Tea at Trianon: Medieval Ladies and Burgundian Dress

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, January 6, 2014

Medieval Ladies and Burgundian Dress

The challenges of fifteenth century women's fashion as explained by Dr. Sarah Peverley. To quote:

The houppelande was a sumptuously weighty gown, lined with fur, worn over a slim fitting cotehardie and chemise. By the early fifteenth century it had developed a long train, large turned-back collar and lavishly long sleeves. In the 1440s the sleeves started to become tighter again and, as the century moved on, they became the slim-fitted sleeves of the burgundian gown, with fur or fabric bell-shaped cuffs that could be turned back. The collar of the houppelande similarly evolved, dropping down further and wider, until it became the V-neck shape of the burgundian gown. Other changes included the gradual introduction of a deeper belt, or girdle, to draw in the loose-fitting skirt, creating a more slender waist line. By the end of the century the top of the dress had become so fitted that such a large belt was no longer needed and ladies (by this time Tudor ladies) wore thinner, decorative belts.

For late fifteenth-century inspiration, I turned to my favourite images of the gowns from medieval art and manuscripts: a depiction of Saint Ursula in the Master of Lucy Legend’s painting of the Virgin surrounded by female saints (circa 1488); two images of Mary of Burgundy in Mary of Burgundy’s Book of Hours (circa 1477); a painted panel circa 1480 depicting Saint Catherine converting the scholars (Walters Art Museum 37.2487); and The Whore of Babylon in Pierpont Morgan MS M. 68. (Read more.)