The Fashion Historian

The cloister from St-Michel-de-Cuxa. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection.

The above image is of the cloister of Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa, in the collection of The Cloisters at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. You may be wondering, why am I posting a picture of stone carvings on a fashion history blog? Well believe it or not, these beautiful stone columns contain valuable information on theories of the medieval body!

Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa was a Benedictine abbey founded in the early ninth century in southwestern France, in the foothills of the Pyrenees. The cloister on display at The Cloisters was constructed between 1130 and 1146, under the direction of the Abbot Gregory. Originally the cloister consisted of sixty-three capitals topping columns arranged in a trapezoidal shape at the south end of the church. The structure at The Cloisters is about half the dimensions of the original, but still conjures the atmosphere and spirit of the original structure. Although the capitols may not be arranged in their original order, the original cloister having been dismantled in the nineteenth century, the carved vignettes were not supposed to be viewed in a specific order or tell a specific story. Instead, they provide individual ideas with which the monk could form a larger narrative.


Cloister capital from St-Michel-de-Cuxa. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection.

There are three different variations of the grotesque present in the capitals of the Cuxa cloister. Some capitals feature naked dancing men, others feature human-animal hybrids such as sirens— half woman, half fish—, and a third type feature strange beasts such as humans and monkeys aping each other or roaring lions devouring men. These strange images provoke ideas of sin. The obscene and ignoble gestures of the dancing men deform the body, therefore deforming the image of God. The sirens represent the dangers of women and lust. The humans imitating the monkeys shows “the degeneration of man into beast” and the roaring lions represent the terrors of the mouth of hell.


Cloister capital from St-Michel-de-Cuxa. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection.

To interpret such images and their place in a cloister, it is necessary to understand the medieval idea of the human body as a microcosm, originally created in Gods image and perfect. The faithful had perfect bodies, and used orderly and elegant gestures which reflected the harmony of their souls. In contrast, those that succumbed to base desires and sin became physically grotesque in their gesture and form, aligning themselves with animals who possess no immortal soul. The physical body was thus seen as a reflection of the inner soul. William of St-Thierry, a Benedictine abbot from the twelfth century, wrote in book two of The Nature of the Body and Soul that man is formed “in the image of him who created [the soul].” The good stand tall “reaching toward heaven and looking up [and this] signifies the imperial and regal dignity of the soul”, while those who “slavishly serve the lusts arising from the senses… have put off the image of the Creator and have put on another image, one that looks at the ground like an animal, one that is beastly.” The grotesques on the Cuxa capitals, representing all sorts of physical and therefore spiritual deformity, would serve as reminders to the monks of the dangers of sin, and subsequently help to shape their behavior.


Cloister capital from St-Michel-de-Cuxa. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection.

Furthermore, the Cuxa capitals and these medieval theories of the body coincide with an interesting moment in textile history! A new sect of Benedictine monks had emerged in 1098, the Cistercians, who believed the Benedictines were too excessive in their way of life, and who had subsequently strayed from the word of God and true religious devotion. The Cistercians sought instead to return to a strict asceticism. One of the ways of doing this was wearing plain white, undyed garments, rather than the traditional black worn by Benedictines. This shift in fashion was mocked by the Benedictine monks. Peter the Venerable described: “I have seen I know not how many black [monks], laughing at a white [monk] whom they meet, as if he were a monster, and showing by their voices and movements that they are amazed….” In the context of medieval religious thought, the grotesque gestures of the laughing monks reflected a grotesqueness of the soul that could easily be connected with the figures on the Cuxa capitals. The capitals therefore would remind a monk, perhaps walking through the arcade and mocking the fashion Cistercians, of the sinfulness of his behavior. The capitals were reminders not only of the greatest sins to be avoided, but of the small ones as well. Even something as simple as a hostile opinion to textiles could deform the soul. Think about that next time you mock some one's outfit!

When some one says medieval fashion, one of the first thoughts that come to mind is the tall cone shaped hats worn by little girls pretending to be princesses everywhere. But what were these hats actually called and when were the actually worn?


Detail from Presentation of Christ at the Temple by Hans Holbein the Elder, 1500-1501

Princess Hats aka henin appeared in the mid to late fifteenth century, when height began to replace width as the dominant feature of womens headwear. Henin were a continental trend, originating in Burgundy, and it is unlikely that they were ever worn in England. The henin appeared during the period when the gothic style still dominated architecture, and may be a reflection of the tall spires reaching towards heaven.


Chartres Cathedral.

The henin was worn with a veil called a cointoise, which was either attached to the point of the cone or swathed around it. The cointoise could vary in length, reaching anywhere from the shoulders to the hemline of the dress. It's not exactly clear how a henin stayed on a womans head. They feature a small v-shaped loop in front, called a frontlet, which may provide some anchorage. Others have suggested that a small bit of glue was put on the frontlet to attach it to the forehead. An extremely high hairline was considered beautiful in this period, and the henin allowed women to show off their prominent foreheads.


Image from Mary of Burgundy's Book of Hours, 1467-1480.

Naturally the henin took a great amount of abuse. Pierre de Gros said in Le Jardin des Nobles that "the younger and more beauitufl the ladies were, the higher were the chimneys that they carried."

The 14th century is really when fashion began to pick up. The lower classes are beginning to try to imitated the upper classes so to keep some semblance of social order sumptuary laws are passed, dictating which classes can wear what. But then people began to modify their dress to get around the laws, and fashion really begins.

