cotehardies-msg - 1/23/08
Making 13th century cotehardies. For male or females.
NOTE: See also the files: clothing-msg, patterns-msg, houppelandes-msg, clothing-msg, fashion-msg, hose-msg, p-sumpt-laws-msg, textiles-msg.
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Name: Karen Jolley
That makes things much easier, now that I know you're male and want a
cotehardie!
One of the best methods of making a cotehardie that fits right is the old way
of pin-the-fabric-on-the-subject's-shoulders and cut away anything that
doesn't look like a cotehardie, but that takes a lot of draping, pattern
drafting and sewing experience. Doing this with expensive brocade, though
really spif (as is said in Caid...), takes quite a lot of intestinal
fortitude.
Buy the nice Calvin Klein tapered shirt pattern from Vogue (which will set you
back 10 easy bucks, but is the ONLY COMMERCIAL PATTERN THAT GOES UP TO A 17
1/2 NECK!!! and looks the best, besides...) and do a couple of alterations.
1. lengthen the 'skirts' to the preferred length. Most new gentlemen prefer
something roughly knee length or slightly shorter, until they've been around a
little longer and can handle the concept of showing off a well turned leg or
tush.
2. Eliminate the cuff, and lengthen the sleeve to reach the wrist. Use the
existing slit placement on the arm to make a buttoned closure.
3. Eliminate the part of the collar that usually floops over and hides a tie.
The closest thing to a collar in this period stood up, not up and over.
I haven't tried any of the male Medieval Miscellanea patterns yet, and my dark
remark about the tiny armholes is consistent in all the female ones.
Elizabeth Oakwoode tells me their hosen from the italian pattern works up very
* Origin: "In Pursuit of Joining Heralds!" (WWIVnet Gate) (1:379/15.0)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
From: rorice at bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (rosalyn rice)
Subject: Re: Appropriate fabric for late 14th cent. Coteharde?
Organization: Indiana University, Bloomington IN
Date: Sat, 3 Sep 1994 19:46:23 GMT
Greetings from Lothar,
If you want to show off, you should use the fanciest fabric you
can find. Silk brocades were known and used in the 14th c. (and long before),
some modern patterns actually look sort of like Period patterns, but most
don't. "Textiles and Clothing from Excavations in London" has some examples
of the sort of fabrics that they were using for clothing in the time period
you are interested in. There is also a late 14th c. Italian manuscript
that shows the King Arthur legends which shows people wearing brocades of
this sort. The Tres Riche Heures is about 30-50 years too late for what you
want, but it also gives good examples of really snazzy textiles. If you look
at enough books of 14th and 15th c. art you'll get a sense of what textile
patterns are, and aren't Period.
If you don't want to spring for silk brocade, then you can go with
silk charmeuse, or some other heavy silk, or else a fine wool. Most 14th c.
outer garments were made out of wool, with softer and more richly dyed wools
going for much higher prices. Ideally you want something that is a medium
weight wool with a very soft texture. If you want to make the wool even
softer and more tightly woven, you can fuller it (ask somebody who knows
what they're doing how to do it) but expect lots of shrinkage.
The nice thing about a very fine wool is that you can cut the dags
that are typical of 14th c. clothing right into the wool without having to
hem them. A tightly woven and well-fullered wool fabric won't ravel easily.
If you get good fabric you can cut very complex dags that defy hemming and
you don't have to worry about them unravelling.
There are three other areas where you can show off: extensive use
of fabric, fancy buttons, and fancy decoration.
By the end of the 14th c. the cotehardie was starting to loosen up
to evolve into the houppelande. Late 14th c. cotes sometimes had standing
collars, angelwing or bag sleeves, and exaggerated chests. All of this used
extra fabric, which was a great way to strut your wealth in front of the
plebes.
This extra fabric (all made of rich material, richly dyed) would also
likely have been decorated with all manner of embroidery, sewn on metal
plackets, and gems. If you know of an embroiderer with a taste for 14th c.
stuff you might try to cut a deal with them, but expect to pay a lot for
extensive embroidery.
Finally, any truly ostentatious cote had snazzy buttons. Not only
did lots of buttons mean that you could afford to pay for all those buttons
and pay to have someone finish all those button holes for you, it also meant
that you got a much more tightly fitting garment. (The sleeves might have
been loose, but the cote fit tightly around your body, to show off your
sleek physique.) These buttons usually cloth, but for the truly rich fop
each button could be a piece of jewelry in its own right.
