Giotto and the Ageless Fashion: An Essay on Medieval Aesthetics

Dream of the Palace by Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337)

Take pleasure in your dreams; relish your principles and drape your purest feelings on the heart of a precious lover 

Giotto di Bondone

I. Introduction: A Summary of Historical Research on the 14th Century  

         The 1300s were a particularly gloomy time in Europe. As the Black Death began in the mid-14th century (1358), so, for the next hundred years, European culture would be defined by an aesthetic of tragedy. Christianity was at its most dogmatic. Deeply obstinate religious values had become embedded in daily life, where the robes of the monk and the scepters of the high clergy were a regular sight. Consequently, clothing represented degrees of piety, as well as social belonging. During a time when contagion spread with an unparalleled mortal wrath, belonging, most often signified by faith, become a paramount concern. In this way, the manner in which people dressed was not only a sign of religious and class loyalty, but of basic hygiene. Dress, in the 14th century was, as it continues to be today, representative of the wearer’s health, and thus, within the social environments of the Black Death, of their survival.

“The ninety years from 1340 to 1430 share with the tenth and twentieth centuries the dubious honor of being one of the most violent periods in the history of Europe,” writes Fossier in The Cambridge Illustrated History of The Middle Ages (52). In such an age as the 14th century, with its inception marred by plague and injustice, practicality was nowhere more evident in the daily life of the vast majority of people, who suffered the greatest brunt of such a cruel epoch.  Despite the widespread brutality, which largely defined the 14th century of Europe, as the social impacts of the plague began to fade in the latter half of the following century, and with it’s demise came scenes of bucolic jubilee. “One of the most notable effects of the impact of the Plague was to have highlighted the inequitable distribution of the population between the towns as places of refuge…” Fossier notes, regarding the plight of so many people who, if they escaped the plague, were devastated by the onslaught of war, crime and a rise in belligerent lasciviousness (56).

II. 14th Century Life and Fashion: Social, Economic, Religious, and Political Influences

As depicted from scenes of 14th century village life, among country laborers, there continued a strong tradition of accessory fashion in the hat. “There were several forms of the hat, ranging from the pointed ‘Phrygian cap’ to something resembling a beret, and to hats with wide brims which were worn over the hood when travelling,” writes James Laver in the revised, expanded and updated 1995 edition of Costume and Fashion. “Indoors, men sometimes wore the coif of plain linen covering the ears and tied under the chin” (60). With footwear relatively unchanged, the peasant wore a strapped, soft boot-like slip that extended at the knee, and an undergarment of tights following upwards from the toe to the neck when needed in cold climates during outdoor work. A one piece-jacket overall extended also to the knee, where it was held in at the waist by a belt of open-holed fasteners, to attach tools and the like. The peasant would add neck warmers and thick gloves to his workaday garb, at times adding a second layer of tunic (see image 1).

Outside of the classes represented by the clergy and the peasantry, who, with their superstitious and unhygienic customs were generally overrun by the Black Death, there lived the class of soldiers. One 14th century tomb plaque from the Flemish region of Belgium depicts a captain, also titled as magistrate, wearing the typical warrior’s attire. With sword in hand, engraved in the holy script of Latin, the metallic plaque is befitting for the nature of the warrior’s dress of the time, which may have weighed with leather, bronze, iron or steel. The captain holds in his other hand a heart-shaped shield below his waste. The man is protected from the pointed tips of his footwear to the plated sheath, V-neck collar. A smooth, and finely interwoven chainmail protects his neck and forearms, his hands and face uncovered, to reveal the photographic nature of this identifying, death certificate-like representation (see image 2).

Often, soldiers were armed with multiple types of armor in combination, the highest grade being that of steel. Not only was the soldier distinct in the class order of 14th century Europe by virtue of skill and prestige, their very clothing signified a level of economic attainment in a time where the everyday trade was compromised. As Fossier writes, “…things which could, when necessary, be manufactured in the villages – wooden or iron objects, clothes, tools – were steadily getting more expensive, and though this was a slow process, it was still faster than the rise in wages…” (102). Clothing, a fundamental trade good of villagers throughout Europe was especially impacted by such ruthless class divisions. Furthermore, the soldier was more and more seen as the very cause of the people’s plight as the high costs and seething injustices of war mounted steadily across the land. “Italian textiles are a case in point; profits there fell from 15 to 6 per cent in 1375,” Fossier elaborates. “These circumstances created an atmosphere of class conflict…” (102).

