The Armour Archive

What ecaxtly is this sort of... "poncho" ...he is wearing?

Looks like it's just that. Some sort of poncho. What is mysterious about it? Here's Medieval Design's interpretation of a similar one.

http://www.medievaldesign.com/restricte ... e_2110.jpg

well the Medieval designs is a Giornea, I jus tthought that they were supposed to be open on the sieds, and this one seemed to be closed.

How does it look closed? Seems to me that his arm is causing the front to fold on the inside, so what we're looking at as a bridge between the gap is a section of the front part.

-Gerhard

You know, I'd always looked at that as an open sleeve, but now I'm not certain.

yup, looks open to me too.

I thought it looked like another section of fur trim, seperate from the front trim, coming up under the arm.
But now I have no clue....

I can’t right now, but this is the point where I’d start pulling down as many other images from this time period as possible and compare and contrast. I’ve always seen a sleeve, but now I’d have to look at other stuff just to confirm that in my mind.

I think it must be open. Look at this close up...

http://www.fourteenthstreetstudio.com/w ... ck_001.jpg

The shadow goes back into the folds of the giornea, yet at the highest, point just below his arm it seems to indicate a solid transition from the outer edge of the front side to the material behind it. This is given away most in his continuation of a horizontal black splotch from the trim to the interior. Not a separate piece, but rather an interior fold.

-Gerhard

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paint ... i-portrait has a detailed zoomable close-up, too.

perhaps its lined, not just trimmed, in fur?

Can someone explain *exactly* what the difference between a giornea and cioppa are? -- with sources consulted? I could go home and consult my own library later, but right here, right now, I'm burningly curious.

As far as I can tell.. with no sources except Wikipeida mind you..


A Cioppia is an Italian Houpallande
A Giornea is a sideless overgown

Italians often are depicted with over garments that are giant rectangles and often belted just in the front, could be the same garment if it is not just a giant open sleeve.

You also see pilgrims with a similar garment over their gown.

Huke. It is a huke, in Franco-Burgundian parlance of the 1420's-1440's. Joan of Arc had one in cloth of gold, she wore over her armour when she was captured.

Just to add, he is wearing Burgundian fashion, not Italian fashion. Look to images from the Chronicle of Hainault, roughly contemporary, and you will see scads of people dressed just like him.

Is it somethign along the lines of what the Order of the Crecent is wearing in this photo?

I took a look at Jacqueline Herald's Renaissance Dress in Italy 1400-1500, Margaret Scott's Late Gothic Europe 1400-1500, and the entry for "huque" in the Glossaire Archeologique de Moyen Age et de la Renaissance (Gay/Stein), and have to agree with chef that the garment that Arnolfini is wearing was likely called a "heuque".

Apparently heuques (also: huques/hukes/heukes) took a variety of forms, from elaborate pleat arrangements like Arnolfini's to a simpler, non-pleated variety. Both types -- whether lined in fur, silk, or some other plainer fabric -- were worn as splendorous display over armour, and they were worn over cottes in civilian dress. Their unifying characteristic is the tabard-like arrangement, where the sides are completely open. They were sometimes belted.

And yes, the huque is apparently called a giornea in the 15thc in the Italian city-states, where it (the giornea) is worn in much the same way -- as a decorative over-garment for armour and as a civilian top-most layer of fashion.

No. Arnolfini is wearing a huke or giornia, and The Order of the Crescent are wearing ceremonial robes. The OoC's robes are made in a style typically seen on fraternal orders of chivalry in the mid 15th C.

Louis XI presiding over the Order of St. Michael, Fouquet, 1470
[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Louis_XI_préside_le_chapitre_de_Saint-Michel.jpg[/img]

The statutes of each order dictated clothing to be worn for various events. The original OoC's statutes called for crimson velvet lined in fur.

Gwen

chef de chambre wrote:Huke. It is a huke, in Franco-Burgundian parlance of the 1420's-1440's. Joan of Arc had one in cloth of gold, she wore over her armour when she was captured.

Huke was the name I was looking for.