Now, that's just the cote. You also want a placket belt, a ballocks
dagger, some nicely made 14th c. shoes with a rose window patternb cut into
the instep, hose made from the finest "scarlet" (this was fine wool flannel
which could come in blue, or - you guessed it - bright red), and a fancy
hood with a liripipe. Then you'd really be the model of a 14th c. courtier.
If you want something a bit more durable, and less flashy, just go
for the prettiest medium weight wool you can find, getting a bunch of nice
simple buttons and letting the garment stand on its own without a whole lot
of decoration.
Don't worry too much about the fact that your persona is Scots.
Fashions in this era tended to be more similar from country to country than
they were different. And, if your persona travelled, he would likely have
followed the French model which seemed to influence most of the rest of
Western Europe.
Before you buy fabric or make a garment though, get together with
a skilled costumer to make a custom pattern. You can't just use an "off the
rack" cote pattern, unless you want to have a crappy looking garment. It
needs to be patterned and fitted to your body, and the craftsmanship has
to be good if you want a really nice looking costume.
A costumer with a clue will also likely have enough reference books
of period pictures of people in cotehardies that you will be able to choose
the sort of garment that you want.
Lothar (who only aspires to own a 14th c. outfit of the sort that
he has just described.)
From: habura at rebecca.its.rpi.edu (Andrea Marie Habura)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: COSTUMING: cotehardie question
Date: 4 Jan 1995 01:49:21 GMT
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY
On Jessa's post:
Cotehardies: I think we need to define time-period here, perhaps. Finding
primary source-material for 14th c. masculine attire is definitely
trickier than finding female attire from the same period, because so
many of the %^&( male funeral brasses show the men in armor, not in
"civvies". Nonetheless, there's a little bit of primary stuff out there.
For example, there's the funeral brass of Robert Braunch (1364) that
shows Robert wearing what seems to be a long cotehardie; at any rate,
it fits tightly to the hips and wrists. In the page from the _Romance
of Alexander_ (c.1340) that forms the frontspiece of Newton's _Fashion
in the Age of the Black Prince_, the men are wearing tight, short
cotehardies and deep-caped hoods. Similarly, a page from the Luttrell
Psalter, reproduced on page 4, also shows a man in a tight-fitted
cotehardie. It seems clear that 14th c. fashionable men considered the
cotehardie a respectable outer garment.
On the other hand, I can't recall any 15th c. pictures of men wearing
cotehardies, although women seemd to have hung on to the style a little
longer. I'm not particularly well-informed about 15th c. garments, though,
so the fact that I didn't notice them doesn't mean they're not there.
Interestingly, there's one loose 14th c. garment that *does* go over
a cotehardie. Newton calls 'em guyts or ghitas, but doesn't know what
exactly they looked like. I tend to wonder of the very drapey and loose
near-caftan like outer garment in the Joan de Northwood brass is a guyt.
(If i can ever figure out what they look like, I know how to embroider 'em.)
Alison macDermot
*Ex Ungue Leonem*
From: brettwi at ix.netcom.com (Brett Williams )
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: I need help with a cotehardie!
Date: 22 Nov 1995 15:57:13 GMT
Lady Sabrina of Wynborn <Elfgir1 at aol.com> writes:
>I am posting this in hopes of receiving help from those who are
>knowledgeable about sewing cotehardies. I am planning to sew an early
>14th century, English cotehardie, and while I've sewn countless tunics
>and other simple garb, I've never attempted a cotehardie. I have the
>basic 4-piece bodice pattern and the general description of how to sew
>a cotehardie, but I would like to have more specific advice. My main
>concerns are how to fashion the sleeves so that they will button
>correctly along the forearm...
After making four or five failures, I finally hit on a cotehardie I
liked and have gone on to make three more in various versions of
'conspicuous consumption'. I personally use a mundane princess-line
dress pattern to start with, one that has an eight panel bodice as
opposed to a four; primarily as it's easier to fit than a four-panel
and the finished garment's drape in the skirts is both fuller and more
graceful. The control seams for the princess-lines go up to the top of
the shoulder *not* into the armsceye. Please note that this is personal
opinion; the four gore pattern makes a perfectly good, period garment.
As for the sleeve, the easiest way to place the buttons correctly is to
split the pattern and shift the seam to where it runs slighly off
center along the outside edge of the arm when at rest. It's hard to
explain without a diagram and explanatory paragraph. The modern (eg.