Despite the apparent impenetrable quality of the soldier class, with its hard-beaten, metallic exteriors, the 14th century proved an dubious time for the warrior class, whose role was often interchanged with the militant outrage of the oppressed. In The Cambridge Illustrated History of The Middle Ages, Fossier emphasizes this temperamental time in European history when, “…those social classes which had every reason to complain of their lot could not go on being aroused without something changing…the common people of the towns of Europe were spontaneously and simultaneously aroused, albeit for different reasons” (106-107). France, for example, had witnessed the violent assassination of the provost of the merchants in 1358. The act, although, political motivated, represents the larger social upheaval in a time when the merchants took up arms, enacting a brief displacement of the warrior’s prestige.

An illustration of the provost of the merchants, Étienne Marcel, depicts the high-class man with a large top hat, in a long, flowing robe reaching to his feet. This upper echelon man, shown in his last moments of life under the swing of an assassin’s halberd, wears exceptionally tight pants, which rudely emphasize the shape of his crotch. He wears a decorative undershirt, revealed between his robe, open, without stitch or button. The angry merchants surrounding him with deathblows wear either more lightly pigmented top hats or cover their heads in a single piece of braided white cloth. The ruffled shirt jacket hangs just above the knee, belted at the waist. The merchantmen wear black tights and slip shoes, if any footwear at all. Soldiers are distinguished by shining helmets, their tightly buttoned tops belted and hanging high just below the waist. The soldiers’ arms are clothed in a heavier fabric, puffed at the shoulders (see image 3).

Outside of informal justice, such as led by militant class rivalry, institutional law was meted with equal, if not more intensive, forms of cruelty. 13th century condemnation employed the gallows, where criminals would be committed to torture before a shaming crowd of onlookers, prior to execution. The lawman, typically clothed in a tight-fitting suit, buttoned twice up the torso, however, hanging close to the waist, would also carry a baton to strike the condemned. Wealthy onlookers wore capes, walking along with cane in hand. Most arrived in plain fitting shirts, ruffled, and hanging at the thigh. All, except the lawman, wore caps of varying sorts, others in full, monastic garb, were also hooded. The entire procession carried a religious air, as people showed their support for the lofty ideals of righting sin through judgment. The condemned, nude except for tattered underwear, walked barefoot to their doom (see image 4).

Also a symbol of reprieve, the executioner’s noose can be seen worn by those seeking special pardon directly from the pope. Such has been depicted in the life of the antipope Nicholas V, who arrived in such a fashion to beg at the feet of Pope John XXII in Avignon, France. Draped in a luxurious, armless gown that extended well beyond the feet, especially visually dramatic when kneeling, the robe was collared by a stiffer fabric against the back, all buttoned at the front of the neck by a studded brocade. The papal cap is featured as a conically tipped and striped adornment, tassels flowing against the ears. The pope, dressed equally as the antipope, was distinguished only in the fanciful shape of his brocade. Aside to the pope, an assistant clergymen wore a similarly fashioned robe, differentiated in social standing by a flat-topped hat under which a shawl stretched along the sides of the face and below the back of the neck (see image 5).

III. Fashion and Art in the 14th Century: Lines, Proportions, Color and Shape

The artist Simone Martini, who lived his entire professional life in the 14th century, is renowned for his famous work, The Church militant and triumphant, which to this day sits in the Spanish Chapel in Santa Maria Novella, Florence. Therein, Martini depicts the High Church dignitaries, to every last fabric of their richly decadent clothing. The pope, distinct by the opulence and shape of his headdress, stands with a scepter in hand, its tip curled with aesthetic elaboration. His robe, a picture of the cross, drapes carefully over his forearms, covered in a tight undergarment. Next, a cardinal, bishop and an abbot converse with a school of monks. The cardinal is depicted standing in a robe delicately embroidered with a tasteful pattern of circles against dark fabric, his head topped with a twin-pointed cap held up in a darkly colored headband.