You know, I've a question regarding this very subject. There's always been an illustration by Graham Turner which has both fascinated and intrigued me, and the centre-piece of this fascination is the garment worn by one of its central figures.

I am referring to one of the illustrations from the Osprey book about the battle of Bosworth Field; I think it's titled "Last Charge of the Plantagenets".

http://www.richardiii.net/battle%20imag ... 0haven.gif

The image in question is in the link above. Would anyone know what type of garment that was and what its geographical range of popularity was? As in, was it only fashionable in Western Europe?

You mean the long pleated coat the armoured guy is wearing?

It's a pretty typical garment, nothing special or unusual about it-

Yes, in my enthusiasm I forgot to mention who the figure I was referring to actually was.

For those curious, the man wearing that long garment over his armour is the Earl of Richmond, soon to be Henry the Seventh, king of England, king of France and Lord of Ireland.

And, to wit, I have seen plenty of gowns such as the ones in the first two illustrations, but I must admit that the third illustration is the first in which I have ever seen anyone wear a gown such as in the artwork by Turner.

I must also comment that the gown worn in the third image is somewhat different when compared to the ones in the first two. It looks like the coat worn by the armoured guys (both in Turner and the period illustration) is open at the front, while the others are not. Or do they close either behind or at the front?

I always thought these long gowns were something in which you inserted your body, not something which you put on, then closed so as to achieve that look.

Circumstantial evidence indicates these garments closed in the front like any other conventional coat.

Some have interpreted the coat as being bell shaped, that it would be put on over the head and the pleats arranged on the body with a belt.

That hypothesis, however, would indicate that there are a number of fundamentally different garments that appear nearly identically in the imagery of the time, as there are many images where there is no belt or the belt falls either above or below the points where the pleats meet.

I tend to apply Occam's Razor on this one; the front closure method could be hidden in the folds of Example #1, explains the central 'pleat' seen on Example #2, and explains how the coat could be left open in Example #3.

Gwen

Hey Gwen, thanks for taking the time to answer these queries of mine. Would the closing method involve hidden buttons of some sort? Or eyelets? Enlighten me, please.

Now I have another question for you, relating to this same subject. Given the image in the link below:

http://roncea.ro/wp-content/uploads/201 ... mnului.jpg

Do you think the gown the kneeling man is wearing is similar in any way to the gowns worn over armour and civilian clothes in the previous examples? It is from a Moldavian religious fresco (I think) dated 1473, depicting the Moldavian ruler, Stephen (1457-1504).

In my eye it seems to bear many striking similarities, from the pleats to the model on the fabric itself. Also, is the garment he is wearing underneath similar to anything you've seen in the West? Do remember that we are talking the Principality of Moldavia here, and it was a cross-roads between East and West, if ever there was one. I am curious as to your opinion about the way Stephen is garbed.

IButtons were very popular in the 14th C, but seem to have fallen out of fashion in the 15th- I'm guessing the invisible closure method would be the 15th C. equivalent of 'streamlined' or 'high tech'.

The only visible hidden closure method I can think of off the top of my head is the painting of the court jester Gonella by Fouquet (1445)-


Dome shaped decorations which appear to be buttons line the front of the overgarment. A button of that size would require a very large buttonhole, but on close inspection no buttonhole is visible. The 2 layers of fabric seem to lay very close and flat at those points, so I suspect there is some sort of closure under those buttons. Maybe a hook and eye, maybe another button which buttons to the inside. Hard to say for sure.

Based on the above I'd say hook and eye closure is a reasonable guess. I used to do our coats that way but found the hooks work themselves open as the guys ride [horses], so have gone to buttons which close to the inside. Then again the 'look' is the most important aspect of what I do for our event so the button to the inside method may not fly with the AR living history groups.

As to what the guy in the fresco is wearing- yikes! I admit to near total ignorance of Moldavia, 15th C. or otherwise, but a 10 minute research blitz tells me that he fought to keep Moldavia independent and Christian, he had ties with rulers throughout Europe, and maintained strong ties with Italy. As a matter of fact, the doctors brought in to treat his final illness were all Italians, and he and Jan Hunyadi (with whom he was close) are depicted in Franco-Flemish armours.

