Cold Weather Gear part 2 - Women
The first article in this series was about gender-neutral winter clothing and accessories of the earlier 17th century Europe. This second article examines those articles of cold weather gear used specifically by women. As we have so very little information about women's winter clothing and accessories specific to Scotland in our era, we may turn to art and archaeology from neighboring cultures. For example, winter genre scenes become conveniently common in the Netherlands in the early 17th century. A fair number of such paintings by Hendrick Avercamp, for example, are worth studying.
To get you off to a good start, here is a video of an English woman getting dressed in the winter of 1627 in the New World, made by the fine folks at Plimouth Patuxet Museums.
ITEMS FOR WOMEN
Coif: a linen cap, sometimes embroidered, which was worn indoors by itself, or under a hat outdoors. See Kass McGann's patterns for several varieties of coifs and caps in the Clann Library.
Biggin: a linen or woolen coif worn in bed, which usually ties under the chin (Harrison p 109), or, again, worn under a hat.
Kerchief: Usually a linen square, worn indoors and out over the head for warmth. Common throughout Europe (including Scotland) and worn in any number of ways. (McClintock pp 116 - 117).
Hood: There were a wide variety of both linen and wool hoods in use in the 17th c. Here is a short article with many links to examples. Mind the dates, as the article covers from 1600 to the early 1700s.
Muffler: essentially a scarf made from lots of fine linen worn over the neck and chin, mentioned in a description of better class women in the Pale (English-controlled area around Dublin) written ca. 1620 (McClintock p 113).
Muff: originated in 15th c Venice. In use by English merchant class and above women, they were rather small in 1630 - barely large enough to place hands within - but larger by 1640. Made of wool, wool with fur trim, or fur alone (which are probably best for us), they were often hung from a cord around the neck to keep the muff at a comfortable and convenient height. Muffs were apparently not much worn by men until King Louis XIV popularized them in the late 17th or early 18th c (Cosgrove p 160). See this Wenzel Hollar illustration from 1645.
Mask: Black "taffety" masks (taffeta has had many different meanings over the centuries; in our period it was usually silk, although it could also mean linen - OED) which covered either the upper half of the face or the whole face were in use by English merchant class women by the early 17th c. Also exported from England to the Pale, where they were worn pinned to a linen muffler by ca. 1620 (McClintock p 113). They were used to protect the face from winter wind as well as summer sun (one wouldn't want to be tan as a peasant), and also to protect one's identity when in an unseemly place, such as a playhouse. The full-face mask was known as a vizard.
The woman facing the viewer in the lower right corner of Hendrick Avercamp's c 1620 painting "Enjoying the Ice Near a Town" is wearing one type of mask, as well as a muff. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. There are at least two other women in this painting wearing masks.
Ditto both "Winter" (1643) and "The Winter habit of an English Gentlewoman" (1644) by Wenceslaus Hollar, who are each wearing a warm hood, a muff, and a mask.
Here is an archaeological example of a 17th c child's leather mask found in Kampen, Netherlands.
Partlet: A linen partlet is often worn over the top of the sark to keep off the sun from the late 15th c to the early 17th c, but woolen partlets were also worn over the outer clothes for warmth.
Sleeve: There are surviving knitted sleeves from our era that were pinned to the bodice. There is a pattern in The Tudor Tailor: Reconstructing Everyday 16th Century Dress by Dr. Jane Malcolm-Davies and Ninya Mikhaila. This is a reproduction. Here are two links to purchase the pattern: Tudor Tailor and Ravelry.
Waistcoats/Petticoats: Although most extant sweaters from the 16th and 17th c are knitted from silk, there are two survivors knitted from wool. According to Dr. Jane Malcolm-Davies of both the Tudor Tailor and the Knitting in Early Modern Europe project, as these waistcoats/petticoats were worn under the outer layer of clothing, they do not appear in illustrations, but there is documentation that both women and men - including sailors - wore them. They were often red. This may be what in Scotland is called a Wyliecote. (n.b. Cable knit sweaters were not invented until the late 19th century.)
Here is a podcast where Dr Malcolm-Davies discusses these garments.
Wyliecoat: an under-petticoat typically of woolen or flannel, also worn in bed. Unlike a sark, this garment was sometimes colored.
Mantle: full length cloaks often with sheepskin fringe or thrums(?) were popular in Ireland. Here is an Irish woman (sitting nearest to us at the table) wearing one in 1581 from John Derrick's The Image of Irelande.
Rug: like the mantle above, only they ended at the hips. Manufactured in Ireland, and known to have been exported to both England and France, where they were quite popular (McClintock pp 51 - 52)
Capelet: an elbow length cape of wool, fur, or wool with fur trim.
Apron: Not only protects one's clothing while working, but also provides another layer. Aprons would usually only be white linen for upper-class portrayals, or for merchant-class Sunday best. They would often be of dyed wool for working class women. Wool has the advantage that it is not only warmer than linen, but is also so much less flammable than other fabrics, which is an important consideration for us. Aprons with a bib covering the chest are not appropriate. Recent documentary research by Pat Poppy shows that of the over 400 17th c aprons in her database, the fabric of which they are made is known in about 100 of them; 30% of these are wool, and another 7% are linsey-wolsey (plant warp, wool weft). (Poppy, Aprons, pp 9, 20)
Bibliography
(n.b. All links were active as of 11 December 2023.)
Malcolm-Davies, Jane and Ninya Mikhaila The Tudor Tailor: Reconstructing Everyday 16th Century Dress. Costume and Fashion Press, West Hollywood CA 2006. McClintock, H. F. Old Irish Dress and that of the Isle of Man. Dundalgan Press, Dundalk, Ireland 1950 Poppy, Pat. "Aprons for Men and Women in the Stuart Period: Practical Garment and Fashion Accessory." Journal of Dress History, vol 7, issue 2, 2023 pp 9 - 25
