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by Alianora Munro
The fashions worn at the Burgundian court during the late fifteenth century were among the most glamourous in mediaeval Europe. Like the Gothic architecture also fashionable at the time, the clothes of the Burgundian dukes and their courtiers were distinguished by elegant, attenuated lines. Shoes stretched out into long points. Ladies' hats rose like church spires. The silhouettes of the era provide (sometimes in muddled form) a standard image of mediaeval dress in the minds of many people.
The fashions of the era were not monolithic, however. They were styles of dress, not uniforms, and in addition to expected changes over time, one also sees variation within a given span of time. One such individual style seems particularly associated with Marie de Bourgogne, the daughter and heiress of Charles the Bold
In two manuscripts associated with Marie, one sees an interesting variant of the v-neckline fashionable at the time. Most depictions of ladies' dress from the 1460s to 1480s show a very deep v-neck, the point of which usually to the waist, with a contrasting piece of fabric or undergown beneath for modesty's sake. However, there are a few examples in which the neckline is shallower, more comparable to a modern portrait collar. This variations appears most famously in a miniature from the Hours of Mary of Burgundy, and also in many of the marginal illuminations in the same manuscript.1
This miniature, which dates from c. 1480, shows a lady (possibly Marie herself) seated in front of a window reading, wearing a brown velvet dress with red velvet collar and cuffs. Her belt and atours are brown cloth-of-gold, and the atours is draped with a filmy white or off-white veil. Click here to see this miniature.
The same neckline variation appears in another illumination, probably c. 1476-1477, attributed to the workshop of the Master of Mary of Burgundy. A miniature in the registry of the guild of St Anne in Ghent shows Margaret of York (the third wife of Charles the Bold and sister of Edward IV of England) and her stepdaughter Marie kneeling before the altar of St Anne in the Church of St Nicholas in Ghent.2
Both ladies wear dresses with the neckline seen in the later Book of Hours. Margaret's collar, cuffs and hem are ermine (it is likely that the whole dress was lined with fur), and Marie wears a dark dress trimmed with a grey fur.
Pompeia lies stretched out on the floor in a composed posture, her head resting not far from her shoulders. Her dress is a very light red,
almost peach, colour with a white collar, belt, and trim at the hem of her skirt. Her cuffs have been pulled down over her hands so the
colour of the lining is not visible, but that too was probably white.
If these two manuscripts were the only attestations of this neckline variation, one could easily explain it
as a peculiarity of the Burgundian duchesses. However, I am aware of two other dresses in this style. One, in a French manuscript
of c. 1475, shows Julius Caesar looking at the decapitated bodies of several of his enemies, including Pompeia, the wife of Faustus Sulla.3
This illumination depicts the Holy Virgins being admitted into Paradise, and prominently
placed near the front of the line is a maiden wearing a dress of exactly the same type seen in the earlier paintings, this time in white
with a black collar, and again the cuffs are pulled down over the hands. Behind her stands another maiden wearing the more usual v-neckline
with insert. The appearance of a dress in this style in a Flemish illumination is not inexplicable due to the close political and cultural
ties between Flanders and Burgundy in the fifteenth century, but it does seem unusual that it should appear there nearly a decade after
the death of the Duchess Marie.
The other example is found in a Flemish or South Netherlandish illumination dated to c. 1490, approximately
8 years after Duchess Marie's death in 1482.4
The closure on these gowns is not clear, but was probably in front, and in some cases the wearer may have been sewn into them. Since sewing oneself into a gown is
impractical for most recreationists, I have opted to use a front hook-and-eye closure on my own gowns, which is secure, and closes tightly enough
to mimic the lines of the mediaeval dresses. While many of us will not want to line the whole gown, from experience I do recommend lining the
full bodice, including the sleeves. This makes a cleaner line on the cuffs, finishes the edges of the front opening nicely, and makes the
application of the hooks and eyes easier. Adding a strip of boning between the lining and main fabric at the front opening also helps improve the line of the dress when worn.
Since the mediaeval depictions do not show the seams of the skirts, it is impossible to know exactly how they were cut
in period. However, the lines of the skirts are always flared, fitting closely around the waist, but growing increasingly wider toward the hem. I
find that cutting the skirt on a 6- or 8-gore pattern produces the correct line. The illuminations show that the skirts were so long that the wearers
had to lift them to walk, and might also have a train. Sometimes, but not always, there was a wide band of trim at the hem matching the collar and cuffs.
Two accessories are essential to recreating the look of late fifteenth-century Burgundian dress, though their construction is
beyond the scope of this article. The dresses are always shown worn with wide belts which fit closely under the bosom. The belts did not necessarily match
the dress or trimming; the large illumination of Marie de Bourgogne shows her with a brown cloth-of-gold belt over her brown velvet dress with its red trim.
As with other styles of dress at the same time, the headwear of choice was the atours (commonly though incorrectly called a hennin), the cone-like hat popular in various forms during the second half
of the fifteenth century. The illuminations of Marie and her stepmother Margaret show them wearing towering headdresses completely draped with sheer rectangular
veils; however there are also portraits of less exalted figures wearing shorter atours (some are scarcely more than pillboxes), which though still completely
draped are covered with more modest veils. Even hats of modest height were covered with fine fabrics. Marie's atours in brown cloth-of-gold has already been
mentioned, and others covered in brocade and velvet can be seen in other paintings.
ADDENDUM: This essay was first published in The Oak, the arts and sciences newsletter of the Kingdom of Atlantia, in 1999, and since then has been reprinted at least once in a local newsletter, the Rimsholt Bolt, of the Canton of Rimsholt, Barony of Andelcrag, Middle Kingdom (March 2001). Since its first appearance in print I have revised it somewhat, and have experimented with cutting the skirt and bodice portions of the gown in one piece, like the fourteenth-century cotehardie, which I have found to be an equally successfully way of reconstructing this gown.
Reproducing this style of dress is relatively easy. The bodice is a simple, high-waisted style like many Italian
bodices of the same period, but with a v-neck instead of a round or square neck. A few depictions which show these gowns from behind show that the neckline is cut in a v-shape in back as well. An Italian-style bodice pattern could be adapted to make a Burgundian-style bodice, with a change in the cut of the neckline and the sleeves. Unlike most
Italian dresses, the sleeves on the Burgundian gowns are tight and quite long; the cuffs flare out from the wrists, cover the hands to
the middle of the fingers, and allow the hands to be used freely.
Notes
1. Vienna, Oesterreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 1857, f. 14v, also sometimes known as the Hours of Charles the Bold. The painting is attributed to the Master of Mary of Burgundy.
2. The manuscript is in the Windsor Royal Library, Windsor Castle, the collection of Her Majesty the Queen of England. There is no shelfmark. The illumination appears on f. 2,
and is reproduced in Thomas Kren, ed., Margaret of York, Simon of Marmion, and The Visions of Tondal (Malibu, Calif.: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 1992), 38, fig. 8.
3. British Library Harley MS 4374, f. 161. Reproduced in Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1998), 194.
4. This illumination is on a loose manuscript leaf in a private collection, but is reproduced in Medieval Art in Private Collections: A Special Exhibit at the Cloisters October 30,
1968 through March 30, 1969 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1969), catalogue no. 10.