Hmm. He doesn't appear to be wearing anything traditionally Eastern European (for example the sort of thing Vlad Tepec [with whom he was also close] is usually shown wearing). So if I were to take a WAG at what he's wearing, I would say it is a style cooked up to reference the styles he's seen elsewhere. So underneath possibly a doublet, but it could also be an Eastern European caftan of some sort. The outer garment looks to me like a giornia or huke- perhaps he's wearing a combination of traditional Moldavian costume along with pieces based on Italian or Flemish designs-- or maybe what he is wearing isn't anything he ever actually wore but was cooked up by the painter to represent his ties outside of Moldavia. Certainly religious painting frequently used fantastical elements in costume to depict antiquity, foreignness or make a point about those depicted, so that's a distinct possibility here. Given that the image is a fresco in a monastery, I'd say the religious context makes the realism of the costume he's wearing suspect.

But as I said, it's just a guess.

Gwen

I bow before your knowledgeable comments and thank you once more for taking the time to help me in my endeavour. I am part of a reenactment group from Romania and I have been closely studying matters of dress and costume, both military and civil, for the past two years or close enough as not to matter.

Sadly enough for me, my knowledge of clothing styles generally ends the closer I come to the Carpathian mountains. What I mean to say is that, due to the wealth of sources available from Western Europe, especially from the Fifteenth century, I know much more about my houppelandes, cottehardies, gowns, doublets, liripipes and turkey felt hats than I do about what was worn in the East.

You know, it is somewhat ironic for me to ask this, but could you, if you have the time of course, give me a quick rundown of the Eastern style clothes you know of? I will run it through what I already know of my geographical area.

And, as for another aspect of your insights which has made me curious, where did you see Stephen depicted in armour? I know of Ioan de Hunedoara (the Romanian name given to Janos Hunyadi, because he was half-and-half) and the two illustrations most often associated with him, from the 1488 Brno Chronicle of Johannes Turoczi.





These two are the ones you've seen, correct? The second one is most clearly a harness in the late Gothic style, reminiscent of the famous 1484 Augsburg harness given to Sigismund of Tirol. It is similar in may ways, excluding the absurdly long points on the sabatons which are present in the Augsburg example. The first one seems to be a harness in an earlier style, somewhat closer to the years in which Hunyadi lived (he died in 1456) due to the much clearer fluting on the faulds of the armour and the tassets, present in somewhat earlier Gothic-style pieces.

I cannot thus far see the Franco-Flemish influences you mention. But for Stephen I know of no armoured illustrations. In Romania I have only ever seen images of him in civilian garb. Indeed, the popular vision of him in Romania, even in battle, is disturbingly similar to his civilian dress and terribly unsuited for the field.

Oh, and as for the fresco, yes it is a religious depiction basically, but a most unusual one in that the way Stephen is shown is not in the traditional style. Basically, he is wearing clothes which look very natural, not in any way like most church frescoes look. To wit, I will show you an example of the way monastery frescoes generally look in that period, in Romania.



This is Peter, one of Stephen's many bastard sons. Difference between him and his many half-siblings was that he became Prince of Moldavia in his own right, and made a name for himself in fighting the Ottomans (and all of his other neighbours). This fresco is repainted after the original from 1534 I believe. By then, fashion had advanced some from his father's day, but the robes they wear will appear in church art showing noblemen for the next three or four hundred years. With little change in fashions.



This is a fresco of Mircea the First, Prince of Wallachia (Moldavia's southern neighbour). He reigned from 1386 and died in 1418. This is one of the two known variations on his appearance.



This is from another fresco of Mircea. You will note that his garb is different from that of both Stephen and his son. What he wears is much more reminiscent of late Fourteenth century garb in the west (a cottehardie is especially brought to mind) you will note.

