Punch: Punch (38.1860)

March 10, isco.j PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 105

Youna Stickleback. “ Por-taw ! Have you seen a Friend of mine waiting about he-aw ! ”

Porter. “Friend, Sir! What sort oe Gentleman was he?”

J oung Stickleback. “Haw! Tall—Military-looking Man, with Moustachers—something like Me! ”

PUNCH’S BOOK OF BRITISH COSTUMES.

CHAPTER VI.—THE ANGLO-SAXON PERIOD—(Concluded).

S Lords of the Creation,
politeness of course tells
us we must not forget
the ladies : and having

thoroughly described the
mail armour of the period,
we have now the pleasing
labour of picturing the
female. When we say this,
we however do not mean it
to be thought that the
Anglo-Saxon women were
really_ clothed in armour:
for crinoline was not in use
in that blest age, and the
softer sex were not env-
ironed with hard steel, as in
our own more savage time,
they have been driven to
defend themselves. But
clothing may be fairly viewed
as armour against weather,
and when a woman puts it
on it may be said to (w)arm
her. Besides, we wished to
make a play upon the two
words “mail” and“ female,”
and we are not to be pre-
vented from making a bad pun by any paltry doubt about the fitness
of. a synonym, which we may find it needful for the joke’s sake to
bring forward.

Without, however, condescending to this careful explanation, we j
might have not unfitly used the word we did; for one of the chief
articles of Saxon ladies’ dress was a garment which was called in their ■
uncouth tongue a gunna; a term which certainly to our ears smacks
much less of millinery than it seems to do of armoury. Antiquarians
have made a lot of shots about this gunna, and as they cannot make
their minds up as to what it really was, they have long kept up a fire
of critical remarks on it. There are some who like to liken it to the
Romau-British gwn, a word which, if spelt properly, would obviously be
gown. This garment Varro speaks of by its Latin name gawnacum,
and describes as a short tunic reaching half-way down the thigh, and
furnished with loose sleeves extending only to the elbow. It is pre- ,
sumable, however, that no decent Anglo-Saxoness would have ever
dreamt of dressing in so scanty an apparel: and we incline therefore
to think, with other eminent authorities, that the gunna was a long robe
reaching to the feet, which indeed in the old drawings it frequently
conceals. Still, that short gunnas were worn, there is extant good
episcopal evidence to prove: for in searching the old chronicles we find
a copy of a letter from a Saxon Bishop of Winchester, who gives some
one “ a short gunna made in our manner.” Who this Some one could
have been we dare not stop, now to conjecture, nor can we at present
spare the space for guessing whether bishops then, employed their
leisure time in needlework, as the phrase “ made in our manner”
might lead one to suppose.

From the conflict of opinions expressed upon the subject, gentlemen j.
of the leng-robe might spend some days in arguing as to whether the
said gunna was a long robe or a short one. But the long and the short
of it is, we think, it sometimes was a long robe, and sometimes was a
short one, and we hope our readers will be satisfiedwith this solution
of the point. Underneath the gunna, the Anglo-Saxonesses wore a
kirtle and a tunic, whereof the latter had long sleeves like the tunics of
the men, and wrinkled up in rolls from the elbow to the wrist. From
their fitting with such tightness and closeness to the arm, these rolls :
must have iu temperature been hot rolls to the wearer, who, in the
summer-time, must frequently have felt herself half baked iu them.

Vol. 38.

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