Part 5

One of the most perfect instances of vestiges, as Sir George Darwin points out, is afforded by top boots. In their original form, still to be seen in our streets on sewer men, the boots were made to come above the knee, but fashion decreed that the top should be turned back (see Figure 68), and so it came about that the inside became visible, as did also the tags, with the help of which the boots were pulled on. When the outside of the boots was blacked it would form a distinct contrast to the inside, which remained brown, and in modern top boots the difference in colour has been in many cases greatly accentuated. Indeed, the upper parts are made of different leather, and as ordinary coat cuffs are now incapable of being turned down, the tops of the boots are immovable and cannot be turned up. It is curious, however, that the tags at the sides are still represented and sewn to the boot so as to be quite useless, while new tags placed inside the boot now do their duty. (See Figure 69.)

Socks and stockings are, at the present time, the most usual coverings for the lower parts of the legs, and there is at least one vestige which remains in their structure that has an interest for us. Before we consider this, however, we may look at another means of protecting the lower extremities which tells of more primitive conditions. The leg bandages so commonly worn by our regular soldiers and volunteers are the case in point. (See Figure 70.) These appear to have been immediately derived from the Indian Army, and their name--"puttees"--is evidence of this; but such an arrangement is very widespread, and was that generally adopted in this country in Anglo-Saxon times. Our illustration is taken from an illuminated manuscript prepared for St. Aethelwold for use at Winchester, which was completed between the years 963 and 964 A.D. Bandaged stockings are common on representations of Anglo-Saxons, but according to Fairholt the example given shows them to greater advantage than does any other known. The figure in question is dressed in royal costume, and the bandages, which are of gold, are fastened just below the knee with a knot from which hang tassels. (See Figure 71.)

It has been thought that leg bandages were originally derived from the haybands which peasants wrap round their legs, and the writer has seen it stated that ostlers in this country still perpetuate the Anglo-Saxon fashion, though he has never met with an actual instance. The pfiferari who some years ago used to play on bagpipes and other primitive instruments in our streets, wore leg bandages or loose linen stockings, and these were cross-gartered with bands which held in place a simple sandal made of a piece of leather.

The vestige in modern stockings to which allusion has been made is very often present, and takes the form of the ornament which we know as a "clock." The name signifies a gusset, and in modern socks and so on, which are woven or knitted all in one piece, no such arrangement is to be found. Stockings, however, like those at first worn by Queen Elizabeth, and used at least by American settlers until the year 1675, were made up from pieces of cloth. In these there would be seams down the sides, and it is possible that where the ornamental lines meet in Figure 72 there may have been a gusset. In any case, it is evident that the intention of the clock was to hide the side seams.

Of recent years, when ladies have most sensibly adopted short skirts, the clock has developed into a series of embroidered patterns which cover the front of the foot and ankle. The parentage of these is quite evident from the shape, which is shown in Figure 73.

This ornamentation has been carried still further, though it is not produced in the same way. The patterns, instead of being embroidered, are the result of perforations, or, in more technical language, "open-work," and the background which shows up the design is no longer the material of the stockings, but the skin of their fair wearers. (See Figure 74.)

In many cases the stockings are dark in colour, and the effect of tattooing is produced without the preliminary pain and inconvenience. We have here an instance of the way in which the specially human instinct of decorating the body persists, and at the same time a development of the fashion for displaying, in the daytime under a thin veil of gauze or lace, the necks and arms which since the time of our grandmothers have only been allowed to appear uncovered in the evening.

Leather stockings were once worn, for example, by William Penn, and they and the leggings of to-day may be a direct survival from the time when our ancestors, though still wearing skins, had learnt to dress them. Leggings, as such, are possibly connected more closely with the protection of man against man than with that of man against the weather, and in that case their history is bound up with that of armour. Gaiters, under the name of spatter-dashes, were originally part of a soldier's uniform. To-day, when worn by civilians in ordinary dress, they are quite short, and go by the contracted name of "spats." Pedestrians still wear the full-sized gaiters in conjunction with knickerbockers, and white gaiters are a feature of Highland regiments.

Long Florentine hose, which practically took the place of trousers and stockings together, are now represented by what are called "tights," and are to be seen in the dress of acrobats. We shall allude to these again.

