DOI issue:
March 31, 1860
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16865#0136
128
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[March 31, 1860.
1
PUNCH’S BOOK OF BRITISH COSTUMES.
CHAPTER IX.—THE EARLY NORMAN PERIOD.
■he brief interval between
the out-kicking of the
Danes and the incoming
of the Normans, the cos-
tume of the English, of
course, underwent some
change ; for when was
fashion ever for a single
year immutable ? Coming
events often throw their
shadows out before them ;
and before the Normans
landed their shadows had
preceded them, and the
English in their habits had
aped them to a shade.
Fathers now-a-days com-
plain that their children
dress like foreigners, and it
must be confessed that in
the time of the Confessor
there was as much reason
for a similar complaint. Be-
fore the Frenchmen came
themselves their manners
had invaded us, and we
were slaves to them in
fashion, although not yet
so in fact. For. this we
have the evidence of William, or Malmesbury, who, contemptuous
of orthography, as is his lordly namesake, observes:—
“ lime Edwapde’s rune ye Englishedyd. Frenchifye ymselves both inne manneres
and costumes, and. made ymselves redickulouse bye their phantastick fashiones,
whiche they dyd wear a shortere tunick and eke a sliavenne cbyn, and dyd clippe
their haire allsoe as they dyd clippe their speache.”
That men should “make themselves ridiculous ” by wearing shaven
chins, is an idea to which our beard-movers have lately given counte-
nance, albeit Englishmen in general have long set their face against it.
The early Normans were, however, great users of the razor; and
besides shaving their chins, and upper lips, and cheeks, they actually
shaved the back part of their heads ; a fashion which they borrowed
from the swells of Aquitaine.
This we learn not only from
the Bayeux tapestry,* but
from an incident which hap-
pened on the landing of the
Normans, and which autho-
rities concur in thinking
proves the fact. It is said
that when King Harold
heard the cry, “ The French
are coming!” he prudently
remained at home, and sent
his spies to see if there were
truth in the report. As they
dared not face the enemy,
the spies crept crawlingjy
along until they got behind
his back; and from this
rearward point of view they
took their observations, with-
out themselves becoming the
objects of remark. They
then played among them-
selves a friendly game of
Hie, spy, hie! and, as Wal-
lingford informs us, “djd
putte their bestte legges
foremoste, and dyd take un-loe their heeles.” On coming to the king, ’
who was as breathless to hear the news as they were all to tell it, they
said they had seen no soldiers, but an army of priests; and on Harold
asking sternly, “ What the [two of dice] they meant?” they told him
* Of course every school-girl knows that this tapestry is called so from its being
kept at Bayeux ; and is a piece of coloured worsted work, somewhat like a sampler,
measuring in length 212 feet. It is said to have been worked by the Conqueror's
wife, Matilda1, who was called from her great industry in working it, the Con-
queress, the enemy she triumphed over being truly worsted. How long she was
doing it, we must let our lady readers have the privilege to guess. Although the
fact is not so stated, one might really almost think she had the help of Briareus in
accomplishing her task ; for one had need have the assistance of a hundred hands,
to work so great a quantity as above two hundred feet.
FROM A CURIOUS ILLUMINATION REPRESENTING
A NORMAN SWELL DRESSING FOR AN EVENING !
PARTY.
of the way in which the Normans wore their hair, whereat his Majesty
impatiently exclaimed, “ There, you may cut it! ”
In telling 11s this anecdote. Bob Wacjs, the Norman poet, uses the
expression “ tout rez et tondu,” which may be literally rendered by the
words “all shaven and shorn:” a phrase that, every baby knows,
occurs in one of the most ancient of our descriptive ballads. The
words, our readers may remember, are applied there to a priest; and
their usage may be taken as confirmatory evidence that the Normans
in their tonsure had a priestly cut about them. How far they resembled
the old ecclesiastic, who performed, the marriage service in the ballad
we have, mentioned, is a point which we suggest to men of strong
imaginations, as.being a fit problem to exercise their thoughts. For
their assistance in the matter we refer them to the figures pictured in
the Bayeux tapestry, and to the portrait of the priest as he appears in
our edition; wherein the artist has depicted him in a dress which is a
cross between a beadle’s and a bishop’s. In this engraving (which we
fancy must be really very rare, for it appears to bear the thumb-marks
of several generations) “ye maydenne all forlorne ” is most lugubrious
in look, and seems to have been taken to what cockneys call the
“halter” as reluctantly as though she had been taken to be hung.