The bishop sits aside the pope, with a flat-topped, wide-brimmed hat, set over a hooded shawl that drapes over his shoulders below his sides. The bishop’s undergarment is a plain, white fabric. Beside the bishop sits the abbot, who grips a tall, cross-pointed cane, his decorated headwear, shaped as two flat triangles accents the form of his beard with likeness. The abbot is caped, and belted at the shoulders by a plain sash, the seams a lighter color than the base fabric, and below the cape he wears fabrics similarly conceived. The monks’ and nuns’ attire vary in shades, between off-white to jet black, while each of their robes remain the same exact shape, their hood’s cloth wrapped about the lower neck, above the flowing robe that conceals the feet. Nuns are dressed similarly, as while their hoods extend to the feet. Select monks wear skullcaps and cross-shaped or floral brocades (see image 6).

The artist and architect Giotto di Bondone, who lived from 1266-1337, exemplifies the 13th century aesthetic with unparalleled gravity. He represented the first generation of artists in the Italian Renaissance, whose “monumental feel for composition and for the plasticity of the body, were not forgotten and emerged again…” was duly noted The Cambridge Illustrated History of The Middle Ages (Fossier, 183). As well as demonstrating physical plasticity, Giotto’s work also became known for its mythical, and decidedly irreverent content. As a result, his clever artistry not only enlightened holy and laypeople alike, it inspired a fellowship of artists. As Stella Mary Newton writes in Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince, “Giotto’s representation of Stultitia which, being among the Vices, can perhaps be interpreted as ‘light-mindedness’, has some slight justification; a similar attitude must have inspired the artists…” (see image 7).

Giotto was also exceptionally keen on portraying not simply the fashion of the day, but of dress in transition. For example, Giotto depicted women’s dress as set within the changing times, but amongst varied surroundings, i.e. religious versus domestic. Therefore, Giotto portrayed not only women, and their clothing, but also the way in which women were shaped by their surroundings, and how that was expressed through their dress. “Already in the fourteenth century Italians were showing a taste for fashions in dress which exemplified the classicism…” writes Newton, “By that time, in most Italian states, dress had lost almost completely the ‘folk’ quality, which Giotto had noticed and recorded in his Arena Chapel frescoes…” (86).  As Newton examined in an endnote to Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince, Giotto was insightfully aware of the influence of “fashionable occasions” where, for example, the marriage of the Virgin would represent a style of dress worlds apart from the Annunciation (see image 8).

One piece, aesthetically related to the diverse women’s fashions of the 13th century represented in Giotto’s Arena Chapel frescoes, is the Statue of St. Lucy. Her special folk-style ethnic dress, and manner, is especially understood in the neckwear; a peculiarly ornamented, thickly set metal piece. The woman holds a long-stem leaf in one hand, and in the other a mysterious black disk. Her belt is extraordinarily inlaid with sophisticated patterns, stitched and woven, with an elongated end hanging down from the waist to just below the knee. St. Lucy here wears a plain white dress, with an embroidered seam at the feet. Finally her headwear is an enigmatically upward-pointing fold of fabric, also seen in women depicted in religious settings. Overall, the Statue of St. Lucy embodies the local, ethnic style of Italian women’s fashion. Newton’s study relates Giotto’s work to the transitional period of women’s fashion and ethnic representation in art, which, she writes, “…correspond to the embroideries which Giotto included as the dress of some carefully chosen characters in his Arena chapel frescoes which has a similar ethnic look and which, as has been pointed out, disappeared from dress in sophisticated Italian painting soon after his time” (see image 9).

Giotto’s portrayal of Saint Anne in the Scrovegni Chapel is deftly attentive to the woman, and the woman’s clothing, as it extends into her surrounding aesthetic environment. The scene presents Saint Anne as a new mother in a relatively generic tone amid the austere simplicity and unadorned nature of the woman’s private sphere as visually bared, however retaining a certain feminine aesthetic. The woman’s plain dress, belted below the chest, opens at tightly around the neck. The wrists are enclosed tightly as the wide arm lengths narrow. The dress covers her entire body, even below the feet as she stands behind a narrow entranceway, giving over a skein of fabric to those caring for her newborn in the next room. Her hair unveiled, while a cloth head-wrap rests on her shoulder, she looks outward from her situation longingly. Immobile in a tight frame underneath the stairway, her clothing matches the architectural aesthetic, where the women’s space is domestically and privately reserved in the extreme (see image 10).