Garters when visible on men's legs become very ornamental, and one in use now, merely as a decoration, gave its name to the celebrated Order of Knighthood, among the insignia of which it is still to be found. At the present day garters are hidden, and there is a tendency for them to be replaced by more comfortable straps or "suspenders," but those which ladies wear still retain their gaudy character. In this connection an interesting ceremony may be mentioned, which is carried in Haute-Vienne on the day of St. Eutropius. All the girls of the neighbourhood troop to the church dedicated to the saint at St. Junien-les-Gombes, and each damsel hangs her left garter on the cross hard by, which becomes so smothered with garters of different colours that when seen from a short distance it looks as if it were covered with flowers.

VIII

PETTICOATS AND TROUSERS

THE BELTED PLAID AND KILT--EARLY SKIRTS--THE ANTIQUITY OF TROUSERS--TROUSER STRIPES

We were at some pains to trace the evolution of the coat from the shawl, and it is possible also to show that the petticoat, and through this even trousers, have equal claims to the same ancestry.

The plaid as we saw it in Chapter III is only a shawl, and at one time in Scotland it was used as a covering for practically the whole of the person. It was ingeniously disposed, and part of it was fastened by a belt round the waist so as to form a kind of kilt or petticoat. Hence arose the name of belted plaid. It seems to have needed a considerable amount of practice to put on this garment properly, and the method customarily adopted by the wearer was to spread the plaid on the ground and, after duly arranging it in its proper folds, to lie down upon it and fix it with the belt. Some races seem to have recognized very much earlier that it would be more convenient to separate the kilt from the upper garment. In fact, if we examine the woven garments which the Danish chieftain wore under his deer-skin cloak, at a time before the use of iron had spread to Western Europe, we find that round his loins he had a small shawl held in place by a girdle. (See Figure 75.)

The next stage in the evolution of the petticoat would be characterized by the permanent joining of the edges of the cloth, so that a garment would be formed which resembled the lower part of the tubular tunic which played its part in the evolution of the shirt or coat. Such a state of affairs is to be seen in the simple skirt of the Danish chieftainess whose bodice we have already described. (See page 18.) Here the petticoat was not shaped in any way at the top, but was gathered in round the waist and fastened as in the case of the man with a girdle.

In a warm climate it would be easy to dispense with a covering for the upper part of the body, and one of the simplest dresses imaginable was adopted in ancient Egypt. This costume is to be seen on the figure of a woman belonging to the Sixth Dynasty (3500 B.C.), which we have already mentioned when tracing the development of the hat-band and ribbons. (See Figure 45.) In this instance there is a simple tight-fitting skirt reaching to the waist or a little above it, which is supported by two straps passing between the bare breasts and over the otherwise naked shoulders. (See Figure 76.)

It seems certain, as in the original carving the woman is shown with a burden on her head and in the act of driving a calf before her, that she is a representative of the peasant class. In the Korea at the present day, women of the lower orders, although they adopt a jacket which covers their arms and shoulders, wear so short an one that as there is no garment beneath it leaves their breasts quite bare. (See Figure 77.) Such an arrangement would obviously facilitate the nursing of children, and this fact has been advanced as the reason for its adoption. Still it may be merely a fashion such as some women, at the other end of the social scale, once adopted in our non-tropical country. In the time of James I of England, the noble ladies, while they wore an exaggerated ruff round their necks, nevertheless had their dresses cut away from just below it almost to their waists.

The short kilt now worn in Scotland represents the lower part of the belted plaid, and is in fact a petticoat and specially interesting, seeing that it is a survival of this type as a man's garment. Of the origin of the sporran which is worn in front of the kilt, little seems to be known, and though it recalls to mind the time when men were clothed in skins, it forms a pouch as well as an ornament, and possibly also may have been useful as a protection. (See Figure 78.)

Having once derived the petticoat, however, from the ancestral shawl, it is a very simple matter to proceed and evolve a pair of trousers. As a matter of fact, the Eastern women, when they fasten their petticoats between their ankles for convenience in walking, demonstrate the first stage in the production of bifurcated garments.

A single row of stitches will give rise to a kind of divided skirt, while two seams and a single cut made between, and parallel, to them, will produce a pair of trousers.

