In 21st century America the stereotype of women being more caught up in fashion than men is still pretty common, but in the Middle Ages people considered the opposite to be true. Men, especially in the upper classes, were highly concerned with clothing and very fond of finery. It’s likely that women were too, but the usual troubles with documentation occur—men did most of the recording, and they seem to have had a lot more interest in their own clothing than in whatever the women may have been wearing. It is not uncommon to find a detailed record of what a duke was wearing on his wedding day that makes no mention whatsoever of his bride’s clothing. Cautionary exempla tales decry women’s predilection for fancy dress more than men’s, but then, they decry all the vices in women more than in men.
The most remarkable developments in women’s fashion during the Middle Ages occurred not in their clothing but in their headgear. Clothing itself changed superficially: waistlines and necklines moved up and down, sleeves alternated between voluminous and tight-fitting. Women generally dressed in two layers, an overdress (cote-hardie) and an underdress (the aforementioned bliaut). Sometimes a linen shift—as close as a Medieval woman got to underwear—was worn under the bliaut, but this was chiefly an affectation of the wealthy. The houppelande, a voluminous robe also worn by men (with slightly different styling), was popular until the fourteenth century and was worn on top of everything else. Headgear, however, is where Medieval women’s clothing had its true distinctiveness.
Head coverings were not optional, first of all. Only young girls were permitted to go around with their heads uncovered. Hair was emblematic of feminine seductiveness—Eve, Jezebel, Mary Magdalene, and other biblical temptresses commonly appear with their hair down. In addition, a quirk of Medieval theology encouraged women to keep their ears hidden. Some theologians believed Mary had conceived through her ear, thereby retaining her virginity, but creating an odd and, frankly, creepy sexualization of the feminine ear. Pulling off anyone’s hat was considered a crime, but forcibly removing a woman’s headdress, in particular, was tantamount to accusing her of being a whore.
In late antiquity and the early Medieval period, women’s headdresses consisted mostly of a “couvre-chef,” a large square of cloth (generally linen) draped over the head and held in place by a strip of fabric or a circlet. Hair was worn Frankish style: two long plaits entwined with ribbons or leather strips, and sporting pointy metal tips at the ends. That much sexy hair couldn’t be left out where everyone could see it for long—the braids were soon being wrapped around the ears or the back of the head, carefully tucked under where no one could see it. The coverchief turned into the wimple, which covered the head, hair, ears, neck, and sometimes even the cheeks and forehead. A variety of hats and turbans could be worn over a wimple. The wimple drifted in and out of popularity, until only nuns and widows were still wearing them. A vestige remained in the form of the barbette, a linen strap under the chin, but by and large women’s throats were out in the open during the later Middle Ages.
That’s when the really strange hats started appearing. It has been hypothesized that women’s hats during the gothic period were intended to emulate architecture, and that makes sense in the case of the steeple-like hennin. Some headdresses, however, resembled horns more than churches. Fine linen veils became popular, supported in various winged shapes by wires. Ears eventually became visible again, but women began plucking their hairlines to give themselves what Chaucer called a “high forheed,” tucking any hint of hair away under their hats.
As with men’s codpieces, women’s clothing engaged in the systematic exaggeration of feminine features. Padding was worn under clothing to make bellies bulge, and the bum-bolster (a late development) did exactly what its name suggests. Cosmetics, some of them highly toxic, whitened the skin and teeth. Weaves and wigs lengthened and thickened hair.
The notion of pink as feminine and blue as masculine would have been reversed in the Middle Ages. While specific colors were not assigned to gender, blue was considered a weaker color than pink (which derives from red, after all). Blue also connoted gentleness and was associated with Mary. Red stood for power, passion, wealth, and blood. Green was more ambiguous—it could stand for envy, but also was associated with spring and youth. Yellow was generally in disfavor and associated with various vices, among them avarice and cowardice. Black was not used as a color for mourning until nearly the Renaissance, and then only by the wealthy. White stood for purity, but was not worn by brides—whatever their station, people were simply married in the very best clothing they owned.
Sumptuary Laws
In a society as rigidly structured as Medieval Europe, sumptuary laws were probably inevitable. As cities and trade developed, more untitled individuals became rich from trade and the nobility noticed a disturbing development—mere merchants could now afford to clothe themselves in expensive material! This was unacceptable, of course. If the common rabble could afford silks and scarlets, then it was going to become increasingly difficult to tell who was who. As a result, laws sprang up all over Europe dictating who could wear what. Certain colors, materials, styles, and even decorative patterns were forbidden to anyone without a good pedigree. The laws varied from place to place, and included such eccentric details as how tall a lady’s hennin could be (it was proportional to her rank), what classes of people could wear pointy shoes (no one at or below the level of “artisan”), and that peasants should never wear more than one color at once except, perhaps, a differently colored hood for special occasions.
There were other, less obvious reasons for instituting sumptuary laws, however. In some places, it was the clergy who pressed for the laws, fearing that fashion (and hence, vanity) was getting way out of hand. The clergy generally targeted fashions that were too revealing or ostentatious, e.g. men’s short hemlines and women’s trains. Sometimes the purpose of regulation was to keep young noblemen from bankrupting themselves in an attempt to keep up with the latest fashions at court. Being titled did not automatically mean you were rich, and young men in particular were prone to ruining their family fortunes. Finally, some places instituted sumptuary laws as a means of protecting local industry or stimulating trade. In England during the fourteenth century, for example, laws prohibited the purchase of any non-English fabric, protecting their wool industry against the threat of cheap foreign imports.
Social Markers
Clothing has meaning beyond its beauty or utility. I have already outlined how sumptuary laws helped reinforce social strata by relegating certain fashions and materials to specific segments of society. Clothing also served to send more specific messages. Just as we can identify police officers, medical workers, and even store clerks today by their uniforms, clothing differentiated certain groups in Medieval society. The wealthy were responsible for clothing their servants—what better way to advertise one’s power than to dress them all alike, in a livery based upon the colors of one’s coat of arms? Some nobles even dressed their children in livery. The coat of arms itself is another example of a clothing signifier. While it never really caught on for everyday wear, coats of arms or their devices did appear occasionally on formal clothing, and were specific enough that one could immediately identify the wearer’s parentage.
Members of guilds often dressed in specific colors, and were therefore readily identifiable as tailors, tanners, etc. Members of religious orders dressed in distinctive habits, which earned them nicknames—the Franciscans, for example, were sometimes called “Cordeliers” after their distinctive belts of knotted cord (and I am amused to note that, as I write this, my spell-check not only recognizes the word “Cordeliers,” but capitalizes it for me, suggesting that the name is still in use). Doctors, especially during times of plague, wore a sack-like bird mask over their heads, and the protruding beak was filled with various herbs to keep harmful vapors at bay. Pilgrims carried a distinctive staff and a bag for bread. Sometimes they wore emblems and souvenirs from the sites they visited, such as the scallop shell of Santiago de Compostela. It was important for them to be identifiable: because of their holy mission, it was a gross offense, both legally and spiritually, to harm them. Potential cutthroats were, I’m sure, grateful for the warning that killing the traveler with the staff would earn them an extra hot place in hell.
Medieval people had a horror of leprosy. Some communities tried to force lepers to wear distinctive clothing, and for a while, in the south of France, sufferers had to wear a patch in the shape of a duck’s foot. Imposing standards of dress on lepers, however, proved difficult since no one wanted to get close enough to do it. Instead, lepers used a rattle or clapper to warn others of their approach, and this had one advantage over clothing—you could tell when one was coming up behind you.