With an attention to the details which smacks of the Dutch school,
the maid is represented with her milk-pail in her hand ; while slightly
in the background is a portrait of her cow, whose horn is “crumpled”
with a power which a Prse-Raffaelite might envy, and a Ruskin write
a page about in notes of admiration of its “conscientious handling”
and its “gigantic strength of truth.”
THIS TRULY INTERESTING PICTURE IS A VALUABLE ILLUSTRATION OF THE ECCLE-
SIASTICAL AND CIVIL COSTUME OF THE MIDDLE OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY, OB
THEREABOUTS.
The civil costume of the Normans (whom silly sticklers for good
grammar have called otherwise the Normen) consisted of a cloak, a
shirt, and a pair of drawers; together with a tunic which they wore
rather short, and a pair of stockings, which they wore rather long.
One writer calls these stockings “ panntaloons with feet, to them; ” and
we may guess from his so doing, that the nobles chiefly wore them, for
pantaloons have never been in favour much with clowns. Their
Norman name w'as “chausses,” and we are not aware of their having
any other: although seeing that the English took afterwards to
wearing them, it is naturally likely that they Anglicised the name.
But whether, with true British contempt for foreign accents, they
called the chausses “ chosses,” or “chawsers” or.“ chowses,” with
all our wisdom we must own ourselves unable to decide.
To keep their heads warm, which considering how they shaved them,
was much needed, the civilians wore a flat round cap resembling a
Scotch bonnet. This, however, was not their invariable head-dress,
for they sometimes wore a hood, or coif, to serve as their coiffure.
Combined with their bald-patedness, these monks-hoods must have
given them a clerical appearance, and the way they aped the priests
was really monkish, if not monkeyish.
Eor their chaussure they wore shoes, over their chausses. But some-
times their long stockings were stuck into short boots, which foraugbt
we know, resembled our plebeian highlow. These short boots have
been long familiar to our memory, from the fact that we remember
reading when at school (having recently refreshed our remembrance
on the matter) .that Robert, Duke of Normandy, the^Conqueror’s
eldest son, was nicknamed Gamharon, or “ Shortshanks,” and Court-
hose, which meant “ Short-boots.” His namesake, Robert Wage,
says, “ he hadde shorte legges and large bones, lienee was Lie booteddu
with shorte liosen and hadde shorte boottes to bootte.” To our min i
PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.
[March 31, 1860.
1
PUNCH’S BOOK OF BRITISH COSTUMES.
CHAPTER IX.—THE EARLY NORMAN PERIOD.
■he brief interval between
the out-kicking of the
Danes and the incoming
of the Normans, the cos-
tume of the English, of
course, underwent some
change ; for when was
fashion ever for a single
year immutable ? Coming
events often throw their
shadows out before them ;
and before the Normans
landed their shadows had
preceded them, and the
English in their habits had
aped them to a shade.
Fathers now-a-days com-
plain that their children
dress like foreigners, and it
must be confessed that in
the time of the Confessor
there was as much reason
for a similar complaint. Be-
fore the Frenchmen came
themselves their manners
had invaded us, and we
were slaves to them in
fashion, although not yet
so in fact. For. this we
have the evidence of William, or Malmesbury, who, contemptuous
of orthography, as is his lordly namesake, observes:—
“ lime Edwapde’s rune ye Englishedyd. Frenchifye ymselves both inne manneres
and costumes, and. made ymselves redickulouse bye their phantastick fashiones,
whiche they dyd wear a shortere tunick and eke a sliavenne cbyn, and dyd clippe
their haire allsoe as they dyd clippe their speache.”
That men should “make themselves ridiculous ” by wearing shaven
chins, is an idea to which our beard-movers have lately given counte-
nance, albeit Englishmen in general have long set their face against it.
The early Normans were, however, great users of the razor; and
besides shaving their chins, and upper lips, and cheeks, they actually
shaved the back part of their heads ; a fashion which they borrowed
from the swells of Aquitaine.