Similarly, Simone Martini’s The Blessed Agostino Novello, a polyptych painted between 1328-1330, depicts the women’s sphere with an utmost aesthetic reservation. The two women in the bedroom scene wear clothing so plain that it seems only to exist to shelter their bodies in the most basic way. Still, that shelter is apparently precarious as the newborn’s makeshift crib is shown as a source of deep anxiety for the older woman present. Unlike the younger woman, the elder’s hair is covered, her dress a darker shade, and held to her upper torso by a thin belt. The younger woman, dressed as in a nightgown, prays at the doorway, as to the spirits to allow her exit (see image 11).

In the exhaustive study, A History of Private Life, art historians Georges Duby, Dominique Barthélemy, and Charles de la Ronciére determine where broad human emotion is revealed through visual art in the European tradition. “For the first time in Italian history, we have religious paintings, frescoes, composed of episodes in which various figures, who constitute a sort of Holy Family, give vent to their deepest feelings,” the book states in its second volume, Revelations of the Medieval World. “Not all painters were equally successful in capturing these emotions, so let us concentrate on Giotto, the undisputed master of the fourteenth century, considered such and universally admired at the time.” Saint Anne is again depicted at the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua within the famed, Saint Joachim and Saint Anne at the Golden Gate, painted from 1304-1306.

Saint Joachim reunites in a love embrace with his long lost wife, Saint Anne at the Golden Gate in Jerusalem. In the immediate detail of the scene, the two holy lovers are cloaked in the most simple of robes. Saint Joachim wears a shawled robe about his chest, down to his bare feet. At the seam of his robe, light, silky embroidery speaks of his munificence, while juxtaposed with his unique humility. His undergarment is a rustic-toned, and broad-cuffed shirt that rests humbly about his neck without a collar. Similarly, Saint Anne’s dress begins to ruffle and flow from her lower chest. Her hair is reservedly well kept within a headscarf tightly folded above her brow. Saint Joachim is without a head covering (see image 12).

Meanwhile, a farmer, who strolls alongside carrying a wicker basket and small shovel, and two women, represents the people around Saint Joachim and Saint Anne in an image imbued with emotional meaning. The farmer wears a belted tunic, ruffled below the knee, his head hooded and feet covered with strapped, thick fabric. Another woman nearby wears an all-black shawl, as if she were in mourning, concealing half of her face from view, while an accompanying woman stands beside, with white, checkered shawl in hand, wearing a similar, although lighter garb as Saint Anne. Following the first woman are others, in even more colorful fashion, their hair decorated with an encircling braids and fanciful short hats, dressed in vibrant colors red and green. The scene, depicting a public show of affection amid the dramatic and historic cityscape, offers a renewing look at both the male and female in the context of public aesthetics, where a younger woman offers the company of youth and light through clothing and community to her darkened friend, and a young man passing by represents the Earth’s fertility (see image 13).

In Giotto’s works, such deep and complex human emotion comingles with the divine glory and beauty of reunion, as in such depictions as Lamentations over the Body of Christ, painted in 1304-1305, also at the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua. Here, the woman is depicted in mourning, while her black garb is roughly painted with traces of light. Her face, infinitely burdened at embracing her tortured son’s death, is further dramatized by the hooded figure looking away, as to express an emotion too dark for the light of human understanding. In contrast, the face of Christ, reunited with the Father, is one of divine harmony, his naked body clean and unfolded, and thus prominently brighter than the hooded figures downcast at his side. In this respect, Giotto portrays 13th century fashion as inherently obscuring the revelations of human emotional expression (see image 14).

IV. 14th Century Accessories Exposed: Underwear and Textiles of the Period

        The 14th century offers a wide spectrum of diverse cuts and types of textiles, shown in the broad selection of clothing and accessories in both men’s and women’s fashion. The clothing of the era is often catalogued in costume design. For example, Sarah Thursfield catalogues the diverse fashions of the era in her book, The Medieval Tailor’s Assistant. Body linens (also known as undergarments or underwear) were typified by everything from long-legged braies, short braies, the man’s shirt and woman’s smock (see image 15). Main garments of the 14th century, the second layer worn over the linens were a finer cote or a basic kirtle for the women, while the men wore a basic doublet or basic cote (see image 16). “Both men and women wore a cote of some kind from well before 1200 until abut the mid 14th century…About 1340 men started wearing the doublet…about 1370 women were wearing the kirtle…” writes Thursfield (16). Other garments included the hose, either separated or joined, along with such outer garments worn by both men and women as surcotes, sleeved or sleeveless, open or closed (see image 17). Other outer garments include cotehardies, adorning both men and women, as well as buttoned, fashionable, flared or fitted gowns for women and pleated or short gowns for men (see image 18).

