Buttons or not? 14th Cent. Coathardie

[Milesent]

Responding to something said on another discussion of hats about the closures of 14th century gowns. I've been doing a spot of reasearch myself in anticipation of the free time to cut up some lovely wool I bought last year and... here's my theory (for y'all to shoot down as you will)

------ here follows Milesent's rambling and un-proven theory --------

The buttoned coathardie was an over-dress worn over a laced under-dress (the laced garment holding in the figure and making for less strain on the buttons down the front.)
Further I believe the under-dress did have buttons on the sleeves (based again on pictures, the sleeves tending to be a different color than the buttoned over-dress... I should include a picture) and we do have that marvelous sleeve in the Museum of London's Textiles and Clothing book. In this mein of thinking the tippets are attached to short over-sleeves of the over-dress, wtih the tight fitting buttoned sleeve of the under dress showing through.

This based also on pouring over pictures in the very lovely 'A Pictorial History of Dress, 14th and 15th centuries" by... what's her name... Margarent Seyton? Excellent book, though out of print.

-------- end of theory ---------

So... balogna or not?

[kass]

Not a bad theory, Milesent, but someone has beaten you to it. Look here:
http://cottesimple.com/love_layers/love_layers.html This is a paper by our own Tasha/Marcele who came to the same conclusion as you did. You might enjoy downloading and reading her work.

But to presume that there were no gowns that were buttoned both down the front and down the sleeves is premature. We have an excellent extant example of exactly this occurance: the Moy gown. You can read about that here: http://www.reconstructinghistory.com/irish/moy.html

But what you purport is on the whole true, according to Tasha's survey of 14th and early 15th century art -- the buttons down the front and sleeves style that is see so often and called "cotehardie" just wasn't worn very often in the 14th century. It was the aberration, not the norm.

Kass

[Tailoress]

Exactly, Kass, and thank you for the plug -- I eventually was able to say, "sure, such a gown clearly existed... but it probably wasn't the main thrust of fashion for women. This other layering method was."

I love the Moy Gown work you've done. I wonder how it would look as a _short-sleeved_ gown with buttons? There's this one gorgeous pictorial example of such a sleeve-style dating from 1380ish or so in the British Museum:

[img]http://www.cottesimple.com/misc/BM_cup_lid_1380_crop.jpg[/img]

Just musing,
-Tasha

[kass]

One wonders. Due to the fragmentary state of the sleeves, it could have been short sleeved and we wouldn't have known any differently. But there are two reasons I think it wasn't.

1) This is the garment of a working woman. I think short sleeves would be a fashionable thing. I think the whole reason she has buttons on the front and on the sleeves, following your theory T, is because she only wore one layer.

2) The Moy gown was found on a body. No other garments were found with it. If the Moy woman were wearing a short-sleeved gown, I would have expected there to be a long sleeved gown found under it -- or at least a pair of wool sleeves.

Are you sure those are buttons and not just some kind of decoration?

Neat picture though... Thanks for showing it to me.

Kass

[Tailoress]

I think your ideas make total sense (i.e. long-sleeved gown). The two-gown system appears to be very much a sign of wealth and fashion, just as buttons were, and there's a good argument for the 'scotehardie' having passed down to the lower classes in the form of a layer-conflating imitation -- especially where buttons are fabric/self-stuffed, like the Moy Gown's.

As for the picture, the version I posted is rather low-res, but for a higher res version you could take out "_crop" from the original URL and see the full-size scan I have. I'm pretty sure this is a French work that ended up in the British Museum... it was painted on some sort of vessel or serving dish, though I'm not recalling details presently. Judging from the higher-res version, it looks like buttonholes to me, on a folded-back sleeve that goes to just past the elbow, or to the elbow. It would make sense that the buttonholes would be on the "top" side of the closure edges, too.

It's a rather pretty style, though worn by a saint. I suspect it's a realistic depiction of clothing, not some allegorical version of one.

-Tasha

[kass]

Neato! Thanks again for the picture, T!

Kass

[ishrajl]

The two-gown system appears to be very much a sign of wealth and fashion, just as buttons were, and there's a good argument for the 'scotehardie' having passed down to the lower classes in the form of a layer-conflating imitation -- especially where buttons are fabric/self-stuffed, like the Moy Gown's.

So are you saying that on the more expensive dresses the buttons were not fabric?

In my (very) limited research, I'm actually having trouble finding instances of non-fabric buttons, so any examples you have of metallic or other types would be wonderful.

Kim

[Caithlinn]

Hi,

The picture is from the (enamelled) lid of the Royal Gold Cup of the Kings of England and France, c. 1380 in the British Museum. The scene shows Procopius offering St. Agnes a box of jewels.

For metal buttons, try to get a hold of "Dress accessories" by Geoff Egan and Frances Pritchard (Museum of London series, ISBN: 0112904440). There are quite a few extant examples in there.

Hope this helps,

Caithlinn

[Tailoress]

So are you saying that on the more expensive dresses the buttons were not fabric?

What Caithlinn said;

Pewter was another relatively low-cost button material. Copper-alloy was another option (bronze and brass for instance); rich buttons were often made from precious metals, sometimes set with gems, etc.

Also, speaking of Irish buttons, a small stash of copper-alloy buttons were found in Cork County, Ireland recently. They were made of wire or thin metal strips which had been knotted in something akin to the Turkshead/Chinese/Monkey's Paw knot style. There was a presentation on these buttons at the most recent K'zoo Medieval Congress in Kalamazoo, MI, USA by Elizabeth Wincott Heckett, who's been studying recent archaeological finds in Ireland due to the digging up and re-laying of roads and other infrastructure there.

The buttons are dated to the late 13th/early 14thc, are 8 shank, with four passes to create the knot. The wire was shaped around some unknown, round core to help create the ball shape. Each button was about 1.5cm each in diameter. Here's a sketch I made of one of the buttons shown in slides:

[img]http://www.cottesimple.com/misc/Irish_knot_button_sketch.jpg[/img]

-Tasha