Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages: Third EditionCutts, Edward Lewes
History
Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages: Third Edition
Cutts, Edward Lewes
Civilization, Medieval; Middle Ages -- Social life and customs
Dominus Robertus de Walsham, precentor of Sarum (f. 100 v.), is in his
choir habit, a white surplice, and over it a fur amys fastened at the
throat with a brooch. Dns. Robertus de Hereforde, Dean of Sarum (f. 101),
has a lilac robe and hood fastened by a gold brooch. There is another
dean, Magister Johnnes Appleby, Dean of St. Paul's, at f. 105, whose
costume is not very distinctly drawn. It may be necessary to assure some
of our readers, that the colours here described were not given at the
caprice of a limner wishing to make his page look gay. The portraits were
perhaps imaginary, but the personages are habited in the costume proper to
their rank and order. The series of Benedictine abbots and monks in the
same book are in black robes; other monks introduced are in the proper
habit of their order; a king in his royal robes; a knight sometimes in
armour, sometimes in the civil costume of his rank, with a sword by his
side, and a chaplet round his flowing hair; a lady in the fashionable
dress of the time; a burgher in his proper habit, with his hair cut short.
And so the clergy are represented in the dress which they usually wore;
and, for our purpose, the pictures are more valuable than if they were
actual portraits of individual peculiarities of costume, because we are
the more sure that they give us the usual and recognised costume of the
several characters. Indeed, it is a rule, which has very rare exceptions,
that the mediæval illuminators represented contemporary subjects with
scrupulous accuracy. We give another representation from the picture of
John Ball, the priest who was concerned in Wat Tyler's rebellion, taken
from a MS. of Froissart's Chronicle, in the Bibliothèque Impériale at
Paris. The whole picture is interesting; the background is a church, in
whose churchyard are three tall crosses. Ball is preaching from the pulpit
of his saddle to the crowd of insurgents who occupy the left side of the
picture. In the Froissart MS. Harl. 4,380, at f. 20, is a picture of _un
vaillant homme et clerque nommé Maistre Johan Warennes_, preaching against
Pope Boniface; he is in a pulpit panelled in green and gold, with a pall
hung over the front, and the people sit on benches before him; he is
habited in a blue robe and hood lined with white.
[Illustration: _John Ball, Priest._]
The author of Piers Ploughman, carping at the clergy in the latter half of
the fourteenth century, says it would be better
"If many a priest bare for their baselards and their brooches,
A pair of beads in their hand, and a book under their arm.
Sire[304] John and Sire Geffrey hath a girdle of silver,
A baselard and a knife, with botons overgilt."
A little later, he speaks of proud priests habited in patlocks,--a short
jacket worn by laymen,--with peaked shoes and large knives or daggers. And
in the poems of John Audelay, in the fifteenth century, a parish priest is
described in
"His girdle harnesched with silver, his baselard hangs by."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account