HOSE
- FOOTED HOSE - SOCKS
- GARTERS
Hose,
as well as socks, were worn by women in the middle ages. Our model woman
Margherita Datini, the wife of a wealthy merchant and a member of the
upper class's wardrobe account of 1339 lists both white linen undersocks
and long hose of silk or wool. The illumination detail at right shows
a female musician with her kirtle raised to reveal a pair of striped
hose or socks.
Hose
Hose were worn by all classes of women as a precursor to the
modern sock although socks were worn also. Hose in medieval England
were cut on the bias to allow for a certain about of elasticity in the
cloth, particularly linen and wool. Rosemary Hawthorne's book Stockings
and Suspenders states that in Spain, knitted silk hose were known
as early as the 11th century and gradually made their way to Europe
and eventually France but seemingly no further until 1562 when the English
Queen was gifted silk stockings from The Yeoman of The Wardrobe, Robert
Rowbotham.
Knitting
was a craft which was exclusively a male dominated art, and in the early
stages, an occupation only permitted by the clergy. Fine stockings and
ecclesiastical gloves were knitted from fine silk using two or more
needles on round frames similar to the modern french knitting bees,
only substantially larger. Only in the late 15th century were widows
admitted to the guild to carry on the skills of their husbands. Regular
two-needle knitting does not appear to have been used to make hose,
only short socks.
Pictured at left is a beautiful brocaded silk hose belonging to the
Archbishop of Bayonne in the late 14th century. The cut and pattern
is still very uncomplicated, but the fabric denotes it as an item of
clothing of great worth.
Streapeles
were leggings worn from the knee to ankle and also have been known as
breeches of some kind. While a man's hose extended over his upper thigh
and joined to his waistband or upper clothing, it is believed that a
women's hose, as best we are able to define, reaches no further than
her knee and was kept up with a garter buckled or tied under the knee.
The small detail from an illumination at right, suggests by the amount
of fabric bunched down just below the knee, that perhaps women's hose
were longer after all.
Footed
Hose
Footed hose were popular with men during the
13th and 14th centuries and can be seen in many manuscript illuminations
and artworks. The footwear is essentially hose which covers the entire
leg and foot with a sturdy leather sole sewn to the underneath. A late
13th century altar front painting from France The Three Magi,
from the Episcopal Museum shows two of the Magi with gowns drawn back
to the hip showing long, thigh high hose with two side straps very much
like suspenders but it is completely unknown whether this is a fashion
which was adopted by women.
The image of the artifact at right shows hose dated to 1247 which are
the burial hose of Rodrigo Ximenez de Rada from Madrid. Although these
are men's hose, they do give us an idea how the hose were worn for men:
that is, tied to a band around the waist. There is no proof that this
method was adopted by women, but there is also no real proof that it
was not.
Owing to the nature of hose itself, it is difficult to ascertain whether
women wore footed hose or hose with shoes only. Generally a wealthy
woman's leg is not depicted under her voluminous robes other than the
point of her shoes and written references to this item seem to be either
not worth writing about, unseemly to write about or not written about
because they were not worn.
At one point it became fashionable for the long-pointed toes on the
hose to be fastened with chains to the garters. These long toes were
called crackows, a term that was later used to describe the shoe
which similarly had long-pointed toes.
Socks
Socks can be documented back to the 8th century.
Our model woman Margherita from the 14th century owned a pair of white
linen socks, the design of which is not mentioned.
Shown at left is a pair of red, knitted toe socks made of wool which
are housed in the V&A Museum. They are dated somewhere about 300-500
AD. It appears by the construction of the socks that they are designed
to be worn with sandles of some kind. Image used with kind permission
of Amanda and Jane at thewomensroomblog.
While this is stubstantially earlier than the medieval period, it shows
that socks were being worn in one form or another since early times.
The sock shown at left shows a different construction to earlier types
of sock or hose- that is, they appear to have a triangular gore in the
side as well as the seam which joins the foot to the top.
They are made of knitted silk and are dated at around 1540-1560 and
are currently housed in the Museum of London. It is unknown whether
the sock belonged to a man or a woman.
Garters
In order to keep the hose from slipping down the leg, a garter or hoggers
was utilised. Some tied above the rounded part of the calf and just
under the knee itself, but the more affluent ladies had those which
buckled.
Since garters were not intended to be seen by any man other than her
own husband, a woman's garters may have fine needlework embroidered
onto them or French mottoes of courtly love or amorous words of love
which were not designed to be seen by other than the eyes of an intimate
companion, namely her husband.
Shown
at left, a garter from a late 14th century deposit in London, although
once again, it is not possible to know whether it was worn by a woman
or man. The daggued edges are actually woven scallops which were seemly
done by hand when the band was originally woven and not cut in afterwards.
Not all garters were made this way. It was quite usual for the selvages
or other strips of material to be cut and sewn into garters as a way
of reusing scraps of fabric. It is probable that it belonged to a man
as the decorative daggueing seems designed to be displayed rather than
concealed. The straight edge would have been worn of the upper of the
leg with the daggues dangling downwards. It is interesting that the
wearer could afford time-consuming, and thereby expensive, daggued garters
and yet they garters are tied rather than buckled which is what one
expects of a person who can afford specially-woven narrow ware.
Also
from a late 14th century deposit in London, at right, woven twill used
for a garter. It is an unpatterned compound twill. Image from the Museum
of London.
Since the fabric is a plain weave and the garter is tied, we can deduce
that the wearer was perhaps a regular person and not from the upper
classes. A working person would see no need for expensive metal buckles
when they would not be seen at any rate.