Headwear included hats, caps and hoods for men, ranging from such textiles as felt, fur, and straw, either knitted or as coifs, while women wrapped or knotted kerchiefs, as well as hooded themselves (see image 19). Lastly, accessories were either with the headwear, such as plaits, hairnets, barbette and fillets, frilled veils, templers, separate horns, and padded rolls, or elsewhere on the person, such as the man’s belt with purse and knife, the woman’s drawstring purse, the split mitten, the woman’s apron, and finally, the basket (see image 20). “Wool and linen were the mainstay of most people’s wardrobes, with silk becoming commoner in the late middle ages,” Thursfield writes in her exhaustive manual on costume design and medieval fashion. “During the 14th century Italian silk weaving continued to progress…” (63-64).

Within the paintings of Giotto are reflected common themes in the role of men and women in the 13th century. As clothing announces form, so women are meaningfully situated in the frame of a painting opposite to their male counterparts. Giotto’s, Death of the Knight of Celano, located in the Upper Church of the Convent of Saint Francis in Assisi, Italy, glorifies the role of woman as mourner, whose dress suits her role as domestic partner unto death. In this painting, even though the death of Celano is sudden, the women are draped in long, heavy shawls, which hang over their necks and backs, their dresses both lightly and darkly pigmented. The woman’s loose-fitting adornment emphasizes their role as comforter, mourner, caretaker and wife, while the often tightly fitting forearms enable her to continue her handiwork. Meanwhile, the knight Celano, is himself wealthily clothed in a fine, one-piece robe from neck to feet, belted at the waist by a piece specially conceived within the aesthetic unity of his garb. A thickly embroidered cape sits along his neck, covering his arms. The design matches his multicolored headband, vibrantly proclaiming his social prestige, as the many onlookers, women and accompanying monks alike gather to mourn in respect (see image 21).

One of the most iconic illuminations from the Luttrel Psalter, a manuscript from the 14th century, painted circa 1335-1340 demonstrates the elaborate clothing style not only of the knight, but also of his lady. The full color illustration impresses the majority of plainclothes onlookers with its cerulean majesty, avian designs, amid a watery aesthetic. Therein, the lady offers up her hand to the mounted knight, her hair braided in pearls, and her long, flowing dress a decadence of gold-hued and verdant-striped wonder. Many accessorial fabrics run down her chest to her legs, draping her with a sign of loyalty from her cobalt-enwrapped master. At her chest, a textured embroidery of circular aesthetic opens at her arms, which are covered in matching-colored tights (see image 22).

“Only women cried at funerals, but these ritual tears were intended to communicate the family’s pain to the public at large. Not to shed them was an insult to the honor of the deceased,” reads volume two of A History of Private Life, in a section on the important portraiture that emerged on the eve of the Renaissance. “But such tears were of necessity extravagant, a travesty of true feelings which did nothing to enhance family intimacy” (Duby, et al. 278) Thus, it was especially perceptive and profound for such as the artistry of Giotto to paint of the private life of women, where in their solace, they practiced authentic rituals of prayer and devotion, wherein their domestic sphere they had an outlet to express their deepest and most sincere emotion. The truth of human emotion, after all, is the final subject of such master artists, whose works propelled Western civilization into one of its more beloved creative eras.

In Giotto’s Saint Anne Receives a Visit from an Angel, painted from 1304-1306 in the Scorvegni Chapel of Padua, Italy, the bedroom of the woman is truthfully represented as her sole refuge of consolation, where she expresses her heart’s devotion genuinely and privately. The painting must have had great meaning for women who gazed into its shades, as many who returned to their bedrooms nightly wished for an angelic communion. Saint Anne here is lightly adorned with a transparent fabric overlain atop her hair, and falling below her neck. Her one-piece nightgown fabric is beautifully arranged with delicate lacework along the seam of her collar and upper arm, as well as at her cuff, and down the middle of her chest. The deep ruffles curl under her as she kneels before an angel’s visitation, who wears much the same attire, only of a much lighter shade (see image 23). As written in A History of Private Life, “Among women true private devotion led to estrangement from the world” (Duby, et al. 308). Hence, women’s dress represents her life as a fixed pattern of activity in accordance with the greater, patriarchal society, although her dress varies, she remains consigned to an order of female repression.