This we learn not only from
the Bayeux tapestry,* but
from an incident which hap-
pened on the landing of the
Normans, and which autho-
rities concur in thinking
proves the fact. It is said
that when King Harold
heard the cry, “ The French
are coming!” he prudently
remained at home, and sent
his spies to see if there were
truth in the report. As they
dared not face the enemy,
the spies crept crawlingjy
along until they got behind
his back; and from this
rearward point of view they
took their observations, with-
out themselves becoming the
objects of remark. They
then played among them-
selves a friendly game of
Hie, spy, hie! and, as Wal-
lingford informs us, “djd
putte their bestte legges
foremoste, and dyd take un-loe their heeles.” On coming to the king, ’
who was as breathless to hear the news as they were all to tell it, they
said they had seen no soldiers, but an army of priests; and on Harold
asking sternly, “ What the [two of dice] they meant?” they told him
* Of course every school-girl knows that this tapestry is called so from its being
kept at Bayeux ; and is a piece of coloured worsted work, somewhat like a sampler,
measuring in length 212 feet. It is said to have been worked by the Conqueror's
wife, Matilda1, who was called from her great industry in working it, the Con-
queress, the enemy she triumphed over being truly worsted. How long she was
doing it, we must let our lady readers have the privilege to guess. Although the
fact is not so stated, one might really almost think she had the help of Briareus in
accomplishing her task ; for one had need have the assistance of a hundred hands,
to work so great a quantity as above two hundred feet.
FROM A CURIOUS ILLUMINATION REPRESENTING
A NORMAN SWELL DRESSING FOR AN EVENING !
PARTY.
of the way in which the Normans wore their hair, whereat his Majesty
impatiently exclaimed, “ There, you may cut it! ”
In telling 11s this anecdote. Bob Wacjs, the Norman poet, uses the
expression “ tout rez et tondu,” which may be literally rendered by the
words “all shaven and shorn:” a phrase that, every baby knows,
occurs in one of the most ancient of our descriptive ballads. The
words, our readers may remember, are applied there to a priest; and
their usage may be taken as confirmatory evidence that the Normans
in their tonsure had a priestly cut about them. How far they resembled
the old ecclesiastic, who performed, the marriage service in the ballad
we have, mentioned, is a point which we suggest to men of strong
imaginations, as.being a fit problem to exercise their thoughts. For
their assistance in the matter we refer them to the figures pictured in
the Bayeux tapestry, and to the portrait of the priest as he appears in
our edition; wherein the artist has depicted him in a dress which is a
cross between a beadle’s and a bishop’s. In this engraving (which we
fancy must be really very rare, for it appears to bear the thumb-marks
of several generations) “ye maydenne all forlorne ” is most lugubrious
in look, and seems to have been taken to what cockneys call the
“halter” as reluctantly as though she had been taken to be hung.
With an attention to the details which smacks of the Dutch school,
the maid is represented with her milk-pail in her hand ; while slightly
in the background is a portrait of her cow, whose horn is “crumpled”
with a power which a Prse-Raffaelite might envy, and a Ruskin write
a page about in notes of admiration of its “conscientious handling”
and its “gigantic strength of truth.”
THIS TRULY INTERESTING PICTURE IS A VALUABLE ILLUSTRATION OF THE ECCLE-
SIASTICAL AND CIVIL COSTUME OF THE MIDDLE OF THE ELEVENTH CENTURY, OB
THEREABOUTS.
The civil costume of the Normans (whom silly sticklers for good
grammar have called otherwise the Normen) consisted of a cloak, a
shirt, and a pair of drawers; together with a tunic which they wore
rather short, and a pair of stockings, which they wore rather long.
One writer calls these stockings “ panntaloons with feet, to them; ” and
we may guess from his so doing, that the nobles chiefly wore them, for
pantaloons have never been in favour much with clowns. Their
Norman name w'as “chausses,” and we are not aware of their having
any other: although seeing that the English took afterwards to
wearing them, it is naturally likely that they Anglicised the name.
But whether, with true British contempt for foreign accents, they
called the chausses “ chosses,” or “chawsers” or.“ chowses,” with
all our wisdom we must own ourselves unable to decide.
To keep their heads warm, which considering how they shaved them,
was much needed, the civilians wore a flat round cap resembling a
Scotch bonnet. This, however, was not their invariable head-dress,
for they sometimes wore a hood, or coif, to serve as their coiffure.
Combined with their bald-patedness, these monks-hoods must have
given them a clerical appearance, and the way they aped the priests
was really monkish, if not monkeyish.
Eor their chaussure they wore shoes, over their chausses. But some-
times their long stockings were stuck into short boots, which foraugbt
we know, resembled our plebeian highlow. These short boots have
been long familiar to our memory, from the fact that we remember
reading when at school (having recently refreshed our remembrance
on the matter) .that Robert, Duke of Normandy, the^Conqueror’s
eldest son, was nicknamed Gamharon, or “ Shortshanks,” and Court-
hose, which meant “ Short-boots.” His namesake, Robert Wage,
says, “ he hadde shorte legges and large bones, lienee was Lie booteddu
with shorte liosen and hadde shorte boottes to bootte.” To our min i