Unfortunately, as you can see I was forced to use depictions which span more than a century (roughly from 1400 to 1530). This is bad detective work, I know, but for the moment it is all I have to work with. The other notable frescoes I know of are much more recent (roughly seventeenth century or later sixteenth) so I did not include them. The clothing of Stephen's son indicates what I was referring to as church style. Nobles always appear in those long robes, and for quite some time. The seventeenth century frescoes aren't much different compared to the 1534 one. Problem is, this seems to have come into being sometime in the Fifteenth century, from the 1450s onwards most likely.

Stephen's clothing is clearly more a product of his times than the long robes because you only see figures dressed like him in that example (and maybe others ten years before or ten years after). That clearly marks it out as clothing which was in fashion at that time (1460s-1480s basically). What I need to find out is when the robes start appearing.

I will dig through extant frescoes and look for nobles to see if that is truly the case. Perhaps I will even visit a few monasteries. Who knows?

Black Swan Designs wrote:Dome shaped decorations which appear to be buttons line the front of the overgarment. A button of that size would require a very large buttonhole, but on close inspection no buttonhole is visible. The 2 layers of fabric seem to lay very close and flat at those points, so I suspect there is some sort of closure under those buttons. Maybe a hook and eye, maybe another button which buttons to the inside. Hard to say for sure.

Gwen

Hook&eyes are clearly visible on the upper portion of the garment, so I'd say that you are right, and they are one the rest of the garment as well.

As far as my guess about the buttons, perhaps they are like some of the ecclesiastical closures I've seen, and they have hooks or tabs on the back which fit through some sort of eye on the underlying layer- that mates up with a tiny hole on the outer layer.

The garment you say looks like a cotehardie could be what is under the fur trimmed outer garment in the monastery fresco. Both of the lower examples have a heavy belt or band of trim around the waist, and that is probably what I was seeing in the monastery fresco.

The Orthodox church remained firmly rooted in the Byzantine tradition, so the 'antique' styles depicted in the lower examples do not surprise me at all. I'm quite sure you will find very similar images persisting into the 18th and 19th C. Certainly I have seen modern Orthodox iconography that looks remarkably similar to these.

Gwen

Does anyone have a copy of Peter Spufford's Power and Profit: The Merchant in Medieval Europe? If so, what do you think of the dude on the right of page 126? He's wearing the red gown... with what looks like buttons in the back.

I've been wanting input from 15thc specialists on this image forever but keep forgetting to ask about it here. Do others think that's an opening with buttons? Maybe the guy has it on backwards?? I don't know, but it caused me a bit of a "huh" moment the first time I saw it.

I don't have a working scanner at the moment, or I'd put the image up here. And, Spufford doesn't cite its source, so I can't mention that either. Very frustrating. I checked the notes in the back and everything. The most I could identify is that it's housed in the Bibliotheque Nationale and it's from the 1470s.

I have it, I'll look later.

Huh, never noticed that before! He's also bald, and he's got a scimitar looking sword slung over his shoulder by a cord like a water bottle. Very strange indeed.

Black Swan Designs wrote:Huh, never noticed that before! He's also bald, and he's got a scimitar looking sword slung over his shoulder by a cord like a water bottle. Very strange indeed.

Yes! I was going to mention the whole "bald and scimitar" thing, but didn't because I was worried someone would jump on me and say, "that's not a scimitar, you cretin, that's a jooblygwak wacki-sword. Here's my dissertation on that..." and lead us down another rabbithole altogether.

I asked Jeffrey about the image. He commented on the guy's bald state and the scimitar or falchion he's carrying but also questioned the diminutive page dressed in what appears to be livery, the monkey on the floor with the dog, and the unusual activity conspicuously happening right outside the door.

We chatted about it a bit, and we think there's some sort of allegory or statement being made. Without any context it's hard to say more than that.

Gwen

Happened to come across an OLD post that seems like it would contribute to further this thread:
http://forums.armourarchive.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=45032

Disclaimer: Remember that posts from this 2005 thread may not reflect the current opinions of the folks who have likely since furthered their research and knowledge base of this topic.