Finally, the 14th century offered a unique insight on the span of trends in clothing, dress and style across Europe, where everyone from the peasant farmer to the lady of a wealthy knight exhibited an impressive array. Even as the pragmatism of survival crept into daily life with blinding resolve, there still arose an uncanny inventiveness among the peoples of Europe, who it seems, ascribed unprecedented importance to the role of dress, thus producing the 14th century’s inimitably distinctive fashion sense. “It was in the second half of the fourteenth century that clothes both for men and for women took on new forms, and something emerges which we can already call ‘fashion’,” reads James Laver’s invaluable work, Costume and Fashion in his section on Early Europe (62).    

As, in such a time as the 14th century, when the society has been split open through the incessant travails of extreme strife, when, for example, husbands were regularly absent from their homes during wartime, certain oddities occur that transcend normative gender roles. Rarely is a 14th century woman depicted as women are depicted today as a constant source of physical and sexual desire. What Owen refers to in Noble Lovers as the “crude picture of female subservience and deprivation” opposite to the dominant male roles in society, was still not without certain deviations. Owen continues, “…even the earlier centuries provide outstanding instances of women who, by force of character or intelligence, left their mark on history” (12).

For example, French medieval society practiced multiple wedding ceremonies, where in many instances, three women would be married at once. Such women, plainly adorned in flat, monochrome outfits that fitted tightly around the lower neck, and hung in a modestly ruffled mass around the feet, were starkly contrasted with the men who bore witness to such events. The male onlookers of the church were outfitted in full regalia, crowned and robed with the majestic opulence of his extravagant lengths of fabric that he held in bunches around his oversized sleeve, so as not to dirty the lower seams. Bridegrooms, however, were not exceptionally overdressed, and were featured behind the women in one miniature painting from 14th century France. The young men were almost unseen, so as to emphasize the real value of the wedding ceremony as the attainment of the virgin bride (see image 24).
Nonetheless, in anomalous circumstances, men, even monks, were seen publicly vying for female affection. In one 14th century miniature, a black-robed monk, with typically bald-shaved, ring-style haircut, his penitence beads dangling at his side, holds a ring up to the eye of a desired woman. The lady, dressed in fabrics that flow with dramatic elegance, waves to him, as she motions her acceptance or rejection. She is dressed informally, with her blouse revealed, as her dress is slack, hanging at her waist, as she carries its trail with one hand, the finer, transparent linens touching the ground ever so lightly (see image 25).  

V. Summary: The Fashion Legacy of the 14th Century

         Contemporary fashion continues to draw from the unique legacy of the 14th century, through such artists as Fra Angelico. The idea that an Italian monk who painted seven hundred years ago could inspire two young courtiers, Kate and Laura Mulleavy from Los Angeles, U.S.A., caught the eyes of both L.A. Weekly and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), among the entire global fashion community (see image 26). In 2011 LACMA exhibited the Rodarte clothing and accessory line featuring inspirations from Fra Angelico. “Suspended from the ceiling like pale angels, the ten Rodarte gowns in the middle of LACMA's Italian Renaissance gallery are the prettiest imposters you've ever seen,” wrote Caroline Ryder, fashion blogger for L.A. Weekly. “They decided to base their entire collection on the art of a pious 14th century brother.”

Leading up to the 14th century, cultural advancements flourished in an era of romance, poetry and art. In the preceding centuries prior to the Renaissance, as love outside of wedlock began to foment in the minds of traditional, medieval Europe, there arose the equalizing power of love. Such a force, as it gained momentum throughout the 14th century, continues to break down gender barriers and burn bridges so firmly maintained by multigenerational traditions of family honor, religious sectarianism and cultural belonging. In one 14th century Italian fresco presenting a scene from the well-admired narrative, The Chatelaine de Vergy, three different circumstances are shown of the two principal lovers. The young woman, plainly adorned with a delicate, white fabric over her darker undershirt and outstretched arm, reaches for her lover, a knight, decked in full armor. In the middle, the young, unarmored knight, in plain white shirt, on his horse, looks upon his love as she awaits him in a high castle tower. Gazing from above, her hair is pulled back tightly, her collar a formal display of dress in the domestic sphere of the court. While, in the last variance, the lady has escaped the court, and the two lovers meet in a grove, where this time the knight is more cordially dressed, raising his hand as in honor of her and in a show of his devotion (see image 27).