Hairstyles and headwear began to get more complex in the 14th century. Women could wear a wimple or head veil, or for outdoors activities a hood or hat similar to what a man might wear. Hair was parted in the center and styled into two long braids which could be coiled over the ear or draped forward in front of the ear and then brought back to the crown of the head. These 'dos could then be topped with a jeweled mesh cage or wire-framed net called a crespine.


An image from Bodleian Library MS Bodl. 264, a mid-fourteenth-century edition of the Romance of Alexander, showing an elaborate hairstyle.

A ladies wardrobe starts with a chemise, a simple linen garment which had a variety of necklines, from the low cut to the high necked. Her legs would be covered with hose with hose which came in a variety of colors and were secured above the knee with garters.


Detail of February from Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, 1412. A lower class woman warms her legs, showing off her hose.

Now for the garment people would actually see. Fabric and therefore clothing was extremely expensive, so if you could afford to wear multiple layers you wanted to show that off. The main garment worn by women was the cotehardie, a tightly fitted gown with a low waistline and a wide, scooped neckline. The tight fit was achieved by buttons or lacing up the sides or front. To showcase your wealth with multiple layers of clothing, wealthier women wore a kirtle, a tight fitting garment, underneath their cotehardies. To show off the kirtle underneath cotehardies could be slit down the sides, or for unslit versions the kirtle could show at the neckline and cuffs.


Another image from Bodleian Library MS Bodl. 264, a mid-fourteenth-century edition of the Romance of Alexander. The woman, so romantically giving away her heart, wears a purple kirtle and green cotehardie.

The sleeves would end at the elbow have a sort of tail coming off of them, called a lappet (if the tail was made out of the extra fabric) or a tippet (if the tail was a separate piece of fabric attached to the sleeve). Gowns were long and dragged on the floor, another way to show off wealth. Because if your dress is that long it means you aren't working, just sitting around and looking pretty. Fitchets were slits made in the garment so that a lady could reach inside for her purse. Consider fitchets the precursor to the pocket, which wouldn't arrive for several more centuries.


Statue of Joan de la Tour from 1377. She wears a cotehardie with lappets, and has her hands tucked into her fitchets.

Another option for women was the sideless surcoat, a decorative overgown with enormously long armholes, making the gown basically sideless. The Church did not approve, calling these slits the windows to hell. As the century progressed the band of fabric in the middle became narrower and narrower. A plastron, a stiffened and highly decorated piece of fabric, could be added to the front and back of the garment for some pizazz. The sideless surcoat quickly moved to being a ceremonial garment, leaving the cotehardie as the main fashion choice for women.


Statue of Jean of Bourbon from 1364-1380. She wears a sideless surcoat with a plastron.

It's hard to know what shoes women wore, as their feet rarely show in images from the period. But when feet do show, women seem to be wearing pointy toed shoes similar to what men wore, called crackowes or poulaines.



Special thanks to Got Medieval, a fabulous history blog with a wealth of medieval images for me to kindly borrow (no but seriously, do you know how hard it is to find 1. Medieval images and 2. Medieval images with reliable date and source information?). Go visit it and see more medieval fashion! Also monkeys.

Oh, times are tough in the middle ages. All the decent young men are fighting in crusades or dying of plague. I mean what's a girl got to do to get a date? Bend over backwards?



Well... yes, actually. BUH DUM CHING!!!!

As the Black Plague killed off millions and millions of people, those remaining alive had the task of repopulation. Thus to be fertile was to be beautiful. To project her fertility, a lady would bend back and stick our her abdomen, mimicking how it looks to be pregnant. This body posture has been called the gothic slouch.



Even as the plague finished doing what it does best, the fertile look continued to be popular.



Here is the famous Arnolfini Wedding Portrait from the 15th century. The woman in the portrait isn't pregnant, but she is holding up some of the extra fabric in her dress to simulate a pregnant belly, symbolizing that she is fertile and will soon give her new husband many sons who will carry on the grand Arnolfini pimp-hat-wearing tradition.

In an age where life expectancy was extremely short and most of your children would die before adulthood, the best thing a woman could be was very fertile. Marriages weren't necessarily about finding some one you love or vaguely get along with, although that was great if that happened. Marriage was most importantly about procreation. The family name had to be carried on, and that meant at least one son who lived to adulthood and had children of his own. That also meant surviving multiple pregnancies (even just having the child could very easily kill you), and your chances of survival would be greater if there was more fat around your lower body. By sticking out your abdomen, you give the illusion of a plump lower body which will help you survive many childbirths.

Compare this to today, where any sign of belly fat is abhorred. With the improvement of medical technology, childbirth is not nearly as dangerous and most children live into adulthood. Therefore a woman does not need to show that she has enough belly fat to survive childbirth, because these days she doesn't need that. And because weight doesn't have as much effect over the ability to survive multiple childbirths, signs of fertility are not tied up in how much belly fat a woman has. Furthermore, many couples choose not to have any children at all, society having developed to a point where having many children is no longer an absolute requirement (mothers desiring grandchildren, however, are another matter entirely). Marriage has become mainly about finding some one you love. So now the ideal for a woman is to stand up straight and suck it in. Unless you're Paris Hilton. She doesn't have bad posture, she's just trying to bring back the gothic slouch!