It would be strange if so simple a process, which under many conditions results in such a great improvement, had not been put into practice in very early times, and trousers, although they seem to typify the ugliness of modern costume, are in reality surrounded by a halo of antiquity. It is only right, however, to point out that these tubular garments were in olden days not associated with the highest civilization. The Romans, for instance, did not wear trousers, though the nations whom they were pleased to call barbarians, did. Some of the enemies of Rome are shown on Trajan's column wearing nether garments of the kind most familiar to us, and our illustration is taken from the representation of a barbarian soldier carved on an ivory diptych of St. Paul. (See Figure 79.)

The kilt is sometimes called the garb of old Gaul, but one province of the latter owes its name--Gallia Braccata--to the custom among its inhabitants of wearing braccæ or breeches. In our own country trousers were in vogue before the advent of the Roman conquerors, and though for a time the dress of the invaders was adopted by those who followed their fashions, we find that in the time of the Saxons and Normans the barbarian style found favour once more.

In the picture of a Saxon fighting man (see Figure 80), we see that he wears trousers that somewhat recall those of the modern sailor, and there seem to have been many different styles even in those early days.

During the course of our history, long trousers went out of fashion for a very considerable period, though knee-breeches of various kinds flourished from time to time, until recently, when the original and less elegant garment once more triumphed and became part of the everyday dress of men. Boys still wear knickerbockers in one stage of their development, intermediate between the doffing of the petticoat and the donning of the trouser, and there is a tendency, that does not diminish, for the shorter garments to be used by men of all ages when they are not occupied with formal business.

Trousers are often wrongly thought to be a modern invention, and it is easy to go away with the idea that they are exclusively the attributes of men. This is far from being the case, and as in Scotland we find the petticoat still in use by men, so in France and Switzerland (see Figure 81) we see the peasant woman wearing trousers of the ordinary type, to say nothing of Oriental countries like Persia and Siam (see Plate V), where trousers form part of the dress of women even of the highest rank.

We must not forget the energetic crusade which is being carried on in this country in favour of "rational dress" for women, on lines which are more sensible than those laid down by Mrs. Bloomer, whose name has been immortalized in connection with divided garments for women. It is not intended, at the moment, to enter into a discussion of the advantages that may be gained by banishing the skirt, as we shall consider clothes, from the point of view of their effect upon the body, in a later chapter. Suffice it to say that the ugly clothes worn a few years ago by lady bicyclists who, while adopting divided garments, tried to make them look like a skirt, did much to hinder the "rational dress" movement.

There is one vestige in connection with trousers that we may mention before leaving this subject, and that is the stripes which are to be seen on many official dresses, and which have been adopted by some men in their evening dress of recent years. It seems that this takes us back to a row of buttons which were once used along the whole length of the breeches when these were too tight for the foot to be put through them, and in consequence they had to be undone and done up again along the side of the leg. (See Figure 82.)

There is little doubt but that the stripe represents a fold of cloth that in some cases covered up these buttons. Just a few of such buttons are still to be seen on riding breeches and those worn by liveried servants.

IX

COATS OF ARMS

SIGNET RINGS--ARMORIAL BEARINGS--ESCUTCHEONS--CRESTS--BADGES

Before we deal with coverings for the hand, it will not be amiss to consider something else which is worn on the fingers. Strictly speaking, of course, rings should be reckoned as ornaments, but signet rings very often bear upon them the crest or coat of arms of their wearer, and thus we have still carried on the person at the present day, a small and inconspicuous vestige of what were once most important articles of costume. In fact, they had a significance as great if not greater than any others, for when the face of their wearer was hidden by his helmet, they told to those well versed in heraldry not only his name but his lineage.

The crest was worn on the helmet, and might or might not be one of the devices or charges embroidered on the surcoat,--which was worn over the armour--and emblazoned on the shield and elsewhere.

At the present day, except in the case of ceremonial dress such as the tabards of heralds, the only survivals are the crest and shield. The devices on the latter are now called a coat of arms, as in olden times they were, as already indicated, merely a repetition of those actually worn on the dress or coat armour.