Chatelaine de Vergy is a story that dramatizes the role of men and women with special insight, not only into their individual roles, but also through its impact on the greater society as a popular tale of the time. Anonymously written, often in the case in such as the oral traditions of medieval Europe, Chatelaine de Vergy is from an era where folklore, mythology and improvised storytelling lent itself to a characterful and ever-alive culture of tale spinning. The narration opens with the line, “…the greater the love, the more grieved are true lovers when one of them thinks the other has told what he should conceal.” In which case, it seems that not only was the 14th century riddled with the paramount importance of basic survival, but also, at the same time, as the rules of lovers’ courtship changed towards a more personable and private experience, so one’s clothing, how one dressed and presented oneself, became an ever more important show of secrecy and loyalty among lovers. In this way, the 1300s invented fashion. As the story continues, “And often such damage comes of it that their love has to end in deep sorrow and shame, as happened in Burgundy to a bold, worthy knight and the lady of Vergy” (103).




Bibliography:

Ariès, Phillipe and Duby, Georges, Eds. A History of Private Life: Revelations of the Medieval World. Vol. II. Cambridge, U.S.A.: Harvard University Press, 1988.

Fossier, Robert, Ed. Trans. by Tenison, Sarah Hanbury. The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages: 1250-1520. Vol. III. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

Laver, James. Costume and Fashion. London: Thames & Hudson, 1995

Lawner, Lynne. Lives of the Courtesans: Portraits of the Renaissance. New York, U.S.A.: Rizzoli, 1987

Owen, D.D.R. Noble Lovers. London, UK: Phaidon Press Limited, 1975

Newton, Mary Stella. Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince: A Study of the years 1340-1365. Suffolk, UK: Boydell Press, 1980

Payne, Blanche. History of Costume. United Kingdom: Harper Collins, 1965.

Prevenier, Walter and Blockmans, Wim. The Burgundian Netherlands. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1986

Ribeiro, Aileen and Cummings, Valerie. The Visual History of Costume. London: Batsford,1989

Russell, Douglas, A. Costume History and Style, New Jersey, U.S.A.:Prentice Hall, 1983

Thursfield, Sarah. The Medieval Tailor's Assistant: Making Common Garments 1200-1500. California, U.S.A.: Costume and Fashion Press, 2001

Ryder, Caroline. “Rodarte's Fra Angelico Collection at LACMA: How a Monk Inspired Fashion's Famous Duo”. L.A. Weekly. Dec. 16 2011. Retrieved from: http://blogs.laweekly.com/arts/2011/12/rodartes_fra_angelico_lacma.php



Appendix A: Images


1.

Laver, James. Costume and Fashion. London: Thames & Hudson, 1995. Pages 60-61

2.



Fossier, Robert, Ed. Trans. by Tenison, Sarah Hanbury. The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages: 1250-1520. Vol. III. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Page 103

3.



Fossier, Robert, Ed. Trans. by Tenison, Sarah Hanbury. The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages: 1250-1520. Vol. III. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Page 106

4.

Fossier, Robert, Ed. Trans. by Tenison, Sarah Hanbury. The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages: 1250-1520. Vol. III. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Page 114

5.



Fossier, Robert, Ed. Trans. by Tenison, Sarah Hanbury. The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages: 1250-1520. Vol. III. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Page 126

6.



Fossier, Robert, Ed. Trans. by Tenison, Sarah Hanbury. The Cambridge Illustrated History of the Middle Ages: 1250-1520. Vol. III. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Page 135

7.



Newton, Mary Stella. Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince: A Study of the years 1340-1365. Suffolk, UK: Boydell Press, 1980. Page 83

8.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Giotto_-_The_Seven_Virtues_-_Justice.JPG

9.

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This paper was prepared as part of an international cross-cultural exploration between independent Israeli and Canadian scholars