for example a gentleman, esquire or knight has a household of between 8 and 13 people according to King. Based on the 1608 list nearly two thirds of these people are going to be servants. In the 1608 list 1196 men declare themselves to be servants to these groups, including 122 who describe themselves as servants to women, presumably of some status, and possibly part of the households already mentioned. There is a different servant problem in that only three clergymen are listed, however we have servants to fourteen different clergymen. The indoor servants from these top social groups are just over 7% of the 1608 list. 

King’s Merchants, Shopkeepers and Tradesmen

Number of families	Ranks, Degrees, Titles, and Qualifications	Heads per family	Number of persons	Yearly income per family
2,000	Merchants and Traders by Sea	8	16,000	400
8,000	Merchants and Traders by Land	6	48,000	200
40,000	Shopkeepers and Tradesmen	4½	180,000	45

This is obviously a very disparate group. Only one man in the 1608 listing declares himself to be a merchant. The largest group in 1608 are the butchers of whom there are 252 in the county, they are followed by 119 innkeepers, vintners and victuallers, and 109 bakers. Others relating to food sales include fishmongers, a cheesemonger, a grocer and a pearmonger. On the textile side there are 112 mercers, 30 drapers 12 haberdashers and 40 badgers, chapmen and pedlars.  Beyond these we have chandlers, barbers, apothecaries, stationers, and an ironmonger. People who are making rather than selling have been included with the artisans and handicrafts rather than this group. This group forms just under 5% of the population in 1608 and just under 3.7% in King.

King’s Artisans and craftsmen

Number of families	Ranks, Degrees, Titles, and Qualifications	Heads per family	Number of persons	Yearly income per family
60,000	Artisans and Handicrafts	4	240,000	40

This is where King and the 1608 listing depart from each other. It depends on your definition of artisan or craftsman, but for King these formed just over 4.4% of the population, whereas for 1608 it is over 34%.

Textile workers

Textile workers are the largest group forming over 15% of the 1608 list, the question is whether King would have considered them craftsmen, or placed them in his cottagers and paupers grouping. The largest number over 1,800 are weavers of one sort or another, but there are also fullers, dyers, shearmen, etc. There are also over 300 clothiers, these are men that actually sell the cloth so should perhaps be in the tradesmen section. In addition we have one knitter, one bone (bobbin) lace maker and one embroiderer, remember these are men, considerably more women would have followed these occupations. 

Leather workers

Again are these men King would have considered artisans or craftsmen. They are a small group 201 all told that include tanners, saddlers, collarmakers, curriers and a furrier.

Clothing makers

Most of these may well have been considered craftsmen by King, they form 7.5% of the 1608 list and include the obvious tailors, shoemakers and glovers, but also hatters, cobblers, hosiers, point-and garter-makers.

Craftsmen in wood

These form just under 4% of the 1608 list and two thirds of them are described as carpenters or joiners. As Gloucestershire includes the River Severn there is a small group of shipwrights and ship’s carpenters. Others in this grouping include coopers, wheelwrights, wheelers, turners, hoopers, bowyers, fletchers, shovel makers, basket makers, trencher makers, hive makers, and more.

The building trades

Again difficult to decide how many of these King would have included as artisans, but here forming around 2% of the list we have masons and freemasons, by far the largest group, slatters, tilers, thatchers, glaziers, stonelayers, plasterers, pargeters, painters, limeburners and paviors. 

Metal workers

A group forming 3.3% of the 1608 list of whom three quarters are smiths. The other occupations which can be included in this grouping are nailers, cutlers and pewterers. Six men are ironfounders and one is a bell founder. There are 8 wiredrawers and 5 pinmakers, plus tinkers, braziers, plumbers and two goldsmiths. 

Makers of food and drink

These form 1.5% of the list and comprise millers, the largest group, maltsers and brewers.

Miscellaneous

Finally for this section a group of occupations that can be considered artisanal or crafts, but otherwise don’t fit. Here we have paper, parchment, card and cardboard makers, also potters, bottle makers, a starch maker, and a saltpetreman. 

King’s farmers

Number of families	Ranks, Degrees, Titles, and Qualifications	Heads per family	Number of persons	Yearly income per family
40,000	Freeholders	7	280,000	84
140,000	Freeholders	5	700,000	50
150,000	Farmers	5	750,000	44

King does not list either yeomen or husbandmen, the two largest agricultural groups in the 1608 list. Generally speaking yeomen are freeholders and husbandmen are not, so perhaps the husbandmen equate to the 150,000 farmers King lists. These three groups above form 24% of households according to King but 30.5% of the 1608 list.

King’s labourers and out servants

Number of families	Ranks, Degrees, Titles, and Qualifications	Heads per family	Number of persons	Yearly income per family
364,000	Labouring People and Out Servants	3½	1,275,000	15

For King these form 27% of the population, however even by taking all those who list themselves as labourers, all servants to yeomen and husbandmen plus those in towns who list themselves as labourers, all other agricultural workers (shepherds, warreners, etc.) and all servants to artisans and craftsmen,  I can only get this up to 19.3%. So I am adding in the 172 people in the mining and quarrying industries which takes it to 20.5%

King’s soldiers and sailors

Number of families	Ranks, Degrees, Titles, and Qualifications	Heads per family	Number of persons	Yearly income per family
5,000	Naval Officers	4	20,000	80
4,000	Military Officers	4	16,000	60
50,000	Common Seamen	3	150,000	20
35,000	Common Soldiers	2	70,000	14

Gloucestershire has no officers, nor does it have any soldiers, however it does have seamen. There are 18 fishermen, 194 sailors, 22 boatmen, watermen and trowmen. To these I am going to add the 62 other men who are related to transport; carriers, carmen and loaders. For King these formed nearly 7% of households, but for Gloucestershire it is just over 1.5%

The “missing” 30 percent

Number of families	Ranks, Degrees, Titles, and Qualifications	Heads per family	Number of persons	Yearly income per family
400,000	Cottagers and Paupers	3¼	1,300,000	6.5

King has almost 30% of the population as cottagers and paupers, and late Stuart poverty has been discussed by Arkell (1987) among others. Unsurprisingly no one in the 1608 list describes themselves as either a cottager or a pauper.  Undoubtedly some of the artisans and some of the agricultural workers were very poor, but it is difficult with the Gloucestershire list to separate them out from those that weren’t. Below is a table of the comparisons, figures do not add to 100% because of rounding.

	1608	1688
King’s top five subdivisions &“educated” classes	3	4.5
Indoor servants	7	0
King’s Merchants, Shopkeepers and Tradesmen	4	3.7
King’s Artisans and craftsmen	34	4.4
King’s farmers	30.4	24
King’s labourers and out servants	20.3	27
Soldiers and sailors	1.6	6.9
Cottagers and paupers	0	29.4
	100.3	99.9

Arkell, T., 1987. The incidence of poverty in the later seventeenth century. Social history, 12(1), pp. 23-47.

Holmes, G. S., 1977. Gregory King and the Social Structure of Pre-Industrial England. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Volume 27, pp. 41-68.

Hoppit, J., 2011. Gregory King (1648–1712)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2011. [Online] Available at: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/15563 [Accessed 16 Feb 2015].

Tawney, R. H., 1934. An occupational census of the seventeenth century. Economic History Review, 5(1), pp. 25-64.