Let us compare for a moment the first two figures which illustrate this chapter. In the first (see Figure 83) we have a tiny device engraved on a ring that is worn on the little finger of the left hand. In the second (see Figure 84) we have Sir Geoffrey Loutterell mounted on his charger in the act of receiving his helmet and shield from some of the ladies belonging to his family. All of the figures and the horse are decorated with armorial bearings. We wonder whether there could be a greater contrast. The knight has what is really his surcoat on his back displaying six martlets with a bend between them. The charges are repeated on a small square shield on his shoulder called an ailette, which was used apparently more as an ornament than as a protection, though it is said that ailettes were originally intended as a defence for the neck. Sir Geoffrey holds his helmet, on which, in the place of the crest, we again see his armorial bearings. They appear again on the pavon or small flag held by one of the ladies, and on the shield which the other carries. We find the same devices repeated five times on the trappings of his charger; and as if this were not enough, the ladies also have the bearings on their dresses. In the case of Lady Loutterell, who was the daughter of Sir Richard Sutton, there is shown also the lion rampant borne by her father.

We give another illustration taken from the effigy of Henry, the first Duke of Lancaster, on a brass at Elsyng, in Norfolk. (See Figure 85.) On this figure the surcoat is very well shown, and on it are emblazoned the three lions (or leopards) of the Royal Arms of England. It is interesting, too, owing to the label which differences the arms and shows that the wearer was not the king himself. The label takes the form of three vertical bars joined by a horizontal one, and is like that which may be seen to-day on the Prince of Wales's banner in St. George's Chapel at Windsor. In this illustration, too (Figure 85), the crest is very well shown.

Armorial bearings are still used to a considerable extent in architecture, but otherwise they are chiefly confined to notepaper, carriage panels, and harness. Occasionally hatchments, or more properly achievements, are put upon the fronts of the houses of important people on the death of a member of the family, and afterwards transferred to the church in which the body is buried. The hatchment consists of the arms of the deceased person, painted on a lozenge-shaped field, which is surrounded by a black frame, and if it indicates the death of a husband, the right half of the field is sable (black), the left, argent (silver). If it is a wife that is dead, the colours on the field are reversed. When a widower, widow, or unmarried person dies, the whole of the field is made black.

In olden times the actual helmet, surcoat, and shield were carried at the funeral, and in some instances these were deposited over the tomb of the deceased. Examples survive to the present day, and one of the most interesting cases is to be found in Canterbury Cathedral, where the shield, helmet, and surcoat of Edward the Black Prince are still to be seen. (See Figures 86, 87, and 88.) The Black Prince left most careful instructions in his will with regard to his funeral, and the accoutrements which we are able to figure through the kindness of the Society of Antiquaries, were the "arms of war," as he called them, that were to be carried at the ceremony. His "arms of peace" consisted of his ostrich feather badge, of which we shall again speak. There are traces on the crest and surcoat of a label to distinguish them, but this is absent from the shield, though it occurs on the arms many times repeated on the tomb, alternately with the feather badge already mentioned.

With the exception of the signet rings and the ceremonial dress, which were alluded to at the beginning of the chapter, there are now but few cases where armorial bearings are worn on the person. School and college arms are embroidered on the breast pockets of blazers and on the fronts of caps, while perhaps the most common instances are the devices which we see on the buttons of servants. Whole coats of arms may appear, but usually it is the crest of the master, which has now taken the place of the household badge which the retainers wore in olden times.

There is a difference generally between a crest and a badge, though in some cases the badge was really a crest. This was so before armorial bearings became hereditary, for the badge which the knight wore on his helmet formed its crest. Afterwards the same device was handed down to generation from generation. Individuals, possibly with a view of hiding their identity, sometimes wore a special badge instead of their family crest; but the badge as generally understood was, as has already been indicated, worn by the retainers and was usually chosen by each head of the family. The matter is further complicated, because badges were sometimes hereditary and occasionally identical with the crest proper.

It is of course only the hereditary badges which have survived to the present day, and in only one or two cases are they apparently still used as such, though occasionally they survive for other purposes. The Prince of Wales's feathers we have already mentioned. They were not adopted by the Black Prince for the reasons usually given in history, as there is nothing to show that the King of the Bohemians ever wore them, and long before his time an ostrich feather was often used as a royal badge in England.