20th century) convention for sleeve cutting places the seam on the
underside of the arm and if buttons are placed along this line, you'll
find that they'll be out there in the way of everything. They'll catch
on the buttons on the center of the dress (should you have them), bang
on your musical instruments, catch on anything you're carrying, etc.
There's a discussion on sleeve cutting in the 'Flat Pattern' section in
CA 38 suitable for this garment done by Mistress Audelindis de Rheims
and Mistress Caterina da Monticello; see page 25 specifically.
Well, my editor has thoughtfully obliterated the rest of your question;
however, a grey and black wool cotehardie would be Very Spiff, as my
household was wont to say. I am guilty of wearing a single-color
cotehardie made of 17 hards of 45" fabric myself (it's long since
retired these days-- I widened the skirts with inset quarter circles of
fabric to add even more drape <grin>); my usual cotehardie consists of
at least 8 yards of 60" fabric or 12 of 45". I like to cut a
cotehardie a single panel at a time from selvege to selvege which is
probably not a period technique, but it tends to get a lot of mileage
from one's fabric. This method does *not* work for anything with a nap
or a directional pattern woven into the cloth. For reference, I am 5'6"
and like having my skirts trail fashionably around me.
Oh, there it is!
>...the best way to shape and sew sleeves so
>that they fit correctly with the bodice of the cotehardie, and the
>best way to do a parti-colored cotehardie (as I plan to sew mine out
>of black and grey wool). I would appreciate any advice that you have
>to give me!
>Thank you very much!
>
>Lady Sabrina of Wynborn
>
>Residing in Calontir and Artemesia (it's a long commute)
If you're going to divide it quarterly, just mark your pattern pieces
carefully-- draw out your planned divisions and mark the patterns with
orientation (right side grey, right side black, etc). A Really Spiff
idea is to divide the sleeve quarterly to match or offset the color it
lies next to on the bodice. I would piece the fabric together first,
make sure the seam for the color division lined up properly along the
top of the arm (the modern center of the sleeve cap position), then cut
out the sleeve itself with the afore-mentioned offset for the buttons.
Sounds complicated, but it really isn't.
I hope this helps-- any more questions, feel free to ask.
Ciorstan MacAmhlaidh
From: dpeters at panix.com (D. Peters)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: I need help with a cotehardie!--LONGISH
Date: 23 Nov 1995 10:35:56 -0500
In <48t5e4$13i at jan.et.byu.edu> Lady Sabrina of Wynborn
<Elfgir1 at aol.com> writes:
>Greetings to all.
>I am posting this in hopes of receiving help from those who are
>knowledgeable about sewing cotehardies. I am planning to sew an early
>14th century, English cotehardie, and while I've sewn countless tunics
>and other simple garb, I've never attempted a cotehardie.
The earlier fourteenth-century gown was not tightly fitted, and
consequently should be easier to assemble than the later model. The
slinky, form-fitting model is actually late fourteenth century.
>I have the
>basic 4-piece bodice pattern and the general description of how to sew
>a cotehardie, but I would like to have more specific advice. My main
>concerns are how to fashion the sleeves so that they will button
>correctly along the forearm...
The most effective way that I've seen to get sleeves that
"turn out right" is to use the sleeve pattern from the Pourpoint of
Charles de Blois. A diagram of this sleeve exists in several sources,
but the one that I have close to hand is _The Chaucerian Handbook_ (Vox
Clamatis Monographs I, Will McLean and Jeffrey L. Singman, eds.), which
may be available from the editors or from merchants such as the Stuffy
Purist.
Unfortunately, according to my costuming mentors, particoloring at that
time would have been worn by servants (as livery) or by lowlife types
like jongleurs (like ME!). If you want to be as authentic as possible,
you might want to reconsider the particoloring, BUT particoloring *is*
pretty, and says "medieval" to most eyes....Something some friends and I
were considering was making particolored fourteenth-century clothes in
our household's livery colors. As household members, we decided that
made us the Duke's servants, sort of...:-)
Please forgive me if I unintentionally offend any other clothiers by the
following; it isn't my intention to disparage anyone's best efforts, but
I've never seen gowns made from princess-seamed bridesmaid's dress
patterns that look like anything but bridesmaid's dresses. Modern
patterns don't take into account the way that fabric moves when cut on
the bias rather than the straight grain--just add more interfacing and
try not to worry about it. Or, they might look all right on very slender
girls, but not on other body types. Try to work from patterns based on
surviving artifacts if you can--most of the surviving garments are,
admittedly, Scandinavian, but that will be closer to the fourteenth
century Anglo-French style than Simplicity or Butterick.
