What did people really wear during the Renaissance - part II

This double portrait of a French ambassador on the left and a
French bishop on the right illustrates the differences in the way
the working classe (bishop) and the upper classe (ambassador
dressed. The bishop's clothes are more plain and less decorated,

In the first part of this article, we looked at a chronology of the Renaissance. We also considered the types of people one was likely (and unlikely) to encounter while living in sixteenth century Europe. Our study of Renaissance clothing now turns to a review of what people during the time period, in the hope that it will shed some light on the types of costume that are appropriate for a Renaissance fair, your Halloween party, or simply to criticize the costumes of a bad period movie! (click here to read part I)

There are a few great books you can refer to when trying to put together a period costume. The one I used to write this article is a complete review of clothes throughout the world from the antiquity to modern times called What People Wore When (2008), edited by Melissa Leventon. An excellent source for a more detailed look at Renaissance accessories such as jewelry, weapons or watches is Christine Price's Made in the Renaissance (1963).

The Renaissance started well before the sixteenth century, but since this is the favorite century of most Renaissance fairs and films, we will strictly concentrate on fashion during these years. As the Chicago French Culture Examiner, I will only talk about French clothes, but it is important to keep in mind that fashion was slightly different in each country, and that the credibility of a costume depends on the small details!

Below are some general guidelines to middle-class and military Renaissance clothing. Fashion was very diverse and prolific at the time, as well as ever-changing, which makes it virtually impossible to give specific details, unless one simply intends to describe clothing from a painting or a tapestry. I tried to illustrate the descriptions with images, but as you can imagine, it is not always easy to find one portrait depicting all if the characteristics at once.

Middle class and professionals

Dress code and social class were very tightly connected in Europe during the sixteenth century. The various governments had established sumptuary laws limiting the use of fur, silk, and rare dyes to the upper class (nobility and royalty essentially). Furthermore, only the wealthiest could afford to worry about fashion since the working class needed clothes that were comfortable (and affordable) through hours of physical labor. The image at the top of this article is good illustration of the importance of hierarchy in fashion.

Women
Women would typically wear less voluminous and less ornate dresses than those worn at court. It would be more common for them to have a bodice with a skirt rather than a full dress. They wore plain colors with few layers and no corset.

Men
Men wore onion-shaped trunk hoses, doublets, short hair, and small plumed bonnet. Their clothes were also plain, made out of sturdy material, and more modestly decorated that of the upper-class. Doctors and scholars would often wear long robes or gowns buttoned in the front with four-cornered hats called birettas. Most working class men wore a beard and a mustache.

The statue on the left is that of François Rabelais, a doctor and a scholar in the sixteenth century. He is wearing the long gown buttoned in the front and a biretta. Credit for photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/ell-r-brown/ /

Guards and soldiers

The French army was made up of French, Swiss, German and Scottish soldiers, each of them bringing in their own fashion influences. There were two types of military clothing: non-battle garb and battle armor. It would not be unusual for non-battle garbs to be made out of two different colors. Slashed clothes started to appear as a representation of the courage and battle experience of the soldier. The non-battle garb would include a plumed hat or toque, a long shirt, a hose and slashed shoes. During the century, new clothing styles develop for jousting, tournaments, ceremonies and parades. Most armors were made out of interchangeable pieces so that they could easily be configured as required by the job (infantry, cavalry, archery etc...). Armor consisted of a helmet with a throat guard, elaborate surface decorations on the cuirass, and an overtunic with shoulder guards. Full armors were however becoming obsolete because of the superiority of ranged attacks, and the necessity for greater mobility.

The image on top is a fencing  jerkin (or doublet) dating from the end of the sixteenth century. Credit:http://www.flickr.com/photos/unforth/ /
The image at the bottom is an armor that was used under Henri II's reign, circa 1550. Notice the elaborate decorations on this armor. Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/unforth/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

There are a many more representations of upper class Renaissance clothing than of the lower class, which makes it easier, but also longer, to describe them. The third and last part of our article will take a detailed look at courtier and royalty fashion in sixteenth century France. We will also attempt to examine the diversity of France's regional costumes.