Another plug for _The Chaucerian Handbook_: it includes patterns for
gowns and shoes and hoods, all based on surviving artifacts. If you want
to do later fourteenth century, this book has assembled just about all
the information you'd need for a well-rounded persona.
One final suggestion: if you play in Calontir, see if you can find
anyone who knows how to make the "Standing Stones Clone Dress" (so called
because at one point a number of ladies from Standing Stones were
wearing them)--I believe that the lady who pioneered the design did
teach some Calontirii the method before she left the kingdom.
Here are a couple other books to look for:
Newton, Stella Mary. _Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince_ 1980,
Boydell Press. {covers the years 1340-1365}
Crowfoot, Elisabeth, et al. _Textiles and Clothing; Medieval finds from
Excavations in London_ (Museum of London). 1992, HMSO
If you have any other questions, please feel free to e-mail me.
Hope this helps.
D.Peters
From: kruella118 at aol.com (Kruella118)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: I need help with a cotehardie!--LONGISH
Date: 26 Nov 1995 06:57:21 -0500
Organization: America Online, Inc. (1-800-827-6364)
Greetings,
I respectfully have to disagree w/the lady who states you cannot find a
good cotehardie pattern out of simplicity or butterick. I have seen many
people begin w/this kind of pattern & graduate on to period research &
methods. I have been the pattern deputy for my Barony for 3 years. My
advice to you would be to get as close as you can to the cotehardie in
pattern & have a friend help fit you w/cheap fabric to create a pattern
that looks good on YOU! We are here to recreate but we are also here to
play dress-up! If you look good that's 1/2 the battle. If you are a large
sized lady then play around w/a 6 or 8 paneled cotehardie-yes you can
document it. Also-princess seams are period. The important thing is to
look fabulous & play beautifully. Have fun. If you need a pattern number
for a cotehardie look-a-like feel free to e-mail me.
Good luck-Pasha
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: I need help with a cotehardie!--LONGISH
From: amethysta at eric.stonemarche.org (Amethysta of Kensingto)
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 95 17:39:41 EST
Pasha writes:
> I respectfully have to disagree w/the lady who states you cannot find a
> good cotehardie pattern out of simplicity or butterick. I have seen many
Have to agree with you there. If anyone is interested, try Simplicity
8603. It is a princess line-type dress, and all it need to make it into a
cotehardie is a foot more material on the bottom, buttons on the sleeve
and replace the zipper with lacings. I used this pattern for my bride's
maid's dresses, so now instead of having a gaudy dress that they will
never wear again, they all have purple linen cotehardies!
Amethysta
From: dpeters at panix.com (D. Peters)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Subject: Re: I need help with a cotehardie!--LONGISH
Date: 29 Nov 1995 20:21:13 -0500
Kruella118 <kruella118 at aol.com> wrote:
>...princess seams are period.
My costume mentors have told me that the earliest visual documentation
for princess seams is a painting of the Virgin and Child (in which, BTW,
the Virgin is believed to have been modelled after Agnes Sorel, the
king's mistress....) from the later fifteenth century. The lady
originating this thread was asking for early fourteenth century clothing,
which is loose and not particularly fitted (think of the
pictures in the Manassa (sp?) Codex). I was trying to find the lady
something closer to what I thought she had in mind.
>The important thing is to
>look fabulous & play beautifully.
After many long years I finally have garb that makes me look like a
medieval sculpture, but what I look *fabulous* in is a suit. Does
this mean I can wear my doublebreasted pinstripe to Twelfth Night?
:-) :-) :-) :-) etc.
>...get as close as you can to the cotehardie in
>pattern & have a friend help fit you w/cheap fabric to create a pattern
>that looks good on YOU!
Humor aside, if you're going to go to that much work to get a modern
pattern to fit your figure (as well as get rid of anachronistic darts,
etc.), why not start with a period design? Someone else has already
gone to the trouble of reconstructing a pattern from surviving
fourteenth-century garments; I would think that adjusting it to fit
would take no more work than adjusting a Simplicity pattern.
I have seen gowns made from commercial patterns that were altered until